Intentional Eating

The Birth of a Foodie

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:41:00 -0400

Dear Readers,

Big changes are coming to my blog. The most important is the the blog is both changing name and locale. I will now edit and contribute to the (tentatively named) Local Flavor section at Wolverine CuiZine. Don’t be afraid to follow me over: the new blog will be just like the old one, but with more stuff! This summer of blogging has been delicious, and so, without further ado, here is my final retrospective as a soloist:

“The Birth of a Foodie”

Until recently, my typical trip to the grocery store always followed the same basic pattern: walk into Meijer, stroll down every aisle, place the most colorful or convincingly packaged items in my cart, proceed to checkout. Cooking was just as simple: if something fresh is in the fridge, eat it. If not, have a Lean Cuisine. Now there is nothing terribly wrong with taking this approach to food — I was still healthy and was usually well fed — but my habits changed drastically when this summer arrived, and so began my transformation from supermarket victim to farmer’s market junkie.

In April I (mostly) gave up eating meat. I had a dozen reasons, from animal rights to nutrition, from the horrors of factory farming to summertime boredom, but my near-vegetarianism had an unexpected consequence: I was suddenly aware of the food that lay in front of me. “What is in this?” That seemingly simple question upended my conception of food. I began tracing back the foods I ate to their sources. With the help of a few alarming books, I could soon see the path a particular item had taken from natural produce to processed product. How seductive that knowledge can be! I hated the thought of being manipulated by corporate propaganda, and so a small dose of awareness soon rearranged my whole diet. Suddenly food excited me and I wanted to spread my new taste for food, so in June I started a blog.

Blogging was not what I had anticipated. If you are unfamiliar, a blogger trolls the Internet until he or she finds something interesting. The blogger proceeds to post a link to that item to his or her blog, usually accompanied by an inane comment or rant. On rare and momentous occasions the blogger adds some valuable, original content to his or her blog, and these microscopic injections of valuable information keep the blogosphere revolving, however slowly or precipitously. Those were my initial impressions of blogging, but I soon realized that the concept is saved by its shear size. There are so many blogs that a great wealth of information is being created and delivered to audiences that are far more targeted than those of any newspaper. Like Wikipedia, blogs are making information simultaneously more global and more accessible.

Coming back to the issue of food, I have learned a great deal from a few short months of floating around the blogosphere like a culinary Ziggy Stardust. In fact, the topic of my blogging has affected far more than my diet.

Eating is an awesome hobby for more reasons than I could fit in a pastel cornucopia. First, every culture loves its own local cuisine. I challenge you to find a country, except perhaps our own, where the deeply rooted local dishes are not a source of pride. Educated cooks and eaters can make friends in any part of the world because they have that one universal thing in common. If we ever meet aliens and their diets are similar to ours, send the cooks in first. Along with sex, eating is the defining experience of animal life, and humans have gone a step further. With our development of cooking and a thoroughly omnivorous diet, eating has become as creative and entertaining as anything we do (again, right along with sex).

As a kid I was always a huge car buff. I could name every modern supercar and ten statistics to go with it, but I realized after receiving my first paycheck that my Porsche Carrera GT was a long way off. Most of us will not own more than a dozen cars in a lifetime. However, if you eat three meals a day and live for 78 years, you will have consumed 85,410 meals. Unless you plan to become a connoisseur of oxygen, cooking and eating constitute the most spacious hobby imaginable.

Now I’ve always disliked the work ‘foodie.’ It seems elitist, unattainable and somehow associated with French cuisine. After a summer of cooking and eating I have one piece of advice for newborn foodies and it is most eloquently rendered in the movie Ratatouille: don’t be Anton Ego, that closed-minded toad of a food critic. He is the type of eater that gives the term ‘foodie’ its negative connotation. Instead, try to be like Remy, the food-loving rat with an eager stomach and a daring palate. The key to being a likable foodie is to embrace all the food around you. Make a meal out of brown rice and black beans, and simply enjoy their natural flavors (of course a little salsa helps). So, with Joe the Plumber in mind, I propose that foodie be re-ordained as an everyman’s term, a label for anyone and everyone who likes to eat.

