Oh Tannenbaum

Peace on earth.

The Eclipse of Blogs as Personal Journals

What's happening to blogs? They're becoming so corporate and clinical. They aren't necessarily the product and prose of a lone human trying to make sense of the world anymore. They've become avenues of revenue, badges of affiliation, and something I've only recently become privy to ... splogs.

The best ones for me will always be those (that I can tell are) written by a single person, sitting alone at their computer, in kerchief or cap, bleeding a tiny part of themselves onto the internet. Those are priceless.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Vs. Chocolate Biscotti

I recently lost a bet with someone. He chose to take his winnings in chocolate chip cookies (CCCs). Well, I rendered him his due. And he was happy.

But I was appalled. With 2 sticks of butter and a cup-and-a-half of sugar in this recipe, no one could ever say these cookies do a heart good. And this guy has the sort of heart you want to see beating for a long time.

So yesterday, on a whim, I spread some melted dark chocolate over a batch of almond biscotti I'd just made and urged him to try one. He suggests I use them as my ante for our next bet.

I'm glad these have the power to entice him away from CCCs. A biscotti's profile is more conducive to a beating heart.

Below are the ingredients I used for my analysis, and a comparison of a few nutrients.

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Nestlé's Toll House Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks, 1/2 pound) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs, large
2 cups (12-ounce package) Nestlé Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
1 cup chopped nuts

Makes 4 dozen
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Fanatic's Chocolate Covered Almond Biscotti*

1 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar (raw or organic)
2 eggs, large
2 tbsp. vegetable oil (almond or peanut)
1 tbsp. butter, melted
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1/2 cup chopped almonds
3/4 cup (about 168 g) dark (semi- or bittersweet) chocolate chips, melted ( I used Ghirardelli.)

Makes 2 dozen

* This is my own recipe. I developed it to be lower in fat than more traditional biscotti recipes. Although I'd still wager that spreading melted chocolate over any biscotti would create a lower-fat chocolate chip cookie alternative.

Care must be taken not to completely coat the biscotti with chocolate. The risk is explained in The Cause of Explosion in Chocolate Candies by John Weinzirl, Journal of Bacteriology, 1922.

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Here's a nutritional comparison. I slated 2 chocolate chip cookies against one biscotti, since those serving sizes were closest in weight and volume.

Gingerbread

As a follow-up to my post on resistant starch, with its possible unpleasant side effects, let me offer ginger.

Among its many attributes, ginger (Zingiber officinale) has been shown to:

• Improve digestion. (A great gas-expeller.)
  
• Reduce nausea. Great for motion sickness, pregnancy, or the queasiness associated with flu.
  
• Relieve pain (anti-inflammatory). It has a analgesic effect; like Merck's recently recalled Vioxx^TM it can inhibit the COX-2 enzyme.¹
  
• Reduce fever.
  
• Quench free radicals (antioxidant).
  
• And best of all, make great gingerbread!

I used my recipe for Squash Squares, substituting canned pumpkin for the squash and increasing the amount of freshly grated ginger root to 3 tablespoons. (You can't beat a microplane rasp for grating ginger.)

~~~~~~¹ Biological Basis for the Use of Botanicals in Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Review