Archive | July, 2008

Like a Beautiful Flower…

16 Jul

…Pre-season NFL drama is beginning to unfold. Here are some stories from the week.

Brett Favre

No one doubts that he is one of the greatest QBs to ever lead a team. He stuck with a team for 17 years, which is certainly rare in football anymore. After last season, he decided to retire. In March he said you had second thoughts, and now he wants to come back. But he doesn’t want to just come back, he wants to be the starter. However, the team moved forward with a new gameplan following Brett’s retirement and Aaron Rodgers took the helm. Now here comes Favre, telling the Packers organization to throw Rodgers back on the bench. They refuse and he asks to be released from his contract or traded so that he can play as a starter elsewhere. Messes like this are no good for team morale, especially a team with such drastic offseason changes to begin with. I can understand Favre wanting to be released, and personally I think the Packer’s excuse of “we’re just trying to protect his legacy” is a load of bull. It’s obvious that it’s in their best interest to keep Favre if he’s reinstated because then they have a solid seasoned veteran behind Rodgers. It’s Favre’s decision what his legacy will be. While the Packers front office has said that they will definitely not release Favre from his contract, the possibility of a trade has been left open. Where to then? The Bears and Vikings could certainly use a solid QB, but what a slap in the face to the fans who supported him for so long.

 

Today, Favre said it would be tempting to show up at Green Bay’s training camp and “call their bluff” just to see what would happen. To me, that seems rather juvenile for a 38 year old man. I understand Favre’s side of it and I understand the Packers organization (with the exception of the “legacy” remark). Where it goes from here depends on who is willing to budge first.


Peyton Manning
All I can say is, “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” For the past three years, Manning has been my go-to guy in fantasy football drafts. You bet your bottom dollar that if he’s on the board, I’ll snag him the first chance I get. Why? Consistency. I could rely on Peyton to get me those few extra passing yard/passing touchdown points during weeks when my other players were lagging. But now, I face a conundrum. My iron man had surgery on Monday to remove an infected bursa sac in his left knee. The verdict? He’s out 4-6 weeks, sure to miss the rest of training camp and possibly the pre-season. The hovering question in my mind is “Will he be sharp and ready for the regular season?” Here’s the problem as I see it. Missing camp, scrimmages, and preseason games utterly executes the chances of developing new plays and rhythm with receivers and running backs. Manning, the king of the audible, calls most of his plays at the line, which makes that rhythm even more important. As they say, “practice makes perfect” and without enough practice to make it subconscious, Manning and the Colts could be in some serious trouble.

Now my own offseason becomes a little more dramatic in terms of draft-planning. Do I take the risk that Manning could come back full-strength and draft him early? Or do I get a different QB and perhaps Manning in a later round as a back-up (should he still be available) and then evaluate performance as it happens? It’s all up in the air at this point. We never draft until mid-preseason. I personally think a July draft is foolish because you never know who might tweak something during training camp. Having time to see how players are meshing and producing during training camp affords me time to evaluate my own thoughts and biases. I’d love to post who I’m already keeping an eye on, but that would give my opponents insight that I don’t think they need. I’ve got a new method in mind this year, and will report throughout the season on whether or not it is succeeding.

My last item of drama comes from the “Really? They’re spending money on that?” department. The NFL has hired experts to study game footage to determine if players are flashing gang signs at the crowd as part of their on-field celebrations. Problem number one: What is a gang sign in one city is simply a sign for “ok” in another. Problem number two: players throw up hand signs that have meaning to them in several ways (i.e. college fraternaties, sign for their kids to see on TV) How on earth do you differentiate who is throwing up a gang sign and who simply used a hand sign to say hi to their kid? If the signs have different meaning in different places, it pretty much becomes a guessing game. Really, NFL? I’d be more focused on the ridiculous number of players who have committed serious crimes during the offseason and studying why this behavior is becoming more prevalent. It tarnishes your organization when someone representing it goes out and buys a bunch of drugs and then decides to use them while driving a car. I’m certainly not saying that the NFL is responsible for that behavior, but I think it would be of benefit to them to enforce a stricter code of conduct.

Of course there’s the usual slew of players refusing to report to camp until contract disputes are resolved, but in my opinion that’s less drama and more greed.

With the Olympics and pre-season football coming up next month, I’m sure there will be a lot more stories to report on, and this of course means more pictures of Michael Phelps. But just in case you can’t wait that long, here’s one for good measure:

Fun Fact: It takes 8,000-10,000 calories a day to fuel this man. Amazing.

An Island Birthday

14 Jul

I hope that picture alone is enough to show you why I didn’t want to leave yesterday!

