Lessons from a Ted Talk and a Lemon Scone

This afternoon I went out to lunch with Michelle Gurr to the Pierre Cafe located in Millcreek. She had learned of the bakery from a blog comment from a man in Seattle. He mentioned he never missed the chance to visit the cafe when in Utah. His words sent us directly to Millcreek today.

When we entered the bakery, both Michelle and I knew why he managed to always stop by. Everything was charming, that is until the time came to chose just one of the spectacular-looking desserts behind the glass counter.

If there's one lesson I've leaned lately, it's this: too many good options create a pathway of turmoil and torture, a.k.a. purgatory. (This is confirmed by one of my favorite Ted Talks linked below.)

So upon reaching the counter, I did what I always do. I asked the attendant her opinion. She suggested the lemon scone. Now, I love lemon anything, but REALLY? A lemon scone? In my mind I kept trying not to voice, "You have sugar cookies, macaroons (French and coconut), pecan bars, at least ten cake options, plus a bunch of dreamy looking brownie bars and you're suggesting a scone?"

I decided this needed further clarification, so I asked her once again in a slightly different way. "So when you have a sugar weakness in the middle of the day, you reach for the lemon scone?" She confirmed with a head nod and a yes.

Now this is where things can get awkward. But it's an awkwardness I know how to deal with because 90% of the time I already know what I want. I just want it reconfirmed. So when the attendant says something different, it causes me to lie and say things like, "I'm allergic to scones, so let's just go with the triple-turtle-caramel-divinity bar."

But lately I've really tried to be open to others opinions. So I went with the lemon scone. After eating it, I reflected on the lesson I had just learned. Be open to others, but when it comes to desserts, go with your gut reaction and get the double-decker-chocolate-mint thing that appealed to you in the first place.

My Favorite Ted Talk: The Paradox of Choice















http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html

Diet Soda and the Devil

Since I've taken on this goal, I have dramatically increased my intake of diet soda. I usually have Diet A&W Root Beer or Diet 7Up Pomegranate in my fridge. Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper is also pretty amazing.

With this increase in soda, I have noticed a couple things. One in particular. DIET SODA MAKES ME FAMISHED. Then this past week I read this: "Diet soft drink users, as a group, experienced 70 percent greater increases in waist circumference compared with non-users. Frequent users, who said they consumed two or more diet sodas a day, experienced waist circumference increases that were 500 percent greater than those of non-users."

You can imagine my horror. Tonight I began to realize how similar the devil and diet soda really are to each other.

1. They both offer the temptation of something sweet/tempting without really presenting the full story/consequences.
2. I really don't understand how either one works, so I probably shouldn't play around with either one.
3. I usually regret any encounter I have with either one. With diet soda, I always get that weird sweet taste on my teeth and feel a little shaky after (plus that whole famished thing I mentioned above). I haven't really had an encounter with the devil, but I would imagine I would also feel a little shaky afterward (perhaps a little famished as well).

I also have the most difficult time saying aspartame. If I can't say it, I probably shouldn't be drinking it. Here's to water and drinking more of it.

If you want to read more about the evils of diet soda, check it out at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110627183944.htm

The Temptation of the Little America Buffet

I have long loved a good buffet. I am well aware that this is not the most classy statement to post on a blog. But nonetheless, the sentence is true.

I come from a long line of buffet lovers. My grandmother on my mother's side was the first one I knew to truly embrace the convenience, variety and excitement of a buffet. She hosted a number of Thanksgivings at the Chuck-A-Rama when I was younger. (Talk about a dream come true for my brother Josh who only liked Jello, pizza and goldfish until he was 19.)

The tradition has continued as I've gotten older, and we now hit-up a buffet in Vegas or some national park for the Thanksgiving holiday. (From Bryce Canyon to Mount Rushmore to Roswell, New Mexico I can tell you a buffet open on Thanksgiving.)

