Paleo Greek Lemon Chicken Soup

I hope I'm not alone when I admit that I get a lot of e-mail blasts from a lot of different places, most of which I barely even read. At some point in my life, it seemed appropriate to sign up for whatever it is. At this point in my life, I'm too busy to read the subject line of most of these, much less the actual message. A couple years ago, I did four solid months of P90X and got loosely involved in the Beachbody world. One lingering memento of that time, beyond the ripped body that I've gained (trust me, you don't need to see the pictures, just trust me that I'm totally jacked now), is the Beachbody newsletter that I get every so often. Beyond advertising their various programs and Shakeology (which I presume is an on-line degree program in the study of old-school furniture), they have health and fitness articles and usually one recipe per blast.

Now, Lauren and I have been eating Paleo most of 2013 so far, subsisting on recipes I've found in a cookbook or on the internet, or else something so simple to throw together that it doesn't even merit the term "recipe." Now, the Beachbody recipes are what most people would consider to be healthy, but they're rarely Paleo, so I took a pretty healthy recipe and not only made it amazingly healthy (unless your definition of healthy is limited to vegetarian/vegan recipes, in which case this is definitely not healthy) but also made it Paleo. Wait, I feel like I'm repeating myself. Anyway, you're welcome.

The reason why this recipe appealed to me is because it reminded me of a recipe Lauren and I loved that was even less  Paleo than this one: Creamy Lemon Pasta from The Moosewood Collective's Simple Suppers cookbook. We were blown away by the combination of creamy and lemony (Parmesan cheese and pasta didn't hurt, either). Now, pretty much every ingredient in that original recipe is out: no cream, no Parm, no pasta... just lemon. But this Beachbody recipe? Just one ingredient that doesn't fit (pasta), and it's got a great workaround to give a creamy lemony texture. High in protein, lots of the most healthy vegetables. Big win. And without further ado:

Paleo Greek Lemon Chicken Soup

1 c. cauliflower

1 lb raw chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
4 c. chicken broth (hot)

3 large eggs
6-9 T. lemon juice
1 c. chopped fresh spinach
salt and pepper to taste

Cook cauliflower. Cook chicken. Heat broth. You can do this any way you want, but let me suggest a couple options. What I did: put the chicken (I didn't pre-cut it) and the cauliflower in a steamer, turned on the heat and let it go. It's done in 15-20 minutes. What I considered: bring the broth to a boil, cut up the chicken, and cook it in the broth, then scoop the chicken bits out--it's like a whole lot of fondue, sans forks. You might even cook the cauliflower along with it.

If you haven't already, cut up the chicken. Mash the cauliflower or puree it.

Whisk together eggs and 6 T. lemon juice in a medium saucepan. Slowly add broth, whisking constantly, until outside of pan feels warm to the touch. Add chicken, spinach, cauliflower, and any remaining broth. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, for about 2 minutes. The spinach doesn't need to get all the way to wilted, unless that's how you roll. Season with salt and pepper, add remaining 3 T. lemon juice if desired. Serve immediately.

Success is counted sweetest...

... by those whose goal is to get fat.

Which, recently, has been my goal.

I know that sounds strange. Most people want to get thin, they want to lose weight. And in a certain sense, I do too. Just not right now.

You see, a couple weeks ago, my wife directed my attention to a competition being put on by the wellness department at our school, in which teams of two would compete to lose weight over a 2-month period. Back in January, we did a Whole30 challenge to adhere to a strict Paleo diet for 30 days. Lauren, especially, was shedding the pounds pretty consistently and easily on this diet, even to the point where she felt like she was losing too much, too quickly (the standard for making that judgment: her ability to feed our daughter). She said she figured we could clean up in this competition.

Well, I thought: you could. For my part, I had settled in at a weight in the low 170s and seemed to be more or less stuck there. Which was fine--although at some point in the last year and a half or so I was as lean as the low 160s, 170-something is a very healthy weight for me, and one I can maintain with little effort. So maybe with some serious work I could get back down to that lean weight, but that really wasn't that many pounds to lose, and that might be a lot of work. I would hate to sabotage Lauren's amazing results with mediocre ones because, at heart, I'm a competitive SOB. When I do something, I want to win.

Fortunately, Lauren had brought this to my attention a few weeks before it actually started. I assume you can see where this is going. From 171 or so, in the past three weeks, I'm gained, oh let's see... 13 pounds. Four of them in the last day (thank you Valentine's Day candy).

