Actually, it was made with my brand new yoghurt-maker machine in my kitchen, but the result is still heavenly. It’s an SCD-legal goat yoghurt, using three strains of “good” bacteria as a starter, and fermenting it for 24 hours so no lactose is left in it. I also evaporate 1/4 of the milk while cooking, by trying to keep it boiling longer at no more than 180 F (this makes it have a less runny consistency later). I serve it with various berries, maybe some tiny grapes, walnuts, and definitely raw & unfiltered honey. Yum!

I used goat milk because its casein and the rest of its chemical ingredients are more tolerable by humans, since goat milk is closer to human’s milk than cow’s or sheep’s. Besides, I grew up with goat/sheep dairy rather than cow. Still, it can’t beat camel milk.

Update: I cooked some kale for the first time ever tonight too. I made kale chips. Recipe easy to find anywhere online.

Update 2: I even made some Paleo jerky for the first time ever (apple cider vinegar instead of soy sauce, honey instead of sugar).

Am I the only one who doesn’t find any particular appeal on the successful cable TV series “Mad Men“? The series has won many awards, including multiple Emmy wins for “best TV show”, and it’s regarded as one of the best examples of scripted TV.

Well, here’s the thing. I fully recognize the amazing production value that went into the series: it really looks and feels like the ’60s. The acting is very good too. Direction is top notch. Editing could be better, but camera work makes up for that. Script is concise and well-written too, with quite some subtext. Overall, one of the best TV shows right now, and possibly the one with the best artistic/production value.

But.

Where I hang up with “Mad Men” is that I’m not interested in its stories. Its premise, that is, cut-throat business, racism & sexism along promiscuous untrustworthy characters, are not my cup of (herbal) tea. I have absolutely nothing in common with these characters or that era in general, or any era before year ~2150. I’m not trying to sound pretentious, but I truly feel that I’m above these kinds of situations. It’s for the same reason I didn’t enjoy “The Wire“, which according to many is the best TV show of all times. I’m above these lowly situations that these shows portray, no matter how accurate are or were.

Instead, I want to look into the future, I want to watch TV series that deal with questions that have no easy answer. I learn absolutely nothing by watching about problems arising from socially retarded egomaniacs (as in Mad Men) or corrupted current socio-political systems (as in The Wire). Between the two, “The Wire” is obviously better than “Mad Men”, but I still can’t say that it thrills me, because I feel that it portrays a world that’s old by my standards (even if it’s 100% current). At least on “The Wire” I learned that “when it comes to crime, nothing is as it seems”. There was definitely some value in it by showing everyone things that they might not know about our current society’s organization and machinations. On “Mad Men” instead, the only thing I learned was “don’t work on an office in the ’60s, or you will get f*cked. Oh, and don’t marry anyone from the ’60s either”.

So I ask you, how does “Mad Men” make me a better person? Easy, it doesn’t. And that’s the crux of my problem with it. I already know everything that I need to know about the situations “Mad Men” deals with, so it’s of no use to me. Maybe it’s still a good learning tool for some people, who aren’t sure if cheating or cruelty is good or bad, but I definitely already know the answer to these questions. “Mad Men” is too simplistic for me.

Therefore, I still seek TV series or movies that engage me in an intellectually-advanced way, to make me cogitate even further than I thought possible, to teach me about new things that I didn’t know or I well-understood before. And that’s why I still consider “Star Trek: The Next Generation” the best TV show of all times. Because it was my mother & father in a way that my real parents could never be. I am the person that I am today, because of TNG.

I find “Mad Men” to be the “Dynasty” of today’s television. Well done and impressive to look at, but intellectually shallow. And yes, “Mad Men” is on my top-5 TV series right now. Which says a lot about the sad state of television. These days, the only show that I truly enjoy watching is “Breaking Bad“. The lead anti-heroes of both shows might feel similar, but Breaking Bad’s Walter White slips towards evil one step at a time because of situations that are out out of his control, while Don Draper is already well-situated in hell for years, and he’s more often than not the original cause of any situation depicted. No matter how complex the script would like Draper to feel like, he’s not as engaging to me. Most people are more likely to be like White than Draper: reactionary, rather than natural wrongdoers.

