A new resolve

The other day I wrote about how I have taken responsibility to make myself healthier through the WLS weight loss and other life modifications that I have made. I talked about the heart catheterization I was going to have last Monday and what that meant to me both physically and mentally. I went into that procedure two days ago with a positive attitude and little apprehension. Some cardiac emergencies came in while I waited and my schedule got pushed backwards an hour and a half. But finally it was my turn. A few needle sticks and I was asleep, sort of. When I awoke an hour later it was over and they slid me over on to my bed again and said they were taking me over to the hospital so I could stay overnight, That meant they had put in a stent. The nurses and the doctor were all quite positive about the procedure so I was too. No pain or discomfort and I got a private room, because there were no more rooms available.

I was starving since I had not eaten in almost 24 hours, so they brought me a turkey sandwich (actually very good). I got a phone call from a friend checking to see how I was doing and then a second call asking if I was going home that night and needed a ride. The nurses kept a check on me all night so there was actually little sleep, but I was not in any discomfort, and felt pretty well. The doctor had told me that if everything was okay he would discharge me in the morning so I just dozed off until he came in. He told me about my stent and how it had gone well. Then he told me about the other problems that they had found. Apparently the blood vessels downstream from my bypasses done in 2006 showed signs of heart disease. They were in locations that apparently could not be stented or bypassed. This meant that the only recourse I had was medical therapy. So we discussed the long term issues and options and while they were not determined to be of immediate concern I would have to deal with at some point in the future.

Needless to say that was not the news I wanted to hear. I was a bit down the rest of the day and when I got home to the empty house, it was awfully quiet. But then I started to consider all of the things that have happened in my life and I realized that while I had done everything I could do to change the health status of my life there were still things created many years before that were hanging over my head like Damocles’ sword. Thirty to forty years of poor diets, lack of exercise, diabetes, and the weight gain were superimposed on top of that my family genetics. It was an equation that did not balance well. And frankly I should have realized that a long time ago. But I thought that all I had to do to become healthy is lose the weight and get rid of the diabetes.

So as I sit here this morning thinking about the message I received from my doctor and drinking a cup of coffee I realized that I had gotten up this morning just so that I could start all over again, again. I try to think that way every day. Each day is a new beginning. The problematical stuff with my heart will likely become an issue in a few years. But also will be managed medically. There are apparently no surgical options available at this time. I stress the "at this time" as this may change with our changing technology. I am not expecting medical technology to make my life perfect, but I do expect that technology may very well change how they treat this problem. But until they do, I am pushing forward doing what I have to do.

These back side health problems almost always started many years earlier and to me that meant that your healthy life’s choices need to be made better and earlier than we think now. I guess any special insight I may have is based upon accepting who I was and why I was where I was; and doing what was necessary to change as many risk factors as I could. After that, I then have to deal effectively with those factors that are either genetic (and to some degree out of our control, though not totally) and/or self-driven. There is a lot to be said about looking critically at yourself and your life and evaluating these things.

Accepting some responsibility for changing the front side is very important. I have only watched the Biggest Loser a few times and didn’t particularly like the way the heavy people were treated by the trainers and to a more significant degree by the public. We applauded their successes and seemed to almost gloat in their failures, almost like we expected them to. And as a heavy person, we sometimes start to look at ourselves as a failure. That perception causes us to spiral downwards. Weight does not affect your intelligence and yet many people perceive heavy people as not that smart. “If you were smart, you can change.” To me the biggest perceptual problem with people who are getting heavier is their general unwillingness to critically look at their life simply from the point of health maintenance. It can be said as an excuse, “Since everyone is heavier, what is so wrong with me?”

Now as I look down the path I am on I realize that issues created many years ago under conditions where I was not particularly responsible for my health are going to cause me problems in the future. The weight loss was a positive step; and the elimination of diabetes was also a positive step. But they were probably insufficient to make up for all those years prior. In reality, what other choice did I have? If I had not done what I did to improve my health, I probably would not be writing this or anything, ever again. I probably would not have made it to this point. But I have, and now I know I have some more work to do to ensure that I live as long as possible.

So in ending this entry, I would ask you that if you are considering weight loss surgery or have had it and are moving along, do not be surprised if more health problems are encountered. The WLS is not a total health “fix”. It is really just a reduction or elimination of one risk factor for heart disease. The additional elimination of diabetes also reduces the risks. But other risks are not going to go away. A family history and genetics is an important element and will never go away. Be sure you stay active and exercise as much as you can. Eat as well as you can, given the limitations the Eight Bites life will allow you. And do not fear the future, for it is the only one you will ever have. Your future will last as long as you do. You can do some things to influence it though. You have taken or may be preparing to take your health into your own hands. Handle it with courage, care, and gentleness, but look back at where you were and then do the things you need to do to reduce as many health risks as possible. You also must look forward to dealing with more health issues in the future. Just don’t let them freeze you in place or make you hesitant to act now to reduce your risks.

People do respond to a rational discourse in this increasingly irrational world and I guess that is what I am trying to do. If I manage to get people to think differently about their own health, that is an admirable goal. Maybe I can get some to realize that detection and action, when there is a problem, may simply not early enough. You almost always have to think a long ways back and then a long ways forward, don’t you?

A test of character

As we confront ourselves each day in the mirror we begin the daily testing of the character that we are, and what we hope to be. It is not a simple matter of doing something. It is the matter of doing the right thing. The reasons we give ourselves tests our honesty and personal integrity; and above all else we have to be honest with ourselves. Every day we pick the path we will walk that day. Sometimes it is the same path we were on yesterday and the day before; sometimes it is a new path with unknown pitfalls, hazards and potential rewards. Do the satisfactions from walking the same path you have been on still make your life a good one? Or is truly time for a change?


