I remember once watching a TV show with Julia Child and Jacques Pepin. The two old friends were comparing their methods for roasting chicken and they got into a friendly argument over whether it was necessary to wash the bird. Julia insisted that it must be done, but Jacques said it was unnecessary, that cooking it properly got rid of the germs. Turns out he was right.

Common Kitchen Mistake*

New research shows that washing raw poultry actually increases the risk of food poisoning because of the likelihood that in washing the flesh you’re spreading bacteria in a radius of up to 3 feet.

According to the experts, properly cooking chicken gets rid of any germs that cause food poisoning. Washing chicken in tap water only sprinkles germs around your kitchen and increases your chances of ingesting them.

By the way, most people think that salmonella is the big problem, but it’s not. It’s a bacteria called campylobacter, the most common cause of poultry food poisoning that causes diarrhea and stomach cramps.

The study stated that three-quarters of us are chicken washers, proof that might doesn’t necessarily make right, and that our mothers didn’t know everything. (Don’t worry, Mom, no matter what they say I’m still putting the avocado pit into the guacamole to keep it from turning brown.)

(*OK, so we ARE talking about dead, raw chicken here, not live birds as pictured. At least in terms of visuals, I believe that live trumps dead any day.)

I used three kinds of beets, including golden and variegated. The beautiful colors are jewel-like.

If you say you don’t like beets, you’ve probably only tasted the ones that come in a can or a jar. The difference between fresh and canned beets is profound, I think. Perhaps it will help to know that typical red garden beets are a close relative of sugar beets, which provide us with the white sugar that eventually ends up in much of the processed foods we hate to love. So don’t say you’re completely off beets. You probably eat some version of them every day!

Following is a recipe for roasted beets that you should try, because beets are healthful, because they’re unfairly maligned (due to the tinny flavor of the canned ones) and most of all because they are downright delicious.

Here’s what you do: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cut greens away from beets, leaving about 1/4″ of stem. Scrub them well and place in a baking dish. Add 1/4″ of water to dish and cover tightly with foil. Roast small beets for approximately 30 to 40 minutes. Larger beets will take up to 60 minutes. Beets are done when a knife slips through them easily.

Remove from oven and allow to cool a bit. Then cut stems and slip off skins. You can serve them warm, at room temperature or cold. I cut them into chunks, drizzled them with light balsamic vinaigrette and served them with slivers of basil and chunks of goat cheese alongside a green salad. I roasted plenty of them, refrigerated whole extras and cut them up for salads for several days.

By the way, although beets are usually considered to be a winter vegetable, they’re best in the summer months when you can get the smallest, most tender ones at farmers’ markets.

Rush Hour, London Underground

Most likely the number-one excuse of people who don’t eat healthfully is that they don’t have enough time. They work long hours; they have a long commute; they have to drive the kids to a myriad of activities(the ones we didn’t participate in when we were kids). They simply do not have the time or energy to shop for real food, let alone take it home and cook it.

My answer to that is the above quote, from the author of “Life’s Little Instruction Book”. It’s another version of the “no whining” theme I’ve been advancing lately.

Here’s what I think: when we really want something, we make time for it no matter what. You want to watch the latest episodes of “American Idol” or “Desperate Housewives”? My guess is that you’ll find the time to plop your butt down on the couch (with some buttered popcorn) for an hour to watch them.

If you really want to eat healthfully, you’ll find the time to stop at the store for some chicken and veggies, and you’ll even learn a few quick, delicious, go-to recipes to make with them. Or you’ll make PB & J sandwiches for the kids instead of taking them through the artery-clogging (yes, even for children) drive-thru.

Tough love hurts at first, until you figure out what’s behind it (hint: second word in the phrase).

Bride's gown by Poochie; Groom's jacket purchased on eBay from the Liberace estate.

Summer weddings can be a challenge for a dieter, with the buffet lines and all that champagne and wedding cake. What’s a Weight Watcher to do? RSVP in the negative and miss out on all the fun?

Of course not! I advise simple moderation: a glass or two of champagne, and perhaps just a kibble, er, I mean nibble, of cake.

After all, wouldn’t you hate to miss out on this special day? Let’s raise our glasses in a toast to Fifi and Lance: may your lives be littered with oodles of poodles.

You say you hate to schlep to the store several times a week to buy fresh vegetables, boneless, skinless chicken breasts and skim milk. It’s such an inconvenient, repetitive chore, and today’s supermarkets are sterile, cavernous warehouses with literally miles of aisles to traverse, on foot no less.

And then when you get home, what do you have? Raw food that you have to cook! Another affront to your limited free time. And don’t you just hate to touch raw chicken?

