memories of food

i read a sweet story by brett martin in GQ on his meeting with chef jacques pepin at a low moment in his life. it illustrates the powerful healing capacity of sharing a meal and it's worth the long read. i also watched the great netflix series chef's table, which tells the story of 6 world-famous chefs. very inspiring and i burned through the six episodes far too quickly. all of this got me thinking about memorable meals. many of them came before the age of instagram and the incessant documentation and sharing of every plate, so they linger in the echoes of laughter of remembered conversations, the clink of glassware, the memory of garlicky tenderness of the cubes of beef at that tapas place in manila, the way my eyes welled up with tears at the deliciousness of the walnut-encrusted shark filet at the linn street cafe in iowa city, those foie gras pops so good we ordered a second round for dessert at elan in nyc, the time my sister licked limoncello off the table at that italian place at serendra in manila (hmm, the food must be good in manila).

we are so bound to food and so often we eat it mindlessly rather than thoughtfully, simply fueling our bodies because we have to instead of fueling our souls because we should. i go in streaks here at home, at times more conscious (read: creative) about what we have for dinner and other times being stuck in a rut of the same omelettes and BLTs. but again and again i return to the feeling that most of my moments of conscious happiness and contentment are spent in the kitchen; i feel better about everything when i'm cooking.

it's easier to be creative in the kitchen in the summer, when produce is delicious and abundant. when i can step out into the garden and pick strawberries for a sorbet or shortcake or broad beans for a hummus, or asparagus for a risotto. it is deeply satisfying to make our dinner from our own garden. and while our summer meals can bit one-ingredient intensive during the short time when asparagus or those broad beans are in season, there's just something about eating those things only when they're here that makes my soul sing. we appreciate them so much more because they are fleeting and they become so intertwined with long summer evenings in the garden. they're the food that memories are made of.

what are you eating this summer?

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speaking of food, did you know that personal gardens at russian dachas produce 40% of the food that's consumed in russia? and there are also people like rené redzepi of noma who are thinking about food and using local producers.

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salad as art!

bye-bye bacons

today was a sad day. you see, we took bacon and bacon to a nearby little butcher who does such things for people with small holdings like ours. it was time for them to become the bacon they were named for. their joyful little countenances have given us happiness since the beginning of april, but it was time. if we let them get much bigger, the roasts and pork chops would have been quite unmanageable for us.

they had a very good life here with us and we thoroughly enjoyed them. but what it was about in the end was that we would know the source of our meat supply. we would know what they ate, whether they had space to explore and whether they were allowed to root around and be pigs. and they had all of that. plus, we really did fall a little bit in love with them. they are friendly and curious and happy. and we will honor them by preparing them lovingly for our table over the coming months.

they were so curious, it wasn't at all difficult to get them interested in hopping right up into the trailer. we just used some boards and blocked off and opened the ramp. curiously, it didn't feel like we were tricking them or leading them to their death (tho' we sort of were), it felt right and it was a big relief that we could load them without any struggle at all.

it helped that it was late afternoon and time for a snack anyway, so they were very keen to check out what was in the buckets we placed in the front of the horse trailer to coax them in. it was important to us that they didn't feel stressed out by the experience.

they were a little unsure of the footing on the ramp at first, but the clean, fresh straw inside and the sight of their buckets helped them overcome their fear and they were soon inside, happily munching away. it was a stress free experience for all of us, which was a big relief. i didn't go along to the butcher (they will actually be slaughtered tomorrow), as that would have been too much for me, but husband said that one of them was so relaxed when he got there that she was lying down, relaxing and didn't want to get out of the trailer.

we've not yet finished our smokehouse, so we're just having them cut up in a traditional way, into roasts and pork chops and such. i will try to make some fresh sausages, because that's something i want to learn, but we will leave the ham-making to next spring's pigs. because we are definitely doing this again. this is why we moved out here to the countryside. and even tho' i will miss them, i also know that they are fulfilling their purpose and they are helping us move one step closer to our goals of being at least partially self-sustainable and when we eat them, we will definitely be eating local.

