When our son Corbett was in high school my girlfriend Marguerite occasionally baked cookies for him. He loved those home made treats and often lamented, “I wish I had a mother like Marguerite who baked cookies for me.”

It’s true, I didn’t bake a lot when the kids were young. Why? My selfish, bad-mother reason is simple: I love cookies as much, if not more, than Corbett, and if they were around, I’d eat them.

Like many Americans, my all-time favorite cookie is chocolate chip. They are irresistible if freshly home made. Great dunked in coffee or tea, or even gobbled as one heads out the door. (Notice how I euphemistically refer to active on-the-run gobbling rather than the sitting-on-the-couch-in-front-of-the-TV kind? It’s a Catholic-guilt thing.)

But I’ve found that you actually can have your cookies and eat them too. While these biscotti aren’t exactly diet fare, they don’t contain any butter, they’re impossible to consume quickly (too hard and crunchy) and they satisfy that chocolate craving quite nicely in just a few bites. They’re best when dunked in either coffee, tea, or as the Italians do, wine.

This recipe is from Maida Heatter, who has been called America’s queen of desserts. Her original recipe calls for two large eggs, but I found that the dough was much too dry (perhaps my flour was less hydrated due of our dry, cold winter) so I added three eggs and the dough was still pretty stiff but workable.

These take the cake, or should I say, cookie?

Chocolate Chip and Almond Biscotti

6 oz. (1 1/4 cups) whole almonds
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1/8 t. salt
1 cup minus 2 T. sugar
12 oz. (2 cups) semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 large eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
2 T. brandy

Toast the almonds in a single layer at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes, shaking the pan a few times. Allow them to cool.

Change oven temperature to 375 degrees.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add the sugar and stir to mix. Place about 1/2 cup of these ingredients into a food processor, add 1/2 cup of the almonds and process until the almonds are fine and powdery, about 30 seconds. Add the processed mixture to the rest of the dry ingredients and stir in the chocolate chips and the remaining almonds.

In a small bowl beat the eggs with the vanilla and brandy, just enough to mix. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and stir with a rubber spatula until the ingredients are moistened. (Maida says to be patient, which you will have to be. This is a stiff dough.)

Turn dough out onto a piece of parchment or waxed paper. Wet your hands and shape the dough into a round mound and cut with a sharp knife into four even pieces. Continue to wet your hands and shape each piece into a log about 9 inches long, 2 inches wide and about 1/2 inch high. (Press, don’t roll, the dough.)

Prepare two baking sheets by layering them with parchment paper, and place two logs on each sheet. Place both pans into a 375 degree oven and bake for 25 minutes, reversing the sheets midway through baking time.

Remove the sheets and slide logs onto a cutting board to cool for 20 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 275 degrees.

With a long serrated knife, carefully slice each log diagonally into slices about 1/2 inch wide. This can be tricky, so go slowly and cut with a sawing motion. Place the slices cut side down back onto the baking sheets, which at this point can be unlined.

Return to a 275 degree oven and bake for 25 minutes, turning the slices over midway through baking. Turn the oven heat off, open the oven door, and let the biscotti cool in the oven.

When cool, store in an airtight container. They’ll keep indefinitely!

Makes about 40 biscotti
WW points per cookie: 2 to 3, depending on size

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A single serving of tuna noodle casserole.

It has been a brutally cold and dismal winter in the American Midwest. I have survived by taking daily doses of Vitamin D in the morning, followed by equally medicinal doses of wine at night. It’s worked, but just barely. I don’t remember another time when I have felt so “blah” for so long.

My mood has affected my cooking, which brings me to the recipe at hand. When my friend Kaye came over this morning to do the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle (we finished it in three hours), she expressed her surprise that I had resorted to so pedestrian a dish.

I told her that if you grew up Catholic in the 1950’s and 60’s you’d recognize this Friday night dinner staple. And when I recently came upon the recipe, I suddenly craved the familiar taste from my childhood (which was spent in California, where winters were never this cold!)

Tuna noodle casserole became popular after the Campbell Soup folks introduced their revolutionary Cream of Mushroom Soup in 1934. (Imagine if the Internet had been around when Cream of Mushroom Soup first appeared. I envision all kinds of condensed soup/recipe blogs.)

My mom made her tuna noodle casserole in a round tube pan and then unmolded it onto a large platter and served it with peas in the middle hole. I’m certain she got the idea from Lady’s Home Journal, the housewife’s entertaining bible back then. And yes, my mom proudly served this to guests!

Here is a Weight Watcher-friendly version that will take you back (without setting you back too many calories).

