Click on the images above to view the recipes.

Other Valentine’s Day ideas from around the Web:

• Valentine’s Day Recipes from Simply Recipes
• Valentine’s Day Desserts from Brown-Eyed Baker
• Valentine’s Day Recipes from Cafe Fernando
• Valentine’s Day Recipes from Kalyn’s Kitchen
• Gluten-Free Valentine’s Day Recipes from Elana’s Pantry

Wishing you a new year filled with joy, love, and wonderful food!

While I have been off gallivanting around Oregon for the last few weeks, several San Diego food bloggers  have been working hard to raise funds for a wonderful cause.  Headed up by Alice of Alice Q. Foodie and Caron of San Diego Foodstuff, the focus of this holiday drive is to raise funds to support the San Diego Food Bank’s Food 4 Kids Backpack Program.

Do you realize that many elementary school children rely heavily on free and reduced-cost meals at school, and do not have food available to them on the weekends or during school holidays?  The San Diego Food Bank’s Food 4 Kids Backpack program was created to provide chronically hungry elementary school students with backpacks full of food each Friday to help them through the weekend.  Food 4 Kids is effective because it provides food directly to the children, without requiring their parents to receive a referral to a local food pantry, pick up food at the pantry or prepare it at home.

The program costs a mere $6.00 per week per child to fund, and a donation of $250.00 will fund a backpack for a child for the entire 36 week school year.  Giving what you can afford will help us ensure the program continues to provide this much needed service!

San Diego’s food bloggers and other members of the local community have come together to raise funds for the San Diego Food Bank’s Food 4 Kids Backpack Program, and are very close to reaching today’s goal of $5000.  As an added incentive to donate, several wonderful prizes will be given away in a drawing at the Food 4 Kids donation booth tomorrow at the Little Italy Mercato.  For every $25 you donate, you will receive one entry in the drawing.  You needn’t be present at the drawing to win, although if you are there, you get to choose your prize!  To be eligible to win a prize, your donation needs to be received by 8pm tonight (December 11).

Visit Alice Q. Foodie for more details about the drawing and to view the growing list of available prizes, or just head right over and donate now! Please consider skipping a night of eating out next week and instead donate the $25 to help keep San Diego’s Food 4 Kids Backpack Program up and running.

Please donate online now.

Click any of the photos above to be taken to the recipe.  Enjoy!

So, I started jogging.

That’s my big confession.  Not much of a confession, you say?  Ok, here’s my confession:  I can’t jog.  Not good enough for you?  Well, I can’t do push-ups either.  Not one.  Not even the girlie kind on my knees.  I don’t like to tell people that because as far as I can tell, I’m pretty much the only person in the world who can’t even do one measly push-up.

But back to the jogging.  I really can’t jog.  Even in Junior High, back when kids were still encouraged forced to exercise in school, and Ronald Reagan wanted me to be able to jog a mile around the school track, I couldn’t do it.  I wasn’t overweight.  I just wasn’t a jogger.  And I couldn’t do enough sit-ups either.  So I hated P.E. class and I hated that Presidential fitness program because it always seemed like I was the only one who couldn’t run the mile, who couldn’t complete enough sit-ups, who couldn’t do the pull-ups.  And if push-ups had been part of that program, I guarantee you that I wouldn’t have been able to do enough of those either.

That stuck with me.  Those exercises weren’t part of our daily school P.E. regimen so I never had a chance to improve or see that it was possible to get in better shape and to actually score well on those fitness tests.  Instead, I labeled myself ‘non-athletic’ and trudged through five more years of Physical Education classes, dreading fitness tests and hoping I would never be singled out.

Does it sound like I’m blaming Ronald Reagan for the fact that I’m out of shape?  Well, I’m not.  I think we need fitness programs in schools now more than ever.  I just wish I had come away from those junior high P.E. classes with confidence and knowledge of how to improve my athletic ability instead of feelings of inadequacy.  But I guess Junior High is all about feelings of inadequacy anyway.

