The C Is For Cocina

Thrilling Purchase

2009-07-26T11:51:00.001-07:00

And a question: Given all the time I spent reading the blog French Laundry at Home... Why did I never buy this book before?

Also, I have to share my favorite line so far: "The great thing about foie gras is that it's foie gras—like the great thing about caviar is that it's caviar."

Summer Garden Porn

2009-07-26T11:20:00.000-07:00

This year's garden, though less ambitious than I'd like (story of my life), is going gangbusters this month, thanks to unseasonably sunny and hot summer weather here in Seattle. (Today's predicted high: 87!)

Of all the things I've tried for the first time this year, my proudest achievement is a tossup between potatoes (I just bought organics at the grocery store, chunked them up, and planted them in a repurposed sandbox, mounding dirt around the plants as they grew) and tomatoes.

Not just any tomatoes, though—these were grown from seeds I bought at the garden shop, against the stern advice of the saleswoman, who advised coming back for plants in a few months. I've been told over and over again that you can't grow tomatoes from seeds in the Northwest—it's too cool and wet for too long to give them enough growing time to set fruit—and while I've yet to harvest anything, the green ones are already coming in. Now I'm just crossing my fingers for a few more weeks of 80-plus temperatures and blue skies.

The first tiny tomatoes.

Potato plants—Russian banana fingerling, purple, and Yukon Gold

Wanna know how to tell the difference between male and female squash blossoms? Go here.

Lemon cucumber plants, with the last of this year's fava beans in the background

Tomatillos—another plant I've been told wouldn't grow in the Northwest. It grows like a weed.

Aaaah! They're taking over!!! (Note defenseleess carrots underneath squash plants; the leeks have already been buried.)

I had no idea what these were until I pulled one up. Who would've thought I planted parsnips?

Another Reason to Love Big Cities

2009-07-16T16:21:00.000-07:00

And I thought the $3.99 brie-topped baked potato I bought at Michou for lunch today was a killer deal... Serious Eats NY has a roundup of food you can buy in New York for a buck or less.

On the list: Deep-fried meat/veggies/fish on a stick (including squid, tripe, beef and broccoli) from a street vendor in Queens, $1; agadashi tofu at May's Place in the West Village, $1; and a falafel half-pita from Cinderella Falafel, $1.

News Flash: No Matter How Many Cookies You Bake In It, Your Car Will Not "Reverse Global Warming"

2009-07-16T15:02:00.000-07:00

Photo by Flickr user Amber in Norfolk.

And we're back!

Sorry, folks, for the long absence... as you may or may not already know, I've taken a new gig at PubliCola, which involves my professional and personal passions, respectively: reporting on politics and blogging about food!

I'm hoping, however, to get back to blogging here on a more regular basis now that things have started to settle down a little in my professional life. Although, honestly, the first thing that really got me itching to blog again wasn't about food, exactly—it was this article, linked on the Huffington Post (a site that makes my blood on pretty much an hourly basis) about how "baking cookies on your car's dashboard will OMG save the planet!!!"—which, depending on how you look at it, is a perfect example of greenwashing, "environmental" consumerism, cognitive dissonance, or all three.

I'm not exaggerating. Here's the headline:

Cookies: The New Dashboard Jesus?

They aren't being ironic, I'm afraid:

TreeHugger's virtual “watercooler” (via Skype) was all a buzz this morning with this delicious tip via Lifehacker: warm, chewy, gooey chocolate chip cookies baked a la dashboard.

Which we love not only because it’s one more way to keep our kitchens cool during the dog days of summer but because it’s energy-free, no oven—or fossil-fuels—required. And in the grand scheme of things, helps reduce our carbon emissions!

"Have your eco-friendly cookies and eat 'em too," "reverse global warming," blah blah blah.

Look. I've got no problem if you want to bake cookies on the dashboard, eggs on the sidewalk, or whatever. But the idea that you can "reverse global warming" by baking cookies IN YOUR CAR—the same car, I'm gonna go out on a limb and presume here, you drive to work every day—borders on self-parody. Unfortunately, it isn't April 1.

Swoon

2009-06-01T14:49:00.000-07:00

And my world is complete... Mark Bittman talks (with Kay Steiger) about feminism and cooking:

Part of the reason food went downhill in this country, the biggest reason, was this marketing assault on the part of convenience food manufacturers that said, “Well, food needs to be convenient.” But why did people want to hear that? Women wanted to hear that because they were sick and tired of making dinner every night while raising the kids and, increasingly from the seventies on, having jobs. So they wanted to hear, “Oh, you don’t have to work so hard. You can put something in the microwave.” It’s too bad, it’s shit, but that’s the way it goes. But now we have—you know, maybe it’s just my kids—but we have this generation of people who say, “I want to cook. I want decent food and I’m not going to get it if I don’t cook.” Everybody knows you can’t afford to eat out all the time.

I Know What You’re Thinking

2009-05-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

"What the world really needs is a special barbecue book FOR THE LADIES," amiright?

Fortunately for all you wimminz who've been too intimidated by your grill-hogging menfolk to "take your place back at the fire," this blatant deficiency in the world of cookbook publishing has been remedied.

Enter She-Smoke—a book of barbecue recipes, advice, and stories from "smokin' women" by Seattle restaurateur Julie Reinhardt. You may not have been aware that women need to "stand up for our barbecue rights," but once you read a few pages of She-Smoke, you'll understand that the typical American woman suffers from "firephobia," believes that her "grill could blow up at any moment," feels "iffy with big hunks of raw meat," and thinks barbecue is "scary."

But aside from learning not to "fear the fire," what gender-specific barbecue knowledge, you might wonder, are women lacking? Well, for the most part, Reinhardt's book reads pretty much like any guide to backyard barbecue, with tips about how to light a fire, how (and how long) to cook various meats, and so forth. Leave out the constant, cutesy references to "kickass 'cue girls," "smokin' barbecue blazers," and "knife-wielding babes," and what you're left with is actually a pretty good, if basic, guide to barbecueing and grilling that would be appropriate for any novice, man or woman.

So why "She-Smoke"? Obviously, it's a marketing gimmick—reel the ladies in with the one barbecue book directed at them—so I'm inclined to ignore the fact that it dresses up finding yet another way to cook for men as "female empowerment." In any case, as someone who owns several barbecue books (and several dozen cookbooks) myself, I'm betting this tactic's going to backfire. When I look for a book on an unfamiliar subject, I don't pick up the one whose color or cover or title seems best marketed to my demographic. (Oooh, pink!) I buy whichever one seems the best. You know, kind of like a man would.

Balut

2009-05-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

Today in emails I was excited/somewhat terrified to receive:

On May 27, 2009, at 10:01 PM, [name redacted] wrote:

I bought ten mostly-incubated (but still raw) duck eggs today, and will be boiling some of them tomorrow afternoon with a friend of mine, to be eaten on my sunny back lawn with beer around 5:00.

(1) Would you like to join us?

(2) If not, would you like a couple of them raw to cook at your leisure?

I can't think of many people in my life who also might like to eat these things, but you make the list. ;)

It's true! I AM curious to know what they taste like. Unfortunately, a campaign kickoff prevents me from joining my friend on his sunny lawn, but he's saving me a couple to try later. Report (with photos) to come.

Asparagus, One Zillion Ways

2009-05-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

This is the time of year when it's hard to resist eating asparagus at least once every single day. Sure, you can get it out-of-season for most of the year, but few things compare to the sensation of biting into a perfectly crisp, impossibly sweet spear of springtime asparagus just days (or hours!) from the ground. (This isn't locavoran snobbery, I swear: It's just that once you know what the good stuff tastes like, the so-so stuff seems like a waste of money. How many people do you know who will buy a supermarket tomato in the winter?) So far this week, I've had it three ways: As part of a simple cream sauce for fettuccine; in a silky, almost-vegan soup; and lightly braised in butter with oyster mushrooms (my favorite preparation so far). Eventually, surely, I'm going to get sick of all these fresh preparations and start turning to another favorite standby; for now, however, I'm happy to eat as much asparagus as my refrigerator can hold--then no more until next year, when it's available at the farmers markets and in my CSA box again.

First up: An improvised pasta-and-cream-sauce combo featuring asparagus just barely blanched, then briefly rewarmed in the sauce. First, I brought a pot of salted water to boil for the asparagus. While that was heating up, in another pan, I lightly sauteed half a chopped small yellow onion with a few cloves of thinly sliced garlic in about a tablespoon of butter over medium-low heat. Then I blanched the asparagus, removed it from the water to a strainer, and ran it under very cold water to stop the cooking (I left the water in the pot to use for pasta). Once the water came back to a boil, I added some more salt and tossed in the pasta. While that cooked, I added a splash of half-and-half, some chopped tarragon and flat-leaf parsley from the garden, and the asparagus into the pan with the onions and heated it through. Served over the pasta with a shower of Parmesan, it was filling, rich, and the essence of spring.

The second recipe, for "lemony asparagus soup," is adapted from the wonderful food blog Dishing Up Delights (as did the photo above). The only thing I changed was the addition of some garlic chives and their lovely purple flowers at the end. It would also be nice, hot or chilled, with a dollop of plain yogurt or cream fraiche.

Lemony Asparagus Soup

10 ounces (1 small bunch) asparagus, cut into 1/2-inch pieces with a few 3-inch tips reserved for garnish
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 cups low-sodium vegetable stock
One 1-inch wide strip of lemon zest, plus 1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest for garnish (or more to taste)
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil. Fill a large bowl with ice water. Boil all of the asparagus until bright green and barely tender, about 2-3 minutes. Drain and transfer to the ice water to cool, then drain again. Set most of the tips aside from the rest of the cut up pieces.

Wipe out the saucepan. Add the olive oil and heat until shimmering. Add the sliced onion to the saucepan and cook over moderately high heat, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the chicken stock and lemon zest strip, bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the asparagus pieces and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Discard the lemon zest strip.

Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender. Return the soup to the saucepan and stir in the lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper and reheat if necessary. Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with the asparagus tips and grated lemon zest. Serve hot or chilled.

Finally, the best preparation was the simplest of all--Bittman's butter-braised asparagus with oyster mushrooms, from his Minimalist column. Trusting Bittman, I followed it almost to the letter, except for the addition of a teaspoon or so of fresh marjoram (currently going nuts in my garden) along with the tarragon. I'm not usually a fan of oyster mushrooms, finding their delicate flavor and soft texture a little too subtle, but this dish--which renders the mushrooms simultaneously meaty and silken--was a revelation.

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
7 ounces oyster mushrooms, trimmed and cut into 3/4-inch pieces (about 2 cups)
Kosher salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 pound asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1 1/4 -inch lengths
3 scallions, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced (about 1/4 cup)
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon

In a large skillet over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter. Add mushrooms and a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir to coat mushrooms with butter. Cover and cook for 5 minutes.

Stir in asparagus, scallions and remaining 1 tablespoon butter. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook for about 2 minutes if using pencil-thin asparagus, and up to 7 minutes for jumbos (until asparagus is al dente).

Stir in peas and tarragon; cover and cook about 2 minutes longer, until peas are heated through and asparagus is tender. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

"You Are What You Eat"

2009-05-21T17:17:00.001-07:00

The photos in this gallery--a series of images by photographer Mark Menjivar of the interiors of refrigerators in homes across the US--are simultaneously impersonal (the photos depict still lifes, with the only implied human presence being the hands that arranged them) and incredibly intimate (the shot of the fridge containing an open Pepsi bottle filled with water, some miscellaneous bread products, and an unmarked paper bag--belonging to a botanist who "feels more comfortable among flora and fauna ... than people"--just kills me. There are a thousand stories in every refrigerator--of late nights (the San Antonio bartender who goes to sleep every night at 8 am and subsists on food from Styrofoam cartons), family life (the San Angelo, TX construction worker whose wife gets up every day at 4 am to feed their family, whose fridge is crammed with jalapenos and potatoes), and of seeming loneliness (a San Antonio "street advertiser" who lives on $432 a month and whose refrigerator contains a black plastic convenience-store bag and a jar of mayonnaise). A few of my favorites:

Carpenter/Photographer | San Antonio, TX | 3-Person Household | 12-Point Buck

Disabled | Marathon,TX | 2-Person Household | Weighed 390lbs earlier this year.

Short Order Cook | Marathon,TX | 2-Person Household | She can bench press over 300lbs. |

Via Sociological Images.

The Cost of Food

2009-05-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

A couple of interesting stories today about the price of food.

