The Skeptical Foodie

My Article on Anti-Feminism and The New Food Revolution

2011-12-13T06:05:00.000-08:00

Alright people. So here it is. Somewhere in this online journal, you will find an article I wrote on anti-feminist talk in the new food revolution.

Give it a look, if you have the stomach for it.

http://spec.lib.vt.edu/culinary/CulinaryThymes/2011_17.pdf

Love and Peace in this pre-holiday season.

My Student's Oral History

2011-12-07T13:04:00.000-08:00

Hey I know this doesn't have anything to do with food.
Nevertheless, I love this video for its simple honesty and the fact that, a somewhat struggling student, made it.

Cheers to a positive end to a trying semester.

Food For Thought or Thinking About Food

2011-10-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

Hey if anyone is interested the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association has its annual meeting in Philadelphia next Thurs.-Sat.

I am talking about Anti-Feminism in the current and past natural foods movements. My talk is called "Food Revolution Anti-Feminism: From Laurel's Kitchen to Michael Pollan."

Come on down. MAPACA is a quirky org. Friendly to lay-folk and academics as well. Here is a link: http://www.mapaca.net/confer/conferHome.html

Peace out food folks.

Seven Fishes and The Ethics of Vegetarianism

2011-01-10T08:21:00.000-08:00

Every Christmas Eve a friend of mine has a "seven fishes" dinner. This year was no different, but with one change. Since last Christmas the mate and I have been off meat and fish. We are not fanatical or self-advertising about it. We eat meat if it is served to us or if we have a craving. But overall, for about a year, we have eaten little meat. Since last December, I haven't cooked meat (maybe once this summer for a cookout or something).

Why no meat? Like all other white American women of a certain class and culture, I have dabbled in vegetarianism throughout my adult life. Much of this vegetarianism was driven by a desire for peer inclusion or for silly body-thin ambitions.

But, when I became the foodie that makes up one half of my Skeptical Foodie moniker, I went to meat in a big way. At first, since my foodism was born out of research on the 1970s natural food movement, my explorations were vegetable based. But later when I dug deeply into contemporary food culture, I went the way of meat--really for the first time since my childhood when meat was regular family fare. This is not to say that I was roasting big hunks of animal or eating chops on any kind of regular basis. But my culinary experimentations took me to braising chicken and lamb shanks, stewing up Beouf Bourguignon, and making fish tacos.

Unfortunately my expansion coincided with my mate's recoil from carnivorism. He had tried for a couple of years to get me to fully abandon animal flesh, but not with a lot of success, until last year when he laid out the details of his troubles. He teaches an ethics course every spring semester and devotes one segment of the course to the consideration of vegetarianism via Peter Singer's Animal Liberation. So every spring he has to confront his own relationship with the ethics of meat eating. Many of his students turned vegetarian or vegan after taking this course. But he remained on the borderland of meat and veg.

His achilles heel was me. I am the cook in our house, very much by choice. And he is not, very much by choice. If I wouldn't give up the meat, he couldn't give up the meat. Sure I hear folks thinking, well if it was so important to him, why didn't he learn to cook. But really, the food I make is generally pretty good. I like to do this work. So why would he rock that excellent boat. Hot interesting food made regularly, if I had that deal, I wouldn't screw with it.

Somehow last December, he turned me. We went over the fine details of Singer's argument, much of which I knew but hadn't honestly considered. And I came to the realization that I had no grounds on which to continue meat-eating, except for desire and taste. Taking into account the conditions under which most meat is produced, I couldn't continue to justify my meat eatings. So I gave it up, reluctanlty, sadly, but I gave it up.

Like I, before this new food regime, most people do not like to be challenged about their meat eating. I found this out when teaching Singer's work in a food history course last spring. People like to say that meating eating is in human nature, or it is evolutionarily justified (humans have been eating this way forever, that's why they survived several millenia or why they have meat eating teeth) or that health necessitates it.

A recent end-round argument, forwarded by Michael Pollan and others, states that if one kills an animal with one's own hands or gets meat from an upstanding local farmer, one is not implicated in ethical crimes inherent to mass meat production and consumption. I am not satisfied with these new outs. In the end, one is killing another being not for survival, but for taste and for pleasure. I am all for pleasurable tastes, by gosh I spend most of my waking hours considering tastes and the pleasures of the palate. But I can't sit comfortably with the idea of killing another being because I like and miss the taste of meat.

Folks also like to go to "what if" scenarios, when arguing for meat eating. "So you're saying that Nepalese shepards who only have access to lamb meat and wild greens should only eat the greens, and die!" Viola! Isn't ethical vegetarianism rigid and goofy and elitist? But in reality, my vegetable convictions are only based on the choices that are before me, in 21st century, ex-urban America. And holy shit, do I have some choices, lots of food options. So, again, why choose meat?

Oh yea, folks also like to argue that animals don't have consciousness or don't feel pain in the same manner as humans. That they don't have a concept of self or of the future, so they don't have the same dread of death or plans for the future. Or they don't know what's coming, so it's okay because they are oblivious to their impending demise and then they're dead. So what's the big deal? That one doesn't fly for me for obvious reasons. Does a being have to be exactly human to be warranted the right to be alive?

Don't get me wrong, I know humans use animals for their purposes, they always have. If I eat eggs and cheese, which I most adamantly do, that animal is being forced to produce for my benefit only. Thus veganism is really the only valid position for an animal rights advocate. I'm not there yet. I'm still imperfect. And anyway, I feel there is a difference between killing, ending a life, and using a life. Hmm... that's starting to sound a bit flimsy, I know it. Ok let's move on.

Back to the Seven Fishes dinner. I originally assumed that I would not be eating fish at this dinner or maybe only a little. But my husband reminded me of his, what I will call, "manners and community before ethical purity" rule. The rule goes like this. When someone makes you food, you eat it. If you are a vegetarian eat your mother's meatballs, eat a burger at your friend's bar-b-que. If there aren't other options, just eat, don't make a fuss. And when this happens, enjoy the free ride away from vegetable world.

