Alongside my cup of tea, I also ate about a half-cup of the potato salad I had made for last night’s dinner. (I use the little red potatoes that are so good now and steam them for about 20 minutes, then toss with a mixture of Dijon mustard, olive oil, minced garlic, cracked pepper, fresh parsley and a twist or two from the salt mill.)   
My daughters faithfully ate their cereal. But they also had a banana and a small serving of berries. (One daughter still holds her nose when she eats bananas, but she’s coming around.)

So not only are we nourishing our bodies with the most important meal of the day, we are also being good Americans. We are following the new food guideline number three “to make half your plate fruits and vegetables” no matter the meal. It is easier for me because last night’s leftovers have always been my breakfast of choice. The challenge is with the traditional cereal-and-toast deal. So we pour less cereal (usually granola. I know, I know…) and add more fruit than we used to do. Occasionally now we substitute OJ for milk. Sautéed zucchini and summer squash are delicious when paired with an egg and goat cheese omelet and fits the recommendation beautifully. Roasted sweet potatoes are good teamed with anything and put hash browns to shame. Although, if you make them yourself, you can omit a lot of the grease and salt found in many of the ready-made brands. 

The narrative of the new food guidelines really have spurred my thinking about how my family eats. It is so much easier to comply with “make half your plate fruits and vegetables” than it is to “eat five servings of f & v a day.”  It’s just a more concrete picture and advice, especially when thinking of breakfast that is often centered around simple carbohydrates. And especially since the new food group icon MyPlate replaces the old Food Pyramid. It really does get you to thinking about what’s on each plate at each meal.

Here are all the new guidelines put out by the USDA in January: 
Enjoy your food, but eat less
Avoid oversized portions
Make half your plate fruits and vegetables (at every meal)
Make at least half your grains whole grains
Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk
Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, frozen meals—and choose the foods with lower numbers
Drink water instead of sugary drinks

For a quick summary, here is a video I created for my Nutrition class about the guidelines.

Maybe it started at Christmas when I received a pizza stone, which I love, and a set of All-Clad cooking utensils, which I cannot believe I’ve been living without, but at Target last Monday, I bought something I’ve never bought before: an immersion blender. I did. Maybe, if I’ve thought of it at all, I’ve considered it an unneeded luxury; I do have a food processor after all. And, really, how often would it be used?

But the afternoon before, a rainy, chilly Sunday, I stole a few moments to curl up with my favorite reading: cookbooks and my current Cook’s Illustrated magazine. I was after an easy pizza crust recipe when I came upon the edition’s Equipment Corner—where they describe the features of everything from Pullman loaf pans to Dutch ovens to, yes, immersion blenders. They were recommending the KitchenAid Model because of its “stainless-steel shaft, which can be plunged into pans even as they sit over a direct flame.”

I then moved onto my New England Soup Factory Cookbook, looking for Chili Con Carne, because I’m tired of the recipe I’ve been following that came with my West Bend Crock Pot 25 years ago. I came upon Artichoke Bisque and forgot all about chili. My mouth began to water just reading the ingredients: roasted artichokes, fresh Parmesan, light cream all to be mixed with a hand blender. An immersion blender.

My heart skipped a beat when I bent down to the lowest shelf in the kitchen appliance aisle at Target and there was the exact blender. The last one.

The artichoke bisque nearly brought tears to my eyes it was so good—and soooo easy with the blender.  Next up is spinach, feta cheese and toasted pine nut soup. Then tomato and ginger soup with grilled chicken. Then roasted yellow beet and pear soup with crumbled blue cheese….   
 

Here are three more tips to help us through the holiday buffets:

Do the Dolly Parton. When asked a few years ago how she lost a noticeable amount of weight in a short period of time, my good friend Dolly Parton said this: “I sample everything and finish nothing.” This differs from my “the end” advice, but is sage when it comes to parties, especially if you simply cannot resist sweets. Sample them all. Finish none. (I don’t actually know Dolly, but doesn’t she seem like she’d be a lot of fun!)
 
Make your own calories. I certainly can control how much I eat at parties and dinners out, but not the ingredients of those foods. So at home, especially during the holidays, I cut calories everywhere I can. For example, we eat a lot of hummus (so easy to make) salsa, goat and feta cheese, so instead of using crackers for these foods, I buy whole wheat pita bread and cut them into quarters, then into a warm oven to crisp. About half-way through, I spread a little olive oil onto the pita chips. You can always jazz them up by adding minced garlic to the oil. These are low in calories, salt and fat and high in fiber.

