64 Weeks, 64 Food Rules

Week 23: Treat Meat as a Flavoring or Special Occasion Food

2010-07-20T15:44:00.000-07:00

I can do this. Today is Tuesday, day 2 of week 23. Yesterday the only protein/meat bi-product I ate was eggs. One container of Trader Joe's egg white salad over raw broccoli, eda mame and a giant pile of arugula for brunch. A giant bowl of ramen with veggies and a poached egg for dinner (hondashi broth which is fish based).

Pollan notes in this chapter that, "vegetarians are healthier than carnivores". I think this statement is ridiculous. I don't know anyone who is a carnivore. Even my meat loving German Shepherds are not carnivores. As a matter of fact, almost all vertebrates are omnivores. Pollan's statement is silly. Because we are omnivores the statement cannot hold true in any way. Of course humans who are true carnivores would be less healthy than a vegetarian, because even a vegetarian would come closer to the diversified diet that our bodies have evolved to be suited for. The counterpart cannot hold true, certainly, for our carnivorous vertebrate cousins the lion, the tiger and the bear. Surely these carnivores are not less healthy than their bohemian radical pinko friends who abstain from the hunt?

At any rate, Pollan strongly advocates for an omnivorous diet in which meat is simply an accessory to the meal, and to a lifetime of meals. He calls this type of vorism flexitarianism. OK. This we can do despite the silliness of his semantics. For dinner tonight (after eating the leftover ramen, no egg, for lunch) I am going to steam the broccoli in the fridge, toss it with garlic in hot olive oil and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. I can go an entire week without meat as a main course. Not a problem. I will let you know later in the week how I fare. If you are listening. A fallow blog gathers lots of moss but very little readership.

Leafy Lunches

2010-07-13T12:26:00.000-07:00

Thinking about food and food victimization all day yesterday after my post stating that lunch was, "on upper management", implying I was dietarily victimized by what someone else chose for my lunch. I have a car. The offices in which my cubicle is located lies equidistant between a Trader Joe's and a Whole Foods. Instead of hormonally hoovering two pieces of pizza and a Caesar salad (as chosen by aforementioned management), I hopped in my hoopty and headed for TJ's.

Lunches the rest of this week:

One container Egg White Salad (xantham gum, created as a by-product during the fermentation of sucrose and glucose, is used to help maintain emulsification, in other words to keep oil from separating from the rest of a mixture).
Large pile of arugula leaves.
3/4 cup raw broccoli.
2 tablespoons eggplant hummus.
Galeo's Miso Caesar dressing (literally nothing unrecognizable on the label).

This week will be an empowered week of leafy salads with lean egg white protein and lots of fiber. FTW.

Week 22: Eat Plants, Mostly Leaves

2010-07-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

Last week I started off a day late and a dollar short after a long overly fun weekend in Lake Havasu City (spending literally no time in White Trash lake). So, I am on the train again. For a very early breakfast I ate a couple handfuls of fresh Rainier cherries and later Chobani Greek Yogurt. For lunch, half a chicken sandwich and a large green salad. (Hormones are dictating that I inhale anything and everything within hoovering distance, so this felt like self control. And lunch was on upper management, so I did the best I could with what I had.)

I have prepped nicely for the next few days. Tonight, we are grilling small cuts of beef marinated overnight bulgogi style. With the small cuts of meat (maybe 4 ounces per person after grilling), grilled corn on the cob salad with pasilla peppers tossed with lots of organic arugula (leaves).

Tomorrow: pork loin chile verde cooked in the crock pot with broccoli, squirted with lots of lemon juice from my prolific giant sized lemon producing tree. This recipe cooks a lot of pork loin, and most likely I will freeze some in small portions for lunches. BTW, I consider broccoli leaves. The leaves and the entire tree, as a matter of fact.

Wednesday: Cooking spicy Italian turkey sausage in tomato sauce has become a habit. Something so easy my husband can do it quickly and deliciously hopefully encouraging him to do more cooking in the future. I have served this in the past over cous cous, polenta, etc. Wednesday I plan to serve it over strands of spaghetti squash.

I haven't planned for the rest of the week, and this does seem kind of like a hard one. A lot of advance planning needs to happen so I don't end up eating the exact same lunch I ate today the rest of the week. I am thinking of bringing salads with some lean protein and a bottle of my favorite dressing (Galeo's Miso Ceasar), because that's more tempting than any delivery option.

Getting Bloggy With It

2010-06-28T18:03:00.000-07:00

It's been 76 days since my last post in this blog, which means halted this eating experiment for about 10 weeks or so, setting my time table for finishing back aways. However, my disinclination to finish part one coupled with my desire to move onto part two should set me ahead a few of those weeks. Let me explain.

I stopped in April at Week 13. The next few weeks reiterated more of the same: eat foods you can picture in their raw state (14), get out of the supermarket (15), buy snacks at the farmer's market (16), eat foods that have been cooked by humans (17,do zombies still count as human even though they're in a post-humanoid state?), don't eat food made by people wearing protective gear (17), came from a plant eat made in a plant don't eat (18), it ain't food if you got it in a drive through (19), can't be called the same thing in multiple languages (20). The problem is I got the point loud and clear in the first 13 weeks.

And the point made many subtle changes in my diet. I shop at the farmer's market more. I eat drive through far less although on occasion I succumb when traveling, and I am only drinking diet Cokes on occasion when I need some caffeine. No more non-dairy creamer or soy milk creamer. I take my food to lunch everyday even when lunch is being provided. Etc, etc and on and on.

