How to Have Your Friends Over For Dinner

You'll have to get used to giving everything away: your food, your wine, your time, and your love. Your friends will come over. They'll mill around. They'll bring wine, maybe. They'll stand there waiting. They'll feel anxious. You'll feel anxious. Put out some strawberry avocado salsa.

Give your friends small tasks to perform.

Say to your friends: Fold this napkin exactly like this; pinch this string bean exactly like this; good, now pinch every string bean exactly like that.

Don't be so anal-retentive.

Never, for example, use the word "exactly".

Your friends will get nervous. String beans are a casual affair, after all, and so is your little get-together. On the other hand, positively do not let your friend fuck up your string beans. Choose the right friend for this task. The best is your Mom. If she's not around, try Henry.

Let your other friends perform small tasks. Sure, Cogan's terrible at string beans, but he's a master conversationalist. He's an epic wine-drinker too. Put him on the couch. Set a bottle of wine and two glasses in front of him. He'll fill the first glass. Soon Someone Else will come along. Surely Someone Else will sit down and fill the second glass. The two will get along marvelously, Cogan and this Someone Else. Someday, maybe, they'll get married, and have a beautiful baby girl. They'll always remember that one time, your little get-together, when they met on the couch, over a bottle of wine. To thank you for this memory they'll name the baby girl after you.

They'll say: I'd like you to meet our new baby girl, Seth.

By the way, if you expect this sort of honor, you're going at it all wrong. This night is not about you and your weird, fanatical obsession with having your friends name their babies after you. This night is about your friends. So when you sit down to eat, and everyone's still a little anxious, and that initial great, quiet hum of people eating joyfully is finally interrupted by Jackson, who, it just so happens, loves the string beans, you'll know exactly what to say.

Oh, you'll say, Henry made the string beans.

And everyone will applaud.

But what if the string beans, actually, suck?

Oh, you'll say, My bad.

Next time, you'll do better.

And then give Henry a wink. Make it so the wink says: Good job, man. They'll never know we actually wanted the string beans to suck.

But what if you really didn't want the string beans to suck? What if you really fucked them up, just like you fucked up the chicken that one time, and everyone moaned and complained: This chicken is raw.

Remember: Wine helps.

Say: Fuck, this food sucks! But life is short. Let's toast life!

Order take-out. Promise you'll do better next time. Luckily, happily, there will always be a next time. You'll discover that it's the only way to stay afloat. You must have your friends over. You must continue to give everything. You'll discover that, weirdly, the more you give the more you receive. Sure, you spent three laborious hours in the kitchen, but notice how the next day you wake at 10:00 am only to discover it's 7:00 am. The day spreads out before you like an enormous canvas! Paint it blue, with your hang-over.

Also, random checks will appear in your mailbox. The government will send you an official letter.

Sorry, we forgot, the letter will say, but we owe you $10,000.

If you expect this, though, you're going at it all wrong. This night is not about giving and receiving. It's about your friends. And besides, that massive account-book of give and take between you and your friends will always remain balanced, because Karen was there for you when you almost died, and because Brad tried to fight that entire house of people because they called you that bad name, and because Pyle made you laugh so hard you remembered that you actually did like being alive, and because Charlie offered to help you pick up that log in the middle of that terrible rainstorm, and because Henry always pinches the string-beans just right, and because JJ loves you so much you always feel adored, and because Cogan is some sort of mythical idea of a perfect friend, except for his girlfriends, and because Princey, although he doesn't come over much anymore, would jump off a roof to save your life.

So, really, what's a chicken?

And anyway, soon enough you'll become a Magician at this sort of thing. Your friends will continue to come over and mill around anxiously. But notice how the strawberry avocado salsa calms them. Then, notice, how, at the table, magically, the anxious feeling dissolves. Suddenly, everyone is cozy, the wine bottles are overflowing with air, and the conversation has become one long riff on possibility--the possible excursions you'll share, the possible trips you might take together, the long days at the beach, the possibility of summer cookouts, and the strong, vibrantly drunk possibility that everything will be getting better and better from this moment onward.

Possibility

And it will get better, actually. This meal will heal you, a little. It will bring you closer to the people you love the most in the world, and since those people actually live in your heart, your heart will grow, a little.

Soon, things will start to change for you.

Cleaning-up, you'll realize, is incredibly fun.

You'll put your I-Pod on shuffle. You'll enlist one of the drunker friends to help. You'll get down on your hands and knees and scrub the floor. And while you're down there, you'll thank life for this opportunity you didn't squander, the time you could have spent alone, wallowing in what you've been able to hold onto, but instead you spent with your friends, the time you let everything go: your food, your wine, your time, and your love. And what is all that stuff even good for, if it can't be given away?

Strawberry Avocado Salsa

I've already published this recipe on-line, elsewhere. That recipe is good, but I'm changing it a bit, below, in an attempt to "reclaim" the recipe for FoodVibe. Consider this recipe below the definitive Strawberry Avocado Salsa recipe, straight from the source. This recipe is about gentle, exquisite preparation. I suggest taking your time, following the recipe precisely...

1 pound strawberries (local, of course, is best)
1 jalapeño pepper, minced
1/4 cup scallion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons cilantro, finely chopped
1 lime, quartered
1/4 teaspoon sugar, optional
sea salt
2 firm-ripe avocados

Remove the green stems from the strawberries. Gently chop the strawberries, using clean, swift knife strokes so that each chopped piece is only touched briefly by the knife. (If you do not have the patience to cleanly chop the strawberries please do not make the recipe.)

In small bowl, gently, very gently, toss the strawberries with the jalapeño, scallion, and cilantro. Squeeze a quarter of lime onto the strawberry salsa and season with sugar, if desired, and sea salt.

Half the avocados, remove the pit and the skin. Finely, and very smoothly and carefully, dice the avocados and place into a small bowl. Squeeze two quarters lime juice onto the avocado and gently toss.

Pour strawberry salsa in the bowl with the avocados. Gently toss. Season with additional salt and lime juice, if desired. Serve...

Breakfast and the Power of Beginnings

A new moon appeared this week. The Jewish calendar calls this day Rosh Chodesh, "the beginning of the month." My thoughts turn female.

The moon's mystic qualities are overtly feminine. Cyclical and gestational, the moon waxes and wanes to be reborn each month. In most times and cultures, women have been associated with the moon through ceremony and ritual. In Judaism, Rosh Chodesh is recognized as a women’s holiday dating back to late antiquity.

The new moon also holds the secret of beginnings—how beginnings contain (yet purposely conceal) the entirety of what lies ahead. Beginnings are microcosms: the seed to a tree, the ember to a fire. In a microcosm, we see the meaning of essence, that the nature of the whole is contained in its parts, infinitesimal in size. Like love.

The Jewish calendar is lunar, assigning unique spiritual qualities to the different moons of the year. Each Rosh Chodesh is a microcosm containing the essence of the month to come. The days emerge from it as a child from a womb. For this reason some are careful about the day, knowing it is a tenuous time, fraught with potentiality. The things we begin on Rosh Chodesh can grow into fixed patterns affecting our lives and psyches for the duration of the moon cycle. Like the moon, they grow in strength and potency until they peak. As the moon wanes, they slowly fade until they are gone. With the next new moon comes renewal—a clean slate and the chance to start again.

The moon, women, and beginnings share a commonality to most men: their ways are concealed, inscrutable, shrouded in secrecy.


On the subject of women and beginnings, my thoughts turn to morning, to breakfast—another beginning, another microcosm. Breakfast can be seen as the womb from which our day emerges. Our thoughts at the time, along with the food we eat and the energy it provides, establish the rhythm and pattern of the day to come.

It is important to start the day off right. It is important to have a good breakfast.

Merri and I eat the same breakfast every day: boiled whole oats with diced Granny Smith apple and cinnamon. Coffee. Later, a handful of almonds on the way out the door. These things are the raw materials of my day.

I wake each day to the voice of children. Akiva, the baby, stirs in his crib. Six-year old Zev tugs my foot.

“I’m hungry,” he says.

My mind snaps alert. A thought rises, fades. A significant part of the day’s pattern is immediately established—I will be surrounded by children in need. I teach in two schools each day.

I fix Zev’s breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs (sometimes waffles). A bowl of fruit, usually frozen grapes. A glass of almond milk. Vitamins: a chewable multi, a probiotic, three capsules of fish oil.

