Frances Ellen Speaks!

Archive for the ‘Women’ Category

I was driving home from the supermarket when I dreamed up an amusing April Fool’s joke to play on my husband. The day before he had sweat through an entire Saturday planting annuals along the path leading to our front door. And April Fool’s Day was right around the corner.

The day finally arrived. I strolled along our walkway after work and entered the house. My husband was sitting on the sofa sipping a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper. I cleared my throat and said, “What happened to all your beautiful flowers?”

“What do you mean, what happened to my flowers?”

I put on a super-duper gloomy face and replied, “Well, they’re all sort of drooping and dying.”

He threw the paper aside and hurried out the door with me trailing close behind.

When we were both standing looking down at his still-blooming flowers, a real explosion of color, I clapped my hands and shouted, “April Fool’s.”

My husband turned and stared at me. He didn’t think it was funny.

(I still say it was a great April Fool’s joke.)

I’ve never been much for eating breakfast. Even as a kid, I could take it or leave it. But all the nutritionists agree, it’s an important meal. So I’ve adapted. I even have a few favorites.

1. If you’re on-the-go, grab one of those six packs of crackers. I like Lance brand the best and most of them are only 130 calories.
2. Since summer is right around the corner, I like to eat cantaloupe and cottage cheese.
3. Any other time of the year, you can eat one of those Cottage Doubles that Breakstone sells in the dairy section of your supermarket. They’re only 100 calories. I spread the mixture on 3 or 4 saltines or graham crackers.
4. I also like peanut butter and sliced banana on rice cakes or whole wheat toast, but remember if you’re trying to keep your fruit per day down to 2, then a whole banana counts as 2 fruit. Your daily intake is done for the day, but if you like peanuts and bananas, it’s worth it.
5. 1/2 large bagel (or a small one that you can find in the supermarket freezer) with cream cheese. Go for a little zing and use some fruity cream cheese. I love the strawberry. Plus this is a pretty filling breakfast. Or you can forget the traditional cream cheese and exchange it for a slice of Swiss cheese and warm it in a toaster oven.
6. Another good idea is to keep frozen fruit in your freezer i.e. blueberries, bing cherries, pineapples. Throw a couple of them into a packet of Instant Quaker Oatmeal, add water and microwave. You’ll be surprised how wonderful oatmeal tastes with plump cherries. Try a different fruit each morning. It’s addictive.
7. On the weekend, when you have a little more time, spoil yourself and prepare an egg, some turkey sausage and a slice of toast.
8. My one last suggestion to you is to keep a supply of fresh vegetables in your freezer. They’re every bit as important to have as the fruit. I always have chopped onions, scallions, bell peppers and chives in my freezer. I chop them when I bring them home from the supermarket. The beauty of having them handy is, you can whip up a really great breakfast with them. Scramble 1 large egg and 1 egg white with any or all of the above veggies mentioned. Serve over a toasted English Muffin or bread of your choice. You won’t feel deprived at all.

Each of the breakfasts above can be topped off with a cup of tea or coffee. Personally, I forego fruit juice because I don’t like to drink my calories, but if that’s your passion, go for it. Just remember if you have apple juice in the morning, you can’t have that apple in the afternoon.

The other thing you’ll find missing from my list is cold cereal. That’s because I like all the “wrong” kinds of cereals–all those sugary flakes and stuff like that. My best defense is to leave them on the shelves at the supermarket.

My final word of caution–if you’d prefer to grab a granola bar in the morning, check the calories. Some of them are deadly.

Did you know that one of the first age-giveaways is your hands?

We tend to take really good care of our faces, but we neglect our hands. Facial products are big business, as well they should be, because it’s important to put your best face forward. But every bit as important are your hands.

I encourage you to buy hand cream and not the cheapest brand you can find. Invest in a good, creamy product, not a watery lotion that will do nothing except make your hands feel sticky. Rub in some cream every evening. It’s never too late to start making this a nightly habit.