When I decided to have my weight loss surgery in 2006, I had been involved with the process for 24 years with my first wife, and truly understood the limits that would be placed upon me after my surgery. There were many elements that had to be considered. The most important was my overall health and its attendant risk factors. At 300 pounds on a 5’9” frame I was entirely too heavy. I was on daily insulin support (four injections daily), and I was hypertensive and could not effectively bring my blood pressure down. I had a family history of high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease. My father died of a heart attack, significantly influenced by his diabetes. My mother died from a sudden heart attack at the age of 83, when she developed congestive heart failure. Many of my siblings were overweight, and were experiencing many of the same medical issues faced by our parents.

So the primary reason I had the weight loss surgery was to gain some semblance of control over my health, my life and to some degree in my own longevity. It retrospect it was a good decision. I have lost the weight I needed. I have eliminated the diabetes that scared me so with its long term prognoses of neuropathy, blindness, circulation problems, and cardiac risks. But my blood pressure was still higher than I wanted it to be. I was still taking medications for control, and while they were at lower dosages, they were apparently still needed. In 2006 I had a heart attack and double bypass surgery and in general, my heart was in pretty good shape. There is always a bit of paranoia about the artificially altered circulation in your heart after bypass surgery. You want the bypasses to last forever and most of the time they do. But the paranoia still is there.

Last summer I started having some tightness in my chest when I carried heavy loads to and from the houses where we catered meals in Italy. The tightness went away quickly but it did cause me some concern. It was not constant and didn’t always occur when I worked; but it did occur often enough to raise the hair on the back of my neck and start that paranoia again. After leaving Italy, and returning to California (and being eligible for Medicare) I decided to have a stress test to see if the bypasses were still okay and functioning. So on my 65th birthday I went in for that test. They injected, probed, prodded, and I walked faster and faster. Then I felt that twinge of pain and tightness again. But it was apparently not the bypasses, it was something new.

Tomorrow I will go into the hospital for a cardiac catheterization with three possible outcomes. First they may find nothing of significance and I will go home with new medications. Or they will find some minor blockages and put in a balloon stent to open up the artery. Or they might find that I need another bypass. The doctor felt that the need for a bypass was a 1% probability, while the stent was about 99%. At first I was angry after all the work I had done to lose the weight, but that quickly went away as I realized that a lifetime lived heavy was the likely cause of this issue. I reconciled my actions taken to improve my health with the retained potential for problems into the future. So this has been the test of my character for today. As I looked in the mirror this morning I saw a changed man, who has taken charge of his life and yet still suffered the consequences of what he was before.

How does this fit into Eight Bites today?  The combined effects of our past health issues, what we do about them, and where we go has to be considered in our decisions. Weight is the most easily changed of the risk factors that we have had. Doing something about that brought me a great deal of personal satisfaction and eliminated my diabetes. Two factors have been reduced to relative insignificance.  But the heart is another factor. The weight loss has helped but it has not solved the long term problems. Now I must deal with those issues and move on. The path beckons. It is still into an unknown future, it still may be difficult and include new problems, but I have done something to change it. Do not expect the weight loss surgery to solve everything in your life. Take responsibility for changing the things you can, deal with the things you can’t change intelligently and calmly, and continue to live. Eight Bites at a time. Live on!

My 65th Birthday

This picture is me when I was 5 years old, in Antioch, California.  Last Tuesday was my 65th birthday and I decided to have a party. So Friday night, I had a group of old friends over for a buffet of lots of different foods, some good laughs, some quiet conversations and a peaceful beginning to my 65th year. This has been a year of substantial changes and I look forward to the new year with confidence and anticipation.
As to Eight Bites and my thinking and status, this is where I am. I have retained my weight loss at about 140 pounds and weight 160-165 right now. I have been able to stay at this weight for a year and a half now and feel that it is unlikely that I will allow myself to put weight back on. At times I do want something more than I should eat, but I have found that with the gastrectomy, I feel uncomfortable when I eat a couple of bites too much. It is an auto-regulating mechanism. It hurts if I overeat and since I am not a big fan of pain, I have learned to stop eating before I reach that point. Calories are automatically restricted and I don’t have to do anything austere or drastic to prevent my weight from going up. It is why I feel so confident that I will not regain that weight so dearly lost. Besides what would I do with all the clothes I have purchased that fit me so nicely now?

Party food or how to have a good time at a party and not over eat. The menu for the party was pretty extensive but was focused on small individual bites of things. The Eight Bites component of the food for the birthday party was:
• Crostini with turkey spread, crisp bacon, and chipotle cranberry sauce
• Deviled eggs
• Barbecued chicken crepe stack
• Stuffed peppers with sausage
• Crostini with mushroom pate
• Crostini with black beans, chipotle orange sauce
• Cheese plate with Gouda, Havarti and provolone
• Brie with spiced walnuts
• Salami and smoked Gouda
• Vegetable plate with grape tomatoes, celery and bocconcini
• Rigatoni with vegetable sauce
• Squash ravioli with a white herb sauce
• Tortellini gorgonzola
• Flourless chocolate cake with ganache
• Lemon tart
• Chocolate truffles

The following description of four of these dishes shows how you can have a number of different tastes, and enjoy the party without eating too much. As the cook, I tasted everything to be sure that the food items were what I wanted them to be, but these four items are what I had as my dinner. The balance of the dinner was designed for guests who had not had weight loss surgery. The dishes included pastas and desserts.

