Recently Heard on the Internets

My father always says, "You can't have it fast, cheap, and high quality. Pick two. If you want it fast and cheap, it's not gonna be very good. If you want it fast and good, it certainly won't be cheap."

-- commenter on Serious Eats' post about the brou-ha-ha surrounding the recent discovery that Taco Bell's "beef filling" is only 35% beef, 5% below the FDA requirement that it be 40%.

Tostones!

As promised a while ago, here is my recipe for tostones! (Always with an exclamation point because DAMN THEY ARE THAT GOOD!)

Also known sometimes as platanos verdes or patacones, tostones! are the most delicious, heavenly, savory, yum yum yummers Latin American side dish you ever will come across. They're kind of like a cross between a potato chip (a really, really good, thick one, like a Kettle chip) and home fries and something else otherworldly.

If you've ever had platanos maduros before (the kind of plantain that is sweet when cooked), you're probably thinking, what the...? Platanos are sweet, not savory, crazy lady!

But the key here is the ripeness of the platano when you cook it, which is easily discernible by its color. A ripe -- and thus sweet-tasting when cooked -- platano is yellow in color, similar to its banana cousins. An unripe -- and thus savory and very umami when cooked -- platano is green in color. Thus the alternate term "platanos verdes" (green/unripe plantains) for tostones.

 Tostones are sadly, miserably, unfortunately, tragically quite hard to find in restaurants on the west coast. When I lived in New York City, I could get them everywhere and didn't eat them every day, thinking they were (as they ought to be) commonplace. Then I moved back to the west coast (San Francisco initially and Oregon now) and realized what a rare delicious golden treasure they are in this land of Mexican and Central American food with a sad dearth of proper Latin Caribbean (Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban) food.

Being the daughter of a Colombian, you would think I'd be partial to the maduros. My dad can't get enough of them, and I remember him teaching me to cook them when I was young. But as soon as I tasted my first toston, I was a lost cause: it was tostones for me, forever. I like the maduros, sure, and especially in certain meals, situations, etc. But give me a choice and I'll always choose the savory tostones.

So the only way for me to satisfy my toston craving is to make them myself. And while, yes, these are not the healthiest food in the world to eat, when you make them yourself, they totally fall into Food Rule #39 of Michael Pollan's: Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.

These go wonderfully with rice and beans; grilled chicken; fried eggs; anything else with even a little bit of latin flavor or that needs a carby, salty side. As for me, I could eat an entire batch solo, no problem. But only as long as the requisite mojo de ajo (garlic-lemon dipping sauce) is on the side.

And so, without further ado, I present to you my recipe for these gorgeous wonderful delights of salty and garlicky and yummmm:

DENA'S TOSTONES

•  As many platanos verdes (green plantains) as you can handle -- for me, this usually falls somewhere between my desire to eat 17 and my capacity to cook anywhere between 2 to 4
• Plenty of high-heat cooking oil, such as sunflower or safflower
• Salt water
• Salt

1. Peel your platanos -- they don't peel like regular bananas due to their un-ripeness. You'll need to score the outside in two to three vertical lines to get the peel to come off.

2. Slice them into fairly thick rounds -- they're going to get smashed into flat delicious toston-ness, so they need to start out pretty substantial.

3. Meanwhile, heat enough cooking oil to cover the bottom of your skillet by about 1/4 inch til it's hot; I usually set mine on medium-high.

4. If you've got a lot of tostones, fry them in batches: place each piece in the skillet so that it can lay flat but not crowd the others. Let them get just golden, about 90 seconds to 2 minutes or so, depending on the heat of your stove. You don't want them to brown. Once they've reached that gorgeous golden state, flip them so they get golden on the other side, too.

5. Once they're all golden on both sides, remove from the skillet to a plate with paper towels to soak up excess oil. You can turn off your skillet for now.

6. While they were cooking, you've set up a little toston-smashing station: Small bowl of salt water, a clean surface on which to smash (I sometimes use a plate for this), and a smasher -- I usually use one of our flat, heavy-bottomed glasses. A heavy mug can also work.