Facing blogger burn out for a multitude of reasons on my other and main blog over the last few months didn't help me stick to this project when I was at a point in Food Rules that felt as though Pollan were beating me over the head with sticks taken from his soap box. I am ready to start again, skipping forward to Part II, Week 22: What Type of Food Should I Eat? (Mostly Plants).

And so it continues.

Week 13: Eat Only Foods That Will Eventually Rot

2010-04-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

Interestingly, in this rule one of the things Pollan notes will happen during processing is that Omega-3 fatty acids get removed from many foods because it attracts insects, fungi and bacteria. So we all dutifully take our Omega-3 supplements while eating processed food. We are strange creatures, humans. One exception to the "eat things that rot" rule is honey with a close to infinite shelf life.

Already, I started today by eating peanut butter for breakfast. And not the freshly ground kind you need to stir every time you use it, the kind I was annoyingly raised upon. I probably ate the worst kind you can buy. Glorious peanut butter with jelly swirls. Don't grocery shop when you are hungry. Eat something before going in the store. I shopped yesterday after an intense day of teaching with very little time to eat only a sad, dry orange and a container of greek yogurt. < 400 calories before a 3 o'clock grocery shop means things like peanut butter with jelly swirls ends up in your basket. (D had requested peanut butter, and hence my foray away from the periphery!)

In my defense, I did make lentil soup and roasted baby and sweet potatoes for dinner last night. We have boatloads of beautiful leftovers. :-)

Shop the Periphery Easter Supper

2010-04-13T07:29:00.000-07:00

No better way to celebrate your lack of faith by celebrating the rebirth of spring for everyone.

T brought the main course, I did these roasted artichokes from the Zuni Cafe cookbook and something fun for our salad.

First, trim the chokes. Most cooks complain about the difficulty of trimming an artichoke, but I don't find it that laborious. Be sure to have a dog or two at your feet and some good music on, or in my case sports on the TV. I use kitchen sheers to trim the pointy ends of the leaves, chop an inch off the very tip top and the bottom inch of the stem. Then, use a paring knife to cut just underneath the heart, and a spoon to scoop out the parts of the heart that are too hairy and pointy to eat.

Dip the chokes in water and lemon juice to keep the open flesh from turning brown and par-boil for about 4 minutes. Next time I will par boil a little longer as these came out undercooked after their initial roasting time and had to go back in the oven.

In addition to the oilive oil, pepper and sea salt I threw in on top of the artichokes before they went in the oven, I added the finely diced rind of one of my preserved lemons from Week 3. Before and after roasting, the rinds are wildly delicious, sweet, citrus and salty all at the same time.

Both my cooking guests took one of the lemons home in a non-environmentally friendly plastic bag. I tried the environmentally friendly zip bags from Whole Foods. They suck ass.

Roasted artichokes with garlic, sea salt and preserved lemons. Artichokes: produce section of grocery store. Lemons: my backyard.

Hello.

My name is Liz and I am a reality TV addict. I have not accepted that I cannot change this, not 100% sure I have the courage to do so, and I haven't reached ability to accept it yet. However! Chef's Academy did affect what we ate for Easter dinner this year. Chef Novelli taught his charges how to make parmesan cheese baskets. They were so cute! And a lot of what Chef Novelli did looked beautiful and seemed simple in construction. Here, a video of the basket from Bravo.

I also used the recipe from Fine Dinings blog for comparative analysis.

I baked the cheese about 10 minutes or so, not on silicon or parchment but on my insulated cookie sheet sprayed lightly with olive oil. I did not add any truffle oil or seeds to the grated cheese. After about 10 minutes, I pulled the tray out and gently lifted the slightly soft, slightly brittle cheese from the tray and draped it over a couple pint beer glasses to make the basket shape.

Et, voila! Parmesan cheese wedges: back wall of grocery store in gourmet cheese section.

For the salad, I prepped finger bowls of bleu cheese, sprouts and green onion.

T brought greens from her CSA box, and tore them with her tiny hands into tiny bite sized pieces. Note to self: I need a salad spinner.

My Easter Basket! Thanks, T!

T's leg o' lamb. She bought this at Whole Foods in Hollywood, if I recall correctly. Ingeniously, she had the butcher cut the entire shank from the leg and rewrap it more evenly around the bone and secure with string. This helps the meat cook more evenly. It's not quite as caveman fabulous, but it's gorgeous to look at and more effective.

T used a Gourmet magazine recipe.

Rosemary, Lemon, and Garlic Leg of Lamb with Roasted Potatoes Gourmet | April 1996

2 large lemons, zest of 1 removed in strips with a vegetable peeler

1/4 cup fresh rosemary leaves
3 large garlic cloves
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
a 7-pound leg of lamb (ask butcher to remove pelvic bone and tie lamb for easier carving)
2 1/2 pounds small red potatoes
3 tablespoons minced fresh chives
Garnish: fresh rosemary sprigs and lemon wedges

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cut off and discard pith from zested lemon and cut off and discard zest and pith from other lemon. In a saucepan of boiling water blanch zest 1 minute and drain in a colander. Cut each lemon crosswise into 6 slices.

In a small food processor blend rosemary, garlic, zest, 1 tablespoon oil, lemon juice, and salt until mixture is chopped fine.

With tip of a small sharp knife cut small slits all over lamb and rub rosemary mixture over lamb, rubbing into slits. Arrange lemon slices in middle of a large roasting pan and arrange lamb on them. Roast lamb in middle of oven 45 minutes.

