Week 4: Avoid Food Containing High Fructose Corn Syrup

Really? That's my challenge? So easy. So not a problem area for me. I'm not a sweet eater, so that's no challenge. I am now in the habit of reading ingredient labels as opposed to simply nutritional analysis, so that will help me execute.  One thing I will have to watch is what I ingest in terms of Asian foods.   I am guessing lots of sauces have HFCS. Peanut sauce for Vietnamese spring rolls, dipping sauce for lumpia, sweet and sour sauces, etc. And so it begins.

Week3: Fruity Surprises at the Breakfast Buffet of a Business Hotel

Toward the end of Week 3, in a business hotel far away, I was faced with a long day in a neighborhood with nothing but the shiny visages of fast food joints and a a few Latino spots in a shady socio-economic neighborhood with lost dogs roaming the streets and rumors of gang violence moving east from LA.  As I walked out of the hotel gym at 6:45AM I inspected the free breakfast buffet with some dubiousness.  I spied with my little eye something that begins with an F.

Image courtesy of Dole.

Dole tropical fruit cups. Just for fun I looked at the ingredient label.  Absolutely nothing in there except a few different kinds of fruit and some corn syrup. I grabbed two.  They were pretty damned sweet for my personal taste, but I managed to suck them both down around noon o'clock. Knowing I would be lacking protein, I continued my reconnaissance.  In the little fridge there were several different kinds of yogurt.  All but one were some version of low-fat/low-calorie with about a gazillion ingredients no minor chemist could pronounce.  However, toward the side there were a few Dannon All Natural.

Image courtesy of Dannon.

I quote the ingredients from memory because nowhere on the Dannon company website can I find an ingredient listing for any of their products. Nutritional info, yes. Ingredients, no. Milk cultures, pectin, and vanilla flavoring.  That's it, IIRC. As a matter of fact, on their Our Products page, Dannon does not even list All Naturals as a product. I had to go to the site map to find All Naturals, despite the fact that this is clearly one of their products. Other yogurts in the fridge were all from the Dannon company, and all had less calories to varying degrees.  Dannon Natural Vanilla has 120 calories, the others had between 80 and 60 each. Along with various other treats for your body and the environment. 2.5 grams of fat and 7 grams of protein.

The last thing I grabbed before I hauled my sweaty body upstairs to shower was a banana. There was only one thing under that wrapper, and we all know what that is.

Week 3: Avoid Products Containing Ingredients No Ordinary Human Would Keep in a Pantry

The self-explanatory title of this week's rules necessitates much closer ingredient inspection of nutritional labels than the previous two weeks and much more rejection of some of my everyday stand-bys.  A rethinking of how I will flavor foods. Even a rethinking of which ethnic foods can pass my lips this week.  The first major consideration was during the first few hours of the week picking up gas station coffee on my way to a client Monday morning at 6:45 AM.  Black coffee? OK. Flavored creamer? Hay yell no. Half n' half. And some sugar to counteract the bitterness of the coffee...and my Mobile station had no real sugar. WTF?  At Blue Bottle and Intelligentsia sugar is not only unnecessary, it gets in the way of the joy of quality coffee. But gas station coffee is a different beverage altogether. And what self respecting gas station does not have real sugar?  I added extra half n' half.

The compelling part of Week 3's brief directive is, "you don't cook with it at home, why let someone else cook with it for you?".

At the grocery store today a few things came fell under my scrutinizing eye. The Laughing Cow cheese that I spread on Wasa high fiber crackers for a snack a few days a week? Out. Even regular cheese. I thought I might pick up a few slices.  Every one I picked up contained natamycin, a mold inhibiting additive. I was taught by Mom when cheese molds to slice off the offending life form and keep eating. No cheese from the grocery store if this rule is the one you are going to follow to fidelity from the first section in the book. Sriracha? No. The spicy tuna rolls with sriracha?  No. Potassium sorbate, sodium bisulfite, and xantham gum. This calls into question my methodology for doctoring my pho. Granted, most pho has MSG, but since I can find MSG in many kinds of packages and several different sizes on the shelves at my local Asian market, I am going to let MSG slide. No sriracha for me this week.

