Fat, Salt and Sugar

A month or two ago former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, David Kessler, was making the rounds of radio shows talking about his new book, "The End of Overeating." His theory, backed by scientific research, is that foods high in fat, salt and sugar turn on a little switch in our brain that says "Eat! Eat more! Keep eating!" This neurological response is what keeps our hand going back into that bag of Cheetos long after we've had our fill.

Of course none of us want to admit that we are weak enough to be trapped in this way. What ever happened to self control? But after a recent visit to Chicago I am here to tell you that David Kessler is right. The magic combination of fat, salt and sugar is truly, unquestionably evil. And also very delicious.

The long line at Garrett's Popcorn Shop is proof of what suckers we all are. What they serve at Garrett's doesn't even taste like popcorn. It doesn't taste like real food at all. Real food doesn't leave a neon yellow stain on you fingers that is difficult to wash off, even with soap. To experience the ultimate fat, salt and sugar triumvirate that David Kessler warns us about, you have to order the Chicago Mix, a blend of caramel and cheese popcorn. I know, I was skeptical too. I was even slightly grossed out by what I was eating the whole time I was eating it, but I couldn't stop. Garrett's Chicago Mix is the ultimate junk food. If you don't believe me, (or if you don't believe David Kessler) next time you're in Chicago get yourself a bag of Chicago Mix and see for yourself how one bite abolishes all self control.

The combination of the sweet caramel corn and salty cheese corn was so tasty I considered re-creating it at home. I imagined making a slightly healthier, more gourmet version of what Garrett's has going on. And then I came to my senses. Trying to make gourmet Chicago Mix is like trying to make gourmet Cheetos. Eating junk food every once in awhile is one of the great things about being human. And, one of the great things about visiting Chicago.

Mint Therapy

Remember the days when throwing your real or imaginary money around was the newest pastime and people indulged in things like vinotherapy without feeling at all like an idiot? For you sensible folk who missed out on this trend, vinotherapy refers to a multitude of spa treatments that involve soaking or rubbing down your body with red wine and its by-products. Supposedly, your skin soaks all those antioxidants right up and it's like dipping into the fountain of youth. I might be able to handle a body scrub made from "antioxidant-rich crushed grape seeds simmered in red wine" (like the one offered at Calistoga Ranch in Napa Valley) but if I'm going to soak in a bathtub filled with red wine you better believe I'm bringing a straw. I don't know about you but these days if there is a bottle of wine around, it's going into my wine glass, not my bathtub.

But I'm not one to discard of all ridiculous indulgences just because the economy has changed. Indulging was exactly what was on my mind the other night when I started to fill the tub and then realized I didn't have a drop of bubble bath in the house. But what I did have was a front yard full of spearmint. For weeks I'd been trying to make a dent in the ever-growing cluster of spearmint taking over the garden. I put mint leaves in salads, I put them pasta, I put them in drinks. It made no difference - in terms of over-abundance during the summer, spearmint puts zucchini to shame. But abundance breeds creativity. And that is exactly how dozens of mint sprigs ended up in my tub. The hot water releases a subtle, but invigorating aroma of clean, tingly mint as you bathe. It's like soaking in a giant mug of mint tea. Completely lovely and completely free if you have any spearmint in your yard. Or, in your neighbor's yard. Trust me, they won't mind if you pick some.

Hang On, Little Tomato

Is there anything as precarious as a tiny tomato hanging on the vine?

