The Cultured Girl

Like many health-conscious cultured girls, I often worry that I’m not getting enough calcium. … Then I forget I’m supposed to be worrying about it and go on being calcium deprived. But a recent doctor’s visit, I learned that women should consume anywhere from 1000 to 1,200 milligrams of calcium per day to help prevent osteoporosis. (Most of us probably get about half that much.) Here are some easy ways to add calcium to your daily diet:

• Resume the childhood ritual of having a glass of milk for dinner. 1 C of nonfat milk has 302 mg of calcium, and drinking it with dinner also helps control your appetite.
• Start your day with nonfat yogurt. 1 C of nonfat yogurt delivers a whopping 452 mg of calcium, versus 415 for lowfat yogurt, and it’s better for your waistline too.
• Take calcium supplements. These are an easy way to get your daily allowance; just be sure to take the supplements separately from your milk or yogurt. Options include Viactiv and comparable knockoff brands, which come in 500 mg candy-flavored chews (yum!), and Extra Strength Tums, which each have 300 mg of calcium (yes, the commercials are true).
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As far as dining out options go, sushi is definitely one of the healthier ones. But the perception that you are eating something “healthy” can often lead to sushi overindulgence on lots of high-cal stuff. Avoiding mayonnaise and sauce-drenched rolls is one easy way to keep your meal on the light side. And this week, Healthy Girl offers some other helpful hints, including a list of the healthiest rolls you can order (try the spicy tuna). Some other ideas:

• Start with some filling miso or edamame. “Studies show that people who start their meals with healthy soup end up eating fewer calories. Miso, with around just 50 calories per cup, certainly falls into that category.”
• Avoid anything called “dynamite.” Writes Healthy Girl: “In sushi-land, the word ‘dynamite’ basically means, ‘baked in a sea of gooey mayo.’ Skip it!”
• Ask for brown rice. “Some sushi restaurants offer brown rice, which is better for you than white. If you see it, got for it!”

First, there were little bear-shaped bottles. Then came flavored honey, with varieties of lemon, peach, and the like. But the latest trend in honey is more varietal than variety. According to this primer in today’s New York Times, regional honeys are set apart from one another by “many of the same factors that distinguish a reserve cru from a pitcher of house red — a distinct varietal, a particular place, propitious bursts of sun and rain.”

Some of it, like the elegant bottles of tupelo honey from the Savannah Bee Company, even comes packaged like wine. And with honey, the flora of a particular growing region might also have medicinal effects: Many people believe that eating raw local honey can help build up resistance to seasonal allergens.

My boyfriend whipped his out on our first date, and ever since then, I’ve wanted my own pocket guide to pesticides in produce. Today, I finally ran across the web site (thanks, Cool Tools) where you can download the PDF for the wallet-size card. Published by the non-profit Environmental Working Group, it lists the fruits and veggies, such as strawberries and potatoes, that are the worst for pesticides and therefore worth the cost of buying organic. Also included are 12 types of produce that contain the fewest pesticides, so the conventional, cheaper versions are safe to eat.

“A lady may attempt to begin the conversation with the most innocuous of icebreakers … In no case does she ask prying or personal questions. She may ask, ‘Are you from here in Topeka?’ as that question allows her new friend to share as much personal information as he or she cares to divulge. She does not, however, begin the conversation by asking, ‘Now, just how is it that you now Mary Jo and Hiram?’ (The guest, after all, may have been the doctor who cared for Hiram’s recently deceased father, in which case the lady may find herself and her fellow guest involved in an unhappy topic.) Similarly, a lady does not open the conversation by asking, ‘And just what is it you do for a living, Madison?’ as that question may imply that the lady considers her fellow guest’s job to the only interesting thing about his or her life. And in times of economic distress, it can be awkward for the guest who happens to be unhappily unemployed.”

— From A Lady at the Table: A Concise, Contemporary Guide to Table Manners, 2004

Buying fresh herbs frustrates me: Even if I need just a teaspoon of dill, I have to buy a bunch the size of my head. But if fresh herbs are merely an ingredient and not the centerpiece of a dish, you can often use the dried variety instead. For instance, using dried rosemary when a recipe calls for fresh is often a bad idea, but substituting dried dill can produce the same effect as the head-sized bunch. The hard part is knowing how much to use, so I was delighted to see the Kitchen addressing this very question today. Here’s a pinch of their helpful advice:

“Dried herbs have a much more concentrated flavor, so the general rule of thumb is to use a third of the amount of dried as you would fresh herbs. Often a recipe will call for chopped fresh herbs in units of tablespoons. Since one tablespoon is equal to three teaspoons, use one teaspoon chopped dried herbs instead.”