I’ve been busy lately, but I’m planning to make my...

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:10:09 -0400

I’ve been busy lately, but I’m planning to make my first guacamole soon! In the meantime, this might be the most tempting sandwich I have ever seen:

delishyourdish:

“Tempting Tempeh” Tempeh Ciabatta with Fig Balsamic Marinated Mushrooms and Goat Cheese Pesto

This week I entered a sandwich into the Mezzetta sandwich contest. This slammin’ sandwich was probably one of the best things I’ve made between two slices of bread. If you’re a sandwich lover like me, this is one recipe you don’t want to miss. Also, be sure to check out Mezzetta products!

What You Need:

2 Small Ciabatta Loafs (each loaf is a single serving)

2 Portabella Mushrooms

2/3 Cup Crumbled Goat Cheese

1/2 Tsp MEZZETTA Crushed Garlic

1 Tbsp Lemon Juice

1 Tbsp MEZZETTA Extra Virgin Olive Oil, plus extra for greasing pan

6 oz Sliced Tempeh

1/4 Cup MEZZETTA Deli Sliced Roasted Sweet Bell Pepper Strips

1 1/2 Tbsp Chopped Fresh Basil

1/4 Cup Fig Balsamic Vinegar (if not available, regular Balsamic Vinegar)

1/2 Cup Fresh Spinach

1. Wash the portabella mushrooms and pat dry. Slice the mushrooms into 1/2” thick slices and set aside. Heat a small skillet on low heat. Add the mushrooms and Fig Balsamic Vinegar to the pan. Allow the mushrooms to cook on low heat until the mushrooms have cooked down, about 5-8 minutes. Turn the mushrooms over half way through so that both sides are coated in the balsamic. Remove from heat and set aside.

2. Meanwhile, slice the Tempeh into 1/2” thick slices. Pre-heat a grill pan on low heat. Lightly grease the pan with Mezzetta Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Once the pan is heated, place the tempeh strips on the heated pan. Allow about two minutes on both sides. Remove from pan and set aside.

3. Then, in a small bowl, combine 2/3 cup crumbled goat cheese, 1 tbsp Mezzetta Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1/2 tsp Mezzetta Crushed Garlic and 1 1/2 tbsp chopped fresh basil. Using a small hand blender, combine ingredients until it has formed a smooth, creamy consistency.

4. Then, toast the ciabatta loaves in a toasted oven until crisp, about 3 minutes. Remove from oven. Spread about half of the goat cheese mixture on each of the ciabatta loaves, be sure to spread the goat cheese pesto on both sides of the inside of the bread. Then, begin to stack the tempeh, fig balsamic marinated mushrooms, Mezzetta roasted sweet bell pepper strips and fresh spinach. Place the top of the ciabatta loaf on top of the spinach, then carefully cut in half to serve.

*Sandwich can be served hot or cold. If planning to serve the sandwich hot, be sure to add the fresh spinach after you’ve heated the sandwich in the panini press or oven.

Stop by the Ann Arbor HomeGrown Festival on Saturday for music,...

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:41:20 -0400

Stop by the Ann Arbor HomeGrown Festival on Saturday for music, food, and festivities. From the festival website:

“The HomeGrown Festival celebrates local food and community and seeks to focus broad mainstream attention on the community-wide benefits (and pleasure!) of eating from our own foodshed. This year’s Festival offers:

delicious, creative food: sourced from Michigan farms, made by some of our area’s best local chefs
music from: Billy King, First Flight, Chris Buhalis, Ann Arbor Dub Project
the Pioneer wine Trail and Michigan beer Garden Tent — new this year!
Project Grow: heirloom tomato tasting
chef demos: turning the season’s best produce into delicious meals
kids’ activities: learn about bees, pressing cider, planting vegetables
The “made in michigan” store
culinary theatrix

”

I’ll be there from 6:30 to 8:30 handing out fliers, so come by and say hello!