Taking a wider world view than my front garden, I suppose the answer is yes. But it doesn’t change the fact that I walk out every morning expecting the worst. Maybe a rodent will eat it. Maybe the plant will get sick before the tomato ripens. Maybe one of several thousands types of tiny insects might start nibbling on its leaves. And here’s the thing - I don’t even really like tomatoes (unless they’re part of something, like salsa or pasta sauce, or ketchup). But this is my first foray into gardening and I’m a little nervous.
When I was in culinary school, one of my classmates grew several pots of tomatoes in her bedroom. Sun streamed in from a bay window, ripening the little tomatoes day by day. Her dream was to wake up one morning and pluck a tiny red tomato from the vine, enjoying its sweet flavor without even getting out of bed. Perhaps this was the ultimate foodie fantasy being played out. Or perhaps it was just a girl living in a tiny apartment in a major city and a pot next to her bed was as close to a garden as she was going to get.
For years I’ve been in the same predicament, but now, no more. Although to be fair, I don’t want to overstate the greenness of my thumb. First of all, The Husband has done the lion’s share of the work (numerous trips for soil and seeds, disciplined watering). Secondly, we don’t even have a real garden, we just have pots. But we do have a tiny green tomato trying its
darndest to grow and one box of lettuce seeds that refuses to grow at all and I’m rooting for both of them.
Will the tomato ripen? And if it does, what do we do with it? There’s only one tomato on the plant, so do we cut the tiny thing in half and throw it in a salad, which will conveniently be small too, since one box of lettuce seeds refuses to grow? I don't have the answers to those questions. I'm new at this gardening thing. But I’ll keep you posted.

Sack Lunches

On my drive home from work in the afternoon I’ve been seeing the same group of five construction workers ending their day. They’re walking to their own cars, all of them still wearing orange vests, and all five carrying small lunch coolers. I always wonder what was packed in their cooler that day. I imagine meatloaf and ketchup sandwiches or maybe ham on white bread with mayonnaise and a bag of chips. Maybe Tupperware filled with leftovers from last night’s dinner or a long, slim piece of cold pizza wrapped in tin foil. I love packed lunches. The anticipation! The joy of seeing a sandwich snug inside a Ziploc bag! I miss the grade school lunch hour when I walked down the hallway tightly holding two dimes that would buy a small carton of milk from the milk wagon. (I know that makes me sound like a pioneer – I wasn’t – but I swear, my grade school did have a milk wagon.)
The Husband is not so big on the packed lunch. He thinks it's sad, and I understand why. A half-squashed paper bag with a flap folded down. The sandwich bread that sometimes gets soggy. Knowing that your freedom from work will be over in 30 short minutes.
But what if you had a shiny, metal lunchbox? Something with a nifty little handle and three different compartments? A friend brought such a thing back from India recently and although I don’t think it’s meant to be a lunch box, that’s the first thing I thought of when I saw it. This little lunchbox would make you the envy of lunch room.
This week, plan ahead one night and pack yourself a lunch. Don’t scrimp - make it hearty. Pack yourself a lunch so good that your co-workers might actually consider negotiating a trade. Your homemade salad with fresh chicken and blue cheese in exchange for the gut-bomb burrito they bought across the street? Or perhaps your large square of leftover lasagna for their boring old bagel?
Yeah, right.
If you really want to make ‘em jealous, take my cue and bring the lunch box back into your life. It feels good to swing a lunchbox by your side. Makes me feel like skipping.

