Fool-proof artisan bread

I've been perfecting a no-knead artisan bread for the past 7 years. I've combined recipes and techniques from the New York Times no-knead bread and the book Artisan bread in 5 minutes a day. I've got it down to a science now.

This recipe takes only a few minutes. It requires NO kneading. And it's almost impossible to mess up.

The bread is deliciously chewy and bubbly in the inside, with a thick, crackly crust. It keeps well for several days wrapped in a kitchen towel or linen bread bag. 

You don't need to be around for 3-4 hours to make this bread. It takes maybe one minute to mix the night before or, in a pinch, first thing in the morning. Then, when you're ready to bake the bread, another minute to form the loaves. And no waiting for the bread to rise: as soon as the oven is hot, the bread is ready to bake!

How does it work? I theorize that it's a combination of a wet dough, a long fermentation (hence the small amount of yeast), and the steam created in the oven. Instead of creating gluten strands by kneading the dough, you simply let the gluten form by itself during the long overnight rise. The amazing crust develops as the wet dough and the steam on the outside work their magic. And, because of the long rise, you get a more complex flavor--not as strong as a true sourdough, but much better than conventional homemade bread.

Here's how to make my bread:

American recipe

• 3 cups hot tap water
• 1 Tbsp salt
• 1/2 tsp yeast (up to 1 tsp if your yeast is old/weak)
• 1 tsp malted barley flour (optional)
• ~ 6 3/4 cups flour (I usually use 1 cup whole wheat & 5 3/4 cups white flour. You can use more whole wheat, but the bread will become more dense.)

Metric recipe:

• 650 ml hot tap water (not scalding)
• 1 Tbsp salt
• 1/2 tsp yeast (up to 1 tsp if your yeast is old/weak)
• 1 tsp malted barley flour (optional)
• 150 whole wheat flour
• 850 g flour

You can also add other ingredients into the dough: nuts, dried fruits, flax seeds, etc.

Step 1: Mix the dough the night before
Choose a large container with a lid. Mix together the ingredients until you have a wet, sticky dough. No wetter than this: see how it looks almost shaggy? It needs a bit more flour

I added at least 1/4 cup more flour. This dough pictured below is perfect. It holds its shape in the bowl, but when you pinch it, it comes away sticky. If the dough is dry enough to knead, you've added too much flour. You should NOT be able to knead it!

Cover the bowl with a lid or plastic wrap.

Step 2: Folding
I recently started folding my dough 3-4 times after I mix it. You can make this bread without folding, but adding this step greatly improves the dough's elasticity and gluten network, meaning the bread will rise better and with bigger air bubbles.

About 45 minutes after mixing the dough, wet your hands. Grab the dough from the outside edge of the bowl, lift up until right before the breaking point, and fold towards the center. Go around the edge of the bowl and do 8 folds. Cover the dough.

Repeat the folding every 45 or so minutes, 3-4 times total.

Step 3: Cover and let rise overnight
* Accelerated version: put the dough in a warmed oven and let rise 4-8 hours, until it's ready. I often do this in the morning if I've forgotten to make the dough the night before.

I've also found that you can mix the dough first thing in the morning, and it will be ready to bake by the evening, especially if the room is on the warm side.

If you mix it in the morning but won't have time to get to it until the next day, put the dough in the fridge after the folding steps. Take it out the next day and let the dough come back to room temperature before baking.

Step 4: The dough is ready when it looks like bubbly pancake batter (unfolded) or full of big, unpopped air bubbles (folded)
Normally this would be the next day. It's typically ready in the morning unless your house is very cold. You can bake your bread any time during the day.

Unfolded:

Folded:

Step 5: Time to bake bread! Turn the oven to 450 F or 230 C
Put an old pan on the bottom rack of the oven. This will be where you pour water so the loaves cook in a steam oven. It will get lots of mineral deposits, so don't use a nice pan!

