7 posts tagged “food”
Don't know if y'all like beets but I saw this Beet and Cucumber Salad recipe in the paper a week or so ago and since my wife is a beet salad freak and I'm a big fan of the cucumber decided I'd try it out.
Beet and Cucumber Salad
Makes 8 half-cup servings
5 medium (1 pound total) beets
3 medium (1 pound total) pickling cucumbers, peeled and cut crosswise into 1/4-inch slices
1 cup sun-drop (yellow) tomatoes, cut in half
1/4 small red onion, cut into very thin half-moon slices (1/4 cup)
1/2 cup seasoned rice vinegar
Leaves and tender stems from 3 or 4 stems cilantro, chopped (2 tablespoons)
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more as needed
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more as needed
1. Have ready a bowl of ice-cold water. Trim any beet stems to 2 inches and leave the roots intact. Wash the (unpeeled) beets well, then place them in a large saute pan. Cover with salted water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat; cook for 30 minutes or until they can be easily pierced with a knife. Drain and submerge in the cold water. The skins and root ends will come off easily. Discard the beet tops with stems; cut the peeled beets in half vertically and then into 1/2-inch half-moon slices.
2. Combine the beets, cucumbers, tomato halves, onion, vinegar, cilantro, salt, and pepper in a large bowl; mix well. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed before serving.
Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles - Fried Chicken and Waffles is pretty much an LA thing as far as I know. A strange combination but it works. Great fried chicken.
Also discovered a cool bookstore called Vroman's in Pasadena.
Yesterday we had a visitor:
I love these little guys. They're so cute. They make me wanna... I dunno... go out and by some insurance or something.
Last night we had dinner at Molly's in Surf City. They have the best fried green tomatoes (with spicy Creole dipping sauce).
For my main course I had a Low Country classic - Shrimp 'n' Grits. Now normally I'm not a huge shrimp fan - which is a decided disadvantage here on the Carolina coast where shrimp are as ubiquitous as cheesesteaks in Philly or ... what? .... donuts in LA. I like shrimp batter fried or cold, either way with lots of cocktail sauce. Your average lukewarm, naked shrimp is one of those things that I don't quite know what to do with once it's in my mouth. (Don't go there.) And, as far as I'm concerned, they could have left the shrimp out of this dish and it would've been just as good. These babies were sauteed with a ton of bacon, onions, garlic, and sweet red peppers, and slathered over the top of a big ol' bowl of gooey, buttery grits (the food of the gods). The picture doesn't do it justice. Totally yummy!
"Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy." That's how Michael Pollan begins his long, fascinating article "Unhappy Meals" in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine.
I've just started Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, his much-praised book from last year. I can already highly recommend it, especially if you want to feel even more disgusted and guilty about what we eat here in the Future.
In "Unhappy Meals" Pollan discusses the rise of nutritionism. Today, we don't so much eat food as we consume nutrients. We often choose our food or foodlike substances based on the presence or lack of certain components - Omega-3's, Trans-Fats, carbohydrates, certain vitamins. We've moved from Food Culture to Food Science. "It was in the 1980's that food began disappearing from the American supermarket, gradually to be replaced by 'nutrients', which are not the same thing." But nutritionism is based on questionable science, politics, and the interests of industrial agriculture and the food industry. In fact, Pollan says, many date our current obesity and diabetes epidemics to precisely the period when nutritionism began to hold sway.
A "serious weakness of nutritionist ideology," Pollan says, "is that it has trouble discerning qualitative differences between foods. So fish, beef and chicken through the nutritionists' lens become mere delivery systems for varying quantities of fats and proteins.... Similarly, any qualitative distinctions between processed foods and whole foods disappear when your focus is on quantifying the nutrients they contain."
But is a protein, a fat, an anti-oxidant the same, no matter what its source? The answer is no. As soon as nutrients are removed from the context of the foods they comprise, they may not behave the same at all. For example, " in the case of beta carotene ingested as a supplement, scientists have discovered that it actually increases the risk of certain cancers. Big oops."