Finally, “Breaking Bad” is a show that it’s asking complex ethical questions at a constant pace, it describes the ways we could all fall of our wagon without even realizing it, and it’s damn funny while it’s doing so. Heck, I even learned some chemistry by watching it!

A lot of Hollywood movies and TV series now feature Canon dSLRs as “second unit cameras” (e.g. Captain America), or as “crash cams” (e.g. Iron Man), or “one-episode tests” (e.g. House), but it’s rare to find a scripted TV series that it’s shot entirely with one of these cameras.

Enter Wilfred, a comedy on FX. The American adaptation of this originally-Australian show is using the Canon 7D exclusively, and it looks great. Proof that you can shoot great video with these dSLRs as long as you employ a good focus pull.

All 13 episodes are available for free viewing via Hulu or IMDb (possibly only in the US though). Stars Elijah Wood.

When I was on a very-low-calorie diet in 2006 (which cost me half my hair), I had constant cravings. I wanted chocolate, cakes, and white rice. I was never big on pasta, pizza or bread, but I loved my donuts, milk chocolate and Indian fragrance rice. So when on a diet, I’d go with artificial sugars or small quantities of high-caloric foods. But this was never satisfying. I managed to stay on this diet for 3 months, cheating every few days.

Now that I’m on the Paleo diet, things are different. Since Paleo brought back my health, I haven’t looked back. I do not crave donuts, chocolates, or rice anymore. I don’t give a damn anymore about grains and high amounts of sugar. I educated myself of their bad health effects and addictiveness, and so I now see them as the enemy.

Honestly, I don’t know why I don’t crave them though. I should be, but I don’t. I think that this is a case of mind power over body. I was willing to do anything to get my health back, so when I finally managed to figure it all out and subsequently become symptom-free, not eating certain foods for the rest of my life was a non-issue anymore. I haven’t cheated at all so far, neither I expect me to. If anything, I feel full most of the time just by eating enough. And I’ve lost 7 lbs so far.

Of course, there were times that my body was asking for some sugar (I was trying to deprive it from sugar on purpose, since I suffer from SIBO-style IBS), so these were the times that I’d simply eat a fruit. It worked every time. If instead I’d eat a teaspoon of honey, I’d feel guilty afterwards (even if the diet allows honey in moderation).

I don’t know if I’m the oddball here (or if I have a hypothyroid condition I don’t know about that makes me lose my appetite), but I’m not craving for any food anymore, except some fruit. So it made me MAD when I read two cases recently about two different women (one with diabetes and another one with IBS) who they gave up on their gluten-free diet because it was “too hard”, EVEN if they became asymptomatic with that diet. Here they have an easy, cheap, and healthy way to get out of a bad illness’ effects, and instead they go belly up selling their soul to the pasta devil.

As my husband very well noted the other day: “they’re just not desperate-enough“. I was. And it paid off.

Update, Sept 30 2011: I made some Paleo donuts today. Honestly, they taste more like cake than donuts, but they were actually very good. I had one and I couldn’t eat another. Too filling. In the past, I could have eaten 2 of them in one sitting. I had it with some whipped lactose-free sour cream (with added honey).

I have thousands upon thousands of recipes. I’ve bought many books over time about cooking, not because I use them a lot as guides, but for some reason, I… enjoy viewing interesting food pictures. Needless to say that I never buy cookbooks without pictures.

Since I turned Paleo/SCD a lot of these books are partly-useless. I don’t have plans to ever going back to grains (even if I wanted to, I can’t), so I’m thinking of donating some of these books to my local library. At the same time, I have started replenishing my cookbook addiction by buying some books about grain-free cooking. My two favorite such books are the brand new “Paleo Comfort Foods“, and the few months old “Primal Blueprint: Quick & Easy Meals“. The following recipe, which is what I had for lunch today, is a loose adaptation of the original recipe “Dirty Cauliflower Rice” found in the “Paleo Comfort Foods” book (page 192). It was truly delicious!

