Stuffed with Crab and Avocado

It is a good life that provides for being full on crab meat and avocado, whose meats have been drizzled with melted butter and spritzed with the juice of a Meyer lemon. What a heavenly Christmas meal!

To accompany our Dungeness crabs, my brother and I made tri-color pasta served with ribbons of baby zucchini and a dollop of olive tapenade. Beets provided the red, basil and parsley provided the green. You can see more photos of the dinner and pasta on Kathy's photo blog, I have a link - there - to your right. Here are my instructions should you wish to make your own.

Red Pasta:

1 small beet, chopped and boiled in small pot with just enough water to cover. By the time the beet is cooked, most of the water will have evaporated.

Place the beet pieces and what little water is left (not more than two tablespoons) in a blender or food processor with a tablespoon of olive oil. Process until smooth. Place in a bowl and beat in one egg. Stir in enough flour to make a dough. Add a little salt.

Turn onto a well floured board and kneed with a generous amount of flour until no more will be absorbed.

Green Pasta:

Place about 10 basil leaves and a quarter cup of parsley in a food processor with a tablespoon or two of olive oil. Process until smooth. Place in a bowl and beat in one egg. Stir in enough flour to make a dough. Add a little salt.

Turn onto a well floured board and kneed with a generous amount of flour until no more will be absorbed.

A note on the green - if you use only basil your green color will be quite dark. The parsley lightens the color of the pasta. You could use only parsley, although the flavor of the basil will be missing.

White Pasta:

Make a fill of flour on a clean board (about two cups). Make a well in the center. Crack one egg into the well. Add a tablespoon of olive oil. Start beating the egg with a fork. Begin incorporating the flour being careful not to allow the egg to escape. When you begin to get a cohesive dough, start folding in the remaining hill of flour with your hands. Begin to knead and continue kneading incorporating as much flour as the dough will allow.

The 'white pasta' is the recipe that you will want to use when you want to make plain pasta.

If you do not have a pasta roller, the easiest pasta to make is orecchiette, which means "little ears". Roll the dough into a long snake. Using a dull knife, break off little pieces of dough, and scrape along a well floured cutting board to flatten. Here is a video of how to do it.

Alternatively, you can cut your pasta dough snake into little pieces about the size of your finger tips, and then use a tapered rolling pin to flatten against the board. Really, you can do anything to get the pasta thin enough to cook through. If it is too thick, you will have a mushy outside and a hard inside.

Handmade pasta has a lot more flavor than store bought pasta made with water. It can be enjoyed prepared very simply. You could toss with some butter, Parmesan cheese and parsley. Or you could dissolve a fillet of anchovy in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and two cloves minced garlic over medium heat. Sprinkle the oil with chili flakes. Add chopped parsley. Toss with the pasta.

If you use your pasta to make lasagna, you do not have to boil the pasta first as long as there is a lot of liquid in your lasagna. I discovered this by accident when I had rolled pasta one evening and layered a vegetable lasagna and put it in the oven. After about ten minutes, I gasped and jumped out of my chair when I realized that I had totally forgotten to cook the pasta first! I looked in the oven, but the cheese had begun to melt already and there was no way I would be able to disassemble the lasagna at that point. I waited for it to finish in the oven. To my surprise and delight, it was fantastic! The pasta had cooked in the liquid of the grated zucchini and tomato sauce. Just be sure that the pasta is rolled quite thin!

Iron Chef Food Box Challenge

Every Wednesday a battle takes place in my kitchen. A battle between the cook that I have been up until this moment against the cook that I will become by the end of the night. I wrestle my food box delivery into the kitchen and lay out my cache on the counter. I stare down my ingredients, my look reminding the carrots of the daggers they will face this night. My glare is so intimidating the potatoes wish they didn’t have eyes. Once inspiration strikes, I get to work, fashioning a meal out of what has been brought to my doorstep.

This week’s Iron Chef challenge brought me back to the basics with a simple “breakfast for dinner” that I have named “Sun Setting on Rocky Mountains.” Don’t worry, I am kidding.

