Speaking of eating out of the cabinets, my first tip for keeping Passover from breaking the bank actually starts about 3-4 weeks out, which would be now: Don't do a full food shopping, buying a bunch of stuff that you don't need for the next few weeks. Buying a lot of boxes of cold cereal, or pasta or flour products or anything else that you're just going to have to put away or throw away in a couple of weeks just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Rather, this is exactly the time to do what I mentioned in the earlier post: eat up what you have in the cabinets. The more you use, the less you'll have to deal with at cleaning time. Remember, throwing away food is a shonda (as well as the antithesis of frugality), so this is exactly the time to figure out what's in all those tupperwares in the freezer, dig around in the back of the cabinets, and eat the natureburger mix you've been "saving" (read: avoiding). (Are you sensing a theme here?)
To get ready for a simple Pesah, the first thing to do, before the holiday even starts, is to eat yourself out of house and home!
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Well ok, but I wouldn't call it frugality
Here's kind of a weird one, from a recent issue of Newsweek: Julia Reed makes a bet with friends that she can eat for under $50 per week (apparently she has developed well-earned reputation for extravagance) which she wins by using up expensive ingredients she had bought on previous sprees and trips and had never eaten. Money quote:
I would point out that the very fact that she bought and brought home all this fancy stuff and then didn't use it until she'd made a bet is actually a symptom, a symptom of the same disease that I am exhibiting when I buy a book and put it on the shelf without reading it. We don't even bother to get the full use or pleasure out of the things we buy. Buying, having, is more important than the thing itself. In this sense, actually eating the food is a drawback, because then you don't have it anymore. At least a book still exists once you've read it.
But ultimately, this kind of thing is not sustainable. Either she'll get tired of working so hard to put interesting food on the table, or she'll run out of esoteric ingredients. She may have eaten olive and cream cheese sandwiches in college, but I doubt she'd want to do so now. And anyway, a story entitled "Budget Gourmet" should have some hint of ways to actually eat on a budget, not just use up the product of previous extravagance. No?
PS: I won't be linking to Newsweek too much anymore; we're letting the subscription lapse. We've probably taken it for 10 years at least, but DW doesn't like the redesign.
The good news about being formerly extravagant is that you have some pretty swell stuff lurking around. There was pasta I'd toted from Italy three trips ago; ditto balsamic vinegar of every conceivable age. There were anchovies and capers, olives, and pickled figs, three colors of lentils, and four kinds of rice. Why, I wondered, had I bought two bottles of walnut oil and one of blood-orange vinegar? I don't know, but it turns out they work really well together on a salad of watercress and endive. Does pasta have a shelf life? Supposedly it's two years, but my four-year-old pappardelle was just fine. Is it too gross to make a meal of the runny Epoisses my mother left at Christmas? Yes, but I found an Epoisses soufflé recipe from Anne Willan that made an elegant supper with a salad.Although the length of the wager is unclear from the piece, I would venture to guess that most people could probably get through a week or two spending $50 per week on food using just with the things in the cabinets, even if blood-orange vinegar isn't among them. It's probably not fancy enough for Julia Reed, but I know there's some Natureburger mix buried somewhere in our cabinets, waiting for a fallow time.
I would point out that the very fact that she bought and brought home all this fancy stuff and then didn't use it until she'd made a bet is actually a symptom, a symptom of the same disease that I am exhibiting when I buy a book and put it on the shelf without reading it. We don't even bother to get the full use or pleasure out of the things we buy. Buying, having, is more important than the thing itself. In this sense, actually eating the food is a drawback, because then you don't have it anymore. At least a book still exists once you've read it.
But ultimately, this kind of thing is not sustainable. Either she'll get tired of working so hard to put interesting food on the table, or she'll run out of esoteric ingredients. She may have eaten olive and cream cheese sandwiches in college, but I doubt she'd want to do so now. And anyway, a story entitled "Budget Gourmet" should have some hint of ways to actually eat on a budget, not just use up the product of previous extravagance. No?
PS: I won't be linking to Newsweek too much anymore; we're letting the subscription lapse. We've probably taken it for 10 years at least, but DW doesn't like the redesign.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
You are what you cook
Tonight's frugal meal: I had a couple of already cooked but frozen lamb chops. I sauteed a little onion, garlic and ginger, added 1/2 cup broth and 16 oz can diced tomatoes, 1 tsp each hot curry and cumin, and the cubed lamb, cooked off the liquid a little and served over rice. It would also, of course, work with tofu.
A while ago I wrote a post about how preparing and eating your dinners at home is a cornerstone of the frugal lifestyle, because it's cheaper as well as healthier - you know what's in what you're eating. My old friend Sue F. got a little mad at me because her family has two working parents and five kids running in all different directions, and she didn't need to feel bad about the fact that they needed (out of respect I won't put it in quotation marks) to eat prepared foods fairly often.
Well, now that DH is working so much (at least three full days and two half days per week, plus three evenings a week) we have had to face this issue in a way we never had to before. The questions facing our household are three: would we eat out more, would we be able to continue to put interesting, lovingly prepared cooked-from-scratch foods on the table, or would we rely more on convenience foods?
Well, I can tell you that we ain't eating out more. I have lunch out sometimes, mostly for my job, and I may eat lunch out by myself once a week or once every two weeks, usually a sandwich or a salad bar, sometimes some grocery store sushi. But our family just doesn't eat in restaurants. We might bring in pizza once a month or so, and once in a great while we'll bring in thai or chinese, but now that I think of it we haven't done that for a while either. Neither we do we do the prepared foods from the supermarket or Boston Market thing either. So that part has remained constant.
Regarding the convenience foods/cooking from scratch thing, though, the results aren't fully in yet. It feels like we're eating faster foods, but I'm not sure if it isn't that I'm just doing more of the cooking now. When I do the shopping I usually buy a box of fake-chicken patties and a package of some kind of veggie hotdog or sausage. Then I usually alternate between buying a box of frozen pierogies and the dyna-sea shrimp that I wrote about here. Once in a while I buy the boil in a bag indian food, but DW doesn't like the selection in the supermarket and I don't often get to the asian store that has a better selection so we haven't been doing that much lately. And we usually have a couple of frozen pizzas in the freezer, we probably eat that once a month.
That's for two weeks worth of meals, and that's it for quote-unquote convenience foods. We're probably talking 3 or 4 meals out of 14 in a two-week period. And really, when you think about it, aside from the chicken patties, the indian food and the pizza (the latter two, as I say, relatively rare) there really isn't any purely convenience food on the list - even the hotdogs go into a cooked dish, so what we're really talking here about are substitutes for the meat that I don't eat a whole lot of and DW doesn't eat at all.
As I say, I've been taking on a lot more of the cooking since DW has been working so many evenings, and I've been trying to keep it interesting - soups are big this time of year. The hardest times are when I have an event in the evening, because by the time I get the kids home, give them snacks and do their homework, there isn't a lot of time to cook before I have to go out again. That's when we might do the indian food or a simply broiled tofu and microwaved vegetables. Kasha varnishkes is also a popular "convenience food" by which I mean - quick and simple!
So I feel confident in saying that we have managed to maintain a) our homecookedness, and b) our ability to put varied, interesting and nutritious foods on the table. Of course, two of our kids won't eat anything but noodles and cheese, but that's a story for another day.
A while ago I wrote a post about how preparing and eating your dinners at home is a cornerstone of the frugal lifestyle, because it's cheaper as well as healthier - you know what's in what you're eating. My old friend Sue F. got a little mad at me because her family has two working parents and five kids running in all different directions, and she didn't need to feel bad about the fact that they needed (out of respect I won't put it in quotation marks) to eat prepared foods fairly often.
Well, now that DH is working so much (at least three full days and two half days per week, plus three evenings a week) we have had to face this issue in a way we never had to before. The questions facing our household are three: would we eat out more, would we be able to continue to put interesting, lovingly prepared cooked-from-scratch foods on the table, or would we rely more on convenience foods?
Well, I can tell you that we ain't eating out more. I have lunch out sometimes, mostly for my job, and I may eat lunch out by myself once a week or once every two weeks, usually a sandwich or a salad bar, sometimes some grocery store sushi. But our family just doesn't eat in restaurants. We might bring in pizza once a month or so, and once in a great while we'll bring in thai or chinese, but now that I think of it we haven't done that for a while either. Neither we do we do the prepared foods from the supermarket or Boston Market thing either. So that part has remained constant.
