We loved walking through the street fair. So many colors, textures, and tastes.

The art was quite interesting:

The street food was greasy and fragrant:

The cold beer went perfectly with the spicy pizza

The ice cream was rich and decadent

And this little girl carrying a balloon was the symbol of innocence.

Then, at the GameStop store, this:

And I was reminded of the recent outrage over EA’s decision to release a war game where players can assume the role of Taliban terrorists and kill American soldiers.

In our local news, the young boys interviewed by the reporter said that they can’t wait to play the game. “It’s fun killing people,” they said, adding, “It’s just a game. You’re not really hurting anyone.”

The mother of a soldier who was killed in Iraq in 2004 felt differently, of course. You could see the pain in her face. “War is not a game,” she said. “There are no restarts, and no do-overs.” And my heart went out to her.

War games scare me. Young boys who see war and violence as a game scare me even more. War is pain, blood, injury and death. It is young men and women losing limbs, their eye sight, their lives. It is young women and men who come back home broken, shattered, physically and emotionally. Many of them are never able to resume their normal lives. War is fear. War is ugly and brutal and gruesome.

War is like your worst nightmare, magnified. But unlike a nightmare, it is very real.

I’ve never been to war, but close family members have, and I’ve heard their stories. At least the stories they are willing to tell.

I have two daughters, so I don’t really have to face the dilemma of what to allow my kids to play and where to draw the line. I wish more parents to young boys were firmer in placing limits, but perhaps I’m being naive. After all, even if they’re not allowed to buy or play war games, they can still play at friends’ homes and parents need to pick their battles very wisely, especially with pre-teens and teens.

What do you think? How do you feel about violent video games in general, and about this one in particular?

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“It’s Fun Killing People”

If you know me at all, you know that despite trying very hard not to be, I’m a perfectionist. Sure, perfectionism is a very bad trait, often leading to a lifetime of misery as one tries to capture that elusive “perfect” that doesn’t really exist.

Perfectionism is bad because it often leads to procrastination. It essentially reflects a personal belief system that makes you feel nothing is ever good enough. Not fun.

But I’ll let you in on a little secret of mine: PERFECTIONISM LEADS TO AWESOME RECIPES!

I have this tendency to tweak recipes until every last bit of them is perfect – including the results. That’s hardly a bad thing, is it?

This pancake recipe is the result of mixing and matching different recipes from many different sources. It is the result of trying and failing so many times, that I almost declared pancakes as the one breakfast recipe I couldn’t master. But I persisted, and this recipe is perfect – as perfect as a pancakes recipe can be, because making pancakes does involve frying, and frying is something that each of us needs to play with. It changes depending on your type of stove (gas or electric), on how hot the skillet is, and on how evenly hot you manage to keep it while frying multiple batches.

But the instructions here are as close as it gets to “perfect,” and the result? Truly fluffy, puffy pancakes that are never heavy or dense and that are flavored with a pleasant vanilla aroma and taste.

This recipe makes about 18 pancakes. The four of us eat about 3 each, and the remaining freeze very well. The next morning I gently thaw them in the microwave and they’re almost as good as fresh.

Fluffy Pancakes: Ingredients

Dry Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1.5 tablespoons baking powder (make sure it’s fresh)

Liquid ingredients:
1 large egg
2 cups minus one tablespoon whole milk
2 tablespoons melted butter, slightly cooled
1 tablespoon high quality vanilla extract

Fluffy Pancakes: Instructions

1. Mix the dry ingredients well, with a fork.
2. Beat egg. Add milk, vanilla and butter, and mix well.
3. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients mixture. Slowly pour the liquid ingredients mixture into the well, gently mixing as you pour, using a fork. DO NOT OVER MIX. Batter should be thick and lumpy.
3. Heat two 12-inch skillets over medium heat for about 4 minutes. Add a little oil to each skillet and brush to coat.
4. Pour 1/4 cup batter onto three spots on each skillet. Cook until large bubbles begin to appear, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook the other side until golden brown, about 1 more minute.
5. Keep prepared pancakes on a wire rack while you’re making the second batch. This helps them stay fluffy and non-soggy. Some recipes suggest placing them in a 200-degrees oven while you make the second batch, but personally I find this dries them a bit, just enough that they’re not perfect anymore .