Quarter potatoes and in a saucepan cover with salted cold water by 1 inch. Bring water to a boil and cook potatoes, covered, 5 minutes. Drain potatoes in colander and in a bowl toss with remaining tablespoon oil. Arrange potatoes around lamb and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.

Roast lamb and potatoes, stirring potatoes occasionally, 55 minutes, or until a meat thermometer registers 140°F. for medium-rare. Transfer lamb to a cutting board and let stand 15 minutes. Increase temperature to 500°F. and roast potatoes and lemons in one layer 5 to 10 minutes more, or until golden. Transfer potatoes and lemons with a slotted spoon to bowl and toss with chives. Transfer potato mixture to a platter.

Serve lamb, sliced thin across grain, with potatoes, garnished with rosemary and lemon wedges.

Lamb: butcher department, left hand wall of grocery store. Rosemary: T's garden.

Easter supper.

One lone freesia.

Ang and J joined us and brought the sweets! Raspberry lemon tart with almond crust. Very nice.

My favorite, key lime pie with shortbread cookie crust. Um, not happy I had to share. Which means it wasn't good, it was GREAT.

Tiramisu. Not so great, Whole Foods. Dry in the middle and not boozey enough.

And this nut tart was beautiful in our minds, however there was no caramel or chocolate in the middle. Just a pile of nuts with a trace of chocolate drizzled over the top. Meh.

Sweets: Whole Foods deli aisle along the right wall.

Congrats, Ang and J, on the reinvention of your relationship. We wish you the very best.

Week 12: Shop the Peripheries of the Supermarket

2010-04-11T16:18:00.000-07:00

I became introduced to this method of shopping when jumping on the Zone bandwagon back in 2000. Think about your supermarket, which looks more or less like this. Walk in and immediately head to the left, strolling through produce. Toward the back corner are luncheon meats and sometimes a bakery (I detest grocery store bakery items), and along the back wall are gourmet cheeses, eggs, dairy and sometimes non-dried pastas and Italian sauces in plastic containers. Along the other wall, maybe as you turn the back corner, is seafood and the butcher department. Typically (thankfully) booze is located along the shelving facing the walls so you needn't worry about having to veer from your path for your red, red wine, make me feel so fine.

While there is plenty of room for misguidance by staying along the periphery, (processed cheeses, meats with nitrates, non-dairy creamer, Lunchables, and so on) you also stay away from anything in a big box, brightly colored packaging (Kraft cheese-like products not included), and overly processed carbs. I managed to lose a fair amount of honeymoon weight by shopping this way for six months or so and playing loads of tennis.

By following Pollan's rules thus far I have definitely managed to eat a lot healthier in the last 4.5 months or so. I am eating way more veggies than I used to, lots of fruit and almost no processed carbs with the sole exception being pasta once a week or so. I have not, however, managed to lose any food blogger weight despite a very regular exercise program. I think my (un?)healthy booze consumption is a key protagonist in this issue. Booze and I may be taking an intermission for a few weeks as all this running, spinning and kettlebelling, while making me firm and increasing my cardio capacity, isn't making a dent in the outer layer of foodie fat.

Zuni Cafe's Kale & Poached Eggs

2010-03-30T16:41:00.000-07:00

For the first time this week I cooked out of a Christmas present from my mom, The Zuni Cafe Cookbook. A big fan of Zuni from when I lived in SF during the 90's, I still enjoy stopping in on a Sunday morning for brunch and a Bloody Mary with the paper straw and minced red onions. In a Passover state of mind (whatever that means for a waspy girl), I decided to use my roast chicken carcass to make stock then allow myself to be inspired by Judy Rodgers.

For the stock, I threw in the remains of my roast chicken and whatever veg I had on hand: broccoli, an onion, entire daikon radish, garlic, etc. Covered with water, added a little salt and let simmer away on a medium-low heat while I napped the late afternoon away.

I came away with lots of lovely stock to use for immediate cooking and froze one cup servings in zip lock plastic bags for further use later in the spring. I freeze lots of things this way. Ratatouille, homemade pesto, ice cream, gizzards, etc.

In response to the great beef ingestion (indigestion) of March 27th at Totoraku, I am focusing intently on vegetables the rest of this week. I chose to be inspired by boiled kale and poached eggs, however, instead of boiling the kale in water as the recipe calls for I boiled it in fresh chicken stock.

I also decided the meal needed some carbs for my tennis playing maniac husband and some broccolini for good measure. At the store, I noticed a box of "express polenta", or polenta that cooks in under two minutes. I can only assume there was some extra processing done to the corn meal to make it absorb water faster, and since last week's challenge was to avoid food pretending to be something they're not I went for regular corn meal. (It's not like polenta is overly time consuming to begin with). Kale, olive oil and broccolini also made it into the cart along with cara cara oranges (my fruit obsession du saison), new potatoes and Fage yogurt.

Start by sauteing a minced onion in olive oil, add garlic and chile pepper flakes at will. After the onion reaches a rich translucency, saute the heaps of kale until it wilts into a thick mass of greenery. You will be surprised at how much kale can fit in your pot as you wilt it a little at a time.

Cover the kale with liquid, lid the pot and cook for about 30 minutes. At the end of the thirty, I took the lid off the pot and allowed some of the liquid to reduce.

Typically I make polenta with water, I learned somewhere years ago that this is the way peasants make their polenta in Italy, and normally I see no difference to veer from the norm except in seasoning. But with fresh chicken broth in the kitchen (a rarity I tell ya), I went thataway. At the end I added a drizzle of olive oil for some extra richness. No dairy.