I like this rule and I like my husband for having it. It does not put my private decision, based on very private and thoughtful considerations, in the face of my host. It doesn't require that he/she recognize my food quirks and curiosities. It makes me a gracious visitor, not a proselytizer or a bore.

I don't love being a vegetarian. I wish I could think my way back to meat. But I don't think I can. And fish, forget about it, the state of fish life is a mess.

I don't feel like joining any vegetarian clubs or cliches. I don't subscribe to vegetarian food mags, cause I don't trust vegetarian cooks. Any surprise that the Skeptical Foodie is a Skeptical Vegetarian?

The Seven Fishes feast was delicious: Crab Dip, Shrimp and Mango salad, Fish Stew Crawfish Etoufee. Holy Moly. I can't wait until next year.

Son of a Beep!

2010-12-27T20:27:00.000-08:00

I think I should know two things by now in my baking career.

1. My bundt pan skills are subpar, amateurish, well, just plain stupid.

2. Don't rush a cake.

I spent most of one night about two weeks ago looking through cookbooks trying to chose a baked good for my holiday work party. I settled on a coffee, milk chocolate chip bundt cake from Lisa Yockelson's Baking By Flavor. Her stuff is pretty rich and often unnecessarily complicated, but I thought I'd give it a try. I am trying to follow my new rule of "if you want cake, bake cake, eat cake, don't worry about fat content". I got up pretty early the morn of the party to bake said cake. I wanted to go to a spinning class at my new (not entirely loved) exercise club. And I wanted to get some work done pre-party.

So I baked this cake. It smelled fantabulous. Looked fine coming out of the oven. But I decided to get it out of the pan before I left for the stupid spin class.

Ok now you should turn your head away, this is going to get ugly.

The sucker came out fast and fine, but when I pulled the bundt pan away, huge craters of bakedness were clinging to the pan and not the cake. I had to get to the spin class, so I did emergency pasting surgery and ran out the door (can ya tell?).

And guess what, when I got to the gym, the fancy Thurs. morning ladies had taken every bleepin' last bike. God damn!! Some crazy looking dude came and pushed his way ahead of me into the instructor's bike: I left pretty hot and bothered. That morning did not work out in anyway whatsoever.

I tried to pretty her up with a sugar powdering, so sad. But hey, it tasted as good as it smelled.

Respect the cake! Respect the Bundt pan!

Healthy Banana Chocolate Chip Nut Muffins

2010-12-04T16:03:00.000-08:00

I like to make muffins, because, well, I like cake.

And what else is a muffin but a round little, hand holdable cake. For years I used Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe for all my muffin recipes. She offers multiple versions: fruit and grain and chocolate and ricotta. And she adds all kinds of protein and nutrient boosters. This makes me feel better about making myself 12-14 small cakes (the husband usually only eats 1-2 muffins and is through with them). The only issue with Sunlight's muffins is that they tend to be a bit heavy and short as all whole grain baked goods are want to do.

Anyway, as I peruse my cooking magazines (I get about 3 a month and I read them cover to cover immediately, sometimes on the way from the mailbox to my house), I will always stop to consider a muffin recipe.

This week, with three bananas ripening towards liquification, I searched out a muffin recipe for these tropical babies. I remembered a quick bread section in an old Eating Well issue.

The results were just fine. I would say on the rather bland side. They needed a tad more salt and maybe more sugar?? The other problem is that healthful muffins usually call for considerable amount of leavening to get those whole flours off the ground. And alas, they taste like it, a bit chemically. I wonder why I don't just make a full on fat and sugar muffin. I mean I'm looking to eat cake right? Why the hell not bake cake and eat cake, rather than live with some ersatz cakesque health bun? Oh postmodern life, how you taunt me.

Summer Memory

2009-12-13T16:55:00.000-08:00

Hey, I know I should probably save this super summery image for the dead of winter. But it is grading time for me and this image made me happy. It's a watermelon and tomato salad with mint and feta. Summer food is so easy.

Men's Night vs. Women's Night

2009-11-16T17:25:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, ok about 6 weeks ago to be exact. My women friends, and many of their male counterparts, met at different locations for a night of single gender socializing. You know how in post-60s America everyone hangs in mixed gender gatherings, all together, boys and girls, like we get along and such. Well, now and again, my male friends (my mate included) engage in the quintessential male ritual:poker night. Poker night, from what I've been told but have never really seen, includes various inebriants, crude and inappropriate joking, and general silliness. I was told of a night when cheeseball tossing into gaping mouths took center stage.

On the most recent pokerama night, my gals gathered at a swell bucks county farmhouse setting for a less baudacious but beautiful meal together. The table was tastefully set by our hostess.

We dined on a chicken citrus stew and fall squash (as seen at the head of this post). I made some spice walnut cookies and brought fresh figs and a yogurt/goat cheese dipping sauce. I kinda made up the dipping sauce and was as pleased as punch that it actually tasted great.

We munched and drank and chatted. A downright lovely evening, we had.

Here is what the guys ate in man land.

And here's some guy in a rickshaw, who the poker host found on his way to get pizza. Or something like that. It's a whole other world in man land, things generally don't make sense, nor have any rhyme nor reason.

Food Blogs: I am over this??

2009-09-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

Alright. I just happen to be browsing a food listserve to which I belong and someone posted a link to a food blog, The Two Fat Als. Of course, I bit. Following the link, I found yet another beautifully photographed, ironic, and amusing blog written by a highly educated and lovely couple both named Al.

Again, lots of tasty, professional-looking food photos.

Delightful food snippets from their lives, much food lust on my side. Hmmmm...

So I wonder, how many food blogs are like this? How many of these does the world really need? What the heck is the point of these blogs, like my own? What's with all this titillating food photography? Are we simply trying to make our lives photogenically more romantic and compelling than they really are? Do we convince ourselves of this trick everytime we finish and post a blog?