First, Tom Laskawy at Grist argues that it makes no sense to tax "sin" foods like soda without simultaneously subsidizing the stuff we want people to eat--stuff like whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. The telegraph:

There’s no free market in food. There’s only the stuff we subsidize and the stuff we don’t. And I’m not talking simply about cash subsidies paid to corn growers. I’m talking about a system that drives the wholesale price of corn and soybeans (the raw materials in all processed foods) to well below the cost of production. Meanwhile, fruits and vegetables don’t get that benefit—they’re expected to sell at a premium (even if in some cases the premium is small). ... . It’s nice that we are finally willing to start taxing unhealthy food. But without doing something about the good stuff, we’re only fighting half the battle.

In somewhat related news, the AP reports that cash-strapped consumers have started turning to "cheaper" food products--things like Dinty Moore stew, Kraft mac and cheese, and SPAM.

SPAM? Dinty Moore? Really? I know that time is money, blah blah blah, but I can whip up 8 servings of mac and cheese--using this recipe, for example--in about an hour for less than $7, easy. The same quantity of Kraft Mac and Cheese might cost a little less and take a bit less time, but instead of real cheese, here's what I'd be eating, according to the box ingredients: Whey, milkfat, milk protein concentrate, salt, calcium carbonate, sodium tripolyphosphate, citric acid, sodium phosphate, lactic acid, milk, yellow 5, yellow 6, enzymes, and cheese culture. Yum!

Similarly, for the Safeway Club price of $2.99 for 12 ounces of SPAM (ingredients: chopped pork shoulder, ham, salt, water, sugar, and sodium nitrite), I could buy a three-pound pork shoulder blade roast that would taste like meat, not a gelatinous mass of hot dogs molded into a ham-shaped loaf.

Part of the problem here is education--I'll wager that most American meat consumers wouldn't know what to do with a whole pork shoulder, much less how to unit-price it next to a can of SPAM--and part of it is our obsession with convenience. If it's quick, it must be good, and if it's "cheap," all the better. But if the cost of all that seemingly cheap food is our health, isn't it worth it to take a moment and learn how to make smarter choices? And ultimately, shouldn't the government spend a little of its food promotion budget educating children about how to make healthy choices, instead of serving as pushers for cheap, processed meat and dairy products?

Photo by Flickr user Grumbler.

You Got Your Arugula in My Poor People!

2009-05-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

The National Review's Julie Gunlock (actual last name??) complains that soup kitchens like Miriam's Kitchen in Washington D.C. are serving actual nutritious food to homeless people, when everybody knows homeless people only deserve things real people don't eat, like donuts, canned food, and Velveeta. By treating homeless people like actual people--that is, by serving them things like risotto (rice amd nrptj), pumpkin soup (a cheap root vegetable and some broth) and roasted-garlic-and-turnip mashed potatoes (three cheap root vegetables mashed up with some milk)--Gunlock charges, Miriam's Kitchen is sending a "counterproductive" message--the message that poor people deserve food that meets a "gourmet ideal" instead of "Velveeta, hot dogs, white bread and (gasp!) canned vegetables."

Shorter Julie Gunlock: Poor people should be happy with whatever crap "we" deign to give them (crap that is, by the way, heavily subsidized by the eeeeevil government), and any attempt to provide them with nutritious food--even food that's cheaper than the processed crap it replaces--is "Arugula Elitism" and must not be allowed.

The Internet Food Association's take is here.

Three Experiments

2009-05-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

The sun finally came out this weekend in Seattle. If you've never lived in the Pacific Northwest, this will be hard to appreciate, but after months of rain punctuated by what an optimist would call "bright gray" days, a warm, sunny day that actually falls on a weekend feels like an unexpected gift. I spent the weekend biking around the city, digging up beds for potatoes, and lazing around in the park--and, of course, cooking and eating. I tried three things for the first time this weekend--and, although I wouldn't declare any of them an unqualified success, each one broadened my culinary horizons in a different way.

The first was a sorbet-based concoction at Molly Moon's Ice Cream, the hyped-to-death new ice cream shop a block away from my office. Let me preface by saying that I don't like ice cream. Too rich, too creamy, too sweet, too much. Sorbet, on the other hand, I love--especially on a hot day, especially if it's not too sweet. Other things I love? Anything that sounds potentially too weird to eat. Which is how I ended up dropping five bucks on a "Sweet Dirt sundae," featuring baby beet sorbet (yum), balsamic syrup (oh...kaaay), shredded carrot (huh?) and parmesan cheese (say WHAH?!) The woman behind the counter described it as "sort of an ice-cream salad." Obviously, I had to try it. And it was... well... really weird. The carrot shreds were a little too coarse to combine with any of the other elements, and the parmesan was actually pretty gross at first--too salty in contrast to the over-sweet sorbet, and the conflicting textures (sandy shredded Parm, creamy sorbet) were really distracting. Eventually, though, everything kind of melted together into a palatable-enough compromise--not something I'd ever pay money for again, but a completely unique combination of tastes I'd never think to try together.

I must've had beets on the brain, because my second experiment was an attempt to rescue the sad bunch that have been sitting in my produce drawer since my CSA pickup two weeks ago. Taking inspiration from this post on Mark Bittman's blog by Stacey Slate, I decided to try pickling them in a simple brine of vinegar and salt with garlic and pickling spice. First, I boiled the beets in water for about 10 minutes--longer than Slate suggests, but I think my beets must have been tougher than hers. Then I let the beets cool (cheating a bit by holding them under cold running water to stop the cooking) and peeled them. While I brought two cups of water, a couple tablespoons of salt, and a cup of vinegar to a boil, I dropped a teaspoon or so of pickling spice (from Bittman's cookbook, How to Cook Everything) and a cut clove of garlic into a pint jar and packed the beets loosely on top. When the brine came to a boil, I poured it over the jars, sealed them, and let them cool. The jars--now filled with a gorgeous fuschia liquid—-are sitting in the refrigerator now, and I plan to open them in a few more days, assuming I can wait that long. (Next time I'm trying Jonathan Ryan's "Beets, Mexican Style," a simple method that also comes from Bittman's blog.)

(Photo via Tamarind and Thyme)

Experiment 3 was only moderately successful, and a little tedious--it took most of my Sunday afternoon and resulted in the removal of a good chunk of my finger and fingernail. (Partially frozen galangal + less-than-razor-sharp-knife = Erica with her finger on ice all night). The recipe was beef rendang, an Indonesian/Malaysian recipe from the London-based blog Tamarind and Thyme, and although it included many of my favorite ingredients--toasted coconut, tamarind pulp, Kaffir lime leaves, lemongass, galangal--the end product just needed... something. It had all the right base notes, but lacked a high note to balance it out and bring all those complex flavors to the surface. It was also, truth be told, a little dry. Maybe I used the wrong cut of beef (the recipe calls for "stewing beef," so I just used what I had on hand, a round tip roast). I'm not giving up, though. Next time I may try using boneless pork ribs verboten in Muslim countries, but more tender than beef) and adding some kind of vegetable to the mix. In the meantime, here's the original recipe, in all its complex, fingernail-slicing glory.

2 lbs. beef for stewing, cut in approximately 1.5″ cubes
3 tbsps peanut oil (or sunflower oil)
1.5 inch long cinnamon stick
4 cloves
4 cardamom pods
4 star anise
1 14-oz can coconut milk
1/2 tin of water
2 tsps tamarind pulp, soaked in about 1/2 cup warm water
1 tbsp sugar
7 kaffir lime leaves, very thinly sliced
7 tbsps dessicated coconut (not sweetened)
salt to taste

for the spice paste
6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped roughly
6 small shallots (I used the Asian purple ones), peeled and chopped roughly
2 stalks lemongrass, tough layers removed and softer inner layers chopped roughly
1.5 inch piece of ginger, peeled and chopped roughly
1.5 inch piece of galangal, cleaned and chopped roughly
6 large dried chilies, soaked in warm water, seeded, and chopped roughly
0.5 tsp turmeric powder (I used chopped fresh turmeric, which I happened to pick up at the store recently)
1 tsp salt

First toast the dessicated coconut to make kerisek. In a dry frying pan, add the dessicated coconut and then gently heat it over medium heat. Stir the coconut often until it is a uniform golden brown. Set the toasted coconut aside.

Now make the spice paste. Toss all the prepared spice paste ingredients into a blender or food processor and blend until a paste is formed. Add a little water at a time if it’s not blending properly.

In a large deep saute pan or a large wok or a large heavy casserole, heat the oil over medium heat and fry the spice paste. You’ll find the paste will “soak up” all the oil during frying and when it’s done frying and fully aromatic, the oil will be released again. Add the cinnamon, cloves, cardamom pods, and star anise and stir thoroughly. Add the beef and stir again – the beef should just be coated with the paste, not left to brown. Pour in the coconut milk and the tamarind water and enough of the plain water to cover the meat – you might need to add more. Add the sliced kaffir lime leaves too. Stir thoroughly and bring the liquid to a boil.

When the mixture is bubbling, turn down the heat to a simmer. Sprinkle over the sugar and toasted coconut, stir that through and leave the coconutty mixture to simmer slowly, uncovered, stirring occasionally. After about 2 hours, the water should have all evaporated, leaving the beef in a thick paste and with lots of oil floating on top. Now you’ll have to stir much more often, allowing the beef mixture to fry in the oil. The rendang will darken and will be done when it’s a dark brown, which will occur in about 20-30 minutes. Turn the heat to the lowest temperature and proceed to spoon out the oil that’s been floating on top. Salt the rendang to taste, turn off the heat, and serve.

Where Food Comes From

2009-05-15T12:36:00.001-07:00

This post by Tom Philpott is worth reading in its entirety, as it points out yet another reason for eating local (and diversifying our local food supplies): California, a state with limited water, overwhelmingly dominates America's food supplies, to an extent that is staggering even for those with some awareness of the state's vast miles of farmland. The state, according to Philpott (citing numbers from the California Dept. of Food and Agriculture), produces 99 percent of the artichokes consumed in the U.S., two-thirds of the carrots, 86 percent of the cauliflower, 93 percent of the broccoli, 95 percent of the celery, 90 percent of the leaf lettuce, 83 percent of the fresh spinach, 84 percent of the peaches, and 86 percent of the fresh strawberries?

That level of reliance on agriculture in a drought-prone state, Philpott notes, is unsustainable.

California’s most ag-centric counties, mostly clustered in the fertile Central Valley, are also its most heavily irrigated. And the Central Valley is locked in a three-year drought that shows no sign of easing up. ...

On top of the drought, farmers are also feeling a water pinch from another source. The area’s farms have for years relied on a generous flow of water from a vast estuary called the Delta, where two big rivers meet in the center of the valley. But by sucking water out of the Delta before it reaches the ocean, Central Valley farmers are placing massive pressure on the coastal ecosystem. ...

Evidently, the lack of fresh water—along with pollution and the introduction of invasive species—has triggered population collapse for the delta smelt, the fish at the bottom of the ecoystem’s food chain. Take away the smelt, and other, higher-on-the-food-chain species decline, too. ...

At one point, it must have seemed hyper-efficient to concentrate the great bulk of U.S. veggie production in a few fertile California counties. Now it looks reckless.

Read the whole thing--including an innovative proposal for solving the problem--here.

Related: This web site from Food and Water Watch uses a deceptively simple interface to help you find out where various foods at your grocery store are likely to come from
—and how to make safer, smarter choices at the market.

Big Ag Update

2009-05-15T12:13:00.000-07:00

Grist reports that USDA head Tom Vilsack is on the verge of appointing Dr. Mike Doyle, head of the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety, as his food safety czar. Doyle has been praised by the likes of the American Meat Institute (which honored him with its Scientific Achievement Award in 2004 for his "groundbreaking research" into ways of getting rid of pathogens in meat, including irradiation), and has received funding and support from the National Chicken Council, an industry lobby group. Grist notes that Doyle's main champion in Congress is none other than Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and is "associated with the Animal Agriculture Alliance as well as the American Council on Science and Health ... both industry-funded astroturf organizations whose shared mission is to undermine any research that questions the safety of industrial products or practices.

Meanwhile, Vilsack testified in favor of CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations, AKA factory farms) at a House appropriations subcommittee meeting last week, the Ethicurean reports. Vilsack defended the crowded conditions and antibiotic use by factory farms, insisting that meat companies are "First and foremost, they're concerned for the safety of their consumers. Without consumers, they don't have a market, and without a market they don't have money." In other words, it's our responsibility to investigate what conditions animals at a particular farm are kept in and make our buying decisions accordingly. Personally, I try to stick to organic meat and poultry for that very reason, but not all consumers have that option--or the kind of access to information Vilsack's condescending comment implies.

