daily delights - february 19

all of the lovely things one can order online these days are today's daily delight. this week, i fell for an instagram ad featuring actual mexican food online in denmark. prices were reasonable and shipping was really fast. i'm going to do pulled pork this weekend with some of these beautiful chili flavors and enjoy it on these real corn tortillas. looking ahead to some time in the kitchen is definitely today's delight. along with the giant gin & tonic i just poured myself. 

it's so much more than cooking

thanksgiving eve salad with sesame chicken for dinner

it's so much more than cooking. i read an article with this title a few weeks ago. with my very domesticated (and wonderful) danish husband, i had to laugh a bit at the issues the author faced. especially when her husband volunteered to make dinner and then didn't shop for any ingredients, but had expected them to magically be in the refrigerator. my husband would know that grocery shopping was part of the deal. without being told. but i will admit that we do mostly divide the cooking along gender lines in our household. especially as the home renovation falls almost entirely on husband's shoulders, it's only fair that i do the bulk of the cooking. and cook i did over the past few days. we invited 10 of our best friends to a thanksgiving feast and it was my best performance ever (all that watching australian master chef is paying off).

my biggest turkey ever! 11 kilos! fresh and delicious. it went into a brine for two days in preparation for its tour in the smoker - our new kamado grill. and yes, that's sabin's first bathtub i used to brine it in.

potted shrimp as an appetizer for people to munch on when they arrived, since that big turkey was going to take forever!

i modified a maple-nutmeg custard pie recipe i found by adding pecans on top. it was delicious! though i was so full, i didn't eat any of it until breakfast the next day.

after two rounds of smoking, the turkey was looking gorgeous.

the skin got a little bit dark and i haven't perfected crispy skin in the smoker, but the meat was juicy and meltingly tender and, if i do say so myself, perfectly smoked.

it was a proud moment as husband took the serving dish to the table. it was so much fun introducing my danish friends to my favorite holiday and sharing this beautiful food with them. it really meant the world.

before i added gravy and a spoonful of stuffing. thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and although it's a lot of work, it's worth every minute. and that nap i took on sunday afternoon was bliss as well. it really is so much more than cooking, it's love and culture and sharing and friendship and happiness as well.

seeking comfort

events of the past week. the past few months for that matter. four days of gusty winds, driving rain and sleet. general uncertainty. it all has me wanting to hunker down. light candles. stir up a real batch of cooked oatmeal - like the kind that you have to cook for 15-20 minutes (jamie tells you how here.) - and top it with blueberries (don't ask about the food miles), butter, real maple syrup and a drizzle of cream. seeking comfort. finding it. and also having it find me in unexpected forms that i only realized were needed after they arrived. life is like that sometimes.

what's for dinner?

roasted cauliflower & brussels sprouts soup topped with grilled monkfish, bacon, kale and homemade breadcrumbs

we've been doing some heavy reading in our blog camp food & culture course. turgid academic texts about the industrialization of food (what i like to think of as the badly treated chicken texts) were getting downright depressing. so, we (and by we, i mean me) decided to go off-syllabus to get our food (and perhaps cooking and hopefully reading) mojo back. i've been reading margaret visser's much depends on dinner and the rituals of dinner (aside: i also tried to read her the geometry of love: space, time, mystery, and meaning in an ordinary church, but it didn't do it for me and i had to abandon it again. i can do that with non-fiction.) i've also just started erica bauermeister's the school of essential ingredients and really feel transported by it. anyway, i made a copy of the intro chapter to visser's much depends on dinner and asked everyone to answer that daily dilemma: what's for dinner? as visser says,

"a meal is an artistic social construct, ordering the foodstuffs which comprise it into a complex dramatic whole, as a play organizes actions and words into component parts such as acts, scenes, speeches, dialogues, entrances, and exits, all in the sequences designed for them. however humble it may be, a meal has a definite plot, the intention of which is to intrigue, stimulate, and satisfy."

now at first glance, i don't feel like i put on a play every evening when i put dinner on the table. a meal like thanksgiving feels choreographed somehow, but the daily meals we eat do not. there's more routine in them, less effort and significantly less food than a thanksgiving feast. but doesn't our daily evening meal set the stage of a life well lived? it says a great deal about who we are and what we prioritize, our tastes, our norms, our likes and dislikes. and it's predominantly me who is the director of the play that is our evening meal. i hadn't really thought about how powerful that is in shaping our identity as a family until now.