OR... Is this just a modern diary, like my older sister's in her pre-teen years--the hard cover digest thingy with a cute little keyhole? (You bet I lusted after it's contents and at some point found a way to jimmy my way inside. What a thrill. Sorry sis.) I think not. Her diary could hardly be described as glamorous. Self-doubt, befuddlement, fear, sadness, those are the key concepts I sussed out in my reading.

There is little personally revealing coming from these food blogs. Everything is fine in the kitchen, even when a recipe goes south. Life is fun and colorful and intriguing and suspenseful. These adjectives hardly describe my life since I started my food blog. My sister's teenage diary more closely resembles my recent emotional world.

But hey, maybe that's the attraction of the blog. It takes me to the silent and creative space of the kitchen, where the ugly and disappointing hardly intrude. It allows me to fix on the one thing that remains unchanged and pleasant. I just don't know how many of these blogs I can view, before I spiral away in a fit of anti-conformity.

That's it for now. Good night and good luck.

By the way, remind me to show and tell you about my recent experiment with turning rolled cookies into dropped cookies (ha, ha).

101 Salads. Really Bittman?

2009-07-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

Hey. Last night I read through Mark Bittman's contribution to the NY Times Dining section, Weds. July 22, 2009. My mother-in-law recently got a subscription to the NY Times. She loves the NY Times, being a native New Yorker. Since her usual NY Times supplier, one of her many daughters, just moved to the mid-west, she thought she'd treat herself to regular home delivery. I casually commented that I liked the weekly Dining section and low and behold, when I came home from a recent trip to Vermont, I found two slices of blueberry pie (gone pretty far south) and two Dining sections sitting on my dining room table. My mother-in-law kind of mixed up our traveling plans and thought we were going away this week not next. An honest mistake that had some dire results for our kitty, who she mistakenly left unfed.

Anyways, I first perused the attractive front page of the July 22 Dining segment. In it, Mark Bittman committed to write down 101 salad recipes. That's a lot of recipes folks. I don't think I could come up with 101 versions of anything. And at the time, I didn't think that I could actually read through 101 salad recipes. I mean how interesting could this be- Arugula, tomatoes and shaved Parm.; Arugula, cucumbers and shaved Parm...

That said, I like Mark Bittman's cookbooks, they are so friggin comprehensive and doable. On the other hand, I loathed that self-congratulatory, foodie-ego fest television series that Bittman did with Gywneth Paltow, Mario Batali, and some Spanish actress I can't remember. I try to erase that show from my memory when I open his cookbooks or read his recipes.

His 101 salads didn't fail. I found the segment pretty compelling. I kept my eyelids open long enough to read every single recipe. Some I could have guessed and others were a sweet surprise. Today, all I can think about are these salads. Which to make first? With so many vegetables in season, it's a hard call. I'll keep you posted.

Brklyn to Manhattan

2009-07-10T07:23:00.001-07:00

This week we took a trip to NY- a trip to our past and the city's present. In the 1980s, both I and my mate lived in NYC- I on the very upper West Side (the last stop on the A train), he in Brooklyn. Since he initiated the trip, we got to travel through his memories. I have heard about his time in Brooklyn on Hicks Street. The report is usually mixed. He hated his job in some unremembered corporate financial institution. He fell into this field by default or by habit or by peer influence. Whatever the motivation, while he chafed at his work, he remembers Brooklyn fondly. (I particularly recall snippets about his French roommate who described American coffee, circa 1986-7, as "A big cup of shit.") Life is like that sometimes with the even hardest stretches tempered by small sweetnesses.

He lived in this very lovely building in Brooklyn Heights. Wow! What a beautiful area. I hadn't been to Brooklyn Heights before. In fact, when I lived across the river and on the other side of the island in the 1980s, I never ventured over to Brooklyn once. My story of 1980s NY is similar to and different from my mate's. I'll leave it for another time.

Let me give a little texture to our trip. The day was simply perfect. The weather this summer is really astounding-- low humidity, intemittent rains to keep my garden fresh, sparkly blue skies, low 80s. Needless to say, Brooklyn Heights felt and looked as good as I think it ever could--bustling, sun-dappled, urbane and aristocratic- just dreamy.

After snapping a few shots of my mate's brklyn abode, I realized I needed to eat. I generally don't "lunch". Lunch is a bore to me. I don't long to go out to lunch and I am pretty lacksidasical about at home afternoon preparations. I expected we would grab a sandwich or something while walking around, but we decided to sit down at a Thai restaurant, Latern, around the corner from the Hicks apartment.

A truly acceptable, satisfying Thai lunch, we had. I think the spontaneity, the weather, and the nostalgia pulsing through our veins made the standard Thai lunch noodles and stir fry all the more delicious.

That's the thing about food right? It is so much more than sustenance. Often the mind and heart of the eater color the reception of the ingredients and preparation and flavor. Certainly the case here--everything tasted right, as we watched the daily goings on at the intersection of Montague and Hicks. After the kind of lunch that you see in the movies, we started the trek to the Brooklyn bridge. My mate intended us to walk the bridge to Manhattan (as he often did from home to work back in the day) and then play our next move by ear.

First we checked out the views of the city from the Brooklyn promenade--and then the bridge.

Boy o'golly alot of other folks decided to take this walk. Bikes, people, it was crowded and hot, for an obvious reason: the views.

Oh yea, the bridge itself ain't nothing to sneeze at. It's big and impressive.

After this hot walk we rambled into the subway to get over to the west side. Sure we could have walked. In my younger days I might have insisted to do so, but heck I wanted a cool drink and a Central Park greenspace and fast. We ended up taking a train to one of my undergrad. alma maters, Hunter College,then moved ever west towards the park. On the way we asked a doorman where the closest coffee shop might be. Espresso, on the corner of Madison and 64th, he claimed. After looking around this address several times we finally found it, and walked in to find, hmmm, how to describe it?? Super chic,mod, rich and hushed with a hostesses at the door. She informed us that there was a 15 minute wait for a table, we split. I mean really, this is just coffee we're talking about right? We found a little bakery coffee shop down the block and hoofed it over to the park. I forgot to take a picture of the cute peach berry tart, cookie and coffees we imbibed, but here are the remains.

