cellio | Entries tagged with food

My parents have a bread machine, which at the time they really wanted -- they eat a lot of bread, and they like having it fresh. But, in talking with my mother a couple nights ago about what food we should bring when we go do the Christmas thing on Sunday, I learned that they don't use it much. My mom said she's gotten in the habit of being lazy, and she has to remember to buy bread-machine mixes when she goes shopping, and she's been forgetting. It's not as if she doesn't have recipes, she said; it's just habit.

I don't know whether to buy them a huge pile of mixes, or give them a box of assorted pre-measured ingredients (3 cups of flour in a ziploc, half a cup of sugar, a pile of yeast packets, etc) and some really, really simple recipes. :-)

Our usual Monday lunch meeting is cancelled today because half the team is out for various reasons (major customer meeting, sick, Werner's wife had her baby over the weekend, etc). I didn't bring lunch because the meeting always provides, so the other writer and I are going out for sushi in a few minutes.

There are leftovers from Friday night's party in the kitchen, but it's all meat (and mostly pork at that). Smells good; I see why people were enthusiastic about the food for the party. (I've forgotten the name of the barbeque outfit that catered it.)

Tonight is the annual choir dinner. I have to cons up a vegetable dish of some sort for it. This is the first of three pot-lucks in the coming week.

Sunday dinner last night was fun. The salmon cakes with mustard sauce were fabulous (I'd like the recipes). My latkes were kind of limp because when I put them in the oven to keep them warm I failed to remove the foil. They still tasted ok, though. The game of Apples to Apples that followed was entertaining. One of these days I have to remember to take my copy of Scruples to Sunday dinner; it's a fun game with the right crowd, and I think that's probably the right crowd.

The flavored water (with artificial sweetener) appeared yesterday. Today, an article on what sucralose is appeared on the cooler. (I'll admit that I hadn't gotten around to doing my own web search yet.)

So first off, the article appears to have been written by sucralose advocates, so take your artificial sugar with a grain of salt. But the claim is that it is derived wholly from sugar and that it passes through the body without being metabolized. Oh, and it's not carcenogenic (they say) and the FDA and WHO say it's safe (they say).

I've never heard of the stuff before, myself. Though I wonder if this is the same stuff as what Fran calls "Sucaril", which she says isn't sold in the US, is gettable in Canada, and is good for baking. (Artificial sweeteners like Nutrisweet apparently do foul things to the taste of cakes and stuff.) This article claims that sucralose is good for baking because it's altered sugar, not chemicals.

Current Mood: curious

We have free drinks at work. This is nice, but some people have been asking for a water cooler. (Currently we have a cooler stocked with pop and a little juice. Oh, and carbonated water, which I personally think tastes foul.)

Apparently a water cooler is hard but bottled water is easy, so we now have bottled water. Flavored bottled water, because I guess people who produce bottled water have to put their individual stamp on the product.

For your edification, then, here are the contents of the label from a 16-ounce bottle of Veryfine "Fruit2O", "natural orange" flavor:

Serving size: 8 fl. oz.
Servings per container: 2
Amount per serving / % RDA:
Calories: 0, 0
Total fat: 0, 0
Sodium: 5mg, 0
Total carb: 0, 0
Sugars: 0
Protein: 0

Ingredients: spring water, citric acid, natural flavor, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (preserve freshness), sucralose, a nonnutritive sweetener. Refrigerate after opening.

Preservatives? Artificial sweetener? Refrigerate after opening??? This is supposed to be water!

I guess I'll keep drinking the tap water. It's not the tastiest stuff in the world, but I get enough chemicals in the rest of my diet and don't need to add to them. (Caffeine is still a critical component, though I'm now trying to alternate units of caffeine with units of non-caffeine, hence the water. As I already weigh way more than I should, I take my caffeine with nutrisweet instead of with sugar. I'd like pure caffeine (in cold liquid form), but that's hard.)

Current Mood: disappointed

On a brighter note, tomorrow is my turn for the dessert club at work. (I told you this is a cool place to work. :-) ) I think I'll make squash pies, as squash is in season. You probably think that's weird, but consider: pumpkin is a squash. And yellow squash makes way tastier pies than pumpkin, at least with the recipe I have. Of course, the rose water probably helps. (For those who have this book, it's in Cariadoc's Miscellany.)

Monica

labor-saving devices

the season of food

sucralose

water: 99% H2O

(no subject)

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