Just do it: a zucchini story

1. What to bring to office potluck? Just take those zucchini in the fridge, grate them with the box grater; squeeze all the water out; add the zest and juice of a lemon; add several glugs of olive oil and one of white wine vinegar; add salt & pepper and some chopped mint from the windowsill plant I keep forgetting to make use of.

2. What to do about the fact that I haven't volunteered in several years despite my desire to? Just sign up to be a volunteer at God's Love We Deliver, even if it is a 6:30 am shift.

August Dinner Party

For my latest post on WellandGoodNYC I wrote all about a dinner party I threw and how you can do it, too.

It features the terrific recipe web site Food52, as well as some serious seasonal produce. And some glam shots of me sweating it up over a hot stove.

What I learned on my summer vacation

Each summer, in an (albeit abbreviated) Italian tradition called Ferragosto, my office closes for one week. I had big plans to go to Turkey. When those plans fell through I tried to create a week full of mini vacations along with some down time. I had a long wish list, and as I sit here typing on the eve of my return to the office, I feel happy and relaxed. And I learned a few things, too.

1. When you go away for a week in summer, you miss one week of peak produce shopping. Doh!

2. I don't see Mara enough. In addition to her other qualities, she is a wonderful cook.

3. Cape May is beautiful, with lovely beaches and charming architecture full of old farmhouses, beach bungalows and Victorian homes. Everyone grows tomatoes, making them the zucchini of the area. Roll up your car windows or people will leave some on your front seat. If you're a visitor from up North, be a good guest and you might get sent home with a small cardboard box full. Score!

4. Go off the beaten path there, to a local bar called Mayer's (Meyer's?). They are known for their scallops but I will remember them for the dude who tried to pick me up by offering me a plate of gravy fries. Also memorable was the weathered fisherman who explained how much less fun fishing is now that the fishing stocks have disappeared. He also told me that I am "beautiful," that I "look like Chelsea Clinton." Hmmm.

5. Leaving a buffer on the back end of vacation is a great idea. It leaves time for farmer's market shopping (corn, eggplant, ground cherries, peaches, nectarines), hanging out with bro/sis -in-law and nephew, painting the livingroom, laundry, yoga, birthday drinks, Brooklyn Flea, La Colombe coffee, etc.

6. There are so many delicious things you can do with tomatoes. BLT was terrific (Grandaisy bread, mayo, Dom's bacon, Cape May garden tomato); roasted tomatoes (with parmesan cheese, spinach ravioli and pesto) are also a great idea; snacking on cherry tomatoes is never a bad idea.

6. I said I would do some work, and I didn't do any work. i think this was probably a very good idea.

Easy breezy

I headed out to Breezy Point last weekend for a day of wave watching and hanging with friends. The food Google map in my head went off: taco alert!

Rockaway Taco (and environs) made me feel like I was transported to Southern California, in a good way. And while I made the mistake of getting only one fish taco (the carnitas could not compete), I was a very happy camper. The elote (corn) was also perfect. And the watermelon juice was a delight. There were other things to be tried but--despite nightly wishes to be transformed into a cow--I have only one stomach. We pulled up to the curb, spilled onto the grass and got covered in crema and guac.

I will go again--next summer, certainly, when we return to Breezy, but maybe before then, too.

Freekah

Check out my post about freekah, the serious grain with a silly name.

Emperors Need Mentors, too

Oh dear, where have I been? Things got nutty, and blogging for pleasure went bye-bye.

In the meantime, I wrote this piece for Civil Eats, a sort of review, I guess, of a new book called My Empire of Dirt. It's about what it takes to learn to grow things. Last summer I learned to ride a bike, and this summer I promised myself I would learn to grow things.

As I wrote about earlier, I started with basil, anise hyssop and sungold tomatoes from seed. The anise and the tomatoes, sadly, didn't make it. I liken those losses to my early failed cooking & baking experiments.

So I bought a beautiful organic heirloom cherry tomato plant and a neato mint plant at the farmers market. I re-potted them with organic soil. I staked the tomato plant. I left town. I returned. I smelled something funny.

Soooooo my cat peed in the tomato plant (that damn pot was big enough for her to climb into. Blargh.). But the good news is that the mint plant isn't quite dead and the basil plant is thriving! I offer this night-time photo as evidence. I really am bursting with pride.

