Cheese-zilla

Perhaps the best thing about doing a lot of vegetarian home-cooking is feeling less guilty about smothering everything in cheese.

Everyone has their condiment of choice growing up. Maybe you slathered dreaded green things on your plate with ketchup or mustard? I buried everything in a layer of grated Parmesan. That being said, you can understand the tragedy of living most of my adult life devoid of good pizza. Cheese and bread-lovers, Florida isn’t really a pizza pride type of place (with the exception of some nice work being done on South Beach) and when you move to L.A. they have this nonsense they call “California” pizza. Which means, of course, NOT real pizza. I’m not into nouveau toppings… so keep the caramelized, stuffed whatever whatever to yourself. (One exception–the fried egg pizza at Cube–how I love thee.)

After a particularly long and trying day looking at apartments we couldn’t afford, my boyfriend and I found ourselves in Palo Alto looking for something to eat. We had an assortment of healthy choices (probably lots of “California pizzas”), all packed with hungry patrons. Then, we passed by some serious pizza heaven. This pie looked like it weighed as much as a bulldog . It sat on it’s own elevated serving dish. And as it was sliced, strings of cheese and toppings cascaded from the knife.

“Here. We’re eating here.”

Abandon your diet at the door, folks. In fact, wear your Stanford sweatpants, and get some serious deep dish at Patxi’s. I promise I’ll still try Zachary’s, everyone, but I had to share this stomach-stuffing experience. There are salads on the menu, though I don’t know who comes to a pizza joint looking for a salad, but the interesting thing is that Patxi’s menu is full of sustainably-raised toppings and options for the dietarily-restricted. While the crusts range from thin to double-deep, the choice is obvious, no one in the restaurant is nibbling thin crust.  A double deep takes about 40 minutes to cook but you can call ahead and pick one up half baked to finish at home. And when the server tells you your pie will feed two or three people, he/she means two or three HUNGRY people or perhaps four ordinary people.

From where my boyfriend and I were seated, we could see a line of honey in bear-shaped containers and before I could point out the absence of dessert (not surprising at a pizza place) our waiter suggested we try some honey on the crispy ends of crust. The result is reminiscent of a graham cracker. Yum.

A worthy pie. In California no less.

"After"

photo: lenngrayes via Flickr

A few weeks ago, I watched the season finale of a “food show.” Two teams driving frantically around Miami in food trucks were competing for a grand prize. Very little cooking was shown, but quite a bit of bitching and drama.

Now I’m struggling not to roll my eyes as I zone out to a team of pastry chefs tasked with making a massive cake that depicts a monster truck (a losing battle for both eyes and cake). And last night I fell asleep in front of an ego-crazed New York chef who had to cook appetizers with rainbow fruit candy in order to win 10 grand. I think it’s safe to acknowledge that any food show with the words “extreme” or “war” in the title are not truly worth watching. Is it only offensive to me when a loud twenty-something from Jersey in a magenta tutu apron declares “war” with cupcakes? Yet, “Cupcake Wars” and “Halloween Wars” (Team Bling Bats vs. Team Boo) practically play in a loop on Food Network. Yes, I’m talking about a show where  people bake ingredients like parsley into 1,000 cupcakes to win cash. This followed by a show where chefs compete to be declared a “Sweet Genius” buy creating desserts with surprise ingredients (like squid ink) that arrive on a robotic conveyor belt. (Have I made my point yet?) Reality TV in general is bad enough already, and I don’t know who sat in the focus groups for “Extreme Chef” but honestly no one wants to watch people cook in a simulated wind storm while hurling insults. Well, not anyone I know.

Remember when cooking shows taught people how to cook something? Gave you a few new recipes? I need to figure out what to cook for dinner, what to do with that leftover produce or which wine to serve with an entree. I will never need to know how to cook Skittles into appetizers.

Fortunately, you don’t need to rely on food television for recipes and you don’t  need to go out and buy a collection of cookbooks written by celebrity chefs.  The internet is an expansive resource when it comes to recipe hunting.

