5 second rule

Is this where we're headed?

  

photo by ewen and donabel, reprinted under a Creative Commons License

The front page of today's New York Times features an article on the use of sucrose in Similac Organic baby formula:

Parents may be buying it because they believe organic is healthier, but babies may have a reason of their own for preferring Similac Organic: it is significantly sweeter than other formulas.  It is the only major brand of organic formula that is sweetened with cane sugar, or sucrose, which is much sweeter than sugars used in other formulas.

So there are several interesting issues raised here:

1. Many people continue to equate the term "organic" with "healthy" even though "organic" simply means that a food contains ingredients grown without the use of certain pesticides or herbicides.  (Let's not forget that you can buy organic junk food.)  Organics may be better for the earth, but that doesn't mean that every organic product is necessarily the most nutritious choice.  If I had the ability to draw a Venn diagram here to underscore my point, I would. 

2.  Sugar is sugar is sugar, right?  Well, not necessarily.  As the debate over high fructose corn syrup continues to rage, experts differ in their beliefs over how various sugars (HFCS, sucrose, lactose, fructose) affect the body.  I choose to avoid HFCS. If I were bottle-feeding an infant, I'd now have to decide whether to avoid a sucrose-sweetened formula as well.

3.  Is there an element of corporate greed here?   Organic sucrose costs Similac's makers less than the organic lactose used by its competitors.  (Lactose is also thought to better approximate breast milk.)  Economists (you know who you are), please weigh in on the subject of corporate responsibility versus improving the bottom line.

4.  The article also points out that a taste for sweet is established very young. When taken to its logical extreme, drinking a super-sweetened formula may encourage children both to overeat in infancy and to continue preferring sweeter foods once they're weaned. 

5.  The EU has decided to ban sucrose-sweetened formulas by the end of next year.  The EU, in fact, bans many things that the FDA has traditionally considered safe (like genetically modified foods).

Where do you stand?

Resurrection

As I transition from the printed page to the web, I'm taking real pleasure in sharing my food with an audience that talks back. 

To encourage further communication and to take our relationship to the next level, I've recently added some new functionality: clickable, printable pdfs for every recipe; categories so you can easily locate topics of interest; a "share this" button so you can email posts to your friends; and a search box to help you find what you're looking for. 

You may have noticed that the titles of my posts often bear little resemblance to the recipes therein, so the search capability may prove particularly useful.  ("I really liked that banana bread recipe, but I can't remember if the post was called 'I'll take exotic fruits for $500, Alex' or 'A 9-letter exception.") 

(The latter.)

(Obviously.)

Today's dish draws inspiration from the very first recipe I ever published, way back in 2004, in the San Jose Mercury News.  I created a parfait using a mixture of sweetened ricotta and mascarpone cheeses (dubbed 'cannoli cream' after my favorite Italian pastry), layering it with gingery peaches and crushed amaretti cookies. 

I'm resurrecting the cream here as a filling for crepes -- cheater-blintzes, if you will.  They're actually the ideal way to use up the leftover ricotta from the Lemon-Ricotta Waffles you clearly made last weekend. 

The crepes take a bit of time to prepare but aren't difficult.  You can always cook them while, I don't know, your spouse sleeps in and your kids play Wii. 

I'm just saying.

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Recipe for Weekend Crepes with Cannoli Cream

These crepes are a lazy man's blintz.  Try to make the cream first so it comes to room temp by the time you're ready to eat. 

Makes 16 filled crepes

For the cannoli cream:

1/2 cup mascarpone cheese

2/3 cup ricotta (whole milk or part-skim, not nonfat please)

3 teaspoons sugar

For the crepes:

3 eggs

1 cup milk

1/4 cup water

1 tablespoon brandy (optional, but nice if you have it)

1 cup flour

3 tablespoons melted butter, cooled slightly, plus an additional tablespoon for brushing the pan

Maple syrup, for serving

 

Make the cannoli cream: Combine the mascarpone, ricotta, and sugar in a mixer and blend for 30 seconds or until smooth and well combined.  (You can also do this by hand.)  Let stand at room temperature while you make the crepes.

Make the crepes:  Throw the eggs, milk, water, brandy (if using), flour, and 3 tablespoons melted (and cooled) butter into a blender and process until smooth.

Heat a 7" nonstick skillet or crepe pan over medium high heat.  When drops of water sizzle and evaporate, brush the crepe pan with a thin sheen of melted butter.  Tilt the pan forward, add roughly 2 tablespoons of batter to the lip of the pan, and quickly swirl to coat.  This takes practice.  (Eat your mistakes.)