autumn salad of mixed leaves, roasted cauliflower, roasted brussels sprouts and pomegranate topped with seared, rare tuna

some days it's easier than others to answer the "what's for dinner?" question. other days, i have a pan of chopped onions sizzling away in olive oil underway before having a single idea what to do with them. i learned at a friend's wedding shower nearly two decades ago that something can always come of sautéed onion. fridays are easy - as i said in my post the other day, we have a friday ritual that we generally follow - fresh bread and yummy things to put on it. friday is also the day that the fish truck comes to town and i generally buy a tempting piece of something or other to use for our saturday meal - whatever's coming ashore out the west coast, but sometimes a piece of fresh tuna if there's no inspiring mackerel or monkfish and we don't feel like old standbys such as salmon or cod. i got a piece of grey mullet on friday and it was heavenly tossed with a few leeks from the garden and steamed in foil in the oven (i sadly neglected to photograph it).

fresh from the garden

i often take my dinner inspiration from what's in the garden. at the moment, that's potatoes, jerusalem artichokes, squash, leeks, kale and it was apples until we turned them all into 30 liters of cider last weekend, we've even still got a few raspberries going strong (enough to throw a handful into smoothies or cupcakes). we're trying to eat less meat and we're on a health kick for the month of november (which mainly means i'm not partaking of my daily glass (or two) of wine while cooking), so we're making even more of an effort on that front. i've said it before, we don't want to be vegetarian, but we would like to do better at not considering meat to be the centerpiece of every meal. that's what i love about the tuna salad above - instead of buying us each a big tuna steak, i buy one large one and slice it thinly on top of the salad. we all feel like we get enough to eat and we haven't each consumed a whole steak ourselves. it's better for us and for the tuna.

raspberries still going strong

some days, we're busy running to meetings and gymnastics and riding lessons and we get home a bit late, so i throw together a omelette with potatoes and perhaps chorizo sausage in it. i've been doing that less since our chickens were rustled. we've got new ones, but they're young and not yet laying. i hate to do it too often with store-bought eggs, as those chickens, even if the eggs are organic, often live miserable lives. if you don't want to slog through academic texts on the subject like we did, check out hugh fearnley-whittingstall's chicken out campaign. it was his programs on chicken welfare that first brought it to my attention. the industrial chicken industry is absolutely horrifying and means we don't eat chicken around here that much. i occasionally buy an expensive organic one that was ostensibly treated well (using it as roast and boiling the carcass for soup and/or risotto, thereby getting several meals out of it), but do my best to stay away from the water-filled packaged breasts.

we are fortunate to have a good variety of organic produce in denmark. i always buy organic milk, cream, creme fraiche, butter and lemons. (and i'm a bit of a snob about it, i'll admit, looking askance at those who fill their carts with the non-organic sorts.) i buy organic, free range ground beef and pork if it's available (it's not always in our little town). fruit and veg can be a bit more of a challenge as to availability in our smaller grocery stores, so there i tend to choose based on food miles. tho' i feel a dilemma on that front with regard to cucumbers - is it better to take a danish cucumber that's produced in an energy-hogging greenhouse in our climate or to take one that's been trucked up from spain? i'll admit i often choose spain, because the flavor is better, same with tomatoes. i turned my front entryway into a makeshift greenhouse this summer and we had our own tomatoes and cucumbers, at least for a short time.

tomato galette - with foraged chanterelles

our daily dinners tend to be a simple salad of some kind, featuring whatever inspired me in the green section of the supermarket, often rice (black and red are favorites) or spelt or rye grains, sometimes meat or fish, but not always. i do lots of stir-frys, these days with brassicas that seem to be in season (we're not fans of broccoli, but we love cauliflower and various kinds of cabbage). i even succeeded in growing a couple of heads of red cabbage in the garden this year and i've got kale there too, still going strong. i love to make risotto, tho' sabin's not fond of it. we eat simple pasta dishes like pasta carbonara or with pesto. sabin and i love soups and even tho' husband isn't fond of them, we try to make hearty, chunky ones so he's happy too. sometimes i boil up a big pan of beans and use them in various ways over several days - mixed together with diced onion, tomato and avocado, some chili sauce and a little creme fraiche is one favorite way. a one-dish meal if you throw a few arugula leaves on top. in fact, i've just inspired myself and have set some black beans to soak. i quite often make savory tarts or galette, just throwing in whatever is around.