Quickly blanched the broccolini, the sauteed in olive oil, rosemary and a little garlic.

I no longer use a fancy egg poacher. I had one when I first got married and used it often, but damn it was hard to clean. Eff that. Into the bin. Now I simply poach them in an almost simmering water bath with balsamic vinegar then gently flip them with a slotted spoon.

Sprinkle a little parm on top of the warm polenta for some cheesy pop without a lot of dairy weighing you down.

And while my poached eggs may look more irregular than the ones served atop your Frisee au Lardons at Anisette on Sundays, they are just as tasty. With this meal, I have adhered to several of Pollan's call outs: avoid advertised foods, the low-fat and lite, foods claiming to promote good health on their labels and the unpronounceable. The really great thing about the meal, aside from the flavor and its quality as leftovers for lunch this afternoon? I didn't set out to meet one of more of Pollan's advisories, I actually just craved kale and poached eggs. This could be contagious.

Week 11: Avoid Foods Your See Advertised on TV

2010-03-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

Pollan theorizes that the best way to avoid overly processed foods and the current processing trend du jour is to avoid the marketing of said foods. Hence, don;t eat food you have seen advertised on TV. He writes that more than 2/3 of food advertising is spent marketing processed foods, thus I would posit you only need to avoid 2/3 of the food you see advertised on TV. He also mentions that common sense would tell one that we needn't avoid foods like prunes or almonds, both advertised quite heavily on TV. Naturally, I might add that given a little reading about whole foods and clean eating, one might not need this book at all. However!

Week 10: Avoid Foods Pretending to be Something They Are Not

2010-03-23T05:17:00.000-07:00

Margarine, non-fat cream cheese, soy-based faux meats, artificial sweeteners, non-dairy creamers and so on.

I am more or less at the point where I am doing this anyway (forgetting the cheese-like food product incident of last night). I gave up my soy milk creamer because of phyto-estrogen in an attempt to hopefully ease my raging PMS, and in turn gave up my coconut milk creamer due to inconvenience and weird stuff in the ingredient list. I returned a couple weeks ago to the OG half and half of my youth for my tea.

I am scratching my head thinking where in my current diet I might be eating something masquerading as something else, but I things are going pretty well in this area. I also think I will have that last crab stuffed poblano for lunch today.

Week 9: This Process is Not About Perfection, Clearly

2010-03-23T05:09:00.000-07:00

Josh's Crab Stuffed Poblano Chiles

Makes 4

1 ½ pounds of crab legs (Josh prefers the large crab claws)*

4 large poblano chiles

1 egg*

½ cup panko breadcrumbs*

1 chopped Serrano chili

1 tablespoon (or to taste) of cumin*

1 tablespoon (or to taste) of chile powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Crushed red chile flakes (to taste)

2-3 tablespoons of chopped fennel*

2-3 tablespoons of chopped green onion*

Cheese-to taste-we use Casero or Cotija (sliced)*

Mix the crabmeat in a bowl with all of the above ingredients. Set aside.

Wash chiles and cut a 3 inch rectangle out of the top, save the cut out portion. Keeping the seeds intact, put some of the cheese in the bottom of each one.

Stuff the crab mixture on top of the cheese and pack into each poblano. Put another slice of chees on top and replace the cut out portion to form a lid.

Bake in a 350 oven for 25 minutes with a foil cover. Remove foil and bake for another 20 minutes uncovered.

* items changed for convenience not for quality, all exchanges slightly compromised the wondefulness of the original recipe. But WTF.

This blog is not about perfection. This blog is about trying to consciously make better choices, exploring the reasoning behind Pollan's madness and when and why it does not work in my life. It did not work yesterday. To start, I ended up using canned crab. Canned crab, in addition to crab, contains citric acid (used as a preservative), calcium disodium edta (used in crabmeat to retard crystallization), sodium pyrophosphate (used as a buffer and emulsifier) and sodium sulfite (to prevent discoloration).

Why not just swoop on over to the next closest grocer and buy my regular king crab legs? I buy them about once every month or so to eat with lemon or a little miso salad dressing. Because. I flew in Sunday afternoon from Detroit and boy, were my arms tired. I worked a long week and then the entire weekend. Good work, but work nonetheless. I was released to work from home early Monday afternoon by KT, my boss-ish and a really good human. At any rate, on the way home I ended up at the ghetto Von's very close to my house and even though it has improved in contents and presentation in the last few years, it is still not the best market. But it is the closest market. I wanted a shopgasm at the hip and groovy loft local Ralph's downtown at 8th and Flower but a GD CHP made me miss my exit by not letting me move over to the right on the 101 heading north. Bastard. Anyway, in the middle of grocery shopping a tsunami of fatigue hit, it was all I could do to grab a few more items and get home before narcolepsy set in. I had great eggs at home from the yup-mart...Nutri-Fresh Fertile Eggs from Chino Valley Ranchers. Locally produced, a blurb from their website,

The hens that produce our Nutri-Fresh Fertile eggs are fed the same diet as our Veg-a-Fed and Humane Harvest (diet with added vegetable seed, grain, soybean, and limestone meal, we have eliminated the need for fish and animal by-products that are commonly used for commercially produced eggs) producing hens. These hens however, have some roosters living along side of them and with their help produce naturally fertilized eggs. We never use artificial insemination for our fertile eggs, only the way nature intended. These fertile eggs are produced in both white and brown and are packaged in the same recycled cartons as the rest of our products.

Non-organic fennel, I used more than the called for three tablespoons. I wanted some crunch and some lift so I added about .5 cup.