A Gentleman's Guide to the Grocery Store

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:40:00 -0400

I have a few roommates that are facing a terrible reality for the first time: they must go to the grocery store or they will die of starvation. (Men of 801, this is for you) I faced the same terrible truth last year, so I have a barrage of tips and tricks for anyone who has never shopped for their own survival.

First, a step-by-step guide to the grocery store process. All grocery stores are pretty much alike, at least in content, so these tips should work any grocery store.

Produce:

Go straight for the local fruits and vegetables. Local produce will taste better and buying local will save fossil fuels and support your community. For one person, I like to buy half a dozen pieces of fruit or a few pints of berries, three or four different types of vegetables, and a fresh herb or a clove of garlic. It will be more difficult to buy local foods in the winter, but let’s face that when we come to it.
Meat:

Purchase in moderation. I’ve sung this song before.
Boxed and canned foods:

My advice here is to buy the least processed foods available. Leaving environmental concerns aside, unprocessed foods provide more nutrients and calories (food energy, not a bad thing) for every dollar you spend. Directly or indirectly, you will pay for the labor and energy that went into processing those precooked and packaged foods. Good examples of these wholesome items are grains like rice and rolled oats, all varieties of beans and nuts, and dried fruits and vegetables. If you can buy any of these items in bulk, you’ll save even more.
If you do buy preprocessed foods, go for things that are difficult to make at home (bread, tortillas) or especially tasty and savory items (salsa, pesto, spicy mustard).
Frozen foods:

These are great to have on hand for emergencies or wintertime eating. Grab whatever looks healthiest and unprocessed. Frozen foods last forever so don’t worry about buying too much.
Dairy:

I admit that I’m addicted to cheese, so I buy a lot. Milk, eggs and yogurt are also staples in my diet — I am far from vegan. The cows and chickens will appreciate you buying grass-fed milk and free-range eggs. Amish cheeses and sheep or goat milk cheeses (like feta) are usually kinder to the ungulates.

Now some miscellaneous tips. I hope they are helpful.

Don’t be afraid of buying fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices and sauces that you have never tried. If you come home with an onion, paprika and lima beans, try this google search and you can probably find a recipe for something delicious, or at least unique. Let your taste-buds do a little work. (This, by the way, is exactly how I choose recipes, so I’m not trying to fool you into eating really weird stuff).
Go to the store as often as is reasonable. If you live far from the store and you don’t have a car (this was me last year so I understand), at least try to make it out once a week. The more often you go, the less food will spoil and be wasted. Wasted food is wasted money.
Take a recipe with you every time you go to the store. Try printing out one of these and tossing it in your backpack.
Don’t be afraid to walk or bike to the store. You would be amazed at how much food fits in a backpack. Use those re-usable grocery bags — they can even hang from the handlebars of a bike.
If you have a farmer’s market, take advantage!

More tips from Lifehacker:

10% off for Students with ID at the People's Food Co-op, Sept. 4–7

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:51:43 -0400

Try the Zucchini Nut muffin with a Roos Roast espresso. It’s the kind of breakfast that can cure a bad morning.

If you’ve never been, the Food Co-op is on 4th between Ann and Catherine. It’s the closest grocery to campus and the prices are great.

These muffins fly dangerously close to the over-fattened dessert...

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:21:00 -0400

These muffins fly dangerously close to the over-fattened dessert fetishism that is clogging all our arteries, that is making all our jeans unwearable, and that is gradually unraveling the fabric of American productivity — like an all-consuming tsunami of french-fry grease and hydrogenated animal fats. Okay, I may be exaggerating, but the point is that these muffins are not healthy. On the other hand, ‘tis the season for cherries and peaches, so bring ‘em on!

