Entry 004 Two Thousand Eight Hundred Morning Glory Muffins

I like saying yes. Often it gets me into trouble and it's usually with my staff. Oh, the rabbit holes we have been down. Adventure as a caterer? You betcha. When you say yes to most everything you are bound for escapades. Does that word "escapade" spring from "escape?" Hah! More like fire jumping from the old skillet.  The Iron Girl Run. 3000 women, girls, grandmothers, great-grandmothers...all out very early and running around Greenlake, one of the inner city water features in Seattle. Lots of fun.

So we are making 2800 muffins, 2800 breakfast burritos, yogurts and juices all stuffed into fetching logo bedecked insulated bags. All set up ready to go by 8:00 AM Sunday morning.
Does it really sound that difficult? It didn't to me. I mean, what? some muffins, some tortillas...what is the problem?  Yes, we'll do it! (It is so easy to say yes.)

We had other events on the 3 days before so we we really can't do too much prep because there just isn't room or refrigeration. So we started getting supplies in on Friday and really started the project in earnest about 11:00 AM Saturday. We brought in some reserve troops to help and we get to crackin'. Literally. How many eggs do we need? We wanted things to be as fresh as possible, so bagged raw eggs were out. They are handy in some situations but there is a lot of citric acid added to preserve and we just did not want that in this food. The Chef calculated. I calculated. Different answers. How many eggs go in to a breakfast burrito that also has cheese, onions, mushrooms, ham and spinach? How much egg is in each muffin? The kitchen calculator is old and the keys are sticking. On one of the egg and milk runs to the store, I jet in and pick up a new calculator. Found a pink one. Chef's favorite color is pink. Any small bit of favor I can curry from Chef during these large scale military operations is good.
 
Finally we gave the math end of things to Chef's little sister, Jaq (Jaqulyn.)  Seventeen years old and starting her second year of college. She can practically do it in her head.

 Here is Jaq stuffing the muffins into the insulated bags. Her egg calculations were spot on.

We will need 2 eggs per person for the muffins and the burritos. That's 5600  eggs. 466 dozen. Over 30 cases of eggs. Shite!
 That is a lot of eggs. I calculate I can crack about 10 eggs a minute. That is 560 minutes or 9 hours. It took 3 of us a little over 2 hours. Guess we got faster as we went along.

Now I can really practice walking on eggshells....
It took us about 12 hours to finish the muffins. Sometime around 10:00 I called a mobile massage therapist who came to the shop and she set up her chair and gave all 6 of us 20 minutes of knot untying. I sent Chef Pidor twice. First and last. Her back was screaming at her. It was the best thing to happen all day.  I crawled home for a couple of hours sleep. the rest of the crew soldiered on ALL NIGHT. Chef called her husband in, her friend Myra and any other family member that she could shanghai.
I came back at 4:30 AM to a pretty punchy group, but spirits were high. We mobilized the Muffin/Burrito Army, filled the truck with cases of yogurt and juices, mobile ovens brimming with burritos and rolling racks of muffins.
As we got to Greenlake, the site of the Run, we set up our army kitchen and started assembling 2800 breakfast bags. I like assembly work where I don't have to think too much, where I can get my basic movements down and then perform them by rote. There were 9 of us pushing the bags along the assembly line, ready to receive the next item.
This was a time when I did not have my food plan organized. So here I was, in the field with nothing to eat except burritos and muffins. Any muffin with bran is a "dirt muffin" in my book. But these were more succulent than normal "dirt muffins" with the pineapple and grated carrots. Before Dukan, I would sneer at the idea of eating a muffin period, let alone a "dirt muffin." Give me the honey buns, donuts, pecan coffeecake or anything with a glaze on it. But I gotta tell you, those muffins were talking to me. I wanted to gobble about three and wash them down with apple juice. I should have planned better. But I did not eat the muffins or anything else. I just waited.
But that is something I have learned. I can't just run off into daily life unarmed. I need a plan for every day with the correct food groups in hand or at least in car. Now I am a lot better about making sure I have the protein I need at the ready.
We will do this breakfast again next year. Can we call you to help?