Ingredients (for 5-6)

For the main recipe:
* 1 sizeable beef heart
* 1 big cauliflower, riced
* 1 white onion, chopped
* 2 celery stalks, chopped
* 1 green pepper, chopped
* 1 garlic clove, chopped
* 2 spring onions, chopped
* oil of your choosing (I used olive oil)

For the spices:
* 1 bay leaf
* Some fresh sage, chopped
* Some fresh thyme, chopped
* 1/3 tspoon red pepper flakes
* 1/2 tspoon cayenne pepper
* 1/2 tspoon ground cumin

For the bone broth:
* 3 beef bones with marrow
* 1 celery stalk, chopped
* 1 carrot, chopped
* some spinach
* 1 onion, chopped
* black pepper

For the baking broth:
* 1 tomato, sliced
* 1/2 jalapeno, chopped
* oil of your choosing (I used olive oil)

Execution

–- Part I: Preparing the bone broth

1. Wash the bones. In a deep pot add all the bone broth ingredients, and fill up with water. Cook in medium heat.

2. The bone marrow will start having some “dirty” substance on the surface after a few minutes. Using a tablespoon, remove it and discard it. When there’s not much of that substance anymore coming out, cover and cook for 2-3 hours in low heat.

3. Turn off, and allow the bone marrow soup to cool a bit. Then, using a strainer, separate most of the liquid broth from the other ingredients. Reserve the broth in a big glass container, and put it in the fridge. Enjoy the rest of the ingredients on their own, as your lunch or dinner (add some lemon).

Sep 23 2011: That was when I was officially baptized as a Paleo dieter: my first bone broth!

–- Part II: Baking the heart

4. Preheat oven at 410 F (210 C). On a rather tall but small baking dish, add the tomato, jalapeno, and then the beef heart. Pour 1/2 cup of water and some oil on top. Bake for an hour, turning the heart 4 times during that time.

5. When done, let it cool for a bit, and then remove the heart from the dish and set aside to cool even further. Reserve the baking liquid in a separate container. Discard (or eat as a snack) the tomatoes & jalapeno.

6. When cool, cut the heart in small pieces, about 1/2 inch thick. Having the heart frozen for just 10 minutes prior to cutting it, will help you cut it easier.

–- Part III: Cooking the main dish

7. Wash, and then “rice” the cauliflower using the shredder blade in your food processor. If you don’t have such a tool, just use a large kitchen knife and cut it in very small pieces.

8. On a deep frying pan or wok add some oil, and the chopped white onion, celery, peppers, and garlic. Fry in high heat until transparent, stir occasionally.

9. Add the cauliflower, and the spices. Stir fry a bit more, until the color starts changing to brown. Add the meat and stir fry a bit more.

10. Add 1/4 cup of the baking broth, 3/4 cup of the bone broth. 1 minute before removing from heat, stir in the chopped spring onions too. Cook in high heat until all liquid is dissolved, and the consistency has changed to something between Chinese fried rice and risotto. Enjoy!

Tonight, the most expensive series of all time debuted on TV: Spielberg’s “Terra Nova“. The 2-hour pilot had time travel, action, mystery, and lots of dinosaurs. You can’t go wrong with that recipe. Or can you?

The series starts in year 2145, where pollution is so bad that when a natural time rift appears that leads to 85 million years in the past, many humans take it and they build Terra Nova, a high-tech settlement. The story follows ex-cop Jim Shannon and his family, and how they adjust on that new place. The show has good dinos, bad dinos, a faction of humans fighting the main settlement, some… mysterious mystery about something we yet don’t know anything about, some family & teenage drama, car action, and lots of guns.

