Lift Up Your Hearts!

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I wrote about xylitol when I discovered it in Japan four years ago, and that remains one of my most popular posts.  Although I did not experiment further with xylitol as a sugar substitute, I continued to use it as a dental rinse, swishing a small spoonful around in my mouth after brushing my teeth at night.

Until I started worrying about the fact that the xylitol I had was made in China, that is.  Chinese manufacturers were caught substituting poisonous substances for more expensive, safe ingredients in toothpaste and children's toys, as I wrote about in 2007, and later in baby formula, candy, and other products containing milk.  I wrote to the manufacturer of my xylitol, seeking reassurance, but received no answer.

So I got lazy, and simply eliminated the xylitol rinse from my tooth-cleaning routine.  That was a year ago, and six months later the dental hygienist wondered what was going on:  my gums, which had been healthy for years, were now a mess.

The only change in my routine had been that I was no longer using the xylitol.  Chastened, I decided to assume diligence and responsibility on the part of the manufacturer, and resumed my nighttime rinsing.

This week I returned to the dentist and the hygienist was wowed by the positive changes and return to health of my gums.

Did xylitol make the difference?  It's hard not to come to that conclusion.^*  At any rate, I don't intend to repeat the experiment if I can help it, even though it still feels strange to rinse my mouth with something sweet, especially without brushing my teeth afterwards!

Some of my favorite flags:

Visit Stephan's blog to enter your guesses about Little One Stücklin's arrival details.  Here's a teaser to help you guess:

Barefoot, (very) pregnant, but that's not their kitchen.

The Rest of the Story.  The true revolution behind Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution television show was based in Connecticut and played out quietly, behind the scenes, in West Virginia.  Oliver still deserves much of the credit—it was his idea and he funded it.  We the People deserve less, for preferring a confrontational and hyped-up TV version to the more inspirational true story.  (Hat tip to DSTB.)

It's 9 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, and chef John Turenne is where he feels most at home: a school cafeteria. What's unusual is that it's a school cafeteria not far from his home in Wallingford, where's he's making pizza for second-graders using all local, healthy ingredients.  For the past nine months, you'd be far likelier to find Turenne in the school cafeterias of Cabell County, W.V.  Sound familiar? That's the county that international celebrity chef Jamie Oliver ran roughshod over in a TV series earlier this year.

When Turenne's assistant gave him the message that Jamie Oliver's office called, "I said, 'You're joking'," Turenne laughs.  She wasn't. Oliver wanted to hire Turenne's company, Sustainable Food Systems, to be the unseen force that reconstituted the food in all 26 schools in Cabell County, patiently, methodically and anonymously, as opposed to Oliver's style of bang-them-over-the-head.

"A big piece of it is empathy and being in their shoes," he says, noting Oliver's high-voltage demeanor and the chaos of TV cameras. "We'd come in and try to be the medics and patch the egos and bring people back up again and say, 'It's OK, they're gone. Now let's talk about this. Here's what we're trying to do. You've been here for a long time; help us figure this out'."  And they did, much better in most everyone's estimation than the show let on.

[Turenne] says his biggest frustration over the nine months — aside from being away from his family for huge chunks of time — was what he called the lunch program's "perverted guidelines."  "When the system says it's OK to serve frozen pizza with 17 separate ingredients, or canned fruit loaded with high-fructose corn syrup, yet demands to know the science behind a fresh vegetable stir-fry, it's time to say, 'snap out of it!' " he says.  "Our biggest challenge was not the cooks, was not the people on the front lines," he says. "It ended up being some administration and state USDA people in my mind feeling, 'Oh God, how is this going to make us look?' "

The entire Hartford Courant article is worth reading.

For reasons obscure (who needs a reason, anyway?) I was looking up mathematician/musician Tom Lehrer and came upon this.  Enjoy!

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour

Thanks to Netflix, we're reprising the 1960's.  Just a little.  Contrary to popular, romantic belief, the 60's and 70's were a difficult and painful time for our country, and while there was some progress made in important arenas, I see those times as watershed years, in which our society turned rapidly for the worse in many ways.  I never did like Forrestt Gump; it cuts too close to the bone.  Nonetheless, while searching for some clean comic relief, I chose to look backwards, at some "best of" takes on two shows that made me laugh in my high school days.

