food museum blog

Not A Shopper, And Yet, When The Subject is Food...

Yours truly is not a shopper in the traditional, fully up-standing retail sense. Department stores dizzy me with their choices, as if I had just emerged from Soviet-era Albania minutes before. The sound of hangers being shucked across poles wearies me in 5 minutes. Fingering fabric swatches, standing dumbfounded in front of paint samples, lamely seeking out the appropriate lampshade, keeping in mind size, shape, color, fabric, price, I lose all brain function and, well.........

AAAAGHGH!

But food shopping? I am a whiz, a young Mozart, a whirlwind of  decisive opinionated energy in farmers markets, organic shoppes, grocery stores, and the like. I gaze at the tiny lavender eggplant, the crisp rainbow chard, the wormy, pure pale yellow corn, I fondle the peaches and tomatoes, oh so gently, so as not to offend,  and imagine meals  underway in my head, as I scoot from offering to offering. I know what's in the fridge, the pantry, what's on the counter. I grab quinoa, maple syrup, walnuts, tuna, korma sauce, mozzarella, and toss them into the cart, lingering over the wine choices a bit longer, but all with great pleasure.

Scanning menu choices? I choose well, intuiting what is  tastiest, least fluffed up and fiddled with. Eating companions often seem to lament, "Why didn't I order what you did?"

But that other kind of shopping?  ( Yes, I can putter  quite calmly, strongly and happily through thrift shops, antique malls, yard sales and the like, if I have eaten beforehand...)

Perhaps I am quelled by all things new, by that fresh, full-price aroma. But what is fresher than patty pan squash picked at dawn and sold to me by 7 am?

' Tis a puzzle I am pondering in the idle moments between food choices, tra la.

( Pic of woman shucking those hangers is from the Cotton Incorporated people at  http://www.cottoninc.com/CottonCandyPress/CottonCandyPressIssue3/and carries this caption: " The average amount of time women spend shopping for clothes on a monthly basis is 112 minutes.")

Prima Donna Heirloom Tomato Plant Produces ONE Fruit

Every day Foodie treks out to the veggie patch to munch superlative tiny round orange "cherry" tomatoes right off the vine and every day she glances at the magnificent outflung leafy green arms of her "Brandywine" tomato plant. It's huge, healthy, exuberant, and bearing ONE and only one fruit about 3 inches in diameter. The typical differently colored ribs of said heirloom fruit are starting to show.   Foodie hovers over the one fruit of the damned thing's loins wondering whether to set up a scaffold around it, or insure it through Lloyd's of London,  or place a net under it, in case of severe wind or whatnot from Mother Nature.
Now the words of one vendor at the local Farmers Market begin to make sense--"Those pesky heirlooms are a real pain to grow...." 
Hey--it's the desert here! Be grateful you have anything at all,  Foodie ! ( Right?) ( Maybe we didn't add enough compost....)

School Lunch Reform--A Full Report, PLUS " The White Meal"

The FOOD Museum's motto is from famed writer about food and eating, MFK Fisher, who said in an interview once, "First we eat. Then we do everything else."
Right--before we can build, paint, teach, fight, play, write, manage, jog,  organize, research, act, compete, we must be fueled.  This includes children, too, oddly.

How well are we feeding schoolchildren in the US? How well elsewhere in the world?  Morgan Sperlock, the fellow who ate McDonald's for a month and recorded his "findings" on film for his award-winning documentary "Super Size Me,"  has a book out called Don't Eat This Book.   In it he states: " Some 23,000 of our public schools now have fast-food franchises in them."   And, the US government tosses in vatfuls of surplus milk, cheese, and oodles of meat. Clearly we in the US are really really doing a swell job at feeding our kids at school.

But enough. The tide may be turning. For a full  and positive report on this topic, with sources, links and looks at countries beyond the US, please visit The FOOD Museum's newest offering compiled by Tom Hughes,  all about school lunch reform.

Hey--remember "mystery meat?"  Remember "the white meal?"  It appeared once a week when Foodie went to college back when dinos roamed the quad,  and she knows college kids are not school children but still, it was a school, and even then, before Foodie became, well, Foodie, she had been raised on tasty, healthy, colorful food. So "the white meal" really had an impact.
Now Foodie is willing to reveal the makeup of "the white meal," but first, let's see what you Blog commenters think it contained, ok?  Weigh in..........
   

Homage to HoJo's

Foodie is in mourning for HoJo's. Yes, the orange and blue joints with the fried clam rolls and the clam chowder and hot dogs served in that lovely grilled roll, perfect REAL fresh onion rings,  mocha chip ice cream, Simple Simon the Pieman and all that,  are "going the way of the Studebaker," according to a recent AP story.  Eight restaurants left out of 800, the once dominant Howard Johnson chain is dwindling away, with the Times Square HoJo's evidently doomed to die this month.

Curiously, as a kid Foodie and her family took car trips in first a dark blue, then a maroon Studebaker around New England,  stopping at assorted HoJo's along the way. (We could pick 'em! My dad also owned a wire recorder, not a tape recorder. EBay, take note.)  We usually piled into a booth but when things were crowded we perched at the counter, like sparrows on a phone line, three iced teas and an iced coffee.