Serve with warm maple syrup and berries. They taste so good that you don’t really need to serve them with butter.

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The Last Pancakes Recipe You’ll Ever Need

We were walking together through downtown, all four of us. It was Sunday, the weather was sunny and warm, and we had just finished a leisurely brunch. We were in a good mood, and as I often do, especially when we are all together and I know everyone is safe, I said a silent “Thank you” to whomever, whatever it is that had given me so much.

And then I noticed the sign on the closed door of one of the stores we passed on our way to the car. I stopped, and read that horrible sign, simple words in black ink spelling pain and fear, the end of “normal,” an illness serious enough that a family would have to close its business, and my happiness turned into sadness. Those dark thoughts that became part of me when I was a teenager, the dark thoughts that I have learned to chase away with everyday busyness, focusing on the present, on the now, rarely allowing myself to think about the bigger picture, those thoughts were back, and when they’re back, they’re very difficult to shake.

Because life IS a Russian Roulette, after all. A cruel game we have to play, and as we dodge a bullet after bullet and we feel so lucky, we never stop to think that the more bullets we dodge, the more years go by, eventually we will have to face a bullet – that final bullet that would put an end to it all, because in the Russian Roulette of life, everyone must die in the end.

See why I taught myself to stop thinking this way?

It’s useless, I know. A very wise friend told me once that the happiest of all are those who manage to focus not on the past (those tend to be depressed and full of regrets) or on the future (those tend to be worried and stressed) but on the present. On the here and now, on the many pleasures and adventures that life has to offer.

Most of the time, I do. But once in a while I revert back to my old ways of thinking about the future, and when I do, I feel scared and helpless.

How do you handle life? Do you live in the past, in the future, or in the present?

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When Life Feels Like a Russian Roulette

These are images of before-and-after photoshopping, taken from the Ann Taylor website. Apparently, the “before” was published by mistake.

I’m looking at what was done here, and I’m thinking back to my recent rant about the “new female ideal,” and you know what? I take it back.

I still hope we will one day get to see all kinds of women gracing catalogs and magazines, that one day many types of figures and complexions and ages will be acceptable and considered beautiful – but until that day arrives, if I must choose between these two images as a role model for my pre-teen daughters:

Then I’m choosing the woman who looks as if she’s alive, eating and BREATHING.

Photo credit: watchwithkristin

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My Post on Christina Hendricks? I Take it Back

I decided to allow my hair to gray naturally. This of course would be a non-issue if I were a man, but as a woman, this decision elicits all kinds of reactions, from “OMG you’re letting yourself go!” to “You go girl!” and anything in between.

I saw my first silver strands when I was in my twenties, and pretty much ignored them. By the time I was 30, I had quite a few, and I felt much too young for gray hair, so I started dyeing my hair. I hated it. Hated the time it took away from other activities, hated putting harsh chemicals in my hair, and I hated the way it damaged my hair, which used to be smooth and shiny and became frizzy and dull.

A few months ago, at the age of 38, I looked in the mirror and knew that I was aging. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not an idiot. I realize I’m a fairly attractive woman (am I allowed to say that?). But the aging process has begun and enough of the signs are there, such as skin discoloration and laugh lines, that gray hair seems completely appropriate. It’s difficult to explain, but the same silver strands that felt so out of place at age 30 now seem very natural, part of who I am, of who I am becoming.

But my main reason for deciding to stop dyeing my hair was the shame. As long as I was coloring, covering the silver strands, I felt ashamed of them, and since my hair is naturally very dark, they would show fairly quickly, just a couple of weeks after coloring. I would look in the mirror and fret over those roots, trying to decide what to do until my next coloring. I hated that – I hated feeling ashamed. Covering those roots was like covering who I really am – a woman near forty, no longer in my twenties, and I didn’t want to feel ashamed, I didn’t want my inevitable aging to be something that I needed to cover and hide.