Sausage and Veggie Hash (with Eggs Fried Sunny Side Up)

2 Yukon gold potatoes, diced into ½ inch squares
1 small green pepper, diced
½ of a yellow onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
¼ pound pork sausage (not in a casing)
1 tablespoon butter

Heat the butter in a medium non-stick or cast iron sauce pan. Add the pork and break up in the pan. Add the diced veggies. Turn regularly while cooking on medium heat. Season with salt and a little cayenne pepper.

When almost done, start frying your eggs. This hash will serve two people. Fry two eggs per person. Serve the eggs over the hash.

If you are like me, cook the eggs over easy so that the yummy runny yolk will run over the hash. If you are like my husband, have your wife fry you three eggs instead of three, tell her to use extra oil, cook them extra hard and sprinkle with extra hot chili pepper.

Prop 8 divorces loving families

Politics is personal.

Please watch this photo slide show to see other people who are asking "Please dont divorce..."
...our friends
...our families
...Californians

Proposition 8 divorces loving families.

I pass on the urging of the ACLU to "be a little bolder" this holiday season and "talk to someone you’ve never talked to about same sex marriage and explain that it’s just not right to deny someone their freedom because of who they are or who they love."

When you are hanging with friends and family during the holidays and, "someone makes an uninformed remark about gay marriage, don’t let it slide. If they say they’re glad Prop 8 passed, tell them you love them. Then remind them that no one should ever lose their rights or face bigotry because of who they are and who they love."

Heavy Snow and Obama Quilt

Don't believe the hype!

Well, of all things! My comments on sugar’s effect on children’s behavior got people all hyped up! Apparently you are very attached to your belief that sugar is to blame for hyperactivity and behavioral problems in children. I am afraid that all of the evidence in the world will not sway you.

Would it help if I told you that the Journal of the American Medical Association wrote in 1995 that the analysis “of the studies to date found that sugar does not affect the behavior or cognitive performance of children. The strong belief of parents may be due to expectancy and common association.” Would you believe it then?

Oh well. Keep the comments coming. I am collecting more commonly held beliefs to research for my next installment of “Medical Fact or Medical Fiction?” Maybe I will write about the evils of artificial dyes and additives to foods… which do seem to cause behavior problems in children.

Can I share just one more thing about sugar? A little anecdote about a friend who is an avid sugar lover… a “saccharophile” if you will. We went camping together a few years ago and she brought the usual assortment of chocolate and candy bars. When we were setting up the tent and fluffing out our sleeping bags she warned me, “Don’t be alarmed if you hear me get up in the middle of the night to eat more candy… sometimes I need it to get back to sleep.”

Medical Fact or Medical Myth

I wrote last week about becoming an amature scholar of medicine, but most of us already are. We have all kinds of beliefs about health and medicine that we have heard at one time or another that we repeat without question. But, how much of it is true? Does an apple a day keep the doctor away? Does sugar make children hyperactive? Does chicken soup help a common cold?

Last night brought the season’s first snow and cancelled my plans for the day. Armed with a warm cup of tea and the cookies that my friend Rob brought by last night (and some apple slices just in case they do keep the doctor away), I have combed through dozens and dozens of medical journal articles to bring you the truth. So here it is… my first installment of “Medical Fact or Medical Myth?”

Medical Fact or Medical Myth?

Sugar makes kids hyperactive… right?
Especially if said kid is already prone to hyperactivity, their parents should limit their sugar consumption lest they exacerbate their manic frenzy. Well… maybe not. A review from West Virginia University School of Medicine, published in Critical Review of Food Science and Nutrition in 1996, report that none of their studies show that candy or chocolate have negative effects on children’s behavior.

Twelve double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of sugar challenges failed to provide any evidence that sugar ingestion leads to untoward behavior in children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or in normal children. Likewise, none of the studies testing candy or chocolate found any negative effect of these foods on behavior.

In the Journal of Pediatrics, a 1985 report details a study of 16 boys admitted to a clinical research center for three days. On the first day they were given a sucrose-free diet and on the next two days they were given either a sugary drink or a placebo. On each day, behavioral and cognitive performance was measured. No differences were found, thereby “undermining the hypothesis that sucrose plays a major role in accounting for the inappropriate behavior of hyperactive boys.”

