Chocolate and coffee and cream… mmmmmmmmmm
I’ve so much enjoyed writing this blog and all the readers who stop by and visit, I just wanted to give you all a present, a recipe that I love and which makes one of the most wonderful desserts on earth. Tiramisu is one of those things we crave, and which seems to come in a different form every time you order it in a restaurant. Over the years, I’ve found that very few of these are actually better than this one we can make ourselves, so here it is – an espresso and a bittersweet chocolate version (my mom doesn’t like coffee, so I made up the latter variation for her birthday).
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1 C sugar
6 eggs, separated
1 lb Mascarpone cheese
1 7-oz package Ladyfinger cookies
1 T cocoa powder (semisweet or unsweetened)
2 C espresso
unsweetened cocoa powder
semisweet chocolate shavings
Whisk together sugar and egg yolks. Gradually add mascarpone cheese and cocoa powder until mixture is creamy. Whip egg whites into meringue, and carefully fold into mascarpone mixture. (note: the eggs are never cooked so use a safe source of eggs)
Quickly dip ladyfingers into hot espresso and line the bottom of a glass serving dish in a single layer. Cover ladyfingers with mascarpone mixture and dust with cocoa and chocolate shavings. If the pan is deep enough, two layers may be used.
Chill at least 4 hours or overnight.
All-chocolate version: Substitute hot, unsweetened cocoa for the espresso.
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The fun part of this recipe is acquiring 2 entire cups of hot espresso – regular coffee does not do. It was pretty hilarious the first time I went to an espresso stand and asked for 16 oz of pure espresso!! Thankfully they were nice to me and didn’t charge the full amount. Now, of course, I have an espresso maker of my own and I just crank it out :)
So, this is the yummy post about food – for the serious post about food, see below…
Food Diversity
There’s an interesting thing about working in the environmental field – you’re really forced to look at environmental data seriously, and evaluate your own lifestyle. I already do some of the things that Al Gore recommends, such as driving a hybrid vehicle (and working at home so I don’t drive much), using long-lasting fluorescent lights, landscaping my yard so it doesn’t use much water, etc. But clearly, there is more I can do on the carbon budget – so I plan to go look that up, calculate what I use, and see if I can’t work on reducing it.
But the issue of food is one that frequently comes up, and which I’ve been thinking about more lately. We live in what is possibly the most interesting time in history for food diversity, and I LOVE food. Love eating it, love cooking it, almost as much as, well… you know ;)
Next time you go into a grocery store, really look around and think about what you see. At the Central Market near where I used to live, I could buy emu meat from Australia (excellent and very healthy), fresh seafood from Japan, Korean kimchi, African spices mixes, Indian curries, berries in winter from South America, and organic just about everything. This store didn’t bother with an organic section – organic food was everywhere. You could fill up your cart with it. And this is a basic chain grocery store in the Seattle area.
We have access to so much incredible food now, due to global distribution and niche marketing. Probably more than anytime in history – but enjoy it while you can, because the future looks grim. By the time I’m really old (and the women in my family live to be 90-100), I am fairly certain much of this food will be a distant memory.
In my copy of Science today were two articles illustrating what I’m talking about. One was the study of global fisheries that you’ve probably already read about. Still, it’s worth repeating – 91% of global species in coastal areas have declined to less than half of their former abundance, 38% (including fisheries) have collapsed to less than 10% of their former abundance, and 7% have gone extinct in the last 100 years. The decline and collapse of global fisheries is increasing at an alarming rate, with fishermen putting out greater effort and getting less catch. At the current rate of decline, it is projected that ALL global fisheries will have collapsed by 2048. ALL. Just what are people going to eat??? That’s only 40 years from now!
