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Staying slim is NOT about counting calories or fat grams. || Staying slim is NOT about exercise exhaustion. || Staying slim is really about personal style. be chic, stay slim ANNE BARONE, AuthorChic & Slim: how those chic French women eat all that rich food and still stay slim Anne’s Age: 65 You Can Be French Chic & Slim Anywhere — with Anne Barone’s Chic & Slim 8 February 2010 || Bonjour! DOING THE HAVE-TOS Snowy winter days. Anne’s “have-to” list is extensive and demanding immediate attention. Next posting about Monday 15 Feb. Stay warm. Have a Happy Valentines Day.
5 February 2010 || Bonjour! SURFING MODERATELY Recently I had an email exchange with Julia in Virginia. She commented:
Each day I spend just a few minutes poking around the "blogosphere," going from link to link. There's so much that it's overwhelming. Although there are some beautiful images and interesting thoughts and ideas, most of what I have seen is like reading someone's well-illustrated diary. Your site provides more helpful information and continued encouragement for those seeking and trying to maintain a Chic & Slim attitude. Yes, the amount of information accessible via the internet is overwhelming, especially now many libraries have digitalized their collections and made them available online and since almost everyone and his dog has their own blog, Facebook page and Twitterings.
Like Food, Like Web
The amount of information on the web is like the amount of food available in stores. Both require consumption in moderation. You can become overweight from overcomsumption of food. You can also become overweight by spending so much time at the computer that you neglect exercise (and possibly snack while you surf the web). Recent studies also find that too much time on the Internet can make you depressed.
The depression is not surprising given the amount of bad news (some over-hyped) that appears in the media. Oh dear! Lately good news is seriously lacking.
Yes, a lot of blogs are personal diaries, but many are interestingly written, beautifully illustrated diaries from which we can learn useful things — or at least be entertained.
Always Moderation
As for Julia’s comment that the Chic & Slim website “provides more helpful information and continued encouragement for those seeking and trying to maintain a Chic & Slim attitude”
Since I began the Chic & Slim website as a supplementary companion to the Chic & Slim books, I have tried to give enough personal information so readers can have a context in which to frame my information. (Like everyone, I am a product of my age and life experience.) Yet I strive to keep the Chic & Slim website emphasis on information useful to you in living chic and slim.
That’s why for several weeks now I have been putting in exhausting days learning new website design software and working and reworking the new website design to provide readers with useful information as Internet and visual communication evolves. A project that will surely continue for several more weeks.
be chic, stay slim — Anne Barone 3 February 2010 || Bonjour! SCOTTISH OATCAKES Another cold, rainy afternoon. I thought it would be a good day to try an oatcake recipe I saw on the package of Bob’s Red Mill Scottish Oatmeal. Years ago I clipped a recipe for an oat flour scone I liked. I thought this oatcake recipe might create something similar, but with the heartier oat flavor of Scottish oatmeal.
So how did the oatcakes turn out?
Well, let’s just say that if you were in the north of Scotland, and you had been out in the snow with the sheep, and you came in late afternoon tired and chilled, a plate of these oatcakes with a pot of strong tea would really hit the spot. You might even make a supper of them with some eggs and sausage and some fruit jam.
I found the oatcakes a bit heavy. Even after I doubled the baking powder from 1/4 teaspoon to a 1/2 teaspoon, they did not rise much. Really 1 teaspoon might have given some ooomph. If I make them again, instead of dusting the board with the oats as directed, I would use flour. Then the bottoms would not come out so gritty. In that case, I would need to grease the baking sheet.
Still, as they were, the oatcakes were quite tasty topped with honey and eaten with a pot of strong black tea.
be chic, stay slim — Anne Barone 1 February 2010 || Bonjour! STEAMED GREEN DARJEELING These cold, snowy days are certainly hot tea weather. These steaming pots of tea for breakfast and afternoon tea have helped me stay cozy this winter in this old house with no central heat.
My preference is for black teas, but I also drink green teas. The Japanese greens are okay. But no matter how high the quality (and price) of the Chinese green teas I buy, no matter how carefully I follow the instructions for green tea brewing, Chinese green teas usually taste to me like home permanent solution.
A couple of years ago, I discovered Darjeeling green teas, and they are definitely my favorite of the greens. Not surprising. I learned to drink tea when I lived in India and my taste in teas is greatly influenced by that experience. Though, of course, it is only recently that we are seeing green Darjeeling teas here in the USA.
Recently I ordered a house brand Steamed Green Darjeeling from the English Tea Store (EnglishTeaStore.com). This is the online tea merchant from whom I order the Yorkshire Gold and other Taylors of Harrogate teas I love. I have mentioned this merchant before. The English Tea Store continues to give me good service and satisfactory products.
Steaming tea is an ancient processing practice. I like what it does to the taste of this Darjeeling green. Makes a lovely, smooth afternoon tea to accompany a muffin or a sandwich. And afternoon tea is definitely my favorite technique to relieve stress — no matter what the weather.
be chic, stay slim — Anne Barone 30 Januray 2010 || Bonjour! CHIC ANYWHERE We have had more snow. Like a lot of areas of the USA, North Texas is having an unusually snowy winter. The snow a week ago was pretty. This latest is patchy under a dismal gray sky. Bitter cold outdoors. Stay inside and curl up with hot tea and a book weather. Definitely layered dressing weather.
