On Sale Now

 GOOD FOOD BAD FOOD, a 230 page anti-aging diet and cook book

I am so proud!  My baby is finally born and it only took seven months, not nine.  Perfect timing because it’s beginning to look a lot like---you guessed it!  So, for those of you who have a newly-wed or beginning homemaker in your life, here is the perfect gift.  A two volume set of Cooking Skills for Life (AsGood As It Gets and Good Food BadFood) both now available in paperback on Amazon and Createspace ---  Volume 1, a how-to of cooking methods with family recipes and anecdotes from the author and Volume 2, the diet book for anti-aging cookery that includes all the information, cooking methods, ingredients, and recipes, recipes, recipes, that he or she needs to know to avoid age related chronic disease.  What better gift to give than a formula for health!

The following is an excerpt from Good Food Bad Food---

                     The cocktail course is one of my favorite ways to introduce more vegetables into my diet through the use of fresh fruit and vegetable juices.  And for those of you who, like me, enjoy alcoholic beverages, drinking your vegetables as a mixer in a cocktail will lessen the negative effects of an otherwise acid producing beverage.  From my  blog http://antiaginggastronomy.blogspot.com/

of August 19, 2012, some tips on a dinner course

which is usually left out of nutrition and diet books---

The Cocktail Course

Many years ago, before I discovered the benefits of eating an anti-aging diet, I jumped on the juicing diet fad bandwagon in one of many attempts to lose the extra pounds that I was carrying around.  I was reminded of it recently when my husband and I decided to join the annual going back to school neighborhood multi family yard sale last weekend.  Going through box after box of stored memorabilia, collectibles, and household goods, was like watching an old home movie, or turning the pages of a scrapbook of our lives.

  Like hundreds of thousands of other forty somethings in the 80s, I plunked down $ 200 more or less and bought a popular state of the art juicer, hawked by a well known sports octogenarian who swore into the camera that drinking a concoction of carrots, celery and parsley, freshly juiced every day was the key to his longevity and good health.  For one whole week, I juiced every vegetable and fruit I could get my hands on to try out the machine.  After weeks of juicing, I was no closer to a normal weight than before I had started and generally felt no different, although I did notice a tinge of permanent orange on the fingers of my left hand, no doubt from all of the carrots.  A decade later and 3000 miles away from where I had first used it, here it was again, it’s shiny stainless steel blade none the worse for wear.  So out to the yard it went with all the other boxes that had crossed the continent more than once and still remained unopened through the last two moves.  As the day wore on, it became apparent that no one was interested in a $ 200 juicer, not even for $ 30 bucks.  I took that as a sign. 

At the end of a long day of powerful deal making and highly impressive negotiations over the price of vacation themed shot glasses and tarnished silverware, there I was at my kitchen counter pondering what to do with my $ 200 juicer when suddenly it came to me.  I am always looking for more ways to prepare and consume vegetables that could then be served to offset small amounts of acid producing foods like protein and grains.  With experience I have been able to come up with enough interesting ways to prepare alkaline producing vegetables, condiments, soups, salads, and such for every meal except for one.  The one course that is particularly difficult with which to accomplish this balance is---the cocktail course.  Yes, you heard me.  That’s right.  In my family the first course to every evening meal is the cocktail.  Now, staring at the juicer I knew I had a way to convert that course to a 60/40 (alkaline to acid producing) ratio as well.
All alcoholic beverages are acid forming, whether it is vodka from potatoes, gin from juniper berries or tequila from the blue agave.  Now, I have tried to rationalize my participation in the cocktail course by thinking of the juniper berries, and blue agave, and potatoes as vegetables, of plant origin and therefore, alkaline producing, right?  Wrong!   Sugar, fermentation and distillation yield an acidic forming product.  But, here’s the good news.  A contemporary cocktail such as an appletini or cosmopolitan, is made of anywhere from 1 to 2 oz of alcohol and the rest of the glass is filled with a mixer.  Sooooo, as I eyeball my juicer staring me in the face, I realize it is the key to rendering the cocktail course from one that is acid producing to an oh-so-good alkaline forming first course.  By juicing fresh whole parsley, celery, lemon, lime, cucumbers, avocado, tomatoes, apples, carrots, beets, lettuces, chili peppers and any other vegetable of your liking (not all together, of course) and adding good spices and herbs like cinnamon, mint, basil and red pepper flakes, you can turn an acid forming classical martini of gin and dry vermouth (fortified wines are even higher in acid forming qualities), or a contemporary one like a cosmopolitan into a powerhouse of alkalinity.  Just leave out the vermouth and bottled mixers and fill to the brim with liquid vegetables, freshly juiced including the fiber.  And there-in lies the reason why no one bought my juicer.  I do believe in serendipity. 

Eat Smart Mexican Martini (my favorite cocktail thus far)---Juice celery stalks with leaves, cucumbers and lime zest.  Add the juice of one lime.  Chill a martini glass and pour in 1 1/4 ounce of Tequila.  Fill to brim with juice.  If you like a salted rim, coarse ground sea salt will do.

Eat Smart, America!

Buon Appetito e Buona Salute, Chef AngelaB.

An Evening With Two Fat Ladies

It was just about this time of year, Fall, of 1996, that two fat ladies named Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson,  happened on the British culinary scene and through their love of lard and all things fresh, became an overnight sensation.  Wright and Paterson, who were indeed two fat ladies became Two Fat Ladies who rode into the opening scene of every segment of their British cookery show on a Triumph Thunderbird, Wright riding sidecar alongside a goggled and leather helmeted Paterson. Their odd personae, disdain for vegetarianism,  and lack of professional culinary skills did not hurt the popularity of the show which ran for three and a half seasons, until cut short by the death of Jennifer Paterson.  But although there were only twenty-two episodes (ten of which I have not yet seen), the popularity of their show lives on. 

I was first introduced to these larger than life talents when I happened on their show being aired on one of the cooking channels last year.  Having a fondness for tradition, and all things natural and from another time, I never missed one and in fact, felt cheated and sad when they came to an end.  Where in today’s sanitized, polished, television cooking shows can you see so much butter and lard, anchovies, garlic, unpasteurized raw egg products, sweet vermouth, game and fish, large, calorie rich meals with unusual ingredients, made by two fat ladies wielding wooden kitchen spoons, taking time outs for a cigarette break, and a celebratory cocktail and smoke at the end of every show?  

And although the duo had disdain for vegetarianism, non-fat, lo-cal and lo-sodium, their ingredients were unprocessed and came from farms and roadside markets, local fresh turned butter, as well as vegetables and fruits picked from the fields and orchards, and in many episodes, fish and game, caught or shot by Wright or Patterson on camera.  My heroes!  My hat comes off to the originators, producers and to the two fat ladies themselves for their wit, stamina, originality, and most of all, their ability to see the trees in spite of the forest. 

    Tonight, I will watch the other ten!

Eat Smart, America!

Buon Appetito e Buona Salute, Chef AngelaB.