foodmuseumblog

Foodie Praises the First Lady of Food, Michelle Obama

 

Barack O in Sweets Shop in Marquette, Michigan? Say What?

What are the chances? Two sweets ( candy) shops in the news in the space of two days!

Urban/Suburban Food Production: "The Vertical Farm," by Dickson Despommier

About this book: 

Big ideas---Stacked greenhouse food-growing, with recycled water, passive and active solar, and use of aeroponics and hydroponics, soil-free.

Excellent graphics, fine use of sub-heads, clear language, loads of white space.

But---Despommier refers to "nutrients" that will both nurture the plants, and provide the consumer with what she/he needs for health, but there is no definition of these. What are they and from what are they derived? Are they or are they not "chemicals?"

 

Summit Springs Farm, Maine: Yes, Virginia, There is A Spring(s) Out There Somewhere

Buried in this luscious snowscape is an organic farm, a CSA, run by delightful Mainiacs who happen to be family. They tell me the plan for 2011 is in place, the apprentices lined up, and in less than three weeks seedlings will begin to wiggle forth in the greenhouse.

The sous-farmer, an English major, writes the farm's blog. It's well worth a read.

We at The FOOD Museum salute the sowers and the seedlings of SSFarm, and all growers of good food everywhere, for their vision, pluck, and labors of love. And as for "pluck," how many among us knew that this perky noun also means " the heart, liver, lungs, and trachea of a slaughtered animal especially as an item of food," according to Merriam-Webster?!

Everything comes back to food, eh?  We all learn to make hay while the sun shines, we know certain things are not worth a hill of beans, we'll never bet the farm on derivatives, and at dusk, the chickens always come home to roost. 

Moderation at Meals, Excess in Watches

The Ozzies are reporting that people who pursued a weight loss program featuring low carbs were more depressed in the long run than those dieters who went low fat, even though both groups lost the same amount of weight.  I recall a few weeks ago I became testy after a 2 week almost no carb effort to jump start a return to moderate eating. MY GOD, I WAS GRUMPY. That's when I realized--hey--I need my lovely carbs, at least some.

And that's the point, isnt it? We need a happy melange of fat, carb, sour, sweet, salty, veg, vino, etc. I am noticing now, in maybe Week 12 of the "moderation diet," that I typically am eating half of what I used to eat at both lunch and dinner. Special occasions? Different. Less, but more than half. A special occasion is self-declared, incidentally, as well it should be.

So I can relate to the irritable, low carb, Down Underers.  What I cannot relate to, however, is Bernie Madoff apparently owning 17 Rolex watches.  How many clunky, ugly timepieces does one little guy need?

Homage to Norman Borlaug

Reading Randy Cohen's piece in the NYT this morning, in which he asks why people don't make more tv shows or films about "heroes" who do astonishing work without any need for guns, led me back to Norman Borlaug. He died recently, age 95.

Borlaug was a plant pathologist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work in developing and spreading around the world high yielding wheat varieties resistant to disease.  In 1986 he established the World Food Prize to honor those who had worked to lessen global hunger. He was close friends with one of our gurus, John Niederhauser, the legendary potato breeder who was a World Food Prize Laureate in 1990.

You can read about Borlaug in many places. Here at Wiki, and his NYT obituary here.

Early on, hungry people made an impression on Borlaug. In 1935, still a student,he was a leader in "the Civilian Conservation Corps, working with the unemployed on U.S. federal projects. Many of the people who worked for him were starving. He later recalled, "I saw how food changed them ... All of this left scars on me".

We had chatted with the engaging Dr. Borlaug on a few occasions, and recognized his and Niederhauser's shared global views,  deep intelligence, diligence and high energy. These were not narrowly focused office guys, diddling around 8 hours a day. They never stopped working.

Borlaug was attacked in later years by those who felt his approaches had led to ecological degradation and an over reliance on chemicals. In a NYTimes interview with John Tierney, he said, "...some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things".

He worked to lessen the use of pesticides, in the end, but continued to lament that governments were not doing more to address the world's burgeoning populations.

 We expect to have ample food to eat, every day, but we pay little attention to those whose toil provides it. Food production is not sexy, so don't expect a mini series on it any time soon.