Maybe 5 TBS of only the green parts of the green onions. Below, see my iPhone. I usually read Barbie's recipes from my iPhone while cooking. She always sends them as attachments.

I threw in two of the Chino Valley Rancher Eggs, one didn't seem to be enough to really hold the mixture together. Out of cumin, I used instead cayenne and ancho chile powder. And also, out of breadcrumbs I tossed in about two tablespoons of plain flour for a little volume.

These poblanos were gorgeous.

I couldn't figure out why, at a grocery store in a latino neighborhood, that a chile I recognize as a poblano was actually labeled pasilla, until I got home and read this thread on Chowhound. I do know, from working at a trendy Tex-Mex restaurant in Sacramento in the 1980's, that a pasilla is not too spicy to eat stuffed and roasted. Now I know poblanos and pasillas are one and the same.

And then there's the cheese choice. Le sigh. I forgot to buy cheese in my state of abject exhaustion. And we didn't have cheese at home. We have a cheese product. D likes Kraft fat-free processed cheese slices, everything this week of eating is against. Fat-free, preservatives, over-processed, over-packaged, over-etc. And one thing the ghetto Von's has going for it is an abundance of beautiful Mexican cheeses. Major Food Rules fail. Nevertheless, I placed a few slices down on the bottom of the peppers.

Next I stuffed the peppers with the crab mixture. If you have small hands like me, you can really get in there stuffing all the pointy ends and crevices with crab and whatnot. That was fun.

These turned out delicious and super conservative calorie-wise. A couple caveats. Caveat #1: Do not bother with the fake cheese. I couldn't taste it nor detect it texture wise in the outcome. Get some delicious Mexican cheese or even a spicy jack. Or don't bother. Caveat #2: In my oven the cooking time was not sufficient. Mine turned out about 10 minutes too crispy. Maybe Josh and Barb's oven is a little hotter than mine. Josh's were just the right balance between a touch of crispy freshness and roasted soft velvety chile. I wanted mine a hair more roasted.

Despite it all, they were easy to make and super good. We ate these while drinking a Zotovich Family 2006 pinot noir from Santa Rita Hills. Personally, I suggest you get Jeff from Rosso to get this for you. Now, onto week 10!

Week 9: Avoid "Lite", "Low-Fat", or "Nonfat"

2010-03-18T07:55:00.000-07:00

Why, Michael? Why I ask you as I sit here about to eat my Fage 0% Fat Greek yogurt with agave nectar. Why?

Pollan's argument around fat is about balance and imbalance in our diets. By villainizing fat in our diets we give a free pass to all other nutrients, such as calorie dense starches and carbohydrates. During the fat-free craze of the 70's and 80's the western world stayed or became fat eating lower fat diets. We need to look at our daily diet as a whole, not compartmentalize certain nutrients in a way that places a temporary band-aid on a broken leg.

I am going to finish my breakfast of fat free yogurt, counting the calories in my yogurt and agave nectar as part of my daily whole, but also make sure I am eating some good fats today. Fish, avocado, olive oil. Later in the day, when I head to the grocery store to buy ingredients for the dinner I will cook tonight, I will buy a week's worth of Greek yogurt that is not fat-free, planning to balance out the fat calories from my morning yogurt by eating more veggies later in the day instead of processed carbs or starches.

Going to the Dogs

2010-03-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

When life is a little stressful, my blog(s) tend to get seriously neglected. Apparently so do my dietary aspirations of greatness. In the last week there have been mall food, Taco Bell, lots of drinking and the incident with the Campbell's Soup-at-Hand.

Driving to and from Sacramento last weekend was a junk food fest. The beef jerky tasted disgusting. Shrimp tacos from Taco Bell off the 5 near the sweet, sweet smell of cow dung were satisfyingly salty and I am sure frighteningly laden with every kind of thing Pollan warns against. But it was the Campbell's soup that tipped me over the edge. Soup-at-Hand is a great concept. A single serving of soup in a microwaveable container you can carry around with one hand and drink without spilling. Genius for travel and I used to keep several of these in my car. However...

Having eaten consciously clean over the last 8 or 9 weeks, I think my system is no longer used to so many chemicals. I started to drink the Campbell's chicken soup and about halfway through the options were a) toss the soup or b) toss my cookies. The soup landed in the bin.

Today I ate a hot dog from Aunty Anne's pretzels at the West Covina mall. *hangs head in shame*. I have a long and busy weekend ahead of me with no food in the fridge, no time or convenient way to get or make food and the incline of a long slide down a slippery slope behind me.

Monday I plan to be back on track.

Week 8: Why Avoid Food Products That Make Health Claims?

2010-02-28T13:14:00.000-08:00

After posting my goal for this week, my friend M commented that she thinks of foods making health food claims to be items like Goji berries and Noni juice. Foods that you wouldn't ordinarily eat except that they claim to cure what might ail you. I don't have anything of this nature in my kitchen. I don't even take vitamins, although my husband assures me that I should be taking supplements. The general care of my health is an entirely different dissertation altogether, based naturally in the family culture in which I was raised.

Pollan goes deeply into food engineering in Omnivore's Dilemma. The ideas that remain with me from reading OD is when diet trends change, the industrial food complex processes and markets food in new ways to meet the specifics of that trend. Low fat, low carb, heart healthy, South beach Diet, and so on. In Food Rules, he simply states that most items that make big health claims do so on their splashy colorful packaging. Food that comes in splashy colorful packages is typically among the most processed. And oftentimes based upon bad science.

