Food For Thought

By Paul Apgar

April '03

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Essay: Eat All The Foods You Love And Still Melt Off The Pounds!!


This could just be a guy who doesn't know how to try on a pair of pants.
That's right. About two weeks ago I found this diet where all I had to do was take a tiny pill twice a day, drink 4 cups of water at every meal, and the fat was just burning off no matter what I would eat! No exercise, no painful walking or stairs or sitting up straight... Then I woke up with cookie crumbs all over the comforter and a candy wrapper stuck to my pillow. How disappointing. It was only a dream. But that heading got you a little excited, didn't it?

Isn't it funny how if we see something in big flashy letters we automatically believe it, or at least want to believe it? It probably stems back from the days with Gutenberg and people thought "Hey, if the guy takes that much time to haul around a 100 pound letter "A" for this billboard, then what he has to say must be important and full of truth!!"

There is no truth in advertising. They tell you whatever they want you to believe and it doesn't matter if it's true or not. And if they're not lying to you outright, then it's just some marketing ploy which stretches the truth so thin you could floss with it. As food consumers we need to be aware of all the silly tricks that companies use in order for us buy their products.

I just saw a cat litter commercial where they have this "Odor Detector" ... it looks like a pole with a rubber nose on the end, attached to some super computer. The scientist pulls the trigger and the nose sniffs and either lights up a green or red light depending on if it "smells" odors. Are we supposed to believe that such a contraption exists and it looks like that? Is something that stinks like cat pee so hard to be objective about that you need to get a super computer involved? Yet this is their entire basis for their brand of cat litter working better than the competition.

I'll offer up a little personal story to highlight this phenomenon to you to bring the point home. Besides, it's always good to have a healthy list of companies you boycott.


FUN SIZE??? There is nothing fun about candy this size!

Yogurt Example

So I like Yogurt. Before you start thinking I turned "granola" on you, let me clarify... I only like yogurts with fruit on the bottom. It's not all fruit of course, there's some gelatin and lots of sugar and other preservatives, which pretty much reduces the benefits of fruit as nature intended it. In any case there was a favorite brand of mine which to protect the not-so-innocent I'll call them "Dan". Well Dan had the best tasting fruity yogurt that I could find, and I was purchasing probably a dozen yogurts every two weeks.

I remember one day I picked one up and it said "Coming Soon... New Look to Dan Yogurt!" So of course I got all excited (almost as excited as when they change the look of Pepsi... Same Great Taste!). After a month or so while going to the yogurt section I had trouble spotting the rows of Dan. Then I realized that they had changed the look so I quickly picked one up. For some reason the cup looked smaller. I checked and it was 6 oz of yogurt instead of 8 oz which it was before the "new look". I searched around frantically for another "new look" cup which might have been in the 8 oz size, but alas there was none. They were all 6 oz cups. I looked at the label some more to see if they had an explanation for this decision to cut my portions by 25%. On the front at the very top of the label it said something like "Plenty of Room to Hold your Fixin's!" which was right next to a banner saying "New Low Price!"

Wow.

Local Restaurant Review

This is a new section where I review a specific Restaurant located near my lunchtime feeding grounds -- Westwood. A lot of you know of these already but some may not. In either case, it's all about my opinion and how important it is anyway... so here it goes!

Lambert's Rainbow Fruit

Well, at least that's what it says on my Credit Card statements, although I've never seen a rainbow fruit before. This is a produce place which has a Boar's Head Deli that will make sandwiches to order. The sandwiches are under $5 which makes it only slightly higher in price than dining in, yet it rewards you with the sheer volume of the food. No matter what you get or what combination of meats you get it ends up being about 1/3 lb of meat. Yummy.

I recommend choosing one of the many turkeys they offer. I like Salsalito and Honey Baked varieties. Sometimes they have also a "Oven Gold Turkey" which is also excellent. They make an excellent Italian sub, and Sidekick Sammy reports that their pastrami is top-notch.

You get a choice of rolls... they have braided rolls but if you get honey mustard or mayo on your sub I find that it tends to come through the cracks. So I usually go for the straight roll.

The subs are excellent, but what I'd like to talk about are Whoopie Pies. These delectable desserts are a mere $1.29 and they come pre-packaged from the New York SweetTooth, Inc. (which incidentally is located in Cumberland, Rhode Island!) They are always moist, have an excellent devil's food to icing ratio going. One of the best things about this brand is that sometimes they offer Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies. It's an amazing experience. Mmm. I might do a Food For Thought edition on Whoopie Pies alone once I find a good recipe for them. My wife is still trying to master the art of Whoopie Pie Making.

Directions - on 95 take exit for Rt 1 North towards Walpole. About 1000 feet down You will see the shopping center on your left and there is a cut-through past it. Make a U-Turn through the cut-through and then turn right into the shopping center and Lamberts is in the middle of it.

Recipe of the Quarter

Easy Bake Chicken Parmesan Calzones

Although I like cooking, I like eating even more. And the faster I can get to the "eating" part the better. So I've devised this recipe with speed and ease in mind. It is a family favorite and I must say that it makes for one tasty meal. Be warned, however, that this makes two "Apgar sized" calzones. You may be able to split it up into four calzones if you're wimpy with the portions.


Nothing tastes better than a fat dancing chicken.

Ingredients:
1 lb of skinless boneless chicken breasts
1 package of mozzerella cheese
1 lb of pizza dough (from supermarket)
2 Eggs
Bread Crumbs
Olive Oil

Directions

  1. Cut the chicken breasts into 1" square pieces.
  2. Take one egg and wisk it for at least a minute so it gets all yellow and frothy.
  3. Pour the egg mixture into a large ziplock bag.
  4. Dump 1/2 lb of the chicken chunks into the bag. Close the bag and shake it like crazy! (the bag, that is)
  5. Take a cup of bread crumbs and pour it in the bag. Close the bag and shake again.
  6. Dump the contents of the bag onto a plate. Pick out the chicken pieces and put them on a cookie sheet.
  7. Repeat steps 2-6 with the second egg and the other 1/2 lb of chicken.
  8. Preheat the oven on for 350 degrees. Put the chicken in the oven for 10-15 minutes. (check the largest piece for done-ness)
  9. While the chicken is cooking, get another cookie sheet and roll out the pizza dough into two "squares" (a 1/2 lb ball can be stretched to make a 10"x10" square)
  10. Place a nice layer of mozzerella cheese on the the dough square
  11. When chicken is done cooking dump it on the dough square. Feel free to use your favorite Italian spices here.
  12. Put another layer of mozzerella cheese on top of the chicken. This is the glue that binds all that goodness together.
  13. Gently pull up the edges of the dough square to meet in the middle and join them, feel free to "pinch" where the edges meet (as you would a pie crust) in order to make a good solid connection. Having your calzone open up like the alien eggs in the movie "Alien" is disgusting.
  14. Drizzle some olive oil on the calzone to brown it up a little bit and to help it not stick to the pan.
  15. Cook the calzone at 350 for 10 minutes or until the edges are nice and brown.
  16. Serve it up with some tomato sauce for dipping

Questions and Answers

Please submit any and all food questions to me by email.

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