My Fat Dad: Book and Nosh Review + Giveaway

[Giveaway at the end of the post!]

I grew up in a house where the Diabetic Diet reigned supreme. I remember measuring cups of green beans hitting the plate off and on my entire childhood, peppered with frequent visits to Red Lobster (mom's favorite for holidays and birthdays), Benitos (a Mexican restaurant) for piled-high plates of beans and cheese, and McDonalds and Sonic for burgers, fries, and drinks with my father's beloved crushed ice. Everyone in my immediate family has battled with weight and diet pretty much our entire lives, and (except for me who has been privileged to always be on the more voluptuous side) has swung between thinness in their younger days to larger waistbands in their 20s and beyond.

My mom and dad never went to the dieting extremes that Dawn Lerman's father did in My Fat Dad: A Memoir of Food, Love, and Family, with Recipes, but I can relate to growing up in an environment where food obsession was manifest in countless ways — both constructive and destructive.

When I was contacted about reviewing My Fat Dad, I jumped at the chance because from a quick look it seemed like something that would really resonate. Although it became clear that Lerman and I didn't grow up with the same relationship with food, I have to say it was a really fascinating and entertaining read. For the first few chapters I was confused, as Lerman focused largely on her tenuous and tentative relationship with her mom, but as the book went on I understood why she wrote the book the way she did.

Both of her parents are Jewish, and both grew up in a post-Holocaust world with parents uniquely obsessed with classic Jewish food. However, whereas her actress mom grew up with an "eat to live" mindset, her advertising guru of a father grew up with a "live to eat" mindset. The author, Lerman, subsequently found herself obsessed with food — cooking it, baking it, understanding how it fits into specific diets, how it could save her dad, how it could comfort her sister, and more.

Unlike me, however, Lerman managed to end up with a pretty healthy relationship with food, thanks to her grandmother "Beauty," who taught her how to make just about anything and everything. Lerman ended up seeing the world through food. I didn't learn how to make anything growing up, so my relationship with food has always been tense, with binges (and starvation periods when I was a teen) and purges of the things that I love. It wasn't until I was in my mid-20s that I started to really explore and understand food in the way that Lerman did her whole life. I learned that steak didn't have to be overcooked, vegetables didn't always come out of a can, and the microwave wasn't necessarily my best friend. (Honestly, I think becoming kosher saved me and my health, because fast food was my BFF most of my life.)

Food, for Lerman, was a source of nurturing and healing when it came to her relationship with her parents and sister and grandparents, and that's something I so admire. I honestly think that the more a child grows up understanding and experimenting with food, the more healthy their overall relationship with food and the more there is a balance between "live to eat" and "eat to live," and I think Lerman's a really powerful example of that reality.

My Fat Dad really takes you on a food journey, both her obese father's journey and battle with food in the fast-paced world of advertising and her own journey to understand and explore all of the food options the world has to offer.

The most unique thing about this book is that each chapter ends with a few recipes based on conversations and events in the chapter. Lerman has created a cookbook based on stories, which is, let's be honest, what healthy relationship with food looks like (if years of watching countless hours of the Food Network has taught me anything). She has recipes for everyone, from a classic borscht to a No Bake Pecan Pie and Healing Mushroom Miso Soup.

I chose to focus on Peanut Butter Love—the Best Flourless Blondie recipe from a chapter where Lerman talks about her relationship with her sister and how she used to bring or send treats to her sister, who was traveling and acting in "Annie" (because their mom wasn't focused on food/treats). Lerman made blondies and other sweet treats for her sister, and that was one of the ways that the two of them were able to bond across the miles between them. Here's the recipe (and they really are to die for):

Ingredients

• 16 ounces natural, no sugar added peanut butter
• ½ cup pure maple syrup
• ½ cup original soy milk or nondairy milk of choice ( I use ones that have about 7 grams of sugar per serving)
• 1 ripe banana, mushed
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¾ cup dark, semisweet chocolate chips
• Butter or oil for greasing the pan

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a bowl, mix the peanut butter, maple syrup, milk, and mushed banana. Mush it all up and combine well. Then mix in the beaten eggs, vanilla, salt, and baking soda. Mix together until well blended and smooth. Stir in half the chocolate chips. Pour the batter into a well-greased 8-inch-square Pyrex dish. Scatter the remaining chips on top.

Bake for 55 minutes, checking after 15 minutes to make sure the edges do not get too brown. If the top looks very brown, cover with foil and bake for the remaining 40 minutes. Cool and serve.

Note: Mine got a little too brown because I got distracted with the baby ... I recommend cooking for 15 minutes and covering with foil for blondies that aren't so brown. 

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GIVEAWAY! Comment on this post and let me know what your relationship with food was like growing up. I'll pick one winner at random on July 19, 2016, to receive a copy of this book. 

