Diary of the Guinea Pigs: Day One

As previously mentioned, in order to pay the remaining tuition for this semester it was decided that we would take part in a research study (like this past June so we could take a trip to Toronto) ... this one, however, is much larger, and longer, and requires some significant sacrifice. But pays a substantial amount of money.

It's a 26 day study, broken up into 13 day stretches, with two weeks in between. Of those 13 days, 11 days require living at the facility (which works out great because it is campus adjacent - no commute!). Leaving the facility is only allowed for work and school, and one of the weekends leaving is not allowed at all, and also the Friday and Saturday the following week. However, guests are welcome.

Now, to the point. Keeping a record of things, how we feel, what the day is like, etc. seems like a good exercise, and what better place to keep it than here. So, you get to go on this journey of what it's like to take part in a scientific study, and we get to do warm-up writing for all the upcoming papers now until December. Seems win-win.

Back to the study.
The thing they are measuring is carbon output, (and given the daily weigh-in, its relation to weight loss), so before each meal they "capture" our breath in a strange little bag made for capturing breath (it's totally the scientific name...). Then we eat, and it all has to be consumed within 30 minutes. Following that, breath is captured again 30 minutes after eating, and then an hour and 30 minutes after eating. This happens three times a day, at strict hours of the day. The weekend operates differently, but you'll read about that in updates.

They did the DEXA scan like they did for previous studies, and also 20-30 minute breath capture during pre-screening, the first to determine muscle/fat ratio, and the second to measure how much energy (calories) this body burns at a resting rate (laying completely still in a dark room after laying still in a dark room for 20 minutes prior to get the body into a true resting state). Based on the last study, and very little weight change, the calories this body needs just to pump the blood, complete respiratory function and all the other things a body does, is 1874 calories a day. [This body is a furnace, apparently]. They take that number and multiply it by some activity factor to determine how many calories you need to do things like go to work, think, etc.

The amount they came up with for this body in the last study was over 2400 calories a day to maintain weight. It seems like an utterly ridiculous number (way too high) and as we use the FatSecret app (a great app, by the way), we know that that's almost double our daily intake (which includes alcohol).
So they are packing our first three days of meal at a whopping 2400ish calories. It's a lot of damn food. Disgusting amount. Following this, which is the "balance day", they will decrease the calories by either 20%, or 40% - whichever that don't do will be during our next intake two week following the completion of this one, where it all happens all over again, with the same meals and everything.

So, here we go.

Day One:
Had to get up at 5:20 this morning in order to get to the facility and check in by 6:45 (the commute to this city is at least 40 minutes). Fasting started at midnight last night, which was no problem. Couldn't have any breakfast this morning OR coffee. That's right. No coffee. There will be no coffee for about 13 days (so far there has been no headache on day one, only sluggishness and an slight difficulty taking notes in the first class of the day). The only thing allowed for drinking is water (unlimited)...and the milk they put with breakfast and dinner (gag).
They affix an activity monitor on the arm, which is only allowed to be removed during showers, so they can monitor your sleeping and daytime body stats.

Had breakfast at the facility this morning at 7am. Breakfast for the next 13 days will be at 7am sharp. Lunch at noon. Dinner at 6pm, When we check in Wednesday night bedtimes will be at 10pm, and wake times at 6:30am.

Yeah. Bedtimes. The deal is that they take over the eating and sleeping portions of the life of the subject. As was mentioned. Sacrifice.

So, breakfast was okay food, but at least three times the calories and quantity of food we generally have for breakfast (small-medium apple, slice of sharp cheddar and coffee), and not too far from a breakfast we'd eat on the weekend, save the cereal and milk. Yogurt is served with every meal, it's apparently the control device. In any case, they add sugar and oil to the plain yogurt, which turns into a type of oil slick on the top...appetizing, hey? They will be changing the sugar between HFCS, beet sugar and cane sugar. It's plausible that they are testing how each different sugar effects carbon burned by the body. After doing some light research today it became clear that carbon is a big factor in weight loss, as in the body burns it and what you eat may or may not affect how much you burn. And therefore carbon output, like urine, sweat and...the other waste...are how the fat leaves the body. So, carbon output, and low carbon-output foods become important to weight loss.

You can almost hear a new line of diet foods being created, can't you?

Lunch was again literally three times as much food as we usually consume, very tasty but hard to get down in 30 minutes. Also, a selection of foods that we'd never eat for lunch, or at all really. Like a portion of a Hershey chocolate bar, and a giant turkey taco salad. Usually lunch is just spring lettuce mix, tomatoes, cottage cheese and a small bit of something like cranberries and almonds. By the time lunch was over the milk from breakfast hit full force. Lactose intolerance and all its glory.

Usually the day is punctuated with snacks (celery or snap peas between breakfast and lunch, and plain yogurt with berries, or pineapple between lunch and dinner). But now there's no snacks. So far it's not a problem because all of those frickin' calories just stick.

Dinner, 6pm on the dot. A pasta casserole dish. Ugh. Pasta isn't a normal part of our diet. It doesn't much of the same thing as lactose does once it hits the inside of this body. Not only is it a pasta dish. It's a GIANT amount. Oh, and more milk. A tiny carrot and spinach salad that would have been better without the dressing...but eating everything is required. Licking out the dishes is encouraged. Everything is measured down to the tenth of a gram.

Each meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner) is on a set rotation, so what was eaten today will be eaten again on Thursday, on Sunday, next Wednesday, and next Saturday. Oh joy.

