I love the French way of eating. It’s something that resonates with how I like to eat. I’ve always been a slow eater. I constantly put my fork down while I’m eating. I get annoyed at restaurants because people will try to take my plate away. Telling them I’m not finished doesn’t seem to help my rising anxiety. Why are they clearing plates on the table before everyone is finished, anyway?

I like the European way of leaving you completely alone while eating. When we lived in Germany, it took us a few times of dining out to realize we needed to get their attention when we wanted to order, get another drink, get the check, etc. Otherwise they don’t come over. They don’t bother you.

The French way makes sense. As a culture, they get excited about food. The moderate their portions. They don’t mix flavors together. Yesterday I prepared a sandwich and tried to eat it with my soup. My taste buds were confused because I didn’t enjoy my meal as I should have. I got a stomach ache from the confusion.

As a child, I always preferred to eat this way. It drove my family crazy. I wanted my chicken in one plate. My mashed potatoes in another. I always needed a different fork for my salad. And for the longest time I had been eating my salad last. Unheard of in the US, we eat the salad first.

It wasn’t until I started learning about French gastronomy that I realized that someone (or a whole culture of people) gets it. No, I am not French by ancestry. I’m Greek and a lot of the principals are similar. But I truly am having a blast learning about French food culture because it just agrees with how I’ve always been. Suddenly, I am not a strange, “picky”, slow eater. I fit in somewhere.

I need to drop a few pounds because it will make me healthier if I do so. I’ve sort of made the effort off and on for the past few years, but it’s half-hearted. Most diets leave me feeling unsatisfied - not physically - but mentally.

You see, I love cooking. I enjoy food and trying new recipes and ingredients. When “dieting” in the traditional sense, this part of me gets lost in the process. It completely erases my pure enjoyment of food. Although most of the foods I prepare while “dieting” are tasty, I don’t like feeling confined. The idea that certain foods are off-limits doesn’t seem to fit well.

I want to eat chocolate, drink wine, and still lose weight. Why can’t I? There’s actually no reason why I shouldn’t be able to balance these things out. If you think about it, weight control should be natural. I think approaching it from the perspective of needing to “diet” is going about it all wrong.

What will I do instead? I am not going to count calories or worry about anything excpet eating a healthy diet and exercising.  If I decide to have a glass of wine or a piece of chocolate or a cocktail when I go out so be it. Life needs to be about balance. Dieting puts this out of balance. And for me, I need to cook - luckily my favorite foods tend to be healthy.

Instead of worrying about losing weight through restriction, I am going to exercise the “Everything in moderation”policy. For me, it’s the only way to be truly success in my efforts to drop a few pounds.

I have boxes all over my kitchen. It’s been a theme lately. Last week I had the impulse to make a multi-course French meal but to do so I needed to hide all the boxes. The kitchen is only partially set up - I can’t figure out where to put everything. We just moved to a new home two weeks ago and am still getting everything set up.

Since the boxes have returned, I haven’t felt like creating interesting meals or cooking anything other than scrambled eggs. It makes me realize that my messy kitchen is affecting my ability to feed myself and my family the right foods that will keep us healthy and strong.

But mostly I am sad that my kitchen creativity has left. It’s a great kitchen with a beautiful gas stove, a large stainless steel refrigerator, and ample space to chop vegetables and lay out all the ingredients I’d need.

To get my kitchen in order, this is what I need to do:

• Get my office set up. Some of the boxes in the kitchen actually belong in my office.
• Unpack all the kitchen boxes to try to find the missing things - like my blender lid
• Keep the dishes clean and off the counter.
• Put into storage anything I don’t need or can’t figure out what to do with yet.

I encourage you all to look at your kitchens and keep them organized. If you love to cook, or even if you NEED to cook, it will make you a lot more efficient.

I had been hearing about mangosteen fruit for a while now as a healthy supplement. It is said to be rich in antioxidants and minerals. I am not one for taking a lot of supplements but when I saw dried Mangosteen at Trader Joe’s I couldn’t resist giving it a try.

They were offering a sample of it and when I popped it in my mouth, I realized how unique it is. It is slightly tart and the giant seeds give it some crunch and an extra nutty flavor. Because I am not familiar with it, I have no idea how to cook with it. For now, I am  enjoying eating it out of the bag.

However, I realized that I am missing out on what the fruit is about by eating it in the dried state. Fresh mangosteens are supposed to be fleshy and soft- they sound delicious. I think I heard somewhere that they may start coming over to the US soon. I was thinking of learning some mangosteen oriented recipes. I was going to try to do it with the dried mangosteen fruits but I think I’ll wait and see if I can find them in its fresh form.

