Food | BulgingButtons

May 17, 2015
by BulgingButtons 9 Comments

Countdown to 50

It even looks awful

What have I gotten myself into this time?

I’ve agreed to a challenge in which I will consume one veggie smoothie per week in place of an actual dinner with the thought that I will thereby lose 50 pounds over the course of a year.

You see, this summer I’ll be turning 49, and it would be fantastic to face 50 a little leaner. Ok, maybe not leaner, but with 50 fewer pounds of fat hugging my body.

How did this challenge come about? Well… one of our favorite breakfast places has begun serving smoothies as well as delicious skillets and omlettes. No, we didn’t order one, but it got my sweetheart thinking that if we replace just one meal per week, it could make a big impact. That and cutting down on the chips and dip and Hot Tamales, of course. Before I knew it, I was agreeing to try it. We’ll begin after my summer trip, so that will give us about 50 weeks to drop the 50 pounds. That’s totally reasonable.

Oh man, I’m afraid already. I HATE vegetable smoothies. If you have any recipes that don’t taste exactly like vomit, I’d love to hear from you.

May 16, 2015
by BulgingButtons 7 Comments

What Could You Give Up?

I could probably give this up forever.

My sweetheart went to the grocery store and bought chip dip. It wasn’t the kind in the plastic tub, it came in a glass jar. I was immediately suspicious. I come from the land of chip dip in a plastic tub. You know, the good stuff. Still, it was chip dip. How bad could it be

Surprisingly bad, it turns out. It had a weird taste to it, and a faintly greyish hue. And no, it wasn’t past its expiration date (I checked). Did I eat it? Some of it, but the rest got washed down the drain without a second thought. It was that bad.

I was just thinking about it and thinking to myself, if I never had that particular type of chip dip again I would be very happy. Then I thought about not ever having ANY chip dip again, and I was significantly less sure of my long-term happiness with that particular scenario. People do it, though. They give up all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons. Continue reading →

May 3, 2015
by BulgingButtons 9 Comments

Baking as Entertainment

Today I have a task, I am to bake two loaves of bread. It’s part of a service learning project that my school is doing, in conjunction with the good people at King Arthur Flour .

From the King Arthur website. I hope mine look this good!

When I first heard about this project, I was interested, but not overly enthusiastic. I’m not much of a bread baker, so I wasn’t exactly rushing to sign up. Then things changed. Then Nate the Baker showed up.

A little back story: King Arthur Flour company (which is owned by its employees, by the way) does this incredible service learning project with schools across the country. They provide not only flour, but bread baking kits, for kids to make bread. There is enough to make two loaves, one to keep and one to share. The second loaf is brought back to school and donated to feed the hungry.

Neat project, right? But there’s more. In order to get the kids enthusiastic about participating, and to teach them about bread baking, King Arthur sends a baker to school for an assembly. I know what you’re thinking, “Gee, how exciting, watching someone bake bread.” I was slightly skeptical myself, but I’m here to eat my words. It was probably one of the best school assemblies I’ve ever been to, and as a long time teacher, that’s saying something!

Not only did Nate the baker demonstrate the technique for making the bread (with his two student assistants, the Diva of Dry Ingredients and the Lord of Liquid Ingredients), but he engaged the entire audience and brought in lots of science content, as well as developing vocabulary. There was pizza dough twirling (and drops on the floor… oops!), cinnamon roll cutting (with dental floss!), and bread braiding (it’s NOT like your hair). This man was not only a born showman, but a top notch educator. I imagine he’s a pretty good baker, too.

We all left enthusiastic about our gifts of flour and other baking supplies, and dreaming about the fresh, delicious bread we would bake. I’m excited to make mine this afternoon, and I’m really looking forward to being part of that long line of bread donors tomorrow. What a wonderful experience for our students, thanks to this generous company.

I will be a King Arthur Flour customer from now on.