mixed leaves salad with pear, cashews and parmesan

we don't often give in and buy a pizza, nor do we go out to dinner much. it's just not the way of the culture here and there is a distinct lack of inspiring places in our area, so we'd rather not spend the money on it. if we do eat out, it tends to be a posh sandwich for lunch in a café, but only very rarely dinner. it would probably be different if we lived in copenhagen, where there's much more choice. but generally, there isn't a big eating out culture in denmark the way there is in the states. there is also a culture here of buying groceries every day, rather than stocking up and having a whole lot in the freezer. i think it's because our refrigerators are smaller, but i'd also like to think it's because people are more focused on having fresh, good ingredients. i'm used it now, it's part of my routine and i actually quite like it. if i had the daunting task of going to target or whole foods for groceries every day, i wouldn't like it, but our grocery stores are small and intimate, so it's easy to pop in and out daily or every other day.

that said, i have a stash of beans (both dried and canned), pasta and rice in the cupboard. i try to keep staples like butter and bacon and milk and cheese in the fridge, so we can always come up with something for dinner in a pinch when there hasn't been time to shop. i always have a good supply of different kinds of flour and i make bread several times a week - often focaccia-style, drizzling olive oil and a sprinkle of cheese and maybe thin slices of serrano ham on top to make it heartier. if we don't eat it all, i cube it, dry it in the oven and make bread crumbs for other uses. either that or we feed it to the chickens.

roasted cauliflower agnolotti in progress (i've obviously got a thing about roasted cauliflower)

of course some days are more inspired than others and sabin complained not long ago that i was uninspired and never making anything new. so i've added things like homemade pasta to the repertoire of late. it's easier than you think and so soothing to run it through that little hand-crank pasta machine. we all need a little inspiration sometimes and we have to shake things up. i subscribe to epicurious and martha stewart and the kitchn's email newsletters, and i pin a lot of recipes on pinterest, both savory and sweet. cooking is probably where i'm best at using my pinterest boards regularly.

i don't know if my daily dinners are theatre, but they definitely set the stage for the way we choose to live our family life.

how do you answer the question, "what's for dinner?"

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minimalist fairy tale posters.

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the cat-hater's notebook was wonderfully illustrated.

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clever tiny homes.

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i'm in love with the idea of secret dining societies. 

it's all about the food

a pitcher of cocktails gets any party off to a brilliant start.

this was actually the second pitcher,

as the first one disappeared very quickly.

it was made with gin and rhubarb cordial with sparkling water and plenty of ice.

the people on our road have been holding this annual "street party" for 30+ years.

we made the food ourselves, which was new for them.

they usually order the food from a boring local restaurant.

i love to make people work a little bit for their dinner.

so they had to grill their kabobs themselves.

it made everyone stand around the grill table talking, so it was great.

we also got some ordinary sausages for the kids.

and some exciting spicy ones that i couldn't resist, which were mostly eaten by adults.

we'll be having some of this today as well, as there were plenty of leftovers.
i always make too much food.

i made bread that we used as an appetizer with the welcome drink

and the neighbor, with whom we shared the party duties, made some beautiful bread for the dinner.

i covet her big basket a bit. i'll have to get one of those myself.

a beautiful, simple salad with mixed leaves, pear, cashews and flakes of parmesan.

our strawberries are going strong , so i filled a big, pretty glass bowl with them.

we got the bowl ages ago in istanbul and i don't use it often enough,

but it makes me happy when i do.

some thumbprint shortbread cookies

with frosting flavored with my homemade cordials

strawberry, elderflower and a combination of both.

they were perfect with the coffee.

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it's funny, with an event like this, i love cooking all day to get ready for it, but there's always a stressed out sense of panic in the last hour before guests arrive, especially here in jutland, where your guests are likely to show up as much as half an hour early (true to form, the first ones came at 20 minutes to five last night). there's a mad dash to change clothes into something presentable while doing all of the last-minute chopping and frosting and plating up and preparing. there's usually a bit of sniping at anyone who comes through the kitchen and a frantic vacuuming by husband. it's odd because i actually really don't like the moment when people arrive - if, like yesterday, i don't know them well - it feels awkward and strange and i want to hide in the kitchen (so i often do). but get the first of the welcome drink down them and start cutting bread and telling them about the various spreads for the bread and i relax and begin to enjoy. and it's a bit ironic, because many of my moments of most conscious happiness are spent in the kitchen, preparing food for such a gathering. 