For a weekday late-afternoon-evening, the park was suprisingly alive with kids, families, couples making out intensely, sports, games, musicians, strange hippy-violin chanters, everything. We walked by a spot where gentlemen played various yard games.

And then collapsed in Sheep Meadow.

It was a day weighted by memory and rich with the present.

The Morning After

2009-07-05T07:55:00.000-07:00

On Friday night we had an impromtu dinner party with a few close friends. It was a beautiful evening. After a late afternoon downpour, the skies opened up to a pink and pale blue sunset. Of course I forgot to take any picture of all the food we ate and cooked. And most importantly, I forgot to take pictures of the star of the evening--Mojitos! Mint is abundant right now and so were the many limes brought by our guests. The drinks were just delicious to my lips. My mate found them a bit too strong. And the expert mixologist at the table, EM, claimed the first batch too weak. As always, everyone had an opinion.

After a round of drinks and appetizers, we hit the fields for a rousing game of Bocce. I can't, or don't want to, remember who won. All I know is that my team put forth a noble effort, even as it became almost impossible to see the pallina.

Post-Bocce, all the kids pitched in to get dinner on the candlelit table (set by the expert mixologist).

The menu included two kinds of pasta, one with pesto, one with a sausage sauce, roast chicken, salad, and bread. Despite the hearty appetizer offerings and many pre-dinner drinks, everyone ate like they needed a good meal.

The party concluded around 12 am, after we noshed some unbelievably delicious packaged cookies brought by AM and some other sweet things. Luckily for me SM hit the dishes like a professional and put my kitchen in order before she left. God bless her, since I would have had to face those nasty dishes and pots alone, the next morning.

It is my habit, after a night of drinking, to get up pretty early and wander around. And so I did the next day. As I cleaned up the dessert dishes, I got to thinking about,what else??? Food, of course. Perusing the party remnants, I spied a basket of leftover French bread and thought: French toast.

Topped with some leftover blueberry compote and served with a side of turkey bacon. Right on!

Remarkably, even after that satisfying and substantial breakfast, my hungover mate decided that we needed to go to a local bakery for coffee and an after-breakfast snack. Haven't heard of an after-breakfast snack? Nor had I, until yesterday morning. We went to C'est La Vie in New Hope PA.

C'est La Vie is owned and operated by a real French dude. Going into his bakery is really like going to France. There's just something very European about the place. And his croissant, brioche, etc. are f'in good, as is his coffee which is always just the right temperature and flavor. I'm one picky coffee drinker; he rings my bell every time I go.

You might note the prominently displayed travel mug in the photo above. My mate is adamant about not using paper cups. I, as you can see, am not. It is a bit of a religion for him. I am slowly being converted.

After all this eating and drinking, I retired to the couch for the greater part of the day. My mate engaged in some project, I dunno what and really couldn't have cared less. I was tired and well fed.

Pasta Cruda and Garden Friends

2009-07-02T08:45:00.001-07:00

Sun of a gun. I just lost a full entry. Don't know exactly how it happened, but anyway here's what I think I said.

Last night was pasta night. I originally contemplated making puntanesca sauce. I like the salty super fishyness of anchovies and olives and capers. But when it got down to cookin', I had only the anchovies, didn't want to go to the store to get the need goods, and wasn't so sure I wanted to cook over a stove. It really wasn't that hot yesterday, wet and warm describes this summer in eastern Pennsylvania, but I thought a raw tomato sauce might be nice. I've made this sauce before. For some reason I didn't love it this time. It was watery, but it's always watery. Too much raw tomato and garlic for my taste. Maybe it just didn't go with the stuffed tubes of pasta I cooked up. Who knows.

My mate liked it muchly, but I can't always trust his opinion when it comes to pasta. The Italian in him loves pasta in almost any form even if served with a sauce of dirt and poo.

I blanched some fresh green beans and tossed with a very little oil and salt. I think I liked these more than the salsa cruda. I must say that I did enjoy the sauce when sopped up with bread. It tasted like the bruschetta I often order at our favorite local eatery, Bell's Tavern in Lambertville NJ.

Anyway, a few of my most favorite little friends stopped by for a visit at the end of the meal. We played and took a wander through my vegetable garden.

Sometimes people are way more fun than food. Happy summer, ya'll.

Falafel and the Garden

2009-07-01T06:36:00.000-07:00

Back again with news about food and flowers and other growing things. This week I decided to plan a menu. I cook alot more often and consciously during the summer, because I am less busy (no work for teachers in the summer, it is the absolute benefit of the profession for those who care to take advantage). Here's the menu thus far.

Sunday: Veg and tofu fried rice (a good way to get rid of old vegetables and rice)

Monday: Falafel, homemade tahini sauce, and cucumber, tomato, red pepper salad.

A word about this salad.

I know everyone is talking these days about local and seasonal eating. I read it all the time, in all the food mags I get, in NY Times food articles, on television; it is obviously a fad or a trend of sorts. As a skeptical foodie, my back gets up when food trends start to sound pedantic and utopian. "You must eat local, if you have any morals or conscience!" "Local and seasonal fruits and veg will save the world and fight the corporatization of America!" Ok, everyone needs to take a deep breath and chill out a little. I mean sometimes food is just food, ya know. Good tasting and fun.

But shit, I have to admit, when tomatoes are in season, they are something to behold. The recent batch I bought at Homestead Farm Market in Lambertville NJ were beautifully tomato-eating heaven. And they, along with my homegrown mint, a healthy squeeze of lemon, some olive oil and salt, made this salad so sparklingly bright I couldn't stop eating it. It balanced the richness of the tahini sauce and the fried falafel balls (Near East boxed mix, they make it as good as I could with my own two hands, why suffer?) so well that we really couldn't stop eating it. A truly revelatory meal that made me proclaim several times "why don't I make falafel more often?" I don't know why I don't. Maybe because the fresh-local-seasonal veg salad made the meal and you can't eat local, fresh, and seasonal all year round, right? Do I sound like one of those seasonal devotees, sorry.

