food museum blog

Eat Crap, Win Voters' Hearts and Minds?

In between mel0dramatic reports on lame bowling skills and memories of shooting ducks as a wee lass and all the flotsam and jetsam of American political discourse, I have noted disparagement of Senator Obama's campaign eating style. Apparently he doesn't finish all his waffles!  He shies away from fat-laden nightmares like Philly cheesesteaks ( I may be making this one up) and so on. He's not into multiple brewskies, either.

So the guy is trim, healthy, and against all the odds during this marathon primary season, he wants to stay that way and hold off the carbs. What a nutcase!  What a crappy exemplar of all that is American!

Please, superdelegates, end the agony soon so that Barry O' can take a break to revisit farmers markets and Senator Clinton can hole up in her Georgetown home tossing back whatever she damn pleases.

This tidbit from the NYT a few days back may amuse....

ps  Not getting into the use of "waffle" as a verb...

(Thanks to http://www.easywafflerecipe.com/ for handsome, healthy-looking waffle photo.)

Fresh Food's Tiny Space

Just a quick thought--my local ( this winter) Publix supermarket is gigantic yet its produce area is tucked into a tiny space way in the far corner of the joint. Here lie the "fresh" fruits and veggies that are supposed to make up the bulk of what we Americans are urged to eat, far too many of them packed and sealed under cellophane, the food, that is. The rest of the store is stuffed with acres of processed foods, some cleaning items, some pet food, and so on. Yet the produce arena is pathetically small.

ps The produce section backs up to the bakery, for which Publix is favorably known, apparently. Hydrogenated fats still are rampant here. No thanks.

St Pete Saturday A.M. Market Shines

Yesterday was the season opener for the downtown St Petersburg, FL, Saturday Morning Market, a festive melange of crafts, food vendors, music, and not enough (organic) fresh fruit and veggie sellers. ( Regular readers of this Blog know my peeve with Florida...) The Market is a volunteer effort, unfunded by the city or state, and in just five years it is the largest and most visited in the Southeast, according to market manager Mark Johnson.

Caribbean smoothies made with generous amounts of fresh fruit and little ice, a fine selection of Italian artisanal breads and goodies,  superlative gelato that immediately dripped and melted on my running shorts, thus proving not only that I am a messy eater but that the gelato is the real deal, and corn-based pairs of waffles surrounding melted mozzarella cheese-what are they??-- all were being hawked at the market.

Johnson told us they like paying attention to the community-building details--all vendors wear name tags, for example. And the cafe tables that run down the center of the market all have small floral bouquets on them.

NB Good news on the fresh veggie front:  Sweetwater Organic Community Farm in Tampa is a CSA that also has an on-site farm market every Sunday from November through May. Yes!

( Happy market shoppers and fish monger courtesy http://www.saturdaymorningmarket.com/

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Fishless Florida and No Albanian Specialties

As has happened to me before in Florida, I was standing dully in front of the fish section at a typical supermarket noting the lack of anything from Florida, fishwise.  Farmed salmon from Chile, tilapia, Idaho trout....Rita the fish  person then regaled me with the entire Florida fish saga--(there isn't any in supermarkets--but that just goes along with the fact that frequently there isn't any Florida produce there, either--) and suggested I had two options--Florida Gulf shrimp or Cedar Key oysters, and she was out of the latter.

I took the shrimp.  I will do it up with fresh linguini, garlic, a tad of NM red chile, some basil,white wine--you get the idea.

Then I stopped at a fruit/veggie stand run by an Albanian guy. This time I found a few bearably priced items, including, amusingly, very inexpensive Macintosh apples, presumably because they are NOT ICKY SWEET. ( Pardon me.)

He also carries feta from France, Greece, the US and Bulgaria but not Albania. In fact when pressed about Albanian food specialties by your intrepid reporter, after a long pause he said flatly, " We eat like Greek. Exactly like Greek."