Zev sits to eat. I begin preparing my own breakfast. In doing this, another quality of my day is brought into being. As a parent and teacher, each day depends on how delicately I balance the act of placing others’ needs before my own.

Oats simmer over a medium flame on the stove. Bending over a dish, I slice through the apples. Purposeful, deliberate and slow, my knife is a morning prayer. It seeks to penetrate. Soon the apple collapses into a hundred tiny green cubes. When the oats are done cooking, I turn off the flame, stir in the apple and cinnamon.

The pot sits on the stove, delphic steam still rising from within. Looking inside, I hope to see something I can read, some insight into the day ahead amongst the oats and apples. I imagine seeing slight shadows inside the pot coalesce and shift together into imagery I should recognize. The random scattering of apples is not random at all. I know somewhere inside the pot is the pattern to my life, the secret to my days. I see nothing. The heavy padding of feet comes down the hall. Four-year old Sivan enters the kitchen, rubbing her eyes.

"Abba, I have to pee," she says.

Oat reverts to oat, apple subsides to apple. The pot sits on the stove, the air fragrant with the scent of cinnamon.

"Good morning," I say.

Merri arrives in the kitchen carrying the baby and places him in the high chair. Sivan is finished with her breakfast of yogurt mixed dry cereal and now plays in the living room. The baby sits quiet, content. This moment is ours. She gets the bowls. I get the mugs. We eat. She takes oatmeal, coffee with a bit of milk and agave nectar. I take plain oatmeal, black coffee. Our conversation sifts through the lingering emotions and detritus of yesterday. Together, we move forward.

In this way the last and most important pattern is brought into being. My wife and I meet for our meals together during stolen moments at the poles of the day, always by early morning or late at night. Except weekends, rarely do we meet in between. Our breakfast is like the early morning moon, still visible in the pre-dawn sky. She disappears during the day. We reconvene at night.

A Perfect Pot of Porridge

This recipe takes cues from both Cook's Illustrated, who suggest using longer-cooking steel-cut oats and Peter Berley, who suggests soaking the oats overnight in a souring agent, such as yogurt, to promote lactic-acid formation. This ultimately makes the oats easier to digest. The final dish is delicious and creamy with a slight tang: perfect. Steel cut oats take longer to cook than rolled oats, but much of the cooking time requires minimal attention.

1 cup steel cut oats
3 1/2 cups spring water
1/4 cup plain full-fat yogurt
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Fresh sliced apples, yogurt, or nuts for topping

In heavy saucepan, combine the oats, water, and yogurt. Cover the pan and soak overnight, 8 to 10 hours. This is called FoodVibing the oats.

In the morning, put the saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a lively simmer. Simmer gently for 20 minutes. Add the salt and stir lightly with a wooden spoon. Continue simmering, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until oats have absorbed most of the water and the porrdige is thick and creamy, 5-7 minutes.

Let the oatmeal stand off the heat for 5 minutes. Serve topped with fresh apple slices, yogurt, or crushed nuts.

More on Coconut Milk and Sex

I condition my hair with extra virgin coconut oil. At the end of summer, I buy coconut Surf Wax and smell it all winter. I eat coconut milk in one form or another with almost every lunch and dinner. It's in my lunchtime butternut squash soup (recipe pending). It's in my dinnertime mashed potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes. Lately, me and my wife eat the exact same vegetable side-dish every single night: Coconut Braised Greens. In this way we go through five or six cans of coconut milk every week.

That's a lot of fat.

For years coconut has been derided as unhealthy because of its high saturated fat content. My coconut milk has 10 grams of saturated fat per serving; that's 50% of the daily fat intake. I probably eat 20 grams of fat from coconut milk every day. Anyway. The coconut: unhealthy theory is bunk. Current research shows the fatty acids in coconut, the medium chain triglycerides, do not raise serum cholesterol or contribute to heart disease. Also, coconut is easily digested; it's not deposited as fat in arteries because it is easily metabolized. If you're skeptical or thinking of becoming a fanatic yourself, I suggest reading this thoroughly documented, well-presented article from Dr. Mercola's site. I offer this instead of boring links to studies.

Lately, as the winter enters its most hateful phase (football is over; baseball is yet to begin) I'm relying on visions of summer. The smell of coconut conjures lotion; skimpy bathing suits; an outdoor shower at a crowded beach house: the perfect little spot to steal away for a quickie.

No doubt, coconut is sexy.

Lately, on Saturday evenings, me and my wife make coconut-infused dishes.

Then, sometime after eating, we flop on the couch. We do not watch television. We do not fall asleep. Our place becomes crowded with all the things we do not do. The dishes in the sink. The laundry on the floor. The cellphones, unanswered. We just stay on the couch and pretend it's summer: We're staying in a crowded beach house; the couch is our outdoor shower.


Chicken and Mushrooms in a Lemon Coconut Broth

I've spent all week developing this recipe at home and at work. Then I made it last night for my brother's 40 birthday party. It's freakin' delicious. Serve it over a Perfect Pot of Rice.

6 tablespoons kosher salt
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, tenderloins removed, fat trimmed
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
16 ounces assorted fresh mushrooms--cremini, shitake, or white button--sliced thin
1 15 ounce can full fat coconut milk
1 teaspoon juice and zest from one fresh lemon
1 garlic clove minced
2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper

Dissolve the salt with four cups water in a gallon-size zipper lock bag. Add the chicken breasts and seal the bag, pressing out the extra air. Brine in the refrigerator for one hour.

Remove the chicken breasts from the brine and pat dry with a paper towel. Season with fresh ground pepper.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, warm one tablespoon olive oil. Add chicken to skillet and sauté until almost cooked through, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer chicken to a cutting board. When cool, slice into thin strips.

Add remaining two tablespoons olive oil to skillet. Add mushrooms and saute. Season lightly with sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Saute, stirring frequently, until mushrooms have released and absorbed excess moisture, about 8 minutes. Add coconut milk, lemon juice, lemon zest, garlic, and reserved chicken. Simmer until chicken is cooked through. Stir in parsley. Season to taste with sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

Serve hot.

The Joy of Dishwashing

Lately, I've been re-reading one of my bibles: Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. This is the fourth or fifth time I've read the book and just like the other times I'm getting myself all up in a tizzy. Suddenly, I'm feeling incredibly nostalgic for my days in the restaurant business.

Just the other day I said to my wife: I want to go back, work in a restaurant.

She then reminded me that I am currently enrolled full-time in graduate school, already have a full-time gig, and that I hardly have time to take a daily shower let alone re-commence my old, doomed career path.

I suppose she's right, but still. I go to bed, dream of fine-dicing carrots. I wake up, immediately think of demi-glace. In the kitchen, at home, I'm getting impatient and joyfully hostile. It's the sort of loving kitchen attitude I cultivated in the restaurants but it doesn't really fly at home, with my wife.

Recently, family came over for dinner. She was in a good mood, laboring over her spectacular risotto and a few composed salads. I was all hopped up on Bourdain and red wine so I walked in the kitchen, looked at her slightly overdressed salads, and said: Mmm, seaweed. She nearly broke down in tears.

Bourdain writes:

"If you are easily offended by direct aspersions to your lineage, the circumstances of your birth, your sexuality, your appearance, the mention of your parents possible commingling with livestock, then...professional cooking is not for you."

My wife is a beautiful home-cook and she makes no pretense to wanting to be a professional cook. I'm just an asshole.

The weirdest recent behavior, though, is my recent craving for dishwashing. I started in the restaurant business, like a lot of people, washing dishes. I was fourteen and I didn't break out until I was nearly eighteen. By then, I had learned to hate dishwashing with an all-abiding passion.

I distinctly recall my final night washing dishes. I walked up to my boss, told him I was finished. He said: Did you hose down the carts? I did not. So I went back and hosed the carts. Midway through, my boss walked up and surveyed my work. I gave him a little squirt. He was shocked. So I said: "You come back here, you're going to get wet."

Then I pointed the hose directly at him and pulled the trigger.

For five tumultuous, roaring seconds, I was King of the World.

I had never felt so liberated. It was the most glorious way to quit a job. And don't think that bastard didn't having it coming. He treated us dishwashers like degenerates (which we were, but still.) Among other things, he refused to give us gloves to handle the piping-hot plates, he paid us next-to-nothing, and he made me stay an hour late on my eighteenth birthday because he was unsatisfied with my mopping work. (I did a stellar job; he was just a mean bastard.)

