Leila's Commonplace Blog

Mark Bittman's 100 Simple Summer Dinners

You have to read this list.

Includes things like white beans and shrimp, or herbs over pasta, or pesto with pasta or grilled fish.

Worth clipping for your file.

Water: I'm ahead of this trend

Once again I am way ahead of the curve.

See previous post, by the way. This link is to the New York Times, which only just picked up on the trend of serving tap water in restaurants.

Our water here in the Bay Area is delicious (or those areas served by EBMUD).

One reason why I would never leave overpriced Oakland for the suburbs is: their water sucks. I was just in Monterey. The tap water is putrid. They are running out of water and draining the Carmel River.

I am so uncool, out of it, low tech and low fashion; I don't do foodie one-upmanship, my food is not 100% organic, or vegan, or French, or locally grown; I don't bother with fine wines because the tannins stop
up my nose and render my taste buds completely useless. But on this new trendlet, I can preen. I am definitely ahead of the crowd on this one.

Local tap water bubbles up in restaurants

Finally the cognoscenti catch up with me: Local tap water bubbles up in restaurants.

At a small but growing number of sustainably inclined Bay Area restaurants, bottled water has become as much of an outcast as farmed salmon and out-of-season tomatoes. Instead of bottled water, diners now are served free carafes of -- gasp! -- tap water. It's filtered and comes still or sparkling, fizzed up by a soda-fountain-style carbonating machine.

Back in the late 80s I started ordering "Croton Reservoir" in New York bars. In those days a bartender would know what you meant - the reservoir is a famous source of New York's prize-winning tap water. What is the point of ordering bottled water in New York, San Francisco or the East Bay, where the water tastes good and is of high quality?

And I dislike the waste of using individual or even large plastic water bottles. Serve pitchers of water, why don't you? That plastic stuff is usually from sources that are lower quality than what flows from the tap in my house.

If your local tap water isn't good, well, what are you going to do about it? Fight for good water!

Unhappy Meals

Reader Alison suggests: Unhappy Meals - Michael Pollan - New York Times.

Proper nutrition is quite simple, food writer and researcher Pollan says:

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Also, Pollan says be suspicious of any food that makes health claims.

That's about it. Food is defined as anything that is unprocessed and would have been recognizable to your great-grandmother. Power bars, vitamin water and Lunchables are not food. Eggs with added Omega-3s should be viewed with suspicion.

Pollan goes into detail about the relationship between food and ecology, and gives good solid reasons why everybody ought to eat smaller quantities of better quality food that costs more.

I practice this principle when buying meat. I buy hamburger or stew meat that is grass-fed or organic, and I eat smaller portions. Only rarely do we splurge on a steak (grass-fed and hormone-free). Even then I remember to eat a 3 oz. size portion. But meat-eating isn't my downfall, it's late-night snacking on processed grains (pretzels? Cheerios?) while surfing the internet. Also I don't get enough exercise - ever since I got a car ten years ago. I try to shop on foot and walk 30-35 minutes per day but it doesn't always happen. Sigh.

Anyway - thank you Alison for tipping us to this valuable article.

Related discussions - Rebecca Blood tips us to a Salon article exposing Annie's mac-n-cheese as no better for your kids than Kraft day-glo orange glop. I'm not surprised. My kids have been eating pasta with store-bought grated parmesan*, olive oil and sometimes plain yogurt since infancy. Sometimes I put a little leftover lentil soup in it. That's it. Why is this harder than a box of Annie's? It's certainly less processed.

*The kind that's relatively fresh-grated, in a plastic tub; *not* the cardboard filings in the green cylindrical shaker! If I were a true foodie I would grate the cheese myself, but soon after the birth of my second child I got sick of juggling cheese graters and children, and have used pre-grated cheese ever since.

And another, off-line bit of advice from Marion Nestle, the great food advocate, corporate gadfly, and nutritionist: since commercially flavored yogurts are so laden with sugar, fillers and dyes that they are more like bad desserts than "healthy" food, why not serve your children plain yogurt flavored with a bit of jam or even some white sugar? They'll be eating far less sugar than they normally would in the typical serving of flavored yogurt. This is from her book, What to Eat.

I've been feeding the offspring plain yogurt with a dot of vanilla and a half teaspoon of sugar for dessert. They think it's such an amazing treat...