My memory was confirmed that of the two the Smothers Brothers show was by far the better.  I've removed from our queue the remaining Laugh-In disks in the series, but kept two more of the Smothers Brothers.  They make me laugh still.  Only now, I cry as well.

It's hard to imagine calling anything from the 1960's "innocent," but in comparison to today's show, that's the proper adjective.  Yet the seeds of today's hard-edged, cynical depravity were clearly there for those with eyes to see.  Even now it stings to realize that the cautionary words of our old-fashioned elders were right, and our insistence that it was all harmless fun was wrong.

Don't misunderstand me:  there was a lot of harmless fun in the shows, and even some important social commentary.  But in attitude and innuendo there was the beginning of a darker trend, a crack in the foundation as it were, which has now widened into a breach.

One thing I like about the Smothers Brothers show is all the music, especially when Tom plays his acoustic guitar and Dick his string bass.  They both had beautiful singing voices, and frequently sang lovely old folk songs.  Also interesting is seeing the beginnings of later-famous groups, such as future country star Kenny Rogers singing psychedelic rock with the First Edition.  Less amusing was an early performance by the Who, who smashed not only their own instruments but (unexpectedly) Tommy's guitar as well.  Tommy did an amazing job of staying cool about it, though that may have been because all were reeling from the explosion of a cannon in the drum set.  It had unintentionally been loaded with a triple charge and literally blew the set apart, injuring the drummer with shrapnel and causing permanent hearing loss in one of the guitarists.  In the spirit of "the show must go on," it's not obvious to the viewer that all didn't go as planned.

I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this resolution, and I really have no business adding another when I haven't made much progress on the others yet.  But it's the 8th of the month, and this one intrigues me.

Fear and worst-case-scenario thinking has too much influence in our lives.  It's natural:  One phone call with really bad news can make one jumpy every time the telephone rings, even though the ratio of bad to good (or at least neutral) calls is very small.  It's natural, but it's not right.

I haven't thought much beyond that yet, but I know that two passages are going to play a large role in the outworking of this resolution.  The first is three lines from one of my favorite choir anthems, And the Father Will Dance^* by Mark Hayes:

Cast away fear for you have been restored!
Put on the garment of praise as on a festival day.
Join with the Father in glorious, jubilant song.

The second is one of my favorite Bible verses, Philippians 4:4-7.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!  Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 

It remains to be seen how this all plays out, and whether it merits its own number or should be considered part of Resolution #3 (Learn to Relax).  But this is a beginning. 

And now, the part of the post wherein I am forced to admit my lack of progress:

#1  Read More Books  Yech.  Only two books read in May, and one ridiculously short.  That's partly due to still plowing my way through the The History of the Ancient World and The Chronological Guide to the Bible, and partly to having more distractions in May than usual, but mostly I must admit I haven't been making reading a priority, which is exactly where I was when I made this resolution in the first place.

#2  Rediscover Feasting  Nothing much to report, although we have been consistent in keeping Wednesday as a weekly fast day, which both of us have found beneficial, mentally and physically.

#3  Learn to Relax  I haven't made any more effort to find an Alexander Technique teacher here, though I am hoping to have some time with Janet's teacher when I go to Switzerland.  My doctor told me that I am hard-wired as a "hot reactor," which merits a blog post of its own at some point.  I find most of the symptoms way off base for me, but some are spot-on.  In any case, I'm determined to prove him wrong about the hard-wired part (being convinced of my own neuroplasticity), so I need to give this higher priority.

#4  Like More Things  Spinach:  I've liked it raw, in salads, for along time, but spinach is actually better for you if it's cooked a bit, and I've detested cooked spinach ever since I discovered that—contrary to what I saw in the Popeye cartoons of the early 1960's—it was green, not black, and didn't give me super strength.  I still don't care for spinach plain, but now I love mixing a handful of spinach leaves with other vegetables on pizza, or in an omelet or quesadilla.  So that's a victory.  On the other hand, I bought a can of sardines planning to force myself to eat a small bit:  they're so good for you, but the thought and smell turn my stomach.  I backed out at the last minute and let Porter enjoy all of them.

#5  Pay Attention  At least I can say that I've been paying attention to paying attention, and trying—albeit with limited success—to bring my mind to focus on the moment instead of always being in three places at once.

What could be more American than hot dogs?

Lawsuits, apparently.