Don't get me wrong. There's a sense in which this horrifies me. Especially since I still have a couple days to put on some more weight. People like, say, physicians would probably tell me that playing with my weight this way is an absolutely terrible thing to do to myself. To which I say: uh, yeah, probably. But we'll see.

This little experiment in packing on the pounds has been interesting in a couple ways. First, although I do feel a bit bloated and heavy, I don't really feel like I'm 13 pounds fatter than I was. I mean, my pants still fit, and I don't feel like I look much different with my shirt off. So where is that weight sitting? I can only imagine that my blood vessels are now carrying around pure, liquid fat instead of blood. But hey, if it wins us $180, I guess I'm okay with that.

The Season of Disbelievin'

Our oldest daughter, at just-under-3, is still at the age where she's a believer in just about anything. Santa? Check. Minga Madinga, her Elf on the Shelf? Absolutely. The inherent awesomeness of her parents? Most of the time. Well, sometimes. If we're not denying her a toy, making her use the potty, turning off the TV/computer/iPod, trying to get her to eat, or generally engaging her when she's cranky (which, at almost-3, seems to be much of the time).

But anyway: belief. She's got it in spades. She sort of had some idea about Santa Claus last year, as being something more than just the terrifying overlord of the mall, sitting on his throne with minions taking pictures. This year, she pretty well gets it: Santa's the guy bringing toys (also, less positively, the guy who's going to take away her pacifiers and give them to younger children).

The thing I've realized as I watch her watching Christmas movies is how many of them deal actively with the subject of belief and--noticeably--disbelief. From animated Disney movies to live-action features, there's often a character saying "Santa Claus isn't real" or "There's no such thing as elves," or whatever. And, of course, like doubting Thomas, the characters on the screen get incredibly tangible proof to back up the reality of the pro-magical-Christmas crowd's claims.

I have to wonder, though: what about the kids (which is to say, pretty much all of them) who don't get to meet a talking dog who's Santa's best friend, or see a magical elf, or receive a visit from Santa himself? In other words, what I'm asking is: what's my daughter seeing in these movies? Do the disbelievers' assertions make any dent, in what is otherwise completely unchallenged belief?

Turning 90 degrees from there, I wonder if there's a sense in which Santa Claus is actually great preparation for atheism? Think about it. Most of us growing up with Santa Claus have first-hand experience with believing in a mythical being, which other people tell us is real, and then face the inevitable moment of disillusionment. We all get practice at what it's like to become an atheist, as we become an atheist with regard to Santa Claus. And the Tooth Fairy. And the Easter Bunny.

I suppose, as with any good whopper, we can always find ways to believe if we want to. "Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus..." As long as you can be as equivocal about the meaning of "is" as Bill Clinton was, then yes, there "is" a Santa Claus.

Book Review (part 1): The 4-Hour Chef

I picked up a copy of Tim Ferriss's new book, The 4-Hour Chef in hardback. And the Kindle edition too, since my wife indicated she'd be more likely to read it if she didn't have to lug around the huge (670 oversized pages) tome, and I wouldn't mind being able to read it on my computer or iPod either. In a way, it seems wrong to think about reviewing a cookbook before spending some time in the kitchen with at least a whole lot of the recipes. Or even reading most of the book. I've done neither, but I wanted to start commenting on it now instead of waiting for later.

So. If you're not familiar with Ferriss's previous work, I'll offer some background. His first book was The 4-Hour Workweek. This work had a lot of valuable parts to it, even if you don't follow the basic plan to spend way more than 4 hours per week putting together a business that can have large portions outsourced and/or automated such that you only need to put in about 4 hours per week of actual work while the business brings in big bucks. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but my point is that you could get a lot out of the book even if you don't even try to go that route (I haven't). His second book was The 4-Hour Body, which he described as the journal of a mad scientist, as he basically did his best to figure out through contact with experts on the cutting edge and through self-experimentation the most efficient ways to optimize performance in all sorts of ways. One of the central elements in the book was "losing fat," which revolved around his "Slow Carb Diet" and a handful of over-the-counter supplements, but there were also sections on building muscle, getting stronger, running faster and farther, enjoying better sex, enjoying better and/or less sleep... and hitting a baseball and swimming and... anyway, there was quite a bit to that book as well.

Which brings us to The 4-Hour Chef. There is, no doubt about it, more to this book than learning how to cook. As the subtitle puts it, this is "The simple path to cooking like a pro, learning anything, and living the good life." It's too bad Tim Ferriss never aims very high, isn't it?

