A food program that worked for me!

In 2008, I lost 16 pounds in 6 weeks and kept it off until I got pregnant. Today, someone who met in last in 2008, asked me (like many others who have in the last few years) – How did you do it?

So, here goes.

No, I did not starve myself. I admit that the first week was hard, but completely worth it.

My first rule was self-control. The secret, small portions. And the second rule – Keep trying, don’t give up.  It’s all about telling yourself how sexy you would actually look if you were to wear a bikini on the beach this Summer!

These are my suggestions:

1. First Week: Go on a fruit detox for the first three days. Eat all the fun fruits you want. The latter part of the week, continue a fruit diet, but add to it pulses (Indian pulses, Ethiopian pulses..). This is the hardest week. Forget about eating outside. Try and pack your own lunch to work, and give yourself a treat at the end of this week – How about some cereal and milk?

2. Second-Third-Fourth Weeks: Eat 4-5 times a day. Strive to have at least 3-4 servings of fruits and vegetables. Replace breakfast with watermelon or even a mango (130 calories). For lunch, stick to cooked pulses, with some greens. For dinner, replace a few meals with cereal, or have some low-sodium, low-fat soup with veggies, maybe some spinach soups. Try to get iron, calcium and protein in your diet. A walnut (has Omega), pistas, almonds, cashews once in a while is a good thing. Do not eat out more than twice a week, and even here, don’t have food that is oily or fatty (for example, avoid Chinese noodles, coconut milk or creamy gravies)

3. Fifth and Sixth Weeks: By now, its easy. Maintain the same diet. Maybe, split a tiny piece of brownie and have a spoon of icecream…Eat out no more than twice a week…Slowly add the restricted items in tiny quantities.

I did not exercise as much as I should have, but I still lost the weight. In the first few weeks, I played a round of tennis, went bowling once, took salsa lessons, and brisk walked for 20 minutes. In other words, kept active. In the last three weeks, I did not do much except light work-outs at home and 20 minutes of brisk walking during week-days.

Things that I completely cut down on in the first three weeks and slowly started including back in my diet were:
1. Pasta (started whole wheat pasta after 4 weeks)
2. Rice (started boiled rice after 4 weeks)
3. Oil (little oil after two weeks)
4. Sugar (still trying to stay away from sugar)
5. Cheese (fat free cheese shavings, few slices of pizza has light cheese on it in 3rd week)
6. Bread (started whole wheat bread after three weeks)

I am vegetarian and do not have any meat. Perhaps, that would be different for many of you. A change in diet however, often boosts energy levels.

It’s been a couple years since the baby, so my plan is to get back to this program soon and shed all my fat off again….and hopefully keep it off!

Happy Losing!

Psst. BTW, if any of my NYC-NJ readers want to lose weight, my way or any other way, and would like some help, visit Cook Aunty – Customized and affordable eat-at-home meal plans always work!

My little Bavarian food exploration!

Fair warning: I am no expert. I am just an interested individual, curious about cuisines. And, this is a fresh take on a cuisine that I thought I would never eat.

One of the best things about traveling is experiencing the food. When it came to Germany however, the thought of not finding anything to eat was most concerning. Don’t let that surprise you – It’s because I am picky vegetarian – and because I was told that all that Germans eat are meat and potatoes. Dull and boring? So wrong. So-so wrong.

Germans definitely love their meat and potatoes, but there is so much more to that cuisine than that. And, there are so many other regional and multi-cultural influences that even those who do not really like meat and potatoes would do just fine. To top that, restaurants accomodate dietary restrictions, servers speak English and provide English menus.

On my recent road trip to South-West Germany with my better half and 2.5 year old toddler, I quickly realized I was not going to need my mac-n-cheese/pasta packs and my traditional ‘theplas’ (We don’t often admit but but first-generation picky-vegetarian Indian-Gujaratis don’t really travel much without them!) that I had carried all the way from NYC. Most of the cities we visited offered salad options and pizzas. Little pizza parlors had accompanying fresh produce sections where one could pick up fruits and easy-to-nibble vegetables.

Much to my surprise and contrary to what I had read before traveling to Germany, the bigger cities had not only Italian and French restaurants, but also Turkish/Mediterranean kebob houses; and Thai, North and South Indian and Mexican food options.

