Indulge with Chocolate

I just finished the book Cinch! by Cynthia Sass, MPH, RD, contributing Editor to SHAPE magazine.  It provides tips, scientific research, and recipes for conquering cravings, drops pounds, and losing inches. Using the strategies from Cinch!, I have lost 15 pounds and feel great. One of the items she insists doing on a daily basis is to indulge in chocolate, at least 70% cocoa, without distraction, as your fifth meal of the day.

The book cites a study by Cornell University that reported 91% of American women crave chocolate. Why do we crave it and love it so much? Chocolate contains unique natural substances that create a sense of euphoria in the body. Chocolate contains phenylethylamine which your brain releases when you fall in love. Another, called anandamide triggers the same receptors as THC, the same chemical contained in marijuana. A third chemical, theobromine, has positive effects on the heart and circulatory system as well as producing aphrodisiac effects. Another reason women might crave chocolate is because they may be low on magnesium, a mineral that can help alleviate PMS symptoms, including cramps, bloating, fatigue, depression and irritability.

In addition to chocolate making you feel better emotionally, it can save your life. Research has shown that cocoa powder contains antioxidants to relax blood vessel walls, lower blood pressure, and improve circulation. One study found that heart attack survivors who ate chocolate just twice a week over a two-year period cut their risk of dying threefold. Additional research on cocoa and chocolate revealed that it helps prevent cholesterol from sticking to blood vessel walls thus decreasing the risk of heart attack and stroke.

So, the rules for indulging in your daily chocolate escape are to consume your 50-100 calories of dark chocolate at the time of your choosing, without interruptions, allowing it to melt on your tongue and savoring the flavor, texture, and taste. This Valentines Day, when your sweetie gives you that box of dark indulgence, savor it and know you are doing something good for your health.

New Year, New Outlook

When we ring in the new year, we always look for new things to do, better things to become, more opportunities for improvement, and more ways to enjoy life. The word "resolution" has become so over-used that I haven't heard anyone refer to what they will do in 2011 using that term. The new terms for the new year have changed to goals, commitments, improvements and opportunities and they are all around us. Everyday of every year is a new day to set a goal, commit, improve or take advantage of an opportunity. Don't let them pass you by as just another burden, headache, job, errand, or chore. The New Year is full of things that have never been, exciting new surprises that await around every corner. Make new beginnings and memories and let winter weave her spell on you. As the temperature drops the trees, grass, and flowers rest in peace providing the perfect canvas for long, dark evenings of savory suppers and lively conversations, or solitary joys sipping hot tea and snuggling up with a good book. This is the time to dream, looking forward to the journey within you.

This month I will be sewing aprons, making fresh jams and marmalade, trying new soups and stews, and perfecting Marghertia Pizza. It's my all time favorite consisting only of home baked pizza dough, sliced roma tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese and basil leaves. I have lost 11 pounds in the last 4 weeks, and Chris 16,  but this is something I will indulge in regularly knowing that I will have to run extra that day to burn it off.  I have a Champagne Orange Marmalade that I am going to try soon and several new soups, stews, and sandwiches that will be posted after I have tried and perfected them.

Continue to watch Aprons in the Kitchen for more frequent posts, recipes, apron designs and just plain fun!

Giving Christmas

The Christmas Season is upon us. Yes, I did say Christmas, not "Holiday", "Festive", "Winter", "Gift-giving", "Yuletide", or any of those other terms the mainstream media wants to call the time of year that Protestant Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, Our Savior. I have grown up to conclude that my mother raised me, and my siblings, to have a devoted opinion about what we strongly believe in and to stand unwavering even in the midst of criticism. One of those opinions is seated in the idea that Christmas is the recognition, celebration and reflection of the gift of the baby Jesus to the world as living payment for the sins of humans: a debt of sin we could never afford to pay. The second part of this belief is something I have probably developed on my own and hope my children will inherit. Christmas is not a fat guy in a red suit delivering gifts made by elves. It is not a "Happy Holiday"; it is a "Merry Christmas". Kids do not get a "Winter Break"; they get a "Christmas Break". Christmas is not just a time to cook the best food, buy the best gifts, wearing the best clothes, or deck the best halls. Christmas is a time for being your best person and allowing that best person to spill over into the new year ahead.