i would never survive a master chef competition. 

when my cooking mojo returned and we ate our way into 2013

the holidays returned my cooking mojo to me. i will admit that it had been a bit lackluster around here in the kitchen of late, but a brined turkey stuffed with rye grains for christmas and a new year's feast of epic proportions (i didn't get shots of the 6 different appetizers) changed all that. i'll be blogging all the recipes on the long-neglected domestic sensualist blog in the next couple of days.

but i will admit it leaves me feeling like i may never need to eat again. or at the very least, that a detox is in order. maybe i need to unearth my juicer.

here's hoping you all had a wonderful new year's eve and are enjoying the beginning of 2013.

cooking and evolution

a number of years ago, when my father-in-law was still alive, i sent him an article from the new york times on how cooking had pushed evolution. he was the inventor and first professor of technolution, the study of how technologies have pushed evolution, so i always had an eye out for articles and books that explored such themes. his thinking about the article resulted in the illumination above, which hangs in my kitchen, right near my stove. peter had developed a pictorial language through which he expressed the concepts. all of the drawings have human figures and a circle within a square inspired by davinci's vetruvian man.

harvard anthropologist richard wrangham has written a book called catching fire in which he explores the importance of cooking to human development. peter would have been so interested to read it (he died just after new year's four years ago). what's interesting is that wrangham pushes back the cooking a lot farther in time than has previously been postulated (tho' you can see from peter's illumination that he thought that too). he says that already 1.9-1.8 million years ago, on the cusp between australopithecus and homo erectus, our ancestors began to cook. further, the relationships created around the hearth between men and women were essential for our development into the evolutionary stage we've reached today.

cooking our food, especially meat, gives us quicker access to the nourishment and the energy it brings with it. wrangham argues that our small teeth, small stomach and relatively short intestinal system point to food being cooked much earlier than previously thought. already as homo erectus, we were cooking, he postulates. and it was important that while the men were out hunting, the women were at home tending the fire, so it would be ready when the men returned with the meat. of course, the women also learned to cook roots and things while they were waiting around for the meat to be delivered. i've read only a review of the book, not the actual book, but it's on my amazon wish list for sure and i'm anxious to read more.

interestingly the roles haven't changed all that much. tho' today's men can do some cooking too, it is still a task that falls largely on women's shoulders. and i know that our nightly meal is an essential part of our day, something that mostly i prepare, tho' husband is very helpful in the kitchen. we eat together, as a family, around the table. and although it's much easier on us what with kitchen aid mixers and smeg stoves and such, maybe it's not all that different than our distant ancestors. i do wish peter was here to discuss it.

in the midst of it all

why is it whenever i have the most to do, i cram in a bunch of other projects? i'm working on finishing up the magazine i edit at work - going back and forth to the computer, giving feedback and seeing it comes together into a final, print-ready draft. in between, i've made three kinds of pie crust/pastry so i can make christina's apple crostata and two different pies for my thanksgiving feast tomorrow. then, when i got beets in my organic box this morning, i decided to add a roasted beet salad and a beet chutney to tomorrow's menu, so i got a start on those. the sweet potatoes are ready to pop into the oven tomorrow. the bread is cubed for the stuffing. and then i remembered that i hadn't yet made a present for my new little niece iben, who we will meet for the first time tomorrow. so i dashed out to the blue room and made a little baby duvet cover. luckily, i had some fun fabrics and ribbons in the stash, so it wasn't hard.

#91 - matrioshka baby dyne cover

then i decided that the halloween banner we had up in the dining room had to go and a more thanksgiving-y themed one had to go up. so i got out the felt scraps and cut out some leaf shapes, added some colorful wooden beads and strung them all together with bright yarn (see, there IS a reason for the yarn stash too). this is another one of those things that flashed, fully formed, into my head.

#92 - autumn felt garland

now i'd better get back to those pies. hope everyone's thanksgiving was great yesterday. i'll definitely take lots of pictures tomorrow at ours!

creativity update: the home stretch

when i last left you with my creativity count, we were at #78, the ghosty cupcakes from halloween. also that evening, sabin was wearing a halloween-themed ugly doll costume which i slaved over but failed to get a good picture of. you can see her face peeking out of the mouth, rather far away, in the middle of this picture. somehow, that is the only picture and she refuses to put it on again for the sake of a blog photo. i know, her priorities are all skewed, i'll work on that...