Entry 003 The Metracal for Lunch Bunch

I am pushing off on Phase 2 (the Cruise Diet) of my reduction ramble with Doc Dukan.  Reached 12.5% of my goal. But lets go back to Phase 1, the Attack. All 9 days were completed in hell-breaking-loose mode . It reminds me of traveling to Paris last summer. Rushing, going through the stupid FTA hoops, feeling ridiculous without my belt, in my socks, squished in child-sized airline seat, the seat belt adjusted to its fullest length.  All I want is to wash my face. And my teeth are feeling as if they are wearing little sweaters. My tired and frustrated mode is not because of the new eating regime alone. No, life has been hectic. After a silent summer the catering volcano is active again.

The catering van has gone from zero, and I mean dead zero to a rumbling 80 miles an hour. AYLI is speeding again. While texting. And flossing. Its been a great time to jettison some non-needed weight. But during this DEFCON 3 mode, eating is usually just grab and go. Whatever comes close is grabbed and goes in the pie hole.
So how did it go? Well, I had to get outfitted for this change. My eating habits go awry when I don't have plenny good food hanging low so I can grab it quick. These hungry moments are when I reach for what ever is within paw's reach. In the catering kitchen, this translates to a lot of choices. I already gave you a glimpse of the trouble I can find at work. At home, I am wizard out of making trouble out of thin air.  Lets see, what's in the larder? Here you go. a little maple syrup, some oatmeal from the Quaker's round box, some butter, shoot it in the oven and I have a gob of hot crisp. Without the fruit.
Clearly I needed to get in battle mode before I started this change of behavior around food.   The first thing I did was go to my favorite big box, Costco.

(Sorry there Waltons, ye sons and daughters of Sam.)
Costco has the kind of meat department I need for the Dukan Diet.  Is it the best meat money can buy? No sir. But is it just fine? You betcha, plus reasonable. Wild sockeye, wild scallops, shrimp, tenderloin of beef, sliced turkey, sliced deli ham, sirloin of beef, all in huge packages. I put it on the front of my truck home like bagged game and tote it back to my cave.

I plop it on my counter, dust off the air-sucking Seal-a Meal and portion and freeze everything. The whole thing takes about 3 hours. I watch "Silence of the Lambs." Just kidding. I am actually watching random Hitchcock's movies. So it was somewhere around "Spellbound."
Now that  I have my arsenal of protein, I track down the very important oat bran (taking the Doc's word for it. I mean, just 1.5 tablespoons a day? Really?  I spill more than that.)

I make a gallon of iced tea at home and 3 gallons at work. Try the Paradise Brand. Tropical Flavor. No sugar. Nice. We buy it by the case for work and each bag makes a gallon. You can tweak the strength with ice or more water.
I plan a supply line for work to feed the Army of Me and make sure I have something thawing or already marinating every day. Plan ahead or you get caught with naught.

I like routine in the morning. I don't want to make any decisions. Just follow the same trail. Otherwise, I get lost puttering. If I ever retire, I should like to spend the entire day puttering. It suits me to just wander around engaging myself with whatever I happen to look at. My co-workers call this ADD. So my new routine includes making a faux latte with skinny milk, a shot of sugar-free vanilla and some strong coffee. I get all the foam I need with my whisk.

