9/22/08

Eggplant Parmigiana Alla Scalini's
From restaurant owners Bobby and John Bogino

Nearly 300 baby pictures decorate Scalini's old-fashioned Italian restaurant in Cobb County, Ga.


All of the babies pictured on the Italian restaurant wall were born after their mothers ate the Scalini's eggplant parmigiana. The $9.95 plate of breaded eggplant smothered in cheese and thick marinara sauce is "guaranteed" to induce labor, the restaurant claims.

The eggplant legend began not long after the restaurant opened 23 years ago.

"Two or three years after we began, a few people had just mentioned to us they came in when they were pregnant, and ate this eggplant and had a baby a short time after that," said John Bogino, who runs the restaurant with his son, Bobby Bogino. "One person told another, and it just grew by itself by leaps and bounds."

To date, more than 300 of the pregnant women customers who ordered the eggplant have given birth within 48 hours, and the restaurant dubs them the "eggplant babies." If it doesn't work in two days, the moms-to-be get a gift certificate for another meal.

We make no promises, but the restaurant has graciously shared the recipe.


Ingredients

Directions

1. After you wash the eggplant, slice them into 1/4-inch thick slices. You may choose to peel the eggplant before you slice it. However, you may want to leave the skin on since it contains a lot of vitamins.

2. Place the eggplant slices on a layer of paper towels and sprinkle with a little salt, then cover with another layer of paper towels and hold it down with something heavy to drain the excess moisture. Let them sit for about an hour.

3. Working with one slice of eggplant at a time, dust with flour, dip in beaten eggs, then coat well with breadcrumbs.

4. Saute in preheated olive oil on both sides until golden brown.

5. In baking dish, alternate layers of marinara sauce, eggplant slices, ricotta, parmesan and Romano cheeses, until you fill the baking dish, about 1/8 inch from the top. Cover with shredded mozzarella cheese, and bake for 25 minutes in a 375 degree oven. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.



Scalini's Marinara Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

1. Lightly saute the onions in olive oil in large pot for a few minutes.

2. Add garlic and saute another minute.

3. Add tomatoes and bring sauce to a boil, then turn heat low.

4. Add remaining ingredients, stir, cover and let simmer for one hour, stirring occasionally.

9/16/08

Ok Clearly I am nesting... Here are my brilliant ideas/creative genius :)

The first one I won't take credit for, I read it in Parents Magazine, but it is to brilliant not to pass along. Xander loves Cheerios he could eat them all the time if I would let him. The problem is he's not coordinated enough to keep them in a bowl or even those handy snack trays that are suppose to keep them inside so I have Cheerios EVERYWHERE. There is no way that my car will not have Cheerios in it for the rest of it's existance... anyways. Parents magazine suggested Cheerio necklaces made from dental floss and of coarse you just string the Cheerios on it. It worked so great I've already made like 5 of them. I was nervous at first thinking he would try and swallow the dental floss, but he didn't he picked it up right away and NO mess. He didn't drop a single Cheerio. I can put that necklace on him in the grocery store, in his car seat, wherever and he just sits there quietly snacking away!! This has seriously changed my life!! LOVE IT!!

The second great idea is that I wanted to have Big Brother/ Little Brother matching onesies for when I finally have this baby (any day now) so I've been shopping for months looking for cute ones. The thing is there aren't that many for 1 year olds out there most of the sizes start at 2T (I guess most people have more sense than to have babies this close together) anyways I found some cute ones online but they were really expensive- $30 for a onesie is not my idea of a good deal. So I was at Hobby Lobby shopping and they just happened to have the iron on letters for buy one get one free. So I made 2 onesies for $1.50, because I already had the white onesies and they came out SOO cute!! I can't wait for the pictures. I want to iron letters on everything now!! Its SO Easy all you do is peel the letters off and place them on the onesie (or whatever) and take a hot iron for 15 seconds and Done!! This is going to be great for when I want to personalize bibs or onesies or burp cloths or whatever for gifts!! LOVE IT!!

8/4/08

Funny thing happened at the doctor this week. I found out that I weigh EXACTLY the same as I did when I was 30 weeks pregnant with Xander, even though I've only put on 9lbs this pregnancy (3 of which came in the last two weeks). I think that is hilarious since this is obviously the weight my body wants me at when I'm 30 weeks pregnant. Everything else is looking good, he's head down, he's measuring exactly right, and his heartbeat is perfect. Can't wait to meet him. Just got to get all his stuff together (haven't even started that yet)

7/8/08

We Have a Name!

