tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72404885409536057552023-12-12T06:16:06.477-08:00meghan eats locallet it be. let it go.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.comBlogger189125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-79082205765039713262013-04-22T08:17:00.000-07:002013-04-22T08:21:16.582-07:00Santa Rhubarbara Strawberry JamLast week at the farmers market, I came across the stand of Nancy
Bertelsen. She grows rhubarb, among other tasty things, in her 1.5-acre
backyard, and sells it with a smile for $3 a bunch:<br />
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<br />
I have to admit that I was disappointed that Nancy's name was not Barbara, since I
would have loved to nickname her Rhubarbara. Luckily, I live in Santa
Barbara, so I can make that pun with any rhubarb recipe I come up with,
anyway.<br />
<br />
I could have snacked on the rhubarb raw, or added it to green juice for a
sweet kick. But I decided to make my first encounter with rhubarb coincide with
another first: my first attempt at jam making.<br />
<br />
Before I went about trying to make jam, I picked up a pint of strawberries from Chuy at Chuy's Berries for only $2.50 - the best price at the market! I
wasn't sure if I was going to like the taste of the rhubarb, and I
figured that pretty much anything tastes great if you mix it with
strawberries.<br />
<br />
Now, the stock of special, fancy ingredients in my pantry is admittedly
paltry. But there is one ingredient in most jams that you probably
wouldn't find in even the most impressively stocked kitchen cabinet:
pectin.<br />
<br />
What is pectin, you ask? I don't know, but it doesn't matter. Because pectin, shmectin! This is a recipe for some pectin-less jam!<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Santa Rhubarbara and Strawberry Jam</u></span><br />
<br />
Ingredients:<br />
<br />
1 pint of strawberries, diced, from Chuy's Berries in Arroyo Grande, CA (distance from me: 79 miles)<br />
6 stalks of rhubarb, diced, from Nancy Bertelsen's backyard in Santa Barbara<br />
1 cup sugar<br />
1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice<br />
1/4 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice<br />
<br />
First, I chopped up the strawberries and rhubarb. You know that trick your elementary school art teacher taught you to do
with white carnations, where you put food coloring in the water and the
flowers drink it up and change color? Well, rhubarb looks like somebody
did that with red food coloring and a stalk of celery:
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ixIbwAA3Abc/UXRcen9bRcI/AAAAAAAABxI/ebnjSce0m4M/s1600/photo_10.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ixIbwAA3Abc/UXRcen9bRcI/AAAAAAAABxI/ebnjSce0m4M/s400/photo_10.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Diced rhubarb.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Then I put the diced strawberries and rhubarb in a big sauce pot with the sugar, lemon juice, and orange juice.<br />
<br />
I had squeezed the juice myself from organic lemons I'd purchased at Trader Joe's (they're not in season around here right now) and organic oranges from various farm stands at the market (I go kind of nuts with oranges each week). My little electric citrus juicer is no <a href="http://www.meghaneatslocal.com/2012/12/and-beet-goes-into-juicer-beet-carrot.html" target="_blank">Omega 8006</a>, but it gets the job done and I find the process quite therapeutic, honestly.<br />
<br />
I covered the pot with all the ingredients in it and cooked them on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, until the sugar dissolved. Then I turned the heat down to low and let the mixture simmer for 15-minute intervals, stirring it and checking its consistency in between.<br />
<br />
In total, I ended up letting it simmer for about an hour. It was still more liquid
than I would like jam to be, but I didn't want to risk burning the
fruit, and also I was getting bored with the whole project.<br />
<br />
So I poured it into two mason jars and put them in the freezer. The next day, I took one out to thaw - in about an hour, I had myself some tasty jam!<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IcVU--vsUWQ/UXRceqSvhWI/AAAAAAAABxE/qY_PnyAdJNo/s1600/photo2_7.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IcVU--vsUWQ/UXRceqSvhWI/AAAAAAAABxE/qY_PnyAdJNo/s400/photo2_7.JPG" width="297" /></a></div>
It tastes sweeter than a strawberry, with a distinct hint of orange. The texture of the rhubarb is not celery-like at all anymore, thank goodness. It is mushy enough to spread, and just as lumpy as you'd want jam to be. Yum!<br />
<br />
Now that I know it can be so easy to make, I don't think I'll ever buy another container of jam. I have another big mason jar of it waiting in the freezer, to keep around until rhubarbs go out of season! And after that, I'll have to settle for making jams with less punny names. Like blueberry jam. Meh.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-47991893398833603332013-04-12T08:15:00.000-07:002013-04-12T08:23:34.901-07:00My Favorite Things: Olive-Oil-Wine-Cake with Strawberries on TopLet it be known that I'm kind of obsessed with<a href="http://www.ediblecommunities.com/santabarbara/" target="_blank"> Edible Santa Barbara</a>. I always check the ATM stand at the farmers market to see if there's a new issue out that I can snag for free, and recently I was delighted to discover the new "Bread and Wine Issue." It included a whole bunch of inspired recipes, as usual, but I was intrigued by one in particular: wine cake, of course.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a7rwO5R-1Bw/UWdIqSaWOWI/AAAAAAAABv0/vgrqtEoDVUw/s1600/photo2_8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a7rwO5R-1Bw/UWdIqSaWOWI/AAAAAAAABv0/vgrqtEoDVUw/s400/photo2_8.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Olive-Oil-Wine-Cake with Strawberry-Pinot-Noir topping!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In addition to wine, the other main ingredient this cake recipe called for was olive oil. A <i>whole</i> <i>lot </i>of olive oil, since it was taking the place of butter in the recipe. Brown paper packages tied up with strings are okay, I guess, but wine, cake, and olive oil? <i>These</i> are a few of my favorite things!<br />
<br />
For the olive oil, I headed straight to <a href="http://www.ilfustino.com/" target="_blank">Il Fustino</a>, one of Santa Barbara's best olive oil makers and vendors. The shop looks clean and inviting inside; the walls are lined with stainless steel containers of olive oils and balsamic vinegars, as well as all kinds of snacks and seasonings from local merchants. Each tank had a recipe suggestion for that type of olive oil for customers to take home!<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6ePPc2nHRrs/UWdIr7U0iGI/AAAAAAAABwQ/1kGsuDR9Ums/s1600/photo9.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6ePPc2nHRrs/UWdIr7U0iGI/AAAAAAAABwQ/1kGsuDR9Ums/s400/photo9.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Il Fustino" means "The Tank" in Italian. Looks like this place got named during a game of I Spy (or "Io vedo," if you will).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qnTqjF6BfeI/UWdIsONdLII/AAAAAAAABwc/r431ckPiSls/s1600/photo8.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qnTqjF6BfeI/UWdIsONdLII/AAAAAAAABwc/r431ckPiSls/s400/photo8.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I chatted with James Kirkley, whose dad, Jim, founded Il Fustino after working in the software industry for years. James's mom, Laura, does all the marketing for Il Fustino. James told me that all of their oils are grown in California and are certified to be Extra Virgin by the California Olive Oil Council.<br />
<br />
Don't ask me what the Extra Virgin certification process entails, but I have to assume you sign up for it at Comic-Con.<br />
<br />
I tasted a few of the oils right from the tank before settling on Olio Nuovo (which just means "new oil"), freshly pressed from the new Arbequina olive crop and unfiltered. It had a green tinge, smelled like newly cut grass, and tasted kind of peppery. James told me the peppery flavor was due to the polyphenols (antioxidants that reduce the risks of cancer and heart disease). This stuff was <i>strong</i>, but I figured if I was going to use olive oil in my cake, I wanted to taste it in the finished product.<br />
<br />
Now it was time for the "wine" part of the wine cake operation. Unfortunately, I don't know of any local winemakers who produce Moscato, which the recipe called for, so I did the next best thing and purchased some at <a href="http://www.thewinehound.com/" target="_blank">The Winehound</a>, my favorite local wine shop. I told Bob, the least snobby wine connoisseur I've ever met, of my wine cake aspirations and he helped me pick out a good, inexpensive Moscato.<br />
<br />
I also needed to buy some Pinot Noir for the strawberry topping, so I tried something new: "moobuzz" Pinot Noir by <a href="http://www.togwines.com/" target="_blank">The Other Guys, Inc.</a> in Monterery, CA (distance from me: 237 miles). "Moobuzz" is a cute reference to "The Land of Milk and Honey" - get it? Milk comes from cows, which go "moo," and honey comes from bees, which go "buzz!" How could I <i>not </i>buy this delightfully punny wine?<br />
<br />
Here's the recipe, courtesy of Edible Santa Barbara, with my own twist:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Wine Cake</u></span><br />
<br />
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour<br />
1 teaspoon baking powder<br />
1/4 teaspoon salt<br />
3 large eggs<br />
1 cup unbleached organic cane sugar<br />
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract<br />
1/2 cup olive oil<br />
3/4 cup dessert wine (I used Moscato)<br />
<br />
<u>For the glaze:</u><br />
3 tablespoons Moscato<br />
1/2 cup organic powdered sugar<br />
<br />
<u>For the topping:</u><br />
1 pint strawberries<br />
1 cup Pinot Noir<br />
1/8 cup unbleached granulated sugar<br />
<br />
First, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees. The directions said to lightly butter a 9- by 5-inch metal loaf pan and line the bottom and two longer sides with parchment paper. Well, there was about a 0% chance that I was in possession of any <i>parchment</i> paper, but luckily I had some really thin, paper crafty bags left over from my over-the-top Valentine's Day crafts-travaganza. I cut one along the edges and figured it made an okay substitute:<br />
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<br />
I combined the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl and put it aside. Then I was supposed to beat the eggs and sugar in a stand mixer, but since I don't just have a stand mixer lying around, I got a real arm workout in here. After I beat the eggs and sugar together, it was time to add the vanilla extract and olive oil (still mixing ferociously for about 5 minutes).<br />
<br />
Before you judge me for not having a stand mixer, remember that I
haven't had any weddings, so I don't have any of the standard
wedding-gift-kitchen appliances like stand mixers, fondu sets, matching
silverware, etc. <br />
<br />
Then I got to open the Moscato - pop! - and I poured it into the bowl, alternating it with adding the dry ingredients little by little (still beating the crap out of the mixture by hand). I grumbled to David that we should get married soon for the sole purpose of acquiring a stand mixer. He laughed... and then ran away.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oNi4uaUJuTk/UWdIq9McmvI/AAAAAAAABwA/IGgFiXeYCrM/s1600/photo5_4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oNi4uaUJuTk/UWdIq9McmvI/AAAAAAAABwA/IGgFiXeYCrM/s400/photo5_4.JPG" width="297" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The wet ingredients with some bubbly Moscato!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
While the cake baked, I got to work making the strawberry/wine topping! Yes, more wine. This one was simple: I just cut the strawberries in half and mixed them up in a bowl with the sugar, then poured the Pinot Noir over them.<br />
<br />
Instead of a cork, this bottle had a "zork" - a delightful portmanteau of "zipper" and "cork" - that peels off and then pops out like a cork. My mind was blown.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nl9MZ8zTsbE/UWdIqYVtKcI/AAAAAAAABvw/lfaTf-bNYw0/s1600/photo3_3.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nl9MZ8zTsbE/UWdIqYVtKcI/AAAAAAAABvw/lfaTf-bNYw0/s400/photo3_3.JPG" width="297" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The moobuzz zork!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I let the strawberries chill out in the wine (or "macerate," as you might call it if you were classy) while the cake finished baking. Meanwhile, I mixed together the Moscato/powdered sugar glaze in a small bowl.<br />
<br />
After 50 minutes, the wine cake was done! I took it out of the oven and poured the glaze on top immediately, so it soaked right into the still-warm cake:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rVqFf2HAdwY/UWdIsKGNGRI/AAAAAAAABwg/nPdbtppn-Qg/s400/photo_7.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="297" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hooray! The craft paper didn't catch on fire!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
After letting it cool for about ten minutes, I sliced it up and spooned the strawberry topping over it. It was so moist and delicious! The wine soaked into the cake, which I <i>loved</i>, but it was too much for David. He preferred his wine cake without the extra wine on top.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Pshaw. I'll take my wine cake with wine on top <i>and </i>a glass of wine, please! The next evening, I took the rest of the cake over to my friend Jasmine's house and we finished it off while drinking more wine (obviously) and watching <a href="http://magicmikemovie.warnerbros.com/dvd/" target="_blank">Magic Mike</a>. Then I made up this song:</div>
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<br /></div>
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Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,</div>
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Bright copper kettles and warm, woolen mittens,</div>
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Olive oil, wine cake, and a glass of more wine...</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Channing Tatum. Boom.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-16218099323027321172013-04-05T08:44:00.000-07:002013-04-05T09:18:34.238-07:00Too Dirty to Cleanse?<a href="http://www.pressedjuicery.com/" target="_blank">Pressed Juicery</a>, an LA-based company with locations all around southern and northern California, just opened their newest counter, tucked away in the back of a strip mall on Coast Village Road in Montecito. The ingredients are local to southern California, but since their only kitchen is in LA, that’s where the juices are prepared each day before being driven up to the other locations.<br />
<br />
Now, it’s no secret that I don’t buy into the idea of cleansing, unless it’s a peanut-butter-toast-and-cereal cleanse. <i>That</i> I feel confident I could pull off. But when I stopped by their newest location to check it out, I saw a chalk sandwich board out front announcing their Grand Opening Special: $39/day. <br />
<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-30Bt624t8IQ/UV5lpyEiRfI/AAAAAAAABu8/-RUJgRllSD4/s1600/photo1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-30Bt624t8IQ/UV5lpyEiRfI/AAAAAAAABu8/-RUJgRllSD4/s400/photo1.JPG" width="298" /></a></div>
As much as I hate the idea of a cleanse, I love the idea of a bargain (let alone a bargain advertised on a chalk sandwich board), so I was in.<br />
<br />
Holly and Jeremy, who were working the counter, were quite energetic, informative, and helpful. They offer three options for cleanses; I chose Option #1, for people who are new to cleansing, since it is apparently the easiest plan to stick to.