Regarding the convenience foods/cooking from scratch thing, though, the results aren't fully in yet. It feels like we're eating faster foods, but I'm not sure if it isn't that I'm just doing more of the cooking now. When I do the shopping I usually buy a box of fake-chicken patties and a package of some kind of veggie hotdog or sausage. Then I usually alternate between buying a box of frozen pierogies and the dyna-sea shrimp that I wrote about here. Once in a while I buy the boil in a bag indian food, but DW doesn't like the selection in the supermarket and I don't often get to the asian store that has a better selection so we haven't been doing that much lately. And we usually have a couple of frozen pizzas in the freezer, we probably eat that once a month.
That's for two weeks worth of meals, and that's it for quote-unquote convenience foods. We're probably talking 3 or 4 meals out of 14 in a two-week period. And really, when you think about it, aside from the chicken patties, the indian food and the pizza (the latter two, as I say, relatively rare) there really isn't any purely convenience food on the list - even the hotdogs go into a cooked dish, so what we're really talking here about are substitutes for the meat that I don't eat a whole lot of and DW doesn't eat at all.
As I say, I've been taking on a lot more of the cooking since DW has been working so many evenings, and I've been trying to keep it interesting - soups are big this time of year. The hardest times are when I have an event in the evening, because by the time I get the kids home, give them snacks and do their homework, there isn't a lot of time to cook before I have to go out again. That's when we might do the indian food or a simply broiled tofu and microwaved vegetables. Kasha varnishkes is also a popular "convenience food" by which I mean - quick and simple!
So I feel confident in saying that we have managed to maintain a) our homecookedness, and b) our ability to put varied, interesting and nutritious foods on the table. Of course, two of our kids won't eat anything but noodles and cheese, but that's a story for another day.
Friday, February 20, 2009
No School Lunch Left Behind
Here's an oped from today's Times by the great Alice Waters, talking about how to make school lunches more healthful. She points out that while things like candy and soda machines often get negative attention when they're placed in schools (and rightly so), school lunches that are no better (chicken nuggets, pizza, etc.) are served every day.
I did a volunteer day in my kids' school a couple of weeks ago, and they served chicken nuggets, bags of chips, a little plate of peas and a cookie. The peas, of course, were the most unappetizing looking things you could imagine, and I would venture to guess that no more than 5% of them were actually ingested by the children. (My kids bring lunch every day.)
This would be a lot more likely to happen if parents took an interest in this issue and pressured their school boards and elected officials to help make it happen. Here's a sample page from a parents group in California, with a lot of links to material about junk food, some of the health concerns, and letters to school boards and Congress.
Every public school child in America deserves a healthful and delicious lunch that is prepared with fresh ingredients. Cash-strapped parents should be able to rely on the government to contribute to their children’s physical well-being, not to the continued spread of youth obesity, Type 2 diabetes and other diet-related problems. Let’s prove that there is such a thing as a good, free lunch.She points out that this would require a commitment by the Agriculture Department to provide and deliver fresh ingredients, and from the Education Department "to teach students to choose good food and to understand how their choices affect their health and the environment." This last part is especially important, given that school lunches are predominantly for kids of limited income, who may not immediately like healthier choices given the fact that the unhealthy choices are full of fat and salt and all the things kids (and adults, for that matter) love. Also, kids may not be getting much better fare at home, especially if they're low income.
I did a volunteer day in my kids' school a couple of weeks ago, and they served chicken nuggets, bags of chips, a little plate of peas and a cookie. The peas, of course, were the most unappetizing looking things you could imagine, and I would venture to guess that no more than 5% of them were actually ingested by the children. (My kids bring lunch every day.)
This would be a lot more likely to happen if parents took an interest in this issue and pressured their school boards and elected officials to help make it happen. Here's a sample page from a parents group in California, with a lot of links to material about junk food, some of the health concerns, and letters to school boards and Congress.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Bread machine blues
A little before Hanukkah the pan on my bread machine cracked, so I couldn't use it. (The liquid would leak out.) It was under warranty so we called the company and they said to cut off the cord and send it back, and they would replace it. So we did that. In the month or so since then we've been relying on the 99-cent, day-old bread pile at the health food store.
In the end the company sent us back one that is a slightly higher-end model than the one we had. It's significantly wider, with two blades in it instead of one. We have enough counter space for it, but for some reason I haven't worked up the enthusiasm for it as I had when I first brought the original one home.
One complication is that because the machine is bigger, the size of the loaves is bigger. The first one had measurements for 1, 1.5 and 2 lb loaves; this one has recipes for 2, 2.5 and 3 lb loaves. So I can still use the measurements for the larger size loaves in the old book for the smaller sized loaves in this one. Also, the new book only contains one recipe for each setting (wheat, white, fast-bake etc.), as opposed to the other one, which had 4 or 5 recipes for each setting. Also, the new one relies heavily on milk as an ingredient, where the other one didn't; I was avoiding using milk so as to keep the thing pareve so I could eat the bread with meat if I wanted to.
So ... I need to find a recipe book for bread machines that gives measurements for the right size but doesn't rely on dairy. (The ones in the library mostly do rely on dairy, but I'll google it eventually, I'm sure I'll find something.) Then I need to get back into the rhythm of doing it a couple of times a week. Maybe I should re-read the chapter in Barbara Kingsolver's book, that might help. I'll get used to it.
In the end the company sent us back one that is a slightly higher-end model than the one we had. It's significantly wider, with two blades in it instead of one. We have enough counter space for it, but for some reason I haven't worked up the enthusiasm for it as I had when I first brought the original one home.
One complication is that because the machine is bigger, the size of the loaves is bigger. The first one had measurements for 1, 1.5 and 2 lb loaves; this one has recipes for 2, 2.5 and 3 lb loaves. So I can still use the measurements for the larger size loaves in the old book for the smaller sized loaves in this one. Also, the new book only contains one recipe for each setting (wheat, white, fast-bake etc.), as opposed to the other one, which had 4 or 5 recipes for each setting. Also, the new one relies heavily on milk as an ingredient, where the other one didn't; I was avoiding using milk so as to keep the thing pareve so I could eat the bread with meat if I wanted to.
So ... I need to find a recipe book for bread machines that gives measurements for the right size but doesn't rely on dairy. (The ones in the library mostly do rely on dairy, but I'll google it eventually, I'm sure I'll find something.) Then I need to get back into the rhythm of doing it a couple of times a week. Maybe I should re-read the chapter in Barbara Kingsolver's book, that might help. I'll get used to it.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Coming in from the cold
Well, obviously I haven't been posting too much on this site. Partially I've been pretty busy at work, but also the things that have been taking my attention are things that fit better on Fed Reb, like Gaza and the like. Some of the more political things that I was talking about on this blog earlier, like TARP, I've been moving over the Fed Reb site as well. The last couple of posts here have been cross-posted with the COEJL blog, where I've committed to posting twice a month. Even those might have been better at Fed Reb, if I'm really making that my political site, but environmentalism fits well with the sustainability aspect of this blog's subject matter so I've kept those here.
So all that's kind of left JS kind of out in the cold. The original idea for this site was that it would be frugality and simplicity from a Jewish perspective, but part of the reason I haven't been posting much is that I just haven't had that much to say about that topic for a while. I've been thinking that maybe I should just make this more of my autobiographical site, a la Mary at Pokeberry.
What I really need to do is treat this site more like a job. David Brooks has to write 2 or 3 columns a week whether he feels like it or not. I probably just need to decide to post twice a week and treat that commitment like it means something.
Anyway, here's a couple of things while I'm here. I went to Chicago last week for a meeting. When we lived in "Chicagoland" we actually lived in a suburb about 45 minutes west, and I worked in the same town where we lived. So I was somewhat protected from some of the disadvantages of living in a big urban area. But coming from Wichita to Chicago after a year was quite a culture shock! It took me longer to get back to where I was staying from an event on Sunday night than it would take me to get anywhere in Wichita at the busiest time of the day. I've been thinking that I'd like to get back into a more urban, connected area but it was actually kind of daunting.
Wichita has some real advantages from the simplicity perspective: it's cheaper to live here, and you don't spend a lot of time in traffic. There are a lot of disadvantages too, obviously, like it's really disconnected culturally and also (I'm sorry to say) that we are not satisfied with the level of the spiritual options available to us here.