I was originally going to make Blueberry Peach Muffins, but blueberry season is gone so I swapped them out for a cup of sweet cherries. Here’s the adapted recipe:

Sweet Cherry and Peach Muffins

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 pinch salt
3 eggs [learn to crack eggs with one hand]
1 cup milk
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup pitted and diced sweet cherries
1 cup peeled and diced fresh peaches

2 teaspoons white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons melted butter

Procedure

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin tins, or line with paper liners.
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, 1/2 cup white sugar, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs, milk and 1/2 cup of melted butter until well blended. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and mix until just blended. Fold in the blueberries and peaches. Fill muffin cups with batter.
Bake for 18 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the tops spring back when lightly touched. In a small bowl, stir together the remaining sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Brush muffins with remaining melted butter, and sprinkle with the cinnamon mixture. Cool in the pan over a wire rack.

For a healthier take on Peach and Cherry muffins, try these.

Chiles rellenos from the Paupered Chef

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:24:32 -0400

Chiles rellenos from the Paupered Chef:

These chiles rellenos look like they taste extraordinary. Somebody make them for me, please. I don’t think I can handle a recipe that makes a good chef say:

“Had the process not taken hours, nearly frazzled my nerves, and been fraught with so much failure, I might think about making it again.”

This is my attempt at an all-local late summer pasta. The...

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:17:00 -0400

This is my attempt at an all-local late summer pasta. The recipe I found randomly as I wondered about the Internets. It caught my eye because I was pretty sure that everything but the cheese and noodles could be found locally (and maybe the noodles too if I’d tried harder). I bought corn and onions at the farmer’s market on Wednesday and local green beans, parsley and jalapeños at the Arbor Farms Market on Stadium. That’s a great store by the way; they have an wide selection of local produce and meat and their prices are generally lower than at Whole Foods.

Try it out. The leftovers last forever.

Also, learn about parsley and how to freeze it in log-form here. These Michigan winters demand a little preparation.

Pasta With Caramelized Onions, Green Beans And Fresh Corn

Makes 4 servings

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups thinly sliced sweet onion (from 1 large onion)
1 lb. dried pasta like orecchiette [“little ears”] or farfalle [bowtie]
½ lb. fresh green beans, washed, trimmed, and sliced on the diagonal into 1-inch lengths
1 cup fresh corn kernels (from about 2 ears)
1 jalapeño, stemmed, halved lengthwise, seeded, and thinly sliced crosswise [I used 2, more about peppers later]
Freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup grated Percorino Romano cheese [I used my Parmigiano-Reggiano]
1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil over high heat.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the onion and a large pinch of salt and cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is beginning tosoften and brown, about 5 minutes. Lower the heat to medium and continue cooking, stirring frequently, until the onion is very soft and a light golden brown, about 15 more minutes (if the onion begins to look like it’s burning, add 2 tablespoons warm water to lower the heat).

Put the pasta in the boiling water and cook until just shy of al dente, about 9 minutes. Add the green beans to the pasta water in the last minute of cooking.

While the pasta cooks, add the corn, jalapeño and a pinch of salt to the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until the corn kernels begin to soften, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Reserve ½ cup of the pasta and green bean cooking water and drain the pasta and green beans together in a colander. Return the pasta and green beans to the pot with 2 tablespoons of the reserved water. Add the onion mixture and toss over medium heat until green beans are crisp-tender and the pasta is perfectly al dente, 1 to 2 minutes. Add more of the pasta water as necessary to keep the dish moist. Season to taste with salt and pepper, transfer to warm shallow bowls, and top each serving with the percorino Romano and parsley.

I have a new kitchen! It’s huge, peppered with sunflowers...

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:52:00 -0400

My... fine, our new kitchen

Great Ann Arbor view

Sunflowers

Classy fixtures

I have a new kitchen! It’s huge, peppered with sunflowers and wonderfully quirky. My first creation in this new kitchen is forthcoming.