After slogging through the last half of the pasta, and forcing down the yogurt, it is declared a day. There's only one more breath bag left for the day and then there's nothing left to do. Homework, maybe. But no drinking.

Yeah. NO ALCOHOL. Given that nightly drinks have been a very regular thing since moving back to the states three years ago (holy fuck, three years?!), it's going to be interesting to feel 14 days sober.
Fourteen days sober and caffeine free.
It sounds like hell.

The Countdown

Classes start in eleven days.
ELEVEN DAYS.

Meanwhile, painting "season" is coming to a close, there just won't be time (plus we'll have to deal with harvesting and preserving the garden!). Guess this means summer is coming to a close. <sad face>

{Meanwhile, check out the new website and domain for paintings at: www.graphicallyfrank.com}

The anticipation and anxiety have been churning up madness, and we've been doing the best balancing act possible. It feels like this brain is being crushed by the skull, all too often it feels a struggle to grasp a single line of thought and pull it out of the cloud. With only two semesters left before graduation it's the final countdown. The class load is heavier, the topics more focused...but for the forensic science class (yay!) and the class related to problems in political science. By the looks of the books for the POLSCI class, the problem being tackled this semester in the environment and energy in political policy. So...get ready to read a bunch of crap about that.

The mix of classes is really exciting this semester, and there are 12 books to plow through - some really interesting ones, like Smarter Than You Think by Clive Thompson, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr, Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture: Why Media is Not the Answer by Karen Sternheimer, and Pop Culture Freaks: Identity, Mass Media, and Society by Dustin Kidd (don't worry, those links take you to Goodreads, not Amazon).

Oh, and there's another really cool nutritional study coming up that we'll be taking part in, which requires strict diet (set and provided by the scientists), heavy monitoring and staying at the facility (while still allowing for work and classes) twice, for eleven days at a time. Why would we do that, you ask?! It's going to cover just about all the remaining tuition costs for Fall semester, so, really...it's just logical. Plus it'll be a savings on
a) gas ($90 dollars for each eleven day stay)
b) groceries
c) alcohol
d) time (80+ minutes of travel a day).
It would almost be stupid not to do it. It would be. It would be totally stupid to pass it up just because of the inconvenience of not sleeping at home (and having all meals and liquids dictated by strangers).
But, we can have visitors. :-)

It feels like the summer went too fast and we didn't do enough writing. It's unfortunate because there were a lot of events some of us would have liked to cover, if only to keep our writing in check, because it feels like this semester is going to be heavy in essay writing, since there is only ONE actual textbook for one of the six classes, the others are destined to be springboards to further research and writing. Having not written all summer, suddenly it's hard to remember how to write anything, let alone in the style of essay, despite having written a stack of them last semester.
Surely just the most average of the anxiety creeping into the space between skull and skin.

So, eleven days and our schedule changes again (schedules are sort of a linchpin in our mental health)...we'll stay positive until proven otherwise.

As always, thanks for reading even though you probably had something better to do.

Guinea Pigs

Tonight is the second Thursday in a row we're taking part in a medical-related food consumption study.

We got accepted to the program about a month ago after seeing a sign on campus and applying.
The draw was the subject (it's food/health related) and the money.
Mostly, the money.
It pays half of the amount we make at work in a month; it's basically paying for the trip to Toronto next week (a combination Tweetup/anniversary celebration/summer vacation trip). Couldn't really pass it up.

After the initial meet which involves a blood draw after 12 hours of fasting, and a second two hour meeting (following another 12 hour fasting) which measures body composition (how much fat versus muscle your body is made up of) using a dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) machine and then a test to determine RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate), which is basically the base amount of calories your body needs to function. That involves putting a big space-helmet-like hood over your head for about 45 minutes while you lay very still and it collects your exhaled breath and analyses it.
It's kinda weird.

It's all very interesting to someone who loves learning new things. Hopefully they release both of the results after the study is over. That kind of information would be really empowering to someone with a lifetime of battling weight issues.

The study requires the subject to not be on medication (we're four years clean this month!), not be on birth control (no problem there!), and be free of health conditions (such as high blood pressure and low blood sugar/diabetes) - on that front we're as healthy as a horse.

The study also includes staying three separate nights at their facility, at least a week apart. Before each stay the test subject (that's us!) is required to record everything consumed for the three days prior. EVERYTHING. All foods and coffee, water, alcohol too. It gets recorded using a program and then it spits out detailed calorie information for the day. It's quit interesting, not really being too much of a calorie counter when it comes to a whole day of eating, only individual items and recipes, (we were studying human nutritional science at one point in time) to find out how few calories, on average, we actually consume in a day. Also interesting, it became apparent that 25-30% of calories a day is from alcohol. That's not very good.

1200 calories of food.

Once checked into the facility they provide a meal. It's the same menu and amount every time (it's also three times the calories we generally consume for dinner, so we don't finish it all and some of it we don't even eat) and has to be consumed by 7 pm. After 7 pm there is no food aloud, only water.

The room.

Each room is private, with a TV, a bed (that's more like a flat rock with bedding, sadly) and a shared bathroom (but there's never a full house). There's a pool table, and a big commons area with big comfy couches and a large television with cable - plus free wireless (which is terribly slow and glitchy). But it's comfortable, and has air conditioning (which we don't have at home). We don't have to cook, or clean, or talk to anybody...just hang out. It's kind of like a mini vacation.

Fashionable.

