Tuesday, December 12, 2006
For my sisters
At the risk of turning this blog into the all-cheese-all-the-time diary, I have to mention that my sister Eleanor and sister-in-law Bethany share my love for a good bowl of macaroni and cheese . And with Eleanor in Australia and Bethany in England, I'm afraid their access to Annie's Homegrown Shells & Cheese (not to mention my homemade stuff) is severely limited. So for them, I present the UK's foremost macaroni and cheese review blog.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Babble is one day away
I've got high hopes for Babble, a new online magazine for parents that launches tomorrow. It's from the people behind Nerve, the sex and culture magazine that arrived to much hoopla a few years ago. Anyway, I guess all that sex talk did the trick, because now all the Nerve editors are blessed with babies. Anyway, they're promising an antidote to the all-pastel, moms-only, too-serious word of parenting pubs.
More cheese, please
Years and years ago, when I was a vegetarian, I would hear from pro-vegan/vegetarian sources that adult humans weren't meant to drink milk. I've always had a weak spot for cheese and dairy products in general, so this kind of convention wisdom made me feel guilty for diverting some poor calf's sole form of nourishment into cottage cheese, yogurt and brie.
But now I don't have so guilty. The NY Times has an interesting article on how four different human groups independently evolved the ability to digest milk. Swedes and the Dutch are uniformly lactose tolerant, but the new news is the discovery of pastoral groups in Africa who also developed lactose tolerance.
"Genetic evidence shows that the mutations conferred an enormous selective advantage on their owners, enabling them to leave almost 10 times as many descendants as people without them...The survival advantage was so powerful perhaps because those with the mutations not only gained extra energy from lactose but also, in drought conditions, would have benefited from the water in milk."
But now I don't have so guilty. The NY Times has an interesting article on how four different human groups independently evolved the ability to digest milk. Swedes and the Dutch are uniformly lactose tolerant, but the new news is the discovery of pastoral groups in Africa who also developed lactose tolerance.
"Genetic evidence shows that the mutations conferred an enormous selective advantage on their owners, enabling them to leave almost 10 times as many descendants as people without them...The survival advantage was so powerful perhaps because those with the mutations not only gained extra energy from lactose but also, in drought conditions, would have benefited from the water in milk."
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Happy 59th Birthday, Mom
We knew Rick was showing you a good time in Gettysburg, so we helped celebrate Ania's 3rd birthday here in Oak Park. Click here to see a few photos from the party.
Friday, December 08, 2006
No more cheese
I didn't think I'd ever hear myself uttering those words, but I just might have had my fill of cheese today. You see, one of my clients is a major cheese brand and today I attended a four hour long cheese tasting.
We started with a blind taste test of the major players in the natural cheddar cheese category. I discovered that I'm a big fan of Cabot, Tillamook and Cracker Barrel, but Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar is my absolute favorite. And store brand cheese? Pretty uniformly terrible.
I learned that East Coasters tend to prefer white cheddars, but Midwesterners and Left Coasters like their cheese yellow. I also found out that, outside of the Pacific Northwest where everyone grows up eating Tillamook, it is a very polarizing cheese Those of us who ranked it high loved it and those who didn't rank it in the top three thought it was among the worst we'd sampled.
After we'd consumed 15 pieces of cheese, we moved to the test kitchens to prepare a variety of foods with a variety of cheese brands. My partner and I were responsible for making a pizza and a traditional homemade macaroni and cheese. Other teams made equally cheesy dishes like lasagne and enchiladas. All of the dishes were made three different ways--with three different brands of cheese. So we tasted and evaluated a lot of food, and after seeing how the different types of cheese worked in cooked dishes, I was able to conclude that while the brand makes less difference in dishes than it does straight up, it is important to choose a sharp cheese for cooking since the flavors get muted. And you really sacrifice a lot when you use pre-shredded cheese since the anti-caking agent keeps the cheese from melting as nicely.
We started with a blind taste test of the major players in the natural cheddar cheese category. I discovered that I'm a big fan of Cabot, Tillamook and Cracker Barrel, but Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar is my absolute favorite. And store brand cheese? Pretty uniformly terrible.
I learned that East Coasters tend to prefer white cheddars, but Midwesterners and Left Coasters like their cheese yellow. I also found out that, outside of the Pacific Northwest where everyone grows up eating Tillamook, it is a very polarizing cheese Those of us who ranked it high loved it and those who didn't rank it in the top three thought it was among the worst we'd sampled.
