Ingredients:
8 oz (1 package) Organic Soba Noodles
12 oz Organic Firm or Extra Firm Tofu, Pressed & Drained
2 Free-range, Organic Eggs
3/4 cup Bread Crumbs, Preferably Panko style
1 bunch Organic Kale, washed and cut into bite-size pieces
3/4 cup Parmesan cheeses, shredded and divided
10 (or more!) Cloves Organic Garlic, Peeled and kept whole
1 tsp Organic Garlic, Ground
Olive Oil
First, press and drain the tofu loaf for 15-30 minutes. (Do this by placing the tofu on a plate, and placing a plate large enough to cover the entire loaf over the top. Place a heavy pan or cookbook on top, and let the liquid drain from the tofu.
After it’s drained, cut the loaf in half then cut each half in half, and slice into 1 1/2″ triangles.
Mix together the bread crumbs, 1/4 cup of the Parmesan and 1/4 tsp of salt, and separately whisk the eggs in a shallow dish.
Dip each triangle of tofu into the egg then press into the bread crumbs until fully coated. Repeat until all of the tofu is ready.
You can either bake or pan fry the tofu.
To Bake: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place tofu on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Bake for 10-15 minutes on each side or until golden brown.
To pan fry: Heat 3-5 tbsp’s of the olive oil to a heavy-bottomed skillet, and saute until they are crispy and golden brown.
Once the tofu is ready, add the soba to 2 quarts of salted, boiling water. Cook according to package instructions. Drain and set aside. * Follow the directions carefully as soba noodles will become sticky very easily *
In a skillet, sautee the garlic cloves on medium heat until light brown and soft through (they should be slightly sweet, and not pungent). Add the kale and stir for 3-5 minutes until the kale has lightly wilted.
Add the soba noodles and crushed garlic, and saute for a couple of minutes. Remove from the heat and add the remaining parmesan.
I love the sentiment and spirit behind Operation Beautiful. It feels good. You feel good and you can make others feel great.
Leave an anonymous post-it note in a public place for another to see with a positive affirmation. “You’re beautiful.” “You’re perfect just the way you are.” “We love to see you smile!”
If you’ve never participated in these small (and powerful) acts of love and kindness do so in honor of National Eating Disorders Week (which is this week). There’s no better time to help boost the collective self-esteem of girls and women. As Operation Beautiful’s founder states, negative self-talk (which she coins Fat Talk) is destructive. How many times have you stood in the mirror criticizing yourself mercilessly? Think about the emotional, psychological, and physical consequences of consistent “fat talk.”
You’re fat. You’re ugly. Your belly is so gooey. Your ass sags. Nobody will ever love you with those extra pounds.
Repeat. Daily.
That’s an abusive relationship, one that can leave huge emotional gashes.
Imagine stepping on the subway or riding a cab and there’s a note telling you you’re beautiful, sassy, sexy. You’re wonderful just the way you are. Trust me, I speak from experience, these positive affirmations add up. It may sound hokey at first but, eventually, you begin to see yourself and others as fantastic. As is. No additives or fillers needed.
So, get yourself a post-it, scrawl down some words of love and leave it for another to see. Don’t forget to take a picture and send it in to OB.
Food and feminism go hand-in-hand. In countries like India food security issues and feminism have been linked for decades! In an article in Ms Magazine in 2004, Elaine Lipson outlined many of the reasons why women should concern themselves with the quality of food that we and our families are eating.
…..Women worldwide are still primarily responsible for feeding families. They need to be aware of what they’re serving and what they are eating…..Every feminist, woman or man, who embraces equality and diversity and opposes violence and domination, should recognize that the foods we eat, and how they’re grown, matter to our environment and to our lives.
Additionally, the vast majority of our food is grown and produced outside of the United States where it is incredibly commonplace for women to tend the land, work on farms, or receive their livelihood’s from a coopeative of women creating food for their communities. Food subsidies given by the U.S. and Japan weaken the economies of many agricultural countries. Meaning that the work of those women whose livelihood’s depends on the land they tend and the food they grow is incessantly undermined by our food subsidies.
All that being said…..in honor of Huffington Post’s Week of Eating In, I will be posting recipes throught the week of February 22-28, 2010! Eating in – and learning how to – promotes a lifestyle that creates community, consciousness about what you’re eating and where it comes from, and reduces the amount of waste you produce (especially, if you recycle and compost)! To quote a Huffington Post blogger, Cathy Erway, “….by preparing your own food, you’ll become more mindful of it. And for one of the few physical necessities of every day — eating — a better connection with that food is nothing to sneeze at.”
So….just for a week…try it! Stay home, cook some great food, take pic’s of it for HuffPost & facebook, and share some great eats with your family and neighbors! You might find out that you really like knowing exactly what you’re eating, or that you just enjoy the simple act of preparing your own nourishment.