Cook until the underside is golden brown and lacy, about 20-40 seconds, then flip and cook the other side about 30 second longer.  (The cook time varies based on the heat of your pan.)  Stack the crepes directly on top of one another. Brush the pan with additional melted butter between each crepe and repeat until you've used up all the batter.

To fill, place one crepe on a plate.  Dollop 1 tablespoon of cannoli cream into the lower quadrant of your crepe.  Fold down the top, then fold in the side, making a little triangular package.

Serve with warm maple syrup.

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I'll take the burger, the fries, and a large Orwell, please

 

Photo by Bonnie Burton, reprinted under a Creative Commons License

I've got no beef with technology.  That said, the increasingly automated nature of certain segments of the food industry does give me pause. A recent article from the Canadian Broadcasting Centre (CBC) introduces us to HyperActive Bob, a robot designed to minimize the involvement of actual people during the fast food experience.  According to the article's author, "Despite being one of the world's largest industries, fast food restaurants still depend far too much on human involvement..."

Far too much on human involvement, eh? Without human involvement a fast food restaurant is essentially a vending machine.  With a drive-through.

Enter Bob, a robotic sensor mounted on a restaurant's rooftop that detects incoming traffic and tells the staff to start cooking.  I know you haven't decided what to order yet, but Bob isn't concerned with such trivialities.

"While early versions of the system tried to profile vehicles and guess what the occupants might order -- a minivan entering the lot could indicate children approaching, for example -- Bob now works on statistics derived solely on traffic volumes."

Woah, not so fast there, Sally.  This early version may have been abandoned, but it still provokes THE SHIVERS that someone tried to predict my order based on the make and model of my car. 

And there's more.  McDonald's in Venezuela uses biometrics -- sensors reading fingerprints and handprints -- to confirm that employees have actually reported to work.  "'You'd save not just on payroll expenses but on supervision,' says Peter Cheesman, marketing director for the International Biometric Group in New York.  'If you don't need someone watching people clock in and clock out... you can save thousands of man hours.'" 

I bet you can. And we may very well be at a point in our society where biometrics have their place -- in airports, perhaps, and certainly at nuclear power plants.  But at a burger joint? 

Really?

A 9-letter exception

To those of you who stood by me as I unloaded yesterday about the state of the world, I offer you gratitude in the form of banana bread.  And if you've been reading this blog since its inception, you know that I generally avoid eating chocolate before lunch.  Well, screw it.  I make an exception for banana bread, but that's only because 1) it's filled with bananas, 2) bananas have potassium, 3) chocolate has nine letters, and 4) so does potassium. 

Logic has never been my strong suit.

The inspiration for this banana bread came directly from the cookbook Baking Illustrated by the editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine to which, for the record, I no longer hold a subscription.  But I do like the baking book for its trustworthy recipes, even if I can't help tinkering with them on occasion. 

Recently, a half-opened bag of almond meal fell out of the freezer and landed on my foot.  Instead of putting it back, I put it in banana bread, which seemed a perfectly reasonable plan of action. 

The original recipe, which can be found online here at Leite's Culinaria, is excellent, and you'd certainly be happy with it as is.  But because the almond meal wounded my 5th metatarsal, I had no choice but to use it in this recipe.  I also added some white whole wheat flour.  And almond extract.  And sour cream. And brown sugar.  Oh, and mini chocolate chips.  Sorry, but that's just the way things roll around here.

My version follows.  And if I could make but one further suggestion, it would be to double the recipe and freeze a loaf for later. 

You're welcome.

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Recipe for Exceptional Almond-Scented Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

I use finely ground almond meal (available at Trader Joe's), which gives the bread a wonderfully moist texture but is almost undetectable.  I can guarantee, from parental experience, that even people who don't fancy any crunch in their baked goods will wolf this down and plead for more.

2/3 cup each all-purpose flour, white whole wheat flour, and almond meal

3/4 cup light brown sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 very ripe bananas, shmooshed into oblivion

2 tablespoons each plain yogurt and sour cream (or 1/4 cup of either one)

2 eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten

3/4 stick butter, melted and cooled slightly

1/2 teaspoon each almond extract and vanilla extract

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Coat a loaf pan with nonstick spray and dust it with flour.  Tap out the excess.