I think we are going to name our new baby boy: Brendon Wade

After much debate and LOTS of stress we have FINALLY decided on a name. We have been calling him Brendon for about a month and I still like it. I really needed the baby to be named it felt wrong to keep referring to him as the new baby or baby brother, so I feel ALOT better now that we have a name.

Now I need to figure out where I'm going to put Baby Brendon's clothes and what am I going to do with Xander when Baby Brendon is born? I don't think they will allow my 14 mos old to stay with us at the hospital and I don't know how Xander will react to sleeping without us- he's never had to do that. What is it about this part of pregnancy that makes me stress out. I'm so scared I won't be ready when this darling new baby comes. The more I think about it the more freaked out I get!! Xander still sleeps in the bed with me- what am I going to do when I have a newborn?

5/12/08

It's a BOY!!

My Husband got me a 3D ultrasound for Mothers Day- it was so cool! She found the little boy parts right away and there was no doubt it was going to be another little boy! He slept most of the time through the ultrasound but we were able to see his sweet face, and I think I'm going to get another little boy that looks just like my gorgeous husband, we could see those Cherokee Indian cheekbones which are definately my husbands. The ultrasound tech also said that he looked really good and healthy, which is the most important thing. We are very excited. We get our actual medical Ultrasound on May 23rd, but I don't anticipate any problems, hopefully they'll move my due date up like they did last time :)

2/5/08

Hi Everyone,

I'm 29 years old from Georgia, My husband and I just had our first son on August 11th, 2008. We knew that we wanted to have two children and that we wanted them close together. So as soon as we got the opportunity we started trying agian. On January 26th I got my BFP! AF wasn't due until February 2nd, so I knew that I was really early. Just to be sure I tested agian a few days later and sure enough it was still coming out BFP. Needless to say we are thrilled, we know it's going to be hard for awhile but I'm really happy we decided to do it this way. My son is 5 mos old now so when the baby get's here he'll be 14 mos old and will never remember a time when his little brother or sister wasn't around. Our new little blessing is due on October 8th.

For some reason Xander's birth story got deleted from my page so I'm going to retype:

On August 10th I was miserable- I got PUPPS which for those of you who don't know what that is BE GLAD- it's awful, I didn't get ANY stretch marks until a week before Xander was born and they all came in the form of this itchy rash called PUPPS that is the most miserable condition I can think of. So I told my boss on August 10th (which was a Friday) that I couldn't take working anymore and I was going to start my maternity leave- so I left work at 1pm and went home and sat on the couch and felt awful!! Well my mom had tickets to the Wizard of Oz at the Fox Theater (which is a really nice theater in Atlanta) for that night, so I get dressed and go to the theater with my mom, a good friend of mine, and my sister in law. At intermission of the wizard of oz I get up to go to the bathroom- because at 9mos pregnant there is NEVER a time you don't have to go to the bathroom- what's weird is this time I didn't particularly have to go that bad, but I knew I would never make it through the second 1/2 without going. So I get up to go to the bathroom and MY WATER BROKE! People this is the weirdest thing you will ever experience. It gushed when I walked and stopped when I was standing still- so when it broke I was already almost to the bathroom so I kept walking towards the bathroom to try and clean myself up- well of coarse there is a LONG line for the bathroom and it's all these kids- so I STAND in line, I didn't want to freak anybody out, because I was kind of freaked out myself and there were mirrors all around and because I was wearing white pants- you couldn't tell they were soaked. So I stood there in line- and finally got to the bathroom and cleaned myself up as best I could, even though I was still leaking water. I rushed back to my seats where my family was and told them that my water broke- as soon as I said it out loud I started shaking and crying. So mom and I went and called the doctor, who of coarse told me that I needed to get to the hospital. I wasn't having ANY contraction, just cramping like my period cramps, so she told me that I didn't have to rush but to get to the hospital that night. So of coarse we leave the theater and go to my house- I call my husband who was about 45 minutes away, he rushed home. At my house I call my cousin who is a OB nurse and she was thank GOD on duty and said she would get everything ready for me and would be my nurse. So I get cleaned up and changed and I get everything ready to go to the hospital- oh and I had to call my other cousin who had planned a DIAPER SHOWER for me for the next day and let her know what had happened so they could call everyone and let them know there would be no shower. So my husband finally shows up and drives me to the hospital- when we get to the hospital they test me to make sure that my water really had broken (thank God that came back positive how embarrissing to tell everyone false alarm I really just peed myself)- anyway so then we just waited for awhile- at about 2am she decided to start me on Petocin so they gave me the epidural and started the petocin- from that point forward it was a piece of cake. I really only felt one contraction and it wasn't that bad- I stayed up all night waiting on Xander to get here- he finally came at 10:59am on August 11th. He weighed 7lbs 11oz and was 17" long. He was just perfect!! I pushed for one hour exactly- it was really really easy.

