Trans-Fat Tirade Take Two

The Girl Scouts of America announced in November 2006 that all of their cookies will contain 0.5g trans fats per serving, thus meeting or exceeding the FDA guidelines. ^[99] However, trans fats from girl scout cookies can exceed recommended levels if more than one serving is consumed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat

Please leave a comment if you have ever eaten only one serving of Thin Mints at a time.

I suppose you can look at this in two ways:
1. Bravo that the Girl Scouts of America are following FDA guidelines
2. Let's teach our Girl Scouts that it's OK to include coronary heart disease-causing ingredients in our cookies.

My point is that Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and other public service organizations should be at the forefront of consideration of the public welfare, not grudgingly meeting the minimum requirements of the FDA.

We know that trans fats are strongly linked to heart disease (see above Wikipedia link). We know that almost no one eats only one serving of Thin Mints at a time.

Girl Scouts, this is your opportunity to shine: take a stand for the health of the community you are trying to serve. I promise I will buy twice as many cookies if they contain no trans fats.

My Kids Have Email Accounts

My kids have email accounts, but they can't type. Meanwhile, my typing skills have seen a sudden jump in wpm.
They are so excited to send and receive messages. I remember being just like Jamey, always clamming up when it comes time to say something back. Arthur has no issues with writer's block at all. He just spews away, as fast or faster than I can type.
We have, lately, been watching an anime serial called Naruto. It is about a little spiky-haired blond boy who wants to become his village's best ninja. The show is cute and silly and has given us all a small education in the terminology of ninja. We've been exposed to the concepts of jutsu and chakra among several other terms though we're not sure at all what is authentic Japanese cultural information and what is pure fantasy.
Heidi discovered one can take a class in chakra at the community center where she takes the boys for swimming lessons.

Dinner

Peach sangria
Grilled asparagus and onion with a Merlot reduction drizzled over.
Grilled salmon with paprika and kosher salt rub
Aromatic rice
Garlic, chive, basalmic grilled shitake mushrooms
onion, egg cornbread pudding
Chevre Cheesecake with blackberries


MMMmmmmmmmmmm..........

Lunar Eclipse

Paw print

Paw print
Originally uploaded by King Cnut

This print in our backyard clay seemed broader and blunter than the nearby dog tracks, which had obvious toenails.
The toe pads I may have over-highlighted a bit, but the palm pad I think I shaded conservatively and it looks like it easily hits 1.5 inches across.

Update:
I was leaning towards cougar when I first saw it and this site has reinforced that notion for me:
http://www.cougarsanctuary.org/tracks.html

Health Food? Or Just Plain Stinky?

The latest miracle fruit to enter my radar screen is acai berry (pronounced ah-sigh-EE). Heidi has purchased a vitamin drink by Emergen-C, flavored with that berry. I just did a little poking around on Google and found that is supposed to cure a great many things. Perhaps not as many as a sea salt bath, but still a respectable number of ailments can be vanquished through the ingestion of this fabulously powerful fruit, which hails from Brazil.

As for myself I don't know how I could every consume it. For it has, distinctly, powerfully and pungently, a smell that vividly brings to my mind the substance that male house cats use to mark out their territory.

While on my search, just now, for information on the acai berry, remarkably I found no one who already blogged about this remarkable and undeniable similarity.

So, I make my plea to you, oh reader, to buy some of this healthful beverage and write back to give your opinion: does the acai berry smell overwhelmingly like cat spray, or not?

Chinese Feast

Part way through this meal, we realized that it was magnificent enough that we should have taken a picture before we started eating; but it still seemed worth it to me, if only for documentary purposes.

At the far end, obscured by the red candle, are the peanut noodles with shitake mushrooms and cilantro. In front of the candle are the wok-steamed clams in spicy fermented black bean sauce. Nearer still, orange, ginger and anise aromatic rice. Finally the cayenne spiced carmelized almonds and aromatic steamed baby bok choy.
Not pictured is a fabulous spice rubbed chicken, stuffed with orange. And Star-anise Dragon martinis which were flavored with lemon, orange, lime and two drops of some very hot pepper sauce, which blended into one delicious cocktail.

All of these dishes were taken from a cookbook by Seattle chef Tom Douglas's: Tom's Big Dinners.
We have decided that Douglas is the living embodiment of Dionysus and we have decided to worship at his alter every Sunday night.

This is the third consecutive Sunday dinner that we have cooked under his guidance, and each time it has been a truly "soul satisfying" experience. (I borrowed that phrase from one of his books since it fit so aptly).