tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365417452024-03-08T07:42:00.780-08:00FoodVibeFoodVibe celebrates food and soulfuness with wit and irony. We serve fresh recipes, writing, and photos, with a side of attitude.
FoodVibe's writers, Steve, Suzanne, and Seth, are long-time friends and food co-conspirators.
Steve is a teacher in the Bronx.
Suzanne is a teacher in Barcelona.
Seth is a professional cook and recipe developer in Ambler.
(Paperclip photos courtesy of Suzanne).Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-35071188527006946352012-10-13T06:17:00.001-07:002014-03-10T06:43:56.927-07:00Carbohydrates: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly<br />
Carbohydrates play a predominant role in human diets, comprising some <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/W8079E/w8079e0h.htm" target="_blank">40-75%</a> of energy intake. Carbohydrates are formed in plants when carbons are bonded with oxygen and hydrogen to form chains of varying complexity. The complexity of the chains determines the carbohydrate classification. Mono-and disaccharides are “simple” carbohydrates. Polysaccharides are classified as “complex.” <br />
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However,<i> all</i> carbohydrates are broken down into monosaccharides before being converted to glucose. Glucose is necessary for brain function, the maintenance of the central nervous system, and intense physical activity. Unfortunately, for most, carbohydrate consumption often exceeds daily needs; additionally, carbohydrate consumption is dominated by two sources that have undeniably negative health consequences: refined flours and sugars. <br />
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Refined flours, made from refined grains, do not contain the germ and bran of the seed and thus are absent in many important nutrients. They simply contain the endosperm, a source of carbohydrate, plant protein, and some B Vitamins. Refined sugar, like beet and cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup, have a well-documented negative, potentially toxic effect on human health. These carbohydrates are what may be called “bad” carbs.<br />
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Can one food be inherently “good” while another is “bad”? I think this attitude in itself is unhealthy. The point of dividing carbohydrates into these categories is to highlight the potential health impact of eating well-documented “good,” “bad,” and “ugly” foods. Armed with the knowledge, you can make decisions that positively influence your life.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>The Good: Vegetables </b></div>
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Vegetables are our best source of carbohydrates. Not only do vegetables provide an easily absorbed form of carbohydrate, they provide important phytonutrients, or “plant nutrients,” the pigments and bitter tasting compounds found in plants. Once assumed to be of benefit to plants only (in terms of self-protection and growth), these nutrients have proved to be tremendously beneficial to humans, too. Under scientific scrutiny, phytonutrients have turned out to be potent antioxidants, which, in humans, can help prevent cancer, reduce inflammation, and protect your cells from the oxidizing stress of modern life.<br />
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Of course, vegetables vary in carbohydrate content; the healthiest vegetables, indeed the healthiest foods on the planet, also happen to be low-carbohydrate vegetables: green vegetables like kale, lettuce, spinach, and herbs; cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage; onions and garlic; and popular summer vegetables like cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers.<br />
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High-carbohydrate vegetables include potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, winter squash, and jicama. These higher-carbohydrate vegetables can also play an important role in the diet—to a point. <br />
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Last year, <a href="http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/11/23/low-carb-high-fat-diet.aspx" target="_blank">Dr. Mercola reported</a> on a public debate between two nutritional experts, Dr. Paul Jaminet and Dr. Ron Rosedale. Dr. Rosedale, citing evidence on the negative, potentially toxic, consequences of glucose, stated that the notion of a “safe starch” does not exist, and that <i>all </i>starchy carbohydrates should be avoided. Dr. Jaminet, on the other hand, believed some people need a small amount of starchy vegetables in their diets. The debate is fascinating, as it speaks directly to the role carbohydrates play in the maintenance of health. After all, as stated above, glucose <i>is</i> necessary. Those on ultra-low carbohydrate diets might experience symptoms similar to Dr. Mercola himself, a long-time advocate of ultra-low carbohydrate diets: <br />
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"When I eliminated…grains and starchy vegetables, I actually experienced…negative effects. My energy levels declined considerably, and my cholesterol…normally about 150, rose to over 200…I was suffering a glucose deficiency and this can trigger lipoprotein abnormalities. It also seemed to worsen my kidney function."<br />
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After evaluating Dr. Jaminet’s and Dr. Rosedale’s debate, Dr. Mercola now recommends the following: <br />
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"My conclusion is that there is a certain minimum carbohydrate threshold that you should not drop below. The sweet spot for most is 20 to 30 percent of your diet as carbs, but most likely 25 to 30 percent. Most of those calories can come from non-starchy vegetables, but you'll probably need some starchy carbs, such as white potatoes…carrots and squash."<br />
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Perhaps the primary benefit of high-carbohydrate vegetables is their ease of digestibility. Most people eat, enjoy, and fully digest, high-starch vegetables like potatoes or sweet potatoes. <br />
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Unfortunately, the same cannot necessarily be said of grains. For those who suffer sensitivity to grains, high-starch vegetables just might be a key to health. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Whole Grains</b></div>
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Many experts agree that whole grains are the healthiest carbohydrate choice. The usable part of a grain is called the kernel, and the kernel is comprised of three major parts—the germ, bran and starchy endosperm. For a grain to be considered “whole,” it must contain the germ, bran and starchy endosperm. Each part of the grain contributes different nutrients. The germ contains B Vitamins, Vitamin E, trace minerals, essential fatty acids, and phytochemicals. The bran contains fiber, B Vitamins, and trace minerals. The endosperm contains plant protein and some B Vitamins.<br />
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Despite the popularity of this view, convincing evidence exists to suggest grains, and whole grains, might not be the best choice for some people. Why? Anti-nutrients. To avoid insects, foraging animals, and humans, plant species have evolved certain protective anti-nutrients. <a href="http://www.marksdailyapple.com/lectins/#axzz28i9JoNXb" target="_blank">Mark’s Daily Apple</a> has posted some intriguing reports on anti-nutrients. As the site states: <br />
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"A workable balance developed between plants that were able to safeguard their species’ survival and the “pest” patrons that were able to benefit from the plants’ nutrition but learned to partake more sensibly from their supply. Given that our primal forefolk foraged widely and ate a surprisingly diverse diet, the system worked."<br />
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<i>Lectins, </i>an anit-nutrient, are widespread in the plant kingdom, but virtually unknown by consumers: the people eating the lectins. This is unfortunate. Dr. Mercola notes: <br />
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"Certain lectins, including those in wheat, bind to receptor sites on your intestinal mucosal cells and interfere with the absorption of nutrients across your intestinal wall and into your blood…Lectins can promote inflammation, stimulate a hyper-immune response, and increase blood viscosity."<br />
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Another pervasive anti-nutrient is <i>gluten</i>. “Gluten” from the Latin word for glue, is the substance that binds bread and baked goods together. Wheat, rye, and barley include gluten. If you are sensitive to gluten, it might interfere with the breakdown and absorption of nutrients, including nutrients from other foods in the same meal. <br />
<i></i><br />
<i>A Few Special Grains</i><br />
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Quinoa: A recently rediscovered ancient “grain” native to South America, quinoa is actually a seed. Once called “the gold of the Incas,” quinoa was known to increase the stamina of Incan warriors. Not only is quinoa high in protein, but the protein it supplies is complete protein, meaning that it includes all nine essential amino acids. Quinoa is especially well-endowed with the amino acid lysine, which is essential for tissue growth and repair.<br />
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Buckwheat: Energizing and nutritious, buckwheat, a fruit, is available throughout the year and can be served as an alternative to rice or made into porridge. It has been shown to benefit blood sugar control as well as the cardiovascular system. It is also a potent anti-cancer food.<br />
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Spelt: A wonderfully nutritious and ancient grain with a deep nutlike flavor, spelt is a cousin to wheat that is recently receiving renewed recognition. Spelt is an ancient grain that traces its heritage back long before many wheat hybrids. Many of its benefits come from this fact: it offers a broader spectrum of nutrients compared to many of its more inbred cousins in the Triticum (wheat) family. Spelt features a host of different nutrients. It is an excellent source of vitamin B2, a very good source of manganese, and a good source of niacin, thiamin, and copper. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Insulin & Carbohydrates</b></div>
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Insulin is a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood. This glucose is then stored as glycogen or fat in the liver and muscles. Insulin's primary role, then, is not necessarily to lower sugar, but to take the extra energy and store it for future times of need. Your body produces insulin in response to carbohydrate consumption—the more carbohydrates (including the sugars in carbohydrates) you eat, the more insulin your body produces and the more glycogen and/or fat is stores in your liver and muscles. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Bad Carbohydrates</b></div>
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Since your body produces insulin in response to carbohydrate consumption, and since insulin is a storage hormone that stores glucose as fat in the liver and muscles, the “bad” carbohydrates might be considered those that stimulate the highest secretion of insulin. This means two things: any carbohydrate, if eaten in excess, can be considered bad; likewise, any carbohydrate that produces a correspondingly large production of insulin can be considered bad. As discussed above, these latter bad carbohydrates include refined grains and sugars, but they might also include fruit, eaten to excess.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>The Ugly: Fructose</b></div>
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Your body metabolizes fructose in a much different way than glucose. The entire burden of metabolizing fructose falls on your liver. People are consuming fructose in enormous quantities, which has made the negative effects much more profound. Once again, Dr. Mercola:<br />
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"Glucose is the form of energy you were designed to run on. Every cell in your body, every bacterium…uses glucose for energy. If you received your fructose only from vegetables and fruits (where it originates)…you’d consume about 15 grams per day—a far cry from the 73 grams per day the typical adolescent gets from sweetened drinks. In vegetables and fruits, it’s mixed in with fiber, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and beneficial phytonutrients, all which moderate any negative metabolic effects. It isn’t that fructose itself is bad -- it is the MASSIVE DOSES you’re exposed to that make it dangerous."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-32953343188340835912010-11-12T04:59:00.000-08:002011-09-30T18:55:28.796-07:00Dinner LovesongTonight, as every night, Karen and I will share a home-cooked dinner.<br />
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Tonight, I will eat chicken. Of 365 dinners a year, I eat chicken about 350 times. <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/10/god-is-big-happy-chicken.html">Roast whole chicken</a>. Grilled chicken legs. Roast chicken breast. Tonight, I eat roast<span style="font-style: italic;"> half</span> chicken.<br />
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On any given night, Karen <span style="font-style: italic;">might</span> eat chicken for dinner, yet she might eat something else. Macadamia-crusted tilapia. White beans simmered with a Parmigiana rind. Pan-seared Chilean sea bass. Spaghetti. The "Florence" pizza from <a href="http://www.arpeggiobyob.com/">Arpeggios</a>. Tonight, though, Karen will eat <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2010/01/three-kickass-chickpea-recipes.html">braised chickpeas</a>.<br />
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Tonight, we will share <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2008/08/potato-light-of-my-life-fire-of-my.html">mashed potatoes</a>. Of 365 dinners, I eat potatoes about 180 times. <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2008/08/potato-light-of-my-life-fire-of-my.html">Roasted red potatoes</a>. <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2008/03/history-of-foodvibe-part-2-how-to-have.html">Boiled fingerlings with herbs and olive oil</a>. Mashed potatoes. Karen shares the potato habit, adding her own flourishes: she adorns roasted potatoes with thin slices of butter; to mashed potatoes, she adds a pat of butter.<br />
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On alternate nights, we eat sweet potatoes. Baked sweets. <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/10/risky-behavior.html">Mashed sweets</a>. Roasted sweets.<br />
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Karen might eat rice. As I said, she might eat pasta, or pizza.<br />
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But for me, that's it--potatoes or sweet potatoes, every single night of my life. I enjoy eating the same things day after day, with small variances, and that's what vegetables and wine are for.<br />
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Tonight, we share <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2008/12/fat-should-inspire-sex.html">coconut braised greens</a>. Living seasonally, we experience variety in vegetables. Still, we eat coconut braised greens about 3 times a week. We eat steamed broccoli 3 times a week. Of course, I feel obliged to hand toss the warm broccoli with salt, fresh ground pepper, and olive oil. This is how you treat broccoli--with love. Summertime, I might pan-sear zucchini. Springtime, I might steam peas or asparagus. Autumn, I might split one acorn squash in half, dab the flesh with oil, and roast. Perhaps, feeling nostalgic for July, I'll pan-sear zucchini.<br />
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Most nights, we drink wine. Of 365 dinners, we drink wine 335 times. Weekdays call for something like Coppola Rosso. Weekends call for Coppola Claret or Rosenblum Syrah.<br />
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I'm finicky about food, refusing to eat what I deem to be lowly ingredients, but I remain a willfully oblivious wine-drinker. I simply cannot afford a refined wine palate.<br />
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As it is, I find most cheap red wines benefit from a jaunt in the fridge. I like wine nearly chilled. Karen likes wine room temperature. Nightly, we play the same game: I put the wine in the fridge, she takes it out. I put it in, she takes it out.<br />
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Each week, once a week, my wife jubilantly orders a small Florence pizza from Arpeggios. Sharing the festive mood, I'll make myself something special: chicken, maybe, and potatoes.<br />
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We've shared this small, strange life for 15 years. To me, marriage is not about growing old together. Marriage is about growing weird together.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_V2Pkw-qoOl0/TN23TmOvoQI/AAAAAAAAAXs/0Vx3TkDKbc0/s1600/Karen-4.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538784664043364610" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_V2Pkw-qoOl0/TN23TmOvoQI/AAAAAAAAAXs/0Vx3TkDKbc0/s320/Karen-4.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 240px;" /></a> <span style="font-style: italic;">The view from my seat: Karen and her pizza</span>.</div>
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We invite others to share our weirdness. Friends and family come over all the time. Cogan, fresh from traffic, full of anxiety on a Tuesday. Charlie, cool and early, with a bottle, on a Friday. JJ, stoned and feast-ready, on a Saturday. My mom, decked in one of her immaculate coats, inquisitive and calm on a Sunday.<br />
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I place the wine, red or white in the fridge. I assign small tasks. I toss what seems like an excessive plume of salt into the greens. Then I'll throw open the oven, squint into the bellowing smoke, and jab a thermometer into the chicken. Friends have just come to accept: an invitation to my place means chicken.<br />
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I eat the same thing every night, and yet I look forward to dinner all day. To me, dinner is the point. Dinner absolves the day's hassles. Dinner redeems the day's failures. Without dinner, the day has no structure, no purpose. Dinner is not only food--it is communion, with others, with ourselves. Immersed in our daytime ambitions and jobs and twitter accounts, we might lose sight of those we love; we might lose sight of ourselves. Dinner saves us. When we sit down to dinner, we settle back into ourselves; we become human again.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Roast Half Chicken for One</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">My wife refuses to eat chicken every night, so often I enjoy roasting a half chicken for myself</span>. <span style="font-style: italic;">This recipe accounts for two successive nights of half roast chicken.</span><br />
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6 tablespoons kosher salt<br />
2 tablespoons pure <span style="font-style: italic;">cane</span> sugar<br />
One 3-4 pound organic or free-range chicken<br />
2 teaspoons olive oil<br />
Fresh ground pepper<br />
1 teaspoon dried thyme<br />
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To make the brine: dissolve the kosher salt, sugar, and 4 cups water in a gallon bag. Place the chicken in the bag and brine for 2 hours (can be brined up to 8 hours).<br />
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Take the bird out of the brine, rinse, and pat dry. For crispier skin, allow the bird to air-dry after brining for at least 4-8 hours and up to two days.<br />
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Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Place one of your oven racks one the bottom rung.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">Working with kitchen shears, split the chicken in half. (<a href="http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/how-to-cut-up-chicken1.htm">Here's</a> a nice tutorial).</span> Save the other half for a successive dinner.<br />
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Rub the chicken skin with the olive oil. Sprinkle fresh ground pepper and dried thyme over the skin.<br />
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Place the chicken skin-side down in a grill pan and roast on the bottom rack of the oven for 20 minutes. Flip the chicken and continue roasting, skin-side up for 8-10 minutes, until a thermometer inserted in the breast registers 160 degrees.<br />
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Let the chicken rest for 5-10 minutes on a cutting board.<br />
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Cut it up, into pieces: legs, wings, breasts.<br />
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Serves 1.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Pan-Seared Summer Squash with Basil and Lemon Vinaigrette</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">I originally developed this recipe for </span><a href="http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/1392" style="font-style: italic;">Whole Foods Market</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. Thick rounds of summer squash seared in a piping hot pan — cast iron is best — until just blackened, then tossed with a fragrant fresh basil and lemon vinaigrette. This is a summer recipe that adapts easily to most seasons. In Philly, we get local zukes (hothouse) throughout the fall, even into the winter. </span><br />
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3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil<br />
2 tablespoons lemon juice<br />
1 teaspoon lemon zest<br />
2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped<br />
1/4 teaspoon sea salt<br />
2 large green zucchini<br />
<div class="ingredients">
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For the vinaigrette, in a small bowl, mix together olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, fresh basil and salt.</div>
<div class="method">
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For the zucchini, slice zucchini into large rounds. Warm a 10-inch skillet (cast iron is best) until very hot. Place zucchini in pan and sear over high heat, until blackened, 2 to 3 minutes. Flip onto other side and sear additional 2 to 3 minutes, until both sides are blackened.<br />
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Place zucchini on a large platter. Spoon vinaigrette over zucchini. Serve warm.</div>
<div class="method">
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Serves 4.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JmZYtXiVBJY/ToZx5FhOP2I/AAAAAAAAAa4/Y3Rs-bCnMWQ/s1600/zukes.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JmZYtXiVBJY/ToZx5FhOP2I/AAAAAAAAAa4/Y3Rs-bCnMWQ/s320/zukes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-12804047787929977292010-03-05T15:32:00.000-08:002013-11-15T10:36:32.195-08:00"Well-Done" Steak? Please.How do you like your steak? The answer is medium-rare. Maybe rare. There is no other answer. A well-done steak is a misnomer: there is nothing "well-done" about it; there is nothing steak-like about it. A well-done steak is no longer a steak. It's an "edible substance." Don't get me wrong.<span style="font-style: italic;"> I</span> do not consider a well-done steak edible. Some do, though. Dogs, for example.<br />
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Do you "prefer" your steak well-done? If so, you should know: cooks hate you. And happily, science justifies this hatred in several ways.<br />
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First, steak is prized, above all else, for its juiciness. In <span style="font-style: italic;">On Food and Cooking, </span>Harold McGee writes:<br />
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"Food Scientists who have studied the subjective sensation of juiciness find that it consists of two phases: the initial impression of moisture as you bite into a food, and the continued release of moisture as you chew. Juiciness at first bite comes from the meat's own free water, while continued juiciness comes from the meat's fat and flavor, both of which stimulate the flow of our own saliva."<br />
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Well-done steak is almost devoid of what McGee calls "free-water"--or juices. McGee writes elsewhere: Well-done steak has "nearly all of its proteins denatured, is frankly stiff to the touch, little juice is apparent, and both juice and interior are a dull tan or gray."<br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Little juice is apparent</span>. Quite simply, a well-done steak has no "initial impression of moisture" and "no continued release of moisture."<br />
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Second, steak is prized for its flavor. Cooking, of course, intensifies the flavor and aroma of food. Specifically, in steak, what is called the <a href="http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/meat/INT-what-makes-flavor.html">Maillard Reaction</a> or "browning reaction" (the crust on a steak), might account for as many as <span style="font-style: italic;">six hundred flavor components</span>. These components are present in well-done steak and certainly contribute to the "taste" of a well-done steak. And, in theory, because it is cooked longer, a well-done steak might have a deeper Maillard Reaction than a rare or medium-rare steak.<br />
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However, taste is very complex. The deliciousness of a steak comes from a variety of aromas and flavors, from the crust to the middle. Juiciness and tenderness are very important. Well done meat <span style="font-style: italic;">might</span> have a deeper Maillard Reaction, but it misses many other flavor components. The ideal steak boasts tremendous flavor from a browned crust <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> a tender, juicy interior. This is why people who like the taste of food like medium-rare steak.<br />
