smokey

I think it was me who suggested the frozen blueberries. In my experience, the frozen strawberries from WF suffer a fair amount in the defrosting on the texture front. Now, in yogurt, this doesn't bother me too much, but just a heads up. The other thing to be aware of is that I've found that the strawberries (more than other fruits) seem to pick up off flavors in my freezer. I don't know what's up with that, but if the frozen strawberries stay in my freezer for too long (longer than a month?), when defrosted they taste too much of freezer for me.glad to hear the blueberries were successful, and good luck with the belated birthday celebration!

Not sure where you're located, but I belong to Fitness First. The one near me has a good selection of classes (to me this means they have yoga a few days a week and I like at least one of the yoga instructors--YMMV), and adequate cardio machines for the ever crazy 5:30-6:45 time slot. Sure, sometimes you have to wait, but never for very long. The gym is fairly inexpensive (after whatever the initiation fee was that I paid over a year ago, I'm now on a month to month and I pay something like $20 or $30/month, although I think I get some kind of reduced fee because of my employer). There is a certain measure of you get what you pay for. There are signs everywhere (largely in the locker room) exhorting you to help with cleaning up. I'm probably a snot, but I don't feel like 'we're all in this together on the kibbutz.' I feel as though I pay money and get to use exercise machines, they get money and maintain the physical plant. If they're not charging enough to maintain physical plant in a reasonable condition and are getting customer complaints, I see one very easy solution (and it's not asking me to clean!). But, to each their own. I used to belong to a sport and health in the district. It was quite swank-swank and I loved it. But, we moved. The sport and health close to where I work is quite large and even has a pool. However, it's not sufficiently convenient to where I live now and I discovered that proximity to home was more important to me than proximity to where I work.

Bill, I'm totally with you on the lower fat hot dog as condiment delivery device. I've got some great French mustard that tastes divine and really livens up an otherwise (at best) so-so product. On a related note, have you considered cutting down on the yolks in your omelette as another means of reducing calories? I know everybody feels differently about where they cut things, and what is fine to one is anathema to another (e.g. skim milk). But I've found an omelette made with one whole egg plus three whites is really pretty good (particularly when spinach, garlic, and a bit of parmesan are added!). But there are a lot of veggies you can add that are zero point (to put it in WW terms), so keep the omelette reasonably bulky and filling, but still delivering the pleasure of eggs. Sounds like you're doing a great job--congratulations!

[Don--apologies if this is in the wrong forum. It didn't seem appropriate for the employment forum.] I'm looking for a personal chef to help me out with dinners for an approximate 2w period around the end of March in which I think it will be difficult for me to cook. I'm looking for somebody who can prepare fish-a-tarian items that are, generally, lower in fat/calories. Spicey, 'ethnic' foods are great. I'm thinking serving sizes for 2-4/night. Oh, and I live in MoCo. My impression is that these folks generally come to your home and do the cooking for a week's worth of meals in one day in your kitchen, which works well for me. I've considered Dream Dinners (and its ilk). The problem there is that they rarely have enough recipes that meet my various requirements (e.g. the fishaterian thing is a real limiting factor), and I've never had the impression that the quality of food/recipes was very high. I'm not looking for somebody to prepare gourmet meals for me, but something a step up from what I would get at a Marriot-run cafeteria would be nice. I know there is an association of professional chefs (or some such), but it's hard for me to get much of a sense of the people from that website, or even from their own websites. So, I was really hoping somebody here had personal experience to steer more towards (or away) from somebody. Thanks for any advice.

Although I didn't much explore them when I was in AA, I've long had the impression that there are some pretty good midE restaurants in Detroit. It certainly has a large enough Arab population to support such restaurants. And now, to pick some nits, 'ol_ironstomach. As somebody who was born and raised in the midwest, I find it really tiresome when coasters come and make such blanket condemnations of folks in the midwest. I'll grant you this--at least you, apparently, spent some time in the midwest. I've met lots of DC and east coast folks who've never been to the midwest who like to come out with such statements. In my life, I've met people from all over the U.S. who have adventurous palates and who don't, and I can't really make a broad, geographical, generalization about them. I know folks from Long Island who think that Olive Garden is the height of Italian cuisine. A classmate of mine at in grad school at UM (from LI also, coincidentally) had never had chutney and declared herself allergic to Japanese food because she just didn't want to try it. It sounds to me as though Blue Nile has gone downhill (I recall liking it 8 years ago when I moved there from Chicago--which has some really good Ethiopian food). Is this in an effort to 'appease the local midwestern palate'? Maybe ownership changed? Changes in the kitchen? An off night? A lot of different things could have happened to make the spicing very mild on this visit. Blaming it on 'appeasing the midwestern palate' seems to be based more than anything on coastal snobbery. Sorry for the rant--can you tell you hit one of my buttons?!

Perfect! Thanks for the info--the last time I tried this I simply purchased some random miso at the store and was disappointed with what I prepared at home. I didn't want to waste more money and not get something approximating what I'm after!

