Examined Lives

Gwyneth Paltrow cooks!

I'm still not sure I'm a fan of Gwyneth Paltrow and her good-living Web site, Goop. (Of her as an actress, I am a fan.) I'm certainly not the first person to feel put off by a privileged someone whose lifestyle tips forget to acknowledge that one does not always have the money or time to live well, and that advice like eliminating "white foods" from a diet (a no-no, say experts who don't support vilifying food) is misguided at best and dangerous at worst. 

But I have to say, after seeing her debone this chicken and prepare a quick meal with little fuss and lots of confidence, I am ever so slightly won over by her in this role. At least she seems to know what she's doing. (So many other celebrities lend their name to enterprises without having any heft or expertise.) 

It's a sparing recipe, but so appealing to my simple-food mantra. Especially when it's hot outside and the thought of spending hours in a sweltering kitchen is enough to make one swear off cooking. I think I'll make it tonight. 

Watch and learn ... In the meantime, I may have to hold the GOOP judgement a bit. Am I really that easy to please?

—CityMom

Book Talk: Food Matters by Mark Bittman

"Slow global warming! Lose weight!" Oh, and stop cruelty to animals. And save money.

So trumpets Mark Bittman's Web site about his latest book, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating.

Bittman seems to be everywhere these days: issuing huge tomes on cooking everything; traipsing through Spain with my gal Gwynnie; cooking on YouTube. One can be forgiven for thinking: Can there be anything new to uncover?  Perhaps not. This new book is less a unique idea than a compendium of a few New York Times articles Bittman has done or contributed to about why eating too much meat is bad for the environment, and what he, Bittman, did about it.  

However, these things do bear repeating. Meat, especially beef, takes huge amounts of energy to grow and transport, energy that could go toward feeding people instead -- or warming houses or putting gas in cars. One of the more stunning facts Bittman cites:  It requires 40 calories to produce one calorie of beef protein. "Eating a typical family-of-four steak dinner is the rough equivalent, energy-wise, of driving around in an SUV for three hours while leaving all the lights on at home." Say what?  Oh, and meat production is supposed to double globally by 2050.

There are other  gems, too, like the 2,200 calories it takes to produce a can of diet soda, or the 2,400 calories it takes to make a 1-quart polyethylene bottle of water. Just the bottle. I love this stuff!

Bittman's recourse is almost brutally simple:  Don't eat animal products before 6 p.m. (Nor any junk food. Nor any alcohol.  But let's not ruin the simplicity of the message.)  In doing so, he reigned in his iffy cholesterol and blood sugar numbers and lost 25 pounds. He freely admits that he's an all-or-nothing kind of a guy, so this may not work for everyone. But for many of us, like yours truly, its a fabulous idea to impose more discipline during daylight hours, when you're feeling more alert and perky.  It does work. In fact, it's taken me closer to going meatless than anything else I've tried.  And it's nice to think I'm doing my green bit, too.  Like getting your workout done early in the day.

Plus, Bittman has an ace. His recipes almost always rock (I have several of his books), and this book has some 70 of them. I might buy the book for these alone, particularly the awesome breakfast ideas:  breakfast couscous, bread pudding, burritos.  It also includes many, many strategies for cooking and storing beans, an important staple if you're cutting back meat and dairy.

If you want a full modern food education, wade through Michael Pollan's An Omnivore's Dilemma and its companion, In Defense of Food.  But for a shortie intro, this is your book.  Me, I'll take 'em all -- from the library, of course, thereby saving the energy required to print and distribute new books.

~BurbMom

Oh, the (fresh and organic) food in Canada!

Just got back from Montreal and here's what I think: What the hell is up with America's Canada-bashing? First, I didn't hear any "aboots" and "ehs," so phooey on those jokes. Second, Canada—at least what we saw in Montreal—was fantastic! The people were so nice, the city wonderfully cosmopolitan and, here's the best part, the food was amazing. By food, I don't just mean "fine dining." Because frankly, we're a family on a budget and our dinig choices wouldn't have qualified for haute cuisine. By food I mean just that—food.
 
What impressed me most was how accessible great, affordable, fresh, locally grown produce seemed to be. You could find them on street stands, grocery stores, farmer's markets, cooperatives (groupes d'achat). (ChowHound has a great thread on this, and here's a great article on About.com.)

