A faulty stove
Raffi Melkonian at 11:07 PM
Don't you hate things that look great, but don't work worth a damn? Like chiseled boxers with glass jaws, or beautiful looking tasteless food? I do, at least. And I'm feeling that way about my parents' new stove.
It looks astonishing, I have to admit. An array of buttons festoon the front, promising to do things I didn't even imagine stoves did. The griddles can be electronically expanded and contracted, while the stove can be programmed to the single degree. There's a professional looking ventilator above, and an equally complicated microwave (boo) attached to the top. There's even this needle you're supposed stick into meat, which shuts off when the internal temperature reaches the FDA approved standard. Incredible. And expensive.
Oh, and also completely useless. You can't use cast iron on the griddles - it might crack the glass, or whatever it is. The repair man who came to look at the scratch our completely normal pot made said that you have to take a carpentry level when you're out buying cookware, since the heat is apparently inefficient if your pots aren't exactly flat on the bottom - "don't bother with those expensive pans", he said - "they don't work". To keep the complex electronics cool (for which, by the way, you have to buy a warranty, otherwise they're essentially guaranteed to break down to expensive effect), the oven almost constantly emits a giant fan noise. Oh, and that ventilator? It's so weak that the steam from your cooking degrades the microwave handle to the extent that it eventually falls off. Seriously.
So what is this oven possibly for? Well, just like a lot of gadgets that people buy, the point of this stove is apparently to invite friends over, show them that your credit rating is still high enough to afford the gleaming monstrosity, and then send them home again having eaten food bought furtively at the Price Club and passed off as your own by the addition of some aerosol whipped cream. We're taking it back to the store when I return from Wilmington. And buying an honest stove with a few knobs, and some coils that can heat cast iron and normal pots alike.
5/24/2005
I've not been keeping up with writing up my 50 book challenge entries - suffice to say that I've been reading diligently, except for a short gap around exam time. Hopefully, I can catch up over the next week or so, mostly posted on my own web site.
But my thoughts on Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires are appropriate here, even though Will has written on it previously. I'd only disagree with Will's assessment in that I find this book's lighter emphasis on personal drama when compared with Reichl's previous memoirs a tremendous strength. Give me formalized, Handel-opera like emotion any day.
Amid a real flood of good writing, however, one passage did strike me particularly. Discussing New York's famous Le Cirque, Reichl writes, "I had meanly ordered risotto, a dish few French chefs can master". (37). First of all, of course, the author is right - my suspicion is that French chefs see risotto as a convenient, superficially elegant sop for the awkward vegetarians that fashion has forced them to accomodate. Consequently, the number of wall-paper paste risottos I've eaten in otherwise competent restaurants is a little startling.
But much more interesting is Reichl's real point, about ordering dishes "meanly". I too have been known to take part in this bizarre game, ordering dishes I know the restaurant can't cook. Of course, to some extent this one sided exercise is silly, rather like the pitched academic rivalry we at St. Andrews maintained against Cambridge, and about which the latter knew nothing. And it's also somewhat masochistic - I know for a fact that the Cheesecake Factory isn't going to produce a creditable pasta carbonara, and it's idiotic to order it just to prove to myself that they couldn't. But I do it anyway, because I feel like part of what you're suposed to be doing at a restaurant is finding out if the menu is serious. Unless someone is paying for me to eat the entire menu, like a proper critic, the best I can do is make sure the most unlikely entry isn't a joke. And yet, this technique obviously results in me eating a lot of junk I don't want to eat. So who is really being mean, and to who? At least in Reichl's case, she was at a good restaurant, and the meal was great regardless. That doesn't often happen for me.
But my thoughts on Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires are appropriate here, even though Will has written on it previously. I'd only disagree with Will's assessment in that I find this book's lighter emphasis on personal drama when compared with Reichl's previous memoirs a tremendous strength. Give me formalized, Handel-opera like emotion any day.
Amid a real flood of good writing, however, one passage did strike me particularly. Discussing New York's famous Le Cirque, Reichl writes, "I had meanly ordered risotto, a dish few French chefs can master". (37). First of all, of course, the author is right - my suspicion is that French chefs see risotto as a convenient, superficially elegant sop for the awkward vegetarians that fashion has forced them to accomodate. Consequently, the number of wall-paper paste risottos I've eaten in otherwise competent restaurants is a little startling.