Holly helped me plan my cleanse using an adorable little chart that laid out all my options.<br />
<br />
They offer seven “green” juices, four “root” juices, four “citrus” juices, and three “almond” juices. I got my choice of six juices, which I was to drink in this order: green, root, green, citrus, root, almond. In addition, I got a bottle of Chloropyll H20 to drink throughout the day and a bottle of Aloe Vera H20 to drink before bed for digestion.<br />
<br />
I won’t pretend I wasn’t a little pumped to get started on this cleanse. I like making plans, and the idea of having a neat little formula for my day’s consumption was appealing to my brain (if not my stomach). Plus, the juices were colorful and looked pretty all lined up:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_TQ_KpXJPkE/UV5lss1ZN8I/AAAAAAAABvA/eejsEBrTzQY/s1600/photo2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_TQ_KpXJPkE/UV5lss1ZN8I/AAAAAAAABvA/eejsEBrTzQY/s400/photo2.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Holly even wrote numbers on their caps so I would remember the order!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Yesterday morning, I woke up slightly apprehensive but ready to begin my cleanse.<br />
<br />
<u>8:30am:</u> First Green: Kale, spinach, romaine, parsley, cucumber, celery, apple, and lemon.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I drank this for “breakfast” over the course of an hour as I went through my normal morning routine. David had a protein shake for breakfast so I didn’t feel left out, and neither of us had coffee. The “Green 2,” as it’s called, was pretty sweet and tasty. Pressed Juicery uses the same trick I always pull to make my green juice palatable: toss an apple in there and hope for the best.</blockquote>
<u>10:30am:</u> First Root: Kale, spinach, romaine, parsley, cucumber, celery, beet, and carrot.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I drank my “Root 1” juice as a mid-morning snack, beginning in the car on the way to campus and continuing to sip it throughout lecture. Without my usual grains for breakfast, my body was starting to feel a bit strange. I was doing a lot of those inner burp things, which I have onomatopoetically dubbed “zongs.”</blockquote>
<u>12:30pm:</u> Second Green: Spinach, romaine, fennel, orange, pineapple, cilantro.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I guess this was lunch. I drank it on the drive home from campus and didn’t feel guilty about my lifestyle/disregard for safety the way I would have if I were eating a solid meal in the car. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The pineapple and orange in the “Green 5” made it noticeably sweeter than the green juice I had had for breakfast. After finishing it off, I felt tempted to eat some real food. It wasn’t that I was hungry; I just craved texture. To avoid the temptation of the kitchen, I went outside on the patio to write and took my time sipping lunch.</blockquote>
<u>3:00pm:</u> I remembered that I was supposed to be drinking the chlorophyll water throughout the day.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Chlorophyll is an antioxidant and keeps you energized. The juice tasted really lame and nothing-y, but I drank the whole thing quickly because my stomach was starting to feel empty. (Chlorophyll? More like <i>Bore</i>-ophyll!)</blockquote>
<u>3:45pm:</u> Citrus: Pineapple, apple, lemon, mint.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I started in on the “Citrus 2” as a snack immediately after finishing the weird chlorophyll water because I was still hungry. Like the green juice I had had for lunch, the citrus juice was dominated by the flavor of the pineapple. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I was beginning to feel bored with this cleanse. It was getting chilly out on the patio so I had to move inside to write at my kitchen table, and all the food options surrounding me were driving me a bit mad.</blockquote>
<u>4:30pm:</u> I really wanted a bowl of cereal.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I decided to call my beautiful, sage friend Saloni to talk about life instead.</blockquote>
<u>5:15pm:</u> I still really wanted a bowl of cereal.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It was time to drink the second root juice, but it seemed really unappetizing to me. So I decided to walk to the gym and take a spinning class to kill a few hours and take my mind off not eating solid food.</blockquote>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0Ypet3-eAYw/UV5r5BKP-pI/AAAAAAAABvc/AvMCuhHVslc/s1600/photo5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0Ypet3-eAYw/UV5r5BKP-pI/AAAAAAAABvc/AvMCuhHVslc/s400/photo5.JPG" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Out of the way, Juice! I need to get to those beers in back.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<u>7:15pm:</u> Spin class ends.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I felt great! It surprised me that despite not having consumed anything besides fruit and vegetable juices throughout the day, I was able to have a satisfying workout. Plus, I chugged about a liter of water.</blockquote>
<u>7:30pm:</u> Walking home.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On the 30-minute walk home from the gym, I started to feel uncomfortable. My head was aching dully and I was slightly off-balance. I pulled out my phone and Googled “exercising on a juice cleanse.” Yup, this was research I should have done <i>before</i> letting Janesh, my petite-gay-hilarious-Indian spin instructor kick my butt (and calves and thighs). </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I did some quick math (not in my head! I used the MyFitnessPal app) and realized that, given my speed walk to and from the gym and my 45-minute spin class, I had netted about 180 calories for the day. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Um.</blockquote>
<u>7:45pm:</u> I arrive home.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
By the time I reached my apartment, I had decided to break the cleanse and just go for that bowl of cereal. I didn’t even want to look at the second root juice I was supposed to have had for dinner – the thought of more vegetable juice made me feel slightly nauseated. As I nommed on my Cheerios, I perused Pinterest on my phone.</blockquote>
<u>7:50pm:</u> No way! According to Pinterest, you can substitute peanut butter for regular butter to bake a slightly healthier <a href="http://skinnychef.com/recipes/pb-banana-bread" target="_blank">loaf of banana chocolate chip bread.</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On it.</blockquote>
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<br />
<u>9:00pm:</u> The oven timer goes off.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The peanut butter banana chocolate chip bread was done! David and I each enjoyed a slice of it while watching Modern Family on Hulu. I realized that spin class had ended almost two hours before and I still hadn’t showered - thus, I came to the satisfyingly punny conclusion that I must just be too dirty to cleanse.</blockquote>
Okay, so that didn’t exactly go as planned. I ate a bowl of Cheerios and a slice of banana bread instead of drinking the last root juice, and I didn’t even <i>get</i> to the almond “juice” (almonds, dates, vanilla bean, filtered water, sea salt) or the Aloe Vera H20.<br />
<br />
But I don’t count my cleanse experiment as a complete fail, because I learned some important things yesterday:<br />
<ol>
<li>Pressed Juicery makes some effing delicious juices. Their combinations of vegetables and one or two fruits for flavor and sweetness were genius, and I’m definitely going to try to copy the recipe for “Green 2.” And I still have that second root juice and the almond “juice” to enjoy today! Maybe I’ll mix them with some hard alcohol to <a href="http://thechalkboardmag.com/pressed-life-conscious-cocktails-for-summer" target="_blank">make a cocktail.</a></li>
<li>According to my belated research and my personal experience, if you’re not eating solid food, don’t do any hardcore exercise. Walking or yoga is probably fine, but avoid spin instructors named Janesh.</li>
<li>I didn’t actually get hungry subsisting on potent, raw juice for a day. Mostly I just craved the <i>texture</i> of food. I ended up feeling dizzy (probably from a combination of hunger and fatigue) but my stomach wasn’t rumbling during the day or anything.</li>
<li>You can substitute peanut butter for regular butter to bake a slightly healthier loaf of banana chocolate chip bread. Thanks, Pinterest!
</li>
</ol>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-73392360845468198332013-04-04T09:15:00.000-07:002013-04-04T09:15:13.057-07:00Juices, Deliver Us! Ascending Health JuiceryAt the Santa Barbara SOL (Sustainable, Organic, Local) Food Festival last fall, I tried a sample of some kind of green juice from the <a href="http://www.ascendinghealthjuicery.com/" target="_blank">Ascending Health Juicery</a> stand. It was so tasty that I made a note to myself to find out where it came from and how I could get more.<br />
<br />
Then, of course, I promptly forgot about it until Juice Week! Thank goodness for Juice Week.<br />
<br />
The thing that caught my eye about Ascending Health Juicery this time is that owners Alfred Pomerleau and Deb Monroe aim to be affordable: their organic, raw, locally sourced juices go for $5 for an 8-ounce jar; $9 for a 16-ounce jar; or $16 for a 32-ounce jar. One of the ways they keep costs down (and demonstrate their love for the environment) is to collect and reuse jars.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LKiTuSwY8cg/UV0KcE7xx7I/AAAAAAAABuk/zeJOcsCxrpk/s1600/both.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LKiTuSwY8cg/UV0KcE7xx7I/AAAAAAAABuk/zeJOcsCxrpk/s400/both.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: www.ascendinghealthjuicery.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Ascending Health is a small-scale operation, which means their menu is slightly limited: they always have a choice of five different juices, whose specific ingredients change with the season. You have to email (ahjuice@verizon.net) or call (805-698-5443) before 6pm to order your juice, which is then pressed the following morning and delivered to your door between 8:00-8:30am.<br />
<br />
When I called Deb to place my order, she warned me that they make their juice “differently,” with minimal fruit (for minimal sugar) and special herbs that are meant to add healthy kicks. She actually described some of their most potent juices as “intense - not light and foo-foo.” Who likes foo-foo juices, anyway? Not this kid.<br />
<br />
I was intrigued.
So I ordered a (free!) delivery of one 8-ounce Original Red and one 8-ounce Original Green. I <strike>rolled out of bed when I heard the doorbell</strike> waited expectantly by my door in the morning and was not disappointed: Deb herself delivered my jars of juice at 8am sharp. Before she left, she warned me again that they were stronger than I might expect:<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CH16tLBpPOU/UV0I-NH7CnI/AAAAAAAABuY/KBzoSf8mIH4/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CH16tLBpPOU/UV0I-NH7CnI/AAAAAAAABuY/KBzoSf8mIH4/s400/photo.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
The instructions said to drink the juice slowly, savor it, and “allow your saliva to begin the digestive process.” So for lunch, I slowly savored the Original Green, willing my saliva to start digesting it (though, honestly, I can’t speak for my saliva’s success in that regard).<br />
<br />
After dinner, I tried the Original Red instead of nomming on a leftover chocolate Easter egg, a decision for which I deserve to be congratulated. Both containers were filled to the brim, to the point that some spilled out when I opened the lid. So much juice!<br />
<br />
It was hard to tell exactly what I was tasting as I sipped these juices. The specific ingredients change daily and always include some combination of “twelve to fifteen individual vegetables, a base of leafy greens (chard, cilantro, collards, dandelion, lettuce, kale, parsley, and spinach), apple, carrot, celery, cucumber, fennel, ginger, and zucchini” and sometimes also “bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, daikon radish and its greens, endive, fenugreek, radish and tops, turnip and its greens, purslane, or watercress.”<br />
<br />
I definitely understood what Deb was saying about the <i>intensity</i> of this stuff. It must be because of the fenugreek. (I don’t know what fenugreek is.)<br />
<br />
The Original Green tasted okay, like getting attacked by a firing squad of vegetables, but they’re throwing water balloons at you and it’s a hot day. The Original Red was a little sweeter and even a tad spicy – again, I blame the fenugreek.<br />
<br />
So they were intense, but not in an entirely untasty way. I’d argue that when it comes to juices, intensity = concentration; the flavor is a result of Deb and Alfred packing in as many vegetables as humanly possible. I can almost <i>feel </i>my health ascending!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-80728437512528934242013-04-03T08:44:00.001-07:002013-04-03T08:44:22.399-07:00Los An-juiceless No More: CloverMy 5-year college reunion is coming up in a couple of months and, because one weekend of aggressive hand shaking and pretending to remember people’s names isn’t enough, there are a bunch of small-scale events happening at cities around the country leading up to reunion weekend.<br />
<br />
Despite feeling <strike>nauseating</strike> slight social anxiety about the whole thing, I’ve seen enough romantic comedies to know that school reunions are full of people having crippling breakdowns and getting punched in the face by former rivals. Like I would miss that kind of drama!<br />
<br />
So last week, I headed down to LA to visit my beautiful, financially stable friend Avery and hit up the Harvard Class of 2008 lead-up-to-the-actual-reunion event at the <a href="http://www.the-churchill.com/" target="_blank">Churchill</a>, a rather trendy (technically not in) West Hollywood bar. We spent the evening trying to be prettier than we had been in college and exchanging thinly veiled assertions that we had spent the past five years succeeding wildly at life and definitely <i>not</i> blogging for no money.<br />
<br />
Actually, it was quite a good time, and after a few too many drinks, I was having enough fun to forget my credit card at the bar. That meant that the following morning before driving back up to Santa Barbara, I got to sit in LA traffic (which actually made me a bit nostalgic for my Venice Beach days) on my way to retrieve my credit card from the Churchill.<br />
<br />
And that’s what brought me to <a href="http://www.cloverjuice.com/" target="_blank">Clover</a>. When I called the manager of the Churchill to see about my card, he said to pick it up from him at the “little window” next door. Turns out, that “little window” was Clover, a brand new juice bar serving breakfast, lunch, “late-night” snacks, and <a href="http://stumptowncoffee.com/" target="_blank">Stumptown </a>coffee, too.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clover's window and charming seating area.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The folks at Clover source all their juice ingredients locally and change up their offerings according to the season. The food menu, which includes a lot of vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options, is whipped up by Churchill executive chef, Bruce Kalman; pastries and other sweets are created by Lauren Lobley of <a href="http://charmcitycakeswest.com/" target="_blank">Charm City Cakes West</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pRjIapv1fzE/UVu3L4h9yqI/AAAAAAAABuM/KOnFZYEHtTM/s1600/photo3_2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pRjIapv1fzE/UVu3L4h9yqI/AAAAAAAABuM/KOnFZYEHtTM/s400/photo3_2.JPG" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The clover menu on the wall outside.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I was served my $8 breakfast sandwich by Kimberly, who told me that the Churchill’s co-owners, Cassandra and Andrew Walker and Beau Laughlin, are the ones behind Clover, too. Here’s what my breakfast sandwich looked like right before I devoured it in my car:<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T-MUr8-LzKA/UVu3Lym5GJI/AAAAAAAABt4/NNIamZsSdyg/s1600/photo2_6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T-MUr8-LzKA/UVu3Lym5GJI/AAAAAAAABt4/NNIamZsSdyg/s400/photo2_6.JPG" width="298" /></a></div>
<br />
It was exactly what you would want in a breakfast sandwich: eggs, avocado, bacon, and a special tomato jam. But it was especially delicious because the ingredients were practically <i>oozing</i> freshness. It makes an incredible difference when food is made with local, fresh ingredients, no matter how simple the meal.<br />
<br />
The first Clover location opened on La Brea in January, serving cold-pressed juices like Go Big (beet, kale, carrot, apple, wheatgrass, lemon, and ginger, $8) or the strangely translucent Clean Green (chlorophyll, peppermint oil, and H2O, $4).<br />
<br />
If you can’t make it to either the La Brea or West Hollywood location, don’t lament - unless you don’t have an internet connection, either. Then you can go ahead and lament. How are you even reading this post? - because beginning this month, you’ll be able to order Clover juices online by the bottle or in “seasonal kits” of four different juices. You can even do a “cleanse” by ordering enough juice to subsist on for 1, 3, or 5 days ($70-350) depending on your level of <strike>insanity</strike> dedication.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-90634671875078414642013-04-02T07:30:00.000-07:002013-04-02T08:27:27.909-07:00Meghan Drinks Local: Juice Week!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q-kl_lmpkM4/UVpsfHmfQGI/AAAAAAAABto/S7eoMzPvMYw/s1600/raw-juice-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="272" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q-kl_lmpkM4/UVpsfHmfQGI/AAAAAAAABto/S7eoMzPvMYw/s400/raw-juice-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: faithfulprovisions.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This week, Meghan Eats Local will become Meghan <i>Drinks</i> Local, as I focus on three awesome raw juice bars I’ve recently discovered. I make a lot of juice myself at home, but after finding myself in a bit of a recipe rut (<a href="http://www.meghaneatslocal.com/2012/12/and-beet-goes-into-juicer-beet-carrot.html" target="_blank">a girl can only drink so much beet juice</a>), I decided I needed some inspiration.<br />
<br />
Since pressed raw juice is absolutely delicious, establishments dedicated to creating and selling it are popping up all around southern California. I am not sure why pressed raw juice is <i>just </i>becoming cool <i>now. </i>It seems like it should have been one of the very first cool things, when the first snarky cool kid demonstrated his worth to his community of hunter-gatherers by crushing the hell out of a mango.<br />
<br />
But, like <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-news/the-latest-fitness-craze-stand-up-paddleboard-yoga/story-e6freuzi-1226209679770" target="_blank">stand-up paddleboard yoga</a>, some seemingly obvious things take a surprisingly long time to catch on (seriously, what could go wrong?). And hey, when you need a pick-me-up during the day, fresh juice is clearly a much better option than, say, a chocolate bar you found kind of melted into the lining at the bottom of your purse.<br />
<br />
A lot of these new juiceries proudly serve “cold-pressed” juice. If you’re thinking to yourself, “I know what pressed juice is! That’s when I use my hands to squeeze the very last drops out of my Motts apple juice box during snack time,” just <i>listen</i> to yourself. Don’t be ridiculous. – Self<br />
<br />
Pressing the juice out of produce (rather than grinding it) keeps vital nutrients, minerals, and enzymes from oxidizing. All the good stuff stays in the juice and when you drink it, your body can absorb it quickly.