Chicken breast, bone-in, skin and feathers on

OK. Reality check time. You knew it was coming, didn’t you?

A mere two hundred years ago, if you wanted chicken for dinner, here is what you had to do. You had to go outside and catch this bird and wring its neck. Then you had to “dress” it, a euphemism for all the disgusting things butchers do to dead birds before they shrink-wrap them for the aforementioned twenty-first century superstores.

Cooking the chicken involved another whole laundry list of chores: cutting firewood in the forest, lugging it home and chopping it into logs, setting a fire in the kitchen fireplace, threading the chicken onto the rotisserie, if you had one, or putting it in a big hanging iron pot over the open fire and boiling it with vegetables while you relaxed and…wait, who’s kidding here, there’s no relaxing!

Produce department, circe 1750

Another pesky chore has entered the picture. The vegetable garden. You had to have one of those as well, and to my knowledge there were no gardeners back then. You were on your own with the planting, howing, weeding, harvesting, canning tasks.

And when it  comes to the canning, we have to start all over again with the firewood and the chopping and the fireplace and the boiling. Yada, yada, yada.

It’s no coincidence that the only creature who’s reclining in this picture is the dog, further proof that dogs are smarter than we give them credit for.

It may seem trite to compare food preparation from 200 years ago with today, but I think there’s an important lesson here. We’ve come a long way in a relatively short time; perhaps we haven’t actually stopped to consider how much better we have it now.

I’ve thought about this a lot lately, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I would much rather go to the supermarket and buy my chicken (already dead and wrapped in plastic) than to have to wring its neck in the back yard.

If you continue to complain about having to grocery shop, you’re going to sound like a whiner. Whining is for poodles, not people.

Moosewood Restaurant is a famous vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, New York. They’ve been publishing cookbooks, many of them award-winning, almost since they opened their doors in 1973.

No, my version isn’t completely vegetarian–I added shrimp. Can’t leave well-enough alone.

I added shrimp and sugar snap peas at the last minute.

Rice

1 14-oz. can artichoke hearts
1 1/2 cups brown rice
1 t. salt
1/2 t. saffron, crumbled

Vegetables

2 cups finely chopped onions
1 cup finely chopped celery
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 T. extra-virgin olive oil
1 t. dried thyme (I used fresh)
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 lb. asparagus, cut into 2″ pieces
1 1/2 cups frozen green peas
1 14-1/2 oz. can diced tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste

First make the rice: drain the artichoke hearts, reserving the brine from the can. Quarter the artichoke hearts and set aside. Add water to the brine to make 2 1/2 cups liquid and combine it with the rice, salt and saffron in a heavy saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. Cover, bring to a boil, reduce heat and very gently simmer until rice is tender, about 40 to 45 minutes. You may have to add a bit more water if the rice is too dry. (I cooked my rice in a Japanese rice cooker. Easy and foolproof.)

When the rice has simmered for about 25 minutes, start the vegetables. Saute the onions, celery and garlic in the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the thyme, bell pepper and asparagus; cover and cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes. Add the peas, tomatoes and reserved artichoke hearts. Stir gently, cover and continue to simmer for another 5 to 10 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Add salt and pepper to taste. I added a good splash of Frank’s Original Hot Sauce. You could also sprinkle on some crushed red pepper flakes.

To serve the paella, spread the rice on a large platter or bowl and top with the vegetables and their juices.

As pictured, you can add about 1/2 lb. of shrimp to this. Lay the shrimp atop the vegetables during the last few minutes of cooking time to steam them.

Serves: 6

WW Points per 15 oz. serving: 6

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Everything cooks together in one big Dutch oven.

The moment Spain won the World Cup on Sunday I got a text from my friend Laura that read, “You have to put a paella recipe on the blog to honor Spain.” Laura, you are a woman of good taste and exceptional timing.

Paella is considered by many to be the national dish of Spain; if you travel around the country you will get different versions of the dish everywhere you go. Most include rice and some sort of seafood and/or meat. This recipe, adapted from Cooks Illustrated, contains some of both.

Paella is seasoned with saffron, the world’s most expensive spice (because it comes from the hand-picked stigmas of saffron crocus flowers). So far as I know, there is no substitute for the taste of saffron, but you can use turmeric to get the same yellow color. If you decide to splurge on a tiny bit of saffron, which is how it’s sold, it will keep in a tightly sealed jar for at least two years. Hey, you only live once. Take a risk, but for the taste-faint-of-heart, I warn you, saffron has a unique, albeit fabulous, taste.

I suggest that you make this dish your own. It can easily be altered to cater to your taste preferences without any changes in the cooking times. For instance, we like foods spicy so we add either Tabasco or Frank’s Original Hot Sauce to our paella.