So I stopped, about six months ago I think, and while I know that the photos here don’t really show the grays (I actually like to call them silvers, they really are sparkly), maybe in the photo below, if you look closely you see the silver strands, I can assure you that in real life they are quite noticeable, especially because the rest of the hair is so dark. In fact they are noticeable enough that people make comments and ask me about them (a common reaction is, “Wow, Vered, I haven’t realized you have so much gray hair! You really should color. Your skin is much too young, you look much too young to have gray hair.”)

Just like countless other women who have stopped covering their gray hair, I feel relief. It’s good to be free of a monthly process that I absolutely despised, to be free of the worries over whether my roots show, to be free to be who I am and to show my aging and to be OK with that.

But there are also worries, and just like countless other women, and men too actually, the worries are not at all on a personal level – my family and friends accept me either way and my husband still can’t get enough of me . But on a professional level, you can’t help but worry that you might be labeled “old” or “too old,” that looking older will damage your career – especially in a few years when I have more and more “salt” and less and less “pepper” in my hair.

Am I critical of people who choose to cover gray hair? Of course not. This is a very personal choice, and each of us needs to do what feels right to them, what feels natural. Just a short couple of years ago, if you suggested that I stop coloring my hair, I would have looked at you as if you were nuts.

At the time, it felt like coloring was the right choice. Now, I feel that letting my hair gray naturally is the right choice – for me.

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My Reasons for Going Gray

Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks’ body has been declared the “ideal” female body by British Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone.

It’s great that Ms. Hendricks is getting ahead in the entertainment industry despite (maybe even because) of her non-skeletal figure, and I was just as upset as anyone when the New York Times fashion blogger had called Hendricks “A big girl,” but declaring Hendrick’s figure as the new “ideal” is a different matter. Think about it: Is Hendrick’s pronounced hourglass figure any more attainable to most women than fashion models’ extreme thinness?

And doesn’t this go back to the issue of extremes that I’ve discussed in the past – so we either have size zero, or Hendrick’s size 14, as coveted figures – but all the average, healthy, in-between sizes are completely ignored by the media. What does that do to women’s and girls’ body image?

As a naturally thin, narrow-hipped woman, I can tell you right here and now that as hard as I may try, puny little me will never get to Ms. Hendrick’s impressive, beautiful proportions. Should I feel bad about not having an “ideal” or a “feminine” figure? Or should I be happy that I am active and healthy and that my body weight is within the normal range?

The voluptuous Ms. Hendricks at the 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards Cocktail Reception; Puny little me at the local park last week

Why exactly do we need to set ideals for women anyway? What is this obsession with an ideal female figure? We truly do come in so many shapes and sizes (not to mention colors), that declaring one shape as the “ideal” shape is just plain silly. And while it’s fine for the fashion industry to do this – after all, they ARE in the business of creating a fantasy, and creating an unattainable fantasy is how they sell, anyone else should be very careful about declaring any type of female figure as the “ideal” figure.

As far as I’m concerned, the only ideal women should have in terms of their bodies is eating healthfully (OK, most of the time) and exercising regularly. If you stick with a healthy lifestyle and take care of your body (no smoking, no suntanning, limited alcohol and caffeine, you know the drill), then you’re doing an awesome job and should be proud of yourself.

A fit, strong body should be the ideal female body, regardless of its shape.

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The Hourglass Figure Is In. Yay. But Wait, Is That Good News?

Playing on the idea of grilled cheese sandwiches, I occasionally make grilled marshmallow sandwiches for breakfast, especially during summer break or on the weekend, when the guilt is less intense becuase at least the poor kids don’t have to go to school and attempt to concentrate on their studies with all this sugar floating in their veins.

