Holiday Cookies 2024

Life has been a whirlwind for the last two months and the poor blog has been neglected. But the kitchen has been as busy as ever, especially this weekend when I launched my annual holiday baking marathon and made 7 cookies/treats in 2 days- five batches on Saturday, one dough made at end of day to rest overnight, and the final two batches on Sunday. My two helpers were my 8 year old son and a sweet friend who came by to spend the afternoon and bake with us. 

5 of the 7 cookies of 2024

I tried to select recipes that was a good mix--

• Some with chocolate, some with spices, some with fruit and nuts
• Some old recipes and some new recipes and techniques
• Some plain and some decorated
• Some crunchy and some chewy

Chocolate crinkles: I discovered this cookie last year when I made this recipe twice. It is definitely a crowd favorite with a deep chocolate flavor and an interesting look. The dough needs to be chilled for 3 hours but otherwise comes together very quickly. 

Cherry shortbread: I've made various types of shortbread before, but this recipe looked interesting because it includes cornstarch, making it an especially tender cookie. This is a good choice for a low-maintenance cookie to make with kids- a stand mixer is not needed and the dough is easily made in a bowl. There is no chilling required. Kids can enjoy making balls of dough, flattening them with forks and decorating the cookie with a halved cherry or some sprinkles before baking.

Chewy molasses cookies: These cookies look quite plain but they taste fantastic and are full of the rich flavor of spices and molasses. I used this recipe which came together very easily, with a dough that requires no chilling. 

Pecan snowballs: I've seen these cookies for years- a beloved holiday cookie that is variously called snowballs, Russian tea cakes, Mexican wedding cookies, Swedish tea balls, etc. This was my first time trying this traditional cookie and it was probably my favorite new cookie this year. We used this recipe and the success of the recipe depends very much on careful and patient chopping of the pecans, which my friend did beautifully. 

Brownie trees: We made brownie trees last year and they were so popular and adorable. We had to make this cute themed treat again this year, included for the "aww" factor if nothing else. This was the one my son was most involved in and it was the only not-from-scratch treat. We simply used boxed brownie mix and premade cookie icing. Look at last year's post to see how to make the cuts in a 9 x 13 pan of brownies. 

Cranberry pistachio biscotti: Biscotti is a must-have in any cookie box, IMO, a very dunkable cookie in all sorts of hot beverages. 
I used my go-to almond biscotti recipe that I've made for years and simply added a lot of chopped pistachios and chopped cranberries in place of the almonds. So good! 

Pastry twists: This was probably the most ambitious recipe I tried this year. The recipe just looked so intriguing- Swedish sour cream twists. It is an enriched yeast dough that chills overnight and then is rolled and folded with sugar before being cut into strips, twisted and baked. I thoughts my results were pretty good for the first try. The twists taste quite plain but would be great with a flavorful drink like hot chocolate or mulled cider. 

I impulse-purchased some cute little paper gingerbread house boxes to package the cookies this year.

Peeking into a house box

The gingerbread house cookie box

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On November 1, when we celebrated Diwali with a few friends, I wanted a fruit and nut cookie and tried this unfussy rugelach recipe. I think this came from a desire to try something adjacent to the Diwali classic treats chirote and karanji, with all the flaky goodness and sweet filling but without deep frying. 

The dough calls for mixing butter and cream cheese and flour in the stand mixer or food processor. I made some mistakes in pulling the dough together (processing the flour with cream cheese made it sticky and it did not incorporate the cold butter chunks- which were cut too big- very well) and still. This was the closest thing to puff pastry I've ever made. The dough is fantastic and worth making for many applications. This was definitely my other favorite cookie of the year.

The Diwali treat tray with coconut burfi, cookies,
and store-bought chakli and bourbon biscuits

Three of my favorite store-bought cookies:

• Bourbon biscuits from the Indian store
• Triple ginger cookies from Trader Joe's 
• La Dolce Vita classic biscotti from Costco

Happy Holidays to all, and I'm hoping to post more regularly from now on. 

Ginger Garlic Paste, and a Fall Hike

I'm not an adventurous person, so I read adventure stories with a large measure of awe and admiration. Books like Cheryl Strayed's Wild and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air have stayed with me years after I read them. Recently, I read Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods about hiking on the Appalachian Trail (AT). I am endlessly fascinated by the AT trail, which is said to be the longest walking-only path in the world, extending over 2000 miles from Georgia to Maine. 

I live only an hour or so away from the AT and have always wanted to walk on it. My little bucket list dream came true last weekend. My Thursday running buddy C is from a town very close to the AT and she planned out a day hike for a small group of four women. Millions of people do day hikes and multi-day section hikes on portions of the AT each year. About 700 people walk the whole length of it each year, hiking for about 4-6 months! (Astonishingly, C's husband hiked the whole trail from Maine to Georgia back when he was just 19, and did it in under 3 months because he really wanted to be home for Thanksgiving LOL.) 

Back to our day hike- we started around 9 AM and covered 10 miles of trails in about 6.5 hours, 30K steps according to my watch. We started off climbing up and down Blood Mountain, Georgia's sixth highest peak, and the highest point of the AT in Georgia. It was cool to see the AT shelter at the very top of the mountain. We ate a packed lunch at the foot of the mountain and then walked 5.5 miles from Neels Gap to Tesnatee Gap. 

We were either ascending or descending the whole time. It was no walk in the woods, I assure you. Ascending is hard for obvious reasons- you're working against gravity. But descending is also very hard- as you have to be very careful with balance and it uses a whole different array of muscles. I was wary of injuries and descended gingerly and overall was the absolute slowpoke of our group. By the end of the hike, I had three simultaneous thoughts about my legs: (a) My legs feel like jello, (b) My legs feel like lead, (c) I can't feel my legs.

The day was picture-perfect, the views were spectacular, and fall colors were just starting to show. We saw no wildlife at all- I see a diversity of wildlife in my own backyard every day but spotted none up in the mountains that day. Over 10 miles of trails, I also did not see a single piece of trash. 
 