7. Take each toston onto your surface, place the smasher over it, and smash just until properly smashed but not falling apart. It can take a few tries to figure out where that line lies; you'll get the hang of it!




8. Dip each smashed toston in salt water and set aside.

9. Once all the tostones are smashed and salt-water dipped, heat up your skillet again, to about the same heat, and fry up the tostones til they cook through and get really golden and just this side of browned.

10. Remove to a paper-towel covered plate, sprinkle with plenty of your favorite salt (I like the big crystals of kosher salt for this job), let them cool just a bit, and enjoy with a dipping sauce of mojo de ajo. HEAVEN.

Coming soon.... my recipe for mojo de ajo!

Let the Free Market Decide

Remember that little graphic I posted a few days ago about why salads cost more than Big Macs?

"...My pie in the sky dream is to end subsidies for agribusiness and end subsidies for animal production and basically let the free market decide the cost of a pound of beef and a pound of chicken. If there were no subsidies for beef, a pound of beef would cost around $25, and if every aspect of animal production wasn't subsidized, a family of four going to McDonald's for a quick meal would spend $75. So really it's like the silver bullet that fixes the problem. And I would almost think it would make for interesting bedfellows, where you might even get some libertarian Tea Party people to talk about ending giving subsidies to animal production. But then again, not to be too inflammatory, but thus far every single person in the Tea Party is a raving lunatic, so I don't expect them to join our cause any time soon."

-- Moby, author of Gristle: From Factory Farms to Food Safety (emphasis mine)

Amen, Moby. It thrills me to just imagine it.

Impossibly Delicious

I *love* it when restaurants reveal their famous recipes. Chow of San Francisco, one of my very favorite restaurants ever, anywhere, just had its impossibly delicious Ginger Cake recipe published in the San Francisco Chronicle.

I know what you may be thinking: Ginger Cake? Ptooey. But trust me on this one -- this cake is insanely yummy. I myself am not the hugest ginger fan; I like it alright, but I would normally never choose it over, say, chocolate or even berry anything. But this cake has won me over time and again. (Admittedly, Chow also has a chocolate cake that is absolutely to die for. But they haven't released that recipe!)

As the Chron writer puts it, this cake is "a rich dark blend that reminds me of fall but is on the menu year-round and plays as well in spring, summer or winter."I'm telling you, folks: this cake is goooood.

And with that, as a hat tip to my old stomping grounds of San Francisco and very fond and delicious memories of the wonderfully versatile Chow, here is the recipe after the jump. (Wait til after Passover to make this one; it's definitely not chametz-free!)

Click here to read the rest of Impossibly Delicious

Why DOES a Salad Cost More Than a Big Mac?

Since I'm so inspired by the adorable and brilliant Jamie Oliver's latest quest, I came across this graphic and very short article and had to share.

Why Does a Salad Cost More Than a Big Mac?

"Why does a salad cost more than a Big Mac? Part of the reason is that a huge proportion of our food subsidies go to meat while only 0.37 percent go to fruits and vegetables. That makes meat and dairy artificially cheap, so we end up consuming more of it than we should, and getting fatter."

P.S. Did anyone else watch Jamie last night?

The (Food) Revolution Is Being Televised

Did you happen to catch the pilot of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution?

I had recorded it and wasn't sure what I'd think of it. I finally got around to watching it -- and was riveted. What a fantastic show. Jamie is telling it, bringing it, and cooking it.

It's going to take some serious doing for him to make even a dent in the god-awful eating habits (pizza for breakfast as a sanctioned school meal?!?) of Huntington, West Virginia -- recently named the "unhealthiest city in America."



I salute Jamie Oliver for taking on our country's eating: he's got it all right. What we eat is more than just what we put in our mouths for any given meal. It's about changing our future: we can be better than who we have complacently become at the hands of industries and corporations who make money off our unhealthy habits.