The other thing I wanted to mention was that I had a real simplicity moment in the kitchen last week. I've been cooking more often since DW has been working two evenings a week. Last week I made a lentil soup with Indian flavors, curry and cumin and the rest, to go with some boxed Indian food that I sometimes buy to make when DW is at work - DK really likes it. I had a lot of the soup leftover and we didn't have any brilliant ideas for Shabbat last week - we really like to have a nice meal on Friday night, to make the Sabbath special - so I bought some fish, heated up the lentil soup, took out the lentils with a slotted spoon and then put the fish in the broth for 5 minutes, to poach. Then I served the Indian-flavored fish over the lentils and served it with brown rice. Yum! It would have worked with tofu, too, for you veganish people.
So all that's kind of left JS kind of out in the cold. The original idea for this site was that it would be frugality and simplicity from a Jewish perspective, but part of the reason I haven't been posting much is that I just haven't had that much to say about that topic for a while. I've been thinking that maybe I should just make this more of my autobiographical site, a la Mary at Pokeberry.
What I really need to do is treat this site more like a job. David Brooks has to write 2 or 3 columns a week whether he feels like it or not. I probably just need to decide to post twice a week and treat that commitment like it means something.
Anyway, here's a couple of things while I'm here. I went to Chicago last week for a meeting. When we lived in "Chicagoland" we actually lived in a suburb about 45 minutes west, and I worked in the same town where we lived. So I was somewhat protected from some of the disadvantages of living in a big urban area. But coming from Wichita to Chicago after a year was quite a culture shock! It took me longer to get back to where I was staying from an event on Sunday night than it would take me to get anywhere in Wichita at the busiest time of the day. I've been thinking that I'd like to get back into a more urban, connected area but it was actually kind of daunting.
Wichita has some real advantages from the simplicity perspective: it's cheaper to live here, and you don't spend a lot of time in traffic. There are a lot of disadvantages too, obviously, like it's really disconnected culturally and also (I'm sorry to say) that we are not satisfied with the level of the spiritual options available to us here.
The other thing I wanted to mention was that I had a real simplicity moment in the kitchen last week. I've been cooking more often since DW has been working two evenings a week. Last week I made a lentil soup with Indian flavors, curry and cumin and the rest, to go with some boxed Indian food that I sometimes buy to make when DW is at work - DK really likes it. I had a lot of the soup leftover and we didn't have any brilliant ideas for Shabbat last week - we really like to have a nice meal on Friday night, to make the Sabbath special - so I bought some fish, heated up the lentil soup, took out the lentils with a slotted spoon and then put the fish in the broth for 5 minutes, to poach. Then I served the Indian-flavored fish over the lentils and served it with brown rice. Yum! It would have worked with tofu, too, for you veganish people.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tofu and "Shrimp" with Black Bean Sauce
A couple of people asked me for the recipe to this. I got it from Food and Wine magazine, September 2005 issue. We use the Dyna-Sea brand Surimi Shrimp, which stands up pretty well as long as you don't rough it up too much. It's about $8 a pop out here, though, so with the tofu (another $2.80 usually at least) this isn't the most frugal meal going. But - we only make it about once a month and it's cheaper than eating out. This recipe serves 3 of us, so if you're feeding more you can either double the recipe or serve potstickers or something like that to stretch it out a bit. There's no veg in it so you'll have to find that somewhere as well. We serve it with rice.
A block of tofu, cut into triangles
A package of the shrimp, cut into thirds
2 cloves garlic
a boatload of ginger
1/3 cup or to taste black bean sauce
1/2 cup each cooking wine and vegetable stock
a touch of sugar
Heat the garlic and ginger in a skillet. Add the black beans and heat through, then add the wine, stock and sugar. Let that heat up, then put the tofu and shrimp in there and heat them through. (It's not a stir fry, so don't keep beating at it.) You could throw some peas in there if you're so inclined. The recipe calls for cilantro but we don't use it and haven't missed it.
That's all there is to it, really. Easy-peasy. B'tayavon (that's Hebrew for "bon apetit")
A block of tofu, cut into triangles
A package of the shrimp, cut into thirds
2 cloves garlic
a boatload of ginger
1/3 cup or to taste black bean sauce
1/2 cup each cooking wine and vegetable stock
a touch of sugar
Heat the garlic and ginger in a skillet. Add the black beans and heat through, then add the wine, stock and sugar. Let that heat up, then put the tofu and shrimp in there and heat them through. (It's not a stir fry, so don't keep beating at it.) You could throw some peas in there if you're so inclined. The recipe calls for cilantro but we don't use it and haven't missed it.
That's all there is to it, really. Easy-peasy. B'tayavon (that's Hebrew for "bon apetit")
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
This week's mealplan
Sunday - the tofu and fake shrimp in garlic, ginger and black bean sauce that is one of our house favorites.
Monday - carrot mushroom loaf (Moosewood): stirfry a minced onion and some mushrooms, grate a bunch of carrots, mix it together with breadcrumbs and cheese and italian spices, and bake at 400 for 45 minutes. We didn't feel the need to make any side dishes, since it's already bread, cheese and veg.
Tuesday - Veggie chili and corn bread
Wednesday - Lentil soup and a crusty bread. Yes, it is officially the time of year to start making soups and stews! But I can't understand why when I make the pumpernickel recipe in my bread machine, it never rises properly. I never have that problem with the wheat bread.
Thursday - Veggie fried rice, from the Hippie Gourmet. It calls for asparagus, but I'm not the kind of guy who buys asparagus in October. I did splurge on the red peppers, though, because I thought it would make the dish look nice.
This weekend we're going to KC for the weekend because we have tickets to see Lion King. (This is our combined anniversary/Hanukkah present from DW's folks, so props to them!) So this meal is on DW's mom, although I think we're bringing a challah. And yes, Sunday is 11 years for DW and me on. Life's bumpy path indeed, but we're still a good, if "quirky" team.
Monday - carrot mushroom loaf (Moosewood): stirfry a minced onion and some mushrooms, grate a bunch of carrots, mix it together with breadcrumbs and cheese and italian spices, and bake at 400 for 45 minutes. We didn't feel the need to make any side dishes, since it's already bread, cheese and veg.
Tuesday - Veggie chili and corn bread
Wednesday - Lentil soup and a crusty bread. Yes, it is officially the time of year to start making soups and stews! But I can't understand why when I make the pumpernickel recipe in my bread machine, it never rises properly. I never have that problem with the wheat bread.
Thursday - Veggie fried rice, from the Hippie Gourmet. It calls for asparagus, but I'm not the kind of guy who buys asparagus in October. I did splurge on the red peppers, though, because I thought it would make the dish look nice.
This weekend we're going to KC for the weekend because we have tickets to see Lion King. (This is our combined anniversary/Hanukkah present from DW's folks, so props to them!) So this meal is on DW's mom, although I think we're bringing a challah. And yes, Sunday is 11 years for DW and me on. Life's bumpy path indeed, but we're still a good, if "quirky" team.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Grandma knew better than this
Once in a while, whenever I'm feeling flush at the supermarket, I buy a copy of Mother Earth News. I have an ongoing fantasy about having a couple acres in the country with a big garden and chickens, the whole Barbara Kingsolver thing, and this is basically the only way I have to scratch that itch. (I'm really a city boy, and wouldn't know what to do with a chicken that didn't come already plucked and quartered.) I bought the new issue last week - the cover story was "Expert Tips for Simple Living" which is a sale for me right there - the story was written by Wanda Urbanski, whom I've never heard of but who apparently has a simplicity show on television, and another one on the Nearings' house in Maine.
There's another article in there called "Good Calories, Bad Calories: What really makes us fat" and the apparently the answer is: carbohydrates.
But there's a difference between recognizing the anti-fat hysteria was so much hype and simply swapping carbohydrates for fats and making them the new bogeyman. This article recommends a protein- and fat-rich diet that lacks virtually all starches and sugars, with a special focus on unlimited quantities of red meat.
This Atkins-ist nonsense is pernicious in a number of ways. First of all, meat is high in B vitamins, zinc and iron, and not much else. It's ridiculous to claim that you could get all the vitamins - C! - you need this way. Not even the industry claims anything like this.
There's also actually some benefit to the eating of grain, like fiber, and if you ate as much meat as this you would basically never poop again. The model proposed is opposed to many of the the more healthy diets in the world: the Mediterranean diet, for instance, held up as a uniquely healthy way to eat, does not focus so exclusively on protein and fat. (He does say that we should eat leafy greens, so that covers some of it.)
And this doesn't even take into account the costs of a meat-based diet, not only on health but on energy usage and climate change - it takes more calories to produce the meat than you get from it - and the problems inherent in the CAFO system that would only have to be expanded if everyone were to take this advice.