Crostini with turkey spread, crisp bacon, and chipotle cranberry sauce
For all the crostini, I sliced French bread baguettes into ½ slices, brushed them with olive oil and a light sprinkle of salt and toasted them in the oven at 350 degrees until they were barely crisp.

I used a ½ pound of a good quality of smoked turkey breast from the deli, put it in the food processor with a couple of tablespoons of sweet, hot mustard, a tablespoon of the chipotle sauce, and a couple of tablespoons of softened butter and processed it into a smooth puree. I cooked the thick sliced bacon in the oven with a small amount of brown sugar on each slice and a few drops of the chipotle cranberry sauce then cut each slice into 1” long pieces. To make the crostini, put a little of the chipotle sauce on the bread, spread a layer of the turkey spread and top with a piece of crisp bacon and a few drops of the chipotle sauce. These antipasti provide a fair amount of protein from the turkey and bacon, and a single piece can be a nice addition to your Eight Bites plate. Nutritionally, a 1 ounce serving of the smoked turkey breast is approximately 8 grams of protein.

Deviled eggs
Just make your favorite deviled egg recipe. One or two halves provide a nice amount of protein and pleasant change from the bread crostini. One egg consists of 6 grams of protein content and at least 9 amino acids. Proteins constitute nearly 13% of the weight of an egg. Eating an egg as part of the Eight Bites meal will give you almost 10 percent of the protein required for post-bariatric surgery patients and is also a very high quality protein source.

Barbecued chicken crepe stack
These antipasti are easily made using simple crepes and chopped barbequed chicken and some cheddar cheese. Make crepes from your favorite recipe and add couple of teaspoons of dried chives to the batter before cooking. To create the stack, place a crepe on a baking sheet, top with ¼ cup of chopped chicken mixed with barbecue sauce, then top with cou[ple of tablespoons of grated cheddar cheese. Put another crepe on top of the first, and repeat until you have about 7 or eight crepes in the stack. Finish with a layer of chicken and cheese. Bake in the oven until the cheese is melted and serve hot in wedges. A serving wedge should have about an ounce of chicken and 7 grams of protein.

Stuffed peppers with sausage
This dish is simply made using mild sweet peppers, available fresh in most grocery stores. Slit the peppers in half lengthwise and remove the seeds, rinse and allow to drain and ry. Make the stuffing from 12 ounces of sausage (use your favorite type of hot, or sage, or Italian), a medium chopped onion and a cup of grated Parmigiano=Reggiano cheese. Cook the sausage with the onions until the meat is no longer pink. Put the meat in a food processor and add the cheese. Process using pulses to obtain a coarse mix. Stuff the mixture into the pepper halves and place on a baking sheet. Heat under the broiler until the top is bubbly and golden. Serve warm or hot. The amount of sausage in each pepper is approximately ½ ounce and provides about 6-8 grams of protein per serving.

From the perspective of Eight Bites, having a single piece of the smoked turkey crostini, two deviled egg halves, a wedge of barbecue chicken crepe stack and two stuffed peppers was enough to give me approximately 35 grams of protein or about 50% of the protein required for the day and I didn’t have to eat a lot. And happily, I also have the opportunity to taste a lot of different dishes.

Think Eight Bites, think interesting flavors, think positively about your weight loss and think positively about your new life. Enjoy the day. So, Happy Birthday to me. May there be many more in my healthy new life. There is no good alternative to another birthday.

Focusing today

I have been reading some of my blog entries and I feel that it is time to take a big step back and think through what was my original intent and have I been true to that intent. Have I provided you some answers or have I just caused you to have more questions. Frankly, I hope I have done both.

The time after WLS is a complex period in your life. Your body is changing rapidly. Often faster than you think and almost always faster than you can have the waistband of your pants taken in. You have to get new clothes, but what size? It can be an ongoing mystery as your body changes. But it also can be a lot of fun especially if you have been heavy for quite awhile. Seeing a different you in the mirror virtually every day can be life-changing. However, at the same time your body is changing on the outside it is also changing on the inside. You go through those first few healing weeks, thinking will I ever enjoy food again, as you sip those protein drinks that sometimes are not so yummy? I remember how incredibly good that scrambled egg tasted at week three as I transitioned on to soft foods and away from liquids.

It is really important during those first few weeks that you really begin to think seriously about your eating habits. Why did you have the surgery? What were you expecting to happen after the weight loss? Did you think it would be easy and effortless? Actually in all honesty these questions should have been seriously thought out before you had the surgery. Once you have committed to it, it changes everything, hopefully. And I meant hopefully. Too many people I have talked to in the last year are absolutely convinced that all people who have WLS will regain a lot of the weight lost. Insurance companies deny coverage because of the apparently high percentage of people regaining the weight. It really does come down to you and your personal reasons for having the surgery and losing the weight. Are the reasons you used to justify the surgery sufficient to carry you through to the successful weight loss and much more importantly, to the continued maintenance of that lost weight?

