Pie á la Mold

Last night, Bob and I went to eat at our usual weekend quick-dinner place, the Halfmoon Diner on Route 9.  I’ve mentioned it here before, and I’ve always had good things to say about it.  After last night, however, I’m rethinking a few things.

Dinner was fine – tuna melt for me, pot roast for Bob.  Uneventful.  As usual, Bob ordered a piece of chocolate mousse cake to go.  Feeling frisky, I ordered  a piece of coconut cream pie to go.  I’ve raved about their coconut cream pie here before, and was looking forward to its creamy goodness.

About halfway through the piece of pie. something began to taste a little off.  I looked down, and found 3 or 4 pea-sized pieces of bright green mold in the pie.  I immediately spit out what I was chewing, dumped the rest of the horror pie in the trash, and went upstairs to brush my teeth.  It was all I could think about all night.  I even dreamed of eating the moldy pie again.

That pie must have been sitting in that cooler for more than a WEEK, or not kept refrigerated, in order to get mold like that.  Either way,  it was nasty.  I didn’t bring it back, because it was late and I was in my pj’s.  I also didn’t call them, because I didn’t retain the evidence.  All I know is, I’m never eating dessert (or probably even dinner) there again.  Ick.

Today is the Day!

I’m so excited for my buddy Chef Mark!  Today is the day he and his chef buddies (Jaime Ortiz from Angelo’s 677 Prime, Larry Schepici from Tosca, and Jackie Baldwin Russell from Sage Dining Hall at RPI) are cooking for a dinner at the James Beard House in NYC.  It’s called Upstate in the Big Apple, and it’s the culiminating event in the team’s 4×4 Dinners series, “a gathering of 4 of the top chefs in the area creating 4 fabulous dinners paired with 4 great wines at 4 phenomenal restaurants” (it all happened this summer).   Here’s the team:

Left to right: Jackie Baldwin, Jaime Ortiz, Mark Graham, Larry Schepici

So, today’s the day they all get to cook for about 80 guests at the James Beard House, a vertitable Mecca for gastronomes. 

Mark left at about 8 this morning, and sent me a few photos when he got there:

Here it is!

Here We Go!

Can’t wait to hear how it went!  Best of luck to all of the Capital Region chefs in NYC tonight – show ‘em what you’ve got!

What a Day to be a Food Lover!

Today was a great day.

I spent the morning at the Schenectady Greenmarket, picking up lots of great vegetables, bread, vegan hummus, and wine from the Hudson-Chatham Winery.  I probably would have forgotten to go the market, had I not been reminded by my neighbor and buddy Chef Mark that he would be cooking at the Greenmarket today.

Sprouts

Popcorn and Taters

Onions, Red and Yellow

Brussels Sprouts

Chef Mark Graham cooking at the Schenectady Greenmarket

Part Two of today’s excitement after the jump…

Cocina Criolla*

I had lunch yesterday with my friends Gail and Nell, at Schenectady County Community College’s Casola Dining Room.  The Casola is the college’s restaurant “laboratory,” where the culinary students get real life experience cooking and serving in a restaurant.  SCCC is just one of five colleges in New York State that is accredited by the American Culinary Federation Educational Institute.

From SCCC’s website:

Since Spring of 1993, the Casola Dining Room has been serving gourmet meals to the patrons of the Capital Region of Upstate New York. The Casola Dining Room is open for business during the college school year, generally from the first week of October to the first week of December and from the last week in February to the first week in May. Reservations are required.

Menu selection and themes are changed weekly. In the fall semester, menus are themed for Regional American Cuisine. In the spring semester our students prepare International classics. Guests choose one appetizer, a main course and a dessert from the choices. Guests are encouraged to bring in their own wine to compliment the meal experience.

Gail and I had a meeting at SCCC last week with Chef Chris Tanner, to plan the upcoming Culinary Boot Camp (details coming VERY soon), and Chris told us that this week’s cuisine was Puerto Rican.  We were very intrigued – neither of us had ever eaten Puerto Rican food – so I called to make reservations for the three of us (details about making reservations can be found here).

The Casola Dining Room has undergone extensive renovations over the last few years, and it has truly become an elegant space.  The walls are a lush chocolate-brown, the pillars and moulding are off-white, and the walls are decorated with colorful and intricate pieces of fiber art.  I forgot to find out if they were produced locally – I’ll have to make phone call.

It isn’t a very large dining room, with only about 10 or so tables, but it is very warm and welcoming.  The chairs have rounded backs, and are comfortably upholstered in moss-green fabric.  The tables are set with crisp white linens, and are complete with a full flatware service (including soup and coffee spoons).  The decorator was obviously looking to recreate a fine dining experience, and it definitely works.  So far, so good!