Then I dump my 1.5 tablespoons of oatbran into water, season it with s+p and crack open a 3 minute egg and dump it in too.  It has been years since I have eaten a soft boiled egg. Surprisingly good. I tend to like all food a tad underdone, so I love a runny egg.
Then Luc, the catering poodle and I take off for a 20 minute romp. My neighbor has 15 acres of trails and paths through untouched woods so all I have to do is step out my front door.  Now here I notice I am starting to lie so I want to regain my integrity. It is my intention to do this every day. I really want to and always enjoy it once in gear, even though half the trip is an uphill climb. But I am genetically sedentary, so my brain tries to thwart and negotiate me out of this plan every day. Lets say, I am good 4 days out of the 7. I confess to not having the exercise part of this new plan down yet. But since I am now exposing myself to you, I know I will have to do better.  Luc, an athlete and definitely not sedentary, goes on his morning walkabout with or with out me. We joyfully live on a 40 acre development with only 6 houses and no fences, so he likes to visit his buddies. There are 12 dogs between us. Luc is the only one not confined to home but he never goes beyond the boundaries of our development.
During the 9 days of the Attack Phase we were ball to the walls (a phrase that comes from cannonballs on ships rolling around during sea battles if not bolted down) but I had a few moments of insight.
One evening we were at a client's house doing a cocktail party. They had just built out a new outdoor living space complete with heaters in the ceiling, huge stone fireplace with a ginourmous flat screen TV mounted over the mantle, complete kitchen and seating for at least 25. We were in the 3 car garage staging the food. There were beautiful Vietnamese fresh rolls, warm and cheesy leek and onion tartlets, roast duck and fig salad in phyllo cups with warm gorgonzola, seared tuna on a wonton crisp and more. There were at least 6 or 7 times when I actually started to reach out and grab one of these goodies. Without thinking about it. I realized how often I do this. Without thinking about it. I mean, I did not get to be at my champion weight because I use restraint, right? Very illuminating. And when I get home from one of these jobs I usually fix dinner. I've actually already had dinner on the go, but for some reason it did not register with my pea brain. I had an aunt on my father's side, a spinster that had spent her whole life caring for her siblings, her parents and nephews and nieces. Aunt Rita was a hefty gal that spoke with a Québécois accented English. She lived in the house my grandfather had built to raise his family and I can remember her rocking me as a young child. Slightly clammy, always in one of those house dress duster things that went over her slip and baggy nylons rolled down to her ankles.
Once she was in "lose weight" mode and was using a Sixties Diet drink called Metracal. (before SlimFast) http://www.foodreference.com/frvideos/html/129-16-oldtv-metra.html So instead of substituting the drink for a meal she would gag it down then say, "now I can have my porkchops."   Bless you Tante Rita. Ahh, it comes down the family line.

Entry 002 The Attack has Ended. Sound the All Clear.

Nine days of carnivorous rapture celebrated. but last night, just-harvested chanterelles and grilled asparagus were the guests of honor on my plate.  Never was the command "eat your vegetables" executed with such gusto and velocity. My pal and fellow Dukan Groupie, Mel had taken another Dukan interested friend, Kathie to ravage the woods for mushrooms. Their success was enjoyed all parties. I think some butter was plopped in the sauté, but I'm not sure. (The Dukan method is to spray or pour a few drops of oil in the pan then wipe out before cooking) Luckily I was outside grilling the flank steak and fresh asparagus and could not protest. Mel and I do best when we have our own cooking projects side by side. The mushrooms were delectable. I all but licked the sauté pan.
The first phase, The Attack Phase is over. Total weight loss-12 ugly pounds. I am going to keep all the gorgeous, rugged pounds

Entry 001 Surfer Boy

I travel to work from the countryside (nearest town Duvall) Now this is beyond the eastside of Seattle. This is the Snoqualmie Valley, next stop the foothills of the Cascades. So it is 60 miles round trip, 90 to 120 minutes a day. I have given up listening to news or commercials so the radio is out. I listen to iTunes all the way in and out. Since I am still an information junkie but don't want to hear about elections, killings, the Right, the Left, the wars and especially the tanking economy, I stockpile podcasts and listen to them. They are all eclectic and range from the mundane to the insane.  Recently I fell upon Stuff You Should Know coming from the site How Stuff Work.  Highly entertaining trivia mixed with droll humor. Perfect for driving. The two hosts are Chuck and Josh and they keep me company as I wait for the traffic bottlenecks of my driving routes to pop me back out on to open roads. (I am generally a bovine type that does not pull out of line, u-turn and head off in other directions looking for an escape. I am always sure the end of the jam is moments away.)  I downloaded every show these guys had archived and as I got to feel familiar with each of their styles and voices, I wanted to put those names with some faces.