My intentions in the upcoming blog entries is to develop a more specific focus on the individual, and how much they eat. I will be looking at any recipes I provide and show you how to make them just for you. To provide you that defined amount of food that will help you maintain the weight loss. My suggestions for portion size and cooking techniques will be directed toward just the individual who has had WLS. I want to clearly show that you can maintain the weight loss by eating carefully managed portions, knowing when to stop, and knowing when you are eating to excess. You can regain weight if you expand the “pouch” the surgeon created to accommodate more food. More food means more calories. More calories goes to the laws of thermodynamics where calories in must equal calories out. You have a restricted input after surgery, but you can still sabotage the results by eating cheesecake and washing it down with a chocolate milkshake, or pureeing strawberry pancakes so they can go down easier, or just gradually eating a bit more than your stomach was redesigned to hold and allowing the stomach musculature to expand and accommodate more food. Again this goes to the reasons you had surgery in the first place. Were you over-eating because of stress or dealing with life’s issues? Did you eat too much simply because you enjoyed the tastes and flavors, and felt you needed to clean your plate? Did you just not balance the thermodynamics by getting sufficient exercise to balance off the calorie taken in? Did you eat a whole pumpkin pie with whipped cream just because it tasted so good?

My objective in these following blogs is to redirect you eating away from what you could eat to what you should be eating. I will describe dishes in light of the adequate levels of proteins you need and put the ancillary food items such as carbohydrates to the side. I am going to give you information on maintaining the portion controls you need to maintain your weight loss. I am not your keeper, but as a WLS patient I have seen the good and the bad that can result if you don’t take full control of your eating and your thinking about food. I am going to try to give you the tools you can use every day to meet not only your physiological and caloric demands but your demands for tasty, interesting, and exciting foods.

Portion control will be the emphasis that I will be working with. Portions are easily over-ridden if you wish, but I want my objective to be to give you sufficient good tasting food that provide you what your body needs and not to provide excess. This will force you to look at how you are eating, how much you are eating and maybe why you are eating more than you need in your after-surgery life.

So starting today I will focus on giving you the information I think you might need to make your new life satisfying.

New Year’s Eve 2010

This New Years is quite a bit different from last year. Last year I was in Italy and I helped cook for a group of 6 diners, at a very nice house near us. This year I am back in California and starting a personal chef and cooking class business on the north coast above San Francisco.

This New Year's Eve I catered the biggest dinner I have ever done by myself. I cooked for 30 diners at a friend’s beautiful home. It was a fancy party with good music, pretty clothes, and good food. The dinner was served buffet style which made it pretty simple to do. On the other hand, the person who was supposed to assist me backed out at the last minute. So the strategy to prepare and serve the dinner changed. I decided to do a lot of the prep work and some of the precooking at home. Of course that makes it important that the food still taste and look fresh when it is served.

Since this is Eight Bites I want to focus on portions and the food. I also want to show that you can entertain and serve good food to your friends and guests without feeling the least bit deprived of being part of the celebration. New Year’s Eve is a serious party evening. It’s when people want to get out, end the year on a festive note and let their hair down a bit. So this is about making good food, and having fun. It is however not about excess.

The special dinner started with four antipasti dishes.
Crepes with smoked salmon, citrus marmalade and cream cheese
I made a simple crepe batter out of flour, milk, cream, a bit of baking powder, a small amount of sugar, eggs, and melted butter. I then added a good amount of chopped chives to the mixture and let it rest for an hour. It was pretty thick so I thinned it a bit with some more cream. I baked them in a non-stick skillet until there were brown and then flipped them over. When they were done I stacked them separated by paper towels. I made about 35 crepes and put them in the refrigerator overnight.

To make the filling, I took cream cheese and mixed it with a small amount of seasoning salt and lots of black pepper. I then crumbled in the smoked salmon, a couple of tablespoons of chopped chives, a couple of teaspoons of lemon zest, and some chopped parsley and mixed it well. I added about two tablespoons of my lemon mostarda to the cheese. The cheese mixture was allowed to sit for an hour and the flavors combine. At room temperature the cheese was also easier to spread. I spread the cheese mixture on the crepes and then drizzled a small amount of the lemon mostarda on the top. I rolled up the crepes and placed them in a pan to hold in the refrigerator until I finished the prep at the party. All of this prep work was done at home and all I had to do at the party was to cut the crepes into serving size pieces and then plate them on a pretty platter.

Crostini with wild mushroom pate
These wild mushroom crostini were made with a mixture of wild mushrooms and cultivated mushrooms purchased at the local Farmer’s Market. I used dried Shitake and porcini mushrooms, a couple of chanterelles and morels, and commercially grown Portobello mushrooms to make the mushroom pate. The dried mushrooms were soaked to reconstitute them and then were added to the sliced fresh mushrooms. All of the mushrooms were sautéed in a mixture of butter and olive oil. The liquid from the the dried mushrooms was added to enhance the flavor and then the liquid reduced. I added about a ¼ cup of Marsala as well to add more flavor and then added a couple of tablespoons of chopped parsley and they were reduced again to evaporate most of the liquid. The mushrooms were placed in a food processor with a cube of butter and mixed to achieve a relatively fine puree, placed in a container and allowed to cool and solidify in the refrigerator. I made this pate two days before the party.

A beer bread was used as the base of the crostini. I have given the recipe for this bread before and have shown how you can vary the flavor of it by the addition of different ingredients. This time since I was putting a mushroom pate on the bread I decided to make the bread with dried Porcini mushrooms. I had brought back from Italy a lot of packages of the dried porcini which has an intense mushroom aroma, particularly in its dried form. I reconstituted the mushrooms in a little water and then chopped them coarsely. They went into the bread mixture along with some seasoning salt, garlic powder and pepper. The resulting loaf was a very aromatic bread that I was able to make a couple of days before the party. After it cooled, I put it in a plastic bag and into the refrigerator. The night of the party I sliced the bread into ½ inch thick slices and painted one side with olive oil. I then grilled the bread in a stove top grill pan, topped it with a small amount of a fig jam I had made and then spread on the mushroom pate. I cut each slice into two pieces and plated them on a nice plate and out it went to the buffet.

