Unplugging to Recharge

When my Dad was alive, he used to announce that he didn't like looking at the tops of people's heads.  He was talking about the current epidemic of compulsive smart-phone-checking at all times: at lunch, while walking...whenever. I'm guilty as the next person, but after he said it, I realized that not only is it rude to your companions, but it signifies that we have a hard time disconnecting.

Social media is here to stay. You old fogies can run but you can't hide. You'll just be left in the dark. I have a few friends my age who are very wary of social media (Honestly, I pity them a bit). I tell them that TwitFace is as much or as little as you want it to be. It's like a water cooler in an office. You can wander over and have a quick chat, or you can hang around all day (and probably get fired).

Sometimes you just need a literary non-masterpiece / page-turner in your life (and a 16-year old cat who likes to eat book covers)

A few weeks ago, we went to a cabin for a week with no internet. Dare I say it was glorious? Due to the fact that I'd rather gauge my eyes out with pencils than write long emails or check/comment blogs while on my iPhone, I was forced to disconnect to a large degree. 

My comment in green- see how honest I am? Plus I love Janetha's reply

When I got back to civilization, I decided that I wasn't ready to get back to the TwitFace yet. I was enjoying my break- even from blogs, and even from my beloved Instagram!  I just felt like I didn't want to feel like I needed to check anything or feel unsettled if I was behind on any feeds. Unless it's actually for work, social media should feel like fun, not work. 

So here I am, a week or so later - to tell this tale. I'm still basically unplugged, except for email and the odd blog (yes, it is very, very odd). And yes, I miss the social banter and the fun photos. I miss being creative and sharing and learning. I'm sure there's some great chia oatmonster recipe that I'm missing out on, temporarily.  I do miss all the truly great blogs and the people behind them, but my friends know how to contact me. Unfortunately that might require a view of top of my head.  But way less than before.


Q: Do you find yourself compulsively checking in with your social media outlets (blogs, TwitFace, Instagram, emails, etc). Are there any that you are more 'addicted to' than others? Have you ever tried to disconnect?  How'd that work out for you?

Wine tasting Basics

A few years ago, I got "into" wine-tasting. My timing was lucky because shortly thereafter, the movie Sideways came out. It was a fun, but somewhat expensive hobby (both financially and calorically) but I learned a few things over the years.

Here I won't talk about grape varietals, malolactic fermentation or terroir. You can spend a life-time studying the intricate details about wine and still never learn everything. Wine is an amazing marriage of art and science. This is just a basic Wine 101 tutorial. I didn't make this stuff up- it's what I was taught over the years that I attended tastings and classes.

Wine Tasting/Drinking Do's and Don'ts:

• Don't sniff the cork. I was informed in one of my first wine-tasting courses that this is akin to "sniffing a woman's vagina." Please don't do that. Not in public anyway. (Confession: I can't help doing this at home if I think no one is watching...sniffing the cork, I mean. It's like not blinking when someone blows air in your face.)
  

• Do pour a small-ish amount of wine into your glass to taste it. A single glass measures exactly 5 ounces (and is much, much smaller than you think- barely more than half a cup). Unless you are in the UK where they measure to the closest milliliter, most bars tend to pour 'heavy' into small glasses. In order to taste the subtleties of wine, you need to swirl the wine in your glass and then inhale the vapors before you drink. If your glass is filled to the top, you can't swirl. Fill it to less than half way up your glass if you have the option, so that you can swirl and sniff.
  

This is a 5 oz glass or "one serving" (edited to add...this is 120 calories)

Pop Quiz: How many ounces of wine is in this glass?

Answer: the single filled-to-the-top glass above contains 24 ounces or nearly FIVE servings of wine (that is almost a whole bottle!)

• Do return wine that is corked. This is a chemical contamination that can occur with natural cork and it taints the aroma and/or flavor of the wine (though it's not dangerous). Due in part to increasingly poor cork quality, this is occurring more often. Forward-thinking winemakers (Australians, New Zealanders for starters) are switching to metal screw caps and even Mylar-style bags-in-a-box (yes, like extra large Capri Sun for adults!) How do you know if a bottle is corked? You will swirl and sniff...if it smells like gym bag or a wet dog, it's corked. Good restaurants, markets and wine shops will take back a corked bottle of wine without question. Just return the remainder of the bottle.
  

• Do gently hold the glass by the stem. Not by the bowl. There are a few reasons for this: 1) Your hand is warm and will change the temperature of the wine. 2) You get your fingerprints on the glass 3) Wine gurus deem this is a wine-fashion no-no. This is sort of leaving a comment like "That's Amazeballs!" You are supposed to hold a wine glass as you would hold a delicate flower.
  

Correct way to hold the glass

Incorrect (but very common) way to hold the glass

• Do take a small amount of wine in your mouth and swirl it around- including the roof of your mouth. Please don't gargle or make sucky faces at this point, but do coat your whole mouth with the wine. We have taste buds all over our mouth in addition to our tongue, so it heightens the awareness of the flavors.

• Do swallow a small amount and really taste the wine. This isn't the Big Gulp of Diet Coke you had earlier while taking your new kitty to get his vaccinations. OK you didn't, but I did. You're judging. I can feel it.