Mom taught us a second lesson but it was more of a lesson about giving. Our family was not one of those overly affectionate families who hugged and kissed on each other all the time but among ourselves we knew each other was loved. Anytime we had a meal, there was always enough for company, whether it be family or neighbor, expected or not. That hospitality is something I have made a point to pass on to my girls along with our family slogan: It's not all about you!  This Christmas we all went to one single store on Black Friday. We visited The Guitar Center where we live and bought four new guitars for our family. That, for the most part, is our Christmas. We are going to all learn to play at some level with the hopes of having many happy hours of playing enjoyment and making oodles of memories while laughing and putting calluses on the ends of our fingers. We will get each other some other small, homemade gifts or gift cards for clothes and shoes later, but our family decided to give to people who wouldn't otherwise experience Christmas. We wanted to actually give the gifts of Christmas: Hope, Love, Joy and Peace. Our adult Sunday school class at our church will adopt a family who's young son has a childhood cancer. We will buy the mom, at her expressed need, a new bicycle to serve as a second form of transportation for simple errands and grocery shopping. We will help chaperon my 14 year old daughter's youth group as they shop all night to sponsor multiple needy families in our local city who, without their gifts and service, would not experience Christmas. We will help provide Christmas for a former patient who, because of debilitating injury, can not return to his job to provide Christmas gifts for his three young children. Christmas is not about gifts wrapped under a tree covered in tinsel and lights, Christmas is about giving Hope, Love, Joy and Peace to someone who might not have the privilege of experiencing it otherwise.

I'll close with a story about my sister, Mary, that adequately demonstrates what Mom taught us through her hospitality. She found out the week of Thanksgiving that a co-worker in her office, a single-mom with two kids and an ex-husband that doesn't meet his child support obligations, had one can of green beans to last them the holiday weekend. When Mary stated that just wouldn't suffice for a Thanksgiving meal, one of the other ladies in the office asked her what she was going to do. Knowing that her local grocery chain was giving a free turkey with the purchase of a ham, she replied, "I'm going to feed her." Mary rallied the other office staff, knowing none of the could "feed her" alone. She organized a team where each of them would buy a few extra items of the things they would buy for themselves, then provide money or gift cards for perishable items for her to purchase on her own. Together they were able to "feed her", body and soul. She was overwhelmed that people would care so much. Mary knew that one person would not be able to sustain the task of buying her everything she would need but she knew that an "army of God" bearing witness with a list of a few food items would be able to "feed a multitude".

Many times people of overwhelmed that others care so much; I am overwhelmed that people would think we care so little. Don't just have Christmas this year, give Christmas this year!

Tis the Season

Autumn is among us. Temperatures are cooler, trees are beginning to change into warm, vibrant colors before releasing the drops of gold, red, and orange to the long-shadowed earth. My first poll on Aprons in the Kitchen asked readers to vote for their favorite season and 60% of you favored Autumn, I'm sure for your own reasons. There is an abundance of festivals, carnivals, and fairs to commemorate the season. Children and adults will dress in costume for fun. Yummy baked goods will be competed for in a circle-walking-music-stopping contest. Volunteers will be dunked in booths filled with water. Darts will be thrown at balloons. Goldfish will be won. Trailers of hay will be ridden. Tis the season for drives: food drives, coat drives, toy drives, shoe drives, clothing drives, and immunization drives. Tis the season for programs: Pilgrim Programs, Caroling Programs, Music Programs, Christmas Programs, Santa Programs, and Food Donation Programs. Tis the season for us fortunate Americans, who are in need of nothing, but in want for everything, to take part in one or more of these drives, programs, festivals, or carnivals. Tis the season for us fortunate Americans to share our joy, peace, love, and hospitality to those around us. If you are unable to locate something to in which to participate, you aren't looking. Every church, community center, school, organization, sports team, girls or boys club, city, or county has something this Autumn that needs your talent. Make it a family or group activity and enjoy that warm, cozy feeling inside when you catch the glimpse of a child's smile at the fitting of their new, warm coat, or the "thank you" from a quivering, single mom's lips when you take a box of much needed canned goods to her car.

As fortunate Americans we don't know what it is like to anticipate the cupboard to be bare or to feel the chill of the Autumn wind because we don't own a coat. Our kitchen pantry might not contain what we want or what we need for a certain recipe and we might be cold because we forgot our jacket or sweater, but most of us do not comprehend the experience of having nothing to eat and being uncertain when we will have something, or of looking outside at the blowing wind only to feel the chill before even stepping into it because we are without a coat. We may think what little bit we contribute doesn't make any difference but it does. It makes a difference to those we give to, and it makes a difference to us, when we give. It bonds to each other, regardless of social status, and it bonds us to God. Tis the season for a Happy Autumn!

