It seems like forever since I last posted an actual cookie, so here’s one from this morning. I needed something pink and cheery and these fit the bill. They’re fairly lemony with the tablespoon of lemon zest, but if you want to try adding something like a bit of pink lemonade powder or lemon extract, [...]
Cookie Madness
Archive for January, 2012
My grandmother didn’t enjoy baking, but every year she made the best angel food cake. Covered with her famous seven minute icing, she’d serve it with peppermint ice cream for the ultimate combination of temperatures and textures. The leftovers were even better, because after a day or two the icing would crust over and flake [...]
Cookie Madness
I’m in the midst of a big magazine purge and my latest victim is a stack of Eating Wells from 2004. Turn, turn, read, turn, read, rip, read, rip. I’ve been doing this during dinner while we eat. Nobody cares. Anyway, last night I came across this recipe and ripped it out immediately. There’s no [...]
Cookie Madness
Anyone seeking methamphetamine detoxification will have to make the first move and they might have a hard time finding a suitable clinic to help them. Local and state budgets have been cut to the bone and shifts in health insurance have put a squeeze on rehabilitation services nationwide, especially in the case of the young. This, despite the fact that there’s certainly been no reduction in the need for such care, has created a great need for facilities to deal with meth recovery. Methamphetamine addiction has been a serious drug crisis for almost a full generation.
Military Use
Methamphetamine use damages the lining of the human heart through inflammation and also corrodes the small veins and blood vessels that feed blood to the brain. The only question is which affect the addict will suffer first, a stroke or heart attack. During WWII, both the Nazis and Japan prescribed amphetamines to allow soldiers to fight for days without sleep while retaining alertness and strength.
Symptoms
There are both short and long-term symptoms of methamphetamine abuse. The former include paranoid behavior, even violently so, skin damage running the gamut from rashes and sores to cracking lips, sunken, blood-shot eyes and frequent scratching of one’s skin. The most frequently mentioned symptom, staying awake for several days on end, perhaps ought not be considered a “symptom of abuse” since it is so often the effect users are seeking.
Long-Term
Over time, the long-term effects of methamphetamine abuse assert themselves. These include decay in all their teeth at once and dramatic weight loss. Further, the abuser will likely suffer hallucinations. These hallucinations, which may be of either the visual variety or the aural or both, won’t just occur as the abuser is smoking the drug. At this stage, they can appear at any time.
Emotional Addiction
Therapists have learned that in treating addicted patients, it isn’t enough to address only physical aspects of their addiction. They have learned that meth, the “party drug”, creates in its abusers an addiction to the lifestyle surrounding that abuse that is as significant as the drug’s pharmacological effects. This is an abuse that creates small, close-knit and mutually-reinforcing communities of abusers. Those within these communities grow attached to their late-night drug culture.
Negative Social Bond
These social bonds need to be replaced for any real progress to be possible. Accordingly, an important part of meth rehab involves the addict’s social life. The patient should be separated from his or her old life and friends, all of whom reinforce the drug culture. During therapy, it is best to move out of the area for a period.
Types of Therapy
Treatment can be both individual, working one on one with a therapist, and in meth group counseling. One on one therapy is best for sorting the problems that underlie the addiction. These include compulsiveness, being overwhelmed with fears and a diminished sense of self. Group and then aftercare treatment is a good environment for identifying the events that trigger patients to seek and use the drug.
If you’re looking for a new pumpkin muffin recipe, here’s one made with coconut oil, coconut palm sugar and whole wheat pastry flour. I tried incorporating some true whole foods into the ingredient list, but having made multiple batches of these over the past few days, I can tell you that substitutes work pretty well. [...]
Cookie Madness
If you’re looking for a new pumpkin muffin recipe, here’s one made with coconut oil, coconut palm sugar and whole wheat pastry flour. I tried incorporating some true whole foods into the ingredient list, but having made multiple batches of these over the past few days, I can tell you that substitutes work pretty well. [...]
Cookie Madness
One of my resolutions this year is to share more of the things I love with you, so I’m reviving a feature on favorite websites that I think you might like too.
From time to time I get an email or see a write-up somewhere in which a very kind reader says they would like to be my friend. This is terribly flattering and always makes me chuckle a little (“You’ve not seen me on my cranky days” I want to warn them), but I know exactly how they feel, because I want to be friends with Molly.
