Sharing the Thanksgiving Table

First off, I want to say that I am planning to eat what many people consider the traditional Thanksgiving meal on Thursday. You know, the turkey… the stuffing… the mashed potatoes with gravy… some vegetables of the season.  You get the picture. Each year, in addition to this, our family also tries out one or two new vegetable dishes. We then tuck those into our recipe collection for special occasions.

As the calendar years have flipped past, there has gradually been an increase in the number of relatives in my extended family that have embraced either a vegetarian or a vegan dietary lifestyle. They’ve done this for any number of reasons…health benefits…global awareness…support of the farm to table movement, and so on. So, as Thanksgiving and the other holidays approach, we are more aware of their food map and try to learn new ways to prepare alternatives to the traditional fare that we can serve at the Thanksgiving table.

If you’ll be having family or friends sharing food at your table on Thursday or on the weekend and would like to broaden your range of dishes that have appeal to vegetarians and vegans, you may benefit from reading Tara Parker-Pope’s Well blog postings from time to time in The New York Times.  Also, The New York Times online currently has been running a Thanksgiving Help Line  where staff of The New York Times Dining section are answering readers’ questions on food, drinks, entertaining and more. For the vegan / vegetarians who may be joining you for Thanksgiving, don’t miss the answer to the question: “What’s a good entree for a vegan / vegetarian Thanksgiving?”  Tasty alternative entrees included Curried Lentil, Squash and Apple Stew / Harvest Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms / 7-Vegetable Couscous. There’s also suggestions for things like “What’s a good recipe for vegetarian gravy?” and “Is there a good nondairy substitute for butter and sour cream?”

Traditional cooks also will find plenty of tips and ideas from the online Thanksgiving Help Line, as well, from experts like Melissa Clark, Mark Bittman, Julia Moskin, and Florence Fabricant. There are even short videos, along with plenty of great sounding recipes.

So, have a look, try a new recipe, ask a question if you have one, but most of all, enjoy sharing Thanksgiving with your family and friends.

-Tom D.

Heart Healthy Diet – diabetic and vegan cooking

Change Begins With Just A Simple step…

Looking for great books and resources on creating heart – healthy meals?  Then check these out!

You will find a step-by step approach that would help you lose weight while controlling your risk of diabetes complications.

 

 The Mayo Clinic Diabetes Diet

Learn about this two-phase plan on how to help at-risk people prevent and control diabetes by losing weight quickly and safely, and then maintaining that weight loss.

 

Diabetes Cooking 101

An everything-you-need-to-know guide to making diabetic-friendly meals. This cookbook features 101 delicious, diverse, and accessible recipes, all of which have been thoroughly kitchen tested.

Vegan for Life

Are you considering going vegan, but you’re not sure how to start? Vegan for Life is your comprehensive, go-to guide for optimal plant-based nutrition.

Flat Belly Diet Diabetes

Lose weight, target belly fat, and lower blood sugar with this tested plan from the editors of Prevention.

Diabetes Meal Planning Made Easy

This Best-selling book gives you all the tools you need to plan and eat healthier meals.

Eat what you love; love what you eat with diabetes

No more rigid rules, strict exercise regimens, questionable drugs, or food substitutes. This book will soon have you eating the foods you love without fear, without guilt, and without binging.

More Diabetic meals in 30 minutes

Find more than 140 recipes you can zip together in minutes  – Blueberries Chantilly in 10 minutes, Grilled Turkey with Garlic Sauce in 10 minutes, and more.

Beat diabetes with picture perfect weight loss

Dr. Howard and top chef Franklin Becker, a diabetic himself, together reveal the secrets to a diet that can actually help you prevent and beat diabetes—without depriving yourself of delicious food.

Reverse Diabetes forever

In this comprehensive book, you’ll find the latest science and expert advice that enables you-at long last-to take control. You’ll learn how to shop, cook, and eat.

The Low starch diabetes solution

Dr. Rob Thompson brings you an easy-to-follow, low-starch diet-and-exercise program that promises to stabilize blood sugar in just seven days.

Asian Flavors Diabetic Cookbook

This unique collection of recipes will be attractive to anyone with diabetes looking for a fresh approach to diabetes-friendly cooking.

 

 Find  anything fun?  Then log on to your  Fountaindale Public Library catalog

to place a hold or dig around for more stuff!

~Vera O.