As much as I love buffets, they can also be a nightmare for those limiting anything. You've got tables brimming with food and then there is often a lovely display of desserts. It's this particular section where I can get in trouble.

I've steer cleared of buffets these past weeks, but every summer for work I coordinate a lunch buffet at the Little America. I typically look forward to this day for two reasons. One, I love their rolls. Two, I love trying a bite of everything on the dessert table. On this day every year, I actually eat very little "real" food as some people might call it.

Well, the luncheon was this month. Upon arriving at the Little America, I headed for the dessert section. I cautiously reviewed which one to eat. I picked a new dessert concoction that looked to be filled with chocolate and peanut butter. It was awesome.

But I also just very badly wanted to know how they all tasted. So... this is where my great co-worker and friend Eric saved the day.

Eric seems to love sugar as much as I do. He's also aware of this little challenge I have going. As he approached the table, he knew I was having a hard time. I asked him to please eat a certain elongated oval pastry with yellow cream and raspberries and tell me what it tasted like. The year before they had a similar looking pastry with green cream. It turned out to be key lime and sublime. I was so frightened that this yellow one would be lemon flavored and equally as good. He took a bite and then made a face that represented mediocre. I felt great.

He then proceeded to take a bite of almost every dessert on the table and told me what it tasted like. He loved the fruit tarts, which was fine with me because I knew what those tasted like. He also liked the eclairs and other fairly common desserts. Once again, I didn't feel bad about these because I knew what they tasted like. It was the four or five new ones that worried me.

I'd point to them and he'd try them. Surprisingly the new ones he didn't like very much. I felt wonderful. Now, Eric and I might have a difference in taste, and chances are that I'd like the new desserts way more than a standard eclair (which I feel are sub par). But just knowing I wasn't missing out on something divine made me feel substantially better.

I started thinking about this little episode and I realized there was a couple life lessons to be learned:
1) Good friends are those who are willing to try all the desserts on the table when you can't.
2) When faced with a variety of options, you don't need to try them all to know what you want. Chances are you won't be able to try all the options. But sometimes the best thing to do is to acknowledge that you're having a hard time making a decision and more often than not, you'll find a friend(s) who's willing to help you out. This is usually even more helpful and a whole lot less calories than eating them all yourself.

A Sugar Tribute to My Dad

With Father's Day this Sunday, I've been thinking about my dad. He is by far one of the hardest working people I know. He's a great dentist, but his day job is not what I'm talking about. It's his leisure activities that shock me. I called my mom to see what he did last Saturday.

He...
woke up at the crack of dawn at his farm house in Duchesne,
began framing the unfinished basement,
dug out window wells that were full of mud,
installed a round of sprinklers,
replanted and weeded a massive garden,
drove home to South Jordan and went about fixing the fence.

Meanwhile, I took a run and called it a day.

One of the things I love about my dad, is that he's all about hydrating and refueling after a hard task. As he should. But during the last several decades I've known the man, he usually returns to a few classics. Below are the sugary treats that will always remind me of him.

Hostess Fruit Pies: My dad often picks up a fruit pie at a gas station after working on a project. He tends to pick the berry or the apple. When I was younger, if I was with him, I'd usually get one too. But I prefer the chocolate pudding ones. Unlike poptarts, the crust on these is even better than the filling. There's no question that these might be a form of ambrosia and I pray are available in the afterlife.


Shaved Ice: My dad is a sucker for shaved ice. He likes to ask the attendant their favorite flavor, but if that doesn't strikes his fancy, he usually always goes for the peach. He actually now has his own professional ice shaving machine. The thing weighs over 150 lbs. I'm sure there's a gallon of peach concentrate at my parents' house right now for anyone who might want one.

Chocolate Milk:He works outside a lot, especially in Duchesne. As hard as I might ever try, I will never out tan him. He manages to turn a dark shade of bronze early in the spring and only darkens over the summer. Because he's often dehydrated by the end of the day, he often will get one of those big quarts of chocolate milk and guzzle the thing down in a matter of minutes.