Some of my favorite stops for online recipe hunting are Tasting Table, Chow and Serious Eats. Other sites like Gojee and Allrecipes let you search by ingredient. Gojee even lets you add ingredients you don’t want to your search. If you’re in the mood for veg food, as I often am, Fresh365 allows you to search by season or category. Countless recipe blogs await you online.

And if all else fails, call your mother.

Supposedly, they are very easy to grow and frequently take up residence outside farmhouses and by the sides of roads all by themselves and somehow do quite well.  They produce pretty yellow flowers. Some would even consider their ease of existence (and subsequent pervasiveness) on par with that of a weed. Our sunchoke looked so robust when we bought it, it was practically busting out of the plastic pot it came in. We relocated it to a spacious clay pot in lots of sun and thought, “How can we possibly kill it?” My mom has said that she has a knack for killing plants despite the best of intentions and I now wonder if it’s a familial trait given that after just a few weeks of love our sunchoke looked like this:

Sunchoke death knell

I figured it was time we dug it all up and cooked it. Having no idea what to expect, when I first yanked out the giant mass of tangled root and rhizome it reminded me of something out of Beetlejuice (my boyfriend said Pan’s Labyrinth).

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice

Was this a healthy sunchoke? I have no clue! I removed as much debris as I could by hand and ended up with this:

Getting hungry? Me neither...

It would be impossible to skin these little buggers and have anything left to eat, so I spent a good amount of time with a giant potato  scrubber over the sink. You can roast these guys but I had found a recipe for a big winter stew that didn’t seem too overly ambitious so I decided to give it a try instead. I threw in butternut squash, saffron, potatoes, peppers… I had high hopes.

But the stew came out bland and mushy and I got no discernible flavor from the sunchoke whatsoever (good thing I saved several to try roasted). It was so lacking in seasoning that I forlornly threw cheese crackers on top of my helping as damage control and my boyfriend added lemon juice and a ton on hot sauce. And we now have several days worth of leftovers. It was more than a bit deflating considering the dirt now permanently lodged under my finger nails and the gallons of water wasted on scrubbing the suckers clean. So, now allow me to impress you with my learned sunchoke trivia (given that the recipe isn’t worth mentioning).

-Sunchokes, or Jerusalem artichokes are neither from Jerusalem nor are they artichokes. In fact, they are related to sunflowers, hence the more appropriate title, sunchoke.

-Sunchokes are (purportedly) quite easy to grow and will thrive under most conditions. Yea…sure…

-A few animals love the plant, and if the plant is allowed to flower,birds enjoy the seeds. Pigs will forage for and eat the tubers.

-Sunchokes are sometimes used raw in salads and have a jicama-like (or water chestnut-like) texture.

There you have it. The moral of my story? When trying a new ingredient, go small.

If only I had this amount of counter space! Adorable photo by Dplanet, via Flickr.

So, I recently revisited my previous New Year’s resolutions after a traumatic incident involving a bathroom scale. I had pledged, among other things, to bake more of my own bread and decided that, in order to do that, I needed a bread machine. Really, I gave the issue a lot of thought:

“Bake more of my own bread I’ve struggled with this one before. I rarely buy a loaf of bread from a supermarket. There are two big reasons why not. One, I’m just not a big sandwich eater. Two, have you read the ingredients in a loaf of processed bread? It’s actually a difficult task (the reading, not the baking). The ingredients may be edible, but they can hardly be considered food. So, I’ve tried buying a loaf of locally made bread from Whole Foods. Guess what? For twice as much money, not only did I find similar ingredients, but the bread was only produced in a local factory-not by a local baker. Don’t waste your money. The next step was buying bread at the farmers’ market. If you can find a bread vendor at the farmers market, I highly recommend this option. But honestly, a bread booth at the market can be a toughie to find unless your market covers a lot of prepared foods and not just produce. Now, I’ve also tried making my own yeast bread. While it’s satisfying to do and pretty yummy all said and done, baking homemade yeast bread takes a lot of time, kitchen space and money. None of which I have. I rarely say this about home cooking, but in this instance, it just isn’t worth it. So, this year, I am vowing to go the bread machine route. I’ll keep you posted.”

