I just finished Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire by Bret Baier. It’s a New York Times bestseller that takes you into the world of Ronald Reagan, his rise to power in politics, and his role in ending the Cold War. And it does in a personable way with gentle humor throughout.

I enjoyed the fascinating behind-the-scene insights about the personalities involved and the clarity about what really happened. And how the book brings Reagan to life, as if he’s almost there. Along the way you’ll also get insight into Mikhail Gorbachev, the assassination attempt on Reagan, and more.

Baier is the chief political anchor for Fox News. In 2001, he became the station’s chief Pentagon correspondent and ended up traveling to Afghanistan 11 times and Iraq 13 times. In 2007, he became the station’s chief correspondent to the White House. More importantly, Baier seems to be one of the few journalists these days who is simply trying to get and report facts instead of spin. And that’s exactly what he’s done here.

If you like biographies or history, if you want to know how the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. stepped back from decades of mutually assured destruction, if you want to get a view into how diplomacy is done, then I think you’ll love this book. And you’ll probably love it even more if you can listen to the audio book version, read by Baier himself, which also includes a recording of Reagan’s speech to the students at Moscow State University. I listened to it via the Overdrive account my public library provides. Baier’s reading was terrific.  

If you’ve decided to try the whole-food, plant-based lifestyle (WFPB) to lose weight or lower your risk of certain diseases, you will immediately find there’s a bit of a learning curve.

That’s because the food culture in the United States is geared towards foods that are animal-based and processed—cheese, meats, sugar, flour-based products, chips, candy, etc. In fact, WFPB is such a large change, you might wonder if you’ll be eating anything other than cardboard.

I can happily report that WFPB eating is satisfying and delicious.

Let’s review the general guidelines. With WFPB there are three things to avoid or minimize.

• Added sugar (and artificial sweeteners)
• Flour-based products
• Animal-based products (meat, dairy, eggs)

And there are five things you eat. The main four include:

• Legumes
• Grains (as close to whole kernel as you can get it)
• Vegetables
• Fruits (natural form, not canned)

The fifth category is some added fat on the side. That includes things like a tablespoon of mayo, peanut butter, oil, avocado, etc. Or it could be an ounce of nuts or seeds.

We’ve found it easiest to compose a meal by simply thinking about the five categories and filling in the blanks. If you don’t include one of the main four groups in a meal, that’s fine. Just be sure you’re not excluding it all the time.

There are dozens and dozens of delicious meals. Over the next months I’ll be sharing some of those we love. Let’s start with the base.

The base

Grains

Our InstaPot has been a huge help with grains. It makes them so easy to cook. You can make them in a batch and enjoy them over the course of a few days.

Wheat

• 2 cups food storage wheat berries (Yes! Finally a use for all those bags of food storage wheat in the basement!)
• 5.5 cups water (or use vegetable stock if you want it savory)
• ½ tsp salt
• Cook for 35 minutes on high pressure followed by immediate pressure release. Drain if necessary.

Rye berries, oat groats, pearled barley, brown rice

• 2 cups grain
• 2.5 cups water (or vegetable stock if you want it savory)
• ½ tsp salt
• Cook for 22 minutes on high pressure followed by 10 minutes of natural pressure release. Drain if necessary.

When you want the grain as a savory dish, use vegetable broth or stock. It gives the grain a wonderful flavor. It’s total magic. You can get cartons at the grocery store for under two bucks. 

For rice, we love the Lundberg wild rice mix. Lundberg also happens to be California rice which doesn’t have the high levels of arsenic that rice from the Southern United States has.

Legumes

Lentils

• 1 cup brown or green lentils (do not use red for this)
• 2 cups vegetable broth (the broth is the magical ingredient)
• ½ tsp salt
• Cook for 15 minutes on high with 10 minutes of natural pressure release. Drain if necessary.

For other beans, we just purchased them in the can. They’re cheap and easy. Pinto, black, white, black-eyed peas, etc. You might find it easiest to start with pinto and garbanzo beans.

Fruits

Easy. Just get whole fruits. You can also get the frozen berries and cherries.

Vegetables

Easy. Just get a variety of veggies and salad.

Nuts and seeds

Easy. Get whole almonds, pecans, walnuts, etc. Whatever you like. Try to get them raw. You can heat them up in a pan on the over before you eat. Stove-roasted pecans are tasty.  

Added oils

Olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil. You’re not going to be using a ton. If you want to use mayo and salad dressing, do it. Again, you’re not going to be using much.

Spices

Use all you want—cinnamon, ginger, basil, etc. Also use mustard, soy sauce, hot sauce. Balsamic vinegar is great on many things.

Recipes

With meal recipes we mix and match. Here are some meals we like.

Grain Bowl

For 1 person.

• 4-6 oz of grain
• 6 oz of berries, cherries, or 1 whole fruit
• Some almond milk
• Some spices like cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice or ginger (could do fresh ginger if you like it), or cocoa.
• 1 oz of nuts, 1 tablespoon of peanut butter, or 1 tablespoon of coconut cream
• Heat in microwave if desired

Great for breakfast. Using different fruits and spices gives it lots of variety from day to day.

Homemade Costa Vida Salad

For 1 person.

