Allison! The Finns in the UP would tell you that a true pasty is beef, rutabaga, potato, onion and carrot in a lard-based pastry crust. They were called "hand pies" and were lunchbox food for the copper miners. People get in fistfights up there over whether they are supposed to be eaten with gravy or ketchup. The problem with bread-based crusts like the calzone is that they would soak through in time and get soggy. Pasties, with the lard, can be just fine sitting in a lunch box for hours.

Funny, the only time I ever heard the term "pasty" before was in reference to Cornish pasties, which I have only ever had in England, which wikipedia says are traditionally filled with beef, turnip, potato, and onion. I still remember the best one though when I was 13 and took a trip to England and went to Wales with my cousins, and had a mutton pasty. Strange how you remember some things about trips you took when you were a kid -- that mutton pasty really stands out in my memory!

Now I'm getting hungry though. Cooking Light has some recipes for hand pies of some variety or other that I have made on occasion. I remember making these two recipes before and both were decent: Spinach-Kale Turnovers Tex-Mex Calzones

I heard a lot of controversy over turnip vs rutabaga too.

Hand pies can be an awesome grab-n-go lunch. Not so nice if they fall apart!

We've done some fun stuff with finely cubed sirloin, spinach and mushrooms. The hard part is getting away from a carb/fat bomb of a crust - there are real perils to going thinner or messing with ingredients.

I'm hungry too and since it's a dinner-only day I really should try not to get more involved here.

Late this week, I felt ravenous, and though I tried to just sit with it, or eat just a little protein and stuff like apples, pears and plums to satiate myself, it was hard to keep the beast fed.

No surprise to see my weight creep up another .3 pounds on the scale.

But it was a surprise last night to hear the spin instructor -- with whom I was waiting out a downpour after class -- tell me that she and her young husband, who both frequent the gym, think I am getting thinner and thinner.

I thanked her, but I know what the scale is reading.

And I'd just been doing that sad, sick comparison thing in the exercise studio with its mirrored walls and those slender, yoga-limber women alongside me, and was feeling badly.

What are those people seeing? What? Because I am, if anything, slightly up. It's got to be all this weight-training with the NROLW program. I am developing a completely different body type from those women. Still, by my own reckoning, I ought to cut and drop about 10 pounds at least.

Also today is difficult for me. It's the 4th, I ought to feel free, to be thankful for my freedom, right? But I've got a lot of office work to do this weekend, since training the new hire took great big chunks out of my time for my own writing assignments, and I got behind. And I should be lifting weights on my training schedule, but can't because the gym opens far too late this morning, and I'm going to meet a friend downtown today at the Met, which is open on the holiday. I absolutely need to see this friend, or I'll have no life at all. But of course I am never good at flexibility or deviating from my schedule.

This feels like a Saturday. I'll have to remind myself all day long that it's a Friday. I was up at 4:15 AM like for a work day this morning.

Happy 4th everyone! I understand where you're coming from, Saef. It is often the day that I'm feeling fluffy and disgusted that someone will complement me. They obviously don't see what my warped eyes see.

I ate too much yesterday and was mad at myself as I had been up five pounds from Napa. I should have buckled down and worked harder. I am down about a pound anyway so I'm thankful for that, but it could have been more.

I plan on being good today and not using the holiday as another excuse to eat. I'm going on a chocolate tasting tour with dd tomorrow in San Francisco and we will likely eat lunch after so tomorrow will be another high calorie day.

There are only two bikram classes offered today so I'm heading to the earlier one hoping it will be less crowded.

It occured to me that I can now, in the new house setup, watch a DVD while working out. Anyone have any yoga DVD's they would recommend? Not sure where best to post so you'll see this in a couple of places.

Thanks!

Dagmar

We usually get together with my brother's family for a cookout (w/KFC on the side) on the 4th, but we both bailed due to weather in NE. DD had a hankering for fried chicken, so DH ended up running some errands and picked up some store-prepared fried chicken. I indulged in one piece as part of my otherwise normal dinner, and I have to admit it hit the spot! We rented 1776 (movie musical) online, so we did have a little bit of a 4th of July celebration after all!

My weight was good today, fluctuating to the low end of my current range. Due to the rain and some desk work, I didn't move much today. Right now, it's 11:30 PM and I'm on the treadmill, trying to reach my goal steps before midnight, lol!

Hi all!
We got home yesterday, very relieved to have avoided the absolute nightmare that is July 4th at Lake Tahoe.

The wedding went well overall. Several things went wrong, of course. One of them was an extremely annoying dress malfunction on my end. We also had a very funny mistake during the ceremony. My best friend's husband (Matt) was the officiant. He had never done it before, and neither of us had been married before. So we forgot a few key things in the ceremony that we team-wrote (cobbled together from bits off the internet)...

I got up the aisle with my dad, and he said his bit and sat down. My fiance and I faced Matt, and he started the ceremony opening spiel. About ten sentences into it, he looked up from his notes and said "Oh! You can sit down now!" Everyone was still standing from when I walked in, and we forgot to tell them to sit! The whole audience cracked up. It was great.

Also, my best friend and their 20-month old daughter (the "flower girl") went up the aisle together, and the little girl waved at everyone saying "bye bye" and everyone waved and said "bye bye" back. I was laughing the whole way up the aisle.

The "honeymoon" was brief, only 4 nights, but we hiked and mountain biked and swam and it was wonderful.

JayZeeJay How lovely your wedding day must have been from your description. I'm so glad you noticed the happy moments. Congratulations to you again!

Dagmar

JayZeeJay, that sounds like the best type of wedding... it all worked out well with a few little flubs and some laughs to make for better memories! Congratulations again!

I was up over one and a half pounds yesterday. I blamed the salty piece of fried chicken and scale randomness. Today I dropped all that and a smidge more to a new local low (137.0) which is great, but I'd still like a bit more buffer for the upcoming vacation.

You have to have something malfunction in order to look back and laugh! Ours was my husband's cousin's pager (remember those?) going off mid-ceremony. She was beyond embarrassed! Glad everything worked out!

Since being told I have high blood pressure, my goals have changed from trying to lose weight to trying to lower the BP. Well, things are better for the most part. Still a little high on the diastolic (hovers around 90 instead of 80) but for the past two weeks I've been pretty consistent at 124/90, so I'm happy as that is much better than 158/100! But the drawback is that I've gained back that which I lost back in January or February. Guess I'll be sporting Spanx at the wedding in a couple of weeks.

Now, don't get me wrong, I know losing weight will also help the BP, so I"ll be working on that next. I'm just happy to report that I've reincorporated exercise to my routine. Since stopping eating the processed frozen low-cal lunches to cut sodium, I think my calories are high--especially at lunch. I've remedied that by having more salads for lunch. And I'm keeping an eye on my evening portions. Eventually I'll get it all ironed out for weight loss.

Allison You sound like you have a solid proactive plan.

Dagmar

Definitely.

Me too, I hope.

I'm hungry but trying to avoid an early lunch. I've just had a banana which was part of it. Not perfect but better than many alternatives. #potassium #otherexcellentthings

Lurking.

Me too.

Dagmar