In a large bowl, whisk together both flours, almond meal, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt.  In a medium bowl, stir together the shmooshed bananas, yogurt, sour cream, eggs, butter, and both extracts.  Pour the wet ingredients over the dry.  Toss in the mini chocolate chips.

Use a rubber spatula to fold the lot together just until everything is evenly moistened but no further.  Bake for 55 minutes precisely, or until a tester emerges unmarred.  The loaf will be deep brown.  Cool completely before even thinking of unmolding onto a wire rack.

N.B.  Do not be tempted to remove the banana bread from the oven prematurely, or you'll be sorry.  In my pre-professional-banana-bread-making days, many of my loaves sported a strip of raw batter through their central axis.  Patience is a virtue.

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Torn

Today I'm torn.  As much as I'd like to wax poetic about the ripening fruits of summer or the terrific sushi I ate for lunch yesterday, I can't get the images from China's earthquake out of my brain.  Maybe it's the former Peace Corps volunteer in me, but to continue posting without at least acknowledging what has happened in Asia feels cheap and irresponsible.

I understand that we all need escape from the horror of world events, that we deserve moments of levity, and even indulgence, if we're fortunate enough to have dodged tragedy.  But that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it.

Here's an aside, but I promise it's relevant.  When I lived in Eritrea, dogs were everywhere, and one day my husband and I casually mentioned to a few of our students how much fun it would be to have one.  Within hours, a band of kids showed up at our little house with a puppy.  "Here," they offered. "It's yours."

We'd never had a dog before, and dog food was nonexistent in our town.  So we fed her scraps.  Bits of meat, leftover injera, whatever we had, really.  Within days an Eritrean colleague approached us and said, not unkindly, "You realize your neighbors are all talking about your dog.  How you feed her food, meat."  Yes, so?  "They're wondering how you can give meat to this dog when there are hungry children living right around the corner.  Why aren't you bringing meat to them instead?"

Silence. 

Why weren't we bringing meat to them?

...

So today I'm thinking about food writing -- about how spectacular it is to cook, and eat, and reflect, and celebrate farmers and chefs and fresh produce and sweet nut bars.  But in the back of my mind my colleague is there, asking me, challenging me. "Really? Do you really want to write about food today?  When the papers are filled with images of pain, of death, of destruction?"

And today, just today, I'm not sure how to answer.

Cello-bags be gone

Let's be real: carrots can be supremely unexciting.  For years I'd buy the cello-wrapped carrots in the grocery store, and they'd sit in the crisper, turning flaccid and desperate-looking, until I'd finally put them out of their misery and chuck them, deflated, either into a soup pot or directly into the trash.  If I did manage to eat them raw, I'd use them solely as a vehicle for ranch dressing, which I'd then shovel down the hatch with great speed and little affection.

Oh, but how things change.  About a year and a half ago, I visited a stunning farm in Huron, Ohio called the Chef's Garden.  This place is dedicated to providing fine dining chefs with some of the most unusual, and most beautiful, produce I'd ever seen.  (I wrote an article about their affiliated nonprofit, Veggie U, which provides elementary schools with vegetable-growing kits and an earth-to-table science curriculum.)  At the Chef's Garden, the herbs, vegetables, and microgreens forced me to look at these foods in a completely different light. Everything, even their carrots (which you see pictured above), sparkled with personality.

Sure, it's easy to buy bulk carrots from Costco and save wads of cash, or to grab the pre-peeled minis to save a few minutes of effort.  But if you want a carrot that tastes like the sweet earth it came from, I'd either plant your own or buy them directly from those who do.  Seek out weird-looking carrots; often the less uniform in size and more variegated in color, the better the flavor.  If they look perfect, they probably aren't.

We're expecting near triple-digit temperatures in Silicon Valley tomorrow so the chances of my cooking something hot are, let me see, roughly, roundabout, zero.  This salad will be perfect for lunch, and I plan to shovel it down the hatch without a hint of ranch dressing.

Recipe for Heat Wave Carrot Salad with Lemon Chunks

Refreshing, tart, and citrus-y, this salad does farmers' market carrots proud.

3/4 pound carrots, peeled

1 tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf (Italian) parsley

1/3 cup toasted pistachios

1/2" nub goat cheese, crumbled with your fingers

1 medium lemon (use a Meyer lemon if you have one)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon honey

salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

 

Shred the carrots, ideally in a food processor.  Transfer to a large salad bowl.  Stir in the parsley, pistachios, and cheese.