It was a special feeling to be on the AT trail and know that I could have just kept walking for a few months and reached Maine. Instead, I hopped into a car, went back to our rental cabin and dined on canned veggie chili on a bed of spaghetti, washed down with a beer. I was ridiculously sore for days afterwards. But it was completely worth it. It gave me a tiniest taste of the AT and what it must be like to do the full hike, sleeping in shelters or on the ground, walking on average 15-20 miles a day for months. Humans amaze me with the things they do for recreation and adventure.

* * *

On the culinary side, I am highlighting a staple ingredient in my kitchen- ginger garlic paste (GG paste). I've mentioned it in hundreds of recipes but I don't think I have ever talked about how I make it. (Probably because there's not much to it. But here goes.)

Why make GG paste? Ginger and garlic are aromatics that add plenty of oomph to many savory dishes- especially Indian, Thai, and Chinese, for me. Technically, it is just fine to keep some fresh or frozen ginger and garlic on hand and mince it up for recipes as needed. But making a paste of the two together and storing it in the fridge/freezer is an absolute time-saver and significantly cuts down the friction to making curries and stir-fries from scratch. 

You can buy jars of GG paste in Indian stores but I find that homemade tastes best.

How to make GG paste? I buy fresh ginger and garlic- the freshest you can find, which is often in the Asian store. Peel the garlic and wash the cloves. Peel the ginger (a spoon works best), wash and roughly chop. What ratio to use? I like a 2:1 ratio of ginger to garlic. I like the warmth of ginger and garlic can be assertive to the point of being overpowering, so this ratio is best for me. Here, I used roughly 2 cups chopped ginger and 1 cup garlic cloves. Just place them in a powerful blender with some salt and a few tablespoons of water and blend it down to a paste.

How to store GG paste? One batch of GG paste lasts me several months, portioned into a few glass jars. (One of my GG jars is a baby food jar from years ago.) I store one jar in the fridge and others in the freezer. Then as I finish a fridge jar, I move in the next one from the freezer. There are other clever ways of storing it, such as using ice cube trays to make GG paste blocks. But I find the fridge method to be the most flexible so I can spoon out whatever amount of GG paste I want for any recipe. 

* * *

A new recipe I tried last week: a modified version of cowboy beans where I used smoked paprika in place of bacon and veggie crumbles in place of the ground meat. I took it to a potluck and the dish was a hit. 

Before baking

* * *

Media round-up

• Watching: I took my son and a few of his friends to the movie theater to see the recently released movie The Wild Robot. The biggest success was the screening room itself, because it was outfitted with a playscape on an entire wall, so the kids could climb and jump and get their wiggles out for 30 minutes before the movie. I'm glad I discovered this place! The movie itself is very enjoyable. The story trope of found family is nothing new at all, but done with a lot of heart of gentle humor, and the animation is stunning. 
• Reading
• Another short story collection, The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans. I enjoyed two of the stories in this collection: Boys Go to Jupiter and Anything Could Disappear.
• This was a random pick from the Halloween-themed book display at the library- Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies by Caitlin Doughty and it was a quick, informative and surprisingly hilarious read, given the subject matter. 
• Listening to
• A song I discovered via the car radio- Big Feelings by a Canadian pop group, the Arkells. I now sing it in my head whenever we have a "big feelings" situation in our home, which is...frequently, ha ha. "Are you afraid of big feelings?" Not me, never.
• We spent a lovely afternoon at Porchfest, a daylong community event where local musicians play on porches of homes around town and people wander around and listen to music. It was the most beautiful day weather-wise and a joyful celebration of the enormous talent in our midst. My favorites were tap dancers performing to Bittersweet Symphony by the Verve and high school musicians who did a cover of Supermassive Black Hole by the Muse. I was so impressed by the drummer, a teen girl.
• I recently discovered the NYmag weekly crossword- a new one is published every Saturday, and they are free and a lot of fun to solve, with puns and all. The difficulty is right at the sweet spot for me- hard but doable. 

* * *

In previous moments of fitness, we talked about 3 types of training, (1) cardio or aerobic training, and (2) strength training (including compound exercises and accessory exercises) and (3) core training. Today, I'll talk about the other 4 types of training:

• Flexibility: Basically, this is all about stretching and practicing our full range of motion. Stretching exercises make daily movement easier and can help relieve aches, pains, and cramps. Stretches should be part of every workout. 
• Warm ups before exercising are ideally dynamic stretches where you "get moving", such as high knees and arm circles. 
• Cool downs after exercising often involve static stretches on already-warm muscles where you hold a position for 30 seconds or so, for instance, a standing quad stretch where you stand on one foot and bend the other knee, grabbing the ankle and bringing the foot up behind you.
• While stretching is important with any workout, stretching can also be a workout on its own. Yoga and Pilates are two examples of workouts that involve flexibility training.
• Balance- Practicing balance is very beneficial for reducing risks of falls and sprains. It improves proprioception, that is, our awareness of our body in space. There are three major systems that keep us balanced, and balance exercises involve challenging each of these. 
• Visual system, that is, eyesight. Try to stand on one leg with your eyes closed! 
• Vestibular system, involving sensory receptors of the inner ear. This system can be challenged with exercises that involve staying balanced while bending over or hopping, for instance.
• Somatosensory system, involving sensory receptors in skin/muscle/joints. Running on unstable surfaces is an example of balance training for this system.
• In each workout, try to incorporate a single leg or hopping exercise to practice balance.
• Plyometrics= jump training. We jump around so much as kids, and then almost never as adults. Jumping exercises are beneficial for increasing bone density and decreasing muscle loss with age. They also contribute to increased strength and power. Jumping rope is a great way to practice plyometrics, or doing exercises like jump squats and lateral jumps. 
• Speed, Agility, Quickness. Speed is moving fast in one direction. Agility is being able to change direction rapidly. Quickness is reaction time. Practicing these things improves response time and coordination. Example of SAQ exercises are ladder drills, agility dot drills, and cone drills. 

