Fat Girl Gone Thin

In 2007 a 500-year flood struck the community I was raised in. It was like the Ninth Ward after Katrina. At its highest point, the river had risen more than 75 feet.

Flood waters filled houses four feet deep in muddy river water. The interstate was closed for over a week and families moved from house to house in motor boats collecting friends and neighbors.

Saying you should plan for a 500-year flood is like saying you should plan for an earthquake at every fault line or that you should expect the mountain 100 miles away to erupt. You know it could happen, but no one could expect it.

In truth this flood had nothing to do with Mother Nature but everything to do with the over forestation that lead mudslides and abandoned logs to strike the neighboring dam so hard it destroyed it. It wasn’t a gentle river rise that destroyed the Chehalis valley. It was a five-foot wall of water that swept through like a sea-side wave.

At the time the Black Sheep Creamery had a 100 ewe. By nightfall of December 4 they had less than 25. Most farmers lost everything.

On Monday I took a tour of the creamery where the owners shared their experiences of rebuilding their farm and business.

We started our tour in the barn, built just after the turn of the last century. It had served as the safe-haven for the few sheep that survived the flood by climbing to the small upper loft. Today it is the sleeping quarters for the farm’s 80-plus sheep and two Australian Shepard dogs that guard the flock like mother hens from the area coyotes.

Out back we watched as the adult sheep marched off for their afternoon milking and the newborn lambs took cover from the rain – except for one, who had broken his leg and had to be carried from pen to pen.

As our last stop we crowded into the “cave” -  a refrigerated building where the creamery’s hard cheese waits its turn to be cut and sold at the local farmers market.

In 2009 Black Sheep won third place at the American Cheese Society annual competition for their feta – and sadly, it’s resulting popularity meant none was left by the time we arrived.

As a fallback we filled our arms to the brim with fresh, soft cheeses of every flavor – from dried tomato basil to garlic rosemary. Back in the car, I succumb to temptation and scooped a fingerful of the dried tomato basil variety directly into our mouths. Next time I’ll know to come with crackers at the ready. Absolutely delicious.

Yes, I know it’s been a while. My bad. But it’s been a bad week and sometimes all you want to do is eat microwave popcorn under a blanket on the couch instead of cook and write. Can I get an amen?

Anyways, enough time dwelling on how the universe has conspired against me and more about some deliciously good eats…

Last week the good weather got the better of me again and I decided it was time to dust off the smoker. What is it about the smell of fresh cut grass and spring flowers that makes my mind wander to thoughts of seared meat infused with some delightful smoky carcinogens?

Dreams of juicy chicken danced in my head all afternoon, but when I got to the store they were… out of chicken.

Yes – I said out of chicken. How this happens at a large grocery store chain in modern-day America is beyond my comprehension, but alas, it did.

I liken this situation to the gym being out of water or an espresso stand running out of fresh coffee. True, it could feasibly happen, but you still have to stop and wonder “what the hell?” when it actually does.

Thus forced by the cosmos into devising something more creative for my afternoon meal than chicken legs, I decided to grab a handful of brown meat – also known as mushrooms. This, plus a loaf of fresh crusty bread, some soft cheese, and I could make it a meal with an old favorite – smoked mushroom pate.

This of course was before the skies parted like Moses and the red sea with what I personally believe to have been millions of gallons of rain drops and a righteous wind to accompany it. Ten minutes into the ordeal, I turned off the smoker, grabbed my mushrooms and ran indoors.

Out with the Cuisinart, in with the mushroom and cheese. Fry pan with with olive oil. Toasting of the bread shortly after that, and poof! It was yumminess.

The next morning at work, my boss stopped by my desk and asked how my evening was, what did I do … all the usual niceties. So, as any foodie worth they stuff would do, I began to explain how I had stopped for chicken but there was none, that the rain had been so frustrating, and that I had spent nearly an hour smoking mushrooms and that my evening was quite lovely after that.

Again, my bad.