I use frozen, sliced white bread, spread one slice of each sandwich with unsalted butter, place them on a warm skillet, butter side down, generously spread tiny marshmallows to cover each slice, then place an unbuttered slice of bread on top of each sandwich and press it down with a spatula or a heavy pot.

After about 2 minutes, when the bread is golden brown, I spread butter on the top slices, carefully flip the sandwiches with a spatula, and brown the other side for 1 more minute.

Generously dust with powdered sugar for a sweet, gooey, melt-in-your-mouth, healthy (wink wink) breakfast.

I know that some like to make these with chocolate and peanut butter too, for a truly rich treat, but that would be too heavy for breakfast, plus then you wouldn’t really taste the marshmallow – it would just add chewiness. We like to taste the delicate sweetness of the marshmallow.

Now, I can think of several blogging buddies who like to eat healthy and are likely nodding their heads in disbelief as they’re reading this (I know what you’re thinking, guys, healthy food can be just as tasty as junk!). Patricia of Patricia’s Wisdom, Dr. J of Calorie Lab and Michelle of Find Your Balance to name a few.

But come on, you must have culinary guilty pleasures too?

Will you share? What’s YOUR guilty pleasure?

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What’s YOUR Summertime Guilty Pleasure?

A few weeks ago, one of the people I enjoy the most on the Internet, Wesley Smith, posted a message on his Facebook Wall saying: “If you ‘like’ this status, I’ll post on your wall something that I like about you.”

And he did! He got 13 “likes” and while I’m not sure what he wrote on other people’s walls, I know what he wrote on mine: “I absolutely love your writing style, and I love that you think about things and live your life actively rather than passively. I also love that you care a lot about your kids.”

Despite thinking about myself as a little cynical, not very emotional, a person who prefers thinking to feeling, I not only blushed profusely upon reading his words, but also felt all warm and fuzzy inside – in a very, very good way.

It got me thinking, that we really don’t do this often enough – say something nice to another person – and really, when I think about it, you can find something that you like about most people, certainly about the people in your social network. Wesley obviously felt confident that he would be able to find something – at least one thing – that he likes about anyone who would “like” his post. And really, why not?

Now, this is not the type of blog that does a lot of “inspirational” stuff. I actually don’t feel very comfortable with too much warm and fuzzy, but that evening, reading Wesley’s words, I liked the warm and fuzzy, and I want more people to feel it.

Will you play a little game with me? How about each of you pick one person from your online network – a blogger, someone on Twitter or on Facebook etc., and say one thing that you like about them? Here in the comments, or on your own blog if you have a blog, or on your favorite social network if you prefer – but then come back and tell us about it. I want to read all the nice things that we have to say about each other.

I’ll start. The obvious choice would have been for me to say something nice about Wesley, but I already did that via Facebook. So I’m going to pick Jannie, and I’m going to say this:

Jannie, you are one of the warmest, most genuine people I have met online. I love that you are so real and down to earth. I love your sense of humor and the way you don’t take yourself too seriously. I also love your kindness and generosity – I still can’t believe you were willing to work so hard to improve that photo of mine.

Your turn.

Come on, people, you know you want to.

Photo credit: Gunna

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Why Do You Like Me?

I don’t do giveaways often, but this is a product that I really like. So yes, (disclosure) I was given a slew of free products:

And I was also compensated for writing this review, but I love love LOVE Greek yogurt and Voskos is a great brand, so I’m happy to promote it here.

Greek Yogurt vs. Regular Yogurt

I tried Greek yogurt for the first time about a year ago, and immediately fell in love. Regular yogurt is a bit too runny for my taste, the plain variety tastes bland and the flavored is too sweet. But Greek yogurt is different. It is thick and creamy – even the nonfat Greek yogurt. Eating flavored Greek yogurt is a bit like eating dessert, while eating plain Greek yogurt gives you a similar experience to eating sour cream, but it’s a lot healthier.

Greek Yogurt Health Benefits

Of course, yogurt in general is very healthy. It is a good source of protein and calcium, and contains live active probiotic cultures, but until I discovered Greek-style yogurt, I couldn’t bring myself to eat yogurt regularly.