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Third, it's a well-known fact that cooking meat at high temperatures creates unhealthy chemicals such as <a href="http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/heterocyclic-amines">HCAs</a> and <a href="http://www.nhs.uk/news/2010/02February/Pages/frying-steak-cancer-fumes.aspx">PAHs</a>. The longer you cook a steak the more unhealthy chemicals are produced. A recent <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=92202&sectionid=3510210">study</a> even showed that those who eat well-done steak are 60-70% more likely to develop pancreatic cancer then those who eat medium-rare steak.<br />
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The notion that "undercooked" meat is somehow unhealthy is nonsense. Yes, most meats must be cooked to 160 degrees or higher to guarantee the rapid destruction of bacteria, but bacteria do not exist inside intact steaks or chops. Bacteria exist on the <span style="font-style: italic;">outside</span> of meat, and these bacteria are easily killed in searing. (Incidentally, ground beef is more risky because the interior and exterior have been commingled).<br />
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Of course, there are other, very important factors that determine the health value of steak, even beyond how it’s cooked. For example, conventional meat is loaded with pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and other chemicals. A far better choice is all-natural beef; better yet, <a href="http://www.whiteoakpastures.com/">grassfed beef</a>.<br />
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As a human, I know I should not condemn a person for a simple preference. But I will say, as a cook, I have a very hard time not strongly disliking the person who orders a well-done steak. Perhaps "hate" is a strong word. But if you "prefer" your steak well-done you really should know: some cooks really do hate you. Or maybe not.<span style="font-style: italic;"></span> Anthony Bourdain puts it this way in <span style="font-style: italic;">Kitchen Confidential</span>:<br />
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"So what happens when the chef finds a tough, slightly skanky end-cut of sirloin that's been repeatedly pushed to the back of the pile? He can throw it out, but that's a total loss. He can feed it to the family, which is the same as throwing it out. Or he can "save for well-done"—serve it to some rube who prefers his meat or fish incinerated into a flavorless, leathery hunk of carbon, who won't be able to tell if what he's eating is food or flotsam. Ordinarily, a proud chef would hate this customer, hold him in contempt for destroying his fine food. But not in this case. The dumb bastard is paying for the privilege of eating his garbage! What's not to like?"<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Perfect Pan-Seared Steak</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">This recipe combines time-tested methodology with intuitive logic. The result: a perfectly seared steak, cooked to medium-rare. I wait until after cooking to add salt and pepper; salting brings moisture to the surface of the meat and might interfere with browning. </span><br />
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2 boneless strip or rib-eye steaks (1 to 1 1/4 inch thick; about 8 ounces)<br />
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper, for finishing<br />
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or raw butter, for finishing<br />
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Remove your steaks from the refrigerator 30-60 minutes before cooking.<br />
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Heat a heavy-bottomed 12-inch skillet over high heat until hot. Gently place the steaks in the pan, leaving a 1/2 space between the steaks. Reduce the heat to medium-high and cook until steak is well-browned, about 4 minutes. Using tongs, flip the steaks and continue to cook for 4 minutes until steak is medium-rare.<br />
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Transfer the steaks to a cutting board. Spread 1 tablespoon olive oil or butter over each steak. Let rest for five minutes. Before serving, season liberally with sea salt and fresh ground pepper.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-13833930420639711042010-01-28T06:02:00.000-08:002010-04-25T17:49:49.356-07:00Three Kickass Chickpea RecipesWhen we lived in Barcelona, Karen and I visited the market every day. Our favorite destination, La <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Boqueria</span>, was the pride of local Catalans. We loved to browse the stalls, to smell the imported fruits and vegetables, stopping at pleasure to sample a slice of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">carambola</span>, a handful of plump red grapes, or a small piece of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">bacala</span>o (salted codfish).<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V2Pkw-qoOl0/S2XbNKVjeyI/AAAAAAAAAUk/a4h4Mu-QeuA/s1600-h/La_Boqueria_-_003.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5432989544651914018" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 320px; cursor: pointer; height: 236px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V2Pkw-qoOl0/S2XbNKVjeyI/AAAAAAAAAUk/a4h4Mu-QeuA/s320/La_Boqueria_-_003.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">So Many Mushrooms</span><br /></div><br />Karen and I, however, opted to do our real shopping elsewhere. For produce we stopped at the modest open air stalls just outside La <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Boqueria</span> on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Placa</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">de</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Sant</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Galdric</span>, where each morning local farmers pulled their trucks right up to the curb and unloaded boxes of fruits and vegetables onto the pavement. At noon, when most of the food was eaten on the spot or bought by loyal customers, the farmers swept the refuse lettuce greens, onion peels, and fruit rinds into a big pile in the middle of the square. They left the green mountain for the birds and a set of healthy bums who seemingly subsisted on nothing but scraps.<br /><p>For everything else we shopped at the market right across the street from our flat in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Sant</span> Antoni, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Sant</span> Antoni market. Here we'd buy a pound of wild salmon, I remember fondly, for two dollars. At <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Sant</span> Antoni, too, we found the world's absolute greatest chickpeas.<br /><br />Walk into the market right off our street, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Tamarit</span>, and turn left: there you'll find the world's greatest chickpeas. I'd often buy a pound or more and eat them, simply dressed with olive oil and sea salt, for lunch. The chickpeas were cooked to perfection in giant pressure cookers: they were astonishingly creamy and every single chickpea tasted luxurious, as if each was lovingly enrobed in butter.<br /><br />Sometimes I'd make a chickpea stew, with wild salmon or cod--still a staple of my wife's diet. Actually, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">the</span> recipes below have been staples of me and my wife's diets for years. I use canned chickpeas. Home-cooked chickpeas are frustratingly hard to make. They can take hours to cook and sometimes they seem to never, <span style="font-style: italic;">ever</span> cook through. A good pressure cooker is the best, but it's a bit of a pain in the ass. The best chickpeas I've found, besides <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Sant</span> Antoni's, are <a href="http://www.edenfoods.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=102960">Eden Food's</a>. I use Eden's beans whenever I cook with any beans--they are FAR superior to any other brand. (Don't give me some stupid shit about Goya: Goya adds <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">unnecessary</span> additives to its products; Goya sucks).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Moroccan Braised Chickpeas and Chard</span><br /><br />2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil<br />1 small onion, thinly sliced<br />1 garlic clove, thinly sliced<br />1 teaspoon ground cumin<br />1 teaspoon sweet paprika<br />1 tablespoon preserved lemon, chopped<br />1/2 teaspoon saffron, soaked in 1 tablespoon hot water<br />1 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Parmigiano</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Reggiano</span> rind, optional<br />2 15 ounce cans cooked chickpeas (do not drain)<br />1 cup water<br />1 bunch Swiss chard, stems and center ribs removed, and leaves coarsely chopped<br />Sea salt & fresh ground pepper<br /><br />Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onion and a pinch of sea salt; <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">sauté</span> until tender, about 6-8 minutes. Add garlic and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">sauté</span> one minute. Add cumin and paprika and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">sauté</span> one minute. Add preserved lemon, saffron, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Parmigiano</span> rind, and chickpeas with reserved liquid from the chickpea can, and water. Bring to a boil.<br /><br />Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, about 15 minutes, until luxuriously fragrant. Add the Swiss chard leaves and simmer, uncovered, 5 minutes.<br /><br />Season to taste with extra sea salt and fresh ground pepper.<br /><br />Serve warm with crusty bread, roasted potatoes, or rice.<br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">*<br /></div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Chickpea Soup with Saffron and Mushroom-Almond Garnish</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />I originally published this recipe </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/376">here</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. </span><br /><br />For Soup:<br /><br />2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil<br />1 large onion, thinly sliced<br />2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced<br />1/2 teaspoon saffron threads<br />½ pound Fingerling Potatoes, sliced into ¼ inch rounds<br />1/2 cup dry white wine<br />6 cups vegetable broth<br />Sea salt and fresh ground pepper<br />2 15 ounce cans cooked chickpeas, drained<br />1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped<br />Sea salt and fresh ground pepper<br /><br />For Garnish:<br /><br />1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil<br />1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice<br />2 cups <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">crimini</span> or white-button mushrooms, quartered<br />½ cup toasted almonds, chopped<br />¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped<br /><br />Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">sauté</span> until tender, about 6-8 minutes. Add saffron and stir one minute. Add potatoes, increase heat to medium-high and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">sauté</span> for 4-6 minutes, until potatoes are browned. Add wine and scrape any brown bits that have accumulated at the bottom of the pan.<br /><br />Add vegetable broth, chickpeas, and parsley and bring to boil.<br /><br />Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until potatoes are very tender, about 20 minutes.<br /><br />Allow soup to cool. In a blender puree two cups soup. Add puree back into soup. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for five minutes to warm.<br /><br />Meanwhile, make garnish: Warm oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and lemon juice and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">sauté</span> until mushrooms release their juices, 4-6 minutes. Toss with almonds and parsley, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">sauté</span> for one minute, and set aside.<br /><br />To serve soup: ladle a cup into each bowl and spoon a few tablespoons mushroom-almond garnish on top.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">*<br /></div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cod and Chickpea Stew </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />I originally published this recipe </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/1554">here</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. I make this dish for my wife almost every week. </span><br /><br />2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil<br />1 medium red onion, thinly sliced<br />1 large yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced<br />1/2 teaspoon paprika<br />1/2 teaspoon ground cumin<br />1/2 cup white wine<br />1/4 teaspoon saffron, soaked in 1 tablespoon hot water<br />2 cups canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed<br />1 pound cod, cut into 1-inch pieces<br />1 cup vegetable broth or water<br /><br />In a wide, heavy <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">sauté</span> pan, warm oil over medium heat. Add onion and pepper and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">sauté</span> until onions are translucent, 5 to 7 minutes. Add paprika and cumin and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">sauté</span> for 1 minute. Add wine and saffron. Stir well. Add chickpeas, cod and vegetable broth. Simmer until fish is just cooked through and just flakes with a fork, 8 to 10 minutes. Serve warm.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-18997798553623533732009-10-18T11:44:00.000-07:002009-10-18T08:45:05.958-07:00Cupcakes: A Little Bit of NaughtinessCan cupcakes possibly be healthy? I think this question is important. To me, this question strikes at the very root of our food culture.<br /><br />I think cupcakes are adorable little confections. A <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/weekinreview/23kershaw.html?em&ex=1190779200&en=0f09ffc021b0c0db&ei=5087%0A"><em>New York Times</em> article</a> calls them "happy-food." I think of a cupcake and I envision the joy of frosting, the pleasure of licking something sweet, the smile on my little niece's face when I hand her a mini-cupcake.<br /><br />Of course,<em> I</em> do not eat cupcakes. I am much too fanatical, too wildly opposed to eating a food that lacks any nutritional value whatsoever. And cupcakes, decidedly and obviously, lack nutrition.<br /><br />Perhaps this is why, as the <em>Times </em>article suggests, cupcakes get such a bad rap.<br /><br />"Cupcakes," the article states, "have recently been marched to the front lines of the fat wars, banned from a growing number of classroom birthday parties because of their sugar, fat and <em>empty calories</em>, a poster food of the child obesity crisis."<br /><br />And yet, I have to admit, this trend disturbs me. Have we lost all sense of perspective? Have we so messed up our relationship with food that we now consider even <em>cupcakes</em> utterly unhealthy?<br /><br />What makes a food healthy after all? Isn't this question at least as much psychological as physiological? When we eat, do we not nourish body <em>and</em> soul?<br /><br />A cupcake is a <em>small</em> indiscretion. (I love how cupcakes have become sex-symbols for some bakers, how the idea of eating a cupcake in the middle of the afternoon equates so perfectly to the idea of a mid-afternoon quickie...a little bit of naughtiness!) <img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113959023489160962" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V2Pkw-qoOl0/Rvhuow75lwI/AAAAAAAAADQ/kA-RI5l27-8/s320/cupcake.jpg" border="0" /><br /><p align="center"><em>A little bit of naughtiness...</em></p><p align="left"><br />So is it really so bad to eat a cupcake? (A cupcake, after all, lovingly prepared, is <em>not</em> <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/09/microwave-popcorn-foodcrack.html">FoodCrack</a>.)<br /><br />The time article states the question this way: "can emotional value, on occasion, legitimately outweigh nutritional value?"<br /><br />I think so, <em>on occasion</em>. (I'm not writing an article in defense of cupcake gluttony. I'm merely saying, Hey <em>a</em> cupcake ain't so bad!) I take my cue from an unlikely source, Paul Pritchford, the author of <em>Healing with Whole Foods</em>.<br /><br />Pritchford writes:<br /><br />"Do not be so rigid or self-righteous about your diet as to annoy anyone. A bad relationship is more poisonous than one of Grandma's sugar cookies. If you desire such a treat, it is better to have it than stuff yourself with rice to suppress the desire. This causes mental anguish and arrogance."<br /><br />This, coming form a guy who suggests, as an optimum practice, eating a small dessert only after a "meal" of a "celery and lettuce-based salad." </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-38640823381710580762009-07-24T08:03:00.001-07:002010-02-03T19:38:13.667-08:00Water, Water EverywhereWe recently celebrated our youngest child’s first birthday. Like all of our children, he was born by Cesarean section. Trying to remember images from his morning of birth, I envision the sound of liquid falling on a cold tile floor: the doctor breaking my wife’s water. I recall thinking that, at whatever stage, life is messy, usually oozing some sort of fluid.<br /><br />It may sound strange, but I think about the symbolism of water, about how life originates in water on almost every level of existence. I write this in the waning weeks of Summer, our season of beaches and pools, of pilgrimages to various sources of water.<br /><br />This summer seems tame compared to the last one, when skyrocketing oil costs, food shortages, and commodity price gouging grabbed daily headlines. Few saw these things as harbingers of doom. Although the world has had a big-time consciousness-raising as a result of the economic ruin that followed, we're still left asking ourselves how to best deal with the problem.<br /><br />So far, I find the reaction of our world leaders disheartening, generally falling into two main categories: 1) those who do not understand the situation and are therefore unable to do anything about it; and 2) those who understand the situation but, for political reasons, are unwilling to make the necessary hard sacrifices surrounding issues of scale and sustainability.<br /><br />Few seem to realize: it’s impossible to solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that caused the problem in the first place, that a psychic shift must occur before any real change can happen.<br /><br />Meanwhile the cost of maintaining world civilization continues to spiral kaleidoscopically out of control.<br /><br />Times like this I think about water: the planet's most precious commodity and natural resource. Because here's the thing: this current financial panic will pale in comparison to the bedlam set off by the crisis of a global water shortage. It'll be horrific, like something out of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Stand</span>. I picture mass riots, looting, dead bodies hanging wreath-like from the light posts in major cities. I think of of Frank Herbert’s novel <span style="font-style: italic;">Dune</span>.<br /><br />More than anything else in the world, we are dependent on water.<br /><br />Because it has the perfect combination of atmosphere and distance from the Sun, Earth is the only body in our solar system known to have water, although there's plenty of theories about Mars and Europa.<br /><br />More importantly, Earth has an abundance of liquid water--life's crucial ingredient. Any closer to the sun and Earth would be a fried, scalded piece of rock like Mercury or Venus. Any further and it would be a frozen wasteland like Mars or the Gas Giants. As Nature's womb, all biotic life either originates or is somehow incubated in water. Whether a placenta, an egg, a seed, or an ocean, life usually begins in some type of warm, water-filled space. Cells, the building blocks of life, are self-contained universes of water. Even our brains, the physical hosts to our metaphysical faculties of mind and consciousness, float in the cerebrospinal fluid—a sort of protective brine that also serves as a liquid semi-conductor for the brain’s electro-chemical pathways.<br /><br />Many spiritual systems capture this idea in the symbolism of water ceremonies, which are often rites of passage. In them, the person emerges from the water in a new state of being, similar to being reborn or renewed. In Judaism, there is the idea of mikvah, which is the epitome of this concept. After years of study, I had to immerse in a mikvah as the final stage of my Jewish conversion process. Christian baptism is a distant an echo of the same idea. During last month’s solar eclipse over Asia, thousands of Hindu pilgrims in India submerged themselves in the Ganges river in an act of ritual purification.<br /><br />Then there is the mysticism of water, which is bound up in the idea of "triad" or "three". In mysticism, numbers are more than simply numbers—they are representative concepts. The idea or concept behind “three” is that it is a blending of the previous two elements into a unique new entity. Like a child formed from the union of two parents, “three” represents harmony and balance, the reconciliation of the disparate “one” and “two” into the new transcendent “three”. Three is always the magic number.<br /><br />This idea is reflected in the physical form of the water molecule itself, as it is composed of three molecules and has certain qualities that other liquids don’t.<br /><br />Earth, the water planet, is also third from the sun.<br /><br />Also, in a mind-blowing blend of kabbalah and science, the atomic weight of the water molecule is 18--gematria, the Hebrew word meaning "life".<br /><br />But in my opinion water’s ultimate role on our destiny is yet unrealized. Recent events have brought the issue of energy and its availability to the forefront of global consciousness. Unless we are able to discover and use alternative energy sources, our petroleum-fueled civilization seems destined for obsolescence.<br /><br />It makes sense to me that, as our planet's most abundant resource, water has a clear potential to become the clean, cheap, and ubiquitous energy source to fuel us far into the future. Perhaps the answer to this lies in cold fusion or some other type of as-yet-to-be discovered technology.<br /><br />But it is Summer again, and you take your first dive in the ocean, plunging through a wave as it crests over you. Come back up and push the hair away from your forehead with a sweep of both hands. Slowly bring your tongue to your lips. You know this taste--sodium and silica. In an instant, cellular memory kicks alive and takes you back to those first sentient moments when you came out of the Water. You've never forgotten.<br /><br />Turn around, see the people on the beach, the children sitting in the sand. Tilt your head upwards, squint into the solar disc high above. Your ears now form an obtuse angle to the flatness of the water's surface, allowing you to hear the ambient rush of waves both in front and behind you like the sound of something large moving through a narrow tunnel. Your stare follows the invisible arc formed from the waters edge, to the sun, then back down the the horizon, and even though you live far away from here, in an inland city or town, you identify with this place. If only for this moment, you see yourself, here, in the same way a cloud overhead sees its own shadow passing over the water. A gull screams. You turn around again. Head back for the beach. Even the ocean still knows how to call you by name.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Green Tea Poached Wild Salmon</span><br /><br />In this recipe, water becomes the cooking medium, adding a subtle nuance of taste to fresh salmon. Use the poaching liquid to make a delicately flavored sauce to complement the richness of this fish. Serve with rice and Swiss chard.<br /><br />4 bags green tea<br />4 cloves garlic, crushed<br />4 (1/2-inch-thick) slices ginger<br />4 thin slices lemon<br />2 tablespoons tamari<br />1 tablespoon mirin<br />1 teaspoon arrowroot powder<br />1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil<br />4 (6-ounce) skinless wild salmon fillets<br />Salt and pepper to taste<br />1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil<br />1/4 cup chopped green onions<br />Method<br /><br />Place tea bags in a teapot or glass container. Bring 2 cups water to a boil. Remove from heat and let cool for one minute. Pour hot water over tea bags, cover and steep tea for 3 minutes. Remove tea bags from water. Add garlic, ginger, lemon, tamari and mirin to tea and set aside. In a small bowl, dissolve arrowroot powder in 2 tablespoons water. Set aside.<br /><br />In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add salmon and sear for 2 minutes, or until browned. Flip salmon and add tea mixture to skillet. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer gently for 8 to 10 minutes, or until center of salmon is opaque and flakes easily. Remove salmon to a plate, season lightly with salt and pepper and tent with foil to keep warm. Add dissolved arrowroot to poaching liquid and bring to a boil, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened, 1 to 2 minutes. Strain liquid into a small bowl. Drizzle strained liquid and sesame oil over salmon and garnish with green onions.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01789326770112163847noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-62724670587270570812009-06-30T13:00:00.000-07:002009-07-01T07:03:26.637-07:00Early Inspirations; Cooking as Love PoetryMy life as a cook commenced at the age of twenty-one, on a curb in Florence. It was a warm afternoon in early April and I had just discovered an open-air creperie on one of the hidden streets around the San Lorenzo market. Poking my head under the blue awning, I ordered a crepe with Belgian chocolate. A greasy, good-looking woman with a full mouth poured the batter onto a cooking stone, spread the batter thin with her spatula, and flipped the crepe onto another stone. Fluid in her movements, she barely paid attention as she spread the chocolate on the crepe, as the butter sizzled and melted on the stone.<br /><br />I paid for the crepe and sat on the curb where a line of students were laughing and waiting. I took a bite. Suddenly, powerfully, I was stirred. I took another bite, a wide mouthed chomp of pure boldness. Chocolate oozed onto my lips. The crepe was delicious, perhaps the most delicious crepe in Florence—no, in the world! I looked at the greasy crepe lady. She certainly was good-looking. Suddenly, I felt an inexplicable urge: I wanted to make my own crepe. And I knew only this: it must be the most delicious crepe in the world.