Welcome Marissa. It’s always good to mention that simply substituting whole wheat flour for white flour in a recipe can yield results with a pretty tough texture. I use 7/8 cup whole wheat pastry flour per 1 cup white flour when making baked goods on Cookus Interruptus.

I recently took two cooking classes in Spain. For one paella the saffron was steeped in boiling water. For the other, the saffron was put in a little foil packet, held over the flame until you could smell it, given a quick one-two with a mortar and pestle and added to the rice during cooking. The latter definitely gave the dish more flavor and color.

Hi Caroline,
One of the classes I teach at Bastyr University is on “How to Teach a Cooking Class”. Students design their own class and practice teach it. This semester I have a student who is teaching a class on feeding dogs. I applaud. I feel that we do with dogs sort of what we do with babies - accept that we don’t have the knowledge to feed them correctly and let Gerber or Wysong figure it out for us. The result is that both get dry lifeless stuff that they all seem to manage to survive in spite of. People seem to paint the choice balck and white - hours of extra labor in the kitchen and extra food expense - or the ease and convenience of a bag or jar. In reality you save oodles when you give your pets and babies real food because you save on medical bills. And the time thing - well if you’re eating well yourself it’s not so hard to put some brown rice, chopped up parsley and some raw beef or chicken in your pet’s bowl. It can be just an extension of what you’re already fixing for breakfast or dinner.

I don’t think HFCS does metabolize similarly to refined sugar. True they are both refined sweeteners with nothing but empty calories. But one is largely dextrose, the other fructose. The human body was not really set up to utilize large amounts of fructose (how many pieces of fruit would one eat at one sitting?). If only a portion of the calories can be used to create muscle glycogen, where do the rest go? In the case of HFCS they either have to be discarded or stored. For some people the discarding may cause cramping and diarrhea. For others, the fructose just becomes stored fat. Nice.
Honestly, I have been questioning the PhDs in the Nutrition Dept where I work for years to try and figure out how this corn sweetener (Americans eat 83 pounds per person per year - a hefty portion of the diet)metabolizes. I don’t think that we really know the whole story yet. Who would pay for the funding of the study? Any legit research would get trumped by a bigger one funded by the CRA - one that would get lots more press. A case in point is how the nicely done Italian study on aspartame was ignored by the press here in the states.
I applaud you King Corn Gentlemen!
Cynthia Lair
www.cookusinterruptus.com

Zamiat,
Click on the links in the post “WHO Farm” and “Eat the View”. They will take you to the sites that are gathering signatures.

Thanks Kelly. Cooking helps keep me out of my mind - in the good way.
Cynthia

Be sure to differentiate between whole wheat flour and whole wheat pastry flour for baking. The former is great for bread but makes doorstop cookies. The latter works quite nicely to make dense but not too heavy muffin or cookie.
Cynthia Lair

Hi! In my book Feeding the Whole Family I have two millet recipes (a whole grain I also find challenging) that I really like. One is cooking millet as a breakfast mush. Cook it with sliced apples or peaches and use part juice for the liquid (the other part water). Top the cereal with a bit of butter and apple butter and it’s real good. I also find that millet, because of its sticky nature, forms nicely into croquettes that can be fried. This is very good, especially with a sauce on top.
Cynthia Lair

Thanks for your support on this topic. WE make everything so complicated in this culture and forget about the joy and simplicity inherent in eating.
Cynthia

Thank you Holly. I especially enjoy the flavors that these condiments give food.
Cynthia

There is also an excellent article on the topic in the latest issue of Harper’s Bizarre. Worth reading.
Cynthia Lair

Excellent. The human body prefers carbohydrates for energy and you won’t be able to go very long without craving them. I must add again that macaroni and potatoes are not the same in my mind. One’s a whole food, the other not.
Cynthia

I was interviewed yesterday and asked about"world baby foods”. This is a new brand of baby food where they put things like curries and hummus in a jar. I was floored. Why not make it for the family and serve some to baby so it’s fresh? Hang on to your common sense friends! Rock out with oatmeal and dolmades.
Cynthia

Yes yes yes. Thank you for your support. Yes let’s teach our KIDS to cook. We’ve gotten some excited comments from college students who have made some of the recipes in the videos on cookusinterruptus. Hope for the future!
Cynthia

Kim.
What a great article. Thank you. I’m definitely in your court. I feel we should even go one step further (and said so in an interview yesterday) and teach our kids to cook! This is a really interesting blog site and I’m excited to be a dinner guest.
Cynthia Lair

Remember too that whole grains don’t have to be about whole WHEAT (which is heavy and makes pretty undesirable pasta - this coming from a whole grain cookbook author). People get turned off by whole grains trying to choke down spelt penne. They forget about magical things like polenta, quinoa salad with currants and feta and wild rice. They make plain ol steamed brown rice instead of sauteing before cooking with jalapenos and chili powder or ghee, corainder and cumin. Dress it up! Have oats with cinnamon and raisins for breakfast. Cook kasha with potatoes, mushrooms and garlic. Whole grains can be delicious.
Cynthia Lair, author of Feeding the Whole Family, host of Cookus Interruptus (www.cookusinterruptus.com)
Cynthia Lair

Noelle,
Please DO go on! We need more moms with common sense about food shouting out about breastfeeding, school lunch and more!
Cynthia

I agree! I don’t see what the point of hiding veggies in the soup or pasta sauce. What does that teach our children?
Cynthia

I serve on a Nutrition Advisory Committee for the Seattle school lunch program and I must confess that it is rather like banging your head against a wall. We are told over and over about lack of funds and government regulations. They have managed to serve some fruits and vegetables everyday but the main entrees are still the most nutritionally poor food I can think of. I still can’t figure out where the buck stops on this one. It’s a fight we should all be involved in for the reasons mentioned.
Cynthia Lair

Joanne and Rose,
Thank you for your support! I love the phrase “feed down to them”. And yes it is true - when you feed your kids better - you eat better too. Lots of smiles from me upon hearing from you.
Cynthia