Michael Pollan's 12 Short Food Rules

Tomorrow I go back on the 11 day diet plan again, so pardon me if I talk about food a bit. The following was online today at MSN.

12 Short Food Rules, From Michael Pollan:

1. Don’t eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
2. Avoid foods containing ingredients you can’t pronounce.
3. Don’t eat anything that wouldn’t eventually rot.
4. Avoid food products that carry health claims.
5. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle.
6. Better yet, buy food somewhere else: the farmer’s market or CSA.
7. Pay more, eat less.
8. Eat a wide diversity of species.
9. Eat food from animals that eat grass.
10. Cook and, if you can, grow some of your own food.
11. Eat meals and eat them only at tables.
12. Eat deliberately, with other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure.

Don't eat anything my grandmother wouldn't recognize as food? Let's see....Grandma Redder died in 1900, and Grandma Dwyer died in 1926--both long before I was born.

Grandma Redder in all likelihood ate only rye bread, potatoes (especially potato pancakes, which were a regional specialty, and which my mother as an adult loved and made often), cheese, ham, beef (when a cow died), cabbage, onions, and apples. She probably drank tea and beer. I don't know what else they ate in northern Germany at the end of the 19th century. My grandparents were frugal (they sold all the butter instead of eating it themselves), and after Grandma's early death, Grandpa managed to scrape together enough $$ to bring him and all the children to the U.S. in 1903.

Grandma Dwyer probably had all this plus (I used to have one of Grandpa's shopping lists) coffee, bacon, white bread, soda bread, cakes and pies of some kind, ice cream, and wild game and fish. She may have had cherries and berries in season, too. I don't know if she ever had a garden in her back yard, as that was devoted to pens for Grandpa's live decoys and hunting dogs.

Probably neither of them, but especially Grandma Redder, ever ate a banana or an orange. I don't think Grandma Redder or Grandma Dwyer ever ate anything she or her neighbors or relatives did not cook themselves, either. No calling for pizza delivery in those days.

The 3-Day...

Miss Baltimore asked me the other day if I was on one of my 3-days.

"Wot's that?" I said.

"You know," MB said, "The three days when you can eat anything you want between your 11-day diets."

"Oh." I said. "No, that starts on Friday."

But yes, this diet allows you three days in which you can eat anything at all that you want and sabotage all your hard-won weight loss of the preceding 11 days. Today (yesterday now) was day one of the first 3-day.

I did pretty well (well, not counting the two dry, chocolate-free biscotti with my morning decaf) until lunchtime, when I had a brownie. And tonight I overate rather seriously on Omaha Steaks' Gourmet Franks. I had three of em. (no bread, though. Just mixed vegetables.)

I think I'll not do any weighing in at all until after I'm back on the next 11 days. Yes. I just made that rule.

More Birthdays

I'm borrowing heavily from the Writers Almanac this week.

Today is Nelson Algren's birthday. He's the guy who said "Never eat at a place called "Mom's," never play cards with a guy named "Doc," and never go to bed with anyone who has more troubles than you." The Chicago Tribune offers the annual Nelson Algren Award for short fiction in his honor, even though he was born in Detroit.

And today is the birthday, also, of Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, another one of my all-time favorites. His hilarious book, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, which is about a young man who falls in love and runs away with his aunt, is...tada...more than a little autobiographical. Technically, she was his aunt-in-law before she became his first wife.

Ah, literachoor....

Birthdays

The Writers Almanac has been full of famous birthdays the past couple of days. Get a load:

Today, March 26: A.E. Housman, Tennessee Williams, Joseph Campbell, and Robert Frost.

Yesterday, March 25: Flannery O'Connor

When I was young, I wanted to write like Flannery O'Connor. She was so in touch with everyday life and people, and so witty, and so wise. I have two favorite passages from her work:

"She had theseyer brown glasses, and her hair was so thin it was like ham gravy trickling over her skull." -- From Wise Blood

"Besides the neutral expression she wore when she was alone, Mrs. Freeman had two others, forward and reverse, that she used in all her human dealings." --
From "Good Country People"

Both of these women were somebody's mother. Wouldn't you just know?

