Let's Hear It for the FAT Cells!

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for fried foods everywhere

FAT!  We see it all the time, on the television, in the dieting aisles, walking down the beach, in the mirror.  We are bombarded with commercials selling the latest FAT reducing pills, drinks, rubs, wraps.  Skinny Minnies are effortlessly walking, climbing, lifting, twisting, or running on the latest torture contraptions released by the CIA.  These devices are guaranteed to give you washboard abs, a flat stomach, tight buttocks and endless trips to the chiropractor for twenty-four easy payments of $19.99 and a 300 calorie diet.  Our whole society has bought into the idea that FAT is BAD.

I am here to defend FAT.  Think about it.  In the culinary world fat makes the taste buds happy, happy, happy as Phil would say.  Without fat, potatoes would taste like library paste, Julia Childs couldn’t have named her book “The Joy of Cooking” and Paula Deen’s hair would have been too big for her body. Fat is to humans what a fur coat is to people in Miami.  It makes a statement.  It says “I have this and I am going to keep it whether you like it or not.”

Fat keeps whales from freezing in the Arctic waters.  Early man would have found himself unenlightened without bowls of fat to burn and shed light on his cave drawings.

Insurance companies should be giving discounts for an abundance of fat.  Statistics show that people with an ample supply of fat suffer fewer severe injuries from a fall than their skinny counterparts who are lacking in padding and are more likely to suffer broken bones.  Pirates carrying a hefty load of fat have also been known to survive longer on a deserted island than their thin shipmates.

In ancient economic systems, if you were worth your weight in gold, wouldn’t you like to be heavy on the scales?   It just might enable you to prevent foreclosure on that condo in Maui.

Without FAT our vocabulary and literature would be sadly lacking.  Who can forget fat lip, fat chance! fat bank account, padded expense account, padded cell, and padded seats?  Minnesota Fats, Fats Domino, Jabba the Hutt, the Hulk might never have made it into our literature and onto the silver screen had they been thin.

Great artists from the Renaissance and Baroque periods honored fat in their paintings and sculptures.  Fat happy cherubs adorn doorways and buildings.  Rotund and amply fed women were highly sought after as models.  A long legged, tall thin Barbie would never have made it as a model in those days.  Twiggy would have been passed over as ugly, unattractive, and definitely too thin.  No stick figures for the world’s greatest artists.

Therefore, let the world salute FAT!  May it keep us warm in winter, protect us when falling, bring us wealth when weighed, and sustain us when marooned on deserted islands.  We thank you for flavoring our food, our language, our literature, and our art.

Hippy!  Hippy!  Hooray for FAT!

 

 

 

Can a No-cook Cook Teach Two Cooks to Cook, if the No-cook Cook can't Cook?

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved in order to be adopted by Betty Crocker

Over the past several years, we have all determined that I can’t cook.  There are numerous fire reports, hospital visits, and petrified casseroles posing as yard art to attest to that fact. 

Now the big question is (see title of this piece) can cooking be taught or is it hereditary?  It is the old nature versus nurture, heredity versus environment debate.  I hold to the theory that good cooking is hereditary.  My mother cannot cook, my grandmother could not cook, and neither can I…hereditary. 

To further support my theory, I offer proof from the adopted seven-year-old and tween-ager.  Both children entered the Spoon and Fork Cooking Contest at our local library.  Why, you say, enter children in a cooking contest when the only reference point they have for good food is school cafeteria food?  To support my theory.

The children each entered the appetizer and salad category for their age group.  The seven-year-old entered Hot Wheels, a cream cheese, picante sauce, pecan, jalapeno mixture rolled up in a flour tortilla, cut into chunks, and an olive stuck in the center, run through with a toothpick.  It’s more of an assembly thing than a cooking thing, but this was his first time out.

The Tween-ager found a recipe for Sunflower Salad made with ramen noodles (cooked), tomatoes, onion, cabbage, sunflower seeds, bacon bits, with a dressing of sunflower oil, sugar, bacon bits, and vinegar.  Assemble, toss, refrigerate.

