food museum blog

Scary Sweet Alarms Young Gardener Before Halloween

A student assisting First Lady Michelle Obama and others dig up root veggies at the White House Garden today recoiled from the alarming sight of a giant sweet potato, dirt still clinging to its nether parts.

The fate of the sub-terrestrial beastly batata is unknown.

Tomato Glue

Anyone who has ever labored to clean tomato seeds from a wood cutting board knows their tenacity. ( Or maybe it's just me--I don't clean up that much as I go, much to the bane of Foodie Spouse ....)
My point is , why is  tomato seed glue not available at Ace Hardware? Why do I have to buy Gorilla Glue?
Once once begins thinking about it, what about bloody oatmeal, for lord's sake? Talk about cement.
And anything to do with flour, of course.
Meanwhile, I've noticed that an heirloom tomato I planted in a bin is putting forth abundant bloom, but is not setting fruit at all. This is a first, but so pleased am I with my bin zucchs, cukes and purple and white marble eggplant, I am not stressed about the tomato.
Just wondering about tomato seed-derived glue.

Planting for Pleasure at the WH

 

Delighted as I am about the White House veggie garden, as one of many who had suggested and pushed for it, now I am seeing certain of the media going on and on about what each herb "does," and what certain veggies and fruits "provide," as this is turned into an exercise in vitamins, minerals and carbs.

Healthy eating is just fine, mind you---but let's not wallow in weight loss and do's and don'ts.
Let's enjoy the beauty of plants, the delight of flavors and scents, the exuberance of good cooking, the sensuous freshness of the freshest, and all that.

Let's focus on the joy of being alive,  and celebrate with pleasure the miracle of what we eat.

( Photo above from Whitehouse.gov shows the garden being planted today with the help of 5th graders.)

Mega-Dieting Study Reveals the Obvious

Apparently a full-fledged, deep, lengthy, costly (?,) study of weight loss efforts indicates that it doesn't really matter that much whether you suck eggs, eat antelope livers, or wolf down masses of pickled beets, you will lose weight ONLY if you eat less than you do now.  Low fat, low carb, high fat, high carb, so what.

The reference to the study eludes me, perhaps because I yawned through its findings.

Eat less, enjoy what you eat, move more.

ps   Still, I favor the Mediterranean style of eating, along with loads of walkies.

Simple Perfection

Over the weekend I visited a friend of mine who now lives in a Medicaid-funded  nursing home. She's 88 and no longer can walk.  Once a superb cook with a spectacular home in Tiburon, California, for years she ran a private hospital with her husband and together they traveled the world three months out of 12. Now her world is one room, with a supine, deaf roommate, and a sliver of a view of the Sandia Mountains here in Albuquerque.

I always try to bring her something delicious to eat--she loves sushi, dark chocolate, strawberries, rare steak, soups of all kinds.  This time I brought a tomato from a farm stand.

As I cut it in wedges for her, she breathed deeply of the tomato's aroma. "Ah," she said. "It's such a distinctive perfume, isn't it?"  With the first bite, she beamed like a baby experiencing its first taste of ice cream. "What could be more perfect!"

It's not often one can deliver perfection to a friend. I silently thanked the veggie gods, the farmer, the farm stand, the trusty old Volvo that carried me there, and on and on. And contrasted, briefly,  the authenticity of that tomato with the artificial fruit served up to us by political campaigns of late.

Food No-No's, Parents!

The NYTimes describes her as a "childhood nutrition instructor," in its recent piece titled 6 Food Mistakes Parents Make.  Harriet Worobey, the person behind the 6 Mistakes, is director of the Rutgers University Nutritional Sciences Preschool in New Brunswick, N.J., but before we explore what that's all about, let's look at the mistakes you parents are making.

1--Sending the kids out of the kitchen      Ok, so, back in the days when people had tiny, hot kitchens fired up by woodburning stoves, and nine kids, maybe Mom sent a few packing, as in "you're underfoot--go out and play." Today's families have ample kitchens, many a part of the "family" room ( formerly the "living room,") and I doubt they are even able to banish their offspring from them.
And sending kids "out to play" has gone the way of the dodo, if my own extended family is any indication. Kids not inclined to hang around the kitchen retreat to darkened rooms to  stare at large, colorful screens, and play things.
2--Pressuring them to take a bite    OY!  This is obvious. Who among us wants to try  Dog Paw Sechuan-Style if urged on by another pushy adult ? Left to our own devices, the aroma, color and foreignness of the offering will entice us completely unaided.
3--Keeping good stuff out of reach--my sainted mother tried this, once, with Hydrox Cookies, the former competitor to Oreos. ( Our household was always "different"--Hydrox instead of Oreos, Studebakers instead of Fords, Tru-Ade ( rarely!) instead of Coke,  etc., etc.) My brother found them instantly, over the fridge, and ate the whole bag, washed down with a quart of milk.
4--Dieting in front of your children--No one dieted in the 50's and 60's , did they? Anyway, this is apparently a potentially sensitive mother-daughter thing. Moms should never make their daughters feel  weird about themselves, and grownups should be leading active lives and eating tasty, fresh food in moderation.
5--Serving boring vegetables--Or boring hunks of pale pork, for that matter. My solution to "boring" is a shaker filled with red chile, spices, low salt--works for everything, except maybe pancakes. The word "boring" in front of veg is annoying to me, however, as is the eternal use by journalists of the word "lowly" in front of potato, along with writing of  the "wrath" of assorted hurricanes. Leave "wrath" to describe your cranky old uncle, people.
6--Giving up too soon--Good point. By the time your kid is 18 and ready to feed her/himself at some university or trade school,  she/he will still be alive on whatever she/he eats---kids go through odd eating phases--No white foods! Only white foods! Hotdogs and white rolls only! Plain pasta! Pink ice cream!

