Reid Me

Tales of a Food Writer...but not the kind you're thinking. I am a food writer, but not the kind that gets all-star treatment in the restaurants, who is recognized by name or by Facebook profile. I am not the kind that has catchy by-lines or who happens to get picked as a judge on a television food show. That is not my gig. I am however, the kind of food writer who could tell you whether or not your avocado tree is self-fertile (true story), or who could tell you the nutritional benefits of a certain fruit or root vegetable. I could tell you the scientific name for pretty much any of the foods on my counter right now, and I could tell you how they would benefit your body. I am a content writer for Specialty Produce . I find different produce items everywhere! Recently, I was told by none other than award-winning Executive Chef Bernard Guillas of San Diego's Marine Room restaurant, that the work I do is extremely important and that I am helping thousands of people with...

Because I am a frugal person, and the stores that regularly (or somewhat regularly) carried one of my favorite gluten-free bread mixes, Chebe, aren't carrying them any longer - I had to take matters into my own hands. Curtesy of Chebe.com If you haven't tried Chebe's line of mixes, you should.  My brother sent me a couple of their mixes for bread sticks and cheesy bread back in 2007 when I was in a bit of a gluten-free food desert.  Needless to say, it was really nice to have a mix that was quick and easy, and yummy. Since then, I've gotten back into my baking habits and since I couldn't find Chebe products in any of my tried and true local stores, I took to Google.  I already knew that this type of recipe, using tapioca starch, was already a mainstay in Brazil.  In my search, I learned that the bread is called Pao de Queijo.  There's a very nice looking recipe over at thekitchn.com (one of my favorite recipe sites), but it's pretty involved and I...

Kishu, courtesy of Specialty Produce At some point this winter you will open the crisper drawer in your fridge to reach for a Cutie or a Kishu .  You know the ones: easy to peel, sweet, tart, just the perfect balance and everything you want in a winter citrus.  You have have to make lunch  you're desperately trying to get something into your system because the energy you got from the coffee you mainlined a few hours ago and the two small pancakes you inhaled while making breakfast for your kids has long-since burned off.  You are busy, a little shaky for lack of nutrition and therefore rushing around; you grab one of the tiny citrus with a mighty taste and realize the minute you start peeling it that you'd inadvertently grabbed one of the other random, small tangerines that orchards put out this same time of year, to compete with the stellar new varieties coming from China or Japan.  You are silently cursing to yourself, knowing that once you start peeling ...

According to Dictionary.com Yoga is a ' union of the self with the Supreme Being or ultimate principle' or is ' any of the methods or disciplines prescribed, especially a series of postures and breathing exercises practiced to achieve control  of the body and mind, tranquility, etc.' I don't buy the "control" factor, but the word union and the pairing of mind and body are certainly words that resonate. Balance is something I am constantly striving for.  I'm sure most people are. A while back I had one of those ZING! moments.  I realized that it's all about finding a good balance.  As we become adults it's all about finding balance between having fun and work.  It's not something we would have been capable of as teenagers.  We dutifully went to school and did our homework (well, some of us did and some of us didn't but that's neither here nor there), we played, we grew and we learned, but once you...

So I'm starting to feel a bit like a yogi...well, almost.  Today was Day 6 of 30 in the 30-day Yoga Challenge, a little Vinyasa 1.  This one was different, we used the blocks between our thighs during our down dogs and our chaturangas. Now, doing a true chaturanga requires strength in the upper arms (of which I have little) and core (which I am still working to restrengthen after two kids).  I never really considered the role your thighs played in the whole process until today.  It was different. That's what's great about yoga.  The poses can often be the same, but the feeling is always different.  I guess that can be the same for any class you take. Last night was class number 5.  I took the Vinyasa 2 class and it was a little tough.  The evening classes are more challenging as the day rolls to a close and I've been working so my brain and body have been chugging along for 12 hours already.  My upper thighs were sore, my core was feelin...