Rootbeer or was that Diet Mountain Dew?: If it wasn't chocolate milk, he would often get rootbeer. That is until recently. For some reason he has changed to Diet Mountain Dew. I think this is hilarious for a couple reasons. When we were little we had very little soda at my house (my mom hated sticky floors), but especially soda with caffeine. He's all about it now, and I couldn't be more supportive since I'm also a Diet Mountain Dew fan. (As a side note, my mom also chews a lot of gum, which was also outlawed at my house since it had a tendency to get in someone's hair or in the dog's fur. It seems they were just waiting for all of us to move from home to get out the Mountain Dew and gum.)

Well, any of the work ethic I may have, I totally owe to my parents. I actually thought about getting a small Hostess pie today and thought to myself I have done nothing to earn it. I run the Ragnar Relay this weekend and I told myself I could get one after I finish. Here's to working hard and refueling like my dad.

The Strawberry Slicester from Heaven and Aichmophobia

If you were to look in my grocery cart during the past decade, you would be more likely to find a fruit cake than fruit. Bizarre? Probably. Why? A fruit cake will last five to nine years; strawberries go bad in a matter of days. Fruit = high maintenance.

But I decided last week that I needed to change my fruit-buying habits and make a better effort to incorporate fruit. Now, when I typically decide to do something like this, I either make it a game (such as this little sugar bet with myself) or buy something to help me (like new socks for running). Well, this time I decided to buy myself several simple fruit gadgets. I actually picked up three, but one stood out like a shinning star. I call it the Strawberry Slicester from Heaven (SSH).

I have used the SSH almost every day this week, mainly for strawberry slices to add to paninis. (Try it. I promise it's what you're looking for in life.) The SSH also makes eating strawberries much more enjoyable on their own. I don't know if it's because of the fun of using the device or that the strawberries just look much prettier to eat.

However, I did run across a problem early on. I managed to cut myself on the SSH. Now it's actually a very safe device, but I accidentally pressed on one of the blades fairly hard while cleaning it. This resulted in a good slice of my thumb.

This was somewhat a problem. My thumb was fine after bleeding for a while. But I have a fairly mild case of aichmophobia (self-diagnosed of course), which according to Wikipedia is "a fear of sharp things, such as pencils, needles, knives, a pointing finger, or even the sharp end of an umbrella."

When I read the description, my jaw dropped to see that pointing fingers were included. I actually have had a problem with people poking me in the arm with their finger ever since high school. It reminds me of getting a shot, which is never a good thing.

Last January, I had to get five shots for a trip I went on. After the fifth shot, I was on the community clinic floor with my legs in the air with a skirt and heels on. The nurse said this would help. It totally did.

So, when I cut my thumb pretty badly, I thought, "Dang it. There goes my love for that gadget. Go breathe between your legs so you don't pass out."

But this week I read about an experiment in Palo Alto about several hundred people who had a paralyzing fear of snakes. Within three hours they were all cured. How? First they were asked to watch a therapist handle a snake at the door of a room. Then they were asked to walk in the room while the therapist held the snake. Some requested to wear hockey and other protective equipment at this point. They progressively took the participants towards the snake. Then the participants watched others with the same fear hold the snake. Within about three hours, they held the snake. From the study, they gathered that if you give a phobic a positive vicarious experience to test their inaccurate beliefs, most can be quickly cured.

So, I went and watched a couple people mutilate their thumbs on the Internet. This terrified me. But the great thing is that it made my thumb cut look like a minor flesh wound (which is exactly what it was.) I decided to stop acting like a baby and go make my panini. The good news is that the SSH and I have continued to be great friends. I encourage everyone to buy one.

To Boldly Go

During the intro of Star Trek, the announcer states that the Starship Enterprise is "to boldly go where no man has gone." This is no easy task. It's actually a darn right, super terrifying task. But this week I found a couple great recipes that I think really could have helped Captains Kirk and Picard in their exploration of new worlds, life and civilizations.

