$108.75 for the Holidays

Red Peppers are screaming Christmas to me right now.

I went on the hunt for the last of Essex County peppers for my annual stash of red peppers which I usually use for my go-to winter meals of red beans and rice and chili. The farmstand near my house has closed (see you next year, and thanks!!) so Harrison and I had to go on a 5 minute drive to hunt for them. They were huge, the size of an evening bag!

In two more months, we will walk haughtily past the scrawny peppers in the grocery store, flown thousands of miles from Chile, picked while hard and green and ripened with artificial gas. People will be paying $3.99 for the privilege. And thanks to Harrison's calculations (we are loving grade 4 math!) I have just saved enough with this trip for a x-mas present worth $108.75.


The XL peppers were 75 cents each - I got 15. They are easily the size of two regular $3.99 peppers without tax. (Probably a good thing we're paying it given the way our food system is taxing the health of our population, not to mention reducing the life expectancies of our kids! We'll need every penny of those McDollars)

15 x .75 was $11.25. I paid for it with the change left in my car. 30 peppers over the winter x $4 is $120.

Time Savings? I'll add some of that too, since washing and chopping, and cutting probably took me a half an hour. They're now air drying for a while before I freeze them in bags, since any water molecules left will form ice crystals - not horrible, but they do reduce the integrity of the peppers as the months go along.

RED BEANS AND RICE MONDAYS

Monday nights are always my favourite. Ever since falling in love HARD with New Orleans in 2005, and subsequently learning that red beans and rice is served unfailingly every Monday, we have adopted this tradition at our house. There are great slow cooked recipies, but here's my super fast one.

Enough rice for the mouths in the house, in a rice cooker, which I ADORE and can't believe I ever lived without one.

In a slow cooker:

1 can of red kidney beans
1 can of crushed tomatoes (or a jar of homemade tomato sauce)
1/2 cup of red lentils
Three cups of what new-Orleanians call "the trinity":
1 cup of frozen chopped onions
1 cup of frozen chopped red peppers
1 cup of frozen chopped celery
Hot sauce to taste
Tony Chachere's Seasoning to taste

For the non-vegans: Add 1 tbsp of butter cascading on top of a scoop of rice, and a scoop of beans. Drizzle some hot sauce over top. My cab driver told me about this trick on the way to the airport home, and it is sinfully good.

For the non-vegetarians: Add some bacon, or pork, or a smoked turkey leg, or some andouille sausage.

Beans and rice combine to form a perfect protein. It is cheap, delicious, shelf-stable and easy.

Wiebe of Truth

I went to a lecture series at the University tonight. Nettie Wiebe, the distinguished visitor for Women's Studies, was giving a talk on women, food production and feminism. What an amazing topic!!!

It was hard not to bob my head in agreement at each sentence and I don't think I was able to stop myself. Women have such a role in how people are fed.

When I see hideously overweight children on the street, I want to smack their moms.

Then I want to smack the people who market to those kids' moms.

Then I want to populate every grocery store with women like Nettie Wiebe - could she police the check out? Could she heist their wallets before they spent money they earned on crap and poison for their kids? Could even she break this cycle of disintegration of food? I think so.

I think (and believe) we all can!

Instead I want to keep blogging and keep nudging people who I think could use an opinionated nudge.

I wish I had the strength to be a vegan - I know it would be better for my health, and the environment, but I'm not sure I can give up eggs, butter and cheese! I know I am strong enough to be a vegetarian (my definition is not eating anything with a face) and I always feel better about those choices.

I wonder if the guys will even notice? I seriously doubt it, as long as the food is good! Most of my food is 75-80% vegetables already, with any protein taking its role as an add-on. Dinners have usually consisted in a 4 oz portion of protein for years now. It shouldn't be impossible to eliminate it entirely for a while?

