Eat Out Eat Well

food for fun and thought

The Ostrich And The Egg

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My family prides itself on searching out unique gifts.  One of my sons gave his father an ostrich egg for Father’s Day.  It’s the giant cream colored egg in the photo with a large brown hen’s egg next to it for a size comparison.  He bought the egg from an alpaca and ostrich farmer selling his wares (not live animals!) at the outdoor market in front of the Museum of Natural History in New York City.

A Giant Heavy Hard-Shelled Egg

An ostrich, native to South Africa, is flightless, fast-running, and the world’s largest living bird.  An ostrich egg is the largest egg produced by a living creature (a dinosaur egg in the American Museum of Natural History is about the size of basketball), weighing in at around 3.3 pounds (about 20 times the weight of a chicken egg).  Its yolk is the largest single cell that currently exists.

The egg is glossy and cream colored, with a thick hard pitted shell (like a golf ball) — hard enough for a 300 pound bird to sit on it.  It is incubated by females during the day and by males at night.  One egg is equivalent to about 18 to 24 chicken eggs — and yes, you can make a gigantic ostrich egg omelet (after using a drill to get through the hard shell). Females lay their fertilized eggs in a single communal nest that has been scraped in the ground by a male. The dominant female is the first to lay her eggs and she discards extra eggs from weaker females, leaving about 20 in the nest.

 

Food As Love, Joy, And Energy

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The other night I went to a talk and book signing by Lisa Oz (married to Dr. Oz), for her new book, US:  Transforming Ourselves and the Relationships That Matter Most.  During the course of the evening there was a lot of discussion about the healing power of energy.

As a nurse I began to think about how nurses use the power of touch – the “laying on of the hands” – to help their patients.  I believe that this is also true for any parent who uses a gentle touch or a hug to convey energy and healing to a child – or for other healers who appropriately and with discipline use the power of touch and energy transfer for healing purposes.

As a nutritional counselor I started to think about the energy we gain from both food and the act of eating.

We Get Energy From Food And From Eating, Cooking, And Sharing

Food supplies calories and a calorie is a quantifiable, measurable unit of energy.

But food – and the act of eating and sharing – supplies energy in another unquantifiable way, too. Think about the energy you can get from sitting around the kitchen table hashing out issues – over food —  or the great feeling to be had after sharing a phenomenal meal with someone special. What about that very special jolt of love and energy you get when you cook or share something as special as a homemade cookie with your child?

As Craig Claiborne, restaurant critic,  food writer, and former New York Times food editor said in Craig Claiborne’s Kitchen Primer: “Cooking is at once child’s play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love.”

 

 

Ouch, I Cut Myself: 5 Knife Safety Tips

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Do your hands look like they’ve been holding onto barbed wire after a weekend filled with some heavy-duty cooking?  From Chow and Jeffrey Elliot, coauthor of the Complete Book of Knife Skills, here are five knife safety tips to help your hands ready for a hand lotion commercial rather than one for antiseptic and bandaids.

Five Tips:

  1. Don’t wear jewelry in the kitchen – your knife can get caught on a ring or its handle hung up in a bracelet.
  2. Make sure your knife is visible – how many times have you tossed it into the sink where it gets covered up by dirty dishes and pots and pans?  You don’t know who is going to reach into the sink — stick a hand in and whoops!!!
  3. Don’t walk around your kitchen with a knife in your hand.  If you do — don’t hold it in your dominant hand because if you slip and start to fall the tendency is to reach out to grab onto something or to break your fall with that hand.  Bad news if you have a sharp knife in it.  Hold it in your less dominant hand with the point down and the blade facing backwards.
  4. When you hand a knife to someone it should be presented with the handle facing him or her so the handle can be grabbed.  The best way to hand off a knife is to put it down with the handle facing toward the other person. If you can’t put the knife down, still offer it to the other person with the handle of the knife, not the blade, facing him or her.
  5. Make sure your knife is sharp.  A dull knife is a dangerous knife because your have to force it through food.  A sharp knife cuts cleanly and safely.

Ready For A Summertime Holiday Weekend?

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One Stop Shopping:

Food, drinks, flowers, ice cream, disposable plates, paper towels, propane, fireworks, even the grill!!!

You can probably find sun screen and beach towels.  I know you can buy a picnic table — even one that’s kid sized. There’s a petting zoo, too.

Memorial Day

Please take a moment to remember that Memorial Day,  originally called Decoration Day, honors men and women who died while serving in the American military. Started after the Civil War to honor Union and Confederate soldiers, it became a federal holiday in 1971. Unofficially, it marks the beginning of summer.

What Do Mojitos, Tea, And Gum Have In Common?

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Mint, or mentha, that wonderful aromatic herb that’s refreshing, cooling, and so much more than a garnish or flavor.

I did a lot of planting this past weekend – and have a couple of large pots brimming with different types of mint (there are many varieties) – a sure sign that summer days are somewhere in the near future.

Mint Has A Wonderful History

In Greek mythology, Pluto fell in love with a river nymph named Minthe (also known as Menthe). When his wife, Persephone, got wind of this she was so angry she turned Minthe into a plant so that people could trod all over her.  Pluto couldn’t undo the spell but gave Minthe a wonderful aroma that he could smell when people walked on her and crushed her leaves and stems.

Known as the herb of hospitality, the ancient Greeks rubbed mint on their tables to clean them and mint tea is served throughout the Middle East to welcome visitors. Early Europeans threw it on their hard packed soil floors for a nice scent as people stepped on it. Biblical references suggest it was so highly valued that it was used as tithes by the Pharisees (Matthew xxiii, 23). Medieval monks appreciated its culinary and medicinal properties.

A Prolific Grower

Mint grows like crazy, extending its reach through a network of runners.  It is so invasive that it is often grown in pots.  That’s what I do – and it comes back year after year even after being left out on the deck and behind a shed in the snow, blazing sun, and whatever weather arrives in Connecticut.

 

Mint Is So Much More Than A Garnish

Mint:

  • has vitamins A and C and trace minerals
  • soothes the stomach – spearmint and peppermint aid digestion — and eases breathing
  • is used in tea, beverages (alcoholic and nonalcoholic), jelly, syrups, and ice cream
  • menthol from mint essential oil (40 -90%) is used to flavor breath fresheners, drinks, mouthwash, toothpaste, gum, candy, and cigarettes (it masks the taste and soothes the throat); in cosmetics and perfume; and in some drugs
  • has antiseptic qualities and is used as a mouth freshener, gargle, mouth wash
  • is an antipruritic (anti-itch) especially for insect bites – often in combination with camphor
  • repels mosquitos; mint oil is a “green” insecticide for cockroaches, ants, wasps, and hornets; rats and mice don’t like it and neither do deer.

Cooking And Storing Mint

The culinary source of mint is its fresh or dried leaf. Fresh is preferred over dried if storage or availability isn’t a problem. The leaves have a warm, fresh, pleasant, aromatic, and sweet flavor with a cool aftertaste.

When you buy mint look for leaves that aren’t bruised. The leaves can be harvested at any time. Fresh mint leaves should preferably be used right away  but you can wrap them in a lightly damp paper towel and put them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for a few days. It can also be frozen in ice cube trays. Dried mint leaves should be stored in an airtight container in a cool, dark, dry place.

Mint is full of cooling menthol and is a wonderful and refreshing herb to go along with simply grilled meat, vegetables, and fruit and is awesome to flavor beverages of all varieties.

Try some.  One of my favorite things to do is to grab a few sprigs and leave them in a pitcher of water in the fridge.  Really refreshing and usually prompts the response – “gee, this is really good.”