Mind you, my dear Auntie once tried the "never give up" route and left me at the dinner table for what seemed like hours as I refused to eat my clammy, cold overcooked peas. ( In fairness, they were probably fresh peas, as my Uncle was a farmer, but I have hated peas from birth, so...) I was a stubborn mite, and was released from the table at some point, peas still on the plate, as I am here today in my office writing about this utter  failure in semi-parenting.

The aforementioned pre-school is apparently a "lab" school where 4 year-olds are used as "lab rats" to test food-centered curricula. This cannot be bad, right?

But I jest....in this fine country of ours we have "childhood nutrition instructors," but evidently ( in Alaska) we have few experts instructing parents on how to guide their kids towards responsible sexual behavior, as in avoiding pregnancy before reaching the lofty peaks of adulthood.

The Pleasures of Dirt-Riddled Labor and Good Eats

For a few days now, I and two old pals have been working at Summit Springs Farm in Maine, owned by my nephew and his wife.  Picking beans, weeding parsnips, beans, and eggplant, picking tomatoes, and moving a chicken coop, afflicted with too-small tires, and filled with over 100 pounds of hen.
( There are 48 laying ladies on the farm.)

And today we finished tending the strawberry bed, yanking weeds,  plucking out runners and tossing them in buckets for planting tomorrow, possibly.

After days of rain the fields are dense with moisture---the sweet dirt quickly becomes embedded in our fingers, as well as our clothes, and earthy warpaint  blotches our faces.

Glorious!  Between rounds, we stretch out on the grass, sucking on water bottles filled with the finest spring water, straight from the tap. We enjoy superlative meals from veggies that need never know a fridge, and eggs warm from the straw.  ( Plus fried clams with fat bellies, from a local joint nearby.)

Shouldn't these young farmers turn this place into a retreat, a spa, a B&B, a farm holiday destination??? 

Food News From All Over

Recent food reports tell us that A---women eat less in times of famine, as they provide for their children and husbands first, B---low carb diets, as well as the Mediterranean diet, work far better than low fat diets, and C--jalapeno peppers may be the salmonella culprits, and that $100 million in losses later tomato growers are looking at cooking up a mess of marinara sauce.
A--Duh!
B--Duh!
C--OK, not so obvious...

Oh, and this reported in The Guardian from Angela Hartnett, a Brit chef acquainted with Michelin stars, her own, that is: 
"What's the best/worst thing about the British food scene?
The best? Hmmmm. The worst is that we think we're now a nation of foodies and we're not. Oh, and I think it's really bad that good food costs so much and bad food is so cheap. That's wrong."

As noted in an earlier post, I am finally reading Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, written with contributions from family members, and it truly is more than it seems. As many of you know, she recounts with sly humor a year of eating locally, most from their own 40 acres in Virginia, but also examines with graceful precision a range of food issues. The perils of cheap food, raising and dispatching animals, infusing unexpected recipes with veggies, organic vs sustainable et al, and more. A bonus: simple, straight-forward recipes, plus, an invitation to make cheese. I plan to try this asap.

Further Shameless Pandering to the Press by Summit Springs Farm, Maine

Apparently earmuffs were invented by a Mainiac but those are not needed at the mo' in the rain-soaked state. Our favorite Down East farm couple, John and Sonya, are working long days to bring produce to the vegetable-deprived of urban Maine.  Watch Sonya unveil the current CSA offering in the latest videogram from local tv reporter Sharon Rose of WCSH.
( Go to the upper right corner.)

Eat Your Veggies, Yes--But Why Keep Slurping Down Milk?? Plus: Talks Bring Food to North Koreans

The New York Times today is offering us the following: The 11 Best Foods Your Aren't Eating, , a riff on a milk jug, and news on food relief workers finally being allowed into North Korea.

Among those foods are beets and chard, both frequently eaten favorites among my people, and both recently purchased freshly picked at dawn from the farmers of Corrales ( NM) Farmers Market. The provocative headline is meant to get us going, natch, though it reminded me sadly of the times I have stood in line at a traditional supermarket holding an array of veggies seemingly unknown to the checker.

Apparently there's a new, more eco-friendly, less expensive milk container out there being used by Walmart and Costco that has hard core milk drinkers in a tizzy because it doesn't pour well. Or perhaps it's just "new" and not everybody can handle Change. ( Uh oh...)   Now some in the UK have designed some more genuinely eco milk containers, or so it seems to me. Take a look at "Nice Jugs."
All that aside, why are people still lugging and chugging milk?!  Cow's milk is for baby cows, after all. You get far more usable calcium from munching almonds and eating kale than from drinking milk, people. Without the gas and the bloating and, and....

Finally, the North Korean government has both shut down its nuclear programs--or at least begun the process-- and also decided to allow international aid workers into the country bearing food. This after several  nations sat down to talk together--the so-called "six-nations," whose diplomats labored long, include the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the U.S. Remember diplomacy? It works!

( Green milk cartons thanks to http://www.daylesfordorganic.com/icat/milk.)