Meal Planning, Week 3

Although I've spent most of my life as a seat-of-the-pants cook who loved to invent dinner on the fly out whatever was in season (or in the pantry), I've really enjoyed the last few weeks of planning a week's worth of meals in advance.  I've over-ridden my intuitive instincts for a little while--and I'm trying lots of new cookbook recipes.  By doing this, I'm learning some new techniques, experimenting with some new flavors, and getting lots of ideas for the future.

Last week's meals were almost exclusively from Aviva Goldfarb's new SOS!  The Six O'Clock Scramble to the Rescue: Earth-Friendly, Kid-Pleasing Dinners for Busy Families. She, after all, was the person who got me intrigued with the whole idea of meal planning to begin with.  Her recipes are interesting and tasty, beautifully easy to follow, and really quick to make on busy evenings.  I loved the meals filled with all the wonderful flavors of spring.  And we especially enjoyed her Shrimp and Grits!



We also loved the leftover asparagus soup which we served chilled.  David and I ate it for lunch one day (while our son was visiting friends), along with homegrown radishes on toast with fresh butter:




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This week, I thought I'd try out some recipes from the marvelous food memoirs I've been reading.

Monday:
Chicken Thighs with Cinnamon and Dates
   from Kim Sunee's Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Roasted Asparagus

Tuesday:
Wild Greens Turnovers with Lemon Bechamel sauce (vegetarian)
Basil Panna Cotta
   both from Cathy Erway's The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove

Wednesday:
Channa Masala over Brown Basmati Rice (vegetarian)
   from Shoba Narayan's Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes
Homegrown Broccoli Rapini
Mango Lassis

Thursday:
Out for a book signing by one of my son's favorite authors
Travel Salad (vegetarian)
   from Emily Franklin's Too Many Cooks: Kitchen Adventures with 1 Mom, 4 Kids, and 102 Recipes
Carried "to-go style" in our tiffin

Friday:
Flank Steak with Chimichuri
   inspired by Tara Austen Weaver's The Butcher and the Vegetarian: One Woman's Romp Through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis (but recipe here)
Assorted Salad Greens from the Garden
Sweet Potato Pie

Saturday:
Chicken Thighs Braised in Pomegranate Molasses
Roasted Cauliflower with Smoked Paprika and Cocoa Powder
  both from Shauna James Ahern's Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back...And How You Can Too

Sunday:
Bouchon au Thon
   from Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table
Steamed Asparagus
Strawberries

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I found a few online link lists of meal plans and have really enjoyed clicking to see how everybody makes their menus. Two of my favorites are Menu Plan Monday and Mindful Menus.

What are you thinking about eating this week?  Are you being inspired in the kitchen by books?  Or are you being most moved by all the asparagus, strawberries, garlic scapes, or fresh peas coming into the farmers market?

Food, and Cognitive Dissonance

My 10yo son and I are reading next to each other on the couch.

My book: Cathy Erway's The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove. This book is a lighthearted romp through adventurous but non-restaurant-based eating in New York City. The author incorporates everything from news of her love life, details of parties, friendly information about food politics, and great recipes. It is all about the pleasures of food.

My son's book, being read for the local library's "Banned Books Club": Upton Sinclair's 1906 The Jungle. This book was perhaps the first major food expose, highlighting in VERY graphic ways the horrors of the meat-packing industry. If you think information about factory farms is grotesque, this book will blow you away. (Think workers falling in the rendering vat and being ground up with animal parts.) Although the author's intention was to analyze the terrible working conditions of working class and immigrant laborers, most readers came away shocked by food safety issues and ready to demand changes. As Sinclair said, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

Cooking Together

I've been enjoying Too Many Cooks: Kitchen Adventures with 1 Mom, 4 Kids, and 102 Recipes by Emily Franklin in short spurts over the last few afternoons.  It is a great book for picking up in those odd quiet moments that seem to happen here every once in a while--times when I know I can't get deeply into a project or serious book but do want to celebrate the few seconds I have.

Franklin's book is filled with stories of cooking and eating with her children.  She leaves this reader laughing, inspired, and occasionally feeling really lucky to have only one child!  Her stories are a great window into the life of her family--full of that patient-but-very-amused parenting style which feels just right in a book.  It is often too easy for cooks or parents writing memoirs to slip into what seems like a holier-than-thou attitude--and it is equally easy to be too self-critical.  Franklin takes a comfortable playful middle road, where she laughs gently at herself and her family in a way that shows how much she loves the whole shebang.  As she writes in one recipe, after mixing the ingredients into a batter, "let stand for 8-10 minutes or however long it takes you to change diaper/ send e-mail/ sing song/ divert toddler/ explain who Nixon was, or any other kid-related issue."

