"So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them kimchi pancakes and mondu soup to eat instead." Daniel 1:16 revisedI have a friend, Diane. She is pregnant and she still looks like THIS......
Diane is an encouragement to me in many ways. She is a wonderful example of a godly wife, a humble and caring daughter-in-law and very conscientious mother. She is filled with grace when considering other people's decisions, which I hope she will remember when she reads this post!
It is Diane's turn to teach our co-op right now. We are learning all about self-control. Diane's job is to teach this with an emphasis on self-control and wise decisions when it comes to eating. We asked her to teach this because she single-handedly is responsible for boosting sales of Bosch mixers and Nutri-Mill grain mills! She is the mom who taught all of us to grind our own wheat and bake our own bread. She is very health conscious. She not only mills her own grain, but belongs to an organic veggie co-op, knows every alias for MSG and can spot a preservative a mile away!!
One of the fun things Diane had us do this week was go on a field trip to a grocery store and read labels and make good food choices with input from our kids. If I had actually given my kids input, perhaps I would not be writing this confession right now!
Now, I am as unique as Diane is healthy, so for me, a trip to the grocery store was not enough. I enlisted the "help" of my friend, Angi, and we planned our field trip to the Korean market, H Mart, in Aurora. There is WAY more exotic stuff to look at at H Mart AND I can buy ingredients to make amazing food! With the promise of a Korean meal, Angi was in.
Angi and I packed up our kids and made the 45 minute trip to H Mart. Oh, the things we do in the name of quality education! At this point, Angi and I were still committed to the letter and the spirit of the lesson Diane had worked so hard to teach us. Of course, Angi and I were still in the parking lot!
All eleven of us started out so well, so Diane-worthy. We went to the produce department. I bought fresh spinach, apples, onions and avocados. Then I moved on to more exotic fare like baby bok choy and other Asian fruits and vegetable. I had grand AND
healthy ideas of soups and salads running through my head for lunches! (Oh, Diane, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak....). Angi, too, was filling up on good fruits and veggies. We spent a fair amount of time in the produce section making
very healthy food choices!
From the produce section, we headed over to the fish department. Our kids had a blast watching the live fish swimming around. I think they thought it was a mini version of the Denver Aquarium, so I didn't have the heart to tell them that later the only place they would be on display was on someone's dinner plate! Then we looked at all the dead fish on ice. I must say, that there were about 14 varieties of fish available for purchase and only TWO were farm raised (a healthy food choice no-no). The rest were all wild caught and very
healthy.
Angi and I didn't buy any fish.
Next stop....butcher! We perused the available delicacies.....duck, goose, oxtail, duck and turkey gizzards, duck feet (I think Asians have a thing against ducks!) and squab. We, however, chose RED meat. I know, not the healthiest of meat....but we weren't planning on eating a TON of it (just a half ton). I think after filling our carts half full of bulgogi meat and kalbi ribs, we uttered our first, "Don't tell Diane." Oh the shame we felt...for a minute or two.
Having admitted our less than perfect meat choice, we decided to pay a
healthy food choice penance. We bought kimchi. Kimchi is a pickled cabbage with pepper sauce. It is spicy, stinky and about the healthiest thing you can eat for your digestive track. Angi bought a pint. I bought (are you paying attention Diane?) ONE GALLON!! This was a major concession on our part to be healthy, as when you buy kimchi, you cannot just put it in your fridge. You have to hermetically seal the jar, wipe it completely down, douse it with baking soda, and wrap it in TWO bags, which are knotted in the best of scouting knots...a regular cabbage Fort Knox!!!! Again, the things Angi and I do for quality education. Angi and I discussed how proud Diane would be of us to see us buying so much
healthy kimchi. But, then we admitted, red-faced, that we were only buying it to mix with a sort of Korean Bisquick, to make a batter that we would then deep fry in inches of vegetable oil to make kimchi pancakes!! This admission was followed by a round of "Don't tell Diane."
Well, now we were really on a roll! From the kimchi section, we cruised over to the frozen food department. There, we bought bags and bags of mondu (Korean potstickers) and wontons. To add to that
healthy soup I was thinking about way back in the produce department! Fortunately, the labels on the mondu and wontons were only written in several Asian languages, which I could not read. Therefore, I felt confident that this was a kind of "get out of jail free" card and we would not be held to actually learning whether there were preservatives of some sort in them. Angi wasn't so sure. This set off more rumblings of "Don't tell Diane!"
We did much better in the snack department, where I bought our favorite
fermented sunflower crackers (TWO bags, because fermentation is so good for your digestive track), and I actually told me children "no" when they asked for Choco-Pies, which are like marshmallow Moon Pies. I will admit that part of the reason that Angi and I did so well in the snack aisle was because the coconut crackers we were both craving (and I am sure are filled with partially hydrogenated oils, preservatives and probably ten hidden names of MSG) were nowhere to be found. Whew! Dodged that bullet!!
We skated through the last few aisles, stocking up on sesame oil and pepper paste only. And then we hit the bakery. Here, I am afraid, I have to rat out my friend Angi....who ate a FROSTING filled sweet bun. My daughter and I made a
healthy food choice and chose sweet buns with green bean paste or sweet potato filling. Of course, we all laughed at how much fat and sugar were in these. In the middle of our giggling, we all stopped and looked seriously at each other, mouthing in unison, "don't tell Diane."
Once we got home, we tempered our guilt by throwing ourselves whole-hearteddly into making an authentic Korean meal! We made kalbi ribs, which were absolutely incredible! Kalbi is similar to terriyaki, but we were careful to use only
organic brown sugar and also sweeten the marinade with fresh kiwi! AND, let it be noted that we used
low sodium soy sauce!! However, besides the meat and a healthy choice Asian salad, we went to work on other favorites. We deep fried kimchi pancakes and made the mondu soup with Dashida (and I won't even tell you what I COULD read on that label!), all to intonations of "PLEASE don't tell Diane!!!!".
In the end, I think our healthy food choice day and field trip were a bust by Diane Standards.
BUT.....mine and Angi's families couldn't have been happier!!! (Must have been all that bacon in the fried rice!)
Bon Appetit!