Voskos Greek Yogurt – the plain nonfat variety – is especially healthy. It contains twice the protein per ounce compared to regular yogurt, live and active probiotic cultures, no gums, starches or added sugars and no added flavors. I do love the full fat Voskos Greek yogurt even more, it tastes just like lowfat sour cream but is healthier, although the full fat yogurt does contain saturated fat and less protein than the nonfat yogurt.

My Take

My main reason for choosing Greek yogurt in general, and Voskos in particular, is the taste and texture. The health benefits are a nice bonus though. As for specific flavors, my absolute favorite is the Voskos Nonfat Greek Yogurt with Greek Honey:

It’s amazing! Creamy and tasty and satisfying and the list of ingredients is very clean – just milk, honey and cultures. It does contain 17 grams of sugar per serving. Alternatively, you can mix 1 tablespoon honey with 6oz of the nonfat plain yogurt. Delicious.

So, What Do You Do With Greek Yogurt?

Just like any other yogurt, you can just eat it as a snack. Greek yogurt is an excellent snack becuase it is very filling. The sweetened varieties are great just the way they are. The Voskos full fat plain Greek yogurt is great as it is too. It’s incredibly rich and flavorful. As for the low fat and nonfat Voskos yogurt, you can add fruit, granola, a little honey or jam, and you can also use plain Greek yogurt in many recipes. My favorite recipe is Tarator, a Bulgarian yogurt and cucumber soup.

Tarator Recipe

This easy recipe calls for just six ingredients:

16 oz (one large container) Voskos plain yogurt (I like to use the full-fat variety but the nonfat works great too and is of course healthier)
2 cloves garlic, minced (I use a garlic press)
1 large cucumber, peeled, coarsely grated – I just grate by hand and place in a strainer to get rid of excess water:

1 tablespoon high quality olive oil (if using nonfat yogurt, consider using 2 tablespoons olive oil)
1 teaspoon white vinegar
A little salt (about a quarter teaspoon) and white pepper (optional)

Place all ingredients in a medium bowl, mix well with a fork, cover and place in the fridge for an hour to allow flavors to blend. This recipe makes two servings.

Tarator is amazingly refreshing and perfect for alfresco dining in the summer:

The Giveaway

Voskos would like to offer five of my U.S.-based readers coupons for free yogurt. If you’re interested, please post a comment below that tells me which Voskos flavor you would most like to try. I’ll pick five winners to collect 10 coupons each next Tuesday.

To get extra entries, you may also:

1. Follow Voskos on Twitter (1 extra entry – leave a comment to let me know that you have).

2. Tweet: “A sweet #giveaway! Win FREE product coupons for delicious Voskos Greek Yogurt from @GoVoskos and @vered http://bit.ly/bHU5HT” (1 extra entry – leave a comment with the tweet link.)

3. If you’re a fan of Voskos on Facebook, let me know in a separate comment for an extra entry.

No purchase necessary. Open to US residents only, 18 years of age or older. Comments to this post will be closed and winners will be picked on Tuesday, July 20th 2010, at noon PDT, via random.org so please leave a separate comment for each extra entry. This will increase your chances of winning. Each winner will have 48 hours to respond to my email and give me their address before I use random.org to pick a new winner. MomGrind is not liable for any loss or damage of giveaway prizes sent through the mail, or for any warranty, costs, damage, injury, or any other claims incurred as a result of usage of a prize once possession has been taken of the product by a winner. To learn more about MomGrind giveaway rules, click here.

Good luck!

One More Question

If you’re not into giveaways, or if you can’t get Voskos where you live, I would still love to hear from you. Have you tried Greek yogurt? Do you like it?

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Voskos Greek Yogurt: Review, Giveaway, Recipe

I know, I know, bananas last longer when you hang them. This still seems like the kind of product that would hardly qualify as a “pantry essential,” but maybe that’s just me.

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And The “Most Unnecessary Product Award” Goes To…