Six am starts the day, with a half an hour for showering and...stuff...
Then they insert the arterial catheter into the inner elbow and there it stays for over four hours while they periodically draw blood following the consumption of breakfast (which is sickly sweet strawberry Greek yogurt). They leave us in a small room with a monitor, which provides questions after each blood draw, and provide water as much as requested (though however much water you drink during the first of the three sessions is how much you'll be allowed the final two sessions).
Other than that it's a good time to catch up on reading, or watching Netflix - last week we watched 'Butter' and 'The Best and the Brightest' (both hilarious movies, by the way).

At about 11:30 am they take out the catheter and bring lunch and place it on a scale that looks like a giant mouse pad so they measure how much you eat, and likely how fast you eat it. They say to eat as much as you like until full/satisfied. It's a GIANT glass casserole dish, and it's chicken (clearly canned), cream of mushroom soup (clearly from a can), and egg noodles with some hint of some sort of cheese product (could be Velveeta?). It's atrocious [but the first few bites are delicious if hungry enough]...and unlike dinner where everything is labeled with the calorie content, this is just screaming death into a calorie abyss (egg noodles are severely high in calories, not to mention cream of mushroom soup...and whatever that cheese is).

After that they send you home. This is where the request for coffee comes in, because until then it's not allowed.

It might sound weird to do such a thing like take part in medical-related studies, but since we're not allowed to donate blood, or take part in medication testing (which, is probably for the better), this is an easy and interesting way to earn some extra cash through the summer. It's been a good learning experience. After tonight we have one more stay to go before the big "pay out".

If you ever need some extra cash, search local government and private organizations that do various types of studies and check out if they're "hiring" guinea pigs. You never know what you might learn.

Cooking With Frank: Pulled Pork, Chipotle and Chèvre Lasagna

Who doesn't love pulled pork. In this household new pulled pork recipes are created every few months (we're saving them for "a rainy day"), but after awhile pulled pork on a bun (or baked potato) can get sort of ho-hum.

Additionally, in this household, pasta is something that is rare. Very rare. It's not a Frankie friend. But James loves pasta, so sometimes he has to be indulged. We figured what better time to indulge him than when Jesse (@cool_jesse) comes for his annual summer visit (then there's less that we "have" to eat).

This recipe is in three parts, like a play. It's really easy, and mostly 'set in and forget it' in nature. You can start it today and make it tomorrow.

Please note: The sodium content is if

you use store bought canned tomatoes (2,254 g).

The other major sodium source is from the pork (9,800 g).

[calculated with myfitnesspal recipe calculator]

The recipe is relatively healthy compared to other more traditional lasagnas, but with great flavors like pulled pork, spicy chipotle and goat cheese...it seems so much more naughty.

• It's sweetened with carrots instead of processed sugar.
• If you use home canned tomatoes the sodium can be better controlled than if the tomatoes are store bought.
• You can add whatever vegetables you want to make it super packed with vitamins and nutrients - if you want to "trick" your family and friends into eating healthier (peas, fresh peppers, leeks, asparagus, celery...since it just gets cooked and then blended up, the options are vast).

Plus, goat cheese is higher in protein, vitamins A and D and low in carbohydrates compared to part skim milk ricotta [but higher in calories, fat and sodium. More on goat cheese vs. part skim milk ricotta >>> SkipThePie.org Nutrition Search Engine]

Pulled Pork, Chipotle and Chèvre Lasagna
Serves 8-10 (at 9 servings the serving size is 3"x 4")

What You'll Need:
9 x 13 glass pan
crock pot
bender or immersion blender
aluminum foil.



FIRST: The Pork
1.5-2 pounds Pork butt or pork shoulder (you can use tenderloin, but the meat will be a bit chewier)
2 cups Carrot, rough chopped
1 quart Tomatoes, stewed
1 quart Water
1/2 Onion, Yellow, rough chopped
1/2 Onion, Red, rough chopped
3/4 cup Red Wine
1/4 cup Red wine vinegar
3 Tbsp Marsala cooking wine
2 Tbsp Worcestershire
Salt, to taste (but at least 1 tsp*)
Pepper, fresh ground, to taste

Combine all ingredients in a crock pot on high and cook for at least 12 hours. If part of the cooking includes overnight turn the crock pot on low, just to be safe.
DO NOT BREAK UP THE PORK INTO SMALL PIECES.

After about 12 hours, remove the pork and set aside.
Puree the sauce mixture with a blender (but be careful, leave plenty of space in the blender, or you'll have a hot mess) or an immersion blender.
In a separate bowl or container, shred the pork into small pieces. Set aside.

*Notes:
- rough chop = large chunks
- if you are using canned tomatoes from the store, use less salt.

SECOND: The Red Sauce
All reserved sauce from the pulled pork [there should be at least 9-10 cups, or 72-80 oz]
2 Chipotle peppers in adobe sauce, removed from sauce and chopped*
1 tsp of the adobe sauce from the can*

Add the chopped chipotle peppers and adobe sauce to the reserved sauce. Blend with immersion blender. Set Aside.

*Notes:
This is a very spicy (hot) product. Use sparingly if you, your family, or your guest can't handle spicy food.

THIRD: The White Sauce
170-200 grams Chèvre  (goat cheese) [about 1 1/2 cups]
1/2 cup Half & Half
1 medium clove garlic, minced
Salt, to taste (keep in mind the saltiness of the cheese)
Pepper, to taste

Blend together with blender or immersion blender. Set Aside.