But here I am, in a new apartment with a slightly bigger kitchen and a boyfriend who loves sandwiches every day for lunch. Between us we own every kitchen gadget imaginable except a bread machine. Yes, seriously. I mean, we own a rotisserie, we own a tostone press and we  just added a soft-serve ice cream machine because it was recently on final clearance in the very back of Sur la Tab. Plus, I hear my mother’s voice in my head saying, “Jessica, don’t buy a bread machine, there’s absolutely no need for it. The bread comes out like a brick and you have so many better  options. Waste of money.”

OK, so she was right about the options–when I lived in L.A. But now that I’m camped out in the outer suburbs of the Bay Area, I can’t find a bakery for the life of me. Unfortunately, this is just the case in many suburban areas as I know all too well from my childhood. And Mom was also right about the brick part, at least judging by the end results of our childhood bread machine from Costco. It was about as successful as the pasta maker my dad bought off an infomercial in the nineties, and it got about the same amount of use before being promptly sold in the next neighborhood yard sale.

How I miss my weekly trips to Sweet Lady Jane! And even though I was happy to hear about the opening of The Pastry Cupboard, it’s still about an hour away from me.

But lo and behold, I found a no knead bread dough recipe with very few ingredients and fresh herbs. What I’m saying is, this recipe doesn’t require a ton of ingredients, effort or even counter space! And guess what? It’s really good.

We practically grow an herb farm on our balcony and we always keep a stash of yeast in the fridge for pizza dough so I didn’t even need to make a trip to the grocery store for anything. The only caveat here is that you’ll need to plan ahead; the dough rises for 24 hours. (And it will smell funky after 24 hours. Don’t worry, it won’t end up tasting funky.) The only kitchen hardware you’ll need is a Dutch oven. No fancy-schmancy Le Creuset needed either, I actually used an old oven-safe porcelain casserole with a lid because actually in addition to not owning a bread machine, we don’t own a Dutch oven. (But if you need tostones pressed, you know who to ask.) You don’t even need bread flour for this recipe.

This recipe came from Allrecipes.com and it’s the first thing I’ve cooked from the site.

I used all of the herbs and really wouldn’t recommend leaving them out. However, next time I make this I think I may just stick to rosemary.

Fresh herbs; use 'em if you got 'em.

From Allrecipes:

1. Combine the flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl and mix to combine. Add the water and herbs, if using, and mix well. The dough will be very sticky and shaggy-looking. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature for 18 to 24 hours.
2. Generously flour a work surface. The dough will have risen and will be covered in bubbles. Transfer the dough to the work surface and dust it with flour. Fold the dough in half, and then form the dough into a ball by stretching and tucking the edges of the dough underneath the ball.
3. Liberally flour a kitchen towel (do not use terrycloth-seriously, you’ll never be able to get the dough out). Place the dough ball on the floured towel. Cover with another floured towel. Let the dough rise for about two hours. (With floured thumb and forefinger, give the dough a little poke, your indentations should stay if the dough is done rising.)
4. Preheat an oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Place a lidded Dutch oven or deep heavy duty casserole dish (with lid) into the oven to preheat.
5. Carefully remove the hot baking dish from the oven. Remove the lid and gently turn the dough ball into the ungreased baking dish, seam-side up; shake the dish so the dough is more evenly distributed.
6. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake until the crust is golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the loaf from the baking dish and let it cool on a rack before slicing.

Ready the butter, friends!

Also, a side note for my gluten-free friends who love baked goods and baking them, check this out!

Photo: Christian Cable via Flickr

When we were little we called it cold cereal before we moved to the South and realized people just called it “cereal” as if there were no other kinds. I used to ask my mom if I could have it for dinner (she almost never said yes). I even love bran cereal.

Unfortunately, boxed cereal is really the epitome of processed food. It’s also usually full of sugar (likely listed under several different names). Those Cheerios are meant to sit on the shelf for a looooong time if need be. So, while I used to park myself at the counter and keep adding cereal to my bowl of milk until I’d solved every maze on the back of the box, I tend to avoid it now unless I feel like indulging. (Yes! I do realize how lame that sounds!)