Too Much

Our country has gotten really fat--troublingly, uncomfortably fat. Michelle Obama is worried. The CDC is worried. Parents are worried, doctors are worried. Even the military, experiencing a shortage of healthy-weight young people to serve, is worried. Or are they? Just saw this post on Eater about Guatanamo having a giant fast food mothership on it.

Also, just saw a piece on ABC about how we're making our pets obese as well. The culprits: over-feeding our animals as a substitute for love and the amount of crap pet food companies are loading into the food. n.b. the piece is called "Heavy petting," because apparently someone over there loves a good pun as much as I do.

A buddy forwarded me a link to an article about CSPI's Xtreme eating awards--which go not to competitive hot dog eaters but to restaurants that offer single servings that contain enough calories to feed a small family. This makes me really mad, it does.

I think about too muchness a lot. I sometimes joke that I am like a cow that you have to bring back from pasture because I will keep eating and eating. I am a completer. Leaving anything behind feels strange, so I empathize with the eater who finds themselves at the Cheesecake Factory polishing off a 1,400 calorie dish. Why the F is this restaurant serving such a thing? Wouldn't it be more economical for them to serve something smaller? Oh right, food is cheap.

I read all these stories (above) in the past week alone. With a few episodes of "Biggest Loser" and Jillian's new ridiculous weight loss show thrown in. I cry when I watch those shows, mostly because they have been genetically engineered to bring women to tears (like sugary, fatty foods engineered to make us crave them), but also because I see people trapped in a world where the food cards have been stacked against them, where too muchness is the easiest choice in every direction.

Going great together

The combination of strawberry and rhubarb is so perfect, only nature could have invented it. Which is to say, by being ripe together at the exact same time, may be nature's way of saying "yo, you could eat these together."

For this reason, I decided making a dish with both radishes (pink lady variety) and peas was a very good idea, even if I couldn't picture how it might turn out. For good measure, decided to throw in spring garlic. Totally excellent combo--one greenmarket trip, one dish.

For the record, am still exploring what/who I go great together with.

Quinoa with spring garlic, radishes, and peas
(2 small servings)

3/4 cup quinoa
3 pieces spring garlic--white bulb up to light green--minced
1 small onion
3-4 tbsp olive oil
salt n pepa
1 cup white wine
1 cup water
2 cups shelled peas
1/2 bunch radishes, trimmed, sliced in half

1. Saute onion and spring garlic in 2 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat
2. pinch of salt with that as you soften until translucent
3. Add the quinoa (which you have already rinsed several times)
4. Add the wine, bring to a boil then simmer for a few minutes until wine evaporates
5. Add the water, bring to boil, then cover, lower heat to simmer
6. Let cook for 20 minutes or so
7. While that's happening, heat up the remaining olive oil in a pan
8. Also, bring some salted water up to a boil (this water is not in teh recipe above)
9. cook peas for 3 minutes
10. Brown radishes in heated oil, a minute or two on each side
11. When quinoa is cooked, and when peas and radishes are cooked, mix 'em all together

Grown & Cooked in Detroit

Here I am in Detroit. In a really tall, very odd hotel with a sick view of Canada and its Caesar's Palace, taunting us with their Canadian gambling and free healthcare and whatnot.

Lots of inspiring stories here, people all over the country bringing kids into gardens and changing their lives in one way or another. And it sure makes me think of a line from a poem by my favorite poet, Mary Oliver: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Any way I wrote some of it up on the Slow Food USA blog, here.

Layer of fat

"But I thought you were philosophically opposed to cleanses," Julie wrote to me, in an email yesterday. "It's true," I wrote back, "I am." WTF then? Why did I spend two days in agony, carb-less, sugar-less, caffeine-less, alcohol-less, meat-less and dairy-less?

Here's where it went awry:

1. I saw Gwyneth Paltrow on "The Marriage Ref," and suddenly after years of indifference, I swooned. Look at her amazing body! And that shiny blond hair! And the effortless, upper-crust charm! I went to her oft-mocked web site, GOOP, and decided I should do like Gwyneth and do a cleanse to rid myself of my winter layer of fat (n.b. on pork belly and short ribs, THIS IS THE BEST PART).