Step 6: Sprinkle generously with flour and gently scoop the dough away from the sides
I probably use between 1/4 - 1/2 cup. You'll want lots of flour because the dough is VERY sticky.

Try to leave as many of the air bubbles intact. 

Step 7: Form the loaves on parchment paper or a silicone baking mat
The key is to handle the dough as little as possible. The more air bubbles you leave, the better the end result. I usually tuck the loaves under 2-3 times and that's it.

If you're making baguettes, let the bread dangle as you tuck, as I'm doing in this photo.

You can either put the parchment/silicone on a flat baking sheet and put the combination in the oven. Or if you have a pizza stone warming in the oven, slide the parchment/silicone onto the stone when it's ready to bake.

Step 8: Sprinkle generously with flour and wait for the oven to reach full temperature
The loaves are ready to bake once the oven is hot.

If you forget about your bread, it can rise for up to 2 hours and still turn out fine. I've done this many times :) If the loaves have flattened out too much, gently tuck them under once. You really can't mess this bread up!

Step 9: Right before putting the bread in the oven, slash loaves with a serrated knife.
Diagonal, criss-cross, X, concentric rings....whatever you like

Step 10: Pour a glass of water into the old pan on the bottom rack.

Step 11: Bake for ~35 minutes
The loaves will rise a lot as they bake, so don't be worried if they look funny, lumpy, or small when they go in the oven. Aim for a dark brown crust.

Step 12: Eat. Preferably hot. With lots of butter.

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Christmas meal at a French public school

This Thursday our public school served a special Christmas meal for lunch. When I read Zari's menu, I had a "we're not in Kansas anymore moment." You'd never see anything like this back home!

Au menu de Noël:

Bagel de saumon fumé et ses légumes croquants

~

Quenelle de brochet, sauce américaine à la bisque de homard

~

Riz pilaf (bio)

~

"Ma bûche créative!"

sur la base d'une bûche patissière traditionelle

~

Clémentine

~

Chocolat de Noël

Christmas menu:

Bagel with smoked salmon and crisp vegetables

~

Pike quenelle with tomato-wine sauce and lobster bisque

~

Organic rice pilaf

~

"Decorate your own Yule Log!"

on a traditional Yule log pastry

~

Clementine

~

Christmas chocolate

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Merry Christmas and 9 months for Ivy!

A cold, snowy day in Minnesota made a lovely Christmas.

Ivy turned 9 months old today. Her biggest milestone this month is eating solid foods. She began with little tastes a few weeks ago, and now she's an enthusiastic eater. We do solid foods the lazy way and feed babies little bits of whatever we're eating. No mushing or pureeing, no nasty flavorless prepared baby foods. It's easy and exposes young children to a large range of flavors right away.

Here's a peek at what she ate today:

Breakfast: homemade waffles, strawberries, pineapple, cantaloupe, blackberries, grapes
Lunch: vegetable chowder, homemade bread, clementine, lebkuchen (German spice cookie)
Dinner: bell pepper, cracker, pomegranate seeds (I popped them inside her mouth to get the juice out), homemade macaroni & cheese, roast beef, sparkly grape juice (because it's Christmas!), more fresh fruit

She loves having cousins and grandparents around. She's super mobile and cruises the furniture very quickly. We don't have smartphones or tablets at home, so she's enthralled with all the electronic devices her relatives have. Touchscreen technology is amazing and so intuitive. Maybe some day we will get a tablet or a fancy phone...maybe...

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Food, squared

Tonight we had simple but extraordinarily delicious dinner: Dijon chicken with new red potatoes (from our garden!). I went back through the steps that created the flavor for the meal. Between using a concentrated broth made from chicken bones & vegetable peelings, caramelizing onions, cooking the chicken legs in a cast-iron skilled on high heat to get a Maillard reaction, using strong French mustard, and then reducing the cooking liquid to a thick sauce, I created a dish with out-of-this-world flavor. Peter Kaminsky, author of Culinary Intelligence, would note that I had created maximum flavor per calorie (FPC).

