Why do I do it? Why do I blog? Well it isn't for the fame. And it certainly isn't for the fortune. I enjoy expressing my thoughts on how food delivers health. I like sharing my thoughts with others, with the hope that they will benefit too. I also enjoy cooking my kids nourishing food. But the main reason why I blog wasn't apparent to me until I went to New York and saw Finding Neverland. Finding Neverland tells the story of J.M. Barrie, a playwright who is best known for writing Peter Pan. Before writing Peter Pan, Barrie was inspirationally stuck. Despite a history of writing success, he found himself in a rut. He wasn't writing anything novel, and he wasn't having any fun. In the song Play, the actors are reminded of why they went into acting in the first place. People with creative jobs enjoy the freedom and fun of playing at their craft. It is the pure joy of playing for playing's sake that drives creative people.
Upon watching this musical, I realized the primary reason I keep on blogging and making YouTube videos is because it's fun. Playing is not just a pastime, it works the creative side of the brain. And by working the creative side of my brain in addition to my rational side, I get to use my whole brain. And I'm pretty sure my patients appreciate a doctor who uses his whole brain.
You can work the creative side of your brain as well simply by cooking for your kids. Try some of my favorite recipes featured in the third annual Osko award show:
Two of my favorite foods are spaghetti and dumplings. These are also the two dishes that would show up regularly on our table for lunch on weekends when I was a boy. If we had spaghetti last weekend, we were probably having dumplings this weekend. Occasionally, my mom would make homemade sushi rolls just to mix things up a bit. Sushi is probably my third favorite food.
The funny thing is, no matter how many times I was served the same two or three dishes, I never got sick of them. To this day, I still look forward to eating spaghetti, dumplings, and sushi. People call these kinds of foods comfort foods for a reason. It's not just because they taste good. It's the memories that are associated with them.
In the Netflix documentary Cooked, Michael Pollan notes that we are the only species who cooks. He argues that we became anthropologically human when we learned how to wield fire and cook our food. Regardless of where you come from, cooked food is comforting because it connects us as a species and it reminds us of powerful memories of being cooked for and care for by our parents.
In First Bite, Bee Wilson writes, "Memory is the single most powerful driving force in how we learn to eat." She cites a study of rats who were given dopamine blockers to block their reward system. Initially, these rats continued to press a lever for a food reward. Their memory of the food reward was still fresh. However, over time, they stopped eating the food pellets because they were no longer rewarding. Finally, they stopped pressing the lever altogether. They had lost the memory of what the pellets tasted like.
People are the same way. Our memories of comforting foods entice us back again and again. Wilson argues that processed food is so alluring because it is a consistent product that lives up to the memory of that product. But just as memory drives the consumption of unhealthy food, our memories can also foster positive relationships with healthful foods. One of my patients recalled being comforted by freshly cooked eggs in the morning when she was a child. By creating comforting memories of good food for your kids, you'll help them develop a long-lasting positive association with healthful foods. For instance, instead of comforting your kids with pizza, try this recipe for pizza frittata by Rachel Ray. I'm sure it will create a memorable impression on your kids that they won't forget!
I used to think I knew what love was. When I was in high school, I would awkwardly shuffle down the lonely halls on Valentine's day, wishing I had someone to love. I remember making sidelong envious glances at all the popular couples who would hold hands and make out in public for all the virgins to see.
When I went to college, a couple of my friends had long-distance girlfriends. They would spend hours in what seemed like endless conversation over the phone. On Valentine's day, they would send their girlfriends large heart-shaped cookies. Their girlfriends would send them a note and a care package in loving exchange. I would sit alone in the school cafeteria, munching on Valentine's day themed pink pastry puffs.
Then I met Cassie. The first conversation we had was filled with "me too" moments and real, hearty laughter. Soon, we started dating. We held hands, shared our first dance together, and celebrated holidays together. On Valentine's day, she would make me a cute hand crafted gift and I would inevitably get her a decidedly cheesy sentimental present.
But none of that was truly love. It wasn't until we got married and had kids that I learned what love is. Love isn't really about flowers and chocolate. Love isn't about songbirds and butterflies. Love is poopy diapers and tantrums. Love is screaming children, hungry stomachs, and sniffling tears. Love is coaching a constipated kid to push through a gigantic turd. Love is having your kid completely reject you right to your face, thanking them, and then taking it in the face once again.
