Sunday, September 27, 2009

Rachel Ray

Last week I made a Mexican Lasagna from a Rachel Ray recipe that woke me repeatedly during the night. Undeterred, I brought it for lunch for four days (it made a huge pan of ground turkey, cheese, beans, corn, spice and layers of tortillas.)

I also made Pad Thai using instructions from Kevin on the blog "Closet Cooking." (He's amazing.) It came out pretty good. I used tamarind paste, a fruity addition, for the first time ever, and the Pad Thai tasted less like sweaty gym socks, than usual.

Saturday I went to a health fair and got to indulge my hypochondria and snag some free bottled water and a banana. I got myself tested for osteoporosis (I don't have it), arterial blockage in the limbs (all clear), hearing (normal) and total cholesterol 213 (borderline high.) I spoke to a middle aged woman at the Alzheimer's booth whose father came down with the disease in his 50's, who told me not to worry about getting it, since my mother and grandfather weren't stricken till late in life. She told me only the early onset version is hereditary. I told her its more inheritable from the mother's side (she didn't know that.) So, we comforted each other.

One thing I noticed was how unhealthy all these health experts looked. Lots of fat nurses testing the masses, and the lady at the osteoporosis booth looked frail, almost skeletal. What is good health? In some ways, its just the absence of pain and disability. It's being able to walk as far and as fast as you want to. It's living up to your life expectancy. I was blessed with good genes, for the most part, and I have walked a lot my whole life, never smoked, and eaten reasonably well, if too much. Mostly, I would like to not feel fat every day of my life. Weighing less would be being healthier, to me. And that is a pretty serious intervention.

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