Fetal heart monitors improve the safety of babies during birth

It is standard practice in hospitals to hook a constant fetal heart monitor to the belly of women in labor. In the past (and currently in midwife attended births) fetal heart rate was measured periodically through out labor with a stethoscope. The purpose of the electric fetal heart monitor is to constantly track the heart rate of the baby to watch for any heart decelerations that could indicate the baby is in distress. Sounds like a good idea? It would seem logical and if listening to the heart rate periodically was a good idea, that monitoring constantly would be a better idea. However, it doesn’t seem to do much good and in fact could lead to an increased chance of having a cesarean.

The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Lund in Sweden found in 1994 that in a study of over four thousand low-risk laboring women the, “Intermittent use of electronic fetal monitoring at regular intervals (with stethoscopic auscultation in between) appears to be as safe as continuous electronic fetal monitoring in low risk labours.”

A more recent study reported in 2006 from the Division of General Obstetrics and Gynecology, University at Buffalo, looked at over 6,000 births before and after the introduction of central fetal heart monitoring at their hospital and found that “no statistically significant difference was demonstrated in the rates of cesarean section, admission to the neonatal intensive care unit, or incidence of Apgar scores of less than 7 associated with the use of central fetal monitoring. Therefore, we could not identify any benefit to the use of central fetal heart rate monitoring.” An Apgar score is a way to measure how well a baby is doing one minute and five minutes after birth, a score of zero indicates no breath, no pulse and a perfect score of ten indicates an active baby with good respiration, good pulse, healthy skin color and reflexes.

If you need further proof, a 1997 study published in the Journal of Maternal and Fetal Medicine, from Lehigh Valley Hospital in Pennsylvania reviewed the outcomes of 1,622 births. They provided centralized fetal heart monitoring to all laboring women for 14 weeks and then provided non-centralized fetal heart monitoring to all laboring women for the next 14 weeks. They found that “There was no statistical difference in the 5-minute Apgar, perinatal mortality (death), or the NICU admissions between the two groups.” However, they did find an increase in C-Sections for the group receiving constant centralized fetal heart monitoring (18% versus 24%).
Low-Tech Gender Selection

While we are on the subject of babies, here is one that I have always believed until now… Timing intercourse in relation to ovulation has an effect on the gender of your baby. Here is how the story goes: X chromosome sperm swim slower but live longer and Y chromosome sperm swim faster and die sooner. Therefore, if you have sex before you ovulate and make the sperm wait for the egg you are more likely to have a girl baby and if you have sex at the same time as ovulation, more boy sperm will get to the egg quickly and you will increase your chances of having a boy baby.

However, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence that timing intercourse actually affects the gender of the resulting baby. The journal of Human Reproduction in Oxford reported in 1998 that for women using Natural Family Planning to record signs of ovulation and days of intercourse, “The sex ratio did not vary consistently or significantly with the estimated timing of insemination relative to the day of ovulation.”

The New England Journal of Medicine agrees, saying in their 1995 study by Wilcox, Weinberg and Baird, the menstrual “cycles producing male and female babies had similar patterns of intercourse in relation to ovulation.” Funny enough this was researched on beef cattle and reported in the journal Theriogenology to be the same: you can’t gender select with timed insemination. Too bad.

In fact, the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology published a report in 1995 from Johns Hopkins University saying that women who had experienced a previous miscarriage had an increased risk of a second miscarriage if the second pregnancy was conceived as a result of intercourse two or more days before ovulation. This is relevant to people who attempt to time intercourse to produce a female infant by attempting to time intercourse in such a way that the sperm would have to “wait” multiple days for the egg to arrive. In the words of the researchers,

Conceptions on days - 1 or 0 with respect to…day of ovulation were considered to be "optimally timed," and all other conceptions were considered as "non-optimally timed"… Among 171 women who had experienced a spontaneous abortion in a prior pregnancy, the rate of spontaneous abortion in the index pregnancy was significantly higher with non-optimally timed conceptions (22.6%) as compared with optimally timed conceptions (7.3%). This association was not observed among 697 women with no history of pregnancy loss.

Chicken soup helps you when you are sick

Finally… a wives tale that is true! A researcher at University of Nebraska proved the healing properties of chicken soup and published his findings. There is a whole website about it if you want to check it out.

Vitamin C can prevent you from catching a cold

What else can you do to prevent a cold or make yourself feel better once you have one? I am sure that you have swallowed many a Vitamin C tablets in an attempt to keep healthy, right? Many doctors are skeptical about this one, and in fact, many say that there is nothing you can do to shorten a cold.