The silence that ensued for several awkward  moments after that was first confusing then mildly humiliating with just a pinch of humor. I will allow your mind to imagine the look of confusion on my supervisor’s face as I spent the next few minutes  explaining that I had in fact smoked mushrooms, like the kind from the store, in a meat smoker… not the kind that would likely have me packing my things into a small box and heading to HR.

To be extra certain, I felt compelled to bring some of the mushroom pate and bread to the office for a “tasting” the next day.

And this kids, is why you should never play with food. Because if you eat boring stuff, like potatoes and macaroni from a box, things like this don’t happen.

My bad.

Recipe for the pate is, as always, over in the corner – or at least it will be soon as I finish typing it up. Enjoy!

I am officially two days into my new job as a government employee and I have to say as a former private-sector girl, this new world of public-sector living is a bit perplexing.

Is that good? Is that bad? I don’t really know yet, but I get the feeling that the public sector is like that kid with hand-me-down clothes and a bad haircut that always sat in the back of the classroom. You’re not sure whether to feel bad for them or shun them entirely.

Take for instance my first staff meeting.

In the private sector, everyone would arrive no later than 15 minutes before the designated start time and would be greeted with a lavish spread of assorted catered goodies, fresh coffee, etc., etc. In the public sector, if you arrive 15 minutes early, the lights are still out and the janitor helps you find the conference room. Food comes in the way of a lovely box of oranges that your boss bought on the way into work and coffee can be found in the percolator in the break-room. At five after, everyone starts to arrive.

In the private sector, you spend the morning in training and the afternoon learning the ropes from your colleagues. In the public sector, you go to the supply room where they hand you one pen and tell you to share your stapler with your cube-mate. Damn budget cuts.

This is why at 6:00 last night I found myself perusing the isles of Fred Meyer, filling my cart with highlighters, pens and whiteout. This is also about the time I began to have an appreciation for teachers that have to buy supplies for their own classrooms.

More importantly, this is why I found myself at the Fred Meyer Starbucks drinking my third caffeinated beverage of the day.

This is a special time of year when we start to approach the last few days of egg nog availability. And yes, I am aware that there are two distinct camps when it comes to eggnog: those who love it and those who, as my sister so eloquently put it, “fight to keep the bile down.”

As for me, I fall squarely in the LOVE LOVE LOVE eggnog category and find myself desperate to enjoy every last moment of deliciousness. By the first of the year, it’s usually gone from the grocery store and is making its way out of most coffee shops.

I’m sorry, but nothing signals the holidays like a sweet latte with a hint of nutmeg. Yum. But I will be the first to admit that in order to indulge in this drink all December long, you have to pre-plan with a crash diet that will render you 5 pounds thinner at the start. Otherwise, the extra calories this bad boy packs on will leave you grabbing for your stretchy pants by New Years.

Luckily for me, one of my co-workers is an ex-Starbucksian and taught me the secret code to ordering a low-cal version of the eggnog latte. It’s called an Eggnog Coffee Misto and it is one of the few things in the world that is both richly delicious and not that bad for you. It is also an off-the-menu item which makes you seen extra cool when you order it.

Unlike it’s 400 calorie latte counterpart, the misto is a a delightful mix of two-thirds drip coffee, one-third steamed eggnog. In short, its the perfect drink because you retain all the great flavor of the full-fat drink but without the thick and super creamy consistency that turns a lot of people off.

It depends on who makes it (some baristas go so heavy on the coffee that you can’t even taste the milk), but when done correctly the eggnog misto only pushes about 120 calories and five grams of fat. In case you’re counting, that’s the same as a regular grande 2% latte. I know – it seems almost too good to be true.

Alas, I know I have shared my vast wisdom on this matter all too late in the season, as there are only a handful of days of eggnog remaining … but better late than never.

As I’ve said before, the holidays are a difficult time to try maintain any sort of waistline. It’s not just all the great food, or the re-allocation of gym time to mall shopping – It’s the season as a whole.