FINALLY: The Assembly
1 package lasagna noodles [you'll only need 12 of them]. DO NOT COOK BEFOREHAND
Marjoram, fresh, chiffonade
6 oz Mozzarella cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 350° F

Top of bottom layer

Assemble lasagna:
Place 3 cups of red sauce in bottom of 9x13 glass pan.
Arrange 4 lasagna noodles on top of red sauce (3 by 1)
Spread half of the meat mixture
Lightly cover meat mixture with half of the white sauce
Sprinkle marjoram over white sauce
Arrange 5 lasagna noodles on top of sauce (4 by 1)
Put at least 2 cups of red sauce on top of noodles
Spread second half of the meat mixture over red sauce
Cover meat mixture with half of the white sauce
Arrange 4 lasagna noodles on top of white sauce (3 by 1)
Cover noodles with remaining red sauce.

Cover with tin foil and bake for 40 minutes.
Uncover and sprinkle mozzerealla cheese over top. Bake for 5-7 more minutes or until cheese is bubbly and browning.
Take out of oven and let sit for about 5-10 minutes. Cut into 9 pieces. Serve with a nice green leaf salad.

Enjoy!

If you have any questions feel free to comment, e-mail, or contact us via Facebook, Twitter or Google+

Low-Carb Hell

We're attempting a variation of a low-card diet.
We're cutting our gluten as much as we can. We always feel unwell (lots of gas, burping, bloating, mental fog, and other things we will not discuss...) after eating it, and more than one physician has suggested we might have a sensitivity to it (we refused to do their "poo test", scared of the results). So why not try...again.

In youth we tested positive for allergies of wheat, rye, and most other grains/carbs involving gluten (not rice, or flax, or beans, or soy). That was before anybody had ever heard of wheat sensitivities, or celiacs (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/celiac-disease/DS00319). It's one of those things we've dealt with our whole life, that we probably don't need another doctor to analyze, and we should probably just face the facts.

It's not shocking really, the only time we've been successful at losing weight in our entire life was on Atkins when we lost 100 pounds (a carbohydrate purging diet regimen), and then when we got pretty mentally...unwell...during the end of 2010 (when we pretty much starved ourselves, except for wine). It just seems like a carb problem pattern for us, given that we're not generally inclined to stuff our face, or overeat - which would explain the weight we can't lose in the face of near daily exercise.

This time feels harder though, for some reason.
Some of us think we should just be happy with the "few" extra pounds (if we're being honest it's probably around 25-30 now, according to European standards) we've put on since we were at our lowest weight; Some of us think we should get back down to our lowest weight, which, while some people in our life thought was fine, others thought was sickly;
And then...we just want to eat what we want to eat, because we don't overeat...and *stomps foot* *whines* we love food.

All is not created equal when it comes to diet, exercise and food though, from person to person. We know that, both from a personal perspective, and a nutrition education perspective. If there were such a thing as equality in food and nutrition there wouldn't be lactose intolerance (which we also occasionally struggle with), or celiacs, or peanut allergies, or shellfish, or any other food sensitivities/intolerances/allergies.

Anyway, we're back on low-carb. Except for cutting out Gin (and coffee), of course, which aside for it being alcohol (and caffeine) is low-carb, it's not made with grains - it's made from juniper berries (and coffee berries). (Caffeine and alcohol spikes blood sugar/insulin/glucose levels which causes cravings)

We love carbs, despite them being bad for us.

So, if we get a little off-kilter...more than usual...or drop from existence for a bit...blame the lack of carbs.

But at least we get to eat all the eggs, bacon, and cheese we want, so score!

Thrilling, eh?

Big Fat Hypocritical Protest

What with Same-Sex Marriage/Marriage Equality/DOMA on the floor of the Supreme Court this week we thought this might be an interesting little blurb to throw into a blog entry, since the opportunity and inspiration presented itself. Kismet. (<- a couple of ours' favorite word these days)

Today, while doing research for an upcoming piece on freedom, nutrition and addiction we're planning to write, we accidentally hit on an article about obesity that contained Bible references. With a good knowledge of the Bible, and a keen interest in it as a text, we often find our life is influenced and inspired by it, just not in the ways people would expect, or hope.

As some people who read this blog know, we used to Christian, and even did two missionary trips to Mexico in High School. We grew up in a Baptist home, and one side of our family is very religious.
We are no longer Christian, for personal reasons, just as personal as the reasons many people are Christian.

It's always interesting to read the Bible and think about the parts that are cherry-picked as need-be by modern day Christians. In fact the Bible teaches a lot of good things; like loving your neighbor, and being a good person, taking care of the poor and needy, and not being greedy. (Ha! That rhymed!)

Sadly, more and more so-called Christians fall short of the teachings where it really counts, and it's not so much that they are sinners that is bothersome. By Bible standards everyone is a sinner, no exceptions. The problem is really the self-righteous behavior of people claiming to walk in the path of the Lord, who claim to live a life by his word but don't; who pick and choose what is good, which Testament and which books of the Bible are relevant to follow, and which aren't, which chapters work for them, what is fine, and what is a sin; that we generally find ourselves most disgusted with.

Back to all of the inspiration and topic at hand; being a homosexual, or being fat. A sin, is a sin, is a sin. If you believe is such a concept as sin.

According to a 2012 Gallup study 3.5% [1] of Americans identify themselves as LGBT, according to the CDC the percentage of Americans over 20 years old, who are obese, or overweight, is 69.2% [2]. Just some fun facts to throw at you.

Source

The Bible specifically references the sin of gluttony, being obese and physically unhealthy, more than homosexuality. The rate is nearly 20 to 4, according to many references/sources.

From our own quick research we found that in the Old Testament homosexuality is specially mentioned twice, in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, and once in the New Testament, in Romans 1:26-27.