We don't have to surrender to this new reality of "easy, inexpensive eating means our only options are unhealthy." We don't have to accept that we are becoming heavier and sicker every day. We don't have to resign ourselves that our children may not have the lifespan that we are projected to have. And we certainly have a right to be outraged about this entire state of affairs! I feel like Jamie is helping us to take off some of our blinders and retrieve our outrage about the state of our food systems and eating in this country. How can it not all make you mad? My favorite part in the pilot is when Jamie talks about being PISSED about the food being fed the schoolchildren he's working with. I so feel you, brother.

It's about taking the simplest steps to cook simple meals for ourselves and our families -- in doing that, I really do believe we can change the future of this country. (Just think how that would change our healthcare needs and healthcare system!)

So go watch. I'll be right there with you: Fridays, 8pm, ABC.


(No, neither ABC nor Jamie Oliver have any idea or care about who I am. I just really did love this show. It's not all preachy, either. It's entertaining -- especially when he tangles with the school lunch ladies!)

12 "Food" Items

It looks like food! It smells like food! It tastes like food!

But...for the most part, the "food" items shown in this genius slideshow are not, exactly, food.

My favorite (most disgusting?) is the CHICKEN IN A CAN. Say it with me now: ewwwwwwwww.

I'm sure there's plenty more out there to be added to this list, but for now, this is plenty for me to...er, chew on. I might need to throw up in the wastebasket a little after seeing this, though.

Kvelling

I had to share some news with you all: I've been accepted as a contributor over at one of my very favorite food blogs, The Jew & The Carrot!

As they describe themselves, "launched in November, 2006, The Jew & The Carrot is the epicenter of Jews, food, and sustainability on the web. It brings together 3,000 years of Jewish thought and food tradition with contemporary issues like sustainability, organic eating, nutrition, food politics, and healthy, delicious cooking.The Jewish community has an amazingly complex relationship with food. As the rest of the world is waking up to the notion of sustainable agriculture, local foods, and healthy eating, so is the Jewish community in the States, in Israel, and across the world."

Perfect, right? Very exciting.

So now I'm all nervous about posting over there.... Feeling a little intimidated. But I'm working through that by working on a first post based on the Shabbat meal I'll be making this Friday: Cashew Chicken adapted from Martha's recipe. Yum.

I'll be sure to let you all know as soon as my first post is up!

(Big shout-out to my friend Peter for connecting me with this gig!)

A Sampling of Food Rules

Following up on yesterday's post about Michael Pollan's new book, Food Rules, I thought I'd share the sampling of rules he made available. I think my favorite of the below is #19. I can't wait to read—and take to heart—the rest!

#11 Avoid foods you see advertised on television.
Food marketers are ingenious at turning criticisms of their products—and rules like these—into new ways to sell slightly different versions of the same processed foods: They simply reformulate (to be low-fat, have no HFCS or transfats, or to contain fewer ingredients) and then boast about their implied healthfulness, whether the boast is meaningful or not. The best way to escape these marketing ploys is to tune out the marketing itself, by refusing to buy heavily promoted foods. Only the biggest food manufacturers can afford to advertise their products on television: More than two thirds of food advertising is spent promoting processed foods (and alcohol), so if you avoid products with big ad budgets, you’ll automatically be avoiding edible foodlike substances. As for the 5 percent of food ads that promote whole foods (the prune or walnut growers or the beef ranchers), common sense will, one hopes, keep you from tarring them with the same brush—these are the exceptions that prove the rule.

#19 If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.

#36 Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk.
This should go without saying. Such cereals are highly processed and full of refined carbohydrates as well as chemical additives.

#39 Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.
There is nothing wrong with eating sweets, fried foods, pastries, even drinking soda every now and then, but food manufacturers have made eating these formerly expensive and hard-to-make treats so cheap and easy that we’re eating them every day. The french fry did not become America’s most popular vegetable until industry took over the jobs of washing, peeling, cutting, and frying the potatoes—and cleaning up the mess. If you made all the french fries you ate, you would eat them much less often, if only because they’re so much work. The same holds true for fried chicken, chips, cakes, pies, and ice cream. Enjoy these treats as often as you’re willing to prepare them—chances are good it won’t be every day.