Cucumbers with herbed, garlic goat cheese and roasted cherry tomatoes
This antipasti was quite simple and yet a very tasty “finger food”, it is also colorful and is an attractive addition to the buffet. I sliced four large peeled cucumbers into ½ in slices and held them cold in a bowl in the refrigerator. The fresh goat cheese was mixed with three or four cloves of minced garlic, some seasoning salt and pepper. Oven-dried tomatoes were made by slicing cherry tomatoes in half, mixing them with olive oil and dried oregano and a tablespoon of sugar and allowing them to marinate for about an hour. Then I placed them on a baking sheet and turned them all so they were cut side up. Into a 350 degree oven for about 45-50 minutes and then I turned the oven off and allowed them to dry for another hour or so. They were soft yet they had a concentrated tomato flavor. The serving was done by topping a slice of cucumber with a scant teaspoon of the goat cheese and then this was topped with a tomato half.

Grilled eggplant and zucchini dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar
Grilling vegetables was a technique I learned in Italy and there we grilled lots of different vegetables, depending upon their seasonal abundance. Eggplant and zucchini are available all year around here in California so I decided to use them in a simple grilled dish as a starter. The eggplant were sliced into ½ inch thick slices and sprinkled with salt and allowed to drain in the sink for a hour or more. This causes the eggplant to release a lot of the bitterness they possess. I sliced the zucchini into ¼ inch slices lengthwise. After rinsing of the eggplant and zucchini, I sprinkled good olive oil over them and added a bit of pepper and dried oregano. I would add salt later after I tasted the final cooked vegetable. In my stove top grill pan I grilled the vegetables just until al dente, giving them good grill marks and then placed them on a baking dish to cool. When I served them I arranged them on an attractive platter and drizzled some olive oil and a bit of balsamic vinegar over them. They were served at room temperature.

The first course was a terrific dish I had for the first time in a restaurant in Tiburon, California in 1987. I was building a laboratory and I came in for the first time wearing jeans and a t-shirt with paint on it. Jose the chef took one look at my tired face and said “Let me fix you something.” I was served a simple dish of fettuccini tossed in a basil pesto with fried halibut pieces on it. It was absolutely outstanding. I have served that dish many times, substituting different fish and shellfish for the halibut and it has always been well-received by diners. So for this New Year’s Eve party I decided to up the ante a bit and use fresh scallops as the seafood.

Fettuccini with basil pesto and grilled scallops
The fettuccini was a dried commercial pasta made in Italy. It cooks up nicely and stays al dente. I made the pesto some time ago and froze it. Basil in December is not terrific and it is better to have good basil and the pesto made and frozen than to make an inferior sauce today. I do not add the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese to the pesto until I am ready to serve it. I cook the pasta and then toss it with the pesto, adding a little more olive oil and possibly a bit of the water the pasta was cooked in. I kept the pasta warm and prepared the fresh scallops. Lightly dredging the scallops in a mixture of flour, cornstarch and seasoning salt, I fried them in about ¾ inch of vegetable oil heated to approximately 360-370 degrees. The scallops were dropped carefully into the oil and fried for about 2 minutes, turning once. They remained soft and succulent, with a crispy exterior crust. I then drained them and placed them on top of the pasta, and took the large platter out to the buffet.

The main dish was Roasted Salmon with a spicy rub. I had the salmon cut and portioned by the fish monger into 5 ounce pieces. This provided a nice serving size that was perfect for the meal. I put the cut fillets on a foil-covered baking sheet skin side down and brushed them with a mixture of clarified butter and lemon juice. The skin sticks to the foil and when you take them out to serve them, the skin stays behind. I then sprinkled on the sweet and spicy rub. This is a mixture of brown sugar, cayenne pepper, paprika, seasoning salt, black pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. I mixed the components together completely and then just sprinkled it on to the fish. I squeezed lemon juice over each piece and then drizzled a little more butter and lemon on top. The fish went into the 350 degree oven and took about 15-20 minutes to cook. I don’t like overcooked salmon so this came out while it was still moist and tender and still a bit pink. The fillets were placed in a chafing dish to keep them warm and put out on the buffet. I served a side dish of a sauce made from chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, honey and orange juice. It was quite spicy and I told the guests that it had bite so use it sparingly. Many of them used it and loved its addition to the fish.

With the fish I made a rice pilaf using chicken broth and sautéing the rice with onions before adding the liquid. It’s a simple dish that while adding nice flavor, does not detract from the fish. The vegetable side dish was sautéed chard with anchovies, garlic and olive oil. I cooked the chopped vegetables in boiling water with four cloves of garlic until tender, then drained them. At the party I sautéed them in a large pan with 10 small oil-packed anchovy fillets that I cooked in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil before adding the chard. All I had to do was get the vegetables hot and I served them in a chafing dish. This vegetable dish was a big hit and we actually ran out before everyone got some. I will have to rethink the amount I cook from now on.

Dessert was a flourless chocolate cake with ganache icing. I have made this cake a number of times. It is made from chopped toasted walnuts, chopped chocolate, some sugar and vanilla, egg yolks, and whipped egg whites. It is like a soufflé that is allowed to fall. I iced it with a chocolate ganache made from bittersweet dark chocolate melted in hot cream and allowed to cool. I served it with whipped cream and a sauce I created from cranberries and mangos.