I started off the week with another batch of roast veg tossed with oilive oil, fleur de sel and chunky garlic. This time I chose mostly root veg with my Brussels sprouts thrown in for green measure, They turned out delicious as usual and the perfect thing to toss in a zip lock bag for lunches. Really. This and a big bottle of water were all I needed for lunch at a continuation high school in a remote school district.

Planning to miso-marinate some fish, I happily scruntinized my most accessible miso paste.

All quiet on the eastern front. Water, rice, soy beans, sea salt.

I thin miso paste with some mirin. It adds acidity and makes the paste easier to spread across the filet o' fish.

Looking good except for glucose syrup. Wiki says glucose syrup is synonymous with corn syrup, and corn syrup I have in my cupboard from making dog knows what dessert in my kitchen two or three years ago. Mirin, in.

Found some gorgeous wild caught cod at the yup-mart for 7.99 a pound. FTW. Typically I would use black cod and marinate for a few days, or salmon. However, the wild salmon looked, um, not so fresh, and the farmed salmon is farmed salmon. The good people at Passionfish in Pacific Grove taught me years ago why not to eat farmed seafood, and I try to maintain this in my own kitchen when possible.

I also added some sesame oil to the paste for a little nuttiness, and schmeared both sides thickly with the mixture. When the veggies were done roasting, I tossed the fish under the broiler and voila! Be very careful when turning cod. It literally falls apart along the seams if you are not very careful, and sometimes even if you are. And I use literal in the literal sense.

Pondering options for flavoring food while scouring the grocery store shelves, I decided the time and tree were ripe for preserving some lemons.  My tree remains thick and heavy with beautifully huge yellow lemons.  After roasting veg & marinating fish, I stepped outside and climbed up to the tree.

I quickly read through the recipe at Simplyrecipes.com for a refresher. Fill the bottom of an airtight container about an inch deep in kosher/rock salt.

Slice lemons across almost all the way to the bottom, leaving some rind on the bottom to hold the lemon together.

Make the same cut crosswise.

Fill the insides of the cut with salt. Place in the bottom of the container. As you add lemons, squish the previous lemons down so some juice squeezes out and they are squished down tightly in the container.

All along the sides, fill the empty spaces in container with salt. Push lemons down more so there aren't any empty spaces.  Squeeze the juice of a couple lemons over the top of the salt.

Leave the container at room temperature for a couple days, turning a few times so that the liquid moves from the top to the bottom more than once. Refrigerate fior 2-3 weeks.  You are looking for lemon rind that is soft and silky. The texture of a preserved lemon is a joyous thing.  It reminds me of dining out in the 90's...preserved lemons were appearing on salads, in mussel broth, on grilled fish.  Delightfully bright and acidic yet mellow. And I love that there are two ingredients in the preparation. I cannot wait to use these when they are ready in  week 6!

Week 2: An Homage to Carnivorous Eating

BLT 
8720 West Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood 
(310) 360-1950

As I close out the second week of this project, I made good on my promise to nod at my carnivorous heritage.  Saturday a good friend and I headed to BLT to drink strong drinks, eat steak and enjoy the popovers and chicken liver pate. All food Auntie Olive would have gladly eaten a couple times a month.

DD drinks Jameson on the rocks, and Jameson only.

Everyone raves about the popovers at BLT. I have even read a review in which the reviewer criticized people for universally raving over the popovers.  Having been to BLT several times (it is one of my two favorite steak places in LA), I can attest that the popovers are rave worthy. Toasty and crisp on the outside, ever so slightly doughy on the inside with a few ribbons of cheese running through. The cheese is barely detectable, rather it adds moistness and body to the batter. But occasionally in a bite you do get one beautiful soft cheesy bit.

The popovers come with a recipe on the plate, but I wish the chicken liver pate did too.  Just a small amount in the bottom of a canning jar is served alongside the popovers. It is constructed beautifully.  I have yet to prepare at home a pate with this amount of acidity and pop. I can taste alcohol in it, red wine or maybe cognac. I schmear mine on my popover and my entire being melts into the experience.

Both DD and I ordered the 8 oz filet mignon, medium rare.  I was a little surprised to find mine was served more medium than medium rare, a rarity for a steakhouse as I find they typically err on the side of underdone instead of overdone. But the little 8 oz filet was gorgeous. Just like Auntie Olive would have enjoyed it.