Consider the trend and marketing of margarine. I remember this especially vividly during my childhood in the 1970's. Margarine is made by adding hydrogen atoms to fat molecules to make them more saturated and thus reduce their melting temperature. Some cubes of margarine can stand on your kitchen counter without melting or even softening up to temperatures of 98F. Neither molds nor insects are attracted to margarine...because it isn't meant naturally to be a food. This frightens me. Additionally, the hydrogenation produces unhealthy trans fats which is the worst kind of fat we can ingest. So despite the lower comparative cholesterol of margarine (compared to butter), some margarines are even worse for you than butter. And ultimately margarine is created in a lab. Do we really need to eat food that is created in a lab on a daily basis? (I exclude the kitchens of Jose Andres, Wylie Dufresne and Grant Achatz in the lab category, although I certainly wouldn't eat in any of their restaurants daily.) For more information on the process and product of margarine, read Dane Roubos's The Margarine Hoax, originally published in Nexus Magazine, 1997. Read Dr. Martha Grogan's butter vs margarine comparison on the Mayo Clinic website.

So, when Pollan advises we steer clear of foods that make health claims, I will not be eating the following items in my kitchen right now: Diet Coke, Special K, Cheerios, Pam, Progresso Low Sodium Soup, etc. Naturally, as a result of this project I am not eating these items anyway. My husband has made no such comittment. He continues to happily munch his Cheerios in low fat milk every morning.

Week 8: Avoid Foods that Make Health Claims

2010-02-27T07:23:00.000-08:00

As I turned the page in Food Rules; An Eater's Manual, I was hoping for a new challenge this week. I have stopped reading ahead basically because the project is no longer new, two months in. So, here I am. No food that makes health claims.

Do my high fiber Wasa crackers count? They claim to have a lot of fiber and we all know what that does for your health.

Week 7: Cross Pollination. Iso Rabins (World Famous Forager) Cooks Dinner at Hatchi

2010-02-27T07:21:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I have no plans for cross pollinating my blogs. However, this week I ate at Hatchi with Iso Rabins in the kitchen. Iso Rabins is a well known and rapidly growing more famous forager. He cooks with foraged foods, runs an underground farmer's market in San Francisco, and even supplies customers with CFA (community foraged agriculture) boxes once a month.

I blogged about the meal here at FST.

I am curious to know what Michael Pollan thinks of Rabins. Not because of Rabins's approaches to eating healthily. Certainly foraged food can be as easily bastardized into something unhealthy as the most beautiful heirloom tomatoes from your farmer's market or zucchini from your garden. But I wonder what Pollan would think because of his thoughts and extensive writing on the industrial food complex. Rabins is the anti-hero to the industrial food complex. He forages in parks, wild life areas, fields, meadows and waterways looking for ingredients to both feed people and make them more aware of all that is availably edible in their immediate and sometimes urban surroundings.

I also think we are all going to become foragers after the Armageddon/zombie invasion/population decreasing viral attack that is sure to come in the next century. We should learn the skill now or forever be denied fresh mushrooms. Maybe I should find out the location of truffle farms in the US so I can forage there after the apocalypse.

Week 7: Avoid Food A Third Grader Cannot Pronounce

2010-02-27T07:11:00.000-08:00

Ok, I get it. I got it during weeks 2 and 3. No multi-hyphenated long syllabic food supporting substances such as preservatives, emulsifiers, artificial colorings, sweeteners, acidity regulators, bulking agents, thickeners, stabilizers, humectants, etc etc ad infinitum.

Week 7 done. I have been eating real food. Food I make at home, food that is still for the most part recognizable in its original state. A few exceptions: Wasa crackers. Not giving those up. They are a filling breakfast or lunch with some cheese or fruit and have tons of fiber. Occasionally (like once or twice a month) I am going to use non-dairy creamer in my coffee or tea. Happened during week 7 because I had no access to half & half without waiting for rooms service and paying $10 for a cup of tea. I also ate one can of soup because a school I was working at gave me 20 minutes for lunch and I had a can in the car from 2009.

However, some things are balancing these occasional tendencies out. When ordering room service, I have started ordering veggie plates with some kind of potato on the side. Just as yummy as fish on some weird sauce or salad with mysterious dressing substances.

In the past three weeks I can count on one hand the number of times I have knowingly and deliberately eaten preservatives and additives and/or processed food items. (Not including the beloved Wasa cracker). This is a serious change in my dietary habits even though it feels like my lifestyle has not really changed one iota. FTW.

Week 6: Avoid Food Products Containing More Than 5 Ingredients

2010-02-14T09:14:00.000-08:00

I am ending week five a day early. Today is Valentine's Day. I am going to make chocolate mousse for my husband from scratch using a recipe from White on Rice Couple's blog. I will eat my share, I will not feel guilty and I will not blog about it. Well, not really.

Week 6. Avoid Food Products Containing More Than 5 Ingredients

The important caveat in rule 6 is that recipes with more than 5 ingredients don't count. So my lemon-rosemary-garlic roasted Rocky the Free Range chicken on a bed of baby potatoes, kale and Brussels sprouts doesn't count. Each ingredient only has one ingredient. Does that make sense? Of course it does. The Doritoes on the table at the Superbowl buffet last weekend. No go. An ingredient list longer than the indeces of an academic journal.

