I’m facing some serious temptation today. I wanted to stay home all day, not because I feel ill, but because I got my hands on another great cookbook. I didn’t want to call in sick, I wanted to call in cooking.

The Culinary Institute of America: The New Book of Soups (Lebhar-Friedman Books, 2009) is a real page-turner, at least for those of us who read cookbooks like some people read the latest fiction. Gorgeous photography, illustrated step-by-step techniques and simply scrumptious-sounding recipes from one of the world’s premiere culinary colleges—who wouldn’t want to immerse oneself in this?

If I were actually as enterprising as my busy brain tells me I am, I would take on a kind of Julie & Julia challenge and make one of these recipes every day for however long it took me to get through it. The book overflows with variety, and literally every recipe sounds do-able and delicious. How about the velvety Cream of Broccoli soup and the Fennel and Potato Chowder that look like health in a bowl? Or maybe the Tortellini in Brodo, with those sexy little pastas floating in that flavorful pool of broth? Don’t know how to make your own tortellini? The recipe includes directions and a helpful photo that will have you chanting like the Little Engine that Could, I think I can, I think I can … 

Some of the soups get more exotic, but I don’t know that they’re much more difficult. Minguichi, a cheese and chile soup, sounds like heaven to me after many years’ residence in New Mexico. And while it does involve peeling a couple of roasted poblano chiles, it doesn’t require many more steps than a basic cream of mushroom soup.

In the front of the book is a chapter on basics, detailing how to create a stock, what thickeners are and how to use them, how to “finish” a soup (other than licking the bowl, which one mustn’t do when anyone is watching, despite the temptation) and also a good little section on the importance of the right pots and tools. In the back are recipes for tasty accompaniments like Cheddar Rusks (rusks are pieces of bread toasted crisp and brown), homemade croutons and bread sticks, buttermilk biscuits and some deliciously unusual crackers (e.g. Cheddar Cheese and Walnut Icebox Crackers).

I know I have work to do today, but it won’t be easy. I have deadlines to meet, articles to edit and all the while I’m thinking, “Crab and Crimini Mushroom Chowder  … Cold Cantaloupe Cream Soup … Palmiers with Prosciutto …  Hmm … palmiers. I wonder what that is…

Sometimes, when people hear what a fan I am of herbal medicine, they immediately decide that this means I’m NOT in favor of Western, high-tech medicine. If you could see my bandaged paw today, you’d see that this is not the case at all.

A couple of days ago, I had a relatively minor surgery for a carpal-tunnel type injury. A little anesthesia, a few snips, and, as far as I can tell, problem solved. For things like this, I’m actually quite grateful and even fond of the highly technical, precision operating theater that’s just a few miles from my house.

I did a few things herbal to prepare myself for the surgery, however, and I will do a few more once the incision has healed. This article has been my pre-op nutritional guide: "Holistic Healing For Surgery." Soon it will be off to the calendula ointment and elder salve with me. One of the best things I’ve gotten out of my job as an editor for The Herb Companion is the awareness of these amazingly effective herbs for healing insults to our epidermis.

Calendula (Calendula officinalis) has been a garden staple for centuries, thanks to its springy blossoms and skin-soothing abilities.
Photo by Buttersweet/Courtesy Flickr
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Soon, I’ll take myself over to my friend June, the fabulous body-worker so she can start working on all my moving parts around the surgery to make sure I don’t get stuck with any impairment in function in response to the invasion of those tissues and tendons.

This high-tech combo of a good surgeon, integrated medicine and effective herbs works great for me. I’d love to see that paradigm grow and grow and grow. 

I had one of the best pork chops of my life last night, thanks to a homegrown hog and Nancy, also known to our blog friends as The Lemon Verbena Lady. (Visit her at her blog Lemon Verbena Lady's Herb Garden.)

The pork chop came to me by way of my friends Ken and Nancy Krause, who own Fieldstone, the farm where I once lived. They raise heirloom apples and tomatoes, and this year decided to add some hogs to the menagerie at the farm, to help put all that apple and tomato excess to good use.

They asked if I wanted to buy a pig at the same time and, for the first time in my life, I agreed. The piglet grew to more than 100 pounds in just a few months and is now a whole lot of pork in my freezer. This is the first time I’ve ever actually known an animal that ended up as dinner and I have to admit, it was a challenge. The first time I cooked anything from No. 49 (I refused to name my pig—it was just too macabre), I actually cried.

Then I tasted the bacon—the best I’ve ever had—and pretty much worked through my feelings about the whole process. Here’s where I’ve come down on this issue, after considering it from many, many, many different directions on a continuum from strict veganism to what-the-hell carnivore. I think these animals—pigs, cattle, chickens, etc.—are alive now because humans have been raising and eating them for thousands of years. I think species eat other species and we are a species with pointy teeth for a reason.

