New Features!

Hold onto your hats, people! After two years of stasis, I've added some new features to the blog! You can now request an email notification of my new posts. If you click on the gadget to the right and enter your email address, after entering some gibberish to prove you are not a computer, you'll be set up to receive emails when I post. To quote Ina Garten "how great is that?"

When Is a Calorie Not a Calorie?

Here are a couple of shots of some of my seedlings! I am experimenting with a garden in a raised bed planter as well as some tomato grow bags and pots of herbs. I've had an herb garden for years, but gave up on growing tomatoes after a couple of unsuccessful attempts some years back.

This year, I'm newly motivated. I'm using raised beds to keep the rabbits out of the lettuce and herbs that they love. In a few weeks I'll try transplanting some of the tomato (and tomatillo!) seedlings outside in grow bags and add epazote, shiso, lemon balm and chervil to my already extensive herb garden. I've also got several types of lettuce going for the spring along with arugula and tatsoi. In

Just thought I'd share this tidbit from Cooking Light magazine: all calories are not equal. While cutting back on calories but eating only snack cakes will cause you to lose weight, as shown when a nutrition professor ate only snack cakes for two months and lost 27 pounds, new studies seem to show that the body burns calories from whole foods more efficiently than it does processed foods.

According to a study in Food & Nutrition Research, the rise in metabolism from the body digesting whole foods can account for 10% of the amount of calories burned a day by a typical person. Eating whole, unprocessed foods actually cause you to burn more energy - I love it!