The 3.5 yo in my household is on what I refer to as the North Beach diet--if it's got carbs (preferably simple ones), he likes it. Otherwise, it's a bit of a battle. I try not to engage in the battle, but there it is. I love to cook, and I've kind of got him sharing that excitement. I let him weigh things, pour things, stir things. I've just found I need a fair amount of patience and a willingness to do a lot of clean up (with assistance, natch). Not so different from other parenting activities! He's far too young to be involved in real cooking (like what Heather describes for Emma), but I do try to take him with me to the farmers market and he's, umm, helped, in the garden somewhat.

Ok, so what 'color' of miso do I buy if my goal is to recreate the miso soup that I get at my local sushi joint? (I know, I could aim higher, but that's where I am now!)

Have you tried frozen blueberries? I've found that they're reasonably quality, a quickie defrost in the microwaves keeps them cold, but not pebble like, and they taste great for me in plain yogurt.

porcupine, I'm totally with you on the juice as a necessity in the morning. I used to drink grapefruit juice all the time. It was my default beverage of choice. Once I started doing WW, i realized I was going to have to cut back. But there was no way I was going to eliminate my 6-8 oz. in the am. Nothing was worth the agony that would cause!

I also, generally, eschew most of the sorts of foods associated with WW (e.g. I don't believe in faux foods like fat free sour cream). But, WW worked really well for me. What I found was that there was an initial ramp up that is pretty painful, as you 'point out' recipes that you use regularly. But, once you've calculated the points and the serving size on many of the foods/recipes that you regularly eat, it's pretty well a no brainer (and you end up discovering there isn't as much variety in your diet as you thought!). You also develop (through the process of pointing things out) an intuition for portion sizes. Once you've been through the process of pointing out a lot of recipes, you start to memorize the number of points in commonly used items (e.g. a TB of butter is 3 pts.) and it makes it quicker/easier to point out new recipes.I try not to prosletyze (sp?) the WW thing, but it really doesn't require you to eat weird foods that you wouldn't eat (whether some prepackaged item they sell or their recipes). Yes, that is by far the simplest way of tracking your points. But IF you have the time to sort out the points on things (which can be a big if--the +1 and I spent an incredible amount of time thinking about/planning home meals when we were doing a strict point plan), you really can eat (for most people) what you ate before with some modifications. If you were eating a decent sized portion of cake everyday, then you probably won't be able to continue doing that. But if that were the case, you wouldn't be wondering why you weren't losing weight!

I'm totally on for this. I had managed to cut myself down to whole milk, but thought that skim milk was revolting in coffee. I now have upped the amount of milk I drink in my coffee, but it's skim (not sure if the increased amount offsets the nonfat issue!), by heating it to just below boiling in the nukyular oven before adding the coffee. Totally satisfying.Have you given it a try, porcupine?

This is my take on it. I don't see there as being an 'ethics' issue in how I pay for my meal. If a restaurants weighs out the risks and benefits of taking credit cards and decides that the risks outweigh the benefits, then they state they accept cash only. I'm then at liberty to decide whether that works for me (is it too big an inconvenience to have on hand the amount of cash necessary to cover my meal?). If the restaurant decides the benefits outweigh the risks, I assume they factor the additional cost of accepting credit cards into their pricing structure. If they're not smart enough to do that, then I won't be surprised when they go out of business. It doesn't mean I won't be sad, but I'm not going to start carrying around wads of cash because a restaurant accepts credit cards, but doesn't price their food to cover the additional cost of this so I need to be sure to help them out.

Ahh, the day seems to be shaping up so I should be able to join my first RPLC! Miso soup and something (haven't decided what!) sounds perfect! See you at 11:45.

Thanks, bilrus, laniloa and synaesthesia! You're right, this is a fantastic dish. I had some tofu I needed to use up last night, so went to the store to pick up the couple of ingredients that weren't already lurking in my pantry. I figured the absence of pork permitted me to use some sesame oil, and the resulting sauce was fantastic (leading me to wonder why I don't use oyster sauce more often; it's got a great flavor!). My sauce got too thick (the +1 and babe didn't return home until later than I expected), but that's an easy one to fix.Thanks so much for pointing me towards this!

Argh! I tried to find that in egullet and couldn't. Could you point me to the recipe?

How long ago was the space between yuor pregnancies? I'm just wondering because I lost roughly 40 lbs. on WW roughly 4 years ago and I've kept it off. But I never bothered with any low-fat processed foods. At least when I did WW, you weren't relegated to the world of low-fat and processed (which I whole-heartedly eschew). Has the plan changed that much?

There are definitely folks here whose weight loss approach is fairly different from mine. However, I encourage everybody here to try and be supportive when possible. If you find somebody's weight loss approach so morally-deficient that you can't be supportive, I recommend just taking a deep breath and going to find a different thread. I'm not trying to be Polyanna and let's all just hold hands together and be friends and love one another. But, this thread isn't going to help much if all the different 'camps' (e.g. 'carbs are bad!' 'fat is bad' 'processed is bad' 'calories are calories, no matter what') decide that what they really need to do is 'educate' the other camps on how wrong they are.