2. I had been traveling for work a fair amount and had a few too many airport meals, some of which consistent of double-wide packs of peanut M & Ms, one of the on-board snacks you can purchase on a Delta flight. I felt full of sugar and I hate how much I love sugar, how it rules me.

What I learned:

1. Everything I already knew. Exercise in extremes are a disaster.

2. Cleansing ain't for everyone.

3. Sometimes 5 ibuprofen are not enough.

4. Starting the day with a cool glass of lemon water is a delight! I will continue this.

5. Grandaisy Bakery's raisin walnut roll is AMAZING, and not just because I hadn't eaten carbs in 2.5 days. The crust is perfect, and I believe it has fresh ground peppercorns in it. Zing!

6. This kale salad is wonderful. I ate it two days running for lunch and I have no regrets! Inspired by a recipe on Eat Drink Better.

1 Cup uncooked quinoa
3 Stalks of kale
1 small Cucumber, peeled and diced
1/4 Cup pine nuts, toasted
1/2 avocado, diced
1 Tbsp sesame seeds
1 lemon's worth of lemon juice
1 Tbsp rice vinegar

Cook quinoa according to instructions on box or bag

Meanwhile, get rid of the thick stalk on the kale, and roughly chop the leaves

Toss them with the cucumber, the lemon juice and the vinegar

Then add cooled quinoa. Then sesame seeds and pine nuts. Mix to coat.

Then put diced avocado on top and sprinkle with sea salt

Growing Power

Last week, I attended the WK Kellogg Foundation Food & Community conference in Phoenix AZ. What a chance to see the major players in the movement, and to understand who we are--in our samenesses and differences--and where we're going.

Fast forward to my plane ride home, via Detroit. In first class, the President of the foundation. Two rows behind me, in coach, Malik Yakini, head of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. In other rows, lots of other Detroit-based food and community-growing hoi polloi. Next to me, a young woman from another Detroit urban farming program called Greening of Detroit. It's her second flight ever, the first being the one out to the conference. When the plane makes strange noises she turns to me, open and sweet, asking: "is that normal?"

Turbulence begins, worsens. Before I know it I have grabbed the sizable girl next to me and burrowed my face in her upper arm. Feeling pathetic I think about how I am 20 years older than she is, and how I have been on hundreds of flights in my lifetime. Quaking, fearful, I realize how much power there is in that plane--the future of the food movement (esp the local Detroit food movement) hung in the balance. I felt confident the world wasn't ready to lose all of them, that the plane just had to make it to Detroit safely, and so gradually let go of my death grip on the shoulder of the girl next to me.

* * * * *

Speaking of growing and speaking of power, adios to another friend from work. Julia heads off to be an intern at Growing Power in Chicago, a rather hot shit thing to do.

I myself am growing seedlings (can you see them in the picture above?) with the help of my fairy greenmother, Cerise. These are sungold tomatoes, before I culled out 1/3 of the sprouts. With handholding. When they're sturdy enough they'll go out on the fire escape so the cats can't eat them. The eating part will be for me.

How does twitter help grow food?

That was the subtitle of my talk at Ohio University last night, where I was a guest speaker for earth month. I explained to the students how if you pour water on your computer while it's on the twitter homepage, actual food will grow out of your keyboard.

But seriously.

Sustainability coordinator/guru Sonia Marcus hosted me for a super fun day during which I visited an Environmental Journalism class, participated in a round table lunch discussion, chatted with a News Writing class, and gave a talk focused on Building Online Communities in the food movement (see above).

I really enjoyed talking with the students, and having the opportunity to reflect upon my writing, reflect upon this blog, and how it ended up being the foundation for allowing me to "become"/call myself a writer. In thinking about things, and in being asked to answer smart questions, I came up with answers that surprised me sometimes.

Professor Hans Meyer covered my talk here. My main takeaway: every time I see a photo of myself giving a talk, that is what I am doing with my hands. Also, n.b. that his students were assigned to live tweet my talk, and I really enjoyed reading their commentary once the talk was done. You can read the comments here, and please take note that I was described as "adorable." I will dine out on this for the next week at least.

Lastly, I mention Athens, the only town in Ohio that could make you forget the other lame places in Ohio. Super locavore, nestled in Appalachia, home to wild pawpaws and black walnuts, and a local cafe that has slow food posters all over the walls, and delicious homemade bialys-Athens, I heart you.

