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Dinner in a bowl: The mightiest Caesar of them all

Salad Pork Suzette, a variation of the Mighty Caesar, debuted in our Experimental Kitchens this evening. Recipe below.

Something new from our Experimental Kitchens. A Caesarish salad that incorporates the entrée in the toss:

Usual suspects: Romaine, shredded Parmesan, homemade croutons.

The unexpected: Slices of boneless pork chop roasted 20 minutes at 350˚ in a packet of foil with pre-roasted garlic and Apple-Strawberry Mix (that's what those juicy pink bits are in the photos). Roast, let rest a few minutes for easier cutting and then slice once across grain and then in half.

We were out of our homemade Caesar dressing so substituted Ranch Lite.

One chop and a couple of heads of Romaine make a scrumptious, texturally rich, eye-catching meal for two that sticks to the ribs. Easy to make, too, and clean-up is a piece of cake.

Dr. Helen: "Some call them odd, I call them comrades"

"Does the news upset you to the point where you feel it's hard to watch or read anymore?" Dr. Helen asked her readers the other day in "How do you keep from cracking?":

… when my anger and frustration get to be too much, this is when I decide to pursue more positive activities for a while until my mental state goes back to neutral and I can think more clearly.

I think feeling that you have some control over your own life despite all that goes on in the world is important. How do you manage to make your own life better, freer or more fun, despite the problems going on in the world?

Do you have hobbies, interests or pursuits that lead you to a more positive place? If so, share them with me (us), and maybe we can learn something.

For us it's cooking, cat therapy, capturing beauty in unexpected places on "film," Friday WSJ crossword-puzzle dates and the elusive meeting of minds we seek through blogging and twittering. As we wrote in Dr. Helen's comments:

Mainly I blog, which requires keeping up with "the news." Making sense of it all by shaping one's thoughts into a coherent essay and sending the thing out into cyberspace with a click of the "publish" button can produce a certain catharsis and sense of control.

We were touched by reader Topher's true confession:

What you can do — post it on the blog, with commentary or without, and come back later and count the comments. Lots of men don't have an in-person place to talk about it (lest we be "not real men"), so just the fact you give us a place to discuss this stuff without harsh judgment should give you a good feeling you are doing something.

Interesting that so many of us — both women and men — keep coming back to Dr. Helen for psychological refreshment. Is it because we are introverts like the good doctor herself? This from her latest post "What are the best places for the avoidant?":

At this point, if you are an introvert like I am, you totally get what I just said. If you tend more towards extroversion, you will write me off as a kook. Fair enough. I have talked to numerous introverts that go to Wal-Mart in the middle of the night, grocery shop at odd hours and basically avoid people like the plague. Some call them odd, I call them comrades. There are other experts who say that being an introvert is a positive thing. I agree.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

90 candles make a lovely light

Just another day on the couch for Goompa's Purrky yesterday, but we had our eye on a bigger prize, our pater familias's 90th birthday.

We three children, two spouses and four grandchildren drove and flew in from points south and west to toast the Energizer Bunny at his Down East homestead, Camelot-by-the-Sea.

Formal posing for pictures? Never our thing, as we're totally into beauty in unexpected places, snapping the shutter early and often before and after formal "say cheese" set-ups to capture Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment."

Ellen's Beef Strogie was to die for, a transcendent reincarnation of our mother's signature dish with salted butter and bouillon cubes front and center. VERY politically incorrect. She's promised to write it all down so we can publish here in our Cold Turkey Cookbook in the "Full of Calories and Loving It" section.

"Just had a nice chat with Dad," imails our sis this evening:

She: He did, indeed, enjoy his birthday celebration and was totally delighted that all four grandchildren were able to attend. He reports that the pumpkin muffins were so good that you had TWO!

We: Yes. Plus I took some home. Delicious!

She: I know that I took a Toll House Cookie, just to be polite, and THEN … I wanted to scarf down the whole container, but retrained myself.

We: Retrained yourself? Love it. You'd have to.

