Meet The Team / Amy McDaniel

When I signed up for fitness boot camp, I had no idea that I'd also be expected to follow a new eating regimen. Six am workouts sounded rigorous enough, but come to find out, this is about more than sit-ups, squats, and sprints. Alcohol, fried food, and sweets are all outlawed during the 30-day program, and we campers are to eat five to six small meals, each packing some protein and carbs, every day.

Everything in me rebels against depriving myself of any kind of gustatory pleasure, but it really wouldn't hurt to give my heart and liver a break from butter and booze. I do wonder, though, how well I will be able to stick to the 6 meal per day plan.

In theory, this is the part I like the most about the regimen. I can imagine that it would be much easier on the digestive system, and would also curb cravings to some degree. it just sounds so difficult to plan so many little menus. Just after noon on Day 2, I'm three meals in, wondering how I'll segment the other half of lunch and the two halves of dinner. Does anybody out there manage to stick to this kind of routine day after day? I'd love to hear about people's experiences of it.

This weekend, I'm hosting a casual dinner reception following a friend's fiction reading. In the past, I've used Evite and Facebook to create invitations, but the number of responses has been increasingly dismal, so I tried sending an email this time. Out of 40 invitees, only 11 have RSVP'd so far, despite a special request for replies so that I would know how much food to cook.

As a frequent hostess, I find this to be one of the most annoying side effects of the digital age. It's easier to RSVP by email or Facebook than by phone or snail mail, yet most people don't bother. Yet it's still just as wasteful to buy and cook food that nobody eats, and just as embarrassing to run out if extra people show up.

What's a hostess to do? Do I simply delete the incommunicado among my acquaintance from future guest lists? Send nagging emails? Or must I switch back to paper invites if I want to guarantee a courteous reply? Also, I'd be interested to know whether others face this issue, or whether my friends just happen to be particularly ill-mannered.

Last month in the New York Times, Melissa Clark published a recipe for broccoli with shrimp roasted in the same pan and described how bite-size pieces of chicken thighs would cook in the same amount of time, too. I tried the chicken idea with cauliflower, and the results were very nice. Since then, roasting protein and veggies together has been my go-to method for no-fuss cooking.

Recently, I was inspired by two recipes in Gourmet's "Every Day" section: Roasted Pacific Cod with Spring Vegetables and Mint and Provençal Chicken and Tomato Roast. I swiped the cod from the first and the tomatoes from the second and threw in capers instead of the black olives that the second recipe called for. The fish and the tomato mixture were cooked perfectly at the same time. This is a tasty, simple recipe that I'm sure to reprise. The method is after the jump.

Yesterday brought a rare treat to Atlanta: a real, steady, robust snowfall. The flakes were fat puffs, not icy almost-hail, and much of it stuck. Growing up, I missed school only once every year or two for a true snow day, but when I did, my mother did it up right. Our family ate our traditional snow-day breakfast of light-as-air fritters with syrup, and after a day of snowball fights and sledding on a nearby golf course, we were treated to ice cream made from fresh powder.

In case you've known no such delight, I'll tell you how to recreate this quintessential childhood treat. First, you want to gather a couple quarts of untouched new-fallen snow. If you're expecting snow, you can put out a receptacle to gather it for you. Immediately, gingerly mix in about a half a cup of ice-cold whole milk or half-and-half into which you've dissolved a quarter cup of sugar, and stir in a teaspoon of vanilla extract. And that's it: no freezing, no churning. A quick Google search reveals that my mother's recipe is the most common, but Paula Deen offers a slightly different version with condensed milk instead of milk and sugar. That makes good sense to me, too.

You could try some easy flavor experiments, too. If you use chocolate milk instead of regular and add a splash of cold espresso, you've got mocha ice cream. Fresh-squeezed lemon or orange juice would make a lovely creamsicle-like flavor. Cinnamon, ginger, and cocoa also make lovely additions. Snow ice-cream is ultra-light, so I'd caution against heavy mix-ins like nuts or cookies; better to stick with liquid and powdered flavorings. Make the most of this long winter!

Inspired by fellow Slashfoodie Monika Bartyzel's recent post on using ingredients we already have, I decided to cook up a few of the many grains I've hoarded over the past few months...okay, more than just a few months. There's no other kind of food I buy more compulsively. Stone-ground grits, hard red wheat flour, orzo, coarse polenta, pasta in a variety of shapes, fregola sarda - shall I go on?

The starch closest to my heart, though, may be jasmine brown rice. I first learned of this lovely product during a charmed encounter at Bangkok Center Grocery, a jewel box of Thai ingredients in Manhattan's Chinatown. Another customer, a Thai lady, had taken an interest in me because she saw that I was buying ingredients to make my own curry paste and, after I had paid, she, along with her equally winsome Chinese friend, urged me to buy a shrinkwrapped bag of jasmine brown rice imported from Thailand. The price of the rice alone did not meet the credit card minimum, and I had no cash, but the store owner saw my distress at turning down the ladies' recommendation, and he let me take the rice on credit.

"Pay next time," he said. In Manhattan. And I a first-time customer. I thought that only happened to valued clients in tiny towns.

I gave away most of my foodstuffs when I moved from Atlanta to New York, but I did transport a half-empty bag of jasmine brown rice (pictured). Like regular jasmine rice, it cooks up to be fragrant and fluffy, nutty and chewy - perhaps even nuttier and chewier due to its being brown. The method for and a picture of my pilaf - not very Thai at all, mind you - follows the jump.