The problem is not grains as such but processed grains that have had the living element removed - processed grains such as you find in most processed and supermarket-baked goods. And anyway, my grandmother never said not to eat pasta and potatoes. She said not to eat soda and candy. For everything else, she was a great believer in moderation - especially when it came to eating meat. I'm surprised that a decent and fairly crunchy magazine like Mother Earth News would have forgotten that lesson.
There's another article in there called "Good Calories, Bad Calories: What really makes us fat" and the apparently the answer is: carbohydrates.
If you had asked your mother or grandmother for diet tips, you might have heard, "Every woman knows that carbohydrates are fattening." In fact, that's from a 1963 article in the British Journal of Nutrition, co-authored by one of the leading nutritionists of the era. And for the previous 100 years or so, this was the conventional wisdom: carbohydrate-rich foods such as bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, sweets and beer make us fat, and, by implication, foods rich and fat and protein do not.Now, I'm the kind of person who always looks askance at conventional wisdom and hype, and am fairly (over-) sensitive to conspiracies, so I'm perfectly willing to accept the growing conventional wisdom that the focus on fat in the diet over the past 30 years has been overblown. (Especially since it formed a prominent part of Michael Pollan's latest book.) I've never been afraid of cheese, for instance, and the idea of low-fat cookies always struck me as rather an abomination.
But there's a difference between recognizing the anti-fat hysteria was so much hype and simply swapping carbohydrates for fats and making them the new bogeyman. This article recommends a protein- and fat-rich diet that lacks virtually all starches and sugars, with a special focus on unlimited quantities of red meat.
If you actually look at the fat content of a piece of red meat (or eggs and bacon), you'll find that the principal fat is not saturated fat - which is supposedly bad for the heart - but the same monounsaturated fat as in olive oil, which is supposedly good for the heart. And much of the remaining fat is still what nutritionists would call heart-healthy.So in other words, if it wasn't for the fries and buns, McDonald's would be good for you! Forget the orange juice, for vitamin c eat more red meat! In fact, OJ ruins the health benefits of the red meat!
(snip - a discussion of the various levels of HDL and LDL cholesterol in red meat)
... animal products happen to contain all the amino acids, minerals and vitamins essential for health, with the only point of controversy being vitamin C. [And even then] the content of meat is more than sufficient for health, so long as the diet is indeed carbohydrate-restricted, absent the refined and easily digestible carbohydrates and sugars that would raise blood sugar and insulin levels and so increase our need to obtain vitamin C from the diet.
This Atkins-ist nonsense is pernicious in a number of ways. First of all, meat is high in B vitamins, zinc and iron, and not much else. It's ridiculous to claim that you could get all the vitamins - C! - you need this way. Not even the industry claims anything like this.
There's also actually some benefit to the eating of grain, like fiber, and if you ate as much meat as this you would basically never poop again. The model proposed is opposed to many of the the more healthy diets in the world: the Mediterranean diet, for instance, held up as a uniquely healthy way to eat, does not focus so exclusively on protein and fat. (He does say that we should eat leafy greens, so that covers some of it.)
And this doesn't even take into account the costs of a meat-based diet, not only on health but on energy usage and climate change - it takes more calories to produce the meat than you get from it - and the problems inherent in the CAFO system that would only have to be expanded if everyone were to take this advice.
The problem is not grains as such but processed grains that have had the living element removed - processed grains such as you find in most processed and supermarket-baked goods. And anyway, my grandmother never said not to eat pasta and potatoes. She said not to eat soda and candy. For everything else, she was a great believer in moderation - especially when it came to eating meat. I'm surprised that a decent and fairly crunchy magazine like Mother Earth News would have forgotten that lesson.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
This week's mealplan
After making that baked burrito thing I wrote about last week, I realized that it would work with a couple of different variations - sauce or no sauce, beans or fake meat, rice inside or not, different kinds of veg. So we're going to try it another way this week - beans and rice, peppers, tomato and cheese, baked with sauce and some extra cheese on top.
Tonight DW made a spinach and ricotta pie, which was quite good. I figure one day this week I'll make the Brooklyn Pad Thai, we haven't had that for a while. Then I'll figure out something to do with whatever I bring home from the farmers' market on Tuesday.
And if I may wax lyrical for a moment: What a pleasure is a farmers' market in August! Tons of tomatoes, cukes, big, lovely zucchinis, melons. I saw okra last week, but didn't get any. This week I think I will. Gotta use what the earth gives us!
Tonight DW made a spinach and ricotta pie, which was quite good. I figure one day this week I'll make the Brooklyn Pad Thai, we haven't had that for a while. Then I'll figure out something to do with whatever I bring home from the farmers' market on Tuesday.
And if I may wax lyrical for a moment: What a pleasure is a farmers' market in August! Tons of tomatoes, cukes, big, lovely zucchinis, melons. I saw okra last week, but didn't get any. This week I think I will. Gotta use what the earth gives us!
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Another quick and easy meal
From the Vegetarian Times cookbook: a can of black beans, some chili powder and garlic, cooked for 10 minutes, mushed with a masher, spooned into tortillas with chopped tomato, onion and cheese, rolled and baked at 400 for 15 minutes. Easy-peasy, very tasty. Served with a side salad.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Food principles
Mary and I are responding to each other quite a bit this week. A comment I made to a post she had written about scratch cooking vs. couponing caused her to post a deep-thinking post about Food and Values. It's worth taking a look at.
In my comment I said, in effect, that the reason we don't use too many coupons in my house is because they are usually for overly processed and packaged foods that we try to stay away from. I also said that most of the things coupons are offered on are "corporate foodstuffs," which I actually underplayed in my comment because I know from previous exchanges that Mary is not too sympathetic to this line of argument. And in fact she didn't like it and it seems to triggered much of her later post. She pointed out that a lot of people, including her husband, are employed by corporations. To which I would say, that may be true, but that doesn't mean you have to eat their food.
In fact the two elements - health and corporate influence - are intertwined. Michael Pollan points out that corporations are in the business of making profits, and the more a food is processed, the more profit there is to be made. A carrot doesn't turn anyone much of a profit. It's similar with the health insurance field - the product of the health insurance field isn't health, it's profit for the company. But that's another story.
Due to concentration in the food industry, it's acutally quite difficult to find food that is not corporate-related in one way or another. Most of the larger organic- and health-food providers are part of larger corporations, which is one reason I place such a high priority on buying from the farmers' market.
http://www.thegoodhuman.com/2008/04/01/who-owns-your-favorite-organic-food-company/
I buy a lot of stuff from companies that are on this list - that's my version of Mary's "semi" philosophy. The principles I work under are
I just buy from the smallest business I can possibly buy from. I believe that once a business gets to a certain size (or maybe its a certain level of impersonality) then the imperatives they follow no longer are what's good, but what's good for them. And then you get to the whole level of bribing-congress-to-make-sure-their-interests-are-protected, much to the detriment of everyone else and the environment, which is unfortunately how the country works, as we see from every farm bill that comes down the pike.
I also don't think it's all a matter of "free choice," as the free-market fundamentalists like to say. Corporations spend millions of dollars to develop the most effective marketing and advertising mechanisms to make you want to buy what they have to sell, they employ psychologists to help them do this, and they propagandize incessantly in every medium available. It's not a level playing field.
So as much as I can, I say, not me, thanks. And if that's not liberatarian - or maybe it's liberation - then I don't know what is.
In my comment I said, in effect, that the reason we don't use too many coupons in my house is because they are usually for overly processed and packaged foods that we try to stay away from. I also said that most of the things coupons are offered on are "corporate foodstuffs," which I actually underplayed in my comment because I know from previous exchanges that Mary is not too sympathetic to this line of argument. And in fact she didn't like it and it seems to triggered much of her later post. She pointed out that a lot of people, including her husband, are employed by corporations. To which I would say, that may be true, but that doesn't mean you have to eat their food.
In fact the two elements - health and corporate influence - are intertwined. Michael Pollan points out that corporations are in the business of making profits, and the more a food is processed, the more profit there is to be made. A carrot doesn't turn anyone much of a profit. It's similar with the health insurance field - the product of the health insurance field isn't health, it's profit for the company. But that's another story.
Due to concentration in the food industry, it's acutally quite difficult to find food that is not corporate-related in one way or another. Most of the larger organic- and health-food providers are part of larger corporations, which is one reason I place such a high priority on buying from the farmers' market.
http://www.thegoodhuman.com/2008/04/01/who-owns-your-favorite-organic-food-company/
I buy a lot of stuff from companies that are on this list - that's my version of Mary's "semi" philosophy. The principles I work under are
- less processed is better than more processed,
- fewer ingredients are better than more ingredients,
- ingredients found in nature are better than those developed in a laboratory,
- not advertised on television is better than advertised on television,
- less packaging is better than more,
and (after all that)
- non-corporate is better than corporate.