At the world-famous Jean-Talon Market, which would've qualified as upscale in NYC, organic apples were $2.50 for a small basket (I'm no good with pecks and other weights). That's $2.50 Canadian—and the apples were delicious. Crisp and wholesome like apples ought to be. There were free samples everywhere, so we tried everything—the pineapples (pamplemousse in French, which I like saying only because it sounds so silly), tomatoes, strawberries.

Restaurants that whipped up dishes from organic and/or locally grown ingredients were easy to find, too. In fact, I stumbled upon them twice without even trying. We were just hungry tourists who walked into eateries because the menu looked good, and then we'd see the tell-tale "bio" (for biologique) mention on the menu. Even when the place wasn't "bio," there were wonderful, natural touches. At Buns, a low-frills hamburger joint that only had five items on the menu—primarily buger-related—we had the best fries. They literally were just fashioned out of a plain potato, sliced thinly, and cooked on a grill. Absolutely not prepackaged, and not made soggy in a deep fryer. (A tangent here but still worth noting: Peanut-free products were at many grocery stores and drugstores, too. We didn't need them but we bought two to show friends here who always seem to have trouble finding them.)

It just seemed to me that food was the focus there (and what do I know, I've only been to Montreal once). They truly seemed to want to eat well. Not well as in more. But well. Healthy well. Tastes great well. And this might totally just be coincidence, but there didn't seem to be many obese Canadians in our midst when we were visiting.(Back home, we're still inundated by diet tips on magazines, books and TV shows. And yet we struggle with weight issues constantly.) Could there be a connection? We say it about the French all the time, don't we?

—CityMom

The peanut recall list keeps getting longer

Anyone else freaked out by how long the peanut recall list keeps growing? Whole Foods' blog, Whole Story, keeps track of what they're taking off the shelves at the store, for instance, and it's constantly getting updated. Which left me thinking: If I can't trust the organic stuff I buy at Whole Foods, which is as WHOLEsome as can be compared to typical grocery stores (second, perhaps, to Trader Joe's), then who can I trust? 

It all seems like "the news" until it hits home, and believe me, this one has. A dear friend from college, who lives in the Midwest, and her son were stricken with salmonella from tainted peanut butter two weeks ago. As she puts it, the health department has hung a scarlet "S" on her door. And this after she threw out everything peanut butter in early February. (She thinks they may have consumed some icky stuff before they were chucked.) 

Which just goes to show, one can never be too careful. Seriously. (So don't not throw stuff away just because you don't want to appear neurotic. Losing the $2.99 you spent on a jar of peanut butter is totally worth the peace of mind.) We need a major overhaul of our country's food safety checks—stat!

—CityMom

(Photo from Mentalfloss.com.)

My best sleazy, easy kitchen tips

This is not (obviously) a cooking blog, but because it's Thursday night and I'm getting into a weekend mentality, and because I'm a lazy cook and dinner is weighing on my mind, I thought you would appreciate some of my best sleazy, easy kitchen tips.

You won't find these in Good Housekeeping, or even on Rachel Ray, and I sure as hell hope you never find out who I am, because you'll never come to dinner.

Here we go.  Enjoy.

1.  You can cook just about anything in a cast-iron wok.  Slap in a few burgers. Whip up one of those Italian meal-in-a-bag things. Plonk a big-ass pancake in the bottom.  Eggs. Pop corn -- the thing is unbelievable at that.  Seriously, you'll never grab one of those bag o'microwaved chemicals again; the wok gets every kernel, and with a minimum of oil. 

Why a wok, you ask?  Well, stuff can't splatter out of it as easily, so you don't have to clean the stove.  Also, you just rinse it with hot water, wipe it out, and wham, it's clean, and ready to make oatmeal. And yes, it's a great heat conductor.

2. If you're constantly pissed off by little jars of spices falling everywhere, like I am, you'll be glad to know the bottom half of a kid's shoe box is a great place to store the dastardly bottles. They stay upright; you can put a bit of masking tape with the spice name on top for easy viewing. I even use different shoe boxes for the various ethnic fare we're all supposed to be able to master these days:  Indian, Italian, Chinese. I can fit the entire U.N. on a Lazy Susan.

