Soda Jerk, Double Dipping and a History Lesson

My personal, in-house nutrition guru—aka Gilda—has advised me that ingesting real sugar is better for my health than absorbing artificial sweeteners like Splenda or Equal. Seems recent scientific studies have shown humans react the same to pseudo sweeteners as they do to sugar, so why risk the introduction of unnecessary chemicals into one’s body. 

As a lifelong Coca-Cola drinker who had a hard time acclimating my taste buds to Diet Coke once I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, I was all for a return to the Real Thing. But a funny thing happened on my way back to Coke. Turns out Diet Coke tastes better.

I’ve actually cut back on my soda drinking. When I do indulge with a meal at home I opt for an 8-oz. glass bottle of Diet Coke or a 7.5-oz. can (glass being the preferred vessel as we’re trying to cut back on plastic or metal containers). I don’t think of myself as being part of a major trend, but soda consumption of all types is decreasing for more than a decade, with diet versions dropping even more precipitously, no doubt plunging ever more rapidly as new studies on health risks emerge.

Double Dipping: Speaking of health risks, you’ve probably heard about the Listeria scares associated with such foods as Blue Bell ice cream and Sabra Hummus. Product recalls have been initiated, one of which unfolded before my very eyes at a local Costco. 

A customer directly before me brought back for a refund an almost fully eaten tub of original Sabra Hummus. He received his money but after he walked far enough away so he wouldn’t hear me I couldn’t resist noting to the cashier that the mostly consumed hummus obviously had not harmed him. I guess he felt as long as money had been set aside for the recall he might as well take advantage of it even if he had not been inconvenienced by Sabra or Costco. Voilá: another form of double-dipping!

History Lesson: For the moment, our troubled (illegal) immigration policy has been shunted off the front pages and airwaves as the country deals with the horrific and seemingly unending assault by police officers on unarmed men of color. 

The other day, however, I was intrigued by a comment from Drew Holcomb I heard on the radio (Holcomb, for those of you like me who have no idea who he is) is the lead singer/songwriter of Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors). 

As the story was told, one of Holcomb’s Los Angeles friends was complaining about the influx of Hispanics to his city. To which Holcomb replied, “What was the name of the city you live in?,” immediately calling attention to the Hispanic origins of Los Angeles. 

I don’t know where Holcomb attended elementary school but if it was anything like my Brooklyn school the history of European settlement of America was concentrated on the original 13 colonies along the Atlantic seaboard. Spanish holdings in Florida were largely ignored despite the fact that St. Augustine was the first European settlement in the continental United States. Indeed, Spain’s contribution to the Americas mostly was related in terms of its conquistadors, their pursuit of gold alongside subjugation and often violent religious conversion of Native Americans. 

Spain and then Mexico governed most of the Southwest. It was the “gringo” who was the unwanted intruder in land eventually taken by force, first in Texas and then in points further west. 

I don’t have a solution to the immigration crisis. But I do know that too many people forget we are a nation of immigrants and the forefathers of the first Europeans who settled here spoke Spanish, not English, not French, not Italian, not German, not Russian nor any other European language. 

Doing Our Part to Save the Planet

There was snow on our roof but that didn’t stop the field crew from installing solar panels on our house last week, Gilda’s and my latest attempt to be responsible citizens of the world.

According to our provider, SolarCity, during the course of our 20-year, no money down, lease we will offset 381,219 pounds of carbon dioxide. That’s the equivalent of driving a car 409,434 miles, or the CO2 absorbed by 206 trees, or the use of 96,134 gallons of water to make electricity.

Of course, we also will save thousands of dollars we would ordinarily be sending to ConEd during the next two decades. SolarCity estimates the panels on our southern facing roof and on the east-west sides of the garage will produce 87% of our power needs. 

We are waiting for final White Plains Building Department inspection and approval before we go live, sometime in the next few weeks I hope.

Solar panels are the latest artillery in our battle to live a more ecologically healthy life. We’ve reduced by about 50% our garbage production, and thus landfill contribution, by composting almost every bit of natural, uncooked waste from fruits and vegetables. Last year I built two compost pens at the side of our yard while Gilda bought a compost bin at a Westchester County-sponsored environmental event at Croton Point Park.

Raw produce is mixed with leaves I shred each fall. Like people you see collecting discarded empty cans and bottles, I scavenge our neighborhood, scooping up leaves piled up in the street, usually about 16 33-gallons bags each foray. I chop them up in a funnel-shaped shredder bought from Craig’s List before putting them in the compost piles where the mixture will eventually turn into black gold for Gilda’s garden.