Ok, I was smart enough to buy two of everything in case, you know, I helped her, whom I did, and we had to do it again, which she did.  In all fairness, it was an honest mistake anybody could have made.  I store my sugar and salt in separate clear plastic canisters and maybe storing them side by side isn’t a good thing and probably those who know how to cook would never do that, and yes, labeling might have been a good idea, but I didn’t.  So the first salad, I like to call it the “practice salad”, was a bit off and a whole lot saltier than it was supposed to be.  In my defense, salt and sugar are both granulated, white, and ok, I was in a hurry and gave her the wrong canister.

As a result, I was banished from the kitchen.  The tween-ager finished the second salad on her own using sugar and without me handing her anything.

I was limited to setting “the stage” for their dishes, something I can do. For the Hot Wheels appetizer, I cut out a racing track from black poster board and hot glued it around the rim of the black serving platter.  Then I hot glued two Hot Wheel racing cars to the track.  I typed the recipe onto card stock and glued two plastic racing flags on to that. Hot Wheels was ready for competition.

The Sunflower Salad needed a silk sunflower in a recycled Starbuck’s mocha frappe bottle.  Her recipe was mounted onto green, yellow, and red plaid wrapping paper backed by card stock and leaned against the silk flower arrangement.  A sunflower cutout was used as a placemat for the salad bowl.  I found a flower looking plastic bowl at Dollar Tree.  I added water to that and froze it.  The salad was placed in a taller bowl and set inside the plastic bowl.  Her salad was supposed to be kept cold.

If the children were influenced by environment, then I felt the judges would need something attractive and interesting to look at while waiting for the paramedics to arrive.  Fortunately my theory held.  My adopted children, because they are adopted, could not inherit my bad cooking gene and no paramedics were summoned to the contest.

Oh, and yes, both children took first place!  Somewhere in their family tree is a branch for Julia Childs, Paula Deen, and Emeril Lagasse.

Fish Tales

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for frozen bait.

Each year our City Parks and Recreation Department hosts a tournament at a small lake across from Wal-Mart. Every January they stock the lack with 800 trout and a few days later host a tournament for children one to sixteen. It is the biggest little fishing tournament of the year as far as Dr. Hubby is concerned.

The temperature is always in the twenties here at this time of the year and Saturday was no exception, 22 degrees. The trout thrive in cold weather. I shiver in cold weather. Two years ago our three-year-old won the tournament having caught the most fish. He also won a couple of rods in the drawing they hold at the end of the tournament. This year Dr. Hubby was out for a repeat win.

Saturday morning is the one morning I do not have to set the alarm. You would think I would be able to sleep late. Not so. Five mornings I set the alarm then spend thirty minutes trying to awaken, dress, and feed breakfast to two sleepy heads and get them off to school. On the sixth morning the five-year-old's internal clock says PLAY TIME and he is up and running around by 7a.m. and thus me also.

On THE DAY of the fishing tournament, all three children (one of them being seventy years old) were up, chattering, layering on the thermal underwear, grabbing woolen hats, fishing poles, bait, rubber boots, and were out the door for breakfast at McDonald's by 8a.m. The tournament started at 9a.m.

At 11:30 I dropped by after my daily Wal-Mart run to see how they were doing. It was just across the street, remember? Dr. Hubby was having trouble keeping the five-year-old focused on reeling in the fish. The nine-year-old had abandoned ship and gone up to the registration tent to help them gut the trout and fry the trout that had been caught so far. She said she liked fried trout. Later she said she was going to help mix up the apple cider and serve it. I left little Miss Paula Deane and the wandering fishermen and headed back home.

I returned with camera in hand at 2p.m. in time for the awards. The five-year-old had managed to stay focused long enough to catch the largest trout and the most trout for his age group. He received a new rod and reel, an expensive tackle case, and a fifty dollar gift card. If anyone came late for the awards and missed his presentation, he proceeded to walk around with his rod and reel and tackle case over his shoulder so everyone could get a good look at his "winnings." Little Miss Paula Deane stopped serving long enough to catch the largest trout and the most trout for her age group. She also came home with a pink rod and reel that lights up when you turn the handle and a pink fishing tackle box which she immediately began converting to a spice and cooking utensil carrier.

After we got home, the kids dumped their loot and headed for the swings. Dr. Hubby was looking for just the right place to display the new rods and hang the tackle cases. "Two out of three years. He's won two out of three years and even she won this year. Good year!" He was still grinning from ear to ear when he fell asleep in his recliner.