How many people nowadays know what ham gravy looks like? For how many modern readers is that image indelible?

Happy birthday, Flannery! You other guys, too. Who knew that Joseph Campbell got his start thinking about stories and myths when his parents took him as a kid to the Museum of Natural History in NYC? And poor Robert Frost. What a series of calamities he lived through, what family sorrow. And Flannery dying at the age of 39 of lupus. Thirty-nine seems very young to have written such memorable, stirring literature.

Spring Break

This past week, squads of students have jammed the shuttle bus to union station. They wrestle massive vaults-on-wheels that pass for suitcases onto the smallish bus, whacking into any hapless other passengers' carelessly extended feet, knees, elbows. Some kids have more than one of these behemoths, too, plus big backpacks with zippers threatening to burst. But their hearts are light, witness the speed with which they heft this stuff on and (especially) off the bus and into the train station.

Why? They are going home (or somewhere) for spring break. Maybe, depending on their geographical destinations, the luggage is jam packed with parkas and sweaters (north & west) or scuba gear (south & east). Maybe they hold every single item belonging to the bearer in his or her dorm room. Plus books. (Y'think?)

Good for them. The rest of us are stuck back in academe, pushing pencils and tapping on our computer keys to get out the work, whatever that is. This year, they cancelled the alarm testing that went on in our building last year--it drove everyone batshit, and some, whose tasks require thinking and concentration, threatened mutiny.

I'm going on a spring break, too, and I'm dumping the baggage! I'm taking a break from my fork (also spoon and knife)! I signed up for something called the "lose fat fast" diet. You can eat as much as you want of the foods you've picked from two lists, just as long as you quit before you feel full. You keep this up for 11 days, then take three days off during which you can eat anything you want, then it's back on the diet for another 11 day of programmed meals like today's:

meal 1= cashews, walnuts, and oranges
meal 2= bowl of baked beans and fresh strawberries
meal 3= scrambled eggs and macadamia nuts
meal 4= bowl of fresh green beans and bowl of pinto beans

You keep this up until you reach your desired weight. I drink lots of water in between meals and diet orange soda, decaf coffee, tea, and take a daily handful of vitamins and other supplements.

I'm on day 6, and so far, i have lost THREE (3) pounds!!! And I'm loving how I feel, which is way lighter, even after only three pounds.

Onward!

St. Joseph's Day, 2008

Everyone keeps asking when I'll retire. And what do I DO at work all day? Today is the anniversary of the day I got the habit in the convent. I leapt over the wall and returned to the world four years later, but I'm on my 4th or 5th career now since that day in 1955...that's 53 years ago! Holy toledo!!

Here's a story I've been working on for the past couple of days for World Around You (WAY) magazine. World Around You was Cathy's creation. It used to be printed several times a year, but now it's gone online. It's an e-zine for deaf teenagers. My co-worker Tim is the editor, but I offer my services now and then.

Through the miracle of videophone (above), we interviewed Esther Dockter Frelich, the subject of our "Deaf Woman of the Month" article. (I say "we" because in the photo, it's my boss on the lower right-hand side of the screen, with Mrs. Frelich on the upper left. I am too shy to manage the videophone in ASL.) But it was my idea to write about Esther. The family has fascinated me ever since I worked with her son Tim on another project a couple of years ago. It helps that they are from North Dakota. ("North Dakota is my home, where the indians used to roam...North Dakota, North Dakota...whooooop!!!"--surely you recall that lovely melody!)

Anyway, it's both Women's History Month and Deaf History Month, so when we picked Esther, we had a double-header. Esther Frelich and her husband, Philip, produced nine outstanding deaf citizens who are all alumni of Gallaudet. For a university where about one graduate in ten has a job one year after graduation, the Frelich kids are batting nine for nine!! And they include one of the three noted deaf actresses in the U.S.: Phyllis Frelich, who won a Tony award for her performance as Sara in "Children of a Lesser God" on Broadway; Marlee Matlin (who won the Academy Award for the movie role); and Sesame Street's Linda Bove. The other siblings are outstanding in their chosen fields, too. Esther Frelich is truly a Deaf icon.

Family photos....

