taste buds?

i think i’m missing the mommy gene—or is it some bizarre enzyme?—required to make creative food for your kids. you know those moms—the ones that put plates of uniquely disguised healthy food with the uncanny resemblance of a lady bug. “here ya go, sweet pea. here’s your brussels sprout caterpillar. look how expertly mommy made use of the toothpicks and chewing gum to keep it all together!”

frankly, i wish i had the time to think about ways to make food attractive to picky eaters. especially with my middle daughter. if it’s not a white carbohydrate, it doesn’t cross her lips. i’m sure i could dutifully puree cauliflower and put it in apple muffins. but by the time i pureed the cauliflower, i’d probably just end up making soup.

my only hope is that one day, when they’ve had enough bad cafeteria food and a metric ton of ramen noodles, they’ll realize that my risotto with chanterelles wasn’t half bad. and the roasted asparagus with the balsamic glaze was rather tasty too.

i wonder, though. at what point do your taste buds mature? i remember loathing asparagus as a kid. now i like it. and you couldn’t get me in the same room with a beet. admittedly, i merely tolerate beets now. but, if you add some fresh goat cheese, beets are a relatively pleasant experience for me.

well, whether my taste buds are maturing or i’m simply on the path to a bowl of pre-masticated food as an octogenarian, i’m going to enjoy what i do eat and hope my kids come along for the ride.

pb&j

a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. it’s perfect. simple ingredients in between two pieces of bread. add a glass of milk and that’s all you need.

is there a genesis to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich? oh, probably. perhaps it dates back to the ancient egyptians who used it initially as part of their embalming technique only to discover it made a great snack. or maybe it was found quite by accident because there was nothing left in the house besides a roll of stale crackers and moldy cheese. with that choice, i think i’d go for the sandwich too.

actually, the peanut butter sandwich dates back to the early 20th century in its widespread use. while bread and jelly have been around for hundreds of years, peanut butter didn’t become a real hit until the 1904 st. louis world’s fair. with the marketing of peter pan and skippy peanut butters in the 20s and 30s, pb&j became a lunch box staple. by world war II and the ensuing rations, peanut butter and jelly was a meal for many people tightening their belts. it was cheap and satisfying.

it’s the simple things that have the greatest longevity. peanut butter and jelly are the perfect combination. like romeo and juliet. milk and cookies. burgers and fries. apple pie and ice cream a la mode. oddly enough, it’s the most fattening foods that seem to be paired up. maybe that’s what broke romeo and juliet up. it wasn’t two warring families and a bottle of poison. juliet’s ass got too fat to fit in her jeans. must have been the pb&j…

fall finds

i went to the farmer’s market in the parking lot of the fairfield theatre company yesterday. it was chilly, more than a little overcast, and drizzly. i didn’t expect much on a day like that. i thought it might be slim pickings.

instead, i found a still-bountiful display of vegetables and other produce. i went home with my prizes: fresh artisanal bread, mesclun salad greens with edible flowers, fresh pea shoots, heirloom tomatoes.

(i kicked myself for not picking up the “hen of the woods” mushrooms. however, they were being sold for $18 a pound. another time—perhaps one not so economically tight.)

while at the market, i kept thinking of an excerpt from barbara kingsolver’s animal, vegetable, miracle. she had gone to the farmer’s market near her family’s farm in virginia. it was a windy, cold, drizzly november day without much promise for a farmer’s market. yet, she went anyway. when she got there, she didn’t find an abundance of produce. but, she did find fresh honey, fresh walnuts already shelled, and a host of other little morsels to take home and make a yummy meal. she had gone with an open mind and no expectation.

i went to the market yesterday with the same mindset. sometimes, life gives you little surprises. you just don’t know until you get there…

everything organic

organic. it’s the biggest buzz word these days. in fact, i think it’s topped low-carb. organic this. organic that. no matter what you put in front of people, if you tell them it’s organic they think they’re eating well. have some more pork rinds—they’re organic!

just recently i had the pleasure of having REAL organic food. it was fresh; it was easy; it was fast. i helped host an event this past weekend at the fairfield theatre company (http://www.fairfieldtheatre.org/), fondly known as the ftc. the food was all donated by health in a hurry, a local organic food shop. they make and prepare only organic foods and all of it served on the go.

if you’d like to check out their web site, as i hope you do, it can be found at http://www.healthinahurry.net/. the owner, sue cadwell, started out as an environmental activist and ended up a vegetarian chef with her own shop and catering business. it opened four years ago as the vegetarian answer to fast food. it’s the culinary idea of a sleeper movie—you don’t really know about it until you try it and realize it’s a gold mine.

for the event this past weekend, we wanted food that fit with the overall atmosphere. the ftc hosts a farmer’s market in their parking lot every sunday. our event would overlap it. so obviously, a lunchtime offering of corn dogs on a stick was out of the question.

the food we had was delicious—organic or not. in fact, the label doesn’t even matter. good food is good food. she offered a grainless tabouleh salad with cucumber and tomato. there was a lemon curry rice salad with just enough curry to give it a kick, but not so much it was overpowering. even tofu—and i’m not big on tofu—was breaded and served as a pseudo-mozzarella stick with homemade ketchup. the kids gobbled ‘em up!