Kaminsky, a food critic and writer, experienced a rapidly expanding waistline due to his job. He finally hit on some key principles for eating well and maximizing the pleasure we get from our food while maintaining a sustainable weight. He discovered that the more you maximize FPC, the more you are satiated with less. In other words, bland, overly processed foods full of sugars, salts, and fats tend not to satisfy us very well. This leads us to keep eating in pursuit of an unattainable taste. However, foods that are packed with flavor make us feel full and satisfied more quickly. We eat less and we enjoy it more because our taste buds are firing at top speed.

Maximizing FPC is like taking the flavor of the meal and then squaring it. Some things that maximize FPC include grilling, creating a deep brown crust on meats, reducing & concentrating sauces, caramelizing, and using high-FPC ingredients such as Parmesan cheese.

Here's an example of two different ways to cook green beans:
1) boil them until they're cooked, then shake on some table salt (ugh boring)
2) blister them on high heat with olive oil, then add a dash of lemon juice and sea salt (amazing)

Or a roast:
1) Lightly brown a roast, throw in the oven, and cook till overdone, dry, and flavorless
2) Salt & pepper a roast, then deeply brown on all sides in oil. Cook on a wire rack in a very low oven (like 200 F or less) for several hours until the middle is rare/medium rare. You'll have a tender roast that's bursting with flavor.

Maximing FPC isn't necessarily difficult, expensive, or time-consuming. You just need to know what to do. For that, Kaminsky's book is a good primer.

Here's the recipe for Dijon chicken, adapted from a French recipe using rabbit.

Chicken
~ 3-4 lbs chicken pieces, preferably with skin on
butter
2 onions, chopped
2 cups white wine
a few cups vegetable or chicken broth
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard (if you can, buy the strongest French imported mustard you can find. It should read "moutarde de Dijon forte")
salt & pepper

Mustard cream sauce:
2/3 c cream or half & half
1/4 c Dijon mustard
tarragon

Salt & pepper the chicken. Brown in a cast iron skillet until deep golden on all sides. Set aside. Sautee the onions and some butter in the same pan until golden. Add the chicken, salt & pepper, mustard, white wine, and a few cups of broth. Stir to scape up browned bits. Cover and cook for 30-45 minutes until the chicken is very tender.

Remove the chicken and boil the cooking liquid on high until it makes a thick, concentrated sauce.

While you're cooking the chicken, make the mustard cream sauce by putting all 3 ingredients into a saucepan and boiling until reduced by about half. Salt & pepper to taste.

Serve the chicken with the 2 accompanying sauces over potatoes or rice.

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Molten lava science experiment

A few days ago, I was browsing through some clearance bins at the grocery store and saw a package of Betty Crocker Decadent Supreme Chocolate Molten Lava Cake mix. I haven't made a cake from a box in decades (I think cake mixes taste disgusting, and making something from scratch doesn't take much longer anyway.) But it was marked down about 75%. Perfect for doing a science experiment.

I had a group of friends coming over that night for a wine & chocolate night (or as we like to call it, wine & chocolate--and sparkling juice for the Mormons & pregnant women--night). It's basically an excuse to stay up way too late, eat lots of chocolate, and have girl talk. I had originally planned on making a dark chocolate tart, but when I saw the molten lava mix, had a better idea: a blind taste-test of the boxed mix versus a homemade version.

I had a hard time choosing which molten lava recipe to use. They all are variations on the same theme--chocolate, butter, flour, sugar, & eggs--but which one to use? The one with 3 eggs or 6? Do I bake at 350 or 400 or 450? 8 minutes or 14 minutes? I ended up combining two recipes and came up with this:

8 oz dark chocolate (60% cocoa)
1 cup butter
1/3 c sugar
1/2 c flour
4 eggs
2 egg yolks
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

I put the cake mix into 9 muffin tins and the homemade version into 12 ramekins.