I just buy from the smallest business I can possibly buy from. I believe that once a business gets to a certain size (or maybe its a certain level of impersonality) then the imperatives they follow no longer are what's good, but what's good for them. And then you get to the whole level of bribing-congress-to-make-sure-their-interests-are-protected, much to the detriment of everyone else and the environment, which is unfortunately how the country works, as we see from every farm bill that comes down the pike.
I also don't think it's all a matter of "free choice," as the free-market fundamentalists like to say. Corporations spend millions of dollars to develop the most effective marketing and advertising mechanisms to make you want to buy what they have to sell, they employ psychologists to help them do this, and they propagandize incessantly in every medium available. It's not a level playing field.
So as much as I can, I say, not me, thanks. And if that's not liberatarian - or maybe it's liberation - then I don't know what is.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Agri
Cross-posted and updated from FedReb:
A statement on Agriprocessors by the Jewish Labor Committee. For those of you who don't know, Agri is the largest producer of kosher meat in the country, and it has a history of labor infractions and cruelty to the animals. A couple of months ago over 300 workers were arrested in a raid for being undocumented aliens, and two of Agri's staff members were recently arrested for helping them get fake documentation.
The situation has caused a good deal of reflection on the part of Jews who observe kashrut as to what kashrut really means and whether there should be an ethical component to it in addition to the ritual components - fairness to the workers and/or compassion for the animals, depending on the focus of the organization. I particularly support the efforts of the Conservative movement to develop a standard of ethical behavior that can be applied in kosher certification - it's called heksher tzedek (righteous certification) and a website explaining it is here. In addition, I applaud the efforts of other mainstream organizations, like BBYO and numerous Jewish summer camps, to place their values over their wallets and not to order meat from Agriprocessors until the mess up there is cleaned up.
The best coverage of this issue is found in the Hazon blog, the Jew and the Carrot. An interview with a labor activist currently working on this issue is found here. Yesterday they posted an interview with the lead organizer of Uri L'tzedek, a group made up primarily of Orthodox rabbinical students, which had been a lead voice on this issue in the Orthodox community (and there will be no positive change in the kosher slaughtering biz until the Orthodox community, the biggest customer base, demands it). Unfortunately, Uri L'tzedek has called off its boycott in the aftermath of the hiring by Agri of a compliance officer - not, mind you, any actual compliance. This strikes me as premature, to say the least.
Because it seems that, with the single exception of the hiring of this compliance officer, Agri's response has been more a PR campaign than an actual commitment to fix what's wrong. If you scroll down the BBYO article you'll notice what seems to be a coordinated critical response, which is probably the work of the PR firm that Rubashkin has recently hired to try to combat all the bad press. (And which apparently forged emails from one of Agri's strongest critics designed to make him look bad.) In keeping with this model, on Yom Kippur this year I will not be expressing regret for my sins or making an effort to change, but rather simply hiring a PR firm to claim that all statements about my sins constitute conviction before a full trial.
The other piece of this that needs attention is the people who were in the workforce there before the raids, the undocumented immigrants who are left with no income while they await deportation or other disposition of their cases. They are unable to work and are in great need. Donations to the Postville Food Pantry can be made to this address:
POSTVILLE FOOD PANTRY
c/o Pastor Steve Brackett, Treasurer
St. Paul Lutheran Church
116 East Military Road
Postville, IA 52162
{The food pantry's phone number is 563-864-7643}
I'm trying very hard not to draw any conclusions about Orthodox heksher in general from this incident. Despite their long history of bad actions, Agriprocessors makes it much easier for people to have access to kosher meat. All it needs to do (and it may be a lot) is fix its bad labor and animal practices, and I will be happy to support it once again. Until then, I'll do without.
A statement on Agriprocessors by the Jewish Labor Committee. For those of you who don't know, Agri is the largest producer of kosher meat in the country, and it has a history of labor infractions and cruelty to the animals. A couple of months ago over 300 workers were arrested in a raid for being undocumented aliens, and two of Agri's staff members were recently arrested for helping them get fake documentation.
The situation has caused a good deal of reflection on the part of Jews who observe kashrut as to what kashrut really means and whether there should be an ethical component to it in addition to the ritual components - fairness to the workers and/or compassion for the animals, depending on the focus of the organization. I particularly support the efforts of the Conservative movement to develop a standard of ethical behavior that can be applied in kosher certification - it's called heksher tzedek (righteous certification) and a website explaining it is here. In addition, I applaud the efforts of other mainstream organizations, like BBYO and numerous Jewish summer camps, to place their values over their wallets and not to order meat from Agriprocessors until the mess up there is cleaned up.
The best coverage of this issue is found in the Hazon blog, the Jew and the Carrot. An interview with a labor activist currently working on this issue is found here. Yesterday they posted an interview with the lead organizer of Uri L'tzedek, a group made up primarily of Orthodox rabbinical students, which had been a lead voice on this issue in the Orthodox community (and there will be no positive change in the kosher slaughtering biz until the Orthodox community, the biggest customer base, demands it). Unfortunately, Uri L'tzedek has called off its boycott in the aftermath of the hiring by Agri of a compliance officer - not, mind you, any actual compliance. This strikes me as premature, to say the least.
Because it seems that, with the single exception of the hiring of this compliance officer, Agri's response has been more a PR campaign than an actual commitment to fix what's wrong. If you scroll down the BBYO article you'll notice what seems to be a coordinated critical response, which is probably the work of the PR firm that Rubashkin has recently hired to try to combat all the bad press. (And which apparently forged emails from one of Agri's strongest critics designed to make him look bad.) In keeping with this model, on Yom Kippur this year I will not be expressing regret for my sins or making an effort to change, but rather simply hiring a PR firm to claim that all statements about my sins constitute conviction before a full trial.
The other piece of this that needs attention is the people who were in the workforce there before the raids, the undocumented immigrants who are left with no income while they await deportation or other disposition of their cases. They are unable to work and are in great need. Donations to the Postville Food Pantry can be made to this address:
POSTVILLE FOOD PANTRY
c/o Pastor Steve Brackett, Treasurer
St. Paul Lutheran Church
116 East Military Road
Postville, IA 52162
{The food pantry's phone number is 563-864-7643}
I'm trying very hard not to draw any conclusions about Orthodox heksher in general from this incident. Despite their long history of bad actions, Agriprocessors makes it much easier for people to have access to kosher meat. All it needs to do (and it may be a lot) is fix its bad labor and animal practices, and I will be happy to support it once again. Until then, I'll do without.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
More about not eating in restaurants
In response to my post of recipes last week, my friend Sue, a working mom in the Boston area, commented thusly:
To begin with, I would define "simplicity" as "being conscious of the choices we make in how we spend our time and money." I often say that you can tell what someone values by where they spend their time and how they spend their money. This is one of the reasons that my simplicity tends to the side of frugality - money I spend in X place I cannot spend in Y (unless I debt, which is a different story). In other words, it's not just about money, it's about values.
I don't have anything against restaurant meals as such. I acknowledge that they can be a treat. I'm spending a lot of time this week deciding where we're going to go for dinner next week when we're in Kansas City. Birthdays, anniversaries - to me, any time we eat sushi is a treat. But it's a treat precisely because it's so rare. But in the normal course of life, how many times does one eat in a restaurant before it stops becoming a treat? Once a week? Twice a week? Certainly to my mind if one is spending 40% of one's food budget on restaurant meals (the figure that I read that motivated the original post) we're well past "treat" territory. Fewer times makes each individual time more special.
In addition, for me at least, fewer restaurant meals ease the financial pressure that would cause me to be work more, be stressed more, and have to resort to more restaurant meals! This is how something that's supposed to be easier actually becomes harder in the long run.
I stand by what I said in the original post, also, about the nutritional value of restaurant meals versus home cooking. There's no way, in most cases, to know the nutritional content of any meal one eats in a restaurant, and they are often quite high in fat and sodium and HFCS and other elements that we would try to limit at home. Cf the many studies of Chinese food which show the astronomical fat content of even the "lighter" dishes. (And the tomato sauce in pizza is not nutritional.)
Like Sue, I have a couple of kids who won't eat any of the recipes I posted, and whose main sustenance is tofu and noodles with soy sauce and cheese. (Day after day after day.) But I can get them what they want the way they want it at home a lot easier than in a restaurant, I can get it to them in the healthiest possible way (without a lot of added fat etc.), and I can (usually) get them to eat a "carrot shekel" or two as well.