So what makes them so good for you? Now, I’ve seen it marketed as a weight loss supplement. Do I believe it to have magic weight loss potential? No, there’s no such thing. Diet and exercise are the most important elements for weight loss.

However, I do believe that it can indirectly help with a variety of health complaints because it is a very nutrient rich food. It is known for being high in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. When eating food that has a high nutrient density it is very beneficial to your body.

Me? I don’t worry about that. I am itching to try the fresh fruit and find some creative ways to cook with it.

I’ve been cooking essentially since I was a child but I STILL have kitchen disasters. I can’t seem to avoid it. I tried to cook baby octopus for the first time. My problems were numerous.

1. They were too tough to cut with a knife so I needed to use a pair of scissors to snip them. I highly suspect the scissors are now ruined.
2. The were gross to touch. I should have worn gloves! Very slimy. It felt odd picking one up with my bare hands and snipping away.
3. I cut the pieces too big. I wanted to get it over with! But when I put the octopus in the skillet the pieces started to puff up. I thought protein based foods were supposed to shrink?
4. To try to get some of the toughness out, I squirted lemon juice all over them. Something about the lemon didn’t interact well with what I had in the pan. They smelled.

So in the end I had smelly, rubbery baby octopus. I promptly shut the pasta water off and decided to make scrambled eggs instead.

I learned today that making stove top, homemade popcorn is not a skill that a lot of people have. I personally don’t even buy microwave popcorn. When I bother to eat popcorn I make sure to do it right. So I thought I’d offer you a short explanation on how to make popcorn on the stove, the old fashioned way.

Step 1 - Add the popcorn kernels to the bottom of a medium sized to large saucepan. Make sure the pan is cold. The kernels should be spread out in a single layer.

Step 2 - Add enough oil to the pan in order to cover the kernels with a pinch of salt and about 1/2 teaspoon of butter.

Step 3 - Cover and heat the pan on medium high. Shake it back and forth occasionally so the kernels don’t stick.

Step 4 - When you hear the first pop, start shaking it back and forth again. Do this for about thirty seconds and then shut the heat off. Continue to shake until the popcorn stops popping.

Step 5 - Be carefull when you uncover it because the hot steam will rise up. But you’ll want to uncover it immediately and transfer it to a bowl. Otherwise, the kernels will get soggy. Season it after you put it in the bowl.

My Favorite Seasoning

I add 1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese, salt and pepper to taste, 1 teaspoon onion powder, and 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning and stir until the seasonings are well combined. It’s so good!

I’m a big fan of hot chocolate, especially as the weather gets colder. What I love even more? Giving it some spice! I often add cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, even cayenne pepper to my hot chocolate. Why? Because it not only gives my food a completely different flavor and keeps my taste buds happy, but it also has added health benefits. Here’s a list of my favorites:

• Cinnamon - helps regulate blood sugar, aphrodisiac, boosts the metabolism, and has an antimicrobial action which can help get rid of infection.
• Cayenne pepper - boosts the metabolism, improves blood flow, helps you get rid of colds
• Nutmeg - aids digestion and is an aphrodisiac
• Cardamom - warming, is an aphrodisiac, aids the bronchial system, and helps your digestion
• Ginger - warming, anti inflammatory, and boosts metabolism

Here is a link to my Spicy Hot Chocolate Recipe on eHow.com. You don’t need to follow it exactly. You can use any combination of the spices that you want. In fact, I’d start out with one at a time so you can see how the spices affect your body. After you become familiar with them on an individual basis, you can begin to mix them.

Beware, this recipe won’t have exact measurements. I don’t believe that soup really should. The concept of a soup is to throw stuff in a pot and simmer it for an hour. You can play with the ingredients. For example, you can make curried chicken soup or chicken tomato soup. Anything goes!

My recipe is rather simple. I roasted a chicken this weekend. After we were done eating it, I took all the chicken off the bones, threw the bones in a pot, filled the pot with water, added salt and pepper, and brought the water to a boil. I then simmered it for an hour, let it cool down, and then put it into containers.

That wonderful stock will be the basis to my soup, as is the leftover chicken. I am going to put some of the stock in a pot, the leftover chicken, and add onion powder, fresh chopped parsley leaves, garlic powder, basil, salt, pepper, and some kind of small pasta. I’ll simmer that for an hour and voila, I made soup!

If I felt like it I could chop some veggies like carrots and celery and add whichever ingredients I want - but this is my basic recipe and one I thought I’d share. I think everyone needs to try cooking without measuring at least once in their lives.