But first, let me back up a couple steps. Both my sisters love a book called, In Defense of Food. In the book, the author suggests only eating desserts that you make to help monitor the amount of sugar you are consuming. One sister is actively working on doing this.

I decided that perhaps this week I should follow my sister's lead and also take the challenge to only eat Rachel-made desserts. Now, since I've taken on this one-sweet-a-day plan, I haven't baked much. And for good reasons. The temptation to grab a handful of chocolate chips or a ball of cookie dough while baking seems too overwhelming. But I thought I'd give it a try anyway.

The big question with baking is what to do with all the left overs. I do not have enough self-control to be left alone with several dozen cookies. So, I decided that since I only know one couple in my neighborhood, that I'd introduce myself to other neighbors by distributing the remainder of my baked goods. This idea scared/intrigued me because it was out of my comfort zone, but I decided that like the crew of the Enterprise, I could also boldly go where I've never gone before.

So here's what I learned:
- You can do ANYTHING you want with a plate of cookies. The confidence they give you to just knock on random doors is flat out amazing. Anytime I would second guess knocking on a door, I'd just say to myself, "Who wouldn't want a plate of cookies? Even if this goes bad, they get a plate of cookies out of it."

- Perfect strangers are charmed at the thought that you would bake something for them. They also gladly welcome you into their home.

- Baking is a horrible practice for those who are trying to limit their sugar. I can't wait to bake most these things again after August and eat at least five of them at a time. (I guess this is a sign that this experiment may not have a lasting impact.)

-Baking is also extremely rewarding, delightful, entertaining and therapeutic.

The first two points are the main reasons I referred to Captains Kirk and Picard at the beginning of this post. Perhaps if they had approached most of their intergalactic activities with a plate of cookies, relations could have gone a little more smoothly. I feel very confident about this after this week. I've decided I will now go about all awkward and tense situations with a plate of cookies.

On a side note, can I also show you what I baked? I decided if I was going to bake, then by all means, I was really going to bake.


These are double-stuffed Oreos surrounded by chocolate chip cookie dough. These cookies were fairly massive (which is obviously a plus for me).





I wanted to try these because I wondered if you could make a cookie that tasted like a Little Debbie. But, these actually tasted even better. What a great surprise.




These are s'mores bars. I rarely say things are too rich (that would be admitting defeat to the dessert), but these could easily throw someone off the sugar edge.





Imagine carrot cake in cookie form (except replace those disgusting raisins with giant chocolate chips) sandwiched together with cream cheese icing.





These are actually peanut butter cookies with red food coloring and Hershey Hugs on top. Perfect for kids and sassy women.

Spoons Full of Sugar

Mary Poppins slightly changed the world when she sang about a spoon full of sugar helping the medicine go down. Never, to my knowledge, had any well-respected nanny promoted just feeding kids spoons full of sugar. But that Mary Poppins had her act together. A little sugar can make almost anything better.

But how many spoon fulls would Mary Poppins, or perhaps the USDA, say is too much?

The reason I ask is because this past Sunday my roommate asked me if I wanted french toast. I did, but I questioned if it had to be my one dessert for the day. One roommate answered "yes, if you eat it with syrup," the other said "no way." I went with the roommate who said, "no way."

After eating the french toast, I looked up the amount of sugar in syrup. I learned that I had consumed nearly 22 grams of sugar. Now, what the devil does that mean, right?

Well, here's a little trick that's helpful. If you divide the amount of grams by four, it will give you the number of teaspoons of sugar. So I had eaten 5 1/2 teaspoons of sugar with the syrup. So, once again, what the devil does that mean?

It gets even more complicated if you do a comparison test. With the syrup, I had more sugar than I would have if I had eaten a full-size Almond Joy (5 teaspoons), but less sugar than in a 6 oz. Yoplait fruit yogurt (6 teaspoons). HELLO, SHOCKING. This whole time when I've been eating yogurt I could have been eating Almond Joys! (Don't worry, this is not the new plan.)