My nephew Paul sent me some family pix, including one of his step-grandson, the fabulous Max of Sweden.

This first is of Paul's dad, my brother John, in 1952. He loved camping and fishing. This was taken when he was a very new doctor. He would drive down to Lake Sallie in a new Volvo! Who had ever heard of a car like that?! And he would have an aluminum canoe strapped to the top. I loved to paddle the canoe in the channel between the lakes, although it was easier to go from Lake Sallie to Lake Melissa. Going the other way was upstream, and aluminum canoes tended to be a bit light...like trying to paddle a big potato chip.




This next one is of our Grandpa and Grandma Dwyer in, I think, Ann Arbor? I'm not sure Grandma Dwyer ever visited Omaha. The little boys are John in Grandma's lap, Paul being held by Grandpa, and Bob in the middle looking at Grandpa. It must be the year before Grandma died, too, because she died on July 4 when Paul was a baby. He looks to be less than a year in this photo.




And here's young Max...even though he's not a blood relative, he does resemble some photos of his step-granddad as a baby.

'Tis Almost the Grand Day Itself!!

Today's the eve of St. Patrick's Day...time to be warming up the jokes...here's a good one:

Paddy was tooling along the road one fine day when the local policeman, a friend of his, pulled him over.

"What's wrong, Seamus?" Paddy asked.

"Well didn't ya know, Paddy, that your wife fell out of the car about five miles back?" said Seamus.

"Ah, praise the Almighty!" Paddy replied with relief. "I thought I'd gone deaf!"

The Future of Sins

I'm going to take a break today from the headache-inducing crap being said about Silda Spitzer and other women who stand by their man when he gets caught committing adultery. I'm not talking about gems like Echidne's "so [she] can more precisely kick his gonads." I mean the truly stupid remarks like, "...Must be something in it for her," as proclaimed by Sally Quinn in the WashPost.

Instead, I'm going to focus on the Pope's list of NEW DEADLY SINS! They are refreshingly hip and up-to-date (if you are still back in the 14th century with many of the boys in the Vatican). These new sins should really give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to our interest in the Church! For example,

#1 baddie on the first list I saw was ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION! I couldn't believe my eyes! Will people be asked to turn in their gas-guzzlers at special mass absolution ceremonies? Will the parish parking lots be plowed and turned into organic gardens? (That might put all those flirtatious little altar boys to work for a change! Idle hands....)

And #2 was GENETIC ENGINEERING!! I'm wondering...does this include marrying someone smart so your kids won't be as dopey as the rest of your relatives?

But I digress. Several people asked me today if the new sins will supercede the Ten Commandments. Will the behavior condemned by the new sins of today become the acceptable practices of tomorrow? Being honest to a fault (not on the new list!), I said I didn't know.

It's hard to predict these things. Although, look what happened to the former mortal sin of USURY! In Medieval times, lending money for interest was an express ticket to L'Inferno. Not only was it greedy, it was unkind. If you had money lying around not being used (sinful in itself, although probably not MORTALLY sinful), you were supposed to give it to your neighbor or friend if they had suffered some calamity and needed it. Lending it to them meant charging them a fee (interest), and that. was. not. done!

Nowadays the enlightened soul realizes that people are supposed to take care of themselves, to be self-sufficient. After dropping 10 percent of their GROSS income into the collection basket, proper souls carry health insurance and car insurance and property insurance. They have cash reserves and savings accounts (another 10% of the gross should go in there).

Of course, after paying for all these things, there's not much left, especially if the enlightened soul also is avoiding the new mortal sin of being excessively rich. Gas is now around $4 a gallon here, and bread is, like, $7 a loaf. That's why nowadays, the priests play golf with the bankers and insurance men. Usury has been DROPPED FROM THE LISTS! Are your pockets short of change after you've paid for all these necessities? Relax! For everything else, there's MasterCard!

Now We Know....

It's too early for St. Patrick's Day but not too early to learn a bit of history....

WHY ST. PATRICK'S DAY IS CELEBRATED EACH YEAR IN IRELAND


The reason the Irish celebrate St. Patrick's Day is because this is when St. Patrick drove the Norwegians out of Ireland.

