I’ve been quiet lately because I’ve been catching up on my reading. I’ve got 6 cookbooks at my bedside table right now and only 2 of them are likely candidates. Even a book titled “What to Eat When You Can’t Eat Anything” is filled with wheat-egg-dairy recipes. They should have just called the book “Eat Organic” since that seems to be the main advice.

I’ve also been getting some news on food allergies delivered to my e-mail. This one’s depressing:

Nurse shortage at schools

and a little scary. I’m glad I don’t have this problem, but what about the millions of kids that are in school? The good thing is that nurses, from what I hear, are in high demand once again. Ten years ago our nurse friends in St. Louis were lamenting the fact that they were getting laid off from hospitals left and right, senior nurses were being asked to work double and triple shifts, take on more responsibilities than they could really handle, etc. These days we meet nurses coming in to the US just to meet the demand.

I’ve also been reading up on air quality and indoor air pollution. When we were in Texas in 1998 and considering our next move, we made up a chart of the cities that were on our list, including their air quality, water quality, crime rate, etc. How *could* we have missed this vital piece of information this time around? Ohio is one of the worst states in terms of air quality. You guys that live in the coastal regions are getting much better air — be thankful:D. Because moving out to Antarctica (where air quality is best) is out of the question for us, we have to do what we can here without taxing our already weakened lungs (genetics and all that). So right now I’m looking into getting an air purifier. I’ve got a couple of brands in mind but reviews have been mixed, and the fact that some purifiers release ozone as well is confusing me. I talked to my cousin over the weekend — she’s an environmental engineer — and she said that most states, including Ohio, are actually doing the best they can, but you can only do so much. Her main advice is for our family to avoid going outdoors and exercising/working out during the hours when air quality is at its worst — i.e., rush hour. So that means walking and biking around with Dad after he gets home from work is not advisable. We’ll also have to schedule our nature walks, now that the weather is glorious, at odd times during the day. Sigh…. the tradeoffs of living in an industrialized nation…. but I shouldn’t complain. We are richly blest.

This post doesn’t have much to do about food, I know, but I’ve always taken a holistic approach to taking care of my family’s bodies — food is just one way. I do have a few recipes that I’ve tried, and the kids successfully stayed away from all things wheat-dairy-eggs for 3 weeks, until we went to St. Louis over the weekend and attended a couple of birthday celebrations:). Right now they’re a bit stuffed-up, but hopefully nothing serious. We are back to strict diets, as their request 4 weeks from now is lasagne al horno. I’m thinking of making it with rice sheets, as well as buffalo mozzarella (which some people with dairy allergies can tolerate).

Here’s what Amy Wellborn has got to say.

And Father Thomas Williams.

From Mary Kochan at Catholic Exchange.

And from Jimmy Akin.

I will freely admit to not knowing much about gnosticism, except what I read at New Adventbut I do believe that God inspired the hagiographers who wrote the Holy Bible as His instruments, and since I believe that, I also believe that God would not have “forgotten” to put anything into the Bible that He meant to put in it. The books of the NT were written 50-100 years after Jesus’ death. It wasn’t just “one guy” deciding what went into the Holy Bible, it was a very involved process that I won’t even attempt to describe here, since I’m not an expert. My favorite explanation is in the introductory pages of the Navarre Bible.

I am beyond excited. I am jumping up and down and can’t keep still!!! My fellow homeschooling moms have started their own food blogs and I just can’t contain myself. This is a day I’ve been praying for for the longest time. These are the gals who have through the years, taught me, and in the process, taught my kids, about life, learning and God. I haven’t met many of them in person, but I see them as the sisters I never had growing up. It’s an understatement to say I respect and admire these ladies, and I hope you’ll visit their blogs and see what they have to say about food, among other things. I can almost guarantee they will bless your lives, as they have mine.

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Pope’s Easter Vigil Homily: “I Live, But I Am No Longer I”
Benedict XVI’s Easter Message: “Jesus Is Risen, and He Gives Us Peace”
Hints for Happy Marriages/Interview With Father Michael Ryan, Philosophy Dean

Oftentimes I worry about what people think, and how they view me.
Though I have said many times that I don’t care what others think, deep down, I do.
These are the moments when I forget that my singular focus should be the Lord
And that I should work to please Him, not myself, not others.
A long as I keep my eyes on doing what’s pleasing to the Lord
Then I have no need to despair of being righteous in the sight of the world
My only direction should be to love Him
With all my mind, my soul, my body, my heart, my strength.
In Him alone should I place my confidence
Because He won’t (never has) let me down.

He is my refuge in all things.
He protects me and guides me.
And if following Him means going against the grain,
Then so be it.

So yesterday I was preparing fishballs for a Chinese recipe post at Noodles and Rice, and I thought, this is easy, I’ll just use egg substitute for the egg white required and that will be that. Nope! The fishballs came apart as it was being cooked in the water, and so I kept adding other stuff to the fish mixture (more cornstarch, some oil, etc.) and though I could form the balls quite easily in my moist hands, they still kept on falling apart once they touched the cooking liquid. I tried to recall the various quenelle-type recipes I’ve made. A quenelle is just a fancy French name for forcemeat, which is basically ground up stuff (fish, meat, etc.) held together by some sort of binder (bread crumbs, egg, flour, etc.) and seasoned, then formed into patties, balls, egg-shaped ovals, etc. and cooked gently in a poaching liquid. I couldn’t go back to Julia Child’s recipe which requires eggs and cream. Even the bolinhos which was a hit last month is now out of the question — that one worked because the balls were fried, so it didn’t matter that they were a bit scraggly in places, not the result I’m looking for here.

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