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selenayInteresting comment piece in the Guardian today, prompted by the writer's trip to a local pizzeria that had decided to remove all salt from their pizzas and remove salt shakers from the tables. It was quite refreshing to see someone sensibly say that removing all salt from everything isn't always a good thing.
I do my best to eat a low-sodium diet. However, there are reasons why we season things. A few weeks ago, I accidentally left out the pinch of salt when making some pastry. It's literally a little pinch, maybe a quarter of a teaspoon, for a quiche that gives six me-size servings. It was the blandest pastry that I've ever eaten and affected the taste of the entire quiche, despite the fact that it was Quiche Lorraine and thus there was bacon in the filling. OK, it was maple-cured bacon which is generally much less salty-tasting than regular bacon but you'd still think that it would be OK. No, leaving out that tiny pinch of salt from the pastry made for incredibly bland pastry that detracted a great deal from the overall flavour of the dish.
There have been other times when I've forgotten to add salt to things when the recipe calls for it. The amount that I should have added is always tiny and the recipe when properly constructed doesn't taste salty, but leaving out seasoning makes a bigger difference than I would ever have imagined. I really don't like overly salted things and never think to put salt on the table when people are eating at my house (sorry, everyone) but leaving out the seasoning completely is no better than over-salting. Salt, used in correct proportions, simply enhances the flavours in the dish without making the dish taste like salt.
What always concerns me with the groups lobbying for salt bans and so on is that it's not just about the food taste. Too little salt can be just as bad for you as too much. What would be far more sensible is educating people about how much salt is healthy, rather than advising a total ban on all sodium.
And that's my soap box for the day :-)
Last night was my second round of Humira, this time only taking two doses rather than the initial four. It all went very well and I feel good today. No nausea, my fatigue is no worse than normal (so far), and no reactions at the injection site. At the weekend I drop the prednisone dose again so it will be interesting to see how my body deals with that.
Speaking of the weekend...
Easter has sort of crept up on me. I really need to think about my baking and cooking schedule. So far, I'm thinking about hot cross buns on Friday now that I have a good stove to bake in. Maybe treat myself by making a small chocolate cheesecake on Saturday, which will be ready to eat on Sunday. Meals need to be thought about. I'm thinking something that went 'baaa' on Sunday, but need to do a bit of recipe research.
I've finished my Edward III book. I may steer clear of biographies for a while: it's hard to read about the decline of someone you've become attached to and who did amazing things.
I'm now onto Archer's Goon by Diana Wynne Jones as my dead tree book. This is out of print so I had to buy it second hand from Abebooks. I'm two chapters in and loving it just as much as I loved the (I suspect surprisingly faithful) BBC adaptation. I'm starting to get towards the climax of Declare by Tim Powers (my Kindle book) and it's really ramping up now. This is not a book to read over breakfast, if I ever want to go to work!
Amazon announced today that they're working with Overdrive to allow library lending later in the year. This could be very interesting - I wonder when/whether my local library (which uses Overdrive) will get on board? And how painful will it be to use? My experience with Overdrive and my mum's Sony eReader hasn't been very positive on the ease of use aspect, so hopefully they'll do something a bit more intuitive with the Kindle. After all, ease of use is one of the Kindle's big selling points!
Of course, if it turns out to be horribly painful to use and the titles offered aren't ones that I want to read, I'll probably continue to buy rather than borrow. I wonder whether the publishers think about that when setting these things up?
I do my best to eat a low-sodium diet. However, there are reasons why we season things. A few weeks ago, I accidentally left out the pinch of salt when making some pastry. It's literally a little pinch, maybe a quarter of a teaspoon, for a quiche that gives six me-size servings. It was the blandest pastry that I've ever eaten and affected the taste of the entire quiche, despite the fact that it was Quiche Lorraine and thus there was bacon in the filling. OK, it was maple-cured bacon which is generally much less salty-tasting than regular bacon but you'd still think that it would be OK. No, leaving out that tiny pinch of salt from the pastry made for incredibly bland pastry that detracted a great deal from the overall flavour of the dish.
There have been other times when I've forgotten to add salt to things when the recipe calls for it. The amount that I should have added is always tiny and the recipe when properly constructed doesn't taste salty, but leaving out seasoning makes a bigger difference than I would ever have imagined. I really don't like overly salted things and never think to put salt on the table when people are eating at my house (sorry, everyone) but leaving out the seasoning completely is no better than over-salting. Salt, used in correct proportions, simply enhances the flavours in the dish without making the dish taste like salt.
What always concerns me with the groups lobbying for salt bans and so on is that it's not just about the food taste. Too little salt can be just as bad for you as too much. What would be far more sensible is educating people about how much salt is healthy, rather than advising a total ban on all sodium.
And that's my soap box for the day :-)
Last night was my second round of Humira, this time only taking two doses rather than the initial four. It all went very well and I feel good today. No nausea, my fatigue is no worse than normal (so far), and no reactions at the injection site. At the weekend I drop the prednisone dose again so it will be interesting to see how my body deals with that.
Speaking of the weekend...
Easter has sort of crept up on me. I really need to think about my baking and cooking schedule. So far, I'm thinking about hot cross buns on Friday now that I have a good stove to bake in. Maybe treat myself by making a small chocolate cheesecake on Saturday, which will be ready to eat on Sunday. Meals need to be thought about. I'm thinking something that went 'baaa' on Sunday, but need to do a bit of recipe research.
I've finished my Edward III book. I may steer clear of biographies for a while: it's hard to read about the decline of someone you've become attached to and who did amazing things.
I'm now onto Archer's Goon by Diana Wynne Jones as my dead tree book. This is out of print so I had to buy it second hand from Abebooks. I'm two chapters in and loving it just as much as I loved the (I suspect surprisingly faithful) BBC adaptation. I'm starting to get towards the climax of Declare by Tim Powers (my Kindle book) and it's really ramping up now. This is not a book to read over breakfast, if I ever want to go to work!
Amazon announced today that they're working with Overdrive to allow library lending later in the year. This could be very interesting - I wonder when/whether my local library (which uses Overdrive) will get on board? And how painful will it be to use? My experience with Overdrive and my mum's Sony eReader hasn't been very positive on the ease of use aspect, so hopefully they'll do something a bit more intuitive with the Kindle. After all, ease of use is one of the Kindle's big selling points!
Of course, if it turns out to be horribly painful to use and the titles offered aren't ones that I want to read, I'll probably continue to buy rather than borrow. I wonder whether the publishers think about that when setting these things up?