So, back to present day.   After years and years of believing that I just can’t do it, I decided to start jogging.  Being married to a bad-ass Navy EOD Tech for 8 years, I’ve become quite familiar with the inside of a gym.  I’ve slowly overcome most of my “I just can’t do it” feelings that used to be associated with all sports and/or fitness equipment.  But jogging and push-ups are two things that I just haven’t conquered.  And yes, there is still some shame and embarrassment attached to it.

So why am I announcing this to thousands of strangers?  Accountability, for one.  If you all know that I’m working towards a goal of jogging for 30 minutes straight, perhaps I’ll be less likely to give up when the going gets tough.  But the other reason I’m sharing this is that I  know I’m not the only person in the world who can’t jog and I’m probably not the only one who can’t do one stupid push-up (I’m hoping that at least one of you will admit that and make me feel better about my shocking lack of upper-body strength).

I’m not saying that everyone should be out there jogging.  It’s a personal choice.  For me, it’s something that I’ve always wanted to be able to do.  I have no desire to turn into a competitive runner, but I would like to be able to go for a jog with my husband.  I want to be able to complete a 5K and get one of those ugly free t-shirts.  I want to burn more calories and I want a healthier heart.  Also, I want to lose some of the weight I’ve put on since moving back to the United States.  And I don’t do diets.

So I’m going to share with you the walk/jog program that I started a few weeks ago.  There are several versions of this type of program out there; they are generally 10-12 weeks in length and move you gradually from walking to jogging with the end goal being 30 minutes of nonstop jogging.  After 3 weeks of doing this, I’m really not sure if this particular program is a good fit for me, but I’ve decided I’ll just repeat week three until I feel like I’m ready to move on.  I’m not gonna lie, week three really sucked.  But I’ve decided that it’s not important how long it takes me to complete the program, as long as I eventually do finish it!

Bud Coate’s Ease into this Running Program

Before you start: get your legs ready with eight days of walking:  Walk for 20 minutes a day for the first four days, then increase to 30 minutes a day for four more days.

Each week of the program, do your run/walk workouts on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.

Take a rest day or an easy walk on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday.

WEEK 1:  Run 2 minutes, walk 4 minutes.  Complete 5 cycles.
WEEK 2:  Run 3 minutes, walk 3 minutes.  Complete 5 cycles.
WEEK 3:  Run 5 minutes, walk 2 ½ minutes.  Complete 4 cycles.
WEEK 4:  Run 7 minutes, walk 3 minutes.  Complete 3 cycles.
WEEK 5:  Run 8 minutes, walk 2 minutes.  Complete 3 cycles.
WEEK 6:  Run 9 minutes, walk 2 minutes.  Complete 2 cycles, then run 8 minutes.
WEEK 7:  Run 9 minutes, walk 1 minute.  Complete 3 cycles.
WEEK 8:  Run 13 minutes, walk 2 minutes.  Complete 2 cycles.
WEEK 9:  Run 14 minutes, walk 1 minute.  Complete 2 cycles.
WEEK 10:  Run 30 minutes.

Note:  You may stretch out this schedule to include 2 weeks at a certain level if you feel tired after completing one.  Do not be tempted to shorten the schedule.  Remember, you are aiming for 30 minutes of uninterrupted running, not a distance.  Run as slow as you need in order to reach the goal.

From Complete Book of Running, Amby Burfoot, editor, 1997, Rodale Press

As I said, there are plenty of walk to jog programs out there.  A very popular one is the Couch-to-5K Running Program.  That program promises to have you running 3 miles in just 8 weeks.  Another is the 12-week Beginning to Run plan at Eat Better America.  Speaking from experience, I think a 12-week plan is more realistic for those of us who have never been joggers.

Regardless of which plan you choose to follow, remember that you can always repeat a week if you aren’t ready to move on.  The point of these plans is to ease yourself gradually into jogging, not push yourself too hard, become discouraged and give up!  Do you like how I’m assuming some of you will want to do this with me?  Come on, you know you want to!