The first thing I do when I try to give up a processed food is consider whether or not it’s worth making it myself. In the case of cereal, the ingredients for granola are pricey and I can’t figure out how to make a Wheatie.

So I compromise by sometimes buying minimally processed cereal (granola most likely) from Trader Joe’s and I’ve found that the Nature’s Path stuff is pretty darn good. The cereal is organic and contains few if any ingredients that I can’t pronounce (and believe it or not, it’s still tasty). My favorite thing about Nature’s Path is that they use smaller boxes for their products. They include the same amount of cereal, just make the box smaller. Cereal is sold by weight, as anyone who’s opened a big box of Crispix only to find it half empty can tell you.

Anyway, we were out of our plain organic whole rolled oats (boooooring) last week and I used it as an excuse to get some cereal. Nothing crazy, mind you, just some Nature’s Path Raisin Bran.  And on a weekend trip to Monterrey I took it in the car as a snack, when my boyfriend asked me whether or not I’d found the mistake on the box yet. I somehow doubted that the back of a raisin bran box had any games so I hadn’t bothered to read it, though I do usually pride myself on finding typos that made it past the marketing dept. I turned the prune-colored box over and read, “You can have your carbs and eat ‘em too!” Oh jeez, not even a send-in-UPCs-for-a-free-something-you-don’t-need offer.

Seven paragraphs on carbs? Ugh. But my boyfriend had found some egregious false advertising, that I didn’t even catch after reading and looking for a mistake. The back of the box asserted that the cereal has “a whopping 8g of fiber per serving, nearly half of your daily needs…” Sounds exciting, I know. Except 8g of fiber is actually only 32% of your daily needs, according to the nutrition facts on the very same box. Hardly “nearly half.”

So my boyfriend e-mailed the company and got a response within a few days. I should say a very satisfying response. The company promised to speak with the marketing department and correct the boxes for the next run. Plus, we got the requisite coupon for more raisin bran (Organic Flax Plus!). Moral of the story: food is a consumer-driven industry, and with the advent of social media and e-mail, it’s never been easier or faster to let a company know when you are dissatisfied. You could also read this as proof of Michael Pollan’s point that if the box has to make a bunch of health claims, it’s likely not as healthy as it seems. I’m not ready to categorize organic bran cereal under the ‘unhealthy’ category, but I will be checking my boxes more carefully.

Even when they don’t include mazes or wordfinds.

Edible Schoolyard

It takes time to know a city and get hip to its food culture. Six years in Los Angeles still left plenty of unopened menus and undiscovered markets. I only know a few things about the East Bay.

One is that Chez Panisse happens to be located in Berkeley. Another is that Berkeley is full of hippies.

So when I heard Chez Panisse was celebrating its 40th with a free event at the Berkeley Art Museum with food and exhibits, I had a basic idea of what to expect and promptly informed my boyfriend that we would be making the trip. The event didn’t disappoint. And neither did the weather, which was seemingly untouched by the usual San Fran fog.

We ate bread baked outside in cans with honey and butter, fed apples to goats (and ate surprisingly un-goaty goat’s milk fudge), collected seed bombs (that we rebelliously planted…on our balcony), watched kids ride a grain-mashing bicycle and apparently even ate part of Werner Herzog’s shoe. OK not his real shoe, a pig-skin replica. We were stuffed with free food. Amazing free food; plates of juicy red and yellow watermelon, fresh tortillas and salsa and crisp bread cooked on a grill. No bottled water. No plastic plates or utensils (or any of those ‘biodegradable plastic’ ones) and no trash all over the place. L.A. festivals could stand to take some notes. We tried to share and conserve our food, but were downright encouraged to take more, more, more. There was enough for all.

In fact, more than enough. By the close of the event, most vendors (the few that were charging anything) stopped taking tickets for food and gave it out freely; the most tasty veggie tamales, spiced grilled corn, mortadella sandwiches and agua frescas. Take more for later, we were told. It was like having my Jewish mother there.

Thank God good Mexican food followed me from L.A.!

We didn’t just eat (but we mostly did). We also learned. We learned about Hayes Valley Farm for instance, a 2.2 acre urban farm in San Francisco built by volunteers over the wreckage of the 1989 earthquake. Check out their volunteer days here.