<br /><br />I'm still working on it. Ten years later, I have yet to reproduce the most delicious crepe in the world. But the pursuit has inspired me. I just can't shake the indomitable bug that bit me that afternoon: the desire to create food.<br /><br />That afternoon, I walked back to my <span style="font-style: italic;">pensioni</span>, burdened with flour, fresh eggs, and a handful of chocolate chips. I spent several hours in the kitchen, trying to create, or rather re-create, the perfect crepe. Of course, I failed. And yet I did not suffer the sorrow of my failure. Later, lying in my bed, stuffed with batter and chocolate, I felt absolutely happy: I had spent the afternoon immersed in a creative venture, and the experience had vivified me.<br /><br />This is the joy of cooking: the creative venture. I'm a writer. I'm also a cook. Both are forms of creative expression. Often, to me, cooking is the most powerful form of creative expression—an expression of love for those you cook for. When you mix the batter for a crepe, you are really writing a love poem.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">***<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">You make us cry without hurting us.<br />I have praised everything that exists,<br />but to me, onion, you are<br />more beautiful than a bird<br />of dazzling feathers,<br />heavenly globe, platinum goblet,<br />unmoving dance<br />of the snowy anemone<br /><br />and the fragrance of the earth lives<br />in your crystalline nature.<br /><br />~Pablo Neruda, on onions<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">***<br /></div></div><br /></div>Naturally, I spent the rest of my days in Florence exploring my new passion. In the morning, I walked to the Mercato Centrale, bought fresh produce from the Tuscan countryside. Later, I made my back to the <span style="font-style: italic;">pensioni</span>, stopping at the local market for flour, olive oil, eggs. I was learning to make fresh pasta and other Tuscan specialties: <span style="font-style: italic;">minestrone di fagioli</span>,<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://poorgirlgourmet.blogspot.com/2009/02/ribollita-zuppa-di-cucina-povera.html">ribollita</a>, fresh pasta. I shared the food with the people at the <span style="font-style: italic;">pensioni</span>, mostly students from Europe and South America. Everyone seemed to love the food, but more than once someone asked: What is this?<br /><br />The question was valid. I was making traditional Tuscan recipes, but I was not making them traditionally. In place of semolina flour in the pasta dough I was using whole wheat; and yes, that was tempeh in the marinara sauce, not beef.<br /><br />It’s a habit from my early childhood days that’s still with me. I’m staunch health-food enthusiast. By the time I had gone to Italy I had already experienced a lifetime of brown rice, of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moosewood-Cookbook-Katzens-Classic-Cooking/dp/1580081304"><span style="font-style: italic;">Moosewood</span></a> recipes, of organic broccoli and honey-flavored sweets. My mother raised me with a special attention to my diet; she also sent me to a school that favored whole food cooking, the <a href="http://www.whywaldorfworks.org/">Waldorf School</a>. I lost touch with this impulse throughout my teenage years. But when I was twenty, in college, and in the midst a dismal semester eating in the student cafeteria, I came across a surprising fact in the cafeteria kitchen: a box of hamburger patties stamped with the following label, Grade F, But Edible.<br /><br />I soon discovered a desire for healthy cooking.<br /><br />And so when I cooked in Italy they asked: What is this?<br /><br />And yes, the question has followed me, from Florence to Philadelphia, from Philadelphia to Paris, from Paris to Barcelona, from Barcelona back to Philadelphia: What is this?<br /><br />Variously, I answer: chickpea flour; spelt berries; risotto with lima beans; brown rice paella; tempeh Rueben sandwiches. The names spill out of my mouth like a foreign language, and yet the food always receives raves reviews. And this is what I have learned: people love good-tasting food, period—no matter what the ingredients. My philosophy then is simple. Why not make the ingredients as fresh, as uncomplicated and as healthy as possible?<br /><br />This philosophy dominates my cooking style to this very day. What I have learned traveling across Europe, cooking abroad and at home, is that almost all traditional cuisines share this fundamental goal: to nurture the body and soul, simply.<br /><br />In America, this lesson seems to have been lost. And yet, it only takes one tasty, nourishing meal to remind us that food is integral to our existence, in the most profound ways. A knowledge and respect of healthful ingredients seems essential for the modern cook. Since leaving Florence, nearly seven years ago my cooking style and diet has often veered into disparate territories—macrobiotics, veganism, an entire summer devoted to fish, a winter devoted to goat cheese—in pursuit of the perfect way to eat. But I have learned that there is no perfect way to eat, just as there is no perfect crepe. What is important is the joy of eating, the love of good food.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Red Lentil and Sweet Potato Hummus</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">This is a typical, What is this? sort of dish. I originally developed it for Whole Foods Market. If you make it, you can rate the recipe </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/recipe.php?recipeId=100">here</a>.<br /><br />2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil<br />1 medium onion chopped<br />1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes<br />2 garlic cloves, chopped<br />1 teaspoons cumin<br />1 teaspoon paprika<br />3 ½ cups water<br />1 ½ cup lentils<br />¼ cup white miso<br />¼ cup lemon juice<br />Sea salt and freshly ground pepper<br /><br />For garnish:<br /><br />Extra virgin olive oil<br />Freshly chopped cilantro<br /><br />In a large saucepan over medium-high heat warm the oil. Add the onion and sauté, stirring occasionally, until onion softens 5-7 minutes.<br /><br />Add the garlic, sweet potato, cumin and paprika and sauté 1-2 minutes. Add water and lentils, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until lentils and sweet potatoes are soft, 16-18 minutes. Let cool.<br /><br />In a blender or food processor, puree red lentil-sweet potato mixture with white miso, lemon juice and 1 teaspoon salt. Season to taste with additional salt and freshly ground pepper.<br /><br />Serve, in a bowl, with Pita bread, for dipping, drizzled with additional olive oil and, if desired, chopped cilantro.<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;font-size:12;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-53596021291791380212009-04-07T04:07:00.000-07:002009-04-07T15:24:29.289-07:00Second(s) comingThe <a href="http://www.cliviasociety.org/">clivia</a> is a plant whose bloom comes early. Around mid-February a crown of bright orange flowers shoots up from amidst its long, dark green leaves. It’s the perfect plant to have around the house. It’s easy to care for and its early blossom is a reminder that spring, no matter how bleak the February afternoons may seem, is coming.<br /><br />Spring is always coming. It’s just a question of when.<br /><br />And so we patiently wait for spring. And we wait. And the weather warms up and trees start to green. And then it goes cold again. A blizzard on April Fool’s Day! Spring proves more elusive than that first blooming promise would have had us believe.<br /><br />But in order to reach spring, we first have to make it through Easter. Next Sunday is Easter and we are nearing the middle of Holy Week. Here in Spain, Semana Santa is often a veritable Second Coming. The skies darken and rumble. Rivers run over their banks. Mountain passes are cut off with snow. Bridges freeze and seas rage. More people die on the road during that week than all the rest of year.<br /><br />Many compare it to the apocalypse. Which is strange. After all, Easter is supposed to be about the celebration of life. It is the mother of all Christian holy days. Everyone knows how the story goes: Jesus was crucified on Good Friday and rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. His death helped to establish Christianity as a religion based on deity sacrifice and symbolic cannibalism. His resurrection is a promise of everlasting life and is a key belief of Christians all over the world, as is the belief that he will one day return to judge the living and the dead and establish the Kingdom of God on Earth.<br /><br />Maybe the Second Coming is at hand afterall.<br /><br />Sadly for those who are still waiting for the return of Christ, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Easter is what is known as a moveable feast – a holiday that is not set to a certain date, but that changes from year to year. The date is determined on a lunisolar calendar. The basic rule of thumb is that ‘Easter is observed on the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox.’ It is said here that this relation between Easter and the lunar cycle is responsible for the apocalyptic weather conditions around Europe each Easter. One full moon past the first day of spring, winter celebrates its last hurrah before it finally yields to swim club memberships and barbeques.<br /><br />These last few days of rain and wind that seem to point to the Second Coming are merely the last vestiges of winter, the final days of dreariness that will have us welcoming spring with open arms. And they are the final days before warm stews and roasted winter veggies make room for fresh salsas and potato salads. The following Second Coming recipes will have those celebrating with you coming for seconds.<br /><br /><strong>Second(s) Coming Lamb Stew </strong><br /><br /><em>This recipe, adapted from</em> Cook's Illustrated<em>, is a perfect bridge from winter to spring. Here fennel seeds add a delightful kick to the otherwise humble stew...</em><br /><br />4 ½ pounds shoulder lamb chops<br />Salt and fresh ground pepper<br />3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil<br />2 medium large onions, thinly sliced<br />¼ cup unbleached white spelt flour<br />2 teaspoons whole fennel seeds<br />4 cups water<br />6 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes<br />¼ cup minced fresh parsley<br /><br />Trim and reserve fat and bones from lamb. Cut meat into 1 1/2-inch pieces. Season lamb with salt and pepper.<br /><br />Warm 1 tablespoon oil in a large Dutch-oven over medium high heat. Working in batches, add lamb to pot; sauté until brown on all sides, about 6 minutes per batch. Using slotted spoon, transfer lamb to plate. Use additional oil, if needed<br /><br />Add bones to pot; cook until brown, about 5 minutes.<br /><br />Using tongs, transfer bones to plate.<br /><br />Add onions to pot; stir to coat with drippings, and sauté for five minutes. Add the flour and fennel seeds, and stir until the onions are evenly coated. Return meat and bones to the pot. Add 4 cups water and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cover pot tightly; simmer until lamb is tender and vegetables are soft, stirring occasionally, about 1 1/2 hours.<br /><br />Add potatoes to the top of the pot, cover pot tightly, and simmer until lamb is tender and vegetables are soft, stirring occasionally, about 1 1/2 hours.<br /><br />Discard bones. And serve.Suzannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022401996874102751noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-91638877521593549152009-03-29T09:17:00.000-07:002010-11-12T13:36:28.240-08:00God is a Big Happy ChickenIn <a href="http://www.shalomauslander.com/">Shalom <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Auslander's</span></a> story "God Is a Big Happy Chicken" God shows up as a chicken. A big happy one. A character protests: "But the bible..."<br /><br />The Archangel Gabriel (Gabe) answers: "Don't worry about the bible. We've got the joker who wrote that thing down in hell."<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Auslander's</span> story makes perfect sense to me. It also feels perfectly Jewish to me, not because <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Auslander</span> was raised as an Orthodox Jew, but because god shows up as a chicken. To me, being Jewish is loving chicken.<br /><br />I think about my Jewish family. I think about my father's mother, Francis, gnawing on a chicken bone. I think about the chicken<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmaltz">schmaltz</a> she used to flavor her white rice. I recall only a few meals from my childhood and my favorite is this: roasted chicken and white rice with <span style="font-style: italic;">schmaltz</span>.<br /><br />I ate this meal about once a year, every year, on the very first night of my visit to my grandparent's house in Sherman Oaks, CA. I'd sit down, eat, gnaw on the bones, and for a very, very brief moment feel utterly Jewish.<br /><br />My Jewish ancestry did not bequeath me religion. Instead, it gave me chicken.<br /><br />When I gnaw on a chicken bone, when I revel in the darker parts of the bird, the skin, the wings, the weird little bits of spectacularly flavorful meat surrounding the back bone, I <span style="font-style: italic;">feel </span>my Jewish heritage. I gnaw and I'm with my grandmother, in Sherman Oaks, and then something weird happens--this Jewish thing, this blood I have coursing through me: it speaks to me, in chicken. Suddenly, I'm an immigrant, I'm my Aunt Pauline (she lived to 103) walking with her mother and older brother, from Novgorod through Moscow to Odessa and the Black Sea and, ultimately, to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Flatbush</span> Avenue in Brooklyn.<br /><br />This excursion, undertaken on foot before the first World War, during the summer of 1913, brought the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Polansky's</span> to America. My grandfather, the first <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Polansky</span> born in America, was called <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Moisha</span>. Later, he changed his name to Maury <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Pollins</span>.<br /><br />Around the time I got married, I called my grandfather up and told him I wanted to change my name back to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Polansky</span>.<br /><br />"No, please no," he said.<br /><br />He assumed, with a name like that, that I would be barred from jobs, from opportunities. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Polansky</span>, I suppose, is <span style="font-style: italic;">too </span>ethnic.<br /><br />So I'm still Seth <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Pollins</span>, feeling remotely weird about my name, feeling a little lost. And it's weird to say, even ridiculous, but I actually find a bit of myself in chicken.<br /><br />Perhaps this is why I love sharing chicken so much, why I love cooking it for my Jewish father, and why I love watching him attack it like a madman. I take after him: we do not eat chicken, we brutalize it. This brutality is not an act of violence; it's an act of love: for flavor, for our blood.<br /><br />With my grandmother I share this: a taste for dangerous, undercooked chicken; we know that chicken is most tasty when it <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">perilously</span> close to killing you.<br /><br />(Actually, I probably just picked this up from eating my grandmother's unintentionally undercooked chicken. She probably prefers fully-cooked chicken. Whatever, I shape my own memory.)<br /><br />Recently, I've been sharing whole roasted chickens with my wife. It's become our Sunday thing. I buy a whole chicken, brine it, brush the skin with olive oil, and roast it. I'm so happy too: Karen's moved from a zone of boneless, skinless breast to chicken wing. She doesn't attack it, just yet, but she does eat it, with gusto. That's good, because she's married to a Jew.<br /><br />I was never <span style="font-style: italic;">bar-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">mitzvahed</span></span>. I don't fast on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Yom</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Kippur</span>. I'm hardly religious. Most importantly, for some I suppose, my mother's not a Jew.<br /><br />I do have this part of me though, this blood.<br /><br />Being a Jew, of course, is not <span style="font-style: italic;">just</span> about your relationship with god. Admittedly, I have no relationship with god. I could care less if god is a chicken. In fact, I just might start believing he <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span>. Why not? I appreciate the blasphemous sensibility behind that belief.<br /><br />To me, and perhaps only to me, being Jewish is eating like a Jew.<br /><br />I love the famous, almost offensive Jewish eating culture: the loud, hand-waving, argumentative meal, foods flying here and there, across the table and out of our mouths. There's groaning, eye-rolling, and plenty of laughter. There's hot tears, shouts.<br /><br />Stick a bottle of wine on a table. Stick a whole roasted chicken on a table.<br /><br />That's it: no cups, no silverware, no plates.<br /><br />Me and my dad would handle this situation quite easily. We'd sit down and tear that bird apart. We'd eat out of our hands. We'd sip from the bottle. We'd talk, raise our voices, and laugh.<br /><br />And that's when I'm Jewish.<br /><br />This is weird, idiosyncratic, but to me it's Jewish.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Seth's Brined & Roasted Chicken</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Don't make this recipe unless you're going to brine the bird. Don't come to me and say, "I made that recipe, I didn't brine it, but it was good!" Bullshit. You don't need a recipe to roast a chicken. The brine is the key...There's nothing especially Jewish about this recipe except for the fact that a man with about 50% Jewish blood is writing it.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span></span>6 tablespoons kosher salt<br />2 tablespoons pure <span style="font-style: italic;">cane</span> sugar<br />One 3-4 pound organic or free-range chicken<br />1 carrot, chopped<br />1 celery stalk, chopped<br />1 onion, chopped<br />1 tablespoon plus two teaspoons olive oil<br />2 teaspoons dried thyme<br />fresh ground black pepper<br /><br />To make the brine: dissolve the kosher salt, sugar, and 4 cups water in a gallon bag. Place the chicken in the bag and brine for 2 hours (can be brined up to 8 hours; for crispier skin, allow the bird to air-dry after brining for at least 4-8 hours and up to two days.)<br /><br />Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.<br /><br />Take the bird out of the brine, rinse, and pat dry. In a small bowl mix 1 tablespoon olive oil and thyme. 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mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">Toss the carrots, celery, and onion with remaining olive oil. Place half of this mixture in the cavity of the bird. Scatter the remaining vegetables over a roasting pan.<br /></p> Place the chicken, wing side up, on a rack over the roasting pan and put the chicken in the oven. Roast for 20 minutes. Take the roasting pan out of the oven and carefully flip the chicken so the other wing side is up. Roast for 20 minutes.<br /><br />Turn the oven temperature up to 450 degrees. Take the roasting pan out of the oven and carefully place the chicken breast side up. Roast for 25 minutes, until a thermometer inserted in the breast registers 160 degrees.<br /><br />Let the chicken rest for 5-10 minutes on a cutting board.<br /><br />Cut it up, into pieces: legs, wings, breasts. Or just put it on the table and rip it apart. <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-88400414569295191132009-03-09T09:52:00.000-07:002018-04-08T06:37:14.305-07:0024 Preludes for a Fugue: The Cook as ComposerArvo Pärt has the face of a saint. If he were not the great composer he is today, he would be Saint Peter, smiling down from the frescos of Russian Orthodox churches, serene. And in his right hand he would have a paperclip, you know, like a metaphorical key or something.<br />
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Arvo Pärt just may be a saint. After all, he has the power to grant the gift of tongues; a hypnotizing parsimony that makes you believe you understand every word he says, even though you speak no Estonian.<br />
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Pärt describes his music as tintinnabuli - like the ringing of bells. It is characterized by simple harmonies, often single notes, or triad chords, reminiscent of ringing bells. In an interview in <a href="http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=9pdLRs0h6VQ">24 Preludes for a Fugue</a>, Arvo Pärt explains the philosophy behind his piece <em>Für Alina</em>. The introduction is comprised of two simple triads, each neutral, but which together create something more complicated “like two people whose paths seem to cross and then they don’t.”<br />
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He says: “I had a need to concentrate on each sound so that every blade of grass would be as important as a flower...a blade of grass has the status of a flower. To see in this tiny phrase, something more than just the black and white key...It’s not the tune that matters so much here. It’s the combination...It makes such a heart-rending union. The soul yearns to sing it endlessly.” <br />
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Can the grace and loving simplicity with which Pärt composed <em>Für Alina</em> be brought to my kitchen? Of course! His music shows us that simple need not imply a lack of complexity; accessible is not a synonym for lack of depth. Everything matters! Each ingredient is important; none takes precedence over any other. Every blade of grass has the status of a flower. Timing and rhythm are essential. Mood is important. What you did that day. The music you’re listening to or the TV in the background. The sounds and smells floating in through the window. For the cook is the prism that will create the rainbow on the plates set before those seated round our table.<br />
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Kitchen noises make a kind of tintinnabuli. The cook is a composer. There is tempo on the stovetop. <em>Allegrissimo</em> boils. <em>Andante</em> simmers. A percussion section on our cutting boards. Instrumentation in our choice of ingredients.<br />
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So, I wonder, what kind of cooks would different composers be?<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart">Mozart</a> writes best-selling cookbooks. He prepares food everyone loves and can even get kids to eat to their vegetables. (In fact, it has recently been shown that kids who eat Mozart are considerably more intelligent than those who don’t.) And he does so with class and grace. He tosses broccoli with butter and fresh lime juice. He glazes carrots and makes sweet tomato jam. Teriyaki salmon and hummus, both made with toasted sesame seeds. He occasionally puts pineapple on pizza. Everyone loves Mozart. We feel at home in his dining room. Every meal we spend at his table we ask ourselves: Who knew genius was so accessible? </div>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage">John Cage</a> is a vegan chef. His dishes are like a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepared_piano">prepared piano</a>, one is never sure what he’s going to get. He serves up chile con carne without the carne (the bulgur wheat gives it texture). He bakes tempeh and molds tofu into bun-sized patties. You'd swear that was chicken in his seitan stir-fries. And his table conversation is impeccable. He radiates a warmth that makes you forgive his playful ernestness. He talks of veganism and organic farming; of a return to the earth and reincarnation. Yet there is always a glint in his eye (was that a wink?) and you often wonder if he's just puttin you on. Sometimes he holds dinner parties in the bedroom, everyone gathered round the bed piled high with plates and glasses. Every person makes a toast, some with tiresome wit, most with passion and life, and the food is served, deconstructed, in the middle of the bed, serving bowls sprawled across the expanse of white sheet. It’s always make-your-own. Sometimes steamed vegetables mixed and piled and drizzled with peanut butter sauce. Or tofu tacos with plenty of toppings. Sundae bars for dessert. There is individual creation and imagination with each bite. The plates are cleared and the wine flows. We all pile into bed, peel off our clothes and make love among the crumbs. Then we go home and we feel different and excited and somehow empty. Because it is hard to love a concept, and sometimes, when you sit down to eat with him, you feel as though that is what is being served.<br />
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<a href="http://www.milesdavis.com/">Miles Davis</a> is the king of improvisation. He has worked with some of the world’s most renowned chefs and it shows. His soufflés rise expertly and his salmon is cooked to perfection. But his real art is that of creating something from what’s there, however frugal the pickings might be. Where another sees an empty pantry, Davis finds magic. He is also the king of recycling. Lunch’s leftovers may appear again at dinner or, even better, at breakfast. But it’s been changed, added to, stripped down, served with something new. He knows that leftovers are not merely re-heating. In fact, Miles never serves the same dish twice, at least not in the same way. And he never disappoints. He moves with such ease and elegance in his domain that he makes it look easy, yet those who truly understand him know that they are witnessing the impossible. With each dish he serves we exchange looks of ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ And we know that its perfection is not meant to be repeated.<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachmaninoff">Rachmaninoff</a>’s wedding cakes are notorious for their thick layers of buttery icing, the intricacy of the candy roses that adorn them and the sugar high that follows. Though his bakery in Villa Senar is long closed, he still creates elaborate dessert trays for the wedding receptions of Europe’s decaying aristocracy. At its pinnacle his patisserie was reminiscent of <a href="http://www.laduree.fr/index_en.htm">Ladurée</a> at Champs-Élysée, down to the chubby cherubs dressed as pastry chefs painted on the ceiling and the matching celadon color on the walls and facade. Everyone remembers his buttery brioche with figs and cherries and lemon-cream tarts topped with rose petals cream puffs; and the dramatically rich éclairs; the cappuccino mouse cake and Chantilly cream horns topped with chocolate lace and burnt sugar. And who can forget the puffs – cream puffs, vanilla puffs, chocolate puffs, cappuccino puffs; the mille-feuilles’ puff pastry with sweet cream and jam, glazed with royal icing or fondant. And, of course, the assortment of petit fours glacés, each adorned with Rococo sugar embellishments. Oh, how we loved the hot chocolate. Yet, something about the pastries always left us hungry for less pomp and more substance.<br />