I baked both at 400. The cake mix version was in muffin tins and the "real" version in ramekins. The mix baked for 11 minutes and the ramekins for 13. I baked them until the tops just started to puff up (which in retrospect was too long).

The verdict:
The cake mix version was less overbaked and had a bit of the "molten lava" texture in the center, whereas the homemade version was way overdone and the centers were entirely firm. The homemade version was also very eggy tasting--so I'd definitely go for a recipe with about 3 eggs, not 6.

During the blind taste test, many of the people said they preferred the texture of #1 (the mix) but the richer, less sweet taste of #2 (the homemade version). It was pretty easy to tell which was which, because #1 was so, so sweet. It tasted just like brownies from a mix, just runnier. Total sugar shock on your tongue. Plus my friends know that I like really dark chocolate and that I would never make something so sweet.

It's ironic that this molten lava mix even exists. The process is almost identical in both recipes: melt butter & chocolate together, add eggs & dry ingredients, and bake. The boxed version has a bag of dry ingredients (sugar, flour, & cocoa powder), whereas the homemade version has you scoop the flour and sugar yourself. Such a difficult task, isn't it?

Lessons learned from this science experiment:

• Take the molten lava cakes out of the oven before the tops start to puff up.
• Don't underfill the ramekins or muffin cups--I should have put the homemade version into 8, not 12, ramekins. 
• Choose a recipe with 3 eggs per 8 oz of chocolate, rather than 6 eggs
• Ramekins release the cakes much better than non-stick muffin tins (I greased both before putting the batter in)
• Don't skimp on the sugar. Even if you're totally addicted to super-dark chocolate--I eat 85% and even 70% tastes too sweet to me--you need enough sugar to make the cakes taste right. 1/3 cup might have been a bit too little; I might up it to 1/2 cup.

I'm ready now to make version #3, which I hope will be the ultimate chocolate molten lava cake. All in the name of science, of course. Stay tuned for the results.

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What's for dinner?

In November, I and two other families started a dinner co-op, which I wrote about here. We were all so happy when the holidays were over and we could start it up again! I'll be keeping an updated list of our weekly menus on this post, if anyone needs dinner inspiration.

America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook = ATK
The Complete America's Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook 2001-2012 = CTV
Comfort Food Fast = CFF
Cook's Illustrated = CI

This week's menu:
Me: Country tomato bisque, artisan bread with caramelized onions rolled up inside, dark chocolate brownies
O Family: raw veggie spring rolls with Thai peanut sauce; noodle stir fry with tofu, peanuts, carrots, and broccoli; gingersnaps

Previous weeks:
Me: Quinoa "mac & cheese", roasted garlic lemon broccoli, artisan bread
Me: hearty Tuscan bean soup (CTV), braised green beans (ATK), cranberry-orange bread, garlic-rubbed toast

Me: BBQ beef with caramelized onions, cranberry-orange bread (ATK)

Me: White bean & garlic soup, quinoa pilaf with apples & almonds, braised carrots with lemon, honey, & thyme (all recipes from ATK)


Me: Peruvian chicken with spicy mayonnaise, roasted crispy potatoes, raw vegetables (recipes from CI).

Me: French onion soup (CTV), artisan bread, salad with goat cheese & sweet peppers, lemon pound cake.

O Family: Thai noodles & vegetables in peanut sauce, fruit salad, banana bread.

Me: White chicken chili topped with a "salsa" made of red onions, raw apple cider vinegar, raw sugar, paprika, celery seed, lemon juice, and salt; saffron rice pilaf; broccoli, cabbage, & carrow slaw.
O Family: green peppers stuffed with brown rice, zucchini, and raisins and topped with sour cream, chives, and almonds; broccoli carrot soup; artisan bread.