Dinner ended with espressos and chocolate truffles. Using the same ganache as for the icing, I added a bit of brandy to one batch of chocolate and left the other plain. When they were cool, I rolled walnut sized balls of each type and then rolled the brandied chocolate in crushed walnuts and the plain one in a classic unsweetened cocoa powder. They were a big hit and all of them, disappeared, including at least two into one guest’s purse. A bit of post-New Year’s partying? She didn’t know I was watching.

How does this tie into Eight Bites? The best that I can do with that question is to look at what I ate during the evening. I had such fun cooking the dishes, (and giving mini-classes on salmon preparation and fettucciniwith scallops) and wanted them all to come out great. So I tasted each one to be sure it was what I wanted it to be. I think that is what a good chef does. I had a rolled up salmon crepe, a small crostini with mushrooms, a cucumber slice with goat cheese, two scallops, two bites of salmon and a few bites of the cake. Sorry, I had already eaten a truffle before I got there. I tasted everything. And that was enough. Over the three hours I cooked I actually ate a reasonable amount of food. I was happy with the cooking, happy with the dishes and I didn’t get overwhelmed by my inability to eat more.

So there is New Year’s Eve 2010. It gave me an opportunity to show people what and how I could cook. And I did it all staying with the basic premise of my Eight Bites thinking. It is important that celebrations do not become times for over-eating, because they can become that easily. The discipline you show at these times of excess is what really determines if your weight loss will be successful or not. But it is also very important to celebrate as well. Have fun at these celebrations and do not deprive yourself of that enjoyment. Just keep in mind why you did have that weight loss surgery and what you have accomplished. So Happy New Year’s everyone and may there be many more celebrations and opportunities for you in this year. Eat tasty dishes and celebrate what you have accomplished. Mangia!

Inspiration and Improvisation

The ability to improvise and construct a dish or meal from limited ingredients comes in handy in real life. I do it all the time. It's a skill you must have and must continue to foster. There is currently a show on the Food Network called Chopped. They give four competing chefs a basket of unlikely ingredients and challenge them to compose a tasty dish with them. There are three rounds making antipasti, a main dish and a dessert. After each round, prepared in a very limited time frame, one of the chefs is Chopped and leaves the show. Chefs do not normally cook this way. They Plan. They get ingredients they need, lay out the basic materials and all the while they are thinking about the basic dish. THEN they see if inspiration hits them. Sometimes it’s pretty inane and silly, and sometimes the creative use of the different ingredients can be inspirational. In fact it is even more important that they be inspirational, since much of our culinary lives revolve around fishing around in the freezer for things to feed a hungry family or just ourselves. We can use all the inspiration we can get.


In today’s blog I want to apply some possibly inspirational elements to dishes to change how they taste, and how they appear. I will use a fig jam to create a sauce for simple grilled pork; an interesting way to cook sea bass, a great smoked salmon and crepe antipasti, fettuccini with pesto and scallops, a frittata and more. Take a nice deep cleansing breath and follow your inspiration.

Roasted Pork with Fig Sauce
This is great served with mashed potatoes and some sautéed green beans on the side.
Ingredients
2 pound pork shoulder roast
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Fine grain salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoon of butter
1 cup of chopped onions
1 cup of fig jam or preserves
3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar or wine vinegar
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1/3 cup of chicken stock

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Season the pork well with salt and pepper. Heat a large sauté pan over medium high heat. When hot add the oil and brown the pork roast on all sides (about 2 minutes per side). Remove from heat and place in a roasting pan on a wire rack. Roast in the oven to an internal temperature of 150 degrees. Remove and let the meat rest for at least 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the butter in a medium sauté pan until melted. Add the onions and saute until translucent. Add the fig jam to the pan and cook for 2 minutes, until heated well. Add the vinegar, stock and sugar to the same pan. Bring the mixture to a boil and simmer for 4 to 5 minutes until the sauce has reduced and thickened. Keep warm until ready to serve.
Slice the pork and place on a platter. Spoon fig sauce around pork and pour sauce over and around the pork. Serve.

Roasted Sea Bass Filets with Wild mushrooms.
Use any thick white meat fishes for this dish. Striped bass, rockfish, or halibut make a good substitute if sea bass is not available.

Ingredients
Fish Sauce
8 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and chopped
1 medium carrot, peeled, trimmed, and chopped
1 rib celery, trimmed and chopped
2 bay leaves
1 cup chardonnay or other white wine
1 tbsp. tomato paste
1 tbsp. flour
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 oz. chanterelles, porcini or mixed wild mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed, and quartered. (Unless you are an experienced mushroom hunter, buy the mushrooms from the Farmer’s Market or grocery store).

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°.Heat 2 tbsp. of the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed medium roasting pan on top of stove over medium-high heat. Add onions, carrots, celery, bay leaves, and sprigs of parsley and cook, stirring often, until just softened, 3–5 minutes. Add wine and tomato paste and cook, scraping browned bits stuck to bottom of pan, until alcohol evaporates, about 2 minutes. Whisk flour and 2 cups water together in a bowl until smooth, then stir into pan and bring to a boil. Transfer pan to oven and roast until liquid has reduced by about half, 25–30 minutes.

Strain liquid through a large sieve into a medium bowl, pressing on solids with back of spoon (you should have about 1 cup liquid). Discard solids. Put the liquid into jar of blender. With motor running, gradually add 2 tbsp. of the olive oil through hole in top of blender lid, puréeing until sauce is emulsified. Transfer sauce to a small saucepan, season to taste with salt and pepper, and keep warm over lowest heat.