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Pärt will the lead the revolution of simple foods. And I will be there with him. Together we will spread the word. The word being simple, that minimalism is bigger than you think. That fresh, simple ingredients lovingly prepared create a masterpiece of flavor that will leave no one indifferent. We will borrow from Mozart and sway to Miles. People will flock to their farmer’s markets. They will throw out their microwaves. They will invest in a good bottle of olive oil and a quality frying pan and need little else to satiate themselves and their loved ones. They will discover that love is easier to make than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferran_Adria">Ferran Adriá</a> would have us think.<br />
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What kind of composer are you? </div>
Suzannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022401996874102751noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-32478189095971134362009-03-03T10:55:00.000-08:002009-06-20T07:04:12.289-07:00How to Have Your Friends Over For DinnerYou'll have to get used to giving everything away: your food, your wine, your time, and your love. Your friends will come over. They'll mill around. They'll bring wine, maybe. They'll stand there waiting. They'll feel anxious. You'll feel anxious. Put out some strawberry avocado salsa.<br /><br />Give your friends small tasks to perform.<br /><br />Say to your friends: Fold this napkin exactly like this; pinch this string bean exactly like this; good, now pinch every string bean exactly like that.<br /><br />Don't be <span style="font-style: italic;">so</span> anal-retentive.<br /><br />Never, for example, use the word "exactly".<br /><br />Your friends will get nervous. String beans are a casual affair, after all, and so is your little get-together. On the other hand, positively do not let your friend fuck up your string beans. Choose the right friend for this task. The best is your Mom. If she's not around, try Henry.<br /><br />Let your other friends perform small tasks. Sure, Cogan's terrible at string beans, but he's a master conversationalist. He's an epic wine-drinker too. Put him on the couch. Set a bottle of wine and two glasses in front of him. He'll fill the first glass. Soon Someone Else will come along. Surely Someone Else will sit down and fill the second glass. The two will get along marvelously, Cogan and this Someone Else. Someday, maybe, they'll get married, and have a beautiful baby girl. They'll always remember that one time, your little get-together, when they met on the couch, over a bottle of wine. To thank you for this memory they'll name the baby girl after you.<br /><br />They'll say: I'd like you to meet our new baby girl, Seth.<br /><br />By the way, if you expect this sort of honor, you're going at it all wrong. This night is not about you and your weird, fanatical obsession with having your friends name their babies after you. This night is about your friends. So when you sit down to eat, and everyone's still a little anxious, and that initial great, quiet hum of people eating joyfully is finally interrupted by Jackson, who, it just so happens, <span style="font-style: italic;">loves</span> the string beans, you'll know exactly what to say.<br /><br />Oh, you'll say, Henry made the string beans.<br /><br />And everyone will applaud.<br /><br />But what if the string beans, actually, suck?<br /><br />Oh, you'll say, My bad.<br /><br />Next time, you'll do better.<br /><br />And then give Henry a wink. Make it so the wink says: Good job, man. They'll never know we actually wanted the string beans to suck.<br /><br />But what if you really didn't want the string beans to suck? What if you <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> fucked them up, just like you fucked up the chicken that one time, and everyone moaned and complained: This chicken is raw.<br /><br />Remember: Wine helps.<br /><br />Say: Fuck, this food sucks! But life is short. Let's toast life!<br /><br />Order take-out. Promise you'll do better next time. Luckily, happily, there will always be a next time. You'll discover that it's the only way to stay afloat. You <span style="font-style: italic;">must</span> have your friends over. You <span style="font-style: italic;">must</span> continue to give everything. You'll discover that, weirdly, the more you give the more you receive. Sure, you spent three laborious hours in the kitchen, but notice how the next day you wake at 10:00 am only to discover it's 7:00 am. The day spreads out before you like an enormous canvas! Paint it blue, with your hang-over.<br /><br />Also, random checks will appear in your mailbox. The government will send you an official letter.<br /><br />Sorry, we forgot, the letter will say, but we owe you $10,000.<br /><br />If you expect this, though, you're going at it all wrong. This night is not about giving and receiving. It's about your friends. And besides, that massive account-book of give and take between you and your friends will always remain balanced, because Karen was there for you when you almost died, and because Brad tried to fight that entire house of people because they called you that bad name, and because Pyle made you laugh so hard you remembered that you actually did like being alive, and because Charlie offered to help you pick up that log in the middle of that terrible rainstorm, and because Henry always pinches the string-beans just right, and because JJ loves you so much you always feel adored, and because Cogan is some sort of mythical idea of a perfect friend, except for his girlfriends, and because Princey, although he doesn't come over much anymore, would jump off a roof to save your life.<br /><br />So, really, what's a chicken?<br /><br />And anyway, soon enough you'll become a Magician at this sort of thing. Your friends will continue to come over and mill around anxiously. But notice how the strawberry avocado salsa calms them. Then, notice, how, at the table, magically, the anxious feeling dissolves. Suddenly, everyone is cozy, the wine bottles are overflowing with air, and the conversation has become one long riff on possibility--the possible excursions you'll share, the possible trips you might take together, the long days at the beach, the possibility of summer cookouts, and the strong, vibrantly drunk possibility that everything will be getting better and better from this moment onward.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_V2Pkw-qoOl0/Sa1VZKb2s6I/AAAAAAAAARg/bPU7c0LehQ0/s1600-h/n687932792_1896537_6372.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 262px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_V2Pkw-qoOl0/Sa1VZKb2s6I/AAAAAAAAARg/bPU7c0LehQ0/s320/n687932792_1896537_6372.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308993426525959074" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-style: italic;">Possibility</span><br /></div><br />And it <span style="font-style: italic;">will</span> get better, actually. This meal will heal you, a little. It will bring you closer to the people you love the most in the world, and since those people actually live in your heart, your heart will grow, a little.<br /><br />Soon, things will start to change for you.<br /><br />Cleaning-up, you'll realize, is incredibly fun.<br /><br />You'll put your I-Pod on shuffle. You'll enlist one of the drunker friends to help. You'll get down on your hands and knees and scrub the floor. And while you're down there, you'll thank life for this opportunity you didn't squander, the time you could have spent alone, wallowing in what you've been able to hold onto, but instead you spent with your friends, the time you let everything go: your food, your wine, your time, and your love. And what is all that stuff even good for, if it can't be given away?<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Strawberry Avocado Salsa</span><br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I've already published this recipe on-line, <a href="http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/seafood/snapper_strawberryavocado.html">elsewhere</a>. That recipe is good, but I'm changing it a bit, below, in an attempt to "reclaim" the recipe for FoodVibe. Consider this recipe below the definitive Strawberry Avocado Salsa recipe, straight from the source. This recipe is about gentle, exquisite preparation. I suggest taking your time, following the recipe precisely...<br /><br /></span>1 pound strawberries (local, of course, is best)<br />1 jalapeño pepper, minced<br />1/4 cup scallion, finely chopped<br />2 tablespoons cilantro, finely chopped<br />1 lime, quartered<br />1/4 teaspoon sugar, optional<br />sea salt<br />2 firm-ripe avocados<br /><br />Remove the green stems from the strawberries. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Gently</span> chop the strawberries, using clean, swift knife strokes so that each chopped piece is only touched briefly by the knife. (If you do not have the patience to cleanly chop the strawberries please do not make the recipe.)<br /><br />In small bowl, gently, very <span style="font-weight: bold;">gently</span>, toss the strawberries with the jalapeño, scallion, and cilantro. Squeeze a quarter of lime onto the strawberry salsa and season with sugar, if desired, and sea salt.<br /><br />Half the avocados, remove the pit and the skin. Finely, and <span style="font-weight: bold;">very smoothly and carefully</span>, dice the avocados and place into a small bowl. Squeeze two quarters lime juice onto the avocado and gently toss.<br /><br />Pour strawberry salsa in the bowl with the avocados. Gently toss. Season with additional salt and lime juice, if desired. Serve...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-59582046274863866912009-02-26T07:01:00.000-08:002009-02-28T11:17:38.779-08:00Breakfast and the Power of BeginningsA new moon appeared this week. The Jewish calendar calls this day <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosh_Chodesh">Rosh Chodesh</a>, "the beginning of the month." My thoughts turn female.<br /><br />The moon's mystic qualities are overtly feminine. Cyclical and gestational, the moon waxes and wanes to be reborn each month. In most times and cultures, women have been associated with the moon through ceremony and ritual. In Judaism, Rosh Chodesh is recognized as a women’s holiday dating back to late antiquity.<br /><br />The new moon also holds the secret of beginnings—how beginnings contain (yet purposely conceal) the entirety of what lies ahead. Beginnings are microcosms: the seed to a tree, the ember to a fire. In a microcosm, we see the meaning of essence, that the nature of the whole is contained in its parts, infinitesimal in size. Like love.<br /><br />The Jewish calendar is lunar, assigning unique spiritual qualities to the different moons of the year. Each Rosh Chodesh is a microcosm containing the essence of the month to come. The days emerge from it as a child from a womb. For this reason some are careful about the day, knowing it is a tenuous time, fraught with potentiality. The things we begin on Rosh Chodesh can grow into fixed patterns affecting our lives and psyches for the duration of the moon cycle. Like the moon, they grow in strength and potency until they peak. As the moon wanes, they slowly fade until they are gone. With the next new moon comes renewal—a clean slate and the chance to start again.<br /><br />The moon, women, and beginnings share a commonality to most men: their ways are concealed, inscrutable, shrouded in secrecy.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SagvyOkP7mI/AAAAAAAAAIM/M4TG7cTHEIg/s1600-h/h_1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 399px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SagvyOkP7mI/AAAAAAAAAIM/M4TG7cTHEIg/s400/h_1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307544700806229602" border="0" /></a><br />On the subject of women and beginnings, my thoughts turn to morning, to breakfast—another beginning, another microcosm. Breakfast can be seen as the womb from which our day emerges. Our thoughts at the time, along with the food we eat and the energy it provides, establish the rhythm and pattern of the day to come.<br /><br />It is important to start the day off right. It is important to have a good breakfast.<br /><br />Merri and I eat the same breakfast every day: boiled whole oats with diced Granny Smith apple and cinnamon. Coffee. Later, a handful of almonds on the way out the door. These things are the raw materials of my day.<br /><br />I wake each day to the voice of children. Akiva, the baby, stirs in his crib. Six-year old Zev tugs my foot.<br /><br />“I’m hungry,” he says.<br /><br />My mind snaps alert. A thought rises, fades. A significant part of the day’s pattern is immediately established—I will be surrounded by children in need. I teach in two schools each day.<br /><br />I fix Zev’s breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs (sometimes waffles). A bowl of fruit, usually frozen grapes. A glass of almond milk. Vitamins: a chewable multi, a probiotic, three capsules of fish oil.<br /><br />Zev sits to eat. I begin preparing my own breakfast. In doing this, another quality of my day is brought into being. As a parent and teacher, each day depends on how delicately I balance the act of placing others’ needs before my own.<br /><br />Oats simmer over a medium flame on the stove. Bending over a dish, I slice through the apples. Purposeful, deliberate and slow, my knife is a morning prayer. It seeks to penetrate. Soon the apple collapses into a hundred tiny green cubes. When the oats are done cooking, I turn off the flame, stir in the apple and cinnamon.<br /><br />The pot sits on the stove, delphic steam still rising from within. Looking inside, I hope to see something I can read, some insight into the day ahead amongst the oats and apples. I imagine seeing slight shadows inside the pot coalesce and shift together into imagery I should recognize. The random scattering of apples is not random at all. I know somewhere inside the pot is the pattern to my life, the secret to my days. I see nothing. The heavy padding of feet comes down the hall. Four-year old Sivan enters the kitchen, rubbing her eyes.<br /><br />"Abba, I have to pee," she says.<br /><br />Oat reverts to oat, apple subsides to apple. The pot sits on the stove, the air fragrant with the scent of cinnamon.<br /><br />"Good morning," I say.<br /><br />Merri arrives in the kitchen carrying the baby and places him in the high chair. Sivan is finished with her breakfast of yogurt mixed dry cereal and now plays in the living room. The baby sits quiet, content. This moment is ours. She gets the bowls. I get the mugs. We eat. She takes oatmeal, coffee with a bit of milk and agave nectar. I take plain oatmeal, black coffee. Our conversation sifts through the lingering emotions and detritus of yesterday. Together, we move forward.<br /><br />In this way the last and most important pattern is brought into being. My wife and I meet for our meals together during stolen moments at the poles of the day, always by early morning or late at night. Except weekends, rarely do we meet in between. Our breakfast is like the early morning moon, still visible in the pre-dawn sky. She disappears during the day. We reconvene at night.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Perfect Pot of Porridge<br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">This</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><span style="font-style: italic;"> recipe takes cues from both </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.cooksillustrated.com/">Cook's Illustrated</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, who suggest using longer-cooking steel-cut oats and </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Vegetarian-Kitchen-Peter-Berley/dp/0060392959">Peter Berley</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, who suggests soaking the oats overnight in a souring agent, such as yogurt, to promote lactic-acid formation. This ultimately makes the oats easier to digest. The final dish is delicious and creamy with a slight tang: perfect. Steel cut oats take longer to cook than rolled oats, but much of the cooking time requires minimal attention. </span><br /><br />1 cup steel cut oats<br />3 1/2 cups spring water<br />1/4 cup plain full-fat <a href="http://erivandairy.com/default.aspx">yogurt</a><br />1/2 teaspoon kosher salt<br />Fresh sliced apples, yogurt, or nuts for topping<br /><br />In heavy saucepan, combine the oats, water, and yogurt. Cover the pan and soak overnight, 8 to 10 hours. This is called FoodVibing the oats.<br /><br />In the morning, put the saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a lively simmer. Simmer gently for 20 minutes. Add the salt and stir lightly with a wooden spoon. Continue simmering, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until oats have absorbed most of the water and the porrdige is thick and creamy, 5-7 minutes.<br /><br />Let the oatmeal stand off the heat for 5 minutes. Serve topped with fresh apple slices, yogurt, or crushed nuts.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01789326770112163847noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-26009926951461553662009-02-22T05:37:00.000-08:002010-11-04T07:01:52.022-07:00More on Coconut Milk and SexI condition my hair with extra virgin coconut oil. At the end of summer, I buy <a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/Mr.-Zogs-Surf-Wax%3a-Cold-Water-COCONUT_W0QQitemZ170289106769QQcmdZViewItem">coconut Surf Wax</a> and smell it all winter. I eat coconut milk in one form or another with almost every lunch and dinner. It's in my lunchtime butternut squash soup (recipe pending). It's in my dinnertime <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2008/08/potato-light-of-my-life-fire-of-my.html">mashed potatoes</a> and <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/10/risky-behavior.html">mashed sweet potatoes</a>. Lately, me and my wife eat the exact same vegetable side-dish every single night: <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2008/12/fat-should-inspire-sex.html">Coconut Braised Greens</a>. In this way we go through five or six cans of coconut milk every week.<br /><br />That's a lot of <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2008/12/fat-should-inspire-sex.html">fat</a>.<br /><br />For years coconut has been derided as unhealthy because of its high saturated fat content. My coconut milk has 10 grams of saturated fat per serving; that's 50% of the daily fat intake. I probably eat 20 grams of fat from coconut milk every day. Anyway. The coconut: unhealthy theory is bunk. Current research shows the fatty acids in coconut, the medium chain triglycerides, do<span style="font-style: italic;"> not</span> raise serum cholesterol or contribute to heart disease. Also, coconut is easily digested; it's not deposited as fat in arteries because it is easily metabolized. If you're skeptical or thinking of becoming a fanatic yourself, I suggest reading this <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">thoroughly</span> documented, well-presented <a href="http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/07/28/coconut-health.aspx">article</a> from Dr. Mercola's site. I offer this instead of boring links to studies.<br /><br />Lately, as the winter enters its most hateful phase (football is over; baseball is yet to begin) I'm relying on visions of summer. The smell of coconut conjures lotion; skimpy bathing suits; an outdoor shower at a crowded beach house: the perfect little spot to steal away for a quickie.<br /><br />No doubt, coconut is <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2008/12/fat-should-inspire-sex.html">sexy</a>.<br /><br />Lately, on Saturday evenings, me and my wife make coconut-infused dishes.<br /><br />Then, sometime after eating, we flop on the couch. We do not watch television. We do not fall asleep. Our place becomes crowded with all the things we do not do. The dishes in the sink. The laundry on the floor. The cellphones, unanswered. We just stay on the couch and pretend it's summer: We're staying in a crowded beach house; the couch is our outdoor shower.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V2Pkw-qoOl0/SaHoKvzJbGI/AAAAAAAAARI/tJmxTmWZ7us/s1600-h/a_Wax_Zogs_Tropic.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 254px; height: 250px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V2Pkw-qoOl0/SaHoKvzJbGI/AAAAAAAAARI/tJmxTmWZ7us/s320/a_Wax_Zogs_Tropic.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305777107346484322" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Chicken and Mushrooms in a Lemon Coconut Broth</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I've spent all week developing this recipe at home and at work. Then I made it last night for my brother's 40 birthday party. It's freakin' delicious. Serve it over a <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2008/12/perfect-pot-of-rice.html">Perfect Pot of Rice</a>.</span><br /><br />6 tablespoons kosher salt<br />4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, tenderloins removed, fat trimmed<br />3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil<br />16 ounces assorted fresh mushrooms--<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">cremini</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">shitake</span>, or white button--sliced thin<br />1 15 ounce can full fat coconut milk<br />1 teaspoon juice and zest from one fresh lemon<br />1 garlic clove minced<br />2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley<br />Sea salt<br />Fresh ground pepper<br /><br />Dissolve the salt with four cups water in a gallon-size zipper lock bag. Add the chicken breasts and seal the bag, pressing out the extra air. Brine in the refrigerator for one hour.<br /><br />Remove the chicken breasts from the brine and pat dry with a paper towel. Season with fresh ground pepper.<br /><br />In a large skillet over medium-high heat, warm one tablespoon olive oil. Add chicken to skillet and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">sauté</span> until almost cooked through, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer chicken to a cutting board. When cool, slice into thin strips.<br /><br />Add remaining two tablespoons olive oil to skillet. Add mushrooms and saute. Season lightly with sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Saute, stirring frequently, until mushrooms have released and absorbed excess moisture, about 8 minutes. Add coconut milk, lemon juice, lemon zest, garlic, and reserved chicken. Simmer until chicken is cooked through. Stir in parsley. Season to taste with sea salt and fresh ground pepper.<br /><br />Serve hot.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-72475525368082338752009-01-14T17:07:00.000-08:002009-01-14T14:07:58.898-08:00The Joy of DishwashingLately, I've been re-reading one of my bibles: Anthony <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Bourdain's</span></span> <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Kitchen-Confidential-Adventures-Culinary-Underbelly/dp/0060934913">Kitchen Confidential</a>. </em>This is the fourth or fifth time I've read the book and just like the other times I'm getting myself all up in a tizzy. Suddenly, I'm feeling incredibly nostalgic for my days in the restaurant business.<br /><br />Just the other day I said to my wife: I want to go back, work in a restaurant.<br /><br />She then reminded me that I am currently enrolled full-time in graduate school, already have a full-time gig, and that I hardly have time to take a daily shower let alone re-commence my old, doomed career path.<br /><br />I suppose she's right, but still. I go to bed, dream of fine-dicing carrots. I wake up, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">immediately</span> think of <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">demi</span></span>-glace</em>. In the kitchen, at home, I'm getting impatient and joyfully hostile. It's the sort of loving kitchen attitude I cultivated in the restaurants but it doesn't really fly at home, with my wife.<br /><br />Recently, family came over for dinner. She was in a good mood, laboring over her spectacular risotto and a few composed salads. I was all hopped up on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Bourdain</span></span> and red wine so I walked in the kitchen, looked at her slightly overdressed salads, and said: <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Mmm</span></span>, seaweed. She nearly broke down in tears.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Bourdain</span></span> writes:<br /><br />"If you are easily offended by direct aspersions to your lineage, the circumstances of your birth, your sexuality, your <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">appearance</span>, the mention of your parents possible commingling with livestock, then...professional cooking is not for you."<br /><br />My wife is a beautiful home-cook and she makes no pretense to wanting to be a professional cook. I'm just an asshole.<br /><br />The weirdest recent behavior, though, is my recent craving for <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">dishwashing</span></span>. I started in the restaurant business, like a lot of people, washing dishes. I was fourteen and I didn't break out until I was nearly eighteen. By then, I had learned to hate dishwashing with an all-abiding passion.<br /><br />I distinctly recall my final night washing dishes. I walked up to my boss, told him I was finished. He said: Did you hose down the carts? I did not. So I went back and hosed the carts. Midway through, my boss walked up and surveyed my work. I gave him a little squirt. He was shocked. So I said: "You come back here, you're going to get wet."