#47 Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.
For many of us, eating has surprisingly little to do with hunger. We eat out of boredom, for entertainment, to comfort or reward ourselves. Try to be aware of why you’re eating, and ask yourself if you’re really hungry—before you eat and then again along the way. (One old wive’s test: If you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you’re not hungry.) Food is a costly antidepressant.

#58 Do all your eating at a table.
No, a desk is not a table. If we eat while we’re working, or while watching TV or driving, we eat mindlessly—and as a result eat a lot more than we would if we were eating at a table, paying attention to what we’re doing. This phenomenon can be tested (and put to good use): Place a child in front of a television set and place a bowl of fresh vegetables in front of him or her. The child will eat everything in the bowl, often even vegetables that he or she doesn’t ordinarily touch, without noticing what’s going on. Which suggests an exception to the rule: When eating somewhere other than at a table, stick to fruits and vegetables.

Food Rules

I will be back to blogging regularly (and promise a post on the amazing Boeuf Bourguignon a la Julia Child), but for today, I thought you'd like to see an excerpt from Michael Pollan's latest missive on his new book, Food Rules. (Bolded parts are emphasis mine.)

I, for one, can't wait to read it -- and most likely, own it and keep it as a little reminder and reference for the real rules when it comes to eating and food.

Friends:

My new book, Food Rules, was published yesterday. You can get some info about it from the website, at http://michaelpollan.com/foodrules.php.

The idea for this book came from a doctor—a couple of them, as a matter of fact. They had read In Defense of Food, which ended with a handful of tips for eating well: simple ways to navigate the treacherous landscape of modern food and the often-confusing science of nutrition.  “What I would love is a pamphlet I could hand to my patients with some rules for eating wisely,” they would say. “I don’t have time for the big nutrition lecture and, anyway, they really don’t need to know what an antioxidant is in order to eat wisely.” Another doctor, a transplant cardiologist, wrote to say “you can’t imagine what I see on the insides of people these days wrecked by eating food products instead of food.” So rather than leaving his heart patients with yet another prescription or lecture on cholesterol, he gives them a simple recipe for roasting a chicken, and getting three wholesome meals out of it – a very different way of thinking about health.

Make no mistake: our health care crisis is in large part a crisis of the American diet -- roughly three quarters of the two-trillion plus we spend on health care in this country goes to treat chronic diseases, most of which can be prevented by a change in lifestyle, especially diet. And a healthy diet is a whole lot simpler than the food industry and many nutritional scientists –what I call the Nutritional Industrial Complex—would have us believe. After spending several years trying to answer the supposedly incredibly complicated question of how we should eat in order to be maximally healthy, I discovered the answer was shockingly simple: eat real food, not too much of it, and more plants than meat. Or, put another way, get off the modern western diet, with its abundance of processed food, refine grains and sugars, and its sore lack of vegetables, whole grains and fruit.

So I decided to take the doctors up on the challenge.  I set out to collect and formulate some straightforward, memorable, everyday rules for eating, a set of personal policies that would, taken together or even separately, nudge people onto a healthier and happier path. I solicited rules from doctors, scientist, chefs, and readers, and then wrote a bunch myself, trying to boil down into everyday language what we really know about healthy eating. And while most of the rules are backed by science, they are not framed in the vocabulary of science but rather culture—a source of wisdom about eating that turns out to have as much, if not more, to teach us than nutritional science does.

Standing Up For Food

One of my favorite bloggers (food and otherwise), City Mama, has just posted a really wonderful post to her blog. You have to read it. I find it inspiring. And here's what it made me think about and post as a comment:

I am also very much caught in that delicate balancing act between wanting to stand by my values and beliefs (and keep myself and my family healthy) by eating only sustainable, local, organic, ethical -- and not wanting to see every penny we manage to save go towards food: balancing the CSAs, the farmer's markets, and a backyard garden with the Whole Foods or Whole Foods-like grocery store.