Rules: Open to U.S. residents only. Must comment to be entered. 

Time to Craft Your Shlissel Challah!

A Beautiful Shlissel Challah by Mandy D.

I love sharing little-known customs in Judaism, even those that I don't necessarily practice myself. I'll admit that if Mr. T were around I'd probably bake up a delicious, beautiful shlissel challah this Shabbat, but since it's just the little one and I and it's snowing in Denver, chances are I'll use my molds for some easy gluten-free challah. 

Just what is shlissel challah? 

For the first Shabbat after Passover, it's common in some circles to bake a challah either in the shape of a key or with an actual key baked inside -- shissel being Yiddish for "key." The custom is considered a good omen for livelihood, or parnassa!

I've got a whole article on it over on About.com's Judaism page. Check out the origins, possible ties to Christianity, and recipes, too. 

Take me to the shlissel challah!

SNAP Challenge: Day 1

Today begins the official SNAP Challenge for me, Susie at Daily Cheapskate, and Mara at Kosher on a Budget. To read the rules and regulations, check this post. 


Last night I went to Sunflower Market and landed all of this for $11.39. Winning! These will make for some delicious soup this week. 

Here you'll see lettuce, bananas, peaches, lime juice, yukon potatoes, yam,
tomatoes, parsnip, cilantro, kale, and leeks. 

Here is what I'll be eating for breakfast just about every day this week. 

I call it Quinoa Breakfast Cereal. It's 1/4 cup raisins, 1 cup cooked quinoa, cinnamon, cardamom, and a dash of maple syrup. Bam. Breakfast.

One cup of cooked quinoa has 8 grams protein and 5 grams fiber!

Oh, and the coffee? Part of my rules. It's purchased by work, so I drink it. Take that, SNAP Challenge!


Lunch will be a serving of Lentil Taco "Meat" in White Corn Tortilla "Cups" topped with tomatoes and lettuce and a little bit of sriracha. The snack will be carrot sticks with ... maybe hummus? See below.


So far I have about $4.03 left over, but I have yet to buy the canned white beans I need for one of my soups. I'm also still waffling about whether I'm actually going to open and consume the jar of Peanut Butter I bought for $2.50 or if I want to reallocate that to hummus (which I prefer with my carrots anyway). Stay tuned!

Ask Chaviva Anything!: Gluten Free and Vegan?!

A while back on Ask Chaviva Anything! Someone posed the following question:

why do you want to go vegan? and why do you eat gluten-free? do you suffer from celiac disease?

I deleted my other blogs where I highlighted my gluten-free diet and product reviews, although I kind of regret that now. But the more I live in Colorado and the more I evaluate my diet, the less I buy processed foods meant for review anyway. 

In a simple answer: I'm taking a holistic approach to health. It includes mental, emotional, physical, and although we live in a world where we attack symptoms instead of the whole body, we often screw ourselves over on finding the right answer to feeling better. I'm also taking a very thoughtful, conscious approach to what I put in my mouth. I give you a story. 

Rabbi Benzion of Bobov was strolling with a disciple, deeply engrossed in scholarly conversation. As they passed a tree, the student mindlessly pulled off a leaf and unconsciously shredded it into pieces. 

Rabbi Benzion stopped abruptly. The student, startled, asked what was wrong. In response, the rabbi asked him why he had picked the leaf off of the tree. 

The disciple, taken aback, could think of no response. 

The rabbi explained that all of nature -- birds, trees, even every blade of grass -- everything that God created in this world, sings its own form of praise to its Creator. If they should be needed for food and sustenance, they are ingested and become part of the song of the higher species. But to pull a leaf off a tree for no purpose at all is to wastefully silence its song, giving it no recourse, as it were, to join any other instrument in the symphony of nature.

So let's begin. The personal reason: A vegan diet keeps all the things that cause me lots of gastrointestinal pain and frustration. The first among those is gluten, of course, but that doesn't have much to do with a vegan diet. Dairy, on the other hand, has a huge conflict with a vegan lifestyle and, as I've mentioned in the past, dairy and I don't get along. Up until I turned 25, I could eat anything without any problem. My father used to warn me that it'd "catch up" with me, and it did. It's really weird how it all started at 25, but it did. Suddenly milk and ice cream and cheese and soy started to bother me. Then gluten became the obvious culprit, and I gave it up but kept eating dairy. Dairy contributes to a lot of problems for me, beyond the gastro issues, including fatigue and these little skin issues on my face called milia that are calcium deposits. I can see a difference in my skin overall when I avoid dairy -- my eczema doesn't flare up and my face is clear. (Note: I still eat eggs, but I don't keep them at home.) When it comes to meat, I feel weighed down and fatigued when I eat meat of any kind -- my body just doesn't enjoy it. 

