To use dried chestnuts, they must first be reconstituted in simmering water. After about an 45 minutes, they were soft and delicious. I've seen mashed chestnuts on menus, so went at them with a potato masher. They didn't react as I expected. The chestnuts became lumpy and meal-like, almost like a very dry pasta dough. I then put them through the food processor and the effect was magnified. As polenta is a natural pairing with short ribs, I decided to go out on a limb and treat the meal like cornmeal polenta.
Monday, December 28, 2009
A New Use For Chestnuts
To use dried chestnuts, they must first be reconstituted in simmering water. After about an 45 minutes, they were soft and delicious. I've seen mashed chestnuts on menus, so went at them with a potato masher. They didn't react as I expected. The chestnuts became lumpy and meal-like, almost like a very dry pasta dough. I then put them through the food processor and the effect was magnified. As polenta is a natural pairing with short ribs, I decided to go out on a limb and treat the meal like cornmeal polenta.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Into the deep blue sea...
Into the deep blue sea...
Originally uploaded by Utter Brandomonium
I hadn't been to a truly industrial supermarket in a while.
Christmas Eve day, I ran to the A&P to get a few things, and was astounded by what I saw. The 'supermarket pastoral' so common in markets was more of an Alice-In-Wonderland-meets-7-11. Nothing in this store would have tricked anyone into thinking they were buying just-off-the-farm goodness. The density of packaged and artificial foods was overwhelming, and wholly terrifying. I found myself mesmerized by the walls-upon-walls of "N.F."
"N.F." = "Not Food." My fiance and I call anything artificial, pre-packaged, processed, or sometimes just out of season "N.F." I labeled all the butter-substitutes in my mother's fridge "Not Food!" with a thick black permanent marker, and then did the same in her pantry. Even though my parents generally source their food responsibly, needless to say I did a lot of labeling that day. I would have needed an army to label everything in the store.
I took out my iPhone, which serves as a fabulous spycam (and takes pretty good pictures for a phone) to document some of the most appalling parts of the store. I added these to my "Fresh Direct" series that I've been building on my Flickr page. This particular picture, from and endless "sea" of tuna fish cans, evoked an odd sense of drowning. It was like seeing an entire school of fish, caught in purse seine nets, canned on site and delivered right to the store. Nauseating thought. The rest of the pictures speak for themselves. They start here.
Even though it's December 27th, we still manage to go to the farmers market every Sunday, and avoid most of the garbage sold as "food" in supermarkets. This is the season for braising, making root vegetable soups, getting creative with kale and apples, and finding new uses for dried beans and legumes (I recently discovered the joys of French green lentils.) While not much is in "season" right now, it's still possible to eat locally and deliciously. The online behemoth Epicurious has a map that shows you what's in season in your area right now. Broccoli, carrots, cabbage and squash seems pretty limiting, but you'd be surprised how many things you can do with these.
Off to the farmers market...
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Food in Technicolor!
Food in Technicolor!
Watermelon Radish
Heirloom Carrots
Most Colorful Salad EVER
Originally uploaded by Utter Brandomonium
It's been quite a while since I posted. That will change soon. There's been quite a bit going on in my life, but I'll be able to update this soon.
For now, this is a photo post. At the end of fall, we put together a few super colorful meals, including a salad of radishes, persimmons and cucumbers. Nature has a way of providing beauty, subtlety, and nourishment all at once, without any "cleverness." That's a preview of what's to come. For now, enjoy
Sunday, September 27, 2009
As Far As The Eye Can See
This has been floating around a decent amount lately, so I'll share it here:
Monday, September 21, 2009
Faulty Choices
Monday, September 14, 2009
Relaxed Assumptions
The dysfunctional relationship food companies have with consumers, insurance providers have with those being covered, and investment companies have with their investors are remarkably similar. I suppose similar conclusions could be drawn about business in general: there is often a great mismatch of interests between buyers and sellers. Unless acting in the best interest of a client will increase profits, clever and often deceptive marketing strategies aimed at maximizing sales will be practiced, at the expense of the consumer. In economics a similar concept is known as a "moral hazard." (Not entirely unrelated, this last weekend I couldn't help but watch in fascination as a California Highway Patrolman hid patiently behind a sign with his radar gun, waiting for an unsuspecting speeder to pass. Both he and I were hoping for a violator: it would have fulfilled the cop's quota, and provided me with a bit of sadistic entertainment. My point: praying for a speeding driver is not in the best interest of anyone.)