We were seated immediately, and one of several servers welcomed us, handed us menus, and took our drink orders.  It was a while before he came back.  When he did finally return, we placed our appetizer and entree orders:

Gail ordered Ensalada De Pulpo: grilled octopus sliced thin and tossed with Spanish onion thinly sliced into rings, crushed garlic, lime juice, virgin olive oil, white vinegar, chopped celery

Nell and I ordered Sacocho: A classic Puerto Rican stew that features the tropical life with yucca, yam, cassava, plantains, corn, beef short rib, and ham with tomato sauce and broth.

We all ordered the same entree: El pargo de cacerola-quemó con Salsa de Criollo, which is pan seared red snapper fillets with pumpkin fritters and avocado-tangerine salad, accompanied by yellow rice and pigeon peas garnished with plantanos.  (don’t normally order fish, but the thought of pumpkin fritters was so enticing that I thought I’d risk it.)

More after the jump…

Election Results

The results of the Comfort Food Election have been tabulated, and here’s the breakdown:

Total Number of Votes: 24 (thank you – that’s certainly better than 7).

Here is a list of the ‘other answers’ that people wrote in:

• “Bread Pudding – Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce”
• “Pizza. How is this not on the list?”
• “Mashed potatoes”
• “Chocolate” (2 write-in votes)
• “Clam chowder”
• “Chili”

Interesting findings.  What’s my favorite comfort food, you ask?  If I had to choose from among the choices I gave, I’d have to say Macaroni and Cheese.  I used to make this KILLER mac & cheese, using a recipe I got from Cooking Light magazine a bunch of years back.  It was four-cheese thing, using fontina, Parmesan, cheddar, and Velveeta Light.  They don’t make Velveeta Light anymore, so I’ve been too afraid to make the recipe with the full-fat version – it might end up to be too good, and I’d eat the whole thing.  The recipe called for crushed melba toasts, to give it a nice crunchy topping.

Oh! I just found the actual recipe, from MyRecipes.com (this blog happens in REAL TIME, my friends – no preplanning):
Creamy Four-Cheese Macaroni Recipe – MyRecipes.com

I may have to revisit that old favorite. Except my husband does not like macaroni and cheese. Luckily, he travels a lot.

The Comfort Food Election

Election Update: With only 7 votes counted (that’s it?  SEVEN?  That’s pretty lame, folks), Macaroni & Cheese has a decisive lead with 3 votes.  In a tie for second (1 vote each) is Grilled Cheese, Chicken Soup, Pot Roast, and Chili (with a write-in vote).

All you have to do is step outside to know that autumn has begun to bear down upon us here in the Northeast, bringing chilly winds, falling leaves, and possibly even some snow this coming weekend (what??).  Of course, there is a upside or two to the fall weather: a roaring fire, snuggling with your honey, and comfort food!

You know you have one.  The food that always seems to make everything all better, snow or no.  The food that Mom would give to you, and all would become right with the world.  Well, I’m nosy and I want to know what your favorite comfort food is.  Vote now!

You can only vote once, though.  And if your favorite isn’t on the list, feel free to fill in the blank!

The Last of the Summer…

This past Sunday, I spent a very chilly 40 minutes at the Schenectady Greenmarket, filling up my (reusable) bag with the last of the summer fruits and vegetables.   I had yesterday off work, and I planned to spend the entire day (if possible) in the kitchen.  My idea of a vacation.

Here’s the rundown:

 

Seckel (sugar) Pears

Seckel pears.  Beautiful, tiny, and reportedly “as sweet as a candy bar” (that’s what the guy told me!).  I’ll do a report as soon as a few of them ripen enough to eat.

Winter squash – acorn and butternut.  I know I’m probably the only person who didn’t know this, but winter squash are so named NOT because they are only available in winter, but because the skins are sturdy enough to allow them to hold through winter.  According to my friend (and Cornell Cooperative Extension Director) Chris Logue, if you keep your squash in a cool, dark place like your basement (as long as the temps don’t go below freezing), you can likely keep squash from now until January.  Nice.  Since I don’t have a basement, he suggested a cooler in my garage.

Freshly dug baking potatoes.  They went into last night’s Pot Roast.   Recipe for that soon.  I didn’t take photos last night, but I make it often enough that I should be able to put up a recipe with pix pretty soon.  I think I have finally perfected that pot roast.