It's a daily, weekly, monthly struggle. But after maintaining this balance -- or at least working to try to maintain it -- for a few years now, I think it's actually in the struggle where we find that golden, happy medium. Sure, it's not easy. It's not cheap. It's not mindless, and it's certainly not effortless.

But I am starting to think that it is the putting-in of that effort, that thought, and those resources that makes a difference.

So basically what I'm saying is I totally salute you. And I am standing right here with you, against Tyson, Cargilll, Swift, Monsanto, Smithfield, and the whole system that has turned what and how we eat into a bastardized farcical version of its original, natural self.

The truth is I haven't yet seen Food, Inc. I have kind of wanted to but also felt like I might just want to jump out the window after seeing it. Which, I really do realize, is not a good reason -- I know about the stuff that's in there, and the fact is that not seeing the movie won't make it go away and won't make it any less true. Just because I am sick over the state of our food systems because I know a lot about what's wrong with them doesn't mean a) I don't have a lot more to learn and b) that I get some kind of pass on seeing the hard stuff.

I'm putting it on our Netflix queue now.

Long After Human Cleverness Has Run Its Course...

Remember Joel Salatin? Of Polyface Farms?

No? Well then you need to get on down to the library and read The Omnivore's Dilemma immediately!

For those of you who do remember his name, I'm sure you smiled on the inside just like I did to read his name. As it says on his farm's website, "Polyface, Inc. is a family owned, multi-generational, pasture-based, beyond organic, local-market farm and informational outreach in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley."

That's right. And it's the sole reason I must travel to said Shenandoah Valley someday. I simply must visit this farm.

Joel Salatin is the farmer Michael Pollan is lucky enough to visit and work with for a week, who refers to himself as a "grass farmer," because all of the animals he raises -- and everything on his farm, for that matter -- are an interconnected web with grass-eating at the very center of that web. Remember the happy piggies whose tails curled (pigs' tails curl only when they are happy) as they rooted for fermented corn kernels amongst the cows' winter bedding and droppings? Or how Pollan calls Salatin up, asking the farmer to kindly ship him one of his famous grass-fed steaks -- and Salatin refuses, because California is too far from Virginia, making it impossible to justify the expenditure of fossil fuels that will go into getting it cross-country? Or the chickens whom he moves from patch of pasture to patch of pasture each day, cycling them through on a schedule that ensures the symbiotic relationship between the earth, grass, cows' munching and treading with their specially evolved hooves, and chickens' scratching is intact and even thriving? Joel Salatin became my hero before I even read the last page of that book.

I don't have particularly strong feelings either way on the benefits or hazards of drinking raw milk (though I pretty much lean in its favor and am guessing the "hazards" are made up, as Salatin suggests), but I certainly do think if one wants to drink it, one should absolutely be able to. Salatin's recent post on raw milk and its regulations on grist.org is very interesting. And anything Joel Salatin has to say, I will listen to!

I found this passage from his post really spoke to me:

The same curative properties espoused by raw milk advocates exist in a host of other food products, from homemade pound cake and potpies to pepperoni and pastured chicken. Real food is what developed our internal intestinal community. And it sure didn’t develop on food from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations[*] and genetically modified potatoes that are partly human and partly tomato. Long after human cleverness has run its course, compost piles will still grow the best tomatoes and grazing cows will still yield one of nature’s perfect foods: raw milk.

I love that he talks about how "real food" (food that you and I make every day, from scratch) has curative properties. I believe it does indeed. And I love the line, "Long after human cleverness has run its course...." I wonder, has it? It often feels these days like it has. It feels today like going back to basics -- the compost-grown backyard tomato -- is the truest, newest technology we have for making real, curative food.

* Have questions about what's a CAFO? And why they are not good?

A Dream of A Small Farm

"But they never imagined that the definition of sustainable farming would change so quickly or drastically, to the point that small-scale farming has become a kind of luxury."