Not to brag, but that mint from my garden sure helped those vegetables shine. I, like many folks I know, am vegetable gardening this summer. I have tried my hand at this many times before, but veg. gardening is not easy or predictable. I have always flower gardened.

My flowers are like old friends, they come around every year. They don't need extra special tending: water, weeding, mulch, deadheading. That's it. There are enough of them that if a disease or bug infestion occurs, someone will be blooming if another isn't. I can trust them and they trust me. Vegetable gardens are different. They are emotional, whimsical, and susceptible to predation. They don't return each year, like my predictable perennial flowers. They need the right soil, the right amount of water, protection from bugs and molds. They are high-maintenance friends. I've tried year after year to grow vegs and have failed. Maybe my soil is too acidic or too alkaline, I dunno. But do you see what I'm saying, they ask to much of my brain. I want to only use my body and my heart in the garden, not my head. That's why I love the garden, it silences my analytical tendencies that are in overdrive during the academic year.

But, I heard the siren song of the vegetable garden this summer. Vegetable gardening can be so alluring. You plant the seeds and they actually produce a sprout. Oh,the excitment of seeing a seed turn into a sprout, it's fun people. And then the sprout gets bigger and bigger and hopefully turns into sumthin'. That's when things get tricky, but my hopes are high. Check out the activity.

Thusfar, I planted beets, cucumbers, zucchini, arugula, cantalope, bush and pole beans, broccoli, various herbs, and tomatoes; I think that's it. We'll see what happens. Some critter is lacifying the arugula and broccoli, and the tomatoes aren't progressing at a timely clip, but who knows what the future holds. That' s the thing with vegetables, they keep you in suspense. For those of you who successfully grow vegetables (without chemicals), I would love any advice. I can't say I will follow it, but I will read attentively.

Oh yea, the menu for the rest of this week includes: pasta tonight and fish, veg coconut curry on Thurs. Friday is open. I'll keep you posted.

Coconut Cake

2009-05-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

My family was never religious, at least not beyond my early childhood. But we always celebrate Easter as though we are commemorating something. I guess we are just commemorating our existence as a family in this new spring season. It is always a pretty fancy affair, that is our way.

This year I decided to host the event and made a coconut cake for my father, who covets cakes. It took much work and concentration and many eggs.

To be perfectly honest, I made it so long ago, I can't remember from where the recipe came. But I do know that it had three layers...

And a butter cream frosting.

The cake was excessively crumbly, at least from my perspective. But everyone who ate it loved it. It was quite rich and filling...as one often finds with these kinds of butterloaded stacked confections. I took the remains to work the following Monday and my ex-boss told me that it reminded him of cakes his mother used to make--a sweet compliment to arouse maternal nostalgia in another.

Portuguese Night?: Women's Night Part 2

2009-05-28T06:41:00.001-07:00

Hard to believe but the second annual women's night convened two weeks ago (maybe it was three weeks ago). Each participant brought a bottle to two bottles of wine; so as far as inebriants were concerned, we were set. Was it an authentically Portuguese nosh, not so much. I mean who really wants to eat salt cod and potato stew? So we interpolated Portuguese to mean Mediterranean:

Cheese with various fruit spreads and cakes and marinated veg.

Lovely scallops, thanks to the lovely Hanna ( you may remember her as as the brownie guest blogger).

And much bread. Every participant brought a loaf of bread with their bottle of wine. Consequently, we each downed at least a loaf dipped and topped with the various dips and toppings. Luckily, I brought a watermelon. After all the cheeses and crab dip and scallops and vegs, we plowed through it like a herd of dehydrated water buffalo (you can imagine how thirsty water buffalo get when dehydrated).

Ok, I admit it. The pictures are crap and this blog is hardly au courant. But what can I say, at least I'm here. It's summer. I am done with school, so you can expect more contemporaneous blogging. At least that is my hope.

I know you are waiting with bated breath to find out the next women's night's food region/theme. Below is a clue (No, this is not a picture of Women's Night 2 participants).

Guest Blog: Hanna's Brownies

2009-03-06T14:01:00.000-08:00

Exciting news. I have a guest blogger: Hanna Elliot. Hanna is a great cook and a fun friend. I asked her if she might do a little something for my blog and in a lickety-jiffy, she sent me something. I think this will give you an idea of Hanna's true love for the sweets.

I’ve long been a fan of the ease of the one bowl brownie recipe on the Baker’s Chocolate box, but something about how the brownies tasted was never quite right for me. In search of more pure chocolate experience, I turned to King Arthur Flour and found on their web site what they described as the perfect brownie recipe. They say this recipe creates the ideal balance between fudgy and cakey brownies, which made me realize I never cared before about consistency. I only cared about chocolate flavor. But I thought the “perfect brownie” must have to also taste good so last night my 4-year-old daughter and I gave them a try.

The results were very, very good. These brownies fulfilled my desire for clean chocolate flavor. And, the recipe allowed for a lot of child involvement, which was nice. Recipes that are all mixed with a hand mixer are a bummer for a kid. This one requires four eggs, which gave my girl a chance to do one of her favorite things and break them all into a bowl. Then she had to mix cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and vanilla into the eggs, which was fun because the mixture became a beautiful deep brown as she stirred. And I knew she could stir as much as she wanted without doing any damage because we hadn’t yet added the flour. That went in at the very end with two big cups of chocolate chips. But first we mixed in a melted butter and sugar mixture that apparently gives the brownies a shiny top crust. Who knew? I really appreciate the chemistry lessons KAF slips into recipes.

