Rookie Cookery

Mark Bittman's concise and brilliant speach about food

My immediate family (husband, two grown sons age 18 and 22) includes every diet preference from steak loving carnivore to vegan.   As the family cook, attempting to satisfy this range of diets has resulted in my cooking lots more vegetables (which is easy because I already loved cooking veggies) and less meat over time, or serving meat more as a side dish or condiment than as the star player in the meal.   Frankly I prefer to cook that way.

One of the things I appreciate about Mark Bittman's cooking is that his style  is very similar.   I just discovered this short video of a talk he gave about the crucial implications of our diet not only for our health, but for the state of the world's ecology.  Simply put, we simply cannot afford to consume the current (and abominable) "standard American diet" that is very heavy on meat and industrially prepared foods.  Nor can we afford to simply "buy organic" and forget the rest.

I hope you have a chance to view the video and apply these ideas to your own food choices.  I am not willing to give up meat,  but the fact is I can easily feed a family of four adults on one roast chicken a week and maybe some fish plus "everything else", by which I mean vegetables and grains, some of which we can grow ourselves.  Oh yeah and nuts and peanut butter! 

The video also includes a brief history of the American diet in the l;ast 100 years. Good stuff.   Don't miss it!

Slow Food Nation Roundtable discussion

There's a fascinating round table discussion on the "Slow Food" movement and sustainable agriculture, featuring the analysis of Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, and others. Check out Slow Food Nation on Alternet.

Candlelight Dinner Without Candle Pollution

I love dining by candlelight. I can hardly wait until the days grow shorter and cool enough to huddle a little closer around the warmth of the family table. And because I love the aromas of fresh herbs and tantalizing meats and vegetables, you can bet those candles won't be competing for my olfactory attention with cloying or harsh odors. Non-scented candles are the rule when it comes to setting a delectable table.

Scented candles have their place to be sure. Save the lavender for the bedroom and the sandalwood for the livingroom if you like. But scent is only one consideration. Just what is being burned and breathed, anyway, when we light that match? Turns out that the vast majority of cheaply produced candles are made of paraffin, a petroleum derivative. Ick! A better alternative are those made of traditional beeswax. For an entertaining look at how a modern craftsperson makes beeswax candles, I refer you to Daryl Hannah's profile of the Blue Corn candle makers and beekeepers. (Note: After this week, you will find it in her archives under the title "beeswax", week 16.)

These days, it seems like I can't watch a half hour of TV without being bombarded with products designed for my nose. I can understand the product manufacturers wanting to mask an unpleasant chemical odor, or enhance the pleasure of using an otherwise nondescript product. But the recent glut of odor oriented products have reached new heights of nuerotic obsessiveness over the marketability of the perceptions of our schnozz.

There are two products that vie, in my mind, for Dumbest. The first is a product that purports to create a "fresh" odor wherever you spray it, which the audience is encouraged to do more liberally than a puppy with a hyperactive bladder marking it's territory. The product name rhymes with "fib-ease". Even more ludicrous are those little cd-player machines that "play" an array of scents into the room as if it were some kind of olfactory music. If our perceptions of odors is as closely linked to memory as biological science tells us, I shudder to think what disorienting and random collection of events will, in future, become ingrained in the personal histories of people who live in such an environment. I can see a future day at the beach bringing back vivid memories of.....what? Vacuuming the livingroom? Watching TV? Commercial jingles? (Big Brother is a stinker!)

The stinkers are everywhere. Plugged into walls, sitting on the counter top, shooting out of a spray bottle in regularly timed intervals. This can't be good for us, people. Thank God I am not one of those poor souls who is allergic to them. Think of the poor household pet, who's sensitivity to smell is about a bazillion times more acute than us featherless bipeds. I remember reading about one pet owner who took her dog to a pet psychic, wanting to know what was causing him to drool, pant and become hyper anxious when he came home from being away. Turns out it was the odor of one of her cleaning products. She took the chemicals away and poof: Rover is happy again.

Sometimes chemical manufacturers add a scent to a product that is toxic and odorless, so as to warn the user that "there's something in here that you should be careful about." I wonder how many odors are there to mask the same thing?