(Click on any of the pictures for a full size version)

On Friday, Joe and I (and Dioji too!) headed to beautiful Chincoteague Island, VA. I was treated with clear blue skies for my birthday and all weekend, which is quite a change from the weather we’re having here in D.C. It’s really nice during the day and then rains at night. I suppose that’s good though, my plants certainly need it. Anyway, the trip took about 4 hours with a stop to have lunch and walk the dog. We arrived and almost immediately set out to walk into town. After being in the car, I think we all just wanted to stretch our legs.

The island is just picturesque. As we walked, we passed lots of little houses, shops, churches, and even the fairgrounds. Town was more lively, but the laidback atmosphere remained intact. Along the main drag are lots of restaurants (mostly seafood–yum!), some mini golf courses, places to rent scooters/bikes, and bait shops. After a couple hours wandering around, we decided to have my birthday dinner at a little place called Etta’s Channel Side Restaurant. It looks out over the Assateague Channel, so we got to have dinner by the water. The food was quite tasty as well. I had broiled sea scallops and Joe had crab cakes. If you’re going to eat seafood, you might as well have it in a place where it’s bound to be fresh. It was so good! Then it was off to the beach to see the sunset…and be silly of course!

We ran around on the beach for awhile and then decided to head back to the house for some champagne and a late movie. It was amazing how quiet it was at night. The only real sounds were the occasional honking geese in the pond behind the house.

The next day it was off to play in town. First we drove over to the beach to see if we could get a permit to do a campfire. They were all taken unfortunately, but the ranger told us if it we had an enclosed fire (a grill, hibachi..etc.) we could use that anywhere on the beach. But the highlight of that particular trip was this:

Wild ponies! They were just grazing away in the sun, so we pulled over and stopped to take pictures. There were a couple of foals too, that looked all wobbly in the midst of the rest of the bunch. We also saw a couple of herons, but they were too far away to get any good pictures. Luckily, the visitors center had binoculars mounted on the rails so you could get a closer look. After hanging around to watch the animals for awhile, we headed back to town for some silly fun.

Here’s me showing off my amazing mini-golf skills:

We both played horribly and concluded that the course was rigged (lol). The hot sun had baked us thoroughly and we decided it was time for a dip in the pool. I got to try out my new bathing suit and had a moment of giddiness because it was the first time in my adult life that I could actually pull off a two-piece suit.

We cooled off and then decided to rent one of these!

It was a little three-wheeled vehicle called a ScooterCoupe and boy was it fun to drive! We toured around and saw the whole island in it. It gave us a chance to check out what we might want to scope out later in the trip. Mostly, it was just really fun to ride around in though.

We planned to have a cookout on the beach that night and did find a small charcoal grill to use, but unfortunately we got bad charcoal that all the lighter fluid in the world couldn’t get going. At first we thought it was the wind on the beach, so we tried to do it on the back deck of the house but to no avail. We did have flames long enough to toast some marshmallows, so it wasn’t a total bust. Instead, we ended up broiling some quesadillas for dinner and decided to have a picnic the next day. Dioji said he was tired anyway:

Sunday, it was off to a little trailer down near the beach for some barbecue. Joe’s parents told us this place was really good and they weren’t kidding! The line was a little long, but we didn’t mind because the smell of all the smoky meat was tantalizing.

We got pulled pork and baked beans and headed down to Main St. where we came across this:

How fortunate! Some tables in the shade right by the water. A perfect destination for our picnic lunch. We ate while we watched boats and enjoyed the breeze that lazed by. After some browsing on Main St. and another dip in the pool, it was time to go. While I really didn’t want to leave, it had been a wonderful birthday weekend. The trip was relaxing and exciting all at once. The best part was that Joe said we could go back to the house any time, so it’s nice to know that a little piece of paradise full of fresh sea air is only 3 1/2 hours away.

Thank you to everyone who sent me birthday wishes on OH and Facebook. It was an extra special end to my weekend when I came home and read them last night.

Coming up this week there will be some more new recipes, musings about fantasy football starting up soon, and I’ll cap it off with a trip to Pittsburgh for my grandma’s 80th birthday bash! Stay tuned. 🙂

Special Circumstances

10 Jul

Look what I came home to yesterday!

