Amalgamated Content

Week 15: September 23, 2009 Tatsoi, red peppers, radishes, tomatoes, red cippolini onion, eggplant, potatoes, carrots, sweet corn, celery The tatsoi was new to me, but tasted great raw. The carrots tended to be stubby but flavorful. At this point I started donating all my potatoes to my coworker Anand (there will be many more to come). Week 16: September 30, 2009 Broccoli, red and green peppers, potatoes, green cabbage, parsley, radishes, pears, carrots, red/heirloom/roma tomatoes, two dozen eggs The eggs continue to impress, and parsley goes well with them. Heirloom tomatoes are weird but kinda tasty nonetheless. Week 17: October 7, 2009 Butternut squash, kale, leeks, carrots, red bell/lipstick peppers, potatoes, heirloom tomato, green pepper, pears, kale, mizuna, two dozen eggs The greens were good but a surprise (haven't got that many in a while, but it was no challenge to finish them all). I ended up cooking the squash with a pot roast - probably wasn't the best way to...

Week 9: August 12, 2009 Tomatoes, green peppers, watermelon, carrots, green beans, eggplant, sage, white onions, celery, rhubarb Normally I'm not a fan of tomatoes, but these were good. Cut them up and grill in a skillet. The watermelon was yellow, which I've never seen before. With some apprehension I bit in, only to discover it tastes exactly like red watermelon. As usual I failed to do anything with the rhubarb so I froze it. Week 10: August 19, 2009 Red tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, bell and cubanelle peppers, carrots, green beans, raspberries, rhubarb, white onions, chard, sweet corn, two dozen eggs A nice variety of peppers for omelets. The berries are consistently tasty. Green beans aren't really paleo but I ate them anyway (steam), as well as some of the corn (boiled). Again froze the rhubarb. Week 11: August 26, 2009 Red tomatoes, green peppers, watermelon, basil, parsley, banana peppers, jalapeno peppers, heirloom tomatoes, red onions, sweet corn, raspberrie...

Week 5: July 15, 2009 Bunched beets, leafy hardy green, kale, red cabbage, zucchini, mini onions, dill, cucumbers, blackberries The cabbage was excellent. Getting killed by so much dill though. Berries were succulent. Week 6: July 22, 2009 Spring onions, celery, Swiss chard, broccoli, cucumbers, zucchini, mixed beans, common thyme?, two dozen eggs Eggs were awesome as always. No trouble polishing off everything this week, except the herb... Week 7: July 29, 2009 Portabella mushrooms, chives, red new potatoes, carrots, onions, lettuce, fresh garlic, fennel Everything was good except the potatoes and fennel. Got this one just before going on vacation so I brought it all with me. My family could use everything on the trip except for the fennel, the stalk of which tastes like black licorice. Week 8: August 5, 2009 Portabella mushrooms, chives, white new potatoes, carrots, onions, mixed beans, zucchini, fennel, cucumbers I was still out of town for this one so again Jen was kind enough...

More delicious and nutritious veggies and berries over the past couple weeks. I'll just skip right to the pictures. Week 3: July 1, 2009 Little gem romaine, green cabbage, collard greens, garlic scrapes, turnips, green zucchini, snow or sugar snap peas, mini onions, unknown herb That list is from the newsletter but not everything is necessary in the picture. That's because I was out of town for the 4th of July weekend and had my roommate's girlfriend pick up the box in my absence. In return I encouraged them to eat whatever they wanted from it, which I presume they did. But there was still a good amount left when I got home on Sunday night. Another funny thing... I really wasn't kidding about the "surprise factor." As you can see and I'm embarrassed to admit, I couldn't even identify the herb at the time! In the newsletter they only tell you it will be either X, Y, or Z (the exact item is a mystery to everyone until you open the box). No matte...

I signed up for the Homegrown Wisconsin CSA program this year. For anyone who doesn't know what that is, Wikipedia and Localharvest do a nice job of explaining it. Basically, you pay money to a nearby farm, or set of farms in this case, and receive a bunch of fresh, healthy, local produce every week. The cost is about on par with buying veggies at the grocery store, but the quality is much higher, it's a lot fresher, and the farmers get a bigger cut. I'm fortunate that one of the pick up sites for this particular program is just down my street, so there is simply no excuse for me not to do this. One of the most interesting, and occasionally frustrating, things about doing a CSA is the surprise factor. To put it succinctly: you never know what you're gonna get. Nature isn't a mechanical contraption spitting plants out of the ground according to finely tuned inputs and schedules. On the contrary, the quantity, quality, and distribution of the farm's out...

You may have seen the buzz around the latest diet study, just published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The New York Times' article about it is quite representative of the coverage this study is getting. For people who are trying to lose weight, it does not matter if they are counting carbohydrates, protein or fat. All that matters is that they are counting something. Reading this with my morning coffee threw me into a bit of a panic, given it flies so completely in the face of my personal opinions and experiences. What if my weight loss has all been a lie? Did I really take the blue pill after all? Then I read the actual NEJM study article . Existential crisis averted. It turns out the study itself has some major flaws, serious enough that the conclusion (which the media picked up on) doesn't even really follow. Let's examine it in detail (below here, quoted sections are directly from the study). First, it wasn't even designed to address the questi...