Me: Roasted butternut squash soup (the recipe is fairly complex, but it's really, really good), artisan no-knead bread, vegan chocolate cake (similar to the Moosewood recipe)


P Family: roast chicken, roasted root vegetables, green salad

Me: split green lentils with tomatoes; saffron rice pilaf with raisins and cashews (both recipes from Indian Home Cooking by Raghavan Iyer, which I highly recommend); artisan bread

Me: potato, bacon, & mushroom soup topped with cheddar cheese; artisan bread; baby spinach with feta cheese.
O Family: Thai peanut stirfy on basmati rice; pumpkin cake
P Family: spinach/ricotta/mushroom calzone; salami/olive/mozzarella calzone; homemade marinara sauce; oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

Me: country tomato bisque; artisan baguette, leftover Blessingway cake (they didn't mind!)
O Family: egg, sausage, onion, & green pepper bake; banana coconut cream pie
P Family: barley, lamb, & carrot stew; green salad; bread
Me: black beans, quinoa, zucchini, tomatoes, avocados & green onions with a lime/olive oil/Tabasco dressing; butternut squash spice cake (I halved the brown sugar & dusted the top with powdered sugar); corn bread with whole corn mixed in
O Family: bean & beef chili topped with cheddar & sour cream; cornbread; green salad with blue cheese & red onions

P Family: [can't remember...]; green salad with fresh mozzarella & sunflower seeds
Me: whole wheat Belgian waffles; raspberry and blueberry syrups; whipped cream; salmon quiche
O Family: broccoli soup; olive bread; glazed carrots
P Family: spinach & mushroom souffle with tomato-balsamic topping; green salad with fresh mozzarella & tomatoes

Me: split pea soup, artisan bread; green salad with sugar snap peas and fresh mozzarella; Lebkuchen (German spice cookie, recipe from my German grandmother)
O Family: barley & vegetable soup; bread; broccoli and cauliflower in a garlic & herb sauce
P Family: curry with mushrooms & butternut squash; rice; pumpkin bread

Me: Moroccan lentil soup; fresh pineapple; homemade artisan bread; green salad with red onions, cranberries, & Gorgonzola
O Family: Indian vegetable curry; basmati rice; peach strudel
P Family: chicken & vegetable pot pie with puff pastry crust; green salad with red onions, feta, sunflower seeds, & Greek olives

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Dinner co-ops

4 pm is my witching hour. Naps and quiet time are over. The kids need to run around and play. They're also hungry. It's time to start thinking about dinner. I go through the same mental routine just about every afternoon:  

Great, I have no idea what we're going to eat tonight. I could make _______ if only I weren't out of ______ (beans, milk, eggs, onions, etc). My blood sugar is low and I need to eat soon. The kids are restless. I wish food would magically appear so I could just spend the afternoon outside, rather than keeping my energetic children in the kitchen and trying to cook while they're whining and begging for something to eat and throwing fistfuls of flour onto the floor....

A month ago, I decided to do something about my dinnertime frustrations. I enjoy cooking--when I don't have children to look after and when I have all the ingredients on hand. I especially enjoy eating good food and trying new flavors. How could I find a way to enjoy cooking, to eat good meals, and to avoid the 4pm doldrums?

I invited two other families to join a dinner co-op. Once a week, we cook and deliver a meal to the other families. Then twice a week, we have dinner delivered to us. We kept our rules simple:

• Meals should be healthy and balanced
• Dessert is optional
• Dinner delivered by 5:30 pm

We are all adventuresome in our cooking and enjoy a wide variety of flavors and foods. None of us eat a lot of meat, so we decided to keep the meals mainly vegetarian. The co-op runs every other weekday on Mon/Wed/Fri. We all live within 5 blocks of each other, so delivery only take about 5-10 minutes. To have enough dishes & containers for both families, I stocked up at a local thrift store.