My mom sent me this article from The New York Times, about the family behind the French Laundry restaurant, who traded it all in for a small family apple farm.

When did visions of a simple life gleaned from the hard work of creating sustenance from soil become near-to-impossible pipe dreams? What a strange world we live in.

Still, I'm so glad people like the Schmitts are doing what they're doing.

And dining at the French Laundry is still totally on my list of To Do Before I Die!

Our French Chef: We Love You, Julia

This is a food blog, after all. There was just no way Julie & Julia was not going to appear on here in some way or another, right?

I saw the aforementioned movie recently and I have to say... I absolutely adored it! I laughed (a lot!), I cried. I thought it was divine.

Well, truth be told, I thought the parts with Julia Child/Meryl Streep were divine. I was absolutely captivated, entranced, and smitten with those parts of the movie. And much to my surprise, there were more of them than I had originally thought there would be. (The Julie Powell/Amy Adams parts of the movie were fine, in my opinion. Not bad, but very, very pale in comparison to the Julia Child scenes.)

I love that this movie made me think of and appreciate Julia Child in a whole new way. Before, I had known that yes, Julia Child revolutionized cooking in America. Yes, she demystified French cooking and made it accessible even to the humble housewife. Yes, she was a woman in what was very much a man's world.

But seeing it onscreen, seeing it told in a way that made my little heart strings sing -- and I fully admit, seeing it told by the luminous Meryl Streep didn't hurt either -- just made it come alive for me. Now, instead of just knowing these things, I feel them. I feel love, respect, admiration, and gratitude for Julia Child. I wonder if I would be here today, blogging about food, loving to cook, overcoming my fears and intimidation around cooking and foodie culture if it weren't for her.* I can't ever know for sure.

I have a special little place in my heart for the inimitable Ms. Child because she actually went to my high school! At the time, it was a small, private school for girls -- mostly a boarding school. But there were a few day schoolers, and she was one of them. I seem to recall having heard stories from my alma mater's lore that her being a day schooler made her a bit of an outsider. That, combined with her stature, must have been difficult in such a small community. Makes me love her even more!

So, being the kind of girl that I am, and being unafraid of being cliched when it's the truth, I have to tell you that as soon as I saw the movie, I turned to my husband and told him that I already know what two items are on my Hanukkah gift list: My Life in France and Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

There's a quote from Russell Morash, a WGBH producer who worked with Julia, which sums up her importance and her beloved status so perfectly. She was more than all these heroic titles and visions we've put on her. She did the simplest thing, and it changed our culture. I'll let him say it:

"[Before Julia,] if you asked at the A&P for leeks or a clove of garlic, they would have looked at you funny. Julia brought new food and new implements to America. An omelette used to be a French thing. An edible cheese? Ground pepper? Forget it! Chicken in America was fried. The Ritz in the late ’50s was serving codfish cakes. And the world was pointed to food made in factories and sold in cans. Julia said: start from scratch, and make something memorable."

Words to live by today, more than ever. Start from scratch, and make something memorable.

I am so going to make Julia's boeuf bourguignon this winter!



* I really enjoyed this 2004 piece by Christopher Lydon, written upon her death. My favorite passages:

The true measure of Julia Child is a great deal more than recipes and shtik. “Obviously,” Paglia had said, “she is one of those figures in history who totally transformed American culture. This country was a wasteland of Philistinism in terms of food and the preparation of food until Julia Child came on the scene. You know, her manner–her whole mannish manner! I mean, she’s a pioneering woman, with no connection to the Gloria Steinem school, the Patricia Ireland school, and all those, like, white upper-middle-class ladies. I mean, I absolutely adore the whole technology of food preparation, the ritualism of food coming out of Mediterranean culture. And nothing could be more opposite: food-affirming Julia Child versus the anorexia and bulimia-obsessd victimology of academic studies.”