Tuna Noodle Casserole

1 T. unsalted butter
1 small onion, diced
1 cup 2% milk
1 (10 1/2 oz.) can condensed reduced-fat cream of mushroom soup
6 oz. (uncooked) egg noodles (buy a 12-oz. package and use half)
1 1/4 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 T. lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 t. dried thyme
2 (6-oz.) cans tuna packed in water, drained
1 (2-oz.) jar diced pimentos, drained
1/3 cup fresh breadcrumbs
2 T. freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Boil noodles in a medium saucepan and drain in a colander. In the same pan, melt the butter and saute onion until soft. Whisk in milk and soup and cook about 3 minutes. Add the cooked noodles, peas, lemon juice, salt, pepper, thyme, tuna and pimento and pour into a 2-quart casserole that’s been sprayed with nonstick spray.

Combine the breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese and sprinkle over the top. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until bubbly.

Serves: 4
WW Points per serving: 8

(I found the serving size to be large, so you can make this into 6 servings and save a couple of points.)

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According to his trainer, John Schaeffer, Apolo got out of shape when he was competing on Dancing with the Stars in 2007, and had to lose almost 17 pounds before the Olympics. (Whoa! What kind of shape would we be in if we were on Dancing with the Stars? I’m thinking we’d be pretty buff!)

Apolo Ono at 5'8" and 142 pounds.

Schaeffer took complete control of the athlete’s lifestyle in the four months prior to the Olympics, cooking all his meals and overseeing a rigorous daily training schedule. Apolo ate mostly salmon, chicken and lots of vegetables and fruits, and lost about a pound a week.

That’s a pretty slow rate, considering the amount of exercise he was getting. I’m thinking that Schaeffer planned it this way so that Apolo would lose mostly fat and as little muscle as possible, a major benefit of slow weight loss.

So when you’re feeling impatient about the rate of your weight loss, it might be good to remember that the fittest athlete on the planet deliberately took four months to lose 17 pounds. Do you want it gone fast, or do you want it gone for good?

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Alice Tan Ridley

Alice Tan Ridley sings in the New York subway. She has become so successful at it that she was able to quit her day job and sing full time for hurried commuters, who are so irresistibly drawn to her powerful, joyful voice that she has become famous in her own right.

You see, Alice is also the mother of Gabourey Sidibe, Best Actress Oscar nominee for  the film, “Precious”.

When asked during a recent interview about her children, Alice said that she always told them, “You can be whatever you want to be. You can do whatever you want to do. You just have to get up and do it.”

Looks like Alice practices what she preaches, proving that there is, indeed, truth in truisms: Where there is a will, there is a way.

Two chocolate biscotti with a home made latte. Can't beat that!

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 T. unsalted butter, melted
1 t. vanilla extract
3/4 cup dried cherries (I used Craisins)
1 oz. semisweet chocolate

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a large baking sheet with nonstick spray. (I line my pan with parchment paper.)

In a medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large bowl, combine sugar, eggs, butter and vanilla with an electric mixer. Reduce speed to low and slowly add flour mixture until well combined. The dough will be fairly stiff. Stir in the cherries or Craisins by hand and knead dough a few times to combine all.

Sprinkle work surface lightly with flour and turn dough onto surface. Divide in half. Roll each half into a long cylinder about 14″ long by 1 1/2″ wide. Place side by side on baking sheet and bake until firm and a toothpick inserted into center of each log comes out clean, about 15 minutes.

Slide out onto a cutting board and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees F. With a serrated knife, slice each log crosswise into about 30 (1/2″) slices. Place slices onto baking sheet and bake until fairly dry, about 10 minutes on each side. Cool completely on wire rack.

Place semisweet chocolate into a small microwavable bowl and microwave on High, stirring every 15 seconds, until melted and smooth, about 45 seconds to 1 minute. Transfer chocolate to a small zip-lock plastic bag. Cut off a tiny corner of the bag and drizzle chocolate over cookies. Allow to harden before serving.

Notes: The logs may crack during the first baking. That’s OK. And when you slice the logs, some of the slices will break apart at the ends. I just pinched them back together or left them as-is. Apparently, this is a natural consequence of biscotti-making. As I bake more recipes, I’ll get back to you on this. Also, my chocolate didn’t become thin enough to drizzle lightly over the biscotti, so I used more and made fatter drizzles. What’s not to love?

Makes: about 60 cookies
WW Points per serving: 1 (for 3 cookies, or 2 if you do what I did and use more chocolate. Two of these are worth a measly 1 point anyway!)

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Keating suggests to his students that the boys in the photos were once just like them–young and seemingly invincible; they believed they were destined for great things; their eyes were full of hope. But now, these long years hence, they are all dead.

Keating asks his students, “Did they wait until it was too late to make of their lives just one iota of what they were capable?” He then leans in and whispers, as if the dead boys in the photographs are speaking directly to them, “Carpe diem, boys. Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary.”

I love this film particularly because of its theme, that life is not only brief, but too dear to be taken for granted. And yet, that is what we do. We constantly ignore the present and focus our attentions and our energies on tomorrow, or next week, or next month. If we begin a task now, it’s easy to abandon when the work becomes either difficult or inconvenient, telling ourselves that we can begin again later. Like Scarlet O’Hara, we take comfort that, “After all, tomorrow is another day.”