 

Online Resources For DiabeticVegan Cooking

These links take you to websites for more  information on making healthy food choices and taking control of your diabetes.

Joslin Diabetic Center

Diabetic Health Center

Foodnetwork

How To Become A Vegan

VeganCooking

Vegan Outreach

American Diabetes Association

The New york Times

Google-play

Davita – Bringing quality to life

Learn, Shop and Save

Eating and Diabetes

Search the Fountaindale Public Library’s Databases for quality and up-to-date full text articles on living with diabetes. Databases can be viewed Alphabetically or by Subject.

Recommended Databases

JAMA Online

Journal of the American Medical Association offers limited searchable access to the current and past issues of this medical journal. Some full text is available.

Consumer Information

A large collection of links to government websites including statistics, health, travel, financial information, and other consumer issues.

Facts On File

Collection of databases on history, geography, science, and health. Includes career and curriculum resources.

FirstSearch

Collection of databases including WorldCat, Medline, Government Publications (GPO) and ERIC that offer both citations and full-text. WorldCat is the largest international database featuring more than 54 million items from the 50,000 plus OCLC member libraries. Available in-house and remotely.

Gale Info Track

A collection of databases including Ancestry Plus, Business Resource center, Health Resource Center, Literature Resource Center, and General Reference, Opposing Viewpoints, Gale Virtual Reference Library, and Something about the Author. Provides citations and full-text information on a variety of subjects.

~Vera O.

Julia Child’s 100th Birthday Celebration

Back in June of this year, Chicago Tribune columnist Bill Daley did an article titled “Celebrating Julia Child’s 100th birthday.” It was about the 100 day long celebration that Julia Child’s longtime publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, is having to honor The French Chef. Tomorrow, August 15, 2012 would have been her centenary birthday.

Reading the article made me stop and think about the huge influence this woman had on generations of people. The influences were not only on how we look at food and cooking in America, but also on how people look at the culinary field as a career choice. I’m a good example of the range of her influence.

As a teen, growing up in New Jersey, I was intrigued with Julia Child’s first television series, “The French Chef.” I watched those episodes in black and white every chance I had when they were on my local PBS station, WNET-TV, out of New York City. Julia Child was inspirational. She made classic French cooking and baking interesting, enjoyable, and achievable by the average person.

I’m sure she was part of what motivated me years afterwards to explore and follow an alternate career path to my library work that included attending and graduating from The Culinary Institute of America (The CIA) and then working at several well known restaurants, bakeries, and confectioneries in New York State and Vermont. The picture to the right shows me with one of the awards I helped earn in the 1980s for the shop I worked at in Vermont. Thank you, Julia, for instilling in me a sense of culinary inquisitiveness!

So, there’s time still to join in the Julia Child celebration. Check out Bill Daley’s column from June 20th at the link above and have fun with the JC100 celebration on Facebook at facebook.com/JuliaChild; on Twitter at @JC100; on Pinterest at pinterest.com/knopfbooks/jc100; and on Tumblr at jc100.tumblr.com.

Bon Appetit!

- Tom D.

Fire Up the Grill

With the 4th of July just a few days away, many people are making plans to get their grill fired up for their holiday get together. If you’re looking for some new ideas, a great place to check is the Barbecues and Grilling blog that is done by Derrick Riches. It’s a wealth of information for outdoor cooking at this time of year. Some of his recent posts included: “Making Stuffed Burgers” (June 30, 2012), “Top 10 BBQ Chicken Sauce Recipes” (June 26, 2012), and “Top 10 Pork Marinade Recipes” (June 22, 2012).

Several other resources that are well worth exploring are the websites for several of the well known names in grilling and barbecue:

• Weber has a wealth of information for you to check out. Under the GRILL OUT tab on their website, you’ll find recipes & videos, grilling tips, and a number of free, downloadable booklets.
• Kingsford, a name long associated with high quality charcoal, offers a wide range of tasty recipes. Just click on the GET GRILLING link. There is lots of instructional information under the KINGSFORD UNIVERSITY tab. Here you’ll find both tips and videos.
• Johnsonville = brats. Their website is chock full of tips and recipes. Click on the GRILLVILLE tab on the site.

In addition to these helpful resources, our library has a large variety of books and DVDs that can help you improve your grilling and barbecue skills and make your guests happy. Check some of them out on your next visit!

