Bonnie and I love to wander. The gypsy blood in us causes us to uproot every now and again from we’ve hung our hats comfortably for a period of time to go out and find a new horizon. These days we’ve reserved our “wandering” for the weekends and there’s one place on our “to-do list” just up the street a piece along the gorgeous Pacific shoreline in Bodega Bay, CA. The place I’m referring to is “The Doghouse”. Because we’ve rolled through Bodega Bay a number of times since settling out here, the smell of salt spray is in my mind as I pen this piece this afternoon. The Doghouse holds claim to serving one of the best burgers in Bodega Bay and has been voted “Best Burger in Sonoma County” a number of times. My buddy Andy and I have even tossed around the idea of running up the coastline during our lunch hour a number of times, but when you only have an hour for lunch … you understand the predicament, right? We all need to sit, relax, and enjoy our meals. Here’s the problem, and it’s not the amount of time we all have for lunch … it’s in a recent report my wife discovered the other night on the mighty potato. We Cheney’s love potato in all its forms; baked, fried, smashed, mashed, sweet, French fried. We love our potatoes with breakfast, lunch and/or dinner. The reason for highlighting The Doghouse in this piece is that they offer “unlimited French fries” and unlimited is a wonderful word when used in this context, don’t you think? So I continued Bonnie’s research on our friend the spud and found the following to be useful information for those of you following this blog under the pretense of continuing to battle cancer.
“Potatoes are rated fairly high on the glycemic index, which means that after you eat them, the carbohydrates cause a spike in your blood sugar levels. You may feel full and satisfied when finishing a baked spud, but the hunger returns in a couple of hours, when the carb buzz plummets after digestion. This may explain why we sometimes eat potato chips and French fries in great quantities, only to want more. When we do that however, and our blood sugar levels are peaking, we are sailing along on glucose, and in response, our bodies secrete insulin and insulin-like growth factor (IGF). These two substances promote cell growth and inflammation, and when you have too much of them, they can pave the way for the development of &*()@’n cancer.”
Above italicized paragraph courtesy of: http://breastcancer.about.com/od/cancerfightingfoods/a/potatoes.htm – less the cuss word. J
There was some good information concerning the very best way to serve potatoes, without having to climb the Peruvian Andes to find them, and this involves the cold potato salad. Cold potato salad made with vinaigrette dressing, stored overnight in the fridge, is by far the healthiest way to eat potatoes. A long chilling increases the potatoes’ resistant starch content by more than a third. The acid in the vinaigrette, whether you make it with citrus juice or vinegar, slows your digestion, allowing your stomach to more completely process the vegetables. This combination of cooled starch and acidic dressing results in a lower glycemic spike, which is healthier for your body.
Perhaps we’ll whip up a batch of this cold potato salad, pack it up in a cooler and head up the coast to Bodega Bay and just LOOK at the French fries at The Doghouse the next time we head out wandering.
Today is our Friday … we’ll be heading north into Humboldt County tomorrow to visit Humboldt State University for Logan’s first college visit. All of this going on while our other daughter was last heard from in Morocco, somewhere between Marrakech and Casablanca.
Thank god I have girls.
Peace,
Papa