She: I love how all four grandchildren are great cooks. Whatever it took, and I'm sure that Mummy had a lot to do with it … my boys LOVE to cook. They are not slugs on the couch, watching football. They watch some football, then go whip up a meal. AND they do laundry and know how to iron. I think being a sluggard has helped me to raise capable children.

Update: Modulator's Friday Ark #270 now boarding.

"Human nature is predictable and thus tragic"

Porkulus for Two. It's what's for dinner, the newest entrée from our Cold Turkey Cookbook Experimental Kitchens. Check out the glorious pinkish ribbon of fat around the edge. President Obama, Senator Reid and Congresswoman Pelosi, eat your "earmark-free" hearts out. See below* for recipe.

"If not [the conservative], who will say that life is not fair, that human nature is predictable and thus tragic, that in our brief corporal lives we can guarantee an equality of rough opportunity but hardly mandate an equality of absolute result — since we are mere mortals, not gods?" asks Victor Davis Hanson rhetorically, explaining for those who do not study history why "the pillar of conservatism is fiscal responsibility":

Balancing budgets and saying no to always expanding government, first, is a moral issue. Just as the individual does not borrow from others to satisfy his own appetite, does not consume what he does not earn, so too government should not spend what the nation has not produced. The conservative, as the custodian of ancient morality, must remind the populace of the thriftiness of our ancestors that explains the bounty we inherited.

"It’s much bigger news when 200 people with jobs who’ve never protested turn out, than when 20,000 of the usual suspects organized by ACORN or ANSWER march with preprinted signs," writes Professor Reynolds of the growing Tea Party Movement. We love the infantile greed of Obamaniacs implied in "Gimme, Gimme" and "I need more toys NOW!" Rush Limbaugh made the same point in his "first televised address to the nation" at CPAC yesterday: "We gotta stop treating voters like children." (Darin Morley photo from St. Louis Arch "anti-Spendulus" Tea Party that drew 1,500 protesters Friday [via Gateway Pundit])

Enter stage right the burgeoning Tea Party Movement. "If social media is a good barometer, it looks like the spending bill is stimulating the citizenry already," quips LA Times technology blogger David Sarno:

Though even a year ago it would've been a slow and difficult process to chronicle a widely scattered protest such as this, the online community is now mastering the art of high-speed media sharing, a trend that can unite geographically disparate communities via the Web. Much of the sharing is now facilitated by the fast-growing messaging site Twitter, where today the keyword "teaparty" was one of the most frequently used terms. Users sent out a flurry of updates about attendance, links to photos on Flickr and Photobucket, and videos on YouTube and other sites.

"Rick Moran thinks the 'Tea Party' protests are amateurish and disorganized. At Playboy, on the other hand, they think they’re suspiciously well-coordinated. Both are right!" says the Professor:

Of course they’re amateurish. Most of these people have never organized a protest before (hence the tendency to do things like forget bullhorns). That’s what you get at the beginning of a movement … If this keeps up (and I think it just might) the amateurishness will fade away soon enough. Then Moran will probably complain about the loss of authenticity.

The Playboy folks, meanwhile, miss two things. One is that, as reader Miles Wilson noted, these protests predate Santelli. The other is that modern technology allows a bunch of people who don’t know each other to coordinate a nationwide campaign “suspiciously” well. Somebody should write a book on that subject some day.

Glenn Reynolds, as ever, is miles ahead of the curve. We ourselves were perhaps a bit ahead of the curve in December of 2004, commenting on the ominous exodus of the Dutch middle classes then in progress in the wake of — in Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's words — "clogged roads, street violence and loss of faith in Holland's once celebrated way of life." We stumbled onto that venerable post of ours yesterday while examining the entrails of our blog traffic in Site Meter stats and were horrified to hear a Dutch citizen back then "channeling" our own Rick Santelli of "Chicago Tea Party" fame:

"There's a feeling of injustice that if you do things right, if you work hard and pay your taxes, you're punished, and those who don't are rewarded. People can come and live here illegally and get payments [said Ellen, 43, a lawyer and banker who votes for the free-market Liberals]. How is that possible?"