The USDA recommends to eat no more than 10 teaspoons of sugar a day, but the average American downs about 34 teaspoons. As we all know this is very easy to do because sugar makes most everything better.

There's more than two teaspoons in 1/2 a cup of Prego sauce, three teaspoons in Shredded Wheat with Honey (compared to 2 1/2 teaspoons in Cinnamon Toast Crunch!), and two teaspoons in one cup of macaroni and cheese.

Now that I've learned all this, do I still consider french toast a dessert? Well, since I only had two tablespoons of syrup, I decided no. But if I had an entire cup (which let's be honest isn't that hard to use on a plate full of french toast), I would have consumed 48 teaspoons sugar! Now that would have been one sugar-loaded (and divine) dessert.

The Cookie Monster Within Me

What do you consider to be the greatest culinary treasure the United States has given the world? Easy question, right? At least in my mind it is. I would hands down, unequivocally say a soft, chewy chocolate chip cookie. Have you ever noticed how once you leave the U.S., cookies generally become hard and crispy? Neil Diamond figured out why people are coming to America and
so have I.

My sister, Emily, was a foreign exchange student in Japan during middle school. Her host dad was pretty emphatic that he didn’t like cookies, that is until Emily made soft, chewy, American-style peanut butter cookies. His surprise response to the cookies managed to create a bond between two people who didn’t even speak a common language. (How Emily lived in Japan without knowing one word of Japaneses is still a mystery). Now, that’s the power of a soft, chewy cookie.

Well, sometimes that soft-chewy-cookie power is a little too overpowering. This past week for work I visited a flour mill in Richmond, Utah. As I was getting directions from the man I was to visit, he mentioned that the facility was down the road from the Pepperidge Farms Factory. I ended up arriving a little early (maybe on purpose) and managed to quickly find the Pepperidge Farms Factory. I knew what I was doing when I walked into the place. I knew that the safe thing was to turn around and leave upon entering. I knew that if I were to evaluate, at any moment, all my sugar weaknesses, cookies are by far my biggest downfall. But I proceeded anyway.

Now the rule of this game has been one and done. One dessert a day. So what did I do right there at Pepperidge Farms? I went a head and opened a loop hole. I bought ONE package of cookies and ate them all between my time in Richmond and my drive back to SLC. I wish I could say this was an individual serving, but it's exactly the package of cookies you are envisioning in your mind right now. The one with eight large cookies. I wish I could also say that it was a hard task to eat them all and that I felt sick afterward. But let's be honest, it totally wasn't and I felt completely fine. Well, this is the first time I used this loop hole and the purpose of this post is to close the loop hole so that I don't end up considering one gallon of ice cream a single dessert. So from here on out one serving = one dessert. Loop hole closed.

As a side note, thank goodness I don't have a weakness for Pepperidge Farm's Goldfish.

Picture Your Motivation

This past fall my employer began a new wellness program. One of the suggestions in the program was to stop watching the Food Network. My first response was, "WHAT? No one really makes the food. We just drool in front of the TV for food that can't be touched, smelled or tasted. Isn't it pretty harmless?" BUT then I began to think about the power of an image. I began to think of all the shoe purchases, airplane tickets and haircuts that began with just one image. Wow. The power of an image. This past week I began to wonder how I could use this information to help me with my goal.

Picking an Image
I took up oil painting a couple months ago. My first work of art was a cow. Surprisingly, it was fairly good. It's now framed and hanging in my main floor bathroom. (Where else do you put an oil painting of a cow?)

During the last couple months, I've painted a couple other things such as landscapes, trees and weeds. These didn't go so well, and I have quickly come to the realization that I really only have success when painting farm animals. Beyond my cow, I've painted a crazy chicken and a pig.