<br /><br />Then I pointed the hose directly at him and pulled the trigger.<br /><br />For five tumultuous, roaring seconds, I was King of the World.<br /><br />I had never felt so liberated. It was the most glorious way to quit a job. And don't think that bastard didn't having it coming. He treated us dishwashers like degenerates (which we were, but still.) Among other things, he refused to give us gloves to handle the piping-hot plates, he paid us next-to-nothing, and he made me stay an hour late on my eighteenth birthday because he was unsatisfied with my mopping work. (I did a stellar job; he was just a mean bastard.)<br /><br />It was always a sore spot for me that Steve worked at the same place as a waiter. The ethic, promoted by the boss, was that us dishwashers were sub-human and were to be treated as such by the staff. Steve candidly obliged.<br /><br />So I suppose it's odd that after we finished our recent meal, I joyfully skipped into our kitchen and washed all the plates, all the pots and pans, cleaned the counters, and mopped the floor. I then made a stock for <em>another</em> risotto (my wife was going for a double-shot), melted chocolate for chocolate-fudge brownie sundaes, and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">brined</span></span> two chickens, thereby <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">necessitating</span> a whole new round of dishes. Whatever. I didn't care at all. I was in love--with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">dishwashing</span>!<br /><br />I love people who don't mind washing dishes. I always think about a great anecdote from Bill Buford's <em>New Yorker</em> article "<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/08/19/020819fa_fact_buford?currentPage=1">The Secret of Excess</a>" about Mario <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Batali</span>:<br /><br />"One of my last recollections is of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Batali</span> around three in the morning—back arched, eyes closed, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, his red Converse high-tops pounding the floor—playing air guitar to Neil Young’s “Southern Man.” <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Batali</span> had recently turned forty, and I remember thinking that it was a long time since I’d seen a grown man playing air guitar. He then found the soundtrack for “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Buena</span> Vista Social Club,” tried to salsa with one of the guests (who promptly fell over a sofa), tried to dance with her boyfriend (who was unresponsive), and then put on a Tom Waits CD and sang along as he went into the kitchen, where, with a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">machine-like</span> speed, he washed the dishes and mopped the floor."<br /><br />That last simple, elegant sentence pretty much sums it up for me. Nobody really wants to do dishes. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Dishwashing</span> is real work. So you just put on a CD and, like a machine, do it. Today, years away from my early <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">dishwashing</span> travails, I love the sense of accomplishment I feel after washing a night's worth of dishes. I love going into the kitchen, sweating about two pounds off, and dropping to my hands and knees to scrub the floor. That's real work, something to be proud of. Perhaps that's why I hated it so much when I did it as a young man for money. I love <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">dishwashing</span> so much that I was corrupted by the cash. The promise of riches took all the joy out of it. Still, if (big if) I do go back to the restaurants, don't think for a second that I think I'm too good to wash dishes. To find no task to low or demeaning--that's the attitude I like.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Roasted Acorn Squash with Squash Risotto</span><br /><br />I always get depressed in January because squash season is almost over. So I grasp at the last of season and try to make something immaculate. I originally published this recipe <a href="http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/recipe.php?recipeId=1759">here</a>.<br /><br />4 acorn squash<br />3 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil<br />Salt to taste<br />6 cups water or gluten-free vegetable broth<br />1 cup finely chopped leeks<br />2 1/2 cups peeled and cubed butternut squash<br />2 cups uncooked Arborio rice<br />1/2 cup dry white wine<br />1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped sage, divided<br />2/3 cup pine nuts<br />1/2 teaspoon finely chopped thyme<br />Method<br /><br />Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut each acorn squash lengthwise in half (from tip to stem) then scoop out and discard any seeds and stringy flesh. Brush insides of acorn squash with 1 1/2 tablespoons of the oil and season with salt. Place acorn squash, cut side down, in a baking pan and roast until tender but still firm, about 20 minutes.<br /><br />Meanwhile, start the risotto by bringing the broth just to a simmer in a small pot over medium high heat. Heat remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a heavy 3-quart pot over medium heat. Add leeks and cook, stirring often, until soft, about 5 minutes. Add butternut squash and cook for 3 minutes. Add rice and cook, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes, or until grains are fragrant. Add wine and stir constantly until almost completely absorbed, about 2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of the hot broth to rice and cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is almost completely absorbed. Continue adding broth, 1/2 cup at a time, making sure that most of the liquid is absorbed before adding more. Continue until rice is almost tender, but still firm to the bite, about 20 to 25 minutes total. Stir in 1 tablespoon of the sage and season with salt.<br /><br />Meanwhile, put pine nuts into a food processor and pulse until coarsely ground. Stir in thyme, remaining 1/2 teaspoon sage and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside.<br /><br />When acorn squash is cooked, remove from oven. Reduce heat to 300°F. Carefully turn squash over and fill each cavity with about 1/2 cup of the risotto. Gently press about 2 tablespoons of the pine nut mixture on top of the risotto in each squash half. Return squash to oven and bake until topping begins to brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer to plates and serve.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-46473121014195753032008-12-16T12:18:00.000-08:002008-12-19T15:11:09.340-08:00Pasta: a love story<div>We moved to Barcelona in December, 2001, in the wake of 9/11. We were leaving Argentina in the midst of the economic, and eventually political, crash. It was a tumultuous time. South, people were losing their homes, their livelihoods. North, they were planning a war. Here in Barcelona, Andrés and I spent those first months wandering the streets alone. We had nowhere to go, no <span style="font-style: italic;">here</span> to call home.<br /><br />We decided to get married. When you’re far from home and sharing your life with just one other person, you do crazy things. You form a family. A family of two. And you create your own home. You stuff your home with things you love: noises, smells, words, texture--things that remind you where you come from, where you are, where you’ve never been.<br /><br />Sunday in Buenos Aires means one of two things: <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/09/memorias-criollas.html">asado</a> or pasta. Pasta used to mean homemade; for some houses it still does. For others, however, it means the pasta factories. Each neighborhood has its own. Every Sunday, neighbors queue down the block and around the corner, looking to buy tallarines, spaghetti, tagliatelli and linguini by the kilo, ravioli and sorrentini by the dozen. The barrios bustle. Neighbors hurry home with tallarines carefully wrapped in paper, raviolis lining boxes like petite-fours, to tuco simmering on the stove.<br /><br />Sunday in Barcelona means five-on-five football matches and the cañas that follow. It means the book fair at the Sant Antoni market. It can also mean a coffee at Caelum. It rarely means church and it never means pasta. Spain means rice, paella. Spain knows nothing about pasta.<br /><br />Sunday is a day of ritual. In many European countries, shops and shopping centers close on Sundays. People infuse their Sundays with meaning--we spent our first few years here looking for one.<br /><br />Last Christmas, I finally gave Andrés a new Sunday: A pasta maker.<br /><br />Now, each Sunday, he engages in the same ritual his grandmother used to, kneading love into eggs and flour, transforming the resultant sticky mass into food. And so, as it does for millions of other porteños so many miles away, Sunday in Barcelona now means fresh pasta. It means spaghetti and homemade meatballs. It means linguini and cream sauce. It means penne and sun-dried tomatoes. And lots of fresh basil. For two.<br /></div><br /><p align="center"><a href="http://s169.photobucket.com/albums/u223/suzanneteesdale/?action=view&current=100_9396.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u223/suzanneteesdale/100_9396.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><br /><div><strong>Sunday Pumpkin-Ricotta Ravioli (for a Family of Two)</strong><br /><br /><em>Pasta</em><br />300 grams fine flour (about 1 1/3 cups, or 10 ounces; Andrés uses 00, though 000 is better)<br />2 eggs<br />Fresh Spring Water<br /><br /><em>Filling</em><br />500 grams roasted pumpkin or butternut squash (about 2 cups)<br />1 tablespoon tightly packed brown brown sugar<br />250 grams ricotta cheese (about 1 cup)<br />1 tablespoon fresh sage </div><div>1/2 teaspoon turmeric<br />Salt and pepper to taste<br /><br />1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan<br />Extra Virgin Olive Oil (for drizzling)<br /><br /></div><p align="center"><a href="http://s169.photobucket.com/albums/u223/suzanneteesdale/?action=view&current=100_9356.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u223/suzanneteesdale/100_9356.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><span style="font-weight: bold;">For the pasta</span>:<br /><br />Measure the flour out on your kitchen scale. Then transfer to a clean surface.<br /><div><br />Make a small crater in the pile of flour with your first. Crack the eggs into the crater and beat them with a fork. Once the egg is beaten, use the fork the mix it into the flour, gently bringing flour in from the sides. It will soon have a consistency similar to that of cornmeal.<br /><br />Once all the flour has been mixed with the egg, it is time to knead. You may need to add water to make this process easier. To add the water, merely dip your hands into a small bowl of water and knead. Repeat this as often as necessary to create a workable blob. Knead.<br /><br />Wrap the dough in a damp kitchen towel and let sit for a short while. Meanwhile, set up your paste maker and prepare the filling. </div><div></div><br /><div><span style="font-weight: bold;">For the filling</span>:<br /><br />In a small bowl, mash the roasted pumpkin with fork. Add the brown sugar and mix well. Now add the ricotta and mix well again. Add sage and turmeric, and salt and pepper to taste.<br /><br />Divide the dough into smaller bowls. Roll each one out with a rolling pin and send it through the pasta maker till you have the desired thickness. (Andrés says his grandmother did this by hand--she had no pasta maker. She would roll the dough out and then cut it to the desired width with a knife. It's a bit easier with the machine.)<br /><br /></div><p align="center"><a href="http://s169.photobucket.com/albums/u223/suzanneteesdale/?action=view&current=100_9433.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u223/suzanneteesdale/100_9433.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><div> </div><br /><div>Once you've got the dough where you want it, add the attachment to the machine. In this case, we added the ravioli one.<br /><br />Spread the filling on two sheets of pasta dough. Crank it through the pasta maker.<br /><br />Boil 4 quarts water in a large pot. Throw in some salt and a laurel leaf for good measure. Add the pasta and let it cook till it rises to the surface. This should take less than three minutes. Drain.<br /><br />Add freshly grated parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil. </div>Suzannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022401996874102751noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-18002849584605511042008-12-14T16:16:00.000-08:002008-12-15T13:34:18.236-08:00The Queen Bully of GarlicIn an old <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">FoodVibe</span> <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/09/for-love-of-garlic.html">post</a> Steve asked: Is it worth trying to juice garlic?<br /><br />I'll answer this question, unequivocally: NO.<br /><br />I juiced garlic, once. At the time I was twenty-two, bursting with bravado, and inspired by the heady writing of one of my early <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">heroes</span>, the juicing <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">extraordinaire</span>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Walker">Dr. Norman Walker</a>. (Warning: Do not follow that link lightly...) In his famous <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Vegetable-Fruit-Juices-Missing/dp/089019033X">Fresh Vegetable and Fruit Juices</a></em> this is what Dr. Walker has to say about garlic juice:<br /><br />"Metaphorically speaking, garlic itself is bad enough but garlic juice by itself may cause devastating social ostracism for the one who drinks it. It is very beneficial, if one has the mental fortitude to overcome social handicaps, and the intestinal fortitude to endure the general discomfort which accompanies the more or less rapid house cleaning of one's system."<br /><br />Around this time I smuggled fresh garlic into restaurants. I cut the cloves raw onto my food. (Suzanne will attest to this fact.)<br /><br />I had the mental fortitude. Unfortunately, I did not have the intestinal fortitude. One cup of garlic juice and I was walloped. I drank the garlic juice, mercifully mixed with carrots, on a Friday morning in July. I was due to go to the beach for the weekend. I never made it. I spent the weekend in bed, immersed in one of the most intense and ridiculous detox experiences of my life. I smelled like garlic until September.<br /><br />Garlic is intense. At the very least, it inspires intense emotion. I for one love it. Before I became humbled by life and love, I used it in my own cooking like a battle axe. Don't like garlic? Too bad, here's my Risotto with 40 Cloves of Garlic.<br /><br />Suzanne and I once made Risotto with 40 Cloves of garlic. It was a balmy summer night. We shared the risotto and three magnums of red wine with my brother. Then we went bowling. That sweaty night, as the garlic and wine seeped from our pores, as our friends moaned and complained about the obnoxious smell, we winked at each other and laughed conspiratorially.<br /><br />No amount of social ostracism could overcome the deep and loving pact we forged over massive amounts of red wine and garlic.<br /><br />I'm a Garlic Bully. I throw my garlic love in people's faces. Rarely have I met my match. I suppose though when you're a bully you always get your comeuppance.<br /><br />Once, in Barcelona, I met The Queen Bully of Garlic.<br /><br />When I lived in Barcelona I made a habit of visiting the fruit and vegetable markets every day. Most days I was so enthralled by the shapes, colors, and smells of the fruits and vegetables that I literally wasted up to an hour, simply browsing the aisles. On one of these occasions I was awakened from my spell by a short fat women whose cheeks were plump and red, and who offered me a clove of garlic speared on the end of a small pocket knife.<br /><br />“<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><em>Queries</em></span>?” she asked.<br /><br />Then, as if preparing for a sudden burst of song, she proclaimed in rapid fire Spanish that her garlic was the most powerful in Barcelona. As she spoke she waddled back and forth with sincere pride, inhaling deeply, throwing her hands in the air as if to prove that the garlic was responsible for her robust posture. Seeing my doubt, she implored me to bite into the clove and taste for myself.<br /><br />I accepted the challenge with my bravado, throwing the entire clove into my mouth. I chewed the garlic as if it were an apple, but before my second bite I realized that I was experiencing the real deal: the garlic to end all garlic, a perfect, peppery slice of the beautiful, ugly, power of The Stinking Rose.<br /><br />I continued chewing with a twisted face, as if it were a matter of pride, like taking a shot of whiskey. The taste, however, was too strong. I spit the clove onto the sidewalk in defeat. The small crowd that had gathered burst into laughter. The fat women smiled. She was chewing on one of the cloves for pleasure.<br /><br />For the rest of that day and onto the next, wherever I went the smell of garlic followed. Garlic seeped out of my pores like a renegade sweat, like a battle scar.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Moroccan <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Charmoula</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Tempeh</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">This is a close adaptation of the great Peter Berley's recipe from the outstanding book </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Vegetarian-Kitchen-Peter-Berley/dp/0060392959">The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen</a><span style="font-style: italic;">--my all-time favorite vegetarian cookbook. Four garlic cloves make this dish garlicky; six make you a "garlic bully." Serve with </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2008/12/perfect-pot-of-rice.html">rice</a><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span><br /><br />1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil<br />1/2 cup water (yes water)<br />1/3 cup fresh lemon juice<br />2 teaspoons fresh ground cumin (Please tell me you grind your own spices?)<br />2 teaspoons paprika<br />1 teaspoon ground chile powder<br />2 teaspoons kosher salt<br />4-6 garlic cloves, peeled<br />1/2 cup fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped<br />1 pound <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">tempeh</span>, cut into one inch squares<br /><br />In a blender or food <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">processor</span> or blender, mix together olive oil, water, lemon juice, spices, salt, garlic, and cilantro.<br /><br />Preheat oven to 350 degrees.<br /><br />Arrange <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">tempeh</span> squares in a single layer in a baking dish. Pour on marinade and cover securely with foil. Bake for 45 minutes, until <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">tempeh</span> has absorbed the marinade. Uncover and bake for a few more minutes to brown.<br /><br />Serves 4Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-85168485726836198772008-12-10T18:21:00.001-08:002008-12-10T19:20:45.174-08:00My son Zev eats cucumbers at nightIt's been over a half hour now. You still sit with furrowed brow and tight, pursed lips. Elbows on the table, your chin rests in your hands.<br /><br />I watch you across the room from the couch as I read the fiction piece in the December issue of <span style="font-style: italic;">Harper's</span>. It arrived weeks ago. I haven't had time to read it yet. I put it down, walk to the table. I should know better than to try reading during dinner time.<br /><br />"Let's go big boy," I say.<br /><br />"No."<br /><br />I knew you would say this, yet I have few options in my arsenal. I am <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">resourceless</span>, but not defeated. We stare at each other. We often reach this impasse.<br /><br />I come home late everyday from my second teaching job. I only have an hour or so with you and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Akiva</span> and Sivan before you go to bed. I don't want our time to be spent like this.<br /><br />First were the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><a href="http://www.drpraegers.com/products/index.aspx">fishies</a></span> with a bit of ketchup, a side of frozen grapes. You did a great job, devouring the fishies in minutes. I expected that. They're your favorite. Then came the finely chopped cucumbers, mixed with vanilla <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><a href="http://www.seriouseats.com/2008/07/does-activia-yogurt-offer-any-health-benefits.html">probiotic</a></span> yogurt. This is the only way you'll eat cucumbers, which the doctor says you must.<br /><br />Stalling for time, you play with your hands, pretending they are wild animals fighting each other. You frequently play like this. I did the same thing when I was your age. I feel a strange sensation. Not sure what it is, I push it down. Maybe to examine later.<br /><br />Now is not the time for such things. I'm all business. You must eat your vegetables.<br /><br />The cucumbers turn the yogurt into a watery mess. I don't blame you if you don't want to eat them. I fix it: Pour out the watery yogurt, replace it with a newer, fresher batch. It returns to its original consistency.<br /><br />Placing the bowl back in front of you, I scruff your hair affectionately.<br /><br />"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Mmph</span>," you say gruffly and move you head away from my hand.<br /><br />The doctor says you have to eat vegetables--they will help your condition. Sometimes you don't poop for days. You choose to hold it in--an incomprehensible act of childhood power and defiance. Once when you were three, it went on for two weeks. I used to find you hiding under the dining room table, your face a twisted mask of discomfort as your tiny stomach muscles worked to close your bowels like an iron clamp.<br /><br />"Why, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Zev</span>?" we would ask. Then we would beg, "Let's just go the bathroom, please!"<br /><br />The doctor said your bowels must be swollen with constipation, that it must painful, that perhaps you can no longer feel the proper time to go. Then came the accidents. Sudden and unexpected, they were a seeming validation of the prognosis. The doctor said avoid dairy, wheat, anything that binds; he said we have to give you daily doses of fresh vegetables with copious amount of olive oil. This would somehow produce the desired effect--that your colon would shrink and allow you to feel the proper sensation again, that you would poop again, regularly and normally.<br /><br />I try to explain this to you.<br /><br />You dismiss it all.<br /><br />"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Zev</span>," I say, "You're being unreasonable!"<br /><br />I know how ridiculous this sounds. You are five years old, far beyond reason. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"></span><br /><br />You still sit there. I get desperate. I begin to think of bargains, the requisite if/then deals. How can I snatch compromise out of the jaws of defeat?<br /><br />Sometimes the defiance is legendary, as it is tonight.<br /><br />But so far the cucumber yogurt treatment has yielded small successes. No accidents for a long time. No more holding it in. Good reports from your school in Manhattan.<br /><br />At home, you will often be on the floor playing when suddenly you'll look up with a crazed look in your eye: "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Poopy</span>!" you yell, and run to the bathroom.<br /><br />"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Yay</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Zev</span>!" we all yell in unison.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SUBvvmVlrHI/AAAAAAAAAGI/NIKtwkRviCQ/s1600-h/zev+at+table.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span></a><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SUBvvmVlrHI/AAAAAAAAAGI/NIKtwkRviCQ/s1600-h/zev+at+table.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br /></span><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SUBvvmVlrHI/AAAAAAAAAGI/NIKtwkRviCQ/s400/zev+at+table.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278341626813852786" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-decoration: underline; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 299px;" border="0" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Don't let the smile fool you. He hates red onions and tomatoes too</span><br /></div></span><div><div><div><div><br />Now it is later. All the cucumbers have been eaten. Previous angers and tempers drain away like warm bath water from the tub. After drying off and getting into your pajamas, you ask me to lay in bed with you as you fall asleep--a small, conciliatory act of remorse from the five-year old mind, a desire to clear the slate.<br /><br />I say, "Yes, of course." I am glad you asked. It doesn't always happen.<br /><br />You are asleep within five minutes. Turning over, I look at the soft rise and fall of your chest. Tomorrow brings another day of school for you, with its social maze. Later, high school, girls, politics. I suppress a shudder, lay my arm across your waist. The fuzzy feel of your winter pajamas, the slight smell of stale urine, rekindles distant memories of my own childhood bed.<br /><br />What did my father think as he watched me sleep? Was he as lost, as spinning as I am tonight?<br /><br />In the haze of consciousness between waking and sleep, I have an image of us walking together, hand in hand through an enormous field of cucumbers that stretches for miles in all directions.<br /><br />Flanking the field on all sides rise buildings of dizzying heights. Still beyond them, mountains, then deep blue sky. Still further beyond, space. Coming from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">everywhere</span>, the sound of people talking, laughing, rushing. Somewhere overhead, airplanes zigzag the sky. As we walk, I ask you to stop, wait a moment.<br /><br />Bending down, I pluck a ripe green cucumber from the ground. Kneeling to meet your height, you look into my face as I hand it to you.<br /><br />"Here, take this," I say. "They taste good."