there were mini-health burgers made with lentils and brown rice with carmelized onions gently spooned on top. ordinarily, i probably would have turned up my nose at them. i have to confess: i’m a meat eater. i don’t want to think about what happened to the animal before it came to the butcher shop. ignorance IS bliss—and i’d like to keep it that way. that said, these are little burgers i wouldn’t mind eating any time.

organic food has found its place in the mainstream and i think it’s here to stay. this is one fad that may not be so bad. although, i wish i could say that for mood rings…

garden?

i’ve been thinking about starting a garden. ok, maybe not right this minute, as we’re on the heels of summer and heading toward colder weather. but maybe i can start planning on what i’d like to put in a garden for spring.

i love the concept of having things that bloom regardless of the season. it’s almost like doing the wave at a baseball game—something’s always popping up. but that takes planning—and a little know-how. my time for planning is spare. and the know-how part…well, let’s just say i’m a little lacking.

i wish i were one of those people who had a knack for it. frankly, i’m lucky i don’t kill my basil. and i can never get my cilantro to grow. could it be that i don’t have a green thumb to save my life or is it just that cilantro is a really finicky plant? i think i’ll go with the latter. it doesn’t crush my self-esteem as much.

i have a couple of neighbors who have small gardens in their backyards. they don’t yield much—it’s not like they’re supporting themselves financially on the fruits of their labor. but it’s certainly enough to make a good dinner.

my father grew a garden in our backyard when i was growing up. i loved being able to wander in on a hot summer day and grab a snack. fresh sugar snap peas. sun-warmed cherry tomatoes on the vine that would just pop in your mouth. baby lettuces. zucchini. peppers. chives. the list goes on.

when we wanted to make dinner, we picked what was ripe, threw it into a pot, and that was dinner. it was also one of the best parts of summer for me as a kid. it may be the very reason why i love food and cooking so much. i grew up on the fresh stuff. no pesticides, just a little elbow grease.

so for now, i will fantasize about a garden and wait for spring again…

heirlooms

i think one of the best things about summer is the tomato. it represents the season perfectly: juicy, sun-warmed and red. they’re in abundance. big ones. fat ones. small ones. round ones. catch me near the stand and i’m like one of those creepy guys at a bar leering at all the hot chicks. ok, maybe not the best analogy. but you get the picture.

then, there’s the heirloom tomato. these little beauties have been a hot ticket for quite some time. when they’re good, they’re really good. but this year, i’m not sure i agree. i’ve been to my local farmer’s market the last few weeks and they all look a little…well, odd. and by odd i mean completely deformed, misshapen—and not in a good way. they look diseased rather than appetizing. is it me? is everyone else enjoying their succulent heirloom tomatoes and i’m just the schmuck who doesn’t recognize greatness when i see it? or am i the little boy in the emperor’s new clothes that points out the king is nude?

because heirloom tomatoes are open pollinated and not genetically altered, they are probably more subject to disease. that may explain their less than tasty appearance lately. but, as the saying goes, looks can be deceiving. the taste is what counts. anything fresh and unadulterated will taste markedly better than their counterparts on the supermarket shelf that have the overall consistency of the business end of a snow shoe.

i’ve highlighted this web site before. but if you’re looking to find local connecticut farms that grow and sell heirloom tomatoes, go to http://www.buyctgrown.com/. they list all the farms in the area and map them for you.

enjoy what the season has to offer. all too soon it will disappear…

august in connecticut is one of my favorite times of the year. the freshest produce is available at your finger tips. farmer’s markets are at their peak. and it’s corn season, baby! (or cahn as my husband likes to pronounce it in an obnoxiously nasal sotto voce.)

it’s the best stuff on earth. sweet, fresh, and just picked. pair it with vine-ripened tomatoes, which are also in season now, and you’ve got a vegetable symphony. (granted, tomatoes are technically fruit. but whatever.)

we had corn and tomatoes last night for dinner. sweet jesus, that’s good! all you need is a little sea salt—possibly some butter for the corn—et voilà! i could have cared less about the flank steak we grilled with it. i was more enthralled with how sweet those tight little kernels were between my teeth.

(although, i have often wondered: with all this biogenetic engineering, can’t they manage to create an ear of corn that comes with it’s own floss? i mean, really. if you’re going to screw with nature, can’t you at least make it convenient too? but i digress from the true, unadulterated husks of sheer goodness.)

a number of web sites, including http://www.produceoasis.com/ and http://www.buyctgrown.com/, inform you on how to choose the best corn and where to get them here in connecticut. obviously, rule number one is to avoid the store-bought. by the time it even reaches your supermarket, it’s a starchy, old thing best left hanging as an autumnal decoration for your front door rather than a meal time accompaniment. as soon as corn is picked, the sugar starts to break down into starch. you will want to get the ears when they are at their sweetest.

when picking out corn, keep in mind that the outside husk should look healthy as well. if the husks look shriveled or dry, if the corn silk looks like it’s in bad shape or it clearly has worm damage, discard it. you can pull back the husk to take a look at the kernels underneath to check for their freshness. however, there are a number of farm stands and markets that take a dim view of the customer that picks at their corn. really, do you want to take home a bushel knowing somebody else’s fingernails picked at the kernels to determine if it’s to their liking? a little unappetizing. usually, the staff at the market or farm are more than willing to help you out.

well, enjoy the corn season. get ‘em while they’re hot. because as any native nutmegger knows, corn season goes by all too fast…