My Dog is Chelsea

The gas station cashier where I picked up the Uhaul sold me a few moving boxes.

“Moving? You buy house?” he asked. An older Asian man, he was not a native English speaker and his sentences a little choppy.

“Yep! I did. And now I have to move,” I said. And then, because I’ve been stressed out to no end about this whole packing-moving-unpacking endeavor: “Moving’s such a pain in the ass.”

“But you buy house! You should be happy!”

“You’re right,” I said. “But I will be happier once this moving stuff is over with.”

“But we never happy. We always move things around and change everything. You move and then you unpack and move things again. There is always work to do, because we never happy!”

So true.

It’s time now to go unpack. And make myself a little happier.

As you may recall, back in September I posted about how I was trying to buy a house. It’s been quite the journey since then. I’ve seen the insides of what feels like half of all of the homes in Portland. Three accepted offers, three inspections, three appraisals. Two deals fell through. (And one dragged on for three months before I finally gave up.)

But last week? I got the keys to my new house! Calla peed and pooped in the backyard on Wednesday — that makes it official. Here’s me in my new kitchen the night I got the keys:

Martin priming the icky living room color.

Calla gallivanted in the wet and muddy backyard, and when she came back inside, she decided to “dry” herself off by wiping her face on the wall. Problem was, the fresh coat of primer hadn’t exactly dried yet.

Calla and River survey the primed walls.

First coat is on!

More photos to come. We’ve finished the living room (except for the trim) and the spare bedroom. Here’s a preview of the rest of the walls:

• Master bedroom: red
• Spare bedroom: sea foam green
• Kitchen: Gray and turquoise

I must begin with a disclaimer: If you eat bagged lettuce, I don’t mean to offend you. It’s just that this is what I’ve been thinking about in the shower lately, and I need to get it out so I can move on with writing other (hopefully more important) things in my head. I hope you will understand. Thank you.

This is why I hate bagged lettuce:

1. Bagged lettuce has a texture problem. It’s either waxy or wilted or limp or browned, and rarely crunchy or perky. It doesn’t taste fresh and it makes a squeaking noise when you chew, like cheese curds.

2. Bagged lettuce comes in a plastic bag. Does kale come in a bag? No. Does broccoli come in a bag? No. Do carrots come in a bag? Sometimes, but they shouldn’t either. Hearty produce that ships easily does not require a bag. Bagged lettuce only needs one because it’s wimpy.

3. It’s triple-washed, but that doesn’t mean it’s clean. Like most industrial food, bagged lettuce is exposed to all sorts of contaminates, some of which are too disgusting to think about in the shower. (See also: Marion Nestle’s take on why you should wash your bagged lettuce.)

4. The whole point of bagged lettuce is that it is convenient, but I’ve never really understood that. You still need to wash it (see point number 3, above), and washing a head of lettuce has never been all that complicated or inconvenient to begin with.

5. It’s ridiculously expensive, and I’m not quite sure why it’s worth paying a premium on an inferior product. It’s the equivalent to buying a Macintosh in the mid-90s.

Anyway, that is all. Now I can carry on with showering and thinking about something else. Like broccoli, and how it’s not fair that you get charged by the pound even though no one ever eats the stems.

[NOTE: Part I is about why I believe that milk is good for you. Also, today I came across this great piece about why UHT pasteurization not only makes milk taste icky—which is why organic milk often have flavor additives—it may actually be bad for you. See also this post on how to buy healthy milk.]

This is why I love milk and eggs:

My pantry looks a lot like this list. I have jars and jars of food in there to practically last me months: at least three kinds of flour, two kinds of cornmeal, polenta, popcorn, rolled oats, quinoa, barley, two kinds of lentils, walnuts, pecans, pine nuts, peanuts, enough dried beans to feed all of Portland, cocoa powder, semisweet chocolate, honey, three types of sugar, wheat berries, jasmine rice, brown rice, arborio rice (no kitchen is complete without arborio rice!), bulgar, pasta of all shapes. Et cetera.

But no matter, if I’m out of milk and eggs, I feel like I have no food.

With eggs, in particular, the food in my pantry can be transformed. I can make almost anything (as long as I also have a source of fat, of course): cakes, quick breads, pancakes, cookies, sauces. Not to mention fried eggs, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, soft-boiled eggs, omelets, quiches and frittatas.

As far as I’m concerned, the egg is magical. It is a perfect chameleon: it’s an emulsifier, a thickener, a leavening agent, a whole protein. You can separate it into two parts, each with their own specific purpose in baking and cooking. With an egg, you can bread your fish, blend your salad dressing, bind your homemade veggie burger, rise your flourless chocolate cake.

(And look—there’s a reason most vegan baked goods pale in comparison to their lacto-ovo counterparts. It’s not the lack of dairy that makes the difference—it’s the missing eggs. I promise you that. You can substitute melted butter with canola oil in many recipes, but egg? Cornstarch-based egg replacer is just not the same. Though I do have a vegan blueberry muffin recipe that uses apple sauce and it is delicious.)