Speaking of personal responsibility, big food manufacturers now say it's consumers' job to make sure their pathogen-infested food doesn't make us sick--by cooking their products for so long we kill any crap that's in there. According to the New York Times, ConAgra--whose Banquet pot pies sickened thousands of people with salmonella in 2007--is now telling consumers to heat their products to an internal temperature of 165 degrees "as measured by a food thermometer in several spots"--a habit that's sure to be picked up by consumers who buy the company's $1.99 frozen dinners. (In addition to buying a food thermometer--not a basic kitchen tool for people who don't cook a lot of big cuts of meat--the new frozen-food standards also require consumers to have an 1,100-watt microwave oven.) Basically, the food companies don't want to have to go to the trouble of tracking all their ingredients, so they're covering their asses by putting consumers on the hook for their products' safety.

Can't Win for Losing

2009-05-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

Closeup of Ray's Hell Burger with Danish Bleu cheese, applewood smoked bacon, roasted garlic, and sauteed onions (elitist!!!) by Flickr user Alicia Griffin.

The elitists (OK, people who like their meat to taste like meat) ripped Obama for ordering a burger, at Ray's Hell Burger outside D.C., medium well (Spencer Ackerman at Ezra Klein's Internet Food Association: "wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong and a crime against meat!"). The rubes (AKA rich Republicans pretending to be "of the people") complained that his choice of Dijon mustard was "elitist" ("Dijongate"!! "Arugula-like"!! "John Kerry-ish"!!)--never mind that Grey Poupon is PRODUCED BY FREAKING KRAFT, and comes in a plastic bottle that makes a fart sound when you squeeze it.

Now even the food-safety folks are weighing in on Obama's food choice--suggesting, as groundbreaking food-safety attorney Bill Marler did, that Obama may not have gone far enough, given that even a medium-well burger could potentially harbor E. coli. "What is medium well? Is it sufficient to kill the deadly E. coli O157:H7 bacteria? Given that in 2006 USDA/FSIS recalled less that 200,000 pounds of E. coli-tainted hamburger and over 44,000,000 pounds have been recalled since the Spring of 2007, was the President taking a risk just over 100 days after taking office?" Marler wrote, in a post titled "Obama Orders and Eats a Medium Well Burger - Did it have E. coli O157:H7 in it? What was the Internal Temperature? Is he going to Die?" Slightly less hyperbolically, Obama Foodorama pointed out that Ray's Hell Burger had several "critical health violations" in its last public health inspection, including mouse droppings, handling food without gloves, and failing to inform customers of the danger of eating undercooked meat. "In future, when the President is making 'unannounced' stops at local eateries, it would be terrific if he'd order his burger fully cooked, since his 'people' clearly aren't checking the health records of restaurants, which are frequently available online," Obama Foodorama's Eddie wrote.

Yes, You Can Get It From Pork

2009-05-12T12:57:00.000-07:00

Photo by Flickr user BBQ Junkie.

First, the World Health Organization insisted that humans couldn't get swine flu from infected pork. Then--whoops!--they recanted, saying that "meat from pigs infected with the new H1N1 virus shouldn't be used for human consumption." Although the Centers for Disease Control--surprise!--doesn't go that far (in their latest advisory, they assure consumers, "You can not get swine influenza from eating pork or pork products), but they do acknowledge that that's only true if the pork is cooked properly--that is, to an internal temperature of at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Which strongly implies that handling swine-flu infected pork is unsafe, as the Beyond Green Blog has pointed out. Nonetheless, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has assured Americans that eating pork is "absolutely... safe." I'm not reassured.

Question

2009-05-09T19:25:00.000-07:00

If the exhilaration that accom-panies, say, the purchase of a large quantity of ground cumin, whole cumin, and Tellicherry peppercorns in bulk for a total of less than $5 exceeds the exhilaration that accompanies actually using these spices, does that make me weird?

Photo by Flickr user Paul Goyette.

Skepticism

2009-05-09T18:56:00.000-07:00

Last week, as part of a major restocking in case of swine flu (purchased: Some $500 of frozen/ nonperishable/ yummy stuff to be used up starting now, whether or not a pandemic hits Seattle), Alex made a purchase I cannot condone: Four pounds or so of free-range boneless, skinless chicken breasts, on sale at the PCC for some minuscule discount off the usual extortionary $6.99 a pound or whatever, frozen and shrink-wrapped in a massive "DISCOUNT PAK!!" Ah, commerce.

The thing is, no matter how much you're "saving" on boneless, skinless chicken breast, you always lose. This is because boneless, skinless chicken breast is the plain 35-calorie rice cake of poultry--all but textureless, more than flavorless, and inferior in every conceivable way (unless you're counting calories, but why not just eat less of something actually good?) to any kind of dark chicken meat. This is an indisputable fact. Dark meat just tastes better. And if you have to eat white meat, the skin is its only saving grace--take that away, along with the satisfying experience of biting off the end of a well-cooked chicken bone, and you've got the poultry equivalent of a stale low-sodium saltine cracker--perfectly innocuous, harmless in every way, but why would you eat it?

But--bias, nay, good taste be damned--I've got to figure out a way to cook the freaking things. So far, I'm wavering between Mark Bittman's sauteed chicken cutlets (which redeems the fatlessness of the chicken cutlets by frying them in half an inch of oil); his stir-fried chicken with fermented black beans (the latter, again, for flavor); chicken piccata (a classic, apparently); or the Joy of Cooking's baked stuffed chicken breasts (can't find a recipe online, but it's on page 592 of the 1997 edition). I'll update on whether I ultimately overcome my boneless-skinless-chicken-breast aversion (doubtful) or learn tolerance for America's most popular poultry cut (it's possible!)

Fact.

2009-05-06T15:49:00.000-07:00

This salsa, from Sanderson's Specialty Foods in Austin, is the best salsa that there is (and believe me, I've tried a few hundred):

Why is it the best? Because it achieves the perfect balance of vegetal, sweet, fiery, and tart--plus it has none of the b.s. ingredients (bell peppers, oil, sugar, chemical thickeners) that mar many "natural" mass-produced salsas (Newman's Own, I'm looking at you). This is salsa you could make at home, if you could just figure the proportions out--a mix of tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, vinegar, garlic and salt. I buy it every time I'm in Texas and wolf it down, often with a spoon (I'm not proud), almost immediately upon my return to Seattle--and now that I know you can buy it by the case, I won't have to go without the other 51 weeks of the year.

Photo of the Day

2009-05-04T15:31:00.000-07:00

Photo by Flickr user rkazda, in the Seattle Food and Drink Flickr pool.

No Thank You

2009-05-04T15:15:00.000-07:00

From this morning's Seattle Times:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced its second round of grants for innovative, out-of-the-box, and sometimes just plain strange ideas for global health research.

Among the 81 projects getting $100,000 include a plan to create a tomato that delivers antiviral drugs...

That's a tomato that produces antiviral drugs in people who eat it. Because why wouldn't you want to put antiviral drugs into the food supply?

Photo of the Day

2009-05-01T17:53:00.001-07:00

Photo by Flickr user aloalosabine.

Photo of the Day

2009-04-30T11:53:00.000-07:00

Photo of baby arugula and gorgonzola salad by Flickr user Marusula.

A Tale of Three Soups

2009-04-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

The basic technique for cooking every soup on earth--from creamy coconut milk-based curries to hearty beef stews to light, all-vegetable affairs--is the same. First, if your soup includes a fatty meat, brown it in oil and remove from the pan. Second, heat some fat in the pan and brown your aromatics--onion, carrots, celery, garlic, and the like. Then add the rest of your solid ingredients--any browned meat, peppers, potatoes, herbs, etc.--deglaze the pan with a small amount of liquid if desired, and add your liquid. Cook until done; taste for seasoning and add any last-minute additions--a splash of cream or vinegar, a chiffonade of basil, quick-cooking chicken or greens--shortly before serving.

There are variations, of course--some soups are blended, some left chunky; some call for reserving some softer vegetables until the end, or tossing in pasta halfway through to cook in the stock--but the basic method is the same for every soup under the sun. To demonstrate, here are three soups I made just this week.

Soup 1: Provencal Pesto Soup (Soupe au Pistou)

(Photo and recipe, slightly adapted, from Gourmet)

Ingredients
For soup:

1 large leek (white and pale green parts only), washed and thinly sliced (2 cups)
1 celery rib, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 large carrot, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 large thyme sprig
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 pound boiling potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 pound Swiss chard, stems cut into 1/2-inch pieces and leaves coarsely chopped
8 cups vegetable stock
2 cups thawed frozen edamame (fresh soybeans)
1/2 pound zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/4 pound green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
3/4 cup medium pasta shells

For pistou:

1 small tomato
1 cup packed basil leaves
1/2 cup packed flat-leaf parsley leaves
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup coarsely grated Gruyère (3 ounces)

Method

Cook leek, celery, carrot, and thyme sprig in oil with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a 5-to 6-quart heavy pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until vegetables brown and stick to bottom of pot, 10 to 15 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 2 minutes.

Add potatoes and chard stems with 1/2 teaspoon salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until beginning to soften, about 5 minutes. Add stock and bring to a boil, stirring and scraping up brown bits.

Stir in edamame, zucchini, green beans, pasta, chard leaves, and 1/4 tsp salt and simmer, uncovered, until pasta is al dente and vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Discard thyme sprig.

Meanwhile make pistou:
Heat a dry small skillet (not nonstick) over medium heat until hot, then char tomato on all sides. Core tomato, then purée with basil, parsley, and garlic in a food processor. Add oil and cheese and blend well.

Remove soup from heat and stir in half of pistou and salt and pepper to taste. Serve soup with remaining pistou.

Soup 2: Creamy Carrot Soup with Caramelized Carrots (the same one I served with arugula pesto a couple of weeks ago)

Ingredients
For the soup:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
6 medium organic carrots, the freshest and smallest you can find peeled if desired, trimmed, and sliced crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick coins (about 3 cups)
3 small to medium leeks, trimmed and thoroughly washed, white and light green parts cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick coins (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 baking potato, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage leaves
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
6 to 7 cups homemade chicken or vegetable broth

For the caramelized carrot garnish:

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3 carrots, peeled if desired, trimmed and cut into 1/4-inch dice
1 teaspoon finely shredded (chiffonade) fresh sage leaves, or to taste (I used more)
1 scant tablespoon sugar

Method

In a large Dutch oven or other heavy-bottomed pot, warm the butter and oil over medium heat until the butter is melted.

Add the carrots and leeks. Sauté the vegetables for about 10 minutes, or until they have begun to soften.

Add the potato, sage, salt and pepper and cook for 5 minutes.

Stir in 6 cups of the broth. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer, partially covered, for 20 to 25 minutes, until all of the vegetables are tender.

Remove from the heat and let the soup cool for 10 minutes. Purée the soup in a blender, in batches if necessary, or in the pot using an immersion blender. Return the soup to the pot and reheat on medium-low until heated through.

To make the caramelized carrots:

Heat the butter and oil in a medium-size skillet or sauté pan placed over medium heat.

When the butter is melted and begins to sizzle, stir in the diced carrots and shredded sage. Raise the heat to medium-high and sauté for 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until the carrots are tender and lightly browned.

Sprinkle with the sugar and cook briefly to allow the sugar to caramelize. Season with a little salt and pepper and remove from the heat.

To serve, ladle equal portions of soup into six bowls. Garnish each serving with a spoonful of the caramelized carrots and serve immediately.

Soup 3: Thai-Style Chicken Soup with Basil (adapted from Gourmet)

Ingredients

2 fresh lemongrass stalks, root end trimmed and 1 or 2 outer layers discarded
2 large shallots, thinly sliced
2 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 qt rich and flavorful chicken stock; or 5 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth diluted with 3 cups water
1 (14-oz) can diced tomatoes in juice, drained, reserving juice
2 oz tamarind from a pliable block (a 2-inch cube), chopped
3 tablespoons Asian fish sauce
2 (2-inch-long) fresh Thai chiles, thinly sliced
2 fresh or frozen Kaffir lime leaves
1 (2-inch) piece peeled ginger, thinly sliced
1 lb chicken thighs, skin and bones removed
1/4 lb snow peas, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/3 cup packed basil leaves (preferably Thai)

Method

Cut off and discard top of lemongrass, leaving 6-inch stalks, then finely chop. Cook lemongrass, shallots, and garlic in oil in a large heavy pot over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until well browned, 12 to 15 minutes.

Add stock, reserved tomato juice, tamarind, fish sauce, chiles, lime leaves, and ginger and simmer, uncovered, 30 minutes.

While soup simmers, freeze chicken just until slightly firm, 20 to 30 minutes, then thinly slice crosswise.

Strain stock through a fine-mesh sieve into a large saucepan, pressing hard on and then discarding solids. Return to a simmer and stir in chicken, diced tomatoes, snow peas, and basil. Gently simmer just until chicken is cooked through, 1 to 2 minutes. Season with additional fish sauce and salt over cooked jasmine rice.