Today was day number three of 30 in the 30-day Yoga Challenge... Usually the first thing I do when I enter the yoga studio/practice room/sanctuary (what-have-you) is lay down my mat and my towel and place my water bottle nearby.  Then I sit myself down and take a look around the room to see what everyone else is up to.  When I first started taking yoga I had no idea what you were really supposed to do.  I didn't read up on it or research any moves.  (Now there's a whole site for beginners, see here ). I'm sure most people do what I did and just say, "Hey, I think I'll try that yoga thing people keep talking about."   Really, I learned about yoga when I was thirteen or so while visiting my aunt in South Jersey.  My other aunt's boyfriend taught Tai Chi and Yoga at the Twelfth Street Gym in Philly .  That was an interesting place.   My aunt's boyfriend was named Chik and he was from Istanbul.  I only remember seeing him with a shirt on a f...

First, let me start by saying, I am no Yogie.  I don't consider myself to be a guru or even an expert.  I just like to do yoga.  It's good for my muscles, good for my joints and it's good for my mental well being. Image courtesy prweb.com Second, consistency is key.  And balance, balance is also key.  Consistency is key to a lot of things (keeping your blog followers being one of them), and I could write an entirely different blog post on the art of balance (we'll save that for another time).  I've also found that consistency and balance go hand in hand with a positive, well-rounded yoga experience.  You must be consistent in your practice; weekly, daily, monthly, whatever your thing, keep it consistent.  Balance is essential but it's not something we are all born with nor is it something that comes easy to most.  You can develop both consistency and balance, but you have to actively develop these two things. I am on my way to develop...

Ah, my masterpiece! So yesterday I prepared my first (of many) slow-cooker recipes from Stephanie O'Dea , the chick who cooked with her crock pot each day for a year.  I decided to start with the Enchilada Casserole because I had been staring at the corn tortillas in our fridge for over a month (thank goodness they last that long!).  I was excited too, because I've always loved enchiladas and the silky, spicy enchilada sauce that is drizzled over the top of them.  I can usually tell how good the Mexican food is at a restaurant based on their enchilada sauce.  You have to be careful eating out, though, most places use flour as a thickener in their sauces and I've had to resort to using the table salsa at many a Mexican restaurant.  Anyhoo... I had my crock pot, my tortillas and my enthusiasm; now all I needed was chicken, black beans, bell peppers, cheese and enchilada sauce, of course!  My husband called to say "Hi," and I told him what my plan for di...

You know what I love about the internet?  Blogs.  Food blogs, to be exact!  There are millions of them.  Do a search for food blogs and you come up with 1,260,000,000 of them!  I like to bake, and I have to eat gluten-free, so before Ms. Hasslebeck on The View had her on GF book and before more stores and restaurants started serving gluten-free food, we had blogs.  Obviously I'm not telling you something that you don't already know.  Just Google your desired dish, or even just the ingredients you have, and boom, thousands of options for your nightly dinner or dessert! Something I've been talking about getting for a while is a crock pot.  We had one way back when, and never used it.  Now, with the two kids and my hubby and I busy with work, easy meals are far more desirable.  What easier than a crock pot meal??  I do casseroles, rice, pasta, etc. but you can't quite get the same effect as you do with a slow cooker.  A couple o...

Tuesday morning, I started my day with about 16 oz. of water and the juice from one full lemon.  I was a bit impressed because I didn't end up with a caffeine headache, and I even felt energized enough to go to a nice hot yoga class!  (It's been a while since I've gone to a class or even done anything at home)  Yay yoga!!  My day went well.  No obvious effects of no caffeine, and I think I felt pretty energized.  I am a firm believer in mind over body, so it may have been merely psychological. Wednesday, I overslept.  Not sure if that had something to do with being overly tired, or a low volume on my alarm...I didn't get my lemon water until after I dropped the kids off at school.  Still, no caffeine headache, but I did feel a little off.  Regardless I stuck to my guns, went to another hot yoga class (yay, yoga!).  Was feeling a bit weak at some moments, but I think it was lack of water and pushing myself too hard.  Again, here,...