On the freeway ride home my boyfriend started laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“I remembered I still have a sandwich in my pocket.”

I'm cold in here.

I know. It’s been a while. And there is so much to talk about.

Last we spoke I was waxing nostalgic about care packages from Mom (easily worthy of several more posts). Since that time, a movement to legalize urban bee-keeping in L.A. has caught traction, Jonathan Gold has come out in defense of sharks and one enterprising South L.A. resident got to keep his urban garden going.

That, and I moved.

I’ve left the City of Angels and am now roaming the East Bay. I know, it’s a big change, I’m going to have to modify my subtitle and everything.

While Chewgooder has been nothing if not L.A.-centric, I’m determined to keep it going in a new foodshed. (I promise you’ll still find interesting information, Angelinos.)

In any case, moving is tough. And I’ve been drowning my sorrows in a pint (OK, pints) of Phish Food. It was my only comfort, that is until I got a nod from some fans. It seems that Vermont’s finest have a thing for me too, as evidenced by the above photo. The new “Brownie Chew Gooder” flavor from Ben and Jerry’s seems to be borrowing from ahem…a certain California food blogger.

Well Boys, the feeling is mutual. My love of baked goods and candy stuffed into ice cream aside, I’m a sucker for a brand with a sense of humor and a compelling mission. (And bonus points if it also involves chocolate.) Ben and Jerry’s is against genetically modified fish and growth hormones in dairy, and is in support of cage-free eggs and fair trade ingredients.  Waste from Ben and Jerry’s plants is starting to go to methane biodigesters. More large food companies would benefit from a more innovative (and slightly irreverent) business model. No one can argue the success of Ben and Jerry’s. Chubby Hubby is part of the lexicon.  I’m not saying that making your own ice cream isn’t a tasty–though expensive–endeavor, but I am saying that I shelve my strong aversion to the ‘better eating through science’ mantra when someone has figured out how to put my favorite breakfast pastry (cinnamon buns) inside my favorite midnight snack.

So folks, as you can see, Chewgooder is still around. In a big way.

Raise your pint.

Yes, this Sunday was Mother’s Day, but as anyone with a wayward Jewish mother can attest to, it seemed only appropriate that my mom was sending me a box full of goodies. So what’s in a care package from Florida? Alligator jerky and sunscreen. It is uniquely…regional. (Oranges are so played out.)

"Would it kill you to call your mother," he seemed to say. Photo:wwarby

To be fair, other care packages have included standards such as chocolate chip cookies.

Now that our first heat wave has come (and gone), I was extra glad to have the reef-safe sunscreen. And now that I’ve been bombarded on Facebook with notifications for my high school reunion I was glad the package didn’t include buttery baked goods.

My most recent indulgences have not been worth the calories (leftover Easter candy someone keeps slyly dropping off in the office) and I should probably be making  less-frequent trips for sopes at Loteria Grill, so I was delighted to open up the recent Audubon magazine and find that their blog, The Perch, features  some great, eco-friendly recipes. Sweet potato and quinoa salad from Mark Bittman? Yes, please.

photo: Brandon Bloch

Yoga people.

They know how to ‘om.’  They carry their yoga mats everywhere — in case a yoga opportunity arises. They go on retreats just to yoga-fy, and their family members outside of Los Angeles probably just call them hippies. And don’t get defensive, I’m one of them too (but I’d just as soon sing bad karaoke then om, sorry guys).

Generally speaking, I think yogis are a group of people very much in tune with mind, body and planet. They know how to be calm, still and relaxed, even with a leg stuck behind their head.  Know this: I’ve seen some strange things go on during yoga classes… sweaty, tattooed instructors ending classes by playing instruments ranging from wooden horns to accordions to triangles (more cowbell, please). Breathing exercises that involve sticking your tongue out and huffing and puffing like a panting dog… I’ve been told that massaging your jaw with your knuckle may cause hallucinations — that is, if one holds stress in their jaw. I’ve even been instructed to lay on my back and write positive things on the ceiling with my toes. And as silly as I thought all of that was, there’s something I see that’s much sillier. And that’s people toting in plastic bottled water to class…sometimes when there’s even a water fountain in the yoga room.