An interesting thing has happened to me as this project has progressed. In my travels for work and trips to the grocery store I have started considering the items in the "middle aisles" a little (a lot) differently. In lunchtimes of desperation, I used to enter a gas station mini-mart and look around for the most healthful thing to put in my mouth. A sandwich, a granola bar, etc. At the grocery store I have always concentrated on the outside aisles; produce, butcher, dairy. Now I am even less inclined to enter the middle aisles with their splashy labels and bright plastic packaging. The items in these aisles and in gas station mini-marts no longer really occur to me as viable food options. I am planning ahead more successfully (for lunches and breakfasts on the go) and hence not getting stuck in the rut of fast food drive-through salads or the gas station mini-mart lesser of all evils.

However, I recognize that the aftermath of the zombie-infection/alien invasion/armageddon, all bets are off. I will be using Food Rules as torch fuel.

Week 5: Greek Yogurt Review

2010-02-14T08:56:00.000-08:00

Week five was super easy for me. I think I only broke the rule twice, and neither time was at a meal per se. The first was at a staff meeting Monday, I ate half a cookie. It was my monthly imperative. My second break from the rule was at the doctor's office Friday when they handed me a Valentine with a chocolate attached. Feeling sorry for myself for having a cervical lymph node sticking out much like one of Frankenstein's neck bolts, I gobbled the chocolate down like a starving man on a desert island. Nothing like mixing metaphors on Valentine's Sunday.

During the past few weeks I have discovered the joy of Greek-style yogurts with their active cultures and high protein count. As I slurped these daily for breakfast wherever I happened to be, I jotted down my thoughts on post-its and stuck them to the inside of my planner. Yes, I use a physical planner. Despite having an internet addiction as bad or worse than most peoples', I still use a physical planner, spiral bound and made of paper. It's classy. It has dog cartoons from the New Yorker.

What follows is the Greek-style yogurt break down. I skipped the infamous Trader Joe's brand because it does not come in individual containers. Traveling somewhere different daily, I don't want to have to worry about refrigeration of the rest of the container, nor bringing an extra bowl, nor worrying about washing the container if I end up staying the night in a hotel room. Those of you greener than I can surely poke gigantic holes in this approach. Sorry, it is what it is right now in my life. Yogurt convenience wins over the greenness of bulk packaging.

Fage 2%: Creamy and thick. Extremely tart, at the tarter end of the tart continuum. 260 calories (really, probably a double serving container, but sometimes I eat the entire container anyway), 5g fat, 17 grams protein. Not my favorite, but universally available. And if you calculate that this is a double serving, you are really only getting 8.5 grams protein per serving. $1.99 for 7 ounces.

Voskos 0%: Comparatively liquidy. 140 calories, 24 grams protein (wow), 0 fat, 9 grams carbs. I wondered if the lack of creaminess is because there is zero fat, but I tried a couple other fat-free Greek-style without the same liquidity. Live active cultures, the label does not say which ones. However, no rBST, rBGH, or GMO. In other words, no hormones or steroids from dairy cows that have not been genetically modified. Does the "no GMO" include the feed for the cows as well? Pollan would want to know. The label states that there has been no proof that using these in cows harms people in small doses, but nevertheless Voskos has none. And despite the assertions that these ingredients have not been proved harmful to people in small doses, I still wonder what has caused cancer in more than half a dozen people close to me? I digress. $1.99 for 5.3 ounces.

Chobani 2%: Not quite as thick as Fage, a little wetter but not as liquidy as Voskos. 130 calories, 17 grams protein, 3.5 grams fat, 7 grams carbs. Five active cultures, although their website only refers to two. I like Chobani, and sometimes you can get it for around a buck-twenty. Like Fage, it is pretty universally available.

Siggi's 2%: Siggi's is an Icelandic style yogurt, strained with high protein. I really like this one. It is extremely thick, almost as thick as a ricotta cheese. However, I have only seen it at Whole Foods. 100 calories, 17 grams protein, 0 fat, 6 carbohydrates. At $2.49 it was at the pricey end for a 6 ounce container. I thought it was worth it. This and a piece of fruit still brings breakfast in at around three bucks.

Oikos 0%: Middle of the road in terms of texture. Not as thick as Siggi's, not as runny as Voskos. Pretty similar to Chobani. 80 calories, 15 grams protein, 0 fat, 6 grams carbohydrate for 5.3 ounces. Again, the emphasis here is on availability and price. $1.29 and at both Whole Foods and Gelson's.

I eat my Greek yogurt with agave nectar, it is too tart for me to eat it plain. When at home, I add fruit. Bananas, berries, this week cara cara orange or blood orange segments.

Why Greek yogurt? Why yogurt at all?

Week 5: Avoid Products That Have Some Form of Sugar in Top Three Ingredients

2010-02-10T06:08:00.000-08:00

Pollan says that what complicates this are the many guises sugar hides behind in ingredient labels. Be on the look out for barley malt, beet sugar, brown rice syrup, cane juice, corn sweetener, fruit juice concentrate, and so on and so forth. Okie dokie.

Week 4: Organic Free-Range Hormone & Antibiotic Free Roast Chicken Don't Come Cheap

2010-02-09T17:59:00.001-08:00

Mid-week in week 4 I needed a treat, as if the meal at Shiro and my upcoming DineLA meal at Petrossian weren't going to be enough. Wanting to check out the new butcher shop in the 'hood, I headed over to McCall's in Los Feliz.

A beautiful little butchery shop run by a friendly couple right next door to Mexico City. Parking was not a problem mid-afternoon.

All their furnishings are done by Cellar Door Studios in DTLA. Cellar Door takes reclaimed pieces and models them into furniture, frames, shelving, etc. Beautifully.