I immediately identified with the author when she recounts being with her mother in a kitchen shop--a scene which shapes the entire book: "Contained within the shelves there, packed away amidst the plain white plates and jelly jar glasses, were meals as yet uncooked, conversations unspoken, a whole future of smells and tastes and togetherness."  From the beginning, she knew that kitchens and cooking were about connections, about possibilities, and about love.

Nothing

I just finished Raj Patel's The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy. What a great read!  I'll say straight up that while I am an academic historian, I know precious little about economics.  Luckily, Patel assumes his readers know, well, nothing--and yet he treat us as intelligent and thoughtful people at the same time.

He also has a sense of humor.  I loved the lightbulb jokes that showed his point.  I loved his pithy snippets of wisdom that pepper the book and had me reading lines outloud to my partner.  Best of all, he has FABULOUS footnotes--ones that simply support his textual comments but also literate inciteful ones that add depth to the comments he makes in the body. (Footnoting TS Eliot in an economic analysis? You get points from me.)

Before I read the book, I had heard that it was commie pinko drivel.  Well, with all honesty, that just does not condemn a book for me.  In fact, as a driveling commie pinko myself, that always makes me hope to find a soulmate.

But of course Raj Patel, while remaining a soulmate in many ways, is certainly not spouting radical leftist stuff.  He's talking in a more intellectual way (and perhaps a more thoughtful way) about more or less what Michael Moore was talking about in Capitalism: A Love Story: how unfettered capitalism can absolutely destroy true democracy.

I especially love chapter six. Here Patel talks about everything from the demise of the commons and the rise of accusations of witchcraft--to the creation of colonialism and the idea of the "savage"--to territorial use rights of fisheries. At other places in the book he talks about the politics of breastfeeding (a subject near and dear to my heart which also exemplifies many of his points). The whole book is a feast of ideas, combined with a critical thesis. Go, now, to your local independent bookstore or to your library and get thee a'readin'!

Cherries in Winter

When magazine writer Suzan Colon lost her job as the economic crisis came to a head, she found something even more wonderful to replace it: a beautiful life, and a brilliant and thoughtful idea for a book:Cherries in Winter: My Family's Recipe for Hope in Hard Times.

The book--a quick read with print large enough even for those of us who just might be starting to need bifocals--revolves around how Colon's family history sustains her and inspires her through times of trouble.  While they cook classic family recipes, Colon's mother tells her stories about her family's past.  And then Suzan finds the writings and recipes of her "Nana" Matilda, who created a life during the Great Depression and WWII years with strength and verve.  The lesson that Suzan Colon uncovers from her family allows her to recognize her own ability to weather the storms occuring in her own life.

Cherries in Winter is a lovely and relaxing book--but it isn't the perfect read in all circumstances.  Clearly, it is not a political or analytical discussion of the economic crisis.  Neither will it make much sense to anyone who has struggled with any real poverty or hunger.  She and her family have plenty to live a comfortable life--just not the upscale life they had led before (of $200 haircuts and fancy meals).  A husband with a job and a substantial savings account protect them. 

But nevertheless, the shock and the changes for Colon's family have been very real.  As the author says, "I used to tell my parents they'd never have to worry about their old age, that I would take care of them.  Can I say that now?"

Of course, many people have weathered  much worse during this crisis--and many had faced more difficult situations even before the recession started.  If you are expecting a guide through any substantial struggle, this is not the book for you.  Instead, it will probably appeal to those of us who have been required to cut back on our luxuries but are still doing OK--and those of us who have chosen a simpler life during this time (or before the economic crisis began).

There are several recipes in addition to the gentle storytelling.  None really inspired me to cook them, but they did make me think of the foods that had been passed down to me in the history of my own family.

The title of the book, Cherries in Winter, is the author's articulation, handed down from the matriarchs of her family, of the idea that very occasional and very special treats can help us maintain a sense of balance: the importance of "spending extra, just once in a while, where there is no extra to be spent.  Because."  Why?  "It's a deep breath reminding us not to become miserly in spirit.  We may be broke but we're not poor."