I’ve previously written about Gilda’s hybrid car, a Ford C-Max that even in this frigid winter is conveying us at 44.2 miles per gallon.

Coupled with lower thermostat settings during the day—yes, I wear extra layers indoors, sometimes even a baseball hat to keep warmth inside my body—and a more energy efficient oil burner that replaced a 35-year-old unit, we are burning less fuel to heat our home. We also replaced most incandescent bulbs with LEDs or fluorescents.

A final healthful tactic is more personal than environmental. As much as possible we have eliminated plastic containers, even ones claiming to be BPA-free, replacing them with glass. That includes how I quench my soda habit. I now buy Diet Coke in 8-oz. glass bottles which has the added benefit of influencing me to reduce my consumption of soda with each meal. 

A Breakfast Tradition of Challah French Toast

I cooked challah French toast Saturday morning during a quick weekend trip with Gilda to see Dan, Allison and the grandchildren. The paterfamilias cooking weekend breakfast is a Forseter tradition dating back at least 60 years. I don’t know if my grandfather back in Ottynia, Poland (now part of Ukraine), delighted his five children with French toast but my father treated his three young offspring to a delectable breakfast on many a weekend morning.

Dad rarely ventured into the kitchen of our Brooklyn row house. At least not to cook. To be truthful, my mom didn’t cook too often when we were young, either, as she worked in the office of my father’s lingerie factory. They came home too late for her to start making meals, so our dinners Monday through Friday were prepared by a succession of housekeepers, the most memorable and long-lasting being Bertha, then Virginia. They were good cooks. Bertha was an especially proficient baker. Her pound cake was to die for. I’ve never tasted its equal.

Lest you get the wrong impression, my mother was a good, very good, cook, though she tended to overcook vegetables. She produced extraordinary multi-course holiday fare, all the more remarkable because of the small kitchen and limited appliances she had at her command. Among her specialties, and my favorites, were sautéed sweetbreads, sweet and sour lambs’ tongues, crown roasts, breaded veal cutlets, matzo ball soup, gefilte fish, and kreplach. It’s making me too hungry to expand the list further. But to get back to the matzo ball soup, that became one of Dan’s favorites, as well. He still enjoys it, thanks to Gilda’s culinary talents. Sadly, Finley and Dagny have yet to cultivate a taste for soup.

Dan and Ellie also knew intuitively when my parents would be coming for a visit. Miraculously, it seemed, cake would grace our kitchen table. They quickly realized cake was a signal grandparents were soon to be guests requiring sweets with their coffee. My telltale signs of pending grandparent arrival are Fuji apples, Diet Coke and a can of whipped cream.

Anyway, to return to my father, his cooking usually was accompanied by loud commentary as he coaxed my brother, sister and me to set the table, get out the Log Cabin syrup and prepare ourselves for breakfast. 

Breakfast wasn’t always French toast. Sometimes he would cook what he called “army eggs,” fried eggs surrounding thin circles of fried salami. He did serve about a year in the stateside army during World War II, but I have no way of knowing if army eggs were standard fare in the military back then.

It is not unusual to remember a mother through the meals she prepared. I do, but I also recall my father and his food habits. He required every dinner to begin either with a half grapefruit or a slice of melon (if the melon tasted “like a potato” he would complain that our fruit and vegetable man was stealing our money). He drank one beer with dinner, usually a Schlitz. He’d leave the dregs at the bottom of the bottle for us kids to swig. Dessert would be some canned Del Monte fruit cocktail or Bartlett pears. About an hour later, after a nap, he’d have coffee and cake, or chocolate pudding topped with whipped cream. Or a scoop of ice cream. When we’d go to the delicatessen he’d more often than not order “specials” and beans. Specials were wide frankfurters, usually boiled. In restaurants, especially at Seniors on Nostrand Avenue near Avenue Y, he’d eat broiled fish. With me, he never ate in an Italian restaurant, and didn’t eat Chinese unless it was in a kosher eatery. Why he insisted on it being kosher I can’t tell you, as he didn’t require it for any other meal outside his home. 

I ate thousands of meals with my father, but the ones that resonated the most with me were our weekend breakfasts of challah French toast or army eggs. I guess that’s why I eagerly and happily continue the tradition.

Twinkie Twinkie Stars No More

I wasn’t too distraught to hear Twinkies would no longer be processed by Hostess Brands. But Devil Dogs!!! Now that’s hitting me where it hurts—in my memory bank.