If you’d prefer to forego the seafood or the sausage, by all means do so. I’ve even made completely vegetarian paellas that were delicious and chock-full of vegetables, including artichoke hearts and sugar snap peas. The main thing is to cook the rice together with the other ingredients in the oven so that the flavors meld. This recipe is made with brown rice, which takes a bit longer to cook but has a wonderful texture.

My mother used to make a huge pan of paella whenever she had a crowd over for dinner. (She also made a killer jambalaya.) It’s perfect for entertaining because people can serve themselves what they want right from the pot.

OK, so this is a bit labor-intensive by American microwave-and-eat standards, but it goes together quickly and once it’s in the oven it’s a no-brainer. Whining is not allowed on hungry poodle.

Serve the paella sprinkled with parsley and lemon wedges. All you need is a great salad and some Spanish wine.

1 lb. shrimp (21/25 count), peeled and deveined
6 garlic colves, minced
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed of excess fat and halved crosswise
1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut lengthwise into 1/2″ wide strips
8 oz. Spanish chorizo or linguica, sliced 1/2″ thick on the bias
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes, drained, minced, and drained again
2 cups long-grain brown rice
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/3 cup dry white wine
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled
1 bay leaf
1 dozen mussels, scrubbed and debearded
1/2 cup frozen green peas, thawed
Chopped parsley
1 lemon, cut into wedges, for serving

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toss shrimp with 1/4 t. salt, black pepper and 1 t. of the minced garlic. Set aside. Season chicken thighs with salt and pepper.

Heat 2 t. of oil in a large Dutch oven an add red bell peppers. Cook, stirring occasionally, until their skins begin to blister and turn black. Transfer peppers to a small plate.

Add another teaspoon of oil to the pot and add the chicken pieces. Brown on both sides. Transfer to a bowl and add the chorizo to the now-empty pot. Cook until well-browned. Place in the bowl with the chicken.

Add the onion to the pot and cook until softened; stir in the remaining garlic. Stir in the tomatoes and cook about 3 minutes. Add the rice and coat it well with the tomato mixture. Stir in the chicken broth, wine, saffron, bay leaf and 1/2 t. salt. Bring to a boil, cover the pot and place in the oven.

Cook for 30 minutes. Remove the pot and add the chicken and chorizo, pushing them down into the rice mixture. Replace lid and transfer to oven. Cook another 15 minutes. Remove from oven and add the shrimp. Insert the mussels into the rice hinged-side down so that they stand upright; arrange the red bell peppers in a pinwheel pattern and scatter peas over top. Cover and return to oven and cook until shrimp are opaque and mussels have opened, about 12 minutes.

Allow paella to stand, covered, for several minutes. Discard any mussels that don’t open and remove bay leaf. Sprinkle with parsley and serve with lemon wedges and hot sauce.

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Why don’t more people roast chicken at home? Is it because plastic-wrapped, rotisseried (and overdone) birds are readily available at the supermarket? Or is it because we’re all so very busy, running around like chickens with our heads cut off? It may be a combination of both, plus the fact that many of us never learned the basics of cooking, which, while too bad, is not irreparable.

Costco sells what many people consider to be the perfect roast chicken. But when I checked the sodium count for their tasty bird, I found it to have an astonishing 460 mg. of sodium for a mere three ounces of meat. That’s Costco value for you–you buy a chicken and they toss in the salt lick for free.

Look, even if you don’t claim to be a cook, it’s not difficult to roast a chicken at home. All it takes is a good chicken (I buy free-range), some herbs if you have them, a lemon and olive oil and some balsamic vinegar to splash on at the end.

1 3-to-3 1/2 lb. chicken
1 lemon
1 onion, chopped coarsely
2 carrots, chopped coarsely
fresh herbs (I cut a combination of thyme, rosemary and sage, but you can use any or all of these)
olive oil
salt and pepper
balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Dry chicken thoroughly and salt liberally inside and out. I use a tablespoon of kosher salt, which sounds like a lot but isn’t. Also sprinkle with black pepper. Cut a lemon in half and stuff it inside the along with the fresh herbs. Tie its legs together to keep everything inside. Lightly coat with olive oil (you can spray it on with an olive oil sprayer) and place atop chopped vegetables in a pan just large enough to hold the bird.

Place 1/4 cup of water in the bottom of the pan and place it into the oven. Roast for about 55 to 60 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer reads 160 degrees when placed into the breast or 165-170 degrees in the thigh. (If you’re roasting a bigger bird, from 4 to 4 1/2 lbs., it will take about 60 to 65 minutes.) If you don’t have an instant-read thermometer, the juices from the leg should run clear when pierced. Just try not to overcook it; if it’s dry, overcooked chicken you want, buy it at the supermarket.