After we'd consumed 15 pieces of cheese, we moved to the test kitchens to prepare a variety of foods with a variety of cheese brands. My partner and I were responsible for making a pizza and a traditional homemade macaroni and cheese. Other teams made equally cheesy dishes like lasagne and enchiladas. All of the dishes were made three different ways--with three different brands of cheese. So we tasted and evaluated a lot of food, and after seeing how the different types of cheese worked in cooked dishes, I was able to conclude that while the brand makes less difference in dishes than it does straight up, it is important to choose a sharp cheese for cooking since the flavors get muted. And you really sacrifice a lot when you use pre-shredded cheese since the anti-caking agent keeps the cheese from melting as nicely.
Mystery package from MOMA
A toy from MOMA arrived in the mail for Z yesterday, and the card enclosed doesn't say who sent it. If you're reading this, please let me know who you are! (We're keeping the gift hidden until one of the eight nights of Chanukah.)
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
What it's like to "go on Oprah"
I promised a full recap of my Tuesday morning on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and here it is.
First, the tickets. For about the past year, I've been periodically checking the last minute tickets section of the Oprah website. It it used to fill out audiences, the topics never interested me. It was always "Do you have a diet question for Dr. Greene?" "Do you have the ugliest room in America?" or "Do you have a teen daughter who is out of control?"
Then, early last week, Oprah producers were looking for people who had seen An Inconvenient Truth and had a question for Al Gore. I wrote in and got a call from a producer the very next morning!
Fast forward a week to Tuesday. Gloria picked me up at 6:45am and we drove to Harpo Studios in the West Loop. Parking across the street is a steep $20, but there isn't really any alternative. We join the line outside the building a few minutes after 7am, and, in spite of the tent protection, it is bone-chillingly cold. The two groups in front of us in line don't strike us as looking particularly eco-friendly, and indeed, when one of them turns around to ask us if we know the show's topic, they roll their eyes and groan at the mention of global warming.
We make it inside the building around 7:45, but there is still bag check, ID check, metal detectors and purse inspections to make it through. We'd been warned to downsize our bags and leave cell phones in the car, but it seemed most of the audience members there had not. There was an organized system for checking big bags and electronic items, leaving the average Oprah fan with three different claim tickets.
From there we could make a pit stop and Gloria noted that there were two women's rooms and one men's. Apt, given the gender breakdown.
That done, we were ushered upstairs to a giant waiting room that resembled nothing so much as a bus or train terminal. It was about 8:15am and all of the 250-odd seats were taken, and one of the ushers directed us into one of the standing room only lines. But we'd only been standing long enough to fill out our release forms before my name was called out over the loudspeaker. We joined about 10 other women who had e-mailed in questions for Al Gore, and we were "randomly assigned" seats in the studio. We ended up about halfway up the center right risers.
Oprah's studio seemed smaller in person that I had imagined it. It is immaculately clean, and the metallic accents, together with all the bright lighting, make it a warm, cheerful place. Producers ushered the rest of the audience in, occasionally giving priority seats to groups with the "best colors" on their clothing.
By 8:40 the entire audience was seated and the producers warmed us up a bit, coaching us to be ready to say "awww" when something was cute or gasp at awful truths. Oprah made her appearance while a producer was talking, so there was no grand entrance. She joked around with the audience for the final 10 minutes before the show was to go live, complaining that she was bloated from her breakfast of Shredded Wheat and mouthing the bad words we're not allowed to say on live TV.
I don't need to go into the actual show, since it was taped live for TV. Nothing was edited out and there weren't any re-takes. Oprah only invited one audience question, and that was at the very end (and not from a pre-seeded plant like myself).
As I mentioned before, I got to ask Al Gore my question during the after show, and I should be able to find out on Saturday whether I made it to TV.
The aftershow was over around 10:40am, and we were able to claim our coats fairly quickly. Everyone in the audience received a free copy of the DVD and I was at work by 11am.
First, the tickets. For about the past year, I've been periodically checking the last minute tickets section of the Oprah website. It it used to fill out audiences, the topics never interested me. It was always "Do you have a diet question for Dr. Greene?" "Do you have the ugliest room in America?" or "Do you have a teen daughter who is out of control?"
Then, early last week, Oprah producers were looking for people who had seen An Inconvenient Truth and had a question for Al Gore. I wrote in and got a call from a producer the very next morning!
Fast forward a week to Tuesday. Gloria picked me up at 6:45am and we drove to Harpo Studios in the West Loop. Parking across the street is a steep $20, but there isn't really any alternative. We join the line outside the building a few minutes after 7am, and, in spite of the tent protection, it is bone-chillingly cold. The two groups in front of us in line don't strike us as looking particularly eco-friendly, and indeed, when one of them turns around to ask us if we know the show's topic, they roll their eyes and groan at the mention of global warming.