Of course there are a handful of bible references to sexuality that have been interpreted to include homosexuality, but they also specifically include every other kind of sinner, including liars and drunks, as being an abomination. Depending on the versions/translation of the Bible in your hands, of course. There are more than 40 translations of the Bible in the English language alone.  (We tend to prefer the King James Version, as it was the Bible of our youth and missions work, and the most familiar, but for this entry we used various online versions because our Bibles are still packed in a box in the spare room).
 
So how about that sin of being obese, of being fat, of being a glutton.

Isaiah 10:16

Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire.

Mmm, BBQ.

Proverbs 23:2
And put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite.

That one seems pretty damn extreme.

See Also (just a short list, we didn't other to look for all of them):
Jeremiah 50:11-12
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 / 32:15-16
Proverbs 23:20-21

So, next time someone talks about "the homosexuality problem", use some knowledge and patience to help them understand the error of their ways, and implore of them what laws they plan to create, what protests they plan to stage, for the sin and abomination of a 70% fat society.

Cooking With Frank: Venison Heart Ragout

A deer heart gifted from Dad,
before we cleaned it

To start this is a recipe utilizing venison heart, but can be substituted with beef heart. If meats of the offal family (organ meats) turn your stomach, retreat now...

Like the rest of the animal, venison (deer) heart tends on the strong side flavour; while not unpleasant to an adventurous palate, if you are trepidatious it's best to taste it for the first time with someone who likes  it, if only so someone eats it.

Venison heart is a muscle organ that is extremely lean, low in fat, high in B12 and iron.

'Ragout' is a French cooking term for slow cooked stew, and can include any number, and kinds, of vegetables and meat. While the meat of the heart cooks pretty quickly, the majority of "slow" cooking in this recipe we created is done with vegetables.

Note that this recipe is not a true ragout, hovering instead somewhere between a stew and a thick gravy.

STEP ONE: CLEANING THE HEART
Obviously you'll want to rinse the heart before you start working on it, to remove excess blood, hairs and any other debris. (If you purchase the heart from a supplies/butcher, it's likely been washed and cleaned).


(Thanks to our cook buddy, Ryan, for locating and sharing this great instructional video)

STEP TWO: THE INGREDIENTS
2-3 Tbsp Butter
2-3 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 clove Garlic, minced
1/2 an Onion (medium-large sized), sliced
10 Button Mushrooms (medium-large sized), sliced
1/2 a large Venison Heart (or 1 medium), diced
5-6 Tbsp Flour
1/2-1 tsp Salt
1/2-1 tsp Pepper, fresh ground
1/4-1/3 c Water

STEP THREE: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Mince the garlic and thin sliced onions. In a pan on a burner over medium heat melt butter and add olive oil. (this where the dish becomes less healthy)
Sauté onions and garlic slowly until the onions are just turning brown.
Season flour with salt and pepper, and toss the diced heart in the flour mixture, shaking lose a bit of the excess flour.
Fry the heart until it just starting to get a medium brown "crust". (this should prevent the gravy from holding onto the floury taste)
Slowly add water to the mixture, a few tablespoons at a time, stirring slowly and continuously.
Continue adding water, keeping the pan over the heat, until the sauce (gravy) becomes a desired thickness.

STEP FOUR: SERVING IT

Notes:
Serving Recommendation: Over a bed of mashed potatoes and squash, which are great fall vegetables that naturally pair with venison meats, as fall is also the seasons for hunting most wild game.
Suggested Accompaniment: A personal variation of a fresh slaw, great for mellowing the richness of the dish: Add thin sliced plum tomato (center/seeds removed) with thin sliced orange/yellow peppers, and thinly sliced celery. Squeeze fresh lemon on top, season with salt and pepper and toss. It also adds a nice splash of colour.

ENJOY!

More food stuff from us...
Food & Cooking
2012

• Cooking With Frank: Green Tomato Chutney
• Zucchini Coming Out Our Ears
• Weekend Recap (Tomatoes)
• From River to Plate in Under Four Hours
• Cooking With Frank: A BBQ Dinner
• White Bread, For The Zombie Apocolypse
• Romancing The Sandwich 

2011

• Cooking With Frank
• Cooking Shepherds Pie With Us, Drunk
• Cooking With Frank, Ratatouille 
• Cooking With Frank: Zombies & Brains...Oh My
• Cooking With Frank: Venison Tenderloin
• The Enlightenment of an Englishmen: Part 1
  

Also...Frankie Skins a Deer (this year we'll be hanging it, making it easier on our back, and making gravity help us with some of the work)

Hot Water Bath Canning

One of our regular readers, @Streetlights94, asked us to explain how to can (preserve) vegetables and fruits using a hot water bath, since we spent much of the summer doing canning for the coming winter. This entry is to serve as a basic primer. There is loads of information on the internet about canning, including many recipes. (we even have our personally created (Spicy) Green Tomato Chutney recipe here: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2012/09/cooking-with-frank-green-tomato-chutney.html)

Why canning? Canning is a good way to preserve a summer bounty. Many times it's difficult to keep up with eating everything a healthy garden is producing during the summer/early fall, and rather than giving away all the extra to your friends and neighbours, it's wise to "put up" some of the food for the fall, winter and spring months.

Canning is a method of food preservation dating back as far as the 1790's (in France). Other forms include drying, freezing, fermenting, pickling, cure and smoking. See National Center for Home Food Preservation for a wealth of information on all types of preservation.