Both steak and the sides were served in little Staub cast iron pans. I have an obsession with Staub cookware. Currently, I am replacing all of my pots and pans with Le Creuset. This is taking a few years as I am doing this one pan at a time, one every few months. But when I am done, I plan to invest in a collection of small Staub cook & serveware. I find them so charming.  At any rate, above is the lobster mash. Granted, I did not eat a large helping of it, only a couple small bites. But I could find neither hide noir hair of any lobster in there. Although the potato part was certainly nice, if a little over processed for my liking. I like my potatoes to still seem potatoey, rather than over pureed.

And above is the sweet corn pudding.  I would move mountains for this sweet corn pudding. Roasted sweet corn kernels in a pureed base, not too sweet. Just delicious.

And so ends my week of eating only what my grandmother would recognize as food.  No containers of fat free yogurt, no instant oatmeal, protein smoothies or Silk soy milk creamer.  This week didn't overly challenge me, however, as my relatives of two generations ago lived in a time of Campbell's soup in a can and that's primarily what I ate for lunch all week.

Week 2: Saturday Lunch & Things I Learned From My TV

After a lovely Saturday morning trip to the Silverlake Farmer's Market last weekend, my fridge was left this weekend with 5 beautiful russet potatoes and some Brussels sprouts.  With the hangover hungries and accompanying laziness I pulled out the contents of my vegetable drawer and threw together a pan of roast veggies.

Honestly, the pan of roast vegetables for lunch is less about eating what Grandma ate, and more about balance in the diet.  Since Auntie Olive and that branch of my family were connected to the beef industry and ate so much beef, I am having a steak tonight. So my food intake during the day should balance this out a little.

What did I learn from TV? Well, watching the first episode of Bravo's Chef Academy I saw Chef Novelli take a contestant to task for not prepping garlic properly. Aren't we supposed to painstakingly peel the paper off of every single clove of garlic? Apparently not.  There is a better method to this madness.

First, place the end of your wide chef's knife flat against the clove with the concave end facing the counter, the convex end facing the knife.

Next, punch the heel of your hand against the flat blade until you feel the garlic give against the punch through the metal.

Et voila!  A cracked clove of garlic from which the paper pulls off very easily.

And the clove itself is slightly split, with the oils released in a lovely fashion.  Now you can dice, chop, or throw into your cooking as is.

For my lunch, I chose to chop four cloves very coarsely.

I also learned from TV not to fear the salt. I have a well practiced habit of under salting my cooking. Watching Chef Anne Burrell coach the somewhat hapless cooks on Food Network's Worst Cooks in America, I heard her say one evening to just go ahead and be free with the salt. Salt your food! So, I have been trying to be more liberal with the salt, to good effect. Today I used my French fleur de sel, eyeballed a teaspoon and then tossed in a little more of the beautifully large and uneven crystals.

Toss the potatoes (cut into eighths), Brussels sprouts, and garlic with a few tablespoons of olive oil and the salt and place in a baking dish. You can also use a flat pan or cooking sheet if you prefer.

I used another one of the beautiful Le Creuset dishes B gave me for Christmas/ birthday.

I baked at 400F for about 50 minutes, tossing a few times in the middle when I remembered to get up from watching the Australian Open.

And here we have a beautiful tasting and healthy lunch for two with leftovers for later snacking.  There was a long winter's nap to follow.

Week 2: Don't Eat Anything Your Grandmother Wouldn't Recognize as Food

It's already been established that my Silk soy milk creamer is going the way of the do-do bird.  However, thinking about what my grandmothers would recognize as food takes me down an entirely different and completely sentimental pathway.  There are so many food products available these days that would not have been technologically possible during the lives of my grandmothers.  I will steer clear of these this week.  Now, a little about the eating habits of my grandmothers.

image courtesy of David L Nelson

Grandma Ruby raised her family on a few acre piece of land in Jenks, Oklahoma.  Visiting often as a child during long hot junebug and firefly filled summertimes, I used to help Grandma pick veggies from the huge garden. This was pretty much the entire source of produce for meals, which also included the apricot tree on the side of the red house near the usually filled clothesline.  Okra, fat tomatoes, green beans, dirty carrots and prickly zucchini plants.  Grandma also kept laying hens, one year a goat, and way back when, a cow even.  I don't recall a lot of interaction with the livestock. But it's been a long time.