• 4-6 oz beans
• 3-4 oz salad greens (you will need a big bowl)
• Some mango salsa
• 1 tablespoon Ranch dressing or may
• 2 or 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
• Salt and pepper to taste

Just mix it all up and enjoy. You can add cooked rice if you want and other sautéed veggies. You can also add rosemary leaves and turmeric for the health benefits.

Other tips

Here are some other things we’ve found.

• Broccoli tastes the best, hands down, when cooked in a steamer.
• Cabbage is great when steamed and stir fried with soy sauce, ginger, garlic powder, and onion powder
• Succotash is tasty, especially if you make it with some small cubes of potato.
• You can substitute lentils for ground beef in many meals. We’ve done it with stuff green peppers, shepherd’s pie, and many others, and our picky, teenage daughter actually likes it.
• Some corn added to beans for a burrito or chili gives it a nice sweet flavor.
• Sautéed mushrooms are great with onion powder, garlic powder, and thyme.
• Garbanzos go really well with peanuts.

We’re not fanatics about this. But I’d say we’ve been able to get 90% of the way to a WFPB lifestyle. And we’re enjoying the food. In fact, the longer we eat this way, the tastier it becomes.

For about two years, we ate a diet high in vegetables and animal-based foods (meat, dairy, and eggs). We were diligent, but didn’t see the results we hoped for. Four months ago, we switched over to WFPB. I recently had some blood work done. After four months of eating this new way, I’ve dropped about fifteen pounds. My total cholesterol is down from 214 to 188. My blood sugar levels went from 107 to 83. And my blood pressure has improved. And that’s after just four months with some days of holiday eating mixed in. I can’t wait to see what happens after eating this way for a year.

If you want to hear the research behind this to consider the evidence yourself, I recommend the following:

• The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted (Revised and Expanded) by Colin T. Campbell, PhD
• Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition by Colin T. Campbell, PhD
• How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger, M.D.
• How Not to Diet: The Groundbreaking Science of Healthy, Permanent Weight Loss by Michael Greger, M.D.

You can get all of them from your local library. If they don’t have the books there physically, ask the librarian how to use their Overdrive account to check out an ebook or audio book version online.

There’s nothing quite like the laughter and fun a good family or party game creates. And we discovered two games this summer that have brought hours of pleasure.

The first is Just One. It’s for 3 to 7 players and takes about 20 minutes to finish.

Now, I was skeptical of this game at first because it’s a cooperative party game.

I mean, come on. Cooperation?

No teams?

No competition?

What were we going to do—hold hands and sing Kumbaya?

I was fully expecting to be bored out of my mind. Boy, was I wrong. There was suspense, laughter, and loads of fun.

There are 13 rounds in each game. In each round, one player blindly selects the number of a word on one of the game cards. The other players each write a one word clue to help that player guess the word. However, if two or more players write down the same word, they have to remove that clue.

So you’re trying to come up with one-word clues the others won’t that still help the guessing player. Some clues lead the guessing player off onto funny tangents. Others are just funny. And then there’s the suspense of whether someone else wrote your word and whether the player will be able to guess it from the clues that are left.

Your goal is to guess all 13 words selected. And there’s a little score card that ranks what it means if you get 13, 12, 11, etc.

As an aside, it’s crazy to me that the score card provided motivation. But it did. It was a delightful little brain hack.

One Word is a quick, fun game. We’ve played it with a few as 3 and as many 8 players and had a ball each time. We are so happy to have it in the family game closet.

The next is Fish Bowl. It’s for 4+ players. What this game does is take favorites like Taboo, One Word, and charades and mixes them together in a competitive game between two teams.

Here’s how you play it. Each person writes up 5 to 7 different words or phrases on separate slips of paper, folds the papers, and puts them in a bowl. Then you do 3 rounds.

Round 1 is like Taboo, where you can describe, but can’t say or act out the word or phrase on the paper. You select a team to go first. One person on the team selects the papers from the bowl and then tries to describe the word or phrase. The team has 30-45 seconds (you decide) to guess as many of the words as possible. When the time is up, it’s the other team’s turn. Back and forth you go, selecting a new team member each turn to give the clues, until there are no more slips of paper in the bowl. Then you count the number of slips each team got and move to round 2.

In round two, you put all of the slips of paper back into the bowl. The team that went second in the first round starts this one. This time the person giving clues gets to share one word. That’s it. And the team has to guess it. Again, the team has 30-45 seconds to guess as many as they can.  Then it goes to the next team. And you switch back and forth just like you did in round 1, and when the slips of paper are gone, each team counts up their score.

In round 3, you put all of the slips of paper back into the bowl. The time the person giving the clues has to act them out. No words allowed. You run this round just like you did the first two with  30-45  second turns, switching back and forth between the teams until all the papers are gone. At that point, the teams  total their scores for this round and then for all 3 rounds together to see which team won.

If you don’t want to use paper, you can play a version online.

Either way, it’s another fast, fun game. In fact, we played it last night. And laughed and laughed when one daughter was trying to get the other to guess “sling” and nailed her teammate in the head trying to act out a rock hitting Goliath.   Movies are great. But sometimes what you need is some delightful game fun. And I’m betting you’ll love these.