This is not the first report like this by reputable scientists. You may recall a similar sounding of the alarm by NOAA a few years back. But do you think this is affecting people’s behavior? Of course not. At a recent convention of fishing nations, most pushed to eliminate the use of bottom trawling on the high seas, because it destroys the bottom habitat along with catching the fish. Several prominent fishing nations (e.g., Japan) opposed it, and treaties on the high seas require unanimous agreement. Japan is a wealthy nation that depends on fisheries to feed its people. I can’t help but wonder what they think they’re gaining.
The other was a review of a new book called Six Arguments for a Greener Diet. This book pretty much overwhelms the reader with data supporting why one shouldn’t eat meat, the reasons being 1) health benefits, 2) reducing foodborne illness, 3-5) improving the quality of soil, water, and air, and 6) reducing animal suffering. Now these arguments are nothing new, and worthy of consideration. But one really stuck in my mind – it takes 20-30,000 gallons of water to create just 1 pound of beef.
Think about that for a minute… Let’s say we’re having a back-yard barbecue for our friends, and serving up hamburgers. Maybe we buy 4 lbs of ground beef for our summer party. That’s an incredible 100,000 gallons of water!!! Imagine if we got a bill for all that water use from our local water company – it would cost a fortune. Certainly we would change our ways to avoid paying that much. But since we never pay for this water usage, we don’t think about it. Now you might be tempted to say that you’re paying for it in the price of beef. To which I say, nuh-uh. Compare the price of a pound of beef to the price of 25,000 gallons of water if you had to buy it from your water company, and you’ll see right away that the beef farmer is getting that water essentially for free – through water rights to his local river or groundwater. Water rights that are in increasingly short supply…
And that’s just one impact of eating beef. I won’t go into any more – you get the picture. I’m not a vegetarian or a vegan, and I do love food. But increasingly I’m thinking, we need to eat at the bottom of the food chain to avoid a lot of these types of impacts. If you want to eat meat, eat a shrimp, not a cow (you couldn’t possibly conserve enough water to make up for eating any amount of beef). If you want to eat a fruit or vegetable, eat one grown close to home, not one that has to fly in an airplane to reach you (LOTS of carbon emissions there) – even if that blackberry from Nicaragua is organic. If you want to eat a fish, learn something about where it comes from and whether the fishery is sustainable. All of this will go a long way toward ensuring that there is still some diversity left for us to enjoy in our 80s, much less for future generations and populations who have limited food supply choices.
What a Difference a Day Makes
I can’t help it – I love the snow!!! Soooo much nicer than the rain :) Really glad I made it out shopping yesterday before this started though… now I can just relax and enjoy it. Usually I’m not that organized!
Change of Seasons…
… and not a moment too soon. I include the picture above as the last of my photos celebrating fall in the backyard, and moving into winter. This shows the beautiful side – but actually fall was not so great – so much rain I thought I was drowning in it. A girl from Seattle should be used to rain, but this was different. The way it used to be was gentle rain, a constant drizzle. We Seattleites prided ourselves on not carrying umbrellas, because, well, what’s a light drizzle! Just something to leave a little sparkling of droplets on your hair. Instead, lately, it’s been torrential rain, which another thing entirely and not much fun no matter how you look at it.
Speaking of sparkling droplets… I woke up this morning, looked at the sky, and said, “snow’s coming.” It had that heavy, pregnant, light-colored look to it. It was frosty out, and even though a light rain began, it’s still only 39 degrees at nearly noon. Snow would be a welcome change for me after all this rain – lucky me, I get to work at home and I have a brand new espresso machine :)
There must have been a break in the clouds after the rain, because when I came out of my shower, I thought I saw Christmas lights in the trees in the forest, winking at me! The neighbors have all been busy putting up their lights, this being the weekend after Thanksgiving, and that’s what put the thought into my head. It looked exactly like someone had put those little white blinking lights in the trees, and for a moment I wondered if one of my neighbors was being nice to me. As I looked more closely I realized it was droplets of rain or frost in the spiderwebs, with a little bit of sunlight shining through them, blinking as the tree branches moved in the wind.