The next morning all three "kids" were sniffling and snorting but still smiling from their successful six hour cold water fishing tournament. My job was to retrieve the Sunday paper. After much looking and ahhing and oooing over the newspaper article and picture, I was allowed to cut out and frame the article and alert the rest of the northern hemisphere. By this afternoon Dr. Hubby had the five-year-old casting his new rod and reel in preparation for next year's tournament. Little Miss Paula Deene baked brownies and a cake.

If you happen to stop by the little lake across from Wal-Mart next year, give us a holler. Dr. Hubby will be the old gray haired man in five layers of clothing with the five-year-old who will be running up and down the dam chasing the geese and pulling in fish. The nine-year-old will be serving up fried trout and hot apple cider before hauling in her catch.

I will be missing having wisely decided once again to remain home where it is warm until award time. Oh, and preparing this year's Fish Tale.

The Paula Deen Curse

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for Culinary Therapy

Thanks to Paula Deen everyone thinks if you are from the South, you can cook. If you can't make the Southern Sacred Sweet (pecan pie) than you are immediately suspected of being a transplant, an alien, or worse…a Yankee!

I don't know why I keep trying to cook except for fear that my five-year-old will be the new poster child to End World Hunger and I might have to relocate up North! I simply can't cook, or maybe I can't read, or maybe I can't read and cook. It is even difficult to type this, not because of any emotional feelings of inadequacy or failure, but because I burned my finger and I didn't even burn it on the pecan pie I was trying to make. I burned my finger on the syrup that got on the hot pad while I was trying to remove the pie from the oven before the smoke alarm detonated.

Let me back up a bit. I left the house alone this morning at 7:30 for a three hour trip to see my mother to try and convince her that her refrigerator was not trying to kill her, and to make sure she was really alright after the doors to both her freezer and refrigerator fell off their hinges a few days ago knocking her on her ninety-year old behind. That's another story; see previous blog.

The new 46 inch TV my sister and I had gotten her for Christmas and given her early had her mind off the Attack Refrigerator. She was feeling well enough to have me haul her ninety-year-old self to CiCi's Pizza for lunch, Wal-Mart for house shoes, icy hot patches, aspirin, Christmas toys for her great-grandchildren, then to another grocery store to cash a check, then back to her apartment. Each stop necessitated me hauling out the mini-step, flipping down the legs, helping her out of the car, de-flipping the legs, putting the mini-step back in the car, and repeating it when we got back into the car. When I arrived back home at 4:30 my head and back felt like a refrigerator door had fallen on me.

While I was gone, my hubby came across the old screw type pecan cracker that he and his grandmother had used when he was a child. The children were not only fascinated with the machine but were even more motivated to shell the five gallon bucket of pecans (he just happen to have) when he told them I would bake them a pecan pie when I got back.

The nine-year-old has developed a strong desire to cook, probably out of hunger and desperation. I traded her twenty minutes of violin practice in exchange for helping me with the pies. I would make one while she was practicing, and then I would help her bake another one when she finished.

Ok, I am one of those people who failed the Follow Directions Test in college, the one that starts "Read all questions first". Yes, I was standing up shouting "Bullfrogs" to question #3, patting my head while whistling "Dixie" to question # 9 and totally embarrassed when the last question read "Now go back to question number one and sign your name." I read the list of ingredients for pie #1 and dumped everything in the bowl. Only when I turned the page did it give instructions as to the specific order. Also, at no place in the recipe did it say "deep dish pie pan". Fortunately, from my many cooking disasters in the past, I knew to spray the cookie sheet with Pam before placing the full-past-the-brim pecan pie in the oven.

Pecan Pie #2 followed a different recipe. I figured I would claim the better tasting pie. The nine-year-old did a better job of following directions than I did, and she's dyslexic. My pie had to cook for an hour; her's fifty minutes or "until firm." Now if they had just left that last phrase out all might have been well. Exactly what is "firm" and firm compared to what?

After twenty additional minutes of cooking pie #2 trying to determine firm and bandaging my burned finger, I removed the pie from the oven. Firm can be like cheesecake, or pound cake, or Jell-O, or it can be something else.

Anybody ever taste Pecan Pie Jerky?

Curse you, Paula Deen!