A fresh-baked Morning Glory muffin from Our Daily Bread.  It was pure heaven – filled with carrots, raisins, apples, and coconut.  I jumped on my BlackBerry and found a recipe, bought a quart of Cortland apples at Buhrmaster Farms, and bought the rest of the ingredients on my trip to the grocery store later that day.  Here’s the recipe I found, with a few of my modifications – it makes DELICIOUS muffins, that are really filling and really good for you:

Whole Grain Morning Glory Muffins

• 1 1/3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup packed natural brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1/3 cup applesauce
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1  Cortland  apple, cored, peeled and diced
• 1/2 cup dried cherries
• 1/2 cup grated carrots
• 1/2 cup pecans, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons dried flaked sweetened coconut, divided

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; break up any brown sugar lumps with your fingers or a wooden spoon.

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, oil and vanilla, then add to flour mixture and stir just until combined. Add apples, raisins, carrots, walnuts and 1/4 cup of the coconut and stir gently until well combined.

Spoon batter into 12 paper-lined muffin tins, filling each about 2/3 full. Top evenly with remaining 4 teaspoons coconut and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until cooked through.

 

Tomato Sauce

About 5 pounds of tomatoes – the LAST of the tomatoes.    I was feeling pretty ambitious, and bought a ton (for me, anyway).  A friend mentioned a few weeks ago that she wanted to learn how to can.  Feeling inspired by that goal, but not quite ready to start canning myself, I thought I’d take the first step, and at least learn how to make homemade sauce that would be suitable for some eventual canning.  I found a very loose recipe for sauce online, and threw some great sauce together in about 2 hours.  It sounds ridiculous, I know – I mean, who doesn’t know how to make their own sauce?  Well, me.  I have not one drop of Italian blood, so sauce-making does not come hard-wired into my DNA.  But, I think I managed to create a respectable sauce.  Here’s what I did:

• 1 medium red onion, diced
• 4 large cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• a whole mess of tomatoes, peeled but NOT seeded, then quartered
• 1 can tomato paste
• 1 Tbsp dried Italian herbs
• Salt and pepper

Briefly sweat the onion and garlic in the olive oil.  Dump the tomatoes in, and let cook over medium-low heat until they break down.  Add in tomato paste and herbs, let cook for another hour or so, breaking up tomato chunks as it cooks.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  That’s it!  Makes enough to serve at one meal, and freeze some for later.

Many delicious items from one trip to the market!  Can’t wait to see what’s cooking next week.

Feds Make Progress in Promoting Local Foods and Nutrition

In a couple of recent statements (interview on NPR and an op-ed in the NY Times), my guy Michael Pollan made the assertion that if the US doesn’t get a handle on the way we eat, any healthcare system overhaul is going to fail:

[T]he fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries on health care can be substantially explained, as a study released last month says, by our being fatter…That’s why our success in bringing health care costs under control ultimately depends on whether Washington can summon the political will to take on and reform a second, even more powerful industry: the food industry. …Cheap food is going to be popular as long as the social and environmental costs of that food are charged to the future. There’s lots of money to be made selling fast food and then treating the diseases that fast food causes. One of the leading products of the American food industry has become patients for the American health care industry.

Well, it looks as if the Feds have finally wised up a bit to MP’s wisdom:

1. USDA has awarded $4.8 million for community food products, as part of the “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative. This collaboration hopes to “connect people more closely with the farmers who supply their food and increase the production, marketing and consumption of fresh, nutritious food that is grown locally in a sustainable manner.”
2. The US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) granted $650 Million to the Recovery Act Community Prevention and Wellness Initiative, which will “[create] ways for healthful lifestyle habits to be the natural first choice for Americans…The funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be used to increase physical activity, improve nutrition (emphasis mine), decrease obesity, and decrease smoking in U.S. communities.”  From the release: “Funded projects will emphasize high-impact, broad-reaching policy, environmental, and systems changes in schools (K-12) and communities. For example, communities will work to make high-fat snack foods and sugar-sweetened beverages less available in schools and other community sites and to use media to promote healthy choices.”

Well, it’s a good start.

In related news, last weekend saw the release of the new Matt Damon film “The Informant!”.  It’s the true story of a bumbling executive at Archer Daniels Midland (“Supermarket to the World”) who becomes a double-dealing FBI informant, providing recordings of secret meetings at which ADM and other global agrichemical producers colluded to fix worldwide prices of the animal feed additive lysine.  This American Life ran an encore of an episode they did in 2000 (called “The Fix Is In”), with the case’s major players.  The podcast is available right now on iTunes.