image courtesy of Sunset

During our visits, Dad's sister and brother would often drop in for dinner or who knows when, bringing some or all of my cousins.  The red-checked oilcloth covered kitchen table had food on it all day long, starting at lunch and not being cleared until long after dinner.  Fried chicken, hamburger fixings, and always every night all summerlong, Grandma's lemon meringue pie. Grandma Ruby was a good cook.

image courtesy of  Red Wagon Antiques

Every summer we also used to drive out to visit Greatgrandma Kent in her little house on the Cherokee Nation lands.  Chris and I used to sit on the front wooden steps munching on biscuits made from the giant yellow Bisquik box, watching a few people walk by the dirt yard and smelling the coffee she would make in the blue speckled metal coffee pot. No percolator. How did she do that? That coffee smelled amazing.

image courtesy of Arranology

At the other end of the spectrum were more frequent visits to Aunty Olive's condo in Reno.  Aunty Olive on my mom's side is the closest thing I had to a Grandmother, although she was decidedly un-grandma like.  Mom did all the cooking, usually bringing with us giant quantities of homemade French onion soup, a roast and in later years oxtails, and making the rest of our meals during our visits herself. Aunty Olive and Uncle Lloyd kept us entertained playing cards and watching football while drinking scotch on the rocks, discussing point spreads and the benefit of one type of gun over another.  Aunty Olive was first married to a cattle rancher, and later to a man who owned a grocery store.  Mom was primarily reared by Olive during the cattle ranching phase, and meat has always had a starring role in our diets. Red meat, and plenty of it.  Having said that Mom, Olive and all the women from that branch of my tree are tiny, delicately boned creatures. There is an oft repeated story about my dainty mother's legendary appetite. An acquaintance once remarking on her figure said, "You must have an appetite like a bird." Someone who knew her well replied, "Yes. A vulture." Mom can eat.  In homage to her, I think I will have a steak this week.


Started this week off, again, with sushi.  I ordered simply; salmon and scallop nigiri and a small sashimi salad. While the grandmothers listed above might not recognize raw fish as a food item, Grace my Japanese step-grandmother would approve.

Week 1: Gordon Ramsay's Broccoli Soup

Spending my first week with Pollan's Food Rules basically contemplating and being more aware of what is around me and what goes in my body, I stumbled across Gordon Ramsay's recipe for the easiest broccoli soup on the planet. Published in a blog, The Cooking Route, I have already made this recipe twice with some fun twists and turns, both times with delicious results.

Ingredients:
2 lb broccoli
2-3 cups cooking water
salt & pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese (not optional, imo)
walnuts (optional)
olive oil (optional)

One of my tweaks included roasting an entire head of garlic. Peel back the paper on the outside so there is only one thin layer around the outside cloves, cut off the top about .5" down so the tops of the cloves are exposed.

Place in baking container. I used the Le Creuset ramekins B gave me for Christmas, but you can also use muffin tins or almost any oven proof container. Drizzle olive oil on top.

Cover with foil and bake at 400F for 30-40 minutes.

I added a couple roasted heads to the soup, and saved the rest for cooking later in the week. Beautifully roasted garlic will last a heck of a long time in the fridge.  It's nice to keep some handy for whatevs.

For the soup, bring the water to boil and chop broccoli florets and stems.  Boil until soft, 10-15 minutes.  Drain and reserve cooking water. Do not forget to reserve cooking water.

If you plunge the cooked broccoli into an ice water bath, the beautiful bright green will stay green instead of turn that weird slightly grey color one sometimes sees in cooked broccoli.

I pureed the cooked broccoli in my Braun.  You are supposed to now add 2-3 cups of the cooking water to the puree to make the soup. Personally, I threw my water away automatically. D'oh!  To liquify the puree, I added boxed chicken stock.  Jeez.

It was also at this point that I added two large cloves of roasted garlic and instead of regular salt I added a teaspoon of truffle salt. This truffle salt is a brand called Fusion, a gift from my good friend K.  It actually contains real truffle, much to the shock of those who like to say no truffle products contain real truffle. This one does. It's a beautiful, earthy treat.

On top, I sprinkled cotija cheese.  I had some left from making pork chile verde...the cotija was slightly dry, salty and delicious.