The CGI were good, but not feature-film-good. Dinos didn’t look that realistic. Let’s say that they were as good as a Hollywood film of 2005 would have featured. At least for some shots I feel that “Stargate:Universe” had better CGI than “Terra Nova”. The scene with Shannon and Taylor up in the hill was so painfully visibly green screen for example. Color grading was pretty good though, following the “teal” Hollywood look model.

Camera work was ok too, but editing was painful. The way Taylor was introduced for example was very pedestrian, it removed all the mystery and importance of that character. I mean, you introduce the #2 of the series and you start by having the camera that far away from the actor while he starts talking? Why not start with a close up shot where his face looks like an enigma? Why spell everything out? Why portray him as some guy in the back who says some stuff?

And why not start the series directly with the prison scene, and then unveil the story little by little, instead of spelling out to us how it all went down? And the scene with the orange, was laughable and badly written too. There was so much potential there to have the kids STEAL the orange and show what kind of character such living conditions would create, rather than having a nice happy family smiling and comment like “oh, I haven’t seen one of these for so many years”. So freaking pedestrian. So patronizing!

And that’s the Achilles heel of the show: it’s a FOX family drama in its heart. A very expensive FOX family drama. But a FOX family drama nonetheless. The show allows itself no grittiness, no edginess, no LOST-like heart pumping. Its secondary characters have no personality at all, the whole adjustment period was hurried up, while the family relations are something we’ve seen before over and over again. Just like ABC’s “No ordinary family” show last year, this American supposedly-dysfunctional perfect-family stereotype makes me wanna throw up. Why not have the kid be a drug user? Why not have the wife cheat on her husband while he was in prison? With a woman.

Compared to cable dramas (e.g. the excellent “Breaking Bad”, “Game of Thrones”), this is an old style show. Sure, it’s pretty serialized (otherwise it would have been completely worthless), and it’s impressive to look at. But it doesn’t go the extra mile to prove itself as a work of modern art. If the show was debuting in the late ’80s (before the TV spring of “Twin Peaks”), even if it used puppets instead of CGI, it would have been a huge hit. But in year 2011, if a show is not edgy on all levels, it’s not exactly worthy material.

Having said that, we have to compare “Terra Nova” with its fellow TV series on syndicated TV. Syndicated TV plays with different FCC rules that cable TV does, and so some things end up being different than how the writers might originally wanted them to be. So compared to the rest of the shows currently on syndicated TV, and I suspect compared to all the new ones too this TV season, “Terra Nova” is probably the best of them. It’s still fun, watchable and impressive. And it’s the only new sci-fi series in this TV season that it’s not completely drama/cop show with only a bit of touch of sci-fi. So, respect to Spielberg for bringing the series to TV. I just wish it was on cable (even if myself I’m not a subscriber anymore).

I’ve spent 10+ years with IBS-D, and when I finally managed to kick it away 3 weeks ago, I’m still surprised about how something so simple as a diet change is not prescribed by doctors by default. Very few doctors and nutritionists so far align themselves with some form of the Original Human Diet (e.g. Paleo, Primal, GAPs, SCD etc). And yet, there are thousands, maybe millions so far, who have had their auto-immune & inflammatory disease under control, or even healed, using these diets. So why isn’t modern medicine more open on the actual explanation as to why modern diet is so bad? That is, when lectins, gluten and bacteria inflame the gut, make holes on it, and toxins/feces enter the bloodstream. Then, the whole body goes haywire and the most weird illnesses appear. Illnesses and allergies that didn’t happen, or were very rare in the pre-Agrarian era.

But let’s go back to IBS.

We have to ask ourselves, except humans, are there any other animals that have IBS? And the answer is “yes”. Domesticated cats & dogs. The illness does not appear on their wild counterparts! IBS appeared in large numbers in the human population in the last 50 years only (before that time it was more rare), while pets started having IBS about 20-25 years ago. What’s the only thing that changed in the last 50 years for us, and 25 years for pets?