For some time now, I've been searching for a challenge to the blog. For a reason? I love how something will just motivate me, and make me think about my relationship with food. About the seasons, about time and effort in eating, about thoughtless and powerless eating. But I'm wanting more. Like a year-long challenge.

I wonder if I follow up my lust for beets, my infidelity with pumpkin, and my sadness at carnivorism with a weekly challenge for entering my 40th year? Stay tuned.

October Pumpkin, Stripped

I am cheating.

On beets.

With pumpkin.

I don't want to give up my lust for the depth of beets, and the stain of what it takes to have them. They are still in my heart, and I had them this weekend with a sublime "La Bouche" Goat cheese from Quebec. But tonight I felt fickle. Like I was betraying my newly beloved beets.

With pumpkin.

Tonight Harrison wanted to carve pumpkins. Bill's away and its just the two of us. So we sharpened our knives with a pocket knife sharpener (see "Shop Talk", July)and plunged in.


I caught my breath in my chest when we opened the first one. It was wet, and fleshy. And smelled of pumpkin carvings of my childhood. But this was different because my mom hadn't done it for me AND different since I wasn't in just such an extreme billable hour rush to get through it, OR skipping it entirely because it wasn't my "Halloween" with Harrison, OR skipping it entirely because of a myriad of other reasons. Tonight, with the sun setting, pumpkin flesh was all mine. I thought fleetingly of the beets, but... can not help myself.

I never realized how gorgeous the seeds are inside a pumpkin when you first take the top off. How they cascade down in a crescendo of both attachment to the past and suspension in the now. How
F R E S H the seeds taste when you pop one in your mouth. It is a burst of October. It is the essence of seeds and wetness and possibility. If this post is unlike my others, pumpkin has obviously turned on the orange in me.

I pulled at the heavier flesh once the seeds were out, trying to loosen it so Harrison could make easier cuts through the Jack-o-lantern face he was trying to make. (I steeled myself at watching my sweet innocent child with a sharp chef's knife, but gave him instruction, and reason why he should protect himself, and information on how to do it, AND exacted a watchful eye for every cut.. whew...) It scooped out like spaghetti squash - stringy and almost melon-like. A bead of water formed at the base.. strings of pumpkin bunched up in my fingers. It was almost as if it needed me, too - begging to be eaten.

A sheet of puff pastry remained in my freezer, and was rolled onto the silpat. The pan, warmed only with butter and a pinch of salt beckoned the pumpkin with its heat.


No nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, or other extraneous lingerie.

No extra anything. Just naked pumpkin.

I just took my first bite and it is sublime. Not crowded over with other flavour, or disguised, or changed.

It makes me wonder about all the extra layers we add onto things. Love. Work. Truth. Pleasure. Food. Sex. Passion. Nature. October. Maybe we just need to strip things down every once in a while, and get back to what is simple. It made me wonder how food would taste if we approached everything like this - with no combinations, with no change to the essence of what a food is? Just taking it exactly as it is.

I am dazzled with the simplicity and timing of the pumpkin tonight. Maybe we'll meet only fleetingly, in October, during the last week. I certainly can't picture having it every week. It's not that kind of dish... I can't picture wanting it in summer, or in the dead of winter. Or in the pink of spring.
Pumpkin is meant for October.

I'm lucky to have simple, yet sublime influences. And, fleetingly in October, to pumpkin;)

Cost vs. Worth is Worth analyzing

I am getting older this week. We all are, I suppose, but my number is about to go up by one. 39!

This blog is going to list my favourite 39 things which are absolutely worth every penny of every dollar they cost.

1. Nowhere to start but with real Champagne. Vintage.

2. Pay for organic lemons, especially when you get hooked on using the zest and don't want chemical spray residue in your food.

3. A great 5 ounce filet.

4. Italian Parmeggiano Reggiano

5. Italian Piave Stravecchio - it is truly incredible.

6. The "upgrade" charge for sweet potatoe fries if you absolutely must have fries.

7. Fresh herbs - rosemary, sage, parsley, thyme, mint, chive, lemon balm, basil, pineapple sage, lemon basil, purple basil, thai basil.