#79 - sabin's halloween costume

#80 - the very best pumpkin i've ever carved in all my thirty-twelve years.

#81 - rainbow baby quilt, going to a very special home.

#82 - our latest little fun monster guys. sabin and her friend sewed these (you can see that),

but i'm counting them because i made the pattern and helped significantly.

#83 - a new pillow design, which will go up in my etsy shop this weekend

(it has a partner that's similar, but not exactly the same)

#84 - anna maria horner fabrics + wool = a pretty scarf

this one's for my neighbor (the one who reminded me recently about how sometimes you have to close one door before another one opens) but there will be a similar (tho' even more fabulous because it has embroidery) one in my etsy shop this weekend.

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on the creative front, i'm really excited because i've signed up for a weaving course which starts in january. i talked to the most delightful older lady about it on the phone and i just can't wait. i found a weaving laug like the one at the museum in randbøldal in a town much closer to home. i've also got a lead on a loom, tho' it happens to be in scotland, but husband's a logistics expert, so i'm sure we can figure that out.

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tonight we opened a jar of the apple chutney i made back in september and i am happy to report it is fantastic (that's the very jar we opened, the dark one there on the right)! if you have any apples left from your apple trees, run, don't walk and make this chutney, it's not too late. we had it as an accompaniment to a wonderful chicken gumbo from jamie oliver's new america cookbook this evening, but we will be eating it with just about anything...a roast, a curry, our thanksgiving turkey...it's wonderful! and so satisfying to have made it myself. in fact, i don't think i counted it before, so it's #85.

only 15 more things to go in the year of creativity! i think i'm going to make it.

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p.s. dear blogger, i HATE your new photo uploader. it sucks beyond belief. bring back the easy, good one from blogger in draft. please, pretty please? you know, the one that lets us upload our photos, choose where they go and when and then lets us change them to the size we want without changing the html in 3 places....yeah, that one. give it back! don't make me ponder wordpress....

p.p.s. dear blogger, thank you for helping me very quickly via twitter. and while i'm still not entirely happy with the new photo uploader (only 5 photos at a time? please, that's pathetic), i can now make my photos the 800 wide that i want to without distortion. it's a bit more cumbersome than it was, but it is pretty cool to be able to look up pix that are already in the picasa albums and i'm sure you'll keep improving it. oh, and please send some sunshine.

counting creativity

inspired, i'll admit, by my own post on mushrooms over on domestic sensualist, the new cooking blog that i share with the fabulous bee, i made a gorgeous chicken recipe last night and it was so good, that i'm going to count it as #73 in the year of creativity:

it involved five kinds of mixed fresh mushrooms (which i bought at the store, i didn't forage for them myself in the forest this time), an organic chicken, three shallots and a bottle of hard, dry cider. it was absolute heaven. and i'm using the leftovers in a risotto this evening, so it was even economical in that it will stretch to two meals. i'll be sharing these recipes soon over on domestic sensualist.

while it was simmering away in the oven, i preserved some pretty little pears in a gorgeous mixture of sugar, vinegar, ginger, cinnamon, vanilla and star anise. i'm going to try to resist opening them for a few weeks, but it will be difficult. i give you #74.

and this afternoon, we finished sabin's little plushie man. i'm counting it as #75 because of the level of help which i was required to provide. isn't it adorable? i'm not sure about how i sewed the head to the body, but am chalking it up as a learning experience. and keeping my fingers crossed the head doesn't fall off.

when we got home from sabin's riding lesson this morning (thankfully she has moved to a morning lesson on saturdays), there was an exciting package waiting for me. it was from the lovely christina of soul aperture. and proved once again that bloggy friends are the very best kind of friends. thank you so much christina for the card and the fun cupcake supplies, plus real american popcorn boxes! sabin insisted on making popcorn immediately and using one of the boxes. is there anything more cheery than a traditional red & white popcorn box on a rainy, grey saturday? and i've already put one of the eat me tags to good use, but that's a surprise, so i won't say more. a big, heartfelt thank you to you, christina, you really made my day!!

hoping your saturday is going well too....