AGRICULTURE DEPUTY SECRETARY MERRIGAN AWARDS $4.8 MILLION FOR COMMUNITY FOOD PROJECTS AS PART OF ‘KNOW YOUR FARMER, KNOW YOUR FOOD’ INITIATIVE
	Funds Will Help Low-Income Communities Fight Food Insecurity by Building Local Food Systems
	WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2009 – Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan today announced that $4.8 million will be awarded to local organizations in 14 states to build community food systems and fight hunger and food insecurity. This announcement comes as part of USDA’s ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food,’ initiative, a department-wide collaboration that will connect people more closely with the farmers who supply their food and increase the production, marketing and consumption of fresh, nutritious food that is grown locally in a sustainable manner.

Don’t Let Kellogg’s Buy Scientists: Froot Loops Aren’t a Healthy Breakfast

To: Dr. Dennis Beir (Smart Choices Board Member), Lawrence Bacow (Tufts University President) and Dr. Eileen Kennedy (Smart Choices Board President), see more…Laurence Hausner (CEO, American Diabetes Association), Dr. Richard Kahn (Smart Choices Board Member), Patricia M. Babjak (American Dietetic Association, Office of the CEO), Dr. Mary Hager (Smart Choices Board Member), Dr. William T. Butler (Baylor College of Medicine President), Dr. Dennis Beir (Smart Choices Board Member), Lawrence Bacow (Tufts University President) and Dr. Eileen Kennedy (Smart Choices Board President)

Started by: Robin Beck

The nation’s largest food manufacturers, including Kellogg’s, Kraft Foods, ConAgra and PepsiCo, want you to believe that Froot Loops and other unhealthy foods are “Smart Choices.” And they have somehow convinced representatives from Tufts University, Baylor College of Medicine, the American Dietetic Association, and the American Diabetes Association to back them up.

The new “Smart Choices” program–an industry-backed marketing ploy–puts a green check mark on products that are determined to be “smarter food and beverage choices.”  But the choices selected are anything but healthy.

Dr. Eileen T. Kennedy, president of the Smart Choices board and the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, said in a New York Times article that she supported giving Froot Loops the green check mark because compared to feeding your children doughnuts for breakfast “Froot Loops is a better choice.”

Kellogg’s Froot Loops Cereal is 41% sugar. There is nothing “smart” about Froot Loops or other foods packed with sugar.

The reality is that the food industry is using the Smart Choices program to deceive parents and other shoppers into buying the very food that has led to a costly epidemic of diabetes and obesity — and researchers like Dr. Kennedy are abetting this deception by associating themselves and their respective institutions with the program.

This is outrageous.

Send a letter today and tell all four doctors supporting the Smart Choices program to stop shilling for Kellogg’s. They, and the leaders of their respective institutions, need to hear that you think it is wrong for them to support any program that gives sugary cereals and other unhealthy foods a stamp of approval as healthy choices.

or, Create a Petition

Change.org

Can’t…Stop…Eating…

And, now I know it’s kinda not my fault.  Kinda.

Findings from a new study suggest that some fats cause our brains to turn off the “I’m full” signal that tells us when to stop eating.

Here’s what they think happens: we eat the fat, it goes to our brains.  Once they get there, the fat molecules tell the body to just ignore the appetite-suppressing signals from leptin and insulin (those pesky weight regulation hormones).  This biological fake-out, the study says, is caused not by just any fat, but by palmitic acid – a fatty acid that is found in foods with high saturated-fat content.  Oleic acid, (a healthy monounsaturated fat, found in olive oil) did not cause this effect.

And, the worst part?  The effect can last for three days.  THREE DAYS.  Which means that if I gorge myself on saturated fats on Friday night, on Monday my brain still won’t know when my body’s had enough food.  I guess this explains why it’s so hard to get back on track after a weekend of bingeing.  And, now that I think about it, why it’s probably NOT a good idea to eat your way through the wekeend before you start a new diet.  You’re literally setting yourself up to fail.

This study was conducted in rats, of course, but it makes sense to me.  Actually, I know it’s true, from personal experience.  I am a member of Weight Watchers, and I weigh in on Thursday nights.  Following my Thursday night meeting, I am starving.  Sometimes I eat pizza, wings, ice cream, etc. that night, telling myself I’ll get back on track in the morning.  Other nights, however, I stay completely on program and have a healthy dinner. Guess what happens.

The weeks that I pig out, I can’t really get back on program until Sunday or Monday.  I am ravenously hungry all weekend, and I cannot control what I eat (I know this sounds completely stupid, but this is why I have always had a weight problem).  The weeks I eat normally, I can stay on program all weekend, even while eating out.  Now, I know exactly why that is, and I will hopefully be able to apply this new knowledge in the future.

Here’s the full press release, from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Fat Rat