19. Organic Butter.

20. Premade puff pastry and phyllo dough.

22. Organic Eggs and Poultry.

24. Italian San Daniele Proscuitto.

25. Ripe raspberries which you picked right off the bush and blueberries from Klassen's. Purple tongue optional.

27. White balsamic vinegar.

28. San Marzano Tomatoes.

29. Saffron.

30. Fresh, bright pink ahi tuna.

31. Dark chocolate.

32. Dark, french roasted coffee.

33. Whole vanilla pods, containing a million tiny fragrant flavour-licious vanilla beans.

34. Fresh pasta, for the time savings alone.

35. Avocado.

36. Concord grapes.

37. A tiny split of real champagne, (when you don't need a whole bottle) even if it costs you $25 for two little glasses to celebrate an occasion worth celebrating, and the 18 year old kid selling it to you shouts out "$25?????" when you're in line and you have to explain QUICKLY why champagne is worth the extra dough before he will let you leave the store.

38. Fleur de sel.

39. Black truffles.

Beets, Under Oath

Beets are my newest crush. In April, I planted a number of seed-based root vegetables. Parsnips (which seem to be impossible to get out of the ground, spectacular "purple haze carrots" which are purple on the outside, orange on the inside and which look spectacular when cut, and beets. They were EFFORTLESS to grow.

When I pulled the beets, and carrots out of the ground a few weeks ago, I was moved by the fact that I was literally holding borscht in my hands. Ukrainian folks revere this gorgeous red soup, with veg stock (or meat stock for special occasions). It smelled like MY roots and I felt connected with history.

Last year I had a similar moment when my eggplant, peppers and tomatoes were all ripe at the same time. I was holding eggplant parmesan, or ratatouille. You can sense the evolution of a classic dish when you grow a garden. Who knew?

I've been roasting beets in the oven, whole, at 400 degrees for about 2 hours. They become beautifully sweet, almost like candy. Sprinkled with goat cheese or feta, they are divine. They are a beautiful lipstick stain red of a colour. In cutting them up, there is something revealing - almost immodest - about this kind of intensity. I felt a bit like Lady Macbeth who can't escape her history..."Out damned spot" or Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago, after a particularly bad evening. My red hands gave me away - there is no "beeting" this kind of intensity. They are resplendent items and nothing short of bold.

Red. Rich. Intense. Effortless. And they stain everything they touch!

That is my kind of vegetable!

Yesterday I decided to go for it and make a sweet beet cupcake. The batter is gorgeous - I just used a carrot cake recipie and substituted beets. No extra spices, except for some vanilla. Two years ago, I added shredded beet to chocolate cupcakes which totally rocked. It made the cupcakes incredibly moist, loaded with vegetables full of antioxidants. But last night, I put the beets out there for all to see.

They were delicious. Red and sweet. I think they can maybe be made better with some shredded apple, but they were good. What I liked about this version is that you could still taste the beet. I wasn't trying to hide it.

In law practice, you can respect another lawyer for telling it to you like it is. None of the snivelly hiding behind some poseur "position", or masking one's devilishness with a technicality. There were technically beets in the chocolate cupcakes, but not straight up.

Harrison ate the whole thing, but when he asked "what's this?" I said "raspberry". Technically, there was raspberry in the yogurt cream cheese sauce I served with it. But misleading him was very un-beet-like of me. At the time, he had just refused to eat the butternut squash for dinner, I really felt that all was fair in love and food.

Beets would have told the truth, whether or not they were under oath.

I know a lot of parents who lie to their kids about food. I know lawyers sometimes who rely on technicalities to lie to the other side, er... who bluff... um, I mean, who "tirelessly advance their client's position"...

But sometimes you just have to go right out there with the truth, and hope both kids and other lawyers can handle it.