Well, if you do want to give this a try, here are some tips/suggestions:

• Get some new running shoes.  I’m serious.  Go to a running store if possible and get the right shoes for your foot.
• Get a heart rate monitor.  I know not everyone can afford to run out and buy all this fancy new gear.  But heart rate monitors have really come down in price and I think it will help with your motivation. By using the heart rate monitor, I’ve been able to see improvements in my heart rate before I can actually feel a difference.  It has definitely encouraged me even if I haven’t seen much improvement anywhere else.
• Run on the right surfaces.  A treadmill is actually a really good place to start.  You are in a controlled (read: air-conditioned) environment, you can keep a water bottle within arms reach, and you might even be able to watch television.  But if you don’t have access to one, or are too embarrassed to start your huffing and puffing in front of people at the gym, try running at a school track or find a flat running trail.  Just try to stay off hard surfaces such as concrete.  That means no sidewalks!  Running is hard on your joints, hard surfaces make it even worse.
• Quit being self-conscious!  Don’t worry about what other people think.  Everyone has to start somewhere.

Now for the push-ups.  I don’t have a specific plan.  I’ve been back at the gym for about a month and am slowly building my strength up with weight training.  My goal is to do ten push-ups by the end of the year and I am confident that it won’t be a problem.  I’ll let you know when I complete my first one (I’m about halfway there).

Now let me tell you about that beautiful photo at the top of this page.  When we lived in Sicily, we had the opportunity to travel to several other countries in Europe.  That photo was taken on a weekend trip to Austria.  My husband was in Stuttgart, Germany doing some training and I flew up there to meet him for our wedding anniversary.  We drove to Innsbruck, Austria for the weekend and this photo was taken on a day trip to a place called Walderalm.  See that little road leading into the Austrian Alps?  That is where I like to imagine I am jogging when I’m on the treadmill at the gym.  And next time I visit Austria, I think I’d like to jog down that trail instead of walk.

And who wouldn’t want to run when at the end of the trail you can sit down at this table and enjoy fresh cheese from the dairy, a cold beer, and the view of snow-capped mountains all around you.

So I woke up yesterday morning with a headache.  Nothing terrible, it happens.  Instead of taking ibuprofen on an empty stomach, I grabbed a Ritz cracker out of the pantry to eat before I took the pill.  I ate the cracker and noticed that it tasted terrible.  Now, it was from a sealed package, but those crackers have been sitting in there for months so I figured they were just stale.  Whatever.  I took my pill, then sat down with a cup of coffee.  The coffee tasted bad, too.  I just had this weird, bitter taste in the back of my mouth.  But, I figured maybe there was just something wrong with my throat.  Perhaps I was coming down with something, there are lots of nasty bugs floating around right now and I had woken up with a headache after all.  Later that morning I decided to try some of the chili (breakfast of champions!) that my friend Amanda had dropped off on her way to work.  The chili had the same bitter aftertaste as everything else I had consumed up to that point.  Now I knew there was a problem.  Amanda doesn’t make bad food!  Sure enough, every other thing I tried to eat yesterday tasted horrible, and it seemed to get worse as the day progressed.  There was definitely something going on with my tastebuds.  So I did what any red-blooded, internet-obsessed hypochondriac American would have done.  I googled my symptoms.

Well, it took all of about 2 seconds to find several accounts of people suffering the exact symptoms, and scanning the page, the words ‘pine nuts’ jumped out at me.  I had been eating a TON of pine nuts for the last few days.  So I refined my google search to include the phrases “pine nuts” and “bitter taste.”  With 30 seconds of my original search, I had the answer to the bitter taste mystery!