I can also manage the spiritual aspect of the meal much better - the blessings before and after, the sharing of conversation and concern, etc. Also, there are aspects of eating at home that don't exist at all in restaurants, above and beyond managing the nutritional content: the help the kids give to the preparation and clearing of the meal, for instance.
As much as we might want to define "simpler" as "easier," Sue is quite right that it can be complicated, in terms of time and effort (precisely those elements that are at a premium in modern life), to live a "simple" life. Gardening, cooking, making meal plans and shopping lists, shopping in multiple stores... It reminds me of the line in Gandhi where he says that it takes a lot of his friends' and supporters' money to keep him in poverty. It takes a lot of thought and planning to keep oneself and one's family in simplicity.
The recognition that one is resorting to restaurant eating because of stress or lack of organization can serve to point out where one needs to make adjustments in one's life. I would put it to you that making the effort to simplicity is worth it because of what it adds, financially yes, but even above and beyond that.
As may have occurred to you, those of us who do take out or eat out sometimes do *not* do it b/c we think we're saving money :-). We do it b/c we are stressed, b/c we feel like we and/or our kids need the treat, b/c we are taking 5 million kids in 5 million different directions on a given night and this is easier, b/c we haven't had a chance to go shopping and haven't gotten organized...Sometimes I think that I'm writing for the converted, but Sue's comments show me that that's not always the case. I understand the issues Sue presents, and they are very common in this day and age.
maybe there are better trade-offs to be made, but it's not as if, if only the cost became visible, we'd all go "Wow, I could had a V-8" and go home and cook.
To begin with, I would define "simplicity" as "being conscious of the choices we make in how we spend our time and money." I often say that you can tell what someone values by where they spend their time and how they spend their money. This is one of the reasons that my simplicity tends to the side of frugality - money I spend in X place I cannot spend in Y (unless I debt, which is a different story). In other words, it's not just about money, it's about values.
I don't have anything against restaurant meals as such. I acknowledge that they can be a treat. I'm spending a lot of time this week deciding where we're going to go for dinner next week when we're in Kansas City. Birthdays, anniversaries - to me, any time we eat sushi is a treat. But it's a treat precisely because it's so rare. But in the normal course of life, how many times does one eat in a restaurant before it stops becoming a treat? Once a week? Twice a week? Certainly to my mind if one is spending 40% of one's food budget on restaurant meals (the figure that I read that motivated the original post) we're well past "treat" territory. Fewer times makes each individual time more special.
In addition, for me at least, fewer restaurant meals ease the financial pressure that would cause me to be work more, be stressed more, and have to resort to more restaurant meals! This is how something that's supposed to be easier actually becomes harder in the long run.
I stand by what I said in the original post, also, about the nutritional value of restaurant meals versus home cooking. There's no way, in most cases, to know the nutritional content of any meal one eats in a restaurant, and they are often quite high in fat and sodium and HFCS and other elements that we would try to limit at home. Cf the many studies of Chinese food which show the astronomical fat content of even the "lighter" dishes. (And the tomato sauce in pizza is not nutritional.)
Like Sue, I have a couple of kids who won't eat any of the recipes I posted, and whose main sustenance is tofu and noodles with soy sauce and cheese. (Day after day after day.) But I can get them what they want the way they want it at home a lot easier than in a restaurant, I can get it to them in the healthiest possible way (without a lot of added fat etc.), and I can (usually) get them to eat a "carrot shekel" or two as well.
I can also manage the spiritual aspect of the meal much better - the blessings before and after, the sharing of conversation and concern, etc. Also, there are aspects of eating at home that don't exist at all in restaurants, above and beyond managing the nutritional content: the help the kids give to the preparation and clearing of the meal, for instance.
As much as we might want to define "simpler" as "easier," Sue is quite right that it can be complicated, in terms of time and effort (precisely those elements that are at a premium in modern life), to live a "simple" life. Gardening, cooking, making meal plans and shopping lists, shopping in multiple stores... It reminds me of the line in Gandhi where he says that it takes a lot of his friends' and supporters' money to keep him in poverty. It takes a lot of thought and planning to keep oneself and one's family in simplicity.
The recognition that one is resorting to restaurant eating because of stress or lack of organization can serve to point out where one needs to make adjustments in one's life. I would put it to you that making the effort to simplicity is worth it because of what it adds, financially yes, but even above and beyond that.
Monday, July 7, 2008
5 quick and simple meals
I'm amazed when I read the percentage of the food money spent in restaurants or takeout places these days. I recently heard that 40% of the money Americans spend on food is spent on such prepared food. Of course the reason is convenience - with most families having two (or one) working parents, the idea of cooking at home after working all day and then driving the kids hither and yon is more than many people, apparently, can handle. But this factoid is amazing to me, because it's so much more expensive to eat this way! And also it's a pretty good ground rule, in my opinion, that any prepared food you buy is likely to be less healthful than what you could produce at home.
So I, your full service simplicity/frugality blogger, will today give you five (count 'em) simple, healthful meals that can be made quickly and with ingredients you can find in your own home. None of these take more than about 30 minutes, and they are at least reasonably balanced. So try them out, and eat at home tonight.
- Broccoli steamed, and then fried in a little garlic butter, served over noodles. Throw in a couple of cubes of tofu if you want some more protein. This was such a staple in my younger days that I gave it it's own name: Bachelors special.
- Kashe varnishkes. This is the Jewish version of rice and beans. "Buckwheat groats" - a word that has no meaning out of this context, like translating tefillin as "phylacteries" - toasted and then simmered in a little broth, served over noodles, preferably bowties. The kashe has more protein than you'd think. Side salad.
- Quick pilaf - fry an onion, add some rice, some tuna or tofu, enough water to cook the rice, a cup of frozen veg and salt. Cook for 15 minutes.
These two take a little longer, because one of the ingredients has to be cooked already - do the pre-cooking in advance, like when you're blogging or watching TV:
- Lentil cheese loaf - cooked lentils, cheese, breadcrumbs, various herbs and an egg. Bake at 350 until cooked through, about 40 minutes. Side salad.
- "Abba mac'n'cheese" - this is with red sauce instead of milk - noodles, red sauce, shredded cheese on top, season with salt, pepper and garlic powder, breadcrumbs on top, cook until cooked through, 30 minutes or so. Side salad.
And if you really want to make the experience complete - eat together, as a family!
So I, your full service simplicity/frugality blogger, will today give you five (count 'em) simple, healthful meals that can be made quickly and with ingredients you can find in your own home. None of these take more than about 30 minutes, and they are at least reasonably balanced. So try them out, and eat at home tonight.
- Broccoli steamed, and then fried in a little garlic butter, served over noodles. Throw in a couple of cubes of tofu if you want some more protein. This was such a staple in my younger days that I gave it it's own name: Bachelors special.
- Kashe varnishkes. This is the Jewish version of rice and beans. "Buckwheat groats" - a word that has no meaning out of this context, like translating tefillin as "phylacteries" - toasted and then simmered in a little broth, served over noodles, preferably bowties. The kashe has more protein than you'd think. Side salad.
- Quick pilaf - fry an onion, add some rice, some tuna or tofu, enough water to cook the rice, a cup of frozen veg and salt. Cook for 15 minutes.
These two take a little longer, because one of the ingredients has to be cooked already - do the pre-cooking in advance, like when you're blogging or watching TV:
- Lentil cheese loaf - cooked lentils, cheese, breadcrumbs, various herbs and an egg. Bake at 350 until cooked through, about 40 minutes. Side salad.
- "Abba mac'n'cheese" - this is with red sauce instead of milk - noodles, red sauce, shredded cheese on top, season with salt, pepper and garlic powder, breadcrumbs on top, cook until cooked through, 30 minutes or so. Side salad.
And if you really want to make the experience complete - eat together, as a family!
Monday, June 30, 2008
The 11 best foods don't include corn
There's a new health blog on NYTimes.com, and the article today was "11 best foods you aren't eating." Swiss chard, sardines, pumpkin seeds. Nothing too surprising but it'll definitely make you happy there's a farmer's market/CSA near you.
Also, last night on BookTV I saw an interview with the fellow who directed "King Corn," a documentary recounting the adventures of two young men who rent an acre of farmland in Iowa, grow corn on it, and then follow that corn through its various processing possibilities, whether than be HFCS or fattening up feedlot cattle or whatever. It was like Michael Pollan on the screen, and in fact one of the experts extensively interviewed was...Michael Pollan. The film was on Independent Lens earlier in the year, I missed it but it is available through netflix, so now it's in my queue. Of course, I suppose you could buy it as well, I'm sure that would make the director happy! The website is attractive and has lots of good links, so go take a look.