Three very different soups, each delicious in its own way, three nearly identical methods. Once you've mastered one soup, you've mastered them all.

Photo of the Day

2009-04-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

Photo by Flickr user sonicwalker.

Photo of the Day

2009-04-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

Photo by Flickr user redvalley.

Interesting

2009-04-28T16:13:00.000-07:00

Turns out you're more likely to indulge in junky food if you have the option of choosing something healthy instead:

In the experiment, 100 college students were presented with two menus. One included fries, chicken nuggets, and a baked potato, and another with those three items--plus a salad. Students were told they could choose one item. Participants' levels of self-control were also measured through separate tests and then analyzed with their choices.

The first menu led to intuitive results: those with high self-control rarely chose fries. But the second menu--offering a healthy option, a salad--showed different behavior: participants with high self-control were "significantly more likely to choose the French fries."

The reason:

"The authors suggest their finding shows that merely presenting a healthy option vicariously fulfils health-related eating goals, drives attention to the least-healthy choice and provides people with license to indulge in tempting foods."

Leaving aside the fact that a baked potato can also be a "healthy option"--so long as you don't smother it in sour cream, butter and (passe) bacon bits--this finding makes me think twice about scoffing at McDonald's for offering salads and sliced apples alongside bacon Macs and supersize fries. Maybe, once again, the fast-food chains are smarter than anyone realized.

Bacon: The Verdict

2009-04-28T16:04:00.000-07:00

Over.

If the Tom Douglas-hosted yuppiefest that was Baconopolis (which featured, admittedly, some lovely-if-not-exactly original little bites, like bacon tempura) was the final straw, swine flu is the triumphal kick in the teeth. (And yes, I know you can't get swine flu from eating pork, and no, I don't care.)

The new bacon, according to Alex? Goat. Make a note of it.

In Other News, Tobacco Industry Opposes Cancer Warnings, Booze Lobby Opposes Tougher DUI Laws, Etc.

2009-04-24T17:05:00.000-07:00

The American Meat Institute is opposing a campaign called "Meatless Mondays," which is urging Americans--including President Obama--to go meatless one puny little day a week. The campaign wants Obama to support Meatless Mondays because "moderate reductions in meat consumption will mitigate climate change, lessen fossil fuel dependence, conserve fresh water and help reduce the chronic preventable conditions that today kill 70% of all Americans — cancer, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease."

The funny thing is that they don't seem to be disputing any of that. Instead, they're seizing on the statement that the meat industry is "inefficient"--a common criticism of meat consumption is that meat takes far more resources to produce than, say, whole grains--calling it "completely false."

"The industry is so efficient it can now feed U.S. citizens, export customers and U.S. troops without resorting to rationing, [American Meat Institute president and chief executive officer J. Patrick Boyle] added. And because meat is so nutrient-dense, less of it is needed to nourish people than is needed of other foods."

I don't know if that's false consciousness or just not understanding the question, but it made me laugh all the same.

Photo of the Day

2009-04-24T17:04:00.001-07:00

Photo by Flickr user homersometimes.

Ask And Ye Shall Etc.

2009-04-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

After my post yesterday saying that I was craving something light and springlike--something like, say, RADISHES--what should arrive in my CSA but...

RADISHES! The first of the season (that blurry person in the background is my coworker Eli Sanders, and yes, my office couch is that tattered.)

I think I'm going to use them in this recipe from Apartment Therapy, which calls for braising them with butter, salt pork, shallots, and vinegar.

Not tonight, though. Tonight I'm going to Tom Douglas's sold-out Baconopolis, to watch a bunch of rich people ooh and aah over what was, until like a year ago, poor people's food. Bacon salt, Baconnaise, Bacon Explosion™, grumble, grumble.

Photo of the Day

2009-04-23T12:36:00.000-07:00

After all the heavy food of the last week or so and the bout of stomach ickiness I'm still getting over, I'm seriously craving something like this edamame and radish salad, shot by Flickr user Santos.

The Center Can't Hold

2009-04-23T12:27:00.000-07:00

News Item One: At G8 this week, Obama's ag secretary Tom Vilsack has been promoting the use of agricultural biotech, including the use of genetically modified organisms, to combat global hunger. He also advocated against creating global grain reserves. As Tom Philpott writes,

"For most of agricultural history, societies have kept grain stores, to be released during shortages to soften shocks. Starting about 20 years ago, the U.S. government and institutions like the IMF and World Bank decided that government grain reserves interfered with the magic of the market and began selling them off and discouraging developing nations from keeping them. It’s a little bit like dismantling levees, on the theory that they interfere with the magic of water flow."

Yet that's exactly what our agricultural secretary is advocating.

News Item Two: According to a study by Purdue University researchers, farmers relying on Monsanto's genetically modified Roundup Ready crops are finding that the herbicide is losing its ability to control weeds. Not surprisingly, the farmers who saw the most benefit from Roundup were those who rotated Roundup Ready GMO crops with conventional crops.

Back From Houston!

2009-04-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my weeklong trip to Houston, where the weather was lovely (sunny, high 70s), the family was doing well, and the Tex-Mex and barbecue were AWESOME. Some highlights:

During an uncharacteristic late-spring downpour (Alex, who's lived in Seattle off and on for a decade: "Houston is the rainiest city EVER"), we made a stop at Pizzitola's Barbecue on Shepherd, where we had dry-smoked ribs (I prefer 'em wetter, but the gravy boats of sweet-hot sauce on the table did the trick) and incredible, perfectly smoke-ringed, fork-tender brisket. The owner (Jerry Pizzitola) was a little overbearing (as in, he wouldn't leave our table for ten minutes at a time), but the 'cue was authentic, the coleslaw and potato salad were cold, and everything came with plenty of white bread to soak it all up.

On the fancier end of the scale, my parents took us out for dinner at Shade, a restaurant in the Heights area of far North Houston. Unfortunately, I didn't write everything down and the menu on their web site is out of date, but the two best things we ordered were: A trio of perfectly seared, sweet scallops served on top of a creamy pasta with sweet peas and shitaake mushrooms (mine) and a beautiful grilled double pork chop topped with a square of seared pork belly and a savory tomato jam (my dad's). Both were incredible, but I have to confess a tiny bit of disappointment--not in the food at Shade, but at the fact that I was the only one lobbying to go to Feast, a place on Westheimer specializing in nose-to-tail dining. Alas, a recent glowing write-up in the New York Times couldn't convince my squeamish companions that they wouldn't end up dining on pickled kidneys and severed fish heads, so the more conventional (though also very, VERY good--and paid for by my wonderful, generous parents) Shade it was.

Of course--as is, strangely, typical for me on trips away from home--my favorite meal might have been one that was utterly unplanned: Tacos picked up from El Rey, a busy lunch spot up the street from our hotel, and eaten on the hotel bed before a long, well-deserved midafternoon nap. (We'd left the hotel for a conference a few minutes past 7 in the morning). The "Cuban tacos," shredded beef cooked carnitas-style on two corn tortillas, were to die for, and the rice and beans (white rice, black beans) were healthy (-seeming) without being bland. But the best part was eating in the freshly made bed, red and green sauces on the bedside table, then drifting off to sleep while Shattered Glass (AKA the Best Movie Ever) played in the background.

Photo of the Day

2009-04-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

Photo of sandwich at the Hobbit (nee Hobbit Hole) cafe in Houston by Flickr user mlinksva.

Photo of the Day

2009-04-13T13:14:00.000-07:00

Fried chicken and waffles photo--chosen in honor of my imminent trip to Houston--by Flickr user wenno.

From Humble Beginnings

2009-04-13T12:55:00.001-07:00

"Best" and "soup" are not words that generally go together for me. More like "soup" and "is it still winter?" or "soup" and "again?"--about one billion times more so if "soup" is preceded by the name of any root vegetable. Parsnip bisque? Blech. Carrot puree? Sounds like baby food.

So now you've got the lay of the land here at The C Is For Cocina, soupwise. Ready to hear the ingredient list for what may be one of my new favorite soups--nay, meals--ever?

Carrots. Leeks. Stock. A potato. Butter. Oil. Sage, salt, pepper and sugar.

No lie: That's all it takes to make an incredible soup that will clear out your blood vessels and wake your taste buds up from their winter torpor. Of course, if you're like me, you'll want to gild the lily by stirring in an improvised arugula pesto (approximate recipe at the end), but even if you don't have the makings on hand, I promise this will be one of the most refreshing, revelatory little soups you've ever tasted. And you won't even wish it wasn't winter anymore.

Carrot Soup with Caramelized Carrots, adapted from Cookthink

For the soup:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
6 medium organic carrots, the freshest and smallest you can find peeled if desired, trimmed, and sliced crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick coins (about 3 cups)
3 small to medium leeks, trimmed and thoroughly washed, white and light green parts cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick coins (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 baking potato, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage leaves
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
6 to 7 cups homemade chicken or vegetable broth

For the caramelized carrot garnish:
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3 carrots, peeled if desired, trimmed and cut into 1/4-inch dice
1 teaspoon finely shredded (chiffonade) fresh sage leaves, or to taste (I used more)
1 scant tablespoon sugar

To make the soup:

1. In a large Dutch oven or other heavy-bottomed pot, warm the butter and oil over medium heat until the butter is melted.

2. Add the carrots and leeks. Sauté the vegetables for about 10 minutes, or until they have begun to soften.

3. Add the potato, sage, salt and pepper and cook for 5 minutes.

4. Stir in 6 cups of the broth. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer, partially covered, for 20 to 25 minutes, until all of the vegetables are tender.

5. Remove from the heat and let the soup cool for 10 minutes. Purée the soup in a blender, in batches if necessary, or in the pot using an immersion blender. Return the soup to the pot and reheat on medium-low until heated through.

To make the caramelized carrots:

1. Heat the butter and oil in a medium-size skillet or sauté pan placed over medium heat.

2. When the butter is melted and begins to sizzle, stir in the diced carrots and shredded sage. Raise the heat to medium-high and sauté for 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until the carrots are tender and lightly browned.

3. Sprinkle with the sugar and cook briefly to allow the sugar to caramelize. Season with a little salt and pepper and remove from the heat. To serve, ladle equal portions of soup into six bowls. Garnish each serving with a spoonful of the caramelized carrots and serve immediately.

A Sort of Recipe for Arugula pesto:

Large handful arugula, thick stems removed
A few leaves of sage, to taste, roughly chopped
Two to three cloves garlic, roughly chopped, plus a few garlic chives if you happen to be growing them
About 1/2 cup pine nuts or roughly-chopped walnuts
Salt and pepper to taste
Large pinch red pepper flakes
1/2 to 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Mix the first six ingredients together in the bowl of a food processor. With the blade going, slowly pour oil through the processor's feed tube until the desired consistency is reached. Swirl into individual soup bowls before garnishing with carrots.

Photo of the Day

2009-04-08T15:13:00.000-07:00

Photo of olive and tomato tart by Flickr user nettsu.

Oh, Padma

2009-04-08T13:50:00.000-07:00

I've written before--on my previous blog, I'm Sick of Your Insane Demands--about the fact that while male food personalities typically look like this...

Women who are "really into food" have to look like this:

But Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi's new commercial for the Hardee's Western Bacon Thickburger takes the "sexy foodie" trope to a whole new level.

While bow-chicka-wow music plays in the background, we see Lakshmi sitting on her steps, taking out an enormous burger, hiking up her skirt, and downing the sandwich lustily, licking and sucking bits of "sweet, spicy" sauce off her fingers, legs, and the burger itself. (Seriously, Hardee's: Who licks a burger?) In voiceover, she all but moans: "I've tasted just about every flavor imaginable. But there's something about the Western Bacon."

Confidential to Padma: Next time, if the tagline for the product you're hawking is "More Than Just a Piece of Meat," you might consider asking why the scriptwriters are treating you like one.

Cross-posted.

Photo of the Day

2009-04-07T15:10:00.000-07:00

Photo of bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, aka "rumaki," by Flickr user pliabletrade.

Speaking of Astonishment

2009-04-07T14:21:00.000-07:00

Last October, I took a free composting class from Seattle Tilth, where I learned a composting method known as Interbay Mulching. For someone like me, it was ideal: No bin required (my previous compost pile was literally that, a pile on the ground); no real cost (or minimal if you buy burlap in bulk, a nonissue here in the Northwest where coffee sacks are plentiful and free); and, best of all, MINIMAL EFFORT: You just set it up, cover with sacks, and let it sit for five or six months. In fact, the less you disturb it, the better.