3/7/08

Ok- I found the autism/Immunization article, I'm going to post it here:

Government health officials have conceded that childhood vaccines worsened a rare, underlying disorder that ultimately led to autism-like symptoms in a Georgia girl, and that she should be paid from a federal vaccine-injury fund.

Medical and legal experts say the narrow wording and circumstances probably make the case an exception -- not a precedent for thousands of other pending claims.

The government "has not conceded that vaccines cause autism," said Linda Renzi, the lawyer representing federal officials, who have consistently maintained that childhood shots are safe.

However, parents and advocates for autistic children see the case as a victory that may help certain others. Although the science on this is very limited, the girl's disorder may be more common in autistic children than in healthy ones.

"It's a beginning," said Kevin Conway, a Boston lawyer representing more than 1,200 families with vaccine injury claims. "Each case is going to have to be proved on its individual merits. But it shows to me that the government has conceded that it's biologically plausible for a vaccine to cause these injuries. They've never done it before."

A lawyer for Hannah Poling, 9, and her parents has scheduled a news conference Thursday in Atlanta.

In an interview Wednesday with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hannah's parents, Jon and Terry Poling, said the government's concession in the case will help pay for the numerous therapists and other medical experts their autistic child needs — now and for the rest of her life.

"At least we have some commitment from the government to take care of Hannah when we're gone," said Dr. Jon Poling, a neurologist.

Nearly 5,000 families are seeking compensation for autism or other developmental disabilities they blame on vaccines and a mercury-based preservative, thimerosal. It once was commonly used to prevent bacterial contamination but since 2001 has been used only in certain flu shots. Some cases contend that the cumulative effect of many shots given at once may have caused injuries.

The cases are before a special "vaccine court" that doles out cash from a fund Congress set up to pay people injured by vaccines and to protect makers from damages as a way to help ensure an adequate vaccine supply. The burden of proof is lighter than in a traditional court, and is based on a preponderance of evidence. Since the fund started in 1988, it has paid roughly 950 claims -- none for autism.

Studies repeatedly have discounted any link between thimerosal and autism, but legal challenges continue. The issue even cropped up in the presidential campaign, with Republican John McCain asserting on Friday that "there's strong evidence" autism is connected to the preservative.

The girl has a disorder involving her mitochondria, the energy factories of cells. The disorder -- which can be present at birth from an inherited gene or acquired later in life -- impairs cells' ability to use nutrients, and often causes problems in brain functioning. It can lead to delays in walking and talking.

Federal officials say the law bars them from discussing the case or releasing documents without the family's permission. However, The Associated Press obtained a copy of the concession by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials.

According to the document, five vaccines the girl received on one day in 2000 aggravated her mitochondrial condition, predisposing her to metabolic problems that manifested as worsening brain function "with features of autism spectrum disorder." In the 1990s, the definition of autism was expanded to take in a group of milder, related conditions, which are known as autism spectrum disorders.

The document does not address whether it was the thimerosal -- or something else entirely in the vaccines -- that was at fault.

The compensation fund lists problems with brain function as a rare side effect of certain vaccines. Such problems are enough on their own to warrant compensation, even without autism-like symptoms, and the fund has made numerous payouts in such cases.

The Health Resources and Services Administration, which is in charge of the fund, said: "HRSA has maintained and continues to maintain the position that vaccines do not cause autism."

A Portuguese study suggested that 7 percent of autistic children might also have the mitochondrial disorder, versus one in 5,000 people -- or 0.02 percent -- in the general population, said Dr. Marvin Natowicz, a Cleveland Clinic geneticist.

"Even if they're off by a factor of seven" and only 1 percent are afflicted, "it's still a striking statistic," he said.

Others said they doubt the Georgia case will have much effect.

"No link between mitochondrial disorders and autism spectrum disorder has been made in mainstream medicine," said Dr. Michael Pichichero of the University of Rochester in Rochester, N.Y., who has consulted for the government on vaccines and has received speaking fees from vaccine makers.

A decision is expected this spring on the first test case for a larger group of autism-vaccine claims, which are being heard in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Reported cases of autism have been rising in the U.S., even after thimerosal was removed from most childhood vaccines. However, some experts believe the rise is due to an expansion of the definition of autism and related conditions, and a desire to diagnose children so they qualify for special services and aid