When I think back about what I thought love was, it was all so egocentric. I realize now that I wasn't looking for someone to love so much as I was looking for someone to love me. I didn't actually learn what love was until I was forced to learn how to take care of someone other than myself.
But when you really and truly love someone just for the sake of that someone, then you can really appreciate love back. I used to think there was no greater thrill than holding Cassie's hand. But these days my thrills come in the form of a much smaller hand. Whenever my daughter reaches out and says, "Daddy, hold hands" I fall in love all over again.
This Valentine's day, I decided to make a healthy sweet for my little sweetheart. This chocolate hazelnut parfait recipe uses whole seeds in the form of raw buckwheat groats, which give this dessert an interesting texture and nuttiness. I got my buckwheat groats at my local Whole Foods. Happy Valentine's day!
Chicken broth is the foundation of goodness. It is the basis from which so many recipes start. It confers tenderness to vegetables and whole grains, saltiness to soups, and moisture to meats and stews. If I don't have anything else on hand, I can always rely on chicken broth to enhance the flavors of any basic ingredients.
As with any processed food product, make sure to choose broths with no added sugar. I don't bother buying low sodium chicken broth because I intentionally use broth as a salty vehicle to add savor to my dishes. On the other hand, when I went to Spain, I learned that most chefs keep their stock unsalted; instead, they add salt separately to their dishes according to their tastes.
You can easily make your own chicken broth. One of the beautiful things about homemade stock is you can dump whatever leftover herbs and aromatics you might have in your refrigerator. You don't even need to bother peeling the skins off your onions. According to Jo Robinson, author of Eating on the Wild Side, onion skins are high in bionutrients, making them the most nutritious part of the vegetable. Adding unpeeled quartered onions to your stock confers it with flavor and nutrients.
One great way to use stock is in homemade soups. In celebration of Superbowl 50, try making your kids this Souper Bowl of Ramen, comprised of homemade chicken broth, fresh vegetables, and sliced braised pork shoulder. For a healthy low carbohydrate twist, try roasting spaghetti squash to substitute for noodles.
Twenty-five in twelve. That was the benchmark. That was the mark to beat up until one rookie made his debut at Nathan's Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4th, 2001. At his inaugural event, Takeru Kobayashi ate at such a blistering pace that the judges ran out of signs to indicate how many hot dogs he had eaten, and resorted to handwritten signs. At the end of twelve minutes, Kobayashi had polished off fifty hot dogs and fifty hot dog buns, nearly doubling the previous record.
How did he do it? How did he eat so many hot dogs? He did it by rethinking competitive eating. According to Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics, instead of asking how many hot dogs he could fit into his stomach, Kobayashi, asked, "how can I make one hot dog easier to eat?" What can we learn from a competitive eater? Kobayashi's feat demonstrates that the limits of how much we can eat is not necessarily based on the capacity of our stomachs but how fast we eat. The faster we consume, the more we consume. Therefore, a strategy of slowing down the consumption of calories can curtail the excessive consumption of calories. A deeper analysis of the strategies Kobayashi used to speed up his eating can provide insight for those interested in watching their caloric intake:
1. Eat Whole Food
Kobayashi accelerated his eating by breaking his hot dogs in half with his bare hands before putting them into his mouth. This strategy reduced chewing time and was later coined "The Solomon method". To slow down excessive food consumption, eat whole foods in their whole form, and thoroughly chew your food.
2. Avoid Processed Food
Another reason Kobayashi was able to eat so quickly is because the food he ate was processed. The buns he consumed were made of refined flour and devoid of fiber. Refined carbohydrates are not only easier to eat, they are rapidly emptied from the stomach at approximately 10 calories per minute. In other words, they go down fast and go out fast, leaving the eater hungry again. Processed hot dogs are more aptly called fat dogs, as they are typically made up of twice as much fat as they are protein. And while fat can enhance satiety (emptying from the stomach at 2 calories per minute), it also serves as a lubricant. Hot dogs go down fast even without the aid of water. If Kobyashi had competed in a steak eating contest instead, he wouldn't have been able to eat nearly as fast. Unprocessed lean protein takes much longer to chew. It also empties slowly out of the stomach, at approximately 4 calories per minute.
