Poinsettias bring Christmas cheer and colors indoors
The closer it gets to the end of the year, the more my inbox is filled with tips from a legion of gurus on how to crush all my goals next year. One of them even convinced me to sign up for an 18-day plan right here in the middle of the holidays, so I can knock out a goal before the year even starts. With an inbox crammed with goal talk, I can’t help but look back at my 2017 food resolutions and meditate a little on how that went.
My first goal was to eat more real food. Less processed food (like the 50 calorie snack cake with the 70 ingredients). Less sugar (it’s sneaky, and it’s in almost everything). More ingredients that my great-grandmother would recognize.
To give that goal some lift-off, I started about mid-January on a healthy-eating plan called Whole30. At its core, you are allowed to eat meat, vegetables, and fruit. No sugar, no alcohol, no wheat, no dairy, and hardly any legumes. Goodbye, beloved peanut butter. Sayonara, string cheese. The point is not to eliminate these foods forever, but to reset the body for a season, then re-introduce them by category to see what your body likes and what it doesn’t.
I didn’t stick with it the whole year. In fact, with my schedule it was a challenge to even do a straight thirty days. (I’m looking at you, SouperBowl. 20th Anniversary Weekend. Taste of Starkville. And we’re not even out of spring yet.) And I have banned neither Ben nor Jerry from my freezer. But when I was actively following the plan, I felt genuinely better.
Breakfast was probably the easiest transition. I already love my eggs in the morning, so this was not a tough one. I made lots of frittatas this year. I could make one in a 9x13 casserole dish and make it last almost a week (a little less if I shared with The Wife.) Usually there was some meat, and almost always a vegetable or two or three. The declared favorite was one with chorizo, butternut squash, sauteed “power greens” (spinach, mizuna, chard and kale), and a sprinkle of cilantro. All kinds of goodness and flavor in this mix, but the general principle of the frittata lends to all kinds of empty-out-the-refrigerator creativity.
I also learned to drink my coffee black. I didn’t even drink coffee till I got deep into my university years, and then it was a little coffee with my cream and sugar. I have tried almost every kind of Frappuccino that has been invented, some of which didn’t even have any coffee. (Just call it a milkshake, Starbucks.) And I can say almost the same thing about the myriad of flavors that sweetened liquid creamer companies like to tempt me with. Unless it’s coconut, I’ve probably tried it. But now. Now it’s different. Cold brew or piping hot, I prefer it black. Most days the least bit of sugar makes it taste too sweet. Crazy. But not psychopathic crazy. If you also read about the study that reported people who drank black coffee had psychopathic tendencies, remember that this was learned behavior, not instinctive.
My second goal was to eat more food with people. More dinners at home with family, more table time with friends, more road trips with sidekicks. I didn’t count the number of family dinners to see if we upped our numbers, but we did make it a point to sit down together as much as we could. There were still nights when we ate in front of the TV and watched MasterChef Junior together, but those were not in the majority.
Speaking of MasterChef Junior, my increased table time with friends was largely due to my collaboration with Starkville’s own top ten contestant, aka Mark the Chef. Beginning with Starkville Restaurant Week and continuing through the fall, we had the chance to make about a half dozen videos showcasing local restaurants and other food-focused venues. In fact, by summer’s end I had so many pix in my phone from the video shoots, when I pulled up my photo albums the “People” category showed four faces: me, The Wife, Daughter, and Mark the Chef. Then I saw someone in town who said, “I love those videos you and your son are doing.” Thankfully, Son has a good sense of humor. And he was gone all summer, after all. But when I told fake son’s real dad these stories and he started talking about how I might contribute to a college fund, I had to have a serious talk with Siri.
I still haven’t rented a sleeper bus and led a barbecue tour just yet, but there were definitely some memorable road trips. The Wife and I did the Cajun Food Tour in Lafayette, Louisiana back in May. Daughter and I have decided that steak-burgers are pretty good road food, be they from Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers or Steak ‘n Shake. As long as there are thin steakburgers, seasoned fries, and some sort of frozen dairy treats, we are all in.
A family reunion in north Mississippi generated a chocolate chip cookie recipe with a secret ingredient (Rice Krispies - apparently they caramelize a little?). Another in Georgia introduced me to two new varieties of barbecue sauce. Sadly, the second was for a funeral, but here’s the reality: funerals bring out the best when it comes to comfort food, and those are the times when you need the most comfort. Perhaps the Balm of Gilead was actually a casserole.
As for food resolution number three, cooking more recipes out of real paper-and-ink cookbooks, I’m still working on that one. Hooray for 2018!
It seems like I’ve seen Christmas decorations in stores for at least a couple of months. They really accelerated after Halloween, completely ignoring Thanksgiving, which was when I noticed early poinsettias out in force.
Along with Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, the appearance of these poinsettias means we are in the full swing of the Christmas season.
In my opinion, the poinsettia is the quintessential Christmas plant. With its brightly colored bracts, it is a plant truly full of holiday cheer. I think most people will agree that the poinsettia is second only to the Christmas tree in essential Christmas season decor.
Poinsettias come in a truly remarkable range of colors -- no longer just the red Christmas plant. Now, we can purchase white, pink, maroon, speckled and marbled poinsettias. However, personally, I’ll take the red plants every time.
When you are poinsettia shopping, don’t be tempted to grab the first plants you see. It’s OK to take your time to find that perfect plant.
Remember that poinsettias are fragile plants, and the stems can break quite easily from mishandling. Look carefully for signs of stem and branch breakage, as these defects can be hidden by the sleeves that cover most poinsettia pots. Always tear or cut off these paper or plastic sleeves to prevent potential damage from trying to slide them off.
With proper care, you can keep your poinsettia looking good long after Christmas. Poinsettias need comfortable room temperatures and at least six hours of indirect sunlight daily. Greenhouse temperatures are about 72 degrees during the day and 60 degrees at night. The closer you can get to providing these same temperatures, the longer your poinsettia will last.
Don’t let the leaves or bracts touch the window glass. Outside cold readily transfers through the glass to harm the plant. Your poinsettia might look great by the front door when guests arrive, but it needs to avoid the sudden temperature changes from drafts as the door is opened.
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