3. For just about every festive occasion there is, trot out this variation on Bellinis. (They're supposed to be made with peach puree, which is why this is a cheat.) All you need is a coupla bottles of cheap sparkling wine -- honestly, the cheaper the better with these, for some reason -- chopped strawberries, and a blender. Blend the berries, add -- slowly, slowly! -- the bubbly, stir, and serve.  People are just blown away by this, including moi. You can even get away with using plastic cups. You can use frozen strawberries. Don't add the wine too quickly, though, or the entire concoction will explode. Ask me how I know.

4.  If you rinse fresh but wilted vegetables with warm water, they perk right up.

5.  Package of salad greens (that means greens, not iceburg).  Package of bleu cheese crumbles.  Handful of walnut pieces.  Handful of dried cherries/cranberries/whatever.  Raspberry or blush wine or any kind of pre-made fruity dressing.  Mix.  People will talk about this salad forever, and you'll be known as The Person Who Makes Fabulous Salads. I'm not kidding; you'll be asked to bring this to every dinner thereafter, maybe with the stuff to make the fake Bellinis. You're set for life.

~BurbMom

Nasty foods we love

Because it is official the last full work week of the summer, and I'm happily sipping the dregs up here in Cape Cod at the home of my dear old friend L., steeling myself for a return to work ways next week, allow me to post frivolously just once more about a topic L. and I have been discussing with relish:  Family food favorites from the '70s.

Her family, like mine, was pinching pennies in those days, while still enjoying all of the mod new food sensations and conveniences the canned-soup life had to offer.  Between us we came up with a half-dozen of good ole' mix-em-up dinner recipes that, we confess, we still make.

See if any of these sound familiar.  All names are as close to the original monikers as we can recall.

Glop From the kitchen of my mom, a true bring-home-the-bacon and fry-it-up kinda gal. A goulash-type dinner dish, with an eponymous consistency. Made by stir frying a pound of ground chuck with chopped onion in lard (I use canola oil now!), adding a half-jar or so of canned spaghetti sauce (the really cheap kind made with artificial seasonings and corn syrup), and about a pound of cooked macaroni. Add chopped sweet pepper to the original stir-fry if you're feeling fancy.  My kids love it.

Puffy tuna surprise: This from L.'s archives, a recipe created and/or mastered by her brother. Heat a can of mushroom soup, a half-bag of frozen peas, and a 6-oz can of solid white tuna. Spoon into heated puff pastry shells.

Banker's spaghetti: From L.'s family, but I'm calling it this because I remember reading in Forbes how some millionaire made his kids eat pasta with ketchup every night, and feeling sickened at such greed-inspired parsimony. Turns out the kids probably begged for it.  L. sure did.  Cook spaghetti, grease it up with a little butter, top it with ketchup. Variation:  Add half-jar of cheapo tomato sauce to spaghetti, and glob it between two pieces of buttered white bread.

Anybody out there have some other good ones to share?

- BurbMom

How now, wine cow

I should be writing about home detoxing as is our Monday practice, but it's the dog days of August and, at least here on the East Coast, life moves as little as the stale air and the hours melt into each other like the dregs of the gooey sweet, drippy popsicles my kids inhale by the half-dozen.

So let's talk about booze. Specifically, boxed wine, which an op-ed piece in The New York Times says is becoming increasingly acceptable and drinkable. Over in Europe it's been popular for a while, but here I imagine it still has too much of a connotation with frat parties and trailer parks. (Not that there's anything wrong with trailers. Let's say instead: Parks full of trailers in need of repair.)

Full disclosure: We've been drinking the stuff for a while.  It's kept discreetly on a shelf on the pantry. One need only prop open a door a few inches, insert glass under the little spigot, and press away. We call it our wine cow. I came up with the name after our first couple of glasses, and for a brief while we - and by we, I don't just mean our observant children - got a huge kick out of saying "Moo, moo!" as the wine came whizzing into the cup. It tends to be cheaper, reflecting the lower packaging costs (which admittedly smacks of frat party), but the wine can often be quite good; the Black Box brand pictured above is tasty and reliable. It keeps for weeks, which is great if you often cook with it, and is just the thing for unwinding at a HoJo after a long road trip. 