3. Enjoy Food
Kobayashi distinguishes competitive eating from typical eating. To him, competitive eating is a mechanical race to the finish, much like a foot race. He doesn't appreciate the sensory pleasures of what he is eating when he is in a food competition. He doesn't have time. So often, we catch ourselves eating on the run or rushing through a meal. And yet, one of life's greatest pleasures is sitting down and enjoying a meal. Instead of rushing to finish your meal, sit down and enjoy your meal. Sit down with family and friends at the dining table and enjoy a shared meal. Spend at least thirty minutes in conversation over your shared meal. This will afford adequate time for your satiety signals to kick in, which will in turn curtail overeating. Try sharing these homemade breakfast sausages at your next family meal!
"One hundred percent. This is kashk. One hundred percent." This is what the shopkeeper at Babylon Market assured me of when I visited the Falls Church specialty grocer one Saturday morning on a desperate search for kashk. It certainly didn't help that I had no idea what kashk looked like or tasted like. All I had to go on was pictures of jars of kashk that I had found on the internet. Admittedly, I was a bit skeptical since the internet pictures were jars and the shopkeeper directed me towards boxes that looked like silken tofu. One of the hidden bonuses of maintaining a healthy food blog is it forces me to search out new and exotic ingredients. I recently ate at a Persian restaurant and tasted some of the best eggplant I have ever had. I looked up "Persian eggplant recipe" and found several recipes which included this mysterious ingredient called kashk. After some research, I learned that kashk is a dairy product made from drained, dried yogurt. After fruitlessly searching for kashk at our local grocery chain, I almost decided to substitute with plain yogurt or sour cream as some recipes suggested. Then I remembered this small Middle Eastern market hidden in the back of a shopping plaza in Falls Church. I figured a place called Babylon Market just might have the elusive ingredient. It turned out that I was right. In fact, I was one hundred percent right. Heeding the advice of the owner, I picked up the box of kashk and headed home. I opened up the box and indeed found a dried ball of kashk sitting in a pool of cloudy liquid resembling the whey found in a carton of yogurt. I followed the instructions for Creamy Persian Eggplant Dip (Kashk-e Bademjan) and this is how the dish turned out: I don't know if it was the salting of the eggplant, the caramelized onions, or the kashk, but this was indeed one of the creamiest eggplants I have ever made. I am thankful to the knowledgeable and affable shopkeeper at Babylon Market. Unlike the processed food we often cram into our mouths, food cooked from scratch is authentic and real. It is the only way to be assured that the food you are putting into your body is indeed good for your body, one hundred percent.
Kobe steak burger with duck fat fries. Maine lobster mac and cheese with truffle salt. If I were to open a fine dining restaurant, even before I selected a top rate chef, I would make sure to hire a clever linguist. In The language of food : a linguist reads the menu, Dan Jurafsky talks about the linguistics of restaurant menus.
For instance, fine dining restaurants are able to charge a premium for their food simply by highlighting exotic ingredients and citing where their food comes from. Kobe steak from Japan? $100 please. Lobster caught off the shores of Maine? Get ready to open your wallet.
On the other hand, menus from budget diners don't tell you where their food comes from. They also don't include strange ingredients you've never heard of. Instead, if they describe their food at all, budget diners might emphasize "real" ingredients, like "real" cheese and "real" eggs.
We should be served food that can easily and honestly be described. We should know where our food comes from. We should eat real food. And, we shouldn't have to pay $100 a plate for good food. You don't need to cook with fancy ingredients to eat good tasting food that is good for you. You can create a gastronomically sensational experience simply by relying on unprocessed, whole food like plants and protein.
For instance, instead of buying an expensive cut of Kobe steak, you can create tender, juicy chicken zucchini poppers. Adding grated zucchini to ground up chicken takes advantage of the high water content of zucchini to make these poppers succulent. I recommend microwaving the zucchini and squeezing out some of the water so the poppers don't get soggy. Also, I used chicken thighs instead of chicken breasts because they are juicier but still lean. Try putting chicken zucchini poppers on the next menu you serve your kids!