But much more interesting is Reichl's real point, about ordering dishes "meanly". I too have been known to take part in this bizarre game, ordering dishes I know the restaurant can't cook. Of course, to some extent this one sided exercise is silly, rather like the pitched academic rivalry we at St. Andrews maintained against Cambridge, and about which the latter knew nothing. And it's also somewhat masochistic - I know for a fact that the Cheesecake Factory isn't going to produce a creditable pasta carbonara, and it's idiotic to order it just to prove to myself that they couldn't. But I do it anyway, because I feel like part of what you're suposed to be doing at a restaurant is finding out if the menu is serious. Unless someone is paying for me to eat the entire menu, like a proper critic, the best I can do is make sure the most unlikely entry isn't a joke. And yet, this technique obviously results in me eating a lot of junk I don't want to eat. So who is really being mean, and to who? At least in Reichl's case, she was at a good restaurant, and the meal was great regardless. That doesn't often happen for me.
4/05/2005
I obviously prefer home made food, but that doesn't mean I don't care about processed and other ready made food. This is the stuff that's feeding America, and somone ought to pay attention. Here, for example, you can see my brief thoughts about C2 cola, and here my review of the sugar free baby ruth.
The target of my eating this week has been 7-Eleven's relatively new "gourmet" sandwiches, called "Big Eats Deli". They claim to be made with artisanal bread, fresh meats, and interesting cheeses. In an area where one local bakery sells a single sandwich for $8.25, 7-Eleven has come into the market at between $2.99 and $3.49. That's the good news.
And the sandwiches aren't appalling either. The basic offerings, such as smoked turkey & Jack cheese on Wheatberry bread, are perfectly serviceable - made relatively close by in Brockton with ingredients as advertised. No, the supposed southwestern mayonnaise wasn't that exciting, and the bread had generally gone a bit gummy, but I've had worse sandwiches at places purporting to serve sandwiches. That 7-Eleven is matching even some sandwich shops is pretty impressive.
And as much as it worries me to say this, the Mediterranean Style Turkey with Pepper Supreme spread is actually decent. Like, I'd have it again. The tomato and basil bread was fresh and tasty, there was some sort of tapenade (yes, I'm serious), and the pepper sauce was an interesting mix of bell peppers and some sort of cheese. No, I wouldn't pay any more than $3.50 for it, but at that price it's a pretty good deal. If you're hungry and desperate, 7-Eleven has moved into the market with at least one relatively impressive offering. Go for it.
The target of my eating this week has been 7-Eleven's relatively new "gourmet" sandwiches, called "Big Eats Deli". They claim to be made with artisanal bread, fresh meats, and interesting cheeses. In an area where one local bakery sells a single sandwich for $8.25, 7-Eleven has come into the market at between $2.99 and $3.49. That's the good news.
And the sandwiches aren't appalling either. The basic offerings, such as smoked turkey & Jack cheese on Wheatberry bread, are perfectly serviceable - made relatively close by in Brockton with ingredients as advertised. No, the supposed southwestern mayonnaise wasn't that exciting, and the bread had generally gone a bit gummy, but I've had worse sandwiches at places purporting to serve sandwiches. That 7-Eleven is matching even some sandwich shops is pretty impressive.
And as much as it worries me to say this, the Mediterranean Style Turkey with Pepper Supreme spread is actually decent. Like, I'd have it again. The tomato and basil bread was fresh and tasty, there was some sort of tapenade (yes, I'm serious), and the pepper sauce was an interesting mix of bell peppers and some sort of cheese. No, I wouldn't pay any more than $3.50 for it, but at that price it's a pretty good deal. If you're hungry and desperate, 7-Eleven has moved into the market with at least one relatively impressive offering. Go for it.
So, we'll discuss the propriety of following a post about killing your co-ethnics with a trivial post on italian bread at some time in the future. For now, if you're interested in a few photos of the ciabatta process, click here. Click here for the finished product only. My apologies for the crap-tastic pictures.
Baking bread is one of the real pleasures of cooking. It's hardly an observation original to me, but the idea of combining flour and water and getting something at once so delicious and fundamental is inspirational. On top of that, I've recently had my bread baking itch re-activated by two encounters - first, by a reader who contacted me with news of their successful baguett-ery, and second, by a federalist society member with whom I spent half an hour talking ciabatta on Friday night. Armed with a quarter pound of sopresetta to eat with the end product, I settled down for some serious baking today. The results were delicious.
This ciabatta is my preferred "Italian" bread. Sure, focaccia as made around here is nice, but it also tends to be heavily oiled. Since in all cases I prefer breads that include nothing but flour, water, yeast (or other leaven) and salt, the ciabatta I discuss below is a perfect foil for my other gluttonies.