So, I surfed the net looking for my ride sharing buddies.  The Stuff You Should Know  site is huge and after I met the boys in virtual space I started hopping around. I found this side bar article about this new diet. I NEVER click on weight loss links but this one drew me in.  Let me announce to you here: This is the next South Beach, Atkins, Weight Watcher's, Cabbage Soup (although I always called it the Dolly Parton Diet) and Amputation Diet http://www.faddiet.com/amputationdiet.htm.  I clicked on the link to this new diet and have been going down the rabbit hole ever since. It is called the Dukan Diet (or Rêgime Dukan if you are pretentious or have French extraction. I gots both.)

You can google it now or just wait and I will tell you all about it.
The Dr. is a well known French nutritionist with all the credentials and this rêgime has been around for 10 years  I think his diet is why you don't see people in Paris with surplus baggage.  It just hit the British Isles. In fact, if you order the book, you will find it to be written in British English..you know,
programme, labour, bow down to the queen...that stuff.


Being verbose by nature, it is hard to for me to nail this down succinctly but here goes:
First set a weight loss target.
Phase 1 The Attack Diet
lasts for 3-10 days according to just how much fat you want to dump and how dedicated you are.
Fast and dramatic results. This is where I am now. 7 days, 9 pounds gone.
Limit yourself to these foods:
lean cuts of meat-mostly chicken, turkey, beef and fish and shellfish. Includes salmon. I include pork tenderloin and lean ham. Lamb is out for now. Don't know about game for any of you hunter-road kill gatherers. rabbit is ok. Couple of eggs per day is ok.
Absolute non-fat dairy is ok. Non-fat milk, cottage cheese, non-fat yogurt, all ok. Doc Dukan includes these dairy products because of their taste punch, even though they contain lactose, a sugar.
Drink a liter and a half a day of water, tea, iced or hot. Same with coffee, but I only drink coffee first thing in the morning. Diet sodas are ok, but I find them to increase my desire for sugar. Although an occasional diet Pepsi so cold it has frozen chips in it really gets my attention.
This part I love. Sugarless gum is ok because the Doc says if you have gum in your mouth, you can't be eating anything else. Here is where the Doc really flies the tricolor.. "gum is very good, but I do not chew gum because it is not elegant"  This is pure French, n'est pas?
Lastly there is the introduction of oat bran. One and a half tablespoons a day. This is like oatmeal/grits. he goes into detail about it, but its for roughage. I will tell more about this stuff later.
Spices, salt (Doc says easy go here) herbs, non-sugared mustard, vinegar and dill pickles. The Doc adds a few other things but this list is strict. The Best Part: this is a no counting calories diet. So you can have all the meat you want. This part is crucial for my success. I am a big eater. Reading this part is what hooked me and threw me down this rabbit hole.
Oh yah, the final bit. You Must Commit to a 20 Minute Walk Each Day. Period.
Phase 2 The Cruise Diet
this phase is what you stay on until you reach your desired weight loss.
It is the same as the Attack Phase with the addition of vegetables with the protein some days. There is a lot of blah blah blah about the rhythm. One day with veggies, one day without. Or 5 days with,  5 days without. All kinds of combinations of the above.  I am not there yet, so we all wait and see but I suspect I will be a "one day with, one day without" man. Easy to keep track and adhere to.
Veggies are more the green type along with turnips and cauli. Usual no's include potatoes, corn and avocado. Includes the oat bran, water and exercise.
Phase 3 The Consolidation Diet
this phase lasts 5 days for each pound lost.  I want to lose so much weight that I will be on this part of the diet for 400 days! I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.  Just like the Little Steam Engine.
So you can have all the protein from the Attack Diet, all the vegetables from the Cruise Diet. (Still no corn yet. I live a couple of miles from Kosters' Farm where they grow the best two colored corn around. I can go there, get corn from the field and have it in the steaming pot in 45 minutes. Sigh. Oh well, there is always 2012.)

One serving of fruit a day, except bananas, raisins (who cares) and (drat) cherries.  I am already planning a jailbreak on this item as they are my favorite fruit, they only come once a year and I have 2 cherry trees!
Add two slices of wholemeal bread a day. (have you clued into Dave's Killer Bread yet. It is the best (and most expensive) sliced bread on the market.We are using it in our Box Lunches.  It really is great. Feel like I am eating food when I have a sandwich out of this great product. I'll see you soon Dave!!