Enter FOOD. Food that contained more and more grains in various shapes and sizes, and more and more sugar. Pet food originally was mostly meat, but in the last 25 years, vegetables and flour appears on your pet’s cans. When was the last time you saw wolves grinding flour out of wheat in the wild? Feed these animals their natural diet (pieces of bones, and real meat), and you will see their symptoms reversed in the vast majority of cases.

So all what humans have to do, is simply go back to their original diet: veggies, meat, fish, eggs, fruits, and a bit of nuts & honey. Maybe some lactose-free goat cheese/yogurt IF they can tolerate it (cow dairy is even less tolerable).

The idea is so simple, and it makes so much sense. And yet, I spend 10 years trying to find the magic pill, trying to understand why this was happening to me. I was thinking along the “common wisdom”, that some of these “unexplainable” and “incurable” auto-immune/inflammatory diseases are just mysteries of nature that some day medicine & science might provide answers. I was thinking that I was simply unlucky for having gotten IBS. Maybe it was stress, as my doctors said, or maybe it was some old food poisoning that kicked it in.

NONSENSE.

I was daily abusing my body with grains and sugar (like 99.9% of you who read this). I was eating unnatural foods, foods that the human stomach does not have the right enzymes to break down. We are not hens. We are not pigs. We evolved to eat specific kinds of foods. Not the addictive grains or the even more addictive sugars. These are products of civilization, products created to be able to sustain unnaturally large numbers of population. But at what cost? Today, almost 50% of Americans have one of these “mystery diseases”! And the other half are on their way to get them later in their life. 97% of us are undiagnosed celiacs up to a degree! So, ditch the damn things. Do the work now, so you won’t regret it afterwards.

As for the medical & political world not seeing any correlation between “diseases of civilization” and grains/sugar, this would be one of the few times that I will have to sound like a conspirator. I do think that they know all they need to know about grains & sugar, but Big Pharma likes people to be sick, and politicians want citizens with a full belly. A full stomach always makes an obedient citizen, while a hungry one is nothing but trouble (since there are no resources for everyone to follow the Paleo diet — at least not for cheap).

Romans did exactly the same btw. In order to keep their population from revolting, they were feeding them with free-of-charge wheat products, and why not, kill a few people in the arena too, just for the fun of the masses. So tonight, go sit in front of TV, and enjoy your cheap drug: pasta, rice, bread… Top it all with a slice of chocolate cake. Oh, have a beer on me too.

I decided to take it upon myself tonight to cook some Greek moussaka, almost the way my mom in Greece makes it, with a real bechamel. There’s not one person that has eaten my mom’s moussaka in Greece and hasn’t commented that this is the best moussaka they ever had. It’s that good. My version came out delicious, and my husband said that it was as good as my mom’s — which is a huge compliment for me, since this is my mom’s “signature recipe”!

So here’s my Paleo version of it, which simply substitutes potatoes for zucchini, milk for coconut milk, and wheat flour for coconut & almond flour. Everything else is the same as in the original Greek recipe, and so the flavor is almost the same. One could also substitute the meat for mushrooms, and the butter for coconut oil to make it veg*an. Be aware though, preparation takes 1.5 hours! A lot of work for sure, but you won’t regret it!

Ingredients (for 4-6)
* 2 large eggplants
* 2 large zucchinis
* 1 lb (450 gr) of beef minced meat
* 4 medium-sized tomatoes, chopped
* 2 tbspoons parsley, chopped
* 3 tbspoons onion, chopped
* 2 garlic cloves, minced
* 1.5 cups of coconut milk
* 1/4 cup of coconut flour or tapioca
* 1 tbspoon almond meal flour
* 30 gr butter (a big tablespoon)
* 1 egg
* 1/2 tspoon paprika
* freshly grounded black pepper
* oil of your choice (I used olive oil)
* 2 tbspoons of chopped basil (optional)
* Salt to taste
* 2 tbspooons grated Parmesan (optional, dairy is allowed in the Primal & SCD diets only)

Execution

— Part I: Prepare the vegetable layers (time needed: 50 minutes)

1. Cut the two ends from both zucchinis & eggplants, and discard these ends. Hold them vertically, and also slice them vertically with a sharp knife to about 1/3 of an inch thick (~1 cm). You can also use a mandolin to do this, but make sure the slices are not coming out too thin. Your vertical slices should look like in the pictures.

