food museum blog

A Picnic for Christmas

When you have abundant access to Florida's soft air and palm trees,  and a stellar park with a sweeping promenade along a bay, why not have a Christmas picnic?  So we did,  right down to the deviled eggs, cole slaw and potato salad. The smoked salmon came from Ted Peters' Smokehouse  nearby,  the avocados from the lustrous tree behind our rented bungalow. We hauled table and chairs, wine and bread, right to the edge of the water, the grass behind us filled with dog walkers, joggers, and flyers of newly obtained kites and model planes. And in front? Tens of terns, curious gulls, and water-skimming pelicans!

It was a Christmas dinner unlike any other.

Pipe Down and Eat Those Leftovers!

Many of us try to make the glories of Thanksgiving last, right? The trick for the chief cook is to see how long she/he can go without actually cooking post-feast. One just keeps directing family members to the fridge and the microwave.  Guilt may rear its head when an offspring is observed eating a huge plate piled only with carb-laden stuffing, but still.

You want what?  A salad?  Just grab that bag of greens and stuff a few handsful into your craw, dear. ( Hey--it works for me....)

Thankful for Genuine Food, Friends and Family

Not to put you off your feed or anything, but I have finally started reading Michael Pollan's way too informative book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and nightmareish visions of herbiforific cattle forced to eat corn, chicken nuggets spun from artificial ingredients, and monstrous-sized soft drinks being slurped up by my fellow Amurricans has quite unsettled me.

And yet, I must consider starting to cook. ( Unthinkable almost, that one might prepare food, like, ahead of time ? )  I am drying out trays of bread in my kitchen, prior to making dressing/stuffing. I am eyeing the sweet potatoes, still called "yams"  by supermarket folks no matter how incorrect---yams are utterly different unrelated tropical roots most likely originating in Africa and not even grown in these USA's, as far as I know. 

But I digress--a pal of mine, an exemplary cook, suggests that I need not cook my sweet pots a bit before roasting them-- simply toss them in olive oil, add the shallots, and just roast them. OK!

On the one hand, it's just a meal, albeit more Gargantuan than usual. On the other hand, Thanksgiving dinner, with its family rituals, and often unusual mix of invitees--when I was a kid, my Dad was always inviting last minute guests from abroad, people on business who had little acquaintance with our holiday-- is a time to focus on what is genuinely of value. Human beings eating in peaceful, celebratory fashion together. Lovely.

p.s.  Once, several years back, living in northern Virginia, we decided to have a tropical Thanksgiving---we had wild colors decorating the table, tropical fruits and colorful veg, a major slab of fish, and so on. We enjoyed it, mostly, though the mother-in-law grumbled a tad about the absence of bird. Yes, it was fun, but it wasn't quite right.

(Pic courtesy www.thanksgiving-corner.com)

Thanksgiving Dinner Thoughts, PLUS, Confessions of A Retail Saboteuse

Martha's Living is all into briny turkey,  though the November cover features a turkey grilled in Texas, the WaPost wants me to crush the bird's backbone,  and Gourmet is offering a maple-glazed bird. Every autumn the home and food mags twist themselves inside out to do something "fresh" with America's own gobbler. But some of us say, hey, it's a large fowl, so roast it like a chicken, already. Big whoop.

Appropriately, the beast is not my assignment this Tgiving---I am working my mind around a new approach to sweet pots, sticking to the same old, same old for mashies made from Yukon Golds, and pondering a creamy leek gratin dish (from ?? ) instead of creamed onions with sherry/bourbon/brandy or whatever. The leek recipe is too rich but will do, once I am finished making it simple, stupid.  And I am building a crunchy offering from a base of Belgian endive.

So I was fondling the B.E. the other day in my local Sunflower Market when my red pencil eyes noted the labeling above the endive basket--"Belguim endive."  Now this is so wrong. First of all, the glorious country of Belgium is spelled incorrectly. But, more to the point,-- Do we say France toast? Or England mustard?  Or Spain onions? Come on!  ( OK, Vienna sausage...)

But when I gently asked the produce guy to correct the label to read "Belgian endive", he looked at me as if I were the village crank, ( testy older dame, more like,) and said, "It's that way in the book."  "Well in that case "the book" is incorrect," said I.  He waved the little sign around a bit, huffed and puffed, and then graciously waved me off.  ( I didn't go into the pronunciation of endive, honest!)

Of course he didn't know with whom he was dealing....I asked the checker to show me "the book," where, voila, "Belgian endive" appeared.  So.........On my next visit to the store, I wandered over to the endive to eyeball the sign. Same one, unchanged. Armed and dangerous, I whipped a Sharpie out of my pocket, plucked out the label, turned it over, wrote the veg up properly, reinserted the label, and sidled off.