We make it inside the building around 7:45, but there is still bag check, ID check, metal detectors and purse inspections to make it through. We'd been warned to downsize our bags and leave cell phones in the car, but it seemed most of the audience members there had not. There was an organized system for checking big bags and electronic items, leaving the average Oprah fan with three different claim tickets.
From there we could make a pit stop and Gloria noted that there were two women's rooms and one men's. Apt, given the gender breakdown.
That done, we were ushered upstairs to a giant waiting room that resembled nothing so much as a bus or train terminal. It was about 8:15am and all of the 250-odd seats were taken, and one of the ushers directed us into one of the standing room only lines. But we'd only been standing long enough to fill out our release forms before my name was called out over the loudspeaker. We joined about 10 other women who had e-mailed in questions for Al Gore, and we were "randomly assigned" seats in the studio. We ended up about halfway up the center right risers.
Oprah's studio seemed smaller in person that I had imagined it. It is immaculately clean, and the metallic accents, together with all the bright lighting, make it a warm, cheerful place. Producers ushered the rest of the audience in, occasionally giving priority seats to groups with the "best colors" on their clothing.
By 8:40 the entire audience was seated and the producers warmed us up a bit, coaching us to be ready to say "awww" when something was cute or gasp at awful truths. Oprah made her appearance while a producer was talking, so there was no grand entrance. She joked around with the audience for the final 10 minutes before the show was to go live, complaining that she was bloated from her breakfast of Shredded Wheat and mouthing the bad words we're not allowed to say on live TV.
I don't need to go into the actual show, since it was taped live for TV. Nothing was edited out and there weren't any re-takes. Oprah only invited one audience question, and that was at the very end (and not from a pre-seeded plant like myself).
As I mentioned before, I got to ask Al Gore my question during the after show, and I should be able to find out on Saturday whether I made it to TV.
The aftershow was over around 10:40am, and we were able to claim our coats fairly quickly. Everyone in the audience received a free copy of the DVD and I was at work by 11am.
Personally, I'd rather have water
Here's a great map that shows what folks across the country are calling their carbonated beverages. I grew up with my folks referencing "pop" while all my friends and neighbors guzzled soda.
Totally schticky
Check out GIANT Magazine's collection of the best commercials of the 1980's. I suspect by "best" they mean the best of what they could find on YouTube, but it's a riveting assembly of bad taste and memories.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
I neutralized our new car
For a little more than the cost of a tank of gas I neutralized the CO2 emissions of our 2005 Honda CR-V. It's so easy. Please do the same.
More global warming news
The reports keep coming in. Now EU scientists are releasing a study showing that the Alps are experiencing record warmth--the hottest temperatures in 1300 years.
Let's not inconvenience Big Oil
Much of Al Gore's presentation on today's Oprah Winfrey show was a retread of the information on An Inconvenient Truth, but there was one tidbit he shared that really struck home with me. An older woman stood up during the after show discussion to say that she thought schoolchildren should see the movie and become a force for changing their parents--much as they helped propel the anti-smoking movement. Al Gore agreed wholeheartedly but pointed out that the National Science Teachers Foundation had just turned down 50,000 free copies of the DVD Paramount was making available to them as teaching tools. Their reason? Accepting the DVDs, would place "unnecessary risk upon the (NSTA) capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters." Supporters, it turns out, that include Exxon Mobil.
Oprah, the quick recap
In spite of how much getting into the Oprah studio resembles getting onto an airplane (lots of lines, tickets, security, bag checks and waiting), Gloria and I had a great time attending today's live show. Oprah only let the audience ask one question during the main show, but she called on me in particular ("Is Alma Klein here?") during the after show, which airs on Oxygen. If anyone can Tivo it or download the show off the internet somewhere, I'll post a clip of myself.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Just like Mommy and Daddy
This morning as I was packing my lunch for work, Z said "I need a cook too. I need a get a recipe from da cook book!" She grabbed an issue of Cook's Illustrated from the shelf, opened it to a recipe page and proceeded to busy herself in her toy kitchen. There was a great deal of bustling over the stove with pots and pans, faux vegetables, empty spice containers and a wooden spoon. She would run back and forth "checking" the cookbook and updating me on her progress. "I'm making pancakes and eggs. I need sugar, milk, broccoli and pizza! It's for you Mommy. Be very careful. It's hot hot hot!"
Z's budding sense of humor
It started when I was reading her first word books and misidentifying the pictures. I'd point to a chair and say, "That's an elephant" or "Elbow." And Z would look at me like I was insane and go, "No, dat's not Cookie Monster. Dat's a little girl!" But she quickly caught on that we were playing a game, and now she mislabels pictures herself and looks expectantly at me to laugh and correct her. She also thinks it's hysterical when I get the names of her body parts wrong or when I suggest we put her shirt on her legs, her diaper on her head or her hat on her belly button.