"The Netherlands may be the canary in the mine," we noted at the time, not realizing that Obamogenic Eurostyle socialism was lumbering towards us just over the next hill in the land of the free and the home of the brave. As we wrote back then:

One would have thought that the fall of Communism had taught us once and for all — even those persons of the left still desperately clinging to their youthful embrace of Rousseau's pipe dream of the Noble Savage — that you can't fool Mother Nature. There are certain laws of human nature that will always out. Incentives are all. Reward anti-social behavior by telling the perpetrator he's a victim of society and it isn't his fault, and like any infant he'll keep on behaving badly.

As Larry Kudlow wrote the other day in "Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses":

Study after study over the past several decades has shown how countries that spend more produce less, while nations that tax less produce more. Obama is doing it wrong on both counts.

Let's hope the Tea Party conservatives, VDH's "custodians of ancient morality," will remind our fellow citizens in time of "the thriftiness of our ancestors that explain the bounty we inherited."

Update: Porkulus was "a little tough," says food critic Tuck. Was an hour too long? We've gotta do some more experimenting to get it right. Update II: We sliced it for sandwiches next morning, and it was fine. That tough spot was just a gristly piece of the chop that Tuck had the misfortune to bite into.

*How to make Porkulus for Two:

Cut a side pocket into a 2-inch-thick boneless pork chop as for Pork Suzette. Instead of Shake 'n Bake, top it with a quickie version of our Apple and Sausage Stuffing: Cook one sweet sausage till browned, breaking apart with spatula, add 5 cloves chopped roasted garlic, 1/2 cup Apple-Strawberry Mix (we used Cortlands for our latest batch), 1 1/2 cups prepared stuffing (we recommend Pepperidge Farm Cornbread) and c. 1 cup chicken broth. Cook over low heat until thoroughly moistened. Heap upon pork chop and bake about one hour at 350˚ till thermometer registers 155˚, anticipating a 5˚ increase to the recommended "safe minimum" of 160˚ after removing the chop from the oven. We covered 20 minutes into the baking to prevent over-browning. Let rest a few minutes, loosely covered with foil, before serving.

It was a Chelsea morning

"Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I saw" were the sun's early rays dazzling the pure white cranes of Ice Type Handymax bulk carrier "Lowlands Opal" out of Panama across the street at Eastern Salt here in Chelsea-by-the-Sea.

" . . . and a rainbow on the wall, Blue, red, green and gold to welcome you, crimson crystal beads to beckon." Grape-family member Boston Ivy (Parthenocissus cuspidata) trips the light fantastic on the great retaining wall behind the house.

"There was milk and toast and honey and a bowl of oranges, too, And the sun poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all my senses," but who needs Joni Mitchell's "milk and toast and honey" when you've got Eggs Bennie with Hollandaise Light Fantastic, the latest entry in our Cold Turkey Cookbook. What to do with the egg whites when you separate out the yolks for the Perfect Hollandaise? We whipped 'em up to stiff peaks and folded the meringue into the basic Hollandaise for a sensuously pale yellow, fluffy concoction that's fun to eat. Excerpts from an imail conversation:

We: I checked out online to see if anyone else had tried it. Someone had and said it was wonderfully light. And it is.

She: What made you decide to try that?

We: It came to me in a dream? Actually, it was the ease of beating egg whites, which I've become used to in making my broccoli and spinach MOOSES (MEESE?), with my adorable new KitchenAid Immersion Blender.

Enhancing the creative process with new technologies in our own Experimental Kitchen.

She: LOL. I must say, as much as I love Hollandaise, it always sits in my stomach like a pound of butter, for two days. Lightening it up sounds like a stroke of pure genius. God works in mysterious ways, yes?

We: And don't forget your cream of tartar.

She: Sis, trust me on this one. You can forget cream of tartar. Not necessary.

We: Really? But I don't WANT to forget it. It reminds me of "eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog."

She: Well, we ARE the Weird Sisters. Our cooking should reflect that.

"For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."

Sixty-eight candles make a lovely light

Scenes from a Birthday Party. Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City, a bottle of cognac and a gentleman's portable umbrella were among the gifts for Tuck's 68th, frosting on the cake of a Cold Turkey Cookbook Birthday Eleganza computerside last evening. First course (not pictured), a Tucker favorite we hadn't served in years, steamed artichokes with butter dip.