The conventional wisdom is that baking requires exact measurments. To some extent, this is right - cakes are particularly fickle things. But I'm always frustrated by recipes for bread that rely more heavily on measurments than feel - the experience of kneading bread connects you so closely to the food that "feel" is necessarily central. Who hasn't cracked a smile at that transformational moment when pizza dough, say, turns from a granular amalgamation of some disparate ingredients to a smooth, gluten rich, bread dough?
As noted by the recipe's orginator (Rose Levy Beranbaum of The Bread Bible) the overriding feel of ciabatta is wetness. Unlike that pizza dough I discuss above, it should never coalesce, but should remain wet, hardly coherent, throughout. It should always be sticky - so sticky, in fact, that kneading by hand should be minimized in favor of an oiled spatula or stand mixer. This is important, because if the dough is too dry, you'll get a dense, unappetizing loaf rather than the airy ciabatta you expect. If the proportions the recipe gives don't give you wetness, due perhaps to the humidity in your house, or the age of your flour, add a little more water. Especially with bread, reality trumps the recipe. Having said all that, a recipe is a good starting point, and I offer one here.
1. Three days before baking, prepare the biga (called a poolish when you're making french bread). For this recipe, combine .5 cup of good, unbleached, white flour (i.e, King Arthur) with .25 cups of water, some yeast, and salt. Mix well, and let rise outside for 6 hours before placing in the refrigerator to develop flavor.
2. On the day of baking, combine a scant cup of flour with a little yeast. Mix well, then add some salt (I'm told that this makes sure the salt doesn't kill the yeast). Add the biga, and half a cup of water. Mix well - as I say above, it should be quite wet. Adjust if not wet enough, and knead or mix for ten minutes until strands of gluten develop, and the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Remove from bowl and place in an oiled, covered, pan to triple in size.
3. Remove risen dough from pan, shape into a sort of slipper, and dot the dough with your fingers to make a series of depressions. This will spread the dough out. Then, with the palms of your hands, push the dough back into its distinctive slipper shape - this will create the characteristic lines on the top of the dough when you invert it.
4. Invert the dough into a prepared (i.e, lightly oiled) baking tray. Cover, and let rise for two hours. Sift a very little flour onto the top. In the last half hour, pre-heat the oven at 500 F. Also, place a cast-iron or other oven safe skillet on the floor of the oven.
5. When the dough has risen to about 1.5 inches in height, pour a cup of ice into the skillet on the floor of the oven (believe it or not, my freezer doesn't work so I had to run to 7-Eleven to buy a superfluous "Gulp" filled with ice) and put the tray with the bread on a baking stone, if you have one. The ice is there to mist the oven - essential for a crisp, crunchy, crust.
6. Bake for five minutes at 500 F, and then lower to 450 F for another 15 minutes. Remove when brown (and when it sounds hollow knocked on the bottom), and let cool on a rack. Slice, and enjoy.
Baking bread is one of the real pleasures of cooking. It's hardly an observation original to me, but the idea of combining flour and water and getting something at once so delicious and fundamental is inspirational. On top of that, I've recently had my bread baking itch re-activated by two encounters - first, by a reader who contacted me with news of their successful baguett-ery, and second, by a federalist society member with whom I spent half an hour talking ciabatta on Friday night. Armed with a quarter pound of sopresetta to eat with the end product, I settled down for some serious baking today. The results were delicious.
This ciabatta is my preferred "Italian" bread. Sure, focaccia as made around here is nice, but it also tends to be heavily oiled. Since in all cases I prefer breads that include nothing but flour, water, yeast (or other leaven) and salt, the ciabatta I discuss below is a perfect foil for my other gluttonies.
The conventional wisdom is that baking requires exact measurments. To some extent, this is right - cakes are particularly fickle things. But I'm always frustrated by recipes for bread that rely more heavily on measurments than feel - the experience of kneading bread connects you so closely to the food that "feel" is necessarily central. Who hasn't cracked a smile at that transformational moment when pizza dough, say, turns from a granular amalgamation of some disparate ingredients to a smooth, gluten rich, bread dough?
As noted by the recipe's orginator (Rose Levy Beranbaum of The Bread Bible) the overriding feel of ciabatta is wetness. Unlike that pizza dough I discuss above, it should never coalesce, but should remain wet, hardly coherent, throughout. It should always be sticky - so sticky, in fact, that kneading by hand should be minimized in favor of an oiled spatula or stand mixer. This is important, because if the dough is too dry, you'll get a dense, unappetizing loaf rather than the airy ciabatta you expect. If the proportions the recipe gives don't give you wetness, due perhaps to the humidity in your house, or the age of your flour, add a little more water. Especially with bread, reality trumps the recipe. Having said all that, a recipe is a good starting point, and I offer one here.