Bits & Pieces

1. My friend John is famous! John is a great cook and a great guy. I just randomly found this piece about him on Apartment Therapy. He's too modest to have sung it from the rooftops, natch.

2. I sing from the rooftops. I wrote this piece on Gristle, a book edited by Moby, all about the negative impacts of industrial meat production.

3. Well and Good NYC covers what to bring for lunch. I bring my lunch almost every day--as do most people at my office. I love that I work in a place where that's the norm.

4. Just ate my first ramps of the season, at the end of a long, hard day. Thanks, Deena, for bringing them to me, and for 4 years of friendship & laughs (& for getting all of my "Friends" and "Seinfeld" references).

Crop Mob

Well, Flash Mobs have already hit the mainstream (I saw one on a season 5 episode of "Weeds" last night); aren't we all ready for the Crop Mob now?

About 2 months ago the NY Times ran a piece on Crop Mobs in the Chapel Hill, NC area, describing it as a "monthly word-of-mouth (and -Web) event in which landless farmers and the agricurious descend on a farm for an afternoon." The food movement got giddy with excitement. Within a week or so, a CropMobNYC group popped up on Facebook and I signed on up.

This past Sunday 4 Crop Mobs were scheduled for four different urban farms around town. I went to Bed-Stuy Farm, where 20 of us met with the generous and inspiring Rev. Robert Jackson and Rev. DeVanie Jackson. We tilled, and clipped, composted and shoveled, hammered and sawed. Also we broke for snacks and ate DeVanie's homemade fig jam from last season's figs.

We brought our own work gloves, our own water bottles, and our own lunch. I left the house in a hurry, throwing together this curried chicken salad quickly, with what I had on hand--kind of like the Crop Mob itself.

Curried Chicken Salad

Leftover roast chicken, cut into chunks

1 large celery stalk, diced

2 tbsp raisins, dark or golden

1 cup Hawthorne Valley yogurt

1 tsp dijon mustard

1 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 shake cayenne pepper

salt and pepper to taste

Mix together all ingredients except the chicken, celery and raisins

Then add the rest and stir well

Food Porn

This article in the Times about people taking pics of their food and posting them on the interwebz made me think a few things.

1. Why are they always "breaking" trend news that broke like 5 years ago? Yawn.

2. I just can't get that excited about pictures of food.

You've probably noticed I don't have many pics on here (trying to be better about it). I don't have a fancy camera and/or a stand-along flash to get things just right. I appreciate the simple beauty of the pics on blogs like 101 cookbooks, Not Eating Out in NY, Smitten Kitchen, and Chocolate and Zucchini. But the charms of, say, Food Porn Daily are lost on me.

I like words more than pictures, I suppose.

My first day of spring

Spring faked us out a few weeks ago, sunshine bursting through the clouds. I hope none of you fell for that. I did--sent my winter coat to the dry cleaners and everything.

Real spring was this weekend and I headed out to the farmers market hopeful, heady with excitement about ramps. I saw no ramps. But I did buy tulips and daffodils, knowing full well my cats will eat the leaves and make themselves sick. Also Flying Pigs eggs, with two pale green ones that I scrambled up for lunch.

For dinner, a giant Quattro's spring chicken, roasted with 2 different varieties of heirloom potatoes, including the Makah Ozette (a Slow Food Ark of Taste variety) which is delicious but hard to clean. I had to get inside all the nooks and crannies with the tip of a very sharp knife in order to pick out the dirt. Tried to rationalize the bits left behind by thinking about the article I read in the recent food issue of the Oxford American, all about the Southern tradition of eating soil.

Next week, the hunt for ramps continues.

I am a svelte gourmand

Check out my guest post "I used to eat weird things" over on Svelte Gourmand.

Highlights and new discoveries

Some highlights and new discoveries. I love my regular places (Franny's, Marlowe and Sons,etc.) but sometimes its good to branch out:

The Jane Hotel: There's been a gradual renovation and evolution over at The Jane Hotel and I am loving it. Gone is the lobby theatre where I saw the marvelous "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" and the laughed-so-hard-I-peed "Debbie Does Dallas (the musical)." Now the lobby has been carved up into an actual hotel lobby for the super cheap and tiny rooms upstairs, as well as into a wood paneled old-timey bar and a larger, cooler version of NoLiTa's Cafe Gitane. It's vintagearrific and they make a great cappuccino. Plus great light from the Hudson.

