Top 10 Super Bowl Recipes You Still Have Time to Make for Tonight’s Game
by Carolyn on February 5, 2012
Happy Super Bowl Sunday, if you’re into that kind of thing. I know I am. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I won’t waste your pre-game time pretending that I give a crap about football or that I don’t have to Google “Super Bowl” every single year when I write this post to remember whether it’s one word or two. I don’t love football. I don’t even love Super Bowl commercials anymore. But I really do love this day. I love cooking party food. I love chatting and laughing with friends and then shutting up real quick when something important that I don’t understand suddenly happens on the big screen. I love the Americanness of it all. And I love that it sweeps me up with the rest of you and welcomes me in, even if I don’t quite understand what it’s all about.
Here are Umami Girl’s top 10 Super Bowl recipes — mostly plants, in case you’re into that kind of thing — that you still have time to make for tonight’s game.
10. Vegetarian Chili with Brown Butter Cornbread
9. Seriously Savory Nachos
8. Buffalo-Roasted Cauliflower
7. My Perfect Guacamole
6. Chiles “Resemblos”
5. Classic Warm Spinach-Artichoke Dip
4. Bean Tacos
3. Tortilla Soup
2. Salt & Vinegar Roasted Fingerling Potatoes
1. Spicy Pepitas
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Announcing the Winners of The China Study 10-Book Giveaway
by Carolyn on January 24, 2012
If you asked, I might divulge to you that I pride myself a little bit on being a confirmed non-celebrity-stalker. Alright fine, maybe I didn’t wait for you to ask. Maybe I’ve been staying up late at night thinking of ways to work that little factoid into my daily conversations. Maybe I published it on my blog just now. But the point is, I don’t buy People or US Weekly, and when I page through those magazines at the hair salon, I don’t recognize anyone under the age of 25. I hardly ever watch Behind the Music reruns. I don’t really think celebrities, bless their shiny little hearts, are better than the rest of us. Call me crazy.
Which is why it was a little weird last Thursday when this happened: I was at my usual gym, taking my usual Thursday morning class. Because I’m insanely fancy now and live in London and all, my class is taught by Dennis, who is, among other things I’m sure, one of Kate Hudson’s personal trainers. You’d never hear it from him, of course, and I never find these things out on my own. That’s what my girlfriends are for.
Anyway, on account of my double-jointedness and my good Jersey girl’s inability to understand why I would ever want to keep my hips straight when they could be cocked, Dennis helped me out with my form on one of the exercises, which required him to touch my leg. No biggie, right? Right. Except my first thought when he did that went something like, “ZOMG HE TOUCHED MY LEG AND HE’S TOUCHED KATE HUDSON’S LEG AND KATE HUDSON IS SO FAMOUS AND I CAN’T EVEN STAND HOW FRIGGIN’ FAMOUS I AM RIGHT NOW!!!!”
Oh, the lies we tell ourselves.
You might wonder, and justifiably so, why I’m telling you this in a post about the decidedly un-shiny, though increasingly famous, T. Colin Campbell and his book The China Study. (I mean, technically he is a movie star now, but I don’t think he’s ever kissed Matthew McConaughey on screen or anything.) It’s because I got a little crazy about The China Study there for a minute or three — all ZOMG Kate Hudon’s leg, if you will — and I think I owe you a quick peek into my actual, more considered opinion of the book. The kind of opinion I form after reading until I can’t find anything on the topic anywhere in the world to read anymore, and then thinking until the very moment before my head bursts into flames from thinking so much. You know, the kind of opinion I usually try to give you around here. It’s slightly horrifying, but that’s the kind of thing I do all the time now that I work for myself.
I’ll keep it brief. Here goes.
What I like about The China Study:
- Advocates eating mostly unprocessed and minimally processed plant-based foods to achieve and maintain good health. Given all that science knows — and all it doesn’t know — about the way we humans tick, I can’t see how this could be wrong.
- Focuses on the benefits of whole foods rather than isolated nutrients, and generally acknowledges the limits of our curent knowledge about the complex ways in which whole foods are good for our bodies.
- Provides the reader with a sense of capability and empowerment about achieving good health.
- Offers a simple nutritional strategy in an overly complicated field.
- Provides insight into the ass-crazy political, industrial, and academic forces that often dictate what the public learns and doesn’t learn about nutrition.
What I don’t like about The China Study:
- Demonizes animal protein to an extent that doesn’t seem justified by any research presented in the book, or any other research I have encountered. Of course, I don’t pretend to be a scientist of any kind, but damned if I don’t stalk a lot of nutritional scientists. (Maybe that’s why I don’t have time to stalk celebrities?) I can think of lots of health-related reasons to dramatically limit our intake of animal products compared to the way most Westerners eat today, including making caloric room for lots of plant-based foods; minimizing exposure to the berserk toxins that a century of industrial pollution has dumped into our soil and water; not putting our minds and bodies at the mercy of profit-seeking “food” producers who…oh…feed the ground-up bones of diseased cows to other cows (and farmed fish!); and, to be sure, not overindulging in a food source that humans have historically eaten WAY less of than we currently do. But The China Study takes things one giant leap further and essentially blames the consumption of animal protein for the diseases of civilization. I’m not at all convinced that the evidence supports such a strong conclusion.