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Choice is an Illusion
Recently, my company sent out a firmwide email about the new color-coded bins for recycling, composting, plastic bags, landfill, etc. Shortly thereafter, I heard a chorus of voices declaring it as a "waste of time" and "stupid" and even "they make garbage too complicated here. It's all the same, who cares." People will deny or look for fault in anything that challenges their lifestyle. If sorting trash is the right thing to do, then that implies we've been doing it wrong. But what's wrong with poverty, hunger, disease, water scarcity, and war? Those are just "personal virtues" anyway.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
A Terrifying (Unsurprising) Trend
Tomorrow is getting closer.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The Golden Rule, err, Arches
Monday, August 17, 2009
Peach Pickles!
I could write about a million things right now, since I just returned from my good friend Katie's farm in Cranston, RI where I've been working and playing and swimming and eating for the past week and a half.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Blistered in the Sun
Been really busy lately and haven't had much time to post, but tonight came home and decided it was time to get busy in the kitchen. Had some beautiful lamb in the freezer, and our fridge was loaded with farmers market produce. This included some baby eggplants that were calling to me. Lamb+eggplant is a natural combination. So here's the menu:
• Local red lettuce and tomato salad with sprouts and sweet peppers; dijon-balsamic vinaigrette
• Roasted "Charmoula" marinated lamb loin, with mint-garlic pesto, on eggplant-garlic-pepper puree.
• Corn on the cob
• Blistered shishito peppers with pink sea salt
Not going to post full recipes here, but here are some details.
"Charmoula" is a somewhat generic term for a north-African olive oil based spice paste, that generally includes ground chilies, cumin, salt, garlic, lemon, onion, coriander, saffron, etc. For this particular spice paste, I used:
olive oil
pimenton (smoked Spanish paprika)
sweet paprika
ground cumin
minced garlic
cayenne
allspice
ground black pepper
turmeric
kosher salt
dash of white wine vinegar (didn't have a lemon, but needed acid)
The eggplant puree was actually one of the best concoctions I've come up with in a while. Started by blackening the eggplants on all sides in a cast-iron skillet. After about 20 minutes, I let them cool, then peeled them and scooped out the softened flesh. Next, pureed in a food-processor with a little bit of salt and pepper. Meanwhile, sauteed finely diced garlic, hot peppers, sweet peppers, and zucchini until all were softened (but still slightly firm), and folded it all together. This creamy, spicy-sweet puree was a perfect compliment to the lamb (but tasty as hell on it's own)
The pesto was just fresh mint, olive oil, and garlic with a bit of fresh black pepper. Brightened the whole thing up and transformed a pretty comforting meal into a much more summery affair.
Shishito peppers are the closest thing to pimientos you can get around here. These small, tender, slightly spicy peppers are best prepared simply: tossed with a bit of olive oil, and blistered in a hot cast-iron skillet (or grilled), and tossed with a bit of sea salt. I have to get them fast.... Dunnie will make these disappear in a flash.
(You can see I got jipped on these suckers!)
A Note on Nutrition
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Farm(ers Market) to Table
Farm Food
Originally uploaded by Utter Brandomonium
Both last night and tonight, dinner preparation had a dual purpose: make something to eat, and to use up some (slightly) aging produce. Tonight's was not your run-of-the-mill dinner by any means. A farm egg scramble with the unbelievable eggs from Knoll Crest Farms, some Salumi, spring onions and rosemary from my window. And a salad of early tomatoes, raw sweet corn, red quinoa (brought back from Peru!), fresh mint, and chili flakes. YUM!
Conviction.
A recent interview with Joel Salatin (of The Omnivores Dilemma and Food, Inc. fame) about farming, food, tolerance, sustainability and how to relax was posted on treehugger.com. If you can put aside the stigma associated with the website's name, this is an amazing piece.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Greater Than the Sum of it's Parts
Jim Giles of the New Scientist published this article in response to the story I already reacted to, stating that organic food is no better than conventional. Thank you Jim!