The Friday before Thanksgiving is like the calm before the storm: you know that a cooking tsunami’s touching down in a few days, but things are still pretty chill right now. In fact, all you have to do is stick your frozen turkey in the fridge to thaw. If you’re following along with my Nomtastic Paleo Thanksgiving Countdown Planner, do this RIGHT NOW, ’cause you’ll need to dry-brine the bird on Monday.
Done? Coolness. Now we can procrastinate and hurtle down the Internet rabbit hole in search of food-related links!
Christopher Kimball Likes Our Book…I Think
If you don’t have a copy of Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans, now’s a great time to get one as a holiday gift for you or your buds. Not only is it on sale for 42% off the cover price on Amazon—the steepest discount I’ve seen so far—but in today’s Wall Street Journal, Christopher Kimball of America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Illustrated recommends our cookbook as one of the top seven cookbooks to give as holiday gifts this year!
Well, I THINK he likes it. I mean, Kimball also says our book may be “the worst-designed, most in-your-face cookbook of 2014.” And he suggests that “you ignore the saccharine overlay of smiling kid photos, Japanese-style cartoons and word bubbles.” So there’s that.
But who cares? Christopher Kimball picked it as one of his faves anyway!
(If I ever write another book, I’m going to call it “Nom Nom Paleo: Scattershot But Oddly Provocative.”)
Holy Sweet Potatoes!
Oh, man. I am so making Smitten Kitchen’s Crispy Sweet Potato Roast. This looks insanely good—and it’s Paleo-friendly to boot. Looks like I’m going to have to add another dish to my Thanksgiving menu…
Speaking of Turkey Day Sides…
I forgot all about my Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Bacon recipe! It’s a perennial favorite in my house—particularly around the holidays—and I’m excited about busting out the B.S. again.
Plus: it’ll give me an excuse to re-purpose the castaway outer leaves and make Brussels Sprouts Chips!
Bone Broth is The New Black (Coffee)
For once in my life, I’m an early adopter of something—sipping bone broth out of a coffee mug in the morning. (Okay, I’m also “an early adherent of sous vide cooking,” according to this week’s New York Times feature on water bath cooking.) For a while now, I’ve been making a weekly batch of bone broth in my trusty Instant Pot and freezing a bunch of broth cubes. Every morning, I heat up a few frozen cubes in a small saucepan and sip it to start my day.
Bone broth has been all over the media lately, and lots of experts are touting its health benefits. You can also buy it by the portable cup at a bunch of places these days. I first spied it in Portland at the Cultured Caveman Cart, but bone broth is now available at my local Belcampo Meat Co. Lucky Manhattanites line up for it at Brodo, a bone broth joint in the East Village. Chef Marco Canero created Brodo ’cause he felt like he “was an insane chef until [he] started drinking broth.” Smart guy.
Speaking of Soup…
I just realized I neglected to add a soup to my Paleo Turkey Day menu—but luckily, my buddy Elise Bauer’s come to the rescue with an incredible Roasted Kabocha Squash Soup recipe. How good does this look?
Whole30 + Dr. Oz = Your Mom Might Turn Paleo
My pals, Dallas and Melissa Hartwig, were recently guests on The Dr. Oz show to spread the good food word to the masses about their nutritional re-set program, the Whole30. I’m a huge fan of the Whole30—it completely changed my relationship with food, and made me much more mindful about how food affects my well-being. I’ve documented my Whole30 experiences on this blog, and recommend it as a starting point for many folks looking to clean up their diets.
Even if you’re not a fan of Dr. Oz, I’m thrilled that the Hartwigs were able to present their program to a broad mainstream audience in a fair and non-sensational manner. And if seeing the Whole30 is the one thing that’ll convince your mom to try Paleo—hooray! Check out the clip here if you missed it.
Mom & Dad, We’re on Chinese TV!
This week, Jo Wan, a reporter from the local Chinese news station here in the San Francisco Bay Area, came over to interview our family and shoot footage of us goofing off in our garage gym and in the kitchen. Our segment aired on Tuesday night—here’s a link to the clip and accompanying article.
I can’t read Chinese, so had to resort to Google Translate to tell me what the article says. My favorite sentence:
“Structural changes in my body, I had the bust muffins, belly meat a lot, now gone, it will not often feel hungry, I used every two hours on the hungry, hungry to get angry.”
Sounds about right.
I also love that Jo scribbled this note to herself while grilling me about Paleo:
“No noodle.” Sums up my Paleo lifestyle perfectly!
By the way, our parents were waaaaay more proud of us being profiled by the local Chinese news station than when we were on CBS This Morning, or even when I was mentioned in an article in the Sunday edition of The New York Times. I’d asked my parents to pick up a copy, but they declined. “The Sunday edition costs SIX DOLLARS, Michelle.”
Celebrities: They’re Just Like Us!
Okay, they’re not like us at all. Still, a few more A-list stars have recently been “outed” as Paleo eaters: Anne Hathaway, Chris Pratt (GQ’s Man of the Year!), and Bradley Cooper. Welcome to the cave, Catwoman, Star-Lord, and Rocket Racoon!
Free F*ing Audible Book
How many of you parents out there have a copy of Adam Mansbach’s Go The F**k to Sleep? The follow-up to his potty-mouthed faux children’s book, You Have to F**king Eat, is a crack-up, too. Right now, you can download the Audible version for free, read by the incomparable Bryan Cranston. You can listen to it with your headphones on, after your kiddos go to bed.
Have a great weekend!
Looking for more recipes? Head on over to my Recipe Index. You’ll also find exclusive recipes on my iPad® app, and in my cookbook, Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans (Andrews McMeel, December 2013).
