It's Been A While

It's been a while but I'm back!  Last year brought many challenges with my husband suffering a critical medical event which has ended in his now living in a foster home.  I can't believe he has been there for a year now.

I am really looking forward to jumping back in, rolling up my sleeves and blogging more from the beautiful and bountiful Pacific Northwest.

Blueberries and raspberries are beautiful this year.. My granddaughter Sam and I picked some awesome ones for a 4th of July B-B-Q at my son's house.

She and I have also discovered Cake Pops......

Portland Farmers Market

Yay! Market Returns for Spring!
Portland Farmers Market @ PSU Saturdays will return March 21st just in time for the Spring Equinox! Join us between 8:30 and 2:00 to welcome the farmers back to the city.

I can't wait!

Peanut Butter Recall

I have posted a link to see the products affected by the peanut butter salmonella recall:

Please take a moment to visit the link and check your cupboards...

See list of products

Human Breast Milk in Ice Cream?

Well, like a lot of ideas, it sounds great on the surface (maybe), but did PETA really think this out? Sure, breast milk is great for human infants, and PETA is worried about the treatment of cows in extracting THEIR milk, but did PETA really think this through? There is a Swiss restaurant who is, or rather was until they were asked to stop, paying mothers for their breast milk to use in their cooking.

It is a well known fact that things pass through milk into the infant. Many toxins that the mother takes in ends up in the breast. These levels of toxins, by the way, are concentrated by the time they are expelled in the breast milk.

So my question is: Are these mother donors screened for the quality of their diet, or are we being exposed to an accumulation of carcinogens that they have ingested?

Nice idea, but do your homework!

I am Blessed to Live in Oregon

I took a very spontaneous trip to the coast over the weekend. I decided to drive down Route 6 and went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. I picked up some varieties of cheese you can't find in stores and cheese curds (squeaky cheese). Then I continued up the coast to Nehalem Bay Winery and picked up a few bottles of their award winning varietals. I ended up in Seaside and had a delicious late lunch at Doogers and finished up the day with a stop in the candy shop buying some nostalgic candy from my youth.

Life is good!
Nancy

Redland Blueberries

What a wonderful day to pick blueberries in Oregon. I headed out to Redland, driving the Barlow Trail route through Carver and spent an hour in this gorgeous blueberry field. The bushes abounded with big, plump, flavorful berries. The weather was perfect in the mid 70's and sunny. The experience is always truly memorable, eliminating the middleman, and going to the source for the bounty. No barcodes and checkouts, just pure bliss, harvesting the berries, putting them in a pail, weighing them, paying with cash and heading home where many delicious culinary creations await.

Multnomah County (Oregon) Fast Food Menu Disclosure

When I first heard of this I got excited, but I am also concerned that it is a short-sighted effort to make a quasi attempt to appease the health conscious.

The menu board cannot possibly address many of the critical components to good nutrition. Simply listing calories and amount of fats is not enough.

There are so many other potentially hazardous ingredients that go into fast food.

I eat locally grown, natural and organic foods. I eat grass finished beef and buffalo. I eat wild caught Alaskan fish and supplement with molecularly distilled fish oil.

I rarely shop chain grocery stores and do most of my shopping at Farmers Markets and Natural food stores and co-ops.

I don't worry about salmonella outbreaks because I know where and how my tomatoes and jalapenos and spinach are grown.

It's not FATS that cause havoc, it's the type of fats and the balance of the fats. It's not the carbs that cause havoc, but the types of carbs.

Fast foods are fast foods...whether you eat a 1200 calorie mondo cheeseburger or a 450 calorie junior mondo cheeseburger, it is still a saturated fat laden, sodium infused dietary time bomb, and coke or diet coke... well, they both have high phosphate levels and leach calcium out of your bones, and one has potentially hazardous fake sweeteners as well.

It may be a step in the right direction, but I hope it doesn't give the fast food feasters a false sense of security. America hasn't got it right yet.