Off the subject, but still---  If you happened to be in Lowe's in St Pete, Florida this October and wondered who had unplugged all the Christmas singing merry-go-rounds and talking Santas, wonder no more.

( Thanks to http://www.belgianendive.com/ for the pic.)

Cranberry Harvest Time

Looking ahead to a bountiful Thanksgiving Day feast, I always like to spotlight the people who bring us our food favorites, such as the cranberry, an American native.

Happy Rosh Hashanah!

Upbeat Food News--Be Happy!

OK--loyal commenter Rose thinks we may all need a breather from bad food news....it's the weekend, it's June 1--hey--let's lighten up already!! Come on!

For  foodies in search of a silly celebrity eating website to waddle through, try this.

Old news--but we are all delighted to know that philanthropist Paul Newman of the salad dressing-turned-food empire--oh and that movie actor guy with the mega blues--has opened a restaurant in Connecticut.

It's called The Dressing Room, as it's attached to the Westport Country Playhouse, and the chef is Michel Nischan. His new book is Homegrown and Simple--and one of the signature entrees on the menu is Yankee Pot Roast, a dish at which my New Englander mom was the undisputed champ, back in the ancient days when we all ate meat.

As The Dressing Room website puts it: "We are committed to supporting local and regional farmers, fishers and producers by cooking food that recaptures the simple and pure tastes found in locally grown, natural and organic ingredients. We strive to raise awareness of a more sustainable food future, while helping to restore a sense of community that brings us back to a more homegrown time."

And finally, from Funny Food, here are some incredibly sophisticated jokes to enliven your weekend.

Tasting Not So Locally ( Like, Irish) and Loving It

We were invited to a St Patty's eve event in New York at the Irish Consulate featuring foods of Ireland, The Food Island, as their( food ) promotion board, Bord Bia, charmingly puts it.  So determined were we to attend that we slogged there from up the Hudson on a bus through a blinding snowstorm, and then walked to the event, plunging into vast puddles of icy slush several inches deep---BTW, gal New Yorkers by the dozens were wearing gayly colorful tall rubber Wellies--I was in my slippery black leather boots--oy!

Once there, with a soft Irish whiskey in one hand and a taste of Irish smoked salmon in the other, I gazed over at a table of artisanal cheeses and realized I was violating every tenet of the Eat Locally camp. Big time. Now, I am not a card carrying member of that religion. But-- as the Bord Bia representative was urging us all to " buy and consume more high quality Irish products," I was tasting superlative extra sharp Irish cheddar and feeling serious guilt about considering tossing overboard my friends at Cabot Cheese in Vermont... 

Of course, as you alert readers know, who am I kidding, I live nowhere near Vermont. I'm in New Mexico--I can count on excellent  wine, great chiles, apples, goat cheese, and the typical summer provender locally, yes.  I am not aware of anyone making cheddar cheese here.  As you also know, I am a Trader Joe's fan--how unlocal can one get? ( Some baked goods are indeed local.)

So why was I having pangs in the midst of enjoying great Irish fare?  Nuts! I gave it up and went for the hand dipped chocolates. Belgium should start worrying.

Oh-- and yes, we had no potatoes.

(Pictured is Ireland's Cashel Blue---http://www.formanandfield.com/cashel-blue-p-132.html)

In Belgium

Thick fog outside and a hearty potato and corn chowder inside, with dried red chile and chopped green chiles and grated Emmenthal, and a myriad of Belgian beers and French wine and a cozy family gathering at a friend's borrowed house in the countryside outside Brussels.  Oh--the bread!  The cheese! And tomorrow, oysters and crevettes grises, the tiny shrimp from Belgium's coast, and braised Belgian endives and turkey and celeriac salad and more, including a chocolate Buche de Noel.

We send warm  greetings to you all.

( Belgian beer poster from http://www.belgian-beer.net/images/belgianbeers.jpg)

Post-Prandial Post

Like many of our fellow Americans yesterday, we thrust ourselves away from the groaning board to lie groaning, but not bored, in front of a crisp, warm fire, with visions of letovers dancing in our heads. Yes, Thanksgiving is just a meal made large, but with loving friends--no family this time-- and a toast to "absent friends," in the Brit tradition, we embraced the bounty of all of life. ( Meanwhile, 7 hours ahead of us, Foodie Son enjoyed a full veggie Tgiving with fellow expats and friends in the UK.)

And, no, we are not headed out today to BUY, though we know it is our patriotic duty t0 do so. But--- our local coffee joint is offering free espresso shots all day today, under the rubric "shots until you drop,"  so maybe I will just have to check that out.  Amurrica the Bountiful.