1. Three days before baking, prepare the biga (called a poolish when you're making french bread). For this recipe, combine .5 cup of good, unbleached, white flour (i.e, King Arthur) with .25 cups of water, some yeast, and salt. Mix well, and let rise outside for 6 hours before placing in the refrigerator to develop flavor.
2. On the day of baking, combine a scant cup of flour with a little yeast. Mix well, then add some salt (I'm told that this makes sure the salt doesn't kill the yeast). Add the biga, and half a cup of water. Mix well - as I say above, it should be quite wet. Adjust if not wet enough, and knead or mix for ten minutes until strands of gluten develop, and the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Remove from bowl and place in an oiled, covered, pan to triple in size.
3. Remove risen dough from pan, shape into a sort of slipper, and dot the dough with your fingers to make a series of depressions. This will spread the dough out. Then, with the palms of your hands, push the dough back into its distinctive slipper shape - this will create the characteristic lines on the top of the dough when you invert it.
4. Invert the dough into a prepared (i.e, lightly oiled) baking tray. Cover, and let rise for two hours. Sift a very little flour onto the top. In the last half hour, pre-heat the oven at 500 F. Also, place a cast-iron or other oven safe skillet on the floor of the oven.
5. When the dough has risen to about 1.5 inches in height, pour a cup of ice into the skillet on the floor of the oven (believe it or not, my freezer doesn't work so I had to run to 7-Eleven to buy a superfluous "Gulp" filled with ice) and put the tray with the bread on a baking stone, if you have one. The ice is there to mist the oven - essential for a crisp, crunchy, crust.
6. Bake for five minutes at 500 F, and then lower to 450 F for another 15 minutes. Remove when brown (and when it sounds hollow knocked on the bottom), and let cool on a rack. Slice, and enjoy.
Will's not the only one in a huff about Roper, though a little time has dampened all that to mere dismay. Still, last night I needed comfort food of sorts. Though I've got nothing against the macaroni & cheeses of the world, my taste in these cases does often run to the simpler side of French cooking. So, a picture of my veal cutlet is here, and the mushrooms and onions in cream here. Recipes below the fold, along with a brief note about why the veal cutlet is an escaloppe de veau and not a wiener schnitzel (as served at Figlmuller) or milanese sort of cutlet. I'll discuss the propriety of eating veal in my "What I'm Eating this Week" post, when I get to it.
Escaloppe de Veau - just pound a small veal cutlet to soften (though not too thin, I think), and then dip first in flour, then egg, then bread crumbs made from a good left-over loaf of white bread. Richard Olney says that the first coat of flour risks gumminess, but I haven't found that to be too dangerous. This, incidentally, is a French escaloppe de veau rather than its Austrian or Italian equivalents because wiener schnitzel is fried in lard, and Milan is in Italy's band of butter. Otherwise, they're the same thing.
Mushrooms and onions in cream - this is basically a classic french gratin, but I've added mushrooms. Boil some small onions in water for 15 minutes, remove from skins once cool, and put in a casserole with some sliced onions. Pour over enough cream to cover, roughly, and put in the oven at 350 F for 50 minutes. Flavoring can vary (nutmeg is thought authentic), but I used dried thyme because that was all I had. Yum.
Escaloppe de Veau - just pound a small veal cutlet to soften (though not too thin, I think), and then dip first in flour, then egg, then bread crumbs made from a good left-over loaf of white bread. Richard Olney says that the first coat of flour risks gumminess, but I haven't found that to be too dangerous. This, incidentally, is a French escaloppe de veau rather than its Austrian or Italian equivalents because wiener schnitzel is fried in lard, and Milan is in Italy's band of butter. Otherwise, they're the same thing.
Mushrooms and onions in cream - this is basically a classic french gratin, but I've added mushrooms. Boil some small onions in water for 15 minutes, remove from skins once cool, and put in a casserole with some sliced onions. Pour over enough cream to cover, roughly, and put in the oven at 350 F for 50 minutes. Flavoring can vary (nutmeg is thought authentic), but I used dried thyme because that was all I had. Yum.
I'm working on a paper about geographical indications, and the history of the struggle between the United States and Europe on protecting local products such as Roquefort, Champagne, etc. Here's an exchange between Jon Dudas, an official in the Commerce Department, and representative Bob Goodlatte of Virgina:
MR. DUDAS: And Roquefort cheese has been registered and protected in the United States since 1953. Registered and certainly could have been protected under a common law before that. And you point out, parmesan cheese is generic in the United States, but parmegiana reggiana is a protected geographical indication.