The European Journal of Clinic Nutrition said in 2006 that “500 mg of vitamin c daily reduced the frequency in which people caught cold but did not seem to affect the duration or severity.” I guess that is one point for Vitamin C and one point against. But then researches Douglas, Hemila, Chalker and Treacy said in 2007 that they saw a reduction in cold duration of about 10% with vitamin C supplementation. Another point for Vitamin C!

The Department of Public Health at the University of Helsinki did randomized or double blind and placebo controlled studies of vitamin C trials people under stressful conditions (military personnel, students in crowded lodgings, and marathon runners) and found a “statistically significant 45 to 91% reduction in common cold incidence in the vitamin C group.”

The Herbal Health Centre in the UK published their findings on 168 volunteers who were randomized to receive a placebo or a vitamin C supplement over a 60-day period in winter. They found that “Compared with the placebo group, the active-treatment group had significantly fewer colds (37 vs 50, P<.05), fewer days challenged virally (85 vs 178), and a significantly shorter duration of severe symptoms (1.8 vs 3.1 days, P<.03).” Well, I think that in this battle, Vitamin C comes out a winner.

In any case, if you do end up getting sick, should you “Starve a fever, feed a cold”?

The online journal New Scientist reported in 2002 that this old tale may be right.

“Dutch scientists have found that eating a meal boosts the type of immune response that destroys the viruses responsible for colds, while fasting stimulates the response that tackles the bacterial infections responsible for most fevers.” Here is their very small sample size study: “the team got six people to fast overnight and then come into the lab for tests. On one occasion they were given a liquid meal, on the other just water to distend the stomach… Six hours after the liquid meal, the volunteers' levels of gamma interferon had more than quadrupled. Gamma interferon is a hallmark of the cell-mediated immune response, in which killer T cells destroy any cells that have been invaded by pathogens…But when the volunteers drank only water, levels of gamma interferon fell slightly, while levels of another chemical messenger, interleukin-4, nearly quadrupled. Interleukin-4 is characteristic of the humoral immune response, in which B cells produce antibodies that attack pathogens lurking outside our cells. This response is needed to tackle most bacterial infections.”

This was reported in a more difficult to understand study from the journal Medical Hypotheses in 2005 which said:

We hypothesize that anorexia may represent a prehistoric behavioral adaptation to fight infection by maintaining T helper (Th)2 bias, which is particularly vital in fighting bacterial pathogens… Since fever may be an adaptation to fight bacteria and "colds" are generally viral in origin, the adage "starve a fever and feed a cold" may reflect a sensible behavioral strategy to tilt autonomic and Th balance in directions that are optimal for fighting the particular type of infection.

Don’t be confused by their use of the word “anorexic”. In this case they simply meaning a reduction in food intake, not an eating disorder.

How did you get that cold anyway? Did you go out in the cold without a coat on? Is it true that:

Exposure to cold will make you catch cold

Well, the Common Cold Centre in the UK has done a couple of studies on cold weather and illness and said that “experiments involving inoculation of common cold viruses into the nose, and periods of cold exposure, have failed to demonstrate any effect of cold exposure on susceptibility to infection with common cold viruses.” Yet they also have shown in the journal of Family Practice that when they chilled the feet of 90 participants 13 of them developed a cold compared with 5 on the control subjects.

Medical Science of Sports and Exercise said in their 2002 article titled “Cold exposure: human immune responses and intracellular cytokine expression” that based on their review of the literature, they don’t believe there is support for the idea that cold exposure depresses your immune function. Of course we are not talking hypothermia here, we are talking about venturing outside when the weather is cold.

The faculty of Physical Education and Health in Toronto published an article stating that:

Both physical activity and exposure to environmental stressors such as cold, heat, and high altitudes modify various components of immune function: T cell counts, natural killer (NK) cell counts, and cytolytic activity, cytokine secretion, lymphocyte proliferation and immunoglobulin levels. Light physical activity or a moderate level of environmental stress stimulate the immune response, but exhausting physical activity or more severe environmental stress have a suppressant effect, manifested by a temporary increase in susceptibility to viral infections. Combinations of physical activity and environmental stress generally have at least an additive effect. Thus, an intensity of physical activity or of environmental stress that is beneficial in itself can readily cause immunosuppression if the body is challenged by the two stimuli
simultaneously.

