Food For Thought

352/365
5:21 p.m.

This lovely cabbage was among our items in our very last CSA box for the year. As I've delved even deeper into the culinary world this year, I've realized I continue to thoroughly enjoy, no, thrive, on not Making the Same Thing Every Single Week. Sure, it's necessary to have recipes in your back pocket that you can throw together with a cursory glance in the cabinet and freezer. But, man, I really do get motivated about doing something new.

That said, I've been been deeply intrigued by Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food manifesto and the recent documentary, Food Inc., this fall. It's based on the idea that you can take any diet in the world, except the processed Western diet, and any diet will help foster a healthy, prosperous life. Processed food-like items are the health culprits of our existence. You can have a 100% whole-grain, double fiber bread, but it contains 36 ingredients, most of which your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize. On the other hand, my next door neighbor is teaching me to make sourdough with flour, water, and 1 teaspoon of salt. True health, according to Pollan, is not the idea of a glossy "health" food slam-packed with chemicals, it's actually food.

Just something to think about.

Take Out

329/365
1:02p.m.

Charlie is a collector. He's thrilled to gather a good 10-15 mismatched items around the house, stow them in a bag/box/container, and be on his way. So, it's no surprise at all to find Batman driving a convertible, enthusiastically fist-pumping the air with a slice of veggie pizza sticking out the trunk.

Churkey* Cookies

328/365
10:24p.m.

Although they seriously look like they're possessed with Mad Turkey Disease, you know, with their mangy feathers, obnoxiously large and frightening eyes, and often chopped off foot or head, they were a hit with the Five and Under set here.

*Jack's articulation

Food Art

327/365
5:20p.m.

Charlie paints a soy sauce and honey mixture onto fresh tofu cubes.

Antioxidant Love

325/365
2:15 p.m.

Found as part of our salad mix from our CSA this week, I chopped it up and threw it in vegetable soup, which I've been making every single week since early August. That color surely has to ensure some serious free radical rounder-uppers, yes? Lasso up, baby!

Humdrum

322/365
9:18 a.m.

They can't all be pretty shots. Typical Charlie: hunched over, dirt on his fingers, eating something.

Pom

321/365
9:23 a.m.

You've heard of its health benefits. You know you should probably add it to your fruit list. But it's just so damn cumbersome forking out all those arils and that sassy crimson nectar just dares you to run away, right? Such a shame: Pomegranate: 1, Good People of The Earth-0.

One Ingredient

260/365
1:41 p.m.

Roasted Pear and Beet Salad with Watercress and Blue Cheese

Cook's Illustrated, Nov. 2000

Ingredients

Beets & Pears

3 small beets

4 firm Anjou pears or Bartlett pears (about 2 pounds)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter , melted
2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Salad
1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon table salt
Ground black pepper
4 ounces blue cheese , crumbled
2 bunches watercress , washed, dried, and stemmed (about 6 cups)

Directions

1. For Beets: Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position; heat oven to 350 degrees. Wrap each beet in foil and roast until fork can be inserted and removed with little resistance, 1 to 11/2 hours; unwrap beets. When cool enough to handle, peel and cut beets lengthwise into quarters; cut each quarter in half into wedges.
2. For Roasted Pears: Place baking sheet or broiler pan bottom on rack, and turn up oven heat to 500 degrees.
3. Peel and halve each pear lengthwise. With paring knife or melon baller, remove core. Set each half cut-side down and slice lengthwise into fifths.
4. Toss pears with butter; add sugar and toss again to combine. Spread pears in single layer on preheated baking sheet, making sure each slice lies flat on surface. Roast until browned on bottom, about 10 minutes. Flip each slice and roast until tender and deep golden brown, about 5 minutes longer.
5. For Salad: Whisk together oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper to taste in small bowl.
6. Combine beets, blue cheese, and watercress in large serving bowl. Add pears and vinaigrette; toss gently to combine. Serve immediately.

And Then There Was One

246/365
3:51 p.m.

Step aside An Affair to Remember, there's another love story in town. Meet Maucon and Honeygold, proud Minnesota parents of the coveted Honeycrisp. Here, an offspring with that certain sweetness, tartness, and that starts and ends with a distinguishing pop. Never before has the object of Adam & Eve's bane captivated an audience so devoted that they blindly fork over $2.49 per pound. Therefore, it's downright mind-blowing, all hyperbole aside, that Honeycrip's little sister, SweeTango is lauded to be, dare I say, superior.