Using a large, sharp knife, cut both ends off the lemon and place it vertically on a cutting board so it is stable.  Carefully cut the skln and white pith from the lemon and discard.  Now free the lemon segments by inserting a paring knife between the membranes.  Cut the segments in half and add them to the salad bowl.  (Discard the membranes.)  Rescue the wayward lemon juice by scraping it from your cutting board into a small bowl for the dressing.  (You should have about 1 tablespoon of juice.)

To complete the dressing, whisk in the oil and honey.  Season with salt and pepper.  Pour over the carrot mixture and stir everything together gently.  Finish with an additional grinding of black pepper.  Serve cold.  On a hot day.

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On second thought, better make that a triple.

photo by colros, reprinted under a Creative Commons License

Legislation is rolling out across our vast land like a runaway donut, and it's bumping people in its path. If you live in New York or any one of a dozen major U.S. cities (including Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle), ordinances either have or will soon be passed that require fast food restaurants to post calorie counts next to every item on their menus.  So you may soon learn, for example, that a Starbucks blueberry muffin sports 410 calories and a Quiznos Large Tuna Melt has more than 1,350.

In response, there's been fussing both from obvious and less obvious corners.  On the one hand, the New York State Restaurant Association fought to strike down the ordinance, emphasizing the undue burden it would place on restaurants.  (As it is, only restaurants with more than 15 chains nationwide fall under the ordinance; the rest are exempt.) Others complain that the "nutrition police" have gone way too far this time, and that if they want to down a 530 calorie Peanut Butter Moo'd from Jamba Juice after working out, then, dammit, they should be allowed to.

As I see it, there are pluses and minuses to the issue.  On the plus side, transparency is always better than obscurity, whether you're talking warning labels on cigarettes, ratings on movies, or calories in a superburrito. People who want to take the information they're given and apply it to their decision-making matrices can do so, and those who choose to ignore it can do that, too. 

But it's a little more complicated.  Calories are but one measure of a food's health profile, and by listing calories to the exclusion of, say, fat grams, or calcium content, or even sodium, you're holding calories up as the end-all, be-all measure of a food's worth.  A diet soda has fewer calories than a cup of skim milk, but that doesn't make it the healthier choice.

Now I'm certainly not suggesting that we crowd menus with copious amounts of nutritional information.  That would be ludicrous, not to mention impractical.  But it is important to realize that the calorie isn't king.  It's but one player in a complex dietary chess game.

In Honor Of Fake National Ricotta Day

Sometimes you want a dainty waffle to eat, pinkies out, while wearing frilly blouses and listening to classical music.  Contrary to appearances, this is not that waffle.  Here's a he-man waffle cloaked in feminine finery, a little froofy garnish masking a substantial, filling interior courtesy of the man of the hour, ricotta cheese. 

In my humble opinion, ricotta merits its own food group.  Anyone who's ever eaten lasagna appreciates the creamy je-ne-sais-quoi this soft, fresh cheese can add to savory dishes, but it also marries well with sweet.  Ricotta fritters showered with powdered sugar?  Mmmm.  A bowlful of fresh, whole milk ricotta drizzled with honey?  Aaaah.

In honor of National Ricotta Day, which I've just made up but decided should be today, I've created these waffles.  Yes, they're scented with lemon and dolled up with zest, but make no mistake: 2 squares of these will fill your belly no matter what your size, gender, or hunger quotient may be.

And if you have other favorite uses for ricotta, please speak up.  In honor of National Ricotta Day and all.

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Recipe for Lemon-Ricotta Waffles

This recipe makes 3 Belgian-waffle-sized waffles, but they are extremely filling.  Therefore, I hereby declare they will feed 6 people. 

2 tablespoons butter

2 cups flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon lemon zest (packed), plus additional for garnish

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1-1/4 cups milk (I used skim)

1/3 cup ricotta (I used part-skim)

1/2 teaspoon each almond, lemon, and vanilla extract

Warm maple syrup, butter, and blueberries, for serving

 

Preheat your waffle iron and coat with nonstick cooking spray.  Melt the butter and set aside to cool.

In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and zest. In another medium bowl (or even a 2-cup glass measure), whisk the eggs, milk, ricotta, extracts, and melted butter.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir to blend.  Do not overmix.  (Batter will be moderately thick.)  Scoop about 1 cup batter in the center of your waffle iron and cook according to standard-wafflemaking procedure.

Serve 2 squares per person (seriously, no more), sprinkled with blueberries, additional lemon zest, butter, and maple syrup.

