Sunday, July 25, 2004

Baking Bread - Carbs and Diets

The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread

That sounds like a good book. Nothing like the smell, taste and texture of good bread.

I noticed there's a book out called "No White at Night". The idea is that you don't eat potatoes, pasta or other foods made with white flour or sugar at night. That sounds like maybe a doable plan for the most part. I wouldn't skip a good spagetti dinner or good bread if someone offered it to me after dark though.

I was thinking the best shape I was in was when I ate a balanced diet and did a lot of exercising.

I was on a diet once called the Prism diet, where you didn't eat any starches like bread, potatoes, spagetthi, sugar, anything made of refined flour. It worked until I got tired of missing a lot of my favorite foods and gave up the diet and just for good measure - exercise. I'd tell people I was on the diet and they'd say..."you say you're on a Prison diet?". Yeah that's it the prison diet.

The nice thing about being human is we can always change. No matter how far down one road we go we always can choose another. You can always start an improvement plan of one sort or another.

I like to challenge myself by getting way down the wrong road and then see if I can get back on track :-)

The way I see it getting really out of shape, or lazy, or taking on any number of vices gives you an opportunity to improve. Who would ever want to be perfect anyway? It seems like you wouldn't have any reason to go on.

I heard a guy on the radio say that we have to cheat. Not in the sense that immediately comes to mind. He was saying that we can never get everything we need to get done for our work, for ourselves, for our family, for our spirit, for our friends. So we cheat one or the other or all. He said you could work 24/7 and still not get everything done at work.

Very true. The trick, and it's a hard trick, is to find a balance between mind, body, spirit, family, friends and work. I'll let you know if I ever get it figured out.

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Watched the movies Matchstick Men and Cold Mountain this weekend. Both were good. Nicholas Cage is the main character in Matchstick Men and Nicole Kidman in Cold Mountain. They both are stories about hope.

The rest of my family watched the movie Mystic River (I think that's what it's called). I believe it's a movie about retribution for someone who sexually abused a young boy. My daughter couldn't sleep after watching it. There's some movies some people don't need to watch.

There's so much suffering in the world, I'm not sure why we need to remind ourselves about things we already know for the sake of Hollywood. Thinking about suffering and the need for compassion and detachment in a Buddhist or Christlike sense I can see...but not the glorification of violence, pain or suffering for movie revenues.

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I stepped on a wasp Friday while watering some hanging baskets in my bare feet. Now my foot is sort of infected. I've been soaking it in hot water and bleach, hot water and Tide, and hot water and hydrogen peroxide. Took some Bennedryl, put some Neomycin, anti-itch stuff on it. I wonder where that wasp had been before he stung me.

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Let's make this week another good one. Hope you are enjoying yourself wherever you may be. Maybe bake some bread if it's not too hot in your house already or buy some good bread. Make some sun tea. Get some nice flowers. Drink some cold water or good hot coffee. Breathe nice and deep and slow and relax. Looking forward to the warm days of August. Summer is great...fall, winter and spring too. Days and nights. Try to grab ahold of a few moments. It all goes by sooooo fast. Take it slow, think about where you are and where you've been. People you've loved and people who love you. ahhhhhhh that feels good.

Wishing you a great week and moments of grace and peace.