Harding’s piece at Salon’s Broadsheet was inspired by one man’s attempt to “understand” women. How did he conduct this bit of anthropological research? By ingesting 30 “chick flicks” in 30 days. I can only guess that this endeavor nauseated him as much as McDonald’s greasy fried bits nauseated Morgan Spurlock in a similar challenge in Supersize Me (afterall, these films are as unhealthy for you mentally and emotionally as the Golden Arches’ fat-packed, artery clogging menu offerings are for your heart, intestines and colon).
As Harding points out, few films are directed by women and Waters, the man seeking to understand the female creature, only watched 8 female-directed films out of 30. She also calls out the heterosexist and “white” roles and story lines. The point being, uh, not all women are white, not all women are straight. And, of course, the primary goal in the bulk of these films is marriage (preferably in Vera Wang). Last, not all women want to get married and many who do, want a divorce.
I’ve copped to my sick addiction to romantic comedies and “chick flicks” on numerous occasions. With that said, I’ve actively employed my media literacy skills in deconstructing and examining these messages. Yes, I watch too many of these homogeneous films that recycle the same characters and plots time and time again. But, I am able to recognize the fallacies, stereotypes and sexist remarks while most theater (or Netflix) patrons do not. They ingest these images, roles and messages over and over from childhood to adulthood and these messages become normative, expected and unremarkable. Men come to believe that women are unintelligent, self-absorbed creatures seeking a ring and a baby. Women learn that this is what they should aspire to as a goal and the way to achieve that is through expensive and time consuming beauty practices. They are led to believe that this is what will land them the relationship they’ve dreamed of since girlhood when they’d scrawl their crushes name all over their notebooks.
I understand that facebook groups are mostly just a joke as is the actual act of joining one. Nothing more than a way to send a message. For example I recently joined the group “I don’t care about your farm or your fish or your mafia. So, stop asking.” Of course, I only joined hoping that a select few would stop inviting me their freaking farms! I understand it’s all in jest.
But what about this one: “Killing your hooker so you don’t have to pay her“? My mouth dropped open when I saw this joke posted on their page: Q. Whats the difference between an onion and a hooker? A. You don’t cry when you are chopping up hookers. Or how about this one: Q. What’s the difference between a lamborghini and a pile of dead hookers? A. I don’t have a lamborghini in my garage.
At some point gender-based violence has to stop being a source of amusement. It breeds action - and no matter how funny the joke or the group – those actions are not funny.
Click here for Feministe’s discussion of the same group!
Click here for The Illusionists look at 20 years of beauty ads and their changing themes, from the aspiring female professional, assertive and independent, to the narcissistic themes characteristic of the “me-generation.”
Leisure. Indulgence. Self-entitlement.
It’s unsurprising that young women aspire to do, well, nothing except pamper themselves. Hey, I am an open and avid fan of the mani/pedi, great shampoo and a massage but, in reality, a life of ceaseless leisure is a goal that is not only dangerously self-absorbed but unrealistic given the economic climate.
Lani’s recent post on Christina Hendricks’ curves prompted me to point out that the public scrutiny of and derogatory comments about women’s bodies (celebrity or not) is referred to as bodysnarking.
Miss Jay says that social-networking sites mean teenagers now focus even more on how they look. “I know girls who have entire photo albums just of their face at different angles. On the flip side, the unflattering photos can’t just be tucked away somewhere. They become the basis for publicly displayed ridicule,” she says.
It sounds a lot like the way we treat famous people. “The conventions that a lot of these celebrity magazines use have trickled down to everyday conversations,” says Claire Mysko, the author of “You’re Amazing! A No Pressure Guide to Being Your Best Self.” She mentions celeb sites like PerezHilton.com, TMZ.com and photo-rating site HotorNot.com that obsessively scrutinize people’s flaws and assets.
“I remember sitting at a restaurant with a friend who made a comment to me that the waitress shouldn’t wear shorts because of the way her body was shaped,” says Sharon Lamb, co-author of “Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketer’s Schemes.” And few women seem immune from being the objects of such scrutiny — from people of both sexes. New York magazine columnist Kurt Andersen, commenting on the political prospects of Hillary Clinton, noted that she has a “Wal-Mart shopper’s bad hair” and a “big bum.”
Bum, however, is just the beginning of the bodysnark lexicon. Jezebel’s Ms. Holmes, who has worked at InStyle, says that 10 years ago people would have looked at you weird if you used such now-common and harshly descriptive words and phrases as “pooch,” “muffin top,” “fugly,” “cankles” (fat ankles and calves that lack definition) and “whale tail.” Also, she notes: “In the ’90s, magazines weren’t really publishing unflattering photos. Today we have been trained to look for the potentially mockable thing, whether it’s of a celebrity or of someone we know.”
It seems counterintuitive, somehow, that ugly pictures sell magazines. But according to Ms. Holmes, stories about celebrity weight-loss with before-and-after photos now fly off the shelves.