So, this one is a bit of a toss up. I guess as long as you keep your feet warm and don’t exert yourself too much, venturing out on a snowy day like today will not cause you to catch cold!

I hope you have enjoyed my mini-expose on some common medical facts and myths. Feel free to tell me your favorites and they may just end up in my next installment! My husband asked me to include "does eating vegetables really make you healthier?" I think he is hoping the answer will stop me from trying to derail his all-beef dream diet.

Amateur Scholar

I think the intellectual zeitgeist of this decade has been the publication of dozens and dozens of books about specialized fields written for a layman audience. Not only do we have professional writers like Malcom Gladwell who turn their attention to social science topics and make it easy and interesting to read; we also have experts in their field that are willing to write for a popular audience. Some people may role their eyes at the simplified concepts or the spectacular examples that these books provide. But, so what? There is an art to making dry topics fascinating to people who don't make the subject their life's work.


These types of books are so popular that I noticed all three of Gladwell's books are listed Amazon.com bestsellers (if you are wondering, I think "Blink" is the best). I thought I would bring you a quick overview of books that will change the way you think about everyday life.

My two favorite areas to be an amateur scholar are medical science and economics.



Let's start with Atul Gawande's two books, "Complications: A surgeons notes on an imperfect science" and his more recent, "Better: A surgeons notes on performance." Dr Gawande has an impressive resume and it is astonishing that he has time to write a book. He is a practicing surgeon and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. His first book, "Complications," focuses on the ethics of medicine and the human experience of both doctors and patients. "Better" is more focused (sometimes gruesomely) on the procedures of medicine. Dr.Gawande does not intend his books to be an exposé, but rather to strip away the veil of infallibility surrounding Western medicine in order to see it more clearly.



Along the same lines in the balanced perspective of Anne Fadiman in"The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" a story of a Hmong family and their experience with the health care system in California. Fadiman weaves together the technical world of medicine and thec ultural perspective of the family in a way that brings understanding to both.



For the perspective on medicine in action you can read Tracy Kidder's "Mountains beyond Mountains" about Dr. Paul Farmers work in infectious disease. The University of Washington required all of their incoming Freshman students to read this book two years ago. It is both interesting and inspiring without being sentimental.



Although not a book, it is worth mentioning the documentary "TheBusiness of Being Born" which you can watch for free on-line at Netflix. Unlike the more "balanced" books that I mention above, this film has an obvious bias but it well done and provides a history of birthing practices in America as well as commentary about hospital birth practices versus the holistic midwifery approach. I found it to be very interesting (I hate to admit that I watched it three times)and I don't think that was just because I am a perinatal social worker (although maybe it was because I am interested in all things relatedto babies and baby-making). Since I have ventured over to films, I should mention Michael Moore's film "Sicko" which is of course in the style of Michael Moore's other films…completely biased, very informative and totally entertaining.



These are the books that are on my list for future reading in the medical and science area:
"When the Air Hits Your Brain: tales from neurosurgery" by Frank Vertosick
"The Anatomy of Hope: how people prevail in the face of illness" byJerome Groopman
"How Doctors Think" also by Jerome Groopman
"Transplant: from myth to reality" by Nicholas L Tilney
"An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sachs
"The Elegant Universe." Brian Greene


My other favorite area of pretend-expertise is economics. You have two options here to start with. The first, "Freakonomics" leans more towards the fun side and focuses on examples at the expense of theory. The second, "Naked Economics" is still easy to read and still provides interesting examples, but with more substance. They are good starting points for understanding how economics is really not so much about money, but rather about incentives and values and human behavior. This is applicable to many things like being a counselor or a teacher or aparent. Instead of trying to get clients, students or your children to do the "right" thing, learn to provide the right incentives for the behavior that you want to see and learn to recognize what incentives already exist to get them to continue to do the "wrong" thing.