Foodie is consoled by two things--one, her collection of HoJoabilia, including a way too modern 1970's plastic HoJo from a train set and a vintage 1950's HoJo bank, and two, the fact that she was able to take her own offspring to the odd HoJo's in his early years, once even driving miles out of the way to track one down.  Now the kid is 21 and none of us eats hot dogs, in truth, and Starbuck's  Java Chip ice cream is excellent, though it never will  eradicate the memory of HJ's mocha chip.  Sigh.

p.s.  Foodie and her niece, both devotees of Woolworth's lunch counters,  ate together at one on its closing day, each ordering the classic grilled American cheese sandwich and cup of tomato soup combo one last time.

Eat/Fiddle with Food Before You Die............!

The foodies over at the Observer Food Monthly in the UK decided to celebrate OFM's 50th edition by publishing "the top 50 things every foodie should do."  Resident Foodie zeroed in on a few of these suggestions, adding her spin.

Make toast    Thick slices dripping with butter, especially eaten with frothy hot chocolate a la francaise---in our new book, Gastronomie: Food Museums and Heritage Sites of France,   published this fall by Bunker Hill Publishing, we suggest you visit Chocolat Casenave in Bayonne to try this.

Boil a new-laid egg    First, take the egg in your hand, feel its warmth, marvel at it.  Put egg back, await chick. ( But first, ascertain a rooster has been involved.)

Dive for sea urchins-- Travelers to southeastern France, don't miss the "Oursinades" , sea urchin events held in Carry le Rouet, from December to February. ( see Gastronomie: Food Museums and Heritage Sites of France.)

Wolf down a hot dog on Coney Island  Foodie  passes on this one. Give me a ballpark dog anyday.

Take a coffee at Caffe Florian   For the Brits to write that "you will pay dearly for your tiny espresso,"  but do it, the scene is worth every penny, means that for Yanks traveling with the dead/doomed dollar, that viewing experience in the Piazza San Marco will probably cost more than a meal at one of Venice's terrific  hole in the wall joints well off the touristed piazzas.  So do it anyway.

Visit Highgrove   The P of  Wales' showcase for organic farming expresses the ideal.  We will be going there next trip for sure.   (  Just learned there may be a five year waiting list..........)

Eat chocolate cake in Vienna   Duh!

Queue for fish and chips    Frankly, my dear, Foodie would rather queue for fried clams and fresh onion rings . There's this terrific place in Point Judith, Rhode Island whose name escapes us but where the f.c.'s are  sublime.

Poach a snail   ( Are we pushing our book, or what??)    According to Gastronomie: Food Museums and Heritage Sites of France,  you can visit the escargotiere of Valerie Samac in Pouilly en Bassigny and observe all aspects of snail raising, snail cleansing, and snail cooking and tasting. Look for the big wood sculpted snail out front.

How Green was My Desert--Foodie Visits Canyon de Chelly

Foodie is just back from a brief hop into Navajo Country, visiting Canyon de Chelly and Monument Valley. It was not a visit replete with breathless gustatory moments---although the red chile beans and tortilla at the El Rancho in Gallup, New Mexico, were indeed tasty,  and the blue corn mush for breakfast at The Junction  in Chinle, Arizona was a pleasant surprise.

The major news?   Greenery.   The Canyon itself had been closed for a few days due to flooding of the canyon floor-----sage was thick and had filled in all the empty dirt patches all over this part of the world. Farmers could not get to their lands by truck ( no one walks down anymore as people did in the olden days) so no corn, beans or squash had yet been planted.  And cold temperatures were amazing the locals.  " By now it should be real hot down here,"  said one jewlery-seller on the canyon floor, who added he had not seen the land as  green for at least seven or eight years.

In Monument Valley we stayed at fabled Goulding's, a lodge started in the 1920's by a young couple  who built a trading post.  You can visit the original post, now a mini museum---canned green grapes were a big item with the Navajos along with huge sacks  of Blue Bird flour from Cortez, Colorado, a brand begun in 1920 and  still dominating  in the 21st century.  Blue Bird seems to be the only flour traditionally used by Navajos  to make fry bread, a delicious and popular lard-based dish that many think has contributed to the rise in obesity and diabetes among southwest Indians generally.

The vibrant blue bird on the cotton sack continues. ( Cortez Milling says it may be the last mill putting flour in cotton bags, used by generations of natives to make purses, clothes, even diapers.)
I bought a 25 lb bag at Basha's supermarket in Chinle for $5.33, and now it sits on my hearth, a colorful reminder of the cherished song of the blue bird at dawn in newly-green Navajo country.

