Now That’s A Wrap

Staying healthy. It is more important than ever, post cancer.  I was eating well and exercising before cancer but now, eating right has become a bit of an obsession. Organic, healthy, fresh, antioxidants….the mind boggles as the kitchen heats up.

I cannot afford to not pay attention to my health and what goes in my body these days. I spend time at the local farmer’s market in Milpitas, CA; ensuring that my fruit and vegetables are straight from the field and tree and organic.  I am therefore often left to ponder what to do with leftover vegetables — this happens a great deal as it turns out — vegetables tend to take up residence in my refrigerator crisper and refuse to leave, like unwanted relatives during the holidays.  This means that I have to be inventive. 

My new favorite tip for getting rid of vegetables that have seen better days and main dish leftovers that are close to taking a header into the trash, is to wrap a spoonful of leftovers in large spring roll wraps and then bake, not fry.  I sometimes use frozen/thawed puff pastry, especially for leftover fruit.  Both disguise mundane leftovers elegantly. 

I buy my frozen puff pastry and frozen wraps from an Indian market about a 20 minute drive from my house.  I only get there about once a month (the location is kitty corner to my beloved hair dresser) so that’s when I stock up.  Those kinds of ingredients are just half the price I pay at my local grocery store and very handy to keep in my freezer.  That particular ethnic market caters to the tastes and budgets of locals who have relocated from India so the prices are frankly amazing.  I have no idea what most of the spices are used for but I can still find a lot of what I use regularly in my kitchen and always at a steep discount.  As to the wraps, I just sprinkle with a bit of cheese, wrap, bake for 20 minutes in a 350ºF oven and voila, an elegant appetizer. 

Oh, and a nice way to trick yourself into eating more vegetables.  

It’s hard, this whole eat more vegetables thing because nobody else in my life seems to want to tag along.  My beau the fire captain is horrified by what he calls my, ‘weeds and sticks’.  My daughter and her husband politely push them around the plate unless I’ve smothered the offending side dish in my signature cheese sauce.  Baby CJ eats vegetables alright but hers tend to frankly be mush. 

My BFF hardly eats veggies, she loathes mushrooms, broccoli (the root of all evil if you ask Jill) and many others.  On the other hand, she can outgrow me in the vegetable garden department any day of the week without so much as chipping a finely manicured nail.  At the height of summer, her tomatoes knock on my door all by themselves. I won’t even tell you how her criminally minded squash behaves, it’s appalling really. You would think her vegetables were raised in a barn when in reality, they were nurtured lovingly on her back patio in containers and carefully shielded from the antics of her two rambunctious Welsh Springer Spaniels.  Her vegetables ae the equivalent of toddlers and tiaras, or maybe prep school kids who need a serious dose of reality working at the Golden Arches.  Those plants just don't know how good they have it.

I am of the belief that how you eat all depends on how you grew up and what you ate during your formative years.  All my friends and colleagues from Asia bemoan the lack of veggies every time they visit and we are talking California, people, a.k.a, Planet Veggie.  Even I will admit to a sort of inverse reaction every time I travel to Asia.  By the time I return home, I’m pretty darn sick of stir fried veggies, no matter how well prepared.

In between feeling smug about saving money at the Indian and farmer’s markets, I can blow a huge amount of cash at Whole Foods, the other end of the food cost spectrum.  First, I get all Baby Claudia’s organic juice and snacks there and then I reward myself with a cruise through the deli and bread sections.  Their cheese selection is frankly amazing and I’ve been known to wrap oncology check-ups around a lunch time visit to the nearby Whole Foods.  I convinced myself I am making up for whatever gastronomic excess crime I willingly commit by paying homage to the bulk goods bin aisle where one can purchase everything from grains to nuts in bulk.  I sometimes even spring for something shamefully dulcet from the bakery for my daughter because I’m not personally huge on sweets. Just give me carbs and I am happy.  But this doesn’t wipe out my culinary crimes, I know.

Still, I keep trying.  I nibble blueberries at work and grill vegetable layered cheese sandwiches that everyone loves.  I watch my carb intake and I don’t eat meat though shellfish is a not-so-secret favorite.  For some unfathomable reason that I am sure has to do with my many character flaws, the outrage I express at the cruelty of slaughtering mammals doesn’t quite extend to the phylum Mollusca, the class Crustacea (phylum Arthropoda), or the phylum Echinodermata.  Though I would never personally plunge a live lobster into a pot of boiling water (horrors!), my own personal flavor of hypocrisy never seems to prevent me from enjoying lobster, shrimp, crab and oysters on a semi-regular basis.  I adore shellfish but am clearly too lazy to actively prepare these delicacies for myself.  So when out on business or at a restaurant, I’ve been known to send a Crustacea down the gullet with nary a twinge of remorse.

Like I said, it must have something to do with flaws in my character.

And right after a serious discussion with a plate of lobster ravioli, I’m going to get right to work on that.