Coconut macaroons, Book sale treasures, and Core exercises

Fall is creeping ever so slowly into North Georgia. The days are going by in a blur- cross-country meets and fall festivals abound- and I'm not being particularly adventurous in the kitchen. 

For a teacher potluck, I signed up to bring in a gluten free dessert. I had a bag of unsweetened coconut flakes in the pantry so I thought I would make coconut macaroons, based on this recipe. I've made cardamom and saffron macaroons before; they are a lovely, chewy dessert for anyone who loves coconut.

This time I mixed together 4 cups coconut flakes and 1 can sweetened condensed milk in a large bowl, then added some salt and vanilla for flavor. I whipped 2 large egg whites to stiff peaks and folded them in. Then I used a 1/8 cup measure to dollop the sticky mixture onto 2 parchment-lined sheets and baked them at 325F for about 20 minutes. I got 22 golden macaroons and dipped the bottoms in melted dark chocolate. My "artful" chocolate drizzle was a bit of a flop but the macaroons are tasty.

This was the first fall-like dinner of 2024. Lemon pasta from TJ's (an impulse purchase) sautéed with spinach and sage and tossed with roasted butternut squash. 

One Sunday evening I was fresh out of ideas for dinner and made some French toast for the kids. We had plenty of leftovers for school morning breakfasts. 

* * *

Media round-up

• TV: I started watching a random Netflix recommendation that I had never heard of, a sitcom called Still Game. It turned out to be a cult Scottish comedy series and I am enjoying it. The show centers around the lives and misadventures of a group of pensioners, complete with thick accents and salty language. What I love best is the depiction of male friendship, although my favorite character is the nosy and lovable neighbor lady Isa Drennan.  
• Family TV: We started watching the latest installment of the Great British Baking Show. The first episode amazed me. The contestants are taking it to the next level- making an overly fussy bake during the technical round without a recipe (!!) and making hyper-realistic cakes for their show-stoppers. Although I must say I cannot stand all the fondant that goes into realistic cakes.
• Books: Short stories used to be my favorite thing to read, as I wrote in this post some years ago. I recently read a really great collection of short stories, Pastoralia by George Saunders. The first three stories are fantastic, each conjuring up a weird and dystopian but uncomfortably believable America. The story titled Sea Oak in particular, about a male stripper and his dysfunctional family, about the struggle to get out of poverty, is the most absurd yet amazing, darkly funny story I've read in a long time. 
• Music: I listen almost exclusively to music from the 90s (when I listen to music at all) but thanks to readio I discovered some more recent pop music to add to my playlist, from a band called almost monday- three songs I like are cool enough, live forever, broken people. I'm entering a new century, y'all.
• Highlight: I spent a blissful hour rummaging through endless tables of donated books at the biannual library book sale where you get to fill a bag for 10 bucks. Here's a picture of my haul. The meditation book, Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn made it to my bedside table immediately and I'm enjoying reading a couple of passages before bed. The book without a title (gold rectangle on the cover) is The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. The Color Harmonies is for my dad who loves sketching and painting. The Calvin and Hobbes is for my son. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead is for my daughter, a middle-grade novel that I've read and loved before. I was very pleased with the number of science books I found this time.

* * *

In my last post, I talked about the seven major muscle groups and mentioned sample exercises for six of the groups. In today's moment of fitness, we focus on the last group, the core. When people think of the core, they tend to think of the "abs" or abdominal muscles, the coveted "six pack" defined muscles for some fitness enthusiasts of the beach body variety. In reality, vanity is the least of the concerns when it comes to the core. This muscle group is literally the primary stabilizer of our body and involved in all movement on and off the beach. 

Consisting of much more than the abs alone, the core is a substantial cylinder of muscle tissue that wraps around our trunk. 

• The base of the cylinder consists of the pelvic floor muscles
• The top of the cylinder consists of the diaphragm, a key muscle involved in breathing
• The sides of the cylinder are the internal and external abdominal obliques, involved in twisting and turning motions 
• The superficial muscles of the core are the "six pack" abs ones- the rectus abdominis in front of the abdomen
• The deep core muscle is the transverse abdominis which wraps around the trunk
• The erector spinae are deep muscles connected to the spine, involved in stability

A weak core leads to many issues, including poor posture, a tendency to lose balance, and the big one, back pain. I have had first-hand experience with back pain, an episode that is seared into my memory because it happened at a particularly inopportune time, when my son was a toddler and my spouse was out of town for a week-long work trip. I remember being in spasms of pain whenever I bent down, and bending down was essential and frequent while caring for a toddler single-handedly. It was a helpless feeling and a wake up call. Back pain is debilitating and can severely impact daily life- everything from the must-dos to the fun times. 

The good news is that core exercises are easy to learn and can be done anywhere, with no equipment needed. You can do them right on the floor, on an exercise mat, or a rug/carpet. A 10-15 minute core exercise routine done 2-3 times a week is a great start towards building a strong core with many protective benefits. 

Here are some of my favorite core exercises. Search for exercise names on the internet to find images and videos. Try some out and tell me your favorites in the comments.

• Dynamic core exercises (dynamic= you move during the exercise)
• Cat cow stretch
• Bird dog
• Dead bug
• Leg raises
• Russian twist
• Mountain climbers

• Static core exercises (static= you hold the pose for some amount of time, say, 30-45 seconds)
• Plank
• Side plank
• Bear hold
• Boat pose

Mac & Cheese and more, a Mind-boggling Book, and Isolation Exercises

Today, we're on Hurricane Watch in Georgia. Hurricane Helene is gaining strength in the Florida gulf coast and headed straight for us in a couple of days if the models turn out to be accurate. Right now, it is dead quiet outside- the calm before the storm.

