Monday, April 24, 2006

Falling Off the Wagon...

And into a big bowl of whipped cholesterol:

This is the Tiramisu I made for my friend's birthday party. It holds the land-to-mouth record of lasting maybe 6 minutes from the time the plastic wrap was removed until the last scrapings of decorative chocolate were licked from the bowl.
I have always been disappointed that tiramisu never had enough chocolate: A small sprinkle of cocoa powder is nothing but a tease for a chocolate lover. So even though I often bitch about "fusion" cuisine, and nosy chefs gettin' all creative with a traditional recipe... I confess to being just such a chef. The other change was a desperate one of necessity: Couldn't find any (un-moldy) marscapone cheese in Hawaii, and alas, lacked the planning and time to make my own. (And being on a low-cholesterol diet -stop laughing- had no cream in the house with which to make cheese) so used cream cheese and whipped cream instead. Doh! And Kahlua instead of Rum. So this was very non-authentic tiramisu, but tasty and magically disappearing none-the-less.

The slippery slope actually began with my friend's delicious braised and shredded pork. It was tender, delicious, and all agreed that it was even better tasting than Kahlua Pig (gasp! No, it really was.)
Happy Birthday! Now back to our regularly scheduled boring Vegan Diet...

Monday, April 10, 2006

Spaghetti and a View


Attended the annual Kawaihae Canoe Club Spaghetti Dinner and Silent Auction on Saturday night.
While I went with the Vegetarian choices of salad with Italian dressing, and Spaghetti with tomato sauce, other attendees reported the meat sauce, alfredo sauce, and pesto chicken sauces were also tasty and filling.
Mom made and donated this beautiful woven lauhala purse.

I hope lots of money was made for this great club!
Link to Kawaihae Canoe Club HERE.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

No one says it better than JK

JK Rowling had an unexpected rant on her website:
http://www.jkrowling.com (Extras:Misc.:For Girls Only...Probably)
Wherein she rants about the pressures on young girls to be thin. She ends with a wish that we all be Hermiones instead of Pansy Parkinsons.
For many reasons this writer is my hero.
http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/extrastuff_view.cfm?id=22

For Girls Only, Probably...

Being thin. Probably not a subject that you ever expected to read about on this website, but my recent trip to London got me thinking...

It started in the car on the way to Leavesden film studios. I whiled away part of the journey reading a magazine that featured several glossy photographs of a very young woman who is either seriously ill or suffering from an eating disorder (which is, of course, the same thing); anyway, there is no other explanation for the shape of her body. She can talk about eating absolutely loads, being terribly busy and having the world's fastest metabolism until her tongue drops off (hooray! Another couple of ounces gone!), but her concave stomach, protruding ribs and stick-like arms tell a different story. This girl needs help, but, the world being what it is, they're sticking her on magazine covers instead. All this passed through my mind as I read the interview, then I threw the horrible thing aside.
(snip)
Maybe all this seems funny, or trivial, but it's really not. It's about what girls want to be, what they're told they should be, and how they feel about who they are. I've got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don't want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before 'thin'. And frankly, I'd rather they didn't give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons. Let them never be Stupid Girls. Rant over.