Worried that your daughter is overweight?

I have friends who worry their daughters are overweight.

But you know in that polite way friends have with each other – on some subjects, you can’t say what you’re really thinking.

So I see fruit and vegetable star charts.  

I see mothers taking their daughters to dieticians and paying for personal trainers and putting their daughters on “eating plans”

I listen to mothers transmitting all their years’ of accumulated expertise in dieting to the next generation.  

Ultimately, I hear about daughters crying in their rooms, because they think they’re fat.

And this is what I want to say:

Stop worrying and start cooking.

Show your daughter the delights of food transformed by fire and knife.

Create daily occasions of coming together around the shared pleasure of a good meal.

Don’t make children’s food that you wouldn’t touch yourself like fish-fingers, boiled veggie sausages, or pasta and ketchup.

Give your food every advantage and cook with butter, olive oil, sunflower oil, salt,  sugar, fresh herbs, ginger, spices, garlic, lemon, vinegars, chicken stock, vegetable stock, toasted sesame seeds, capers and anchovies (although not all at the same time). 

Show them that food is wonderful and not forbidden.

Show them that our appetites are good and not shameful.

Teach them to eat at the table.

Throw away the scales, and don’t talk about diets or have diet books in the house.

Instead tell your daughters that their bodies are gorgeous and strong and capable.

Tell them how beautiful they are.  Because they are. And you are too.

Then tell them to lay the table because supper is ready.

Limor’s turkey drumstick casserole

This is the best way I know to cook turkey drumsticks. It is truly delicious, plus thrifty. One drumstick has enough meat for two hungry people.

Sprinkle paprika on drumsticks and roast for an hour each side in 200c oven.

Shred meat from the bone then add meat to mix of balsamic vinegar, Worcester sauce, soya sauce, teriyaki sauce, lemon juice, olive oil and honey.  Cook for another hour and a half with sweet potato cubes and chopped carrots that you’ve peeled and pre-nuked for 5 minutes. Serve with rice.

How to make the most delicious fish in the world

I used to think I knew the best way to make fish. 

I come from a long line of fish lovers, from my grandmother’s gefilte fish to my mother’s fried fish to my own baked fish.  I grew up eating sole, hake, yellow tail, herring, sardines, mackerel, hake, salmon, snoek and kingklip. 

As a child, I stuck my fingers in the eyes of the big fish at the fish-shop and turned those cold, firm globes round and round. I saw the ladies at the fish-shop skin those big majestic fish in seconds. I saw where fish came from and how it got onto my plate. 

I read recently that my children could be the last generation to eat fish.  Scientists are predicting that if we continue to fish at the same rate, our global fish stocks will be largely gone by 2048. 

(Please permit me a tiny rant.  I’ll be gentle I swear)

I think the enemy is the fish-finger.

I think boxed fish, frozen fish, tinned fish and anything where the food industry designs a lovely label, prepares it for you and separates you from the source of what you are eating, is the problem. 

I think we need to buy, prepare, cook, serve and eat our fish with the ceremony, gratitude, mindfulness (and maybe even love) that it deserves.  

(Rant over)

I was at the Ocean Basket in Cape Town and I asked them to show me how they make their fish.

As I do not have giant hotplates, staff and squeezy bottles at home, this is how I adapted what they showed me:

Fish Ocean-Basket style

Ingredients:

Cod fillets (or kingklip or hake or sole)

Butter

Lemons

Flour

Fish rub (or a mix of salt, Aromat, coriander and paprika)

Olive oil (not virgin)

Method:

Put a half a cup of olive oil in a plate with a lip

Put a half a cup of flour and a tablespoon of fish rub in a plate with a lip.

Heat up frying pan/s with a bit of sunflower oil.

Melt half a cup of butter and add juice from two lemons.

One at a time, dip fish into flour plate then into oil plate and then into hot frying pan.

Cook for about three minutes a side depending on the thickness of the fillet.

Take out fillet, plate it and pour over a trickle of the butter/lemon sauce.

Face the contradiction of keeping it all warm till ready to serve by putting each plate in a slightly warm oven.

Put a sprig of parsley on each plate and serve to a hungry table of family and friends.

Serve with celeriac root and potato mash, and a crunchy, colourful salad.

Full disclosure now; it was an expensive, messy business. It needed all hands on deck and the fire alarm went off in the middle of the proceedings.  It was stressful and I swore I would never try this method again.

But then I sat down to eat.  

How to get what you want

When I was 18 I wrote a list of five things that I wanted.

I wanted to give up speech therapy.

I wanted a boyfriend.

I wanted to be thin.

And I wanted to leave home.