Last week, the NYT published a list of their 50 greatest hit recipes of the last decade. I don't subscribe to their cooking section, but the recipes in this article were free to access for a week. I spotted a recipe for chef Millee Peartree's Southern Macaroni and Cheese. As it happened, we celebrated my daughter's actual birthday with a family dinner, and she requested mac and cheese, so I had a chance to try the recipe right away. 

As written, it is a recipe for "cheese with a little macaroni sprinkled in it", but I ruthlessly slashed the cheese to about half, and the dish was (a) much easier to make than my usual bechamel sauce version of mac and cheese, and (b) an instant hit with my family. Even though I got distracted and slightly overcooked the macaroni- the recipe calls for it to be VERY al dente because it will be baked again. I will definitely be making this again. (I remembered just now that I have made and posted a similar recipe over a dozen years ago but it never became my regular version somehow).

To serve with the pasta, I made this broccoli salad. I enjoy broccoli in various dishes and buy it weekly, but rarely if ever serve it raw. This broccoli salad changed my mind- it is a great make-ahead dish and a lighter side for many heavy holiday dishes. 

For cake, I made an ice cream terrine- everyone in the family (except me) prefers ice cream to cake, so this is an easy way to make a festive dessert with very little effort- nothing but 3-4 different flavors of ice cream or sorbet stacked in a loaf pan. 

* * *

Every once in a while, I come across a book that shakes me up. I think The Rigor of Angels by William Eggington is that book for me this year. Eggington delves into the stories and work of three renowned people- a poet, Borges, a physicist, Heisenberg, and a philosopher, Kant- to study how they grappled with some of the deepest questions that humans can ask (Is there an edge to the universe? Do we have free will? and such), and also the overarching question- Can we ever know the answers to these? 

Here are a few of my notes from the book- some are direct quotes, some are paraphrased, and some are from Goodreads reviews of this book. (Yes, good book reviews are an incredible source for getting more out of books.)

• The central thesis is that there are limits on what humans can know.
• While humans have made astonishing progress in understanding the universe, it is not just a matter of time before we understand everything. This quote from Borges says it best (and gives the book its title): “There is indeed rigor in the world, but humanity has forgotten, and continues to forget, that it is the rigor of chess masters, not of angels.”
• We cannot truly know nature, but only nature exposed to our methods of questioning.
• It is unlikely that humans will ever be able to know how the universe works because we are inside the thing we need to observe.
• On reality
• Reality is a collective, hallucinated construct.
• Space and time are not "real" and universal and don't exist outside of us; they are mental constructs that we have created to make sense of the world.
• When we think of the many paradoxes of quantum physics, they are only paradoxes because we mistakenly assume that space and time are real. If we radically accept the premise that space and time are nothing but indexes of measurement, paradoxes of quantum physics dissipate.
• The strangeness sprang from what we expected to see, rather than what we in fact observe.
• Kant drew an airtight border between what we experience with our senses in space and time, on the one hand, and eternal truths and principles, on the other, which exist outside space and time and remain true despite what our senses tell us.
• In a fascinating and parallel way, the two constants that form the backbone of modern physics, Einstein’s c and Planck’s h, turn out to be fundamental limits built into the fabric of our observed reality
• c is a speed limit at which time comes to a standstill
• h is a size limit on how closely we can focus on the warp and weft of space-time
• On consciousness
• The soul or consciousness, in fact, is nothing but the unity of a sense of self over time…a connecting of disparate slices of space-time, a necessary condition of the possibility of knowing anything at all.
• For Kant, consciousness isn’t some mysterious entity that needs to be explained but a necessary presumed entity that allows there to be a timeline against which I order and distinguish my perceptions (space is another necessary projection).
• Humans
• We are stranded in a gulf of vast extremes, between the astronomical and the quantum, an abyss of freedom and absolute determinism, and it is in that center where we must make our home.

This book is simply delicious- highly cerebral yet approachable, entertaining and extremely informative. And the way this humanities professor writes about quantum mechanics is impressive. 

The mixing of science and history is tantalizing and results in funny juxtapositions. Here's part of a paragraph that cracked me up- "...the mathematics that resulted from inserting the highly complex frequencies into the existing equations were simply incomprehensible. To top it all, pollen season had arrived in full force in Gottingen...". 

This book also mentions one of my favorite novels of all time, The God of Small Things by Arundati Roy. 

* * *

In my last post, I talked about the five "big lifts" or compound strength exercises. In today's moment of fitness, I'm talking about the isolation exercises that focus on each of the 7 major muscle groups in our body (search on the web for exercise names in bold to see images and videos demonstrating the exercise):

• Shoulders: Major muscles of this group include the deltoids and the rotator cuff. So many activities of daily living such as lifting groceries, cooking, and driving a car rely on flexible and strong shoulders. Examples of shoulder-focused exercises are the lateral raise, front raise, and my personal favorite, the kettlebell halo.
• Arms: The front of the upper arms contain the biceps muscles (they help bend the arm) while the back of the arms contain the triceps muscles (they help straighten the arm). Strong upper arms are important for lifting and carrying activities as well as lifting and throwing. The classic bicep exercise is the bicep curl while a classic tricep exercise is the tricep extension.
• Chest: Chest muscles include the pectoralis ("pecs") and are used in many daily activities such as pushing. They maintain posture and support breast tissue. A typical exercise is the chest fly; another one I like is the dumbbell pullover.
• Back: The back has some large and impressive muscles, including the trapezius ("traps") and rhomboids towards the top and the latissmus dorsi ("lats") along the sides. Anyone who has experienced back pain knows firsthand why it is important to keep the back muscles strong. A great exercise for the back is the lat pulldown and one of the few times I use a gym machine is when I do this exercise.
• Core: We tend of think of "abs" when we think of the core but in fact it is so much more- I'll devote the next fitness moment to the core, a very important muscle group as the very name suggests.
• Glutes: The muscles of the butt; the biggest muscle of the body is here- the gluteus maximus. For bipedals such as humans, the glute muscles are critical for locomotion- walking and running, and also staying upright and balanced. Because modern humans tend to sit a whole lot, many of us have weak glutes. A classic exercise is the glute bridge.
• Legs: The upper legs have the quadriceps muscle ("quads") at the front of the thighs and the hamstring muscles at the back of the thighs. The lower legs have the calf muscles- the gastrocnemius and soleus. The leg muscles are crucial for walking and balance. Some classic exercises for the legs include lunges, split squats, and calf raises.