So I've been thinking a lot about this water thing.  Water is 70% of our world, and makes up 70% of our bodies ...so, no one is doubting it's importance.  But do we really understand how important it is?  Maybe not as important as what you put into it. I know we need water, but I also know that we can consume too much water.  Remember that CSI where the college kid was being hazed and was told to chug a 5gallon container of water?  He literally died from drinking too much water.  Okay, so you can't always believe what you see on TV, but it's CSI people!  CSI is science and science is truth ...Not that that is any excuse not to get my eight 8oz. glasses of water a day. But back to the importance of water...I have been trying to make a better attempt at drinking more water.  The problem is, when I get up in the morning the first thing I think of is coffee ....Mmmmm... coffee... Coffee is really something I never considered doing without....

It's hard to jump on the internet now-a-days and not see headlines like this: Middle-class areas shrink as America divides into 'two-tiered society' of rich and poor                                  This Is What Revolution Looks Like Justice Dept. in deadlock with Alabama over illegal immigration law I can recall a time when my parents told me that I could be anything that I wanted to be and "the sky's the limit."  We are instilled with this hope of a middle class future, where we can live comfortably and raise a family with all of the comforts we are entitled to here in America, the land of plenty.  We know too many people who have been laid off, who are under water on their homes and are just barely squeaking by.  Our local school district is on the brink of insolvency and the teachers are being asked to take pay ...

Some things are easier to resist than others. So here I am, one week after I started a dairy-free week and I must say, I failed.  I made it six days.  But on the sixth day, there was gluten-free pizza!  This was my first time getting to try gluten-free pizza made fresh from somewhere other than my kitchen.  Did I mention there was gluten-free beer? Okay, so I had some left-overs yesterday, too.  There was mozzarella and Gorgonzola, quite the combination along with crispy bacon, butternut squash, cucumbers and other tasty veggies.  It was sinful.  It was heavenly.  It was delicious.  And I knew that I was totally weak, had absolutely no will power, no ability to say no.  Then again, for someone who pretty much gets stuck eating salads everywhere I go due to limited options, I was not going to settle for a salad when there was gluten-free pizza on the menu! Reid-Me.blogspot.com I did learn a few things this week, though.  I ...

Day five of no dairy.  I think it's going pretty well.  A lot easier than I thought it would be.  The challenge for me now, is to drink more water. It shouldn't be a challenge, right?  I should be able to just keep a glass of water on the table next to me and refill it once it's empty...then repeat, right?  Right. My mom used to drink a ton of water.  She'd have her water bottle with her at all times.  This was before personal water bottles were the "it" thing and you didn't find entire aisles of bottled water in the stores.  This was before Food and Water Watch showed us that you can't always believe what you read on the back of a bottle when it comes to the source.  She used to have this old beat up plastic water bottle that everyone knew was hers, because she was one of the only people I knew of that carried one.  These were the old-school water bottles, before BPA and all the other toxic chemicals were revealed as dangerous and we ...

So far, so good I suppose...no cheese for three days.  That is, if you don't count those two mini Butterfinger candy bars I took out of the candy baskets of my children.  Yes, I am a candy thief.  I did, however, read the ingredient list on my other favorite, the tootsie roll.  No dairy there, but I was a bit curious about the "artificial and natural flavors".  Just what is the" natural" flavor in a tootsie roll? Don't even get me started on the contents of ingredient lists and nutritional labels... So back to this whole cheese thing.  Sunday was a bit rough.  My husband, the chef, who cannot seem to attend a single tailgate party for the Chargers without preparing three or four homemade, delicious dishes, made macaroni and cheese (with Boar's Head Monterrey jack no less) and sausage and peppers.  Now, homemade sausage and peppers is nice, but homemade macaroni and cheese is downright sinful.  Even with gluten-free pasta, the cheese i...