                                               

	amount	calories
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

Just sayin'...

Black-eyed Peas and Spinach

Claudia Roden furnished the recipe - New Book of Middle Eastern Food. I doubled it.

Cook 8 oz. dried black-eyed peas in water according to package directions (Roden said 20 minutes, my package said 90 minutes, I used the pressure cooker and had to make a guess - they were slightly overdone). I used a bay leaf because I always do. Salt and pepper at the end.

Meanwhile, chop two onions and sautee slowly in olive oil until translucent and golden. While onions are sweating, stem and thoroughly wash two pounds of fresh spinach. (you could use frozen spinach - two 14 oz. boxes) When onions are cooked, add spinach with the water clinging to its leaves; salt; put the lid on and let the spinach wilt - a few minutes or less.

Drain beans and add to spinach mixture, heat through. (I added spinach to beans - the frying pan was getting too full). I also added the juice of half a lemon - it could have used a little more. I thought about adding fresh cilantro to the spinach - my Lebanese auntie from Maghdouche would. Next time.

This was a terrific New Year's Day dish, vegan if you care. My husband the meat eater wolfed it down. Black-eyed peas unite my Southern American and South Lebanon heritages and this dish is going to be a standard in my repertoire.

For bonus points, I made a wild rice blend using the drained blackeyed pea liquid and some dried shiitake mushrooms. The rice mix is sold bulk and contains wild rice, brown rice short and long, and maybe something else. It is dense, nutty, flavorful, and exquisite with the mushrooms. I put a little plain yogurt on it. Don't know what you call this combo of North American "wild rice", Arab yogurt, and Arab black-eyed peas and spinach. I call it good....

Spiced Turkey

Reader Maloof writes in comments that he put the spiced chicken marinade on his Christmas turkey and it worked out well.

Then for a New Year's potluck he used Cornish hens - also a success.

I'm just delighted that folks are actually cooking recipes I post. And REALLY delighted that you all like the spiced chicken recipe -- even though it's not "mine." I take credit for rescuing it from the archives of Gourmet magazine.

Roast Beef

Three bone prime rib, grass fed beef for New Year's Eve supper. Hubby wanted it, and told me not to worry about the price. I used this recipe from Epicurious: pink and green peppercorn crusted prime rib. Yorkshire pudding, roasted beets with fresh dill, big salad, and oven fried potatoes.

Yes, it was delicious. Happy New Year to all...

Endless Christmas Ham

For Christmas a week ago I cooked a Niman Ranch, antibiotic- and nitrite-free apple-smoked ham. Glazed it with orange juice, honey and mustard. Made Southern spoonbread, braised rainbow chard with garlic, and mashed potatoes to go with it. (The children like mashed potatoes). We were only five, as my father died three months ago and we really didn't feel like having a big party.

So there was plenty of ham left over. Tuesday, Boxing Day, we ate leftover sliced ham and whatever else was in the fridge. Wednesday I made pasta with spinach and pesto sauce and served diced ham with it. Thursday I made a frittata with the leftover pasta and more bits of ham. Friday there was still a giant chunk of ham left, so I cubed it and made a plain bean soup - speckled Anasazi beans, sauteed onion, bay leaf, salt and pepper, cooked under pressure, then the last of the ham stirred in and cooked a little longer. The four of us demolished a whole pot of the soup in one day.

(the spiced lentil soup was in there, too)

Because we ate beans and leftovers all week, I didn't flinch when hubbie requested roast beef for supper tonight. Don't worry about what it costs, he said. I did flinch when I got to the butcher and saw what grass-fed rib roast costs per pound (our dinner guests might read this blog so I won't share with you).

I repeated out loud to my son: "Daddy says don't worry how much the meat costs, just get it." I still shop like a parsimonious housewife when actually my husband earns a good living and we can certainly afford to buy roast beef, grass-fed no less. We'd spend a lot more eating out. But my inner Puritan struggled. The strong direction from my husband over-rode my price resistance.  Now I just have to figure out how to roast the thing. I've only done this once before.

Happy New Year to all.

What to Eat

Just got the new book from Marion Nestle out of the library. I didn't buy it because I figure I have the info already - and it's true that I pretty much do what she says. But the book is very informative and gives you the lowdown on What to Eat.

