Dove's Eye View

Eating Well as the Markets Go to H***

My friend Julie Feinstein Adams, who knows what's what, says frugal is the new black. I am sometimes ahead of certain trends; in March 2008 I collected favorite frugal recipes from the blog here. I love the title so I'm recycling it.

Mark Bittman asked his readers in July 2008 what they would cook on little money and no kitchen equipment. My answer, including the inevitable Cairo-hot-plate-Max-Rodenbeck story. For my leavingtaking from Egypt I fed the future Middle East correspondent for the Economist shrimp seviche, risotto and chicken saute even though we had no refrigerator or proper stove.

No matter what the state of the economy or your pocketbook, there's always hope for a good meal.

Obama Foodorama: Mrs. Obama says processed food is bad

I read Obama Foodarama blog for fascinating analysis and information about the Obama administration's food policy. OF is media savvy and points out things about image and media presentation that I would miss.

This post tells us that Michelle Obama pronounces one of my rules of thumb:

First Lady On The Record At Bancroft Elementary School: Processed and Take-Out Food Is Bad, School Food Needs To Be Affordable, Accessible.

The First Lady was also promoting home cooking, as a way of encouraging better nutrition; teaching nutrition through cooking is another piece of the policy puzzle that the White House is interested in. The inclusion of the Kids Kitchen at the 2009 White House Easter Egg Roll was just the beginning of this kind of initiative. --BTW, look for the processed food quote to be repeated ad infinitum for the next three and a half years.

It's not just that Michelle said this, it's the policy significance of the First Lady saying this. McDonald's, Burger King, and the Restaurant Association are not going to be happy. Thanks to Obama Foodorama for tracking these matters for us.

Marion Cunningham wrote a book several years back called "Lost Recipes" that urged readers to cook at home. Better nutrition, yes, but also reclaim family and friendship. It seems obvious, but in real life as we live it, it's hard to do: make meals regularly, share them with the people we love.

Welcome Bitten Fans

Hello, and thanks for dropping by Dove's Eye View. Today many new people are visiting because of a comment I made at Mark Bittman's excellent food blog, Bitten.

I've been blogging signs of hope for peace in the Middle East for the last five years. I also post recipes, because when there's no hope left, you can always make dinner.

If you came by looking for the red lentil soup recipe, here it is.

My basic lentil soup, evolved from the old New York Times Vegetarian cookbook.

This blog is a mishmosh of musings on food, environment, and culture, with politics thrown in. I used to focus a lot more on the politics, but to protect my health, which is ... challenged ... I have to detach from the news. You'll find the sources I like on Middle East affairs in my sidebar. My real purpose is to affirm that whatever the appearance of discord, conflict, or outright evil, good always exists, and it's our job to focus on it. What you put your attention upon grows.

I am working on a series of posts about positive emotions and dealing with crisis, so please check back within the next week. Food posts are only part of Dove's Eye View.

Frugal Kitchen Equipment

Two decades ago, the late writer Laurie Colwin, a novelist and a foodie, published an article in a New York City weekly titled "The Low Tech Person's Batterie de Cuisine." In it she listed what you would need to equip your kitchen without a lot of expense and electric gadgets; she urged her readers to shop yard sales, Good Will and the hardware store for basic tools.

In the late 1990s when I was setting up house with my husband in Berkeley, I discussed this list with the mavens on the old usenet - people who posted in discussion groups devoted to food and frugality. I lived close to Sur la Table and Pottery Barn; I received glossy catalogs from Williams-Sonoma, and was planning a wedding which would require a registry. I'd spent several years living like a gypsy college student after moving cross-country, and my husband had been living in a shared house, so we needed to start almost from scratch. What kitchen equipment do you need? I asked. And what should go in a frugal person's batterie de cuisine?

The answers were long and detailed. I compiled the list, laughing.

Now that the world is thinking about how to live simply on less money, I repost the kitchen equipment list for your edification.