There is one subject matter I have never tried to paint: people. People are SO SCARY to paint. So, I've never even tried. However, when I was thinking of what image I could paint to help me with my goal, I thought why not paint Rep. Chaffetz? He's involved in my goal, and who cares if it looks bad?

I also started thinking about how almost everyone looks like some type of animal, which I like to paint. For example my sister Brittany has always reminded me of a chipmunk or a squirrel. My brother Josh kind of looks like a bird. (I'm not sure what type, but he's definitely a bird.) I look more like Brittany and probably resemble a chipmunk as well.

I give these examples so people do not think I'm rude when I say that Jason Chaffetz also looks like a very specific animal to me. So with this realization, I gathered a little confidence as I decided to go a head and attempt to paint Rep. Chaffetz this week.

Well, it didn't go so well, which was expected. Instead of an animal, the painting has a slight resemblance to Michael Jackson (the mid-80s version). I thought this was because I made his nose too small, but then I realized they actually have/had a similar looking nose at one point and time. (For the record, I love Michael Jackson and even threw him a birthday party one year.)

The painting now hangs in my bedroom. I look at it when I want a cookie at midnight. Sometimes it helps, other times it doesn't, but hey, it was worth trying.

Marhmallows and Distractions

Well, it's been one week since I began my one-sweet-a-day-or-add-my-name-to-Jason-Chaffetz-senate-war-chest plan. Here's the main lesson I learned this week.

Self-Control Versus The Power of a Good Distraction:
There is a study that is often told about kids being left alone in a room with a single marshmallow. They are told if they refrain from eating the marshmallow while the adult leaves the room, they will be awarded with a second marshmallow. But, if they DO eat the marshmallow while the adult is gone, no extra marshmallow.

Researchers followed the kids in the experiment years afterward and discovered the following. Children who do not eat the marshmallow, get everything they want in life. Children who DO eat the marshmallow, go to prison as adults. (I may be over simplifying a little.)

Every time I hear this experiment, I feel horrible. I think of all the times I've opened a beverage at the super market and had to give the sales clerk an empty bottle to pay for the drink I have already consumed. I then begin to wonder when I will go to prison based on my lack of self-control. I once again feel horrible.

HOWEVER... there is a follow-up to this study that many don't mention in their conference and church talks. The second time around researchers video taped the non-marshmallow-eating kids (a.k.a. the winners in life) while they were alone with the marshmallow. Some kids moved their chair away from the marshmallow, others started tracing the ceiling tiles with their fingers, while some sang songs to distract from the marshmallow's calling of "eat me."

They then show the marshmallow-eating kids (a.k.a. the future prison inmates of America) the videos of ways to distract themselves from eating the marshmallow. The kids then re-do the experiment and all win a second marshmallow. The study goes on to confirm that self-control is a learned behavior and that no one needs to go to prison.

What I learned from this study, and with sweets this week, is that the power is in finding the appropriate distraction. I too can trace ceiling tiles, sing songs to myself and move away from the dessert that is screaming to be eaten. So this week I worked on finding distractions that worked for me. Surprisingly, the one that worked well was taking photos of things I would typically have eaten, but did not. I now have a visible and growing collection of successes on my phone. With that said, I raise a toast with my Diet A&W Rootbeer to the distractions that helped me avoid the sweets below (and others).




Don't these look dreamy? I told myself I couldn't think about buying these until I had reached the string cheese isle. By then my mind had wandered off to something else important such as where the spray butter was located.

I went shopping with my mother, and I was shocked to find an entire container of orange Sixlets! The orange ones are my favorite. My mother questioned if they actually came in different flavors. Thankfully the girl at the counter confirmed that only the orange ones do so that I didn't have to buy this.

I know these may look disgusting to some, but there's a very special spot in my heart for Twinkies (and Zingers). Especially a new type with the promise of something amazing by making a slight twist on the original. I just didn't even let myself pick these up off the shelf.