Ferriss has described the book as being first and foremost about optimizing learning, with cooking just being the primary example at the heart of the book. There are five sections, plus appendices, and the first--"Meta"--is all about learning. He talks here about strength training, swimming, judo, languages, Japanese characters, shooting a basketball, making a fire, chess, tango, the World Memory Championships, and a whole bunch of other things, but always his real topic is learning, as he explains and breaks down his method--which is at once the method he used to put together this book, the method the reader can, theoretically, apply to anything, and an important part of the methodology that he will use in the book to teach the skills of a chef.

And this is an important distinction: although the book has quite a few recipes in it, it's not so much a cookbook the way that The Joy of Cooking or any of the many recipe websites on the web are cookbooks (i.e. collections of recipes). Ferriss most wants his reader to understand techniques. The techniques are taught through recipes, but each of these recipes also includes variations (to the point of being whole other recipes) and more indirect suggestions for applications of the technique, which themselves invite some experimentation ("Could I do this with X instead? Let's find out!")--of which Ferriss would certainly approve. The point isn't to learn some recipes that you'll cook over and over, though chances are you will; the point is to learn techniques that will allow you to improvise your own "recipes" as needed.

Because this is already getting rather long, I'm going to break it up over the next day or two. For now I'll just say that I'm quite enjoying this book, both for the cooking that it has me doing and for the sheer enjoyment of reading what Ferriss has to write about. There's a very real danger here that Ferriss is going in so many different directions that readers won't be able to follow him. Some people will almost certainly get frustrated and say "Can't you just tell me what I need to know about cooking??" Ferriss does speak to those people, and encourage people to skip ahead as needed. For my part, I'm fascinating by just about everything he has to say, both because he makes all the various topics interesting, and because he reveals so much of himself, and he's a pretty interesting character as well. Both his content and his tone are engaging, so that I find myself very much reading ahead of where I can possibly get in the kitchen, because I want to see what he's going to tell me next.

Prayer

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." -- Matthew 7:7

"Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that my Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." -- John 14:13-14

"And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive it, if you have faith." -- Matthew 21:22

Quite a lot of prayers are like this, probably because we're creatures of needs and wants. And as often as not, we don't know the difference.

The Bible, of course, endorses this sort of thing, though in real life, the results seem to be mixed at best. We pray for a loved one to pull through and sometimes, seemingly miraculously, they do. Troublingly, given the above passages, they often don't. Perhaps equally troubling in its own way  stands the fact that believers of other religions--and of no religion--experience "miraculous" cures at about an equal rate, albeit under a different headline. 

These are probably the prayers that are said most earnestly, but, well, good luck if you're asking for something in prayer. You'll need it. Given the evidence, I don't have a lot of faith in these prayers--if there's a God, it's not the sort of God who answers prayers like some kind of genii granting wishes.

"Lord, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." -- Reinhold Niebuhr

I have noticed on several occasions that our school's Director of Spiritual Life (and Protestant minister) frequently prays in terms of virtues, or of mindfulness. A prayer that a group or individual might have some quality strengthened really amounts to emphasizing the characteristics that we think are important. If I pray for myself that I might have courage to do something that I want to do, or that I might have peace in my heart when other people annoy me, or whatever it is, I'm also reminding myself of what it is that I want myself to be, what I see as my highest self. If God exists, then perhaps He will help out, but even in the absence of God, this kind of prayer actually works pretty well. By reminding us of who and what we want to be, we are more likely to put into practice our values.

“Oh, I think that children pray so, to find a lost doll or that Father will bring home a good haul of fish, or that no one will discover a forgotten chore. Children think they know what is best for themselves, and do not fear to ask the divine for it. But I have been a man for many years, and I would be ashamed if I did not know better by now.”

                 […] “So. How does a man pray then?”

                 […] “Don’t you know? How do you pray, then?”

                 “I don’t.” And then I rethought, and laughed aloud. “Unless I’m terrified. Then I suppose I pray as a child does. ‘Get me out of this, and I’ll never be so stupid again. Just let me live.’”

He laughed with me. “Well, it looks as if, so far, your prayers have been granted. And have you kept your promise to the divine?”

I shook my head, smiling ruefully. “I’m afraid not. I just find a new direction to be foolish in.”

“Exactly. So do we all. Hence, I’ve learned I am not wise enough to ask the divine for anything.”

“So. How do you pray then, if you are not asking for something?”

“Ah. Well, prayer for me is more listening than asking.”

—Robin Hobb, Fool’s Fate

This, too, makes a fair bit of sense to me, whether there is a God or there isn't.

You don't know beans

Henry David Thoreau, on the grounds that he didn't know beans, planted, tended, harvested, and ate a whole lot of them while he was living near Walden pond. While I may not have grown them (yet), I do feel that I've known them pretty well from the kitchen side of things.