When all those things came true, I wrote a new list.

I want to work in NYC/London. Tick

I want to win an award.  Tick

I want to have a child Tick. Tick. Tick.

Last year’s list is almost ticked off. (Except for one thing: being in nature)

It’s nearly time for a new list.

This is how I do it:

I admit what I really, really want. I write it on a piece of paper and I stick it on a pin-board in the kitchen.

Then I check my actions are in-line with my intentions.  I keep checking for discrepancies.

That’s the hard part.

Have a go.  I’m sure it’ll happen for you. Not quickly and not easily, but in ways you never anticipated. 

Don’t be hard on yourself.  Forgive yourself. Be kind to yourself.

There are good reasons for doing the bad things we do: Ben and Jerry’s Phish food is delicious. Smoking makes us look cool.  Wasting time on Facebook is entertaining.  

But one day, you’ll look at your crumpled-up old list that’s been on your pin board for years and you’ll get it.

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Ottolenghi’s Koshieri:

Ingredients:

300 g green lentils

200 g basmati rice

Splash of sunflower oil

50g vermicelli noodles

400ml chicken stock

½ teaspoon grated nutmeg

1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

1 ½ teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

4 tablespoons sunflower oil

Three onions sliced thinly

method:

Wash and boil lentils for 25 minutes.

Fry vermicelli in oil till brown. Add rice and mix. Add stock and seasonings. Bring to boil and simmer for 12 minutes.  Cover with tea towel.

Fry onions for 25 minutes. Mix onions, lentils and rice together.  

How to be happy

Yesterday I picked my daughter up from school and I could tell straight away that she was not happy.

She moaned and snapped and generally abused me all the way home.

I tried asking her about what had happened at school.

I tried feeding her.

I tried shouting and forbidding TV.

I said: “Go to your room and read a book”

She said “In your dreams”

She’s nine.

I don’t know how it happened but somehow we both got to be standing next to each other in the kitchen, peeling the giant pumpkin she grew over the summer.

We cut and sliced with sharp knives. We passed each other boards, graters and peelers. We talked quietly.
We worked hard.  In the midst of growing piles of peel, pulp and neat pumpkin slices, we were smiling at each other.  Suddenly, I realized we were happy.

Funny that.  You think that you’ll be happy when you lose the weight, get the guy, make the money, change the job, go on holiday, go back home, win the Nobel Peace Prize, but instead you get happy when you are peeling pumpkins, washing dishes or sharpening pencils.

It’s hard to remember in the midst of a sliding funk, that the thing to do is not to analyse yourself, distract yourself, practise your chosen compulsion or compare yourself to others.

When you want to lie down, you have to get up. When you want to crawl under your duvet, you have to get back to work.  When you want to put your feet up, you have to put your trainers on.

And in a way, it doesn’t matter where you go or what you do.

Kohellet, one of my favourite books, says this: “Only this I have found is a real good: that one should eat and drink and get pleasure with all the gains that you make under the sun, during the numbered days of your life... Whatever it is in your power to do, do with all your might”

Yesterday it was in my power to peel a pumpkin and turn it into pumpkin fritters which are unbelievably delicious sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

Pumpkin fritters

Two cups of fresh, grated pumpkin

Half a cup of flour

One teaspoon baking powder

Half a teaspoon of salt

One teaspoon of sugar

One teaspoon of cinnamon

One egg beaten

Four tablespoons milk

Mix it all together. Fry spoonfuls slowly in vegetable oil (about half a finger-width in depth).  Turn them and pat them a bit flatter as you do.

When golden brown on both sides, drain on kitchen towel.

Serve with cinnamon and sugar mixed in an egg cup.

Enjoy.

The most useful thing I know - part 2

A while ago I wrote about the power of the out-breath. ( March 9 2010)

I wrote that it helped me go further when I ran.

I wrote that I didn't understand why it worked, but that it did.

I recently discovered a whole new dimension to its freaky power.

You can also use the out-breath to improve focus and self-control.

 I'm almost embarrassed to tell you this, but I have started meditating daily.

 For 15 minutes a day anywhere - on the train, on a sofa, in the park, I stop and separate myself from my thoughts, my feelings, my sensations, my worries, my plans and my dreams. 

For a little while, I see me underneath all the stuff.

 For some-one with as noisy a head as mine, it's a huge relief.

Most mysterious of all, it's also a huge pleasure.

This is how I do it:

I use a guide to Mindfulness that I downloaded from Amazon onto my iPod. Written by Dr Zylowska and Goldstein,  it shows me how to use my breath as the anchor for my attention and how to make the other stuff  take a number.

To balance out this slightly esoteric suggestion for better living, I offer you my killer mash potato recipe.