- Tom D.

FROM THE MAGAZINE SHELF

FROM THE MAGAZINE SHELF is an occasional feature of the FOUNTAINDALE LIBRARY REFERENCE BLOG. Postings will highlight titles that you might find of interest, but haven’t yet picked up to read and explore.

Food Network Magazine is an almost monthly publication (it comes out ten times a year) that our library added to its collection this year. The popularity of the magazine is clear because the issues get checked out as quickly as they are returned.  For many of our customers, it’s the “go to” magazine when they want to create tasty, attractive, and eye-appealing food. A look through the June 2012 issue, pictured here, will quickly show you why it has such a following.

Each issue offers recipes and articles from many of the chefs who appear regularly on the Food Network TV programs. In addition, the magazine includes feature articles with behind-the-scenes views of shows and kitchens. The magazine is also a good source for information about useful kitchen tools, interesting food products, new restaurants, and what cooks and chefs across this nation are up to.

Take a look at the Recipe Index that appears in each issue. It would be hard to not find several items to add to your “I want to prepare THAT!” list. The magazine offers something for nearly everyone who is interested in food and creating it. Its strong appeal comes, in part, from its ability to offer its content to people of all ages and skill levels.

This year’s Summer Reading theme of Reading Is So Delicious offers a great opportunity to broaden your reading. Why not give Food Network Magazine some time in between your regular reading? You may just discover your new BFFN (Best Food For Now)!

- Tom D.

Treasured Family Recipes

Earlier this year, I read with great interest an article by Alina Dizik that appeared in The Wall Street Journal. It was titled “Playing Kitchen Detective” and was about home cooks who are trying to recreate family recipes. One of the points that stuck with me was that there is a growing movement of people who have interests both in food from their past and in tracing their ancestors. Years ago, around the time I was in graduate school, I finally wanted to learn how to bake some of the special holiday breads that my Lithuanian grandmother made. She made pyragas, a tasty, sweet yeast bread with golden raisins at Christmas and at Easter. Over the years, she did this both at home and at her church’s parish hall, as a fund raiser. By the time I was interested, my aging grandmother was suffering from many of the problems older folks succumb to, including severe arthritis in her hands. She also had never written any of her recipes down.  It simply was a matter of waiting too long to ask the right questions. My window to learn from her had essentially closed.

Fortunately, one of my aunts, now in her late 80s had compiled a trove of recipes.  I was the recipient a few years ago of copies of some of her most treasured recipes, including her version of pyragas. With life as it often happens, I delayed trying out any of these gems, thinking that there will always be another weekend or vacation to get the handwritten sheets of paper out and test them out for myself. I still haven’t done it. The article in The Wall Street Journal, however, was a wakeup call for me to get moving and try these recipes that had been enjoyed by several generations. So, before that window closes again, I’m marking my calendar and making the time to work with these treasures, while I still have the luxury of picking up the phone and calling my aunt.

Every family has favorite recipes that make their appearance throughout the year. Some show up at holiday time or at birthdays or anniversaries. Others, in a much smaller category, may be the type reserved for really special occasions, such as a wedding. Each recipe has its own story and history. In keeping with the notion that meals prepared and shared together have always been part of family history and memories,  I gathered some books from our library collection on this topic. The books are available for checkout on the 3rd Floor of the library in the New Books area. There is also a brochure about the books on this display: Treasured Family Recipes / Books about the cooks and the foods that continue to feed generations (Treasured Family Recipes). Check out some of them to read about how cooking and eating together is a vital part of being a family. You’ll probably learn some new recipes along the way!

- Tom D.

911 Turkey

Every year, many people face the dilemma of not having a clue how to cook a turkey! How long do I thaw it? How do I stuff it? How do I carve it? Well, ponder no more! There are several websites you can visit for help. The biggest and most known site is  Butterball Help , where you can have many of your questions answered. The site includes cooking tips,how to choose a turkey,  special recipes and even a calculator to figure out how many pounds you need for how many people (and if you want plenty of leftovers!). And finally, it has its most famous and used number this time of year 1-800-Butterball, for all your turkey dilemmas. There is also an email link if you prefer to ask that way.

Other websites that can help you cook that bird include Honeysuckle, Foster Farms, Reynolds, and the USDA.

So don’t fret, help is just a click or a call away! Happy cooking and especially happy eating.

-Christine