This is a long and detailed article, well worth a read. Here are Pollan's recommendations:
1) Eat Food. "Don't eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.... there are a great many foodlike items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldn't recognize as food (Go-Gurt? Breakfast-cereal bars? Non-dairy creamer?); stay away from these."
2) "Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims. They're apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are dubious at best.... Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have nothing valuable to say about health."
3) "Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable, c) more than five in number - or that contain high-fructose corn syrup." These are all "markers for food that have been highly processed".
4) "Get out of the supermarket whenever possible. You won't find any high-fructose corn syrup at the farmer's market."
5) Pay more, eat less. "The American food system has for a century devoted its energies and policies to increasing quantity and reducing price, not to improving quality. There’s no escaping the fact that better food — measured by taste or nutritional quality (which often correspond) — costs more, because it has been grown or raised less intensively and with more care. Not everyone can afford to eat well in America, which is shameful, but most of us can: Americans spend, on average, less than 10 percent of their income on food, down from 24 percent in 1947, and less than the citizens of any other nation. And those of us who can afford to eat well should."
"'Eat less' is the most unwelcome advice of all, but in fact the scientific case for eating a lot less than we currently do is compelling."
6) "Eat mostly plants, especially leaves. Scientists may disagree on what’s so good about plants — the antioxidants? Fiber? Omega-3s? — but they do agree that they’re probably really good for you and certainly can’t hurt."
7) "Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks....(P)eople who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than we are....Let culture be your guide, not science."
8) "Cook. And if you can, plant a garden. To take part in the intricate and endlessly interesting processes of providing for our sustenance is the surest way to escape the culture of fast food and the values implicit in it: that food should be cheap and easy; that food is fuel and not communion."
9) "Eat like an omnivore. Try to add new species, not just new foods, to your diet. The greater the diversity of species you eat, the more likely you are to cover all your nutritional bases. That of course is an argument from nutritionism, but there is a better one, one that takes a broader view of “health.” Biodiversity in the diet means less monoculture in the fields. What does that have to do with your health? Everything. The vast monocultures that now feed us require tremendous amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to keep from collapsing. Diversifying those fields will mean fewer chemicals, healthier soils, healthier plants and animals and, in turn, healthier people. It’s all connected, which is another way of saying that your health isn’t bordered by your body and that what’s good for the soil is probably good for you, too."
I haven't felt much like cooking lately. I'm lazy and uninspired and tired of everything. Plus it's been a hot summer. And what could be better or easier on a hot summer night than a few slices of Jersey tomato, a couple of ears of sweet corn, and maybe a burger or a piece of chicken from the grill.
Last night we went over to Whole Foods to try and rustle up some dinner from their prepared foods. We ended up with some Yukon Gold mashed potatoes (made with heavy cream), some roasted asparagus with lemon zest, and a couple of wild salmon cakes. For dessert, some kind of chocolate moon bomb or something like that.
I grated some parmegiano reggiano over the potatoes and stuck them and the salmon cakes into a low oven for 45 minutes or so just to heat through. When they were ready I threw the asparagus in to a hot saute pan for a couple of minutes.
The potatoes and asparagus were as good as they sound but the salmon cakes were really special. They had capers in them, and little bits of red bell pepper. The ingredients also listed dijon mustard and, of all things, cucumber. But there was very little of the other ingredients, because they were mostly salmon. What made them even more special was a coating of panko bread crumbs. So light and so crispy.
It was one of the best meals I've had in a while. And it cost $25 which seemed expensive at the store, but we would have paid twice or three times that in a restaurant. And I wouldn't have gotten to eat in my bare feet...
Should be easy to make. I'm definitely gonna try it sometime.
I've been trying to de-caffeinate myself... at least somwhat. I think caffeine is a big contributor the low level anxiety I'm always feeling -- that and a few other things like Global Warming, the Bush Administration, Anne Coulter, Islamo-fascism -- you know, little things.
So I've discovered this Lipton Green with Citrus which is my new favorite (non-alcoholic) thing to drink. Yummy!
