Girassol

I am destined not to be healthy

You know how they're always saying you should eat heart-healthy snacks, and how almonds are great for your heart and they're a great source of the good fats, and all that stuff?

So just now I'm in the kitchen looking for something to eat while I take a quick break from working because there's no real food in the house and I'm still not dressed, so I can't go out and get something real to eat until I get a shower and put clothes on.  So I'm trying -- actually TRYING -- to do a healthy snack.  Did I avoid the ice cream in the freezer?  Why yes, I did.  Which is nothing short of miraculous. 

Instead of the ice cream, I get out a can of Blue Diamond Smokehouse Almonds.  "Almonds are good for my heart," I think as I pull off the lid.  And then a shiny thing catches my attention and the can of almonds flies out of my hand and lands in the bowl full of water that is sitting in the sink.   A  $3.00 can of almonds, almost literally down the drain.  Ugh.

Reasons why I love Sheetz

1.  The ham Schmiscuit, with double egg, mayo, mustard, ketchup, sliced tomato, salt, pepper, and Swiss cheese.

2.  It's a Mecca of linguistic hilariousness.

        2a.  It provides a way to tell locals from out-of-towners.  We southern Pennsylvanians have the habit of calling it "Sheetzes" -- as in "Welcome to Sheetzes, pump two's on."  You don't call it Sheetzes?  You are definitely not from around here.

        2b.  This morning they had these stars hanging on the counter that represented donations to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. One donor had wished to remain anonymous, only on the star it was spelled, "Annoumys."  If I spelled that poorly, I would remain annoumys too.

3.  The blue-collar dudes who stop in there periodically throughout the day to pick up two things:
    
        3a.  A pack of Marlboros.

        3b.  Me. 

This morning when I arrived at Sheetz a guy opened the door for me, while holding his pack of Marlboros in the other hand.  He was wearing cutoff jean shorts and a t-shirt with the sleeves ripped out, and had a tattoo of a skull on his shin.  When I thanked him, he answered, "No problem, sweetheart."  Then his eyes followed my ample booty the entire way back to the juice refrigerators. 

Yesssss!  Someone thinks I'm hot!  Or, perhaps, someone is very lonely!    

Random Things I'm Grateful For: Thursday

Thursday's entry in the list of Random Things I'm Grateful For is...  "A food."

If there's one thing I find it easy to be grateful for, it is definitely food.  And there's no question what my favorite food is.  It is the food for which I am by far the most thankful.  ICE CREAM!  The only food deserving of the boldface, caps-lock, exclamation point treatment.

Ice cream has been a constant presence throughout my life.  It played a part in many of my fondest childhood memories -- homemade ice cream at family picnics, trips to High's or the Velvet Cafe for a cone to celebrate a good report card, and chanting, "Blink, blink" from the back seat of the car to mimic the sound of a turn signal in the hopes that Mom and Dad would pull into the Dairy Queen.  It has been a staple food on every one of my birthdays.  (In fact, I usually ask for a Baked Alaska or a straight-up ice cream cake -- who cares about the actual cake cake?)  It has consoled me after many a bad date.  It has gotten me through late-night study sessions.  It has cooled me down on hot summer days when the thought of cooking and eating real food was just too much.  Ice cream was even part of one of my favorite college traditions -- at BYU, a first kiss is celebrated by buying ice cream for one's roommates and then sitting around telling the story. 

It is the ultimate comfort food, and one of the few vices I allow myself.  The image you see here is a scan of the inside cover of one of my journals from college, where I kept a sort of collage of thoughts and images that illustrated my life at the time.  Inside that particular journal I glued a little poem I cut out of a magazine.  It reads, "I do not smoke, drink, or swear; Self-discipline is the ticket; But when it comes to my ice-cream habit; I just can't seem to lick it." 

Hee!  Lick it!  Isn't that great?

Even if I could "lick the habit," I honestly wouldn't want to.  Like a faithful pet, ice cream has always been there for me when I needed it, and I pay it back by keeping our connection a quality one.  No generic store brands that come in a bucket and are full of gummy ingredients I can't pronounce.  I'm a total ice cream snob.  Homemade is great because you can make it whatever you want it to be.  But time and resources being as sparse as they usually are, my store-bought choices are the following:

• Häagen-Dazs, which is freaking divine. If you have not tried Mayan Chocolate, Cinnamon Dulce de Leche, or Crème Brulée, you have seriously missed out on three of the finest pleasures in life -- even their sorbet is basically amazing. 
• Ben & Jerry's, because in addition to being delicious, they give back to local communities and work to keep a low impact on the environment.  I particularly recommend Phish Food, Cherry Garcia, Mint Chocolate Cookie, Strawberry Cheesecake, Chubby Hubby, and Oatmeal Cookie Chunk.  I mourn the loss of Rainforest Crunch, Wavy Gravy, and Festivus/Gingerbread Cookie to their flavor graveyard. 
• Breyers, because they stick to the all-natural recipe.  Theirs is the only vanilla ice cream I will consider.  Their coffee ice cream is to die for.  They keep it simple, and that keeps the ice cream delectable.