Life gives you little presents everywhere, if you only stop to look :)
Relationships, Part II
I wrote about promises last time, because during and after my divorce, that was something that was bothering me a lot. I had really meant those promises, and I take my commitments very seriously. I was wondering how I could ever look someone I loved in the eye again and say those same things. I guess the truth is, you can’t. Maybe other kinds of promises are more valuable – like a promise to communicate, a promise to be honest, a promise to listen openly and lovingly.
I guess that’s what being young is about – not knowing these things, not knowing that a lifetime commitment may or may not be possible. This time around, I hope to be with someone who has life experience, who may have made the same mistakes but now understands the value of communication and honesty and flexibility.
I had an opportunity earlier this summer to try out on-line dating. It was interesting – I didn’t really meet anyone I wanted to stay with, but I did learn a lot from the conversations we had. Sometimes we would talk about this – how I would like to have a relationship where you could really talk about anything that was going on, anything you needed that you felt you weren’t getting, anything that needed to change. Often there would be this wistful look on his face, like he was thinking how great that would be but remembering just how he thought his former spouse might have reacted to that kind of honesty.
I want to be the kind of partner that always listens when there are things that need to be said, in a way that creates trust and safety. I want to be told if my partner is feeling like he can’t stay, or wants to see someone else, or has needs that aren’t being met. These are the things people find hardest to say, but are by far the most important. Why anyone thinks it will help to keep them hidden I’m not sure. Painful and difficult yes, but allowing things to be worked on and possibly resolved before something terrible happens – or allowing people to part if need be in a more positive place with each other.
So if it’s not our vows to stay together until death do us part that actually keeps us together, what is it? Here’s my list, and judging by the comments on the last post, I feel like I’m making progress toward what others have found in their own lives:
1) Honest and frequent communication, especially in the hard times
2) Creating a safe and supportive relationship that allows this kind of communication no matter what’s happening
3) Generosity, caring, and respect
4) Understanding that life brings changes and a willingness to work on change and challenges together
5) Passion for each other and for the joys of life :)
That last is my own – it might not be high on everyone’s list but it’s what keeps me looking forward to the future and enjoying the now!
Relationships without Promises
More and more lately, I’ve been thinking about relationships without promises. Marriages involve promises, and frequently, they’re broken. I meant my vows to last a lifetime, and they didn’t. And what about those people who get married over and over… what are they thinking? Are they eternal optimists, not really thinking about what they’re promising, or not believing the words they do say?
I’m not sure I can make more promises like that and feel any degree of certainty around them. Yet, I want a meaningful, deep, loving relationship. So the question… can long-term relationships exist without promises, and if so, what would that look like?
There’s a certain maturity to not making promises… it means you’re constantly choosing to be in the relationship you’re in. Rather than trying to hold someone to you by making them swear a vow (or even letting them do it voluntarily) you know that they are always with you because they choose to be. Insecurity and fear hinders this, it seems there is always an internal push to obtain a promise, as if that holds any kind of security or safety. People break those promises all the time, and then are afraid to tell their partners, which leads to affairs, which leads to heartbreak. How much better if we could always know that we both are where we want to be, and if we start to feel that we’re not, we can talk about it and allow change into the relationship – or out of it.
There can also be an immaturity in not making promises, if it is abused by rationalizing that this means you can do anything you want to do. People are usually more sensitive when their partner breaks a promise or a rule they’ve agreed on, but it is equally true that even when there are no promises, a person can be just as hurt. Because we are emotional beings, it’s just not possible to say – it wasn’t against the rules, therefore, it’s OK for me to do it and you shouldn’t care that I did it. If it hurts your partner, it hurts. And usually if you honestly ask yourself the question, would this hurt my partner? you know the answer. And if you don’t, that would be a really good thing to talk over ahead of time, when it’s not a current issue :)
And then there’s the problem that those vows seem to make people complacent – because there’s a promise to stay together for life, there’s less of a push to work on relationship issues. This is really where I think the lack of promises could be a good thing – there is a need to constantly maintain the relationship – to check in that things are working, to talk over things that aren’t working, and to work together through any change that is needed. And to constantly leave open the possibility that maybe the best thing is not to assume that you should stay together your whole life. Couldn’t there be such a thing as serial monogamy – a series of deep and loving commitments that enrich your life while you have them? Why is it that we assume we should have the same partner our entire lives? Fear of change? Or something deeper?