Viva La France

Two days ago I returned from an eleven day vacation in the South of France, where The Husband and I drove our little rented Citroën through the winding cliffs of Cote d’Azur and the tree-lined roads of Provence. The last time I was in France was ten years ago and my impression then was the same as it was this time: There’s something great about being in a country where non-fat milk doesn’t exist, smoking is still acceptable, wine flows like water, and a bakery is on every corner. What really hit me this time, however, was not how far ahead the French are, gastronomically speaking, but how far we’ve come. An overwhelming amount of the same brands of products lining the shelves of food stores in France are readily available here in the States (salts, butters, cheeses, chocolates, oils, etc). I thought I’d come back with a suitcase full of culinary finds, but it was silly to pack food back from France that I can just buy at the gourmet market here in the States. The beauty of France, however, is that there aren’t “gourmet” markets, there are just markets. What we consider “gourmet” food is seamlessly integrated into their daily eating habits. In the medieval hill town of Castillon du Gard, The Husband and I wandered into a tiny store that was essentially a neighborhood mini-mart, but in addition to toilet paper and potato chips and canned soup, there was also a selection of local produce, handmade cheeses, and these delicious little Kalamata olive crackers.
Thankfully, there are more and more store owners in the U.S. that are getting the hang of this idea, which is not at all a new one, not even in the States. It is, essentially, the return of the corner grocer, or, if you will, a re-imagined version of a 7-11 convenience store. The growing wave of convenience stores on the West Coast all share the same traits: They are small, locally owned, and most importantly, located in the heart of a residential neighborhood. They lack the snobbery that a strictly gourmet store can have, and unlike the 7-11 stores we all grew up with, they sell real food, not just junk food. These stores are not afraid to sell Saltine Crackers and toilet paper next to Italian Olive oil and brie.
At Robin’s Nest in Los Angeles you can buy kitty litter and Heinz baked beans as well as Mushroom Truffle Risotto puffs and a divine cappuccino. At The Icebox in Seattle, residents of the Queen Anne neighborhood can stroll in for fresh herbs and wine or a gallon of milk and a box of cereal. In Spokane, WA, Rocket Market is a gas station convenience store that has grown into a "small market of epic proportions." In addition to gas, Rocket Market offers a stellar selection of wine, artisan cheeses, and fresh baked desserts.
Like the French, these little stores have figured out that good food can and should be sold at the same place where you pump gas and buy a bar of soap. In an ideal world, there should be a pleasant little store close to your home where you can pop in on a Saturday night for a bottle of excellent wine and the dog food you just realized you ran out of. Food magazines will be telling you next year what I'm telling you now: In 2008 fancy-pants gourmet stores will be out and the new breed of neighborhood convenience stores will be in.

Growing Grapes

During a quick trip to Santa Barbara wine country this weekend, I was filled with grape envy. I didn’t necessarily want to become a winemaker, I just wanted those beautiful rows of vines to come home with me, giving me something to gaze at out of the window of my city dwelling.
While a grape trellis isn’t exactly a vineyard, its not a bad substitute for anyone with a little bit of outdoor space. With proper, regular pruning and lots of patience (it can take a few years for the vines to produce fruit) you will be plucking amazingly sweet, perfectly tart, fruit right from your back porch. This cluster of grapes was plucked from a friend’s backyard trellis and I can vouch that they taste better than any grapes bought in a store.
Grapes will grow pretty much anywhere in the U.S. as long as you plant the right variety for your region’s climate. I’m all for leaving winemaking to the experts, but if you do have aspirations of making your own version of Two Buck Chuck, make sure the grapes you plant are in the Vitis Vinifera family. Grapes in this family have the higher sugar and acidity needed for turning grape juice into delicious alcohol. This can make them tasty to snack on too, but wine grapes are also seedy and have tough skin. Table grapes have lower sugar, but they also have lower acidity, which balances their flavor and makes them good to eat. Vitis Labrusca is a North American species meant for snacking but not necessarily winemaking (if you’ve tasted Concord wine, you know what I mean.)
If you’re a city dweller with a small deck it’s possible to grow a grape vine out of a single a pot, then train the vine to grow up a post and/or across a trellis. Don’t expect beauty right away. For the first year or two your vine will basically look like a thick branch. See the big stick growing up out of this pot? That’s the vine. When it eventually grows across a trellis, it becomes leafy and green and produces the lovely cluster you see hanging here. There's nothing like sitting on the deck of a winery gazing out at acres of vines, but you shouldn't underestimate how happy a few clusters hanging off your back deck might make you.

Goats Take Over the World

For years the lowly goat got no respect. Not as cute and fluffy as a sheep, not as big and strong as a cow. As far as most people were concerned it was a scrappy looking, tin-can eating, sad excuse for a farm animal. But look who’s having the last laugh now . . .
Slowly but surely the goat has been taking over the dairy section with new brands of goat milk, butter, yogurt and ice cream popping up all the time. If you stroll into the beauty section, you’ll notice the same thing happening. See any sheep and cow’s milk soap and lotion on the shelves? I didn’t think so. It’s not because it doesn’t exist, but goat’s milk has firmly cornered the skin care market in retail stores and farmer’s markets. Just as goat’s milk is considered easier to digest, it is also absorbed into the skin more easily than other skincare products. The pH level of goat’s milk is about the same as the pH level of human skin which helps maintain the skin’s natural moisture content. I received Canus Goat’s Milk lotion as a gift recently and love it. Working in the food industry, I’m washing my hands constantly and this lotion has been keeping them silky smooth. Unlike other body lotions that seem overly heavy, Canus Goat’s Milk lotion is light enough that I use it on my hands and then rub any excess lotion onto my face. How do you think all those beautiful French milk maids kept their skin smooth and lovely? Goat's milk, of course.