The professional cook in the Lydon family, middle-daughter Amanda, picked up in her commentary where Paglia left off. “The key word Camille didn’t use,” Amanda said, “was pleasure. Julia Child did open up a new world for women. She broke the gender code in cooking. I mean, all the great cooks talk about their mothers and their mothers’ food. But there are differences. Home cooking is relaxed and female. Restaurant cooking is rule-bound, rigid and masculine. Julia put the Apollonian into the Dionysian, and the Dionysian into the Apollonian. Fine cuisine, so called, is a masculine tradition. What Julia Child did is deconstruct this French, classical, rule-based cooking tradition and make it accessible to women as a source of pleasure at home.”

Gettin' Ready for Tomato Season

It's 100 degrees here in Eugene today (!) and it is also the time of year when we have to start thinking about tomato season.

All the delicious recipes that are set to the back shelf, that I dream about in the middle of winter, are moved to the front of the queue -- happily and deliciously. I'm one of those people who eat fresh tomatoes only seasonally -- even though you can get "red" tomatoes in the grocery store year-round, there are many reasons not to eat them, including their utter tastelessness and mushy texture.

This great article in the San Francisco Chronicle will help anyone who wants to put tomatoes by for this winter -- something I have long wanted to do and may try to do this summer. Homemade, homegrown tomato sauce in January -- yum! (A great recession special idea, too, by the way.)

And here are some of my favorite recipes for real, honest-to-goodness vine-ripened summer tomatoes:

• Summer Tomato Side Salad
• Mediterranean Melts
• Zoe's Greek Salad

Our tomato plants have just started to tip into the Going-Crazy/Little-Shop-of-Horrors territory. Which means that soon, the many, many green tomatoes hanging on their vines should start to become red, delicious, and little bursts of summer in our mouths!

Can't wait!

Learning to Eat

How many parents do you know who make separate food for their children? Who bargain with their kids at mealtime ("If you eat one piece of broccoli, you can have dessert")? Who are constantly struggling with trying to get their kids to eat anything?

I feel like I see this everywhere: parents making one delicious, gourmet meal for themselves and chicken nuggets and mac 'n cheese for their kids.

It doesn't have to be this way! I often wonder how much this is a uniquely American phenomenon -- kids in other countries or from other cultures eat what their parents eat, and it's not a big deal. It's not an absurd notion in Latin America to think that kids will eat the same foods their parents eat, no matter how "sophisticated" or "non-kid-friendly" the meal may seem. In fact, one of the bloggers I read and love, CityMama, has written about how her kids eat everything she eats, and how often people are in shock and awe when they see it happen.

My dear friend Robin is a school garden educator. In other words, she teaches low-income kids about food and where it really comes from -- from growing their own food to cooking it and then composting it and completing the garden-to-plate cycle. She recently shared with me the work of Ellyn Satter, who helps parents learn how to feed their kids appropriately so kids learn how to eat appropriately.

Ellyn's rules are so simple, yet so genius. I share them with you here -- happy eating for everyone!

The Five Responsibilities In Feeding & Eating

Parents are responsible for:

• What food is served
• When food is served
• Where food is served

Children are responsible for:

• How much to eat
• Whether to eat or not
  

How genius is that? She also emphasizes: Don't get your responsibilities mixed up with your child's responsibilities.

• If you don't do your jobs, your child will eat poorly and not behave at the table.
• If you get bossy and try to do her jobs, she will fight back and not eat.

I love this. Even though it can seem hard to do, if we do our part -- serve an array of foods that are healthy and tasty on a reliable mealtime schedule where we eat together -- kids will do their part: eat as much as they need. We can stop worrying and start trusting.

There's a wealth of information on this topic on Ellyn's website, but these five key responsibilities seem like keystones to establishing healthy eating habits (and peace of mind for parents!).

What about you -- if you have kids, do you follow these five rules? If not, where are you faltering?



(Another great thing about Ellyn's website: estas responsabilidades estan en su sitio del red en español tambien!)