Is it possible that a group of people who advocate for maximum health of body and planet don’t realize how bad bottled water is for the Earth’s uh…zen?

Where’s the disconnect? It’s Earth Day, so this is  a good topic to revisit. Bottled water creates massive waste and usually comes with an equally massive carbon footprint.

But there are good alternatives to bottled water, so let’s talk about those. If a water fountain grosses you out too much, then grab an aluminum reusable bottle and fill it at home from a tap or filtered pitcher. It’ll keep your water nice and cold (and you can always refill it at the gym).  Remember, plastic single-use water bottles were not designed to be refilled and the plastic can begin to leach out all manner of yuckiness that you don’t want to drink, so don’t refill them and don’t allow them to heat up in your car in the sun.

There’s another great reason to return to tap water–it’s really cheap! Certainly much cheaper than buying a bottle of water for every gym trip. Sustainable food guru Micahel Pollan has made the argument that that money could be better spent on better, fresher food. OK, he didn’t say that exactly. What he said was that, while many people are averse to spending extra money to buy more local, more fresh or more healthy food, people seemed to make the adjustment to spending extra on bottled water pretty quickly. That could be becuase most people think bottled water is somehow better for them than tap water. Not only are there stronger regulations on tap water than bottled, but bottled water frequently is tap water, it’s just been filtered.

I saw a great ad on Melrose ages ago urging more responsible water use that read, “Hey Hipsters! If it helps, no one else is doing it.”

We can change that right?

However, I’ve noticed lately the attempts of processed food producers to make their food seem healthier have reached a newly humorous level. Case in point, I was running through Trader Joe’s the other day. We all know a quick trip to Trader Joe’s is impossible, right? Between the tiny aisles and the requisite useless parking lot… I can easily spend an eternity in Trader Joe’s just searching for produce or meat from this country (no easy task, if you’ve never looked). The employees must get sick of asking me if they can help me find something (yes, your purchasing manager, please). I grabbed some odds and ends and chips and hummus and was finally on my way.  But when I dug into the hummus at home, I truly had to laugh. You may be used to seeing random additives in your food, but are you used to now seeing them justified on the packaging? Behold:

“Cultured dextrose (for added freshness).” I’m sorry, what? I need something to “add freshness” to my hummus? As far as I know, you can’t add freshness. And check out what’s right above it: “No artificial colors, flavors or preservatives.” OK, so what is cultured dextrose if not one of the above, a natural preservative perhaps?  Looks like I’ll be making my own hummus from here on out (Do you think it will work in a blender? Chunky-style? No?).

whitneyinchicago via Flickr

Just this weekend I was walking down the cereal aisle at the grocery store and literally walked by a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch proclaiming in huge letters that General Mills cereals (like said cinnamon one) are America’s greatest source of whole grain. (Got another doozy for me? Please share in the comments and I’ll post on Twitter.) I had to scoff, um, could this be why we have such an issue with childhood obesity? What’s not funny is that most American’s don’t see the irony in that box advertisement. What they see is a trusted company (General Mills) telling them that this stuff isn’t bad for their kids. If this isn’t a call for the FDA to regulate and standardize front of box advertising then I don’t know what is. Now, I’m not saying that Cinnamon Toast Crunch should be banned (in fact, I’m not even saying that it isn’t tasty) but there’s no way it should be misleadingly marketed as health food. But it’s great PR for General Mills.

Which brings me to Walmart, and their famous negotiations with the First Lady, that led the giant to make its processed foods more healthful. Again, great PR for Walmart, but no real change for our food system.

Come on Obamas, what we need is actual food system and safety reform, not more people buying minorly less bad-for-you junk food from the biggest of big box stores. While I absolutely applaud the First Lady for taking on the issue of childhood obesity, this is no way to solve it. While planting an organic White House garden sent a very admirable message, it was certainly undermined by the fact that the President seems to be completely pushing forward a genetically modified agenda, organic be damned.

How about some fresh ideas, Washington? Or is cultured dextrose your answer?