REP. GOODLATTE: Is that a brand of parmesan cheese?
MR. DUDAS: It's a type of parmesan cheese that comes from a region in Italy.
And Goodlatte is the guy in charge of Congress's negotiations on this issue? Flurgggh!
MR. DUDAS: And Roquefort cheese has been registered and protected in the United States since 1953. Registered and certainly could have been protected under a common law before that. And you point out, parmesan cheese is generic in the United States, but parmegiana reggiana is a protected geographical indication.
REP. GOODLATTE: Is that a brand of parmesan cheese?
MR. DUDAS: It's a type of parmesan cheese that comes from a region in Italy.
And Goodlatte is the guy in charge of Congress's negotiations on this issue? Flurgggh!
As you can see here, I've been thinking recently about the taboo against eating dog. It's a more baffling question than it initially seems. There's a voluminous food history literature about the taboo against pork in jewish and islamic cultures, for example - and after rightly discarding the idea that ancient peoples somehow knew about modern pathology (and therefore avoided pork), or that jews developed in countries where pigs won't live, the best anthopological work concludes that the pork taboo was a way to set the adopting peoples apart from their surroundings. Other taboos are equally well explained - Christians in the middle east, for example, don't eat camel because the local muslims do.
But why don't we eat dog? It's not a sacred animal, and our aversion is shared by a lot of people, I think. To get some expertise on the question, I turned to Frederick J. Simoons' excellent Eat not this Flesh, a descriptive survey of what the author calls "food avoidances" throughout history. The book, incidentally, is generally fascinating - Simoons is a careful and interesting historian, and the various structures people have erected to facilitate their religions and castes, sometimes wholly against rationality, are startling.
On the subject at had, Simoons has no truck with the idea that we avoid dog eating because dogs are domesticated animals in faithful service to their master - indeed, Simoons notes that dogs were probably domesticated precisely for their flesh. Moreover, other animals are just as domesticated, but we do eat them. And besides that basic intuition, Simoons has no real answer - historically, most cultures have thought dog to be a poor meat, but they've eaten it. Modern western and American cultures are almost alone in strict rejection.
So here's a far-fetched potential answer. Prof. Warren, of Bankruptcy fight fame, has argued recently that Bankruptcies are on the rise because women are now in the workplace - before, the wife could always go to work when the family fell on hard times. Now, when crisis hits, the woman is already working, so there's no reserve fund. Similarly, maybe dog was the reserve fund of the European populace. As Simoons points out, Europeans did eat dog - but only during sieges, and droughts, and other disasters. I've personally seen special "siege" recipe books written in Hugenot France during the reign of Louis XIII. Dog, in other words, was avoided because people wanted to make sure there was a food beyond reach when things turned bad - a protein food that would be available at the last, terrible, exigency.
But why don't we eat dog? It's not a sacred animal, and our aversion is shared by a lot of people, I think. To get some expertise on the question, I turned to Frederick J. Simoons' excellent Eat not this Flesh, a descriptive survey of what the author calls "food avoidances" throughout history. The book, incidentally, is generally fascinating - Simoons is a careful and interesting historian, and the various structures people have erected to facilitate their religions and castes, sometimes wholly against rationality, are startling.
On the subject at had, Simoons has no truck with the idea that we avoid dog eating because dogs are domesticated animals in faithful service to their master - indeed, Simoons notes that dogs were probably domesticated precisely for their flesh. Moreover, other animals are just as domesticated, but we do eat them. And besides that basic intuition, Simoons has no real answer - historically, most cultures have thought dog to be a poor meat, but they've eaten it. Modern western and American cultures are almost alone in strict rejection.
So here's a far-fetched potential answer. Prof. Warren, of Bankruptcy fight fame, has argued recently that Bankruptcies are on the rise because women are now in the workplace - before, the wife could always go to work when the family fell on hard times. Now, when crisis hits, the woman is already working, so there's no reserve fund. Similarly, maybe dog was the reserve fund of the European populace. As Simoons points out, Europeans did eat dog - but only during sieges, and droughts, and other disasters. I've personally seen special "siege" recipe books written in Hugenot France during the reign of Louis XIII. Dog, in other words, was avoided because people wanted to make sure there was a food beyond reach when things turned bad - a protein food that would be available at the last, terrible, exigency.