Photo by Daniel Y. Go/Courtesy Flickr
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My piggy had an enviable life, considering how most animals live. He got to gallop around in a large paddock, with weeds and roots and berries and all kinds of tasty treats. He also got fed bushel after bushel of heirloom apples and tomatoes, plus a few bushels of expensive heirloom carrots that turned mysteriously bitter (these were mine: I never have figured out what happened to them, but the pigs were really happy with my gardening insufficiency), and kitchen scraps from not one but two really good cooks. An absolutely elegant, enclosed system that echoes the way humans have been doing things for millennia.

So every day of the pig’s life was a pretty great day, except that last one. The processing was done just a few blocks from the farm by people who absolutely know what they’re doing—the most local of local consumption. So I now have hams, ham steaks, chops, bacon, bacon ends, ham hocks, and lots of sausage. Because I live alone and didn’t want to eat pork every single day for the rest of the next decade, I shared half with a friend here at work. But I still have enough that I won’t go hungry for at least a year. My total cost was right at $100, which works out to about $2 a pound. A deal, for sure.

So last night, I defrosted my first package of chops. What I thought was a pack of four actually was a pack of two very thick chops. I browned them really well, salted and peppered, covered them for about 20 minutes until the meat was no longer pink and called it dinner. The flavor was simply indescribable, and utterly delicious.

The piece de resistance was a jar of Rosemary-Garlic Jelly that The Lemon Verbena Lady sent for Christmas. I can’t imagine a better flavor to go with pork and I had to restrain myself to save the second chop for another day. (Click here for the recipe.)

Photo by The Lemon Verbena Lady 

Meanwhile, my taste buds are doing the happy dance and asking for more, more, more. Once again, herbs (rosemary and garlic) took an already delicious meal from good to extraordinary. Gotta love those herbal upgrades!

As someone who reads cookbooks the way other people read romance novels, my affections change frequently. I have the standbys—Moosewood Cookbook, The Joy of Cooking, The Smithsonian Folklore Cookbook (for its ultra-simple bread recipe), James Peterson’s Vegetables and so forth—but find myself occasionally so overrun by cookbooks that I weed a few out by giving to friends or donating to a worthy cause.

One way I can tell if a cookbook is destined to join my permanent staff is the number of times I flag a recipe when I first read the book. I am happy to tell you that my new favorite cookbook was so oft-flagged, it looked as though I had given it a Post-it fringe. I think this one is here to stay.

It’s the Quick from Scratch Italian Cookbook (Food & Wine Books), edited by Judith Hill. If Judith got to taste all these recipes before she put them in the book, she was one lucky editor. I like the “Test-Kitchen Tips” in the front of the book, with useful information on such items as what to do if your Parmesan dries out, how to store fresh basil or steps to making perfectly cooked risotto, and the handy-dandy list of Italian wines, with a list of foods they dance well with; and a list of Italian cheeses with descriptions of what we can expect of them (“starts out mild-mannered, sharper flavor with age, becomes quite provocative after about a year”).

But it’s the recipes that made me happiest. All live up to the book’s title “Quick From Scratch”—none seemed complicated, all look as though you could go from ingredient to table in a half hour or so, and the few I’ve tried so far bear out that assumption.  This would be a good cookbook for an inexperienced cook, but those of us who’ve been around the kitchen a time or two will find plenty to appreciate in its simple, delicious flavors.

My favorites thus far are:

• Roasted Peppers with Caper Dressing, which I gussied up with a little chopped basil and a can of tuna and called a meal;
• Grilled Zucchini with Fresh Mozzarella, which is simple and scrumptious and answers the age-old question, “What am I supposed to do with all this @#$@ zucchini;”
• Sausage and Mushroom Soup, which I made with a delicious local Italian sausage and shiitake mushrooms and which is now my new favorite soup;
• Braised Chicken Thighs with Olives and Basil, which is so inexpensive you won’t believe it and tastes like it cost a bundle—great for impressing the socks off dinner guests without breaking the budget.

And I haven’t even gotten to the desserts chapter yet. I’m looking forward to Pineapple Carpaccio with Lemon Sorbet and Candied Zest; Ricotta Ice Cream with Honey and Almonds, and maybe a little Cherries Poached in Red Wine with Mascarpone Cream. 

The recipes are healthful, if you can resist the allure of seconds.  However, I am not responsible for your waistline if you use this book.

Go on, feed my addiction. Turn me on to your favorite cookbook!

A few weeks ago, just before I turned out the light to go to sleep, I felt a stabbing pain in my left eye. I had been out walking my dog a few hours earlier in a high wind, so I immediately assumed that I had gotten a piece of grit or glass in my eye. For the next hour or so, I did the things I knew to do to try and remove a foreign object from my eye—flooding it with eyewash solution, holding the eyelashes out away from my eye and blinking madly.

Finally I realized it wasn't getting any better, and I was worried about something causing permanent damage to my cornea, so I did one of my least favorite things in the entire world: I went to the emergency room.