Here's a rundown of the past two weeks of meals:

• Me: Chipotle black beans with masa dumplings & greens; garlic rice; mesclun topped with with avocados, toasted pumpkin seeds, bacon, queso fresco, & honey/lime/chili dressing.
• The O Family: Thai-style stir fry (lots of veggies & fried tofu) with peanut sauce; basmati rice; pear crumble.
• The P Family: Indian dal (lentil) dish; homemade naan; sauteed vegetables.
• Me: Meatloaf Wellington (a small amount of local pastured beef, herbs, and lots of grated potatoes, carrots, & onions, topped with a crust); arugula & tomato salad; lemon tart.
  
• The O Family: Butternut squash risotto with parmesan (Cook's Illustrated recipe...mmmm....); sauteed green beans; chocolate chip cookies.
• The P Family: Enchiladas stuffed with sauteed zucchini, beans, & cheese; salad with fresh mozzarella, red onions, cherry tomatoes, and homemade dressing.

I LOVE the dinner co-op! Love it! Once a week, I get to cook a meal that I'm really excited about--and prepared for. Then twice a week, a delicious hot dinner magically arrives at my doorstep. I rarely need to cook on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because we often have leftovers. And on weekends, Eric can cook.

Dinnertime has turned from the bane of my existence into something I really look forward to--both the days I cook and the days I receive meals.

On the menu for next week: wild rice soup (I'm a Minnesotan, after all!), homemade bread, and either a salad or dessert. 

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Caterpillar cake

This summer, we found a big, fat caterpillar in our garden that looked like this.

Zari still talks about it. When I asked her what kind of cake she'd like, she first said "a soccer ball cake!" That was the cake of chioce for her second and third birthdays. But then she decided that she'd really like a caterpillar cake. I can do caterpillars.

We baked the cake and cupcakes on Friday and put them in the freezer; there are fewer crumbs when you apply frosting to a frozen cake. I did the initial frosting on Saturday night and the final decorations this afternoon before her birthday party. Here's the caterpillar cake:

The cake is a dense dark chocolate wedding cake with a raspberry filling (raspberries, cornstarch, & a small amount of sugar), baked in a Bundt pan. I cut the cake into two pieces and arranged them in an S-shape. The caterpillar is decorated with green cream cheese frosting and red raspberry filling. The "dirt" is cake crumbs and crushed graham crackers, held in place by a thin chocolate icing. I had lots of raspberry filling left over, so it went on the cupcakes.

It was a lovely crisp fall day, so we stayed outside the whole afternoon.

 

 Dio enjoyed the cupcakes.

Happy 4th birthday Zari!

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How to make maple syrup

1. Find a sugar maple tree.
2. Wait until the temperatures start to rise above freezing during the day. This just happened last week where I live. You might also notice sap starting to drip from the trees--another sign that it's maple syrup season.
3. Drill a hole in the south side of the tree, angled slightly upwards. I used a 1/2" drill bit.
4. Insert a maple syrup tap and gently hammer in until snug.
5. Attach a container to the tap. I use a short piece of tubing to make sure the sap goes where it should.
6. Collect the sap and strain through a thin cloth (this will filter out insects, bits of bark, etc).
7. Boil. Boil. Boil. Boil. Boil until all the windows in your house steam up. Keep adding more sap to the pan as the liquid evaporates. You'll be boiling off approximately 25 to 1. For every 25 cups of sap, you'll get about 1 cup of syrup.
8. When it's close to being done, check every 10-15 minutes. You don't want to burn the syrup!
9. The syrup is done when it starts to bubble up and foam.
10. Pour into hot, sterilized jar with a sealing lid such as a canning jar. I also reuse glass jelly and syrup jars. Refrigerate syrup after opening.

I installed these taps today around noon. The maple tree was big enough for two taps. By 7 pm, I had collected 3 gallons of sap; this yielded 1 cup of maple syrup. It's delicious!