Before the turkey is in the fridge, the Christmas spirit (or Hanukkah, for my Jewish friends) falls upon us and no sooner have we dished that second slice of pie than we are planning seasonal get-togethers. Friends, relatives, co-workers and neighbors will soon be conspiring to meet for drinks, dinner and general debauchery. Which is great. How fantastic it is to have an excuse to see those you haven’t connected with in months! What’s not so great is the two-week time frame it falls in.

Inevitably you find yourself double-booking cocktail hour parties with dinner plans, luncheons and potlucks. All these are  smooshed together in the 20 or so days between the pilgrims and St. Nick.

Today happens to be just such a day for me. At noon it was lunch and a catch-up session with old co-workers and at 7:00 it’s drinks and dinner at Purple Cafe for my best bud’s birthday.

Lunch was at a fantastic little Mexican restaurant buried in the heart of Seattle – fantastic food and great ambiance. I haven’t been in nearly a year, but I remembered the place as one of the best in the city. Clean, simple dishes, fresh ingredients – none of that greasy bean/cheese slop you usually imagine when Mexican comes to mind.

So I felt confident in ordering the fajita salad. I’d never had it, but with the prospects of an indulgent, rich dinner just a few hours off, I felt queasy at the idea of ordering a burrito.

The description read as this: “Strips of chicken grilled to perfection, topped with sauteed onions and fresh peppers atop a bed of crisp lettuce.”

Yummy right? In my opinion anything with sauteed onions can’t be half bad. I was excited at the idea of fitting in two great meals in one day with only one serving of caloric guilt. But when the dish came my hope took a nose dive. Just one look at the plate told me that this was about to be one of those barely-satisfying meals that offered up more in the way of chewing than flavor.

Now I’m sure this is the place where someone like Richard Simmons would say to just back away, just eat the lettuce and tomatoes, have the rest boxed up and munch on the emergency protein bar in your purse instead. But what Richard doesn’t know is that I woke up late, got stuck in traffic and had only had a bad cup of coffee in a styrofoam cup in the waiting room at Jiffy Lube at 9:00 this morning.

I was starving! And all the empty calories and grease-laden chicken in the world wasn’t going to stop me from eating this “salad.” What else could a girl do? Order something else? But who wants to pay for two meals and hope that the second one would fit the bill … So I ate the fajita salad – and yes the chicken was covered in some sort of indescribable ketchup-ish sauce and yes, the lettuce had gone wilty under the strain of so much oil atop it. But life’s a gamble, and this sore loser says, next time put your bets on the tortilla soup.

Great hopes for an amazing dinner tonight …

So it’s Christmas time. A week before Christmas actually.

Such a strange time of year … A time when the desire to be dashingly beautiful and skinny is met head-on by the reality of the brie and English toffee adorning the table of every holiday party you attend.

I use the term “dashingly beautiful” loosely of course. I think the most one can really hope for is to fall somewhere in the middle of the ominous sliding beauty scale. Take for instance the dreaded once-yearly family gathering. Sure it’s great to reconnect and re-tell our childhood stories, but let’s be honest, what we’re really looking forward to is finding out if that out-of-town cousin still has purple hair and is working as a bartender and if that in-law-whatever is still tangled up in that pyramid scheme that he thought was a good investment opportunity.

But for the pudgy, the most important part of the family holiday gathering is that you have maintained your place as not-the-fattest of the fat relatives. As long as you are at least one down on the totem pole that is all that matters. Still, it’s a risky proposition – you haven’t seen these people in a year and who knows if someone got their hands on the newest Atkins book or joined Jenny Craig. If that happens and your safety cushion decides to show up in a size 4 mini skirt, you will be forced to fall back on your fantastic job and great sense of humor.  Still, all the corporate ladder climbing in the world isn’t going to stop grandma from pointing out how figure-flattering those elastic waistband pants are to your thighs… or some other horrifically embarrassing scenario.

So in a world of great food and an ever-increasing number of ways to stay healthy while eating well, I’ve decided to forge the way through trial and tribulation and see where a year of dedicated healthy living will get me. I hope you’ll follow along with me, whoever you are out there …