Homage to Teddy, and Mocha Chip

Ted Kennedy was enjoying mocha chip ice cream, my personal fave, in his last days, according to this piece in today's WaPo.

While the Howard Johnson's Mocha Chip of my ( and Kennedy's) youth is long gone, the flavor has resurfaced in offerings from Starbuck's--Java Chip Frappuccino comes close. The Internets tell me that Honey Hut, in Cleveland, Ohio, sells a nifty mocha chip.

M. chip was one of the original 28 flavors of ice cream from Howard Johnson's menu--he started his business in Quincy, Massachusetts, with homemade ice cream, doubling the butter fat content, and attracting a slew of customers.  His first roadside restaurant in 1929 led to a chain of 400 by 1954. Cleverly, Johnson had forseen the need for family eateries along the nation's toll roads.

Alas, by the late 1970's, the Hojo roadside joint was fading, as the company zoomed into the lodging business. Thereafter the brand was bought and sold many times over.

Today there are 3 actual HoJo restaurants in operation, in Bangor, Maine, Lake George, NY, and Lake Placid, NY. I visited the Lake Placid place a few years back, and gorged on fresh onion rings, fried clam roll and, mocha chip ice cream. Heavenly.

FYI  Keep up with the HoJo saga here--apparently we may see a return of Hojo's!

Back from the Mountains

Plucking some chive and Italian parsley this morning with which to top my smooth, velvety scrambled eggs, eaten with buttered rye toast and Sumatran coffee, I pondered the food stories I might have addressed in recent days.

Or tried to. Oddly they have evaporated, after a brief and glorious camping trip in New Mexico's Pecos river region, our tent pitched beside a rushing stream at 8300 feet. While we observed fly fisher persons bringing in trout, we ate none, relying instead on tasty sushi from Trader Joe's,  and on a TJ  "felafel plate," a dry, tasteless loser of an entree, gotta say. And eggs, yet again.

Simple fare en plein air--a runny blue cheese, crackers, and a glass ( mug) of a decent Spanish blended red.

Guess I didn't miss much: Americans are still fat, Michelle Obama is deepening her interest in food and kids, and a wise Latina stays steady among the last gasps of Repub white guys in suits.

New: Engaging piece on Irish poet Seamus Heaney, whose musings on the potato we take delight in. He has just turned 70, and recalls an evening drinking poteen, home brew distilled from spuds, with another poet, Ted Hughes.

Bill Maher's Elusive Eating Habits

Apparently comedian Bill Maher doesn't eat anything from "the supermarket," nor anything that comes in cans or boxes. And he's healthy as hell. But nowhere on the Internets can I find what he does eat, and where he gets it. Does he grow his own veggies in L.A.?

A member of the board of PETA, Maher is not a vegetarian, but eats little meat. According to Wikipedia, he thinks high fructose corn syrup is a huge factor in Americans' obesity. I agree. And, he has a "very eccentric diet."

But what is it??

Anyone?  Does it really matter what Maher eats or does not eat? No. But still, I'm curious.

UPDATE:  Tks to commenter Andrea, I watched a new CNN clip with Larry King wherein  Maher describes his all-organic eating--when at home, where it's possible. A morning drink with raw egg, fruit, midday fresh veggie juice, grains..............at that point I think Larry lost interest, asking Maher if he ever ordered a steak in a restaurant ( LARRY!), but Maher went on to say "You can't make yourself miserable with your eating."   And stressed he's not perfect---Larry looked happier when Maher said he ate hamburgers on the road maybe twice a year.

Exquisite Excess

We have an unemployed, unmarried mother of 6 deciding she absolutely had to have more children; we have a whistle blower filled with info on the nefarious Bernie Madoff ignored for years by the SEC; we have our beloved and leguminous Peanut Corporation of America knowingly shipping out salmonella-afflicted products, inspection reports by the state overlooked by the overworked USDA, slapped in a file cabinet; we have Republican leaders deeply involved in the financial and international debacle of the past eight years whining and wringing their hands on tv because their wisdom is being overlooked----whatever!!

Justice: PCA filed for bankruptcy. Its CEO took the Fifth before Congress days before, his emails piling up as evidence against him.

Questions:  

Did Bernie's wife squirrel away $15 million in chump change before his arrest? Has she Madoff with it?