In Chic & Slim Techniques at the end of each technique chapter there is a checklist of things you can do to achieve success in that technique. The list below is excerpt from the third technique The Chic & Slim Anywhere Technique.
How You Do It For Chic & Slim Success:
In designing your own chic personal style, consider climate and local customs and taboos.
Make a list of the activities for which you must regularly be dressed appropriately and make sure your personal style will be adequate to them.
In the interest of efficient use of time, note what activities must you perform without stopping to change clothes. Make sure your wardrobe includes clothes that can make this transition.
Look for style ideas everywhere.
Ask yourself what styles look good on you -- not on someone else.
Check out the expensive shops to see how quality is designed and constructed. If your budget is limited, try to find the closest approximation of that high quality in lower prices clothes.
Be daring and confident in designing your chic personal style. French women are always putting together some unusual combination. The next thing you know, everyone has incorporated that idea into their style. Don’t be afraid to be first. Don’t be afraid to be different.
be chic, stay slim — Anne Barone 28 Januray 2010 || Bonjour! YOU JUST HAVE TO START “You just have to start.”
The singer and actress Cher had an aerobics video that I worked out with for several years. In the motivational part of the program, Cher had the line: “You just have to start.”
Sometimes starting is the hardest part.
I mean a true start: when you get what I have long called “the click.” As if a switch has been turned on. Suddenly I see my completed design and the steps to reach it in full detail. The work begins to move smoothly forward. Pulitzer and Oscar-winning novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry describes this experience as if someone is dictating the words to you as you sit at the computer and type them.
When I am beginning a project, arriving at that moment where I feel “the click” is the hardest part. First I have to make sure I am technically competent on whatever software program I am using. I have to spend time looking at design inspirations. I must outline the necessary elements. And a personal quirk: I have to select the right background music to play while I work. Then I sit down at the computer in front of the blank screen.
For many years I wasted a lot of time staring at the blank screen because I kept rejecting ideas that I did not think were good enough. Finally I learned: “You just have start.” I had to do something. Did not matter if, in the long run, it would prove to be the “best” or the “right” thing. Even if at the end of the work session I had to zap my hours of work with the delete key.
If you need to lose weight or improve your personal style and are procrastining about doing something positive, there is one solution: You just have to start.
be chic, stay slim — Anne Barone 26 Januray 2010 || Bonjour! NAP TECHNIQUE My microwave died. That small, economical model, a .8 cu. ft. Sharp, that I bought about five years ago had given perfect performance through heavy use. Then Saturday morning it sputtered, surged enough to trip the circuit breaker and died. R.I.P., faithful little machine.
When microwaves were introduced some decades ago, I took an all-day course in microwave cookery. My first microwave was a large, expensive, top-of-the-line model that could be programmed to do almost everything but feed the cat. I invested in special cookware for its capacious oven: muffin tins, bacon cooker, bundt pan, pie plate, a wonderful ceramic pizza platter on which you could bake pizza and have it come out with crisp crust. The microwave cooking class convinced me that you not only needed special cookware, but you needed recipes designed for that oven. I acquired a couple of good microwave cookbooks and added to my recipe file.
For a time I was doing almost all meal preparation and pie, cake, muffin and pizza baking in my microwave. Of course, even with special cookware and recipes and a top-of-the-line microwave, taste in most instances did not compare with traditional methods. Eventually I migrated to a point of less microwave and more traditional cooking. But when I had to produce cooked-from-scratch, nutritious food quickly, or when I needed to bake without overtaking the a/c on 100+ degree F. days, the microwave was my choice.
Important Lesson
An important lesson that came from all my microwave cooking was the importance of technique. Just as in traditional cooking it took some trial and error.
It took a while for me to get vegetable cooking right. Especially fresh green beans. But I know that today one important factor in staying slim and healthy is that I can have healthy low-cal vegetable dishes and soup ready in a fraction of the time that it takes to cook by traditional cooking methods. When I am very hungry, this is especially important.
Reminder
I had a reminder of this importance the 48 hours this weekend I went without a microwave. Oh dear! That really wasn’t fun. And apparently tiring.
When I came home mid-afternoon Monday from food and new microwave shopping, I unpacked and set up the new appliance, then, did a long list of chores that left me feeling exhausted. Even teatime did not revive me. So like a French woman I decided to take a short nap. But I was out of bread so before nap I filled the bread machine.
Three hours later when the bread machine signaled DONE, I was shocked to look in the machine and see what resembled a small square hamburger bun at the bottom of the baking pan. Obviously, I had been more exhausted than I realized. I had put in the flour and water — and completely forgotten the salt and yeast. Disaster.
I was finally able to chisel the baked dough out of the pan.
Importance of Technique
Technique is important. Part of the technique is putting in all the necessary ingredients.
In Chic & Slim Techniques, I tried to give you recipes that include all the ingredients to make you chic and keep you slim.
