This past weekend I took the stage for a cooking demonstration at the Colorado Christmas Show’s Colorado Cookin’ event in Denver. It was a great crowd and a lot of fun. They were most accepting when, during my entrance announcement, I walked onto the stage, caught my heel on some electrical cords and went down completely out of view. I popped back up and said, “I’m okay!”, and then launched my show with a collective deep inhale and exhale so that we could all “center” ourselves together. We all got a good laugh out of it!
My favorite part was hanging out with my good buddy Keith Jones, Host Chef extraordinaire and culinary ambassador to the world. Thanks for snapping these photos, Keith!
The book will be released January 6th, but pre-order yours now and get a HUGE discount. Really huge. About 1/3 off the cover price.
I’d love to come to your city and give you and your friends a private cooking demonstration party! Suggest to your company, favorite non-profit, or healthcare organization that they bring me in to speak. If they do, I’ll come to your house and offer a free private cooking class for you and your friends.
Be sure to keep up to date on my upcoming events through my newsletter (it hasn’t gone out in a while, but it will resume shortly).
My little girl has strep throat. You might never have guessed it, though, to look at her. She’s energetic, happy, has an appetite… in short, she doesn’t look sick. Except that her throat hurts on and off because her tonsils are massive.
swollen tonsils
She was sent home from school about 10 days ago with a fever. I put her to bed, pumped her with fluids and natural remedies (echinicea, gelsenium in case it was the flu, aconite for viral infections), and watched her carefully for the telltale strep rash, yellow bumps on the back of her tongue, or pustules on her tonsils. Her fever broke the next day, so I figured it must have been a passing viral infection.
Guess not.
Her throat was still bothering her a week or so later, so I brought her into the pediatrician’s office. Sure enough, the strep bacteria showed up immediately on the in-office culture. Dang.
Did you know that they have strep tests that return results in 3 minutes now? When I was a kid, my sister and I were strep “carriers” and had it 5-8 times/year. Since my father was a doctor, he would bring the culture swabs home from the hospital and swab our tonsils himself, then drop the thing off directly at the lab — bypassing the pediatrician altogether. The worst part was that he wasn’t a good shot and swabbing would take multiple attempts. It sucks gagging when your throat already hurts, let me tell you.
The thing with strep is that if you leave it alone your body might fight if off by itself, or it might become a chronic infection, or it might migrate to your heart in the form of rheumatic heart fever, scarlet fever, or kidney problems. Some of these can leave you with a permanently weakened heart.
I remember when I was in 4th grade and one of the other student’s mothers was our playground aide. She died suddenly that year, at age 36, because of a weakened heart from a childhood bout with strep that turned into rheumatic heart fever. She left two young sons. Very sad.
So my baby girl is on heavy duty antibiotics. She loves the taste, but they are ripping her insides up and giving her diarreah, poor child. As soon as we finish the course I’ll pump her full of probiotics to help repair the carnage that’s going on.
My infectious disease specialist cousin-in-law suggests that we treat the whole family with antibiotics. The thought is so distasteful to me that I’m going to wait and see if anyone else turns up with any symptoms first. I’ve disinfected the bathrooms, faucets, lightswitches, and doorknobs, and washed all the linens in hot water. Maybe we can avoid this fate. I suspect that being on so many antibiotics during my lifetime helped me end up with multiple sclerosis. That’s one of my theories, anyway.
The incubation period for strep is about 3 days, and sickies are most contagious when the symptoms are most acute, which was about two weeks ago now, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that we came through it ok.
As Emeril says on his shows, You can put your own personality into cooking, but it’s very difficult to do this in baking. In baking you gotta follow the formula. That’s because cooking is an art while baking is a science.
I actually did well in science in high school. Me and my late friend Melanie jockeyed for position at the top of the class in theoretical chemistry with a friendly competition over who could get the higher test scores. I could really nail those theorems and apply all the right formulas to solve the calculations. You’d think I’d be able to get baking.
But I don’t.
See, the way I cook is with inspiration (based on a recipe I might have seen, or a restaurant meal I’ve eaten, or simply what I have in the fridge) and desire (what do I feel like eating/cooking?) along with a dose of time constraints (is it 5 o’clock already? I’d better start thinking about what to make for dinner!) and a skew towards healthier foods and cooking methods.
When I apply the same qualities I use when I cook (inspiration, desire, time, healthy) to a baking project, I’m often disappointed with the results.
Duh: baking is a formula, not a creative endeavor! I should know better.
For me, cooking is often an artistic expression, a creative outlet. The problems come when I try to be creative with my baking, too… sometimes successfully, sometimes not. I can’t seem to get it through my head that I must follow the formula/recipe exactly as written to get good baked goods. My stubborn nature gets in the way. I just can’t help myself. Tell me I can’t do something and my first question is usually, “Why not?”