Where will the nation's Lovebirds in Chief have Valentine's Day dinner? ( In Chicago.)

What would happen if you didn't   A--pay your taxes; B--have a financial plan ready, accurate to the penny, as you are asking for,  ooh, billions of dollars?

Does anyone really like that bizarre red velvet cake?

We All Scream for (Clever) Ice Creams

You recall that Ben & Jerry's  launched Yes, Pecan!  ice cream to honor the election hoopla (Barack Obama?)

Well----if you haven't seen these flapping around the Internets--here are my favorite suggestions for ice creams "honoring" Prez 43. ( For the full list go here.)

Grape Depression
Heckuva Job, Brownie!
Cluster Fudge
Iraqi Road
Chock 'n Awe
Impeachmint

Let 'Em Eat Dirt--Those Not Invited to the Mugabe Party, That Is

In case you're into having a good time with a relentless dictator, here's Robert Mugabe's gustatory wish list for his February 21 birthday feast: (Apparently people/corporations are being asked to supply either the raw materials or large outlays of cash.)

2,000 bottles of champagne — Moët & Chandon and ’61 Bollinger
500 bottles of whisky — Johnny Walker Blue Label, 22-year-old Chivas
8,000 lobsters
100kg king prawns
3,000 ducks
4,000 portions of caviar
8,000 boxes of Ferrero Rocher
16,000 eggs
3,000 cakes — chocolate and vanilla
4,000 packs of pork sausages
500kg cheese
4,000 packets of crackers

All this while his country Zimbabwe is ravaged by assorted horrors. As reported by the Times OnLine--"...seven million citizens survive on international food aid, 94 per cent are jobless and cholera rampages through a population debilitated by hunger."

The Times notes a Mugabe caveat re local eats: “No mealie meal” — the ground corn staple on which the vast majority of Zimbabweans survived until the country’s collapse rendered even that a luxury."

President Mugabe will be 85. We have no idea who he is expecting to join him for dinner.

From Soup to Song: La Chorale sous les Etoiles

A Frenchman named Pierre Anthian had a notion:

According to a report in the Guardian Weekly, "I already had the idea of starting a choir when I was volunteering in a soup kitchen back home in France. I didn't want to just serve homeless people soup, as if I were a farmer handing out hay to a herd of cattle. I wanted to help them make something of themselves, to live with human dignity. 

Just as the idea was developing, I received my papers to migrate to Canada. I began volunteering in a soup kitchen again as soon as I settled in Montreal, but this time I didn't just ladle soup into the bowls of the homeless who queued up in front of me: I got to know them."

The result? The 12th year of the "homeless choir," in Montreal. Though they started out singing in the Metro, since that beginning they have performed widely, and recorded an album. And Anthian has moved ahead with varied plans for linking up homeless men with employment and educational opportunities.

See his website here.

( Photo by  Nachammai Raman.)

Food for Thought: A Contrast in Pilots

Yesterday, within hours of each other, two individuals in charge showed their stuff. Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger, III, drawing on years of training and experience, made a swift decision to land his crippled US Airways plane in the Hudson River, three minutes after takeoff from La Guardia. His astonishing skill, and his presumed calm, confident leadership, preserved the lives of everyone on board. And insured the safety of untold New Yorkers as he guided the huge plane into a slim ribbon of water in midtown Manhattan.

The other individual in charge? Incompetent, disingenuous, and pathetic.

People recognize what is palpable, genuine and substantive. We say goodbye and good riddance to a fear-full era of flabby, faux leadership. We embrace "the real stuff."

We welcome cooperation and self-lessness--witness the efforts of New York's ferry pilots, tugboat captains, random boaters, emergency personnel of all stripes, working together. We salute guts and discipline--witness the way the downed plane's crew and passengers reached safety.

We revel in the best that human beings can be.

Toasting Early This Year, As Lydia Makes Her Entrance

A new person entered our family late last night so the time for cork popping is clearly now. Welcome to the world,  Lydia, of Poland, Maine!  ( Over 9 pounds. )  Her parents, the farmers of Summit Springs, likely think she's cuter than chicks, noisier than their cats, and more cuddly than any of their parsnips, though I'm not quoting here.