Drake’s Devil Dogs, along with Yankee Doodles and the occasional Ring Ding, were as integral to my first 30 years as wearing socks was. They sustained me, until, that is, my blood sugar levels oozed créme. Growing up, we always had fresh cake from the bakery, marble loafs or seven layer cakes or checkerboard chocolate cakes in the bread drawer or simply out on the dinette table. But for a quick fill me up, nothing came close to a Devil Dog or three-pack of Yankee Doodles. 

I continued this childhood gluttony even after marrying Gilda whose concept of a sweet tooth somehow never reached full development. She tolerated, barely, my sugar-laden eating habits which included a breakfast of Devil Dog with, not being a coffee or tea drinker, 6-8 ounces of Coca-Cola. My 10 am snack in the newsroom was another Coke and a Baby Ruth bar. Even after my triglycerides topped 1,100 I didn’t forsake my sweets. I’d drink Coke in front of our children. They were not allowed to imbibe any. Gilda told them, “Daddy has an addiction.” It worked. To this day, Dan and Ellie rarely drink sodas. But I did, until my internist demanded I change my eating and drinking regimen some 25 years ago. I now drink Diet Coke or Crystal Light lemonade. I haven’t had a Devil Dog in decades. Or a Yankee Doodle. Perhaps that’s why Hostess, which bought Drake some years ago, hasn’t maximized sales.

Twinkies? I think I might have sampled them two or three times. They really tasted ... tasteless. I never could understand other people’s fascination with them. Maybe it was their “white bread” sheen, so sterile within the plastic wrapping. Devil Dogs and Yankee Doodles came out of Philadelphia-based Drake, urban, ethnic, mixed races. Twinkies was middle America—white on white. It was like mayonnaise on a white bread pastrami sandwich. Don’t cringe or laugh—that’s how airlines served deli sandwiches 30 years ago. At least they left the crust on the bread. Twinkies had nothing to sink your teeth into. Just air. And créme.

Financial watchers expect the equity bankers who own Hostess to sell off several brands, including Twinkies, to recoup some of their losses. I hope someone buys the rights to produce Devil Dogs and Yankee Doodles. Even though I won’t buy any, it would be comforting to know part of my childhood and young adulthood lives on.

There have been many articles commemorating the 82-year rise and fall of Twinkies. Here’s one I particularly enjoyed:

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_289563/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=vaA0rt0p

Twinkies and Other Food Tidbits

Gilda thought I’d be devastated. She told me Hostess, the maker of Twinkies and other soft confectionaries, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. So kind of her to be concerned for my culinary welfare, but no, sweetheart, I have no fondness for Twinkies, I replied. My cravings are for Drake’s Devil Dogs, or Yankee Doodles, and the occasional Ring Ding. No my sweet, Hostess filing a second bankruptcy petition just three years after emerging from similar protection was no reason on my part to be alarmed.

Of course, that was before I read the newspaper article and discovered Hostess owns Drake’s and has for more than a dozen years. I plead ignorance because I haven’t eaten a Devil Dog, Ring Ding or Yankee Doodle in more than 15 years.

I wasn’t always a snack food snob. Back in my 20s, I consumed Drake’s products daily. My routine before embarking on my morning police department checks in Derby and Seymour, Conn., was a breakfast that included a Devil Dog or three-pack of Yankee Doodles. By 10 am in the New Haven office, I’d take a Coca-Cola and Baby Ruth break. I had another Coke at lunch and at least another one with dinner. That’s at least three sugar-packed Cokes each day, though Gilda would tell you I sometimes started the morning off with another one at breakfast as I don’t drink coffee except on rare occasions. It was no surprise then that by my mid-30s my triglycerides had zoomed past the 1,000 mark (less than 200 is considered healthy). They’re under control now, but at the cost of giving up almost all sweets, including Drake’s cakes. I’ve learned to even enjoy Diet Coke.

Growing up in Brooklyn, my family usually stocked the cupboard with cakes from the Polish bakery two blocks away. Marble cake, seven layer cake, checkerboard cake, cherry, blueberry, and custard danishes. You could always find a piece of cake on our dinette table. My parents, especially my father, enjoyed a piece of cake with his coffee each night. Our children always knew when my parents were coming to visit by the sudden appearance of cake in our house.

I really miss not snacking on cake. It really pains me when we have to dump leftover cakes we put out for dinner parties we host. I inherited my father’s desire for cake. But I also inherited my mother’s inability to cope with too much sugar.


Fish & Chips: CBS Sunday Morning ran an interesting piece on the quintessential British fast food, fish & chips, which recently celebrated its 150th anniversary as a pillar of the English diet.

