Christmas sweaters get respect. Photo © UglySweaterShop-com via flickr/Creative Commons

During this season of celebrations, seasonal concerts and parties, the subject of holiday traditions inevitably comes up. At a recent party, a friend admitted she had a number of tangible Christmas memories hanging around her place.

“I think of them more like skeletons,” she said. “In the closet.”

Her closet Christmas skeletons comprise a collection of Christmas sweaters. Her husband’s mother gave him a new one every year for years—the tackier, the better, of course—alongside a nice bottle of something and a nice box of something else. More »

Chocolate bunny. Photo © Michelle (pa1nt), via creative commons and flickr

Warning: The following contains information that may be disturbing to chocolate-lovers. Reader discretion is advised.

I hate to break it to you just as you nibble on your chocolate Easter bunny’s ear, but we’ve been misled.

Happily and willingly misled, but misled nonetheless.

Chocolate eggs. Photo © Emily McCracken, via creative commons and flickrThose expensive, for-adult-consumption-only Easter eggs you stashed out of the kids’ reach? They aren’t going to keep your teeth from falling out.

The dark chocolate bunny (85 per cent cocoa) you selected—expressly, I know—to help stave off the heart disease that lurks in your DNA? It won’t.

Neither will it help you out-debate your belligerent brother-in-law at the festive table this evening, nor remember the names of his three—or was that five?—ex-wives and their abundant broods that he’s invited along.

I’m sorry.

For two decades, we’ve heard that the taste-good, feel-good, go-to food we turn to for a legal dopamine fix when our bosses, brothers-in-law and kids infuriate us can help keep us healthy. Popular media celebrated every study that hinted at links between chocolate consumption and decreased tooth decay, improved memory, improved circulation, decreased risk of heart disease and strokes, lower body mass index, and so on.

The reports provided hope—and justification for indulging…..

Read the rest of this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist….

Feast of the bean king, by Jakob Jordaens (1593–1678). Wikimedia Commons

Feast of the bean king, by Jakob Jordaens (1593–1678). Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jakob_Jordaens_016b.jpg

I don’t know about you, but I’m finding having people over for dinner for any occasion is getting more and more complicated.

First, there are the scheduling issues. Who is available when, and can we please—please!—manage to get together, all of us, just this once this year? Okay, how about once this decade? This lifetime?

And then there’s the food. With every invitation I send out, I’m tempted to include a dietary-needs declaration form to be filled in and returned with the r.s.v.p. Maybe guests can arrange for their family doctors to sign it, too, or have it notarized. You know, in case they forget something critical.

One friend calls our circle of mutual friends the Picky Eaters’ Club. We include the usual assortment of celiacs, nut and dairy allergies, vegetarians, and blood-sugar problems. We also have some well-meaning foodists—those who choose a particular life or eating style for moral or philosophical reasons, or for just plain personal preference….

Continue reading this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist.

 William Kurtz Still life of fruit, from www.photoseed.com/blog/2011/08/17/new-fruit-in-color-black-white-and-shades-in-between

’Tis the season. Those who are dear to us gather near to us to feast, share and converse. We assemble around the groaning board, and retire from it, groaning, “I couldn’t eat another thing.”

But when they pass around the coffee and the pumpkin pie, we gather our resources, loosen our belts one more notch and manage one more bite.

The sharing of food and drink, and the celebration of plenty, are integral to our social and cultural life. At this time of the year, in this part of the world, turkey and some mistletoe truly bind us together.

Read more….

 

Sources include:

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition article 1article 2; article 3