The raw fruits and vegetables are pulverized into a pulp, from which juice is then crushed. About three pounds of produce yields one bottle of cold-pressed juice!<br />
<br />
The “cold” part just means the juice is “raw,” in that it hasn’t been heated above 105 degrees Fahrenheit. People who commit to a raw diet won’t consume <i>anything</i> that’s been cooked, and that can be difficult and limiting – so raw juice is a great option for those of us who don’t want to grow dreadlocks or figure out how to make our own pasta out of shredded zucchini.<br />
<br />
I’ll be covering three juiceries that use fresh, raw, locally sourced ingredients. Reviews to come over the next week! This week, “drinking local” doesn’t mean getting tipsy on wine tastings.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-57487288575613589262013-03-30T14:18:00.000-07:002013-03-30T14:18:46.693-07:00Happy Easter! Chocolatey Nutella Meringue Berry "Nests"Last week, I was wandering through <a href="http://www.worldmarket.com/" target="_blank">World Market</a>, <strike>procrastinating</strike> doing some necessary shopping, and stumbled upon Nutella. I hadn't really thought about Nutella since I invented my <a href="http://www.meghaneatslocal.com/2011/11/chocolatey-hazelnutty-goodness-vegan.html" target="_blank">own vegan version</a> last year, but it's one of those items (like <a href="http://www.marshmallowfluff.com/pages/fluffernutter.html" target="_blank">Fluffernutter</a> or this <a href="http://sadetsydogs.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/il_570xn-313709384.jpg" target="_blank">Easter egg beanie for a cat</a>) that, when I come across it, I kind of have to buy it.<br />
<br />
So buy it I did. I also picked up some meringue "nests" because they were on sale and I was getting in the crafty spirit of Easter (not long after the crafty spirit of Valentine's Day had worn off). I was going to invent an Easter treat involving Nutella and these ridiculous meringue "nests," but I didn't know how.<br />
<br />
While perusing the farmers market this morning, it hit me: Nothing says "Happy Easter" like Chocolatey Nutella Meringue Berry Nests! ... Right?<br />
<br />
So I picked up a basket of blueberries from the Chuy Berry Farms stand ($5) and two baskets of strawberries from Peter Desales at the Goleta Valley Farms stand.<br />
<br />
Peter Desales runs his small, 10-acre farm in Goleta with his two brothers; it's been in their family for three generations, since 1950. He gave me a deal on my strawberries: 2 baskets for $4! I took my berries and hippity-hopped home to get to work.<br />
<br />
<u><span style="font-size: large;">Chocolatey Nutella Meringue Berry Nests</span></u><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pjijqKriRAY/UVdRdbg16YI/AAAAAAAABs8/zyI9HA5ikic/s1600/photo.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pjijqKriRAY/UVdRdbg16YI/AAAAAAAABs8/zyI9HA5ikic/s400/photo.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
Here's what I started with:<br />
<br />
Blueberries from Chuy's Berries in Arroyo Grande (distance from me: 79 miles)<br />
Strawberries from <a href="http://www.independent.com/news/2012/nov/07/peter-desales-goleta-valley-farms/" target="_blank">Goleta Valley Farms</a> in Goleta (distance from me: 9 miles) Meringue "Nests" from World Market<br />
Nutella<br />
Chocolate chips (melted in the microwave for 40 seconds)<br />
<br />
You could also make your own meringues, if you're so inclined. <a href="http://localfoods.about.com/od/desserts/ss/How-To-Make-Meringue.htm" target="_blank">Here's a recipe.</a><br />
<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5iSyKOkhqOQ/UVdReMyGoMI/AAAAAAAABtA/FyIB3CdRrFQ/s1600/photo4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5iSyKOkhqOQ/UVdReMyGoMI/AAAAAAAABtA/FyIB3CdRrFQ/s400/photo4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Once I had all the ingredients set, the creation of these little nests was pretty easy and went quickly. First, I coated the bottoms of the nests in the melted chocolate chips. I just plopped them into the bowl and slowly rotated them with my left hand, holding the spoon in my right hand to guide the melted chocolate around the bottom of the nest. Then I put them on a pan covered in parchment paper to dry:<br />
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<br />
The next step was to add a dollop (I love that word!) of Nutella in the center of each nest. I could have used Fluffernutter as a substitute - anything yummy and sticky for the fruit to sit on would work.<br />
<br />
Finally, I added one quarter of a strawberry and three blueberries to each little nest. Adorable. This dessert is perfect because of its small size - each serving has about 100 calories.<br />
<br />
It's also a great alternative to creme-filled chocolate Easter eggs, especially if they're delivered by THIS GUY:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hcDWknsLB_o/UVdVDcAMIkI/AAAAAAAABtY/5kh1VluHr8U/s1600/4f7c72f34104e.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hcDWknsLB_o/UVdVDcAMIkI/AAAAAAAABtY/5kh1VluHr8U/s640/4f7c72f34104e.jpeg" width="448" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm sorry. Happy Easter!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-81221488542180972412013-03-24T19:27:00.001-07:002013-03-24T19:28:00.333-07:00Delish & Nutrish (Is the "Ish!")You might read my blog sometimes and think to yourself, "How nice for Meghan that she has the time and energy to go to farmers markets and experiment with ingredients to come up with healthy meals! But unlike <i>some</i> people, Self, <i>you</i> have a <i>life</i>, and also you don't care that much." Well, tell your Self not to worry - if you live in the Santa Barbara area, I've found a solution. You're welcome.<br />
<br />
It's called <a href="http://delishorganic.com/" target="_blank">Delish & Nutrish</a> and, as they say in radio edits, it is the "ish." It's a meal delivery service owned and operated by Nina Tafarella, who uses local ingredients and strives to create healthy, fun meals, personalized to fit her clients' dietary needs. For instance, any meal can be vegan-ized, vegetarian-ized, low-sugar-ized, de-spicified (for me!), de-glutenized, etc. She even caters to raw foodists, who can participate in the Delish & Nutrish 7-day raw food cleanse every month.<br />
<br />
Nina bought the company from Sunshine Wellness Meal Delivery three years ago - at that point, there were only 15 clients and she had to rent kitchen space to prepare the meals. Now she serves about 100 clients, using only word-of-mouth marketing, and owns a small industrial kitchen in downtown Santa Barbara. She says her clients are mostly busy people who want to eat healthy and/or lose weight
but don't have the time or knowledge to prepare their own meals.<br />
<br />
Nina works at the kitchen two full days and two half days a week. She has the help of two chefs, Justin Reed and Danny Kempton, and a high school intern through Partners in Education named Suzie. I stopped by last week on Sunday, one of their delivery days, and found Nina and Suzie making and packaging pear, gorgonzola, and edamame salad with balsamic dressing:<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9YYNNe_bnR4/UU94se3s_PI/AAAAAAAABsQ/e5mZCL66RCU/s1600/photo5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9YYNNe_bnR4/UU94se3s_PI/AAAAAAAABsQ/e5mZCL66RCU/s400/photo5.JPG" width="298" /></a></div>
Nina gave me some delicious juice and orange slices to snack on while she told me about her dreams for Delish & Nutrish. She had originally wanted to open a cafe, but with two little children at home, it made more sense to stick to the food delivery service. She just got her first catering job and hopes to expand in that area, but she told me that her first priority is to help people. She cares more about doing a service to the community and maintaining a fun, positive work environment for her employees than about growing the business.<br />
<br />
Nina drives to farms in the area to pick up cases of produce herself, rather than running around to farmers markets. <a href="http://www.johngivensfarm.com/" target="_blank">John Givens Farm</a> in Goleta is her go-to for most veggies, and she supplements meals with fruit from <a href="http://www.lassens.com/retailer/store_templates/shell_id_1.asp?storeID=V92HGBD7X6SR2LR60G03N0ET9MR4BDF3" target="_blank">Lassen's</a>, <a href="http://www.lazyacres.com/" target="_blank">Lazy Acres Market</a>, and <a href="http://www.tricountyproduce.com/" target="_blank">Tri-County Produce</a>. She gets all her from <a href="http://www.kanaloaseafood.com/" target="_blank">Kanaloa Seafood</a> and the <a href="http://www.sbfish.com/" target="_blank">Santa Barbara Fish Market</a>.<br />
<br />
All this sounded awesome to me, so obviously I wanted to try out Delish & Nutrish for myself. I got to choose either the Healthy Weight Loss plan, which limits carbs and includes mostly proteins and non-starchy veggies, or the Balanced Lifestyle plan, which is just as much food as they can fit into each container. I thought about it for, oh, four seconds before choosing Balanced Lifestyle. Duh.<br />
<br />
So I got five dinners delivered to my front door in two batches: three meals on Sunday and two meals the following Wednesday.<br />
<br />
Here's what I got:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--3Zh0CV7y0U/UU94roLLAfI/AAAAAAAABsI/-1chz3_RbtM/s1600/photo1_5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--3Zh0CV7y0U/UU94roLLAfI/AAAAAAAABsI/-1chz3_RbtM/s400/photo1_5.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Organic mixed green dinner salad to start.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xdQsN34S-q0/UU94rqmmUZI/AAAAAAAABsk/jHVmFM74lJw/s1600/photo2_5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xdQsN34S-q0/UU94rqmmUZI/AAAAAAAABsk/jHVmFM74lJw/s400/photo2_5.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thai peanut pasta with chicken and roasted leaks and sugar snap peas.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1uE8y34NT_Q/UU94rzYQslI/AAAAAAAABsE/9fezAfbivfo/s1600/photo3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1uE8y34NT_Q/UU94rzYQslI/AAAAAAAABsE/9fezAfbivfo/s400/photo3.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Salmon burger with a mint pea puree and carrots over quinoa</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ppq4O0Ols_s/UU94sJ2a89I/AAAAAAAABsg/VdrUR9rTnek/s1600/photo4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ppq4O0Ols_s/UU94sJ2a89I/AAAAAAAABsg/VdrUR9rTnek/s400/photo4.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grilled turkey breast with sweet potatoes and steamed broccoli</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eIcfi-Kmsmw/UU94sU6phhI/AAAAAAAABsc/rcAU26mx7ks/s1600/photo_6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eIcfi-Kmsmw/UU94sU6phhI/AAAAAAAABsc/rcAU26mx7ks/s400/photo_6.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pan-seared trout with coconut curry, lentils, and roasted bell peppers over brown rice.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There was one other meal - steak piccata with white wine caper sauce, pasta, and roasted snap peas - but David ate the whole thing before I got home. I was not pleased.<br />
<br />
Because these meals were not only <i>nutrish</i>, they were... you guessed it (I hope)! <i>Delish. </i>The veggies and meats tasted fresh and flavorful. My favorite was the salmon burger - I've been trying to figure out how to make it myself, but I'm not sure I could pull it off.<br />
<br />
David loved the chicken, and that's saying <i>a lot</i>, since he's kind of a chicken expert. Seriously, every time we go out to eat at a fancy restaurant, he'll turn down all kinds of house specialties for the simplest, most boring thing on the menu: chicken. He knows his chicken, needless to say, and he wouldn't stop praising the texture and taste of the Delish & Nutrish meal.<br />
<br />
The cool thing about the Delish & Nutrish meal delivery system is that each week, you get a sheet of paper with a description of each meal and a little box next to it, where you can "grade your meal from A-F." Nina can then use that feedback to inform her sixteen rotating menus, which are posted on the website.<br />
<br />
I'm in the middle of grading my undergraduate students' final exams from winter quarter, and let me tell you - I was pleased to be able to give <i>somebody </i>an A+, even if that somebody was a salmon burger. (Students, if you're reading this, I'm <strike>half</strike> just kidding - some of you did quite well.) (But some of you didn't.)<a href="http://www.delishorganic.com/current-menu" target="_blank"></a><br />
<br />
Since Nina uses only word-of-mouth marketing, here are some words from my very satisfied mouth: "Yum!" Also: "Delish!" (and "nutrish").Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-55316044804131418512013-03-10T19:00:00.001-07:002013-03-10T19:23:58.504-07:00Here's the Scoop (or Double Scoop, or Triple Scoop)The summer after my sophomore year of college, I participated in my first opera training program in Siena, Italy. Since I spent a good portion of my days there nearly getting hit by tiny cars as I waltzed through the narrow city streets for miles at a time, <strike>being lost</strike> exploring – and since most of my college days for the months leading up to that summer had been spent lazing around on the banks of the Charles River with assigned reading in one hand and a solo cup of beer in the other – I assumed I was burning some mad calories.<br />
<br />
As it turned out, I was <i>gaining</i> weight. That’s because, without fail, my excursions around the city included at least one stop for gelato. Per day. Frankly, I blame it on the Italian stallion who worked the counter at the gelateria on my block. He shouted all sorts of romantic things at me as I passed by, beckoning me in with calls of, “Ciao, Bella!” and other incredibly personal salutations. I mean, how could I resist?<br />
<br />
I’ve since kicked my gelato habit, simply due to lack of supply. But while my family was visiting me here, I discovered a little gem hidden downstairs in a Montecito courtyard. It’s not just a gelateria, it’s a sorbeteria – that’s not a thing, is it? Well, they serve gelato <i>and</i> sorbet.<br />
<br />
Here’s the scoop on <a href="http://www.scoopsb.com/Index.html" target="_blank">Here’s the Scoop</a> (see what I did there?). Ellie, who owns and operates the shop with her husband, Bob, was working the counter. She didn’t shout “Ciao, Bella!” at me, which was disappointing, but I went in anyway.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X5AIb3nqhvI/UT03Q3-tuZI/AAAAAAAABrs/W3Q9ehEDJu4/s1600/IMG_2715.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X5AIb3nqhvI/UT03Q3-tuZI/AAAAAAAABrs/W3Q9ehEDJu4/s400/IMG_2715.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So many flavors!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Ellie was delighted to tell me how she and Bob opened Here’s the Scoop nine years ago after working at fast-paced, high-paying jobs. They wanted to stay in town for their daughter Alex’s sake and they both really liked fancy ice cream alternatives, so they went for it and opened their own gelato/sorbet parlor. The sorbet is totally dairy-free: it’s just local fruit, sugar, and
water. The gelato is, of course, quite dairy-dependent, made with
certified organic milk and cream. <br />
<br />
Ellie let us sample all the gelato we wanted, and we wanted a <i>lot</i> of samples. We’re talking Thin Mint made with girl scout cookies, lemon chiffon, and honey almond pistachio, just to name a few. I was transported back to that summer in Siena spent stuffing my face with every flavor imaginable (but mostly <i>stracciatella</i>, which is like vanilla chocolate chip if the vanilla was crack and the chocolate chips were also crack).<br />
<br />
So it wasn’t surprising to learn that Ellie and Bob had traveled to Italy to do their gelato research and to buy a huge gelato-making machine, which they now use on the premises.