The brownies were a bit too sweet, but that may be because in my haste I accidentally added 1 and 1/3 cups sugar rather than 1 and ¼. I think the chips give it plenty of sweetness and I’ll probably leave out some of the white sugar next time. Even so, these taste so much better than the one bowl recipe I’ve relied on for years, and using two bowls is worth it for deep chocolate brownies you might need to eat with a fork.

All Women All Night

2009-02-27T13:36:00.000-08:00

Last night the women of my world gathered together for our first of hopefully many all femme dinner events. Since we thought themeing the night would help focus our cooking energies, we chose France (rather randomly with the help a participant's 2 year old daughter and an encyclopedia). French food sounded pretty reasonable and doable, especially for a Francophil like me.

I decided to make a Cooks Illustrated Chicken Provencal recipe. I made this before with good results; it's pretty easy and pretty tasty. Unfortunately, the day of the party I felt dizzy-trippy, tired, scatter-brained, just off my game.

I did fine browning the chicken and prepping the ingredients for the sauce in ample advance of the event. Satisfied with my work, I took a shower and came down to finish the sauce and put the chicken in the oven--you know to have it cooking maybe for the last 30 mins while everyone ate appetizers. Unfortunately, I hadn't re-read the recipe all the way through and realized at 6:00 (about when everyone was supposed to arrive) that the dish needed to cook for 1 1/4 hours. Yikes, I almost had a heart attack; I'm not kidding, my heart was a thumpin. I frantically threw everything in the pot and shoved it in the oven. To make a long story mercifully shorter, everything turned out fine--guests came later than expected, the chicken cooked up in plenty of time.

But enough about me. Here is an overview of all the other delicious dishes from our premier dinner Francais. Anita made a super fantastic French onion soup. It was so good and so beautiful that it had to be the lead image (see top of the page). Anita reminded us several times, while we tucked into her sumptuous soup, that it contained a stick of butter. I believe that Anita could love butter, if it just wasn't butter. All I can say is thank goodness for that stick of butter.

Lauren made this tasty salad with roasted beets, endive, lettuce, green beans and walnuts. It went perfectly with the chicken and contained not even a touch of butter. A respectable French entry, I believe, and refreshing and delicious to boot. Finally, Danyelle did no baking or chopping, but she did have to talk to a former student working at the pastry counter in a local grocery store. That seems like quite enough of a sacrifice to me. The results of her discussions with her ex-student was this very berry tart, a mountain-of-berries tart, really.

These are all the food photos I have, but not all the food at the party. Susie brought a very French appetizer of mashed avocado dip; Amy brought the chips with which to dip it; Annie brought a variety of things. I can't remember them all, but I do recall a bottle of Veuve Clicqout and a bud vase sans les fleurs (she's such a well-raised southern girl, she always brings presents). And last, but not least, Chris brought some cute eclairs. I'm still enjoying them every now and again. Overall, I would say we started this women's night thing off with a bang. Next stop Portugal.

Donut Muffins. Is this possible?

2009-01-10T13:52:00.001-08:00

I know its sounds too good to be true, but true it is. They may not taste exactly like donuts, but they are some kind of delicious. I have been heavily preusing food blogs in these waning days of my winter break and am particularly addicted to http://bread-and-honey.blogspot.com/. Beautiful food photos, fun stories, cute kid hands grabbing for cookies, rolling dough, and a good mix of baking and cooking--and-- these, now infamous in my house, donut muffins.

It is snowing today, off and on. We took a lovely, but very windy, walk out in the weather and on return, I whipped these babies up. I made a few modifications to the bread and honey recipe:
http://bread-and-honey.blogspot.com/2008/10/donut-muffins.html

Two tablespoons less butter, a half a cup of whole wheat flour to replace 1/2 cup of the 3 cups of ap flour, a 1/2 tsp of vanilla and buttermilk instead of milk and vinager (I always have buttermilk, so why make sour milk?). Mine were a little top heavy; I don't have a big muffin tin.

It is only two hours before we go have dinner with my mother-in-law. I am pretty strict about sweets before dinner; someone must have drilled that into me as child. But I just couldn't resist these perfumey little cakes (muffins is a bit of stretch). As I sit here, I am thinking about grabbing one more.

Christmas Cooking

2009-01-07T15:58:00.001-08:00

It's been a hell of a long time since I blogged, I know. And I know that Christmas long since passed, but I have much to report after a frenzy of Christmas cooking and baking. I tried my hand at many new recipes over the holidays, some turned out delicious, others ok, and others surpising.

Let's start with one of my favorite but most challenging baking events, Cinnamon Rolls. I found this receipe in Bon Appetit last March. Molly Wizenberg's article made it all sound so easy. She promised that a yeast novice could pull this one off. I began to covet the recipe. I dreamed about it; I read and re-read the recipe; I bought the instant yeast. And, 10 months later, I finally got up the nerve to make these little honies for Christmas morning breakfast. My long-since lapsed Catholic husband relented to his, forever unlapsed, Catholic mother's request that he go to Christmas morning mass. This gave me the opportunity to indulge in my own religion--baking Cinnamon Rolls.

Promising looking little ball of dough, no? Well, it didn't rise in time for me to roll, cut, and bake it for the returning church folk; our house is just too darn cold in the morning. On the fly, I whipped up a delicious, but hardly comparable, Caramel Nut Coffee Cake from Molly Katzen's Sunlight Cafe (my tried and true breakfast book). My mother-in-law loves cake, all kinds of cake, so she was perfectly happy. I pinned for the rolls.

Here they are about to hit the oven, well after breakfast. Not too bad, for a four hour total rise. I made two pans of these. I am embarassed to say I don't have an image of the final results. Can you believe it? But they were sick-yummy. We had to stop ourselves from eating each and everyone immediately. I decided to forgo the cream cheese glaze.They were so pillowy and luscious without it.