Now, maybe I'm being a bit facile in my description (you can find a much more thorough "recipe" here) but really, this is the easiest mulching/compost system there is. You pile your yard waste in layers of greens (grass clippings, debris and plant matter left over from the summer garden, coffee grounds, tea, whatever) and browns (I used leaves, which were conveniently lying all over our un-raked yard, but you can also use straw, evergreen needles, rotted burlap, and shredded paper), in a long pile a foot or more high. Cover with burlap, leaving no spaces if you're using coffee sacks, moisten and walk away. The web sites I've consulted caution you to check periodically to make sure everything's staying moist--but again, that's rarely a problem here in the damp Northwest.

Over the last couple of weekends, I've finally started digging my mulch beds under--and, to my slight astonishment (my garden experiments rarely go quite as planned), my piles of yard waste had transformed in mere months to rich, crumbly, sweet-smelling black humus, positively teeming with the creepy crawlies that help keep gardens healthy. Other bloggers have written about the challenges of creatin compost--and I don't want to diminish the work it takes to build an honest-to-God container composting system--but honestly, this is one of the easiest and most rewarding gardening projects I've ever done. Of course, only time will tell if what looks like rich earth actually produces better radishes, lettuce, and tomatoes than the $15-a-bag stuff I used to buy, but at least I'll know I did it myself.

It Never Fails to Astonish

2009-04-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

Spring has finally come to the long-frozen Northwest (seriously, snow? If I wanted you, I'd move to Chicago), where the weather forecast is sunny (for now):

... the cherry blossoms are going nuts:

(Photo by Flickr user anaxila)

... and the contents of my CSA box look like this:

Apples, schmapples. I'm just psyched to be getting asparagus, leeks, and strawberries after a long winter of potatoes, pumpkins, and miles of greens as far as the eye can see.

Photo of the Day

2009-04-06T18:29:00.000-07:00

Photo of calcots in Catalunya by Flickr user Carlos Lorenzo.

Hold On To Your Wine Glass!

2009-04-06T17:57:00.000-07:00

I hope you're sitting down for this one. A new study into the Byzantine workings of the primitive ladybrain has determined that women make their wine choices based not on fashion or diet concerns, but by basically the same criteria men use: Does it taste good?

Shocking? It was to researchers who conducted the first-ever study of women's attitude toward wine in the UK, who professed "surprise" and "interest" at the finding that women buy wine based on how it tastes and whether it goes well with food, as opposed to how well it works as a fashion accessory and whether it will help them shed pounds. Also shocking to researchers: The fact that women tend to bristle at wine ads aimed specifically at them (e.g., those b.s. "girlfriends" wine ads aimed at professional women who supposedly spend their time together knitting, giggling, and scrapbooking--all over glasses of shitty Mondavi or Gallo whites), and the fact that women actually prefer red wine despite the fact that white wine is marketed as "lite."

Robert Beynat, chief executive of Vinexpo, which conducted the survey, "was particularly pleased with the response of 79% of women who said they drink wine because they like the taste – as opposed to its compatibility with food or fashion status, calling it 'extraordinary'."

God, the next thing you know, women will be buying food because it tastes good. Try to contain your astonishment.

Photo of the Day

2009-04-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

Photo by Flickr user jlunar.

OMG WANT

2009-04-03T13:32:00.000-07:00

This adorable book (Serious Eats claims it's a children's book, but I think that's ageist) by Amy Krouse Rosenthal (and illustrated by Scott Magoon) is about a self-conscious spoon working his way through an identity crisis. He's jealous of Fork (who gets to "go everywhere,") feels threatened by "cool and exotic" Chopsticks, and worries about going "stir crazy" from never being able to spread jam on bread or cut into a spongey slice of cake. Ultimately, though, Spoon realizes that he's pretty lucky: He gets to clink against the side of a cereal bowl, twirl around in a mug, and "relax in a cup of hot tea." And what knife, fork or chopstick can say that?

Spoon's family portrait (Spoon in front, looking at the reader; his cousin Spork looking uncomfortable far right):

Spoon goes on sale April 7; preorder on Amazon now. (Via Serious Eats).

Photo of the Day

2009-04-02T17:04:00.000-07:00

Photo by Flickr user sonicwalker.

Vintage Sexism, Get-Back-In-the-Kitchen Edition

2009-04-02T13:35:00.000-07:00

(Image via Haleysuzanne on Photobucket) Via Slashfood, a letter that ran in the New York Times in 1907, which argues not only that the job of a woman is to cook for and serve men, but that the only reason some women don't enjoy cooking and housework is that they don't know how to do it right.

WOMEN ENJOY COOKING.
A Pleasure, Not a Drudgery, Once the Art Is Acquired.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

Will you allow me space in THE TIMES to take up the discussion of the subject reported in to-day's TIMES before the Woman's Conference for the Society of Ethical Culture, in which Leslie Willis Sprague advocated the training of women for domestic service? [...] I think what I have to say may be of interest.

I am a strong advocate of schools to teach cooking, and in my professional life I advise every woman who comes to me for advice as to her future to learn to do the things which make for property house-keeping and home-making. As long as the race exists, men will have to eat, and some one will have to do the cooking. [...] I believe that if women could learn to cook well at proper schools so that they know how and why they do the various things in preparing a meal, the doing of it would be a pleasure and not a drudgery.

One of my father's pet stories is how one day he came into our home for lunch, and found me sitting in the kitchen with a cookbook on my lap, crying great tears into the pages while I tried to find out what to get him for lunch. He thinks it is a good story [!!!--ECB], but I know the trouble was that I was attempting to do a thing I did not understand, and was declaring that I never could and never would cook. After we finished that meal of bread and milk, I went at it with a will and learned to cook properly, and stuck at it under Mrs. Rorer and my mother until I could cook everything in the usual family menu, and as soon as I learned how I loved to do it. And I have never since then heard a woman decry cooking who was herself a good cook. Watch that point, and see if it is not so. [...]

Housework done intelligent is not drudgery. Cooking done well is as great a pleasure as painting a picture. Serving a good meal cooked by yourself is as great an achievement as arguing a case well in court. And the woman who can do so, and lets her servants have the benefit of her knowledge, has no trouble with her servants. [...]

GABRIELLE STEWART MULLINER
New York, March 26, 1907

While it may be true, as I've written elsewhere, that men think they do a lot more housework, cooking, and child care than they actually do, we've come a long way in the last 100 years. Maybe in another 100, that 70-30 split will actually be closer to 50-50. I still doubt that either gender will have started liking housework, though.

Photo of the Day

2009-04-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

Photo of chicken gyro by Flickr user ncmysteryshopper.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-31T15:05:00.000-07:00

Photo of green bean salad with polenta croutons by Flickr user sonicwalker.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

Photo of seaweed salad (yes, I'm on a salad kick) by Flickr user Sifu Renka.

Success! In Three Parts

2009-03-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

After feeling ho-hum about two time-consuming homemade meals in a row, I'm happy to report that the last few days have left me feeling utterly vindicated, culinarily speaking.

The first success was one I can't take even a little of the credit for: That goes to my friend Lisa, who suggested that we go to Tamarind Tree, a fancy-ish-for-my-current-budget Vietnamese place behind the Viet Wah supermarket, for a long-overdue dinner date. We started with an appetizer described on the menu as "stuffed esgargot." In reality, it was more of a pork-snail paste (appetizing-sounding, no?) molded around a four-inch length of lemongrass and served with a ginger dipping sauce. Not my favorite (the texture of chopped-up snails is just too rubbery for my taste), but the salad that accompanied it--sticky-sweet just-seared Pacific sea scallops and greens tossed with pickled lemongrass, onions prepared two ways, and a light, tangy dressing--was fresh and light-tasting, almost summery (a serious bit of relief after two straight weeks of overhanging gray skies and rain rain rain.) And my entree was outstanding, even revelatory. The menu described my entree, somewhat parsimoniously, as "steamed rice batter topped with shrimp bits and green onions served with mixed herb fish sauce." What arrived on the table was nine little bowls filled with what looked like custard, and topped with what, in the dim light, you'd be forgiven for assuming were bacon bits. But the flavor was like biting into a coconut, and the texture had more in common with creme brulee than rice. And the bacon bits? Those were tiny flecks of crunchy, deep-fried shrimp, a perfect textural counterpart to the silky custard. With a generous spoonful of spicy fish sauce, it was one of the most exciting (and visually appealing) meals I'd had in months. Lisa's crepe (an eggy, lettuce-wrapped, meat-brimming affair) was pretty good, too.

Up next: My second attempt at creating this recipe, this time with all the correct ingredients! Although the addition of shredded galangal and fresh Kaffir lime leaves and the substitution of actual long beans for the "any old beans" in my previous rendition didn't seem to make that much difference to the taste of the final product (in fact, it may have been better last time because I froze the pork longer, making it easier to cut into paper-thin slices), I did make one major time-saving deviation from the recipe: Instead of mashing everything to a paste in my trusty marble mortar, I chucked it all into my mini-chopper, saving about ten minutes (and a measure of my sanity). Purists may claim that using a mortar and pestle preserves the aromas and volatile oils in the ground ingredients, but when you're dealing with materials as pungent as ground dried shrimp and as tough as whole Thai chiles, the food processor seems like the way to go, in terms of both taste and texture.

Finally, last night, I finished up two recipes that have been sitting in my "to-do" folder for quite a while: Bittman's Hainanese Chicken with Rice, and Gourmet's spicy glazed eggplant with Japanese seven-spice powder. (Culinary crossover, I know, but trust me). I was beyond skeptical about the chicken, which is poached in nothing more than water with a generous handful of garlic and ginger: How could something so simply prepared--no browning, no brining, just plunked into a pot--have any flavor? I'm happy to say that although the chicken, tasted alone, was pretty bland, the combination of warm chicken and rice (I mixed them together, rather than serving the chicken mounded on top of the rice as the recipe suggests), cool dipping sauce, and cold, fresh vegetables was both familiar and altogether new.

Hainanese Chicken with Rice (adapted from the Minimalist)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 whole (3- to 4-pound) chicken, trimmed of excess fat
Several cloves smashed garlic, plus 1 teaspoon minced garlic
Several slices fresh ginger, plus 1 tablespoon minced ginger
1/4 cup plus two tablespoons peanut oil, or 1/4 cup peanut oil and 2 tablespoons chicken fat
3 shallots, roughly chopped, or a small onion
2 cups long-grain rice
1/2 cup minced scallions
2 cucumbers, peeled and sliced
2 tomatoes, sliced
Chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons sesame oil

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Add chicken to pot along with smashed garlic and sliced ginger. Bird should be just submerged. Cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let bird remain in water for 45 minutes to an hour, covered, or until it is cooked through.

2. Remove chicken from pot, reserving and straining stock, and let bird cool to room temperature. Put two tablespoons peanut oil or chicken fat in a skillet over medium heat. When oil is hot or chicken fat is melterd, add remaining garlic, along with shallots; cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add rice and cook, stirring, until glossy. Add 4 cups reserved chicken stock and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover; cook for about 20 minutes, until rice has absorbed all liquid. Stir in salt and pepper to taste.

3. Make a dipping sauce of remaining oil, ginger, half the scallions and a large pinch of salt.

4. Shred or chop chicken, discarding skin. Put rice on a large platter and mound chicken on top of it; decorate platter with cucumbers, tomatoes, remaining scallions and cilantro. Sprinkle sesame oil over all and serve with dipping sauce.

Spicy Glazed Eggplant
Adapted from Gourmet
1 1/4 lb Asian eggplants (about 4), trimmed, halved lengthwise, and cut diagonally into 1 1/2-inch pieces
2 tablespoons mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine) or rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon finely grated peeled ginger (use a Microplane)
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon Japanese seven-spice powder* (sometimes labeled “shichimi togarashi”), or to taste
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon finely chopped chives

Toss eggplant with 1 teaspoon salt and drain in a colander, stirring occasionally, 45 minutes.

Rinse eggplant under cold water and dry well, pressing out any excess moisture.

Stir together mirin, soy sauce, ginger, and seven-spice powder.

Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers, then sauté eggplant until browned, about 8 minutes. Stir in mirin mixture and cook, gently stirring and turning frequently, until sauce becomes a glaze and eggplant is browned and tender, about 1 minute.

Serve hot or at room temperature, sprinkled with chives.

* Or you can make your own, like I did; the recipe I used is available here.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-27T14:55:00.000-07:00

Photo of lovely, lovely lettuce by Flickr user Miky Jpeg.