It seems that some centuries ago, many Norwegians came to Ireland to escape the bitterness of the Norwegian winter.

Ireland was having a famine at the time, and food was scarce. The Norwegians were eating almost all the fish caught in the area, leaving the Irish with nothing to eat but potatoes. St. Patrick, taking matters into his own hands, as most Irishmen do, decided the Norwegians had to go.

Secretly, he organized the Irish IRATRION (Irish Republican Army to Rid Ireland of Norwegians) and the Irish members of IRATRION passed a law in Ireland that prohibited merchants from selling ice boxes or ice to the Norwegians, in hopes that their fish would spoil. This would force the Norwegians to flee to a colder climate where their fish would keep.

Well, the fish spoiled, all right but, as every one knows today, the Norwegians thrive on spoiled fish. So, faced with failure, the desperate Irishmen sneaked into the Norwegian fish storage caves in the dead of night and sprinkled the rotten fish with lye, hoping to poison the Norwegian invaders.

But, as everyone knows, the Norwegians thought the lye only added to the flavor of the fish, and they liked it so much they decided to call it "lutefisk", which is Norwegian for "luscious fish".

Matters became even worse for the Irishmen when the Norwegians started taking over the Irish potato crop and making a bread substitute which they called "lefse."

Poor St. Patrick was at his wit's end, and finally on March 17th, he blew his top and told all the Norwegians to "GO TO HELL!"

So the Norwegians all got in their boats and emigrated to Minnesota ----the only other paradise on earth where smelly fish, old potatoes and plenty of cold weather can be found in abundance. So now you know why there are so many Norwegians in Minnesota and why the Irish celebrate March 17.

Complaints Choirs

There are many Complaints Choirs around, and I've watched and listened to most of them this weekend. The Helsinki is by far my favorite--the choir is first-rate, and the complaints are a riot ("Going to work in the morning, then home again at night, eventually you lose your mind"). I'm going around the house humming to myself "On se niin vaarin, on se niin vaarin!" = "It's not fair, it's not fair!"

The Helsinki Complaints Choir is running on the right side of my blog in the video spot I've been using for TEDTalks. The ones (i.e., TEDTalks) I've posted here from the many available on the website have been simply about topics or presenters I'm interested in: Zipcar, Jane Goodall, a brilliant young violinist, ants, family correspondence, a smart bunch of MIT students (led by a young woman) who are devising cooking stoves to replace the ancient charcoal devices used in developing countries and killing more than two million children under five ever year, architecture.

Considering that last year at this time I couldn't hear at all, these little video snippets with sound have been both a revelation and a load of fun.

Yes, "it"--life--is indeed not fair; but it is often, and sometimes all at once, beautiful, brilliant, heartening, and hilarious.

E for Excellent

A Little Red Hen has placed Xtreme English on her list of blogs awarded the Big E for Excellent! (This must be one of those Random Acts of Kindness you read about.) LRH's blog is in a class by itself for world class knitting news, occasional patterns and events, true feminist activism, and general evidence of her menschhood.

Part of the responsibilities of a new awardee is to nominate 10 other blogs as Excellent, and each of them must then select 10 others.

So here goes...most of these are on my blogroll. I'm dividing these into categories for you readers' sake:

Hearth & Home:

Day to Day Life of a Very Lazy Gardener - Peggy from Scotland's blog...Peggy posts about all the work involved in keeping house, garden, greenhouse, and chicken coop in a country home in Scotland--BESIDES working full time. She's anything but lazy, and her photos are a window into a very appealing world. I have to say she produces an EXCELLENT blog (even if I am her mother).

Rook's Nest - posted by our friendly neighbor to the north, Ex-Shammickite, who writes swell posts about life in Canada (which Don's old cousin Tom used to pronounce "CuhNAYdia." Tom was very fond of geography, often holding forth also on Latvia and Lithuania, which he pronounced "LuhTAYvia" and "LuhTOONia"). Ex-Shammy has a broth of a new grandson with a great Scottish name. O Callum! O Canada!! Ex-Shammy was born, she says, with bright orange hair.