There are two types of canning, boiling water bath, and pressure canning. Hot water bath canning is commonly used for produce that are high in acid (LESS THAN 4.6 pH, so 4.6 pH to 2.4 pH, which is the pH of cranberry juice, one of the most acidic fruits), such as fruits (apples/apple sauce, peaches, pears, apricots, berries, plums, cherries, rhubarb, cranberries and *most tomatoes), fruit/tomato juice, fruit jellies, jams or have additional acids (such as lemon juice or citric acid) added to them, things such as pickled beets, pickles, relishes, "butters", marmalades, preserves, chutney. Pressure canning is used for vegetables and fruits of low acid level...which is most of them. Pressure canning is a topic for another day.

Equipment Needed:
- Sharpie – for marking the jars with date and content after being canned.
- Towels – for spillage and setting wet jars on.
- Jars, rings and covers – for filling with contents.
- Timer – to use for canning the appropriate time.
- Boiling water canner/kettle – the pot used to process the canning in.
- Tongs -
- Jar funnel – eases the filling of jars with minimal spillage.

- Jar lifter – makes removing hot jars from water safely.

The Produce:

Wash produce you plan to use well. The best types are recently picked, not over-ripe and relatively blemish-free.

Assemble all the ingredients you will need, prepare all the other vegetable fruit ingredients you plan to add to your main ingredient.

Process recipes as per the instructions you are using.

The Steps:

The Jars:
Sterilize jars with hot water and mild soap prior to filling with contents, turn upside down on towel until needed.

Fill canner/kettle about half full or more with water, so that when the jars are places inside, the water is at least 1"-2" over the top of the jars. You may have to remove some water once you place the jars in.

Sterilize the lids in very hot water, in addition to sterilization this softens the sealing compound and makes a seal easier to attain.

The Contents:
When filling the jars make sure to leave a bit of a space, about an inch. We've had them "explode", and not achieve a seal, when filled too full.
Gently tap the bottom of the jar on the counter, if not using a spatula to remove air bubbles (we use the tapping method).
Place the tightly closed jars in the water and cover the kettle/cooker.

The Bath:
Time your gentle boil, there is a chart for different foods that range between 5 (for juices) and 30 (some raw fruits) minutes.

Image Source

After you pull the jars from the water, the jars will not necessarily be sealed right away after you take them out of the water. Let the jars cool on the counter; you will hear them make a popping sound, which one of the signs of a good seal*. Sometimes it takes longer than you would expect. Once it was about 10 hours until the jar finally popped, and it popped hard.

Canning is a fun and useful skill to learn, and if you learn how to pressure can then the creativity of your canning is nearly limitless and is extended to things like meats/proteins and vegetables that don't include a high salt-preservative content.

If you have some basic questions, feel free to comment in the section below. We realize we may have missed some things due to current distractions in our life.

Disclaimer: We are not responsible for any outcomes from the information used in this entry. This is how we can foods using the hot/boiling water bath methods. If you have questions seek the advice of a professional. *For expanded information guidelines on tomatoes, additional indications of a seal, other in-depth information, including instruction on canning jams and jellies, we recommend this document from the Virginia State Extension Office: http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/348/348-594/348-594.html

Insane Ramblings

Insane ramblings.

Insane ramblings.

We’ve had a couple of bad days and we feel like a string that was unravelling is getting to the short end of the spool and it’s faster and faster.

Insane ramblings.

We tried to pretend like the 10 pounds we’ve put on the last few months isn’t noticeable.

Insane ramblings.

Insane ramblings.

We’re trying to pretend we don’t hate our body, despite the fact that rationally we know we shouldn't.

Insane ramblings.

Insane.

We’re trying to pretend out body wasn’t more aesthetically pleasing when we were sick and not eating, 10 pounds or more lighter, earlier this year.

It was.

Insane ramblings.

We’re trying to overcome what the covers of magazines and the internet trying to portray what they think beauty should look like, what society says women should look like, what people convey about what real beauty is, and should look like.

Insane ramblings.

Insane ramblings.

We’re happy with who we are.

We’re not happy with who we are.

We hate our body.

Our body is beautiful.

Insane ramblings.

We’re not insane.

That was just a free form writing exercise for us (Ivy and I) we did it to try to work through some issues. We're struggling with some things this holiday season.

We want to thank all our readers and our Twitter followers for being there for us, to provide a laugh when needed, and inspire us to make them laugh when we can. It's "just Twitter" to some people, but it's more than that to us, and many other people of the world.

We would never say we have an eating disorder...but we do have issues with our body and food (which, we're guessing some doctors would label an eating disorder...we hate labels). We're thinner than we were in high school, and more than 100 pounds lighter than we were 7 years ago. We’re 5’11” and 173 pounds, a size 10, that's a 30" waist, the average size of an American woman is 5'4" 167 pounds...and a 37" waist.

See. It's not rational. We know we shouldn't dislike our body.

But we do.

We struggle. We have been making desperate attempts to take off the extra pound we're gained since moving back in with The Mother. It feel like we are digging the hole deeper. It's compounding with the other issues we are struggling with on a daily basis...and the thread is unraveling.

~Cassandra & Ivy

Loving yourself is not conceited, it is not narcissism - it is healthy. How can you expect someone to love you, if you don't love yourself?

There are those of us in our system (that's DID/MPD terminology) that try to convince us otherwise, that both inside and out we are ugly and bad people. That image and final paragraph is for us, but it applies to you, if you want it to.

Skin Off A Deer's Back.

This week, in honour of deer hunting season, we’ll be posting some recipes, info, tips, etc…in addition to whatever else we/I come up with (finishing my required therapy writing)...if we stay on task.