"biteynins"

i find myself thinking about food. again. and vitamins. since i've had a head cold for a week now, i've been pounding vitamins. and i don't think it's helped one bit. in fact, the only effect i've felt from the vitamins is nausea when i take them on an empty stomach. admittedly, i do think they improve my fingernails when i take them regularly. but otherwise, i might as well rub them on a doorknob (as my dad would say), for all the good they do.

maybe I should just get my vitamins from good, wholesome foods, i thought (wondering if fois gras can possibly be seen to fall into this category). and then, i ran across this article...the case for real food and this one too, outlining all kinds of studies that show that vitamins are not really all they're cracked up to be. and then i began wishing that i felt more energetic and motivated to cook, but the problem is that when you're sick, you just want to lie around and have someone bring you big mugs of steaming, sweet tea, you don't want to stand at the stove, even if it is for your own good.

i loved taking my "biteynins" when i was a kid and sabin loves hers too, but that's because they're purple and pink and tasty and shaped like the flintstones (in my childhood) or they're like elmo-shaped gummy bears (in sabin's) (which is probably a big red flag in and of itself). but maybe i should have just had a carrot and i should definitely just give one to sabin. we should be getting our "biteynins" the old-fashioned way...by eating them in their natural state, enjoying the real flavors and the pleasure of having prepared the food ourselves.  and then we wouldn't get that vitamin nausea feeling either. i sure hope i feel better tomorrow so that i feel like cooking again!

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roasted pepper salad ala nigella

this is a vitamin bomb and pretty too!

8 red bell peppers, roast in the oven, then remove the skins and slice them into bite-sized pieces

1 pomegranate (nigella has a brilliant method of cutting it in half and wacking it with a wooden spoon to rain the lovely little seeds down on the salad)

1 handful chopped fresh parsley

dressing: 

3T pomegranate syrup

2T olive oil

1T garlic oil (mine was canola)

salt & pepper to taste

*inspired by a similar recipe in nigella lawson's new christmas cookbook, in which nigella goes mad for pomegranates (in a lovely, sensual, very sexy way, of course).

random thoughts on a saturday

rafy, our wonderful polish carpenter, is coming tomorrow to put the floor in in my writing house. we came to a virtual standstill after the Big Party at the end of august, but now we are motivated to get to work again. the floor will go in tomorrow, then we can install the wood-burning stove, i can paint the walls and we can start USING that room. that will be wonderful.

because it's grey and dreary, like november always is in denmark, i'm sitting indoors, sipping hot tea and reading my latest batch of cookbooks from amazon.

sabin is sitting across from me, felting, or at least she was 'til she made a trip with her father to the hardware store.

i've got the nigella christmas cookbook in front of me. i do love her and her writing in all its voluptuousness.

it makes my mouth water and makes me want to try some new dishes this thanksgiving and christmas. and makes me want to get out the christmas decor and buy some apple cider to warm up on the stove with cinnamon and star anise. yum. nigella is slightly obsessed with pomegranates, but they are lovely and red and really quite christmasy.

i'm going to make bread and cupcakes this afternoon and we're having frikadeller (danish meatballs) for dinner. it's one of those days when you just feel like nesting.

organic produce trend consultant

caution: a bit of a rant ahead (but at least i'm inspired to blog again!)

it's not a new notion--"you are what you eat." and i've long looked askance and perhaps a tad judgmentally at what the person ahead of me in the grocery line places on the belt, but now it's confirmed by a study conducted by a danish "future researcher" (i want to be one of those, or maybe an "idea consultant," but more about that later).

according to this woman, who has her own company devoted to this so-called "future research"--firstmove--what we eat and drink says a whole lot about us. these are decisions we make on a daily basis, not a one-time investment like a car or a home. we make lifestyle choices every day as we troll the aisles of our grocery stores. and apparently companies are very interested in these lifestyle choices.

the study looks at three groups--the young (20-35 years), families with children and 50+. the study thus far suggests that food reflects our lifestyle in general in a different way than it did 10-15 years ago. a lot more environmental awareness has come into the picture. this sounds excellent to me. all three groups they looked at had high requirements with regard to organic foods because all three associate organic with quality. although, all three are increasingly aware that organic doesn't always mean quality, especially the "first movers." they are, as i understand it, a sort of leading edge consumer. this way, companies who buy firstmove's study can anticipate market trends and try to provide accordingly.

reading this, naturally got me thinking. wondering if we are "first movers" in our market. when i look at what i'm putting on the belt at the grocery store, i feel like i must be, but am i not at the mercy of the purchasing dude at the grocery store and what s/he makes available to me? it's the old chicken or the egg, isn't it? do i make the choices i do because they're what's there or is it because i want that organic chicken, eggs, milk, yogurt that it's there? how does this really work? who is really in the driver's seat?