Apparently, if you are one of the lucky people who runs into a bad pine nut or two, you could develop the taste disturbance that I am experiencing right now.  There’s a scientific article about it and it’s even mentioned in the Wikipedia entry on Pine Nuts:

The eating of pine nuts can cause serious taste disturbances, developing 1-3 days after consumption and lasting for days or weeks. A bitter, metallic taste is described. In general, a minority of pine nuts on the market present this problem. Though very unpleasant, there does not seem to be a real health concern. — Wikipedia

Nobody seems to be able to explain exactly why it happens.  But after reading several accounts, I am satisfied that pine nuts are the culprit in my case.  It seems that this bitter taste can last anywhere from a couple of days to over a week.  Ugh, lucky me!

Now I am not writing this to start a pine nut panic!  Several blog posts are blaming this issue on pine nuts from China, but my pine nuts weren’t from China.  I bought them at Trader Joe’s and the package states that they came from one of three places: Korea, Russia, or Vietnam.  I don’t believe that this a case of China selling poisoned pine nuts to the United States, although the Chinese variety of pine nuts may be more susceptible to the problem.  I think that there are some bad nuts out there that appear to be coming from several undetermined sources and unfortunately at least one of them ended up in my mouth. But since it seems that this is happening more with Chinese pine nuts than with Italian pine nuts, I think I’ll stick to the Italian ones from here on out!

So, will this keep me from eating pine nuts in the future?  Hell no!  I love them too much.  I will, however, be more careful about where I purchase them.  I will spend more money and make sure they are fresh and that I know exactly where they are coming from.  Sorry, Trader Joe’s!

Here are some general guidelines I suggest you follow when purchasing/storing pine nuts:

- Buy the more expensive Italian pine nuts and make sure it’s from a store with a high turnover.
- Pine nuts turn rancid very quickly, so buy in small quantities and store them well-wrapped in the refrigerator for short periods of time, or in the freezer if you need to store them for an extended period of time.  Just make sure you keep those suckers cold!

Now I know that google is no substitute for a doctor, but after my research I’m satisfied that my taste disturbance is indeed caused by pine nuts.  I’m not sick, I have no symptoms other than the bitterness in my mouth (I’m positive that the headache I mentioned at the beginning of my story had more to do with the wine consumed the night before than with pine nut poisoning).  The bitter taste is annoying, but I don’t feel that my health is in danger.  I eat a lot of pine nuts and have been doing so for years.  This is the first time I’ve ever had a problem and I’m confident that if I’m careful with my pine nut purchases in the future, it won’t happen again.

So, has this happened to any of you?  If so, where did your pine nuts come from?

Related stories of pine nut problems:

• The Pine Nut Menace
• The Great Pine Nut Mystery
• Bitter Taste after Eating for Days — Caused by Pine Nuts?
• The Bitter After-Taste of Chinese Pine Nuts
• Insidious Chinese Pine Nuts

Bon Appétit has created a slideshow featuring mouthwatering holiday recipes from some of their favorite food blogs.  I am absolutely thrilled to be one of the bloggers chosen for their first Blog Envy slideshow and if you go check it out, you’ll see why.  The slideshow contains photos and links to holiday recipes from some of my all-time favorite bloggers! I hope you’ll take the time to explore them all.

Now what are you waiting for?  Check it out now!

The winner of this beautiful 9-inch knife from New West KnifeWorks is Adam, whose favorite thing to eat over the holidays is Mac and Cheese.  Congratulations, Adam!

I chose the winner using the Random Integer Generator at Random.org.  The random number chosen was 224, and Adam was the 224th person to leave a comment on the Knife Giveaway post.

Thanks to everyone who participated, it was a lot of fun reading about your favorite holiday foods! And thanks again to New West KnifeWorks for providing the knife.

I’ll be back later with today’s recipe. Stay tuned!

I think I have all of the recipes restored now and the knife contest is officially starting over.  Please visit the original post and leave a new comment if you would like to be in the drawing for the 9-inch chef’s knife from New West KnifeWorks.

Those of you subscribed to Pinch My Salt through an RSS feed or via e-mail, you will probably receive extra copies of several of my posts.  Sorry!  Everything will be back to normal starting tomorrow and hopefully it will seem like all of this was just a bad dream.

(Now scroll down for lots of yummy food!)