Don’t pass a faucet without taking a gulp—or 10. This was actually advice given to me during my first pregnancy when it is easy to become dehydrated. But it works very well to keep hunger pangs at bay.  I literally stand (it is perfectly fine to drink water, and wine, while standing) in front of my sinks—kitchen and bathroom—and guzzle down a cup-full or two whenever I am passing by. I also sip from my big 1.5 liter water bottle throughout the day. (The average woman needs 2.7 liters of water a day; and guys need 3.7.)  When I drink water, I am much less hungry, and I feel great.
 

Throughout this season of eating, I will offer a few of the habits I have cultivated to help keep me fit and trim—especially during the holidays. Here are three:

Don’t eat anything standing. This works, and it is as simple as it sounds. When I am fixing dinner, stocking groceries, cooking for a party, baking cookies, whatever it is, I don’t take a bite of anything if I am standing. If I truly feel compelled to taste that yummy broiled chicken, a spoonful of my neighborhood award-winning chili (honestly, I have a trophy and all), or a few of my homemade salad croutons ala Jacques Pepin, I swear to Peter that I put it on a plate and sit down. If I allowed it (or was unaware of it) I could eat a whole meal’s worth of calories at the kitchen counter. No eating and standing goes when I am at a party, too. That’s what wine glasses are for: To hold something while you chat. If I eat, I fix a plate, find a seat, and enjoy the experience. This leads to Tip 2.

The end. When I fix a plate of food—either at an informal gathering or at a sit-down affair or on a routine Tuesday evening—when I am done with that plateful, I am done. The end. No more. Mouth shut. Kitchen closed. They say the hardest exercise is the one where you push away from the table after one serving of food, and I agree it’s a tough one. But it is something I can consciously do. And, I believe what you do enough becomes habit. To make this a little easier, I often have a cup of hot peppermint tea at the ready at the end of my one plateful. Or I save a few sips of my dinner wine, sort of my dessert.  Which ties right into Tip 3.

Dessert night. Wednesday is dessert night at our house. My kids pick what they want (almost always chocolate ice cream). We eat it sitting down, and when our bowl is done, the end. (See how beautifully it all fits together!) Our schedule gets knocked off a bit during the holidays, but the principle remains. We often decide ahead of time which event affords dessert, and boy do we enjoy. But then we don’t overdo it at other parties or dinners that week. My girls might have a cookie or two, but that’s it.

Thanksgiving is Thursday, and I will have all the foods I want, just not when I want or as much as I’d like.   

I bought new running shoes this summer—two pairs actually, and socks. I spent $212 and one hour of my time jogging around the parking lot of Charm City Run in shoes of varying degrees of “cushiness.” Even after complete attention from the salesman and that parking lot time, I’m still not sure I selected the right pairs for me.

Time was I bought running shoes at Kohl’s based on which style appealed to me most. I took in color scheme, logo coolness, how the shoe flattered my foot, and price, and, and, get this, I grabbed a bag of six pairs of socks for $10 on the way to the cashier. I ran uninjured for years under this buying policy, as irresponsible as it may seem. 
 
But that was before I knew I had foot posture—a comprehensive measure of foot type, apparently, that now must be taken into account when purchasing shoes. This posture concept was brought into sharp focus when I suffered my first bout of Achilles tendonitis and was told I needed lifts—small foam-rubber inserts—fitted into motion-controlled shoes—big, boxy, cushiony things, to set me in the correct biomechanical pose. That cured the tendonitis all right, but I sustained injury several times when I tripped over these clunkers and went hurling through the air.

Yet I continued to wear these way past their unofficial expiration date, because if you have paid any attention to the running industry lately, you will know that “barefoot” running is now all the rage. It is a confusing and scary time for the running-shoe buyer, and I couldn’t face researching if going from my chunky clunkers into running shoes that fit your feet the way gloves fit your hands—tight and snug with no support at all, is actually a healthy idea. But the concept is sure popular. One new product is the new Vibrum Five-Finger “barefoot” shoe. So popular apparently, the stores can’t keep them stocked. Charm City had only one pair of women’s extra small that fit my 12-year-old daughter Nelle who was sitting next to me. 