Checking in at the California Artichoke Advisory Board website for how long to steam the 'chokes — 25-45 minutes, till center petal pulls out easily — we came upon this showstopper, Artichoke Benedict. Look to the animals, and look to the plants.

First among equals, most exclaimed-over gift of the night was The Daily Carrot. We present a carrot to our hubby each afternoon before supper, trying to outdo ourselves from day to day by surprising him with ever more creative contexts. One memorable presentation involved laying the carrot in the arms of the SpongeBob atop his computer. Another had the carrot hidden in plain sight amidst the finger foods of a Friday Puzzle Date doib plate. This time we raised the bar, setting the bright orange taproot — as one would a precious jewel — inside an acetate teabox, wrapped and ribboned to blend in with the other gifts, most of which he knew about ahead of time, having helped us pick them out. "Do I know what this is?" he asked. "Not really," we began, adding after a pregnant pause "Well, you SHOULD know." The lightbulb went off, a moment of pure pleasure as he realized he'd been fooled again.

Second course: French Onion Soup. We melted some butter and sweated down the sliced onions an hour in our fave old-fashioned Revere Ware stainless steel pan — a faithful servant of decades when fancier, trendier pans came and went — turning them occasionally till they turned "dark mahogany." Then you add white vermouth to the pan, turn up the heat and reduce liquid to a "syrup consistency." Add broth and cider and simmer 15 minutes. Full recipe here. Note: We made Pillsbury French bread, used Gruyere cheese and followed the Food Network's suggestion of an "optional" splash of cognac. Tuck said it was the best soup ever. 'Wish we'd taken more pictures, but we were too busy savoring the moment.

The rest of the menu, served in classic Cold Turkey "Petit Fours" mindful-eating style:

Brined Boneless Porkchops

Baked Stuffed Potatoes (Recipe to come)

"Broccoli Moose" (Recipe to come)

Candied Carrot Coins (Recipe to come)

Corny Cornbread Mini Muffins

Great presents, great food, great company. An evening to remember, and infinitely more soul-nourishing than tuning in to Red-Diaper Baby Barry Obama's "Sally Struthers of our national conscience" infomercial, the one that delayed the start of the World Series broadcast last night.

Obama and the "morally uniform inquisition" of secular zealots

It's lighter than a paté but heavier than a soufflé. Our brand new Cold Turkey Cookbook recipe (see below) combines elements of cooks.com's "Broccoli and Cheese Soufflé" and a "no-fat, low-calorie" recipe for "Spinach Soufflé" of unknown origin carefully copied onto an index card by new bride Sissy Willis way back when. We're calling it "Spinach Moose" in honor of the woman who transformed the 2008 election into a mooserace horserace.

"You don't have to be a Christian to be a puritanical zealot, nor from the US," writes [presumably] Brit reader Jack Sprat in the comments of EURSOCs survey of British bemusement over the Palin Phenomenon:

Look at Britain's secular moralist leaders with their smoking ban, force feeding sex education on four-year-olds and imposing recycling on everyone like Nazis.

That's just for starters. This is the age of the secular moralist zealot.

"The UK press, as ever, failed to understand the US electorate, and that part of it labelled as fundamentalist Christians in particular," EURSOC observed:

The British press likes to depict evangelical Christians as a morally uniform inquisition, a white Taliban marching across the South and MidWest browbeating divorcees, burning books and forcing children into creepy virginity pledges.

"A morally uniform inquisition"? Oh, the irony of it all. The holier-than-thou armies of the multi-culti, pc, climate-changist Gramscian marchers through the institutions should take a look in the mirror. Linda Kimball, writing on "Cultural Marxism" in the American Thinker last year, explains:

Gramsci posited that because Christianity had been dominant in the West for over 2000 years, not only was it fused with Western civilization, but it had corrupted the workers' class. The West would have to be de-Christianized, said Gramsci, by means of a "long march through the culture" …

The new battleground, reasoned Gramsci, must become the culture, starting with the traditional family and completely engulfing churches, schools, media, entertainment, civic organizations, literature, science, and history.