Back from the dead, blogging

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:46:00 -0400

After a short and homeless hiatus, I’m back to the blog and I have a ton of events and recipes to dish out over the next few weeks. First up is a film screening:

Come to Michigan Theater next Thursday for a film screening hosted by Slow Food Huron Valley. If you are new to the Slow Food movement, it began in 1986 in Rome when Carlo Petrini created an organization to resist the opening of a McDonald’s near the Spanish Steps. The movement now has 83,000 members and we have a chapter right here in Washtenaw county. If you having even a passing interest in food or film tickets are only $5 and I’ll be there. What more do you want?

Film Screening and Local Food Action Hero

Thursday, September 3
6 to 9 p.m.
Michigan Theater

“Kicking off this September’s Local Food Month, Slow Food Huron Valley is thrilled to announce our Local Food Action Hero Awards, honoring people working toward community food security in our area. Please come to help celebrate the care, hard work and integrity of the people who are showing us the way to a secure and sustainable future of good food for all.

For this event at the beautiful Michigan Theater, we will also be serving some delicious food and gathering for an update on the many re-localization efforts in progress since our Local Food Summit meeting in January.

We are excited to host Chris Bedford’s new film called ‘Coming Home: E.F. Schumacher and the Reinvention of the Local Economy’ together with the filmmaker himself as part of our celebration and dialog.

Please join us afterwards as well for a happy hour and after-party at the new Grange Kitchen and Bar at 118 W. Liberty Street!

Advance tickets now available for $5 at Brown Paper Tickets: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/73498”

Come Thursday morning, I will be homeless. I have two aimless...

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:55:21 -0400

Come Thursday morning, I will be homeless. I have two aimless weeks between leases and that presents a few challenges. First, I have to clear out my fridge. Hence the gourmet lunch above:

Ingredients:

Rice
Beans
The last 2 eggs
The last of the salsa

Procedure

Cook the rice, fry the eggs over-easy, heat the beans, and stack everything. It’s so simple I can’t even bring myself to give it a name.

Now that I have no food, the second challenge presents itself: how do I run a food blog without food? I guess we’ll find out!

Soothe that craving for summery, squashy, south-of-the-border...

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:13:57 -0400

Calabacitas with zucchini and squash

Tucked away in a whole-wheat tortilla

Soothe that craving for summery, squashy, south-of-the-border savor with these calabacitas (“little squashes”) from Serious Eats. Cooking them is a simple, one-pan affair and the final dish is an elegant and surprisingly hearty alternative to the ordinary burrito. Be careful with your hot pepper: mine wasn’t quite spicy enough, but I imagine the opposite would have been more difficult to remedy.

Calabacitas Burritos

- serves 4 -

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large or 2 small zucchini, quartered lengthwise and chopped into 1/2-inch chunks (about 2 cups)
1 large or 2 small yellow squash, quartered lengthwise and chopped into 1/2-inch chunks (about 2 cups)
1 poblano pepper, chopped
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 14.5-oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
4 whole wheat burrito wraps
Grated cheddar or cotija cheese

Procedure

Heat oil over medium-high and cook onions for 4 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute. Add zucchini and squash and cook another 4 minutes. Add poblano pepper and cook 8 to 10 more minutes. Add corn and cook until warmed, 2 minutes. Add black beans and cook until heated through and squash is tender enough for your taste, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Scoop calabacitas into burrito wrap, top with grated cheddar or cotija, and serve.

Ann Arbor has a new restaurant! When Bella Ciao closed earlier...

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:17:00 -0400

Ann Arbor has a new restaurant! When Bella Ciao closed earlier this summer, Ann Arbor chef Brandon Johns (of Vineology fame) scooped up the deed and has just opened his new creation: the Grange. The new restaurant is a dedicated farm-to-table establishment, which means that in addition to being über-trendy the ingredients will be locally-sourced and as sustainable, natural, organic, etc. as possible. In fact, Johns is working towards sourcing 90% of the restaurant’s ingredients from local farms.

