Share |

Articles in "Island Epicure"

  • warning: Declaration of views_handler_argument::init(&$view, &$options) should be compatible with views_handler::init(&$view, $options) in /var/www/ticket/html/sites/all/modules/views/handlers/views_handler_argument.inc on line 0.
  • warning: Declaration of views_handler_filter::options_validate(&$form, &$form_state) should be compatible with views_handler::options_validate($form, &$form_state) in /var/www/ticket/html/sites/all/modules/views/handlers/views_handler_filter.inc on line 0.
  • warning: Declaration of views_handler_filter::options_submit(&$form, &$form_state) should be compatible with views_handler::options_submit($form, &$form_state) in /var/www/ticket/html/sites/all/modules/views/handlers/views_handler_filter.inc on line 0.
  • warning: Declaration of views_handler_filter_boolean_operator::value_validate(&$form, &$form_state) should be compatible with views_handler_filter::value_validate($form, &$form_state) in /var/www/ticket/html/sites/all/modules/views/handlers/views_handler_filter_boolean_operator.inc on line 0.
  • warning: Declaration of views_handler_filter_term_node_tid::value_validate(&$form, &$form_state) should be compatible with views_handler_filter::value_validate($form, &$form_state) in /var/www/ticket/html/sites/all/modules/views/modules/taxonomy/views_handler_filter_term_node_tid.inc on line 0.
  • warning: Declaration of views_plugin_style_default::options(&$options) should be compatible with views_object::options() in /var/www/ticket/html/sites/all/modules/views/plugins/views_plugin_style_default.inc on line 0.
  • warning: Declaration of views_plugin_row::options_validate($form, &$form_state) should be compatible with views_plugin::options_validate(&$form, &$form_state) in /var/www/ticket/html/sites/all/modules/views/plugins/views_plugin_row.inc on line 0.
  • warning: Declaration of views_plugin_row::options_submit($form, &$form_state) should be compatible with views_plugin::options_submit(&$form, &$form_state) in /var/www/ticket/html/sites/all/modules/views/plugins/views_plugin_row.inc on line 0.

In our household, we enjoy an occasional beef tenderloin or a helping of wild king or coho salmon, but we’ve come to feel that if we don’t have beans of one kind or another sometime during each day, we have not eaten well.

Brown rice and beans complement each other’s proteins to provide all the necessary nutrition of a whole protein. Beans help your cells to replicate themselves when their necessary aptosis (read ‘death’)

It’s that time of year again. I’m hearing about cases of the flu and the season for it goes on right through the winter. You don’t have to succumb, though. Maybe you had your flu shot and feel secure. But the virus can mutate. Also, the virus that comes around may not be the one the health authorities were expecting and made the shots for preventing.  

Besides, some of us are allergic to the eggs, rabbit blood, or horse blood in which the anti-flu serum is cultured. The shot could make us sicker than the flu itself. Even if that doesn’t apply to you, both Dr. Jonathan V. Wright of Renton and Nan Fuchs, Ph.D., in their health newsletters, inform us that flu shots are not that effective in people over 65.

A reader asked for more Epicure columns that tell what foods help defeat different diseases. Okay, here’s a start.

We had a round of summer colds in September. Now—brace yourself—we’re heading into the winter cold and flu season. It lasts from October through March. But you don’t have to succumb. There are several nutritional tricks you can employ to nip a cold in the bud, snatch it from your body at first sniffle; better yet, instantly cure the sore throat that often heralds an approaching cold or influenza.

Shop weekly, not every day or two. Saves time, gas, and bother. Shop with your list in hand. Don’t let the store seduce you with its appealing displays into spending more than you intended.

The day before your weekly grocery shopping, take inventory of fridge, freezer, and pantry. Plan menus for the week ahead. With your cookbook at hand, make your shopping list of items needed to fill in the gaps in the recipes needed for your menus.

Lotus is a woman who really cooks from scratch. To make her favorite totally-gluten-free chocolate cake she begins in her garden. Making it starts about a year before she puts the in the oven. First, she has to prepare her garden soil. In September, she plants the seeds for her garbanzo beans. They winter over, she says, and come up in the spring.

A couple of Sundays ago, all my descendants except for the son who lives in China and one grandson who had to work, gathered to celebrate my birthday with shish-kabobs, watermelon, and birthday cake. A son-in-law whose birthday falls on the same day as mine helped blow out the candles, and be assured there were lots of them.

We seen the price of food escalate, especially, it seems, in the produce department. Our best defense: Cook Chinese. The folks in China are said to save 35% of their income. Plainly, they know how to make the most of everything. How do they do it? For one thing, few families own even one car.

Italian kids are tested at age six for sensitivity to gluten, and 12% of them are reported to test as positive. I wonder if the percentage is any different in the USA, and right here on Vashon Island. Wheat is the worst offender. Most of my descendants, like me, are much healthier avoiding wheat and avoiding or minimizing consumption of other foods with gluten in them.

 As food prices rise, we scale down on what we eat. Fresh salmon at $18 and up per pound--$4.40 per 4 oz. serving? No way. A can of canned wild red salmon at around $5 gives you the same Omega 3 fats and natural Vitamin D.

The joy of cooking this spring has been enhanced by my Chinese daughter-in-law’s eagerness to learn to cook American foods and her willingness to share her Yunnanese style recipes. A field trip to a Chinese market makes her day.

Fourteen people gathered for a meal at our extended table on the eve of the recent memorial service for my late husband. How could I cope with the throng, half of them vegetarians, with a minimum of hassle and a maximum of mouth-watering elegancy, bearing in mind that without his USAF-retired pay, household income will be slashed?

Meeting an entrepreneur friend recently, I asked her, “How’s business?”
“Slow,” she said, “but we’re still eating beans.”
Bless the bean, so thrifty yet adaptable to a thousand different, delicious recipes. I could write a whole book of bean recipes, and did decades ago. Unfortunately “Beans, Rices, and Pastas” is out of print now. Shucks, I could write a book just on bean soups. Leaving room for other news and columns in The Loop, I’ll content myself with including just a few in this issue.
 

Newsweek described Vashon Island author Shauna James Ahern’s first book, “Gluten Free Girl” published by John Wiley & Sons in the US and Canada, as “A delightful memoir of learning to eat superbly while remaining gluten-free.” Her book has inspired me to broaden my cooking repertoire to include more kinds of gluten free grains than I even knew about before, and to experience some delicious flavors new to me.

We’re especially blessed here in Puget Sound country with fresh wild salmon almost the year around. Right now coho and kings show up in the seafood markets. Kings are reddest, most flavorful of fish, and the coho and sockeye vie for second place. They sell for a bit less, too. I bought a 2-pound side of coho at an affordable $6 a pound. It gave us six servings with a bit leftover for a salmon salad for two the next day.