( BTW Note to Self--Follow Up---Wikipedia reports there's a huge fan base forAlbanian cuisine ( whatever that may be) in Liverpool, England.)

The only Albanian product he sells is bottled water....I went off into a dreamlike state, recalling once years ago gazing across from southern Italy at unvisitable More Communist Than Thou Albania, shrouded in fog...

How many Albanian Leks does the bottler make on each bottle shipped to Florida? Why are we  Amurricans dumb enough or snobby enough to purchase water from distant parts of the world, Fiji, for example?

I bought some Bulgarian feta in order to reach the $5 mark and use my debit card.

( Thanks to http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/al.html for this image of the robust Albanian flag.)

Munching on Mazzaro's', With A Visit to Come

I haven't even stepped foot in Mazzaro's Market yet, the legendary Italian deli in St. Petersburg, FL, and already I am swooning--because--last night Foodie Spouse, whom I am visiting in St Pete--( he's on a job)- surprised me with delectable calamari salad, breaded grouper with horseradish, eggplant involtini, and bread---a traditional yeasty wreath bread--along with a mighty fine Pinot Grigio, as crisp as the supper required.

Apparently Saturday is the not-to-be-missed day, when people gather from all over town to have coffee, and begin leisurely breakfasts that meander into lunchtime, along with wine tastings.

Mazzaro's started out as a coffee roasting operation in a warehouse section of town....did I mention the fresh pasta offerings?

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.")

Those #$?%&*!! Blue Booze Laws

Yesterday morning I was loading up at Trader Joe's, after being away a bit, and when I pushed the cart over towards my favorite el cheapo Pinot Noir, GASP!, that annoying white rope was up in the wine department, like limp tinsel  on the mis-shaped  last-tree-in-the-lot on Christmas Eve.

Grrr....The so-called Blue Laws passed during Depression-era years used to bar liquor sales anytime on Sunday. Here in New Mexico one may not purchase alcohol before noon on the first day of the week.  This website indicates that 19 states still have Blue Laws on the books. ( Many communities have their own laws re booze, also.)

Now--I have a crazy nostalgia for the time when nothing much was open on Sunday and people took a break from consuming and mindless shopping. But in today's economy, with many people working multiple jobs, Sunday shopping is probably here to stay.

So each time I encounter that rope, I ask---what, are we babies? Do they think we will tap the bottle open on the floor and down the Pinot by 9:30 am well before the 11 am service?  What is this about?

Another law encountered here is that underage checkers cannot touch the booze that lurks among the tp, celery, and dog chews in your groceries---only a "mature" individual who has undergone rigorous training in the reading of drivers licenses can do so.  Does this law protect the young checker from a life of decadence and debauchery? Is it in place to irritate eldery tipplers? Wha?

Please advise.

More Lavish Than Thou--Texas' Central Market

A while back we were wandering through the HQ and flagship store of Whole Foods, in Austin, Texas, our tongues hanging out at the over-the-top displays, the islands where chefs cooked assorted aromatic cuisines, and so on, when we bumped into a woman who waved a hand at it all and said--"This is nothing compared to Central Market."

Hmm. We are heading to one of the Central Market locations in the Dallas area this week. And have just noticed that Central, along with a few others, has been named "Outstanding Specialty Food Retailer," by the National Association for Specialty Food Trade.  ( NASFT produces  Fancy Food Shows around the country, including the one in San Francisco we have attended a few times, waddling away fatter and happier, and laden with samples.)

According to the San Antonio Express News,

"The winners are the definition of a successful specialty food store: They provide excellent customer service, introduce their communities to products not found in mainstream grocery stores and strive to stock the highest-quality, exclusive products that are not mass-produced," said New York-based NASFT. "

Other winners--New York's Fairway Market, Chicago's Pastoral, Sickles Market in New Jersey, Ohio's Dorothy Lane Market and Utah's Liberty Heights Fresh.