It was always a sore spot for me that Steve worked at the same place as a waiter. The ethic, promoted by the boss, was that us dishwashers were sub-human and were to be treated as such by the staff. Steve candidly obliged.

So I suppose it's odd that after we finished our recent meal, I joyfully skipped into our kitchen and washed all the plates, all the pots and pans, cleaned the counters, and mopped the floor. I then made a stock for another risotto (my wife was going for a double-shot), melted chocolate for chocolate-fudge brownie sundaes, and brined two chickens, thereby necessitating a whole new round of dishes. Whatever. I didn't care at all. I was in love--with dishwashing!

I love people who don't mind washing dishes. I always think about a great anecdote from Bill Buford's New Yorker article "The Secret of Excess" about Mario Batali:

"One of my last recollections is of Batali around three in the morning—back arched, eyes closed, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, his red Converse high-tops pounding the floor—playing air guitar to Neil Young’s “Southern Man.” Batali had recently turned forty, and I remember thinking that it was a long time since I’d seen a grown man playing air guitar. He then found the soundtrack for “Buena Vista Social Club,” tried to salsa with one of the guests (who promptly fell over a sofa), tried to dance with her boyfriend (who was unresponsive), and then put on a Tom Waits CD and sang along as he went into the kitchen, where, with a machine-like speed, he washed the dishes and mopped the floor."

That last simple, elegant sentence pretty much sums it up for me. Nobody really wants to do dishes. Dishwashing is real work. So you just put on a CD and, like a machine, do it. Today, years away from my early dishwashing travails, I love the sense of accomplishment I feel after washing a night's worth of dishes. I love going into the kitchen, sweating about two pounds off, and dropping to my hands and knees to scrub the floor. That's real work, something to be proud of. Perhaps that's why I hated it so much when I did it as a young man for money. I love dishwashing so much that I was corrupted by the cash. The promise of riches took all the joy out of it. Still, if (big if) I do go back to the restaurants, don't think for a second that I think I'm too good to wash dishes. To find no task to low or demeaning--that's the attitude I like.

Roasted Acorn Squash with Squash Risotto

I always get depressed in January because squash season is almost over. So I grasp at the last of season and try to make something immaculate. I originally published this recipe here.

4 acorn squash
3 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt to taste
6 cups water or gluten-free vegetable broth
1 cup finely chopped leeks
2 1/2 cups peeled and cubed butternut squash
2 cups uncooked Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped sage, divided
2/3 cup pine nuts
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped thyme
Method

Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut each acorn squash lengthwise in half (from tip to stem) then scoop out and discard any seeds and stringy flesh. Brush insides of acorn squash with 1 1/2 tablespoons of the oil and season with salt. Place acorn squash, cut side down, in a baking pan and roast until tender but still firm, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, start the risotto by bringing the broth just to a simmer in a small pot over medium high heat. Heat remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a heavy 3-quart pot over medium heat. Add leeks and cook, stirring often, until soft, about 5 minutes. Add butternut squash and cook for 3 minutes. Add rice and cook, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes, or until grains are fragrant. Add wine and stir constantly until almost completely absorbed, about 2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of the hot broth to rice and cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is almost completely absorbed. Continue adding broth, 1/2 cup at a time, making sure that most of the liquid is absorbed before adding more. Continue until rice is almost tender, but still firm to the bite, about 20 to 25 minutes total. Stir in 1 tablespoon of the sage and season with salt.

Meanwhile, put pine nuts into a food processor and pulse until coarsely ground. Stir in thyme, remaining 1/2 teaspoon sage and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside.

When acorn squash is cooked, remove from oven. Reduce heat to 300°F. Carefully turn squash over and fill each cavity with about 1/2 cup of the risotto. Gently press about 2 tablespoons of the pine nut mixture on top of the risotto in each squash half. Return squash to oven and bake until topping begins to brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer to plates and serve.

Pasta: a love story

We moved to Barcelona in December, 2001, in the wake of 9/11. We were leaving Argentina in the midst of the economic, and eventually political, crash. It was a tumultuous time. South, people were losing their homes, their livelihoods. North, they were planning a war. Here in Barcelona, Andrés and I spent those first months wandering the streets alone. We had nowhere to go, no here to call home.

We decided to get married. When you’re far from home and sharing your life with just one other person, you do crazy things. You form a family. A family of two. And you create your own home. You stuff your home with things you love: noises, smells, words, texture--things that remind you where you come from, where you are, where you’ve never been.

Sunday in Buenos Aires means one of two things: asado or pasta. Pasta used to mean homemade; for some houses it still does. For others, however, it means the pasta factories. Each neighborhood has its own. Every Sunday, neighbors queue down the block and around the corner, looking to buy tallarines, spaghetti, tagliatelli and linguini by the kilo, ravioli and sorrentini by the dozen. The barrios bustle. Neighbors hurry home with tallarines carefully wrapped in paper, raviolis lining boxes like petite-fours, to tuco simmering on the stove.

Sunday in Barcelona means five-on-five football matches and the cañas that follow. It means the book fair at the Sant Antoni market. It can also mean a coffee at Caelum. It rarely means church and it never means pasta. Spain means rice, paella. Spain knows nothing about pasta.

Sunday is a day of ritual. In many European countries, shops and shopping centers close on Sundays. People infuse their Sundays with meaning--we spent our first few years here looking for one.

Last Christmas, I finally gave Andrés a new Sunday: A pasta maker.

Now, each Sunday, he engages in the same ritual his grandmother used to, kneading love into eggs and flour, transforming the resultant sticky mass into food. And so, as it does for millions of other porteños so many miles away, Sunday in Barcelona now means fresh pasta. It means spaghetti and homemade meatballs. It means linguini and cream sauce. It means penne and sun-dried tomatoes. And lots of fresh basil. For two.

Sunday Pumpkin-Ricotta Ravioli (for a Family of Two)

Pasta
300 grams fine flour (about 1 1/3 cups, or 10 ounces; Andrés uses 00, though 000 is better)
2 eggs
Fresh Spring Water

Filling
500 grams roasted pumpkin or butternut squash (about 2 cups)
1 tablespoon tightly packed brown brown sugar
250 grams ricotta cheese (about 1 cup)
1 tablespoon fresh sage

1/2 teaspoon turmeric
Salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (for drizzling)

For the pasta:

Measure the flour out on your kitchen scale. Then transfer to a clean surface.

Make a small crater in the pile of flour with your first. Crack the eggs into the crater and beat them with a fork. Once the egg is beaten, use the fork the mix it into the flour, gently bringing flour in from the sides. It will soon have a consistency similar to that of cornmeal.

Once all the flour has been mixed with the egg, it is time to knead. You may need to add water to make this process easier. To add the water, merely dip your hands into a small bowl of water and knead. Repeat this as often as necessary to create a workable blob. Knead.

Wrap the dough in a damp kitchen towel and let sit for a short while. Meanwhile, set up your paste maker and prepare the filling.

For the filling:

In a small bowl, mash the roasted pumpkin with fork. Add the brown sugar and mix well. Now add the ricotta and mix well again. Add sage and turmeric, and salt and pepper to taste.

Divide the dough into smaller bowls. Roll each one out with a rolling pin and send it through the pasta maker till you have the desired thickness. (Andrés says his grandmother did this by hand--she had no pasta maker. She would roll the dough out and then cut it to the desired width with a knife. It's a bit easier with the machine.)

Once you've got the dough where you want it, add the attachment to the machine. In this case, we added the ravioli one.

Spread the filling on two sheets of pasta dough. Crank it through the pasta maker.

Boil 4 quarts water in a large pot. Throw in some salt and a laurel leaf for good measure. Add the pasta and let it cook till it rises to the surface. This should take less than three minutes. Drain.

Add freshly grated parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil.

The Queen Bully of Garlic

In an old FoodVibe post Steve asked: Is it worth trying to juice garlic?

I'll answer this question, unequivocally: NO.