Nestle is a nutritionist, food lover, and big critic of corporate food. With all the competing health claims and fears out there, and the pressures of grocery and restaurant advertising, we are bewildered about what to feed our children these days. Some of her guidelines:

"First, shop the perimeters of the market. That's where the real foods are -- the meat, produce, dairy. Don't go into the center aisles. If you have to, don't buy anything with more than five ingredients, not counting vitamins. And if you can't pronounce an ingredient, don't buy the product. Don't buy anything with a health claim -- they're misleading. Don't buy artificial anything. Don't buy anything with a cartoon on it -- these people are marketing directly to your child. And if you're concerned about weight, don't buy soft drinks -- they're all calories and no nutrients. ...Eating is a great pleasure. I'd rather try to keep control of the quantity I eat." (from a Washington Post interview)

This book is for you if you're confused about eating fish (sustainable? mercury levels? Omega 3s?), nutritional supplements (she's skeptical) organic food (she's cautiously in favor), and all manner of commercially processed "health food" (caveat emptor). Marion Nestle reads the labels, goes to the stores, phones the numbers on the back of the box and quizzes the spokespeople, goes to the farms and generally pokes around asking questions. The book is quite entertaining.

But basically - eat at home more often. Eat whole foods. Go easy on the junk food. If you want to lose weight, move more and eat less. Watch the added sugar. Drink tap water (buy a filter if you're worried about the quality). Etc.

Several cookbooks in my collection that help me with putting on simple meals cooked from basic ingredients with not a lot of time:

Good, Cheap Food Miriam Ungerer
How To Cook Without a Book Pam Anderson
The Minimalist Cooks Dinner Mark Bittman
How to Cook Everything Mark Bittman
The New Fanny Farmer Cookbook Marion Cunningham

Making food just doesn't have to be hard work. What you need to eat every day does not have to be fabulous all the time. Simple home-cooked food is healthier, tastier and more economical than takeout, takeout, frozen dinners and takeout.

Quaffability: The Blog

When you go to Trader Joe's to buy wine, do you feel confused? Do you stand in front of the bottles of two buck chuck, $3.99 cabernet, and $6.99 Bordeaux, wondering whether any of it is any good, and is the extra three dollars going to make a difference or is it all rotgut?

Read Quaffability, a blog of a year's standing full of reviews of wine. The motto: "mostly under twelve dollars, mostly available at Trader Joe's." Probably very specific to Northern California but maybe some of the wines are available in markets elsewhere. They even review the two buck chuck.

If you aren't from California, you may not know about two buck chuck. It's this super cheap wine that may or may not be the excess product from a good producer; TJ's sells it under the label Charles Shaw. Staple of graduate school parties all up and down California.

For New Year's, Quaffability recommends Schramsburg Mirabelle Brut, North Coast, at $14.99, for your sparkling wine. Happy New Year!

Let me just add: I am not all that impressed with Trader Joe's as a grocery store. I don't buy their produce -it's mediocre. My local upscale market (locally owned too) has a much, much better meat department. In fact, the old local market, a smallish corner store, has a meat counter I like much better than TJ's. I really don't like TJ's snacky foods - what is the purpose of buying upscale junk? It's still junk. Their nuts etc. are no better a deal than what I get at my local "natural foods" markets. In fact, TJ's has way too much sugary, fatty, processed food. So what if they have organic juice boxes - I try not to feed my kids juice boxes, which are wasteful (the packaging) and not that healthy (juice is still a sugar drink, I don't care if it is organic). Their pre-made frozen foods and fresh salads and such range from mediocre to forget-about-it. (note - because frozen foods and pre-made salads are just mediocre; it's possible that TJ's is no worse than anybody else's)

I don't buy commercially prepared sauces, packaged dinners and mixes such as Thai Green Curry Sauce or even macaroni and cheese in a box; I prefer to make my food from scratch, using simple cooking techniques and whole, unprocessed ingredients. Ok I've bought things like frozen wild shrimp upon occasion, but on the whole I am underwhelmed by most of TJ's food offerings.

What Trader Joe's can offer me, and why I drop in when I'm in the neighborhood: cheap wine; good prices on dairy products, including yogurt and keffir cheese; and low priced tortillas, flatbreads and other specialty breads. So while I am posting about wine at TJ's, please don't mistake me for a TJ's shill. I shop my local markets instead. But they are certainly nice people in that store, and they know their business and their customer. I wish them well.