Molly Hays is the clever creative behind Remedial Eating, one of my very favorite food blogs. I think it was her kind and witty comments here that first brought me over to her site, where I pretty much wanted to move in and stay forever.
Remedial Eating is camped out in the neighborhood I like the most—that intersection between food and life. Reading Molly’s site takes you into the days she spends with her children—craft projects, outdoor adventures, waiting for snow (what?)—but they always end at the kitchen counter, the dining table, where they come together. There is such comfort and coziness in those moments, I can’t help feel that this is what family is meant to be.
I’m not sure if I want Molly to be my friend or to be my mom. I’m a little jealous of her kids. They get to have ricotta fritters for dinner (occasionally) and dip fall leaves in beeswax and do all sorts of lovely things.
But perhaps I want to be her friend, because look at the sorts of holiday cookie tins she gives out. I mean, really.
But mostly I am happy to be her reader, because reading Molly’s site is like slipping into this lovely world. Her writing carries you along, with witty asides and gorgeous description, and when she compares the sky to a Maxfield Parrish painting my heart nearly bursts with happiness (we art history majors are a funny lot).
But mostly I am impressed, over and over again, how someone can write in a way that feels so warm and welcoming and intimate, like I’ve gotten to pull up a chair at the well-worn table, the craft project of the day has been pushed aside, and there’s some treat and tea on offer along with a nice chat. It’s the most lovely feeling.
I haven’t even mentioned Molly’s photography, some of which you can see here. Oh does this lady have an eye for evocative images. She displays them in these two-photo diptychs (the art history major in me should know for certain if it’s still a diptych if they’re set top to bottom but I’m not sure). The combination of imagery sometimes takes my breath away. It’s all just so lovely.
But don’t take my word for it. I once mentioned Molly’s site on Twitter, and some very sweet reader went off and spent the entire weekend browsing her archives and came back to tell me just how right I was. Molly is a marvel.
I hope you hop over to Remedial Eating and say hi to my friend. Consider this your introduction. She’s really lovely, I think you would like her.
As for me, I’m hoping one of these days Molly and her family move back to Seattle, where she’s from, so we can be proper friends in real life. Until then, I’m reading along on her adventures, smiling with the loveliness of it all.
REMEDIAL EATING, by Molly Hays
Do you have favorite blogs you want to share? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.
Happy weekend, all. Hope yours is a good one.
All photography from Remedial Eating, by Molly Hays.
Why you need to be obsessed with Michael Fassbender
More reasons to loathe Tucker Max
Which daytime soap is moving to primetime?
Pulling off the rhinestone nails look
Getting over a fear of cuddling
Defending the manic pixie dream girl
First the ladies, now the Disney princes get cover treatment
Taking care of business
We need ALL the things
Oh, people, people—you are so very good. Thank you for your enthusiasm about the cooking challenge, and all the great ideas! I think we’re set for a couple of years if we do them all, but yes, there will be soufflés and croissants and jam and sauerkraut and maybe even a pie crust or two.
But first, there will be sourdough bread.
It was sourdough bread that got me thinking about this cooking challenge. So many people said they wanted to learn—and heck, I know how to do it. In fact, I’ve been baking sourdough bread, almost once a week, since I came home with a sourdough starter from Quillisascut this past summer. So hey, let’s make some bread.
We should probably start off with some basic questions, though. Like: What is sourdough?
All bread is leavened with some type of yeast (otherwise it’d be crackers). The process of the yeast digesting sugars is what makes the air bubbles that cause the bread to rise. There are hundreds of different strains of yeast, but for our purposes there are two different types: commercial yeast and wild yeast.
For thousands of years, people baked with wild yeast. They made a paste of water and flour and this provided a good environment for the yeast to live and grow. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that an Austrian distillery owner created a commercial yeast product (yeast also being an important part of beer-making), which allowed for faster and more predictable baking. This was helpful as bread baking became industrial and they wanted to produce a consistent product. Commercial yeast allowed them to produce the same loaf on a set schedule (consider this the anti-artisanal bread movement).
So really, sourdough bread is our heritage (those of us who are descended from bread-eating countries). And if people were doing it for generations upon generations, without the benefit of digital scales and temperature gauges and all the scientific know-how, how hard can it really be?
