Obesity, Security Dogs.

I have been reading a blog called Smothered in Butter lately and in her last two posts, Michelle has been expressing her horror at the obesity so obvious in our local society – what is sometimes referred to as the Golden Triangle which includes Kitchener and Cambridge. Her website is http://smotheredinbutter.blogspot.com – she is local to me and as she says in one of her blogs, she was staring in shock at the people around her in Riverside Park, Cambridge, on Canada Day and the lack of provision for these people to eat healthily even if they had chosen to do so. Michelle wants to get a “conversation for change”  a la Jamie Oliver involving everyone in the food industry, schools and catering establishments as well as those of us who cook. Of course, as we know, its not all what you eat, it is the lack of exercise too. There is an ad running on TV at the moment which pushes the fact that kids need at least an hour of exercise every day. Thanks to technology and the lack of exercise programmes in schools, they are not achieving that amount. It is also a fact that Zehrs grocery store which is a Loblaws company. has introduced their Blue Menu items which are healthy products intended to help reduce obesity as well. This item shown is meatless, but not all their items are. You will be hearing more on this from both Michelle and me.

I just watched a segment on GMA about trained German Shepherds which are being sold for large sums as protection dogs. I just Googled and found ads for these service dogs. They are trained in Germany and then continue in the US. From what I can see, the dogs are trained very much as police dogs were trained in the UK when I was involved with German Shepherd training years ago. I once owned three German shepherds at one time and was a member of two training groups in England, one of which specialised in German Shepherds or Alsatians as they are known in the UK. That was an upshot of World War I when anything German was frowned upon.

I like tomato, I like basil, I love bruschetta so what’s not to enjoy about the following recipe.

Grilled Tomato and Basil Bruschetta

By 2hot2handle on August 31, 2009

 

Photo by 2hot2handle

Servings: 8

About This Recipe

"What can I say? Absolutely sublime, but ONLY make with the freshest, ripest tomatoes. Prep time does not include the 20 minutes of "sit" time for the tomatoes."

Ingredients

1 loaf French bread

1 lb roma tomatoes or 1 lb cherry tomatoes, cut into small pieces

1/4 cup fresh basil, rolled together and sliced julienne

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

salt

Directions

1. Place the cut tomatoes into a bowl and salt them. Let sit for 10 minutes. Add the garlic, basil and olive oil, stir to combine and let sit for another 10 minutes.
2. Cut the french bread into thick (1 inch) slices. Grill the slices until just toasted and slightly charred, about 1 minute per side.
3. Top the grilled bread slices with the tomato mixture and serve immediately.