I know! I have the perfect way out of this! I'll ask Harrison if he wants the truth about the dessert he ate. When he answers , I'll shout "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!"

I know the two lawyers in the house will laugh. The kid may never forgive me. Either that, or he'll go in for another bite...

Remy's Law : If you are what you eat, then I only want to eat the good stuff.

I was not really a kid-y kid. I couldn't wait to go to law school, from as young as I can remember. I toyed with the idea of being a veterinarian, but the thought of putting animals to sleep ended that. I also considered being an Egyptologist, but my father thought that was ridiculous, so that ended that too.

It's only recently that I've even considered a career outside of law, but fortunately, I enjoy my job so much that chef school has to just be one of those daydreams.

I mention this because the entire premise of movies like "Ratatouille" and "Julie and Julia" are based on following a dream that involves food, and passion. And can you get any better than those? Not in my opinion.

I got a great present recently from my mom. She found a stuffed animal "Remy" with an apron, a chef's hat and a big felt "wooden" spoon on a recent trip to Florida. She hesitated buying it for me because she thought it was a bit silly to give a 38 year old self-declared minimalist a stuffed animal but, with two young grandchildren, she was satisfied with her default options.

When I saw him sitting in her kitchen, I was overcome with a relaxed enthusiasm and (dare I say it) glee! He is SO cute, and my favourite movie character of all time. He's a RAT.

Who wants to be a CHEF.

IN PARIS! The very premise of the movie is just sheer genius.

I am often reminded of his mantra "If you are what you eat, then I only want to eat the good stuff".

The good stuff really can elevate any dish to being fabulous. The mediocre stuff can make every meal you eat, and every meal you serve, at best marginal. And the good stuff can elevate YOU to fabulous. Guess what the marginal stuff can do?

Walking back from run for the cure with Melanie and Evan, we got to discussing fast "food". It is decided law that what we label "fast food" is NOT REALLY FOOD. It is a food-like substance. Chemical molecular structures which imitate food. Like a bad Las Vegas Drag Queen, who hasn't shaved, and has no makeup on.

Look at a fast food "chicken" sandwich. Or a "hamburger". Surely if you're a meat eater, you have eaten the real version of these dishes. They look absolutely nothing like chicken or ground beef. And yet every day "billions and billions" of people consume these molecules, under the delusional belief that they are "eating". Worse still, children are being given these chemical cocktail ingestions with no thought to what is in them because they are labelled "food".

I read a great book on a trip to Manitoba last summer called "In Defence of Food". The book had three simple premises. Eat food. Mostly Vegetables. Not too much. One of the sub-premises was that if your great great grandmother wouldn't have recognized the substance or ingredients as food, it isn't food. Isn't that a great rule?

It's so simple! And yet, we are members of the first generation in human history who are expected to have longer life expectancies than our children. As a group, we are literally poisoning our human selves with imitation food.

You are what you eat.

Eat the good stuff.

Craving Broccoli??!!??

This morning while packing up, I was sensing that I NEED something. I was having an honest-to-goodness CRAVING. A mental picture prompts my wanna-be chef tastebuds to actually taste the sensation in my mouth. The quest to get in my car, buy it and consume it feverishly. The craving was for?

Broccoli.

Broccoli? The green stuff that prompted a presidential revelation of disgust to enrage an entire segment of the agricultural industry? The cruciferous bouquet of green that causes children everywhere to hone their negotiating skills with their parents "I'll just eat the tops, OK?". The only vegetable sufficient to cause me to scream in horror when I proudly harvested one from my garden, plopped it in a sink of cold water, and henceforth watched as every living critter living in it exited its shelter, swam, then crawled over my entire kitchen counter as Harrison dissolved in laughter?

Yes. I want broccoli. Bad. More than I've ever even craved chocolate.

I have dinner made, but it might be possible to do a quick soup tonight? Chicken stock steeped broccoli florets, garnished with some cheddar cheese?