These places could be terribly high end, of course, even a tad precious---the home page of NASFT is currently waxing lyrical about a Turkish pudding called sýtlaý. Whole Foods is hardly a discount food joint, for that matter. We will check it out.

ps  Central Market apparently offers 700 cheeses.............

( Run-of-the-mill take-home item from Central Market in photo--http://www.centralmarket.com/cm/cmCafeOnTheRun.jsp)

Bravo Delhaize! The Greening of the Supermarket--Part One

Back in the olden days, when we lived in Brussels, no supermarkets ( there were no mega grocery stores either)  offered plastic bags, or bags of any kind, for that matter.  Then slowly they crept in and you could get them, but you had to pay for them. After that, the bags were available for free.

Now, according to a piece from expatica.com, supermarket chain Delhaize has announced it will no longer hand over free plastic bags but will sell you a reusable biodegradable bag for Euros 0.05. Most such bags are made of corn starch, sometimes potato, too--with sugarcane, cassava and soy also now being tapped to replace plastic, especially in Brazil.

Earlier this year:  "On 1 January 2007 Delhaize also made a complete changeover to renewable energy from hydro-power plants on the Rhône. Delhaize says this move has made it the largest consumer of green energy in Belgium."

Delhaize Group owns supermarkets elsewhere in the world, including the Food Lion stores in North Carolina. ( It operates 1500 stores in 16 eastern US states.) The symbol of the company has always been the lion, starting back in 1867 when Jules Delhaize began the company.

As the company history relates:  "Jules Delhaize, professor of commercial sciences, dreamt of revolutionizing food retailing in Belgium, creating a branch network, charging set prices and cutting down on the succession of intermediaries by opening a warehouse. He was helped in this by his brother Edouard and his brother-in-law Jules Vieujant, also teachers. For their new company, they chose the lion, the symbol of strength, which is the emblem of Belgium, together with its motto: unity is strength."

Another historic supermarket chain--past its glory--the Great Atlantic and Pacific Company or A&P, founded in 1859 in New York by two tea and spice merchants--is selling reusable heavy duty plastic bags at its stores.

We know other retailers are contributing to this trend--one hitch--the consumer must remember to bring the bags into the store...and then back out to the car, or bike, or stroller again for the next time.

More on Eastern Market, DC--PLUS--Cleveland's West Side Market

Our friend Marc, long-time Capitol Hill resident and supporter of The FOOD Museum, sent us this update about the Market recently devastated by fire:

"I went down to see Eastern Market yesterday. The good news is that the building is basically structurally sound. The good news is that the building is basically structurally sound.  The bad news, as I realized only after seeing Tommy (the crab cake guy) out
front with Mrs. Calamiris, from the vegetable market, was that the
vendors have lost their livelihoods.  It's hard for me to believe that many
of them were insured against these losses. 

The city, which appears to have a functional mayor for the first time in thirty years, is working
hard to keep the market going in the school yard across the street while the building is reconstructed; but the damage was severe and it's going to be a very difficult time."

Contributions to help rebuild Eastern Market can be sent to http://www.capitolhillcommunityfoundation.org/

Blog reader Walt, from Cleveland, laments that we have not listed West Side Market on the website. ( Note: Many markets around the world will be part of our new updated Global Food Heritage Listings, being worked on now.)

Here's the market described at Project for Public Places:   "The West Side Market is easily visible by its large clock tower and has been for 90 years. It is easily accessed by public transportation, foot, and car. It is a stop for tourists from near and far. The area surrounding the market is evolving into the culinary district with nearby ethnic restaurants, a brewery, apartments, condominiums, and an upcoming retail area in an historic building with complementary small businesses (home decor, wines, candles, etc.) The West Side Market is the place to shop whether you make $15,000/year or $100,000 a year. It is the place to shop if you are a new citizen to Cleveland or have lived here for 80 years. Cleveland is home to more than 75 different ethnicities and the market is that central place to shop no matter what language you speak."

( West Side Market clock tower pic from http://www.csuohio.edu/ce/programs/iep/ielp_cleveland_photo_gallery.htm)