Wow, it's been a while since I've blogged.  Well, blogging hasn't been on the top of my list of things to do lately, mostly because it's been a VERY long list of things to do...   See, I could be blogging about Occupy this and Occupy that or the recent school closure discussions that have been hovering over San Diego Unified like a stinky cloud lately, but I wont.  No, today I really just feel like blogging about myself. As a gluten-free eater I've had to rearrange my diet and pay more attention to nutrition labels.  As the mom of a daughter who was born with a dairy and soy allergy I got used to delving deeper into the nutritional content of everything in the house.  I had to remove all dairy and soy from my already scant diet while nursing my daughter, which aided in my milk supply drying up and me losing all of my baby weight rather quickly.  I noticed after I stopped nursing my daughter I still had trouble digesting dairy (or soy, who knows). Ooo...

I've taken a few weeks to mull this over and I've taken those weeks, too, to make sure that I don't over-react or say something that I would later regret...Now that I've gotten that out of the way... There are a lot of subjects we don't discuss with people for fear that you may have differing opinions and it would harm the relationship, or you end up walking into a debate.  Politics is one of them, race is another, and then there's the other R word, Religion. Of all the religions in the world, it seems that there is just one that wants me to be a part of it.  You know who they are, they come to your door, they offer to "share" something from the Bible with you.  You play along and smile, nod politely and then give them some random excuse as to why you have to cut their conversion - I mean conversation, short.  They leave you with a little pamphlet or booklet and depart.  Usually that's they way it happens and perhaps its just once or twice a ye...

A small post today... I am not shocked by the behavior of some of our elected officials, and I find it rather funny when people become outraged that "so-and-so" did "such-and-such" and now it's become a scandal. We elect people to represent us every-day people.  Do we expect them to be super-human, above average, and perfect?  Well, yeah, we do.  But they're still human.  They make mistakes, they err.  Unfortunately, some of them make really dumb mistakes and leave proof (like pictures or a whole child!)  I am not condoning such behavior, I am just merely stating a fact.  We elect people to make laws, uphold the rights of the citizens they represent and make good decisions.  It's the making good decisions part that I think was left out in several of these cases.  Sure, it's okay to make mistakes.  Just make sure it's not something that will end up getting you fired, put in jail or make you end up looking bad in front of an entire ...

This is a topic very close to my heart.  Race is such a touchy subject.  I know race is a social construct and I know that it was all a sham.  I believe such a thing as white privilege exists and I believe that we are all "created" equally - however you believe we were created. Recently, there was an article published in Psychology Today online called, "Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive?" For one, that question in and of itself is racially inclined.  I stumbled upon a blog post from Sam Sommers, PhD in response to the article.  You can read it here. The article has since been removed from Psychology Today's site and Change.org has already created a petition to get PT to respond to the outrage from posting the article.  Now, I agree it may not have been in the best interest of the people at PT to allow such an article to be posted, but without having read the article, I can't really speak to it's content.  The whole idea of Race in Amer...

So, I've never been the kind of person that thinks about what to have for dinner AHEAD of time.  My husband used to ask me all the time, "What should we have for dinner tonight?"  I'd think to myself, 'We just had breakfast!'...but this is the way my husband was raised: dinners were pretty regular for him growing up.   For me, not so much.   I went out to eat a lot with my family, particularly after my mom went back to school for her Master's degree when I was seven .  Life was about convenience and what was easy.  I remember a lot of Arby's and Piccolos, this Italian/Mexican restaurant down the street.  My dad wasn't much of a cook, so we ate a lot of rice and beans, microwave meals (once we finally bought a microwave from a yard sale down the street) and lentil pilaf. courtesy of dummies.com I can't even recall a time when I cooked a full meal when I lived on my own after high school, while I was going to the state college in Denver.  ...