Photoshop-enhanced (paint daubs filter) image of our food photo-shoot set-up on the dining room table. We used a sheet of our favorite physical filter, Cut-Rite wax paper, to soften the background beneath the plastic container holding the Spinach Moose, a sentimental party decoration we'd made for a Valentine's Day dinner a few years back.

Barack Obama's South Side Chicago neighbor and former fellow traveler in his community-organizer days, Bill Ayers of "critical pedagogy" fame, comes to mind. As Sol Stern in City Journal —blogged here — has written:

This Ed School stuff is straight from Gramsci's handbook, and it represents a conspiracy to keep the "masses" poor and stupid -- and angry, hopeless and helpless. In other words, ripe for "rescue" by The State…

Instead of planting bombs in public buildings, Ayers now works to indoctrinate America’s future teachers in the revolutionary cause, urging them to pass on the lessons to their public school students.

Closer to home, there was a Gramscian odor about the leftist "Middle School Concept" — blogged here the other day — insidiously incorporated into the public schools of our sister's ultra-liberal bedroom community north of Boston back in the seventies. Too late to benefit her children, the school board eventually realized the touchy-feely, utopianist program wasn't working and threw it into the dustbin of history. But like the wolves waiting just beyond the campfire to move in for the kill when the embers dim, Gramscian totalitarianists are always waiting for us to let our guard down. Recently, climate-changists in that ultra-liberal bedroom community tried to impose a program of spying on people's recycling bins and punishing those who didn't conform. But this time the citizens fought back. We'd imailed our sis about Elizabeth Scalia's PJM post, "Psychologists Want to Purge Your Brain of Un-Green Thoughts," on the 60s generation's transformation from "do whatever feels good" to "do as I say for your own good," a "necessary intrusion, meant to save the planet. For the children you should not have":

She: Yes, we went through that here, in River City. They wanted to inspect our trash. 

We: What happened? 

She: It was ROUNDLY, SOUNDLY beaten down. 

We: Excellent. Did they have a referendum?

She: They didn't even need a referendum. People just said WAH?

Maybe there's hope for democracy and the American Way after all.

Note: We ran out of time for the Spinach Moose recipe promised above. Will post it as soon as possible.

Update: The Anchoress links.

"Just two old-time things that people have kind of forgotten about"

A come-hither whisper from within a "Beggar's Purse" of wax paper, where one of our Corny Cornbread Mini Muffins poses provocatively atop the dining room table. To make your own: Use the recipe at "Extremely corny and very moist," substituting a cup of thawed, puréed frozen corn if you don't have fresh steamed. Then dollop the batter into a Pam-sprayed mini-muffin pan and bake 15 minutes at 350˚. Yield: 12 minis. See below for how to make wrapper. It's a piece of cake.

"I have just invented the most adorable bit of packaging," we wrote our imail correspondent this morning:

'Was trying to find a cute container for a batch of Corny Cornbread Minis to present as a hostess gift this evening. 'Didn't have any containers or cute boxes of the right size. 'Was about to just put 'em into a reclosable food storage bag when inspiration struck: Wax paper!

She: TELL ALL!!!

We: You place a mini in the center of a six-inch square (half the roll width) of wax paper, draw together opposite corners over the top of the mini and give the thing a twist.

She: AWESOME!! They're called Beggar's Purses, I think, in regard to wrapping little things in dough.

We: I must try it in DOUGH sometime. I LOVE the term, and it fits perfectly with how I stumbled upon it. I do LOVE the look and feel of wax paper. Very sensuous, dreamy … WAXY!

She: LOL. You know whose mother necessity is.

We: Beauty in unexpected places.

 

The structural memory of wax paper is such that the twist held, creating a swirling array that reminded us of the spiraling armies of dancers in the totally awesome opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games, masterwork of former dissident movie director Zhang Yimou, now dissed by critics as "a kind of Chinese Leni Riefenstahl, creating beautiful backdrops for iron-fisted rulers." We caught some of the stagecraft and pyrotechnics — Busby Berkeley on steroids — in the wee hours this morning on NBC. George and Laura were there, bravely soldiering on as the world teeters on the edge.

