Category: Jenny Craig

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it is baking season

"TURGOOSEN" --a chicken within a duck within a goose within a turkey
“TURGOOSEN” –a chicken within a duck within a goose within a turkey

For those who bake, you already know this, but we are in the throes of what is commercially referred to as ‘Baking Season.” Although commercial food product companies gear up and market this time of year, it is actually a proper reflection of what people do between September and January… we bake!

During this ‘season’, families are together more and people prepare those special occasion dishes that are reserved for only the best of times. A Thanksgiving Turkey, a Christmas Ham and a New Year’s Champagne brunch are so ingrained in some families that a lot of things will be dropped from the social calendar before any of these gatherings. I celebrate Japanese New Year with sushi, sashimi and other yummy things. I joke that sushi is my life… and homemade and fresh is best.

What I am starting to gather together are a few things I need for this season’s projects. Our daughters will be arriving in December and have requested a ‘Greek Night’… Dolmades, Tiropetes, Baklava, Honey Pie and Moussaka. Yes, there will be music and then we dance! Laura loves to bake her mushroom cookies and I will enjoy putting together this year’s Turgoosen! Jenny Craig will just have to be a little understanding.

Oh, I will be making and baking an assortment of other family favorites from  Corned Beef Pie ( the beef is ‘corning’ away as I write this) to General Washington’s great contribution to Western Civilization…. his incomparable ‘Egg Nog’. I also search and acquire cookbooks from times gone by and not always expensive ones… this time I found a 1908 cookbook by  Rumford (Clabber Girl).  You don’t have to buy an original ( I have one), but you can buy a nice copy that’ll work just nicely.

So, celebrate this season by making something wonderful for those you love!

Roger

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taking Jenny Craig around the World!

taking Jenny Craig Around the World
taking Jenny Craig Around the World

My daughters Kristin and Karen along with my wife Laura and me have trucked around  Jenny Craig to some of the darnest places! Karen has brought JC to interesting locations like South Africa, China, the Netherlands, Germany… and they all took Jenny breakfasts to Greece … and Kristin actually got her ‘complete start’ cereal blessed at the Vatican! BTW. Kristin’s cereal is a highly fought over commodity!

Where will they go next? I hear it might be Rio!!

The pictures above are posted at our local San Luis Obispo Jenny Craig! I hope people find the over 230 lbs we have lost as a family inspiring!

Congratulations ladies, 3 years and going strong!

Roger/Dad

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oops, too many Twinkies, America!

oops... too many twinkies!
oops... too many twinkies!

‘Lose weight or die more quickly and horribly’ would be a great slogan for a dieting commercial. For example, I love those shock commercials about smoking that show some older gent wheezing and , sympathetically, we listen to him warn us not to let this happen to us. Stop smoking, I get it. But if I were to take an educated guess, being overweight causes more physical harm and early death than almost anything we are doing to ourselves and it will only get worse.

I say get worse, because, it appears that the corpulent are moving into more sedentary years. I don’t think we have to worry about boomers taxing the social security program, a lot less of us may be around to collect anything. Now, the CDC had a quite beautiful color presentation of the trend in obesity rates in this country… but hard to understand… so I changed the colors and gray scaled it.  Now, you can better see what’s going on. Arteries are choking in the heartland of America.

First, I know that the diversity of our commercial food offerings is part of what drives people to eat more and I wouldn’t give that up. I know that ‘super tasters’ like me have an additional challenge, but one doesn’t have to feast every day, drink everyday and give up walking.

By the way, strenuous exercise stimulates the appetite and initiates a chain of events leading to failure, dieting and walking is the key. When I was a young boy I had a favorite customer on my paper route, he was 103. He impressed me with his stories and finally I asked him — in my youthfully honest way — why he lasted so long?  He told me that it was because he walked everyday to his coffee shop and such. Interestingly enough he did drive on occasion, but he impressed on me that walking was what kept his motor running. He noticed that the first things his friends stopped doing was to walk places, then came the chair , the bed  and then death. He said that at a certain age, once you stop walking the ability to start walking again becomes nearly impossible. He also enjoyed eating fabulously on Sunday, drank his ‘Old Fashions’ and brandies, but he was lean the rest of the week.

Just watch what you eat, walk every day ( pick a fun destination , say a coffee shop) and allow yourself to enjoy 1 fabulous meal a week and you’ll lose weight… which makes most people healthier… if not happier.

Roger

PS. I am working on my one extravagant meal of the week… for Saturday!