- Nope, nothing else, just that. But — unlike the whole my leg/Kate Hudson’s leg thingamajig — it’s kind of a biggie.
So. I hope you’ll read The China Study, and I hope you’ll do so with all of this in mind. I hope you’ll stack your diet with vegetables and fruits, nuts and seeds. I hope you will glow with the light of a thousand suns. And I hope you will check the list below to see if you’re one of our lucky winners. Back soon with more good humor and good advice on using delicious food to kick 2012′s pansy ass.
And now, the winners:
Thanks again to everyone who left thoughtful and inspiring comments about practical ways to make the world a better place in 2012. I wish I could give you all a copy of The China Study. For those of you on the list below, chosen with the help of random.org, expect to see a gift message from amazon in your inbox within a day or so. And don’t forget that amazon lets you share your e-books with up to five people. I hope you will.
Commenter #3: Jill
Commenter #6: Henry Doll
Commenter #13: Jeannine
Commenter #23: Jen W
Commenter #29: Diane
Commenter #39: Sarah Harris
Commenter #53: Stephen Taylor
Commenter #54: Sara Menashe
Commenter #57: Michelle
Commenter #58: Barb K
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Hey, 2012! Hit us with your best shot.
by Carolyn on December 31, 2011
Okay, fair warning. I think I’m about to sound like a late-night infomercial. I don’t know for sure, because I don’t own a TV anymore — so when I can’t sleep, I do productive things like play Words with Friends, order shoes online, or obsess over whether that face that that lady at Whole Foods made at me was totally freakin’ bitchy or just super-bitchy. Anyway, I’m pretty sure I’m about to sound like an infomercial. But here goes.
How would you like to:
- Lose weight without really trying
- Never be confused or misled by dumb-ass fad diets again
- Be fitter than you’ve ever been, regardless of your age
- Wake up feeling awesome
- Rarely get sick
- Really, truly prevent — or even reverse — heart disease, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, and a wide variety of other diseases
- Look all gorgeous and glowy and practically famous
- Feel slightly superior to others (no, just kidding…not kidding…kidding…not kidding)
- Be in control of your life again
I know, right?
And what if I told you that pretty much all you need to reap those amazing benefits is a shopping cart and a pair of legs? And that a smallish handful of smart, free-thinking people (probably the ones you already know you half-hate and half want to be) have been living this way, with extreme success, for decades? And that I’m totally not just talking to those other schmucks who eat at McDonalds every day and take 85 prescription pills every morning, but to clever, above-average, pretty darn with-it people like yourself?
Well, hey, guess what? All that and more can be yours in 2012. If you want it, I plan to help you get it. No, really. I do.
I’ll help you in lots of ways, big and small. The first one couldn’t be easier. And we can get on it right now.
Because it is such an amazing book, and because I want you know know everything you can about how to be amazing, I’ve decided to give away ten copies of The China Study, all of which I’ve bought and paid for on my own. Because I wanted my money to go as far as possible, I’ll be giving away Kindle editions, which you can read on any Kindle device, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Mac or Windows computer, Android…you name it. Amazon lets each person share a book with up to five additional people, so if you win a copy and love it, I’d be psyched if you’d consider passing it on to a few friends or family members.
You may already be familiar with The China Study, written by Cornell University professor emeritus (and all-around rockstar) T. Colin Campbell. The book translates into plain English many important findings from the seminal China study itself as well as Campbell’s decades of nutrition, health, and disease research and policy advisory. It’s part How-to-Save-a-Life manual, part riveting conspiracy exposé, and part fascinating facts that you’ll want to shout out to your closest housemates or neighbors on the subway while you’re reading. If you care about your health and you love food, you really owe it to yourself to read this book. It just might make 2012 the most important year of your life.
See? I told you this would be an infomercial.
But I’m serious. This shiz is fo’ reals.
To enter to win a copy of The China Study, leave a comment on this post that answers the question: If you could choose just one realistic goal to accomplish in 2012 to make the world a better place, what would it be? (It would be great if you’d go out and do it, too — but you can win the book for just raising the idea, because I’m classy like that.) For up to two additional chances to win, you can blog, tweet, or facebook about this contest and leave a link to your post in a separate comment. I’ll accept entries until noon Eastern time on Friday, January 13 (ooh, Friday the 13th!) and then choose winners at random and notify them directly.
Good luck, and Happy New Year! If you couldn’t tell, I plan to take 2012 by storm. See you there.
P.S. Here are the recipes and stories pictured above, starting from the top left corner:
- Cauliflower and tofu curry (and two great veggie-lovers’ cookbooks)
- Purple superfoods smoothie
- Broiled figs
- Baba ghanoush
- Chery crisps in tiny jars
- Black bean tacos
- Homemade almond milk
- How to cook dried beans
- Millet polenta with tomato sauce
- Big bag of salad
- Homemade falafel
- Salt and vinegar broiled fingerling potatoes
- Eggplant and brown rice salad
- How to get ready for berry season
- Pumpkin spice smoothie
- Lean green smoothie
- Vegetables on vacation
- Layla’s lentil soup
- The best vegetarian gravy
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