Joe bought me these lovely flowers yesterday and they look so beautiful. Really the pictures don’t do them justice at all. He has a wonderful way of surprising me with something great just when I need a little pick me up. It was so heartwarming to come into the house and see that after fighting the mobs of people being pushy on the Metro.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that people are using public transportation more since gas prices have skyrocketed. It’s just that the people who don’t regularly ride don’t really understand the etiquette. For instance, if you want to stand on the escalator, you’re supposed to stay to the right so that people can walk up the left side. There are signs and little announcements every so often indicating this. Yet people still stand there clueless and get annoyed when someone asks them to move. But what really bothers me is the sense of entitlement that’s becoming more prevalent. This morning, an extremely pregnant woman got on the packed train and not one person offered her a seat. One man looked up at her and she thought he was going to offer, but he just sighed and went back to reading his paper. I thought that was awful. I know that we’re all tired and want our moments of peace on the way to work, but really, not offering a very visibly pregnant woman a seat? She’s carrying a pretty important package and probably isn’t used to trying to balance it. I wanted to say something to the people around her, but it probably would have made her feel embarassed. At any rate, the train emptied a bit after a few stops and she got to sit down, at least for a little bit.

This little anecdote actually segues into what I actually wanted to post for all of you today. Special situations call for accomodation. I often worry about my vegan friends who have had weight loss surgery getting enough protein in their diets. That 50 gram minimum is hard to reach with animal products in my diet! So here’s a vegan-friendly protein bar that’s tasty and healthy for anyone. It’s one of my favorites so far because it tastes like a wonderful banana-nut muffin!

Bananut Flax Bars


Cast of characters:
1 1/4 cup mashed banana
Scant 1/4 cup of spiced apple preserves (I can my own, but if you buy, try to find an all-fruit preserve)
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup wheat flour
3/4 cup puffed brown rice
1/4 cup flaxseed meal
1 cup Kashi Seven Grain Puffs
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup vanilla protein powder
1/2 cup wheat bran
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla

Using these ingredients, follow the same procedure you would for my chocolate-peanut butter bars. The nutrition info is as follows: 153 calories, 4 grams of fat, 16 grams of carbs, and 14 grams of protein. I hope you enjoy them! I’m on a mission to create the perfect protein bar, so expect more bars (tested for deliciousness of course) in the future.

Tomorrow (my 23rd b-day!) Joe, Dioji and I are off to Chincoteague for a little weekend vacation. I’ll be sure to take a lot of pictures, and will hopefully come back refreshed and ready to write. Have a healthy and happy weekend everyone!

Patterns and Transformations

8 Jul

Origami tessellations are created by taking one piece of paper and using only two types of folds to create a repeating pattern. Often, the shapes need to be twisted into place in order to flatten them out. The method regularly used is to draw the pattern on a sheet of paper, crease all of the lines and then fold the paper into the finished design. Here’s one of my first attempts:

See how some of the edges don’t quite come together? There are some places where I didn’t crease quite right or attempted the fold too many times and weakened the paper. Lots of mistakes, but not bad for a first try. What I learned from it was to be more precise in my creases and more conscientious of the pattern I was trying to create. After a little practice, I tried another pattern:

Of course, it’s still not perfect, but much better! I was more conscious of the shapes I was forming and took the time to use a folding bone (a hard, flat utensil that creases paper better than a soft fingertip) on each of the creases. The point of all of this? Had I done the same thing with only the conscientiousness of my first attempt, it wouldn’t have come together as well. I’ve heard it said that to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result is insanity. If we keep making the same mistakes and expecting a different result, we are destined to fail. This lesson can be applied to lots of life situations.

In high school, my friends and I often went out to eat after school on Fridays. We’d head over to any of the great places in the neighborhood where you could get a slice of gooey cheese pizza, a sandwich bigger than your mouth, or a juicy, greasy burger. I’d laugh, chat and rarely think about the kind of food I put into my body. I just knew it tasted good and I was having fun. As a result, I gained weight all throughout my high school years. There were times I’d try to eat better, but I’d inevitably end up back where I started, making the same mistakes.

After my surgery, I knew I’d have to be more conscientious about changing the pattern for good. The problem was that I still craved those fast foods, and while much of that has dissipated in four years, there are still times that a burger and fries sounds like the greatest thing ever.

So I have one.

Pictured is my dinner from last night. A bison sirloin burger cooked medium-rare and weighing a little less than 4 oz. (a total of 118 calories!) It’s topped with a slice of juicy summer tomato and about an ounce of shredded mozzarella. The “fries” are sliced parsnips tossed in olive oil, lemon thyme, green onion, salt, and pepper which I then spread on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about a half hour (and yes, they really do taste like french fries).

Now before anyone gets on my case about the medium-rare ground meat, let me note that I bought the bison sirloin steak whole and ground it at home. In my mind, it’s no different than cooking that whole steak medium rare. Had I used store bought ground meat, I’d probably go to medium-well.