food for thought

shark burger with guacamole

the first real readings for our MIT food & culture course include a couple of articles from the new york times (one by michael pollan and one by mark bittman), an older piece (from 1970) by margaret mead and an even older (1942) piece from a wartime book called how to cook a wolf by m.f.k. fisher. they lay out a set of food dilemmas, from wartime shortages to a world where there's enough food for all, but we don't make sure that all have enough food to fad diets and general eating anxiety.  and tho' i look upon myself as a considered cook, conscious of such things as the food miles my produce has traveled and whether it contains gene modified grains, to whether the chicken had a good life before it arrived on my table, these articles left me feeling a bit like i'm not doing nearly enough and perhaps i should just pack it in and stop eating altogether.  but then i remember the perfection of south african avocados and sauvignon blanc and i dismiss that thought. you see, since they come from the same timezone as me, they're ok food miles-wise. (that is a prime example of julie logic, by the way.)

humor aside, we're all engaging some sort of logic that suits our purposes when it comes to food. i deserve this chocolate or this glass of wine because i had a hard day. it's ok that those shark steaks are from a porbeagle shark that's on the vulnerable list, because they were caught by nice fishermen from the faroe islands. and man, are they delicious (especially if you chop them up in the food processor, throw in a few spring onions, some bread crumbs and egg and turn them into shark burgers). i can just do with the ordinary milk because the store is out of organic and i don't want to make another stop. or it's ok that my avocados come from the other side of the world because it's in the same timezone as i am. this is how we shrug off the guilt of eating.

because eating has somehow become a guilty pleasure. there's so much to think about:  are the cows that made my milk or this steak producing too much methane and contributing to climate change? were these chickens that laid these eggs crowded in little wire cages, with no possibility of ever going outside? should i choose danish cucumbers, which are grown in big energy-consuming greenhouses or ones from spain that were grown outside, but had to be brought here in a truck? which is more environmentally sustainable? and without strict labeling laws, how can we ever really know the truth about the food that's available on our supermarket shelves? let's face it, they weren't exactly flashing neon lights about all that horse meat they were mixing into various ground meat products earlier in the year.

these questions are some of reasons we wanted to move to the countryside and have our own animals and our own garden, so that we could have a much better idea of where our food comes from. but even that's not enough. unless i special order, i can't buy chicken feed that doesn't contain GMO soybeans. i've taken to buying the whole grains - wheat, corn, barley and oats and mixing it myself, together with seashells for good eggs and for their digestion in general. we're by no means self-sustaining and have yet to have our own pigs, but we feel we're taking steps in the right direction. i'm content to only eat strawberries during the glorious few weeks when they're in season and can be picked in my own garden. but do i go without bacon just because we haven't managed to pull ourselves together and source a few pigs? i'll admit i haven't gone that far. nor would i do without olive oil just because we can't really grow olives in our climate. we're spoiled for food choice. and it just may be our demise.

the readings for our course have, thus far, raised more questions and concerns than they have answered and i'm neither done thinking, nor writing about this. stay tuned.

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brilliant website design and great stories - narratively.

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amazing photo project - strangers together

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i want all the neon signs.

dining out on tuesday night

meatballs nestled in half an onion on a bed of shockingly green pea pureé, accompanied by some rather crispy little mounds of mashed potato, steamed broccoli, cauliflower, ribbons of carrots and a sprinkling of fresh thyme. this is what happens when they get creative at the local kro. it may also be what happens when young student chefs are left alone in the kitchen with food coloring. the meatballs were a bit over-cooked, as were the pretty little potato stars (i don't think they were meant to be that crispy). but i have to say that the overly-green pea pureé actually tasted pretty good and the fresh thyme was a nice touch.

the meal brought several thoughts to mind: 

~ bordieu was right, you can't buy cultural capital.

~ cooking shows may be doing more damage than good.

~ when the number 1 restaurant in the world is in your country, it will have a knock-on effect on the cooks in the restaurants that aren't. that effect will be rather unpredictable. 

~ even tho' they had gone a bit mad with the food coloring, i was grateful to eat a meal that i didn't have to cook.

~ it's fun to go out to eat on a tuesday night, just because.