The hardware store is still a decent place to look for pots and pans; I also check Asian housewares stores, the Salvation Army, and Target. Ikea's kitchenware is so cheaply made that most of it is not worth the money.

Google Search: Green Beans Lebanese Style

Several times every day, somebody somewhere on the planet searches Google for "Arabic Green Beans" or "Lebanese Green Beans Recipe." This post from five years ago always turns up. Reprinted by popular demand:

Dove's Eye View: Green Beans Lebanese Style.

This is the dish known as "Lubyi bi Zayt" in Arabic, or Green Beans in Olive Oil. Recipes vary widely - by cook, by village, by region of Lebanon. Sometimes a housewife might add a little chopped meat to the browning onions. Sometimes the dish might have a hot chili, or lemon juice, or allspice, or tomato paste. The basic idea is to saute and then braise green beans with tomatoes, onions, and garlic. The following recipe is a loose version of what I do.

My childhood friend Dr. Saleem Nicola, a biologist and researcher in New York, found this post using Google some years ago, and thought to himself for a moment "that woman looks familiar." He went on to cook the dish, and didn't figure out that it was my blog and recipe until his next visit to his parents. One of those small world online stories.

Collected Recipes

I've been blogging food for over five years now and I want to compile the posts in some form. A self-published book is in the works but I'll need at least six months to organize that. In the meantime, if you are new to Dove's Eye View, be sure to look at my Collected Recipes page. I update it occasionally.

You can also browse the Food and Drink category button.

Every day Google and other search engines send me dozens of referrals for Red Lentil Soup, Lebanese Green Beans and Tomatoes, Kafta In a Tray with Potatoes and Tomatoes, Hummus, and even Kusa Bi Jibneh (Squash and Cheese Gratin, Sephardic Arab style). Lebanese Mezze 101 is another popular post.

Waiting for lunch. Photo by Leila Abu-Saba, 2008

What would you like to see in the Dove's Eye View cookbook? Your comments welcome.

Five Frugal Food Treats: Save Money, Save the Planet

I've been blogging frugal food for a couple of years now, and thought I'd summarize a few greatest hits in belated honor of Mother's Day. But these ideas do more than just save money. Food that has been processed less can be healthier than the store-bought alternative; using less packaging it saves resources as well.

1. The Internet's Most Famous Red Lentil Soup

2. Pasta with grated cheese, olive oil and a bit of leftover lentil soup. Much more frugal than Amy's Mac N Cheese, and healthier too.

3.  Pumpkin Tahini

4. Your own Chai: Spiced Tea

5.  Sweetened-up yogurt instead of commercial flavored yogurt cups, as suggested by Marion Nestle in her book, What to Eat. Use fruit preserves, honey, or just plain sugar. With a little more trouble (but not much) you can make your own yogurt, no machine required.

I feed my sons plain yogurt with a dot of vanilla and a half teaspoon of sugar for dessert. They think it's an amazing treat. I tried giving them jam in yogurt but they don't like it as much.  

Check out the calorie values.              

	amount	calorie
lo-fat plain yogurt	8 oz	154
sugar	1 tsp	16
vanilla	drop	0
Total home sweetened yogurt	8 oz	170
Lo-fat vanilla yogurt	8 oz	208
Lo-fat fruit yogurt	8 oz	250

So your home-brewed flavored yogurt can have less sugar in it than the store-bought stuff; it also uses less plastic (especially if you make your own) and has no preservatives or other fillers. Thrifty eating is better for the health of the planet.

Bravo to all the Moms (and Dads and other caregivers too) putting food on the table every day.

Rockin' Chicken

Two months ago I made a batch of preserved lemons at a marmalade party we organized in the neighborhood. There were so many excess Meyer lemons that we wanted to try salting them Moroccan style.
I've used the lemons in carrot or chickpea salads, and I've cooked Moroccan chicken tagine.

My seven-year-old son thinks that last dish is called "Rockin' chicken." I don't correct him. If the name of the dish makes the kid fall upon it with gusto, why be pedantic?