What is your extravagance, your "cherries in winter"?

In the end, Colon recognizes her bounty: "It wasn't at all bad--sometimes what looked at first like more rotten luck turned out to be fate's little crooked smile."

I highly recommend this light but thoughtful book as the thing to pick up as you relax with a cup of tea in front of the fire--or as you sit in your garden on a warm summer day (a day I am dreaming about through this cold and snowy winter).

In the Pot

One of the presents I received for the holidays was a beautiful 4.5 quart enameled cast iron Le Creuset French Oven (usually called a Dutch Oven in this part of the world).

As a big fan of both non-enameled cast iron skillets and slow cookers, I had a feeling that this would be a pot I would love.  And I certainly do: the "French Oven" holds heat tremendously well, it is naturally nonstick (more or less), and it looks absolutely beautiful sitting on the stove or on the table.

Some people love all the bright colors that Le Creuset comes in--but as a confirmed plain-jane, I'm ecstatic about onyx (pure black) and dune (off-white).

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In these cold days and in our cold house, stews and braises feel just perfect. I scoured the library for cookbooks and found several--and know I can adjust slow cooker recipes as well. I'm looking forward to more experiments with this pot.

I also found an interesting cookbook called Glorious One-Pot Meals which uses a technique very different from slow braising. Instead, you layer raw ingredients into the pot, cover, and cook in a very hot oven for forty-five minutes or so.

The technique, which author Elizabeth Yarnell calls the infusion method, is incredibly convenient. All the cook needs to do is chop the ingredients, layer them in the pot, insert the pot in the oven, and head to the couch with a glass of wine and some good company to await the glorious smells which will soon emerge from the kitchen.

The recipes in Yarnell's book are all fairly vegetable-heavy.  As a confirmed veggie fanatic who loves to cook but hates to clean up, I thought I might have found a perfect match with this book.

After cooking a few dishes, though, I am only partly convinced.

While the meals are easy to put together, easy to clean up, and in general quite healthy, they sometimes are a bit pedestrian in their flavors. Although Yarnell takes inspiration from a variety of ethnic cuisines, the recipes are all substantially Americanized--or perhaps "Mid-Westernized" would be more accurate.  Fine--I can spice things up to my own tastes. And pedestrian is just fine for most of our weeknight meals, anyway.

The larger problem for me is that the individual ingredients don't always need the same amount of cooking time, even though by definition that is what they get in this cooking method. Last night's meal (Argentinian Beef) featured both mildly crunchy rice and somewhat limp broccoli.  Perhaps the special South Carolina-grown rice I used had too much bite for this cooking method?  I plan to do a bit more experimenting to see what will work.

One of the things I do like about the cookbook is that while it offers plenty of recipes, it also emphasizes the wide range of possibilities this method makes available to a cook adventurous enough to try out his or her own combinations.  The author actively encourages the reader to imagine new possibilities.  What if I were to skip the rice and add a few root veggies instead?  What if I were to replace the broccoli with mustard greens?  In fact, for tonight's meal, we'll be replacing chicken with some tempeh we've had in our freezer for much too long.

On a cold day, a hot stew coming out of the dutch oven can be just the thing to make us warm.  But having stew after stew, night after night, can get old.  Yarnells's Glorious One-Pot Meals are recipes that are not simply more stews. Although the ingredients are all cooked together, they in general remain quite distinct.  This makes for a nice variation from usual Dutch Oven recipes.

Another thing I really like about the cookbook is that the recipes are written for just two people.  For our family of three, I usually double the recipes (which the author encourages) and pack leftovers for lunch the next day.  But cooking a single recipe--and augmenting with salad or soup or dessert if we need to--might make a lot of sense for us sometimes.

So, in summary: although I do have some reservations about this cookbook, it seems like it will add ease and variety to our basic no-time-to-think weeknight meals.  We'll probably use some of the recipes for nights when we do have time, too.  But I don't foresee this being a go-to cookbook for special meals with company.

Have any of you tried out this book?  Do you have other favorite cookbooks or recipes for the Dutch Oven?

Carbon Diaries

In the young adult novel The Carbon Diaries, Laura Brown documents the events of the year 2015. As the book begins, the global climate has declined so precipitously that the United Kingdom has made the unilateral decision to cut its carbon emissions by 60 percent. In this modern epistolary novel (a diary format supplemented with few emails to a cousin), 16yo Laura chronicles her own experiences during this year of great change.