I suspect that anyone who's been cooking for an appreciable amount of time understands that there are "Recipes As Written" and then there are "Recipes as Lived." There's what the book says and there's what we do. This is so true of the way that I cook beans that even my biggest mistakes are now basically part of the process. So I offer to you my own step-by-step directions--how I make beans. The Platonic form of this recipe comes from Nourishing Traditions.

1. Soak beans in water overnight, 12-24 hours. Usually closer to 12, or 8, because of when I remember to start soaking them. Agonize over whether to use tap water or filtered water, but always choose tap water because it's a pain in the butt to filter that much water.

2. Drain the water (see, aren't you glad you didn't filter all that water just to dump it later?). Rinse the beans several times, still with tap water, because it's still a pain to do otherwise. When the water is more or less clear, go ahead and go to the trouble of getting enough filtered water together to cover the beans. Turn the burner on to high and keep adding water as it slowly makes its way through the filter.

3. Because water takes so damned long to boil, put a lid on your pot. Because water takes so damned long to boil, wander away and do something productive with your time.

4. Forget about the beans completely until you can hear the sound of water boiling over. By the time you get to the beans, there will be nasty bean water all over your stove. Unless you want to have a disgusting mess later when it dries, you should clean up the mess now. But then, you should also be skimming off the foam, so figure out your priorities.

5. Lower the heat to as low as it will go while still simmering. Come back periodically for the next several hours to fiddle with it, as you realize that the burner is too low to keep it simmering or so high that it's basically a rapid boil.

6. While you're fiddling with the heat, you may also want to make sure that there's enough water in with the beans, unless you would prefer to have the beans turn into a scorched mess at the bottom of your pan, which is not only one of the worst things you will ever try to clean up in your kitchen, but also renders all that time you spent on steps 1-5 completely useless. But hey, if that's how you roll, go for it.

7. Beans are done when you say they're done. That might be 4 hours later, that might be 8 hours later. You're the cook here, you decide. Bean appetit!

Batter Bowls

I wish I had blogged earlier in the day, because now the tragedy in Newtown, CT weighs down all my thoughts. I started an entry in response to the tragedy, but I don't think I really want to say anything. My heart goes out to all the people touched by the shootings.

I'll try instead to write about something far less significant: licking the batter bowl. My mother tends to doubt her own skills in the kitchen; for my part, I figure she did better than could be expected, given that I was an awfully picky eater--we mostly ate homemade meals, and that's something. But no one can dispute her mastery when it comes to desserts. As proof, I have the yearly school pictures depicting my continual chubbiness right up until my growth spurt between freshman and sophomore years of high school. She had a huge variety of desserts: cookies, bars, cakes, just a few pies, and other things that just fell under the broader category of "dessert."

Growing up with all these desserts being made, we always seemed to have a mixer bowl around with some kind of sweet, fatty goodness clinging to its sides and beaters. An only child, my experience growing up with these bowls gave me a cavalier attitude toward salmonella and a sense that it was both my divine right and my solemn duty to lick the batter bowl clean. In some ways, this last feeling is a corollary to the classic parenting lines about starving children in Africa and the importance of not wasting food. I mean, I was pretty sure that no children anywhere were crying over the canned green beans or Brussels sprouts that might be discarded at our table, but the bits of chocolate chip cookie dough still on the sides of the pan? I might have cried to see that wasted, never mind the starving children.

Now, as an adult who would like to eat a healthy diet, I struggle with these deeply ingrained habits any time I make desserts. Well, okay, any time I make anything. Seriously: I'm even tempted to lick the spoon when I've mixed buttermilk and whole wheat flour and nothing else in preparation for pancakes the next morning. My rational mind knows that it tastes absolutely terrible, but when I see it there on the spoon, some part of my mind doubts that anything clinging to a spoon could taste anything other than divine. Also, except when I already know the outcome, like this, my reaction can only rarely be described as "struggle." I have the white flag of surrender out before the first chip has been fired. In fact, as likely as not, I'll be "licking the batter bowl" before I've even finished making the cookies or whatever I'm making. I may have the uncooked approximation of a dozen cookies eaten before I finish baking the rest--it's not just for efficiency that I typically triple the recipe. And all this doesn't even account for the ones hot out of the oven that get eaten "for testing purposes."

But there's a part of me, at least retrospectively, that regrets it, and occasionally I like to throw that part of myself a bone (which is about all that part of me can chew on without regret). So I do have to castigate myself a bit for my poor--if highly conditioned--choices with regards to batters of all sorts.