Please sign this petition regarding gardening at the White House

Subject: Tell Pesticide Peddlers: We support Michelle Obama's organic garden.

Dear Friend,

The Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) has a bone to pick with Michelle Obama. MACA represents chemical companies that produce pesticides, and they are angry that - wait for it - Michelle Obama isn't using chemicals in her organic garden at the White House.

I am not making this up.

In an email they forwarded to their supporters, a MACA spokesman wrote, "While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made [us] shudder." MACA went on to publish a letter it had sent to the First Lady asking her to consider using chemicals -- or what they call "crop protection products" -- in her garden.

Michelle Obama and has done America a great service by publicizing the importance of nutritious food for kids (she's growing the garden in partnership with a local elementary school class) as well as locally grown produce as an important, environmentally sustainable food source.

I just signed a petition telling MACA's board members to stop using Michelle Obama's garden to spread propaganda about produce needing to be sprayed with chemicals. I hope you will, too.

Please have a look and take action.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/wh_garden/?r_by=-1982793-oaoVC5x&rc=paste

Thanks!

Cooking

Hi all!

I've been doing a bit of cooking lately. Here and there, a bit now and then. Nothing too fancy. I love making soup - adding lots of different things together to make such a great comfort food. My husband made the comment the other day that he should send my info to Gordon Ramsay's campaign to bring women back into the kitchen (no, not that way, stop your outrage in its tracks). I was a little teed off, then I started looking through my recipe files.

And realized part of the reason I didn't want to cook is that the recipes I have are exactly what I don't want to eat - too many carbs, too high fat, and too complicated.

So I've been searching the blogosphere looking at different people's blogs and recipes. One particular one popped out at me (while I was ...ahem...searching for a martini...picture) as looking really intriguing.

Dr Mary Dan Eades

I don't often spend time going back and reading past posts (save for the Bittersweet blog, but that's partly because I enjoy the recipes and partly because she's a damn good writer). This one I went back and read them. And found another writer that is refreshingly good with the English language, cooks a lot of interesting stuff, and BTW, happens to be the author of a best selling book. I like when people are like that - they may be celebrities, but they are refreshingly down to earth and seem like they understand the struggles of us little people out there (err...should I say not so little?).

I have been extremely busy lately, so no cooking as of my newfound discovery. The husband's been experimenting with low carb, though - Sunday's meal was a "pizza" frittata that I absolutely adored and sincerely hope he makes again.

Aside from the stress of putting a proposal together and suddenly finding your CFO forgot to do the cost estimate, I've been putting together a design for my class on the 25th. I need to get that photo over there...

I've also been going to the gym three nights a week since early December (yes, I beat all the stupid New Years resolution people in and I'm still going where they are not). I had been winning the stupid incentives - free water bottles, a tshirt, etc. Two weeks ago, however, I won a personal training session. I had two goals: 1. to lose weight and 2. to gain abdominal strength (of which I've had none since the cancer treatment).

What an eye opener when I went last week! She had me do things I swear I haven't done since high school. Push ups, weights, etc. and a few things with a new twist - lunges and crunches on a ball as well as my work on the extension machine to help my legs. And I'm embarrassed to say I got on the elliptical machine for the first time and am wondering why the heck treadmills exist now. Seriously? I can do 2.7 mph on the treadmill and be able to do 20 minutes. 8 minutes of elliptical and I've burned the same calorie count at 1 mph. And its a LOT more of a workout. I have to say I've been enjoying my workout sessions more with this new plan. I was a bit bored before and now the workouts are back to being interesting.

With the new(ish) diet and the extra exercise, I'm at least hoping to see either the weight or the inches go down (I've been having issues with water retention) soon. My membership at the gym is through February, I'm hoping to have enough money to renew it.

We shall see!

Giants Win!!!!

(Photo by Pinkus at the Giants Website)

DH and I got invited to a Super Bowl party yesterday - nothing fancy, just us and two other couples with a bit of food and liquor and the game.

It was hilarious! I've never had such a good time at a football party. I had brought the dog collar with me and the pattern just didn't work. I'm going to try something new.

Quote of the Party:

TV Commentator: "The Giants are going to bursting onto the field any minute..."

Friend: "They're bursting! They're bursting!"

And all I have to say about that is....

"Ding ding ding dong"

Are you a vegan?

So off my blog, on most of the crafty lists I've gotten lots of questions about my list of favorite links.

Several of them are for vegan cooking blogs and so the inevitable round of "are you a vegan?" questions began.

The answer? No, I'm not a vegan. I've been against it since I attended Ithaca College back in 1999. The people there are crazy obsessed.

Now, does that mean I hate animals? No.

Does that mean I devour meat only like a carnivore? No, not really. I'm a big fan of turkey and chicken, but I don't eat pork, lamb, veal, most pieces of the cow, etc.

Does that mean I'm a closeted vegetarian? Nah, not really. Its more of a budget thing - my husband and I are just starting out in the world - we can't afford it and we've grown accustomed to it.

Do I eat a lot of vegetables? Yes, yes I do! I love almost all of them except okra. And tomatoes. But tomatos cross over the list into the "I hate almost all fruit" category.

Do I eat fish? Absolutely! Its my favorite food that's not a dessert item :-D

Am I adamant about not eating so much meat? No - I eat it when I like. Like last night, DH and I had steaks for a once in a while treat. And the occasional Arbys enters my diet. I feel its better for the environment that way - if we all ate a little less meat, there would be more resources for the animals that should be living in peace here -- and instead who are living in hotel parking lots and darting across freeways.

Hopefully that makes sense to most of you. I don't feel I need to fit into a particular category dietetically. Plus, those vegans are crafty people - check out Hannah's Bittersweet blog - she's not only a vegan but also has tons of Little Visitors she's made. And she's a great writer :-) = something I aspire to be someday.

Foodsavers...worth it?

So I was looking at these online after purchasing one for my mother a couple years ago. I'm thinking it might be worth it for DH and I to get one. We still haven't quite got the knack of cooking for two, and I hate for things to go into the landfill purely because we can't cook little enough.

So I keep pondering. I've heard from my freezer OAMC group that the canisters are lifesavers and save quite a bit of money (and hence, make the purchase price easier to swallow). We don't have a large freezer, but I'm thinking a bunch of little canisters would be pretty nice and organized in the fridge. And then we wouldn't lose our Costco purchases of staples like frozen edamame, mixed vegetables, meats, etc.



Here's the canisters - they're like, $22. Not bad, I bet I could find them on eBay or Amazon for less.

DH comes home tonight so I think I'll ask him about it. I'm really digging this idea of doing a lot of cooking in advance, and then using the fruits of your labor as you go throughout the week.