Maybe we should raise a stink about it and let Mother Nature lead us by the nose instead.

Being Part of the Solution

Sometimes, I get so depressed about how our government and big corporations are destroying the planet. I know I am not alone. Food bloggers are perhaps more aware than the general population about how the way we eat and grow food has an enormous impact on the quality and survivability of our environment.

If you are looking for ways to be part of the solution, I commend to you Daryl Hannah's video blog, called dhlovelife. Each brief video entry profiles someone, somewhere, doing something positive to promote the good life (including good food!) in a way that helps to protect and cherish our beautiful home, planet earth.

The entries are entertaining, inspiring and most of all informative. Please check it out, and consider adding Daryl's blog to your own link list or blog roll. Meanwhile, here's an interview with and about Daryl's environmental activism.

Thanks.

Industrial Food Goes Fishing for Consumers

I received an interesting email today, promoting a new web site called FishScam.com. The web site purports to allay the fears of consumers over the amounts of mercury and other pollutants in our fish supply. We consumers are being "scammed and alarmed," they say, by environmental and organic "radicals" who run around in pirate boats and attack fishing fleets and the like. Relax, they say. Eat fish.

I like eating fish. In fact, I highly recommend you visit Beyond Salmon, an excellent food blog all about recipes for fish. Yet even as I continue to eat fish, the fact is I am very concerned about the pollutants in our water and in all our food supply. So what's really going on here? Is FishScam really a web site protecting my interests as a consumer? Or is it protecting the interests of industrial polluters who are tired of having to answer to consumers' justified concerns over the toxicity of our food supply?

I think the real scam here is the placating of consumers with pats on the head, telling us that just because we don't want to eat poison we might as well be Jack Sparrow on the high seas, harpooning some poor fisherman trying to make an honest living.

My response? Go fish somewhere else for consumers. I don't feel protected when you tell me that the amount of poison in our food is "acceptable and safe". I don't feel protected when companies like Monsanto are cornering the market on food with their genetically modified seeds, then removing our precious bio-diversity and poisoning our soil. I don't feel protected when your best defense of "business as usual" is to characterize your opponents as wild eyed violent radicals, when the truth is that your opponents are ordinary Moms and Dads who simply want to feed their families healthy, nutritious food without having to grow it all themselves in their own back yard.

Because the truth is, if that's what we have to do, we'll do it. We'll have to protect ourselves, because big business isn't going to do it unless it's profitable. For further information on how you can get involved, please visit the Oragnic Consumers Association web site, or Millions Against Monsanto

And as for FishScam.com....Go fish somewhere else. I don't buy what you're selling.

Hurricane Katrina

I  have not wanted to post updates in this blog unless I have something to offer in terms of positive action to alleviate the suffering from Hurricane Katrina.  For now I simply request that you join me in making a donation to the Red Cross.

Slow Food

What's the opposite of "fast food"? Slow food, of course. Silly me, I didn't know there is an official, international Slow Food Movement! It started in 1986 in Italy, and its goals are the preservation of the pleasures of the table, diversity of food and taste, and sustainable agriculture, among other things.

This reminds me of one of my favorite jokes:

Person A sez: "I just bought a microwave fireplace!"

Person B: "Really? What's so good about that?"

Person A: "I can spend a relaxing evening in front of the fire in just eight minutes!"

(cue the drum and cymbal ricochet!)

Ciao for now. (or is that chow...? Ha! But I amuse myself. )

Store Wars

I've always wanted to be a Jedi Knight. This clever flash movie from the Organic Trade Association tells how food shoppers can get involved in the Grocery Store Wars and fight the spread of Evil throughout the galaxy by buying Organic produce.

Caring For Eden

Food is the most primal connection we have with our environment, along with the air we breathe and the water we drink.

One writer discovered this in the process of swimming the length of the Colombia River, from its headwaters in Canada to the place where it merged with the Pacific Ocean. You can read his amazing story in his article called An Aquatic Epiphany. Christopher D. Swain's message is profound and prophetic, and of relevance to anyone who loves food.

I live less than five miles from the American River. I have often wondered what I can do to honor and help protect that river. Thanks to Christopher D. Swain's article I now realize I can do something every time I shop for groceries.