It is somewhat artificial to divide up the body in this way because the whole thing is one interconnected human movement system, but it is very helpful to know that all strength training exercises fall into one or more of these 12 buckets- either they are one of the 5 compound movements or are training one of these 7 body parts. When designing a workout (more on that later), keeping these 12 categories in mind can ensure a balanced workout that engages the whole body. 

Vanilla Chiffon Cupcakes and "Big Lifts"

Our daughter turns 13 this month. I took a trip down memory lane to see what celebrations and cakes she has had so far-

• Her first birthday was a joint party for two babies- a picnic in the park with a variety of cakes. We moved to Georgia just a few weeks after this. 
• The second birthday was a celebration at home with chocolate cupcakes. 
• We were in India for her third birthday and celebrated with all the grandparents and a beautiful cake from a nearby bakery in Mumbai. 
• The fourth birthday was a brunch celebration with a Frozen-themed cake from a local bakery- this was at the height of her Frozen phase. 
• Her fifth birthday was a picnic at a park pavilion with vanilla cupcakes with a ganache frosting and pretty flower sprinkles, and a brand new baby brother in attendance. 
• The sixth birthday was an ice-cream-themed celebration at home with friends and neighbors and a homemade ice cream cake. 
• The seventh birthday was a tea party with a castle cake, a special one as my parents were visiting from India. 
• Ice cream became a recurring theme for birthdays as the eighth birthday was an ice cream social with a brownie rainbow cake. 
• The ninth birthday was celebrated in a state park with just our family- it was the pandemic- and the cake was a raspberry macaron cake from Trader Joe's. 
• The tenth birthday was a small one with an tricolor ice cream bombe cake and build-your-own pizzas. 
• The eleventh birthday was the longest party- a sleepover with a brownie pizza cake. 
• The twelfth birthday was a party at home with a karaoke machine and a bunch of new and old middle school friends, and two homemade ice cream cakes. 

And now this entry into the teens. My daughter and one of her best friends, both turning 13 this month, wanted to throw a big joint birthday bash for all of their friends. After all the birthdays at home or in parks, we were happy to orchestrate a bigger party for this milestone birthday. The two girls and the four parents collaborated to make it happen last week- and it was big, fun, memorable. Joint birthday parties are a great way to share the work, expenses, and also the fun, planning, creativity, and ideas! It was nice to come full circle and have another joint birthday party for her 13th, twelve years after her first joint birthday. 

 

Thanks to the birthday friend's dad, we were able to affordably rent a fabulous venue downtown for 2 hours on a Friday evening- a big room that they decked out with a big disco ball and a great speaker system. It was the perfect setting for a dance party. The theme was- black, silver, purple, disco ball. Much of the fun was in the planning, which included two separate shopping trips (girls + moms). The girls put together a playlist for the occasion. We shopped for coordinating little black dresses at a consignment store, and they accessorized with birthday tiaras and sashes (and sneakers). The other mom made a beautiful birthday banner with their names. 

The refreshments were easy and crowd-pleasing for middle-schoolers (read, thoroughly "junky") - pizza,  cake/cupcakes, Izze sodas, chips. The cake was a popular and luxe one from a local bakery, called "tuxedo"- rich chocolate with a chocolate almond custard filling and white buttercream. The sparker candles were festive in the dark disco ambience. 

Tuxedo cake from a favorite bakery

I made vanilla-vanilla cupcakes as an alternative to the chocolate-heavy cake. For the cupcakes, I tried this recipe for vanilla cupcakes. There are many cake mixing methods out there, and typically I use the creaming method where you start with butter and sugar. This recipe is a sponge cake/ chiffon cake, which starts by beating eggs and sugar into a thick and airy foam. I doubled the recipe and used my stand mixer. 

The cupcakes were fun to make, and the texture was perfect. I've never before achieved a crumb that so closely resembled a "bakery" one. I do feel like my cupcakes turned out quite dry (not as the recipe advertised)- and that was likely user error due to over-mixing and possible over-baking. Still, not bad for a first attempt! This is my new favorite cupcake recipe.

For the frosting, I made a batch of the less-sweet ermine frosting which is my absolute favorite, and a keeper recipe. I tinted it purple (too light, as it turned out), piped it on quite hastily, and used some purple and silver sprinkles.

Vanilla cupcake with ermine frosting-
purple and silver were the party theme colors.
Two silver stars for the two birthday girls

* * *

A new recipe I tried this week- Instant Pot fried rice. Typically, fried rice started with previously cooked rice. This recipe starts with raw Jasmine rice and cooks it in the Instant Pot with water flavored with some soy sauce, garlic, and toasted sesame oil. While the rice is cooking, you heat up a pan on the stove top and scramble eggs and thaw some frozen peas, and stir these into the cooked rice. This is a clever way to make some tasty mock-fried rice. I can see myself using this recipe regularly to make a quick side for Asian stir-fries. This time, I served it with some soy curl and mushroom Manchurian gravy. 