Fresh

245/365
2:39 p.m.

Moo

242/365
12:38 p.m.

The grocery store was strangely out of skim milk, so I bought a half-gallon of 1%. And to our palates, it was like we had milkshakes for a couple days.

As Is

228/365
4:12p.m.

Waiting for lemonade. Will be awhile.

Bicy

224/365
4:32pm

That's Charlie speak for spicy. My grandmother has had radishes displayed in every single crudités platter she has ever arranged, purely for color purposes. I was never a fan, and come to think of it, neither was anyone else because the perfectly sliced root with its crimson skin ever-so-gently bleeding into its stark white center remained untouched while carrots and peppers and broccoli and tomatoes and even cauliflower vanished before guests were called to the dinner table.

I have come around to them in recent years, and I'll even add them to my own crudités platter, even for just the display of color. Though there is something special and memorable in its bicyness.

A Cookie of One's Own

221/365
4:18pm

It wasn't intentional. Truly. But I made a chewy, melty, chocolaty, rich cookie that did not appeal to my children's palate. I needed to bring a little something-something for Parent Night, and couldn't pass giving this one a whirl: Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies. Charlie accepted, not devoured, the cookie, while Jack took a bite and left the rest for his brother. The ginger and molasses failed to captivate their cookie love, but my adult palate felt it was a sublime combination. What does this all mean? I don't have the share the leftovers.

Razzamatazz Berries

210/365
10:43am

Raspberries are coveted fruit here. The day they enter this house is the day they disappear. I think our kids were shaped, at least in part, to love berries based on repeated exposures to Jamberry. Bruce Degen makes magic with "Raspberry, Jazzberry, Razzamatazz berry, Berryband, Merryland, Jamming in Berryland."

Even this blustery day could not deter our serious dedication to gingerly plucking out plump, saturated berries from the bristly bramble. However, to be fair, the farm should have weighed Charlie before and after our raspberry adventure. Surely, I owe this farm for another pint.

No Peeling Necessary

203/365
5:17pm

Found these sweet, precious jewels of Mr. McGregor's nestled in our CSA box. And out of no where it reminded me of a square, fairly blanched photograph with rounded corners of my mother standing in our first backyard. She had six-month-old me clinging to her left hip and left arm wrapping me securely in place, while the other is flaunting her carrot trophies in a firm, triumphant grasp. The sun is high and in back of the photographer; we're both squinting and casting a short shadow. I haven't laid eyes on this actual picture in decades, but as I held these carrots by their leafy shoots like my mom did, I immediately flashed to that scene. In my brain pipes, as Jack would say.

I wonder what small things in life, like a bunch of carrots, will jog the boys' memories in 30+ years.

Tutorial

198/365
7:38pm

Heidi and I took the first of two much anticipated cooking classes at Orange Tree Imports. Tonight's culinary guide, Laurie Conrad from The Blue Daisy, presented us with a Summer Spa cuisine that was light and refreshing. We sampled finger toasts perfectly balanced with smooth brie, salty prosciutto, and not-too-sweet Bellini jam; chevre pots with lavender buds and agave; and a creamy and totally fresh green goddess dip and crudites. Zabaglione was served with a mound of fresh berries, but there wasn't enough time for the custard to set and be what it was supposed. I'm up for the challenge.

Triple Stack

181/365
3:33pm

Ok, so this what you do: Make a double batch of Grandma's Famous Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe (minus the nuts, the lady's crazy for nuts) and homemade vanilla ice cream (substitute pure vanilla for the whole bean pod because, really, it's insanely expensive, and possibly more important, it's an extra store to schlep two kids in and out of). Slam the two together (the cookies & ice cream, not the two children) and voilà: instant ice cream headache. You want one, don't ya?

Drupe-ilicious

177/365
4:29pm

Because of the copious amount of juicy goodness, I had to send Charlie out on the deck with his chin-drippin' nectarine. I chose this Charlie Attacks Stone Fruit picture over another shot of the juice pooling on his chin for, um, obvious reasons. However, you can see that the juice's final destination appears to be gathering for a party at the top of his shirt: down and under the chin, a slippery slope down the neck, and bath time.

The Ray

176/365
4:20pm

I really would not have put myself in the She Who Shoots Food category, but here I am again, shooting food....so often that I created a tag. I don't set out to do so; it just kinda happens. Any guesses what it is?