Their open-air food markets are also a delight! The main food market in Munich dated back to 1950’s, was clean and well-preserved with beer and (huge!) pretzels on the premises – and tons of fresh food! Sellers were eager to offer samples of olives, cheese and fruits.

There were several stalls with fresh produce – clearly a vegetarian’s paradise along with meat options…

Austrian wines were also available for purchase on site!

Truth be told, the stereotypes are true: Traditionally, German food specialties include sausage, bread, potatoes and cabbage/sauerkraut. And you get to wash it all down with several big glasses of dark beer. Lucky are those who genuinely like beer. You will have a blast at a beer garden such as the famous Hofbräuhaus.

But, I bet you didn’t know – yogurt-like curd cheese, asparagus, mushrooms and pumpkin are very much a part of their diet!

As also expected, German food is much influenced by the cuisine of the neighboring countries – There are French influences (goose liver, hot black pudding, coq au vin, snail soup, crepes), Swiss influences ( veal), and Italian influences (egg-based noodles and stuffed meat ravioli).

To experience some real Bavarian food in Munich, we went to a popular local restaurant called Fraunhofer Wirtshaus – that dated back all the way to 1874. Just as Birge Amondson from About.com Guide described it, this restaurant had a cozy and down-to-earth atmosphere and drew in an interesting mix of people, from locals and tourists, to students, and actors from the adjacent theater.

We were greeted by a friendly, young, English-speaking server who seemed extremely accommodating. The food – both meat and vegetarian options were plenty.

Clearly, Germans like their red meat. They also probably eat every part of the pig, and roast knuckle, sausage, tongue, ribs and belly are common delicacies.  They also treat the meat in different ways – grilled, roast, boiled and braised etc! And just like the humongous sizes of beer and pretzels, the portion sizes in most restaurants are fairly decent.

Here’s what a Bavarian meal could look like:  Roast Pork, Potato Dumpling and a Cabbage Salad…and beer.

While food varies widely across regions of Germany, I took a photo of the menu that the restaurant I visited had.

First impressions –

– The stereotypes are true. Meat and potatoes!

– Cabbage, cabbage everywhere: White or red cabbage, sauteed into a ‘salad-side’ preparation

– Big on bread: Breaded dumplings, bread hors oeuvres, black and white bread, and bread on the table!

– Potatoes: Baked, mashed, in salads, as sides, and as dumplings

But look at some of the other options – Stuffed peppers, creamed mushrooms, beans, egg salad and other salads, fruits..and what you don’t see on the menu but is served – spaghetti in tomato sauce! Even my vegetarian toddler didn’t go hungry!

And desserts!  Germans eat their sweets with their coffee, and not so much after meals – but the desserts are pretty darn good – cookies, cakes and fruit tarts!

Finally, no German food experience is complete without the famous Black Forest Cake! We drove half-way around the Black Forest to look for the authentic cake…and finally found it in a quaint and absolutely delightful town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Baden Wurttemberg….that we know we just might visit again.

Until next time, reader. Ciao.

Pairing wine with food: Should you care?

Do you pair your food to your wine? Or do you pair your wine to your food? Do you think food and wine needs to be paired at all?

This can be an interesting discussion. In the last two weeks, as part of a consulting project, I have been talking to select respondents about wine. While some like to pair their foods with wine, others dont care at all! Some choose their wine based on what they are eating that night and others just choose the wine they like, irrespective of what they eat.

But, should you care? Well, you dont have to. Some of us get headaches with particular wines – some of us are creatures of habit and want to stick to just one type of wine that we are familiar with and we like. Most connoisseurs however, like to pair food and wine together, so this article is for those aspiring connoisseurs who do care and who may be interested in learning a little bit more about pairings.

There are so many websites now that talk about wine and food pairings. Some like the Food and Wine Pairing website make it so easy to pair – You choose the food (beef, chicken, lamb, fish, pork etc) and the website tells you what wines to choose. Similarly, if you want to choose a wine instead, it describes the wine (grape, texture, flavors), what to pair it with and what to avoid. Brilliant, isn’t it?

Lisa Shea’s wine blog is also a fun read, where she talks about cheese as well as food pairings with wine. Stores such as Pairings in Winchester, MA focus on both food and wine, and a lot of their in-store wine tasting sessions offer wine with food pairings – Are there any places in the NYC-NJ area that do that? I would love to know!