James, The Boyfriend, is editing the video of us skinning a deer as we write…hopefully we'll get it in at the bottom of this entry.

Why deer hunting season? Who cares?? Why kill animals? Why a video? Why...why...why. So full of questions, aren't you?

Tell you what, growing up it was one of the only ways we got to eat meat, aside from raising animals to kill and eat; it’s what you do when you’re poor and you live in the country - or, you like to kill animals…but we come from a family of meat eaters and we used everything we could - we practiced sustainable living before it was "fashionable", out of survival.

Growing up farm-poor teaches you things, growing up with a mother that runs a health food store on the farm where you like, who is knowledgeable in nutrition, tends to force you to learn some basics in nutrition; which probably attributes to our eventual interest, and the year-and-a-half of University education before Culinary School, in the subject of Human Nutrition.

We’re no strangers to the ways of killing and dismembering animals; from childhood, to culinary school…we know how to kill a rabbit without a gun (hit it in the head with a hammer, hang it upside down, incisions at the ankles, strip it’s fur from the back legs to the head…), and chickens…we know what the literal meaning of “running around like a chicken with its head cut off” looks like. They used to chase our horses with no heads. We know how to cut a bison into primal cuts and more.

A variation of the poster we used to have hanging on our office wall, which is now in storage, sadly, that shows cuts of beef, which are similar to venison (wild games such as deer).

...we know how to skin a deer… we know how to gut a sheep, kill a pig…we’ve seen the disgusting ways they process dead chickens for mass production, how they inhumanly kill a cow at a factory slaughterhouse.
If you eat meat from the grocery store, from a nice cellophane packages, but turn your nose down (or up) at hunters (real ones, not sports hunters) then we can have a discussion with you about how fair it is to take a cow that's been raised in a pen packed with other cows, standing in it's own filth, shoving it into a semi-truck until it arrives at a factory where it get's a stun gun to the head...that doesn't always work. Or an electric shock. Google it (we saw videos and factory floors as part of our culinary education), it's appalling.

We grew up poor, on a farm (as some of the stories of our past, located on this blog, mention) outside a very small town in the United States during the 80s’…and as such we learned things city kids don’t. We learned to appreciate what food is, where it comes from, and what it should really taste like. The Mother grew a huge garden so we had food in the summer, and canned the excess so we could eat through the winter. Without these things, things people think are strange, or disgusting, we’d never have survived. It’s an appreciation, no matter how unpleasant our childhood was, in many ways, that we cannot imagine being without.

Is it any wonder we have such a passion for food? Some of us anyway…some of us are so passionate for it that it borders on an obsession…like with me.

This week, all going to plan, we hope to make some venison stock, cut up parts of that deer I skinned tonight to make stewing beef and jerky. We’re making venison tenderloin tomorrow night with something involving mushrooms…jury is still out on exactly what, but we have ideas…our only disappointment is that the deer didn’t arrive with at least it’s heart…but we’ll be getting one, The Mother said she’d get us one from her hunting party.

So, okay, why the video of us skinning a deer? (still in editing...it's not "gruesome" or anything...promise...and we're sorry)

Well aside from tweeting about it the last two days, we’re Frankie The Blade – just a fun nickname the came out of nowhere and was part of our “Halloween costume” avi competition – so why not do something fun involving a knife and a dead animal (that we are going to utilize every part we got, except the hide)? The video is for our pal @T0MFooL3RY…if editing goes as planned…”I am ButcherFoolery”, because we’re no Tom, will be up before long…we hope we didn’t disappoint him by not saying we’re him. 

Tom has a YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/T0MFooL3RY where he collects ...Foolery you should check out, where he collects videos from Twitter followers.

Well, we made it to the end of writing, but The Boyfriend still hasn't figured out how to edit the video...so while I write tomorrow I'll chain him to a chair and make him finish it. He likes to be chained up, but first I'm going to force him to play video games and watch Food Network.

~Frank

Other food and cooking related posts we've done:

• Cooking With Frank
• Cooking Shepherds Pie With Us, Drunk
• Cooking With Frank, Ratatouille 
• Cooking With Frank: Zombies & Brains...Oh My
• The Enlightenment of an Englishmen: Part 1

Why do we write strange shit? Because we can, and because we have to...and what business is it of yours...if you don't like our blog, don't come back. No skin off of our back...though it might be off of yours...*wink*

Fatty Fatty Four Eyes

Because his nickname for
me is Princess

I was going to Tumblr this, but since we've been deficient in our blog posts, what with the moving and stuff, I decided to just put it here.

It was a day. Terrible day.

James (The Boyfriend) was upset all day, most of it anyway, and so just as he and "Ten" woke up she "ran"/switched out, sensing she was not going to want to deal with whatever what was going to happen today, and so she switched with Melody who spent the better part of two hours skillfully dealing with The Boyfriends issues (and tantrum, and tears), then later, after a brief switch with Ivy I got the rest of the day...which turned out to be shitty.

Like yesterday, we waited too long to have our first meal of the day...yesterday was about 4pm before we ate our first  meal, which was fine for whoever was here yesterday...but today we didn't get to eat until about 6pm, and so I wanted more food after...because as Brooke will tell you, I am a "fat piggy pig", because I love food so much, and when I am sad, or stressed, I tend to want to eat more...unlike the rest of them, like Catherine, who when stressed/paranoid doesn't like to eat at all, or Emmie, who doesn't like to eat no matter what, unless it's cantaloupe, pineapple or salad...we know why that is, but I don't feel comfortable talking about why that is.