Working for Food

In the side-bar note about myself, I tell readers that my husband, Chris, and I were high school sweethearts, married at age 18. We lived in a small trailer on the family farm because, well, it was cheap and we were poor. Back then Chris worked in construction and I worked retail while going to college. For the first few years of our marriage I was a professional student jumping from program to program trying to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up.  At age 21, I gave birth to our oldest daughter, Shania, and two years later I began working on my Bachelor of Science in Nursing. During those first two years of motherhood, a close friend of Chris's grandmother offered me a part-time job. Mary and Max Scott operated Wildbriar Inn in Edom, Texas. Wildbriar was a county inn that was built out of the Scott's love for food, cooking, and hospitality. They had traveled the world before retiring to the country and the picturesque inn was a smattering of memories from their travels. It was a grand, two-story, country-French style manor housing 6 uniquely designed guest bedrooms, each with a private bath. Each guest room had been furnished and decorated reminiscent of one of the many inns visited during their travels abroad. Additionally, the house had a large Gathering Room for guests to read, relax, or mingle, an adjoining dining room and breakfast room, easily seating 30-40 people when the glass French doors were opened, and a large kitchen with double sinks, stoves, ovens and dishwashers. The back wing of the house was their personal living area with a huge laundry and dry goods pantry with a second refrigerator and upright freezer which was called The Buttery. The Snug was offset from the Gathering Room. It was the only room in the guest part they allowed smoking and it contained a television.  The Inn was a hobby for them, which they sold a couple of years ago for full retirement, and mostly an environment appropriately priced, furnished and designed catering to a well-to-do adult population. They needed no advertisement aside from word-of-mouth and provided a single, tri-fold color brochure, containing basic accommodations and a few photographs, which stated on the back "We do, on occasion, accept nice children".

As you can see from my detailed description, I have vivid memories of Wildbriar. My love for Wildbriar and the Scott's developed from my love for Mary's cooking, the place itself, and their love for me and my family. They treated us all like we belonged to them. My five or six year "career" working their consisted of helping Mary and Max serve their guests the evening meal. She always had a menu which included a homemade soup, choice of green or fruit salad, entree with choice of meat, usually beef and chicken, and a variety of freshly cooked vegetables, served family style. The meal ended with coffee and your choice from the dessert cart, homemade of course. Wildbriar also hosted garden parties, holiday parties, girls weekends, receptions, weddings, honeymooners, and visitors to the famous Canton, Texas First Monday Trade Days, just to name a few. I made $6 an hour, usually working 3 or 4 hours in the evening and then returning on Saturday or Sunday morning to clean and change linens after guests checked out.  So in a weekend, if I worked Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday morning, I could earn about $70. That's not a lot of money now, but to a college wife, without a full-time job and a toddler old at home, it bought gas, some groceries, and maybe a text book, if I threw in recycled aluminum can money.

So, you are probably asking yourself by now, why would someone continue to serve food and clean rooms for $6 an hour???  Well, it was, and still is,  more than waitresses made an hour but the reality is, I was working for food!! Max always took my order for green or fruit salad and beef or chicken and Mary always made sure to prepare extra veggies and bread.  After the serving was over and all the stemware was washed, dried, and either put away or reset on the tables for the next evening, we sat down and ate our dinner. Then anything else left over, bread, soup, pie, veggies, whatever, she packed up in plastic ware for Chris. Even after I got my nursing degree and started working at the hospital, I would go work at Wildbriar if they needed help on my nights off. I learned a lot about cooking from my mom and from my husband's Granny, but I also learned a lot of great stuff and kitchen tricks by working at Wildbriar. Have you ever heard that you can't cook frozen chicken breasts because they won't get done in the center?  Well, I can tell you, that is a lie! She pulled cookie sheets of her Broccoli Chicken out of the freezer, put it straight into a preheated oven (Hot enough that I melted my mascara coated eyelashes together a couple of times!) and they always came out deliciously done right to the center. Before Wildbriar I didn't know how to set a proper table but I learned how to do it there. Glasses on the right, bread plate on the left, knife blade toward the plate. Serve ladies before men. Serve from the right, pick up from the left. All, while wearing my apron.

Now 15 years or so later, I have passed on some of my Wildbriar lessons to my girls, Shania, 14, and Katy, 8. When you ask one of them to set the table they will automatically get out place mats and cloth napkins. Both are not a hassle really. I buy fairly cheap ones for everyday and you can wash a whole weeks worth of them in one washer load and I even iron them, for which I have been reprimanded and asked by dinner guests, "Is this to use or just to look pretty?" I tell them, "I wouldn't put it there if I didn't want you to use it."  A nicely placed table with cloth napkins adds a nice touch to any weeknight meal or Sunday dinner. It brings to the table a sense of hospitality and tells your family your care enough about the meal to tie it up with a bow. Just a couple of weeks ago I had partially prepared dinner and left instructions for Chris and the girls to finish up while I was working late. Chris told me later that he asked Katy to set the table while he was cleaning up, before I got home. She obediently responded, and in his meticulous dishwasher loading ritual, he failed to notice that she had retrieved The Joy of Cooking, turned to the front section with pictures of table settings, and was in the process of setting a proper table. She certainly knows the value of working for food!