Closely related to economics are books about other social sciences, which brings us to Malcom Gladwell. He is the expert at taking little things we know and having us look at them in an entirely new way. His newest book, "Outliers" is good in its own right, but only decent compared to his first two books. "Tipping Point" looks at small things that produce big outcomes, or as he puts it, it is a book about "social epidemics." His next book, "Blink", is about the snap decisions that we make every day ("in a blink of an eye") and how we come to make those decisions. If you like "Blink" you may also like "Stumbling on Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert, about why we think we are happy or unhappy and why we are wrong about it.



I do not have a list right now of next books to read on this topic, so I am open for suggestions if you have any!

Hip-Yuppies

My husband and I have been having an on-going argument about whether or not he is married to a hippie. He insists, rather urgently, that he is most defiantly not married to a hippie despite the evidence (frequent trips to Breitenbush, the eating of tofu and hummus, an aversion to chemical cleaning products, and an intense dislike of Hummers and all hummer-like things). I insist that I am, in fact, a hippie… mostly because I like any attention from him even if it is negative.

But all of this hippie talk has got me thinking….What is a hippie anyway? Does being a hippie require that you wear patchouli and not shave your arm pits even when you have access to a razor? Or is there a new generation of hippiness? Maybe the new hippie is just a hip-yuppie. Lets review some of the things hippies and hip-yuppies have in common: they like to recycle, they eat organic food and shop at farmers markets, they think the Prius is cool (and the yuppie can afford one) and they are “spiritual”. See!?

Lara's Umami Spaghetti Bolognese

Thank God for spell check because I am horribly deficient at putting letters in the correct order. Maybe it is because it does not seem like a very important thing anyway, I mean, aynone can raed a setnence even if teh wrods are seplled wrong. Okay, that is not the reason why. I think there is just a hole in the "spelling things correctly" part of my brain. I know how bad of a speller I am when I go to google to spell-check something and even google does not recognize what the heck I am trying to spell (you know, I type it in the way I think it is spelled and then google asks me "did you mean...?" and I answer "yes! that is exactly what I meant!" except for when it doesn't know what I mean!). Anyway, now that I have figured out how to spell "Spaghetti Bolognese" I am ready to share my recipe with you!

But first, let me tell you about "Umami". I am sure that you have often described foods with the four basic taste descriptions of sweet, sour, salty and bitter. In Japan they have long recognized a fifth basic taste called "Umami" discovered and named by a chemistry professor at the Imperial University of Tokyo 100 years ago. Unami signals the presence of the amino acid "glutamate" and describes a savory depth of taste that makes something really yummy. Actually, the word Umami in Japanese literally means "Delicious." MSG creates a Umami flavor when added to food - which is why we like it! Meat also has Umami flavor. Yummy again!

But lots of other things make something Umami and by adding them to your food you can make your food yummier. Some foods that you can add to recipes (especially to vegetarian dishes) to give them more savory flavor are: soy sauce, dashi, seaweed, anchovies, mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, olives and tomatoes. Also, Umami taste is heightened by salt which is why tomatoes taste much better sprinkled with salt. Hmmm... I bet this means that Avocado has a high level of glutamate.

So, with meat, mushrooms, tomatoes and Parmesan cheese, this recipe could be called "Lara's Umami Spaghetti"! I hope you enjoy!

1 pound ground beef
1/3 pound bulk pork sausage
1 tablespoon olive oil
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
2 stalks of celery, diced
1/4 of an onion, diced
1 small carrot, diced
1 cup chopped mushrooms
2 cups of kale, chopped
1/4 cup white wine
3/4 cup whole milk
28 oz can of diced tomatoes
1/2 can of tomato paste
grated Parmesan cheese

A word about tomatoes: there are hundreds of varieties of tomatoes and some are developed for taste while others are developed for their ability to hold up during shipping. Unless you are buying fresh local tomatoes while they are in season, opt instead for a good canned tomato to use in recipes. Buying out of season tomatoes is a waste of money and canned will taste better. I really like "Muir Glen" organic canned tomatoes.

Heat the olive oil on medium heat in a medium heavy-bottomed pot. Add the garlic, celery, carrot, mushroom and onion. Cook for about 3 or 4 minutes. Add the kale. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes more.