Escaping Reality

Who among us hasn't dreamt of escaping the daily grind to make a living in an idyllic setting where our destiny is in our own hands? Meetings and constant text-messaging would no longer exist, the loud roar of traffic would be replaced by the soft chirping of birds, and the morning commute would consist of walking from your kitchen to your garden. Maybe you'd open a bed & breakfast, or a vineyard, or why not both?

In reality, this sort of daydream isn't easy to pull off and after too much time in the country I'm sure there's a few of you out there who would actually miss constantly text-messaging. Maybe what you need is not a radical change of career or location, but just a weekend away to somewhere like Shinn Estate Farmhouse. Barbara Shinn and David Page have owned Home restaurant in Manhattan since 1993. They also produce wine from their own vineyard, Shinn Estate, on the North Fork of Long Island. The final piece of the dream was put into place when they opened a farmhouse bed and breakfast with four elegant guest rooms, vineyard views, and Chef Page's morning breakfasts of "slow cooked eggs, savory biscuits, maple smoked bacon, and scones." Whatever it is you're doing this Monday morning I can guarantee that sitting on a front porch eating that breakfast and looking at a vineyard would be much, much better.

Wine country on the West Coast has no shortage of escapes either. The Black Walnut Inn is a wine country retreat in the Willamette Valley, a region known for producing Oregon's stunning Pinot Noirs. In Washington state,

The Inn at Abeja is surrounded by twenty-two acres of gardens and the rolling vineyards of the Walla Walla Valley. If you want to get really ridiculous, you can get in on "the dawn of the Solage experience," at the grand opening of the Solage Calistoga Resort in the Napa Valley this month. You can drink wine during the day then head to the Mud Bar and Bathhouse for spa treatments like a full-body "mud cocktail" with "nutrient rich volcanic" (and I'm guessing very expensive) mud.

If a wine country escape is not in the cards for you right now, then at the very least pop open a bottle in your backyard tonight, set out some cheese, relax, and dream of the day you'll open your own idyllic retreat and finally have that elusive kitchen-to-garden commute.

Money in a Bottle

Recently, a reader who noticed that the wines I’ve reviewed so far have been in the $12 range asked me if buying a bottle that is three, four or five times more expensive is really worth it.
Right now I’m buying bottles of wine under $12 for the same reason I’m wearing a $9 shirt I bought at Target. That’s what the budget allows. As soon as this blog rockets me to stardom I’ll no doubt up the wine budget. But when I have more money will I always buy more expensive wine? Nope.
There is a vast ocean of wine in the $20-$60 range, and frankly, fishing out a great bottle can be a crap shoot. The frustrating thing about wine is that paying more doesn’t guarantee you’ll like the wine more. In many cases, this is simply a matter of taste. A wine that your friend loves, you may hate. This holds true whether the wine cost $10 or $60. Similarly, if you dislike big, juicy, fruity wines, a $50 wine made in this style won’t taste any better to you than a $20 wine made in this style. And keep in mind that just because a critic raves about a wine, it doesn’t mean you’ll agree its great (since when have you liked every movie that’s lauded by critics?)
Sadly, when you’re holding a $50 bottle in your hand and debating whether or not to splurge, bottle labels and store signs are rarely helpful; if you’ve read one description about lush red berries and gorgeous ripe whatever, you’ve read them all. Your only defense is this: buy your wine in a store with employees who know wine and will help you. This doesn’t mean you have to shop in a fancy shmancy wine store. My mom raves about the “wine lady” at her local grocery store. You just need to shop in a store where employees can explain the way a wine tastes in a way that makes sense to you.
The problem with buying more expensive wine is that your expectations go way up. Many people expect the “flavor” of a more expensive and/or well-aged wine to blow their socks off, when in many cases this type of wine is very subtle. Think of it in terms of music. Drinking expensive and well-aged wines can be compared to listening to a musician perform unplugged in an intimate setting. If you’re use to seeing Eddie Vedder crowd-diving and playing loud guitar and hanging from the rafters while he screeches out songs, you might be a little under-whelmed if suddenly you see him perform alone in a small bar with only his ukulele. But as the night goes on you’ll begin to think, man, this Eddie Vedder guy can really sing. You’ll hear the subtle variations in his voice, you’ll see the expressions on his face, you’ll hear every word of the lyrics.
Right now there are three types of wine I would personally consider splurging for: Burgundy (what is there not to love about wine that smells like moldy mushrooms?), Champagne (this is one type of wine that does seem to get better by price) and wine from Washington State (what can I say, I’m loyal to my homeland).