I juiced garlic, once. At the time I was twenty-two, bursting with bravado, and inspired by the heady writing of one of my early heroes, the juicing extraordinaire, Dr. Norman Walker. (Warning: Do not follow that link lightly...) In his famous Fresh Vegetable and Fruit Juices this is what Dr. Walker has to say about garlic juice:

"Metaphorically speaking, garlic itself is bad enough but garlic juice by itself may cause devastating social ostracism for the one who drinks it. It is very beneficial, if one has the mental fortitude to overcome social handicaps, and the intestinal fortitude to endure the general discomfort which accompanies the more or less rapid house cleaning of one's system."

Around this time I smuggled fresh garlic into restaurants. I cut the cloves raw onto my food. (Suzanne will attest to this fact.)

I had the mental fortitude. Unfortunately, I did not have the intestinal fortitude. One cup of garlic juice and I was walloped. I drank the garlic juice, mercifully mixed with carrots, on a Friday morning in July. I was due to go to the beach for the weekend. I never made it. I spent the weekend in bed, immersed in one of the most intense and ridiculous detox experiences of my life. I smelled like garlic until September.

Garlic is intense. At the very least, it inspires intense emotion. I for one love it. Before I became humbled by life and love, I used it in my own cooking like a battle axe. Don't like garlic? Too bad, here's my Risotto with 40 Cloves of Garlic.

Suzanne and I once made Risotto with 40 Cloves of garlic. It was a balmy summer night. We shared the risotto and three magnums of red wine with my brother. Then we went bowling. That sweaty night, as the garlic and wine seeped from our pores, as our friends moaned and complained about the obnoxious smell, we winked at each other and laughed conspiratorially.

No amount of social ostracism could overcome the deep and loving pact we forged over massive amounts of red wine and garlic.

I'm a Garlic Bully. I throw my garlic love in people's faces. Rarely have I met my match. I suppose though when you're a bully you always get your comeuppance.

Once, in Barcelona, I met The Queen Bully of Garlic.

When I lived in Barcelona I made a habit of visiting the fruit and vegetable markets every day. Most days I was so enthralled by the shapes, colors, and smells of the fruits and vegetables that I literally wasted up to an hour, simply browsing the aisles. On one of these occasions I was awakened from my spell by a short fat women whose cheeks were plump and red, and who offered me a clove of garlic speared on the end of a small pocket knife.

“Queries?” she asked.

Then, as if preparing for a sudden burst of song, she proclaimed in rapid fire Spanish that her garlic was the most powerful in Barcelona. As she spoke she waddled back and forth with sincere pride, inhaling deeply, throwing her hands in the air as if to prove that the garlic was responsible for her robust posture. Seeing my doubt, she implored me to bite into the clove and taste for myself.

I accepted the challenge with my bravado, throwing the entire clove into my mouth. I chewed the garlic as if it were an apple, but before my second bite I realized that I was experiencing the real deal: the garlic to end all garlic, a perfect, peppery slice of the beautiful, ugly, power of The Stinking Rose.

I continued chewing with a twisted face, as if it were a matter of pride, like taking a shot of whiskey. The taste, however, was too strong. I spit the clove onto the sidewalk in defeat. The small crowd that had gathered burst into laughter. The fat women smiled. She was chewing on one of the cloves for pleasure.

For the rest of that day and onto the next, wherever I went the smell of garlic followed. Garlic seeped out of my pores like a renegade sweat, like a battle scar.

Moroccan Charmoula Tempeh

This is a close adaptation of the great Peter Berley's recipe from the outstanding book The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen--my all-time favorite vegetarian cookbook. Four garlic cloves make this dish garlicky; six make you a "garlic bully." Serve with rice.

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup water (yes water)
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons fresh ground cumin (Please tell me you grind your own spices?)
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon ground chile powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt
4-6 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped
1 pound tempeh, cut into one inch squares

In a blender or food processor or blender, mix together olive oil, water, lemon juice, spices, salt, garlic, and cilantro.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Arrange tempeh squares in a single layer in a baking dish. Pour on marinade and cover securely with foil. Bake for 45 minutes, until tempeh has absorbed the marinade. Uncover and bake for a few more minutes to brown.

Serves 4

My son Zev eats cucumbers at night

It's been over a half hour now. You still sit with furrowed brow and tight, pursed lips. Elbows on the table, your chin rests in your hands.

I watch you across the room from the couch as I read the fiction piece in the December issue of Harper's. It arrived weeks ago. I haven't had time to read it yet. I put it down, walk to the table. I should know better than to try reading during dinner time.

"Let's go big boy," I say.

"No."

I knew you would say this, yet I have few options in my arsenal. I am resourceless, but not defeated. We stare at each other. We often reach this impasse.

I come home late everyday from my second teaching job. I only have an hour or so with you and Akiva and Sivan before you go to bed. I don't want our time to be spent like this.

First were the fishies with a bit of ketchup, a side of frozen grapes. You did a great job, devouring the fishies in minutes. I expected that. They're your favorite. Then came the finely chopped cucumbers, mixed with vanilla probiotic yogurt. This is the only way you'll eat cucumbers, which the doctor says you must.

Stalling for time, you play with your hands, pretending they are wild animals fighting each other. You frequently play like this. I did the same thing when I was your age. I feel a strange sensation. Not sure what it is, I push it down. Maybe to examine later.

Now is not the time for such things. I'm all business. You must eat your vegetables.

The cucumbers turn the yogurt into a watery mess. I don't blame you if you don't want to eat them. I fix it: Pour out the watery yogurt, replace it with a newer, fresher batch. It returns to its original consistency.

Placing the bowl back in front of you, I scruff your hair affectionately.

"Mmph," you say gruffly and move you head away from my hand.

The doctor says you have to eat vegetables--they will help your condition. Sometimes you don't poop for days. You choose to hold it in--an incomprehensible act of childhood power and defiance. Once when you were three, it went on for two weeks. I used to find you hiding under the dining room table, your face a twisted mask of discomfort as your tiny stomach muscles worked to close your bowels like an iron clamp.

"Why, Zev?" we would ask. Then we would beg, "Let's just go the bathroom, please!"

The doctor said your bowels must be swollen with constipation, that it must painful, that perhaps you can no longer feel the proper time to go. Then came the accidents. Sudden and unexpected, they were a seeming validation of the prognosis. The doctor said avoid dairy, wheat, anything that binds; he said we have to give you daily doses of fresh vegetables with copious amount of olive oil. This would somehow produce the desired effect--that your colon would shrink and allow you to feel the proper sensation again, that you would poop again, regularly and normally.

I try to explain this to you.

You dismiss it all.

"Zev," I say, "You're being unreasonable!"

I know how ridiculous this sounds. You are five years old, far beyond reason.

You still sit there. I get desperate. I begin to think of bargains, the requisite if/then deals. How can I snatch compromise out of the jaws of defeat?

Sometimes the defiance is legendary, as it is tonight.

But so far the cucumber yogurt treatment has yielded small successes. No accidents for a long time. No more holding it in. Good reports from your school in Manhattan.

At home, you will often be on the floor playing when suddenly you'll look up with a crazed look in your eye: "Poopy!" you yell, and run to the bathroom.

"Yay, Zev!" we all yell in unison.

Don't let the smile fool you. He hates red onions and tomatoes too

Now it is later. All the cucumbers have been eaten. Previous angers and tempers drain away like warm bath water from the tub. After drying off and getting into your pajamas, you ask me to lay in bed with you as you fall asleep--a small, conciliatory act of remorse from the five-year old mind, a desire to clear the slate.

I say, "Yes, of course." I am glad you asked. It doesn't always happen.

You are asleep within five minutes. Turning over, I look at the soft rise and fall of your chest. Tomorrow brings another day of school for you, with its social maze. Later, high school, girls, politics. I suppress a shudder, lay my arm across your waist. The fuzzy feel of your winter pajamas, the slight smell of stale urine, rekindles distant memories of my own childhood bed.

What did my father think as he watched me sleep? Was he as lost, as spinning as I am tonight?

In the haze of consciousness between waking and sleep, I have an image of us walking together, hand in hand through an enormous field of cucumbers that stretches for miles in all directions.

Flanking the field on all sides rise buildings of dizzying heights. Still beyond them, mountains, then deep blue sky. Still further beyond, space. Coming from everywhere, the sound of people talking, laughing, rushing. Somewhere overhead, airplanes zigzag the sky. As we walk, I ask you to stop, wait a moment.

Bending down, I pluck a ripe green cucumber from the ground. Kneeling to meet your height, you look into my face as I hand it to you.