There are other great tips here as well. The site also suggests adding dried herbs much earlier than you would the fragile fresh kind, so the flavor has longer to absorb. Sure beats getting stuck with a bagful of rotten parsley.

Bamboo cutting boards are sprouting up everywhere, prompting many cultured girls to wonder: What’s the advantage of using bamboo versus traditional wood? The cutting surfaces from companies like Totally Bamboo are undoubtedly cool-looking, but they’re also more durable—about 16 percent harder than maple, the wood most commonly used in cutting boards. The even bigger selling point, however, is that bamboo plants grow like weeds, so it’s a more eco-friendly option than wood. According to Totally Bamboo, the grass “grows to a harvestable height of 60 feet in about 3-5 years, growing as much as 2 feet per day.”

Plates and bowls made from bamboo, like these from Smith & Hawken, are also a great alternative to plastic and styrofoam dinnerware used at picnics and barbecues. Lighter than ceramic plates but just as reusable, the biodegradable products are also cheap enough to toss when they’ve seen too many summers.

I love seafood, both for its tastiness and its healthiness. But with concerns about over-fishing, high mercury levels, and several other environmental concerns I’m probably forgetting, I’m never quite sure what fish I’m supposed to be eating and which ones I’m supposed to avoid. If you find yourself in the same boat (sorry, had to say it), check out this informative article from today’s New York Times. It sheds light on such topics as why you should resist ordering Chilean sea bass and why “farm-raised” isn’t always a bad word (farm-raised salmon can be unsafe, while farmed tilapia is fine if you don’t mind blandness just bland). To help keep it all straight, there’s also a handy list of fish that are safe to eat as often as once a week.

As someone who can’t think clearly until I’ve had my morning coffee, I’ve been known to panic when I can’t get a cup, whether it’s on camping trips, after hurricanes, or as a guest at the home of non-coffee-drinkers. As far as coffee-pot alternatives go, the choices used to be limited to watery Folgers Crystals and Vivarin. But thankfully, a number of new products have sprung up recently that are tastier and don’t make me feel like a caffeine-addicted dirtbag. Here’s a roundup of my latest discoveries, each of which is strong enough to stand in for one cup of coffee.

Jolt Caffeine Energy Gum
About $2 for 12 piece pack; 2 pieces = 1 cup of coffee
Flavor: Minty and sugary with slightly disturbing metallic undertones.
Convenience: Excellent; no equipment needed besides your mouth.

Java Juice Pure Coffee Extract
$10 for 10 individual packets
Flavor: Surprisingly rich and robust; the closest approximation of a well-brewed cup of joe I’ve ever tasted.
Convenience: Moderate; each liquid-filled packet must be mixed into a cup of hot or cold water.

Starbucks DoubleShot
About $3 for a 6.5-oz can
Flavor: Sweet and creamy as dessert with a fat content ( 6 grams) to match.
Convenience: Excellent; tastes good right out of the can, lukewarm or chilled.

Esquire’s just-released list of the best bars in America is a must-read. After all, shouldn’t a cultured girl drown her sorrows at the best places around? The highly entertaining list is broken down by region and brimming with colorful details, like this description of C Bobby’s Owl Tree, one of my favorite San Francisco relics:

” The owls are all over the place: hundreds of ‘em, stuffed, painted, sculpted, macrame’d, you name it. … But an eccentric line of decor will get you only so far; to achieve true greatness, you’ve also got to be rude to the customers when they need it (which is usually), slip in a friendly remark when they least expect it, and, of course, be able to transform a buck fifty’s worth of middle-shelf hooch into a vision of a better life.”

The inclusion of other deserving classics, including SF’s Zeitgeist and New Orleans’s Napoleon House, makes me want to print out this list and carry it along on every road trip.

Next up: Cultured Girl’s list of the best bars in America. What are yours?