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Musings on food

Earlier this week I was listening to an NPR program interviewing Michael Pollan (author of several books on food, including The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto). During the half-hour broadcast, Pollan discussed the phenomenon of Cooking as a Spectator Sport. As he noted in his recent cover story in The New York Times Magazine, Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch, cooking shows are wildly popular, yet at the same Americans are spending less and less time cooking.

This reminded me of the discussion in my recent post about home birth including EnjoyBirth's Restaurant Wars analogy. Is it so preposterous that in the future, home cooking will be as quaint and antiquated and rare as home birth? Probably not to the same extent, yet American culture is moving further away from food as it exists in its original state. Meat comes shrink-wrapped in styrofoam trays. Milk comes from plastic bottles or stainless steel dispensing machines. You can buy aerosol cheese products that last indefinitely, macaroni & cheese mixes featuring a mysterious neon orange powder that claims to be 100& natural because it was, in the distant past, derived from a cow. Vegetables are disguised as much as possible in various processed food products, and marketed to both kids and parents for their invisibility. Look! Your kids won't even know there are vegetables in the sauce!

At the same time that many Americans subsist on a diet of foods far removed from the original plants, grains, nuts, or meats they began as, there are countercurrents that challenge this trend: community-supported agriculture, the Slow Food movement, organic agriculture, backyard gardens, raw foodism...Many of these foodways have their own demons to face. Organic agriculture can mean a small, sustainable farm growing vegetables for its CSA members--but it can also mean industrialized monoculture farms that ship their produce thousands of miles away to high-priced natural food stores that most normal people can't afford to shop at. Raw foodists advocate eating foods that have not been altered by heat, with the belief (gross oversimplification here) that heat destroys many of the important properties of food, rendering it less nutritious and therefore "dead." I've read quite a bit about the raw food movement and follow several blogs about it. I find myself fascinated and repelled at the same time. I am sure that eating more raw food would greatly benefit people's health. However, I'm not as convinced that it's the rawness per se that does it, rather than the fact that eating raw forces you to eat fresh, unprocessed, whole foods. And the whole side of raw food that preaches a strict binary of raw=good and cooked=bad really turns me off. Not to mention that going 100% raw is not a very ecologically friendly or sustainable way of eating--for much of the year, you have to consume large quantities of out-of-season produce shipped in from thousands of miles away. I've been musing about this a lot recently, since I've been trying to add more raw/fresh fruits and vegetables into my diet and thus have been browsing around raw food websites for recipes and ideas.

Which leads me to another point in my meandering train of thought: Americans are simultaneously obsessed with and terrified of their food. Fat is bad. Carbs are bad. Too much protein is bad. Cooked food is bad. Raw food is bad. Dairy is bad. Cholesterol is bad. Eating the wrong combination of food is bad. Calories are bad. It's always about the "bad" elements lurking in your food that must be avoided.

Except for this year, I have spent every summer for the past nine years in France, where the food and food culture can only be described as divine. I've had lengthy conversations with bus drivers and chauffeurs about the virtues of home-grown tomatoes. I've eaten everyday food at friends' houses that makes you think you've died and gone to heaven. Farmer's markets are everywhere, from the largest city to the smallest village, year-round. American supermarkets have entire aisles dedicated to carbonated beverages and potato chips. French supermarkets have an aisle full of yogurt. Another entire aisle of just cheese, half of it raw, much of it from animals other than cows. Another of smoked/raw/cured meats and sausages. Yes, industrialized farming and fast food and processed foods (and the concurrent rise in obesity, especially among children) are becoming a problem in France. But still, food in France is something to look forward to, not something to be feared. It's a powerful social bond. For many families, the family dinner remains sacred. French people eat all sorts of "bad" foods that Americans would gasp at: heavy cream, chocolate, butter, cheese, raw meats and seafood, organ meats. And they enjoy them. What's the difference? They don't eat twelve eclairs in one sitting or sit on a couch munching mindlessly on foie gras. They eat a wide variety of foods: some cooked, some raw, some animal, some plant, some fatty, some lean. And they derive great pleasure from them.