And speaking of which, here's an interview with Pollan on Yale Environment360. Money quote:
Also, last night on BookTV I saw an interview with the fellow who directed "King Corn," a documentary recounting the adventures of two young men who rent an acre of farmland in Iowa, grow corn on it, and then follow that corn through its various processing possibilities, whether than be HFCS or fattening up feedlot cattle or whatever. It was like Michael Pollan on the screen, and in fact one of the experts extensively interviewed was...Michael Pollan. The film was on Independent Lens earlier in the year, I missed it but it is available through netflix, so now it's in my queue. Of course, I suppose you could buy it as well, I'm sure that would make the director happy! The website is attractive and has lots of good links, so go take a look.
And speaking of which, here's an interview with Pollan on Yale Environment360. Money quote:
The writer Wendell Berry was right a long time ago when he said the environmental crisis is a crisis of character. It’s really about how we live. The thought that we can swap out the fuel we’re putting in our cars to ethanol, and swap out the electricity to nuclear and everything else can stay the same, I think, is really a pipe dream. We’re going to have to change, and the beginning of knowing how to change is learning how to provide for yourself a little bit more.If Pollan added a touch more values language to his writing, he could become this generation's Wendell Berry.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Thinking it through
One of the benefits of doing this blog is that it makes me more conscious of the choices I make. Having to tell on myself means that I have to be more aware of when I'm too willing to let myself off the hook on that tenuous nexus between simple, sustainable, frugal, and green. So here are a couple of events from the last week that bore further reflection:
1 - Saturday morning (determined to take a week off from shul after the recent holiday) I was looking for something to do with the family so we decided to go fruit picking. I've already written about my inability to find berries at the farmers' markets so I thought I'd go direct to the source. We went to a place south of town and they weren't picking berries, they were picking cherries, and sour ones, that you put into pies. We thought, okay, and picked almost 10 pounds of them. $1.75/pund, much less than they would be at the store.
While we were there we were talking to a woman who was telling us what to do with them. She said, put them through a cherry pitter, freeze them with a little sugar and thaw them in time to wow your guests for Thanksgiving. We said, sounds good.
Now all we needed was a cherry pitter. In the best of all worlds we would have found one used or at a yard sale, but of course, as usual, the time you want to buy something is the time when you need it, and we called around a few of the second-hand stores and they didn't have what we needed. Williams-Sonoma only had a 1-at-a-time pitter, and that wouldn't work, so we ended up ordering one on-line. It cost $17. This now doubles the cost of the adventure, as well as the cost of the cherries.
While waiting for it to arrive, the cherries are starting to soften. We figure since we're going to cook them anyway it doesn't matter if they're soft, but we have them in the fridge in the hopes of preventing all-out rotting. Hopefully the pitter will arrive so that the adventure is just more expensive, rather than a complete flushing of the money. And we also have to convince ourselves that we're going to use our solid-gold cherry pitter more than this once, and that it's not going to end up at our yard sale, benefitting someone more forward thinking than we.
2 - I was in the store over the weekend and decided I would like some fish to have in the freezer. We haven't been having much fish lately and Pollan's book talked a lot about omega-3s. I made the mistake, once again, of not thinking it out ahead of time. I have been buying wild caught salmon lately - it's more expensive but I like it a lot better than the steroid-pumped, colorized pieces of protein that pass for salmon from the farm. But then, sometimes one gets tire of salmon altogether, so I thought I'd buy a white fish. So there I am at the counter, looking at the fish and comparing prices and whether they're wild- and farm-raised, and I ended up guessing, and buying wild-caught orange roughy. Why, you ask? Because it was on sale!
Problem 1 is that it's from New Zealand, so the food mile footprint is miles wide - 6000 miles, to be precise. Of course, one is not going to get "local fish" in the middle of Kansas, but still. To tell the truth, I was dazzled by the word "wild caught." As a rule, wild is better than farmed, because of all the damage fish farms can do to their environment - antibiotics especially. But on the other hand, wild can just as easily mean that they just throw the nets down there and pick up anything that moves...
...which appears to be the case with orange roughy. As soon as I got home, I did what I should have done before I left, and looked at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch site. This is a wonderful resource which tells you a lot about what kind of seafood to buy, and why. There's also a wallet-sized print-out that you can bring to the store with you.
So I put "orange roughy" in the search engine and the answer is ... avoid! Darn! They are trawled ("wild caught" in this case is kind of a slogan; they're all wild caught), and also they take 20 years to reach sexual maturation so if you snag one there may not be another one for a long time. "Years of heavy fishing have decimated orange roughy populations."
I feel like I just got three lemons on a slot machine, but the truth is, if I had thought about it before I went I could have done the necessary research and bought the right kind. Let that be a lesson to me!
1 - Saturday morning (determined to take a week off from shul after the recent holiday) I was looking for something to do with the family so we decided to go fruit picking. I've already written about my inability to find berries at the farmers' markets so I thought I'd go direct to the source. We went to a place south of town and they weren't picking berries, they were picking cherries, and sour ones, that you put into pies. We thought, okay, and picked almost 10 pounds of them. $1.75/pund, much less than they would be at the store.
While we were there we were talking to a woman who was telling us what to do with them. She said, put them through a cherry pitter, freeze them with a little sugar and thaw them in time to wow your guests for Thanksgiving. We said, sounds good.
Now all we needed was a cherry pitter. In the best of all worlds we would have found one used or at a yard sale, but of course, as usual, the time you want to buy something is the time when you need it, and we called around a few of the second-hand stores and they didn't have what we needed. Williams-Sonoma only had a 1-at-a-time pitter, and that wouldn't work, so we ended up ordering one on-line. It cost $17. This now doubles the cost of the adventure, as well as the cost of the cherries.
While waiting for it to arrive, the cherries are starting to soften. We figure since we're going to cook them anyway it doesn't matter if they're soft, but we have them in the fridge in the hopes of preventing all-out rotting. Hopefully the pitter will arrive so that the adventure is just more expensive, rather than a complete flushing of the money. And we also have to convince ourselves that we're going to use our solid-gold cherry pitter more than this once, and that it's not going to end up at our yard sale, benefitting someone more forward thinking than we.
2 - I was in the store over the weekend and decided I would like some fish to have in the freezer. We haven't been having much fish lately and Pollan's book talked a lot about omega-3s. I made the mistake, once again, of not thinking it out ahead of time. I have been buying wild caught salmon lately - it's more expensive but I like it a lot better than the steroid-pumped, colorized pieces of protein that pass for salmon from the farm. But then, sometimes one gets tire of salmon altogether, so I thought I'd buy a white fish. So there I am at the counter, looking at the fish and comparing prices and whether they're wild- and farm-raised, and I ended up guessing, and buying wild-caught orange roughy. Why, you ask? Because it was on sale!
Problem 1 is that it's from New Zealand, so the food mile footprint is miles wide - 6000 miles, to be precise. Of course, one is not going to get "local fish" in the middle of Kansas, but still. To tell the truth, I was dazzled by the word "wild caught." As a rule, wild is better than farmed, because of all the damage fish farms can do to their environment - antibiotics especially. But on the other hand, wild can just as easily mean that they just throw the nets down there and pick up anything that moves...
...which appears to be the case with orange roughy. As soon as I got home, I did what I should have done before I left, and looked at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch site. This is a wonderful resource which tells you a lot about what kind of seafood to buy, and why. There's also a wallet-sized print-out that you can bring to the store with you.
So I put "orange roughy" in the search engine and the answer is ... avoid! Darn! They are trawled ("wild caught" in this case is kind of a slogan; they're all wild caught), and also they take 20 years to reach sexual maturation so if you snag one there may not be another one for a long time. "Years of heavy fishing have decimated orange roughy populations."
I feel like I just got three lemons on a slot machine, but the truth is, if I had thought about it before I went I could have done the necessary research and bought the right kind. Let that be a lesson to me!
This week's meals
I haven't posted my meal plans for a couple of weeks, so here's what's on the menu this week:
Sunday night for father's day we had kind of an expensive meal, my favorite fake-shrimp-and-tofu in black bean sauce recipe, veggie dumplings and rice. Total cost, probably around $12 or so. A lot for an at-home meal, but nothing compared to eating out! (Which we rarely do.)