Tune in tomorrow
Don’t forget to watch Oprah tomorrow, when yours truly will be in the audience. The show is Global Warming 101 with Al Gore, and it will be broadcast live in Chicago at 9am. If you live elsewhere, check your local listings. I can't wait!
Sunday, December 03, 2006
How to host a surprise party
Lessons from our good friend Andy, who successfully surprised his wife with a 40th birthday party to remember.
1. Throw the party three weeks before the actual birthday to throw off the scent.
2. If she's not a bowler, throwing it at bowling alley shouldn't raise any red flags.
2. Come up with a reasonable alibi for the evening--one good enough to warrant hiring a sitter for your new baby. In this case Andy told Deb it was a birthday party for a one of his friends' wives. Deb wasn't totally convinced it was a sitter-worthy event, but she needed a break and hired one without too much proding. She even brought a gift for the supposed birthday girl.
3. Get help. Andy co-hosted the party with his in-laws, and between the two of them they were able to track down and invite a wide variety of friends. I ended up bowling with a former co-worker of Deb's who has known her for 15 years!
Watching Deb's face as she realized what was going on -- and who was there -- was wonderful. She was obviously floored by her husband's efforts. Even her in-laws flew in!
And the party was a lot of fun even for those of us who weren't "bowled over" by the surprise...or our bowling scores. Well worth the cost of a sitter (hi Julia).
1. Throw the party three weeks before the actual birthday to throw off the scent.
2. If she's not a bowler, throwing it at bowling alley shouldn't raise any red flags.
2. Come up with a reasonable alibi for the evening--one good enough to warrant hiring a sitter for your new baby. In this case Andy told Deb it was a birthday party for a one of his friends' wives. Deb wasn't totally convinced it was a sitter-worthy event, but she needed a break and hired one without too much proding. She even brought a gift for the supposed birthday girl.
3. Get help. Andy co-hosted the party with his in-laws, and between the two of them they were able to track down and invite a wide variety of friends. I ended up bowling with a former co-worker of Deb's who has known her for 15 years!
Watching Deb's face as she realized what was going on -- and who was there -- was wonderful. She was obviously floored by her husband's efforts. Even her in-laws flew in!
And the party was a lot of fun even for those of us who weren't "bowled over" by the surprise...or our bowling scores. Well worth the cost of a sitter (hi Julia).
Friday, December 01, 2006
Got smell-o-vision?
The California Milk Processors are experimenting with a new scent strip technology that lets them bring the scent of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies into bus shelters, apparently in the hope that smelling the cookies will trigger a thirst for milk. If this works out, I think we can look anticipate more companies jumping on the fragrance bandwagon...which, BTW is already filling up with car dealerships, hotel chains and retail stores who've discovered how to manipulate us through our sense of smell.
Personally, I'm all for it. Chocolate chip cookies beat piss and B.O. any day of the week.
Personally, I'm all for it. Chocolate chip cookies beat piss and B.O. any day of the week.
Snow day
We awoke to about 5 inches of white stuff--less that predicted, but more than enough to get Z demanding (at 7:20am) "I wanna go outside in da backyard an' make a snowman! With a carrot nose!" I told her that it wasn't time to go outside yet, that at the very least we'd need to wait until Daddy got out of the shower. And anyway, Z would need to be wearing clothes and a snowsuit!
"No clothes! No clothes! I don' wanna get dressed!" she tantrumed, erupting into tears. As I tried to wrangle her toward a pair of pants, she ran away from me and continued her "no clothes" tirade. I gave her a brief time-out for being uncooperative, but I was a little blown away by how much of an impression 30 seconds on the stool made in her mind. As we headed upstairs for a diaper change and dressing, she said, "I cry for Mama on the time-out."
"Why did Mama give you a time-out?" I asked
"No clothes," Z replied. And with that, she let me change and dress her without complaint. Although she did ask that I put her shirt on over her feet and legs. We're still working on how "pants go over your toes and shirts go over your nose."
"No clothes! No clothes! I don' wanna get dressed!" she tantrumed, erupting into tears. As I tried to wrangle her toward a pair of pants, she ran away from me and continued her "no clothes" tirade. I gave her a brief time-out for being uncooperative, but I was a little blown away by how much of an impression 30 seconds on the stool made in her mind. As we headed upstairs for a diaper change and dressing, she said, "I cry for Mama on the time-out."
"Why did Mama give you a time-out?" I asked
"No clothes," Z replied. And with that, she let me change and dress her without complaint. Although she did ask that I put her shirt on over her feet and legs. We're still working on how "pants go over your toes and shirts go over your nose."
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