I bought a package of hot dogs yesterday.  I'm probably a little behind the times—we don't eat hot dogs very often—but since when did they come with warning labels?  Not the kind of warning I might expect, e.g. "this product is full of fat and dangerous additives, and is made from parts of the animal you don't want to know about," but the following:

Come again? You must be six years old to eat a hot dog?  I remember the day when hot dog-shaped meat sticks were a staple toddler "first finger food" in the baby food section of the grocery store.  Not that we ever bought them:  they were disgusting.  But there they were.  Clearly, somebody sued somebody over a hot dog incident, and now we get warning labels.

The chief problem with such inanities is that they lead to a cavalier attitude towards all warning labels.  In between "children under six must have their hot dogs cut into tiny pieces" and "remove plastic from pizza before putting into oven," someone's going to miss "poison—do not drink."

Check out our^* Steph Shaw on a very early morning TV gig in New York today.  The guy out front who keeps hogging the camera?  That's Swedish singer Anders ("the Sting of Stockholm") Holst. Okay, so he's the star and she's the backup.  Some folks need to get their priorities straight.

Here's the link.  (I can't embed the video.)

Meet Feudal Effort, the latest addition to the comics list on my Sursum Corda page:

 I find it fun.  Sometimes there's a bit of mildly objectionable language, but nothing the nephews can't handle, and I don't think the grandkids are reading my comic list yet.  :)

You can get to know the characters here.

Mutton dressed as lamb.

I can and do text, finding it quite useful at times, mostly because not all phones send and receive e-mails, and because our overseas friends can receive texts for free...

...but I just don't get why anyone who knows how to type would prefer texting.  And although in extremity I will do it, I have a deep aversion to abbreviating words, omitting capitalization, and leaving out punctuation.

You will often see me with headphones on and mp3 player in my pocket...

...but today's Zits is me!

Our Memorial Day celebration concluded with a lovely dinner at at a friend's house, to which we brought wine and dessert.  This friend is one of those on whom I am not hesitatant to inflict culinary experiments, and this cake was one.  I began with a simple vanilla cake base from my Boston Cream Pie recipe (credit my friend LCS).  It is a single-layer cake, which I sliced in two horizontally with a serrated bread knife.  I heated passionfruit jam a bit to make it thinner, and mixed it well to make it smooth.  This I spread generously on the first layer.  After adding the second layer, I used a pastry brush to glaze it and the sides with the thinned jam.  Then I added the fruit:  fresh strawberry halves and whole blueberries, canned apricot halves and peach slices.  Using the brush again, I glazed the fruit with the jam.

I must say we were all very happy with it!  Apricot or currant jams are more traditional for this sort of dessert, but I think the passion fruit flavor made this cake the success it was. 

What I plan to do differently next time (and there will be a next time):

• Use a higher percentage of whole wheat flour in the cake.  (This time I used a 50/50 mixture of white whole wheat and all-purpose flours).
• Use less sugar in the cake (the recipe calls for 1 cup, but I think less would work well—the jam makes it sweet enough).
• Possibly make the inner layer of jam thinner.
• Use fresh fruit exclusively if I can't find firmer canned fruit; the apricots and peaches were rather mushy—though that did make cutting the cake easier than firm fruit would have.

One of the reasons I like Mallard Fillmore is that he can always be counted on to remember:

This Memorial Day I also want to honor a living veteran, who served as a WAVE in World War II, and who is

90 years old today!

(Not that she's likely to see this...but I honor her anyway.)

Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Michale Pollan (Penguin, New York, 2009)

Food Rules is a condensation of what journalist Pollan has learned from his investigation of what's wrong with the American diet and how it can be improved.  If this is the only Pollan food book you will read, or if you want to introduce his ideas to a skeptical friend with a short attention span, it rates five stars.  Half of the 140 pages are merely pictures, and the other half are short and very easy to read.

I enjoyed reading through it, but am glad I borrowed it instead of buying it, as for my purposes The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food are better.  (On the other hand, at $6.60 from Amazon, the book costs no more than one of those fast food meals Pollan wants us to avoid.)

From #1 Eat food (as opposed to edible food-like substances) to #63 Break the rules once in a while, following these succinct suggestions would go a long way towards improving most people's diets.  Best of all I like Pollan's relaxed attitude that reminds us that eating well isn't rocket science, nor is it onerous.  It's a basic birthright that we have lost and must reclaim for ourselves and our children.