Kiss Your Cold Goodbye with Wellness Formula

And now, the long-awaited Wellness Formula post. I was first introduced to Wellness Formula one year ago by Sam during the onslaught of the cold and flu season. Sam had gone into Whole Foods looking for Airborne, but was redirected to another product — Wellness Formula — by the sales woman in the health & nutrition department. The woman was so enthusiastic about the effectiveness of Wellness Formula that Sam decided to try it. Since then, we’ve been preaching the wonders of Wellness Formula.

As an “herbal defense complex,” Wellness Formula contains many different vitamins, minerals, herbs and antioxidants to help your body fight illness: you’ll find Vitamins A, C, D, Zinc, Copper, Garlic Clove, Echinacea, Horehound Aerial Parts (hmm, that sounds a bit odd, no?), Olive Leaf Extract, Bioflavanoids, Goldenseal Root, Ginger Root Extract and many other medicinal elements with very interesting names. I should warn you, though, even with all those good-for-you things mixed up into a single capsule or tablet, they taste pretty awful. But I guess it’s not such a bad thing if taking Wellness Formula gets you to drink lots and lots of extra water.

While there is a whole line of Wellness Formula products, the basic Wellness Formula comes in two forms: tablets and capsules. The only difference I can detect is that 1 tablet is equivalent to 2 capsules. They make up for this discrepancy by adding more capsules to a bottle of Wellness Formula, so I don’t really think you are losing or saving money by buying either tablets or capsules.

At the first sign of a cold (or “imbalance,” as the bottle says), pop a few of these VITY Award-winning pills and you’ll be sure to nip that cold in the bud.

Not so sure about Wellness Formula? or dying to learn more? Visit the Wellness Formula website and listen to this 5 minute podcast from the Whole Foods blog.

Pom-wonderfulness

This afternoon I walked into the kitchen and lo and behold! there on the counter, in all its late-afternoon-autumn-light splendor,  lounged one of the biggest pomegranates I had ever seen.

“Okay, you pompous  pomegranate you,” I said, giving it the once-over. “Let’s see what you have to show for your 1 pound 3 1/4 ounces (I weighed it) of pom-wonderfulness.”

First, I took that paramount pomegranate outside for a photo session — every pom has its day. The pom’s fame flashed by in an instant, though, as reality hit: it was time to mine the sweet treasures from beneath the leathery pink skin. With a couple wiggles  of the knife, the lifeblood of the pomegranate began leaking onto the bread board.  Success! Breaking apart the pomegranate, the jewel-like arils fought back by staining my hands purple. Tucked tightly together in rows, the arils were stubborn to release from their  home. A deft flick of my finger showed them I was not to be stopped; Pom-wonderfulness would be had.

I tossed a few of the precious gems into my mouth and savored the pop of the tender flesh and the tart liquid dribbling through my mouth. Then I suddenly began to realize how extraordinarily noisy eating a pomegranate can actually be. Eating an apple is unquestionably noisy–they’re crunchy–but pomegranates? Yes, those sly seeds encased within the arils were the guilty culprits. Normally, noisy eating habits top my pet peeves list (yes! even the inevitable apple-crunching…), but today the pomegranate seed crunch struck me as a wonderful  sound dimension enhancing the pomegranate eating experience.

And by experience, it really is quite an ordeal, as anyone who has ever eaten a pomegranate from scratch can attest. Would I trade the arduous task for store-bought pomegranate juice, devoid of the satisfying experience of breaking apart the scarlet gems and pulling them from their case one-by-one? No. Would I trade it for the prepackaged arils available at Costco at Christmastime? Well, maybe if I was really short on time. But here lies the moral: obtain a pomegranate (beheamoth or not), slice open, appreciate the intricacy of design and relish all that pom-wonderfulness.

CHOW How: 10 Ways to Spice Up Pumpkin Seeds

I couldn’t very well write a post about Epicurious.com and leave the über-hip CHOW.com in the dust. First, a confession: I’ve never actually used any of the recipes on CHOW, but I think their website is really cool. If you ever wanted to know How to Pair Wine and Halloween Candy or how to make Glow-in-the-dark Gin and Tonic Jelly, CHOW is the place to go.

Enough with the goofy links. Here’s the real link love: CHOW’s most recent photo gallery addition,  “10 Ways to Spice Up Pumpkin Seeds.” From wasabi and coriander pumpkin seeds to pumpkin-pie spiced pumpkin seeds, CHOW takes pumpkin seeds to a whole new level. Here’s some good news for you: you don’t have to wait until you carve your pumpkin on October 31 to try all 10 variations nor do you have to  deal with the muck and guck of cleaning pumpkin seeds , you can use raw pumpkin seeds (pepitas) to make your spicy seeds (don’t worry, I won’t tell). When you view the photo gallery, just click on the photo for the recipe.