Special Hearth/Special Home

Private Blog - My niece Lu has a special private blog that she fills with stories about their future pets for the people who will adopt her rescue dogs. She rescues dogs, brings them into her big house, cares for them, trains them to do good doggy stuff--like "go to the rug," when someone rings the doorbell instead of going ape (dog?) and jumping all over the visitor. After her wonderful husband, Joe, died young of Crohn's disease, she felt lost. She has beautiful kids and worked at a great profession, but with the kids away at school, she needed more than the job to fill the huge void when Joe died. Thus the dogs. She has a fabulous blog.

Hearing Loss - Ronniecat's blog, which originates from Canada, also. She is a cochlear implant recipient, though younger than any of my children, and a fine writer. She also has a blogging CAT, who has a big following. What is it up there that inspires such creative blogging? The, erm, weather??

Books:

Major Reader - Another niece, a major librarian, talks about lots of good books in this one. She knows her stuff, all right. She's working down (up?) a list of every book published about Abraham Lincoln from his day to the present.

Birchbark Books - Posts written by various workers at Minneapolis's Birchbark Books, founded and owned by one of my very favorite writers ever, Louise Erdrich. When my third story was published by a literary magazine many years ago, one of the co-contributors was a young Native American poet & writer named...Louise Erdrich. She has gone on to well-deserved fame. I think she should win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Superb Political Writing by Women

Echidne of the Snakes - This is a great blog, and you can find a whole curriculum/syllabus/primer (I'm way out of my depth here) about STATISTICS on Echidne's blog. Echidne takes her name from a Greek Goddess, and she writes like you would imagine a goddess would write if she had the time. It's what I turn to now that Molly Ivins is gone and the NYTimes, et al., have gone apeshit.

Shakesville - Shakespeare's Sister used to work for John Edwards's nomination as president, which is 'nuff said for me. She also is VERY funny and VERY bright and a good solid feminist with a mouth on her!!! (Oh, how I love people with artfully bad mouths). Kohlberg says most American are STALLED on the 6th stage of moral development: Nice Boy/Nice Girl. Not her (though I'm sure she's very nice, but that's not what Kohlberg means), and I hope, not me.

Token Males

Mad Cabbie - Uncle Mad is another one with a mouth. I've never met him, but he writes about the life of a DC taxi driver, which he is, and he's at once totally irreverent and wholly kind to his clientele, which includes plenty of DC hookers and other servants of the republic. I love the taxis in DC. They take you where you want to go, and then they go away. You don't have to park them or fill them with gas or fix them when they crap out. Mad's blog teaches me things I would never imagine.


Mom's Cancer - When writer Brian Fies's mother came down with cancer in 2004, he kept a sort of journal--in cartoons. It was published in 2006 and has won a whole hatful of awards. Most people wince when they see the title, but I am still thinking of all the ways in which this is a wonderful book. His blog recounts many other things, including his love of cartooning and his knowledge of science, but it was his reminiscence of Christmas at his grandparents' log cabin (like ours in Bismarck, a full-sized house) near Rapid City, SD, that really caught my attention.

It's Women's History Month!!

(click the Helsinki Complaints Choir picture a time or two if it doesn't play right.)

Take a Look: New Drugs for Women!!


DAMNITOL
Take 2 and the rest of the world can go to hell for up to 8 full hours.

EMPTYNESTROGEN
Suppository that eliminates melancholy and loneliness by reminding you of how awful they were as teenagers and how you couldn't wait till they moved out!

ST. MOMMA'S WORT
Plant extract that treats mom's depression by rendering preschoolers cooperative for up to two days.

PEPTOBIMBO
Liquid silicone drink for single women. Two full cups swallowed before an evening out increases breast size, decreases intelligence, and prevents conception.

DUMBEROL
When taken with Peptobimbo, can cause dangerously low IQ, resulting in enjoyment of country music and pickup trucks.

FLIPITOR
Increases life expectancy of commuters by controlling road rage and the urge to flip off other drivers.

MENICILLIN
Potent anti-boy-otic for older women. Increases resistance to such lethal lines as, "You make me want to be a better person. "

BUYAGRA
Injectable stimulant taken prior to shopping. Increases potency, duration, and credit limit of spending spree.

