Cheese Louise!
Prepare yourselves for a dairy digression!
A couple of days ago, I went to Di Palo’s (the Italian fine foods store where I worked throughout my senior year with a specialty in… you guessed it, CHEESE!!!) Oh, glorious coagulated dairy product that it is, and light of my life! I got Gorgonzola Dulce, Tallegio, Pecorino Moliterno from Sardenia, Pecorino Boschetto with truffles, and Parmigiano, of course. All this accompanied by sweet Prosciutto di Parma and Bresaola. Phenomenal. I used the Boschetto to make Scrambled Eggs with Truffled Pecorino , the most decadent breakfast, brunch, or lunch dish imaginable! And the Gorgonzola found it’s way into a salad with pears and walnuts.
The particularity of my body, and plague of my existence, is that while I love food fiendishly, I have un corps that is peskily unforgiving of excessive caloric intake. I haven’t yet found a clever way to balance my life, so for the moment I go through the following vicious cycle: phase 1 when I am super healthy and svelte, and phase 2 when I satisfy my palate and end up, well, nice and padded, if you will. I’ll admit that my fromage fest (alliteration!!!) has left me again expounding the miraculous and multitudinous benefits of stretchy denim (tous ca in the privacy of my mind, thank you). Honestly, if my clothes didn’t have a little give, I would be naked in the winter. Nakedi, nue, or my fav, nakey nakey!!! (you must say this with high-pitched intonation, the same way you would taunt a slumbering slacker with “wakey, wakey!”)
But where was I? Oh yes, fatness! The thing is, I’ve noticed a certain seasonal trend, a tendency towards blubber in frostier times. I believe we all grew up hearing that in the winter, you expend more energy keeping warm, and that this phenomenon begets the tradition of cozy, comfy, heavy food. During the milder months, I eat tres tres peu (ah, bless those times), but with the change of seasons I become barbarically voracious. If you picture a Discovery Channel type scene with lions ravenously tearing apart a gazelle corps, bloodied chops buried in a carcass, you are on the right track. Sad, I know.
For me, the urge to eat is so primal, though, that it’s irresistible. Naturally, I was feeling the need for validation, and set about the task of researching my seasonal stretching. It appears that the old adage (and my biological urges) is correct! Your body struggles to raise your internal body temperature in the winter, making carbohydrate rich foods (like macaroni and cheese) winter favorites because they release sugars quickly into the bloodstream to be used as energy for this purpose. There is also the issue of Seasonal Affective disorder, which can cause increased appetite as a result of depression when the sun goes bye-bye, and a predilection for the types of food that pack on the pounds, such as carbs, refined sugars, chocolate, and fats. Eating hot foods, particularly soups, is a recommended way to keep warm without expanding sideways in an exponential fashion!
Following are a few links to lend legitimacy to all my medically inspired babbling:
The abstract of a psychiatric study on Seasonal Affective Disorder: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3186862?ordinalpos=21&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
An Article about how to stave off winter weight woes: http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/5-tips-to-avoid-winter-weight-gain
nickle said...
1might i request yr faves recette du soufflé?
11/24/08 1:09 AM | Comment Link