Lightly chop or slice the mushrooms, season with salt and pepper and saute over medium heat in two tablespoons of good olive oil and a tablespoon of butter until done. Set aside and keep warm.
Marinate fish for 15 minutes in a bit of olive oil, dried oregano and black pepper. Grill fish until just opaque. Plate with the tomato wine sauce and a spoonful of mushrooms on top. Garnish with some chopped parsley. Serve with a lemon wedge.


Crepes with smoked salmon, citrus marmalade and cream cheese
Crepes are always a great go-to dish. They are easy to make and are really good with a wide variety of savory or sweet fillings. I make my crepes with only a bit of sugar to provide a hint of sweetness that doesn’t overpower the fillings. I have filled these with a spiced cream cheese with chives, smoked salmon and a dollop of lemon mostarda. The crepes can be made ahead and stored in plastic bags in the refrigerator or freezer. Be sure to put a sheet of paper towel between the crepes to keep them from sticking together. The beauty of crepes is that they can be served hot or cold, sauced or not.

Ingredients
Spiced Cream cheese
8 ounces of cream cheese softened at room temperature.
3 Tablespoons of chopped fresh chives.
1/8 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.
½ teaspoon of seasoning salt or sea salt.

Mix cream cheese and seasonings together (use a bit of milk to thin if necessary).
Set aside in the refrigerator until you assemble the crepes.

Purchase 4-8 ounces of good quality smoked salmon or lox.

Make the crepes
1-2 cups of all purpose flour
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoon of sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1-2 cups half and half or cream
3 tablespoons melted butter

Mix the flour, eggs, cream or half and half, salt, and sugar together to make a thick creamy batter. This is not pancake batter and should be the consistency of thick cream and should readily pour out of a measuring cup. Add the melted butter and whisk together. Allow to rest for at least 15 minutes to a half hour before cooking.

Cook the crepes in a good heavy non-stick pan. Add some melted butter to the pan and then a ¼ cup of batter. Rotate the pan to evenly spread the batter over the bottom and pour of the excess. Bake the crepe for about a minute until it is golden and then flip over to cook the other side for 30-45 seconds. Place the crepe on a plate and top with a paper towel. Continue to make crepes until the batter is gone.

Assemble the crepes.
Spread a tablespoon of the seasoned cream cheese on the crepe, drizzle with a little lemon mostarda, and then lay in a slice or two of the smoked salmon. Roll the crepe up and slice in into bite sized pieces and place them on a serving platter. Sprinkle the platter with a light sprinkle of chopped chives and chopped parsley.

Lemon mostarda
I make this condiment specifically for use with fish in antipasti. It pairs well with salmon, smoked trout, baccalà and can also be used as an added element to grilled, roasted or other fish preparations.

Ingredients
Two cups of water
1 1/2 cups of sugar
Rind from 5 lemons, peeled with a vegetable peeler and sliced into fine julienne
Juice from the five lemons
Two tablespoons of yellow or black mustard seeds, toasted and crushed
3-4 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (to taste)

Directions
Bring water and sugar to a rolling boil and boil for 10 minutes
Add grated lemon peel and juice and return to a boil.
Allow to cook at a simmer for 20 minutes or until it reaches 225 degrees on a candy thermometer.
Toast mustard seeds in a dry frying pan until they start to pop
Grind in a mortar or spice mill to a coarse texture
Add to fruit mixture
Taste and add 3-4 tablespoons (or more) vinegar (This is my preferred option)
Simmer for 30 minutes
Ladle into washed canning jars (1/4 pint)
Seal and process for 5 minutes in boiling water bath
Remove from the water bath to a rack and allow to cool.


Crostini with apple mostarda and sausage cheese mixture
I have used a beer bread for this crostini. The recipe for beer bread can be found in the Sept 15th 2009 blog entry “Beer Bread and Fish Stew”. Add garlic powder, onion powder, grated Parmesan cheese and a good pinch of dried pepper flakes to the bread mix before you add the beer and mix it. Slices of sourdough bread or other crispy breads can be grilled and used as well.
Ingredients
Make a loaf of beer bread and allow to cool overnight.
½ pound of Italian sausage
½ cup parmesan or Pecorino cheese
1 cup of grated jack cheese

Directions
Make the sausage mixture:
Saute ½ pound of Italian sausage and break into small crumbles
In a bowl, mix the cooked sausage with ½ cup Parmigiano cheese and 1 Cup of grated jack cheese or equivalent. Mix thoroughly and cheese will melt into the sausage. Set aside.

Slice beer bread into 1/2 inch or thinner slices and then crosswise in half. Brush with a mixture of olive oil and crushed garlic. Place on baking sheet in 325 degree F oven and allow to crisp slightly. Or if you have a stovetop grill pan, grill the slices.

Spread a slice of the crostini with apple mostarda.
Top with the sausage/cheese mixture.
Place a small amount of apple mostarda on top.
Place on a baking sheet and heat in 350o F oven until sausage and cheese are hot.
Serve immediately.

Apple mostarda
This can be made with just apples, the mustard seeds and the sugar syrup, but I prefer to add some vinegar to make the preserves sweet and sour.

Ingredients
Three cups of water
2 cups of sugar
Four Granny Smith apples, grated
Three tablespoons of yellow mustard seeds
3-4 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (optional)

Directions
Bring water and sugar to a rolling boil and boil for 10 minutes.
Add grated apples and return to a boil.
Toast mustard seeds in a dry frying pan until they start to pop.
Grind in a mortar or spice mill to a coarse texture.
Add to apples and sugar.
Taste and add 3-4 tablespoons vinegar (This is my preferred option).
Simmer for 30 minutes to thicken.
Set aside overnight to steep.
Reheat, and bottle in sterilized jars, seal and process for 5 minutes in boiling water.
Remove from the water bath to a rack.
Allow to cool.