Back when I was tangentially involved with the cashew business (during college vacations), I never quite worked out why we had to wear goggles to extract the nut from its hard shell. The story was that you would go blind if you didn't, but I thought that was silly. It's a nut - how is it going to make you go blind? Anyway, the Oxford Companion to Food answers my question:
"The nut is not easy to extract. The tissue between its two layers of hard shell contains strongly irritant substances, cardol and anacardic acid. This tissue has medical uses, including burning off warts, an indication of its great corrosive power. The usual way of treating the nut is to roast it whole, driving off the irritants and making the shell brittle enough to crack without crushing the contents".
Oh.
"The nut is not easy to extract. The tissue between its two layers of hard shell contains strongly irritant substances, cardol and anacardic acid. This tissue has medical uses, including burning off warts, an indication of its great corrosive power. The usual way of treating the nut is to roast it whole, driving off the irritants and making the shell brittle enough to crack without crushing the contents".
Oh.
About two weeks ago, I noted that putting together a dinner party is hard work. Will seems to have put in a ton of effort yesterday. But in the Weekend Financial Times, Lucy Kellaway writes about serving her (extremely prominent) guests deep-frozen chicken kievs, an avocado with olive oil, and processed Vienetta ice-cream cake. The theory, I take it, is that people don't care about the food if they're laughing and talking.
Afterwards, she emailed all the guests and asked what they thought. The reaction wasn't that positive to the food, but most agreed that they hadn't really noticed. My favorite comment? One guest noted that she and her husband had a 'somewhat disturbed night' afterwards, as a result of the kiev. Alas.
My sense, incidentally, is that some parts of dinner can be creditably bought (cakes, bread, salamis and other cured meats), and others really need to be made by hand. Chicken Kiev is in the latter group. Especially if you mean the kind that cost 99 pence frozen.
Afterwards, she emailed all the guests and asked what they thought. The reaction wasn't that positive to the food, but most agreed that they hadn't really noticed. My favorite comment? One guest noted that she and her husband had a 'somewhat disturbed night' afterwards, as a result of the kiev. Alas.
My sense, incidentally, is that some parts of dinner can be creditably bought (cakes, bread, salamis and other cured meats), and others really need to be made by hand. Chicken Kiev is in the latter group. Especially if you mean the kind that cost 99 pence frozen.
A few weeks ago, the New York Times published an article on finding a good roast chicken in the city. It's a good article, and I'll certainly keep it in mind when I eventually move to New York. But the article's implication that one wouldn't, say, roast their own chicken really annoyed me in a way. Yes, roast chicken is time intensive, in that the thing has to roast. And yes, prices of pre-roasted chickens have dropped to almost equal the high end of raw chickens. Nor is roasting your own chicken necessarily traditional - in fact, in Beirut it's been common since my dad was a kid to send a single unfortunate out to get some farooj, the delicious fire roasted chickens of the lebanese capital, and some fresh bread for ravenous devouring at home (drowned in garlicky yogurt and tahini sauce, and served with tart assorted pickles).
But despite all these arguments in favor of buying your chicken pre-cooked, the home roasted chicken has a lot to be said for it. Of course, you have control over how it's stuffed and flavored. You tend to get a better quality of chicken for the same price if you do the work yourself, and you also get the detritus of roast chicken to use at home - the roasting juices for gravys and potatoes. And as for the time and effort, there's really very little active work in roasting a chicken - once you've flavored and seasoned the bird, all you have to do is put it in the oven and wait. And that wait is leavened by the delicious, permeating, smell of a good chicken, and herbs, and onions and garlic, and the pleasant fug of (unwaxed) lemon. As for the result itself, if you're a fan of the chicken's skin and juicy meat, the home product is much superior. Even if the roasted chicken is right outside your apartment, as tends to be the case in Beirut, the skin is never as crispy, nor the breast as juicy, in even the five minutes it takes to ferry the meal home.
Anyway, the article spurred me to roast a chicken, which I hadn't done for a few weeks then. The pictures start here, but my discussion is below the fold.
1. If you can afford it, get a good chicken, defined as an organic or free range bird of some size. I used a Whole Foods organic chicken that weighed about 4 pounds, and that was certainly enough for a week of eating. Some people wash their chickens before roasting. I suppose it might make sense, but if so, make sure to dry it throughly. There's nothing worse then soggy skinned chicken.
2. Dress the chicken. This, for me, involves olive oil, salt and pepper (remember to rub these things inside too), and a half lemon and thyme stuffed up its bum (to steal a phrase from Nigella Lawson). Somewhat bizarrely, because I happen to like chicken breasts flavored heavily with thyme, I stuff absurb amounts of the herb between the skin covering the breast and the meat. This is probably wrong, but I like the result.