I grabbed a pricey but beautiful Ken Dor chicken from McCall's, pulled out one of my new and as yet unused Le Creuset and my ancient Martha Stewart cookbook and set to roasting a bird on a cold rainy day. I don't really use Martha's recipe, I just use it as a reminder for cooking times. I have been peeking at this exact same recipe a few times a year since college.

Nathan from McCall's had suggested instead of roasting my veg separate I place them under the bird. I just happened to have some new potatoes in the fridge.

And quite a few sprouts left on a branch of Brussels sprouts.

I prepped lemons from my tree for filling the cavity, rosemary and garlic.

And as you can see, I stuffed the rosemary and garlic under the skin. Please do not remind me that my bird is upside down.

Potatoes, Brussels sprouts, shallot and garlic with some looping drizzles of olive oil and sea salt.

After roasting, the veg came out nicely caramelized around the edges.

And the bird came out beautifully brown and roasted. Really, it was delicious and worth the spendy price. I am ashamed at myself for roasting the bird upside down. I have cooked exactly this method dozens of times, cooked no less than half a dozen Thanksgiving gobblers, and never ever cooked my bird upside down. Sigh.

Week 4: End to HFCS Week

2010-02-09T07:13:00.000-08:00

Yup, not eating HFCS was harder than I thought. Progresso soups? HFCS. My ponzu sauce? HFCS. Both out, the ponzu very painfully out. I also skipped adding the thick sweet brown fish sauce that comes on the side of my pho during one extremely rainy afternoon last week, assuming rightly I am sure, HFCS.

I also posted the caveat at the beginning of this project that I would allow myself two meals a week as a respite to the week's rule. This week I allowed myself three meals.

Meal #1: Shiro hosted dinner. I was hosted in an extremely gracious manner in return for some food photographing, I ate everything that was put in front of me including tastes of three different kinds of dessert.

Meal #2: DineLA dinner at Petrossian in West Hollywood. My meal consisted of bellini with caviar and creme fraiche, black truffle mac & cheese, pork belly in a cheesy polenta, and a strawberry balsamic panna cotta. I see ample opportunity for HFCS to hide in all of those dishes.

Meal #3: Superbowl buffet. Bratwurst, 1/2 a giant sugar cookies with the Saints fleur-de-lys on top, spicy-sweet salad dressing from a bottle. I am guessing they all had HFCS.

I am happy to kiss this week goodbye and unhappy to grudgingly acknowledge HFCS turns up literally everywhere you look. And since I was not particularly vigilant about my exercise regime, I plan to be doubly so this week with regard to the rule and the regime.

Week 4: HFCS Fail

2010-02-03T07:17:00.000-08:00

Insomnia. 2:30 am xanax. 7:30 am 1st grade class. Hence, 7:15 am coffee at client school site. Non-dairy powdered creamer, 2nd ingredient HFCS.

Two cups.

Week 4: Avoid Food Containing High Fructose Corn Syrup

2010-01-31T10:45:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-30T06:23:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-29T06:44:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-24T18:14:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-23T17:25:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-19T05:45:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-18T06:26:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-18T06:01:00.003-08:00

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

2010-01-11T08:52:00.000-08:00

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.

64 Weeks, 64 Food Rules

2010-01-09T07:29:00.000-08:00

This month esteemed author, food activist and professor of journalism at UC Berkeley has released to the public a pleasant little tome entitled Food Rules: An Eater's Manual. Food Rules offers advice to eaters based on Pollan's three previous works, the extremely well read and somewhat controversial Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (James Beard award winner for best food writing, one of NYTimes 5 best non-fiction books of 2006), Botany of Desire (discussing the co-evolution of plant and animal species), and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (explores the Western diet, our cultural relationship to it and the resulting effect of the food industrial complex created around it).

Nearly everyone I know has read Pollan, his articles, Omnivore's Dilemma, commentary about Pollan's theories, and commentary about the commentary. Personally, I found Omnivore's Dilemma (which I listened to as an audio book and turn to as reference OG book style many times) overwhelming. What is the answer to the whole food movement? How do I adjust and easily access the right meat, steer clear of too much corn in my diet, and pre-plan my life to avoid the pitfalls of industrialized and fast food? The very idea of encompassing all that Pollan expounds upon is utterly confounding. However, we as good readers, followers of media and informed eaters understand his theories to be sound and ideas to be well thought. Pollan is folk hero, media darling, a whole food protagonist of Leopold Bloom-ian proportions.

Food Rules excites me. It answers the question above, how does the average Joe (or Josephine) live in response to the style of consumption Pollan calls for? Food Rules is the condensation of all that Pollan expounds upon in his previous works. A set of rules to adopt for eating. Factored down to its smallest prime is the suggestion, "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants". The pamphlet-esque Food Rules explains this advice in three sections; advising the reader what Pollan considers food, what kinds of food one should eat, and how much. Sixty-four rules altogether. Let me qualify that by saying that in the introduction Pollan suggests adopting one rule from each section permanently. Finding a rule approach method to eating nothing new (eating for athleticism in my teens, vegetarianism in my twenties, Atkins diet in my thirties and so on), and wanting a new way to approach both eating and food blogging, I plan to go the distance.

Sixty-four rules in sixty-four weeks. One rule a week. Two meals per week as exceptions to the rule planned in advance. A normal life, complicated, hectic, spontaneous, uncertain, celebrational, stressful, and any other adjective one could think of to describe the modern condition. And this blog. How does each rule, one by one, affect my eating and all the other activities that occur in one's life around eating; the planned and the unplanned, cooking, dining out, travel, time with colleagues and clients, husband and family.

A food journey in sixty-four weeks. Sixty-four food rules.