"Here, take this," I say. "They taste good."

Spinach, Goat & Cottage Cheese Tart in a Potato Crust

With the green color of spinach and the tangy taste of goat cheese, this recipe is sure to be one that adults love but kids hate. Seth originally published the recipe here.

6-8 medium Yukon Gold potatoes
2-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
1 bunch spinach, stems removed, and sliced into thin strips, washed and not dried
8 oz. fresh goat cheese, crumbled
1 cup cottage cheese
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
¼ cup basil, chopped
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper

Peel the potatoes and slice into 1/8 inch rounds. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a wide skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, add a layer of potatoes to the pan and cook, turning once, 3-4 minutes per side, until golden and easily pierced with a knife. Set aside on plate lined with a paper towel. Repeat with remaining potatoes.

When potatoes are done, add 1 tablespoon olive oil to the pan. Add garlic and cook until light gold, about 1 minute. Add the spinach (with water clinging to its leaves) and cook until bright green and tender, 2-3 minutes. Transfer the spinach to a bowl and gently add fresh goat cheese, cottage cheese, eggs, lemon zest, lemon juice, and basil. Stir gently. Season to taste with sea salt and ground pepper.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. To assemble the tart, lightly butter a 9-inch springform pan. Line the pan with potatoes, covering the bottom and sides, covering any empty spaces. Pour in the spinach-goat cheese mixture. Bake until firm and golden, about 50 minutes.

Release the spring from the pan and gently left the side. Set the tart on a plate, slice, and serve.

6-8 servings

Fat Should Inspire Sex

I recently calculated my daily fat intake. Since I eat essentially the same foods every day, my calculations are probably pretty accurate.

For breakfast, I typically consume 3 tablespoons raw extra virgin olive oil. That's 42 grams of fat, 360 calories--66% of the daily suggested intake.

Lunch, I consume 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (baked, in tempeh). That's 28 grams of fat, 240 calories.

By dinner, I've exceeded my daily fat intake, simply by consuming olive oil.

Is this healthy?

One prominent study suggests two tablespoons daily is a healthful dose. But I cannot find any studies on excessive olive oil consumption. I can say, though, that as a type-1 diabetic, I'm prone to an increased risk of high blood pressure, as well as heart and cholesterol problems. And yet, I'm healthy. I get blood tests several times a year. I check my own blood pressure monthly. My levels are healthy, normal.

Also, at 5' 11", 150 pounds, I'm slightly underweight.

Keeping this in mind, consider my dinner: I typically consume two tablespoons raw extra virgin olive oil, about 27 grams fat from chicken, and about 1/4 cup coconut milk. After dinner, I eat a little chocolate, about 6 grams of fat worth.

In one day, I consume:

7 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil: 98 grams fat ; 840 calories.
2 chicken legs: 27 grams fat; 464 calories
1/4 coconut milk: 12 grams fat; 120 calories
Chocolate: 6 grams fat; 80 calories

That's 143 grams of fat--more than double the daily recommended value.

Again, can this be healthy?

I'd say, possibly. I rarely eat dairy fat (I eat raw butter and goat cheese occasionally.) I never, ever eat trans-fats. My animal fat intake is not excessive. (I take fish oil capsules every day, but the capsules do not increase my fat intake.)

Still, 143 grams.

I don't care. I love fat, with wild abandon.

Without fat, cuisine is unimaginable. Fat provides immense flavor and an impossible to match smoothness. Fat tenderizes food. Fat allows for high-heat cooking--the domain of crispiness and robust flavor. To me, low-fat cuisine is lifeless, boring, just plain stupid. Thousands of studies have proven the health benefits of fats--fish oils, extra virgin, olive oil, even saturated fats such as extra virgin coconut oil. People who eat low fat diets in pursuit of health or weight-loss are simply moronic. To me, low-fat dieters seem as boring and lifeless as their boring, lifeless diets.

No doubt, some chefs might say the same thing about me. I typically eschew the classics of gourmet cooking, cream and butter, in my own manic pursuit of "health." (I do use some animal fat, such as bacon, on special occasions, and when absolutely called for.)

Well, I challenge any chef to make my mashed potatoes. They're delicious; they're also healthy.

I think cuisine should provide taste and nourishment and vitality. Any chef can whip up a great-tasting mashed potato, with cream and butter. But how do creamy, buttery mashed potatoes make you feel after you eat?

I want my diners to feel satisfied, but I also want them to walk away from the table feeling light and sprite. I don't want my diners to moan, to lay around, devastated by my food. I want my diners to dance in celebration. I want my diners to kiss without fear of burbing unhealthy burbs. I want my diners to feel like making wild, winey-love. I want my diners to feel sexy, before and after eating.

Towards this end, I use the sexy fat: coconut milk.

Coconut milk (unlike coconut oil) does not dramatically alter the taste of a dish, if used in correct quantities. (My mashed potatoes do not taste at all like coconut.) And yet, coconut adds the silky luxuriousness that's missing from many dairy-free recipes. I use coconut milk in many recipes where cream might be called for, and usually the result is terrific.

Try mashed sweet potatoes. Try chocolate truffles.

Recently, I've been making variations on what I call "Healthy Creamed Spinach." It's basically greens, simmered with coconut milk. Try it. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Coconut Braised Greens

I originally developed this recipe for Whole Foods Market; if you like it, you can rate it here.

1 large bunch kale or collard greens, trimmed and teared into small pieces
1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, very thinly sliced
1/2 cup fresh coconut milk
1 teaspoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper

In a large dutch oven over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Add the onions and a pinch of salt and saute, stirring occasionally, until soft and translucent, 6-8 minutes.

Add the coconut milk and lemon juice to the pan. Add the greens. Gently toss. Simmer over medium-low heat, covered, until greens are just tender, 3-5 minutes.

Season to taste with salt and fresh ground pepper.

Dear Alcohol

Dear Alcohol,

By the time you read these lines, I’ll be gone. It may shock you, but I've been thinking about leaving you for months—since that day at the beach last summer. But let's not go there. Not now.

Over the last few years, you slowly began to demand more of my time—time usually spent with friends or family. I was dependent on you, at a period in my life when I needed to be independent. I feel sad admitting I won't be able to be with you anymore. But I know I'll be a more complete person as a result. You will be angry. You will resent me. You have that right. I cannot stop that.

Alcohol, we have been through a lot together. Our romance was a whirlwind romance. When we first met in high school, you validated me in ways that no one had before. With you in those early days, I felt a sense of belonging--a belonging I had never felt.

In your murky depths, I saw a reflection of myself. You allowed me to be whomever I wanted to be. You listened. For a while, our relationship worked well for me.

But you changed. I changed.

By the end, we were all wrong for each other.

I just felt betrayed by you one too many times. The false hopes. The empty promises. I slowly came to realize that your smiles were placating and sycophantic. You turned into my enabler. Perhaps I was the real betrayer. I acknowledge this. I betrayed myself by allowing you into my life. You never forced yourself upon me. It was I who sought you out.

I don’t blame you for anything. I have no resentment. I only want to move on.

You may ask, "What about all those late nights? All the times we made love?"

My answer is that, in the end, I was just going through the motions. I faked it. I lost pleasure in our encounters a long time ago. Yes, I can admit that now. I don't feel good about it.

But I do remember the good times. I'll miss the laughter, the mirth. I'll miss our circle of friends- scotch, bourbon, beer.

And who could ever forget wine? Yes, wine with her purple eyes, her long, sleek neck.

But there is someone new in my life. Her name is Coffee. She is hot, lovely. She's also black. Does this surprise you? Coffee picks me up in ways that you never could. By the end of our time together, you could only bring me down.

Coffee and I are beginning to create more of a life together than I could ever hope to have with you.

I hope you can one day understand and come to terms with what I have done. I can only thank you for our time together, and for everything you have taught me about myself.

We'll always have college.

Please, don’t try to find me.

yours,

Steve

A Perfect Pot of Rice

My house white is basmati. Early morning I measure a cup or more and wash it in a pot. Washing rice is a custom in India: Basmati is traditionally rinsed seven or more times, until the water runs clear. The stated purpose of washing is to rid the rice of excess surface starch, ensuring a lighter cooked grain. I'm all for a lighter grain, but I wash for kicks too.