So today sucked because...well...it's too hard to explain, but it was food related this evening...and there was a lot of crying, and me telling The Boyfriend about how it was easier before him because we had a system, which was salads, small amounts of food, and wine until Friday night - then Friday dinner, Saturday dinner and Sunday meals I got to eat what I wanted; And I was okay with that, even if it meant we go to the grocery store other nights of the week and I cry because I want things I can't have. Now we eat regular meals, which means even if the one of us out front/executive. doesn't want to eat, they do, because it's what we are "supposed" to do, particularly now that we are living with The Mother again, and then I don't ever get the food I like/want.Guess I am also a spoiled brat or something.

The real problem is that me saying so often (often being about once half the time I am here) that things were easier before him (The Boyfriend), or talking about how things used to be before him, makes him feel...sad. Then he cries, and unlike Melody, who is not affected by his crying, it makes me sad, and makes me cry, then whoever is in our co-consciousness is mean to me, and calls me names, and tells me to stop being mean, OR  laughing at me because I made The Boyfriend upset, and then she calls me a fat pig, and other mean things, and says he is a wimp and he's not going to stick around because we will never be the kind of girlfriend he is looking for because we are a mess, and he's not going to be able to deal with us, like he says he wants to, "forever".

I can't help it. I am sad because I don't love him (but I do like him, and like to spend time with him), and I don't want to mess up our relationship for the others, because they love him, some of them dearly...and I know what can happen if you mess things up around here for the rest of us...and The Other Girl is gone...but you know what? What happens to personlities when they are made to go away? It's not like normal death...and who knows what that is like...but what happened to The Other Girl when we elimated her from us? I don't want to find out first hand.

Anyway...stress does weird things to me, I guess...or not so weird because I know that when people are stressed sometimes they eat. I've/We've managed to put on some weight in the last few months (The Mother thinks it a good thing, and Angry Brother hasn't seen us in awhile, but he said the weight loss is making us age faster, which is fine because even though we are physically 32, we can easily pass for 26), and almost none of us happy about that, so we're on a diet...and so far we have six and a half pounds to lose, which probably doesn't seem like a lot to most people...but to us it's a slippery slope bewtween that and gaining 30 (or the amount we gained and didn't realize we had gained before we went on a diet and lost 100 pounds). During culianry school we had put on over 30 pounds and didn't even resalize it, and while we lost it all, plus more...we still know...and we still feel like crap, and we can feel when we have gained a couple of pounds, and often I get blamed. I hate us all being so in touch with our body...I want to be happy just the way I am.
I'm very sad tonight, and I wish I could go on Twitter, but none of my Tweets will be any good, and  I will probably make James sad if I play online more tonight.

~Cassandra


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Some helpful terminology imported from our public blog where we do our mapping therapy (http://wearejcmf.blogspot.com/) which is currently not being worked on due to massive life stress...but hopefully soon we will, because "Ten" hasn't been added yet, even though we know a lot about her already, thanks to James/The Boyfriend.

DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER A.K.A MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER: TERMINOLOGY

Personality Specifics:

Alter: alter states, selves, parts (a subjective term); distinct personalities; fragments alternate personality, personality state, ego state or identity with its own unique perspectives, abilities, memories or other traits that differ from the Host or Executive personality.

The Core: The original birth personality.

Host: is the alter personality who dominates the control of the body most of the time and is often unaware of the other personalities. The host is usually the alter personality who will initiate after experiencing symptoms of mental distress, such as, anxiety, triggers or recovered memories.

Executive: When a personality (alter ego) has control of the body.

Switch: To switch from one personality to another. The process of an alter coming out from the subconscious mind into the consciousness mind while the other alter (who was already in the consciousness mind) slips back into the subconscious mind.

Who's out? A common question used to determine which personality is executive or host.

Co-conscious(ness): (The Core) A state of being aware of what the other personalities are doing and saying.

Other Terms:

Acquired: Anything that is not present at birth but develops some time later. In medicine, the word "acquired" implies "new" or "added." An acquired condition is "new" in the sense that it is not genetic (inherited) and "added" in the sense that was not present at birth.

Triggers: Hysterical conversion symptoms or body memories. Physical phenomenon such as pain, smells, tastes, etc.; re-experienced again.

Dissociation: In psychology and psychiatry, a perceived detachment of the mind from the emotional state or even from the body. Dissociation is characterized by a sense of the world as a dreamlike or unreal place and may be accompanied by poor memory of the specific events, which in severe form is known as dissociative amnesia.

Re-live: A total memory recall (includes visual, emotional, physical and all other senses).

Losing time: Also known as a Dissociative Fugue, is the period of which an alter personality is in the subconscious mind and has no recollection of the time that is being utilized by the alter personality who is occupying the conscious mind. Therefore when the alter switches into the conscious mind they realize that minutes, hours, days, or even months and years have passed since they were last aware of time.

System: is the structure of relationships between the alter personalities who live within the internal world of a survivor with D.I.D.! Every system is created and operates in it's own unique way, just like every family living in their own homes run their households different from the next door neighbour.

Inner (Self) Helper: is usually the alter personality who has a good understanding of the system and how it works. The I.S.H. is also among the typical group of helpers or protector personalities.

Grounding: is the process of disrupting a dissociative episode and is accomplished by tugging on an earlobe, rubbing the hands together, or shuffling the feet back and forth. This type of physical stimuli can bring the survivors mind back to awareness of their surroundings, and helps to make them feel less animated.

(these terms are pulled from a wide array of sources throughout the internet and are ones we choose to use in writing, on occasion, to talk about the things that happen in our lives)