<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Spinach, Goat & Cottage Cheese Tart in a Potato Crust </span><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-style: italic;">With the green color of spinach and the tangy taste of goat cheese, this recipe is sure to be one that adults love but kids hate. Seth originally published the recipe <a href="http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/recipe.php?recipeId=2103">here.</a></span><br /><br />6-8 medium Yukon Gold potatoes<br />2-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided<br />1 garlic clove, thinly sliced<br />1 bunch spinach, stems removed, and sliced into thin strips, washed and not dried<br />8 oz. fresh goat cheese, crumbled<br />1 cup cottage cheese<br />2 eggs, lightly beaten<br />1 teaspoon grated lemon zest<br />1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice<br />¼ cup basil, chopped<br />Sea salt and fresh ground pepper<br /><br />Peel the potatoes and slice into 1/8 inch rounds. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a wide skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, add a layer of potatoes to the pan and cook, turning once, 3-4 minutes per side, until golden and easily pierced with a knife. Set aside on plate lined with a paper towel. Repeat with remaining potatoes.<br /><br />When potatoes are done, add 1 tablespoon olive oil to the pan. Add garlic and cook until light gold, about 1 minute. Add the spinach (with water clinging to its leaves) and cook until bright green and tender, 2-3 minutes. Transfer the spinach to a bowl and gently add fresh goat cheese, cottage cheese, eggs, lemon zest, lemon juice, and basil. Stir gently. Season to taste with sea salt and ground pepper.<br /><br />Preheat oven to 350 degrees. To assemble the tart, lightly butter a 9-inch <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">springform</span> pan. Line the pan with potatoes, covering the bottom and sides, covering any empty spaces. Pour in the spinach-goat cheese mixture. Bake until firm and golden, about 50 minutes.<br /><br />Release the spring from the pan and gently left the side. Set the tart on a plate, slice, and serve.<br /><br />6-8 servings<br /></div></div></div></div></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01789326770112163847noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-83553579890288025802008-12-08T12:28:00.001-08:002010-11-12T05:24:28.502-08:00Fat Should Inspire SexI recently calculated my daily fat intake. Since I eat essentially the same foods every day, my calculations are probably pretty accurate.<br /><br />For breakfast, I typically consume 3 tablespoons raw <a href="http://www.consumersearch.com/olive-oil/whole-foods-365-extra-virgin-olive-oil">extra virgin olive oil</a>. That's 42 grams of fat, 360 calories--66% of the <a href="http://www.fda.gov/FDAC/special/foodlabel/dvs.html">daily suggested intake</a>.<br /><br />Lunch, I consume 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (baked, in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">tempeh</span>). That's 28 grams of fat, 240 calories.<br /><br />By dinner, I've exceeded my daily fat intake, simply by consuming olive oil.<br /><br />Is this healthy?<br /><br />One prominent <a href="http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=btnews&dbid=40">study</a> suggests two tablespoons daily is a healthful dose. But I cannot find any studies on excessive olive oil consumption. I can say, though, that as a type-1 diabetic, I'm prone to an increased risk of high blood pressure, as well as heart and cholesterol problems. And yet, I'm healthy. I get blood tests several times a year. I check my own blood pressure monthly. My levels are healthy, normal.<br /><br />Also, at 5' 11", 150 pounds, I'm slightly underweight.<br /><br />Keeping this in mind, consider my dinner: I typically consume two tablespoons raw extra virgin olive oil, about 27 grams fat from <a href="http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-chicken-leg-i5079">chicken</a>, and about 1/4 cup coconut milk. After dinner, I eat a little chocolate, about 6 grams of fat worth.<br /><br />In one day, I consume:<br /><br />7 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil: 98 grams fat ; 840 calories.<br />2 chicken legs: 27 grams fat; 464 calories<br />1/4 coconut milk: 12 grams fat; 120 calories<br />Chocolate: 6 grams fat; 80 calories<br /><br />That's 143 grams of fat--more than double the daily recommended value.<br /><br />Again, can this be healthy?<br /><br />I'd say, possibly. I rarely eat dairy fat (I eat raw butter and goat cheese occasionally.) I never, ever eat trans-fats. My animal fat intake is not excessive. (I take fish oil capsules every day, but the capsules do not increase my fat intake.)<br /><br />Still, 143 grams.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">I don't care. I love fat, with wild abandon.<br /><br />Without fat, cuisine is unimaginable. Fat provides immense flavor and an impossible to match smoothness. Fat tenderizes food. Fat allows for high-heat cooking--the domain of crispiness and robust flavor. To me, low-fat cuisine is lifeless, boring, just plain <a href="http://www.mercola.com/article/carbohydrates/low_fat.htm">stupid</a>. Thousands of studies have proven the health benefits of fats--fish oils, extra virgin, olive oil, even saturated fats such as extra virgin coconut oil. People who eat low fat diets in pursuit of health or weight-loss are simply <a href="http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7331/238?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&author1=Ravnskov&searchid=1016202267054_8868&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=1,2,3,4,10">moronic</a>. To me, low-fat dieters seem as boring and lifeless as their boring, lifeless diets.<br /><br />No doubt, some <a href="http://anthony-bourdain-blog.travelchannel.com/">chefs</a> might say the same thing about me. I typically eschew the classics of gourmet cooking, cream and butter, in my own manic pursuit of "health." (I do use some animal fat, such as bacon, on special occasions, and when absolutely called for.)<br /><br />Well, I challenge any chef to make my <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2008/08/potato-light-of-my-life-fire-of-my.html">mashed potatoes</a>. They're delicious; they're also healthy.<br /><br />I think cuisine should provide taste <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> nourishment and vitality. Any chef can whip up a great-tasting mashed potato, with cream and butter. But how do creamy, buttery mashed potatoes make you feel <span style="font-style: italic;">after</span> you eat?<br /><br />I want my diners to feel satisfied, but I also want them to walk away from the table feeling light and sprite. I don't want my diners to moan, to lay around, devastated by my food. I want my diners to dance in celebration. I want my diners to kiss without fear of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">burbing</span> unhealthy burbs. I want my diners to feel like making wild, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">winey</span>-love. I want my diners to feel sexy, before <span style="font-style: italic;">and after</span> eating.<br /><br />Towards this end, I use the sexy fat: <a href="http://www.wellnessgrocer.com/thai-kitchen-coconut-milk-p-2167.html">coconut milk</a>.<br /><br />Coconut milk (unlike coconut oil) does not dramatically alter the taste of a dish, if used in correct quantities. (My mashed potatoes do not taste at all like coconut.) And yet, coconut adds the silky luxuriousness that's missing from many dairy-free recipes. I use coconut milk in many recipes where cream might be called for, and usually the result is terrific.<br /><br />Try <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/10/risky-behavior.html">mashed sweet potatoes</a>. Try <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/09/chocolate-alchemy.html">chocolate truffles</a>.<br /><br />Recently, I've been making variations on what I call "Healthy Creamed Spinach." It's basically greens, simmered with coconut milk. Try it. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Coconut Braised Greens</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I originally developed this recipe for Whole Foods Market; if you like it, you can rate it </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/recipe.php?recipeId=2431">here</a><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span><br /><br />1 large bunch kale or collard greens, trimmed and teared into small pieces<br />1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil<br />1 medium yellow onion, very thinly sliced<br />1/2 cup fresh coconut milk<br />1 teaspoon fresh squeezed lemon juice<br />Sea salt<br />Fresh ground pepper<br /><br />In a large dutch oven over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Add the onions and a pinch of salt and saute, stirring occasionally, until soft and translucent, 6-8 minutes.<br /><br />Add the coconut milk and lemon juice to the pan. Add the greens. Gently toss. Simmer over medium-low heat, covered, until greens are just tender, 3-5 minutes.<br /><br />Season to taste with salt and fresh ground pepper.<br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-69165887369698293652008-12-05T09:39:00.000-08:002008-12-06T15:41:36.549-08:00Dear AlcoholDear Alcohol,<br /><br />By the time you read these lines, I’ll be gone. It may shock you, but I've been thinking about leaving you for months—since that day at the beach last summer. But let's not go there. Not now.<br /><br />Over the last few years, you slowly began to demand more of my time—time usually spent with friends or family. I was dependent on you, at a period in my life when I needed to be independent. I feel sad admitting I won't be able to be with you anymore. But I know I'll be a more complete person as a result. You will be angry. You will resent me. You have that right. I cannot stop that.<br /><br />Alcohol, we have been through a lot together. Our romance was a whirlwind romance. When we first met in high school, you validated me in ways that no one had before. With you in those early days, I felt a sense of belonging--a belonging I had never felt.<br /><br />In your murky depths, I saw a reflection of myself. You allowed me to be whomever I wanted to be. You listened. For a while, our relationship worked well for me.<br /><br />But you changed. I changed.<br /><br />By the end, we were all wrong for each other.<br /><br />I just felt betrayed by you one too many times. The false hopes. The empty promises. I slowly came to realize that your smiles were placating and sycophantic. You turned into my enabler. Perhaps I was the real betrayer. I acknowledge this. I betrayed myself by allowing you into my life. You never forced yourself upon me. It was I who sought you out.<br /><br />I don’t blame you for anything. I have no resentment. I only want to move on.<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /><br />You may ask, "What about all those late nights? All the times we made love?"<br /><br />My answer is that, in the end, I was just going through the motions. I faked it. I lost pleasure in our encounters a long time ago. Yes, I can admit that now. I don't feel good about it.<br /><br />But I do remember the good times. I'll miss the laughter, the mirth. I'll miss our circle of friends- scotch, bourbon, <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/12/beer-becomes-me.html">beer</a>.<br /><br />And who could ever forget <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/12/drink-wine-make-friends-destroy.html">wine</a>? Yes, wine with her purple eyes, her long, sleek neck.<br /><br />But there is someone new in my life. Her name is Coffee. She is hot, lovely. She's also black. Does this surprise you? Coffee picks me up in ways that you never could. By the end of our time together, you could only bring me down.<br /><br />Coffee and I are beginning to create more of a life together than I could ever hope to have with you.<br /><br />I hope you can one day understand and come to terms with what I have done. I can only thank you for our time together, and for everything you have taught me about myself.<br /><br />We'll always have college.<br /><br />Please, don’t try to find me.<br /><br />yours,<br /><br />Steve<br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01789326770112163847noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-35409936144730519672008-12-04T06:19:00.000-08:002011-04-06T04:38:33.309-07:00A Perfect Pot of RiceMy house white is basmati. Early morning I measure a cup or more and wash it in a pot. Washing rice is a custom in India: Basmati is traditionally rinsed seven or more times, until the water runs clear. The stated purpose of washing is to rid the rice of excess surface starch, ensuring a lighter cooked grain. I'm all for a lighter grain, but I wash for kicks too.<br /><br />Here's what I do: I put the rice in the pot. I pour water into the pot and swish the rice around with my fingers. I love this part: Wet rice in my fingers. Think of Audrey Tatou as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211915/">Amelie</a>, thrusting her hands into a bag of dried lentils. The camera cuts to her face and there she is, full of verve, alive.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:0pt;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106865943515566002" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_V2Pkw-qoOl0/Rt87hK7JD7I/AAAAAAAAACA/aoS5xfcfjJs/s320/Amelie-trailer_06.jpg" border="0" /></span> After washing, I let the rice soak in water for hours. In his classic book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Whole-Foods-Traditions-Nutrition/dp/1556432208">Healing with Whole Foods</a></em> Paul Pitchford suggests that soaking grains like rice "germinates the dormant energy." I love the thought of this: I go to work and my rice stays at home, leaping forth into a new kind of ricehood. If I had to define the word <a href="http://www.foodvibe.blogspot.com/">FoodVibe</a> this would be it: rice, soaking.<br /><br />When I get home, I discard the soaking water and assemble the dish.<br /><br />I throw in the water, a little olive oil, ¼ teaspoon turmeric, two garlic cloves, two slices ginger, a few pinches saffron, and a few dashes <em>fleur de sel</em>.<br /><br />When the rice simmers the kitchen smells like our old place in Barcelona. I envision my wife in a red blouse, tied at the neck, feasting on paella<em></em>. So I call her into the kitchen, she comes skipping, and I say: I'm making rice! Rice? she says. And then we make love on the kitchen floor, the smell of the cooking rice inspiring romance, possibility, and dinner. <strong></strong><strong></strong><strong><br /><br />Perfect Pot of Rice<br /><br /></strong>1 cup white basmati rice<br />Sensuality<br />1 3/4 cup water<br />1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil<br />1/4 teaspoon turmeric<br />two whole garlic cloves<br />two slices fresh ginger<br />Saffron<br />Sea salt<br /><br />In a medium saucepan, wash the rice in seven or more changes of cool water until the water runs clear. Do so with a sensual fervor that reminds one of the movie <em>Amelie</em>. Cover the rice with cool water and set aside to soak for 30 minutes, or up to 18 hours. (This is called FoodVibing the rice.)<br /><br />Drain the rice. Throw the water, olive oil, turmeric, garlic cloves, slices ginger, a few pinches saffron, and 1/4 teaspoon sea salt into the pot. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until the water is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Remove the rice from the heat. Remove the lid and put a few paper towels over the pot; cover again and let stand for 5-10 minutes. This last step is utterly essential; resting is crucial.<br /><br />Fluff with a fork, remove aromatics, and serve.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-26042357458574787702008-11-19T06:32:00.000-08:002008-12-06T14:08:13.667-08:00The Real Cost of Food<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">FoodVibe</span> readers might have read Michael <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Pollan's</span> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=michael+pollan&st=nyt">recent article</a> on food policy in <span style="font-style: italic;">The </span><span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times</span> magazine. The article was written as a letter to the next “Farmer in Chief,” then unknown. However, in a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">pre</span>-election <a href="http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/10/23/the_full_obama_interview/">interview</a> with <span style="font-style: italic;">Time Magazine</span> <a href="http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/10/23/the_full_obama_interview/"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></a>Barack Obama cited <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Pollan</span>’s article:<br /><br />"I was just reading an article by Michael <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Pollan</span>,” he said, “about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it’s creating <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">monocultures</span> that are vulnerable to national security threats...sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and that are partly responsible for the explosion in our <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">healthcare</span> costs..."<br /><br />Obama merely cites the problems <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Pollan</span> exposes. But <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Pollan's</span> article also offers an "elegant solution," which involves the following initiatives:<br /><br />1. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Resolarizing</span> the American: returning to the sane roots of agriculture: diversified, sustainable crops, nourished by the energy of the sun.<br /><br />2. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Regionalizing</span> the Food System: emphasizing local foods.<br /><br />3. Rebuilding America’s Food Culture: early food education; leading by example.<br /><div><br />It’s heartening to know that Obama is aware of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Pollan</span>’s ideas. Perhaps an Obama administration will attempt to implement its own elegant solution. But <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Pollan</span>’s article speaks to me not only as a government solution, but a call to action—a call to support sustainable, local food with <span style="font-style: italic;">my</span> wallet.<br /><br />Of course, many <a href="http://www.ninaplanck.com/index.php">people</a> and <a href="http://www.slowfood.com/">organizations</a> have been sounding this call for years. But now, in the face of the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression, the call to support sustainable, local food is more important than ever.<br /><br />Why?<br /><br />Because sustainable, local food is more expensive than conventional farmed food.<br /><br />It’s more expensive because it’s rare. It’s more expensive because the farming techniques are laborious and time intensive. It’s more expensive because many <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/19/637">small-scale organic farmers do not receive federal subsidies</a>.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Pollan</span> cites a provocative justification for the added expense:<br /><br />“It will be argued that moving animals off feedlots and back onto farms will raise the price of meat,” <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Pollan</span> writes. “It probably will — as it should. Paying the real cost of meat, and therefore eating less of it, is a good thing for our health, for the environment, for our dwindling reserves of fresh water and for the welfare of the animals.”<br /><br />To me, the phrase that sticks out here is “the real cost of meat.”<br /><br />To my taste a <a href="http://frugal.families.com/blog/recession-food-whole-turkey">$.99/lb turkey</a><span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span> simply sounds suspicious. At Whole Foods Market, this season’s turkeys—free-range and free of antibiotics and hormones—cost $2.49/lb. The difference is significant, especially in these lean times. But what, really, are you getting when you buy a $.99/lb turkey?<br /><br />Likely, it has been frozen and preserved from the prior year. Likely, its been farmed conventionally, meaning it DOES contain antibiotics and hormones. Likely, it has lived in <a href="http://www.mcspotlight.org/people/interviews/druce.html">filthy conditions</a>, unsuited for any being, let alone one that we might eat--and <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0312-27.htm">where there’s filth there’s disease</a><br /><br />Good food costs extra money, yes. But it is food, after all.<br /><br />This is how the Free On-Line Dictionary defines <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/food">food</a>:<br /><br />1. Material, usually of plant or animal origin, that contains or consists of essential body nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals, and is ingested and assimilated by an organism to produce energy, stimulate growth, and maintain life.<br /><br />According to this definition, a McDonald’s Cheeseburger is not entirely food. Yes, it consists of essential nutrients that <span style="font-style: italic;">might</span> keep one alive. But what does this livelihood look like?<br /><br />Does a McDonald’s cheeseburger produce energy?<br /><br />Why don’t we ask <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Spurlock">Morgan <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Spurlock</span></a>, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">documentarian</span> who made <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Super Size Me</span></a>, in which he demonstrated the health effects of McDonald's food by eating nothing but <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">McDonald's</span> three times a day, every day, for 30 days? Some of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Spurlock's</span> claims about McDonald's the company have been <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,165794,00.html">challenged</a>, but no one has challenged the depiction of how McDonald's food actually destroyed <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Spurlock's</span> body: he gained 25 pounds, suffered liver dysfunction and depression and extreme, crippling fatigue.<br /><br />Does a McDonald’s cheeseburger stimulate growth? Maybe so, but not the type of growth we expect from food. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Pollan</span> noted in a recent <a href="http://www.math.uic.edu/%7Etakata/some_articles/FreshAir_Michael_Pollon_on_beef_industry,_hormones,_antibiotics.html">interview</a> with Terri Gross that the hormones fed to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">McDonald's</span> cattle before slaughter might have devastating effects on young children and unborn children:<br /><br />"...even microscopic amounts at a certain moment in the developmental process," he says, "whether in the fetus or the child, can have a dramatic effect."<br /><br />Does a McDonald’s cheeseburger maintain life?<br /><br />In a very, very limited sense. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Spurlock's</span> physician, after all, compared <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Spurlock's</span> diet to a severe alcoholic binge.<br /><br />Does anyone eat McDonald's every day. Of course not. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Spurlock's</span> example is exaggerated. But <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/09/microwave-popcorn-foodcrack.html"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">FoodCrack</span></a>, which is not entirely food, exists everywhere. The majority of American families, for example, eat inexpensive, conventionally raised meat. With this meat, they might also be consuming their fair share of antibiotics, hormones, and filth.<br /><br />Is this food? And is this food really cheap?<br /><br />Pollan writes:<br /><br />"...cheap food is only cheap because of government handouts and regulatory indulgence...not to mention the exploitation of workers, animals and the environment on which its putative “economies” depend. Cheap food is food dishonestly priced — it is in fact unconscionably expensive."<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">***<br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div>In the wake of 9-11, George W. Bush implored Americans to go out and buy things. His implication was that spending was our patriotic duty. Regardless of your political beliefs, I think it’s true: what we buy identities a part of our character.<br /><br />Our spending decisions matter. When we buy a locally grown apple from a small farm, for example, we are announcing not only the type of produce we prefer—fresh picked, ripe, seasonal—but the type of agriculture we support: small scale, local, with minimal impact to the environment, and maximum impact to our good health.<br /><br />I buy free-range chicken, for example, because I support the idea of chickens roaming freely. I eat free-range chicken, on the bone, on the other hand, because my lust for deliciousness calls for the best meat, and because, as an anemic and a diabetic, I need a viable, healthful source of iron and protein, without the health-threatening additives--<span style="font-style: italic;">I </span>need <span style="font-style: italic;">real food</span>.<br /><br />This is not an issue of <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2008/11/low-brow-epicurean-primer.html">elitism</a>, as some might argue. As <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Pollan</span> notes:<br /><br />"It should not be difficult to deflect the charge of elitism sometimes leveled at the sustainable-food movement. Reforming the food system is not inherently a right-or-left issue: for every Whole Foods shopper with roots in the counterculture you can find a family of evangelicals intent on taking control of its family dinner and diet back from the fast-food industry."<br /><br />To me, food choices are political choices: when you buy food, whether it be from Whole Foods or McDonald’s, you make a political statement about the type of agriculture you support, the type of world you want to live in.<br /><br />Perhaps this is an unreasonable assumption. Many families, for example, can only afford to buy foods that support out-dated, oil-based agriculture—who’s to say these families do not support something like <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Pollan</span>’s notion of sustainability?