2. Pour some oil in a frying pan, and fry the eggplant slices in medium heat. Make sure you don’t overload your frying pan, all slices should be “touching” the bottom of the pan. Eggplants “drink” lots of the oil, so replenish as needed. Turn the slices once or twice. Remove and set aside when the slices are wilted, and have started taking some nice color (do not overcook them). Do the same for the rest of the eggplant slices.

3. Do the same as above for the zucchini slices too.

— Part II: Prepare the meat sauce (time needed: 20 minutes)

4. In a cooking pot add a bit of oil and the chopped onion. Cook in high heat.

5. When the onions are wilted, add the minced meat. Stir quite a bit so the minced meat becomes “unclogged”.

6. Add the chopped parsley, minced garlic, and the chopped tomatoes. Ground some black pepper. If you’re using the optional basil or salt, this is the time to add them too. Stir.

7. When most of the tomato moist has evaporated and the sauce has thickened, turn off heat and set the pot aside.

— Part III: Layering (time needed: 10 minutes)

8. Preheat the oven at 410 F (~210 C). Use a rather tall, and about 10″-sized baking dish.

9. Take some eggplant slices and cover the bottom of the dish in a horizontal manner. Then use some more eggplant slices and put them in a vertical manner (so they criss-cross each other).

10. Pour half of the meat sauce on top and spread evenly.

11. Take zucchini slices and use them on top of the meat the way you did for the eggplant.

12. Pour the rest of the meat sauce and spread evenly.

13. With the remaining eggplants and zucchini slices create one more layer.

— Part IV: Prepare the bechamel (time needed: 10 minutes)

14. In another pot add the coconut milk, butter, egg, and coconut & almond flours. Ground some black pepper, and add the paprika. If you’re using the optional parmesan, add it now too. Using a whisk stir everything under medium-to-high heat. You need to be whisking constantly, or clumps will form.

15. After a while, when the bechamel has the consistency of porridge (as shown in the picture), it’s ready. If that happens way too early in the process, add a bit more milk. If it doesn’t seem to ever be happening, add a bit more coconut flour. It’s not an exact science…

— Part V: Bake! (time needed: 45 minutes)

16. Pour the bechamel on the top layer of your baking dish, and spread it evenly using a butter knife.

17. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the top has started getting some nice brown color.

18. Eat warm and enjoy. Left-overs microwave well, and they also freeze very well too.

* I still can’t get over the fact that this will be the first TV season in many-many years where there won’t be any space-based science fiction show on TV. Even “Blood & Chrome” is now said to only be released online only and not as a TV series! IO9.com has two very interesting articles about this, “Why aren’t we in a golden age of genre television?“, and the incredibly accurate “Why We Need More Space Adventures“.

* I’m pre-ordering the Canon S100 tomorrow at a local store. When I have it, hopefully sometime in October, I will publish a review at FreshDV.com about its video mode.

* On this article is explained how wheat is so addictive: it apparently attaches itself to our opiate receptors in our brain. Sugar is doing similar things too. I have to say that I feel lucky that I haven’t had any withdrawal symptoms for either when I went Paleo/SCD. Most people crave carbs in the first 10-15 days on ketogenic diets, and while I can totally understand why and how this feels, it didn’t happen to me this time. I had cravings while on the very low calorie diet a few years ago, but on Paleo/SCD I feel so healthy that I don’t want to eat anything that can make me sick again (see: gluten, lectins and sugars). This is another great article to read on grains btw.

I don’t particularly like animation art. But this is my favorite animation ever. Made in After Effects, and a little on Photoshop, according to the artist.