DOUGH

1 cup whole milk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 1/2 cups (or more) unbleached all purpose flour, divided
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 1/4 teaspoons rapid-rise yeast (from 2 envelopes yeast)
1 teaspoon salt
Nonstick vegetable oil spray

FILLING

3/4 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

GLAZE

4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine milk and butter in glass measuring cup. Microwave on high until butter melts and mixture is just warmed to 120°F to 130°F, 30 to 45 seconds. Pour into bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Add 1 cup flour, sugar, egg, yeast, and salt. Beat on low speed 3 minutes, stopping occasionally to scrape down sides of bowl. Add 2 1/2 cups flour. Beat on low until flour is absorbed and dough is sticky, scraping down sides of bowl. If dough is very sticky, add more flour by tablespoonfuls until dough begins to form ball and pulls away from sides of bowl. Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface. Knead until smooth and elastic, adding more flour if sticky, about 8 minutes. Form into ball.

Lightly oil large bowl with nonstick spray. Transfer dough to bowl, turning to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap, then kitchen towel. Let dough rise in warm draft-free area until doubled in volume, about 2 hours.

FILLING

Mix brown sugar and cinnamon in medium bowl.
Punch down dough. Transfer to floured work surface. Roll out to 15x11-inch rectangle. Spread butter over dough, leaving 1/2-inch border. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar evenly over butter. Starting at 1 long side, roll dough into log, pinching gently to keep it rolled up. With seam side down, cut dough crosswise with thin sharp knife into 18 equal slices (each about 1/2 to 3/4 inch wide).

Spray two 9-inch square glass baking dishes with nonstick spray. Divide rolls between baking dishes, arranging cut side up (there will be almost no space between rolls). Cover baking dishes with plastic wrap, then kitchen towel. Let dough rise in warm draft-free area until almost doubled in volume, 40 to 45 minutes.
Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 375°F. Bake rolls until tops are golden, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and invert immediately onto rack. Cool 10 minutes. Turn rolls right side up.

GLAZE

Combine cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter, and vanilla in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat until smooth. Spread glaze on rolls. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Here's a list of some the other items included in my holiday baking/cooking stint:

Apple Cranberry Walnut Crumble
Oat Wheat Bread
Rye Onion Quick Bread
Chocolate Chip Cookies (the best recipe know to man, perfect, from The New York Times Dessert Cookbook)
Baked Shrimp with a Peanut Dipping Sauce
Braised Paprika Chicken

This last one was from EatingWell Magazine; my New Years Day dinner guests loved it. I have a strange relationship with this magazine. I like to read the recipes and the articles, but I usually give it a gander and then turn to the recent Fine Cooking or Cooks Illustrated when I actually get down to cooking. This recipe was a delicious surprise (and lower fat, if that makes a difference to anyone).

I may have forgotten other things made and eaten; it was a long holiday with much feasting.

Off the Food Trail- 2008 Election Relief

2008-11-09T07:14:00.000-08:00

I know that this blog is supposed to be devoted to food and food thoughts, but a woman can't live by bread alone. I need to reflect on the meaning of the Democratic Obama victory last week, for me. Almost my entire life, except for those few years when I was young and LBJ was in office and those short gleams of democratic leadership under Carter and Clinton, I have been living in a Republican (ever more right leaning and religiously ferverent) America. Only since this recent Democratic victory, did I realize how deeply the conservative climate has dragged down my spirit.

I first came to political awareness in my 20s--Reagan years. I felt so separate and disconnected from my country and my government, I began to cultivate a rock-solid pessimism/cynicism towards all programs for political renovation--whether they be Republican or the opposition from the beleagured Left. I had no where to anchor my civic hopes. My hopelessness increased as the nation bought wholeheartedly into the inevitability of the conservative vision. The pervasive belief in the ineluctability of human greed, the necessity of military might and American supremacy, the rightness of materialist and status ambitions, the soundness of unreflective dismissal of the poor, the abused, victims of war, the "enemy", and of the unconventional has left me feeling bleak and lonely most of my adult life. Furthermore, the argument that "what is, is right", and that "what is" is just a demonstration of our innate "human nature" has made discussion about how to change America impossible.

Sure, progressive voices continued to speak about civic responsiblity and engagement, about the poor and the needy, but they did so with little confidence as a minority in a nation that respected none of these political ideals.

I know that what people believe is human nature is always a product of context. If they see a world where greed, political apathy, and cruelty reign, they call it human nature. For this reason, I look forward to a renovation of human nature as the parochial and vindictive conservative worldview passes.

Don't get me wrong, I have not completely embraced the Obama utopianism pulsing through the nation (maybe just a little). I am brittle and suspicious from coming of age in an era of profound disappointment. I hear Angela Davis when she says that as far as Obama is concerned, America places far too much importance on individual achievement. With 2 million + Americans, the majority men of color, sitting in prison as a form of neo-slavery, one black man's movement into the White House does not substantively challenge the condition of African America. I hear my own inner suspicions that recognize Obama as a centrist Democrat who does not necessarily represent any substantive departure from status quo politics. His comments about "killing Bin Laden" are silly and offensive to me.

But, hell, after Tueday I feel different. I feel optimistic. I see potential and possibility. I am human, I gotta believe. I'm looking forward to hearing a president talk about our national responsibility to the poor and the abused here and abroad and actually mean it. I am looking forward to watching America's international prestige resuscitated. I am looking forward to hearing intelligent, well-considered political talk coming out of the White House, not condescension and pronouncement. And I'm looking forward to having government agencies empowered to do their work, rather than cynically undermined by de-regulationists.

I'm keeping my antenna up; I haven't lost my edge. But I am smiling alot more.

The History of Tofu

2008-09-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

I made tofu with broccoli and bean sprouts for dinner last Sunday night. The husband had weekend duty at his boarding school. This meant staying on campus almost the entire weekend, driving the boarders to various events and, inevitably, overeating bad food. It's a time-tested, anxiety release strategy for on-duty faculty. From his recounting, in one afternoon, he ate several slices of pizza, both washed down with soda; a large coffee; much candy; and a turkey sandwich. This may not sound so bad, but mixed with fulltime teenage contact, it put him over the edge. I intended the tofu as a counter-action to the junk indulgences.