And while you’re at it, be kind to your feet. Every once in a while, slather some of that cream onto your feet. Wear socks to bed that night to insure that the cream doesn’t rub off. Trust me, you will never have hard, rough feet if you treat them to a little loving care. It only takes a minute–if that.

1. Stealing the Dragon by Tim Maleeny (suspense intrigue thriller)
2. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (sort of a historical memoir)
3. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (historical romantic time travel) My favorites in this series were the first and the second, Dragonfly in Amber
4. A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) by George R.R. Martin (fantasy) This entire series is not to be missed.
5. The Other Bolelyn Girl by Philippa Gregory Don’t think history, think a really fine read.
6. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer Now if you DO like a little (history) mixed in with your (humor), try this book on for size. The entire book is written in letters. Sounds boring doesn’t it? Trust me, it’s not.
7. If you love Renoir, then you will love Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland. (fictionalized biography) It’s not a book about his entire life, but instead covers the period during which he was painting the luncheon masterpiece, one of his most recognizable  works.
8. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (thriller) You’ve never known a character like Lisbeth Salander.
9. Bloodsworn: Bound by Magic by Kathy Lane (fantasy romance suspense) What more can I say?
10. If you’ve never read a Janet Evanovich book, run to the nearest bookstore or tiptoe to Amazon.com and start off with One for the Money If you like human, colorful, (laugh out loud) characters, you’ll love her books. Easy reading, don’t be expecting Pride and Prejudice. These are just fun books in a series.

Is anyone else getting bored with Project Runway? The designers don’t seem to be as talented as they have been in past seasons. There definitely should have been more excitement for that challenge where they teamed up with a school art class. There was so much inspiration there from the young artists, but the same lackluster array of clothes was trotted out. Pitiful!

When I think of “Runway,” I think of glamor and extraordinary fashion. I want to see some gowns and cocktail dresses coming down the runway, not tailored pants and jackets constantly. What fun is there in that?

The avant-garde challenge should have been evening wear.

There should be a different red carpet challenge every season. Let’s see the difference between a Grammy Awards red carpet as opposed to what we might see on Oscar night.

With so many Hollywood-type events to choose from, the best they could come up with was the Nina Garcia challenge? I have never seen Nina wear anything electrifying, and why in the world would I want to see her in clothes she would wear to work?

And the challenges themselves are getting old and stale. Okay, making a garment from stuff you can buy in a pet store was fun the first couple of times, but come-on! And then to put one designer down for using umbrella material, while rewarding the designer using fleece wasn’t even a fair assessment of the project, especially when the guy who made a dress out of birdseed was the clear winner.

And by the way, the bully in the playroom should’ve been kicked off the show, not one of his victims. But, oops, I forgot–the ratings. Maybe people are looking forward to more hysterics and mood swings. I, for one, would like to see more “out of the box” design and less drama.

Whichever way you say it, you haven’t eaten a really good tomato in a very long time–well, unless you’re growing your own or buying from a farmers market. However, you are eating really, really pretty tomatoes: bright red, no blemishes, smooth skin, firm to the touch, perfect green stem. Too bad they’re red rocks with little or no juice inside.

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Every year, it gets harder and harder to find an awful looking, ugly tomato–the ones that are grown to taste good, not to look good.

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If you’re lucky enough to find one, don’t expect it to be bright red. Sometimes they’re more orange. And don’t bother to look for a perfect stem sticking out of its misshapen body, because there probably isn’t one.

If you’ve ever bent over and picked a tomato direct from the plant, you’ll know the minute you hold this ugly baby in the palm of your hand that it’s been sun-drenched and grown outside and maybe it hasn’t even been sprayed with “who knows what.”

So, the next time you pass the tomatoes in your supermarket, try to figure out why you don’t see those hideous looking tomatoes in the store anymore. Are we so enamored of beauty that our food has to look gorgeous, while real taste suffers?

Oh, well. Pretty is “in.”  So, I won’t even get started on our pretty, pretty red beef, or our pearly white eggs, or …