As the article notes, bodysnarking as sport among women along with fierce competition is nothing new but the rise of social media has propelled this mean-spirited and hurtful pastime to epic, and public, proportions.
Placing women — especially celebrities — under the microscope is certainly not new. Neither is the fact that women can be mean to each other. What’s different now is how new media — blogs, social networks and YouTube — have encouraged and escalated public participation. Where it might once have been considered déclassé to remark on someone’s appearance, at least publicly, today it’s done with the same ease as sending a text message.
And the impact of this public body hazing has tangible consequences. Women and girls understand at a gut level that their bodies are public property and not entirely their own. They understand and expect people they don’t know to survey their bodies, dissect and comment on their appearance. This creates an incredibly vulnerable place to be inside one’s own skin. That vulnerability tends to breed insecurity and insecurity too often leads to dangerous, costly and time consuming body practices.
The next time you feel compelled to call a stranger or your best friend (!) a “skinny bitch” or comment on the size of her ankles, remind yourself that these comments aren’t benign and that we have the ability to create change in our lives and the lives of other women at every moment. Ultimately, this creates cultural change and, perhaps, that shift will foster a healthy, happy environment for our bodies and minds.
Admittedly, I do have a disturbing, and probably diagnosable, addiction to “Mad Men.” From the word go I was stoked about the presence of the self-assured, beautiful, quietly defiant, and, of course, red-headed (!) female character, Joan Holloway. She was not so defiant that anyone would call her a bitch, and not so promiscuous to provoke the use of slut. Not an out-right activist or poster girl for any one’s feminism, but all the same she was fabulous. I remember being surprised that her body hadn’t been the topic of more hushed chatter. Well, until now it hadn’t.
After this years Golden Globe Awards ceremony, New York Times blogger, Cathy Horyn, blogged/critiqued ”you don’t put a big girl in a big dress. It’s rule number one.” Being one who automatically jumps to the defense of people I love (it’s a flaw), I was pretty irritated. Her husband, Geoffrey Arend, came to her defense discussing how hurtful the comments had been to her. As for Christina, in a recent interview with New York magazine she says that all the questions about her body “put a bad taste” in her mouth.
As the viewing public, we feel entitled to pick her out and discuss her body because she’s in the limelight and stands out from the normal, Hollywood-sized 22″ waist. The fact is that we are not entitled. We have to understand no matter how benign the comment seems when it first rattles around in our tiny, little brains these kinds of issues are a sensitive and contentious topic for most, if not all, American women. So, from the most seemingly innocuous, to the most obviously offensive we have to think twice before we speak these kinds of words as they breed insecurity and potentially harmful habits. We have to actively encourage and advocate for positive body image and self-confidence in our sisters, girlfriends, wives and daughters every time we have the chance.
So, for Christina, you are a stunning, confident, and talented woman! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, sister!
Check out Jezebel and Claire Mysko’s pieces on the hypocrisy of women’s health/fitness magazines and the problem with body image role models of celebrity status. Mysko states:
Whenever an actress or pop star comes forward to talk about her struggle with an eating disorder or poor body image, I say a little prayer that she will find true health. I also hope that she’ll speak responsibly about recovery and self-acceptance. Unfortunately, I’m usually disappointed.
The fact is that getting over an eating disorder (or the murkier but more common problem of disordered eating) involves getting away from an obsession with weight, and that’s darn near impossible to do if you happen to be a celebrity–a job that requires you to go on the record about your exercise and diet “secrets” if you want to stay on the publicity train.
As the Jezebel piece notes:
The hypocrisy of women’s “health” magazines becomes fairly obvious just by looking at their covers. For example, this month’s Self magazine features one cover line, “Be Happy And Healthy At Any Size” tucked below a much larger cover line:
“3 Easy Ways To Lose Weight.”
What seems common knowledge to the cultural critic, the sociologist and the person recovering from disordered eating or an eating disorder is often less obvious to most. And one of those things is that magazines hailed as health magazines or gyms euphemistically called “fitness” or “health” (yeah, right) clubs are more about aesthetics and profit. I mentioned this in my December 2008 post:
I’ve known for years that gyms are not health clubs. As Lester Burnham declares in American Beauty, he works out “to look good naked.”
Equinox Fitness is quite candid about it’s true aim with it’s tag line “It’s not fitness. It’s life.”
Our culture increasingly sends contradictory and mixed messages. An ad for ice-cream you can indulge in on one page and an ad for diet pills on the next. While many celebrities are applauded for speaking frankly and candidly about their fight against a distorted body image and unrealistic expectations in the industry, their venue (magazines, television) overshadows their message with a plethora of insecurity boosting themes. Their voice is lost in the cacophony of voices whispering “you’re too fat” or “too flabby” while whispering “eat,” “indulge” (Haagen Dazs tagline “the longer lasting pleasure”) and “enjoy” in the other.