<br /><br />I’m certain many low-income households would love to eat better, to eat more healthfully and sanely, to support local and/or organic farming. There are <a href="http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/FMNP/FMNPfaqs.htm">federal programs</a>, too, that support this type of lifestyle. Also, there are, certainly, inexpensive venues for local sustainable foods. As Nina Planck <a href="http://www.ninaplanck.com/index.php?article=poor_real_food">writes</a>:<br /><br />"Self-appointed populists point out that the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">mesclun</span> at the Union Square <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Greenmarket</span> in New York City is $32 a pound. Yes, some farmers sell it for that. I don't buy it myself, but that's not the only kind of lettuce available."<br /><br />Just down the street from where I live, a neighbor imports fresh produce from Lancaster. Recently, I bought about 60 local pears for $2.<br /><br />To me, it's about effort: taking the time to find good places to buy real food. Whole Foods Market is not the answer--it's merely part of the answer, just as the local farm is part the answer, and the guy down the street.<br /><br />It might be cynical to say, but it's true: a great deal of our ability to influence the world is predicated on how we spend our money. In America, we speak loudly with our wallet. Now that our wallets seem to be shrinking we might focus even more acutely on our expenses. We might <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> have extra money to waste on food that is not entirely food. We might need to buy the most energy-promoting, growth-stimulating, and life-maintaining food the market has to offer. In that case, <span style="font-style: italic;">real food</span> is the only answer.<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-83598088553077103292008-11-09T17:16:00.000-08:002008-12-04T15:59:28.558-08:00The Low Brow Epicurean: A Primer<div><div><div>I’m no<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foodie">foodie</a>.<br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="color:black;">To me, the term evokes elitism, snobbery, and condescension. Upon hearing the word "foodie," I think of a fastidious cook, pacing the kitchen, obsessing over minced shallots. He sits with his coworkers during lunch, describing the porcini dust he sprinkled on last night's grass-fed steak. He eschews my beet salad because the beets are not locally grown. He makes me feel like a culinary barbarian.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">Though I celebrate food, I feel the perpetual outsider. Perusing the pages of a cooking magazine, I'm lost among the kalamata olives and goat cheese. My eyes glaze over the glossy apples and perfect looking plum torts. I like to eat and cook, but haven't fashioned it into an all consuming life's philosophy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">I've always thought, "Isn't there a place somewhere in the food universe for people like me?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">Now I know there is. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">I'm the anti-foodie, the low-brow <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/epicurean">epicurean</a>. Allow me to explain.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">Low brow epicureans enjoy gourmet delicacies, but are really at home with the culinary mundane. In fact, sometimes they prefer to mix the two. This seems to be the true essence of who we are—a mutant strain, a hybrid.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">Whether it be <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Bordeaux</st1:place></st1:city> or brown bag, it’s all good because the low brow epicurean is culinary contradiction personified. He is a hot pastrami sandwich with extra Russian dressing on an open-face bun of toasted spelt; Jack Daniels sipped from a crystal snifter; <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Kobe</st1:place></st1:city> steak served with fresh greens over a bed of Uncle Ben’s.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">Sensing this about myself, I rebelled against the foodie establishment for most of my adult life. I ate anything I wanted, any time. I scorned exercise. I reveled in <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/10/foodcrack-confessions.html">foodcrack.</a> I drank cheap beer. I smoked menthol. I saw my weight balloon upwards in excess of two hundred and twenty pounds. At 5'6, I was a walking heart attack.</span></p></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SReNqJbMySI/AAAAAAAAAFo/QhOTRETPj2k/s1600-h/low+brow+britta.jpg"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SReNqJbMySI/AAAAAAAAAFo/QhOTRETPj2k/s400/low+brow+britta.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266834044457109794" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">While the foodie prefers filtered Britta water, the low brow epicurean </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">prefers </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">to drink it </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">sans</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> cup. Notice the extended pinky finger.</span></span></div><p class="MsoNormal">Recently, though, I've made strides towards regaining balance. In doing so, I’ve ironically picked up some foodie tendencies along the way. I've lost 60 pounds, mostly through changing my diet and exercising. I buy local produce, organic meat. I rarely eat anything with more than two or three ingredients in it. I<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2008/06/juice.html">juice</a>.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="color:black;">I’m also now more health conscious than I ever was before. I quit smoking. Gave up alcohol. I enjoy yoga. Ran a half-marathon.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>I've almost regained my former NCAA Division 1 figure.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>I can even see my abs again, poking through. They're forlorn, angry at me. Emerging from their long exile, they blink and rub their eyes. They say, "Dude! What the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>hell</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>was that all about?"<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">I still consider myself well outside the mainstream when it comes to food consciousness and health. I’ll always identify with the low brow because I’ll never forget what it was like during those dark days. I’ll never forget what<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>I<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>was like—indiscriminate, yet persnickety in my tastes. I recall feasting on omelets made of half a dozen free range eggs, lunches of entire blocks of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>parmesan reggiano</i>. I remember waking in the middle of the night and staggering into the kitchen where I would stick my finger three knuckles deep into the cashew butter, pulling up a tasty, gooey glob. I was always the voluptuary in my excess, the slob with the golden spoon. No meat without ketchup. No necktie without a stain.</span></p><div><br /></div></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SReOtKZGySI/AAAAAAAAAFw/plRPMLYl90I/s1600-h/low+brow+PB+left+hand.jpg"><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SReOtKZGySI/AAAAAAAAAFw/plRPMLYl90I/s400/low+brow+PB+left+hand.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266835195767998754" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Have you ever done this? You may be more low brow than you think.</span></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="color:black;">***</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">When I walk into stores like<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Whole Foods<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.deandeluca.com/">Dean and Deluca</a>, I feel like an amateur. I'll never know how to use the smoked salts properly. And I'm sure I'd torch that grass-fed steak.<br /><br />I look at the neatly ordered rows of olives and spices, the rainbow panache of fruits displayed like a color wheel. I have sudden pangs of self doubt. I begin to sweat. I think to myself, "I can't cook. I don't even know how to eat."<br /><br />I watch a foodie inspect the Swiss chard. He speaks in soft, knowing tones with the produce boys. They look in my direction, pointing. Noticing the ketchup stain on my tie, they laugh, "Go back to ShopRite! I hear they're having a sale on Wonder Bread!"</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">I retreat to the frozen food aisle, where I get dark and cynical. In the checkout aisle I fantasize how I would exact my revenge on the entire establishment:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">"Do you have a coupon for this?" asks the young man at checkout. His haircut is shaggy, trendy. His expressionless face, slack. "It's on sale this week."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">I look around, behind me. He's the only one on duty. The time is now. I lean in, moving my face inches from his.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">"What did you call me," looking at his name tag, "Frank?"</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">He perks, backs up a bit, "Um, nothing, I just..."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">"Did you say what I think you just said?"</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">"Look man, alls I asked was..."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">With military precision, I'm behind the register smothering his nose and mouth with a chloroform soaked rag. I guide his limp body downward as it slumps to the floor. I look around. No one has noticed. Stage one, clear.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">Switching the aisle light to "closed", I grab the microphone to the store p.a. system. It gives a short, piercing, shrill of feedback. I hunker down, below the checkout lane, out of view. Squatting on my haunches, I straddle Frank's body. Stage two, clear.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">Over the store p.a. system comes, "Attention Whole Food's shoppers. Today is our 'Slaughter Your Own Livestock' promotion. Hector in Meat will be assisting people with dogs, cats, horses and goats. It can get a bit messy back there, so please bring your own rubber boots and smocks. We'll provide the buckets and blades."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">"Also, starting tomorrow our produce aisle will no longer exist. Instead we'll be offering the finest selection of cigarettes, 40 oz. malt liquor, and scratch off lottery tickets. Pick a winner."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">"Please remember to try our deep fried, nacho-cheese flavored fried pork rinds. They're on sale this week from the Amish country, fresh from the farm and straight to you.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">"Finally, if anyone needs Frank, he'll be at the ShopRite across town. He says they're having a great sale on Wonder Bread."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">Switching off the p.a. I peek my head up. The store is a comedy of errors.<span> Employees sprint across the floor. They smash into one another and fall down in a blind attempt to ascertain the situation. Foodies wander around the aisles confused, not knowing what to do. A stray shopping cart careens into a seasonal display of stacked winter gourds. They scatter everywhere</span><span>.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">Knowing the final moment has arrived, I check Frank. He sleeps like a baby. I leave the money for my items in the breast pocket of his green apron and slip out the front of the store to find my car. The door to my Hyundai station wagon is strategically left unlocked, keys waiting in the ignition. I peel out with screeching tires. Stage three, clear.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">I pump my fist in the air. With David Lee Roth singing "<st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Panama</st1:place></st1:country-region>" over the car stereo, I laugh all the way home.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="color:black;">***</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">Even though I've changed my ways, a small part of that culinary barbarian remains. Something deep inside me still has no time for one who can't make at least a <i>respectable</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>attempt to drink a six-pack of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Pabst Blue Ribbon</i>. I still have a somewhat jaded impression of those who can't deign themselves to ever eat fried foods—at least once in a while.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">But I'm cool with foodies now. I think. My wife even says I've become one. She may be right. I have to try hard to keep it real, to always remember where I came from.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">Tomorrow I'll have egg whites for breakfast. The Weight Watchers guidebook tells me that three egg whites equal only one<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.peertrainer.com/articles/weight_watchers_points.htm">point</a>. By my old standards, that means I can eat a dozen, maybe two dozen, and still be well under my point quota for the day.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">But what if I cook them with half a block of skim<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>parmesan reggiano?<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>I'd then have to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>add a few slices of high-fiber, one hundred percent whole-wheat bread. Freshly crushed black pepper corns. Salt. Ketchup. <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Tabasco</st1:place></st1:state>. A good, strong cup of <i>Café Bustelo</i> with vanilla almond milk and honey would then just throw it all together nicely.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;">Oh, the possibilities.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color:black;">***</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color:black;">Steve's Curry Rosemary Roasted Pumpkin Seeds</span></b></p></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SRePcK6wLSI/AAAAAAAAAF4/j0b88wlAj14/s1600-h/seeds.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SRePcK6wLSI/AAAAAAAAAF4/j0b88wlAj14/s400/seeds.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266836003362975010" border="0" /></a><br /><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">This is the perfect snack for dieters fighting those crispy-textured junk food cravings that can strike at any minute. Feeling the foodcrack binge come on, this recipe has saved me many times. </span><br /><br />2 cups pumpkin seeds taken from a fresh, large pumpkin<br />2 tablespoons olive oil<br />2 teaspoons dried rosemary<br />2 tablespoons mild yellow curry powder<br />2 teaspoons coarse unrefined sea salt<p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Preheat oven to 375 degrees.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Wash and strain seeds in a colander until they are clean and free of all excess pumpkin strands.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl. Spread seeds evenly across a broad pan or cookie sheet.<br />Cook for 15 minutes, or until a deep, golden brown. Shake the pan every five minutes to make sure they roast evenly.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Serve hot, or let cool to save as a future snack. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01789326770112163847noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-29914359754544615192008-10-15T00:14:00.000-07:002008-11-09T10:13:56.673-08:00Confessions of an Ex-Vegetarian<div>Warning: <span style="font-style: italic;">This blog contains text and images which may not be suitable for vegetarians, or most Americans</span>.<br /><br />I was a vegetarian for seven years. As a teenager I shunned meat and its insustainablity in reaction to what I considered to be my parents’ bourgeois lifestyle. Like most reactionaries, I took great pride in my heightened consciousness. I took advantage of each opportunity, no matter how small, to point out the perceived social and ecological benefits of my lifestyle choice. I mocked how others lived. When invited to someone’s house for a meal, I refused their unenlightened hospitality with the most enlightened of utterances: <em>I’m a vegetarian</em>.<br /><br />I was an asshole.<br /><br />All that changed about ten years ago. My first spring in Argentina, I was invited by Irving, the Peruvian office cleaner I had befriended at work, to spend mother’s day with him and his family. One November Sunday, I took the train heading to the airport and stepped off an hour later in the middle of nowhere. I was greeted by Irving's family and two bicycles, a small one and a slightly less small one. The family of five balanced on the smaller bike with acrobat agility. I teetered alone on the less small one. Local custom dictates that guests have the priveledge of riding unencumbered. They gave me a tour of the town. Finally, they led me to the outskirts where their shantytown began its great expanse to the horizon. We rode down the unpaved streets past the only kiosk, which sold milk and beer, to Irving’s small house, which he had built with the discarded satellite dish crate (he worked in the offices of a telecommunications company). As in most houses in this neighborhood, and the thousands that pepper Gran Buenos Aires, there was no running water. A neighbor had rigged electricity by pinching a cable that led to the town. Lights burned until the electric company disconnected them. But it wouldn’t take long to find another cable to pinch.<br /><br />I was offered a cola and beer. I accepted with great curiousity. Lunch, I was told, would be ready in about an hour. Irving was preparing chicken, as they often do in his part of Peru. A hole is dug in the ground and lined with hot coals. Potatoes and a whole chicken are added and the hole is covered. An hour or so later, the whole lot is unearthed and served.<br /><br /><em>Chicken?</em> I choked. <em>Chicken. </em>I could say I was a vegetarian and teach these people a thing or two about social conscientiousness. I could refuse the chicken and just eat the potatoes. (But hadn’t the potatoes been cooked with the chicken?) I could stick with my Coke and beer mixture and say I wasn’t hungry. Analyzing the options, I watched Irving gingerly pull lunch out of his front garden. It became increasingly clear: There was only one option.<br /><br />The chicken was delicious.<br /><br />And so, little by little, I reintroduced meat into my diet. The first years I limited myself to accepting meat when invited to dine at others’ homes. In my own kitchen, I kept a strict ban on meat which was only lifted at Thanksgiving.<br /><br />When we came to Barcelona the ban was lifted for fish. Over the last year and a half I have lifted the ban again and again as I experimented with locally raised chicken and beef in the kitchen.<br /><br />Spain is surely one of the worst countries in which to be a vegetarian. And if you’re vegan, you may as well not even come here. They do not consider ham to be meat, so it's impossible to know if the waiter’s interpretation of <em>no tiene carne </em>and your interpretation of <em>no tiene carne </em>are the same. Also, the Spanish have a very strange fetish for animal carcasses.<br /><br />Most American tourists think the local markets are lovely until they reach the butcher’s section.<br /><br />The butchers’ stalls often look like an animal side show from the exhibition Bodies. Small, firm rabbit carcasses laid out over cuts of meat, their floppy ears and cute little noses skinned and shiny pink. A suckling pig, creamy white and dull eyed looking over the counter, right at you. Many butchers sell cuts of suckling pig, with the head resting on top for decoration.<br /><br />In most bars and local restaurant, a ham fetish is on full display. Pig legs – from the thigh to the hoof – often line the walls as the establishment’s only decor or, at the very least, sit upon the bar. Borges once commented that there was something almost sensuous about the way Spaniards treated their ham, comparing it to the pin-ups one might find in a mechanics' garage.<br /><br />Most tourists find it appalling.<br /><br /><br /><p align="center"><a href="http://s169.photobucket.com/albums/u223/suzanneteesdale/?action=view&current=100_7559-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u223/suzanneteesdale/100_7559-1.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><br />Even the fish here is often mildly offensive to most American visitors. The most common way to serve fish is whole. There was the case of the British-American professor who had to change places with someone at dinner because the person next to him had ordered a whole fish. <em>It keeps looking at me.</em><br /><div align="left"><br />The fishmonger will ask how you want it cleaned. Head and guts or just the guts. Just the guts, please.<br /><br /><em>Fish heads, fish heads.</em><br /><br />The other day I served up my first attempt at whole sardines, minus the guts, grilled, on a bed of sautéed fennel and red onion sprinkled with lemon juice and fresh dill.<br /><br /><em>Rolly, polly fish heads.</em><br /><br />By the end of the meal, both Andrés and I had each found a fish eye rolling around on our plate. Of the twelve eyes between us, only eleven could be accounted for. <em>Eat them up, yum!</em><br /><br />I have a come a long way since my days as a vegetarian. When I first started cooking with fish and chicken, I did so filled with disgust. I got used to fish quickly enough. But the raw chicken smelled. And it felt funny. I could only handle touching skinless breasts. I wouldn’t go near anything else.<br /><br />I took a big step last Sunday, when I decided to prepare a whole roast chicken for the inauguration of our new oven. I went to the market on Saturday to purchase the chicken and when I opened the package on Sunday I was reminded of yet another curious thing about meat in Spain.<br /><br />They sell you the whole chicken. Dead and plucked, but with everything else intact. Luckily, they had cut the claws off this one. But the head, the rump and internal organs were all in place. </div><br /><p align="center"><a href="http://s169.photobucket.com/albums/u223/suzanneteesdale/?action=view&current=100_9000-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u223/suzanneteesdale/100_9000-1.jpg" border="0" /></a></p>I had no idea what to do with it. So I did what any of my 21st century American counterparts would do. I googled.<br /><br />You can imagine how helpful American websites were. America, the land that has managed to sterilize even meat so that it is inoffensive to American sensibilities. There is no skin, certainly no feathers, no fat, or bone, or blood in those cuts of beef, chicken or pork so carefully placed in their plastic packaging. Meat in American bears no trace of the living animal it once was. If it did, people probably wouldn't eat it.<br /><br /><em>Cleaning a chicken can seem quite scary or put a knot of disgust into someone’s stomach if they have never cleaned store bought chicken before...Once you’re ready to begin cleaning your chicken be sure your sink is empty, then place the package of chicken in your sink. Start by cutting open the package of meat with either a knife or a pair of scissors. Reach your hand inside the cavity of the bird, pull out the bag containing the giblets and set aside.</em><br /><br />That was no help. Though it did prove amusing to read the comments:<br /><br /><em>"If you put the chicken in the sink you will make your family sick."<br /><br />"I rinse mine off with hose in the backyard. It’s tough in winter but I’d rather be cold than make my family sick.</em>"<br /><br />Right.<br /><br />Another link led me to a headline report in the <em>Sun</em>: <em>I was about to tuck into my dinner and found a whole chicken head in there! I demanded compensation of course!</em> The offending chicken head was apparently found in a package of frozen ribs and chicken wings.<br /><br />Most websites that came up were warnings to anyone who might happen to stumble unawares into a Chinese butcher's. <em>Make sure you have them remove the head and claws before wrapping it up.</em><br /><br />But once I tucked into the job of chopping off the head and carefully cutting around its buttocks without cutting into it, I worked on pure instinct and assumption. This must be the esophagus. I yanked at it. That yellowish green sack must be bile or something. I have no idea what the yellow liquid that oozed out when I severed the neck was. I don’t know if I want to know.<br />I chopped and hacked and got inside that bird to clean it out. I marveled at how the organs were all connected. I identified the heart, lungs and liver. I looked for the gizzard. I couldn’t find it. I wondered how similar this chicken’s organ placement was to my own. I got my hands gooey, full of chicken body fluids, blood and fat.<br /><br />It was glorious. I had officially become a carnivore.<br /><br />And the chicken was delicious.<br /><br /><strong>Grilled Sardines over Fennel and Red Onion</strong><br /><br />6 sardines<br />2 small red onions, halved and sliced thinly<br />1 fennel bulb, halved and sliced thinly<br />2 tablespoons, plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil<br />Lemon juice<br />Fresh dill<br />Salt and pepper<br /><br />Season the sardines with salt and pepper to taste. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a medium pan over medium heat. Add the fennel and red onions and sautée, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes. Turn the heat to low and cover and cook 10-12 minutes, until fennel and onions become caramelized.<br /><br />Empty fennel and red onion mixture into a small bowl. Heat remaining olive oil in the pan over medium-high heat. When just smoking, add sardines. Cook about three minutes on each side, until crisp.<br /><br />Serve the sardines on a bed of the caramelized fennel and onion.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Garlic Mashed Potatoes</strong><br /><br />Followed <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2008/08/potato-light-of-my-life-fire-of-my.html">Seth’s mashed potato recipe</a> with the following additions.<br /><br />Add a bay leaf three peeled cloves of garlic to the potatoes as they boil.