Due to an extremely severe European storm, Britain decides to implement carbon rationing. During the course of the following year, incredible drought, extreme cold, riots, forest fires, and serious flooding shape the daily experiences of the central characters.  The UK is the first country in the world to respond to the global-warming crisis by setting strict limits on how much energy people can use. Everyone is given a carbon allowance of 200 Carbon Points per month that can be spent on food, heating, and travel. These ration points came on top of the higher prices people already pay now that the carbon usage of each commodity has been factored into the item's cost.

As Laura's family confronts carbon rationing and the effects of global warming, they each find themselves going in new directions. Unable to withstand the pressures of carbon rationing, Laura's parents decide to separate. Her mother becomes involved with a militant women's commune, while her father develops into an urban homesteader--raising a pig, tearing down neighborhood fences to create a common field with his neighbors and taking a job driving a horse-drawn delivery wagon.

On top of the difficulties Britain faces due to climate chance and rationing, Laura tries to keep her eco-punk band (the Dirty Angels) together, negotiate family tensions, survive the complications of teen friendships, and get the attention of the cute boy next door.

I highly recommend this book, but be aware that the amount of British teen-speak may make you feel both old and foreign.  It is not great literature, but it is compellingly written and endlessly thought provoking.

I can't wait to read the sequel, The Carbon Diaries, 2017!

Six Degrees

Mark Lynas's Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet is a powerful book. In 2001, the the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a landmark report projecting average global surface temperatures to rise between 1.4 degrees and 5.8 degrees Celsius (roughly 2 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of this century. Analyzing what such temperature rises would mean for the planet, Lynas sets out to track what geologists, glaciologists, oceanographers, climate scientists, and paleoclimatologists expect, as well as what "major scientific projections" from computer modelers suggest.

Lynas divides his findings into six main chapters representing the consequences of a one- to six-degree shift in temperature rise:

Plus 1° C, the American West (from California to the Great Plains) could suffer a mega-drought lasting decades or centuries, devastating agriculture and evicting inhabitants on a scale far larger then the 1930s dustbowl. Over-exploited aquifers will fail as powerful dust and sandstorms engulf entire states.  Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia will face similar challenges.

Plus 2° C will bring thirst to parched cities across China. Facing a chronic shortage of water, China won't struggle to develop a more affluent lifestyle; it will fight to feed itself. Warmer seas will struggle to continue to absorb additional greenhouse gas emissions, radically altering the ecosystems that cover 70 % of the globe.  On top of that, by 2040 Europe could experience temperatures endemic to North Africa today and the consequent death toll during searing summer heat waves may reach into the hundreds of thousands.

Adding 3° C will see a return to Pliocene norms when the Trans-Antarctic Mountains were covered with beech trees. Pine trees will return to regions hundreds of miles north of today's Artic tree line, and global sea levels will rise 25 meters. Other harbingers include a persistent super El Nino, desiccation of the Amazon and Australia, hyper-hurricanes, an ice-free arctic, dry Indus and Colorado rivers, and the inundation of New York City.  Growing food in this habitat will prove increasingly problematic since rice, wheat, and maize yields decline by 10% for every 1° C temperature increase over 30° C. Over 40° C yields are reduced to zero. Starvation will replace obesity as an epidemic.

An additional 4° C will see the end of the Nile and Egyptian civilization.  Alexandria will be flooded as Antarctic ice melts raise global sea levels by 50 meters (164.1 feet). If both major Antarctic ice sheets destabilize, sea levels could rise by a meter or so every 20 years--far outside humanity's adaptive capacity. Global warming of this magnitude would eventually denude the entire planet of ice for the first time in nearly 40 million years.

With 5° C of global warming, an inhospitable planet awaits us. Rain forests may have burned up.  Rapidly rising sea levels, after inundating coastal cities, may begin to penetrate far inland into continental interiors. Human civilization will be confined to small areas limited by of drought and flood. At the highest latitudes, Siberian, Canadian, and Alaskan rivers will experience dramatically increased flows due to torrential rain. East Asian monsoons will dump nearly a third more water in the Yangtze and nearly 20% more in the Yellow River.  The United Kingdom will experience severe winter flooding as reset Atlantic weather patterns lash Britain, Scotland and Ireland.

