Recipe

Coddled eggs

Moving house can turn up old memories attached to unused items too good to throw out, for which opportunistic gifting can make two parties happy. I dropped in and found my friend Jan contemplating a pair of egg coddlers that her mother had given her. They were in their original blue Royal Worcester divided box, the instructions still attached on a perforated card, meant to be torn off and saved for future reference, such as when they are regifted to a coddler newbie.

Recipe

Nopales: cactus with blood glucose benefits

Nopales are the fleshy pads of the prickly pear cactus. Nopales are eaten all day in Mexico: had them in scrambled eggs, and also as a breakfast side - delicious little stir-fry with onion and tomato, and probably lard. They appear in salads and stews, at all-inclusive resort buffets where they hold well in steam trays, and in fine dining that is serving up local and traditional foods.

Blood Sugar Blog and More

Eggs, cholesterol and diabetes

After many months away from the website, I'm back with some thoughts on eggs. I confess, I eat eggs almost every day for breakfast, one with its yolk, and some “just whites”. There's a lot of research on eggs, partly because there is an organized egg industry that is interested in selling more eggs. In their favour, eggs are a traditional food, easy to cook in interesting recipes, and much maligned by the anti-cholesterol campaign. Here's some of what I found.

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Low-carb diet: Weight loss and lower blood pressure

A recently published study found low-carb ketogenic diet resulted in lower blood pressure than a weight loss regime using orlistat plus a low-fat diet (less than 30% of calories from fat). Orlistat is marketed as Xenical or Alli. It prevents the body from absorbing fat that was eaten. The study subjects were overweight (mean Body Mass Index of 39.3) with a mean age of 52. Although both groups lost about 10% in a year (20-25 lb.), the low-carb group showed better blood pressure results.

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Las Mercedes: fine dining in Guanajuato

In Guanajuato, we had an excellent meal at Las Mercedes restaurant. We had spent the morning walking in the historic centre, seeing museums, and wandering through the tunnels that carry a good amount of vehicular traffic underground. The oldest tunnels were once riverbeds. Antonio Ojeda from Cacomixtle Group told us that the first tunnels were built with many arched bridges over the rivers that once ran through the city. I'll be posting about our trip with Antonio soon.

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Asides

• August 21, 2010 - What’s happening in my kitchen?

  The half-sours were delicious, but not very dilly. Research revealed the volunteer “dill” in my garden was in fact fennel. Oops! The 2m. (6 ft) hollow stems were the clincher. Great for salmon gravlax, not so great for dill pickles.

• August 2, 2010 - What’s happening in my kitchen?

  Three kinds of fermentation – rising in an oiled bowl, a sourdough made with atta flour, in preparation for flatbreads tomorrow (regular carb friends will be here). Creme fraiche is fermenting in a homemade constant-heat box, lit with a 100 Watt bulb and regulated with a modified furnace thermostat. Half-sour dills made with dill from the garden and a grape leaf from a neighbour’s vine are in the basement, covered with doubled paper towelling.

• Sea lice from fish farms threaten salmon fry

  One to three sea lice can kill a juvenile pink salmon. Now, we have evidence that sockeye are also at risk, as they must swim past fish farms where lice infestations are common. To learn more and send a message to the Federal and Provincial governments, go here: http://www.adopt-a-fry.org/

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