JACKASSPIRIN
Relieves headache caused by a man who can't remember your birthday, anniversary, phone number, or to lift the toilet seat

ANTI-TALKSIDENT
A spray carried in a purse or wallet to be used on anyone too eager to share their life stories with total strangers in elevators.

NAGAMENT
When administered to a boyfriend or husband, provides the same irritation level as nagging him, without opening your mouth.



[As usual when there's something funny posted here, a tip of the ice cap to M'reen!!]

They're at it again!

Earlier this week, one of my dear church-going relatives said that she was "ashamed of the Catholic Church's past regarding their treatment of the Jews." Another relative, with whom I enjoy even closer ties, said, "Yes, the Church does have a shameful past...."

Well, heads up, girls. Here's the latest from the old white boys' Vatican network formerly known as Propaganda Fides--the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith:

The Pope has declared that unless the male members of the Trinity (Father, Son, and, um...I guess the Holy Ghost/Spirit is male, too...the Vatican seems to feel they're all male...GOD is male) (we'll leave the issue of God's MOTHER for a later post) are mentioned specifically by name in the baptismal ceremony, the baptism is no good--doesn't count. No more baptising in any gender-free language--"I baptize you in the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier," etc. Babies' baptisms done under the illegitimate formulae have to be redone to get it right.

This is, as one writer said, "breathtaking devotion to control. They actually feel they get to decide what GOD will accept and what GOD won't."

Germaine Greer said the best thing that could happen is that the Church would irritate women so profoundly they'd feel totally burned up and leave. Gee...ya think?
Somebody else said, "Where there's smoke, there's fire...and it ain't incense burning!!"

News from the Neighboring State

North Dakota and Minnesota have not cornered the market on excitement.

An old cowboy from Dillon, Montana, counseled his grandson that if he wanted to live a long life, the secret was to sprinkle a pinch of gunpowder on his oatmeal every morning.

The grandson did this religiously for his entire life. When he died at the age of 103, he left behind 6 children, 30 grandchildren, 45 great-grandchildren, 25 great-great-grandchildren, and a 15-foot hole where the crematorium used to be.

How To Be a Media Pundit

Here's all you need to know to join Russert, Tweety, et al.

What a difference a year makes!

One year ago today, I went to the Johns Hopkins Listening Center in Baltimore so I could get a cochlear implant. It wasn't a difficult operation--I've suffered way more having a tooth pulled at the dentist's office. I spent the night in a great little hotel in Baltimore, too, not the hospital.

But what a difference a year makes! This morning, I've spent the past hour or so on the phone, chatting first with Cathy, then Peggy and Sean over in Scotland, then Sally (who was on the way to get bagels and will call back soon).

Last year after the implant i couldn't hear a thing. (They didn't turn it on for another six weeks, and they suggested that I not wear a hearing aid on the other ear.)

Yesterday I had lunch with a delightful young audiologist who is testing adult CI users to see which kinds of rehab listening exercises work best. She told me the results of my initial testing session two weeks ago and was feeling a little chagrined. I did so well--getting virtually 100% on every test, meaning I heard dang near everything--that she either has to kick me off the research or get permission from the university to redesign the research (make it harder to listen) for me.

Last April, on the day they activated my CI, one of the first things I heard was birds in the Listening Center driveway. I also heard the doorman's whistle when he summoned a cab for us. Sally and Cathy went with me to Baltimore for turn-on day, and on the train home, I could hear them talking, but it did not sound like human speech. When I got home, all I could hear was the sound of my own breathing and the rustle of my clothing when I moved. This year, my brain has learned to ignore these very basic background sounds unless I pay attention to them specifically. Instead, I can hear the radiator hissing beside me and the birds singing in the tree outside my window, and traffic on the street out front. I can hear somebody walking down the stairs to the lobby, and I've got the phone in my lap for when Sally calls back.

I remember how scared I was at the prospect of that operation, and how impatient I was when it didn't seem the process was working fast enough. Now I take it for granted that I can hear. It's nice to have days like today when I can remember how it used to be when I could not hear so I can give thanks now that I can.