ArcaMax

The most calming thing I’ve read since the pandemic started is "You are not a teetering contraption." While George Will wrote it, he spends most of the article quoting Bill Bryson’s book, The Body, A Guide for Occupants.

Will writes, “Worrying,” wrote Lewis Thomas, “is the most natural and spontaneous of all human functions.” Thomas -- physician, philosopher, essayist, administrator (dean of the Yale and New York University medical schools, head of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) -- thought we worry too much about our health, as though a human being is “a teetering, fallible contraption, always needing watching and patching, always on the verge of flapping to pieces.”

So at this worrisome moment, fill your idle hands with Bill Bryson’s 2019 book, The Body: A Guide for Occupants. It will fill your mind with reasons for believing that you are not flimsy, even though ‘we are just a collection of inert components.’ Including seven billion billion billion (7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) atoms, not one of which cares a fig about you. In the time it took to read this far into this sentence, your busy body manufactured one million red blood cells that will surge through you every 50 seconds — 150,000 times (a hundred or so miles) before, in about four months, they die and are replaced for the greater good, meaning: for you.

Will concludes: “The brain does not always generate prudent choices, but it did rid the world of the most devastating disease, smallpox, which, Bryson reminds us, ‘infected nearly everyone who was exposed to it and killed about 30 percent of victims’ -- about half a billion in the 20th century...

Read the full column at PlanZDiet.com

Mongolian Beef

There’s no need to order out! This tastes better than any take out I’ve had!

Servings: Serves 3 – 4. Doubles easily.

Ingredients:

For the beef:
1 1/2 lbs steak, cut across the grain into 1/4-inch strips. You can choose anything from flank steak to NY Strip or even rib eye; just depends on how tender you want it and how much money you want to spend.
2 Tbl cornstarch
2 Tbl peanut oil

For the sauce:
1 Tbl of olive oil
3 cloves minced garlic (jar garlic will do)
1/4 tsp fresh grated ginger root (or paste); I use the squeeze bottle version.
1/2 C water
1/3 C hoisin sauce. I have also used mango chutney
1/3 C tamari (healthier than soy sauce- less salt) or use soy sauce
2 Tbl rice wine vinegar
1/4 tsp chili flakes. This amount will give it a zing. More makes it hotter but you can also keep out the chili flakes and people can add more to their dish at the table.

For the vegetables:
1/2 C sliced water chestnuts
1 C chopped bell peppers. You choose what color you want. I used red.
2 C of broccoli spears. I just use the tops of the broccoli for this dish. You could buy frozen and thaw them if you want.
3 green onions cut into 1-inch pieces. White and light green parts only. Make sure they are clean.

Instructions:

Toss the strips of beef in the corn starch in a zip lock bag and let them sit on the cutting board for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce. Heat the oil in a small sauce pan over medium heat. When the oil is hot, lightly sauté the garlic for a minute, then add the ginger and cook for 30 seconds. Pour the remaining sauce ingredients in the pan and simmer for five minutes or until the sauce begins to reduce and thicken. Keep warm while preparing the rest of the ingredients.

In a large saute pan set over medium-high heat, add the two tablespoons of peanut oil. When the oil is hot, quickly stir-fry the beef in two to three batches. You want it to be nice and crisp on the outsides, but not cooked throughout. Transfer cooked beef to a plate. If the pan has a lot of oil in it, remove all but 1 tablespoon of oil.

Add the vegetables and sauté for two to three minutes before returning the beef to the skillet. Add the sauce, stir, and allow everything to cook for an additional 2 minutes before removing from the heat. Serve immediately. This does not need rice or noodles. It’s divine without.

Enjoy!
Cheers,
Zola