* * *

Weekly round-up--

• A short and beautiful piece of writing (the link is a picture of the full text): I was Trying to Describe You to Someone by Richard Brautigan
• My son and I watched The Secret Life of Pets (2016) on Tubi on a movie night. It was quite entertaining, and the closing scene made me tearfully miss our Dunkie Boy. The song in this scene- Lovely Day by Bill Withers- is a favorite of mine. 
• I finally got my hands on a novel that held my attention- The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware. It is an atmospheric mystery, a twisted tale of family secrets.
• I love that my small town is vibrant with community events- we try to attend as many as we can. This week I went to an aerial gymnastics showcase by adult students. One of my friends was a performer, and it was mind-boggling to see the impressive talents of "regular" people with day jobs who do hobby aerial gymnastics. 

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A Moment of Fitness: I started discussing strength training in my last post- why it is important, and the modalities for doing it. What exercises should one do to train muscles? The exercises fall into 12 buckets- 5 types of compound movements that exercise big groups of muscles, and 7 types of isolation movements that exercise one muscle group or body part. For me, this was a big aha moment. There seem to be an overwhelming number of exercises out there, how do you make sense of it all? Well, when you learn that everything falls into a rather small number of categories, then it seems much more manageable.

Today, I'll talk about the 5 types of compound movements. These are called "big lifts" and they are some of the most important exercises you can learn and do, because (a) they target groups of muscles simultaneously, making them efficient and giving you more bang for your buck in terms of exercise time, and (b) they are the most functional, mimicking the movements we do in daily life and making you stronger for your day to day activities. The NYTimes published an article about these fundamental exercises recently- here's a gift link to the full article. (They include a sixth fundamental movement, rotation.)

Here's an introduction to each of these big lifts. For each of these lifts, there are endless variations- some will be better for beginners, some will be more advanced, some use bodyweight (no equipment needed) and some use free weights or machines. You never have to be bored, there's always a new version of an exercise to try. I'll name a few versions for each lift. Search for the exercise names in any browser to get links to pages with descriptions and pictures and videos that demonstrate the exercise. 

1. Squat: A real life example of the squatting movement would be getting in and out of a chair, and in and out of a car. Many sources will tell you that the squat is the single best exercise you can do. It uses all the lower body muscles, and also the muscles of the core. 
1. You can do a bodyweight squat anywhere at all, no equipment needed
2. Wall squats are an isometric (meaning, you hold a pose) version where you hold a squat against a wall
3. For people with mobility issues, a chair squat is an easier alternative
4. A goblet squat is one where you hold a weight in front of your chest with both hands as you squat
5. A Bulgarian split squat is one of my favorite variations, where you squat on one leg while propping up the other leg behind you on a bench or platform. It is an example of how single leg versions of exercises give you added benefits of improving balance and stability
2. Hinge: This is when you fold over at the waist by pushing your hips back and keeping your back flat. A real life example is bending down to clean a table.
1. Good morning- yes, that's the name of the exercise. An easy bodyweight way to learn the hinge movement.
2. Deadlift- the quintessential hinge exercise. The sumo deadlift version is when you place your feet wide apart, much like the stance of a sumo wrestler
3. Romanian deadlift- a version that is easier for most people
4. Single leg deadlift- two in one- improves balance and stability even as you strengthen leg muscles
3. Push: Like pushing a grocery cart or stroller, you're pushing weight away from your body. Focused on the upper body.
1. The classic example is the push-up, which needs no equipment
2. The classic gym exercise is the chest press where you lie face-up on a bench with feet firmly planted on the floor and push weights away from your chest
3. Alternating chest press is when you use one hand at a time
4. Incline chest press is when you lie on an angled bench instead of a flat one
4. Pull: The opposite of pushing something away. Like when you're wielding a broom and raking leaves by pulling the broom handle, a rowing motion. Focused on the upper body. 
1. Bent-over row is when bend from the waist and pull weights up to your chest
2. Single arm row uses one arm at a time to pull weights
3. My personal favorite is the renegade row which is a combination strength and core exercise
5. Press: When you're lifting something over your shoulders, as when lifting a bag into the plane's overhead compartment.
1. Overhead press/ shoulder press/ military press- you sit or stand with weights held next to the shoulders, then lift the weights above your head
2. Push press- a variation of the overhead press that recruits the legs to generate power
3. Dumbbell power snatch- one of my faves, a coordinated movement where you smoothly and speedily take the weight from ground level to all the way overhead

Next time: the 7 types of isolation exercises.

Chickpea Curry, Teenage Emotions, Strength Training

Chana masala (also called chhole) is a classic, crowd-pleasing Indian curry- a perennial staple of dinner parties and buffets. Last week, I gave a presentation on Indian cooking to a group of lovely, engaged community members and used chana masala as a example of how a curry comes together, breaking down the recipe to explain what each ingredient contributes. I made the point that each ingredient has to earn its role in a recipe- the way I see it, you just don't throw together spices willy-nilly into Indian recipes. They are added intentionally in particular combinations to create unique flavors. 

I make this Instant Pot chana masala regularly- it is great for meal-prep as the flavors only get better over a couple of days in the fridge, and it freezes beautifully. What's more, it results in a saucy curry but comes together in one pot- no blending required. This is a great gateway recipe if you're new to cooking Indian food. I've added some notes in italics.

Chickpea Curry (Chana Masala)

• Soak 2 cups dried chickpeas (garbanzo beans) for 8-12 hours
• Drain the soaking water, rinse, and set aside
• Heat 2 tsp. oil in an Instant Pot insert
• Any neutral oil such as peanut, vegetable, canola, sunflower will do
• Saute 2 medium minced onions until browned
• Onions will make part of the curry base + they add a sweet note to the dish
• Add 1 tbsp. minced ginger + 1 tbsp. minced garlic and stir fry for a couple of minutes
• I make ginger garlic paste and store it in the fridge for convenience
• Ginger and garlic are aromatics that add flavor
• You can change the proportion of ginger to garlic
• Add spices and stir fry for a couple of minutes
• 1 tsp. ground turmeric- flavor and color
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin + 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
• Warm spices that add flavor 
• 1 tsp. red chili powder/ cayenne pepper/ paprika
• You can choose whether to use a mild or hot chili powder 
• You choose how much to add to control the heat level of the dish
• 1 heaped tbsp. Chana masala spice mix
• I like MDH or Everest brands but there are many reputed brands of spice mixes
• This spice mix does the heavy lifting of giving this dish its characteristic flavor
• 1/2 tbsp. Kasuri methi (dried fenugreek)
• Adds a hint of bitterness and that “restaurant” flavor
• Salt to taste - essential, brings out all other flavors
• Add 1 cup crushed tomatoes
• Curry base + add a tangy note
• Add soaked chickpeas and water (enough to cover the chickpeas and a bit more) to the pot
• Pressure cook on HIGH for 15 minutes; natural pressure release
• For a thicker curry, crush some of the chickpeas into the sauce
• Garnish with a handful of minced cilantro
• Fresh herbal finish