Monday night DW made peanut noodles, also with tofu, and we used up some mung bean sprouts that were starting to darken.
Tuesday night I made tempeh jambalaya - tempeh, a can of tomatoes, spices and a cup of rice, simmered, green salad on the side.
During this week's shopping I bought 2 mangos, I don't know why, so Wednesday night was tofu with a mango-teriyaki sauce and rice noodles, frozen green beans on the side. I'm going to make mango salsa with the other one and eat it with drinks Saturday afternoon!
Tonight I think we're going out for a kid's musical performance, so we're having "Linda McCartney stew," which is rice and TVP and tomatoes baked. Very simple. We call it that because the recipe came out of LMcC's cookbook. (A household staple for us for many years, and available used for $1.98!)
I didn't make it to the farmer's market this week, mostly because I didn't really need anything, and also I'm trying to stay away from the salsa lady's table - her stuff is just too good!
Sunday night for father's day we had kind of an expensive meal, my favorite fake-shrimp-and-tofu in black bean sauce recipe, veggie dumplings and rice. Total cost, probably around $12 or so. A lot for an at-home meal, but nothing compared to eating out! (Which we rarely do.)
Monday night DW made peanut noodles, also with tofu, and we used up some mung bean sprouts that were starting to darken.
Tuesday night I made tempeh jambalaya - tempeh, a can of tomatoes, spices and a cup of rice, simmered, green salad on the side.
During this week's shopping I bought 2 mangos, I don't know why, so Wednesday night was tofu with a mango-teriyaki sauce and rice noodles, frozen green beans on the side. I'm going to make mango salsa with the other one and eat it with drinks Saturday afternoon!
Tonight I think we're going out for a kid's musical performance, so we're having "Linda McCartney stew," which is rice and TVP and tomatoes baked. Very simple. We call it that because the recipe came out of LMcC's cookbook. (A household staple for us for many years, and available used for $1.98!)
I didn't make it to the farmer's market this week, mostly because I didn't really need anything, and also I'm trying to stay away from the salsa lady's table - her stuff is just too good!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Goin' Bananas
Article by Dan Koeppel in today's Times, about the strange situation of having bananas be a frugal fruit (something that comes from so far being cheaper than apples, which come from next door, relatively speaking), and the possible interruption of supply by rising fuel prices and disease overtaking what is essentially a mono-crop.
The solution is clear: We must wean American from its dependence on foreign bananas! The government must fund alternate sources of bananas - wind bananas, solar bananas, maybe even nuclear bananas! And anyway - Why can't we drill for bananas in Alaska?
All of which is to say: I plead guilty. My grandmother (of blessed memory) always said that I had to eat at least half a banana per day, "for the potassium." (And this was a woman who could make a quarter chicken last nearly a week.) Bananas, along with apples, remain staples on our shelf, and on our shopping list. If we buy too many and they spot, we bake banana bread, which is very popular with our little ones.
Which is why this article is really troubling. I mean, I know a little bit about the history of US domination over Latin America, and a lot of it has to do with our friend the banana. All you need to know is contained in the term, "banana republic." This is really one of those times where we put to the side the knowledge of what international trade has wrought in the lives of those who live where the fruit is grown, as well as knowledge of the ecological footprint of a fruit that has to be transported such distances in such a short amount of time - we put all that to the side, for no other reason than we like the fruit.
Barbara Kingsolver wrote about this in her book. (Fantastic, excellent book, by the way.) One of the kids' friends wants a banana, and she has to explain why they can't have one. Her focus was on keeping her food purchases local (I don't have it in front of me, but it was something to the effect of, would I give up all the benefits of locally grown food for the sake of a banana?), but I'm quite sure Kingsolver's aware of what the banana has wrought internationally as well.
I can get over coffee guilt by buying fair trade coffee. Is there such a thing as a fair trade banana? This is something my family and I are going to need to look at - I shiver even to think of it - or, if Koeppel is right, the decision may soon be made for us.
The solution is clear: We must wean American from its dependence on foreign bananas! The government must fund alternate sources of bananas - wind bananas, solar bananas, maybe even nuclear bananas! And anyway - Why can't we drill for bananas in Alaska?
All of which is to say: I plead guilty. My grandmother (of blessed memory) always said that I had to eat at least half a banana per day, "for the potassium." (And this was a woman who could make a quarter chicken last nearly a week.) Bananas, along with apples, remain staples on our shelf, and on our shopping list. If we buy too many and they spot, we bake banana bread, which is very popular with our little ones.
Which is why this article is really troubling. I mean, I know a little bit about the history of US domination over Latin America, and a lot of it has to do with our friend the banana. All you need to know is contained in the term, "banana republic." This is really one of those times where we put to the side the knowledge of what international trade has wrought in the lives of those who live where the fruit is grown, as well as knowledge of the ecological footprint of a fruit that has to be transported such distances in such a short amount of time - we put all that to the side, for no other reason than we like the fruit.
Barbara Kingsolver wrote about this in her book. (Fantastic, excellent book, by the way.) One of the kids' friends wants a banana, and she has to explain why they can't have one. Her focus was on keeping her food purchases local (I don't have it in front of me, but it was something to the effect of, would I give up all the benefits of locally grown food for the sake of a banana?), but I'm quite sure Kingsolver's aware of what the banana has wrought internationally as well.
I can get over coffee guilt by buying fair trade coffee. Is there such a thing as a fair trade banana? This is something my family and I are going to need to look at - I shiver even to think of it - or, if Koeppel is right, the decision may soon be made for us.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Bad Cow Disease
Article by Paul Krugman in today's Times about how declining standards of food regulation in the US has led to repeated outbreaks of diseased foods - most recently tomatoes - but more, had made it hard to sell our produce overseas to peoples who are not as blase about the purity of their food as Americans seem to be.
I agree with Krugman's analysis as far as it goes - having cronies in positions of oversight is obviously a Bad Thing, and starving the FDA of resources and personnel at a time of rapidly expanding technological change in the food industry is going to cause problems in the supply chain.
But the deeper problem is reflected in the very idea of thinking of food in terms of a "supply chain." The reason inspections are so important is because of the sheer scale of the American corporate food system - massive feedlots and slaughter houses, bioengineering, use of pesticides and monocultures, etc. etc. etc. If we looked at this dysfunctional system at all deeply we would realize that it's poisonous (sometimes quite literally) to its core and we'd be out on the streets like the South Koreans. That's why the corporate powers-that-be and their political handmaidens make sure that inspections are curtailed - it's like the mob being in charge of the homocide department, hiring the (few) detectives (from within) and deciding what and how they could investigate.
In a context like this increased inspections or regulation will only affect those who are least likely to be causing the problem. In Sandor Katz's book, Joel Salatin points out that a small scale producer like him cannot slaughter his animals on site because of the incredible amount of regulations that exist, designed to deal with industrial slaughterhouses. So instead he has to put them on a truck to that very industrial slaughterhouse, and that he cannot then sell the product back on his farm. The rules weren't meant for him, but they affect him, and all of us.
In a situation of rule by corporations, for corporations, increased regulation and inspection would, I fear, only be bandaids for the whole system of corporate agriculture which is the underlying issue.
I agree with Krugman's analysis as far as it goes - having cronies in positions of oversight is obviously a Bad Thing, and starving the FDA of resources and personnel at a time of rapidly expanding technological change in the food industry is going to cause problems in the supply chain.
But the deeper problem is reflected in the very idea of thinking of food in terms of a "supply chain." The reason inspections are so important is because of the sheer scale of the American corporate food system - massive feedlots and slaughter houses, bioengineering, use of pesticides and monocultures, etc. etc. etc. If we looked at this dysfunctional system at all deeply we would realize that it's poisonous (sometimes quite literally) to its core and we'd be out on the streets like the South Koreans. That's why the corporate powers-that-be and their political handmaidens make sure that inspections are curtailed - it's like the mob being in charge of the homocide department, hiring the (few) detectives (from within) and deciding what and how they could investigate.
In a context like this increased inspections or regulation will only affect those who are least likely to be causing the problem. In Sandor Katz's book, Joel Salatin points out that a small scale producer like him cannot slaughter his animals on site because of the incredible amount of regulations that exist, designed to deal with industrial slaughterhouses. So instead he has to put them on a truck to that very industrial slaughterhouse, and that he cannot then sell the product back on his farm. The rules weren't meant for him, but they affect him, and all of us.
In a situation of rule by corporations, for corporations, increased regulation and inspection would, I fear, only be bandaids for the whole system of corporate agriculture which is the underlying issue.
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