( Photo from  philipgreenspun.com)

California's Sauvignon Blanc Challenges Chardonnay

     At last, vindication. Foodie has long grumbled about being tired of California Chardonnays, not the truly fine ones that Foodie cannot afford but hopes friends will bring over, but the regular  workaday ones that dominate the shelves.  Until just recently Foodie was forced to crouch down to root around on those shelves  for Sauvignon Blancs, struggling to maintain their place amongst the bullying Chardonnays.  Foodie enjoys S. Blancs greatly, and pounces on reasonably priced ones when she sees them.
     Evidently the LA Times reported several weeks ago that S. Blancs are now in, hot,  and "a priority" for the top California wineries. Now of course Foodie has been delighted at the tiny surge in availability of S. Blancs, perhaps because of her own personal predilections, but, now, well you can guess.  These wines are going to surge in price,  right?

     Sauvignon Blancs are often described as "grassy-flavored."  When did anyone last eat grass? Grass as in the lawn? 
     I prefer this description from the Ruston Family Vineyards in Napa of their 2002 wine.
"Our Sauvignon Blanc is quite rich for a white wine, with aromas and flavors of white flowers, melons, kiwifruit, citrus and cream, and a long, racy finish."   
     Yeah!

"Makes a Square Egg"

Idly casting her eyes across an array of rejected kitchen items at her local Goodwill recently, Foodie noted a small boxed item called EggCuber. And its banner headline , on all four sides of the box, was "makes a square egg."  But why do I want a square egg, Foodie wondered.

Foodie carefully read the directions, especially noting direction # 2: "Screw top down until egg becomes square. ( Best results if Egg Cuber has been chilled.)"  Mind you, Direction # 1 stressed the requirement of a "warm, peeled hard boiled egg."
So one must take a warm egg and screw it with a chilled Cuber. My, my.

But why do I want a square egg, Foodie wondered, again.

One panel of the box pictured a primitively drawn, puzzled chicken,  gazing down at the square egg she has just produced. The hen comments : "?#!! OUCH!"

Yes, friends, Foodie bought the golden plastic EggCuber for 99 cents, and walked out to her car having  vague thoughts of creating an homage to the Twin Towers in boiled egg.

Sheet-Rock---Art Carbs for the Food Weary

This little edible tidbit would utterly have passed us by, but--- as Foodie was reclining on her comfy bench having a second cup of java, and scanning an old NYTimes Book Review while glancing out at the birds chomping on proso millet and sunflower seeds,  she heard a report from NPR's Scott Simon about a woman who is chewing a wall. 

Foodie has eaten garden soil, because it smelled so sweet after a rain, and yes, some meadow grass once as a kid, after noting the great pleasure cows took in it, but sheet rock has thus far not proved enticing enough.  Yes, she has a dim recall of swallowing a miniscule morsel of chewing gum wrapping, the bit with a cartoon on it.  And tasting a teensy dollop of milky white latex paint.  Hmmm.  Maybe Foodie will survey Lowe's and Home Depot this weekend for enticing home improvement offerings---cedar closet panels have a lovely odor.
Anyway--more power to the artist.

Emily Katrencik has almost finished her 41 day experiment in building material dietetics but if you live in or near NYC you can still catch her act until the 27th of the month.

Here's how New York Press wrote up the story in its Volume 18, issue 7:

"Walls can provide privacy, comfort and protection, but they can also create boundaries that are hard to overcome. So artist Emily Katrencik, 29, is eating one. Starting on Jan. 1, Katrencik began ingesting 1.956 inches of sheet-rock wall per day. For 41 days she will continue to eat the wall in LMAKprojects' new gallery space in Williamsburg. Part artist's lab and part living space, the wall Katrencik is consuming actually separates the gallery space from director Louky Keijsers' bathroom. "So it's really intimate," Keijsers said. But Katrencik isn't eating the wall alone. Visitors can also participate by eating bread made with minerals extracted from the wall. The artist, who has a masters of science degree from M.I.T. in visual studies, has eaten walls before. In 1999, she ate part of one at the Carpenter Center, a building designed by Le Corbusier at Harvard."
       

LMAK projects Gallery, 60 N. 6th St. (betw. Kent & Wythe Aves.), Williamsburg, 718-599-0089; Fri.-Mon., 1-6, free.
            ---New York Press   www.newyorkpress.com

Note: Photo is to remind us all what a full platter of sheetrock looks like.

O Happy Valentine!

So some of you may be gliding through Val Day in your red Versace suits, okay, but others of us are still in our red fleece robes, having just tossed into the oven a rich and enticing sour cream coffee cake topped with pecans. Flour dusts the red robe, as well as the counter top. We're starting  February 14 with a fine damn homebaked item.  Then later---while Foodie's  ideal Val evening supper is champagne, oysters, good French bread with perfect butter, and then maybe a simple cream soup, followed by an intense slice of chocolate cake, in fact, she will probably serve up grilled salmon with a marmelade/mustard glaze, braised celery, and brown rice, avocado and grapefruit salad, maybe.
Foodie and spouse are NOT going out to eat.  Last year she was in France, tasting Tarte Tatin where it originated, this year, home. 
The thought of all that red, along with inflated prices...no, this year home.
At home my tulips are burnt orange, not red.  In just a few more minutes, Foodie will serve up coffee cake, coffee, and yesterday's Sunday Times.

And your gustatoryValentine treats, Bloggers?