So eggs are practical and delicious and…
…they are also good for you, despite the cholesterol scare of a few years ago (remember egg white omelets? Yeah.). And it’s worth eating the whole thing—though the egg yolks contain all of the cholesterol in the egg, they also contain the vast majority of the nutrients, including fat-soluble vitamins and essential fatty acids. A single egg also contains 6 grams of protein and only 5 grams of fat and 75 calories. That’s pretty freaking amazing.

Even the American Heart Association has dialed back its stance on egg yolk, saying now that one egg a day is OK if you don’t follow it up with a bug hunk of steak. (They recommend people with normal levels of bad cholesterol stay below 300 milligrams of cholesterol per day; an egg has 213.).

Though I can hardly say that I limit myself to an egg a day.

And, frankly, I prefer my eggs with a side of bacon.

Now THAT is the perfect meal.

I’ve been thinking lately about milk and eggs: two food items that, in my opinion, are absolutely indispensable in the kitchen and in our diets and yet somehow have a bad rap.

[DISCLAIMER: I should start by saying that everyone is entitled to make his or her own food decisions and in NO WAY am I intending to pass judgement on those very sacred choices. There is absolutely nothing wrong with veganism, and certainly nothing wrong with simply not liking the taste of milk or eggs. I don't mean to offend anyone's food sensibilities.]

Anyway. Milk: It’s good for you. Here’s why:

• It’s loaded with calcium, which not only strengthens bones but may also help you burn fat faster
• It can help you build muscle
• It may improve cholesterol levels

(Source. However, do keep in mind that nutrition studies are not always all they’re cracked up to be. For more information on why that is the case, read In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. Also, it’s important to know that there are people on the other side of this debate.)

So, milk’s good, imho. But what about skim v. whole?

Well, if you’re on a low-fat diet, and you like to drink a shit-ton of milk, you’ll probably want to stick to skim (however, again, read In Defense of Food for a brilliant explanation as to why the low-fat diet may not actually be good for you). But whole milk sure does have some virtues going for it, not the least of which is the fact that it doesn’t taste like water. To quote Pollan (who, I can’t lie, is my absolute hero):

To make dairy products low fat, it’s not enough to remove fat. You then have to go to great lengths to preserve the body or creamy texture by working in all kinds of food additives. In the case of low-fat or skim milk, that usually means adding powdered milk. But powdered milk contains oxidized cholesterol, which scientists believe is much worse for your arteries than ordinary cholesterol, so food makers sometimes compensate by adding antioxidants, further complicating what had been a simply one-ingredient whole food. Also, removing the fat makes it harder for your body to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins that are one of the reasons to drink milk in the first place. (In Defense of Food, 153-4)

So, despite what we’ve been led to believe, whole milk may actually be better for you than skim milk is. Not to mention that the less processed a food is, in my opinion, the better.

That leads us to cow milk v. soy milk.

There are many good reasons to question the safety of soy milk. For one (and this applies to rice milk as well), it contains a lot of additives that aren’t necessarily good for you. Sweeteners such as evaporated cane juice may (or may not, depending on who you ask) be better than high-fructose corn syrup, but the fact is that all added sweeteners are best consumed in moderation. Some brands also contain polyunsaturated oils such as safflower or soybean oils, which also have their questionable health effects.

What’s more, there are some studies that indicate that too much soy can be problematic for your health: it may increase the risk of breast cancer in women and affect brain functioning in men. It is the soy isoflavones that are in question; these are compounds that resemble estrogen, and the effect of these additives on our bodies’ ability to function properly is not entirely known.

Bottom line: we’ve been led to believe that soy milk is healthier than cow milk by the very corporations who most stand to benefit from the sale of highly-processed (and highly subsidized) soybeans.

Then there’s the distance thing, which is a tricky issue. In general, I believe, it all comes down to who you buy your food from. Soy milk is often sourced and processed in the midwest (from GMO soybeans). Most organic milk usually travels from afar and needs to be UHT-pasteurized in order to extend its shelf life long enough to make it to your refrigerator. Non-organic milk tends to be local, but is made from cows treated with rbGH and antibiotics.

In short? Not a whole lot of great options, unless you have access to buying direct from a small, local dairy farmer and have the means to do so. Those of us in the Portland area have the choice of New Seasons’ Pacific Village brand, which is milk produced by a cooperative of local, organic dairy farmers. You can also buy one of the local, non-organic brands. Or buy soy milk, or corporate organic milk. Whatever makes most sense for you.

[EDIT: a reader rightly pointed out that raw milk is also an option. Yes! If you have access to it, by all means! There can be some serious safety issues with consuming raw milk, so do your homework and make sure you're comfortable with it. To locate where to buy it, go here.]

Or, make your own almond milk, but almonds are pretty spendy.

Me? I like to buy my organic whole milk from New Seasons and savor every damn delicious drop.

So…what about eggs? Eggs are by far the most amazing whole food I have ever encountered. But it turns out that I had too much to say about milk, so I’ll have to wax poetic about eggs in Part II.