To make on the stovetop: Start with the oil step, and instead of soaked raw chickpeas, add cooked chickpeas, from cans or previously cooked on the stovetop.

How to serve chickpea curry

• With bread- pita, naan, roti, or even crusty rolls or sliced bread
• With steamed rice or pilaf
• Over potato patties or hash browns as chana chaat
• A raita or chopped cucumber salad is a great accompaniment
• Top with a few thinly sliced onions and serve with a wedge of lemon/lime

My question to experienced Indian cooks: is your recipe for chana masala similar to this? What would you add or subtract? I know many people like adding amchur (dried mango powder), which I typically don't.

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I read psychologist Lisa Damour's book Untangled on raising teenage girls a while ago, so when I saw another book written by her on the new books shelf of the library, I checked it out immediately. It is called The Emotional Lives of Teenagers. 

The book is relevant because our daughter is turning 13 this month and she's a precocious one- I said to V, "Can you believe we're going to have a teenager in the house?" and he said, "We've had a teenager in the house for a few years already"!

Some people have such an easy and skillful way of dealing with kids. They appreciate the unique and wonderful qualities of children and teens and enjoy spending time with them. I see this admirable talent in several of my friends and relatives, and in my kids' teachers. I do not have this trait of easy interaction with young folk- the kids I like are the ones that act like adults. (And if I encounter childish adults, I run in the other direction.) Caring for kids, feeding them, taking them places, managing their lives- all of this I can do easily. Playing with kids, talking to them, relaxing and simply enjoying them...that's not so easy for me. I rely on books and personal observations to coach myself through these parenting years as I am surrounded by my kids and their friends. 

Here are a few of my notes from this book, which I found to be a very helpful read:

• Central theme: Mental health is not about feeling good, but about managing discomfort. Don't be afraid of being unhappy. The full range of emotions is a feature of normal human life. Mental health is about having the right feelings at the right time and being able to manage those feelings effectively
• Reassurance from this book
• It is normal for adolescents to behave for a considerable length of time in an inconsistent and unpredictable manner.
• The adolescent brain is undergoing a major physiological renovation
• With teenagers it is mostly true that nothing stays the same for too long
• When it comes to managing emotional distress, boys are more likely to turn to distraction, and girls are more likely to turn to discussion
• Tips for parents
• Be a steady and calm presence for your teens (a tough one for me-  I tend to be anxious and frazzled around kids)
• Cultivate a sense of true self-worth in children
• Offer three options when the teen is being unpleasant
• She can be friendly
• She can tell you what’s wrong while being civil
• She can let you know she needs some space
• Before jumping in to solve the problem or offer help/advice, just listen without thinking of what to say next. Distill the story into a headline by summarizing the situation kindly
• The psychological climate at home strongly shapes the emotional lives of teenagers
• Parents need to manage their own emotions (ding ding ding- the simplest yet most difficult thing)

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A moment of fitness: What is strength training?

Public health authorities recommend 2-3 strength training sessions per week to improve and maintain physical fitness. What is this all about? In modern life, unless our lifestyles or jobs somehow involve physical labor such as hauling heavy stuff, we are not "working" and challenging our muscles regularly, so we resort to exercise programs to give them the training and regular use they need. 

Strength training is about exercising all the major skeletal muscle groups (what sort of exercises? More on that next time). And doing it regularly has incredible benefits, including

1. Stronger muscles and bones, allowing you to move better and making it easier to carry out all activities of daily life
2. Improved body composition (more muscle, less fat) which is correlated to many positive health outcomes
3. Lower risk of injury and risk of falls
4. And many more, including boosting mood and brain health and improving management of blood sugar levels

Strength training is also called weightlifting. What are these weights that are being lifted?

• Dumbbells / Barbells/ Kettlebells- When we think of weight lifting, it conjures up images of this sort of gym equipment, and they are indeed very useful for weightlifting. 
• Dumbbells are short bars with weights on either end, they come in many weights, ranging from 1 or 3 lb weights all the way to 50-100 lbs
• Barbell are longer bars (the standard one weighs 45 lbs) where you can add weight plates at each end
• Kettlebells are round weights with a handle on the top and they also come in a variety of weights
• All these tools are called free weights because you can pick them up and move around freely; they are not attached to anything
• Gym machines- Walk into any standard gym, and there are a variety of machines sitting on the floor. 
• Each machine is designed to train a particular body part
• The machine has a "weight stack"- you typically move a pin to choose the weight you want to use
• Bodyweight- We talked about a lot of equipment for lifting but you can also train muscles by lifting your very own body weight. For instance, when you do a regular push-up, you're lifting 50-70% of your bodyweight with your upper body (chest, shoulders, arms). 
• Resistance bands and similar elastic tools can be helpful and inexpensive additions to home workouts. The force needed to stretch the bands trains the muscles.

Getting started with strength training is about two things:

(a) Identifying what equipment you have access to, and 

(b) Learning to do a selection of exercises (using whatever equipment you have) to train each of the major muscle groups- which are the shoulders, chest, back, arms, core, glutes, and legs

I am lucky to have access to a gym, and I vastly prefer using free weights, although my routines typically include a couple of machines and a couple of bodyweight exercises too. As always, what you do is less important than the fact that you do some form of strength training consistently.