Which variation are you going try first?

2 Reasons I Like Epicurious.com

I like Epicurious.com. And here are two reasons it is my go-to site for all things cooking:

(1) Recipes & Reviews.

While I turn a blind eye toward the clunky and crowded pages, I find the recipes (mostly from Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines) more credible than other websites like AllRecipes.com. If by chance an Epicurious recipe has gone too far to left field, you can be sure to read about it in the reviews section where recipe-testers recommend their own variations or emendations. My advice: read the recipe, read the reviews, cook accordingly.

(2) Epi-log.

Yesterday I was delighted to see an Epicurious blog called “Granola: The Easiest Thing Since Sliced Toast” by Regina Schambling. This reminded of my own discovery (and blog post) that homemade granola is deceptively easy to make an considerably cheaper than ready-made granola. Read my post here, Ms. Schambling’s here.

But the topper on the cake for Epicurious blog would have to be filling me in on the lastest buzz: Twitter is releasing it’s own wine label. What?!! Yes. Don’t worry quite yet, the Twitter Empire isn’t looking to only expand their own territory but is partnering with the non-profit Room to Read to promote literacy. Twitter will donate $5 from every $20-bottle of wine to support the organization. SF’s Crushpad completes the Triumvirate behind Twitter’s wine push: the diy wine press is where Twitter will be crushing and fermenting its grapes for its first wines, a Chardonnay and a Pinot Noir. How’s that for news?

Cape Cod: An Introduction

Though it’s been weeks since I’ve posted, I recently gathered much fodder for future blog posts on a vacation I took to Cape Cod. From the lobster rolls and fried clams at the local crab shack to the decidedly New England ice cream (purple cow, anyone?), the trip was a delightful exploration of seaside cuisine and lifestyle. Stray not far, readers, more posts to come!

Design*Sponge: Not Your Average Mess

photo from Design*Sponge

Who doesn’t love Fridays? They are the wrapping up of the work week and the gateway to the weekend, those two blissful days free from work.

There are, however, reasons unrelated to the work week as to why I love Fridays.

Let me explain: These days, instead of wasting time on Facebook to fill my already-full free time, I’ve taken to the much more constructive pursuit of reading blogs. Food blogs, design blogs, personal blogs — they are all quite interesting reads.

Inevitably every Friday afternoon I find myself on the blog Design*Sponge and suddenly remember that every Friday they post a blog called “In the Kitchen With.” These posts feature a recipe and fabulous photos from some sort of designer. Three great things are rolled into one blog post: a new recipe, inspiring photos and a peek into the life of a designer.

Last Friday Design Sponge featured “In the Kitchen with Eunice Moyle” of Hello!Lucky. Eunice shared a recipe called Eton Mess, which is very similar to the pavlova I made a couple weeks ago. You’ll have to read the actual post to learn why the recipe is called Eton Mess, but having eaten this while I was in England, I can attest that it is a good kind of mess — a mess even your mother will like.

Can there be a Righteous Porkchop in the Age of Swine Flu?

News of the Swine Flu is becoming a pandemic,  spreading faster than the flu itself: “Swine Flu” is a “Trending Topic” on Twitter; the school where my mother teaches in a virtually at-no-risk region of California sent home two letters (in one day!) on the Swine Flu; and 7 of the 32 my “Latest Headlines”  tab from the BBC  are about the Swine Flu.

With all this talk about swine, I thought it an appropriate time to share about a book I recently heard a lecture on, Nicolette Hahn Niman’s The Righteous Porkchop. Just hearing the phrase “Swine Flu” makes me want to stop eating pork, but according to the BBC Q&A page on Swine Flu, it is OK to eat pork (cooking it to the proper temperature would kill the virus). Nonetheless, the prevalence of Swine Flu encourages me to ask the butcher where my meat came from, and this — knowing where what we eat comes from — is one of the main things I took away from Nicolette Hahn Niman’s book lecture.

As an environmental attorney, Nicolette Hahn Niman (then just Hahn — she hadn’t married rancher Bill Niman yet) was sent by Robert Kennedy Jr. to investigate pollution caused by pork producers.  Her research led her to discover the unnatural practices in raising and slaughtering pigs and other animals for food. In her book, she delineates some of these cruel practices and the negative effects they have on the communities and environments where these farms are located.