If I were stuck on a desert island and could only take one food with me, clearly ice cream is the only choice.  There just better be a massive freezer on this island.         

Reasons Why I Will Likely Gain Back The 11 Pounds I Lost During Lent While On Vacation Back Home

1.  That Gryuere grilled-cheese sandwich.  And since then, several other occasions requiring the consumption of Gruyere cheese.

2.  Maryland crab cakes.

3.  Crab and scallop cheese dip on Ritz crackers.

4.  A Mint Whisper Sundae from the Velvet Cafe.

5.  Roast pork, sauerkraut, and mashed potatoes.

6.  Herbal tea.  OK, not so much the tea, but the plate of cookies, scones, and curry pillow sandwiches they gave us at Tranquilitea.  And the half a box of Girl Scout cookies I ate at my aunt's when we had tea as a thank you for cutting her hair.

7.  My grandmother's spare ribs and scalloped potatoes.

8.  Coffee ice cream and freshly baked cookies.

9.  Two quarts of full-fat chocolate milk from Whole Foods.

10.  Chili cheese dogs.

11.  That caramel pecan tart filled with chocolate mousse that I ate at Starbucks since I don't drink coffee.  I'm beginning to wonder if that was really the healthier choice.

12.  Deep-fried mushrooms.

13.  Pad Thai and spring rolls.

14.  A Boston cream, a raspberry jelly, an apple cinnamon, and a dozen glazed holes from Krumpe's Do-Nuts.  At 11:30 at night.

15.  Coconut-battered shrimp with amaretto sauce and sweet potato fries from Little Havana on Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

16.  Symphony brownies.

17.  A meatball sub from Stavros.

18.  The package of Golden Oreos my sister just handed me.

Contrary to popular belief, passionfruit doesn't make you feel passionate. Just tired.

Here's the recipe for the Passionfruit Cheesecake that I made on Easter, in all its artery-clogging and sleep-inducing goodness.  I started out with a couple of different recipes and combined what I liked about each one to come up with this.  It tastes great, but know that passionfruit really can have a Thanksgiving-dinner-like effect on you, so it's best to eat a big piece right before bed, although Weight Watchers would probably disagree with me.

Crust:
8 oz. finely crushed graham crackers
4 oz. (1 stick) butter
2 tsp. vanilla

Mix together with a fork and press into a springform pan, covering the bottom and up the sides.  Chill in the refrigerator while you're making the filling.

Filling:
32 oz. (4 packages) cream cheese (or half Neufchatel, half cream cheese)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp. vanilla

Cream together well with a mixer.  Then add the following:

1/2 cup sour cream
1 bottle (500 ml or 16 oz.) passionfruit pulp*
1 grated lemon rind
juice from one lemon

Finally, lightly beat in 3 eggs, one at a time.  Then stir in 1/4 cup whipping cream.  Pour into the springform pan and bake at 325 for 1 hour and 20 minutes.  Chill  or at least 4 hours, or overnight if you can wait that long.

Topping:
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1 cup water

Dissolve well in a double boiler.  Then remove from heat and in a different bowl, add:

1/2 cup passionfruit pulp (I actually used mango on this one and it was delish!)
4 tbsp. sugar

Chill until it starts to thicken a little (30 minutes or so), and then spread over the top of cheesecake and chill for another 4 hours.


*Notes about passionfruit pulp:  You can buy this at any store that sells Latin American foods.  Usually passionfruit pulp comes from Brazil.  Two good brands are Maguary and Jandaia.  Don't try to use real passionfruit, because you will need like a million of the actual fruit to equal the concentrated pulp that you get from the bottle.  Plus, fresh passionfruit is full of seeds.

Instead of passionfruit, you could easily use mango pulp or probably any other fruit (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, pineapple, cherries, peaches) whizzed around in a blender until it gets pulpy.

I'm so disappointed...

...because I always try to make sure I have a martini with me when I ride the bus.