Food products beyond my understanding

I can admit, I like Hallmark Channel and Lifetime far more than a 36-year-old woman should. In fact, I've liked them for years. Go right ahead and take your potshots. I've never been cool, so I don't pretend.

But the commercials....I can hardly stand the commercials. They aren't as bad as the creepy ED-herbal-supplement commercials on G4. These are mostly food commercials. Or mops. Or drugs for insomnia and depression. Sigh. I love being pegged into a demographic.

At any rate, here were two commercials I saw right in a row tonight. I don't get either product:

• Birds' Eye Steamfresh Singles: These are frozen vegetables, packed 4 single-serving bags inside each container. The value here is supposed to be: "A single serving that steams itself in under two minutes." Umm. Let's say your average bag of frozen vegetables has six or eight servings. So, to get a single serving, you have to open the bag, scoop out a half cup or so [small bowl, if you're not into measuring things], and microwave it....for about a minute. As far as I can tell, the real value of the Birds' Eye Singles is that you don't have to re-seal the bag before putting it back in the freezer, since each serving is individually packaged....ie., more plastic.

• Philadelphia Ready-to-Eat Cheesecake Filling: Basically, this purports to be cheesecake in a tub. You scoop it out into a crust and eat it. DO WHAT??

I will say, I'm not opposed to ready-to-eat. But I don't get how Birds' Eye has managed to make a product out of some extra plastic bags. And if you want ready-to-eat dessert, why don't you just buy Sara Lee? Frankly, they're not half bad for what they are. All you have to do is thaw.

Twitterotten

I've been a fan of Twitter for about a year now. I'm not going to spend a lot of time explaining what the point of it is, but if you haven't been on Twitter, the short story is this: You make a  post, 140 characters or less. People can follow you, and they'll get to read your posts. You can follow other people, and read their posts. It's kind of like the Facebook minifeed, but without all the clutter. And people who get into Twitter will update several times a day, with funny comments or notes about what they're up to.

And Twitter manages to be down, just a guess, about 5-10 percent of the time that I try to go there. Like this morning:  I sure as heck hope they are working on their downtime issues in advance of the Super Bowl. Because really, people. I needed to post something inane about the lack of snow and ice in Davidson County this morning. By the time I could, the moment was gone.

Just checked....it's down again. Please, Twitter. I know this is just a side-project type thing. But don't treat me so mean.

links for 2008-01-31

• The Minimalist’s Guide to Simple Housework | Zen Habits
  Wow, this is a great list. I must print and internalize. :)
  (tags: housework organization)
• Open Source Blogging: Feel Free to Steal My Content | Zen Habits
  Wow, this is awesome. I have grown to hate copyright laws -- as a consumer, writer and a person who spends a decent part of each day dealing with their ramifications. I love this post.
  (tags: copyright opensource)
• Dip Once or Dip Twice? | New York Times
  Man, I love having validation on this point. Double-dipping has always been against the rules in the Creekmore family, unless you're dining alone. And even then, it's not a good habit, is it?
  (tags: food health double-dipping)

links for 2008-01-30

• The Claim: Never Drink Hot Water From the Tap
  It's true. Hot water can leach lead from your pipes. You shouldn't cook with or drink hot water from your tap.
  (tags: lead water)

Questions from the audience

Hey! Guess what! It turns out there are actually several of you out there reading my blog. [Hi, Mom!] I'm always kind of stunned to discover that. I had a good question recently from one of you: I see your list of cookbooks, but which ones are your favorites? Why?

Now, if you've ever peeked at that cookbook list, you'll see why she asked. I think I'm being generous to myself when I say I have "dozens" of cookbooks. They fill an entire bookcase in my house. Since I gave up my rock collection in junior high, I've never been one to collect anything, but I think my cookbooks are teetering dangerously close to collection status.

And yet the reader is right....you can't use dozens of cookbooks every day. Which ones are the regulars?

First, a word about how I cook. I've mentioned before, I know. I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants girl when I'm in the kitchen. So my most-dogeared copies are ones that offer a broad range of recipes or info about cooking that helps me in my most favorite cooking activity: Look up 5 or 6 sample recipes, mix and match, and come up with something of my own.

How to Cook Everything: Mark Bittman's instant classic from 1998 is great. He covers every imaginable topic on basic cooking. He goes a bit into the how and why, but not so much that it would turn off a novice cook, or someone who's just looking for a nice dish for supper. Many recipes in the book offer ideas for variations. If I could only own one cookbook, it would be this one.

The New Moosewood Cookbook: I bought this long before I became a vegetarian -- the first time. [I'm now on my second turn with the herbivore life. More on that soon.] It's a great, solid cookbook for healthy, tasty food.

The Best Recipe: Cook's Illustrated books and magazines are the best teaching tools I've found for cooking. This cookbook doesn't have as many recipes as a regular book its size, because each recipe comes with a page or more of info on how they created the recipe, including trials, and errors.

Soup and Bread: This is one of several Crescent Dragonwagon cookbooks I own. I don't know if she intended for it to be a teaching book, but Dragonwagon talks a lot about how and where she gets her recipes. I've learned a lot from her.

Now honestly, the cookbook I use the most is a green 3-ring binder. I use clear plastic sleeves for pages. The notebook is stuffed to overflowing with notecards, printed emails and clippings from newspapers and magazines. I used to add recipes I wanted to try, but it's gotten so full that I'll now only allow myself to add recipes I've tried and liked.

links for 2008-01-29

• Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler
  Wow, great article on the impact of our national meat addiction. Here's the main point: If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gr
  (tags: environment food meat agriculture)

links for 2008-01-27

• Dave Barry: Miss Kumquat gets our vote
  This purports to be an actual Dave Barry column, but in fact, it's just a description of the U.S. presidential race to date. Frightening.
  (tags: U.S. primary election president Dave Barry)

links for 2008-01-24

• The Claim: Too Much Cola Can Cause Kidney Problems
  Sigh. I know, there are a million reasons to quit drinking Diet Coke. Here's one more.
  (tags: cola kidney problems)

links for 2008-01-23

• Nashville Scene - Pith in the Wind - Crazy Like a Fox? School Board Member Urges Mayoral Control of Nashville Schools
  I'm undecided on this, with a caveat: It sure can't be any worse than what we have now.
  (tags: appointed elected school board Metro Nashville)
• Why are the media ignoring Huckabee's comments about the Confederate flag? - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine
  I don't always agree with Christopher Hitchens, Mr. Inflammatory. But he is dead-on correct about these comments from Mike Huckabee about the Confederate battle flag.
  (tags: racism Confederate flag Mike Huckabee)

You read that right

This morning I woke up to a strange sound that appeared to be coming from outside the 8yo's bedroom. Yes, the strange sound was my HVAC, the only major appliance/system I have not had to replace since moving into this house 2 1/2 years ago.

I am fully expecting to go home to a freezing house tonight. I guess I should finally invest in one of those T-bar things to cut off your water since frozen pipes won't be far behind....

Ha, I'm turning into an outright pessimist!

Cross your fingers for my HVAC. It was really supposed to make it til 2009. In my dream world.

UPDATE, 6:06 p.m.: I'm home and everything is in working order. I'm going to chalk the death-rattle from this morning up to a fluke. Haha.