Here's what I do: I put the rice in the pot. I pour water into the pot and swish the rice around with my fingers. I love this part: Wet rice in my fingers. Think of Audrey Tatou as Amelie, thrusting her hands into a bag of dried lentils. The camera cuts to her face and there she is, full of verve, alive.

After washing, I let the rice soak in water for hours. In his classic book Healing with Whole Foods Paul Pitchford suggests that soaking grains like rice "germinates the dormant energy." I love the thought of this: I go to work and my rice stays at home, leaping forth into a new kind of ricehood. If I had to define the word FoodVibe this would be it: rice, soaking.

When I get home, I discard the soaking water and assemble the dish.

I throw in the water, a little olive oil, ¼ teaspoon turmeric, two garlic cloves, two slices ginger, a few pinches saffron, and a few dashes fleur de sel.

When the rice simmers the kitchen smells like our old place in Barcelona. I envision my wife in a red blouse, tied at the neck, feasting on paella. So I call her into the kitchen, she comes skipping, and I say: I'm making rice! Rice? she says. And then we make love on the kitchen floor, the smell of the cooking rice inspiring romance, possibility, and dinner.

Perfect Pot of Rice

1 cup white basmati rice
Sensuality
1 3/4 cup water
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
two whole garlic cloves
two slices fresh ginger
Saffron
Sea salt

In a medium saucepan, wash the rice in seven or more changes of cool water until the water runs clear. Do so with a sensual fervor that reminds one of the movie Amelie. Cover the rice with cool water and set aside to soak for 30 minutes, or up to 18 hours. (This is called FoodVibing the rice.)

Drain the rice. Throw the water, olive oil, turmeric, garlic cloves, slices ginger, a few pinches saffron, and 1/4 teaspoon sea salt into the pot. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until the water is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Remove the rice from the heat. Remove the lid and put a few paper towels over the pot; cover again and let stand for 5-10 minutes. This last step is utterly essential; resting is crucial.

Fluff with a fork, remove aromatics, and serve.

The Real Cost of Food

FoodVibe readers might have read Michael Pollan's recent article on food policy in The New York Times magazine. The article was written as a letter to the next “Farmer in Chief,” then unknown. However, in a pre-election interview with Time Magazine Barack Obama cited Pollan’s article:

"I was just reading an article by Michael Pollan,” he said, “about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats...sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and that are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs..."

Obama merely cites the problems Pollan exposes. But Pollan's article also offers an "elegant solution," which involves the following initiatives:

1. Resolarizing the American: returning to the sane roots of agriculture: diversified, sustainable crops, nourished by the energy of the sun.

2. Regionalizing the Food System: emphasizing local foods.

3. Rebuilding America’s Food Culture: early food education; leading by example.

It’s heartening to know that Obama is aware of Pollan’s ideas. Perhaps an Obama administration will attempt to implement its own elegant solution. But Pollan’s article speaks to me not only as a government solution, but a call to action—a call to support sustainable, local food with my wallet.

Of course, many people and organizations have been sounding this call for years. But now, in the face of the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression, the call to support sustainable, local food is more important than ever.

Why?

Because sustainable, local food is more expensive than conventional farmed food.

It’s more expensive because it’s rare. It’s more expensive because the farming techniques are laborious and time intensive. It’s more expensive because many small-scale organic farmers do not receive federal subsidies.

Pollan cites a provocative justification for the added expense:

“It will be argued that moving animals off feedlots and back onto farms will raise the price of meat,” Pollan writes. “It probably will — as it should. Paying the real cost of meat, and therefore eating less of it, is a good thing for our health, for the environment, for our dwindling reserves of fresh water and for the welfare of the animals.”

To me, the phrase that sticks out here is “the real cost of meat.”

To my taste a $.99/lb turkey simply sounds suspicious. At Whole Foods Market, this season’s turkeys—free-range and free of antibiotics and hormones—cost $2.49/lb. The difference is significant, especially in these lean times. But what, really, are you getting when you buy a $.99/lb turkey?

Likely, it has been frozen and preserved from the prior year. Likely, its been farmed conventionally, meaning it DOES contain antibiotics and hormones. Likely, it has lived in filthy conditions, unsuited for any being, let alone one that we might eat--and where there’s filth there’s disease

Good food costs extra money, yes. But it is food, after all.

This is how the Free On-Line Dictionary defines food:

1. Material, usually of plant or animal origin, that contains or consists of essential body nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals, and is ingested and assimilated by an organism to produce energy, stimulate growth, and maintain life.

According to this definition, a McDonald’s Cheeseburger is not entirely food. Yes, it consists of essential nutrients that might keep one alive. But what does this livelihood look like?

Does a McDonald’s cheeseburger produce energy?

Why don’t we ask Morgan Spurlock, the documentarian who made Super Size Me, in which he demonstrated the health effects of McDonald's food by eating nothing but McDonald's three times a day, every day, for 30 days? Some of Spurlock's claims about McDonald's the company have been challenged, but no one has challenged the depiction of how McDonald's food actually destroyed Spurlock's body: he gained 25 pounds, suffered liver dysfunction and depression and extreme, crippling fatigue.

Does a McDonald’s cheeseburger stimulate growth? Maybe so, but not the type of growth we expect from food. Pollan noted in a recent interview with Terri Gross that the hormones fed to McDonald's cattle before slaughter might have devastating effects on young children and unborn children:

"...even microscopic amounts at a certain moment in the developmental process," he says, "whether in the fetus or the child, can have a dramatic effect."

Does a McDonald’s cheeseburger maintain life?

In a very, very limited sense. Spurlock's physician, after all, compared Spurlock's diet to a severe alcoholic binge.

Does anyone eat McDonald's every day. Of course not. Spurlock's example is exaggerated. But FoodCrack, which is not entirely food, exists everywhere. The majority of American families, for example, eat inexpensive, conventionally raised meat. With this meat, they might also be consuming their fair share of antibiotics, hormones, and filth.

Is this food? And is this food really cheap?

Pollan writes:

"...cheap food is only cheap because of government handouts and regulatory indulgence...not to mention the exploitation of workers, animals and the environment on which its putative “economies” depend. Cheap food is food dishonestly priced — it is in fact unconscionably expensive."

***

In the wake of 9-11, George W. Bush implored Americans to go out and buy things. His implication was that spending was our patriotic duty. Regardless of your political beliefs, I think it’s true: what we buy identities a part of our character.

Our spending decisions matter. When we buy a locally grown apple from a small farm, for example, we are announcing not only the type of produce we prefer—fresh picked, ripe, seasonal—but the type of agriculture we support: small scale, local, with minimal impact to the environment, and maximum impact to our good health.

I buy free-range chicken, for example, because I support the idea of chickens roaming freely. I eat free-range chicken, on the bone, on the other hand, because my lust for deliciousness calls for the best meat, and because, as an anemic and a diabetic, I need a viable, healthful source of iron and protein, without the health-threatening additives--I need real food.

This is not an issue of elitism, as some might argue. As Pollan notes:

"It should not be difficult to deflect the charge of elitism sometimes leveled at the sustainable-food movement. Reforming the food system is not inherently a right-or-left issue: for every Whole Foods shopper with roots in the counterculture you can find a family of evangelicals intent on taking control of its family dinner and diet back from the fast-food industry."

To me, food choices are political choices: when you buy food, whether it be from Whole Foods or McDonald’s, you make a political statement about the type of agriculture you support, the type of world you want to live in.

Perhaps this is an unreasonable assumption. Many families, for example, can only afford to buy foods that support out-dated, oil-based agriculture—who’s to say these families do not support something like Pollan’s notion of sustainability?

I’m certain many low-income households would love to eat better, to eat more healthfully and sanely, to support local and/or organic farming. There are federal programs, too, that support this type of lifestyle. Also, there are, certainly, inexpensive venues for local sustainable foods. As Nina Planck writes:

"Self-appointed populists point out that the mesclun at the Union Square Greenmarket in New York City is $32 a pound. Yes, some farmers sell it for that. I don't buy it myself, but that's not the only kind of lettuce available."

Just down the street from where I live, a neighbor imports fresh produce from Lancaster. Recently, I bought about 60 local pears for $2.

To me, it's about effort: taking the time to find good places to buy real food. Whole Foods Market is not the answer--it's merely part of the answer, just as the local farm is part the answer, and the guy down the street.