To Live Free

Happy Memorial Day, everyone! Hope you're taking this day and beginning of this wonderful season to spend some time outside -- and hopefully cooking outside! Nothing is better than grilled food on a beautiful Memorial Day.

And in honor of living free....here's a little blurb from one of my fave writers and environmental gadflies, Wendell Berry.

The industrial eater is, in fact, one who does not
know that eating is an agricultural act,
who no longer knows or imagines the connections
between eating and the land, and who
is therefore necessarily passive and uncritical....



We still (sometimes) remember that
we cannot be free if our minds and voices
are controlled by someone else.



But we have neglected to understand that
we cannot be free if our food and its sources are
controlled by someone else.



The condition of the passive consumer of food
is not a democratic condition.

One reason to eat responsibly is to live free.

-- Wendell Berry, The Pleasures of Eating

I Won, I Won!

Omigosh! Look what I won: a copy of Eating Close to Home by Elin England! THANK YOU, Our Home Works! Yay!

Here's what I'll be reading and what I promise to share with you as I make my way through this book:

In this book, local author Elin England put together a compendium of simple, well-tested recipes using local, seasonal ingredients. The book is arranged by seasons and even has a handy chart depicting the availability of Pacific Northwest fruits and vegetables. As a bonus, Elin is graciously sharing 10% of the proceeds with Willamette Farm & Food Coalition.

Yay and yum. I can't wait. This is a perfect companion read to what hubby's reading these days because he won the lottery for a community garden plot! I'll share pics of our little 16' x 22' patch of organic community garden goodness soon.

(As an aside, Our Home Works is on my current list of heroes because they just got chickens!!! Check 'em out. I hope to follow in their footsteps someday.)

Farmer's Markets

I don't know where you live, but here in Eugene, Oregon, spring has really sprung and everyone's feeling it all over.

An interesting thing about living here in Oregon is that unlike in California (from where we moved 8 months ago), farmer's markets don't usually run year-round. At least the Eugene one doesn't, anyway. It runs until November 14th, with a mini-extension at the Holiday Market through the end of December. After that, we're all waiting and watching and hoping until April!

Well my friends, the Eugene Farmer's Market is back and it is beautiful and wondrous. It's actually been another really cool signifier of the change in seasons and of spring's gracing our part of the globe.... Cherry blossoms, daffodils, magnolias, singing birds, longer days, sun higher in the sky, and the farmer's market!

Part of my meal planning for the week now includes stopping at the farmer's market every Saturday to see what bounty catches my eye. Whatever looks good, we buy. From those ingredients, I craft my menu plan. It's kind of fun and interesting, a backwards way of planning. Keeps things fresh around here. Plus it celebrates the season perfectly.

Wherever you are, I hope you're near a farmer's market. And I hope you take a chance and stop by -- the produce will be unparalleled, and the experience of shaking your food's grower's hand and handing over cash directly to them is immensely gratifying.

As Earth Day approaches, I am saluting my local farmers. And hoping to keep them in business. We need them now more than ever.

Not to go on about Mark Bittman, but....

Seriously I am having a foodie-crush on this guy right now. I just read over his profile in the Observer from a little while, and I apologize if you're so over him, but I have to share this with you all:

“The grass-fed beef concept is really great,” he went on, “but if you don’t cut consumption, it doesn’t matter. There’s not enough room for grass-fed beef any more than there’s enough room for imprisoned beef.”

It’s the same with seafood. “All this farm-raised stuff, it’s crap,” he said, but he is wary of promoting wild fish. “If I tell you to go eat it, it’s gone.” Mr. Bittman said he cannot update [his 1992 cookbook] Fish because so many of the 70 species he wrote about have since disappeared.

“I have no interest in helping people becoming chefs,” Mr. Bittman said. “I have an interest in 50 percent of the people in America knowing how to cook. And whether they cook like chefs or not, I don’t care. It’s probably better if they don’t. It would be better if they cook like me, which is adequately.”

Amen to that!

A promise for Friday: I will post a recipe! And it will be something yummy. I just have to sort through my photos and see what I got on there.