I've tried various recipes that are quite basic. Tonight I made the dish again using Claudia Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern Food. I didn't have olives, but I did have chickpeas. That substitution changes the flavor balance, but perhaps less pungency made the sauce more attractive to the 7-year-old? Rockin' chicken!

My husband and I nibbled the leftovers just now, eying each other resentfully, like jackals around the carcass at midnight.
--Are you going to finish that?
--Leave me some for tomorrow, come on, I cooked it!

The saffron makes the flavors "killer" as my husband said. Beguiling, intoxicating, can't get enough. And preserved lemon is addictive. I feel so smug that I made it myself, using Meyer lemons donated by kind neighbors.

Claudia Roden's Moroccan Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons and Olives (or Chickpeas)

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, grated or very finely chopped (I used the food processor)
2 to 3 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 teaspoon crushed saffron threads or saffron powder
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 chicken, cut up in 6 or 8 pieces (I used 8 thighs, organic, on special at Berkeley Bowl)
salt and black pepper
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons chopped coriander
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
peel of 1 large or 2 small preserved lemons
12 to 16 green or violet olives
(Leila's substitution: 1 14 oz. can of garbanzo beans, drained)
Serves 4

In a wide casserole or heavy-bottomed pan that can hold all the chicken pieces in one layer, heat the oil and put in the onions. Sauté, stirring over low heat, until they soften, then stir in the garlic, saffron, and ginger.

Put in the chicken pieces, season with salt and pepper, and pour in about 1 1/4 cups water. Simmer, covered, turning the pieces over a few times and adding a little more water if it becomes too dry. Lift out the breasts after about 15 minutes and put them to one side. Continue to cook the remaining pieces for another 25 minutes or so, after which time return the breasts to the pan.

Stir into the sauce the lemon juice, the chopped coriander and parsley, the preserved lemon peel cut into quarters or strips, and the olives. Simmer uncovered for 5 to 10 minutes, until the reduced sauce is thick and unctuous. If there is too much liquid, lift out the chicken pieces and set aside while you reduce the sauce further, then return the chicken to the pan and heat through.

Present the chicken on a serving dish with the olives and lemon peel on top of the meat.

Variation Add 1/2 chili pepper, seeded and chopped, with the onions at the start, and the juice of 1/4 lemon (instead of 1/2) toward the end of cooking.

Note that I've linked to the recipe as printed in Roden's later book, Arabesques, but I changed it to reflect the version I used.

Lebanese Foods That Fight Cancer

الغذاء اللبناني التقليدي يقي من السرطان | جريدة الأخبار

I wrote an article in English for Rami Zurayk over at Al-Akhbar newspaper, based on a survey of the nutritional research published by UC San Francisco. It's titled Traditional Lebanese Foods Prevent Cancer and it's in today's edition (May 1, 2009). He translated it for me - I don't write Arabic that well!

English version below the jump. I do not know if the Arabic version is an exact translation.

Wild chicory with caramelized onions

Wild chicory with caramelized onions
Originally uploaded by bedouina

As served at the Tyre Rest House, South Lebanon, October 2008.

Mark Bittman just blogged caramelized onions with lentils and rice. You and I know he really means mjaddarah, right?

I get several hits a day from people looking for mjaddarah recipes. I first published it five years ago, from a recipe I'd put in a family cookbook and maybe posted to an old cooking newsgroup, too, I don't remember. The internet changes but mjaddarah never dies. Anyway, how cool is Mark Bittman for promoting our favorite onions with lentils and rice?

This picture reminds me to braise some greens and garnish them with caramelized onions.

Claudia Roden always has the recipe you want. From The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, the Twitterized version of wild chicory with onion (Hindbeh wa Bassal):

Boil chicory+salt til soft, drain chop; carmlize lrg onion sliced in EVOO, add 4 clovz garlic, salt pepr, cook 2-3 mins, garnish lemon+EVOO.