Mexican Rice and Brothy Beans

I remember reading a funny little quote that said something to the effect that the definition of family is a group of people, no two of whom like eggs cooked in the same way. The challenge of food preference is real! I try not to be a short order cook but it happens all too often that I make something for dinner and end up fixing something different for each of the kids because they won't eat it. 

Mexican rice and beans is one of the few that we will all eat, so that's frequently on the dinner menu. This is also an example of how much I use my Instant Pot- I have two IP inserts, and with this meal, they both get used one after the other- making the rice first, and the beans second, as the latter can have a long natural release. These are also dishes that you can make in some quantity for meal-prep purposes, and my daughter will eat cheesy rice and beans in her lunchbox. She takes one of those insulated food jars. 

The beans: I forgot to soak pinto beans overnight, but a 6-hour soak in boiling water did the trick. Canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce do all the heavy lifting here as far as flavor is concerned. I followed this recipe loosely, adding a whole dried Pasilla chili too, since I happened to have some in the pantry. 

I used this recipe for the Mexican/Spanish rice, adding some mushrooms this time. And to go with the meal- a creamy cucumber and avocado salad. This is such an easy and satisfying dinner.

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A group of friends were meeting up at the botanical garden- we have boys of similar ages who were in the same daycare center years ago- and I thought of baking a snack cake to take along. With a box of ripe bananas stashed away in the freezer, I made this marbled banana cake. 

Other than cutting down the amount of sugar, I followed the recipe closely. It is different from other marbled cakes that I have made before because instead of mixing cocoa powder into a portion of the batter to make the chocolate portion, you swirl ganache into the batter. I pulled the cake out of the oven, recklessly turned it out after just 10 minutes and took it straight to the play date in a cake carrier. The warm slices of fresh-baked cake were a treat.

No pic of the cake- it was devoured quickly- but here's a picture of the bundt pan (the preciousss)- one of my prized baking tools and one that I bought at the Nordicware factory in Minneapolis. 

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Media round-up: My son asked me a surprising question: when and how did the universe begin? The question surprised me because his usual preoccupations are Pokemon and video games, and our conversations rarely involve topics of great mystery such as the birth of the universe. The other reason it surprised me was that I had been listening to a podcast episode on just this topic, so I could impress him by saying with great confidence that the universe is 13.8 billion years ago. ("I thought it would be trillions and trillions of years", he said.)

• The podcast episode I listened to was Episode 1: The First Fraction of a Second of Crash Course Pods: The Universe. It is fantastic- "We are made of big bang stuff". 
• We watched this <6 min National Geographic video on YouTube and it is such a great, succinct explanation of the Big Bang theory.
• I spotted this book on the "new books" shelf and checked it out immediately: Space Oddities by Harry Cliff. The book discusses a lot of oddities or anomalies, unexpected results that seems to contradict our accepted ideas of how the universe works and explains that they can be flukes or glitches, OR they can lift the veil on nature’s best kept secrets. I'm halfway through and not all of the chapters are equally interesting to me, but the first chapter, The Cosmic Story, is excellent! It is one of the best descriptions I have read that explain the standard model of particle physics and the standard cosmological model in simple terms. It definitely pushed along my feeble layperson understanding of these incredibly fascinating topics. 
• In non-big-bang related media, I've been trying to sink my teeth into a good fiction book but have encountered a series of duds lately. I picked up a much-recommended murder mystery, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson, but it did not hold my attention and will be a DNF (did not finish.)
• We watched The Mask (1994) on Tubi- a zany and ridiculous movie but fun to watch for sure. My sister still quotes lines from this movie. 

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A Moment of Fitness: Today, I'm talking about a basic question- How much exercise do we need? Guidelines from well-respected public health agencies like the CDC and the WHO agree on exercise recommendations for healthy adults. In a nutshell, it is health-promoting to get the following in one week-

• Aerobic activity: 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity OR 75 minutes of vigorous-level activity. 
• Aerobic activities are what we know as "cardio" and include brisk walking, jogging, swimming, biking, dancing, tennis, and many others- their defining characteristic is that they get your heart rate up, and get you breathing a little harder. 
• How do you know whether your activity is moderate or vigorous? An easy way is the "talk test"- if you can talk but not sing while doing the activity, it is of moderate intensity. If you can't say more than a couple of words before getting out of breath, it is of vigorous intensity. (If you can sing while doing the activity, kindly pick up the pace :))
• 150 minutes of moderate cardio could be 30 minutes of brisk jogging/walk-run intervals/light jogging 5 days a week. Or 2 dance classes, and some walking. There are many ways to do this. 10 minutes of brisk walking after most meals will even do it! 
• If you are conditioned enough to undertake vigorous cardio like running, 75 minutes/week is very doable- a few short runs will get you there.
• Muscle-strengthening activity: at least 2 sessions a week. These can be bodyweight or weightlifting exercises. More on this in a future post. 

For adults 65+, the recommendations are to add two sessions of balance exercises in a week. An activity like yoga will cover both muscle strengthening and balance. 

Why is it important to know this? 

• You can compare your current activity to the recommended levels and see where you stand, and you can slowly ramp up your exercise to recommended levels if they're not there already. Every little bit counts. 
• For people who have some anxiety that "I feel like what I'm doing is never enough", (one of my friends said this to me verbatim), this kind of guidance provides reassurance that no, you don't need to exercise all day, every day. It is more like exercising 4-6 days of the week, 45-60 minutes per day, which is reasonable to build into one's schedule for most people. (Consider how much time we spend on our phones and on social media, as a comparator. I don't know about you but I always grimace when my weekly screen time notification pops up on my phone).
• If you're only doing cardio or only lifting weights, the recommendations are a gentle reminder to do a bit of both for optimal fitness.

Have a great week, all!