In the end, it’s all about making the decision to pay attention to the patterns and being willing to change them if they don’t work out. It’s well worth it.

Have a happy Tuesday all!

The Wimbledon Champ and the Olympian

7 Jul

In honor of Rafael Nadal, who defeated Roger Federer after the longest Wimbledon men’s final in history yesterday (nearly 5 hours!), and Michael Phelps, who has competed in seven events and broken two world records at the U.S. Olympic Swimming trials (so far), I present a protein bar fit for a champion!

Cast of characters:
1 cup soy protein powder (I used vanilla flavored)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup puffed brown rice
1/2 cup oat bran
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup milk chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups plain fat free yogurt
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 tsp. salt

Hardware:
2 mixing bowls
1 greased 9×13 pan
1 greased cookie sheet

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. If you’re using a glass 9×13 pan, make it 325.

First, mix all of your dry ingredients together. If you use your hands, it’s easier to get the brown sugar broken up.

When you finish, it will look something like this:

Next, whisk together the yogurt, peanut butter and vanilla until smooth.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine. You’ll need to use your hands near the end as it has the texture of very stiff cookie dough.

Press the dough evenly into the greased 9×13 pan and cook for 15 minutes.

Remove the pan and cut into 16 bars. A pizza cutter is useful here.

Arrange the cut bars on a cookie sheet.

Return the bars to the oven for another 15 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. If you like crispier bars (I do), simply turn the oven off after 15 minutes and leave them in the warm oven for up to 45 minutes.

The facts (per bar): 205 calories, 6 grams of fat, 26 grams of carbohydrates, and 16 grams of protein.

One of the great things about this recipe is it’s versatility. If you want it to be dairy free, replace the yogurt with silken tofu, mashed banana, or applesauce. Trade out the chocolate chips for dried fruit and/or nuts if you want to go even healthier.

The Italian Job

7 Jul

I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who doesn’t like Italian food. There’s nothing that makes a house smell better than a fresh pot of sauce simmering away on the stove all day. But what do you do when bread and pasta make you feel awful suddenly? Let me take a moment to explain why this happens.

Because a good portion of the small intestine is bypassed during the RNY procedure, a meal rich in simple carbohydrates can be a ticking time bomb. Those carbohydrates get digested too quickly and move directly into the bloodstream causing a spike in blood sugar. This is known as “dumping syndrome” because the sugars are literally dumping into the bloodstream. Symptoms include intense nausea, faintness, weakness, sweating and cramping. This is the main reason why RNY patients avoid bread and sweets like the plague. It’s just not worth it. Trust me.

So, as I contemplated Italian food, it seemed to me that I’d have to somehow remove those simple carbohydrates and replace them with something that would be flavorful, filling, and most importantly, rich in some kind of lean protein.

I tackled filled pasta first. There are a lot of different vegetables that work well as a replacement for pasta. For instance, replacing the noodles in manicotti with grilled or sautéed zucchini works well. But early on, I found that the one I liked the most was also the very simplest. I call it the ricotta bowl!


Just cut a small tomato in half, scoop out most of the insides and season it with salt and pepper. Next, fill it with about a 1/4 cup of ricotta (also seasoned) and sprinkle young asiago cheese and fresh parsley on top. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil. You can throw it under a broiler if you wish, but I find it a perfectly refreshing summer snack when served cold. When made with part-skim ricotta, it’s all of about 95 calories when finished.

As for non filled pasta dishes, it was my father who gave me the idea of replacing elbows or penne with cauliflower. Cauliflower is one of those wonderful foods that takes on the flavors of whatever it’s cooked with. Thus, a slow braise in a mix of canned tomatoes, homemade marinara sauce, herbs, sautéed onions, mushrooms imparted so many of the flavors of the dish it was based on that I didn’t even miss the noodles. I usually serve mine over a spoonful of seasoned light ricotta for extra protein, and finish the top with grated parmesan and fresh parsley.


And then there was pizza. Or pizza crust at least. It wasn’t the toppings that were the problem, it was their method of delivery. Whole wheat pizza dough was delicious and rich in complex carbohydrates, but it was so heavy that it often felt uncomfortable to eat it. However, a whole wheat tortilla was just enough to deliver a thin, crispy crust while withstanding the weight of any toppings.

After preheating an oven to 425 degrees, I brush both sides of the tortilla with extra virgin olive oil and then add sauce, herbs, cheese, and whatever might be on hand in the fridge. It’s a great way to get rid of left over cut vegetables and meats. After 10 minutes in the oven, this is what you have:


Nope, I’m definitely not missing out on anything.

Mangia bene!
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