At 6° C, Lynas describes our situation as descending into the Sixth Circle of Hell, an earthly inferno.  Terrifyingly, our planet could reprise conditions last experienced during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.  Disruption on this scale could unleash massive amounts of methane hydrates, resulting in runaway global warming and the planet might began to emulate Venus.  This would be a pace of warming far too rapid for meaningful adaptation by natural ecosystems. Mass extinction will rule the day as the earth recreates itself.

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Are we ready to make some changes?  We are already in the pipeline for a devastating future.  To climb out, we need to realign radically both our personal lives and our global and national politics.  Although Lynas certainly does not prescribe any insta-fixes, he proposes that living simply, in community and intensely locally, is our best course.  As he writes at the end, "An outdated view still prevails that a low-carbon lifestyle requires immense personal suffering and sacrifice.  In my view, nothing could be further from the truth.  All the evidence shows that people who do not drive, do not fly on planes, do shop locally, do grow their own food, and do get to know other members of their community have a much higher quality of life than their compatriots who remain addicted to high-fossil-fuel-consuming lifestyles."  He continues, "It seems to me that this low-carbon society would be one that remembers that our planet is a unique gift."  While he makes it clear that he is not talking about any utopia, the choice is clear: "Unless we do constrain carbon, life will very largely not go on at all."

The Dinner Diaries

I recently read Betsy Block's wonderfully entertaining book The Dinner Diaries:Raising Whole Wheat Kids in a White Bread World. Although I was initially drawn to the book because I had heard that it was a funny food memoir, I found it to be a much more useful book than I had imagined.  Yes--it is charming and warm--but it also engages food politics on many levels and will make readers think more seriously about the ramifications of our decisions about eating.

Block writes the book as a memoir of her own personal quest to improve her family's diet.  She lets us know her struggles and her families, and she allows us to celebrate with her.  This narrative style allows the author to pass along a great deal of information without it ever seeming the least bit moralizing or preachy.

Block introduces her readers to all sorts of food issues.  Should we cut down and/or elminate meat?  Should we remove dairy from our diets?  What should we do about sugar?  How can we handle our own uncertainties about the answers in the face of social/community resistance to change?

My favorite section is her discussion of fish.  While eating more fish is initially on her list of things to do to improve her family's diet, she then learns more about the mercury content of most fish as well as other pollution issues.  She then discusses overfishing and endangered varietes.  Block winds up with an effort to find sustainably-raised local fish.  It is a tying together of many of the concerns raised throughout the book.
 
The book is not without its problems.

Block tells an absolutely wonderful story about Gandhi--one I had never heard before.  When a mother brought her young sugar-obsessed son to the master in order to have Gadhi himself correct his eating habbits.  Gandhi told the family to come back again in three weeks.  When they did, he told the boy simply not to eat sugar.  When the frustrated mother asked why he couldn't have just told her son those same words three weeks before, Gandhi responded: "Because three weeks ago, I was still eating sugar."

I love this story with its message that we need to live up to all we expect our children to be.  But what Block says after this story is that while it is important that we be role models, her chosen way is to eat candy (fair-trade chocolate) with her husband after the children are in bed.  Her reasoning?  "We're the parents here" and "some things in life should be adult only."  In other words, she chooses to be a good role model to her children's faces but not a good role model after dark.  As she says, "We'd rather lie than argue."  I'm not sure Gandhi would approve.

There are a few other places where I disagree with Block.  For example, I do not believe that our vitamins should be coming from either pills or foods "fortified" with added chemicals.  Real food grown in real soil seems like a better answer for our health as well as for our planet.

I was also a bit irked by the often-contrived efforts to make nutritional advice seem to be riddled with contradiction and conflict.  She paints the nutritionists and the locavores are actively working at cross purposes.  As she writes early on, the two groups are in opposite corners of a boxing ring and what the first group says are fighting words.  For example, the locavores are "telling us to eat locally and in season,, which obviously rules out most of what the nutritionists advised"--which is to eat less meat and more whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.  The Ethical Eaters are in another corner altogether.  While this portrayal of people at odds makes for a great story, it just doesn't work like that very often.  Yes, sometimes you have to choose between a sprayed apple from down the road and an organic one from China.  But that doesn't mean the basic ideas are not in harmony.

Despite these reservations,  The Dinner Diaries is both an entertaining and informative read.  Check it out!