<br /><br />When they’ve finished, drain the water and remove the bay leaf, but leave the garlic and mash it together with the potatoes.<br /><br /><p><strong>Roast Chicken with Potatoes, Carrots and Onion</strong></p><em>Seth has already posted the <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/10/god-is-big-happy-chicken.html">definitive recipe for roast chicken</a>. This is merely what I added:</em><br /><em></em><br />1 whole onion, quartered<br />1/2 fennel bulb<br />1 lemon, quartered<br />4 potatoes<br />2 carrots<br />1 onion<br />sage<br />extra virgin olive oil<br />salt and pepper<br /><br />Preheat the oven. Fill the cavity of the bird with the onion, fennel and lemon.<br /><br />In a bowl toss together the potatoes, carrots and onion with the olive oil and sage. Add salt and pepper to taste. Tuck the raw potato, carrot and onion mixture under the bird in the roasting pan. These will cook in the bird’s juices as it roasts.<br /></div>Suzannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022401996874102751noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-79446802971641157092008-08-30T20:00:00.000-07:002008-11-09T10:04:53.322-08:00Simply CookingLately, I've been thinking a lot about craft. Cooking the simple meal. Writing the sharp, deliberate sentence. Craft is the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">way</span> we work, a way of doing things. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 102, 102);"><br /></span><br />I taught <span style="font-style: italic;">The Old Man and The Sea</span> this summer. I used the book because Hemingway's ridiculously terse prose is a great way to introduce emerging writers to the idea of craft. The book urges conversation about the technical aspect of writing, the nuts and bolts. It's also a great way to get paid to talk about fishing. Double score.<br /><br />Say what you want about Hemingway's life but when he wrote, he was tight. His sentences are lean and effective. Like a meal of olive oil, salt and bread, wine. Deceptively simple.<br /><br />The novel's opening line has it all:<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">"He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish."</span><br /><br />Like this one, great opening lines can be read as microcosms of the entire story to come. The drama and struggle all unfolds in concentric circles rippling outward from it.<br /><br />In the line above, the reader gets the whole story in one shot, framed in one tiny window. Yet nothing is betrayed--the fight to come, the eventual loss, the lonely walk back up the beach, Santiago's dream of the lions in Africa. For those of us who are familiar with the book, I think these things are what lie hidden behind words like <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">alone</span>, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">skiff</span>, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Gulf Stream, </span>and <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">taking.</span><br /><br />There is a brilliance to <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Old Man's</span> opening line. Perhaps it is in the way Hem says it all, but still keeps things hidden. The essential mystery of the piece is still concealed. Like the faces of people in Rene Magritte's paintings, there is always an element of secrecy. That small kernel of truth buried at the core remains unknowable. His craft is in how he lays all of that down in so few words.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SLqmvyynWxI/AAAAAAAAAFA/SyYdZBIgNNs/s1600-h/magritte_the_lovers.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5240684456417123090" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; cursor: pointer; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SLqmvyynWxI/AAAAAAAAAFA/SyYdZBIgNNs/s320/magritte_the_lovers.jpg" border="0" /></a> <div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Like Hemingway, Magritte's work is full of concealed faces and objects. </span></span></div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SLqm_dcwJYI/AAAAAAAAAFI/iarJfNTmYYU/s1600-h/Magritte-son-of-man1964.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5240684725566186882" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; cursor: pointer; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lFab3w5uFYw/SLqm_dcwJYI/AAAAAAAAAFI/iarJfNTmYYU/s320/Magritte-son-of-man1964.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />But it all translates in the kitchen as well. Cooking and writing share so many natural commonalities. That's why we write this blog. That's maybe why many of you like to read it. You. Us. We know these things. It's our little inside joke. It's the reason why some of our favorite books are always cookbooks.<br /><br />To me, great cooking and great writing share a common minimalism, an economy of resources. I like both best when they are unadorned, laid bare to their essential elements. Efficient. Penetrative, to the heart. Crisp and clean, like a blade. High and tight, like <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=5406">Derek Jeter</a>'s haircut.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">But just like a great opening line of a novel, the first course of a meal can also be a microcosm. It might capture the essence of the entire meal to come. It might tantalize. If the art of seduction is the ability to both reveal and obscure at the same time, then let that be the first course.<br /><br />Take my typical Friday night meal: fresh bread, roast chicken, green vegetables, potatoes, garlic, olive oil, water, red wine. I think it may be the perfect meal. It is also the simplest.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Chicken soup is the necessary first course for this meal. It needs to be. Every ingredient in the soup is something that will be served again, but in a different form later on: meat, vegetables, potatoes, spice, water, salt, warmth. When stared deeply into from above, the best chicken soups auger the meal to come. This soup must be eaten carefully.<br /><br />For six years my wife has come up with hundreds of variations of these same simple ingredients every week to near perfection. The only variables are vegetables, maybe some fish here and there. Usually salmon. Maybe herring. But the main components of the meal are the same every time.<br /><br />She calls me at work. She says: What should I make for dinner?<br /><br />I go: It's cold outside. Can you make a chicken soup? Do we have time to make <span style="font-style: italic;">challah</span>? Should <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/09/for-love-of-garlic.html">I make garlic</a> when I get home?<br /><br />She says: What do you think?<br /><br />Then: Love you. Bye.<br /><br />I believe her. Hanging up, I sometimes pause, say a quick word of thanks. I have to remember to do that more. One word prayers are sometimes the most effective.<br /><br />Before she hangs up I hear the shrill, hysterical voices of children in the background.<br /><br />I think to myself: Please, just let there be soup.<br /><br />She never has time to make the meal. Yet every week about an hour after sundown, the meal doesn't so much come out of the kitchen as emerge. It wafts out. I smell it coming before it arrives. (This happens even in early December, when the sun sets at 4:15 pm.)<br /><br />If I ask her how she had the time to make such a meal, she is aloof and evasive.<br /><br />I demand to know. I again ask how she did it.<br /><br />She smiles and turns around, walks into the kitchen.<br /><br />She's all: I don't know. I just somehow did.<br /><br />Voice lilting as she speaks: I even had to hold the baby in one arm all day. He was crying. I cooked with the other. And did the bills.<br /><br />Some people are secretive about their craft.<br /><br />I stand amazed, but suspicious. She even went to the store for the wine? It simply <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">can't</span> be. I begin to snoop around the kitchen. I lift pot lids to sniff inside. I inspect things. From the corner of my eye I watch what she does with her hands.<br /><br />She says: Get out.<br /><br />Later on, the meal is a smashing success. She tells me not to <a href="http://foodvibe.blogspot.com/2007/10/to-my-wife-who-hates-it-when-i-drink.html">drink all of the wine</a>. Soon some reading, then bed.<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">Cooking with simplicity is less of an art and more of a mastery of the basic elements of what can satiate the body and soul. How to really <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">make</span> a meal. All great cooks have this. Some people just have an intuition of what ingredients will truly work in a dish or a meal. In the greatest ones, it's an innate alchemy. It's a knowledge of how to mix the best spices or how to invite the right guests. It's like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratatouille_%28film%29">Remy in </a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratatouille_%28film%29">Ratatouille.</a></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The best cooks know how to make a meal out of the simplest ingredients.</div></div><br />When shopping at the market, the bread we buy should have no more than four or five ingredients. Anything more is asinine. As for preservatives, most of us live in areas where we have twenty-four hour, seven-day a week access to fresh produce, meat, or fish. Therefore to buy anything containing preservatives is ludicrous, offensive. There is no need whatsoever. The same goes for food dyes. Absolutely preposterous.<br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I think all of this may come from a desire of mine to have everything boiled down to its basic elements. To simplify. To find the grand unifying theory. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Hashem Echad: </span>God is One</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I think I need that. I need to know that truth is always simple yet everywhere and unadorned. It's ubiquitous. It's as uncomplicated as a single line of prose.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In his poem <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The First Words, </span>Seamus Heaney writes:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">My only drink is meaning from the deep brain,<br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">What the birds and the grass and the stones drink.<br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Let everything flow<br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Up to the four elements,<br /></span></span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Up to water and Earth and fire and air.</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Isn't that so <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">tight?</span> But I love that- the final dissolution of all things into their basic elements. It makes so much sense to me. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's is as simple as the way a meal is reduced to bones on a plate and half-conversations lingering in the air. It's the way salt dissolves in warm water when stirred, giving itself over so utterly and completely. It's the way some things vanish into the air when they need to. Just like that.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">***<br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Chilled Peach Soup<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span>It's peach season now on the east coast. Baskets full of peaches line local farmer's market. Often, though, you buy a basket and some peaches are just <span style="font-style: italic;">too</span> ripe. A soup is a great way to use the overripened, bruised, but still ridiculously sweet peaches. Seth originally published this recipe <a href="http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/soup-stew/chilledpeach.html">here</a>.<br /><br />6 large ripe peaches<br />2 cups water<br />1 cup apple juice<br />1/4 cup honey<br />Zest and juice of 1 lime<br />Salt and pepper to taste<br />Mint sprigs<br /><br />Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Cut a small "X" through the bottom of each peach, then drop them into the water to blanch for 20 seconds. Using a slotted spoon, transfer peaches to a bowl of ice water. When peaches are cooled, drain well then peel them, starting from the "X" at the bottom of each peach. Discard skin and pits and transfer peaches to a blender.<br /><br />Add water, apple juice, honey, lime zest and juice, salt and pepper and blend until smooth. Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until well chilled, about 2 hours.<br /><br />Pour soup into bowls or cups, garnish with mint and serve. </div></div></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01789326770112163847noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36541745.post-16167211077623184192008-08-07T09:54:00.000-07:002012-12-21T06:33:07.553-08:00Potato, Light of my Life, Fire of my Loins<div style="text-align: center;">
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Potato, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my dinner. Po-ta-to: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Po. Ta. To.</div>
<br />
***</div>
<br />
Ladies and gentleman of the jury! I've endured a brutish affection for Potato for nearly four years. Before I succumbed to her alluring spell I rarely palpated her flesh or sunk my teeth into her ethereal hollows.<br />
<br />
Recently, though, my affection (affliction) has threatened to take over my life.<br />
<br />
In fall and winter, sometimes far into spring, I balance my Potato affection with a healthful Sweet Potato romp. Lately, though, my preferred Sweet, Jewel, has been conspicuously absent from the grocer's bin. Let me say, the other "Sweet" the Garnet, is a sham--impossible to cook, finicky, and dry. Jewel works: she cooks to a creamy texture. Garnet, for some reason, shams: she hardly ever achieves a suitable texture.<br />
<br />
Perhaps it's a storage problem. Sweets are typically "cured" after harvesting, then stored for months. In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/0684800012"><span style="font-style: italic;">On Food and Cooking</span></a>, Harold <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Magee</span></span></span></span> notes: "True to their subtropical heritage, sweet potatoes store best at 55-60 F. Chilling can contribute to 'hardcore' a condition in which the root center remains hard even when cooked."<br />
<br />
I hope you don't refrigerate your Sweet, or your Potato.<br />
<br />
<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Magee</span></span></span></span> also notes: "At colder temperatures their [potatoes] metabolism shifts in a complicated way that results in the breakdown of some starch to sugars."<br />
<br />
I hope, too, you don't buy Sweets or Potatoes from a grocer that refrigerates, lest he ruin the supple quality of your perfect little jewel.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Someone's</span></span></span> been ruining my Garnet. I've tested her from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Asheville</span></span></span>, North Carolina to Philadelphia: without a doubt, she refuses to cook perfectly.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
***</div>
<br />
Perfection is a courageous cook's goal, even if it's an unreasonable, unattainable goal. But unreasonable behavior might just be the touchstone of the best cooks; after all, the passion generated by the unreasonable pursuit of perfection usually inspires a fabulous meal.<br />
<br />
I'm talking about the pursuit of perfect ingredients; an extreme attentiveness to cooking; and an even more extreme attentiveness to the food itself: its finicky needs, its demands.<br />
<br />
I honestly feel in the bottom of my heart that this is a human being's most frankly honorable pursuit: the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">adamant</span> pursuit of cooking perfection. It's impossible, of course. But the trying, <span style="font-style: italic;">the very trying</span>, is what matters: you cook for others, after all, and your effort is your honor: the honor <span style="font-style: italic;">you feel</span> and the deep, humble honor <span style="font-style: italic;">you bestow </span>upon others.<br />
<br />
All you have to do is try, really hard.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
***</div>
<br />
The potato's needs are often underestimated by the home cook. The obvious example is the typical mashed potato: watery and lacking true potato flavor, this dish often tastes acutely of butter and salt; one mere taste is an indication of the cook's lack of effort.<br />
<br />
Perfect mashed potatoes require pain.<br />
<br />
First, the potatoes (Yukon Gold or Russets are best) are simmered (not boiled!) whole.<br />
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The potatoes are then peeled <span style="font-style: italic;">after</span> simmering, while still relatively hot, and mashed.<br />
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This is a simple, but lengthy and pain-staking method, sure to burn your fingers. And yet, the burn is a symbol of love--love for the potato; love for the family and friends you are cooking for. When you serve the perfect mashed potato your guests feel that love with each ethereal bit.<br />
<br />
The courageous cook will hurt themselves simply to offer love. The courageous cook's mashed potatoes say: I adore you. I want to please you. I am Humbert, you are Lolita!<br />
<br />
The lazy cook's mashed potatoes say: I hardly care about you. Please eat this butter and salt-laden dish so you might die quicker. I am Humbert, you are Charlotte, Lolita's pestering Mother.<br />
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The lovable geeks at <a href="http://www.cooksillustrated.com/">Cook's Illustrated</a> put it this way:<br />
<br />
"Peeling and cutting before simmering increases the surface area of the potatoes, through which they lose soluble substances such as starch, proteins, and flavor compounds, to the cooking water. The greater surface area also enables lots of water molecules to bind with the potatoes' starch molecules. Combine these two effects and you've got bland, thin, watery mashed potatoes."<br />
<br />
Perfect mashed potatoes should taste like potatoes, ethereal, earthy, merely accented by other flavors like butter and salt, not dominated by those flavors. This is the fey grace, the elusive shifty, soul-shattering, insidious charm that separates the perfect mashed potato from the boring ineptitude of the careless, fatty, salty mushed spud.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V2Pkw-qoOl0/SJwyajJW7UI/AAAAAAAAAKE/Tm5SayhaAh4/s1600-h/lolita-1962.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5232112298790153538" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V2Pkw-qoOl0/SJwyajJW7UI/AAAAAAAAAKE/Tm5SayhaAh4/s320/lolita-1962.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
Roasted potatoes offer a different texture, a new challenge. The perfect roast potato offers a crisp, crunchy outside and a moist, creamy flesh. Lazy potatoes merely tossed with oil and roasted in the oven rarely achieve this sort of perfection. Lazy potatoes are usually moist throughout, but offer no textual variation, and are often <span style="font-style: italic;">too</span> soft, sometimes mushy.<br />
<br />
Harold <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Magee</span></span></span> offers the simple solution:<br />
<br />
"If preheated to 130-140 degrees...[potatoes] develop a persistent firmness that survives prolonged final cooking. This can be valuable for...potatoes whose outer-regions are inevitably over-softened and may begin to disintegrate while the centers cook through."<br />
<br />
<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Magee</span></span></span> is talking specifically here of boiled potatoes for potato salad, but the same principle holds for roasted potatoes: <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">pre</span></span></span>-cooking, or par-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">boiling</span>, potatoes ensures a crispy exterior.<br />
<br />
The geeks at Cook's Illustrated agree:<br />
<br />
"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Parboiling</span>...produced a potato closer to our idea..."<br />
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Unfortunately, the geeks go on to say: "...but preparation required considerable attention owing to the additional step."<br />
<br />
This, from the same cookbook authors who urge you to brine your birds, who boast of having made 38 different versions of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">crème</span></span></span> caramel to find "the absolute best version."<br />
<br />
Bullshit!<br />
<br />
The perfect roast potato begins in a pot of cold water. You bring it to a slow simmer and you let it be for five minutes. The whole process takes less then ten minutes. You can clip your nails, read a bit, eat a snack, have a smoke--is this "considerable attention"? And oh, by the way, that extra pot: rinse it out; no big deal!<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
***</div>
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Can you spare ten minutes for perfection?<br />
<br />
If not, please consider this: After having eaten your half-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">assed</span></span></span> potatoes, when you're on the couch, watching TV, think about those ten minutes, think about all the ten minutes you might have wasted in your life, all the simple little moments you might have missed.<br />
<br />
I like how George Saunders describes it in his essay "<a href="http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_4401">Buddha Boy</a>":<br />
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"You know the feeling at the end of the day, when the anxiety of that-which-I-must-do falls away and, for maybe the first time that day, you see, with some clarity, the people you love and the ways you have, during that day, slightly ignored them, turned away from them to get back to what you were doing, blurted out some mildly hurtful thing, projected, instead of the deep love you really feel, a surge of defensiveness or self-protection or suspicion? That moment when you think, Oh God, what have I done with this day? And what am I doing with my life? And how must I change to avoid catastrophic end-of-life regrets?"<br />
<br />
I read this and think solely of my wife, the insane love I feel for her, and the incredible gap between my substantial feelings and my daily expression of those feelings.<br />
<br />
Why the gap?<br />
<br />
I get tired. I feel unwell. She annoys me. She shows up late. I show up late. It's hot. It's cold.<br />
<br />
There's always something.<br />
<br />
Lucky, for me, I cook, we cook.<br />
<br />
Dinner saves me, each night, from regret.<br />
<br />
I put my effort, my heart into each meal. With love, I try to close the gap. I simmer my potatoes; I peel them while they're hot. This is heroism, to me. The goal, the simple goal, is my wife's pleasure.<br />
<br />
I am thinking of steam and angels, the secret of persistent firmness, prophetic mashers, the refuge of cooking. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Potato.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
***<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Perfect Mashed Potatoes</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-style: italic;">This recipe is adapted from Cook's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Illustrated's</span></span></span> recipe, in </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-All-New-Recipes/dp/0936184744" style="font-style: italic;">The New Best Recipe</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. My recipe, I think, highlights the potato's flavor more than the Cook's Illustrated recipe; it's more healthful too, and ultimately more satisfying: it leaves one feeling light, not heavy, ready for a little post-dinner dalliance. I call for peeling the potatoes by hand, but a food mill or ricer works wonderfully well in this recipe, producing the most light, airy potatoes imaginable. Finally, make sure you add the oil BEFORE the coconut milk...I won't explain why. </span><br />
<br />
2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil<br />
1/2 cup coconut milk (full-fat is best)<br />
1 1/2 teaspoons salt<br />
Fresh ground black pepper<br />
<br />
Place the potatoes in a large saucepan with water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium and simmer until the potatoes are tender, 25-35 minutes. Drain. Reserve pot for mashing.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, warm the coconut milk in a medium saucepan over low heat. Season the coconut milk with sea salt, and black pepper to taste.<br />
<br />
While still warm, cut each potato in half, then peel the skin with fingers or a small paring knife. (Alternately, and much better, place the potatoes, skin-on, into a ricer or food mill.) Drop the peeled potatoes back into the pot you used for boiling.<br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Gently</span> mash the potatoes with a potato masher. Add olive oil. Add the warmed coconut milk, and gently season with additional salt and pepper, adjusting seasonings to taste.<br />
<br />
Serve.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Roasted Red Potatoes with Olive Oil & Fresh Herbs</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Fresh herbs and lemon zest brighten the potatoes, as they intensify the flavor of the olive oil.</span><br />
<br />
1 ½ lb small red new potatoes<br />
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided<br />
2 tablespoons fresh herbs—basil, thyme, and/or marjoram<br />
1 teaspoon lemon zest<br />
Sea Salt, fresh ground pepper<br />
<br />
Preheat oven to 425°F.<br />
<br />
Cover potatoes with salted cold water by 1 inch in a 6-quart pot, then simmer, uncovered, 5 minutes.<br />
<br />
Slice potatoes in half. Toss potatoes with 1 tablespoon olive oil and a few pinches salt in a bowl. Spread potatoes in 1 layer in a large roasting pan, skin side down, and roast in middle of oven, turning once, until golden, about 20-25 minutes.<br />
<br />
Toss with remaining tablespoon olive oil, herbs, sea salt, lemon zest, and fresh pepper to taste.<br />
<br />
Serve <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">immediately</span>. </div>
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