Went to David Craig Bethesda Saturday night with 3 other people--all of us left pleased. It's a good restaurant and certainly beats the pants off of the mediocrity that is most Bethesda restaurants (to make a sweeping generalization!). We had 8:00 reservations, probably arrived roughly 5 minutes late, and were seated within another 5 minutes. Although there is a bar area, there are no bar stools, so waiting largely involves standing in their front area. The gentleman who came to tell us it would be just a few minutes was quite friendly. Three of us started with the soup of the day, which was a roasted tomato soup. I think I liked it least of anybody at the table, although it wasn't bad. It simply wasn't my thing. I thought it was too acidic, others liked the lemony brightness of it. I also probably would have preferred something more seasonal (e.g. squash-based) for a soup of the day, although I'm well aware that can be clicheed. I had the roasted beet carpaccio with arugala (sp?) salad, everybody else at the table had a bibb lettuce with fried green tomatoes salad. I didn't sample theirs, but the other three all seemed very pleased with this selection. I liked my salad, although I thought that at least one piece of the roasted beets tasted more like it had been boiled instead of roasted (*very* watery, not very flavorful). It may just not have been very flavorful, it may be have been my imagination, not sure. I and another diner had the wild mushroom and ricotta ravioli (appetizer size, so that I could have room for dessert!). These were fantastic. The pasta was light, the filling and broth were flavorful, the portion size was perfect, and the bread did a great job soaking up the broth! Another diner had the wild mushroom and meat (don't remember what kind) ragu with fettucine. It looked great and she seemed pleased. Another diner had the stuffed quail. Didn't try it, but that diner also was very pleased. I think dessert was the weakest link. I just didn't think much of the toasted pound cake with three sauces. There was hardly any of the chocolate or caramel sauces and while the pound cake was good, it wasn't great (I prefer it denser, this had too many holes that were too open). The report on the chocolate bead pudding was similar (good, not great). I love grapefruit and chocolate together, and sort of regretted not getting the dessert that incorporated them, but I don't like zabaglione, so didn't want to go with that. The waitress was friendly, gave good, honest advice (steered us away from a glass of wine because she thought it was very acidic and not good), appeared at the right times, and the pacing of the arrival of the food was perfect. The per person total (a glass of wine a piece for three people, everybody got dessert, three of us went with appetizer size portions of dinner because of the number of appetizers we were having!), including tax and tip, was, roughly, $67.50. I didn't like everything equally (nothing new there) and not everything was a sure fire winner, but the highs were very high and the lows were still pretty good, so I think the value was reasonable for the quality. If you're looking for a lunch spot in Bethesda, it's now open for lunch M-F.

Others have mentioned this, but exercise really is key (particularly if you, essentially, want to keep eating what you already eat). I lost roughly 40lbs on WW and have kept it off for roughly 4 years. I don't eat weird fake food (e.g. no fat sour cream--BLECH), I make most calories count (for the most part, I don't bother with foods I don't really like or love, certainly not in the world of high point sweets/desserts), I practice portion control, drink a decent amount of water (I could use some help on this one of late), and I exercise regularly (ok, this used to be a LOT better). Yes, energy spent has to be greater than energy consumed, and there will almost certainly need to be some denying yourself foods. But I wouldn't be able to keep it off if it were all self-abnegation, and exercise gives me some leeway on my points. I've emailed Don and I'm in (erm, extenuating circumstances have lead to a recent accumulation of pounds )--I'm psyched to be doing this with like-minded folks (not foodies, mind you )

Is that to boil the pasta in or to make the pasta with?

If there ever was a dish that requires a training seminar in somebody's house (for me at least!) it's gnocchi. I consider myself a reasonable cook and baker. Boy, the one time I tried these (I think I was using Marcella's recipe from the First Classic book) they were like lead balloons, not glorious clouds (I was aiming for Palena, and got something that was more like what you might expect if KFC did gnocchi.) Oy!

I cant' get my panties in much of a bundle about the star system. I'm not crazy for it, but I think it's ok. But if I were to admit to one pet peeve, this would be it. Why not put it on a 10 pt. system? Since he gives half points, it's effectively a 10 pt. system, why not explicitly make it one?

I went to the Bloom in wintergreen plaza. It's definitely nicer than the food lion was (greater selection (than I recall) of brands of different things), prices seem reasonable. (Let me admit, I wasn't a food lion regular--prices may very well have gone up post-change.) Weird layout issue: In looking for flour and sugar, all I can find are cake/cookie/brownie mixes. There are a few items one might use to bake from scratch, but not many. On the other side of the aisle? Fruit juices or canned vegetables or something unmemorable. I walk up and down aisle and scratch my head thinking that SURELY they don't NOT sell flour and sugar? I mean, really? Does everybody who shops here only bake from a mix? Three aisles over, I encounter the flour/sugar and other baking items missing from the first aisle. What's immediately across from them in the aisle? Oh, fruit juices or canned vegetables or something. Who in the **** wouldn't put the cake mixes, etc with the flour/sugar spices? Didn't look at produce, so can't comment on the quality of that.

I would love to attend a pasta making even if scheduling allowed. I've got an atlas I would happy to bring so more could play!