Food as Fuel

2009-03-26T13:02:00.000-07:00

I don't generally think of food this way, but every now and then--a few days before payday, for example, when I'm short on cash and relying on a couple of dollars a day to see me through--I come to think of what I eat as sustenance, something to get me by rather than something I savor. And some weeks, I just end up making a whole bunch of meh - either the recipe doesn't work out quite right, or my heart isn't in it, or it just isn't what my brain and body wants that day. That was the case with a couple of dishes I made this week--both of which, to add insult to culinary injury, I had really been looking forward to. The first was a posole recipe I adapted from Serious Eats. With hominy, chicken thighs, chile powder (homemade) and a generous jolt of cilantro, I thought there was no way to go wrong. But the recipe was just... off. Too much broth, not enough flavor, and weird instructions for trying out the chicken fat that just resulted in flabby skin. (I rescued the skin by panfrying it, but the bloom was off the rose). The second was red beans and rice with sausage, which--at no fault to the sausage, which was amazing turkey andouille homemade by my coworker Jonah--ended up too thick, somehow both overcooked and undercooked, and somewhat tacky in texture. Maybe it was the fact that we were out of white rice (I used brown basmati) but even a small serving ended up being too much food for a person to confront.

Given that losing streak, I'm a bit nervous about the dinner I have planned for later this week--Mark Bittman's Hainanese chicken, which calls for simmering a whole chicken in water with ginger and garlic and serving it with a spicy pan sauce. I've made--and loved--simply prepared chicken before, but my recent string of so-so culinary experiments has made me long for something assertive, spicy, and altogether unfamiliar. Sigh--maybe next week.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-26T12:57:00.000-07:00

Photo of Shrimp papaya salad by Flickr user WenDaLicious.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-25T14:10:00.000-07:00

Photo of grilled squid by Flickr user Joits.

Gayest Food Ad EVAH!?

2009-03-25T13:56:00.000-07:00

Behold: Quiznos' "Tasty Torpedo Ad":

Toaster (deep male voice): Scott, I want you to do something.
Scott: Not doing that again. Got burned.
Toaster: We both enjoyed that. Now I want you to introduce my greatest creation: The new Toasty Torpedo.
Scott: The new Toasty Torpedo?
Toaster: Yes, Scott. You make one.
Scott: Me?
Toaster: Put it in me, Scott.
(Sexy music starts).
Toaster: It's over a foot of flavor on a slim sleek ciabatta for only four dollars. Say it, Scott.
Scott: Only four dollars?
Toaster: Say it sexy.
Scott: Only four dollars.
Toaster: Sexier...
Scott (sexy voice): Only four dollars.

Via AdFreak's David Griner, who says, "you'd be hard-pressed to forget the point: that Quiznos has foot-long meat tubes just waiting to be jammed in the hotbox for you."

Photo of the Day

2009-03-24T14:08:00.000-07:00

Photo by Flickr user Geierwalli2.

Race, Food, and the Obamas

2009-03-23T21:07:00.000-07:00

In all the discussion about the Obamas’ decision to convert part of the White House lawn to an organic garden (is organic gardening inherently elitist? Why no beets? Does the fact that Michele, not Barack, is in charge of the garden reinforce stereotypical gender roles?) one aspect utterly escaped me (and, I suspect, most food bloggers): the historical and symbolic significance of a black First Lady, descended from slaves, digging with a shovel on the White House grounds.

Obama Foodarama, typically, is all over it:

To remind, the White House was built primarily by slave labor, as was much of DC, including the Capitol, where Barack was sworn in as president. This was constantly referenced at The Inauguration, and the idea of how far we've come as a nation was one of the themes during Inauguration Week (although Attorney General Eric Holder dumped on this idea a month ago, when he pointed out, in a speech that caused much controversy, that we're still a nation of cowards when it comes to race). Michelle Obama's great-great-grandfather, Jim Robinson, was born around 1850 and lived as a slave at least until the Civil War, on a sprawling rice plantation outside Georgetown, South Carolina. But just two months into the Obama Era, it seems like now either no one cares about the politics of racial history anymore, or that no one is appreciating the hugeness of yesterday's events...or that it is still too charged to be addressed. Digging up a piece of the White House lawn to plant an organic garden as the first First Lady who is documented to be a descendant of slavery is a somewhat transgressive act in terms of making a statement about food politics, food policy, healthy eating, nutrition...and about cultural/racial history, when you consider that much of the agricultural work in this country was done by slaves, from the Founding through the Civil War, and even beyond the Emancipation. "Field Negros" as a crucial population of agricultural laborers did not vanish even after slaves were "freed."

It’s interesting to note that most of those who have criticized the Obamas’ gardening activities have had one of two polar reactions. The garden is either: a) Utterly elitist, an arugula-scented sign that the Obamas are out of tough with real Americans who don’t have the time or money to shop at Whole Foods or till and maintain their own politically correct patch of dirt; or b) Utterly low-class, one step away from installing an outhouse outside the West Wing. Both reactions reveal a profound uneasiness with the Obamas’ role as the first black First Couple, whether it’s manifested as disdain for their supposed elitism (“uppity Negroes”) or their supposed classlessness (the despicable “watermelon patch” meme).

Read Obama Foodarama’s whole take here.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-23T13:03:00.000-07:00

Photo of naan by Flickr user jennifer.foodess.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

Photo of onion rings by Flickr user Res_ta.

The Obamas' Victory Garden

2009-03-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

The food world is buzzing with the news that the Obamas are going to start an organic vegetable garden on the White House lawn. Earlier this year, more than 100,000 people signed a petition asking the Obamas to convert part of the White House lawn into a vegetable garden. It will be the first since Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden during the Second World War. According to YumSugar, the garden will be overseen by Sam Kass, the Obamas' former private chef from Chicago.

Here's what it will look like (wish I was this organized with my own garden!):

For the most part, food bloggers are over the moon about the First Family's decision, part of Michelle Obama's push to put healthy eating on the national agenda. The only criticism I've seen so far is about the Obamas' choice of vegetables--no beets?--and speculation over whether they might be getting started a little late ("I got my spinach and peas in last week and the Obamas are http://www.chewswise.com/chews/2009/03/white-house-garden-starting-late-.html.
?") Personally, I'm sympathetic -- I just got the first peas and fava beans in the ground last weekend (running outside to dig furrows between bouts of hail), so I'm willing to give the President and First Lady a pass.

Photo by Flickr user dulcie.

How to Make Scrambled Eggs

2009-03-19T14:55:00.000-07:00

With all due respect, this is not the correct way to make scrambled eggs. This (as MFK Fisher could tell you) is the correct way to make scrambled eggs:

First, put a tablespoon or two of butter in a cold pan over very, very, very low heat.

Once the butter has just melted, crack as many eggs as you like directly into the pan.

Add about a tablespoon of cream or milk per egg and stir very lightly with a wooden spoon, just enough to break up the yolks. VERY IMPORTANT: Do NOT whisk the eggs. Just swirl enough to mix things up a little.

Leave the eggs alone. Nothing will seem to happen at first. Do not be frustrated. Go water the garden. Read a magazine article. Come back when the whites are just starting to turn opaque. Stir again, gently, just enough to create large curds. Uncooked eggs will fill in the gaps. Cook, again on the lowest possible heat, until all the whites are opaque. Stir one last time, remove from heat while still "wet"-looking, and season with salt and pepper.

This method, adapted from MFK Fisher, is not for the impatient—as Fisher herself wrote, it is "never to be attempted by a nervous, harried woman, one anxious to slap something on the table and get it over with. Its very consistency, slow and creamy, is a deterrent to irritation." It takes between half an hour and 45 minutes, but it results in the creamiest, gentlest-tasting scrambled eggs you will ever make. Fisher again: "I love this recipe, for its very gentleness, and for the demands it makes upon one's patience." You can make scrambled eggs more quickly, and less well, but why would you bother?

Photo of the Day

2009-03-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

Photo by Flickr user Splat Worldwide, whose evocative caption is, "The radishes dreamt of being roses."

Stir-Fried Pork with Any Old Beans

2009-03-18T17:26:00.000-07:00

So I finally got around to making the stir-fried pork with long beans I mentioned the other day. But before I tell you how it went, I have to mention one ingredient that, to my utter astonishment, totally rocked my world: The shrimp paste, which sounds awful, smells worse, and doesn't even look like food. Mixed into a paste with a bunch of other extremely assertive ingredients (garlic, cilantro stems, and chiles among them), though, it was subtle, aromatic and--most shockingly--not fishy at all. In fact, I suddenly understood why so many of my efforts to make authentic Thai food at home have been unsuccessful--I lacked this one (to me) obscure and relatively tough-to-find ingredient. I think this combination of flavors--salty, sweet, pungent, mild, and rotten-fishy--would work with any number of base ingredients, including tofu, chicken, shrimp, or even plain old green beans. In any case, I'm really looking forward to experimenting with these ingredients (and probably variations on this exact same recipe) again.

Stir-fried Pork with Any Old Beans (adapted from Gourmet)

Ingredients

For seasoning paste:

1 stalk fresh lemongrass, root end trimmed and 1 or 2 outer layers discarded
3 (2- to 3-inch) dried hot Thai chiles or other small dried chiles, including seeds
3 tablespoons minced shallot
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons shrimp powder or 1 1/2 tablespoons dried peeled shrimp (I found this in the Hispanic foods section at Safeway)
1 teaspoon minced cilantro root or stem
1 teaspoon minced Kaffir lime zest or regular lime zest
1 teaspoon minced peeled galangal (fresh or thawed frozen)*
1 teaspoon kosher salt
5 black peppercorns
1 teaspoon Thai shrimp paste

For beans and pork:

1/2 pound long beans or regular green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces; or snow peas (which is what I had on hand), trimmed
3/4 pound boneless pork shoulder (boneless pork "ribs" are perfect)--toss it in the freezer for 15 minutes to make it easier to slice
3 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce
1 tablespoon packed grated palm sugar (available at Asian markets) or light brown sugar
3 medium Kaffir lime leaves (fresh or thawed frozen; 2 sections each), ribs discarded and leaves minced

Directions

Make paste:
Mince 1 tablespoon lemongrass from root end. Put minced lemongrass and remaining paste ingredients in mortar and vigorously pound to a smooth paste using pestle (most chile seeds should be crushed), 6 to 8 minutes. (I didn't do it quite this long and it came out slightly chunky, but fine; one of the reviewers at Epicurious claims it took them more than an hour to get it smooth, but that seems like perfectionistic overkill).

Cook beans and pork:
Cook beans in a medium saucepan of boiling salted water (1 teaspoon salt for 2 quarts water), uncovered, until crisp-tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and transfer to a bowl of cold water to stop cooking. Drain again.

Pat pork dry, then cut across the grain into one-eighth-inch-thick slices (about 2 by 1 inch).

Heat oil in a 12-inch skillet over high heat until it shimmers, then cook seasoning paste, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add pork, tossing to coat, then spread out in skillet and brown, turning occasionally (to keep paste from burning), about 2 minutes. Add fish sauce, palm sugar, and beans and cook, tossing, until pork is just cooked through and beans are hot, about 1 minute. Remove from heat and toss with lime leaves.

* The one ingredient I still have yet to find!

Cooks' notes: &149; If using dried shrimp, grind to a powder in an electric coffee/spice grinder or use mortar and pestle. &149; Seasoning paste can be made ahead and chilled, covered, up to 1 week or frozen 1 month.

Photo by Flickr user Paul Goyette

Photo of the Day

2009-03-17T17:49:00.000-07:00

Photo of peanut butter pops by Flickr user windysydney.

Lists, Part 2

2009-03-16T15:04:00.000-07:00

Not really a followup to my previous post, but a quick guide to go-to flavor boosters that I really found helpful, from the popular blog How to Cook Like Your Grandmother. On the list: Vanilla beans (interesting, because Cook's Illustrated just determined that even the most experienced tasters couldn't tell the difference between real vanilla extract and quality imitation, at least in baking), miso (a big umami booster that I never seem to think of) and flavored salts (which seem like they'd be best for finishing a dish, rather than flavoring it). To his 21 I'd add: dried mushrooms (the bacon of the vegetarian world); Dijon mustard (welcome just about everywhere--from salad dressings to tuna salad to pasta sauce to roasted vegetables); Sriracha (AKA rooster sauce--a blazing-hot condiment often found in Asian restaurants); and lemon juice and zest, which--although not strictly pantry staples--can punch up the flavor of just about anything.

Speaking of pantry staples: For about a year now, I've been slowly collecting the ingredients for this recipe, and this week, I'm going to make it. Even if it's the best thing I've ever eaten, I doubt I can eat it every week--which means I'm going to have to figure out a use for 12 ounces of shrimp paste.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-16T12:51:00.000-07:00

Bacon-wrapped asparagus photo by Flickr user disneymike.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-13T12:43:00.000-07:00

Photo of shrimp fried rice by Flickr user aloalosabine.