Surprised me that fish & chips is so young a dietary staple of the mother country. Even more surprising was the belief that a Jewish fishmonger was responsible for at least the introduction to the English menu of the fried fish component (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8419026.stm). Gee, I always though gefilte fish was the extent of Jewish influence on seafood cuisine.


Princes of the Fisherman: Please don’t take this the wrong way, no sacrilege is intended, but I was amused the other day when a reporter asked New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan if he was doing anything special before his investiture as one of the 22 newly named cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI. He replied he was trying to lose weight to get into his new uniform.

Which made me wonder, why is it that so many religious leaders, of all denominations, are, shall we say, more corpulent than one would expect from religious orders that cherish not only piety but a certain amount of asceticism that would preclude the over-indulgence of food?

Just asking...

Public Service Announcements

History Lesson: For those who didn’t see it the first time it ran, there’s a great documentary series on Turner Classic Movies this week. The hour-long segments air 7 pm daily through Sunday and are entitled “Moguls and Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood.” Tonight is Episode 2 (sorry, but I didn’t realize the series started yesterday).

Anyone who has ever been to the movies will find this documentary fascinating and illuminating. Have fun watching it.


Healthy Diet: Gilda and I recently committed to eating more healthy, not that we weren’t already doing so, but we agreed we’d eat more fish, at least two or three times a week.

Last Friday night my gourmet-cooking wife prepared a delicious feast of roasted tilapia with herbs, one of the recipes Mark Bittman recently promoted in the NY Times Magazine section. Delicious. And healthy, too. Or so I thought.

Imagine my consternation when I opened Monday’s Times and came across “Another Side of Tilapia, the Perfect Factory Fish” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/science/earth/02tilapia.html?scp=1&sq=tilapia&st=cse). Tilapia offered the lowest amount of omega-3 fatty acids per 100 grams of fish than any of the 19 varieties studied by the National Fisheries Institute, according to the article. It was lowest by far, providing just 135 mgs vs. roughly 2,000 mgs for farm-raised salmon. Moreover, farm raised tilapia can be detrimental to the life of a lake.

We’ll still eat tilapia, as it still is healthier than eating meat or chicken, but it sure is disappointing to know even when I try to do the right thing someone, in this case, Mother Nature, is not very supportive.


Drink Up: Here’s another of my dietary dilemmas. Drinking too much Coca-Cola the first four decades of life elevated my blood sugar levels, so I switched to Diet Coke. Trust me, Diet Coke has gotten much better. No more aftertaste. I’ve managed to keep my sugar levels in check, but there still is some uncertainty about the long-term healthiness of sugar substitutes. Oh well...

Anyway, I bring this up because of Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign to receive federal government permission to restrict the use of food stamps to purchase sugar-sweetened beverages in New York City. Mayor Mike believes they contribute to obesity and diabetes (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/us/politics/30food.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Food%20Marketing%20Institute&st=cse).

I support him. Yes, I know this is another example of government getting into our pantries, but just as Bloomberg championed no smoking in restaurants, plus less salt and fat in fast food fare, it is proper for government to mandate behavior when the population at large (and getting larger) won’t take care of itself.

This is not a classic example of Big Brother telling us what to do, or not do. If you want to spend your own money to buy sugared drinks, fine. But don’t spend my money, my government money. Not when our collective health care system is overburdened by the overweight and the diabetic. We all wind up paying higher insurance premiums, and waiting longer in emergency rooms, because of it. We need to begin controlling the root causes of the health care crisis. Prevention should be paramount. Stopping the flow of sweetened liquid down our gullets is one of the quickest ways to have an impact on our collective waist line, blood line and bottom line.


Matza Meal II: My experiment giving birds leftover egg and whole wheat matza has produced less than spectacular results. A few birds, some grackles and even some cardinals, have nibbled at it. But by and large, the birds have ignored the religious offering.


Warm Feet: On the other hand, or foot, so to speak, I am thoroughly enjoying a toasty bed, thanks to the electric mattress pad installed last week. Normally, spring weather would have negated the need for a bed warmer. But this has been anything but a normal spring. I can favorably report my endorsement of this product.


Picture Perfect: Some people ask me why I never include pictures with my blogs. Here’s a reason why: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/business/media/03righthaven.html?src=rechp. I surely do not need to become penpals with copyright lawyers.


Dead, Again: Does it matter that the description of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden has been officially revised to say he was not armed when shot, but was still resisting capture? To me, no. He showed no mercy to the innocents he murdered here and around the world. I have no problem with his execution, with targeted assassinations. Let's get the next guy on the list!