"How cute is THAT???" wrote our sis when we imailed the top photo:

She: I think you can do for waxed paper what you did for lard.

We: LOL. May I quote you?

She: Well, just two old-time things that people have kind of forgotten about.

So much good stuff that people have kind of forgotten about, so little time.

By the beautiful sea

Goomp out on the terrace pronounces our Tomato Soup de Soie the love apple of his eye.

What to do when the homegrown tomatoes start feeling their oats? We clicked over to Epicurious.com and found the perfect cold tomato soup to serve as appetizer for Saturday's Clambake Lite down Goomp's. See below for preparation notes. The clambake itself was clamless. Unlike last summer's no-holds-barred Bill Foster's Down East Clambake to go, we simplified, simplied: Lobsters — Hannaford's steamed 'em to order — corn on the cob, potato salad, grilled red dogs and garden salad. Lobster roll for Goomp and nutcrackers, picks and drawn butter for the rest of us. Another new recipe, Shortbread Lemon Bars, for dessert.

"Force purée through a fine sieve … discarding seeds," says Epicurious. Waste-not-want-not Yankee that we are, we kept the seeds and other solids left in the sieve and used a dollop as garnish for broccoli soup.

Tomato Soup de Soie, our latest Cold Turkey Cookbook triumph, comes straight out of the Epicurious files. We didn't change a thing. Just peel and purée your tomatoes, add a little lemon juice, lemon zest, chopped scallion greens, sugar, dried thyme, marjoram, salt and pepper to taste. Serve in your finest soup bowls to showcase the dazzling color, and top with a dollop of sour cream. As diners spoon into the dollop, the swirling factor becomes part of the eye appeal. Click here for detailed instructions. The Food Network makes peeling tomatoes look easy. The trick is to plunge 'em into boiling water for a few seconds and then immediately into iced water. We used a plastic spatula to force the juice through our fine sieve.

Tuck, Goomp and Suzi wait for the hostess to lift her spoon so they can all dip into the soup du jour.

With his eye ever on the prize, Babe goes for the jugular of the bag of lobsters.

Moving back and forth between kitchen and supply room, we noticed Baby Cakes hovering near the bag of lobsters. In self-defense of our own meal, we fine-tuned the Babe's minute-by-minute location accordingly, carrying him to the supply room and depositing him there while we gathered things from the #2 fridge. By the time we got back to the kitchen, Cakes was just arriving back there himself for another lobster vigil. From imail with Suzi next morning:

She: I was remembering your carrying Baby around like a fashion accessory yesterday.  Wicked tow koot.

We: I wish you HAD taken peectures, peectures.

She: I know.  It was classic, and priceless. What I loved was that he didn't seem to mind . . . didn't fight you, or claw to get away.  Kind of went limp, like a Fendi purse.  :-)

We: Kind of like the kitten being transported by the nape of the neck in the mother's mouth.

Tuck, the man of many hats, becomes a man of leisure for the day.

Suzi loves Chris loves Mom loves Barney II. Check out the mother's glamorous Michael Stars designer jeans with the perfect fit.

Chris takes the wheel as we head out after lunch to perform the annual ritual of total immersion in the waters of the Atlantic.

After lunch we drove over to York Harbor Beach across the river from Goomp's Camelot-by-the-Sea. Just as we arrived, a parking place opened up magically a stone's throw from the shore, where a larger-than-usual throng was starting to believe life's a beach.

All agreed the scene had the look and sound and feel of the early scenes of "Jaws."

Life IS a beach. Everybody into the surf!

 

There weren't too many babes, Tuck and Chris decided, but that's the trade-off when you're talking a family beach. No radios or other canned music broke the spell of the soundmix of waves breaking and retreating and happy people frolicking in the water and playing in the sand.

Talk about playing in the sand.