It might be cynical to say, but it's true: a great deal of our ability to influence the world is predicated on how we spend our money. In America, we speak loudly with our wallet. Now that our wallets seem to be shrinking we might focus even more acutely on our expenses. We might not have extra money to waste on food that is not entirely food. We might need to buy the most energy-promoting, growth-stimulating, and life-maintaining food the market has to offer. In that case, real food is the only answer.

The Low Brow Epicurean: A Primer

I’m no foodie.

To me, the term evokes elitism, snobbery, and condescension. Upon hearing the word "foodie," I think of a fastidious cook, pacing the kitchen, obsessing over minced shallots. He sits with his coworkers during lunch, describing the porcini dust he sprinkled on last night's grass-fed steak. He eschews my beet salad because the beets are not locally grown. He makes me feel like a culinary barbarian.

Though I celebrate food, I feel the perpetual outsider. Perusing the pages of a cooking magazine, I'm lost among the kalamata olives and goat cheese. My eyes glaze over the glossy apples and perfect looking plum torts. I like to eat and cook, but haven't fashioned it into an all consuming life's philosophy.

I've always thought, "Isn't there a place somewhere in the food universe for people like me?

Now I know there is.

I'm the anti-foodie, the low-brow epicurean. Allow me to explain.

Low brow epicureans enjoy gourmet delicacies, but are really at home with the culinary mundane. In fact, sometimes they prefer to mix the two. This seems to be the true essence of who we are—a mutant strain, a hybrid.

Whether it be Bordeaux or brown bag, it’s all good because the low brow epicurean is culinary contradiction personified. He is a hot pastrami sandwich with extra Russian dressing on an open-face bun of toasted spelt; Jack Daniels sipped from a crystal snifter; Kobe steak served with fresh greens over a bed of Uncle Ben’s.

Sensing this about myself, I rebelled against the foodie establishment for most of my adult life. I ate anything I wanted, any time. I scorned exercise. I reveled in foodcrack. I drank cheap beer. I smoked menthol. I saw my weight balloon upwards in excess of two hundred and twenty pounds. At 5'6, I was a walking heart attack.

While the foodie prefers filtered Britta water, the low brow epicurean

prefers to drink it sans cup. Notice the extended pinky finger.

Recently, though, I've made strides towards regaining balance. In doing so, I’ve ironically picked up some foodie tendencies along the way. I've lost 60 pounds, mostly through changing my diet and exercising. I buy local produce, organic meat. I rarely eat anything with more than two or three ingredients in it. I juice.

I’m also now more health conscious than I ever was before. I quit smoking. Gave up alcohol. I enjoy yoga. Ran a half-marathon. I've almost regained my former NCAA Division 1 figure. I can even see my abs again, poking through. They're forlorn, angry at me. Emerging from their long exile, they blink and rub their eyes. They say, "Dude! What the hell was that all about?"

I still consider myself well outside the mainstream when it comes to food consciousness and health. I’ll always identify with the low brow because I’ll never forget what it was like during those dark days. I’ll never forget what I was like—indiscriminate, yet persnickety in my tastes. I recall feasting on omelets made of half a dozen free range eggs, lunches of entire blocks of parmesan reggiano. I remember waking in the middle of the night and staggering into the kitchen where I would stick my finger three knuckles deep into the cashew butter, pulling up a tasty, gooey glob. I was always the voluptuary in my excess, the slob with the golden spoon. No meat without ketchup. No necktie without a stain.

Have you ever done this? You may be more low brow than you think.

***

When I walk into stores like Whole Foods and Dean and Deluca, I feel like an amateur. I'll never know how to use the smoked salts properly. And I'm sure I'd torch that grass-fed steak.

I look at the neatly ordered rows of olives and spices, the rainbow panache of fruits displayed like a color wheel. I have sudden pangs of self doubt. I begin to sweat. I think to myself, "I can't cook. I don't even know how to eat."

I watch a foodie inspect the Swiss chard. He speaks in soft, knowing tones with the produce boys. They look in my direction, pointing. Noticing the ketchup stain on my tie, they laugh, "Go back to ShopRite! I hear they're having a sale on Wonder Bread!"

I retreat to the frozen food aisle, where I get dark and cynical. In the checkout aisle I fantasize how I would exact my revenge on the entire establishment:

"Do you have a coupon for this?" asks the young man at checkout. His haircut is shaggy, trendy. His expressionless face, slack. "It's on sale this week."

I look around, behind me. He's the only one on duty. The time is now. I lean in, moving my face inches from his.

"What did you call me," looking at his name tag, "Frank?"

He perks, backs up a bit, "Um, nothing, I just..."

"Did you say what I think you just said?"

"Look man, alls I asked was..."

With military precision, I'm behind the register smothering his nose and mouth with a chloroform soaked rag. I guide his limp body downward as it slumps to the floor. I look around. No one has noticed. Stage one, clear.

Switching the aisle light to "closed", I grab the microphone to the store p.a. system. It gives a short, piercing, shrill of feedback. I hunker down, below the checkout lane, out of view. Squatting on my haunches, I straddle Frank's body. Stage two, clear.

Over the store p.a. system comes, "Attention Whole Food's shoppers. Today is our 'Slaughter Your Own Livestock' promotion. Hector in Meat will be assisting people with dogs, cats, horses and goats. It can get a bit messy back there, so please bring your own rubber boots and smocks. We'll provide the buckets and blades."

"Also, starting tomorrow our produce aisle will no longer exist. Instead we'll be offering the finest selection of cigarettes, 40 oz. malt liquor, and scratch off lottery tickets. Pick a winner."

"Please remember to try our deep fried, nacho-cheese flavored fried pork rinds. They're on sale this week from the Amish country, fresh from the farm and straight to you.

"Finally, if anyone needs Frank, he'll be at the ShopRite across town. He says they're having a great sale on Wonder Bread."

Switching off the p.a. I peek my head up. The store is a comedy of errors. Employees sprint across the floor. They smash into one another and fall down in a blind attempt to ascertain the situation. Foodies wander around the aisles confused, not knowing what to do. A stray shopping cart careens into a seasonal display of stacked winter gourds. They scatter everywhere.

Knowing the final moment has arrived, I check Frank. He sleeps like a baby. I leave the money for my items in the breast pocket of his green apron and slip out the front of the store to find my car. The door to my Hyundai station wagon is strategically left unlocked, keys waiting in the ignition. I peel out with screeching tires. Stage three, clear.

I pump my fist in the air. With David Lee Roth singing "Panama" over the car stereo, I laugh all the way home.

***

Even though I've changed my ways, a small part of that culinary barbarian remains. Something deep inside me still has no time for one who can't make at least a respectable attempt to drink a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon. I still have a somewhat jaded impression of those who can't deign themselves to ever eat fried foods—at least once in a while.

But I'm cool with foodies now. I think. My wife even says I've become one. She may be right. I have to try hard to keep it real, to always remember where I came from.

Tomorrow I'll have egg whites for breakfast. The Weight Watchers guidebook tells me that three egg whites equal only one point. By my old standards, that means I can eat a dozen, maybe two dozen, and still be well under my point quota for the day.

But what if I cook them with half a block of skim parmesan reggiano? I'd then have to add a few slices of high-fiber, one hundred percent whole-wheat bread. Freshly crushed black pepper corns. Salt. Ketchup. Tabasco. A good, strong cup of Café Bustelo with vanilla almond milk and honey would then just throw it all together nicely.

Oh, the possibilities.

***

Steve's Curry Rosemary Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

This is the perfect snack for dieters fighting those crispy-textured junk food cravings that can strike at any minute. Feeling the foodcrack binge come on, this recipe has saved me many times.

2 cups pumpkin seeds taken from a fresh, large pumpkin
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons dried rosemary
2 tablespoons mild yellow curry powder
2 teaspoons coarse unrefined sea salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Wash and strain seeds in a colander until they are clean and free of all excess pumpkin strands.

Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl. Spread seeds evenly across a broad pan or cookie sheet.
Cook for 15 minutes, or until a deep, golden brown. Shake the pan every five minutes to make sure they roast evenly.

Serve hot, or let cool to save as a future snack.

Confessions of an Ex-Vegetarian

Warning: This blog contains text and images which may not be suitable for vegetarians, or most Americans.