Plus, the plastic casings are probably easier on the environment than glass bottles, according to Decanter magazine. Says the Times piece:

"Switching to wine in a box for the 97 percent of wines that are made to be consumed within a year would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about two million tons, or the equivalent of retiring 400,000 cars."

Some individual bottles are now available in TetraPaks, the boxes commonly used for kids' juice. Good lord, that's what I call progress!

- BurbMom

In praise of CSAs

For years my husband's aunt had been singing praises of her Brooklyn CSA, saying how wonderful it was for the planet and for your social life. CSA means "community supported agriculture," with small groups buying produce—usually farmed organically, or at least following organic practices—directly from farmers. (You can buy meat, eggs and bread, too.) You pay for a subscription, which usually covers early summer to late fall, right away, and the food comes to an agreed-upon location every week or every other week.

The idea is you support local farms, get sustainably farmed produce at a decent price—we're paying $275 (half share) to pick up a few pounds of vegetables every other week from now well into November, which seems like a good deal—and feel a more immediate connection to what we eat. (No impersonal aisles to plow through only to get chem-riddled noshes boxed up in wasteful cardboard.) And it works for farmers because they get paid upfront and can plan ahead. Plus, you get to meet other people who supposedly share the same values about food as you do and maybe make a friend at the pickup spot.

So far, we've had one delivery and here's what I can report:

• The produce is awesome. The swiss chard, yum! The potatoes, refreshingly imperfect looking on the outside—no uniform spuds like you find at the food mart—but so perfect to the taste.

• We did end up with items we didn't know what to do with (you don't get a choice; the selection is dictated by the farming cycle). Radishes?

• We didn't make any new friends at the delivery stop four blocks from our apartment, but then again, it's early. (Got some polite smiles, though, and a few sympathetic looks when we had to figure out how to work the scale.)

We'll let you know how it goes as the months roll by, but so far, we feel pretty good about our decision to sign up. To find one in your area, check out Local Harvest or Just Food. (Photo from JustFood.org.)

—CityMom

The Food Contamination Diet

Been meaning to chime in on the recent food scare. (It's scary even just saying that, because it means we've had a number of them, which we have--yikes!).

How sad is it that nothing seems sacred--and safe--anymore: beef, chicken, spinach, now tomatoes and—how could we forget?—children's toys? We need a "priorities adjustment" (and maybe a little attitude adjustment, as in our attitudes about food and toy regulations) and we need it quick. At the rate we're going, we'd have to live on air. That is, if we don't contaminate it so much it becomes unbreathable, too.

Enough said.

—CityMom

Results of grand human experiments (so far)

I felt it was lame of me to not update you all on my efforts to limit my life's excesses, as I've belabored the topic(s) so thoroughly. A progress report to date:

Detoxing:  I did manage to cut out coffee, and it really is worth the several days of headaches required to do so.  My stomach is more settled and my morning road rage as I navigate the school drop-off line is lessened. Now when I see a parent juggling cell phone and coffee as her Navigator veers into my lane I merely swerve, smile and turn up my John Denver a bit louder. (A dose of John Denver in the morning adds a little ray of sunshine to the day. Don't snigger. His music is sweet and besides, he's dead.)

Family food makeover:  Improvements have been made in this area, though I'm nowhere near a Pollan-esque wonderland of eating only local and wild-caught foods Grandma would have recognized. I've settled for serving a variety of fruits or veggies at every meal, preferably organic, and I ditched a lot of the junkiest kid snacks, the really corn-syrupy kind (what my friend N. calls "pure petroleum").

The fresh produce cooking and purchasing takes a lot more work. I won't lie. Haven't joined a CSA. Haven't cracked open the vegetarian cookbook yet, either. Hmmm, I see a great-sounding veggie recipe at Bad Home Cooking, though, with stuff from a community garden!  Does my neighbor's basil plant count?

Car sale: We did sell a car, but it was our older faithful standard Subaru, and not the newer Passat wagon. Seems we're not the only ones with gas mileage on our minds right now. So far, suburbia on one car is doable for us, but I guess I'm a little relieved it's the ritzier model that stayed.

—BurbMom