 

Toes sanded up as we dripped dry in the afterglow of a rousing session of body surfing. The waves were bigger and more powerful than usual — due to "a strong storm system" at sea, we learned next day — for this pristine little strand tucked between the granite bedrock of Eastern Point and Stage Neck near the mouth of the York River. When you catch the wave just before it breaks, it carries you straight and true into the shallows. Laughing and feeling as light as air, you pick yourself up and head out for more, enjoying the sensation of letting some of the interim waves crash in your face before the next perfect wave takes you soaring again.

"They have essentially reinvented themselves"

"Leptin [computer-generated image of its structure by Vossman above] signals to the brain that the body has had enough to eat, or satiety," according to Wikipedia, which adds "A very small group of humans possess homozygous mutations for the leptin gene which lead to a constant desire for food, resulting in severe obesity." A new study suggests it isn't just the obese but all of us who are driven by the leptin imperative.

"They have essentially reinvented themselves, and they are worthy of the utmost admiration and respect," says Michael Rosenbaum — lead author of a brain-scan study by scientists at Columbia University Medical Center published in the July issue of Journal of Clinical Investigation — re folks like us who have "lost weight and kept it off." Melinda Beck of the WSJs Health Journal explains:

So, you ate less and exercised more and lost weight. But now the pounds are piling back on. You're hungrier than ever, and you can't seem to resist food. Once again, it's all your fault, right?

Wrong. Blame evolution, and the fact that for the vast majority of human history, famine was a bigger threat than flab. Even your seeming lack of will power is part of a complex biological system that drives humans who have lost weight to regain it …

"Loosely put, after you've lost weight, you have more of an emotional response to food and less ability to control that response," says Michael Rosenbaum …

The key driver of this system is leptin, a hormone secreted by fat cells. When humans (and rodents) lose 10% or more of their body weight, leptin falls rapidly and sets off a cascade of physiological changes that act to put weight back on. Skeletal muscles work more efficiently, thyroid and other hormones are reduced … all so the body burns 15% to 20% fewer calories, enough to put back 25 pounds or more a year.

"It's only been in recent decades that this mechanism is contributing more to obesity than survival," writes Beck, quoting Rudolph Leibel, a co-author of the Columbia study who helped discover leptin in the 1990s at Rockefeller University:

Now, anyone can summon an unlimited amount of food just with a cellphone.

"How do some people manage to overcome the leptin effect and keep weight off?" ponders Beck:

Generally by watching their food intake very carefully and continuing to increase their physical activity. "Anybody who has lost weight and kept it off will tell you that they have to keep battling," says Dr. Rosenbaum.

We don't know about increasing physical activity, as we've been walking about an hour a day through all the years of trim, tubby, trim, tubby, trim, tubby, obese and now normal BMI.  But "mindful eating" is where it's at. As we wrote in the comments of Beck's "Putting an End to Mindless Munching" two months back:

It's mind over matter, and it worked for me.

Just under a year ago I jumped on the "mindful eating" bandwagon and started blogging about my experience in the The Cold Turkey Cookbook. It took about 5 or 6 months to lose 40 pounds, and I've never looked back.

The key is to treat yourself to a host of small portions of delicious and colorful, sweet and savory dishes, including fruits, veggies, a mini muffin and a small bit of meat or fish.

That and a little of the bubbly, as George Will asserts in "Survival of the Sudsiest":

The development of civilization depended on urbanization, which depended on beer. To understand why, consult Steven Johnson's marvelous 2006 book, "The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic — and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World." It is a great scientific detective story about how a horrific cholera outbreak was traced to a particular neighborhood pump for drinking water. And Johnson begins a mind-opening excursion into a related topic this way:

"The search for unpolluted drinking water is as old as civilization itself. As soon as there were mass human settlements, waterborne diseases like dysentery became a crucial population bottleneck. For much of human history, the solution to this chronic public-health issue was not purifying the water supply. The solution was to drink alcohol.

"Often the most pure fluid available was alcohol — in beer and, later, wine — which has antibacterial properties. Sure, alcohol has its hazards, but as Johnson breezily observes, "Dying of cirrhosis of the liver in your forties was better than dying of dysentery in your twenties." Besides, alcohol, although it is a poison, and an addictive one, became, especially in beer, a driver of a species-strengthening selection process.

We'll drink to that.