The first step of making sourdough is simply to obtain a starter—this is the flour and water mixture that has fermented and is full of wild yeast and good bacteria. There are a couple of ways to do this.
The easiest, is to have someone give you some of theirs. This is the route I’ve gone the last two times. When I left California I was lucky enough to be given a starter by Dylan, and then again last summer, Giana at Quillisascut Farm gave me some of her starter.
If you have a friend who bakes sourdough and has a starter, you might want to ask them. It’s not an imposition, either. Sourdough bakers often discard part of their starter when they feed it, so you’re not asking for anything they need to hold onto. Most people will be happy to pass along a bit of theirs.
Another way to obtain a starter is to buy one. My first sourdough starter came from a packet of San Francisco sourdough I bought in a tourist shop and brought with me to Japan, because I desperately missed the bread I had grown up with. Unfortunately I hadn’t realized my Japanese apartment might not have an oven, and after making an awful lot of sourdough English muffins, using a fry pan, I eventually lost interest.
You can buy a packet of dried San Francisco sourdough starter, or you can order a starter from the King Arthur Flour Company. This is the second easiest way to obtain a starter (note: if you order a fresh starter it will need to be fed soon after it arrives, so make sure you are up to speed before you place your order.
The final way to obtain a sourdough starter is the original way—the way our ancestors did it—and that is to cultivate one using four and water. It might seem a little tricky, and there sure is a lot of confusing information out there (I’ve been wading through it the past two weeks), but really, gold rush miners and covered wagon pioneers and peasants throughout Europe who couldn’t read managed to create and keep sourdough starters. We should be able to do this, right?
Right. In fact, I currently have three of them in my kitchen. I’m doing trial runs to test out the different starter methods so I can bring you the best/easiest one.
Come back next time and I’ll tell you all about it.
Whee! Sourdough! Baking! Who’s on board?
Many people suffer from different kinds of addictions ranging from hard drugs to others like alcohol and painkillers. One amazing fact is that you can find yourself suffering from prescribed drug addiction. It is very surprising since such medications, in most cases, are prescribed by qualified doctors to help one solve health problems. If the medication is taken for a long period, it may lead to addiction. It is for this reason why you should carry a prescription drug detoxification program.
How It Started
Before opting for a detox program, it is good to have more information about the problem. One thing you should note is how the addiction developed. As stated above, it might occur when a patient uses a certain medicine for a very long time. However, this can be done under a health practitioner’s advice. Some people try to be their own doctors purchasing medicine on their own whenever they experience similar symptoms previously treated by a doctor. This can easily lead to addiction.
Will It Work
Depending on how the addiction occurred, it might be easier to deduce whether the detox process will work or not. For a person who has been buying the medicine on his own, it might be harder to deal with the problem since he could have been misinterpreting the withdrawal symptoms for health problems cured by said medicine.
Get To A Center
In normal circumstances, the problem is treated like any other form of addiction. The best way you can carry out this detoxification process is by attending a detox center. This is where you will get educated on the different types of drugs and their withdrawal symptoms.
Withdrawal Symptoms
For example, drugs that stimulate cause fatigue, agitation, excessive sleeping and depression. Sleeping pills lead to dizziness, sweating, seizures and rebound insomnia. Alternatively, painkillers lead to muscle and bone pain, exhaustion and flu-like symptoms, cold and hot flashes. Keep in mind the time it takes to complete the withdrawal relates to the drug causing the addiction. Some take only three days to leave the body while others can take ten days or more.
Don’t Do It Alone
Even though all addiction detox is hard to deal with, it is never a good idea to attempt prescription drug detox alone. This is because some of the withdrawal symptoms can be life threatening. Therefore, you should only go through the procedure with the assistance of a physician and this is most successfully done at a rehab center.
A Qualified Doctor
There are several important factors to consider before submitting to a detox program for prescription drug addicts. The characteristics of withdrawal are different for various types of drugs and methods for treating the addict are numerous and varied. You should enlist the services of a skilled physician who is trained specifically in the drug addiction counseling of addicts. They are familiar with the affects different medicines have on the body and can recommend a program that is safe and can accomplish successful recovery.