What do you think? This is a deep and engaging issue for me right now and I’d love to hear any and all thoughts on the subject :)
Thanksgiving Dinner!
Well, there is a lot going on in my life to write about – but today it’s all about cooking! I’ve got groceries to buy, veggies to trim and desserts to make, biscuits to bake and roast to stuff, plus all kinds of little details to work out :) Here’s the menu:
Buttermilk-Parmesan Biscuits with Sour Cream-Chive Whipped Butter
Spinach and Baby Greens Salad with Honey-Mustard Balsamic Vinaigrette
Green Beans with Walnuts and Nutmeg
Roasted Root Vegetables with Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinaigrette
Pork Roast with Apple, Sage, and Cranberry Stuffing
Upside-Down Pear Spice Cake
Cranberry Cheesecake
Still to figure out – appetizers and drinks. I told my family this year they weren’t getting anything traditional :) I’ve done that for years and years and it’s time for something new. Almost all of these recipes come from Cooking Light (so are a lot healthier than you might imagine) and many are made with the organic ingredients I’ve been getting from my farm share, so I’m looking forward to a change. Of course I’ve modified the recipes to my own taste, being an inveterate kitchen tinkerer. Should be fun!
I’m thankful for my friends and family, my new kitty (tentatively named Sophie), health of body and mind, nature and natural foods, and the pleasures of life. I hope life is wonderful for all of you and you’re enjoying your holiday with those that matter most.
It’s really not breast cancer! and how you know that…
So this is a musing on how the Internet has changed our lives, particularly with medical information – for ourselves, our children, and our pets. It seems as though the media is excellent at telling us all about all the things we should be worried about, even many things we really shouldn’t worry too much about. At the same time, I notice more and more how I rely on it to get the information I need to solve problems – before I talk to my doctor. This takes some work of course – there’s a lot of misinformation on the Internet with a lot of really good stuff mixed in. Any good researcher should be able to tell the difference, though it may take some practice. The advent of Google seems like one of those things that’s changed my world.
For example, (stop reading if personal health is TMI) I’ve been feeling kind of sharp pains under my left breast and armpit area for a while. As any woman knows, the very first thing that leaps into our minds is breast cancer. It’s just so scary on so many levels, and something we’re taught to worry about pretty much from teen years on. And now that I’m 40+, it’s an even bigger concern. So this morning I felt it again. I had just sent an e-mail message to my doctor on another topic (yet another health care innovation that I love), and didn’t want to bother her again unless I really had to. I mean, I just had a mammogram and everything was fine. Still, fears persist. So onto the trusty Internet I go. Come to find out that there is almost never pain associated with breast cancer, and that this kind of pain is NORMAL for women heading into pre-menopausal years.
What a relief… and it took me all of 5 minutes on the computer to find that out, and another 5 to confirm that my initial research on it was accurate and consensus-based. This is a good thing – it took something that could have become a significant nagging worry and just took it off my plate. Sometimes I think that we have far too much to worry about in the world today – many things we can do nothing about. To the extent we can use the Internet to relieve these anxieties, that’s a real gift.
The Internet has been essential for all the research I’ve done on new treatments for migraines over the years, which prepare me for office visits with neurologists who don’t have a lot of time to spend on each appointment. I work hard at making sure I don’t over-react to media, or base any medication decisions on advertising. But it sure is nice to be able to look up original research and evaluate it for yourself – especially if you’re trained to do so.