A Good Year

Who, I ask, could not use a vacation in March? The gray skies. The cold wind. The wrinkled root vegetables that are all starting to taste the same. If a plane ticket to Europe is out of your reach, may I suggest adding A Good Year to your Netflix account? Set in the vineyards of Provence, it is a perfect two-hour vacation that will make you crave the finer things in life, like wine and cheese and leisurely meals eaten outdoors. Sure, it’s a little corny and predictable, but it was one of the only movies I’ve seen in the last six months that caused drool to run down my chin while I watched it (this also happened when I re-watched Beautiful Girls the other night and saw Timothy Hutton, but for an entirely different reason.)

While watching the many beauiful vineyard scenes in A Good Year I think I actually reached towards the screen trying to grab food and a glass of wine out of Russell Crowe’s hand. But you can watch it at home with a spread of food and wine in front of you, which is the only proper way to watch this movie. Usually I have a hard time with culinary-themed movies, mainly because Hollywood has such a hard time getting chefs right (anyone see Spanglish? I know critics had much deeper complaints, but personally I just couldn’t believe Adam Sandler’s character was a chef.) A new film coming out in July, No Reservations, will star Catherine Zeta-Jones as a chef and I don’t know if I’m buyin’ that casting choice either. But Russell Crow as an egotistical asshole who spends his days slugging back wine? Now, that I believe. So open a bottle wine, set out a plate of food, put in the movie, and go on that much needed vacation. If anyone else has some favorite food films, let us know!

Onion Goggles

Let's face it: most tools in our kitchens these days are not really necessary. Anything that a garlic press, zester,potato peeler or food processor can do, a chef's knife can do just as well. What most of these tools do is make cooking easier and therefore more fun. And what, I ask, could be more fun than wearing onion goggles? I don't know who, but someone I know is going to be getting these as a gift this year. Available in white,black or pink (my personal favorite) these goggles block out onion vapors with an airtight seal. No more tears! They are also slightly tinted to avoid the pesky glare of sunshine so often found in kitchens and fog-proof, if things get steamy. If onion goggles are a little too hip for you, you can always try other less-proven methods to avoid onion tears (burn a candle next to the cutting board, put the onion in the freezer or soak in water before cutting, never cut from the root end, hold your breath while cutting) Made by R.S.V.P International, onion goggles can be found in kitchen stores like Sur la Table.

Shut Up and Eat

Am I the only person who thinks restaurant bloggers are bordering on obnoxious?
To the diner who asks which country the short ribs on menu are native to, I can only say this. Who cares! And stop pestering the poor wait staff! Now, I am a woman who LOVES FOOD. I love it, folks. I love to eat it, look at, think about. When The Husband frequently sees a faraway look in my eyes and asks what I am pondering, it is rarely world peace. It’s usually something along the lines of how I would construct the perfect ham sandwich. But come on. It’s time for the restaurant bloggers to pipe down a little bit and stop turning the restaurant industry into a freak-show where patrons don’t come simply to eat, but come instead to gawk at the staff and nit-pick their way through a meal. Is that really an enjoyable eating experience for them? This is one of the reasons the Urban Forager stays out of restaurants. Eating at one brings back bad memories of working at one and having to deal with people who have turned what used to be a leisurely activity (eating) into a competitive sport. Sheesh.