We act as though we have all the time in the world, when, in fact, we do not.  That is why there are so many famous poems and quotes that instruct us to act now: Carpe diem. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. There’s no time like the present. Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today. And let us not forget the ever annoying, Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

If you want to lose weight and get healthy, well, you know when you need to begin. As yet another quote states, “If not now, when?”

John William Waterhouse, 1908

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
Robert Herrick 1591–1674

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Richard talked about how he struggled with his obesity as a teenager, and how he went on extreme fad diets in college that nearly ruined his health. In desperation, he finally took charge of his life and began eating right and exercising. And he tearfully admitted to Dr. Oz,  ”I tasted something that I had never tasted before, and it was the taste of health.”

What helped him begin the weight loss journey that eventually led to a successful career as a diet and fitness personality? Richard suggested two steps that he said are essential for losing weight.

First, you must know your self-worth. You must admit to yourself that you are worthy and that you deserve to be healthy.

Second, you must count your blessings. Despite life’s many hardships, we each have something we can be grateful for, and we should acknowledge our good fortune every single morning when we awaken.

When you can accomplish these two tasks–recognizing your worth and being grateful–Richard says you will begin to look at food differently, and you will look at yourself differently as well.

This makes a lot of sense to me. The plain truth is this: you won’t take care of yourself if you don’t think you’re worthy. Oh, you might be able to “diet” for a few months and lose some pounds, but without believing that, as the L’Oreal ad says, “you’re worth it”, you’ll eventually fall into old, self-destructive habits, gain the weight back and tell yourself that you just can’t lose weight. Unfortunately, with that attitude you’ll be right.

When you care about what happens to you, you care about all the elements that go into making you healthy. That’s when you begin to look at food differently, as fuel that can build you up rather than weigh you down. The same goes with exercise–it becomes a vehicle to make you leaner and stronger.

I’ve said this before: losing weight and keeping it off isn’t easy. Richard Simmons knows from experience that the only long-term road to success is to get on your own team, become your loudest cheer leader and believe in yourself. Sounds hokey, perhaps, but it sure has worked for him. Do you think it might work for you too?

In 1915, Whitman's became the nation's first, and most popular, boxed selection of different kinds of candy.

They had walked to the five-and-dime in Chico, California, and bought her a two-layer Whitman’s Sampler. But later when she opened the box, she found two handkerchiefs where the top layer of candy had been. You can probably guess what happened. Temptation struck on the way home; they dipped into the box for the proverbial “sample” and ended up eating the whole top layer, after which they had to return to the store for something to fill in the empty space.

Actually, this was not entirely a bad thing. Think of the calories they saved her, not to mention the story she got to tell for the next 50 some-odd years. (And trust me, when it came to Pat and Frank, there were many stories.)

So here is my wish for you on this 2010 Valentine’s Day: that you receive a bouquet of flowers instead of candy, but if you do get chocolate, may it resemble Minerva’s box of Whitman’s and be missing a layer.

Since I’m not that nice, I’m going to skip this month’s challenge and wait for the one where we get to find happiness by gossiping about others. That sounds like way more fun to me.

Getting back to the subject of self-help, I read a lot in an effort to discover how we can make lasting changes in our lives, such as losing weight and keeping it off. I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer doesn’t lie in books. Yes, books can provide philosophical guildelines, such as finding our true selves and staying positive,  as well as practical suggestions, such as eating healthful foods and using smaller plates.

But unless you’ve been stranded on a distant planet and just made it back to earth, you already know that. You also know that losing weight isn’t easy. Neither is keeping it off. Take it from me, there is no book that will make the proverbial light bulb go off in your head and render the process effortless.

A dyed-in-the-wool Saints Fan!

So where do we turn for inspiration? Real life. And I can think of no better example of the improbable becoming the inevitable than last Sunday’s Super Bowl.

The New Orleans Saints had been reviled as the worst team in football, so bad that fans came to their games wearing paper bags over their heads and chanting,  ”Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?”

Four years ago, when Hurricane Katrina submerged 85% of the city in water and turned the Saint’s super dome into a homeless shelter, the team seriously considered leaving town and going to a more profitable venue. But they stayed, because they loved their city and they had a crazy–some would say foolhardy–determination to try, try again.

This year they made it all the way to Miami for their very first Super Bowl appearance ever, albeit as the underdogs. (Love those dog analogies.)

A sign of what believing in yourself can do.

The rest, as they say, is history. This team’s improbable victory is a great example of what it takes to win. Forget about past failures. They’re history. Ignore the naysayers (including yourself). Negative talk goes absolutely nowhere.

Believe that you can accomplish anything you set out to do. Be stubborn about it if you have to, but do not take no for an answer. You know what you have to do, and you can do it.

Do I sound like a cheer leader? I am, sort of. Go, team, go!