So to salute her--ok, we did so earlier today, coffee mugs raised high --my choice is a Gruet Brut, grown and produced here in New Mexico by a French family that knows its methode champenoise.

From the Gruet website: "At 4300 ft. the vineyards are some of the highest in the United States, so regardless of how hot the days might be, the temperature at night can drop as much as thirty degrees, cooling the fruit and slowing down the maturation process on an otherwise short growing season. Sandy and loamy soil, and a lack of humidity that might contribute to rot, give us a consistency of fruit year in and year out, and allow us to produce our award winning wines without the use of pesticides."

Do not hesitate to try this bubbly---you can grab a bottle for as little as $12.95, and know that the bubbles will be just a tad reserved, not intent on exploring the inner caves of your nasal passages, and the taste pleasing and crisp.

Happy New Year, one and all, large and small!

Oprah Weighs 200, And Do We Mind? Should She?

Apparently the January cover of the O mag has a pic of the trim Oprah and the chunky Oprah, and inside, the chunky O evidently regrets same. So what?!  She's rich, influential, has a private chef...she's active, on-the-ball, and, ok, a tad heavy. Fortunately, she's given up trying to be "thin," but I really do not think she needs to stress out about this. Nor make other naturally larger persons feel badly about themselves. Of course, she is only 5 feet 6 inches tall..............uh oh.

Lou Dobbs Fired Up to Impeach Bush Over 'Mater Muckup

Really Angry Guy Lou Dobbs, of CNN, took a moment off from assailing illegal immigrants on June 19 and called for the impeachment of President George W. Bush over.............the salmonella tomato thing!  Could have knocked me over with a cutworm. Lou is hopping mad at the ineptitude of the FDA and wants to hold Dubya accountable at least on this one failure of leadership. Maybe Lou reads this blog, wherein I have stated more than once that protection of what we eat in this country is a major Homeland Security issue. YEAH!

"Food 2.0" Energizes!

Charlie Ayers is my kind of food guy and cook.  Most associated with being the fellow who "fed Google," he was the head chef there from 1999 to 2005, responsible for feeding 1500 people each day, 4000 lunches and dinners, in 10 cafes at Google's Mountain View, CA, campus.  His goal was to feed a diverse and smart group of people tasty, healthy food. Evidently, he succeeded.

His book , Food 2.0,  $25,  just published by DK Publishing, reflects his Google-ish commitment to  fast, unfussy, fresh food that might even push you into the genius category.  His tips upfront are utterly sensible and smart,  laid out with crisp, readable efficiency. What to keep on hand and how to keep it so that when the yen for a snack wafts over you, the veggie munchies are right there, ready to go.   I imagine he's the kind of person who stands at the fridge, eating a handful of blueberries, a couple of carrot sticks, a few lettuce leaves, and calls it salad on busy days.

What utterly won me over, however, was his love of full-fat, plain yogurt. He speaks my mind, indeed.  That ambrosia is good for the digestive system, satisfying, and bears no resemblance to the manufactured sweet, fruity little cupfuls of junk all over the supermarket. He also praises Trader Joe. Yes! Also: "Chocolate is a non-negotiable part of my life."

One of his early recipes is for "Mystery Fondue," made from assorted bits and bobs of cheese he saves up and then melts together with white wine and mustard seed.  And Apple and Brie Quesadillas, Silicon Valley Split Pea Soup, as well as Seared Southwestern Ahi Tuna Tornadoes, and a further slew of eclectic offerings.

The ahi is rubbed with a chile-spice mix, seared, and then wrapped in a tomato tortilla spread with a lime and spice avocado mayo and a stack of jicama, carrot, napa cabbage.....

OY--he even makes spinach latkes.

Food 2.0  is a solid and satisfying book, even in review-copy grainy black and white.  The retail hardback is in resplendent full-color from fabled Dorling Kindersley Ltd.

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.)

Steak vs Hamburger

With all the hooha these past few days about the appetite of a certain New York governor for youthful yet costly flesh apparently not available locally, I couldn't help but recall the jaunty response of Paul Newman years back when asked if he had ever been unfaithful to wife Joanne Woodward.

"Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?"  Such a romantic, that Paul!

Now-- we gals do not overtly welcome comparison to cuts of beef, but still, for a food blog, useful.