I haven’t had a chance to try the Grange yet (their prices place the restaurant in my ‘special occasion’ category), but the Farmer’s Marketer has a great introduction and review from last week’s grand opening. An excerpt:

Sitting next to our table for four on Friday was the chef’s family. I noticed the two daughters and their lovely mom were enjoying some of the same things we were - so I was happy that we had ordered the “Plate of radishes, butter, sea salt, crusty bread” and “Goat cheese stuffed squash blossoms, green tomato marmalade.”

I followed that up with “Roasted chicken breast, crispy skin, bacon, green bean and potato sauté, grain mustard.” The perfectly cooked chicken breast (from Back Forty Acres), was served appropriately austerely with its creamy fingerling potatoes and still-toothsome green beans. The simple preparation pointed up the magnificently crisped chicken skin, a rare treat which I adore, and the delicate flavor and texture of the free-range bird. And somehow I seem to have saved room for one of the four fresh-baked desserts. The season of fresh fruit here in Michigan is so surpassing yet brief it makes you consider dessert options carefully. I couldn’t resist a slice of fresh apricot and raspberry tart, though the blueberry cake drifted with whipped cream and the warm peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream melting on top looked every bit as good.

I’m most excited about the transparency and intimacy of this type of restaurant. For example, from the article above, a waiter “knew that the bread on the table was from Detroit’s Avalon Bakery and the butter from Calder Dairy in Carleton.” This information may not have made the meal taste better, but it gives the bakers, farmers and other food producers credit that they rarely receive.

The Grange Kitchen & Bar, 118 W. Liberty (between Main and Ashley)

Cool new seasonal bike rack in front of the People’s Food...

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:19:31 -0400

Cool new seasonal bike rack in front of the People’s Food Co-op.

Wild things eat...

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:12:06 -0400

Wild things eat too…

andytheasthmaticchef:

carinaavila:tonytoday:Arcade Fire - Wake Up (Where The Wild Things Are Version)

Certified Organic: meaningless? (UPDATE)

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:49:00 -0400

UPDATE: The USDA has just announced an official audit of its National Organic Program (NOP). What an accomplishment for the great art of complaining! (via The Daily Green)

An article from last month in the Washington Post casts doubt on the integrity of federal organic certification. From that article:

Three years ago, U.S. Department of Agriculture employees determined that synthetic additives in organic baby formula violated federal standards and should be banned from a product carrying the federal organic label. Today the same additives, purported to boost brainpower and vision, can be found in 90 percent of organic baby formula.

The government’s turnaround, from prohibition to permission, came after a USDA program manager was lobbied by the formula makers and overruled her staff. That decision and others by a handful of USDA employees, along with an advisory board’s approval of a growing list of non-organic ingredients, have helped numerous companies win a coveted green-and-white “USDA Organic” seal on an array of products.

Grated organic cheese, for example, contains wood starch to prevent clumping. Organic beer can be made from non-organic hops. Organic mock duck contains a synthetic ingredient that gives it an authentic, stringy texture.

The dilution of the organic label did not begin recently. The organic movement was founded as a grass-roots community campaign that focused on small farms, local produce, and personal relationships between farmer and consumer. That movement helped to establish a federal organic certification. Unfortunately, capitalism demands growth. Small farms became enormous farms or were purchased by even larger food producers. The organic label now fuels a $23 billion industry where profiteering has all but washed away the ideals on which Organic was founded — one might call it erosion. What now?

Hailed as “America’s most influential farmer,” Joel Salatin is a Virginia farmer who describes his farm as “beyond organic. He recently gave an interview, where he gives his own impressions of the organic industry:

MG: Is your meat organic? What are your thoughts on certification?