3. Put the chicken in a roasting tray. Mine has a little griddle which holds the chicen above the tray, and also incidentally keeps it relatively compact. If you don't have such a thing, you can go ahead and truss the chicken, tying its legs together, to ensure more even cooking. Or not. The world won't end if you don't.
4. Put the chicken in the oven at 350-400 degrees for about an hour and a half for a 4 pound chicken. I'm told the rule is something like 20 minutes per pound, with half an hour thrown on top. As you can see from the pictures, I intervened halfway through to add some boiled potatoes, which get fattily roasted in the chicken dripping.
5. When it finishes baking, let the chicken rest, then carve. Eat warm that night, and then cold in sandwiches, salads, and other delicious manifestations all week
But despite all these arguments in favor of buying your chicken pre-cooked, the home roasted chicken has a lot to be said for it. Of course, you have control over how it's stuffed and flavored. You tend to get a better quality of chicken for the same price if you do the work yourself, and you also get the detritus of roast chicken to use at home - the roasting juices for gravys and potatoes. And as for the time and effort, there's really very little active work in roasting a chicken - once you've flavored and seasoned the bird, all you have to do is put it in the oven and wait. And that wait is leavened by the delicious, permeating, smell of a good chicken, and herbs, and onions and garlic, and the pleasant fug of (unwaxed) lemon. As for the result itself, if you're a fan of the chicken's skin and juicy meat, the home product is much superior. Even if the roasted chicken is right outside your apartment, as tends to be the case in Beirut, the skin is never as crispy, nor the breast as juicy, in even the five minutes it takes to ferry the meal home.
Anyway, the article spurred me to roast a chicken, which I hadn't done for a few weeks then. The pictures start here, but my discussion is below the fold.
1. If you can afford it, get a good chicken, defined as an organic or free range bird of some size. I used a Whole Foods organic chicken that weighed about 4 pounds, and that was certainly enough for a week of eating. Some people wash their chickens before roasting. I suppose it might make sense, but if so, make sure to dry it throughly. There's nothing worse then soggy skinned chicken.
2. Dress the chicken. This, for me, involves olive oil, salt and pepper (remember to rub these things inside too), and a half lemon and thyme stuffed up its bum (to steal a phrase from Nigella Lawson). Somewhat bizarrely, because I happen to like chicken breasts flavored heavily with thyme, I stuff absurb amounts of the herb between the skin covering the breast and the meat. This is probably wrong, but I like the result.
3. Put the chicken in a roasting tray. Mine has a little griddle which holds the chicen above the tray, and also incidentally keeps it relatively compact. If you don't have such a thing, you can go ahead and truss the chicken, tying its legs together, to ensure more even cooking. Or not. The world won't end if you don't.
4. Put the chicken in the oven at 350-400 degrees for about an hour and a half for a 4 pound chicken. I'm told the rule is something like 20 minutes per pound, with half an hour thrown on top. As you can see from the pictures, I intervened halfway through to add some boiled potatoes, which get fattily roasted in the chicken dripping.
5. When it finishes baking, let the chicken rest, then carve. Eat warm that night, and then cold in sandwiches, salads, and other delicious manifestations all week
I fancy myself a pretty decent cook, overall. The food I make is tasty, and even if not, I know enough about it to sound like a snot, if nothing else. But clearly, one of the things I'm missing is the real, basic grounding a young chef gets at culinary school - the knife skills, the tedious work in perfecting the great mother sauces and doughs. In a lame attempt to fix some of my deficiencies, I bought a copy of Jacques Pepin's La Technique a few weeks ago - a definitive textbook of basic, classical, cooking. My goal is to learn the book to the extent I can - and I'll post my first efforts at any one technique, and hopefully spare everyone the follow-ups.
So, I decided to start this process with pommes cocottes - normal potatoes cut by paring knife into little ovals. The pictures of the raw product - in all their lopsided glory - are here. The potatoes blanched and fried in butter are here. The musings of a spatially challenged clutz trying to carve potatoes into ovals are below the fold.
1. the idea, as Pepin explains it, is to cut a large potato into quarters, and then "turn" them into little ovals. My fundamental take home message from this is that you literally do need to turn them - carving a little bit from each face before rotating the potato ever so slightly counter-clockwise in your palm to repeat. A lot of the bad results you can see in the picture are from efforts where I tried to carve an oval out of the quarter potato - tried to see an oval, to identify the two tips and carve towards them. It doesn't work. Just trust the technique - turning produces ovals. I don't know how.