A wee bit of cheese each day is added.

Two servings of starch per week. Good news for the potato freaks and the GRITS. (Girls Raised in the South)
Lamb and pork roast are back on the menu. For personal use I  love the organic lamb farmer down the road. I buy a lamb each year and have it butchered. This year I will have to stick with breast and leg.

NOW HEAR THIS: 2 celebration meals a week. This is not an all you can eat. NO bingeing. But you can have an appetizer, an entrée and ...ta daaaa...... dessert!

I know, I know. With all the possibilities, this is what I am already planning on in 2012?   hahahahaha
I love this chocolate. It is German, it is rich and the texture is perfect. Crunch and melty butter cocoa.

And without question, protein only Thursdays.
Plus the water, the oatbran, the exercise....

Phase 4  Permanent Stabilization Diet
so for the rest of my life I will have to say I am on a permanent stabilization diet....until I am spoon fed baby food again. Good times.
ok. Here it is.
Go back to eating what you want 6 days of the week remembering and holding on to the good habits you have learned from the consolidation platform. I guess that is why I will be on that phase (3) for over a year. Get it ingrained. Lets face it. Losing weight is goal driven and easy by comparison to changing life habits. I really feel good about this, but yet I am only taking the baby steps.
Protein Thursdays for ever. Period.
Never take escalators or elevators again.  Now I get the gist of this but this is another amusing Parisian conceit from the good Doc. All the buildings in Paris have a 121 foot cap or about 6 stories (except for the financial core district) So that is well and good for him. But will I trot up the stairs to the 76th floor of the Columbia Tower Club?  Prolly not. But as I said. I get the idea. I could commit to taking the stairs for 6 flights at least.
oh yah, the oatbran and at least some kind of  exercising with velocity every day.

Well, as the pig says:   Th-Th-Th-Th-Th- Thats all folks!

See ya later.

The Perils of Working While Sitting ON the Buffet Table

I eat anything and everything I want. Most everyday. What if there were staff of culinary geniuses at your work making incredible edibles every day? Say you could breeze through your office and graze on baby mushroom caps full of crab, sherried breadcrumbs and warm melted cheeses or triple glazed cedar planked salmon with our own Washington cherry-tamarind chutney on crusty baguette. Oh, don't let me forget the Black Satin wings with their dark mahogany finish and underpinnings of Chinese 5 Spice and fresh grated ginger. Sweet potato biscuits (not yams, but the pale yellow bakers) with salty country ham and mustard butter. (heavy on the butter) In the morning there might be French toast strata, all fluffy and warm, laced with cinnamon and brown sugar topped with heated maple syrup and melted butter, thick crisp bacon, the best you have ever tasted and maybe a Morning Glory muffin with fresh pineapple and grated carrots. Just before the noon events you might be able to grab forkfuls of pulled-pork with whiskey garlic sauce or slide down a brat cooked in beer with sauteed sweet onions and peppers. Usually in the afternoon there are just-out-of-the-oven double chocolate chunk cookies with walnuts. Or if not, there are always containers of sugared walnuts, spiced pecans or just plain macadamias. 

By evening, the serious part of the food chain begins to appear from the ovens, stovetop, grills and mixing bowls. Stuffed pork roasts, sea salt and pink crushed peppercorn crusted beef tenderloin, a perfect medium rare with roasted apple horseradish to spoon on top, chicken breast covered with crispy prosciutto and melted fontina cheese...all available.  Hell, I am encouraged to feed...."try this.. here is  new recipe for those, try it....taste this....what do you think of this roasted chili and lime cream sauce...?" So it is MY JOB TO EAT.  I am the owner, of this catering business after all. I do make sales. I have to know what we are selling, right? How can I weave this dream of heavenly comestibles for Mrs. GotRocks' White Winter Party if I ain't got the skinny on the goods?
Skinny is being loosely tossed about as a noun here because it is definitely not an adjective I can use to describe my own body or even any of my alter egos. Built for Comfort, Not Speed is the song I sing. Besides, how could you trust a skinny caterer?