There's soup...and then there's SOUP!

 My husband and I were in Costco this weekend (call me crazy!) and as we rounded a corner I discovered that they were sampling a soup I ate incessantly during my five years living in Atlanta, Tomato Basil from La Madeleine! It was my favorite lunch, and I have such fond memories of eating it tucked away in a cozy spot in the rustic French-inspired restaurant, especially when I ended the meal by sharing a dish of Strawberries Romanoff with my lunch companion - yum! 

Back in Costco, I said something out loud which may have sounded like "Eeek! La Madeleine tomato soup! No WAY!" and reached for the teensy sample cup with a huge grin on my face.  I shared my little trip down memory lane with the woman sampling the soup. And then I picked up the package..... and got a cold, hard look from that nice sampling lady.

Her: "Just please don't read the back, ok?"

Me: "Well, why on earth not?"

Her: "Because every time someone does, it causes a commotion."
 
Me: "Pardon me?"
 
Her: "A commotion. It causes a commotion."
 
Me: "Why is that, exactly?"
 
Her, with a sigh: "Go ahead, read the label."

Serving size 1 cup
Calories     340
Fat    32g

Me (shrieking): "Are you KIDDING me? That's INSANE! That's worse than premium ice CREAM for heaven's sake!"
 
Her: "I warned you."

I mean seriously. It's just SOUP! How can one measly cup possibly be that caloric and fat-laden? But it is! It said so, right there on the nutrition label in black and white.  And I'll tell you what, it doesn't have to be like that. I have a recipe for a Creamy Tomato Bisque that would knock your socks off that has fewer than 150 calories a cup and only about 5 grams of fat! Puh-leeze.

Be careful, dear readers, for the seemingly virtuous "I'll just have soup" order may give you more than you bargained for! Read the labels, even if it hurts.

A Thanksgiving Mindset

This Thursday most of us will find our way to the homes of family and friends (or they to ours). We will roast turkeys and mash potatoes and ladle gravy and pour wine and slice pies. We will toast to our blessings. We will reminisce. 

Thanksgiving comes with high expectations of a Norman Rockwell meal around a perfect table with a perfect meal and a perfect family. It can be riddled with challenges when those expectations aren't quite met. It's also a holiday almost entirely about food, which makes it my very favorite holiday, but poses challenges of its own. For some of us, family conflicts, absent loved ones, and opportunities to overindulge at every turn can be a recipe for a very stressful day. Ideally, though, Thanksgiving is a day for simple abundance and for counting our blessings. 

I'm often asked for tips to avoid diet disaster at Thanksgiving and I do, of course, have some. But the most important thing to me is to preserve a Thanksgiving mindset. To be thankful. To set aside the conflicts, competitions, and long-standing grudges and simply to be with whomever you've chosen to be with on this special day.You are blessed. This is a day to honor that.

If you're still itching for those practical tips, here are just a few:

1) Eat the things you dream about all year.
No one will tell you that stuffing is health food, but how many times a year do you actually EAT stuffing? So enjoy it's annual appearance on the Thanksgiving table and savor every morsel. Skip the things that you eat routinely (dinner rolls, perhaps) in favor of the special dishes.

2) Remember, it's just dinner!
Exercise a little portion control; build a dinner plate instead of a mashed potato mountain and you'll leave the table feeling pleasantly satisfied, rather than dealing with impending food coma. 

3) When it comes to dessert, have a bite.
Be choosy about desserts - have a bite or two of your favorites but save the slice of super-colossal-triple-decadent-whatever cake for a day when you haven't just eaten Thanksgiving dinner. Ending a meal with something sweet is delightful; and the first few bites are always the best.

4) Find the "uppers."
Spend your time on Thursday with the people who lift you up and make you feel great! Avoid the people who bring you down or make you feel small. You know who they are - so seek out the uppers and invest your time with them. It's a day for feeling good; don't complicate this. Emotional stress will just make you want to eat more.

5) Move it.
Just because it's Thanksgiving doesn't mean you have to sit all day. Find a local 5K or 10K to run (Cincinnati readers: the Cincinnati Thanksgiving Day Race is a GREAT one and you can register on race day at Paul Brown Stadium.) or go for a walk before the day swings into motion. Or, organize a post-dinner walk or game of touch football. You'll return refreshed, energized, and ready for planning your day of Black Friday shopping! 


So with those few tips and a commitment to preserve a positive Thanksgiving mindset, may you have a delightful and truly satisfying holiday!

Finding Food Matches

I'll venture a guess that you are pretty good at putting together clothes that match, having learned to do so when you were about 6. Perhaps you're even a master at choosing the perfect accessory that pulls an entire outfit together (if you are, could you call me?). Creating a menu that works together is simply a variation on this theme.  Just as you wouldn't wear a wintry boucle jacket with a summery chiffon skirt, there are certain dishes that just don't belong on the table at the same time. 

I'm often asked about how to put together a meal where the foods seem to go together, the way restaurants do it. It's easier than you may think! Here are a few simple guidelines to consider when planning meals that match.
 
1 ) Combine dishes from the same type of cuisine. For example, pair a soy glazed salmon with snow peas tossed in sesame oil and rice vinegar and sprinkled with sesame seeds. The Asian influence in both of these dishes will make them work together beautifully.