Back to Michael Pollan: of all the philosophies about food, I find his eater's manifesto the most brilliant of all. Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. It is simple and incredibly flexible, wide enough to encompass diverse foodways. It doesn't advocate any one way of eating as the only right/ethical/healthy approach to food.

For dinner tonight, we ate a simple meal. It was hot, 90+ degrees and extremely humid. We'd been outside in the back yard for several hours, and I wasn't in the mood for anything too heavy or elaborate. We prepared a simple salad of beet greens, mache, tomatoes, cucumbers, and hard boiled eggs (mostly from our garden or the farmer's market). I made a quick risotto with sauteed onions, saffron, jasmine rice, and parmesan cheese. Zari wolfed down her egg before we even had time to say the blessing on the food. She asked for "black sauce" (balsamic vinegar) for dipping her vegetables. She ate all of her rice and snitched some of mine. I hope to teach Zari to love her food--real food, not processed imitation junk--not to fear it. So far, I think we're on the right track.

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Dirt is good, corn syrup is bad...

I just had to share these two news articles that just came out. In Babies Know: A Little Dirt Is Good for You, Jane E. Brody discusses recent research finding a positive connection between a "dirty" environment--dirt, intestinal worms, and bacteria--and lower autoimmune and gastrointestinal disorders. Improved sanitation comes with a price:

In studies of what is called the hygiene hypothesis, researchers are concluding that organisms like the millions of bacteria, viruses and especially worms that enter the body along with “dirt” spur the development of a healthy immune system. Several continuing studies suggest that worms may help to redirect an immune system that has gone awry and resulted in autoimmune disorders, allergies and asthma.
These studies, along with epidemiological observations, seem to explain why immune system disorders like multiple sclerosis, Type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and allergies have risen significantly in the United States and other developed countries.

Some suggestions for those of us fortunate to live in developed countries with access to safe drinking water: avoid using antibacterial soaps or cleaning products, wash hands in plain soap & water, let kids go barefoot and play in the dirt, and have a mixture of household pets.

So now that we've learned why worms, dirt, and bacteria are good for you, let's talk about high-fructose corn syrup. We already know it's not exactly good for us, but two new studies have found mercury to be present in HFCS. From an article in the Washington Post, Study Finds High-Fructose Corn Syrup Contains Mercury:

Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.

HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods such as breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average.

"Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high-fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply," said the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Dr. David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies.

Yikes! Now there are very few foods in our house that would contain HFCS. We make almost everything from scratch, so the only culprits in the fridge would be condiments like ketchup or mustard. This makes me thankful for parents who taught me good eating and cooking habits. If taste, nutrition, or price aren't enough to convince people to make more of their own food themselves, perhaps mercury-contaminated HFCS will.

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Lunch & lecture with Joel Salatin

Today Zari and I met Eric on campus to attend a lecture by Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farm. He is the "grass farmer" featured in The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. If you haven't yet read Pollan's book, he wrote an excellent article in Mother Jones about Salatin's farm, called No Bar Code.

The lecture was accompanied by a free lunch consisting of locally-grown foods. We feasted on:

• locally grown organic hybrid beefsteak tomato salad with herb vinaigrette
• baguettes & whole grain house made brioche made from local stone ground whole wheat flour
• local barbecued pulled pork shoulder
• free range chicken salad
• local house cut sweet potato chips
• local berries in the snow (delicious crumbly crust topped with creamy sweet goat cheese filling & berries)

Joel Salatin's speaking style was fiery with lots of rhetorical flourishes, waxing evangelical at times. It was enjoyable if a bit surprising; I had imagined him as more of a soft-spoken man. I didn't end up going to his evening lecture, but I imagine it was likewise well-attended. Many thanks to the campus organization Students for Sustainability that sponsored this event!

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