The other night using the same recipe, I substituted cauliflower and added roasted shiitakes along with a couple cloves of the roasted garlic. Also fantastic.  I will be carrying cauliflower soup to work this week for lunch, warm soup on the upcoming rainy days sans can. Thanks, Gordon.

Week 1: Interesting Developments

While establishing a baseline of food habits, some interesting developments occurred.  While I consider myself a fairly healthy eater, with a few areas in need of improvement, this week alone caused me to do a few things more carefully.  The first was to read my food labels like a hawk.  

As stated previously, eating according to a set of rules is nothing new to me.  Following the Zone Diet in my thirties, I used to read ingredient labels closely and calculate percentages of protein, fat and carbs in my head in order to establish the Zone Rx'd balance of nutrients. I think of soya as a healthy food and use soy milk creamer in my tea instead of half and half or milk. Soy milk creamer is lower in calories and fat than half & half but it contains a few unexpected surprises.  Food, she thought tells us that the palm oil in my creamer is higher in saturated fat than other vegetable oils.  Wiki tells us that the maltodextrin in my Silk soy milk creamer is a highly processed derivative (in the US from corn, in Europe from wheat) highly processed to remove to protein atom is removed from the molecule. The molecule is so broken down that processing results in a white powder that contains 4 calories, almost no protein, carbohydrate or fat. It can add a slight sweetness.  Why is this additive necessary?  Potassium phosphate, probably added as an emulsifier.  Sodium citrate, used as a sequestrant I imagine, which is an ingredient that will stabilize a mixture.  With tapioca starch as a filler and carrageenan (extracted from red seaweeds) as thickener and stabilizer in addition to all of the above, I will be kissing my Silk soy milk creamer good-bye.

Farmer's markets.  I have enjoyed going to farmer's markets since I lived in Sacramento in the late eighties.  They have an amazing farmer's market there situated oddly underneath a freeway.  Back when I first started going to local markets, everything was local and seasonal. There were far less ancillary items offered, like frozen fish, sausage stands, coffee vendors, jewelry makers, etc.  Visiting the Silverlake farmer's market this weekend, I inspected it with different eyes.  Knowing what is to come in the next few weeks, I was looking to see if there is enough variety available to subsist on without ever visiting a grocery store. How much variety is there in Silverlake, would I want to go further afield if this was my only market?  This will be answered in weeks to come, along with some solutions for groceries. Silverlake farmer's market is a fine and dandy little market, with some supplementary items, organized so that the supplementary offerings don't interfere with the veggies, fruit, farm fresh eggs and flowers.  Parking was fun.

I ate out a lot less this week. Matter of fact, I hardly ate out at all. When I did, I ate sushi.  Sushi from  very reputable place is a good answer to many of these questions. A purist's sushi is a simple meal without a lot of fancy ingredients or mystery. Fish, shellfish, seaweed, shoyu, ponzu and sushi rice (rice, vinegar, sugar and salt).

It was an interesting, if not challenging week.

Week 1: Eat Food

The first rule in Food Rules is simply to eat food. Pollan qualifies this by saying that he considers food to be "real food" and not "industrial novelties". We shouldn't eat anything derived from ingredients normal people wouldn't keep in their refrigerator or pantry. As the other rules in the rest of this section go on to qualify in more detail what is meant by "real food",  I consider week one the baseline week. This week will establish dietary norms and habits, the better to derive differentiation in the way I approach shopping, dining out, snacking and so on.

Habits learned from previous approaches to eating that I have retained include shopping as much as possible around the edges of the market with brief forays down certain aisles.  I pick up veggies for my weekly quinoa addiction (broccoli, spinach, shiitakes), tea (always tea, never coffee, with Silk soy milk creamer and agave nectar), waistline friendly soups for lunches, 2% fat Kraft singles for my husband, and Laughing Cow Lite wedges for me.

Gelson's, the local high end yup-mart, has figs in season (not in season in Los Angeles), grapes, and lots of exotic produce surely in season only in the Southern Hemisphere or some remote tropical isle.  Later in the week, these items and what's already in the pantry will be supplemented by protein purchased the day of use.  Meals cooked at home will be augmented by meals out, or actually, really vice versa. You can't see back in the back a four tray high pile of sushi rolls from Gelson's Japanese deli counter and one Wolfgang Puck Ceasar salad, ready to toss.