I really believe the hard 6 am workout with yesterday's 5K run is prompting a finally healthy craving. I think it's my body's revolt against colourless food, spurred on by the blood red beets from yesterday? Maybe a body has a natural impulse towards vitamins, once you slow down and actually listen to it?

A craving for broccoli. Now that's a first.

Testing my own advice

Last night before bed, I wrote out the ingredient list for the "easy" menu week I devised for my ultra-busy friends. (Did the 5K run for the cure this morning, and felt fantastic actually using my muscles again!!!) I've scanned the list (if you double click, it gets much bigger!) plus the $71 result at the grocery store. And that includes $17 grouper fillets. It was actually quite fast to work from this list, and I'm curious as heck to see if I can actually feed us for the week. Stay tuned. Maybe I'll even do a video clip so you can see how easy everything is?? The first thing I noticed while shopping was that my list wasn't in order of how a grocery store was laid out, so I promise to fix that. The second thing I noticed was my own discomfort with such a SHORT grocery list. So - this week will be an ongoing experiment! My artichoke goat cheese dip I made yesterday was DELICIOUS tonight. Artichokes are a lot of work, for a mere nugget or two of something worthwhile. You peel away layer on layer on layer, just hoping to get to it. It seemed the perfect dish to make yesterday! However, in the "a stich in time saves nine" world, the effort was worth it. Harrison's lunch sandwiches are in the fridge, and were produced with assembly-line precison this evening to make sure this week doesn't get away from me. Coffee's made (timer is set for 5:05). We hit the Gym at 6 am tomorrow to burn off my month's worth of bad choices, but the blog reflects lessons learned.

Desperation, Detox and Beets

Today I mapped out the current chaos of my life LITERALLY in half hour segments. I won't list any boring reasons, but I will say that life hasn't been more chaotic since spring 2003.

I have lost muscle by skipping my workouts, gained belly fat because I'm eating too much restaurant food, not cooking in my own kitchen, and reaching for crappy snacks when faced with stress overload satisfiable only with a sugar or fat rush.

I know why this is - and I know why it happens.

1. I've been skipping breakfast and living on coffee.
2. I have been too busy to pack a healthy snack for the office.
3. I've been persuaded that a restaurant meal is faster than cooking at home.
4. I've been more stressed than usual, and chocolate or salty chips look better than they usually do.
5. I've stopped the consistent exercise routine that produced a good buzz.
6. My clothes feel tight, so I've been choosing roomier options.
7. I've been eating late, and sleeping terribly.
8. I have not had time for any Food TV, so often I'm out of ideas when I get home after work, and there is nothing in the fridge, AND I'm exhausted.
9. I'm travelling and in the car a lot, sitting, and drinking coffee. Since I refuse to eat any fast food, I'm usually ravenous when I get home.
10. I have stopped prioritizing myself.

Yuck. There it is in black and white. And it's probably similar to lots of folks who eat badly. It feels like me, years and years ago.

So this morning, I had enough. I have turned off every phone in the house, including my cell phone, and treated myself to a day of errands, cooking, manicures, pedicures, facials and delicious eating.

Tonight, as I await the food network Thanksgiving Special, the lingering taste of a beet and goat cheese salad with mandarin slices is still present on my taste buds. Is there anything more beautiful than the colour of roasted beets? Packed with anti-oxidants, it is a perfect match with the earthy grounding flavour spike of a tangy, creamy goat cheese. Mandarin citrus high notes just round out everything.

The thing I found so uncomfortable about this month wasn't the chaos, or the driving, or the multiple projects, objectives, deadlines, pressure, performance anxiety, or the loss of personal or family time. I hated the disorganization.

My weekly schedule is now on paper, highlighting the windows of time that I actually have available in any given week. And it is much smaller than I thought. So I have to be organized if I'm going to make it until Christmas.

I'm going to print my list from the post to Sarah, and make that my menu plan for the week. I hope it helps get my groove back.