Thursday, January 20, 2011

Spicing Up The Foods I Cook



The diet I am is attempting to follow centers itself around the notion of not eating gluten or dairy. Pretty simple, right? Not really. If you don't believe me try to go to any local or chain grocery store and wander the aisles reading the ingredient lists.

I end up eating a lot of brown rice, not because I like it or think it's healthier than other foods, but because of what it don't have. It don't have gluten. The dairy products don't have to be included, but the ingredients I use to create a one-pot meal are not that easy to find.

That predicament puts me in the market for using spices to give my cooking some interesting tastes, but it's a haphazardous kind of cookery that ain't exactly charming. Like putting red curry powder in the oatmeal I fix for myself most mornings. It's an interesting taste to add to beef stew, but oatmeal?

All I can say is, "Now I know." If some idiosyncratic wannabe chef comes along and suggests that I can really improve my oatmeal by including curry powder in it for breakfast, I can feel easy about garnering the highly practiced, crude impertinence designed to tell that dumb ass to go to hell.

Oatmeal is the sort of neutral taste I'm looking for in order to develop some sensory feel for how the more common spices affect the taste of a meal. Normally, I used ground cinnamon and some raisins to give the oatmeal a distinct flavor. Any variation in that taste is immediately distinctive, but like including curry, not enticing.

I used to put some milk or half and half in the oatmeal along with a generous helping of granulated, refined sugar. Because I'm testing out what going non-dairy might do for me or against me I'm using soy milk instead, but kept part of the refined sugar and use Splenda for added sweetness. I'm cautious about how much sugar I use, but I don't see that as the problem.

Strengthening my immune system seems to be a mistake. My immune system has turned against me, and is incrementally killing me softly with time. I take very powerful prescription drugs to weaken my immune system's attack on my continuing life, and then I take vitamins and supplements to strengthen it? What's wrong with this picture?

I don't know if I'll ever be able to distinguish one curry flavor from another. Curry appears to be mixed from different herbs and spices in different neighborhoods, but there seems to be something they all hold in common that makes them recognizable as curry.

If I were to come into chunky windfall like winning the lottery I would probably spend some time going around to the various places that specialize in cooking with curry to explore just how far one can go with it. I certainly think curry was originally designed as medicine, and then made to taste good in order to get it down.

If I did chase ofter the origin of this taste it would be in addition to coffee and wine. Those three foods would make up any decision I made for travel. Of course, if I were filthy rich I might decide that instead of traveling to find these things I might have them brought to me instead.

Memory foam has become interesting to me. It never has been exactly clear to me what it's advantages are. I might be wrong but I think it is advertised as being the stuff NASA used for astronauts in some way. I think it's the same type of foam as that, but I could be wrong.

I think my brother and sister-in-law paid a hefty price for their bed/mattress that is like that. I just figured I'd never be able to afford something like that, but if it helped me sleep more comfortably in some manner I'd like it very much.

For less than a hundred bucks I bought a mattress cover made of memory foam. The egg crate type of foam mattress cover I was using was completely worn out and was taking away from my comfort rather than adding to it. I needed something. I decided to spring for a two and a half inch thick memory foam mattress topper.

Now I'm beginning to understand why this foam is called memory foam. It remembers it's original shape, and when I roll over to a different position on my bed the part of the mattress I've been occupying goes back to it's original shape pretty fast. I don't know how long it will do that. I've only had it on my bed for a few nights. So far, so good.