Yet, I still try to bake sometimes. Usually because I see a recipe for a baked good and I get inspired. This should probably be my first clue to set it down and step away from the recipe. But no. I blunder on heedlessly, blithely thinking that I can mold the recipe to my liking and end up with something delicious. As I did last month when I saw a recipe for savory breakfast muffins in the newspaper.
Ham and Cheese Buttermilk Breakfast Muffins, in fact.
Savory Breakfast Muffins
These would be great, I thought, to make as mini-muffins and keep in the freezer. Just pop one in the toaster oven for a quick and substantial breakfast. Like a one-pot meal for breakfast. What a great idea! They’re sugar-free, so maybe they’d even be acceptable to my sugar-phobic husband.
Except, well, the ham part kinda disgusts me, so no ham.
And I don’t have buttermilk, so I’m just going to use the same amount of whole milk.
The recipe calls for finely diced red pepper, but I’m going to use finely diced zucchini as well. I’m sure it won’t make a difference.
Oh yes, and to make it a little healthier, I’m going to substitute 1 cup of the all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour. Just because I’ll feel better about serving them if they have whole grains in them.
Let’s not forget that I’m at altitude, but I have no idea what to do to adjust for this, so I don’t. I like to use it as an excuse, though.
So, instead of following the formula for Ham and Cheese Buttermilk Breakfast Muffins like Emeril says you must when baking, I used the recipe more like it was a guide with suggestions. I’m the kind of person that chafes when told I have to follow the rules. Baking has rules. This should have been clue #2.
The biggest bummer with trying to make baked goods healthier by changing the recipes is that things often go directly to the trash, and I hate wasting food. These were truly inedible. My Ham-Free Ham and Cheese No-Buttermilk Breakfast Mini-Muffins were like little chunks of sandstone. Super dry and crumbly, tasteless except for an overwhelming sensation of cayenne in the back of your mouth.
Next time maybe I’ll try to follow a recipe for baked goods as it is actually written. There’s always hope.
Here’s the original recipe, if you want to give it a try yourself:
Serves 12
3 c all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp baking solda
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 large eggs
1 1/3 c buttermilk
2 Tbsp. canola oil
3 Tbsp. butter, melted
1 c thinly sliced scallions (about 1 bunch)
1 cup diced ham (6 oz)
1 cup grated extra-sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 c finely diced red bell pepper (1 small)
Heat oven to 400 degress. Coat a 12-cup muffin pan with cooking spray or line it with muffin cups.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper.
In a medium bowl, whisk togethe the eggs, buttermilk, oil, and butter. Sir in the scallions, ham, cheese and bell pepper.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and use a rubber spatula to mix until just moistened. Scoop the batter into the prepared pan (the cups will be very full).
Bake the muffins until the tops are browned, about 20-25 min. Let the muffins coolin the pan for 15 min, then loosen the edges with a knife and transer the muffins to a cooling rack. Serve warm.
To store, individually wrap the muffins in plastic and refrigerate for as many as 3 days or freeze for as long as a month.
To reheat, remove the plastic wrap, cover the muffin in a paper towl and microwave on high for 30 sec.
cal 248, fat 11g, chol 62 mg, carb 27, pro 10g, fiber 1g, sodium 787 mg
*Sorry for the missing pepperoni on the chin – my hubby snatched it before I could snap the photo. 🙂 This is just pepperoni with black olives for eyes – so easy!
Bathroom faucets, remote controls, and telephones are likely culprits for harboring the germs that cause colds.
Scientists at the University of Virginia have tested many common surfaces to see if germs could live on them and then be transferred to the next person. The big news? Yes, absolutely.
Here are some of the sobering numbers describing common germ hotbeds to think about as we head into cold and flu season. Spots found to harbor the germ:
6 out of 10 doorknobs
8 of 14 refrigerator handles
3 of 13 light switches
6 of 10 remote controls
8 of 10 bathroom faucets
4 of 7 telephones
20% of the toys in the “sick-child” waiting room at the pediatrician’s office
17% of the toys in the “well-child” waiting room
30% of the toys in the sack to choose from after getting a shot
What can you do to avoid picking up these germs?
Besides remembering to wipe down and disinfect doorknobs, light switches, and phones along with the regular cleaning routine in your home, do your best not to touch these things in public places. That’s what I do. In public areas I turn faucets off with the towel I’m using to dry my hands, flip lightswitches with my elbows, and pull my sleeve down over my palm (or grab the bottom of my shirt) when forced to grasp doorhandles. It’s awkward, but worth it to keep my hands clean and germ-free.
I try not to touch escalator handrails, railings, and elevator buttons, preferring to use my elbow when possible. If I must touch something like the pole in a subway car, I try to wash my hands the first chance I get and remember not to touch anywhere near my face or food until then.
This marks the official kick off of my return to touring for Glorious One-Pot Meals after taking most of the summer and fall off. While it was a gift to cut back on my public appearances for a while, I’m fired up and ready to go out and promote my newest cookbook, Glorious One-Pot Meals: A Revolutionary New Quick and Healthy Approach to Dutch Oven Cooking.