After an embarrassing number of samples, I finally settled on strawberry sorbet in a chocolate waffle cone (which was also made by hand, in-house):<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AyNw20JvhWI/UT03Q7JIvrI/AAAAAAAABrg/Yl9WpYFhEUI/s1600/IMG_2714.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AyNw20JvhWI/UT03Q7JIvrI/AAAAAAAABrg/Yl9WpYFhEUI/s400/IMG_2714.JPG" width="298" /></a></div>
The best part about Here’s the Scoop is that Ellie makes all the sorbet with fruit from <a href="http://www.shepherdfarmscsa.com/" target="_blank">Shepherd Farms</a> in Carpinteria. Almost all her fruit flavors change depending on what’s in season. Next month, she and Tom Shepherd are debuting a new flavor: carrot cake gelato, made with Shepherd’s Farms carrots.<br />
<br />
I felt a little bad bringing my family to Here’s the Scoop. It seemed a bit like I was rubbing it in their gelato-and-sorbet-stuffed faces (faces that are currently wrapped to the eyes in wool scarves as they brave another Boston blizzard) that here in Santa Barbara, we have fresh local fruit all year round. And wonderful people like Ellie and Bob to turn it into sorbet.<br />
<br />
I’m glad Here’s the Scoop is doing so well, and I’m also glad it’s all the way down in Montecito. Otherwise I’d fall right back into my old habits, grabbing a two-scoop cone to start my day and wandering through the streets of Santa Barbara, singing opera to myself like a crazy person, stopping every measure or so to eat a bite of gelato.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-28408017283875775712013-02-25T14:33:00.001-08:002013-02-25T16:19:51.443-08:00Stimulant Fix: Good Land Organics Grows Local Coffee<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WjNR6ZXEGQo/USvlq2u1J6I/AAAAAAAABrE/5rbVU-0HnOk/s1600/coffee.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WjNR6ZXEGQo/USvlq2u1J6I/AAAAAAAABrE/5rbVU-0HnOk/s400/coffee.JPG" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chalk board labels and mason jars are almost as addictive as coffee.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
About four years ago, I tried to quit drinking coffee. I was working in an office in Los Angeles and had gotten into the habit of drinking two 20-oz. cups every morning. The office I worked in had a particularly extensive coffee bar, which, along with Ice Cream Fridays, was largely responsible for getting me through the work week.<br />
<br />
One day, <strike>a friend</strike> someone who wanted to scar me for life forwarded me a terrifying news article about a murderous meth addict who lived in (surprise!) Bakersfield, CA. Meth addicts in Bakersfield are obviously not news to anyone – nor are murderous ones, for that matter – but this story was particularly gruesome and compelled me to examine my own addiction to coffee. I mean, we’ve all seen <i>Breaking Bad</i>, haven’t we?** After all, coffee is also a stimulant, albeit an immeasurably more socially acceptable one.<br />
<br />
Quitting didn’t go well. After a week of forgotten phone messages, misplaced documents, and general absentmindedness, I decided that everyone in my office would be better off if I maintained my addiction. I’ve never been a believer in the “slippery slope” theory, anyway, and drinking absurd amounts of coffee is a far cry from meth-driven murder.<br />
<br />
Since that failed attempt, I’ve never considered quitting coffee again. I’ve also sought out <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/11/the-case-for-drinking-as-much-coffee-as-you-like/265693/" target="_blank">studies</a> that suggest drinking coffee is a healthy practice that everyone ought to take up, adds years to your life, improves brain function, etc. and I delight in citing this research when anyone questions whether I ought to be drinking my second Venti at 5:30pm.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, my coffee habit has never fit in with my predilection for local food. Like quinoa, coffee is one of those products that just isn’t easily grown in North America. Of course, Fair Trade coffee is everywhere these days, so it’s easy to make purchases with limited negative ramifications.
But last year, I tasted an even better solution: locally grown coffee from right here in Santa Barbara County.<br />
<br />
Working with University of California Farm Extension Service advisor Mark Gaskell, Jay Ruskey of <a href="http://goodlandorganics.com/" target="_blank">Good Land Organics</a> processes and roasts coffee on-site at his farm in Goleta (distance from me: 9 miles). They started the project in 2002 with Arabica Cattura and Arabica Typica seeds from El Salvador and have since expanded to many more varieties. Ruskey uses the Kona coffee model, named for the expensive coffee grown on the Big Island in Hawaii. It involves growing, processing, post-harvesting, roasting, and selling coffee on the farm, as well as giving farm tours ($40 for a 3-hour tour, including coffee samples and snacks).<br />
<br />
Good Land Organics coffee is unique because of the high mountain climate here: a 600-foot elevation, two miles from the ocean. The difference is that the bean matures on the tree for between ten months to a year, in contrast to lower lands, where the bean matures quickly.<br />
<br />
The purpose of keeping it local, as Ruskey explained in a <a href="http://www.foodgps.com/qa-with-coffee-farmer-jay-ruskey/" target="_blank">2011 interview with Joshua Lurie of Food GPS</a>, is that: “We want people to know where the coffee’s from, how it’s done, maybe even the varieties, because we have different varieties of beans. There’s this whole nomenclature and knowledge of how it’s roasted, how it’s processed, what time of year it was harvested, and that’s what we’re hoping to make: a new, feasible crop for area farmers.”<br />
<br />
It seems to be working – a few years ago, David Karp <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/03/food/la-fo-marketwatch-20101203" target="_blank">wrote about Good Land Organics Coffee in the LATimes</a>, and since then interest has been growing. Most recently, Good Land was the cover feature of the February, 2013 issue of <a href="http://www.freshcup.com/index.php" target="_blank">Fresh Cup Magazine</a>.<br />
<br />
I bought a bag of what I <i>thought </i>were Good Land Organics whole beans for myself at <a href="http://www.santacruzmarkets.com/home" target="_blank">Santa Cruz Market</a>. I was pleasantly surprised to find it on the shelf at this small, inexpensive, locally owned Latino grocery store – I’d expect it to be carried by chichi markets, but apparently, Santa Cruz had gotten in on the action. <br />
<br />
I’ve been getting my fix from the Good Land Organics coffee for the past few days, with a dash of <a href="http://www.sanmarcosfarms.com/Site/Home.html" target="_blank">San Marcos Farms</a> sage honey and <a href="http://www.organicpastures.com/" target="_blank">Organic Pastures</a> raw milk. It is absolutely delicious. You’d think that by this time, I’d have developed a discerning coffee palate – but the truth is, I’m just as likely to chug burnt diner coffee as I am to daintily sip handcrafted hipster coffee (much to the chagrin of the folks over at Intelligentsia).<br />
<br />
That said, I do recognize solid coffee when I taste it, and Good Land Organics has, in my opinion, achieved it. Fortunately, my opinion is backed up by experts, who have given the coffee a <a href="http://www.coffeeinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Q rating</a> of between 83-87. See ya later, Giant Folgers Tub From Costco.<br />
<br />
Drinking Good Land Organics coffee somewhat diminishes my guilt about being addicted to a stimulant. At the risk of sounding like a snob (a risk with which I am demonstrably comfortable), I think it’s safe to say that sipping local coffee with local sage honey and local, raw milk is about as far as you can get from strapping a bomb to an elderly ex-drug lord’s wheelchair in order to blow up the leader of your own meth cartel.**<br />
<br />
**If you don’t get this reference, my advice to you is to play hooky from work and watch all five seasons of <i>Breaking Bad</i>.<br />
<br />
Update: Unfortunately for me, my original suspicions were right. The people at
Good Land Organics informed me that another roaster in town, Santa
Barbara Coffee Roasters, sells a type of coffee called "Good Land
Coffee." So Number 1 on my To-Do list is to get my hands on some <i>actual </i>Good Land Organics coffee! Further update to come. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-30834295190140985432013-02-19T13:22:00.000-08:002013-02-19T13:22:10.696-08:00Rock (Crab) Lobstah!I’m from Boston, so no one should be surprised that I love lobster (<i>lobstah</i>, I suppose). Some of my fondest childhood memories involve picking out live lobster from the tanks of our favorite seafood vendors, watching my parents boil them at home, then cracking them apart with my bare hands and savoring their meat with absurd amounts of <i>buttah</i> dribbling down my chin.<br />
<br />
Sometimes my siblings and I would have our lobsters “race” across the kitchen floor before removing the rubber bands from their claws – this practice now strikes me as a rather cruel kind of lobster-gladiator competition before inevitable death by boiling water. But that doesn’t diminish my nostalgia for the whole experience.<br />
<br />
Of course, there are lobsters living in the Pacific Ocean, and some people catch them and eat them. But their lack of claw meat makes them pretty much useless to me. Luckily, David is a good listener and has picked up on my <strike>desperate longing</strike> fondness for northeastern lobster. He also realizes that Meghan Eats Local usually, but not All The Time.<br />
<br />
So on Valentine’s Day, I was pleasantly surprised to find two live lobsters in a crate with seaweed and cold packs waiting for me on the kitchen table, straight from Maine.<br />
<br />
We tried to make the lobsters race across the kitchen floor, but they were clearly in shock from the cold box and their trip across the country – I know, the whole racing thing seems even crueler now – so they didn’t move much at all. Oh, well! Straight into the pot.<br />
<br />
We boiled them for about 15 minutes, until their shells were bright red. Then we transferred them to a colander and poured ice cold water over them until they cooled down. This is a crucial step – soaking them in an ice bath works, too – that prevents them from continuing to cook inside their shells.<br />
<br />
We had read that it’s better to undercook them than to overcook them (which results in tough, yucky meat), so we erred on the side of <i>under</i>cooking. As it turned out, we had erred a bit <i>too</i> far on that side; the claw meat was a bit translucent rather than fully white, indicating that they could have cooked a little longer. That was a problem easily solved: we popped each lobster in the microwave for 60 seconds, which did the trick.<br />
<br />
Ta-da! I demolished that lobstah, thoroughly soaking each piece of meat in buttah, of course.
Happy Valentine’s Day to <i>me!</i> (But not to David, who was a bit grossed out by the whole breaking-a-creature-apart-white-staring-it-straight-in-the-face thing, nearly gave up on cracking the claws, and flat out refused to suck the meat out of the legs.)<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hcNd95AZZvA/USPc2ECM8KI/AAAAAAAABqo/rS5t-wTjEKI/s1600/photo1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hcNd95AZZvA/USPc2ECM8KI/AAAAAAAABqo/rS5t-wTjEKI/s400/photo1.JPG" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Non-local shellfish for Valentine's Day</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Obviously, shipping lobster from Maine to Santa Barbara is pretty much the opposite of eating local. I felt an urge to reconcile this transgression by indulging in some local shellfish (don’t question my logic).<br />
<br />
Since moving to Santa Barbara, I haven’t really enjoyed much local shellfish beyond shrimp. That all changed last night at <a href="http://www.archrockfish.com/" target="_blank">Arch Rock Fish</a>.
My parents and sister are in town visiting for a week, and last night we all went out to eat with David and his mom, Joan.<br />
<br />
Arch Rock Fish is one of my favorite local seafood restaurants any day of the week, but particularly on Monday and Tuesday when they feature a special “Crab Feast.”
Joan and I decided to split the “Crab Feast,” since neither of us was feeling particularly ravenous. It was a good thing we split it, because this was one beast of a feast:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2tsh2OwjP4/USPc13foHsI/AAAAAAAABqk/phd30Rc4iJs/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2tsh2OwjP4/USPc13foHsI/AAAAAAAABqk/phd30Rc4iJs/s400/photo.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oh, hello! I am your feast!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
We got a 2-pound local Rock Crab, which was arranged in a way that suggested it was attempting to escape from its pail, with corn on the cob and roasted potatoes. On top of that, we got a pound of Alaskan King Crab legs and a bottle of chardonnay from Santa Barbara county.<br />
<br />
As Joan struggled with the claws and legs, it became increasingly clear where David got his dismal shell-cracking skills. I felt silly after I made fun of her, though, since I was soon frustrated by the claws myself: a Rock Crab shell is, apparently, significantly thicker and harder than that of an Alaskan King Crab, which snaps easily.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, the legs were more trouble than they were worth; there was very little meat to be scraped from inside them. The claw meat, on the other hand, came out in one big chunk. Unlike a lobster claw, the Rock Crab claw included a thin layer of cartilage right in the middle of the meat, upon which I very nearly choked. <br />
<br />
By the end of the feast, we might have had some crab meat in our hair and laps, but we were happy and stuffed. The claw meat of the Rock Crab was delicious and was easily scraped from the cartilage; it tasted like a light, flaky, white fish. Well, like a light, flaky, white fish soaked in <i>buttah</i>.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-20385804701066090212013-01-18T12:24:00.000-08:002013-01-18T12:24:25.612-08:00Is Quinoa Mean(oa)?: A Slightly Deeper LookYesterday, my Colombian friend Victoria sent me a link to the article by Joanna Blytheman that’s been causing somewhat of an uproar among quinoa lovers: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/vegans-stomach-unpalatable-truth-quinoa" target="_blank">Can Vegans Stomach the Unpalatable Truth About Quinoa?</a> Before I even clicked on the link, it struck me as strange that the author would call out <i>vegans</i>, when many non-vegans also consume quinoa on a daily basis. As a former vegan with a particularly weak stomach, I was curious to see if I could handle the “unpalatable truth.”<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4A7_cIlrqPc/UPmseGeI7QI/AAAAAAAABqM/uAcdQFdRKBo/s1600/Bolivian-woman-harvesting-010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4A7_cIlrqPc/UPmseGeI7QI/AAAAAAAABqM/uAcdQFdRKBo/s320/Bolivian-woman-harvesting-010.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: www.guardian.co.uk</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
By the end of the article – in addition to having had to look up the definition of “larder” (I had assumed it meant “one who consumes lard,” so I was surprised to discover that it is just a fancy word for “pantry”) – I was feeling distinctly bougie and ashamed.<br />
<br />
Blytheman makes the point that the recent obsession with quinoa among affluent people living in developed countries has driven up its price in the developing countries where it is produced (Bolivia and Peru), so that the people in those countries can no longer afford to eat it.<br />
<br />
Her problem with British vegans is that while Britain provides omnivores with locally produced meat and dairy products, “a rummage through the shopping baskets of vegetarians and vegans swiftly clocks up the food miles, a consequence of their higher dependency on products imported from faraway places.” Sorry, British Vegans, that you have chosen to live in a country whose land cannot produce fruits and vegetables (and whose journalists use words like “larder”).<br />
<br />
But if Blytheman’s point was as simple as she made it seem, then quinoa-loving Americans were not off the hook. A rummage through <i>my</i> larder would produce the 4-lb. bag of <a href="http://www.earthlychoice.com/quinoa.html" target="_blank">Nature’s Earthly Choice</a> quinoa I bought at Costco last week. Now, I realize that we Americans are pretty solidly stuck on the hook for <i>countless</i> wrongs against people living in developing countries. But I just couldn’t stomach adding quinoa consumption to the long list of transgressions.<br />
<br />
So I decided to poke around for some second opinions. After <strike>about three minutes’ worth of Google searches</strike> extensive research, I found evidence that the quinoa issue was more complicated than Blytheman made it out to be.<br />
<br />
Just two days before Blytheman’s article appeared in The Guardian, an article by Dan Collyns entitled <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/14/quinoa-andes-bolivia-peru-crop" target="_blank">Quinoa Brings Riches to the Andes</a> was published… in The Guardian.<br />
<br />
First of all, I have to admit that I suspect I am not part of Collyns’s target audience, since in order to convey the benefits of Royal quinoa, which only grows in southern Bolivia and is particularly rich in protein, he makes the following comparison: “Royal quinoa is to the grain what beluga is to caviar.”<br />
<br />
Oh, <i>naturally.</i> A quick rummage in my <i>larder</i> would reveal that all <i>my</i> caviar is of the beluga variety. I mean, <i>really</i>.<br />
<br />
His assumption of his readers’ familiarity with caviar aside, Collyns’s article does not immediately contradict Blytheman’s; he makes the similar point that “global demand means less quinoa is being eaten in Bolivia and Peru,” which “could cause malnutrition [in] producers, who have long relied on the superfood to supplement their meagre diets.”<br />
<br />
But Collyns goes on to quote Paola Mejia, agronomist and general manager of Bolivia’s Chamber of Quinoa Real and Organic Product Exporters, as saying of quinoa farmers: “They have westernized their diets because they have more profits and more income… Ten years ago they had only an Andean diet in front of them. They had no choice. But now they do and they want rice, noodles, candies, coke, they want everything!”<br />
<br />
And in Peru, a new government campaign has drastically reduced chronic malnutrition in children under five. This progress seems to be a result of the nearly $35 million Peru earned from quinoa exports in 2012; similarly, quinoa exports have boosted Bolivia’s economy by $85 million, according to Victor Hugo Vásquez, Bolivia's vice-minister for rural development and agriculture.<br />
<br />
The governments of both countries have also launched campaigns to promote national consumption of quinoa as part of a healthy diet. So it could be argued that the rising price of quinoa is benefiting the citizens of the countries where it is produced, as their governments use their increased funds to combat malnutrition.<br />
<br />
Clearly, as these two articles appearing in the same publication two days apart demonstrate, the issues surrounding quinoa’s popularity are quite complicated, and the consequences for the people of Bolivia and Peru are mixed.<br />
<br />
One way to avoid feeling guilty about your quinoa addiction is to get your fix from within the United States. The only place I can find that produces quinoa is <a href="http://www.whitemountainfarm.com/" target="_blank">White Mountain Farm in Colorado</a><span id="goog_2074298490"></span><span id="goog_2074298491"></span>, but I’m sure there are other sources.<br />
<br />
Given all the unseen damage caused by the lifestyle we take for granted (and by “we” I mean affluent citizens of developed countries, British vegans included), the concentration of concern around quinoa seems misguided.<br />
<br />
I’m going to make some quinoa for lunch right now, and while I eat it I will contemplate where and by whom my clothes were made, how my car runs, what “fair trade” actually implies, the morality of the myriad of companies in which Vanguard has invested my money…
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-65051830939856681372012-12-27T17:32:00.001-08:002012-12-27T17:32:58.802-08:00And the Beet Goes In(to the Juicer): Beet-Carrot-Spinach JuiceWhen it comes to receiving Christmas gifts, I’m a little nontraditional. Diamonds might be a girl’s best friend, but who wants a best friend who’s prettier than you? Also, best friends can stab you in the back - and if they’re using a diamond, it’s going to hurt.<br />
<br />
So David, who obviously knows me well, gifted me a juicer. It’s not just <i>any</i> juicer - it’s the Omega 8006 Nutrition Center Juicer. We named it Omar. Omar is easy to clean, which makes him far superior to <a href="http://www.meghaneatslocal.com/2011/11/when-life-gives-you-anything-at-all.html" target="_blank"><strike>the only other juicer</strike></a> any other juicer I’ve ever used.<br />
<br />
Of course, I wanted to start “juicing” (that’s what the cool kids call it) immediately. I decided to switch our <a href="http://www.plowtoporch.com/" target="_blank">Plow to Porch</a> delivery subscription to the “Juicing Box,” which includes more juicing-friendly produce and fewer random things like turnips and dragon fruit.<br />
<br />
We received our delivery later that week, and it included an absurd amount of beets. I don’t have anything against beets, but I usually like to eat about <i>one</i> beet per sitting, maybe two if for some reason I have two beets on a plate in front of me.