After shivering in the E. R. for a couple of hours (why do those places have to be so bloody cold?), the diagnosis was that I had a small rip in my cornea, but apparently no foreign objects in my eye. This was a relief—at least I wasn't shredding my cornea with every blink, which is what it felt like. Why I had a rip in my cornea, the E.R. doc couldn't say, but at least I didn't have to be afraid of worse damage. So I went home, tried (in vain) to get a bit of sleep, and called my regular eye doctor as soon as his office opened.

The diagnosis: dry eye syndrome. My eyes had gotten so dry while I was staring at my computer screen before I went to bed that the eyelid had stuck to the surface of my eye and caused a little tear when it moved. I have known for some time my eyes were chronically dry—I've been staring at a computer for the past three decades, I've had LASIK surgery and am addicted to artificial tears—but this was a whole new level of eye drought.

So the doctor prescribed Restasis eye drops and sent me on my way. He warned me that they could be "a little pricey." I have relatively good insurance, so I wasn't worried. When the bill came, I discovered that a month's supply is $65—with my insurance. What people with no insurance would have to pay, I don't even want to contemplate.

Photo by ~jjjohn~/Courtesy Flickr
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But, the syndrome is commonplace, so my guess is there's a pretty large pool of dry-eye sufferers who will pay what they have to to get some relief. At this level, it isn't just uncomfortable, it's dangerous for the health of my eye, so I'm with them on that.

However, since I'm all about finding safe, natural alternatives, I've been doing some reading. I got enough Restasis to last until the end of November, and in the meantime, I'm on a quest for effective, inexpensive, SAFE remedies to try for myself and to share with our readers.

To add incentive to my quest, I read the small print on the Restasis insert and discovered that the eye drops are made by the same company that creates Botox, for which I have a special disgust, and that the eye drops are tested on animals. I am committed to a life without products that are tested on animals and the idea of a bunch of helpless animals suffering for the sake of my dry eyes makes me want to cry, punch someone and/or throw up.

So, I'm doubling the amount of Omega fatty acids I take. I'm adding flaxseed oil to my diet. I'm looking for eye drops with hyaluronic acid in them (so far, it appears that Blink drops are the only ones), and checking out a variety of options.

One product I've seen mentioned is BioTears, capsules that provide the nutritional basis for our natural tears. Have any of you tried this product? If so, what did you think?

Have you tried anything else to treat dry eyes? I'd love to hear from you.

Meanwhile, BLINK!

I just read an interesting study that indicates that core body temperature might play a vital role in sleep. The study, done by the University of South Australia, shows that the body needs to drop its core temperature for sleep to occur naturally. The drop in the body’s core heat brings on increased feelings of tiredness in normal, healthy adults.

If the core temperature stays high, however, people have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, the study shows.

There’s more about this in the University of South Australia article "Getting to the Core of Insomnia", but if you’re having trouble sleeping, you might try opening a window, turning the thermostat down, wearing lighter bedclothes, or turning on a fan. And maybe instead of warm milk, you might try drinking a glass of iced lemon balm tea before bedtime.

I do know that for years now I haven’t been able to sleep in a warm room, and have trouble sleeping if I can’t open at least one window. Having a dog and cat doing their best to sleep on top of me doesn’t particularly help with the staying-cold part of the program. But I’m completely willing to test this thesis.

Since various studies put the number of Americans who have trouble sleeping at 25 to 50 percent of the population, this is an issue a lot of us have to cope with. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the answer, after all, is … “Chill!”

A few weeks ago I was involved in a serious car wreck when a kid in a truck tried to make it through an intersection and I plowed into him at 50 mph. The seatbelt and airbags saved my life, though my little car gave up the ghost, and I’m grateful to be alive. However, the same technology that saved me also did quite a number on my chest, neck and shoulders, so the past month or so has been a very full program of doctors’ visits, physical therapy and plant medicines.

In the emergency room I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest and I knew without a doubt that, at the very least, I was going to be dealing with some bruises and strains. I happened to have a bottle of arnica tablets (Boiron homeopathy) in my purse. So while I waited for the county sheriff’s deputy to finish filling out his paperwork, I took the first of what ended up being many doses of arnica.

For a few days I was too sore to even contemplate applying lotion to my skin, but eventually the worst of the bruising subsided and I started slathering on the arnica, capsaicin and ginger ointments. I ended up taking a muscle relaxer every night because it was the only way I could sleep. I was happy for that particular pharmaceutical at that particular time, but I hate taking stuff that makes me sleepy in the morning, so as soon as possible, I switched to my favorite Deep Sleep herbal tincture. I’m now taking Devil’s Claw for inflammation, and a handful of essential fatty acid capsules and Vitamin D3 to help with healing.

I’ve had ultrasound, trigger-point therapy and massage. I’m still worried by some stiffness in my neck, but I am so completely grateful for the multiple approaches that have supported my body in getting itself back on track. For the first few weeks after the wreck, I was frightened I would never feel better or even completely well again. But for the past several days I actually haven’t felt like I got hit by a truck, so I think I’m on the Royal Road to Recovery.

If anyone has other suggestions for dealing with the long-term effects of a trauma like this, I’d love to hear from you. (No legal advice, please. I actually have that covered.)