With all these terrible things occurring, asks Nicolette, ” Can there be a righteous porkchop?” Yes, she says, there can. In fact, it wasn’t that long ago when natural and humane hog farming techniques were the norm rather than the exception. So while comprehending the magnitude and prevalency of the cruel practices of the hog farming industry can be disheartening, we needn’t count it as lost. After all, the biggest obstacle to change, says Niman, is a sense of inevitability of where the situation is heading. One audience member asked, how can we who are not hog farmers or environmental lawyers help bring about change? “Vote with your dollars” was Niman’s reply. If the demand for humanely treated products increases, so will the supply.

This blog didn’t give an “answer” to the Swine Flu (nor did it attempt to) or to the hog farming predicament, but hopefully it has sparked in you a little curiousity about where your food comes from before it reaches the table.

Organic Means Healthy, Right?

Mark Bittman, the mastermind behind The New York Times’ “The Minimalist” column, recently wrote an article entitled, “Eating Food That’s Better for You, Organic or Not.” Bittman notes how the organic food sector has been thriving ever since the government began certifying as “organic” a little over 6 years ago  but that many people mistakenly equate the designation “organic” with “healthy.”  Certainly eating organic products does promote healthfulness and environmental stewardship in some capacities,

“But the questions remain over how we eat in general. It may feel better to eat an organic Oreo than a conventional Oreo, but, says  Marion Nestle, a professor at New York University’s department of nutrition, food studies and public health, “Organic junk food is still junk food.”

Bittman encourages consumers to not reach for any product labeled organic and fool ourselves into thinking we are doing our bodies a favor but to be conscious eaters, “eating food that’s better for you, organic or not.”

Mark Bittman is also the author of several cookbooks, most recently Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating.

Dagoba Chocolate

A couple weeks ago when I was at the SF Ferry Building Plaza with Laura and Marisa, we stopped at the Scharffen Berger shop to buy my mom’s favorite Scharffen Berger cocoa powder. That day they were giving away free bars of Dagoba organic chocolate with your purchase. I admit it’s pretty slick marketing because here I am writing on my blog about a chocolate I had never heard of.

Marketing ploys aside, I rather liked this chocolate. The bar I was given was the “lemon ginger” flavor. I love crystallized ginger in my chocolate but was a little skeptical about the “hint of lemon.” The hint turned out to be just enough, not overpowering but still interesting.

Dagoba, which is based out of Ashland, Oregon, makes several different creative infusion bars (like Chai; Blueberry Lavender; and Acai, Goji and Currants) as well as single-origin chocolate bars, drinking chocolates and baking chocolates. Dagoba prides itself on its organic and sustainable practices, which you can read all about on their website.

Dagoba, which means “temple of the gods,” describes itself as “Dedicated to the Art of Chocolate Alchemy® – transforming exceptional cacao into edible gold.” I give Dagoba two thumbs-up for their clever use of words: their newsletter is called “The Tao of Cacao” and the ingredient list for my lemon ginger bar reads: “Organic dark chocolate…OG crystallized ginger, OG lemon, and, of course, love.”

Chocolate, ginger, lemon, love — what more could you ask for?

The Wine Bible

I was recently given a copy of The Wine Bible, which is written by Karen MacNeil. I was told that this was an easy-to-understand and comprehensive guide to wine, and reading the accolades on the front, back and inside covers (yes, there are that many!) of the book bore this out.

Bon Appetit wine and spirits editor Anthony Dias Blue writes: “A dazzling, comprehensive, modern guide to wine, free of elitism and pedantry.”

Robert Mondavi writes: “The most complete wine book ever. A must for anyone who loves wine, whether they are a pro or an amateur. Thorough, authoritative, and entertaining.” And Mondavi isn’t the only one who calls the book entertaining, Danny Meyer, co-author of The Union Square Cafe Cookbook, also calls the book entertaining.

The book is hefty, measuring 1 ¾-inches thick and weighing 2 lbs. 12 oz., but not so big that I would feel uncomfortable toting it along to read on BART. The pictures are all black-and-white but they are plentiful. Boxes of text-extras are set amongst the regular text, making it simple to learn something with a 2-minute glance through the book. After all, who has time to sit down for an hour at a time to uncode some esoteric wine book? Karen MacNeil’s The Wine Bible is perfect for our busy, go-go-go lifestyles where we want information quickly and in small doses.

The first part of the book is devoted to explaining how wine is made and how it should be tasted, while the subsequent chapters examine specific wine regions and the varietals therein. At over 900 pages, I’d say the book ought to be pretty comprehensive!

As I make my way through these 900 hundred pages of wine wisdom, I’ll be sure to share with you on my blog what I learn.