In this “Juicing Box,” we received three bunches of beets, with four beets to a bunch. Math is not my strong suit, but that is too many beets.<br />
<br />
At this point, we had no choice but to start juicing every day, so none of the produce would go to waste. It became sort of a bonding ritual between me, David, and Omar. David would come home from the office to find me diligently <strike>scrapbooking</strike> writing my dissertation, and we would head to the kitchen to find Omar and make some juice. We came up with a bunch of different juice “recipes,” all of which included beets, of course.<br />
<br />
I felt like Lil’ Wayne with all the beets I was dropping… into the juicer. One of my favorite recipes only involves three vegetables: carrots, beets (duh), and spinach. Here’s what I used:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wu00IPjVGQE/UNzxkqVW3vI/AAAAAAAABpU/5ZojFQMSDTs/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wu00IPjVGQE/UNzxkqVW3vI/AAAAAAAABpU/5ZojFQMSDTs/s400/photo.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
6 carrots from Rancho Cortez in Santa Maria, CA (distance from me: 65 miles)<br />
3 beets, including stalks (save the leafy greens for a later meal)<br />
1 bunch spinach, also from Rancho Cortez<br />
<br />
I started with the spinach, because Omar’s instruction booklet said he prefers it if you start with the softer objects (like spinach) and work up to the harder objects (like carrots). That seemed reasonable. But after most of the spinach had been juiced, here’s what I had:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xK2zlfKKRXU/UNzxlacgOfI/AAAAAAAABpc/4k8WlhtyPqw/s1600/photo1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xK2zlfKKRXU/UNzxlacgOfI/AAAAAAAABpc/4k8WlhtyPqw/s400/photo1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
A disappointing yield, I’m sure you’ll agree. But not to worry: greens always produce a paltry amount of juice, and that’s just as well, because spinach juice tastes all weird and bitter. That’s what the carrots and beets are for: to make you forget you’re consuming an entire bunch of spinach in two sips.
After juicing all the carrots and beets as well, I had a container full of juice (on the right, closer to Omar) and a container of pulp (on the left):<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cj7DPoM6HhQ/UNzxlvOzibI/AAAAAAAABpk/ptoLd2yRym0/s1600/photo2.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cj7DPoM6HhQ/UNzxlvOzibI/AAAAAAAABpk/ptoLd2yRym0/s400/photo2.JPG" width="400" /></a> </div>
It was enough to fill two mason jars: one for each of us. I was struck by how much the carrot-beet-spinach juice resembled <i>blood</i>, and I suspect David had the same thought, because his face looked a little funny as he raised his mason jar to clink with mine.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gsVkQU6pyQk/UNzxmTBY_NI/AAAAAAAABps/4_tcATn0mnM/s1600/photo3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gsVkQU6pyQk/UNzxmTBY_NI/AAAAAAAABps/4_tcATn0mnM/s400/photo3.JPG" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vampire juice?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After taking a sip, David and I smiled at each other from across the kitchen table and immediately turned away in disgust: our teeth were coated with a sheen of the blood-red juice. A superstitious person might assume we were vampires who had, just this second, committed murder.<br />
<br />
On the bright side, it tastes delicious. The bitter taste of the spinach
is completely overwhelmed by the sweet beets and carrots (whose juice
is as sweet as a fruit’s, surprisingly). The moral of the story is: drink this juice, but not before a hot date! Unless your date is into the whole vampire fad.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-71801134363504708092012-12-06T16:59:00.000-08:002012-12-06T16:59:44.997-08:00Square Soup (Squash + Pear Soup)If you know me, you know that the only thing I like more than a good nap is a good portmanteau. And my penchant for portmanteaus extends beyond the obvious ones (“bromance,” “jorts,” “biopic,” etc.). For example, are you gay and also Asian? You’re <i>gaysian</i>. Did you accidentally fart when you sneezed? Gross, you just <i>snarted</i>.<br />
<br />
Now, over the past few weeks, the delicata squash situation in my house had become, well, <i>squawful</i>. They just kept coming every week in my <a href="http://www.plowtoporch.com/" target="_blank">Plow to Porch</a> box and I had run out of ideas of how to use them.<br />
<br />
At first I tried to turn them into a whimsical centerpiece, but five squash standing in a line looks more awkward than attractive.
It wasn’t even much of a conversation starter: “Hey, babe, what are we planning to do with all this squash?” “… Yeah, I don’t know. There are a lot of them, huh?” “Yeah.”<br />
<br />
I figured the best way to use up too many of any vegetable is to make a soup. I wanted to make a soup with a bit of sweetness. Fortunately, as it turned out, I had also been compiling a surplus of pears. They were hidden in a drawer in my refrigerator, though, so their presence wasn’t as intrusive as that of the delicata squash.<br />
<br />
I realized I could use up all my squash and three of my pears in one go by turning them into Squash Pear Soup. <i>Square</i> Soup.<br />
<br />
My soup is only square in name, though: I thought serving it in a square bowl would just be redundant. Also I don’t own any square bowls.<br />
<br />
<u><span style="font-size: large;">Square Soup</span></u><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xCidI82h64o/UME9qagJGfI/AAAAAAAABos/vDtXDtZzKIc/s1600/soupphoto.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xCidI82h64o/UME9qagJGfI/AAAAAAAABos/vDtXDtZzKIc/s400/soupphoto.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Square soup in a round bowl</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
5 delicata squash from Jose Alcanta Garcia<br />
3 Bartlett pears from Todd Ranch<br />
1 tablespoon honey from
San Marcos Farms<br />
2 tablespoons olive oil<br />
4 cups chicken broth<br />
¼ teaspoon nutmeg<br />
½ cup evaporated milk<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BXHQ0WBjhI0/UME9rKdxUKI/AAAAAAAABo0/Faf5SdZerFM/s1600/squashphoto.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BXHQ0WBjhI0/UME9rKdxUKI/AAAAAAAABo0/Faf5SdZerFM/s400/squashphoto.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
First, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees. While it was heating up, I got to work on the squares. I sliced each one down the middle and brushed it with a little bit of olive oil. Then I arranged the halves on cookie trays, like so:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ykvLgUXTbMI/UME9pdT-z8I/AAAAAAAABok/QgDHlkgCVE0/s1600/photo.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ykvLgUXTbMI/UME9pdT-z8I/AAAAAAAABok/QgDHlkgCVE0/s400/photo.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
I popped the trays in the oven for 30 minutes and killed time by deciding on a new, more attractive centerpiece (I went with a single pumpkin).<br />
<br />
After 30 minutes, I poked the squash with a fork and it was tender, so I took the trays out of the oven. I let the squares cool down for about 10 minutes, then used a spoon to scoop the flesh (or whatever gross word you want to apply to the inside of a squash or pear) into a blender.<br />
<br />
The blender was almost full, but there was room for one cup of chicken broth, which I added to help the mixture liquefy. When it was the consistency of food you could feed someone through a tube, I transferred it from the blender into a pot and added the rest of the chicken broth, the nutmeg, and the honey.<br />
<br />
I brought it to a boil on the stove, then let it simmer for 10 minutes. A few minutes before I served it (to myself), I stirred in the evaporated milk and continued to let it simmer.<br />
<br />
Finally, my square soup was ready!
It tasted different than I expected it to – it was a little spicy from the nutmeg. But the 5:1 squash:pear ratio turned out to be pretty perfect in terms of balancing squashiness and sweetness.
And this recipe made about 12 servings, so I’ll be having square soup in a round bowl with my dinner for another week!
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-71410296017441317242012-11-29T21:56:00.000-08:002012-11-29T21:56:08.032-08:00The Way the Kiwi CrumblesOne morning about a month ago, my otherwise-perfectly-pleasant breakfast was sabotaged by this devastating little video:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/sdUUx5FdySs?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
David played it for me – because he just loves me <i>that</i> much – and I immediately burst into tears. I continued crying for about ten minutes, my sobs interrupted only by unintelligible words along the lines of, “He just wanted to fly!”; “He put in all that work!”; and just, “Why? <i>Why Kiwi?!”.</i><br />
<br />
Since then, David has delighted in exacerbating any slight dip in my mood by <i>Kiwi!</i>-bombing me. He can use his phone to control what appears on the TV in our living room, so more than once I’ve been innocently reading a book on the couch, only to have my peaceful evening shattered by <i>Kiwi!</i> suddenly appearing on the TV.<br />
<br />
It was becoming ridiculous. I needed to fix my negative word-association of “kiwi,” but I didn’t know how. Amazingly, an answer was delivered to my door on Tuesday.<br />
<br />
In my <a href="http://www.plowtoporch.com/" target="_blank">Plow to Porch</a> box this week, I got not just one kiwi, not just two kiwis, but a full pound and a half of kiwis. That’s freaking <i>twelve kiwis</i>.
They’re from <a href="http://www.mallardlakeranch.com/" target="_blank">Mallard Lake Ranch</a> in Nipomo, CA (distance from me: 70 miles), operated by Don and Jane Criswell, their son, Bob, his wife, and their two children. They bought the ranch in 1988 and use only sustainable farming practices.<br />
<br />
Kiwis have always seemed kind of random to me, but as it turns out, they pack a ton of potassium, fiber, and double the vitamin C of oranges. The only thing to be done with a fruit this healthful, in my opinion, is to negate any nutritional value by adding butter and sugar. Duh.<br />
<br />
<u><span style="font-size: large;">Kiwi-Apple Crumble</span></u><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mZ6K1SMuAoM/ULhJwLvYlSI/AAAAAAAABoM/B4jGtk3eVDg/s1600/photo2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mZ6K1SMuAoM/ULhJwLvYlSI/AAAAAAAABoM/B4jGtk3eVDg/s400/photo2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<u>The Fruit Mixture</u><br />
2 fuji apples, skinned and chopped (from Cuyama Orchards in Cuyama Valley, distance from me: 60 miles)<br />
4 kiwi, skinned and chopped (from Mallard Lake Ranch in Nipomo, CA, distance from me: 70 miles)
2 tablespoons brown sugar<br />
1 teaspoon cinnamon<br />
4 teaspoons vanilla extract<br />
<br />
<u>The Crumble</u><br />
1 cup rolled oats<br />
1 cup flour<br />
2 tablespoons butter<br />
2 tablespoons brown sugar<br />
2 handfuls crumbled walnuts<br />
<br />
I preheated the oven to 350 degrees and began skinning and chopping up the apples and kiwis. I put the fruit in a small sauce pan over medium-low heat and added the brown sugar and cinnamon, slowly stirring it around until the apples were kind of soft. Then I added the vanilla extract and removed the pan from the heat.<br />
<br />
While the fruit mixture was heating up, I made the crumble in a separate bowl by just mashing everything together with a fork until it stuck together in little clumps and was, well, <i>crumbly</i>.<br />
<br />
Then I poured the crumbly mixture on top of the fruit mixture in a ceramic dish and popped the whole thing in the oven, easy peasy. After 20 minutes, I opened the oven to take a peek and it looked like this:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k3dRdn1HcCY/ULhItuyWEQI/AAAAAAAABn8/Aq5cOW3xy_g/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k3dRdn1HcCY/ULhItuyWEQI/AAAAAAAABn8/Aq5cOW3xy_g/s400/photo.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Erm… not crumbling the way I had hoped it would. So I reached in with a wooden spoon and kind of tooled around in there, 1950s-lobotomy-style, until it looked a bit more mixed up and a bit less dry. After another 10 minutes (30 minutes total), it looked like this:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rtDphLS1jwE/ULhIzvFs08I/AAAAAAAABoE/sD7knWXnIiE/s1600/photo1.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rtDphLS1jwE/ULhIzvFs08I/AAAAAAAABoE/sD7knWXnIiE/s400/photo1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
Much better! I have to say, I crumbled the <i>heck</i> out of this crumble. Next time, I’ll use a bit less flour so it turns out a little more moist. I just wish I had some vanilla ice cream to put on top of it!<br />
<br />
At least now when David decides to prank me by surprising me with the <i>Kiwi!</i> video, I can comfort myself by binge eating this delicious kiwi dessert. And the kiwi apple crumble isn’t going to throw itself off a <i>cliff</i> just to experience flying… for <i>once</i> in its <i>life</i>… because it only has those <i>adorable</i> stumpy wings… and it put in <i>all</i> that hard work to nail those <i>trees</i> to the side of the <i>cliff</i>… oh, Kiwi! <i>Why?!