After 15 minutes of tugging and pulling, she finally got them on and gave it a go around the parking lot. “I hope no one saw me,” is all she said.  But the store was packed with folks looking for this type of shoe—and there are lots of them on the market. While not a new training technique in any way, barefoot running touts using the body’s natural foot placement with its wider toe spread to allow for better balance, less problems with chronic foot injury, and greater agility. And the shoe allows for that, and I guess offers a little protection from gravel, glass, or roadway debris, but nothing else. 

Would this work for me? Would I run better? Faster? Would I feel more in tune with myself? With nature? I pondered. But don’t I need a shoe that corrects for over-pronation? Underpronation? A glance at my old shoes suggests evidence of both. Do I run more from heel to toe or mid-foot to ball? I just can’t tell. I know I have a high-arch, but those cushy shoes—perfect for a high arch—I just don’t like. I began to sweat.

Here is what I did. I bought two pairs of “minimalist” shoes—ones that offer no kind of correction, but at least some arch and ankle support . One more minimal than the other because I was feeling healthy that day, even though I dismissed the Nike Free (a very lightweight shoe) a few years ago, because I could feel my ankle turning in even as I trotted around the parking lot. But I got all caught up in this minimal-barefoot-movement thing. While I really do like the lighter shoe in some respects, and they do add more support than their barefoot competitors, my left knee hurts during every run. Not enough to keep me home, but enough to know my foot posture requires more ankle motion-control from my shoe to help stabilize my knees. Alas, no barefoot running for me. 

I miss Kohl’s.

Was a time I’d of walked right by that chard—and I still pass it by in the supermarket in the winter—but today in its full season with its full flavor and dark green leafy stems, I can’t get enough.  Many people are unnecessarily afraid of Swiss chard, as I once was, only because they don’t know how to cook it. 

Full of vitamins A, C, and K, it is also called summer spinach and used in much the same way—though its stronger, beet-like flavor and heavier texture requires a little longer cooking time. I bought a big old bunch of it today for a buck.

I clean it first by soaking it in a bowl of cool water and drying it on a kitchen towel while my 100% whole wheat rigatoni gently boils—I use this particular tube pasta because the grooves hold the dressing so well—and it has 6 grams of fiber/serving. I sauté chopped red onion (also fully in season now—bought 6 big bulbs for $3) with chopped garlic and ½ inch thick yellow squash slices cut in half, until not quite tender.

To this, I add a huge handful or two or more of chopped chard, as it wilts down to almost nothing. Let that sauté with the veggies then off heat and put a lid on it, allowing the steam to finish the cooking. Then all I do is whisk a spoonful of Dijon mustard, a tad of mayo, olive oil and a couple shakes of Aceto Balsamico (balsamic vinaigrette) and mix with the warm rigatoni, then toss in the cooked veggies. Sprinkle with small chunks of goat cheese until slightly melted. 

This is “Eat Local, Eat Seasonal” at its finest. You control exactly what goes in the dish—and what doesn’t: saturated fats, additional salt, simple carbohydrates.  Other peak summer produce include: all kinds of berries including gooseberries, (I’ve never had a gooseberry that I’m aware of.  I’ll look for it next week, maybe.) peas, peppers (my favorite), peaches, plums, summer squash.

My favorite way to make eggplant is simple, healthy and good, good, good.  Slice that beauty into ½ rounds and let them drain for a half-hour or so, pat dry, shake them in a baggie of flour and pepper, dip into a pie plate of whisked egg, then coat with a layer of breadcrumbs tossed with a few spoonfuls of parmesan cheese, then oven cook on an olive-oil-coated cookie sheet at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes—or until golden brown and crispy, rotating the pan and flipping the rounds halfway.  Talk about yummy. I don’t know why anyone would eat French fries or Mozzarella cheese sticks when you can have these.

Breadcrumb note: I tasted Panko (Japanese style) breadcrumbs once, and I’ve never looked back. My favorite brand is Asian Gourmet that I find at Eddie’s Market. (One night I sat straight up from a sound sleep panicked that there wasn’t any Panko in the house—they are that good, and I use them that much.) 
Eating healthy, fresh, seasonal foods = feeling great. 

Maryland farmers markets
http://www.mda.state.md.us/md_products/farmers_market_dir.php

Eddies Market
http://www.eddiesofrolandpark.com/