Lists, Part 1

2009-03-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

Gourmet recently compiled a list of the top "20 Tools and Technologies" that "have had the most lasting impact on home cooking." Leaving aside the inherent slipperiness of such lists (why not 21? Or 120? Why not include societal developments that have been as influential as technology? Etc.), I found the list intriguing, incomplete, fascinating, and deeply flawed.

First of all, the list, in the order presented:

1) Nonstick coating
2) Air conditioning
3) Mechanical kitchen timers
4) The chimney charcoal starter
5) Plastic wrap
6) Television
7) Vacuum sealers (for freezer storage)
8) The dishwasher
9) Silpats
10) The refrigerator
11) Overnight freight
12) The Internet
13) The food processor
14) The gas grill
15) Microplane
16) Blender
17) The slow cooker
18) Tupperware
19) The microwave oven
20) The Weber grill

Of course the list of things that have changed the way I personally cook would be quite different--I've only been cooking for a decade and a half or so, and I don't grill that often, so many of the items on the list have either been around "forever" or are irrelevant to my personal kitchen routine.

Even so, I have to say that many of the tools Gourmet chose as crucial, life-changing kitchen accessories are ... well, a little bizarre. Two kinds of grills? Blenders and food processors (the latter of which is easy to live without; the former, somewhat indispensible)? If plastic wrap makes the list, why not aluminum foil? How many people really own vacuum sealers? And aren't we supposed to be eating local, not ordering fresh out-of-season persimmons from Israel?

Others are things cooks can (and do) live without completely, in some cases for the better. I get that nonstick coating had a heyday a couple of decades ago; but anyone who's ever eaten food soiled with the unmistakable taste of melted Teflon (not to mention read the studies linking the stuff to cancer) tossed theirs in the garbage years ago. Similarly, Silpats freak me (and, judging from the comments on a recent post at Epicurious lots of other people) out--I just can't trust that silicone is safe to cook with, and the reassurances of companies like Dow "sure, those breast implants are safe" Corning don't exactly assuage me. More to the point, why do I need yet another set of bakeware? Regular old metal pans--the clanged-up ones that are already taking up more than their share of space beneath my oven--work just as well, without the worry.

And call me a hippie if you like, but I live perfectly well without a dishwasher, Microplane grater, and slow cooker--and, until recently, a microwave. I wish it was true that these innovations had (as the Vatican recently suggested about the washing machine) truly liberated home cooks, most of us women, from the worst parts of kitchen drudgery, but cooking, cleaning, and reheating leftovers still takes time and effort, whether you do it the newfangled or the old-fashioned way.

What do I like on this list? Refrigerators, for one, have been undeniably life-changing--without them, we'd all still be curing our own meat, confiting our own poultry, and getting our dairy in daily doses from the milkman. The Internet (and, before its time, television) has made it tremendously easy for avid amateur cooks to find recipes, tips, and inspiration--provided, of course, that they have the Internet access and the time. I can't imagine life without a digtal kitchen timer, of which the mechanical timer was the forebear. And Tupperware (and its imitators) is undeniably useful--it doesn't break, it's lightweight and portable, and its airtight seal keeps leftovers fresh.

A couple of things I would have added to the list, leaving aside my personal affinity for heat-resistant spatulas and citrus zesters: The can opener (made many foods, including soups and produce, staples year-round); chemical preservatives (made foods shelf-stable for much longer and enabled housewives to buy foods they had previously made from scratch); the electric freezer (allows people to store foods for many months) and the international highway and railway systems, which is still how most of our food gets shipped within the United States.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-12T15:35:00.000-07:00

Photo by Flickr user Candlemaker.

Make This. Now.

2009-03-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

I was going to write about the ongoing question of who Obama will pick to lead the USDA's (maybe, maybe not irradiation apologist Michael Osterholm), which Obama Foodarama has been covering somewhat, um, obsessively.

But then a bag of kumquats got in the way.

In case it isn't obvious from the shot selection on the Photos of the Day, I'm not a big fan of sweet stuff. A good piece of dark chocolate? Yum. Chocolate Blackout Orgasmic Explosion Cake? Blech. So when a bag of kumquats arrived in my CSA box last week, I knew I wanted to figure out something savory to do with them.

For the uninitiated (and those who avoid kumquats because of the vaguely dirty-sounding name--kumquat kumquat kumquat!), a kumquat (alternate spelling: kumquat--snerk) is a small citrus fruit that tastes like an inverted orange: Super-sweet skin, puckeringly sour interior. They originated in China, their season is from late fall to midwinter, and they look like this:

Photo by Flickr user CoCreatr

Cute, aren't they?

Anyway, trolling around the Internet for a suitably savory recipe (there aren't many out there, and neither Bittman nor Joy had any), I came across Gourmet's very '90s-haute recipe for "sauteed chicken over wilted spinach with kumquat sauce" at Epicurious. As I may have mentioned earlier, I'm pretty sure Gourmet can do no wrong, so despite my skepticism about that particular combination of flavors, I decided to give it a whirl.

And seriously? OMFG it was good. The sour kumquats married just perfectly with the bitter arugula (which I substituted for spinach--sauteed spinach just squicks me out) and piquant vinegar-based sauce, and the sauteed chicken (I used legs instead of the breasts called for) was a suitably savory but unobtrusive base. I can imagine this recipe working well with a bland, sturdy whitefish like halibut, too. Yum! Here's the recipe, with my changes noted.

Ingredients
3 kumquats (I had a large bag, and they were pretty small, so I used 5 or 6)
1 large shallot
2 boneless chicken breast halves with skin (I used whole legs, which take a little longer to cook)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoons sugar (I used a little less)
1/3 cup water
3 tablespoons white-wine vinegar
1/8 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes (or more to taste)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley leaves
4 cups packed spinach leaves (I used arugula)

Preparation

Cut kumquats and shallot crosswise into thin slices, discarding any kumquat seeds. Season chicken with salt and pepper. In a skillet heat butter over moderately high heat until foam subsides and sauté chicken, skin sides down, until skin is golden and crisp, about 5 minutes. Turn chicken over and cook over moderate heat until just cooked through, about 5 minutes more. (Legs will take longer than this--I covered mine up once they were brown). Transfer chicken to a plate and keep warm, covered.

Add shallot to fat remaining in skillet (I poured a lot of the fat into my chicken-fat jar and don't think the flavor suffered) and cook, stirring frequently, 1 minute. Sprinkle sugar over shallot and cook, undisturbed, until sugar is melted and golden. Immediately stir in kumquats, water, vinegar, and red pepper flakes and simmer, stirring, until sugar is dissolved. Stir in parsley and salt to taste and, if sauce is too liquid, simmer until thickened to desired consistency, about 1 minute.

Transfer two thirds sauce to a small bowl and to remainder add spinach (/arugula) and salt to taste, turning with tongs until just wilted.

Divide spinach between 2 plates and top with chicken. Spoon sauce over chicken.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

Photo of stir-fried tofu, spinach and okra by Flickr user sassyradish.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-10T11:27:00.000-07:00

Photo of beignets and cafe au lait by Flickr user Jim Shank.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-09T15:03:00.000-07:00

Photo of fried okra by Flickr user rachel is coconut&lime.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

Photo by Flickr user Polianka.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-07T12:58:00.000-08:00

Photo of grilled tamales with poblano peppers and corn by Flickr user anotherpintplease.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-06T14:55:00.000-08:00

Photo of fried chicken in bento box by Flickr user FromEast2005.

The Joy of Cooking is Not Why We're All Fat

2009-03-06T13:09:00.000-08:00

Those who know me well know I'm a little obsessed with The Joy of Cooking. And I'm not convinced that the problem with our food system can be boiled down to, "People are just eating larger portions, therefore they're getting fat." So I was thrilled to see blogger Sweet Machine call bullshit on a recent "study" showing that the calorie counts of the "average" JOC recipe had gone up an astonishing 928 calories, or 44 percent. As she notes, that's only true because the study focused ONLY on recipes that had remained in every edition of Joy since 1932. That narrowed it--in a cookbook that now includes hundreds of recipes, everything from cucumber salad to cheese souffle to borscht--to: beef stroganoff, waffles, macaroni and cheese, goulash, Spanish rice, brownies, sugar cookies, and apple pie. That's hardly representative of current American eating habits, as Sweet Machine points out:

I’m not trying to universalize my own eating habits here, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t most of these, to quote Obesity Propaganda Cookie Monster, a sometimes food? I know the phrase is “American as apple pie,” but how often do you actually bake an apple pie? I just can’t work up much excitement that a list of foods that were basically already vehicles for enjoying some fat and/or sugar may now contain more fat or sugar. This is not to demonize fat and sugar–far from it!–but just to point out that these may be staple recipes, but that doesn’t mean they’re staple foods.

I wonder what would happen if you compared the cream-and-gelatin monstrosities that passed for "salads" in 1932 to the salad recipes included in Joy's recent 8th edition. My guess is that the result would be just about as enlightening.

Americans Eating Less? Probably Not

2009-03-06T12:46:00.000-08:00

Alcohol isn't the only thing Americans are spending less on. According to BusinessWeek, American food expenditures have dropped by an inflation-adjusted 55.7 percent--or $56 billion. Although the BusinessWeek blogger who posted that stat speculates that "fat Americans" are simply eating less, my guess--judging from my own life and those of my friends--is that people are buying cheaper, in many cases crappier food, and eating out less. Much as I'd like to think people were no longer eating "too much food," I'm inclined to believe they're really eschewing restaurants, especially high-end restaurants, and eating more convenience foods, fast food, and conventionally grown produce.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-05T14:35:00.001-08:00

Photo by Flickr user nicubunu.

How to Make Hoppin' John

2009-03-05T13:50:00.000-08:00

Photo by Flickr user peppergrasss

Hoppin' John is one of those things I guess I grew up eating, but never knew the actual name of. To me, it was just peas and rice, eaten throughout the year but especially on New Year's Day, when it's believed that eating black-eyed peas brings luck for the coming year). There are as many variations on this dish--which utilizes cheap ingredients to delicious, filling effect--as there are cooks in the South, but this is how I do it.

First, soak

One cup dried black-eyed peas

in water to cover for a few hours.

When the peas have almost absorbed the water, heat

2 Tablespoons olive or corn oil

in a large pot over medium heat. When the oil shimmers, add

One smoked ham hock (you can use a hog jowl if you can't find a hock, but it'll take longer to soften; or you can slice four ounces of slab bacon into lardons and fry those--just make sure to drain most of the oil before going to the next step)

and cook until browned, turning occasionally.

Add

One yellow onion, chopped
Two to four cloves garlic, chopped

lower heat, and cook, stirring frequently, until softened.

Add

Small hot red chiles or red pepper flakes to taste
Two sprigs fresh thyme
One bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste (it's best to undersalt at this point, since you'll be adding stock)

and stir.

Add

One 14.5-ounce can diced organic tomatoes
6 cups stock (preferably homemade, low-sodium pork stock, although chicken stock or even water will do)
The soaked peas

and bring to a low boil. Lower the heat, partially cover, and cook until the peas are almost tender. Add a cup of long-grain white rice (more to taste) and cook until the rice is done, adding more water or stock if the bottom of the pan gets too dry. Adjust seasoning and serve with lots and lots of hot sauce.

Cafe Vignole

2009-03-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

In this week's Stranger, I review an Italian restaurant in the still-rough neighborhood of Rainier Beach called Cafe Vignole, which I called

the kind of neighborhood gem that Southeast Seattle—particularly Rainier Beach, which has suffered more than most parts of the city from the economic downturn—desperately needs. It's cozy, adorable, affordable, and friendly. More importantly, it's good—not graded-on-a-curve good, not thank-God-it's-not-another-Tutta-Bella-or-Via-Tribunali good, but extraordinarily good. Literally dream-about-it-that-very-night good. Destination good. And since it's practically in Renton, that's saying something.

Read the whole thing here.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-04T16:05:00.000-08:00

Photo of Hoppin' John fritters--found while working on a post for tomorrow--by Flickr user JenWaller.

For Example...

2009-03-04T15:28:00.001-08:00

Apropos of my post yesterday about the differences between Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines, Bon Appetit actually arrived in my mailbox last night. (I had--honestly--forgotten I subscribe.) In this issue, they tell me the following things I already know:

1) What tomatillos, poblano peppers, five-spice powder (featured in a spread titled "Family Style: Dinner for you and your kids--plus leftovers"), Asiago cheese, creme fraiche, hoisin sauce, smoked paprika, Greek yogurt, mirin, sesame oil, coconut milk, unsweetened coconut, mascarpone cheese, raw sugar, and Marcona olives.

2) Where to buy creme fraiche ("most supermarkets and at specialty foods stores")

3) How to make chocolate-dipped frozen bananas (thanks, but I'm not three)

4) That limes have Vitamin C;

5) How to microwave leftover rice;

6) How to level a measuring cup; and

7) That "making matzo balls isn't rocket science.

