Saturday, July 19, 2008

Keeping House

Hello, here I am, blogging most likely. It has been like a freakish Louisa May Alcott novel around here- cooking, cleaning, cooking, sewing, knitting. Kind of reminds me of when the Little Women decide to keep house.

This fury has been because of news of loss- a faraway friend- and my primal need to cook for funerals. Even funerals that I am not going to attend. It has also been because of my own looming mortality. My fasting blood sugar is a bit high. I come from a family of diabetics, and so it is when, not if, I get diabetes. ( Please don't give me any alternative therapy suggestions. It's better for both of us that you don't.) I would like to get squarely into my fifth or sixth decade, however before I am diagnosed. I am also, dear reader, fat. I didn't used to be fat, although I always thought I was. Boy, I wish I could have those days back, so that I could give myself a good talking to about what a beautiful young woman I was. SO, onto vegetables. Which, dear reader, I mostly hate, unless they involve butter, or butter's fat little sister, sour cream. Nope, not helpful.

Although I do have a lovely doctor. Her advice, and it means a lot to me that she can say this with a straight face, is to eat the vegetables anyway, and then, when I have gotten used to the idea, slowly reduce the fat flavors. Well, maybe, and I appreciate her trying to meet me where I live. But I am a diabetic educator, and so I have a wealth of low fat recipes, so it wouldn't kill me to actually cook some of them, would it? ( Did you know that you can give yourself a bad case of GI distress by suddenly quadrupling the amount of vegetables you eat. You heard it here first. Stop smirking. It is not funny. )

On the knitting front, I am making darling little socks to wear with sneakers. Five rows for a stockinette roll, five rows of ribbing, five rows plain and whoops you are at the heel. I think I can get two per 50g of sock yarn, or four little sock siblings from a big 100g ball, and that will be very satisfying.

On the quilt front, I have had it up to hear with the freaking turtles. Which is good, because Son Two is a little jealous that I have been focusing on Son One's quilt. So I will start Two's and hopefully it will be less arduous. I am just not a pattern follower, at all. Good to learn. Also, if I am going to follow a pattern, I should, uhm, follow it and maybe read ahead a bit, so to avoid shocking revelations of yardage requirements.

Have to get up off the couch and go wash dishes.

4 comments:

Jean said...

All the best vegetables I can think of -- corn, artichokes, beets -- are ever so much nicer with butter or sour cream; you're absolutely right. Start with peas and beans, maybe, dressing the latter, at least, with lemon juice?

What's the GI effect of too many vegetables? I thought I knew all there was to know about diabetic nutrition.

Anonymous said...

A thought: have you ever been to Millenium restaurant in San Francisco? They can make veganism taste like nothing you could imagine. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's reaction to the place was, "Go there. Now." She described nearly weeping into her plate for joy. My vegetarian daughter and son-in-law got us to try the place out awhile ago, and I came away going, if I knew how to cook veggies like this I could actually willingly become a vegetarian too.

So there is hope. And my daughter's cooking is right up there, too. Now I know it's at least possible to create real magic like that with vegetables.

woolywoman said...

Jean- GI distress is nurse talk for diarrhea. Diabetics and vegetables go together like peas and carrots- that is to say, very well.

Clare said...

I've got a lovely recipe for green beans - stir fry chopped onion and garlic in olive oil, add fresh beans, stry fry until ready and add chopped flat leaf parsley. Yum! I hardly eat butter anymore and very rarely cook with it. Olive oil is used in everything and the taste is nagical. Try it.

Also try stir frying sliced carrots in olive oil, when slightly al dente, add a couple of cupfuls of frozen peas and cook over a slow heat until done, season and serve.

Also à la française is to cook peas with chopped onions in olive oil, add a chopped up gem lettuce, and again cook slowly until done.