Co.: Have now been to Jim Leahy's Co. on 24th and 9th four times. Which is enough to say, for absolute sure, that it rocks. I haven't checked out every pizza place that everyone's buzzing about (Motorino, I'm coming soon, I promise) but I put forth Co.'s slightly more doughy crust as one of the best. Plus I love the space and the servers are so nice.

DiFara's: Oh, speaking of pizza, did I mention I finally got my ass to DiFara's? HOT. DAMN. It always surprises me when something so hyped is actually that good.

Hundred Acres: This really shouldn't count as a new place since I have been going to brunch here on a regular basis for the past 2 years (in fact I reviewed it in the NY Post magazine!) But it's turned out that when friends come to visit from out of town they say: OMG can we go to the brunch place near your house? And that reminds me for a sec that I shouldn't take it for granted. It's good. The food is good, the space is nice, the bloody mary rocks. And they take reservations, and they never give you lip.

Iris Cafe: I am so proud of Rachel! She opened this adorable little cafe deep in Brooklyn Heights a few months ago. It seemed like a modest endeavor, even if she was meticulously curating the menu, and training her baristas to be hardcore experts in the Stumptown style. Fast forward and she is being reviewed by the heavy hitters, including "Best Cafe" in NY Mag 2 weeks ago. Totally deserved. Get yer ass there for a homemade stickybun, or a ham and cheddar biscuit with a soft boiled egg on top.

Chicken Chow Fun, for Dad, because of Dad

5 years ago, I wrote this post, called "Dad." It was the five year anniversary of my dad dying, and so I made a pilgrimage to Chinatown and tried to recreate a dish I hadn't had the sense to learn from him, because I hadn't thought I'd need to.

5 years later, my nephew was here to eat it with us, and this time I'll write it down so that if he ever wants to make it, it's here in cyber space for him. Hell, he already loves to read cookbooks and he's only 18 months old.

1. Head to Chinatown via Vanessa's dumplings on Eldridge, where for a buck you can get 4 fried pork and chive dumplings.
2. Stop and watch the bike polo tournament on Chrystie and eat out of your styrofoam container.
3. Look for the rice noodle ladies. For a while.
4. Find them at Grand and Bowery on the Northeast corner and buy 1 bag of rice noodles for a buck and a bag of bean sprouts for 50 cents. Next door buy ginger, scallions, snow peas, garlic, onions.
5. Buy Murrays chicken thighs at Gourmet Garage.
6. Trim chicken into skinless chunks.
7. In a wok, heat up 2 tbsp canola oil.
8. Cook chicken pieces until cooked through, remove from wok.
9. Fry up some sliced half-moon-shaped onions; add minced garlic, add minced ginger.
10. Add a bunch of cleaned and trimmed snow peas, then a few tbsp soy sauce.
11. add in sliced scallions, rice noodles, more soy sauce.
12. Add chicken and bean sprouts, keep tossing until all is well coated.
13. Forget to take a picture; or if you want to do this whole recipe one better than me, you could actually remember to take a picture. That'd be awesome.

This dish is so insanely good. I want to say, for the record, that I appreciated the hell out of it, even when my Dad was alive, and that I appreciated the hell out of him, too.

Allora: Dad, for you, because of you.

The udder truth

You walk into Whole Foods and you face a wall of milk. Depending on the branch, the selection will vary. Same thing with Gourmet Garage, Food Emporium, you name it. That’s because supermarkets each have their own buyers. So, how do you decide what to buy? What’s healthiest? What’s worth the extra money? Here we clarify some of milk’s greatest mysteries about rBGH, organics, expiration dates, farmers markets, and whether or not skirting the law for the unpasteurized raw stuff is worth it.

Read the whole post at WellandGoodNYC!

And while you're there, why don't you read their piece about the wonderful Mary Cleaver--owner chef at Chelsea Market's The Green table (and the catering company Cleaver & Co.) Mary catered my boss' wedding and in the rich tapestry of beautiful meals I have eaten in my life, it stands out as a dazzling and delicious thread.