</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-89736961136177623562012-11-21T13:49:00.002-08:002012-11-21T14:08:15.942-08:00Butterface Butternut Squash PieWhen it comes to Thanksgiving, I have mixed childhood memories. I remember carefully making little place cards for every family member’s spot at the table, singing songs about the many things I was thankful for, and having terrifying nightmares for weeks about the electric saw my dad used to slice the turkey.<br />
<br />
I was always under the impression that I was super helpful to my mom in the kitchen, but I now suspect that I invented those memories. That’s because I actually have no idea how to prepare any Thanksgiving dish. So if I was in the kitchen at all in years past, I must have been just standing there zoning out or something.<br />
<br />
My utter lack of Thanksgiving-preparation knowledge started to worry me when it was decided that David and I would be in charge of pies and wine this year. Wine, no problem. Pies… problem.<br />
<br />
My first thought was to just purchase the pies from <a href="http://www.simplypiessb.com/" target="_blank">Simply Pies</a> here in Santa Barbara. Apparently, that was everyone else’s first thought, too, and they had their first thoughts <i>first</i>. Other than making a mental note to have more first thoughts first, there was nothing I could do.<br />
<br />
Simply Pies uses only locally produced fruits and vegetables in their pies, and they purchase all their other ingredients (like eggs, milk, and flour) from local co-ops. Lucky for me, one of those local co-ops, the <a href="http://www.islavistafoodcoop.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Isla Vista Food Co-op</a>, sells Simply Pies vegan pie crusts.
Starting out with a pre-made pie crust made the whole task considerably less daunting.<br />
<br />
<u><span style="font-size: large;">Butternut Squash Pie</span></u><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--gHlM_nVYjo/UK1JEC0Vt8I/AAAAAAAABnM/QlU4biJ13m4/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--gHlM_nVYjo/UK1JEC0Vt8I/AAAAAAAABnM/QlU4biJ13m4/s400/photo.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
1 medium butternut squash from Jose Alcantar Garcia in Oxnard (distance from me: 37 miles)<br />
Vegan pie crust from Simply Pies<br />
1 cup light brown sugar<br />
3 brown eggs from <a href="http://www.chinovalleyranchers.com/contact_us.asp" target="_blank">Chino Valley Ranchers</a> in Arcadia (distance from me: 106 miles)<br />
¾ cup evaporated milk<br />
1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon<br />
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg<br />
¼ teaspoon salt<br />
2 tablespoons non-bleached flour<br />
1 tablespoon melted butter<br />
1 teaspoon vanilla<br />
<br />
Anyone who knows me knows that I am terrified of butternut squash.
The <a href="http://www.meghaneatslocal.com/2011/10/autumn-simulation-butternut-squash.html" target="_blank">last time I tried to chop up a butternut squash</a>, I ended up with squash and seeds all over the kitchen and Band-aids on at least two fingers.<br />
<br />
So
I did some research before attacking the squash this time, and it turns
out that if you stick the squash in the oven at 350 degrees for about
40 minutes and then let it cool completely, the skin peels right off and
it’s very easy to cut up:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rux5XZJ-TLc/UK1JHc6tqWI/AAAAAAAABnc/dYqy5AVaatw/s1600/photo2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rux5XZJ-TLc/UK1JHc6tqWI/AAAAAAAABnc/dYqy5AVaatw/s400/photo2.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The naked butternut squash</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After roasting in the oven, the squash was really squashy (!). I put it in a mixing bowl with the brown sugar and beat it together by hand. All the recipes I found online suggested using a power mixer but I don’t own one. So I came to terms with the idea of having slightly chunky pie and went medieval on that squash with a fork.<br />
<br />
So what if the pie wouldn’t <i>look </i>pretty? It would just be like one of those unfortunate girls with beautiful bodies but unattractive faces, whom immature guys sometimes call "Butterfaces" ("She's got a great body, but her face..."). To those guys, I always say that it's better to be a butterface than a jerkface. And this pie was certainly <i>not</i> a jerkface.<style>
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<br />
<br />
Having come to terms with the aesthetic shortcomings of my pie, I blended in all the other ingredients, like so:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fhLIIFtjwe0/UK1JGJPqYbI/AAAAAAAABnU/s6GWmWtqQF8/s1600/photo1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fhLIIFtjwe0/UK1JGJPqYbI/AAAAAAAABnU/s6GWmWtqQF8/s400/photo1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I poured the lumpy mixture into the Simply Pies crust and popped it in the oven. I had some batter left over, so I decided to make mini, crust-less pies in a muffin tin:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FoGrcx0d0F8/UK1JIyv-U2I/AAAAAAAABnk/TdUSwvx4FRU/s1600/photo3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FoGrcx0d0F8/UK1JIyv-U2I/AAAAAAAABnk/TdUSwvx4FRU/s400/photo3.JPG" width="298" /></a></div>
<br />
I did retain <i>one</i> thing from helping my mom with pies as a little girl: after about a half hour, you need to pull out the pie and wrap the crust in a loose layer of aluminum foil, so it doesn’t burn. I managed to complete this task without burning myself, which I count as a small victory.<br />
<br />
After another ten minutes (45 minutes total), I pulled the pie out of the oven to cool. I haven’t eaten the pie itself yet, of course, but the mini, crust-less pie-muffin things are totally gone. They were wonderful.<br />
<br />
It ended up not mattering that the batter was slightly lumpy – the lumps went away in the oven, and the end result has a smooth, creamy texture and that delicious, autumnal butternut squash taste.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-11114036144497010792012-11-09T13:34:00.002-08:002012-11-09T13:35:12.266-08:00Meghan Apple Seed: EatSeed.com MuffinsIn my everyday life, I experience <i>metaphorical</i> seeds quite often. For instance, the reelection of the president on Tuesday
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<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span>sowed the seeds of hope<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span> in my heart. Sometimes I go around
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<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span>planting seeds of doubt<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span> in other people’s minds just to stir things up.
But I rarely interact with <i>literal</i> seeds.<br />
<br />
That changed when I discovered <a href="http://eatseed.com/">eatseed.com</a>, a company that believes in the benefits of adding seeds to your diet. You can order seeds a la carte from their website, or join their Super Seed of the Month Club to have a new type of seed delivered to your door every month.
Unfortunately, eat seed is based in North Carolina, thousands of miles away from me. So these seeds aren’t local, but they do offer a healthy supplement to local ingredients.<br />
<br />
I ordered the <a href="http://www.eatseed.com/shop/six-seed-super-blend/" target="_blank">Six Seed Super Blend</a>, which includes pumpkin, sunflower, chia, sesame, hemp, and flax seeds. <i>So</i> many <i>seeds</i>. And so many health benefits! Just to name a few:<br />
<br />
Pumpkin seeds can help fight depression, since they’re rich in tryptophan, which can increase serotonin levels. Sunflower seeds are high in vitamin E, which reduces the risk of heart disease, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s. Chia seeds are packed with omega-3 fatty acids and calcium. Sesame seeds are also high in calcium: half a cup of sesame seeds contains three times the calcium of half a cup of milk, so sesame seeds are great for your bones and teeth. Hemp seeds can reduce cholesterol levels and improve your skin. And, of course, flax seeds (or linseeds) keep you regular. Not “regular” in terms of your personality (<i>that’s</i> a lost cause), “regular” in terms of your poop. Brilliant.<br />
<br />
Eat seed features a blog with recipe ideas, but I wanted to come up with one of my own. I started with the obvious: sprinkling the seeds on my oatmeal. It made breakfast look a little fancier, but whole seeds can be hard to digest.<br />
<br />
I knew that to get the real benefits of the seeds, I’d have to grind them up and <i>bake</i>. That made me nervous, as baking always does: you have to follow the directions <i>exactly </i>or risk blowing up your oven. The stakes are so high!<br />
<br />
I decided to use locally grown apples in the recipe to add sweetness and texture. And also because I really wanted to adopt the moniker Meghan Apple Seed, if only for the hour or so it took me to bake these muffins.<br />
<br />
<u><span style="font-size: large;">Meghan Apple Seed Muffins</span></u><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d63ZaTUy9ls/UJ1zsLltrgI/AAAAAAAABmU/SQm_AjE-FFc/s1600/photo.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d63ZaTUy9ls/UJ1zsLltrgI/AAAAAAAABmU/SQm_AjE-FFc/s400/photo.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<u>Here’s what I used:</u><br />
1 cup ground Six Seed Super blend<br />
1 cup old fashioned oats<br />
1 apple, chopped into small bits (from Fair Hills Farm in Topanga Canyon, distance from me: 74 miles)<br />
½ cup raisins<br />
1 cup flour<br />
1 cup brown sugar<br />
2 teaspoons baking powder<br />
1/2 teaspoon salt<br />
2 egg whites<br />
3/4 cup milk<br />
1/4 cup vegetable oil<br />
1 teaspoon vanilla extract<br />
<br />
I preheated the oven to 400 degrees. Then I ground up the Six Seed Super Blend in my spice grinder until it became a powder, like this:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oo0zgksrT3s/UJ10a0hXftI/AAAAAAAABm0/Ts1g3zZLERs/s1600/photo7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oo0zgksrT3s/UJ10a0hXftI/AAAAAAAABm0/Ts1g3zZLERs/s400/photo7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I mixed the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, apples, and raisins in with the ground seeds:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ULh_5PsROaY/UJ1zu7YITvI/AAAAAAAABms/FX0ybz71y-0/s1600/photo3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ULh_5PsROaY/UJ1zu7YITvI/AAAAAAAABms/FX0ybz71y-0/s400/photo3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
Then I added the wet ingredients and mixed it all up, like so:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pdn8wWCxaCw/UJ1zuPSd39I/AAAAAAAABmk/Ix4NAR2iRKA/s1600/photo2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pdn8wWCxaCw/UJ1zuPSd39I/AAAAAAAABmk/Ix4NAR2iRKA/s400/photo2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
I plopped the mixture into a baking tin and popped it into the oven for about 18 minutes, until I could stick a fork into one of the muffins and it would come out dry. Ta-da!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DRwNojqaC3Y/UJ1zs7KexEI/AAAAAAAABmc/97HO1ELmMfg/s1600/photo1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DRwNojqaC3Y/UJ1zs7KexEI/AAAAAAAABmc/97HO1ELmMfg/s400/photo1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
The muffins were absolutely delicious. David and I snacked on them late-night style, then had them again for breakfast in the morning… and for lunch that day. They didn’t taste gross like <i>some</i> good-for-you muffins – instead, the apples, raisins, and brown sugar added sweetness to the healthful goodness of the Six Seed Super Blend.<br />
<br />
This successful endeavor planted some seeds of change (!) regarding my fear of baking. But I’m just planting seeds left and right now, since I’m Meghan Apple Seed now.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-3727834506799588512012-11-03T10:54:00.000-07:002012-11-03T10:54:53.942-07:00Roasted American "Feet" (Fennel+Beets)On Tuesday, I skipped down my front walk to collect my <a href="http://www.plowtoporch.com/" target="_blank">Plow to Porch</a> delivery box. Feeling a bit like a politically correct kid on ChristmaKwanzukkah, I peeled open the top of the cardboard… and was immediately hit in the face by a plume of fluffy, strongly scented greens.<br />
<br />
Fennel! Yay…? I think I am not alone in my ambiguous feelings toward fennel. It’s hard not to be excited by something with such a distinctive flavor, but I’m not entirely sure I <i>like</i> that flavor. It’s the flavor of anise, also used in black licorice. I certainly <i>don’t</i> like black licorice, and I’ve only eaten anise <a href="http://www.meghaneatslocal.com/2011/05/libido-burrito.html" target="_blank"><strike>as an antidote for bad gas</strike></a> for no reason at all.<br />
<br />
Despite its questionable taste, fennel has <i>texture</i> going for it. Its texture is like celery. In fact, I’m going to go out on a crunchy, porous limb and say that fennel is like celery’s flamboyant cousin who causes general confusion at family dinners.<br />
<br />
Just as much as a flamboyant cousin, every family dinner needs a terrifying albino neighbor. Lucky for me, my Plow to Porch box also included white beets. At first I wasn’t sure what these white beets even <i>were</i>, but then I received an email from Plow to Porch explaining that they hadn’t received their expected shipment of <i>red</i> beets, so they had delivered these creepy white beets instead.<br />
<br />
I’m giving the white beets a hard time, but they are actually quite special. I found some websites that describe them as “novelty” beets – so, apparently, they’d be a perfect gift to bring to your next Yankee Swap – and they have the same nutritional value as regular beets but a milder flavor.<br />
<br />
Since it is no longer October, I am no longer bound by <a href="http://www.meghaneatslocal.com/2012/09/eat-local-challenge-2012.html" target="_blank">my pledge to eat only locally produced foods</a>. So for this recipe, I used apple cider vinegar that was pressed by Trader Joe’s somewhere far, far away and Dijon mustard, whose very name betrays its un-American origins.<br />
<br />
To make up for the Dijon mustard’s anti-American background, I decided to add apples – everyone’s favorite American snack – to this recipe. In honor of the impending election, I give you Roasted American (because of the apples) Feet (because fennel + beet = feet).<br />
<br />
<u><span style="font-size: large;">Roasted American Feet</span></u><br />
<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7mW_yBUkdSo/UJVYxCLNdmI/AAAAAAAABls/TVchCHL66Lg/s1600/photo1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7mW_yBUkdSo/UJVYxCLNdmI/AAAAAAAABls/TVchCHL66Lg/s400/photo1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
3 white “novelty” beets, skinned and cubed (from Rancho Cortez in Santa Maria, distance from me: 63.4 miles)<br />
2 heads of fennel, sliced thickly (from The Garden Of… in Los Olivos, distance from me: 33.6 miles)<br />
3 Fuji apples, cored, skinned, and chopped into cubes (from Fair Hills Farm in Topanga Canyon, distance from me: 74 miles)<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><u>The Feet Sauce</u></span><br />
¼ cup apple cider vinegar<br />
2 tbsp olive oil<br />
1 tsp sea salt<br />
2 tbsp honey (from San Marcos Farms in Santa Ynez, distance from me: 30 miles)<br />
1 tbsp Dijon mustard<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aQ5gmLb-ARc/UJVYx6zE17I/AAAAAAAABl0/1bmpcscnLwM/s1600/photo2.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aQ5gmLb-ARc/UJVYx6zE17I/AAAAAAAABl0/1bmpcscnLwM/s400/photo2.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></div>
First, I preheated the oven to 400 degrees. Then I had to skin the apples and beets and chop them up into cubes. This was kind of an excruciating task, but I put on the latest episode of <i>The Walking Dead</i> to watch while I did it. This kept me entertained and reminded me that the pain in the butt of skinning and chopping up vegetables is better than the pain of having your butt eaten by zombies.<br />
<br />
The fennel heads were easier to deal with: I just sliced them into thick strips. I arranged the apples, beets, and fennel in baking dishes pretty haphazardly:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U82rgVc64iA/UJVYwaUY_II/AAAAAAAABlk/R2ZpyJDLQAI/s1600/photo.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U82rgVc64iA/UJVYwaUY_II/AAAAAAAABlk/R2ZpyJDLQAI/s400/photo.JPG" width="298" /></a> </div>
Then I mixed up the apple cider vinegar, olive oil, salt, honey, and mustard in a bowl and drizzled it on top.
