JULie eats TABOULie

Today I saw Jordan’s Queen Rania being interviewed about her new children’s book “The Sandwich Swap”.  She has always intrigued me mainly because of her beauty but I must say I’m interested in her country’s culture as well as what role she plays….. especially as it relates to the education of women and their rights within their culture.

 The book is about two friends at lunch - - one eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and the other,  pita bread and hummus.  It serves as a metaphor for the differences between the two friends.  The illustrations look really cute and it seems like a great gift for my little niece who is turning four next month.

I would choose pita and hummus on most days over peanut butter and jelly.  Today for lunch, I loaded half a pita pocket with a tablespoon of spicy hummus and three heaping tablespoons of Taboule.  Come to think of it, I had this last night for dinner as well!.....along with a side salad. I was introduced to real Mediterranean food about 20 years ago by a vegan friend/co-worker.  This past weekend I took a chick-pea Lebanese salad to Steeplechase to share with friends.  I did not make it myself, it came from Whole Foods and was scrumptious! It was simply chick-peas, sun-dried tomatoes and scallions tossed lightly in olive oil with some exotic spices and lots of cumin.

I just finished a small container of a new greek yogurt that I also found at Whole Foods.  It’s called Atlanta Fresh and the flavor was Tropical Sweet Heat.  The ingredients were mango, pineapple and get this….HABANERO!  It was MUY CALIENTE!  I was a little miffed as the grams of sugar were not listed and the data was also not available on their website.  It was a little pricey….I think around $2.50 a cup.

CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR MORE INFO: http://atlantafresh.com/YogurtProducts.html

Hope it revs up my metabolism and fuels my run!

Have you joined the REVOLUTION??

Have you caught Jamie Oliver’s new show Food Revolution?  I happened upon it a few weeks ago while home on a Friday evening.  It was mesmerizing and sad all at the same time.  I was riveted as I hit the rewind button to show the episode to my husband and youngest son.

Jamie was with a classroom of kids who could not name certain vegetables when he held them up…..and I’m talking a POTATO…..but they knew what a French fry was.  Most shocking was a concoction of grossness that they watched him make in a food processor.  Raw chicken skin, and what he called nasty bits of carcass mixed with salt, oil, fillers etc.  You see,  he thought he was totally grossing these kids out but when he went to fry up the nasty in the pan, the children were like “ooohhh, chicken nuggets, yum!”  I think Jamie started crying he was so shocked and saddened.

What ensued for the rest of the episode was Jamie totally taking over a school lunch program in Virginia and trying to educate the kids and their parents as well as the school board on what changes need to be made in America’s school cafeterias.  He was given the chance on a very tight budget to cook up and offer the kids healthy lunches. 

One family that they interviewed had children that were close to being diabetic as they were all obese and the show was seeking treatment for the kids and education for the parents.  What are we feeding our children?  What has our society become? 

Check out Jamie Oliver’s FOOD REVOLUTION on Friday night at 9PM on ABC.  You can also go to ABC.com and watch past episodes.

DON’T FORGET TO SIGN JAMIE’S PETITION which he will present to President OBAMA!

http://www.jamieoliver.com/campaigns/jamies-food-revolution