JS: We don’t participate in any government program. We are beyond organic. Organic is a non-comprehensive term—it does not define many variables. Goodness, you can grow certified organic carrots using seed that you produced yourself, bought from a seed saver, or acquired from the other side of the planet. The soil can be fertilized with on-farm generated compost and manure or bags and jugs of concoctions created in industrial factories. You can prepare the soil by double digging, tractor tilling, or carpet mulching like permaculture. You can weed those carrots with plastic mulch, by hand, propane flamers. You can pick those tomatoes yourself, with family labor, or non-community labor. And this is nowhere near the variables just in raising carrots. And in livestock the allowable variables are even more than with plants. Most organic eggs in this country are raised in factory houses. Ditto meat birds. Cornucopia project and other watchdog groups have had to routinely sue the USDA to get enforcement of the National Organic Standards. I don’t trust the government as far as I can throw a bull by the tail—and that’s not very far. Why in the world would people who spent a lifetime castigating the USDA for its unabashed promotion of industrial food give it the authority to regulate honest food? This is called intellectual schizophrenia.

I first realized the fallacy of organic certification in around 1990 when I realized our pastured chickens could be certified organic if we purchased certified feed from 1,000 miles away but since we didn’t have any local organic grain growers, buying my grain locally eliminated the certification chances. In my opinion, patronizing my neighbor so he doesn’t get discouraged and sell to a strip mall is certainly as environmentally sensible as bathing my grains in transport diesel fuel and exporting my dollars outside the neighborhood just so I could claim organic purity.

The rest of the interview finds Salatin chastizing Whole Foods, describing how his farming differs from the norm, and even giving some predictions about the future of farming itself.

(You might recognize Salatin’s name from Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma or the recent documentary Food Inc. He has also written a slew of books on the methodology of his soil-centric farming.)

Serious Green: 10 Cheap & Green Kitchen Tips

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:00:00 -0400

Serious Green: 10 Cheap & Green Kitchen Tips

Cooking without a recipe is all about matching flavors, but it...

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:54:00 -0400

Cooking without a recipe is all about matching flavors, but it seems to be an acquired skill. I make quirky changes to recipes all the time and the results are rarely appetizing. For example, I was sure I could make a decent brown-rice pudding if I tried. Nope, my puddings suck every time. Now imagine my surprise when I threw a few random ingredients at an omelet and found myself eating the toothsome dish pictured here.

Omelets are one of my go-to foods. You can add almost any vegetables that are laying around and a good omelet is both filling and reasonably healthy. This omelet was especially delicious: maybe it was the way the sweet onions contrasted with the savory cheeses, maybe it was just my mood. Either way, this one is worth trying.

Omelette á la Zak

Carmelize 2/3 of a medium sized onion in olive oil. I used a red onion, but a white or yellow onion would be fine. This will take about 45 minutes.
Beat 3 eggs and pour them into a buttered pan over medium heat.
After about a minute, add 1 cup of grated cheese. Here I used a mixture of parmigiano-reggiano and some sharp mystery cheese. I don’t remember what it was, so you’ll have to be creative. Throw in the onions.
Season with cracked pepper, salt, crushed red pepper and a hint of thyme.
When the cheese starts to melt, fold the omelet. I used a large pan, so I folded twice. After folding, let it cook for a minute on each side, or until the cheese is melted and the egg is slightly browned.

It drives me nuts when I go to the grocery store and 24 hours...

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:04:00 -0400

The Flatshare Fridge

Fridge-lust

It drives me nuts when I go to the grocery store and 24 hours later discover that my carefully selected items have been pilfered by hungry roommates. In fact, I often buy weird food because I know my roommates won’t eat it. This awesome modular refrigerator might be an answer to my dilemma. The modules can be customized with skins and add-ons—a lock might be a nice. As an added bonus, only one section needs to be opened at a time so this refrigerator is probably more efficient than the one you have at home.

Unfortunately, the Flatshare refrigerator is just a design concept at the moment. Would you buy one?

(Toxel via The Kitchn)

Here is an NPR interview with Michael Pollan who discusses his...

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:22:00 -0400

Here is an NPR interview with Michael Pollan who discusses his New York Times cover article from Sunday. Both the interview and the article are a great introduction to a topic that has been Pollan’s quarry for the past few years: the replacement of home cooking with centralized food preparation and processing by agribusiness corporations. Pollan is a lucid speaker so the interview is especially worthwhile. On a side note, I’m almost positive that Michael Pollan is John Malkovich.