2) Eat seasonally. Mother Nature knows a thing or two about food pairing. If you eat foods that come into season at the same time, they tend to work well together. Consider matches like acorn squash with granny smith apples or fresh summer tomatoes and with cucumbers and radishes.


3) Try to balance the flavors and textures on the table. For example if you have a hearty beef stew, consider serving a salad with a tangy vinaigrette to lighten up the meal. Think about classic pairings like pulled pork barbecue with coleslaw - it works because of the balance. Flavors to consider include savory, salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and astringent. Textures include crisp, soft, creamy, chewy and crunchy.


4) Avoid having too many dishes with the same ingredient. Cheese is a common culprit here. You don't need a ricotta stuffed chicken, cheddar scalloped potatoes, and parmesan topped green beans all in the same meal no matter how much you may like cheese.


5) Balance richer, high fat foods with simpler, lower fat ones.  A simple lean protein is a lot more enticing when paired with a rich savory risotto. A hearty grilled cheese is delicious with a cold, crisp Granny Smith apple.

Happy matching!

Mix it Up

Grove Park Inn, Asheville, NC

Today is my 10 year wedding anniversary (!) and to celebrate, my husband and I went to Asheville, NC earlier this week for a brief getaway. It was, as you might expect, completely delightful.  We did things we can't often do with our three small children, like sleep in, linger in bookstores, have uninterrupted conversations, savor long dinners, sip cocktails, watch the sunset over the mountains, and work out without a baby monitor in the room! It was an escape from the ordinary. It's so easy to get into a rut at home where we barely notice each other;  getting away always helps us remember why we're married in the first place!

While in Asheville, we stayed at the amazing Grove Park Inn (where we also stayed right after we got married ten years and three children ago). The sports club at the Inn offers a daily roster of exercise classes, and the 8AM BodySculpt class fell at just the right time for us. However, we'd never actually taken a BodySculpt class before. No matter, we thought. This will be fun!  And it was! It was also an incredibly challenging workout, complete with about 4 million pushups which are by FAR my least favorite exercise in the world. We left that class sweaty, exhausted, invigorated, and laughing together about the whole experience.

But here's a little secret. Several years ago, I would not have even considered taking this class. And what a shame that would have been! See, I used to be a one-trick pony when it came to exercise. I ran. Period. For years and years that was my only form of real exercise. Sure, it burned calories, but if I'm completely honest with myself, it wasn't as effective as I would have liked. 

Nevertheless, I carried on with my disciplined running routine until my knees begged me to mix in some days on the elliptical trainer. Quite by accident, I discovered the magic of interval training on that no-impact cardio machine. Better results in less time - yay! I didn't realize it yet, but I'd begun my journey toward a far less monotonous and far more effective exercise habit.

Then, several years ago, I took another step on that journey when I attended a seminar at the Human Performance Institute and re-learned how important strength training was for overall fitness. After that course, I began strength training with free weights and bands in our little home gym and started to see muscles I didn't know I had! 

After my second child, I took up Pilates and absolutely fell in love with it - the core-focused moves delivered fast results and I loved working out on the reformer (even if it looked scary at first!). More recently, I've started to dabble in yoga...and I'm loving that too, especially the Hot Vinyasa Flow Power Yoga class I've been taking. I've even put myself through two phases so far of the super-challenging P90X videos of infomercial fame. 

Have I given up running? Not a chance. I love it and it's still my favorite form of cardio workout. But I've learned how much fun it is to MIX IT UP when it comes to exercise. Doing the same thing every day is easy and comfortable but it just doesn't deliver the same kind of results that a variety of exercises can. And mixing it up keeps my brain fresh too; the weeks fly by without falling into a monotonous drone.

Exercise is something you'll hopefully be doing for the rest of your life. So mix it up! Try that new exercise video, take a new class, run a new route. Push yourself out of any rut you may have settled into. Escape the ordinary. 

Tips to Manage Treat Overload!

Are you wondering what to do with all of that leftover Halloween candy? If your kids have already fished out their favorites and sampled their not-so-favorites, and you're ready to be done with the sugar-induced craziness, I have two ideas for you!

1 - Invite the Halloween Fairy!
I was recently introduced to the idea of the Halloween Fairy, a lovely gal who apparently arrives a week or so after Halloween to gather up any uneaten candy and leave a toy in return! A new DVD, a Leapster game, an iTunes gift card, a Barbie, whatever the little ghosts and goblins in your house deem worthy of their sugar stash. I love this idea; I'm hoping she visits OUR house!  As for what the Halloween Fairy might DO with all that candy...

2 - Send your treats to our troops via Operation Gratitude
Operation Gratitude collects extra Halloween candy to be used in care packages for our troops. You simply ship a box of your candy to the following address:

Operation Gratitude/California Army National Guard

17330 Victory Boulevard

Van Nuys, CA 91406

Charlie Othold:  818.437.6201

 

You can get more information by emailing OpGrat@gmail.com.

So...enjoy your favorite Halloween treats and then share the wealth. You can feel good knowing that you've done something sweet for yourself, your kids, and our troops.