Turn the heat up to medium-high. If there is liquid from the vegetables, simmer it down first so that the meat does not steam. Add the ground meats and the basil and cook until the pink is almost gone. Add the wine and simmer until reduced by half. Reduce the heat back to medium. Add the milk and cook until the juices are not white any longer, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Add the diced tomatoes and half of the can of tomato paste. Bring to a simmer, reduce the heat slightly and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 25 minutes. Taste and season again with salt and pepper if necessary.

Serve over spaghetti and garnish with a generous amount of Parmesan cheese. If you are avoiding wheat or just reducing your calories, you could also serve this with spaghetti squash. To cook spaghetti squash, wrap it in a paper towel and put it in the microwave for about 10 minutes. You will know it is done when it cracks open. You can also roast it until it gets a little soft. When it is cooked, cut it open (careful of the steam!), scrape out the seeds, then use a fork to shred the squash. It will easily shred into spaghetti-like strands.

now that you have more "free" time

If you have been reading my blog and have decided not to spend your whole holiday season standing in check-out lines at the mall, you are probably wondering what to do with all of your newly acquired free time. So, I have written down some ideas for you. Some of these I have done before and can personally vouch for, and others are on my own to-do list. Hope you enjoy!

The Winterfest Ice Rink in the Fisher Pavilion at Seattle Center offers “Free Skate Mondays” courtesy of Starbucks. They open at 11 am every day and close at 8 pm on weeknights and 10 pm on weekends. I took my two little friends who are 8 and 11 years old. For a free thing to do, it was pretty good! The ice does get cut up pretty quickly and makes for a bumpy ride, but the kids and I enjoyed it. They even have little “walkers” to be used by ambitious preschoolers who are learning to ice skate!

The Holiday Winter Carousel at Westlake Park is benefiting Treehouse this year, a great non-profit that works with foster kids in King County to support them in educational success. So, if you are downtown and passing by, hitch a ride for only $2. Open from 11 am on weekdays and 10 am on weekends.
If you want to help out by volunteering for a four-hour shift at the carousel (greet visitors, sell and collect tickets, help the horses go up and down) between now and New Year's Day, contact (206) 267-5117 or volunteer@treehouseforkids.org.

Black Nativity at the Intiman TheaterI am a huge fan of Rev. Pat Wright and the Total Experience Gospel Choir and I thoroughly enjoyed this Gospel Christmas production two years ago. My parents went this year and also gave it a thumbs up. Better than your average collection of carols!

My family has always enjoyed a December trip to the warm and sweet smelling Conservatory. I think I have a holiday photo of my brother, sister and me from every year between ’85 and ’05 taken here. I just went to go look in a photo album and there it was: year after year of me dressed in red with tropical looking leaves around my head.

Anyway, it is a cozy place to be when it is cold outside! Now you can see why at the special, “After-Hours at the Conservatory” event on Thursday, December 11 from 5:00 to 8:00 pm. There will be music and refreshments served too!

Fourth Annual Free Holiday Concert for the Community: Breath of Aire
December 12th at 7pm at Bastyr University Chapel
President and Mrs. Dan Church offer this free special holiday musical celebration as a gift to friends of Bastyr University as well as the surrounding community. The 55-member community choir provides sacred music as well as classical and lighter fare.

Ah, one of my favorite things in the world, walking around Greenlake, now made even better by thousands of little candles. Seattle Parks and Recreation and the Green Lake Center Advisory Council present the Pathway of Lights, the ring of “luminaria” that light Green Lake one evening each year. Saturday, December 13th from dusk until 8:30 p.m. Please bring two cans of food for donation to Northwest Harvest, and drop them off at one of the three performance tents at the Community Center, Aqua Theater, or Seattle Public Theater (Bathhouse Theater). If you would like to volunteer to light the luminaria from 4 to 5 pm, you can call Barb Drake at 206-684-0780 or e-mail her atbarb.drake@seattle.gov

Now that we have plenty of things to do with the family, here are some grown up holiday offerings:

Land of the Sweets: The Burlesque Nutcracker, at the Triple Door, is a naughty nutcracker set to a swing-era soundtrack. The 7 pm show is for anyone over 18 and the 10 pm show is 21+ only. Tickets are $25 in advance or $28 at the door.

The Santaland Diaries at Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse, Greenlake
A sardonic rendition of Christmas cheer brought to you by David Sedaris. “For mature elves only.” Runs this weekend through Christmas Eve. Tickets are $15 to $25 each