Remove from the oven and baste all over with balsamic vinegar. This gives the bird a beautiful brown color and lots of wonderful flavor. Cover with foil and allow to rest for 15 to 20 minutes.

Slice and serve with more balsamic vinegar. You can also squeeze on the lemon from inside its tummy if you like lemony chicken.

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Make these for the 4th and stick little American flag toothpicks in them to keep them from toppling over!

Our quintessential national holiday, the 4th of July, requires all-American fare, but in recent years I’ve forgone grilling hamburgers in favor of less fat-filled entrees such as chicken. I wrote a blog a few months back about being chickened out. Never truer words were written.

Enter the slider, until recently a restaurant/bar treat that you can now make at home thanks to Sara Lee’s new (to me, anyway) Mini Buns. which have only 90 calories. There might be other brands of minis out there as well; they’re all basically meant to be used to make less gargantuan sandwiches.

I’m back in the burger business, although in a continued effort to keep it healthy, I’ve used ground turkey here instead of beef. You can certainly use ground beef if you choose.

This recipe is adapted from the Weight Watchers web site; their recipe makes regular-sized burgers using ground chicken (and you already know how I feel about that). Each of these little burgers has about 3 ounces of meat, a fat slice of home-grown tomato and romaine, some spiced-up barbeque sauce and a few blue cheese crumbles, which give them a buffalo sort of kick. Yum.

1 lb. 93% lean ground turkey
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs, plain
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 t. salt
1/4 cup barbeque sauce
1 t. hot pepper sauce (I like Frank’s)
5 slices ripe tomato
Romaine lettuce
5 slider buns
2 T. blue cheese, crumbled*

In a small bowl combine barbeque sauce with hot pepper sauce. In a large mixing bowl combine turkey with bread crumbs, onion, salt and a tablespoon of the barbeque sauce mixture. Using wet hands, form into 5 patties; brush the tops of the patties with some of the remaining barbeque sauce.

Place burgers on grill sauce side down; brush top with remaining sauce. When you turn the burgers over, place the slider buns on the grill to toast them a bit.

To serve, place a burger onto each bun and top with a slice of tomato, some lettuce and a few crumbles of the blue cheese. I spread my blue cheese on the top of the bun.

*Don’t like blue cheese? Goat cheese works just as well. Or you can always default to cheddar.

Makes 5 burgers

WW Points per burger: 5

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I went on my first official diet in the 7th grade after Timothy Hurley called me fat at school one day. My mother took me to a “diet doctor” who gave me a shot every four days and pills to take daily. I have no idea what was in the shots or the pills, but I remember feeling very peppy.

Since my mother was paying good money for this diet, on days when I knew I had overindulged I took my chihuahua Katie for long walks on the street behind our house in an attempt to melt away the extra calories. It was winter. I wore a heavy wool coat and a knit cap and gloves; hardly appropriate work-out wear but then, these were pre-Jane Fonda video days. What did we know?

Katie wore a little coat as well. She panted furiously as I dragged her up and down Maryal Drive, and her pink tongue hung out the side of her mouth as she desperately tried to keep up. (Who invented Chihuahuas anyway?)

Thus it is not without abundant experience and deep sentiment that I state that I’ve dieted almost my entire life. I understand that the word “diet” is emotionally charged and that many weight loss experts, including Weight Watchers, proclaim that diets don’t work.

The diets they’re referring to are like the one Oprah went on in 1988, when she got thin by not eating at all (she drank liquid shakes). Remember her pulling a wagon filled with 67 pounds of fat on stage while wearing her beloved Calvin Klein jeans, the jeans she was unable to wear the very next day because she had eaten her way out of them? She looked really good for about 24 hours.

That’s what the experts mean by “diet”.

What I’m referring to is our daily confrontation with tasty food. It’s available everywhere, plastic-wrapped, shelf-stable and ready-to-eat the moment you pay for it. For me, dieting represents my day-to-day attempt to eat somewhat healthfully while avoiding all these tempting onslaughts.

Yes, you can also call it a healthy lifestyle, but truth be known, it feels a whole lot like every diet I’ve ever been on because, bottom line, I have to say “no” a lot. Almost constantly, in fact. You get a gold star if you can call this anything other than a diet.

When I was a kid, Kathy McCullough and I had to trek a half-mile across two fields behind my house to get to the Woolworth’s lunch counter in order to celebrate going on a diet with a banana split. We did this every summer, walking and sweating in the hot California sun just to get to that ice cream. (See “The Woolworth Diet” in the archives.) It wasn’t nearly as easy back then to overindulge; we actually had to burn some calories in the process.

Ah, for the good old days.