I put the baking dishes in the oven for 50 minutes, until the fennel was almost clear and the beets were tender.<br />
<br />
While the dishes were in the oven, I grilled up the white beet greens, which were no more pallid than the greens of normal beets, in olive oil. Beet greens are full of vitamins K, A, and C and taste a lot like spinach when they’re grilled.<br />
<br />
The finished product tasted yummy in a very autumnal way. The sweetness of apple balanced out the anise flavor of the “feet,” and the combination of textures worked well, too. It seems to me American zombies everywhere could learn a thing or two from this slightly sophisticated preparation of feet.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-6723972968547183682012-10-24T12:50:00.002-07:002012-10-24T13:00:51.443-07:00Oh, My Squash! It's Autumn!A couple of weeks ago, I was on an epic bike ride (and by “epic” I mean about six miles on my neon pink beach cruiser), when I decided to stop into <a href="http://www.plowtoporch.com/" target="_blank">Plow to Porch Organics</a> on upper State Street. I hadn’t been inside their store <a href="http://www.meghaneatslocal.com/2011/05/plow-to-porch-to-my-tummy.html" target="_blank">since using my Groupon a year and a half ago</a>, so I nosed around all the displays.<br />
<br />
As I rummaged through the freezer, trying to decide between flavors of<a href="http://rorisorganiccreamery.com/index.html" target="_blank"> Rori’s artisanal ice cream</a>, I was approached by a friendly woman named Pam Plesons. She’s the owner of Plow to Porch, and she told me all about their home delivery program.<br />
<br />
Within minutes, I was signing up for a weekly delivery of the “Small” sized box, which includes enough fresh produce from multiple farms in the area to feed two people for a week. They also offer “Family” sized boxes, if you live in a bigger household, and “Bambino” sized boxes, if you are an Italian baby.<br />
<br />
Regular old Community Share Agriculture (CSA) programs offer only whatever that <i>one farm</i> happens to grow, whereas Plow to Porch offers a mixture of fruits, vegetables, and herbs from a variety of farms. You can also sign up online for “extras” like cheese, nuts, meat, fish, etc. on a week-to-week basis.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, I received my second weekly box, right outside my front door:<br />
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<br />
There are very few ways in which Santa Barbara indicates the autumn season. The grape harvest and subsequent wine <strike>binging</strike> tasting is the most fun way, and the appearance of all different kinds of squash is the most delicious. So I was psyched to see four delicata squash in my Plow to Porch box.<br />
<br />
Delicata squash is right up my alley when it comes to cooking preparation, since it’s easier to cut than most other squash and you don’t have to skin it before you cook it. After <a href="http://www.meghaneatslocal.com/2011/10/autumn-simulation-butternut-squash.html" target="_blank">more than one traumatizing experience</a> chasing a stubborn butternut squash around the kitchen with a carving knife, slicing up delicata squash was a piece of pumpkin pie.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Delicata Squash with Sag</u><u>e</u></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ingredients</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Here’s what I used:<br />
2 delicata squash from Jose Alcantara Garcia in Oxnard, CA (distance from me: 37 miles)<br />
1 bunch sage from Earthtrine Farm in Ojai (distance from me: 33 miles)<br />
<br />
(I would have liked to use butter, but I had rubbed the last of it all over my knee after walking into a piece of furniture. I read online that butter stops bruises from forming. For the record, it did not work, and now I just have a greasy, bruised knee.)<br />
<br />
Unfortunately butterless, I figured I could always add some olive oil if the squash turned out too dry. First, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees. I cut the squash down the middle and scraped out the seeds so they looked like this:<br />
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<br />
Then I sliced them into little half-circles and arranged them in a baking dish. I chopped up the bunch of sage into very fine bits and sprinkled them over the top of the squash. I baked it for 45 minutes.<br />
<br />
I don’t cook with sage very often, so I was glad for a reason to try it. I’ve always thought sage tastes and smells like a musty old museum – the kind with taxidermied mammals in glass cases. I still think it tastes <i>musty</i>, but combined with the flavorful squash, it was more of a comforting must, like a nice old lady’s sweater drawer.<br />
<br />
I sautéed some spinach from Rancho Cortez in Santa Maria (distance from me: 64 miles) as a side. The whole meal was delicious. I’m inclined to think butter was completely unnecessary, since the squash itself had a buttery texture and flavor.<br />
<br />
I know what I’m rubbing on my knee the <i>next</i> time I accidentally walk into the coffee table.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-41437811961246325282012-10-09T21:07:00.000-07:002012-10-09T22:16:18.281-07:00Sugar and Salt and Everything NiceI scream, you scream, we <i>all</i> scream when we realize just how many calories we’re shoveling into our mouths with every spoonful of ice cream. Given how delicious it is, it seems supremely unfair that just one half cup of ice cream – and who eats <i>just </i>one half cup, <i>ever?</i> – has about 20% of the total calories most women need in a day… and 100% of the fat.<br />
<br />
(I am so sorry if you’re reading this post while enjoying <strike>an entire pint</strike> exactly one half cup of ice cream. Please forgive me for ruining it and continue reading.)<br />
<br />
Lots of foods have lots of calories and lots of us just do our best to avoid those foods. Ice cream, though, is particularly difficult to resist because it makes you feel so goddamn <i>nostalgic</i>. If you can watch the ice cream truck turning the corner – covered in half-peeled-off stickers of multi-colored popsicles, its incessant chiming music made slightly creepy by the Doppler effect – and <i>not</i> experience the urge to chase after it on your bike with a dollar crumpled up in your fist, well, I would argue that you had no childhood.<br />
<br />
I <i>did</i> have a childhood and I sure took advantage of it: on more than one occasion, my siblings and I didn’t make it to the ice cream truck in time and whined until our dad agreed to <i>chase it down</i> in our family minivan.
(I am not making that up... so yeah, thanks, Dad.)<br />
<br />
So when I saw what appeared to be a particularly classy ice cream truck at the <a href="http://www.solfoodfestival.com/" target="_blank">SOL Food Festival</a> here in Santa Barbara, I headed straight for it, my childlike excitement only slightly dampened by a certain amount of calorie-guilt-preparation.<br />
<br />
That nagging guilt dissipated, though, when I realized that this wasn’t an <i>ice cream</i> truck after all; it was a refurbished 1966 mail truck, offering ice cream’s hippie health-nut cousin: locally sourced, non-dairy sorbet!<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PtlT0x3Z6Ws/UHTyAKRA7LI/AAAAAAAABkE/cYN13ShWJiY/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PtlT0x3Z6Ws/UHTyAKRA7LI/AAAAAAAABkE/cYN13ShWJiY/s400/photo.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John with the Sugar and Salt Creamery truck.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I chatted to John, the founder and co-operator of <a href="http://sugarandsaltcreamery.com/Home_Page.html" target="_blank">Sugar and Salt Creamery</a>, who was standing near an adorable sandwich-chalkboard (chalk-sandwich board?) advertising the day’s flavors:<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gQQ1N_wjlIc/UHTyAl19OkI/AAAAAAAABkM/DIqiKaAn2Rc/s1600/photo1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gQQ1N_wjlIc/UHTyAl19OkI/AAAAAAAABkM/DIqiKaAn2Rc/s400/photo1.JPG" width="298" /></a></div>
John told me that all the sorbet is made with locally sprouted, homemade almond milk and produced in downtown Santa Barbara. For the SOL Food Festival, he had used almonds from <a href="http://funclefarms.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Fat Uncle Farms</a> in Wasco, CA (distance from me: 150 miles) and fruit from <a href="http://www.shepherdfarmscsa.com/" target="_blank">Shepherd Farms</a>, which has land in Carpinteria (distance from me: 11 miles) and Santa Ynez (distance from me: 30 miles).<br />
<br />
The Sugar and Salt Creamery truck parks at local events like the Art Walk on Sundays and the Farmers Market on Tuesdays and Saturdays, as well as at Butterfly Beach on Fridays. They’re also expanding their business to local retailers like the <a href="http://islavistafoodcoop.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Isla Vista Coop</a>, in case you’re not in the mood to hop in your minivan and chase them down.<br />
<br />
I ordered the raspberry flavor and was handed a small serving which, if I had to guess, was probably <i>just</i> one half cup:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LdlTDT2DXcs/UHTyBoGowRI/AAAAAAAABkU/2VisxPLxNbI/s1600/photo2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LdlTDT2DXcs/UHTyBoGowRI/AAAAAAAABkU/2VisxPLxNbI/s400/photo2.JPG" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So good! Almond milk and raspberry sorbet.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
If this looks like a very tiny serving of sorbet, believe me: it looked the same in person. But amazingly, it was enough. And this is coming from a girl who once finished an entire pint of Chunky Monkey while sitting cross-legged on the floor and watching America’s Next Top Model (the irony was not lost on me).<br />
<br />
The combination of almond milk and fresh fruit made the Sugar and Salt sorbet really special and satisfying, rather than just a less-filling stand-in for ice cream. It was sweet and nutty at the same time, and the texture was creamy but not too heavy. Bonus points for the baby spoon hidden in the bottom of the lid.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-14114135515076385392012-09-27T14:49:00.001-07:002012-09-27T14:49:57.088-07:00Eat Local Challenge 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aDvgtz19vag/UGTJvi5mFiI/AAAAAAAABjo/_FuwxujfXqA/s1600/EatLocalChallengeLogo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aDvgtz19vag/UGTJvi5mFiI/AAAAAAAABjo/_FuwxujfXqA/s320/EatLocalChallengeLogo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I've gloated about this many times, but just for the record (in case you're keeping one): I'm lucky enough to live in Santa Barbara, where it is particularly easy to eat locally grown and produced foods. It's the reason an otherwise lazy person like me can dedicate an entire blog to my adventures eating local foods and reviewing restaurants and other establishments that use local ingredients.<br />
<br />
But sometimes it's just easier to heat up a can of soup or pick up a packaged meal at an inexpensive market. I've been in the process of moving into a new place over the past couple of weeks, so the time I can dedicate to planning local shopping trips and preparing meals using local ingredients has been more limited than usual.<br />
<br />
Recently, I read about a project that is just the inspiration I need to get back on the proverbial track. <a href="http://www.ediblecommunities.com/santabarbara/" target="_blank">Edible Santa Barbara</a>, my favorite publication ever in the history of time, is sponsoring its 4th annual <a href="http://www.ediblecommunities.com/santabarbara/event-calendar/eat-local-challenge.htm" target="_blank">Eat Local Challenge</a> in conjunction with the <a href="http://www.cecsb.org/index.php" target="_blank">Community Environmental Council</a> and the <a href="http://www.sbfarmersmarket.org/" target="_blank">Santa Barbara Farmers Market</a>.<br />
<br />
Santa Barbarians (who are generally not as barbaric as they sound) are encouraged to pledge to eat only locally grown and produced food for the month of October. They can set their own limits: "local" can refer to only Santa Barbara proper, or the tri-county area, or all of the state of California. Exceptions can be made for coffee, tea, and other <strike>addictions</strike> products that are not grown locally.<br />
<br />
Although I already make a point of eating a local diet, there are certain products I consume on a near-daily basis that originated in the far-flung corners of the world. Here are a few of those products and how I plan to address them this month:<br />
<br />
Coffee: <i>Ugh. </i>No, really, "ugh" is all I can physically bring myself to say on days when I haven't had my coffee. Teaching can be awkward, as can responding to sensitive questions like, "What do you think of my new outfit?" <i>Ugh. </i>Since coffee isn't grown in California, and since giving it up would mean wearing a month-long scowl and alienating my friends and colleagues with glares and half-articulated grunts, I thought I'd have to make an exception. But I recently learned that <a href="http://www.goodlandorganics.com/home" target="_blank">Goodland Organics</a> is experimenting with growing coffee right in Goleta, California, and selling it at the Tuesday farmers market! I can't wait to pick some up.<br />
<br />
Milk: There is no dairy in Santa Barbara county, but <a href="http://wp.lazyacres.com/" target="_blank">Lazy Acres</a> carries milk from dairies in the nearby area. I am also a fan of <a href="http://www.organicpastures.com/" target="_blank">Organic Pastures</a> raw milk, which is sold at the Saturday farmers market. <a href="http://www.meghaneatslocal.com/2012/06/dont-cry-over-raw-milk.html" target="_blank">Don't cry over raw milk</a>, that's what I always say.<br />
<br />
Bread: I love the artisan rolls from <a href="http://www.solvangpieco.com/" target="_blank">Solvang Pie Company</a>, and as it turns out, they're made from wheat grown in the Santa Ynez valley. Perfect.<br />
<br />
Quinoa: This part breaks my quinoa-lovin' heart. Quinoa won't grow in California, since the climate won't support it. That means I'll just have to eat a lot more legumes. I'm going to try supplementing my veggies with pasta made from locally grown wheat from <a href="http://www.solvangpieco.com/" target="_blank">Solvang Pie Company.</a> <br />
<br />
So there you have it: my eating local plan for the month of October. Make your own plan and share it! You can join the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/401499826574472/" target="_blank">Facebook group</a> and RSVP to the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/events/403918899664444/" target="_blank">Facebook event</a> for moral support. The <a href="http://www.ediblecommunities.com/santabarbara/event-calendar/eat-local-challenge-discussion.htm" target="_blank">Google group</a> is also a great resource for ideas about where to find local versions of your favorite foods. Check out this Source Guide for a list of establishments that are on-board the local train.<br />
<br />
If, like me, you derive <strike>your self-worth</strike> some occasional pleasure from tweeting, use #EatLocalSB, @EdibleSB and @CECSB as you track your progress.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-21044516681633820892012-09-17T17:01:00.001-07:002012-09-29T16:37:24.252-07:00Dream the Hydroponic Scene: Beylik Family Farms in Fillmore, CAUntil a few days ago, the only people I’d heard use the word “hydroponics” were saying it while rolling a joint. They were probably listening to 311 and wearing flip-flops held together with duct-tape, too - I can’t remember.<br />
<br />
But at the Saturday farmers market, I heard the word “hydroponics” come out of the mouth of a clean-cut, probably-not-stoned young girl working at the <a href="http://beylikfarms.com/" target="_blank">Beylik Family Farms</a> stand. She was selling me Japanese tomatoes (which are particularly sweet and low in acidity) for $3.50/pound and explaining to me why the word “organic” didn’t appear on the stand’s signage.<br />
<br />
She told me that Beylik Family Farms near Fillmore, California (distance from me: 62 miles) has been growing mostly tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers hydroponically since 1971. “Hydroponic” plants are grown indoors without soil, using only a nutrient solution.<br />
<br />
I recently spoke with Laura Beylik, who lives and work on the farm with her husband, Scott. Laura sells their products at markets with a team of six, while her husband avoids the market “like the plague,” preferring to stay on the farm where he works with eight employees. Scott inherited the farm from his father, who retired about five years ago, and his grandfather, who passed away about ten years ago. It comprises two properties: Scott and Laura live on close to 15 acres, while his parents live right across the street on 6.5 acres.<br />
<br />
Laura explained that the farm is semi-hydroponic, since their greenhouses use natural light and true hydroponic farms use only artificial light. The Beyliks also use coconut husks and <a href="http://grodan101.com/" target="_blank">Grodan Rockwool</a> as a “medium” to support the plants’ root systems and hold moisture.<br />
<br />
Contrary to my first assumption, “Rockwool” is not the fluffy result of shearing your pet rock. Rather, it’s a man-made mineral fiber made by melting basaltic rock and then spinning it into a fibrous material. The highest quality Rockwool is produced from diabase (pure basaltic rock) and has a mineral balance completely inert and nonreactive with nutrient solutions.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CIOSXd20bCA/UFe5QkefsOI/AAAAAAAABjM/nFiWZsV-Bps/s1600/tomatoes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CIOSXd20bCA/UFe5QkefsOI/AAAAAAAABjM/nFiWZsV-Bps/s400/tomatoes.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hydroponic tomatoes on the vine at Beylik Family Farms (photo: sbriders.org)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Apparently, the hydroponic and organic growing communities have been embroiled in a bit of a feud for the past fifty years or so. Organic growers care about improving the biological health of the soil by minimizing degradation and erosion, while hydroponic growers cut the soil out of the process all together.<br />
<br />
For many of us, the word “organic” has become kind of a synonym for “good for the environment.” And organically grown food certainly <i>is</i> better for the environment than conventionally grown food, despite <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/09/04/160395259/why-organic-food-may-not-be-healthier-for-you" target="_blank">recent research</a> on its arguable <i>health</i> benefits.<br />
<br />
But it’s not the only environmentally friendly way to grow food.