Artichoke, salami and cheese frittata
Frittatas are great for the Eight Bites diet. They can be made using leftovers from the fridge, are easy to make and provide high nutritional value in the form of protein. Use a good non-stick pan to cook the frittata so it comes out of the oven and out of the pan easily. This one uses “off the shelf ingredients to make a quick dinner. It can easily feed two to four and is great served the next day.

Ingredients
1 Cup of sliced marinated artichoke hearts
½ cup diced salami
¾ C mixed grated cheese (Parmesan, provolone, and Asiago)
3-4 beaten eggs with ½ cup milk
1 Tbs butter

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Put 1 Tbs butter in an ovenproof, non-stick skillet over medium heat.
After the butter melts, add the artichokes and salami.
Add the egg mixture and cook for about a minute until it starts to set.
Lift the edges of the eggs to allow the uncooked eggs to flow underneath.
Sprinkle the cheese on the top of the eggs.
Remove from the stove and place the skillet in the oven.
Allow to cook for 10-12 minutes or until the top is firm.
Serve it warm or allow it to cool to room temperature.
Can be warmed in the oven the next day for brunch.

Farmer's Market

One of the most difficult things about living alone is cooking for one. Packaging of food in the markets is based upon purchasing larger volumes. Buy two and get one free; buy the family pack, or buy the large loaf of bread. It seems like nothing is packaged with the person who has had weight loss surgery in mind. So you have to buy two and get one free, or buy the big family pack of meat and split it up. These deals do save you money, but you must then figure out what to do with the extra food until you can get around to eating it. Recently the supermarket was having a big sale on high quality steaks, (New York cuts) very tender but you had to buy six of them. So I bought a pack and brought them home. Each steak was about 12-14 ounces so I sectioned each one into three or four pieces, wrapped each pieces in plastic wrap, and then put them in a freezer bag. I could take one out of the freezer and allow it to defrost for dinner and I had a tender 3-4 ounce serving. I grilled them quickly to rare in a grill. Dinner was served. Out of that package of steaks, I got 18 meals of high quality protein for approximately $10.

Yesterday I wanted some country style pork ribs, and a family package of four ribs was on sale for $7. So I bought a package. Last night I placed them in a roasting pan, seasoned them with salt and pepper and baked them at 350 degrees for about an hour. I then coated the meat with Hoisin sauce and let them finish. I had about a ½ of one rib for dinner and then put the others in a package for later. I will make a pork burrito with some of the meat for breakfast this morning. The rest will be in reserve for another time soon.

So why is this entry called Farmer’s Market? Here in Santa Rosa, California, there is a large organic foods Farmer’s Market at the Veteran’s Building on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Wednesday market has fewer vendors but is still a pleasant place to go. The Saturday market is a lot bigger with quite a few more vendors and therefore more possibilities. The folks in the booths are helpful, friendly and while the produce is not cheap it is of good quality and provides seasonally available fruits and vegetables. Right now peppers, citrus, potatoes and apples are dominating the stands. But you will still also find wonderful greens to braise, or unusual carrots.

Going to the market is really an experience in possibilities. I always make at least two circuits around the market. I don’t but anything on the first pass, just looking to see what is available. Then more slowly, I work my way around the market again. This time looking for those interesting possibilities. I may buy some mushrooms for dinner, or some citrus to make marmalade. Thinking ahead a few days, I might buy some interesting greens to cook and chop, then saute with garlic and olive oil and use to top a garlic-infused crostini, warm from the grill. Put a sprinkle of good Parmigiano Reggiano cheese on the top and serve with a glass of nice white wine. While it is not specifically designed to be a part of the Eight Bites diet, it is very tasty and a way of getting more vegetables into your diet. So go ahead and make some and enjoy it as an antipasti before you eat the protein portion of your meal.

Last Saturday at the market I was shopping with a friend, and found some great oranges, Granny Smith apples and some sweet peppers. I had to hold off on the wild mushrooms, but did order some wonderful butter from an artisan dairy in Petaluma. I also looked at some Muscovy duck breasts. Just thinking about a possible dinner party with grilled duck breast, peppers agrodolce, and apple Tarte Tatin.

At one stand, they were selling smoked olive oil. I spent a few minutes talking with the couple who owned the process and we talked about how we use olive oil and how these flavored ones might provide a different taste. They asked me to develop a recipe or two for them using their oils and I said I would. Before I walked away, they gave me a package containing small bottles of each of their three oils for me to experiment with. I will use the oranges to make some orange marmalade including some with vinegar and red pepper flakes to make it a bit more interesting. I also have some fig jam frozen and will use the Granny Smith apples and some raisins to make some jars of chutney.

So if you have a Farmer’s Market in your town, by all means go and see what is available. The vegetables and fruits are generally fresher and they are often organically raised. So wander around, talk to the vendors. They love to talk about their products and often about using them in your own kitchen. While the market might not provide the meat products we require as part of Eight Bites, they do provide a wonderful gathering of folks with a common outlook. That is the preparation of interesting food with good nutritional characteristics, seasonally and sustainable raised. Support them with your purchases or at least with your presence. Drink an espresso from the stand, buy some bread (even though you can’t eat much of it), and shake their hands. Enjoy the morning adventure and remember that having had bariatric surgery has given you a new life and good health. So celebrate it. Find some interesting foods and use them, even if it requires you to cook just for yourself, and you still have to purchase meats in those big packages.