• Do not order "White Zinfandel" if you are concerned about your wine-drinking reputation. I know that this will shock and sadden many of you, but in wine circles "White Zinfandel" is considered spiked Kool-Aid. It was discovered after a technical accident by a low-end mass-market winery and the quality is known to be 'poor'. Having said that, it is an extremely popular wine outside of wine circles. By the way, wine circles do embrace rosé wines- that is a totally different wine!

• Do 'spit' at tastings (not at restaurants, duh!). At wineries and tasting events, there are 'spit buckets' provided (sorry it sounds so crass - hope you're not eating your chia oatmeal) It is totally acceptable to spit the wine into the containers provided. (Personally I prefer to have an opaque cup for my own personal use. I then empty the contents of the cup into the buckets). Trust me on this...if you taste dozens of sips of wines and swallow all of it, you might need someone to carry you home. And explain the drunk texting, Tweets and Facebook postings to your family and friends.

Q: Do you enjoy wine? Have you been wine-tasting: to a winery or tasting event? Do you have any good drunk texting/emailing/dialing/instagramming stories? Anything to add?

Easy Gazpacho Soup Smoothie

I'm not a huge fan of Green Monster shakes, but for some reason (104F in the shade?) I was craving gazpacho soup the other day. I was also on the run, so I wanted it portable. And those who know me, know that I needed protein because I believe that I might wither away and die from not consuming protein with every meal and snack.

Enter the Gazpacho smoothie. It's shockingly more delicious and less creepy than it sounds. And so so so easy. I did not use a Vitamix- just a standard blender. Today I had it in a bowl, as originally intended from the great Gazpacho gods.

The obligatory items are the veggies, water, ice and a blender. But I added the protein powder and 'the thickening gums' because otherwise I'd have to have them surgically removed from my hand.

Ingredients:

•  Half a medium cucumber
• 1/4 of a sweet red bell pepper
• handful of grape tomatoes (or one medium regular tomato)
• stalk of celery
• handful of parsley
• several shakes of hot sauce of choice (Tabasco, Tapatio, Frank's)
• handful of ice
• enough water for blender to 'grab' and blend
• Optional: half a scoop of protein powder of choice
• Optional: 1/2 teaspoon of guar gum and 1/4 teaspoon of xanthan gum

All this for 157 calories.

18g of protein; 6 g of fiber; a village's weekly supply of veggies (almost)

In unrelated news, I wanted to make some pancakes from one of Eden's recipes and this is what I found on her Livestrong recipe page. I circled the fun stuff.

Q: Do you crave savory cold soups? Have you heard about fruit 'soups' that they serve in restaurants or cruise ships (I call that a smoothie in a bowl).  Do you subscribe to the 'must have protein' philosophy? Why would Eden's pancake recipe call for advertisements for urinary incontinence or singles over 40?

Roasted Winter Squash Seeds... Waste-not, want-not

I must have been a war child in a previous life because it absolutely kills me to waste food. Previous generations bragded that they ate every inch of every animal from the skin to the fat to the bone marrow (Eee). I'm not quite that bad, but I have been known to ravage a vegetable beyond recognition.

Take for example, winter squash.  There are zillions of recipes for cooking the actual squash, but don't throw away those precious seeds! Roast them! And the skin of the kabocha? Microwave it for a crunchy 'chip.'

Here was an example of some butternut squash I felt like making into "fries." Please be aware that they will never taste like real, fried fries. Don't believe Hungry Girl when she says otherwise. But they are a fun alternative to eating them mashed. And they are a great vehicle to get ranch dressing ('light' if you like) or ketchup into your mouth.
 

Butternut squash

SAVE THOSE SEEDS! Rinse & roast them.

Oil: only needed to prevent sticking (or for flavor).

Roasted Butternut "Fries"

Roasted Butternut squash seeds

To oven-roast winter squash seeds (all of them work: Spaghetti, Acorn, Kabocha, Butternut etc):

• Preheat oven to 350F and spray some aluminum foil with oil for easy release (can use a pie or baking dish as well)
• Remove seeds and rinse off strings (although I like the strings as they get crunchy)
• Sprinkle with salt if desired
• Spray with oil if desired: note that this is not necessary (they have a natural starchy coating that is delicious and roasts to crisp perfection!)
• Roast for 15-30+ minutes depending on desired crunch (check them every few minutes after about 15'...once they burn, they are good for nothing but the trash bin).

To Microwave squash seeds:

• Rinse seeds and place on sprayed microwave plate
• Salt if desired
• Spray oil if desired
• Nuke on high for 1 minute.
• Stop and mix the seeds around the plate and set for another 30 to 60 seconds.
• Continue this process until they are as dark and crunchy as you'd like (mine usually take about 5 minutes or enough time to clean the kitchen after a meal prep).

To Microwave kabocha skin 'chips':

• Wash and cook kabocha (organic, if you are concerned about eating the skin that could contain pesticides) and reserve the 'flesh' for another use.
• Microwave skin on high for 1 minute at a time (no plate, oil, salt needed)
• Remove it and check for desired done-ness.
• Repeat at 30 second increments until crispy and brown but not burned
• Dip in ranch or ketchup or tahini etc

Remember you can use any cooked winter squash as a substitute for pureed pumpkin in your favorite protein muffins! This is what I use when I'm away from home and can't find canned pumpkin.

Q: Do you find it hard to toss food/leftovers?  Do you have any tips for how to reduce food waste? Have you tried to make chips out of any other type of winter squash skin? What other obscure seeds are great roasted?