I have a strange relationship with tofu. I buy it regularly, intending to use it in a stir-fry. But time after time, I pass it by. It sits in my refrigerator for a week, or weeks, until I finally breakdown and cook it up. I am usually pleasantly surprised with the results. But I never lust after it, as I do for a hot-out-of-the-oven muffin or a well made pasta sauce.

I first encountered the snowy white, bean cake at Siam Restaurant in Lambertville, NJ. I worked for Siam through much of the 1980s. I worked six nights a week. And nearly six nights a week, I chose to eat tofu for dinner (I was a vegetarian, of sorts, back then). Stir fried tofu with bean sprouts, that was my dish of choice. It may sound bland. It sure wasn't anything to look at, very white and gray. But when the tofu and bean sprouts were fresh, and the jasmine rice was pipping hot, it had a clean, squeaky, clear, garlicky, fish-saucy taste that I loved.

(The husband and our friends, Zoe and Neil, in front of Siam. Whenever they visit, we end up there. They like it; we like it. It's a tradition.)

Anyway, back to tofu...

Siam gets its tofu (and other Thai ingredients) from Chinatown in Philadelphia. When I worked there, I went on several of these grocery trips. The Thai subculture in Philly is small as are the Thai food stores. I recall going to one of these matchbox sized stores with Timmy, the owner-chef, and listening to his back and forth with the shopkeeper as they both dragged on Marlboros. After they caught up, Timmy started to fill his order--cases of tinned curry, coconut milk and lychee nuts, palm sugar and Thai snacks for his family- bags of miniscule dried shrimp, a fishy-smelling wad that looked like pale-pink cotton candy, and other bizarre-to-me items.

I realize, upon reflection, that I developed my first foodie inclinations at Siam. I ate the on-the-menu dishes, the aforementioned tofu and much more. But I also ate the after-hours stuff that Timmy wouldn't serve to Americans. Bowls of searingly-hot green curry thick with bamboo rods, fish ball soup, steamed chicken feet, deep-fried cubes of pork fat, winter melon soup, hard boiled eggs stewed in a pitch black broth scented with star anise, old-rice soup. Back then, I refused nothing and I only ate with a large spoon and fork, Thai style. I wanted to be one of them, a Thai authentic, not one of the customers to whom they served Americanized-Thai.

I learned a lot about cooking (and Thailand) just from watching Timmy and from talking to him about food. At one point, I even contemplated switching from the front to the back of the house. But the tips were just too good. Too bad, maybe if I had made the switch, I could make a tofu dish worth looking forward to.

A Skeptic's Food History

2008-09-27T16:08:00.000-07:00

The food of my childhood was pretty unremarkable. My sorta-suburban family of five ate what my mother made. This generally meant such things as roast chicken and Bisquick biscuits, roast beef and potatoes, El Paso Tacos with ground meat and iceberg lettuce, something called "hungarian goulash," and loose meat with gravy over mashed potatoes, to name the most memorable. I can't complain about any of it. It was well cooked and tasty. I was a hungry little person. I ate everything thankfully. My mother also had a weakness for health fads. In the late 1970s, she got swept up in the natural foods trends. These were not my family's best gastronomic years. Our 70s dinner table groaned with weird curried concoctions served with raisins and shaved (unsweetened) coconut, grape nut bread and other indistinct items. Again, I ate everything thankfully. I was hungry most of the time. Apparently my maternal grandmother made wicked pies, cakes and cinnamon buns. I don't recall, she didn't live near us. I do have a clear summer memory of making dinner with my paternal grandmother (aka momma). The menu that night included pan fried steak, salad, and instant mashed potatoes. While whipping the mashed potatoes, my momma threw in a dash or two of garlic powder. What innovation, I thought. And, like always, I ate everything thankfully, especially those garlicky instant potatoes.

As you can imagine, my childhood did not foster a very specific food identity. I became a mediocre-to-very poor cook once out on my own. As my boyfriend-to-be-husband used to say, "we can both make an okay pot of slop." This all changed when I began my dissertation on natural foods. I spent so much time reading and thinking about food that I started to learn and cook. Our (me and the husband's) food life improved dramatically. I continued to read about food and cook and bake. I became a bit of an aesthete, a searcher for the special and the delicious.

So why a skeptical foodie, you ask? Part of me is happy to revel in food luxury. I, as much as the foodie next store, love to look at seductively photographed food magazines. In the summer I get my fruit and vegtables only from the two farmstands near my house. The quality is undeniable. I just recently started perusing food blogs: I'm hooked. But I feel a little dirty after these indulgences. When I'm honest with myself, the whole foodie things feels frivolously bourgeois.

My years as a food historian bred a two headed beast: the food lover and the food skeptic. That's where I'm at.

Food as Healer

2008-09-26T07:41:00.001-07:00

A recent encounter with a neighbor's relative got me to thinking about how we moderns unreflexively turn to food in a health crisis. I can't tell you the number of times that I have talked to someone confronting a newly diagnosed disease who immediately invokes diet and food as remedy or cause.There is a sort of moral self-judgement going on-if I had eaten correctly, I wouldn't have this disease. I am suffering for my dietary laxity. Or they move to food as a protective shield against further bodily invasion. I know that most of this is about the desire to find control in the face of wildly uncontrollable circumstances: disease and death. I know that food and diet create order, create focus, create mastery, when one feels powerless to self-decay and the medical establishment. But I am always taken aback by the instantaneous gravitation to the food as healer idea.

Don't get me wrong, I fall for it too. I don't feel well for more than a few days and you bet I'm gonna start regimenting my diet. But why people (me too) think that diet can do anything about an already established disease, I do not know. I guess it is an act of prayer, a good luck gesture. A symbolic kowtow to unknowable forces: "I got your message. I know I am mortal. Shit, just let me get well and I promise I will behave."