Then there are the global, environmental reasons: The vegan lifestyle is just cleaner for the environment. Buying local, organic produce keeps people in business and keeps my body feeling clean. I don't feel tired or weighed down when I eat vegan. Instead, I feel alive, awake, and I've been sleeping better like you wouldn't believe. My stress levels are down, too. And the food just tastes better. Everything I make and post on Instagram is vegan (save a few pieces of fish), and people oo and aw over how good it looks. Believe me, it all tastes amazing because it's fresh vegetables, simple grains (quinoa, rice noodles), and fresh fruits. And although I won't get into the horrors of the meat industry these days, it's obvious that avoiding meat has incredible environmental and policy impacts. Even in the kosher world we've discovered that animals are treated poorly, and I have one shochet friend who will only eat what he has raised and schechted as a result of his training. There are no guarantees that the meat you eat has been raised, fed, and killed according to the strictures of Jewish law, and I'd rather be safe than sorry when it comes to observing the halachot of meat.  Feel free to read this article from Aish about Judaism and vegetarianism. Although I don't agree with a lot of what is said there about "radical" vegetarianism, I do think the article makes some good points and refefences. 

Being vegan is just simpler. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but it's not. I am able to be more conscious of what I put in my body and thus more able to appreciate the gift that HaShem has given me. It is that -- a gift. It's not a right. 

At the Shavuaton people marveled: So what do you eat? Not consuming meat or gluten or soy, people were perplexed what on earth a person like me eats. Once upon a time, people lived on real, clean food. That's what I do. 

Nuts and raw nut butters

Grains (quinoa, teff, rice)

Fruits

Vegetables

The other great thing about a diet like this? You can eat a lot more food. I can sit down and snack on an entire bunch of roasted asparagus without feeling guilty. 

As for the gluten-free thing, that one is simple. Since 2005 I had been struggling with a lot of gastro issues. I tried cutting out dairy (that was hard and it took me years to get here), coffee (no dice), and then soy. Cutting out soy made a huge difference, but I was still having a lot of problems. During Passover of 2010 I got really, really sick over Passover. People suggested getting tested for Celiac, so I did. The blood test, like most, came back negative. My doctor advised me to take a bunch of fiber pills and see what happens. I was flabbergasted and told him that I wanted to do the intestinal scope -- the only real way to see what's going on. He said it was invasive. I said do it. He said no. So I took the advice of friends and gave up gluten. 

I kid you not, within the week, I felt 100 percent better. It was a no brainer for me after that: I gave up gluten and haven't looked back. 

It's easy to live without gluten, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a moron. We've been convinced that bread must be made from wheat and that the same goes for pizza crust and noodles and everything else under the sun. Did you know that traditional English crumpets were not made with wheat? Or that arepas -- a classic Latino pastry -- are traditionally made just with corn meal and no wheat? Most of what our ancestors ate that we'd call "bread" was produced using ancient grains like teff, not wheat. But wheat is cheap, so it became the norm. It's sort of like corn and soy -- they're mass produced in a disgusting way in the midwest, so we put them in everything because it's cheap and easy. 

I'm not going to get into all of the specifics of the evils of wheat, soy, and corn, because then you'll all think I drank the Kool-Aid that they serve in Boulder. But those of you who know me know that I'm big on research, finding lots of angles, and picking the one that is both logical and practical. 

A plant-based diet is a healthy diet. That's that. There are plenty of olympians and atheletes that perform on gluten-free or vegetarian diets. It can be done. People survived for thousands of years on a plant-based diet, because meat used to be a luxury. We now think of meat as a right. There is a reason that many Chasidic communities feel that eating meat on Shabbos is a must -- it used to be a luxury. 

Do I miss meat? No. Do I miss dairy? Only sometimes when I'm craving gelato or feta. Do I miss gluten? Definitely not. 

I live in a seasonal, plant-based world, and I couldn't be happier. If you're intrigued and want to do what's both good for your body and good for the environment, I suggest checking out Eat Seasonably. When you eat what's in season, you're lowering your carbon footprint for the trekking of all those exotic fruits and vegetables you just can't live without, and you're also helping support local growers because their produce is what will end up in markets oftentimes. Use this Interactive Calendar to understand what is in season and plan accordingly. Your body and your planet will thank you.  

Two Important Pesach Questions

Well, they're important to me, anyway. You see, being a gluten-freebie like I am, I only have gluten-free oats in the house, which means I don't have chametzdik items around to tear up and disperse around my house for the big search on Thursday night.

So what do I do? Do I sprinkle oats all over the place? Seems a little ... strange.

Since we're talking about Passover, can I use my year-round hot-water kettle over Passover? Without kashering?

Ready, set ... go!