Peel potatoes, cut into threes, and place in pot with lid and about an inch and a half of water, boil till soft, purée with enough salt, crème fraiche and butter.  Serve with fried fish and a good salad.

The difference between Oprah Winfrey and me

Oprah Winfrey is the richest woman in America.  She is strong, powerful, driven, capable, intelligent and resourceful.  She’s truly helped thousands of people around the world.

I am a pleasure-seeker with no willpower what so ever. I can’t organise. I can’t prioritize. I am seriously useless with numbers, details and focus.  I can’t really figure out how to help anyone.

I will never be rich and famous.

Yet I can do something Oprah cannot.  I can stay in-shape.

This is why (I think):

I’m not as rich as Oprah so mostly I don’t let other people cook for me.  Most days, I don’t let chefs in restaurants cook for me, or men in deli’s prepare my sandwiches, or the food scientists in factories make my dinner.  I seldom get take-out.  It’s too expensive.

I am not nearly as clever as Oprah. I have a type of dyslexia that makes me number-blind. So I can’t weigh things or count points or calories. I need things very, very simple.

So I do portion control for idiots - for breakfast I have one of those tiny sachets of whole grain porridge oats. For lunch, I grab a little tin of tuna and a slice of bread and usually borrow someone’s mayo at work.

I don’t have Oprah’s willpower. I don’t even try.  So I make life easy for myself by not having dried mango or Ben and Jerry’s Fish Food or homemade fudge in the house.  (If it finds its way into my house, I do not rest until it is all eaten up.)

Because I am not building schools for girls in South Africa or TV networks in the US, I have more time on my hands. So I can go to the gym often or run or dance or cycle more or less, whenever I want (and not just at five in the morning because waking up that early doesn’t feel pleasant to me)

Sadly, I don’t have Oprah’s social life.  I am not invited to parties catered by celebrity chefs and I am not tempted by mojitos, red wine, sushi and tiny cakes.   I would go and go crazy day and night.

Lastly, I know when it comes to my weight, there is nothing I can delegate, nothing I can buy in and nothing I am entitled too.

My ambitions are small. I am content to tend my family, spend time with my friends and work a bit.

I know how lucky I am to have a roof that doesn’t leak, running water, flushing toilets, and all the vaccinations and medications available in the 21^st century.  I am grateful to live in the Digital Age and in a country not at war. I am grateful that the sky is blue today and for my time on our planet right now.  

I realize not everyone gets to be Oprah Winfrey. But no-one else gets to be me either.  

I made this for supper last night:

I baked cod fillets, with lots of butter, lemon juice and salt. I wrapped it in tinfoil smeared with butter and put it in the oven at 200 degrees for half an hour.

I chopped up and fried a carrot, an eggplant, three celery sticks and one zucchini in sunflower oil. Then I threw in loads of chopped parsley, sunflower seeds, Aromat and soy sauce.

I also served noodles. It was delicious.  It was enough.

The secret to being the shape you want to be

Some of the cleverest, strongest, most capable women I meet are not at ease with their bodies.

It makes me sad because it’s not rocket-science that allows people to be in-shape.  

There’s no magic out there.  There's no special metabolism.  Any one can be the shape they need to be.

It clicked for me when I realized this:

Only I decide what I put in my mouth.  No-one else has a say in the matter.  

I don’t listen to smug, over-weight, over-accessorized instructors from Weight-Watchers, or to any diet ever invented, or expensive private dieticians armed with scales, or beautifully designed weekly eating-plans, or Dr. Phil, or Jenny Craig, or the makers of Special K, or a hypnotist, or any of the hundreds of books written on the subject.

 Only I decide what’s going in. (and believe me, I put lots of yum yum delicious things in my mouth on many different occasions)

On the other hand, I know that because I need to be in-shape, I can’t feast every meal.

That’s the bottom–line.  

I hope you throw your scales away, that you never consult another expert or put your hopes in another diet.  I hope you trust yourself to act in your own best interests. I hope it clicks for you. I hope that you eat well and live well.  I hope you realize we are the lucky ones.

Artichokes and Hollandaise Sauce

Cut the top off the artichokes so that they will fit in the pot. Wash under tap. Put artichokes in pot of boiling water for 40 minutes.

Hollandaise

3 egg yolks

1 table spoon fresh lemon juice

Pinch salt

1 cup melted unsalted butter

Whisk egg yolks and lemon juice and salt till thick and creamy then place on very, very low heat until tracks form on the bottom of the pan.  Remove from heat and slowly oh so slowly whisk in the melted butter.

Sit around the table with loved ones and enjoy.