UK food and drink writer, Fiona Beckett who is a wine columnist for The Guardian and author of 22 books on wine and food, organizes special workshops on pairing. Musings on the Vine discusses the ‘sense of taste’ (graphics et al, check their webpage) and rules for matching wine and food. Last Friday’s Wall Street Journal article, ‘Uncorking the City’ by Letti Teague mentioned two NYC spots – La Pizza Fresca that pairs Gaya Barbararesco with pizza; and Gramercy Tavern that  matches wine with Chef Anthony’s food pairings – as two hot blocks for wine drinkers.

As expected, Food and Wine magazine is also a great resource for food and wine pairings. Author Ray Isle gives some easy-to-read and simple-to-follow information on pairings. Most times, for a quick glance-through, the information you see below is all we are looking for, so I just copy-pasted the most relevant information from the article. But, for the readers who really want to explore – ….and truly, drinking and appreciating wine is a journey by itself – ….click on his name to get to the actual posting on the Food and Wine website.

Whites

• CHAMPAGNE IS PERFECT WITH ANYTHING SALTY
• SAUVIGNON BLANC GOES WITH TART DRESSINGS AND SAUCES
• GRÜNER VELTLINER – WHEN A DISH HAS LOTS OF FRESH HERBS
• PINOT GRIGIO PAIRS WITH LIGHT FISH DISHES
• CHARDONNAY FOR FATTY FISH OR FISH IN A RICH SAUCE
• OFF-DRY RIESLING PAIRS WITH SWEET & SPICY DISHES
• MOSCATO D’ASTI LOVES FRUIT DESSERTS

Rosé Wines

• ROSÉ CHAMPAGNE IS GREAT WITH DINNER, NOT JUST HORS D’OEUVRES
• DRY ROSÉ IS FOR RICH, CHEESY DISHES

Reds

• PINOT NOIR IS GREAT FOR DISHES WITH EARTHY FLAVORS
• OLD WORLD WINES AND OLD WORLD DISHES ARE INTRINSICALLY GOOD TOGETHER
• MALBEC WON’T BE OVERSHADOWED BY SWEET-SPICY BARBECUE SAUCES
• ZINFANDEL FOR PÂTÉS, MOUSSES AND TERRINES
• CABERNET SAUVIGNON IS FABULOUS WITH JUICY RED MEAT
• SYRAH MATCHES WITH HIGHLY SPICED DISHES

Finally, this chart from Savory.tv seems like a good, clean, classification for reference:

Buck at a time: Eat for a good cause!

Yesterday, we went to Mesob, my favorite Ethiopian restaurant in Montclair, NJ. The food at Mesob is what inspired me to write this Examiner.com article, Teff Grain: I kid you not!  last year. (They won the National Restaurant Association Faces of Diversity Award 2011 – it’s a must-go-to restaurant if you havent been!)

When in Montclair, I saw banners of Montclair‘s restaurant week event which starts March 20 for a couple weeks. I think Montclair is the right place to have such an event. Every time I visit this NJ town, I see a couple new restaurants pop up! This time, I saw a new tapas place (yes, the fantastic tea store that sells the free-trade tea is gone) and a new trinidadian place (I have yet to try trinidadian food!) and a new peruvian place!

Here are the details on Montclair’s restaurant week…The list of participating restaurants is definitely inviting – not to mention, the list of restaurants is growing…Foodies – check it out! It’s for a good cause too…

 

TASTE OF MONTCLAIR

Over the last two years, Restaurant Week has raised almost $15,000 for  Montclair’s three largest food charities: the Human Needs Food Pantry, Toni’s  Kitchen and the Salvation Army Feeding Program. The event helps the needy and celebrates Montclair’s greatest resources – it’s terrific restaurants. The event’s financial success is the result of a dedicated volunteer committee and the financial support of sponsors who’s donations pay for the operating costs of the event and the diners who enjoy Montclair’s wonderful food. From March 20th – April 1st, the participating restaurants will offer special pre fixe menu’s for $31, or less. One dollar from each meal will be donated to the three food charities. All proceeds from The Taste will go to local charities as designated by the Montclair Rotary Foundation.