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Brown Butter Nut Bars, version 3.0

Those who saw the SF Chronicle's food section yesterday probably noticed the review of former Google Chef Charlie Ayers' new cookbook, Food 2.0. Now, let's just say, it's kind of a weird book.  The organization is all willy-nilly, the recipes don't have any headnotes (wuh?), and the juxtaposition of Ayers' commitment to, say, both whole milk and wheatgrass is tough to reconcile.  That said, the photos are quite lovely and Ayers comes off as a real chef, someone so enthusiastic and happily unpolished that his creative juices kind of sploosh all over the place.  And that's refreshing.  It also gives the reader unspoken license to take liberties as well.

And that's what I've done.  I started with his recipe for Coconut Oatmeal Bars with Chocolate Chips and healthified it, but only to an extent.  I swapped in white whole wheat flour for the refined and reduced the amount of butter by just a smidge.  I also browned the butter to give it a nutty, caramelly flavor and took out the coconut, just this once. Finally, to make the bars mid-morning-friendly, I exchanged the chocolate chips for a bevy of mixed nuts.  Now before you grab the mouse and hot-foot it over to another blog, keep in mind that I'm a big fan of the chocolate chip.  We're tight.  We're buds.  But I can't very well nibble a chocolate chippy thing at 10am because who are we kidding -- at that point it's a brownie, or a blondie if you're being technical. 

So here I offer you my version of Ayers' original, perfect for a morning binge.

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Recipe for Brown Butter Nut Bars, version 3.0

I used equal parts hazelnuts, almonds, and pistachios, but you can choose your favorite combination of nuts.  Just be sure to toast them.

[Makes 9 normal-sized squares or 16 minis]

4 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup white whole wheat flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup oats

1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

1 cup mixed nuts (be creative), definitely toasted but also, if desired, coarsely chopped

1 egg

1-1/2 tablespoons canola oil

1/4 teaspoon each vanilla and almond extracts

Preheat oven to 350.  Line an 8"-square baking pan with parchment and coat with nonstick spray.  Set aside.

In a small saucepan, brown the butter.  To the uninitiated, this means melt it over medium-low heat.  Then continue cooking, stirring occasionally with a heatproof rubber spatula, until it turns nut-colored and smells nice and toasty.  Do not let it burn.  Cool.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Stir in oats, brown sugar, and nuts.

In a small bowl, whisk together cooled butter, egg, oil, and extracts.  Pour into sifted mixture and stir well until all flour particles are absorbed.

Transfer to the baking pan and smooth the top.  Bake 23 minutes or thereabouts, until golden brown, firm, and a happy nut-smell pervades the entirety of your house/apartment/neighborhood.  Let cool.  Cut into squares.

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I'll Take Trendy Fruits for $500, Alex

photo by Breno Peck, reprinted under a Creative Commons License

My name is Cheryl, and I drink pomegranate juice.

According to a new report by the Center for Culinary Development, this means I’m trendy. Which is unfortunate. I’d rather be cutting edge, avant-garde, subversive even. But right there in black and white, the report chronicles pomegranates’ speedy four year ascent from fringe to ubiquity. Time to look elsewhere for culinary cachet.

What’s next? It could be the Amazonian palm berry açaí (see photo, above), with its highfalutin accents and inscrutable pronunciation. In fact, the blueberry-voguing fruits already grace 3 separate varieties of Snapple, a sure sign of mainstream infiltration. Mark my words: they’ll soon show up in Diet Coke Plus (“New! With açaí !”) and as the featured ingredient on Top Chef. The TC contestants will go açaí-happy at Whole Foods, loading the fruit into their Toyota Highlanders and whizzing up smoothies in their KitchenAid blenders. In the Top Chef GE Monogram Kitchen. On Bravo. Owned by NBC Universal.

You get my point. Something about the product marketing of everything, even healthful superfruits, leaves me cold.

I guess I could reject it all, but, nah.  Instead of fighting my inner trend-monger I'll embrace her. Snuggle her. I’ll make out with the goji berries and suck face with the CCD’s next picks, the guarana, cupuaçu, acerola, and camu camu.  Just you wait.

Sorry, apples.

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Recipe for Moderately Trendy BlueCherryGranate Smoothie

Serves 1 

1/2 ripe banana, chunked

1/2 cup frozen blueberries

1/2 cup frozen dark sweet cherries (NOT in syrup, please)

1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt

1/2 cup pomegranate-blueberry juice (or straight pom. juice)

2 teaspoons ground flaxseed

Toss ingredients in a blender and whirl.

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