Hydroponic plants have smaller root systems so they take up less room than soil-grown plants, and they’re not plagued by weeds or soil-borne diseases. Plants are able to access nutrients as they need them, and no water is lost in the process. I’m glad I learned a little more about hydroponic food so I can expand my local diet.
<br />
<br />
And in my opinion, these Japanese tomatoes taste just as good as their organic counterparts. I have been eating one of them while I write this post, simultaneously blasting <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd8brROV9dI" target="_blank">“Hydroponic” by 311</a> on loop, just to get in the mood. Don’t worry - I made sure to save one of the tomatoes to use in self-defense against my neighbors, who have <i>got </i>to be getting tired of this song.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-68827994680551301152012-09-10T15:16:00.000-07:002012-09-10T16:18:31.940-07:00Restaurant Review: SeagrassRecently, my boyfriend David turned twenty-seven years old. I decided to give him exactly what<i> I</i> would have wanted if <i>I </i>were trying to celebrate a milestone on the road to becoming old and decrepit: a scavenger hunt! Nobody loves scavenger hunts more than I do… including David.<br />
<br />
I should remind you that birthdays are <a href="http://www.meghaneatslocal.com/2011/05/very-veghan-birthday.html" target="_blank">kind of a big deal in my family</a>. So you can imagine my horror when David told me that all he wanted for <i>his</i> birthday was to relax and play violent, war-themed video games in his boxer shorts. Obviously, this man had no idea what having a birthday even <i>meant</i>. Lucky for him, he’s dating someone who does.<br />
<br />
So I went about crafting intricate clues to go along with little gifts for him to discover throughout the day, painstakingly handwriting each clue in impeccable calligraphy. As I worked long into the night, I thought about how lucky David was that I knew what a <i>real</i> birthday entailed. He was going to have <i>such fun</i>.<br />
<br />
When the day arrived, I enlisted the help of his good friend and colleague to help distract David (who, <i>hilariously</i>, believed I had canceled our lunch date for no good reason) as I tiptoed around planting clues, feeling clever. The scavenger hunt went off without a hitch until the last clue, which I handed to him while we were having pre-dinner drinks at a bar downtown:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Dinner’s on me!</b><br />
<b>For the first time, let’s try</b><br />
<b>The ocean</b><br />
<b>+</b><br />
<b>Something you’d smoke to get high </b></blockquote>
</div>
The answer was, of course, <a href="http://www.seagrassrestaurant.com/" target="_blank">Seagrass</a>. This “sustainable, organic, and local” restaurant is owned by the Perez family, all of whom participate in its operation. Chef Robert Perez’s older son, <strike>Ruben</strike> Richard, is the wine director; Robert’s wife, Marianna, manages the aesthetics of the space; and their younger son Ruben’s life partner, Erin Gailsdaughter, also works at the restaurant.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Bs0ZhS-KKHE/UE5kCanajLI/AAAAAAAABiY/MiZMHAg37jE/s1600/0038.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Bs0ZhS-KKHE/UE5kCanajLI/AAAAAAAABiY/MiZMHAg37jE/s400/0038.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Perez-Gailsdaughter family; Richard not pictured</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A member of the <a href="http://www.sbnature.org/twsc/2.html" target="_blank">Ty Warner Sea Center</a>’s Sustainable Seafood Program, Seagrass acquires all its local fish and shellfish from <a href="http://www.kanaloaseafood.com/" target="_blank">Kanaloa Seafood</a> and <a href="http://sbfish.com/" target="_blank">Santa Barbara Fish Market</a>. Most of their produce comes from bi-weekly shopping trips to the farmers market.<br />
<br />
They had recently offered a Groupon deal for their dinner tasting menu, and of course I’d jumped on that deal quicker than you can say, “The ocean + Something you’d smoke to get high.”
And that brings me back to the clue… which was going nowhere, slowly.<br />
<br />
“Sea… weed?!” David guessed for the hundredth time, furrowing his brow. “Atlantic… crack? No. Pacific <i>meth</i>!” Our bartender chuckled and rolled her eyes. I didn’t know whether to chuckle or to be concerned that David had such an extensive mental list of things you could smoke to get high.<br />
<br />
I guess nobody uses the word “grass” anymore. But after much coaxing, I finally got David to say the words, “Sea… grass?! Seagrass. Oh, <i>Sea</i>grass!” and we were on our way.<br />
<br />
The first thing I noticed upon entering the restaurant was how <i>dark</i> it was inside; heavy maroon drapes kept out any of the night’s remaining natural light and the interior lighting was decidedly dim. The understated décor was punctuated by large seashell fixtures and little green specks of light projected onto the ceiling, perhaps meant to represent moonlight filtered through ocean water or the light at the end of a dock.<br />
<br />
But if I stared at the green lights for too long, I found myself longing for dreams just beyond my grasp, all Gatsby-like, so I focused on the delicious food instead.<br />
<br />
The tasting menu included two options for each course, so we tried both and shared them. The abyss of darkness in which we were dining made photographing the dishes in a flattering way quite impossible. Using the flash resulting in something horrible like this:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m_LXfjTWWKE/UE5kDLB766I/AAAAAAAABig/gs6dj_sfcUQ/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m_LXfjTWWKE/UE5kDLB766I/AAAAAAAABig/gs6dj_sfcUQ/s400/photo.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The lighting does <i>not </i>flatter this smoked salmon dish.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So you’ll just have to take my word for it that these dishes looked as good as they sound. To start, I got the little gem salad with blue cheese, bacon, and cherry tomatoes. “Little gem,” also called “sucrine,” tastes like a combination of Butter and Romaine lettuce. It is flavorful as far as lettuces go, which is admittedly not very far. David got the smoked Scottish salmon with greens, emulsified olive oil, and capers, pictured unflatteringly above.<br />
<br />
For the main course, I got the pan-seared, oven-baked sea bass on roasted eggplant with a possibly magical veal reduction. David’s maple duck was also pan-seared <i>and</i> oven-baked, served with summer vegetables.<br />
<br />
The tasting menu included dessert (phew!), and I gobbled up my chocolate mousse with salted caramel and Chantilly cream almost as fast as David devoured his toasted vanilla bean ice cream. Yes, <i>toasted</i> ice cream, the classy older cousin of the deep-fried ice cream you always see on menus at Japanese restaurants but are too afraid to order.<br />
<br />
The whole meal was beyond satisfying. With every course, we had one of those moments in which you shove a forkful of your food at your dining partner, repeating over and over, “You just <i>have</i> to try this!” And try it we did.<br />
<br />
I was happy to have demonstrated to David how joyful birthdays can be. David was happy to have made it to the end of his incredibly <strike>exhausting</strike> fun scavenger hunt. Seagrass was a huge success, and we’ll be back – during the day, though, so as not to be lured by those beckoning green lights.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-43709247769687765922012-08-29T13:09:00.002-07:002012-08-29T13:12:53.677-07:00Lemon Cucumber Caprese Salad: Size Doesn't MatterThe farmers market is always a place of discovery for me. Vegetables I’ve never seen before, <a href="http://www.meghaneatslocal.com/2012/05/stone-fruit-special-apricots-and-pluots.html" target="_blank">mutant fruit</a>, a curmudgeonly lady playing the didgeridoo – anything you can think of, I’ve encountered it at the Santa Barbara farmers market. Well, not <i>any</i>thing you can think of. Be reasonable.<br />
<br />
My newest discovery came before a dinner date with my friend Sasha. We were perusing the market for ingredients to make a tasty meal when we found what looked like a cross between a summer squash and a pumpkin.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hxJ4FoYZeIs/UD5yJsQ_2LI/AAAAAAAABhE/VjXJO4fRRPA/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hxJ4FoYZeIs/UD5yJsQ_2LI/AAAAAAAABhE/VjXJO4fRRPA/s400/photo.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lemon cucumbers at the Milliken Farm stand</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Turns out, these little nuggets are neither of the above: they’re cucumbers! <i>Lemon</i> cucumbers, to be exact. Despite what their name suggests, lemon cucumbers are not the creation of a mad scientist who wondered what would happen if a lemon and a cucumber had a mutant baby. They’re just stout, yellow cucumbers that are kind of shaped like a lemon and grow during the summer.<br />
<br />
Lemon cucumbers have a sweeter flavor than regular cucumbers, but have the same crisp texture. They’re also called apple cucumbers, since some people apparently have trouble distinguishing between lemons and apples.<br />
<br />
The Milliken Farm stand was selling them for $2.50 a pound, so I bought a few. I’ve been feeling kind of anti-traditional-salad lately, but I couldn’t think of another way to use these midget cukes in a meal.<br />
<br />
Then I saw the fresh mozzarella at the Spring Hill Jersey Cheese stand. They only had one package of it left, so I snatched it up quicker than you can say “mozzarella-ella-ella-ey-ey-ey.” I was going Caprese style on these cukes.<br />
<br />
Caprese salad is usually just sliced tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and basil drizzled with balsamic dressing and olive oil. It’s a refreshing, filling twist on a traditional salad and I basically subsist on it whenever I’m <strike>pretending to be</strike> in Italy.<br />
<br />
So Sasha and I trekked home from the market and got to work slicing up fresh heirloom tomatoes, the <a href="http://springhillcheese.com/" target="_blank">Spring Hill</a> mozzarella cheese, and the Lilliputian cucumbers:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zIfvsjKH6Zc/UD5yKWTNUSI/AAAAAAAABhM/6RDigyMFfQA/s1600/photo1.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zIfvsjKH6Zc/UD5yKWTNUSI/AAAAAAAABhM/6RDigyMFfQA/s400/photo1.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The fresh ingredients</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I layered the slices with basil from my <a href="http://www.meghaneatslocal.com/2012/08/meghan-gets-crafty-mason-jar-herb-garden.html" target="_blank">mason jar herb garden</a> and drizzled some balsamic vinegar and olive oil on top:<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Kga-OashweE/UD52jWud4pI/AAAAAAAABhw/CkbE1tufAm4/s1600/photo2_4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Kga-OashweE/UD52jWud4pI/AAAAAAAABhw/CkbE1tufAm4/s400/photo2_4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
Yum! The cucumbers added a crunchy texture to the traditional Caprese salad. The difference in flavor from regular old cucumbers was just barely noticeable. So when it comes to cucumbers, does size matter? It depends on what you’re going to do with that cucumber.<br />
<br />
I am <i>assuming</i> you’re going to put it in a salad, so the answer is nope! Size doesn’t matter. These pocket-sized little guys do the job just as well as their more common green cousins.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7240488540953605755.post-35680489175537314152012-08-20T14:31:00.000-07:002012-08-20T14:31:52.064-07:00Meghan Gets Crafty: Mason Jar Herb Garden<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H0u48Y1xqdg/UDKplip6MpI/AAAAAAAABf4/vgZ7sNmIDGA/s1600/photo+(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H0u48Y1xqdg/UDKplip6MpI/AAAAAAAABf4/vgZ7sNmIDGA/s400/photo+(2).JPG" width="298" /></a> </div>
Since moving into a new downtown apartment I can barely afford on my graduate-student salary, I’ve become quite crafty. And I don’t mean crafty like sly, manipulative, getting-what-I-want-when-I-want-it. I mean crafty like I’m too poor to buy new clothes so I make them myself out of old curtains.<br />
<br />
Well, I <i>would</i>, if I could sew.
Since I’m not Maria von Trapp (much to my constant chagrin), I have to stick to more manageable crafts.<br />
<br />
For example, I like to think that my <strike>sad excuse for a</strike> kitchen presents a great opportunity for craftiness. Some people might look at my kitchen and laugh at the idea that it could even be called a <i>kitchen</i>. It’s more of a corner of my living room, designated by its unfortunate 1970s-era linoleum, a 3/4-size refrigerator that is barely large enough to fit a carton of eggs and a half-gallon of milk at the same time, and one row of cabinets above the stove. I like to call it a <i>nook</i>, since I think that word connotes coziness rather than destitution.<br />
<br />
Since there is not enough space for all my food in my kitchen <i>nook</i>, I store some things in mason jars with cute little chalkboard labels, displayed on a bookcase. That way, I can pretend to myself that I actually prefer the lack of cabinet space – otherwise, there would be no reason for chalkboard labels and no one would know where I kept my quinoa.<br />
<br />
My boyfriend David is generally a bit skeptical of my crafting ways. He’s seen the show Hoarders, and he worries that “Don’t throw out that old pair of jeans – I could turn it into a purse!” might lead to, “Don’t throw out that old diaper! I could add it to my growing pile of health-code violations!” somewhere down the road. Frankly, it’s not a com<i>plete</i>ly irrational concern.<br />
<br />
But in a recent bout of supportive craftiness, he surprised me with an afternoon project. It doesn’t get much more local than herbs grown in your own backyard, so David purchased the supplies to make a backyard herb garden. Since most of the ground space in my backyard is dominated by cacti and other local succulent plants, and since I have a love for mason jars that defies reason, my herbs would live adorably in hanging mason jars on my back porch.<br />
<br />
First things first: wine.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mLpqm5Zpd9E/UDKpqmXLffI/AAAAAAAABgo/IDoCFVRXldo/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mLpqm5Zpd9E/UDKpqmXLffI/AAAAAAAABgo/IDoCFVRXldo/s400/photo.JPG" width="298" /></a></div>
Mason jars and wine! My two favorite inanimate things. One day, I will drink wine out of a mason jar and my life will be complete. Don’t worry, I’ll blog about it.<br />
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After the wine was poured, we got started on the hanging herb garden. Here’s what we used:<br />
<br />
Two slabs of wood<br />
Chalkboard pain<br />
8 adjustable round brackets<br />
Gold leaf paint<br />
8 mason jars<br />
Various screws<br />
A power drill<br />
<br />
First, we used a ruler to divide the slabs of wood into four equal parts. I measured a one-inch section at the bottom of each the four parts and painted it with chalkboard paint; that would be the label for each herb:<br />
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Then I used the gold leaf paint on the brackets for no reason other than that it looked pretty:<br />
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While I painted, David pulled a Tim The-Tool-Man Taylor and used the power drill to attach the brackets to the wood slabs. He attached the bottom three at an angle, so the herbs could grow diagonally upward without hitting the bottom of the next mason jar.<br />
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Once the brackets were attached, the mason jars could slide right in.
We put the herbs in the mason jars before attaching them to the wood slabs: rosemary, thyme, cilantro, basil, parsley, and mint.<br />
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There were eight mason jars and only six herbs, so we put flowers in the top-most mason jars. I used colored chalk to label the herbs and voila! An adorable herb garden hanging right on my porch:<br />
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Unfortunately, like most beautiful things, this hanging herb garden is quite impractical. A quick online search about how to care for these herbs revealed to me that there are three things most herbs need: sunlight, water, and drainage.<br />
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Two out of three ain’t bad, right? No. Wrong. They get plenty of sunlight on my porch and I make sure to water them often. The problem is that mason jars don’t drain. So all these herbs will surely die, unless I replace the mason jars with more practical pots.<br />
<br />
But what will I do with all those mason jars? I’m thinking something crafty like lanterns with tea lights… or utensil holders… or individual Barbie jacuzzi tubs… the possibilities are endless.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00269954664845031971noreply@blogger.com5