Then there was the time my kitten horrified me by peeing on my bed, the very first week I got him home. I had no idea what to do, or why he would do such a thing. A little time on the Internet convinced me that he probably did it on purpose to try to tell me something important, and I should take him to the vet. Sure enough, he had a UTI infection. And here I thought (at first) he was being bad, was scared, or just poorly trained, when neither punishment nor training (or even comfort) would have helped a bit.
There’s something immensely comforting about all this – I could give a lot more examples, but I’m realizing how I’m coming to rely on this information source – used carefully and with discrimination. I’ve received good advice more times than I can count. Given how overloaded our health care system has gotten, it’s probably good that we have at least some other alternative for less critical matters. In some ways at least, the Internet is really living up to its promise.
Furry friends
Today I’m adopting a cat, shown in the picture… I am not sure what to call her yet :) She’s a tortoiseshell short-hair with pretty black, white, and orange patches. She loves peace and quiet, but is currently in a busy household with three small children, two dogs and another cat. At least she’s been loved and well cared for, her family just knows she’d be happier somewhere calmer. She seems to like me well enough, though she is definitely one of these cats that will take her time exploring your house, thinking about you, keeping her space, and then when you’re not looking, you’ll find her in your lap :)
I drew a card to see what I needed to know about Ms. Kitty – the Three of Wands came up. This is a familiar card of laying the groundwork for a better future, building bridges and building trust. I already knew this was needed, but it came up upright, so I know I can make my home a better place for her. She will come out of her shell, I think, once she realizes that she can trust the house to stay peaceful and not have small children and loud noises startling her all the time. Meanwhile I am just happy to have a little presence in my house again, keeping me company.
Books of the week
I love books… I’m usually reading several a week, so I though it might occasionally be fun to review what’s been on the bedside table this week :)
Perfectly Reasonable Deviations (From the Beaten Track) – This is another one of those books about Richard Feynman that I can’t seem to get enough of. He was a Nobel-Prize-winning physicist who was also one of my professors at Caltech. I think I enjoy reading these books so much because he was such an interesting man, with a creative, sexy, and engaging mind, and when I was there he was in his last few years and was already suffering from intestinal cancer. Nevertheless, I was able to get to know him a little, enjoy a few of his lectures, and performed in at least one musical with him (playing the bongo drums, of course). This book compiles his letters over the years, and he was such a character that his personality and force shines through the letters. It’s a bit long, but quite a fascinating account of the world and its changes throughout the era when he was working on the atomic bomb, teaching at various institutions, winning the Nobel Prize, protesting cold war politics as it affected science particularly, and serving on the Challenger review committee. A+ (if you enjoy such things).
The Marriage Diaries – This one I read in an afternoon when I was starved for some time to just read. The story revolves around a married couple who have more or less lost the thread that binds them and are beginning to realize it. For various reasons, they both begin to journal, and the book is entirely composed of journal entries. For a while, the wife is reading the husband’s journal on their computer network, and realizes he’s close to having an affair – though she never gets to find out if he actually does it, as he changes operating systems and passwords just at the crucial moment. She ends up having a brief affair more or less pre-emptively, and comes to regret it. I won’t say what happens in the end, except that it involves mermaids :D B – entertaining for an afternoon.
Strange Candy – This is a book of short stories by Laurell K. Hamilton. I’m pretty into her Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series :) so I thought this would be interesting to pick up. She writes possibly the most erotic fiction I’ve ever encountered in print, and has an interesting noir take on a world where vampires, shapeshifters, and necromancers are legally protected classes but only just barely tolerated in society. The short stories include a few set in that world, but also some excellent fantasy work set in worlds from her earlier days of writing. I am only half-way through the book, so who knows what interesting new facets will reveal themselves. Strange candy indeed – reads like dark chocolate with a hint of espresso and orange peel. A for originality and a fine writing technique.
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