The revive-with-a-nap technique is a very good chic French technique. For me, I now know that it should come before bread baking.
be chic, stay slim — Anne Barone 24 Januray 2010 || Bonjour! TECHNIQUES for Chic & Slim in 2010 Techniques are essential for success. Every day or two, I will be posting either an excerpt from Chic & Slim Techniques or material cut from the final version because of space limitations. Something to keep us chic and slim while I redesign the website. Last Word on SALT | MYSTIQUE TECHNIQUE
On this rainy Sunday, one more comment about salt. (If you have not read the salt reduction posting, it is below in the 22 January posting.)
Yesterday, browsing through the latest Penzeys Spices catalog I noted a sidebar comment from Bill Penzey that the company was no longer selling the speciality sea salts they had in the past because Americans needed to cut back on salt. Bill Penzey thought selling high quality sea salts only encouraged people to use more salt.
I disagree. For two reasons.
First, as I said in the previous post, quality sea salts have a saltier taste than the regular salt you buy in a box on the supermarket shelf. So you can use less salt and still have great taste. The French and others have long known this. The French learned this lesson from their wonderful French sea salts particularly those from the Atlantic.
Second, plain economics. If you have paid $10 to $15 for a small package of quality sea salt, you will be much more conservative in its usage than with the cheap boxes of supermarket salt.
For Christmas I received a package of Hawaiian sea salt, with its pale coral color definitely the prettiest salt I have ever seen. I will be very careful with its use, choosing dishes that really deserve it. And since this salt is designed as a rub, it will be on the outside ready to give its salt taste most potently.
Frankly, I was not surprised that Penzeys discontinued selling specialty sea salt. In previous Penzey catalogs there were comments about how they could not understand why people would want to buy speciality sea salt. They were particularly disparaging about French sea salt, I remember.
Then, as now, Penzeys pushes a Kosher salt they sell. I have no idea of its quality. I have never bought it. I will say however that it was good to see that Penzeys has reduced the salt in a number of their spice mixtures. It is also useful that their catalog has long identified those mixtures which are Salt Free.
French Fleur de Sel If we want quality French sea salt, Williams-Sonoma sells the much-admired Fleur de Sel from France’s île de Ré.
Enough on salt. Now to the latest excerpt from Chic & Slim Techniques. This one from The Mystique Technique, the aura of mystery technique.
The Mystique Technique Mystique. What a delicious French word!
Their mystique, their aura of mystery, ranks as one of the key reasons men find French women so attractive and desirable. But what exactly is mystique? How does having a mystique aid French women in developing and maintaining successful and satisfying romantic relationships? How does it aid their relationships with all who know them? More importantly, how can you develop your own mystique to enhance your attractiveness and make your relationships more successful and satisfying?
Women in the USA have not of late been known for possessing a mystique. Though there was a character in a Henry James novel about whom he wrote something to the effect that "she was rumored to have shot a man somewhere in Oregon." Not that she had given interviews to CNN about the reasons for shooting someone in Oregon, followed immediately by soundbites of interviews with the victim’s friends and family.
No, it was just that there was some suggestion, quiet whispers . . . no one knew for sure . . . but she might have shot someone, sometime previously, possibly in Oregon. But then it could have been in California. . . . Ah, the mystery. Wouldn’t if be interesting if sometime in conversation with her, she might give us hints as to what really happened? That woman had a definite mystique.
Women who talk incessantly about themselves squelch any mystique they might have. We know all. Too soon.
Women would also do well to take a lesson from French women to become better and more sympathetic listeners. Again, and again, I note when someone writes about an interesting and intriguing woman there is a comment or quote about what a good listener she was.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, one American woman whose mystique was often noted, was known for focusing completely on a companion in conversation and listening intently. But, you say, so many people are so boring. How can you be expected to give complete attention to a bore who is prattling on about something for which you have no interest? Again take a lesson from Jackie. She was reported to be adroit at gracefully escaping people who would bore her. You can always just say “Excuse me,” politely, give no other explanation, and walk away. How do they know whether you are rushing to an important business meeting or desperately needing a bathroom.
Aloof To Avoid Bores French women’s aloofness is also useful when it comes to avoiding bores. Life is short. Spend your listening time on interesting people. Avoid the rest. And have no guilt about not wasting the precious minutes of your life listening to people who talk too much about themselves. If you avoid them, perhaps that will be a good lesson to them that they should find something more interesting to talk about than themselves.
A French Woman With Mystique In a 1986 Vogue article about French actress Anouk Aimee: The Female Mystique, Joan Juliet Buck wrote: “She does not want to give anything away about herself. This doesn’t stop her from being friendly, funny, straightforward, touching, full of hope and good sense. . .But ask her a personal question. . .and she looks the other way, giggles, and says, “I hate interviews.”
Joan Buck goes on to write; “To spend time with her is to learn a little about the quiet, receptive way to be a woman.”
The above material is excerpt from Chic & Slim Techniques: 10 techniques to make you chic & slim à la française. Copyright © 2002 and 2003 Anne Barone. More Chic & Slim Techniques soon. be chic, stay slim — Anne Barone CONTACT INFO |
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