I've also been advised to just buy pre-cut frozen veggies and use canned low-sodium broth; read not one but TWO recipes featuring specific brands of white chocolate; and learned all about NASCAR star Jeff Gordon's line of wines.

I'm not a snob, I swear! I just want a food magazine that doesn't think I've been hiding under a rock since 1984 and have yet to discover coconut milk and Asiago cheese! Is that so much to ask?

Photo of the Day

2009-03-03T16:49:00.000-08:00

Photo of boiled peanuts by Flickr user biskuit.

There Is a Difference Between Gourmet and Bon Appetit

2009-03-03T16:18:00.001-08:00

A few days ago, Gawker's Hamilton Nolan--noting Conde Nast's financial troubles--did a post headlined, "Bon Appetit and Gourmet Both Exist. Why?" The post went on to note the two mangazine's similar circulations (Gourmet: 950,000; Bon Appetit: 1.3 million) and median reader incomes (Gourmet: $79, 942; Bon Appetit: $81,981) and called the magazines "combo-ready."

As someone who has subscribed to both Gourmet and Bon Appetit, I beg to differ--strongly. Gourmet is for people, like me, for whom reading about food and making dinner are equally important parts of our love affair with food. Their photo spreads are lavish, inspiring, lush; their travel writing makes you want to be in the places they're writing about Right Now (a recent piece on the Camino de Santiago, for example, made me long for some sturdy walking shoes and a ticket to Spain). Their recipes range from simple but elegant to elaborate and time-consuming; they don't assume that just because you made the linguine with broccoli, red pepper and pine nuts on a weeknight, you won't try the cassoulet with homemade confit on a Sunday afternoon. Bon Appetit, in contrast, assumes you're a working mom with a busy life and guests perpetually on the way; their recipes focus on ease and do-ability ("do-ahead" recipes are a big focus), to the point that they will actually recommend you use things like bottled grocery-store pesto and canned broth as shortcuts. I'm not saying I never use such things (hell, I eat frozen dinners), just that I don't want my food magazine to tell me to do so.

Food magazines, at their best, are both useful and aspirational--they give us suggestions and guidelines for how to eat better in our daily lives, and they offer us fantasies of what our cooking and dining lives could be like. I read Gourmet for the same reason people read Martha Stewart Living, or any number of home-decoration magazines--they're an escape into a world I don't exactly have now, but want, and can imagine having. I don't need a magazine to tell me how to have a "low cost pizza party" or to make the perfect "simple chicken soup" to make my "family warm and toasty". And I already know how to make garlic bread, thank you very much. What I want is important news about food politics, riveting travel stories about places I'll never go, and food photography that makes my mouth water. That's why I subscribe to Gourmet. Ultimately, it's about the experience, not the recipes.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-03T13:57:00.000-08:00

Photo of Scotch eggs by Flickr user santos.

Photo of the Day

2009-03-02T16:54:00.000-08:00

Photo of fried tofu by Flickr user aloalosabine.

Food News Roundup

2009-03-02T16:23:00.000-08:00

No time for a long post today, so here's some of the interesting food news that's making the rounds:

• Frito-Lay has discovered that women eat twice as many "snacks" as men, but also feel more guilty about it. Their solution? Packaging junk food like Sun Chips and Baked Lays in plain brown bags, with copy that emphasizes their "healthy" ingredients. Also an infuriating-sounding marketing campaign, which will target "fab, funny, fearlessly female" women with jokes about pushup bras and Cindy Crawford.

• One market that's doing better than ever in tough economic times is vegetable seeds--especially organic seeds, whose sales have jumped nearly 50 percent since last year. Observers credit fuel costs, the economy, and the fear of tainted produce caused by last year's salmonella outbreaks for the spike in sales.

• Surprisingly, one thing that isn't selling so well is alcohol--in the fourth quarter of last year, take-out alcohol sales (differentiated from drinks bought at bars) dropped 9.3 percent, four times as much as overall consumer spending. The drop shatters the previous record of 3.7 percent, set in the fourth quarter of 1991.

• Sprig has a roundup of the "ten most dangerous foods," most of which qualify because of high levels of PCBs and pesticides. A few that surprised me: Conventional bell peppers (which had the highest pesticide levels per serving of any vegetable); non-organic strawberries (which, in addition to having high pesticide levels, may have been irrigated with NutraSweet-laced water, for sweetness), and farmed salmon (which contains dioxin levels up to 11 times higher than their wild equivalents).

• Finally, this is a couple of days old, but I found it fascinating: According to food-science whiz Harold McGee, there's no reason to boil your pasta in gallons of water; moreover, if everybody in the US started boiling their pasta in just a few cups of water, we could save between 250,000 and 500,000 barrels of oil every year.

Photo of the Day

2009-02-27T16:55:00.001-08:00

Photo via Flickr user yongfook.

The Unitasking: Make it Stop!

2009-02-27T12:19:00.000-08:00

Ten Things I (and the World) Do Not Need:

1) A portable, handheld nanotech toaster.

(Photo via Daily Mail).

2) A dispenser that makes butter ribbons, saving me the time (and risk!) of cutting butter with a knife.

(Photo via Whatever Works.)

3) A special fork to protect me from the perils, according to the product information, of "squeezing your fingers into a jar trying to grasp a pickle to no avail."
(Photo via Bed, Bath and Beyond.)

4) An apple peeler (which removes the best part)-slash-corer (which duplicates the work of a knife, with more mess and effort!) (See also: The Rotato).

(Photo via Williams-Sonoma)

5) A $30 stainless-steel electrical appliance for cooking eggs. According to the product information, it "cooks up to seven eggs at once!" You know what? So does my four-quart saucepan.

(Photo via Amazon.com)

6) A little robot-y looking thing to chop my garlic for me. Cute? Yes. Possible to clean? Probably not!

(Photo via the Kitchen Outlet).

7) A plastic thingiemabob to crack eggs. The thing about eggs? Is that... um... they practically crack themselves. Also, $19.95!!!!! (Image via ezcracker.com. Heh, heh, heh. I'll show you an easy cracker!)

8) Similarly: An avocado masher? Avocados, like bananas, are naturally mushy. A fork, a spoon, or--if you have neither--your hand would do the job as well. And if you can't afford forks and spoons, I doubt you can spend $12.99 on an avocado destruction device.

(Photo via YumSugar).

9)A shrimp deveiner. Hey! It's a little pointed thing you can use to take the guts out of shrimp! It's called a knife! Or you can buy one of these.

(Photo via Kitchen Haven).

10) ANY device to cook bacon in the microwave other than paper towels, although the WowBacon cooker may be my favorite, for reasons of bulk and counter space.

(Photo via Wow Bacon).

P.S.: Unitaskers I like: Kitchen torches, rice cookers, seltzer makers, dehydrators, ice cream makers, knife honing steels, Microplanes, cookie cutters, waffle irons.

Photo of the Day

2009-02-26T16:12:00.000-08:00

Photo of cauliflower cheese soup by Flickr user nettsu.

Photo of the Day, Fantasy Edition

2009-02-26T11:32:00.001-08:00

(See below).

Photo by Flickr user joana hard.

The Day Before Payday

2009-02-26T11:22:00.000-08:00

No time to cook last night (or money to buy ingredients, for that matter). On my desk:

Frozen lasagna, $1.50.

Russet potato, $0.79

Can low-sodium vegetable soup, $2.00

Hours 'til payday: 12.5.

Things I Want to Try This Year

2009-02-25T15:22:00.000-08:00

Yeah, yeah, it's February: So I'm getting off to a slow start. Here's a (noncomprehensive) list of culinary experiments, intimidating projects, and other things I hope to try my hand at in 2009:

1) Baking bread. For all my obsession with cooking, this is one of those things (so simple! other home cooks tell me. Not scary at all!) that I'm just totally intimidated by. Something about working with living organisms that, I'm convinced, will die if you so much as look at them funny freaks me out. Also, I don't trust my oven.

2) Making cheese. Doesn't really matter which kind. One of the ones that's easy to make at home--ricotta, mozzarella, or paneer. When I was a kid, my mom actually went through a kick of making yogurt cheese with a strainer and a cheesecloth; as far as I can remember, the recipe was basically: Dump yogurt into cheesecloth-lined strainer, place over bowl, wait, squeeze. As long as it's that simple, I really have no excuse.

3) Crackers! This is another thing I just haven't gotten around to trying--not because I'm intimidated (see above), but because it's just not one of those things it occurs to me to make. Mark Bittman says they're a snap and better than store-bought; I say I'll probably keep buying them at the store, but I'd love to give it a shot and see if he's right.

4) Rendering fat. Recently, I've developed a habit of stashing cooking fat in glass containers in the freezer because, as mentioned previously, I have a pathological fear of letting anything go to waste. (Moldy cheese? Cheese is made of mold! Sour sour cream? Like there is such a thing!) Additionally, I have a tendency to pick up weird things at the grocery store when they're on sale; recently, I grabbed a big tray of suet (suet? I barely know it!), and I'm not above grabbing packages marked "ends and pieces" for no better reason than that they're so much cheaper than whole cuts of bacon/meat/what-have-you. This has resulted in me having tons of jars half-full of beef fat and bacon grease and chicken schmaltz, and no idea what to do with any of it. This year, I want to learn what to do with all of it: The suet, the beef fat, the duck fat I plan to buy at the Chinese grocery, all of it.

5) On a related note: Making confit. Not necessarily duck confit--although I'm both intrigued and totally freaked out by that prospect--but perhaps garlic confit, Meyer lemon confit, or this incredible-looking tomato confit that's been kicking around my recipe file for a couple of years now. Confit is basically just stuff preserved in oil, so I shouldn't be intimidated... perhaps the fact that I'm lousy at French pronunciation has something to do with it?

6) Homemade mayonnaise. I make homemade salad dressing all the time, so why not mayonnaise? My guess is that it has something to do with the sheer amount of stirring that's required; I know you can make it in a blender, but I'm also told the texture's not the same... and my blender's on the fritz anyway.

7) More pickles, more freezing, more preserving. This isn't really a new thing, but given my success pickling and preserving foods in the past, I'd really like to ramp production up this year. Especially if my summer harvest this year is as pitiful as last year's (the temperature hardly touched 80 in all of July and August), I may just buy bushels of Eastern Washington peppers and tomatoes at the farmer's market and figure out a way to make them keep until the dead of winter... An August tomato, even preserved or cooked and defrosted, could really transform a dreary, wet February day like this one.

8) Growing tomatoes from seed. According to the woman at the Tilth hotline, this is probably a quixotic mission, but my success with tomatillos last summer (the only vegetable to really go nuts in my garden, and the one almost everyone warned me not to try) has made me cocky. I planted the seeds last week and am keeping them over the heater vent; time will tell if my confidence was misplaced.

You'll notice that nowhere on this list is anything about "baking the perfect seven-layer cake" or "making croissants from scratch." That's no accident. I'm just not a "sweets" person... and when I do want something sweet, I'm happy to let the bakery/grocery store/Ben and Jerry's make it for me.

Photo of the Day

2009-02-25T15:05:00.000-08:00

Photo by Flickr user hackett.

Photo of the Day

2009-02-24T15:03:00.000-08:00

Photo by Flickr user GucciBeaR.

Sustainable-Ag Proponent to Fill Second Spot at USDA

2009-02-24T13:50:00.000-08:00

Sustainable agriculture fans are excited about the appointment of Kathleen Merrigan, director of of the Agriculture, Food and Environment Program at Tufts University, to be the deputy secretary of the US Department of Agriculture. I haven't read up much on Merrigan, but I the Ethicurean calls her a "thrillingly unexpected pick," and I consider their endorsement golden.

Obama Foodarama has a slightly more expansive take on Merrigan's appointment, noting that she is both a "well known speaker and researcher on sustainable agriculture" and "credited with creating the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, which mandated national organic standards and a program of federal accreditation." Merrigan was also one of the "sustainable dozen"--a list of potential appointees compiled by the group Food Democracy Now!, which has urged President Obama to rethink the way agriculture is conducted in the United States. Chewswise, meanwhile, has called Merrigan "someone who has pursued the change mantra in agriculture for nearly two decades."

Interestingly, Obama Foodarama also notes that USDA director Tom Vilsack has vowed to increase the agency's focus on civil rights issues within the department, which has a long history of discriminating against women and non-white populations who receive its aid. They speculate, convincingly, that Merrigan's appointment may be a symbolic step in that direction.

Culinary Revelations

2009-02-23T12:05:00.000-08:00

Mark Bittman is (as usual) right: Nothing beats a breakfast of hot whole grains mixed with sesame oil and soy sauce and topped with scallions and peanuts.