I was a vegetarian for seven years. As a teenager I shunned meat and its insustainablity in reaction to what I considered to be my parents’ bourgeois lifestyle. Like most reactionaries, I took great pride in my heightened consciousness. I took advantage of each opportunity, no matter how small, to point out the perceived social and ecological benefits of my lifestyle choice. I mocked how others lived. When invited to someone’s house for a meal, I refused their unenlightened hospitality with the most enlightened of utterances: I’m a vegetarian.

I was an asshole.

All that changed about ten years ago. My first spring in Argentina, I was invited by Irving, the Peruvian office cleaner I had befriended at work, to spend mother’s day with him and his family. One November Sunday, I took the train heading to the airport and stepped off an hour later in the middle of nowhere. I was greeted by Irving's family and two bicycles, a small one and a slightly less small one. The family of five balanced on the smaller bike with acrobat agility. I teetered alone on the less small one. Local custom dictates that guests have the priveledge of riding unencumbered. They gave me a tour of the town. Finally, they led me to the outskirts where their shantytown began its great expanse to the horizon. We rode down the unpaved streets past the only kiosk, which sold milk and beer, to Irving’s small house, which he had built with the discarded satellite dish crate (he worked in the offices of a telecommunications company). As in most houses in this neighborhood, and the thousands that pepper Gran Buenos Aires, there was no running water. A neighbor had rigged electricity by pinching a cable that led to the town. Lights burned until the electric company disconnected them. But it wouldn’t take long to find another cable to pinch.

I was offered a cola and beer. I accepted with great curiousity. Lunch, I was told, would be ready in about an hour. Irving was preparing chicken, as they often do in his part of Peru. A hole is dug in the ground and lined with hot coals. Potatoes and a whole chicken are added and the hole is covered. An hour or so later, the whole lot is unearthed and served.

Chicken? I choked. Chicken. I could say I was a vegetarian and teach these people a thing or two about social conscientiousness. I could refuse the chicken and just eat the potatoes. (But hadn’t the potatoes been cooked with the chicken?) I could stick with my Coke and beer mixture and say I wasn’t hungry. Analyzing the options, I watched Irving gingerly pull lunch out of his front garden. It became increasingly clear: There was only one option.

The chicken was delicious.

And so, little by little, I reintroduced meat into my diet. The first years I limited myself to accepting meat when invited to dine at others’ homes. In my own kitchen, I kept a strict ban on meat which was only lifted at Thanksgiving.

When we came to Barcelona the ban was lifted for fish. Over the last year and a half I have lifted the ban again and again as I experimented with locally raised chicken and beef in the kitchen.

Spain is surely one of the worst countries in which to be a vegetarian. And if you’re vegan, you may as well not even come here. They do not consider ham to be meat, so it's impossible to know if the waiter’s interpretation of no tiene carne and your interpretation of no tiene carne are the same. Also, the Spanish have a very strange fetish for animal carcasses.

Most American tourists think the local markets are lovely until they reach the butcher’s section.

The butchers’ stalls often look like an animal side show from the exhibition Bodies. Small, firm rabbit carcasses laid out over cuts of meat, their floppy ears and cute little noses skinned and shiny pink. A suckling pig, creamy white and dull eyed looking over the counter, right at you. Many butchers sell cuts of suckling pig, with the head resting on top for decoration.

In most bars and local restaurant, a ham fetish is on full display. Pig legs – from the thigh to the hoof – often line the walls as the establishment’s only decor or, at the very least, sit upon the bar. Borges once commented that there was something almost sensuous about the way Spaniards treated their ham, comparing it to the pin-ups one might find in a mechanics' garage.

Most tourists find it appalling.

Even the fish here is often mildly offensive to most American visitors. The most common way to serve fish is whole. There was the case of the British-American professor who had to change places with someone at dinner because the person next to him had ordered a whole fish. It keeps looking at me.

The fishmonger will ask how you want it cleaned. Head and guts or just the guts. Just the guts, please.

Fish heads, fish heads.

The other day I served up my first attempt at whole sardines, minus the guts, grilled, on a bed of sautéed fennel and red onion sprinkled with lemon juice and fresh dill.

Rolly, polly fish heads.

By the end of the meal, both Andrés and I had each found a fish eye rolling around on our plate. Of the twelve eyes between us, only eleven could be accounted for. Eat them up, yum!

I have a come a long way since my days as a vegetarian. When I first started cooking with fish and chicken, I did so filled with disgust. I got used to fish quickly enough. But the raw chicken smelled. And it felt funny. I could only handle touching skinless breasts. I wouldn’t go near anything else.

I took a big step last Sunday, when I decided to prepare a whole roast chicken for the inauguration of our new oven. I went to the market on Saturday to purchase the chicken and when I opened the package on Sunday I was reminded of yet another curious thing about meat in Spain.

They sell you the whole chicken. Dead and plucked, but with everything else intact. Luckily, they had cut the claws off this one. But the head, the rump and internal organs were all in place.

I had no idea what to do with it. So I did what any of my 21st century American counterparts would do. I googled.

You can imagine how helpful American websites were. America, the land that has managed to sterilize even meat so that it is inoffensive to American sensibilities. There is no skin, certainly no feathers, no fat, or bone, or blood in those cuts of beef, chicken or pork so carefully placed in their plastic packaging. Meat in American bears no trace of the living animal it once was. If it did, people probably wouldn't eat it.

Cleaning a chicken can seem quite scary or put a knot of disgust into someone’s stomach if they have never cleaned store bought chicken before...Once you’re ready to begin cleaning your chicken be sure your sink is empty, then place the package of chicken in your sink. Start by cutting open the package of meat with either a knife or a pair of scissors. Reach your hand inside the cavity of the bird, pull out the bag containing the giblets and set aside.

That was no help. Though it did prove amusing to read the comments:

"If you put the chicken in the sink you will make your family sick."

"I rinse mine off with hose in the backyard. It’s tough in winter but I’d rather be cold than make my family sick."

Right.

Another link led me to a headline report in the Sun: I was about to tuck into my dinner and found a whole chicken head in there! I demanded compensation of course! The offending chicken head was apparently found in a package of frozen ribs and chicken wings.

Most websites that came up were warnings to anyone who might happen to stumble unawares into a Chinese butcher's. Make sure you have them remove the head and claws before wrapping it up.

But once I tucked into the job of chopping off the head and carefully cutting around its buttocks without cutting into it, I worked on pure instinct and assumption. This must be the esophagus. I yanked at it. That yellowish green sack must be bile or something. I have no idea what the yellow liquid that oozed out when I severed the neck was. I don’t know if I want to know.
I chopped and hacked and got inside that bird to clean it out. I marveled at how the organs were all connected. I identified the heart, lungs and liver. I looked for the gizzard. I couldn’t find it. I wondered how similar this chicken’s organ placement was to my own. I got my hands gooey, full of chicken body fluids, blood and fat.

It was glorious. I had officially become a carnivore.

And the chicken was delicious.

Grilled Sardines over Fennel and Red Onion

6 sardines
2 small red onions, halved and sliced thinly
1 fennel bulb, halved and sliced thinly
2 tablespoons, plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Lemon juice
Fresh dill
Salt and pepper

Season the sardines with salt and pepper to taste. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a medium pan over medium heat. Add the fennel and red onions and sautée, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes. Turn the heat to low and cover and cook 10-12 minutes, until fennel and onions become caramelized.

Empty fennel and red onion mixture into a small bowl. Heat remaining olive oil in the pan over medium-high heat. When just smoking, add sardines. Cook about three minutes on each side, until crisp.

Serve the sardines on a bed of the caramelized fennel and onion.


Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Followed Seth’s mashed potato recipe with the following additions.

Add a bay leaf three peeled cloves of garlic to the potatoes as they boil.

When they’ve finished, drain the water and remove the bay leaf, but leave the garlic and mash it together with the potatoes.

Roast Chicken with Potatoes, Carrots and Onion

Seth has already posted the definitive recipe for roast chicken. This is merely what I added:

1 whole onion, quartered
1/2 fennel bulb
1 lemon, quartered
4 potatoes
2 carrots
1 onion
sage
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven. Fill the cavity of the bird with the onion, fennel and lemon.

In a bowl toss together the potatoes, carrots and onion with the olive oil and sage. Add salt and pepper to taste. Tuck the raw potato, carrot and onion mixture under the bird in the roasting pan. These will cook in the bird’s juices as it roasts.