there is a lot more talk about organic food and locally-produced food in the air these days. books like barbara kingsolver's wonderful animal, vegetable, miracle and all kinds of companies who will deliver you a box of organic, locally produced veg on a weekly basis, more and more organically-produced wines and olive oils on the shelves. all of which indicates a trend towards more awareness of our food supply. and it's about time too!

but, from what i can see as i look around in the grocery store, there are far too many people who haven't gotten the message. i see people piling on sodas and chips and ready-made meals (which were practically non-existent when i came to denmark ten years ago). and i find myself silently judging them. and feeling decidedly superior as i put fresh tomatoes and cucumbers and radishes and cabbages and mushrooms and organic ground beef and an organic chicken in my basket. i will actually skip the milk or go to another store to get it if my usual store is out of organic milk. i don't really want any other milk in my refrigerator or in my family. i even know which gas station always has organic milk and bike out of my way to get it if we're out of milk on a sunday morning.

we do decide who we want to be with the food choices we make--healthy, organic, local (supporting local farmers is always good), animal-conscious (only eggs from chickens that get to lead a proper chicken life), tree-hugging (i always take my own cloth bags), environmentally-conscious. at our house, we even make political choices--for example, avoiding produce from israel until they start being nice to the palestinians. granted, israel probably doesn't notice, but it makes us feel better. but eating foods that haven't had to travel halfway across the world in a 20-foot container (my livelihood aside) also TASTE better, so we're making a taste choice as well.  our time is precious, so the time we spend making food should be worth it, i definitely don't want to use bad quality ingredients.

anyway, back to this notion of calling oneself a "future researcher." what is up with all of these made-up professions? isn't it ok to simply be a researcher anymore? you have to inflate it with "future, " to make it seem trendy and cool? and speaking of trends, i've also seen the title "trend researcher." and i have also seen someone called an "idea consultant" in my newspaper. on that one, i contacted my sister immediately and said we should definitely start an idea consulting business. $100 for small ideas and $1000+ for really good ones. although we may have to up those prices what with the value of the dollar these days. because, of course, our ideas remain brilliant and valuable. :-) 

in my previous job, i was contacted by a woman who said she was a "podcasting consultant." i had a look at her website and it seemed that she simply made audio recordings as mp3s and put them on a website. i guess it was made a podcast by the fact of listening to it on an iPod. hmm, i have about 10 iPods myself, so i guess i could do up a set of business cards that say "iPod expert" or something like that. please, people. get real! and feed your family locally-produced organic food that you carry home in a cloth bag (preferably one you made of old jeans or something equally recycling-minded). :-)

ok, i'm done now. don't we all wish i was still having the blog blahs?

the minimalist

just read this very interesting (if rather unexpectedly (given where it was published) badly written) piece on eating less meat in the NYTimes and thought i'd share (despite the hack writing..the thoughts are good).  i'm going to give it a whirl.  meat as a treat.  and more spinach.  can't go wrong there!

of clogged brains and coping (or lack thereof)

there are so many things i haven't been doing of late:

1. blogging
2. dusting/vacuuming
3. cooking
4. laundry
5. commenting on all my favorite blogs (i'm still reading them in sneaked moments, however i'm but a lurker at the moment)

but i blame this:

still no sink, no dishwasher, no floor, no refrigerator, no nuthin'!

floorboards stacked.  junk everywhere. and did i mention the dust?

living like this does something to clog your mind.  it inhibits you.  it fogs your thinking.

or is that just the junk food i'm eating since i can't cook?  too many pizzas and shawarmas.  and salty chicken from the chicken grill.  and too many fries.

this lack of kitchen, this was my CHANCE.  my chance to eat a raw diet.  to eat more salads.  to be healthier.  i was not supposed to eat a bunch of junk!!  of course, it's not too late.  i could still kick in and do something about it. especially in light of the fact that the end is NOWHERE IN SIGHT!!!!   and in fact, for dinner this evening, i did.  i made a big bowl of salady bits (arugula, kohlrabi, tomato, cucumber, yellow pepper, lettuce, artichoke), took 3 forks, went out to the table in the circle and ate this lovely salad in the evening sunshine with my family.  

maybe i feel sluggish because i haven't been eating right.  all that junk clogs your brain. you are, after all, what you eat.  so i am one giant pizza with shawarma on it at the moment.  this is not good.  

i want my kitchen back!!