2. The other thing I'll have to think about as I continue to practice this technique is wastage. I've heard that wasting food, and bits of food, is the bete noire of a restaurant. And yet, the pile of potato scraps my efforts produces was enormous, given that I only cut into two potatoes at my first go. Could any technique endorsed by Pepin possibly waste so much potato? I'm aware that potato scraps are great for vegetable stock, but even so - clearly, as I get better with this, the wastage should decline as well.
So, I decided to start this process with pommes cocottes - normal potatoes cut by paring knife into little ovals. The pictures of the raw product - in all their lopsided glory - are here. The potatoes blanched and fried in butter are here. The musings of a spatially challenged clutz trying to carve potatoes into ovals are below the fold.
1. the idea, as Pepin explains it, is to cut a large potato into quarters, and then "turn" them into little ovals. My fundamental take home message from this is that you literally do need to turn them - carving a little bit from each face before rotating the potato ever so slightly counter-clockwise in your palm to repeat. A lot of the bad results you can see in the picture are from efforts where I tried to carve an oval out of the quarter potato - tried to see an oval, to identify the two tips and carve towards them. It doesn't work. Just trust the technique - turning produces ovals. I don't know how.
2. The other thing I'll have to think about as I continue to practice this technique is wastage. I've heard that wasting food, and bits of food, is the bete noire of a restaurant. And yet, the pile of potato scraps my efforts produces was enormous, given that I only cut into two potatoes at my first go. Could any technique endorsed by Pepin possibly waste so much potato? I'm aware that potato scraps are great for vegetable stock, but even so - clearly, as I get better with this, the wastage should decline as well.
2/23/2005
What I'm Eating this Week
Waddling Thunder at 08:52 PM
Mark Madsen at Extended Phenotype responded to my criticism of Richard Olney's Lulu's Provencal Table by noting that I "missed something crucial" in neglecting to laud the book's "tribute to a great winemaking family and their 'extended family' of associations from Olney to Kermit Lynch to Alice Waters and her compatriots". That may well be true, but the thing is that I normally like this kind of book. But there are good tributes, and less good ones, and I just didn't sense Olney's usual sense of superior conviviality here. Tastes will differ, but I offer my penance in the form of this week's main recipe, drawn largely from the disputed book.
Highlights below the fold include a discussion of Meat me in Manhattan, and this week's recipe, pot au feu, langue de boeuf (beef tongue fire pot)
What I'm Reading About Food this Week
Meat me in Manhattan: A carnivore's Guide to New York: Mr. Cutlets
The author of this slim but amusing and useful volume describes himself as a "broad meat-like man" on the back cover. I don't know whether Mr. Cutlets really fits that description, but he has produced a good quick reference for meat, and especially in New York. For those who already have a Zagat's, Mr. Cutlets guides you to those destinations that deserve their rating, and some others that Zagat's misses - fried chicken restaurants, butchers, traditional steakhouses, the whole lot. There's some here too for those just interested in the world of meat, without access to Manhattan - a easy to follow discussion of various viands at the beginning, and little interesting bits of wisdom interspersed throughout. You won't, of course, always agree with the formidable author, but at least he tells you what he thinks. And that's better than most.
What I'm Eating this Week
Pot au Feu, Langue de Boeuf
"Tongue", says the Oxford Companion to Food, is a "fleshy muscular movable organ of the floor of the mouth which bears sensory taste buds, and has special functions in tasting and swallowing food". No kidding, I say. But it's also cheap, and packs a lot of taste.
That taste is why I'm always surprised to find that it's not favored here in America. I only found the tongue I'm planning to cook, in fact, while wandering lost in far flung Allston (across the dreaded Charles), where the supermarket had changed its offerings to accomodate a more heavily hispanic population. In fact, in my house, tongue has a festival connotation - we only eat it, cold, as an appetizer at Christmas.
Pot au feu, a stew like braise of (any) meat, plays perfectly to tongue's strengths and weaknesses. On one hand, the tongue flavours the otherwise bland ingredients, making the meal satisfying and of interest. On the other, braising, and especially three hours of it, renders the powerfully muscular organ tender, allows the inedible skin to be removed, and lets you slice the meat thinly to be eaten lukewarm. Olney recommends potatoes, carrots, and turnips as the vegetables to be added to the tongue, cold water, and white wine after the meat has cooked for two hours, but I doubt they're obligatory - one imagines that other additions would do as well. But what I think is more important is to remember to serve the broth with crusts of stale bread laid in the serving bowl. That's the authentic way most french people eat soups and light braises at home, and I think that starchy base at the bottom adds rather a lot to simple, healthy experience of eating tongue and its delicious stock.
Waddling Thunder at 08:52 PM
Mark Madsen at Extended Phenotype responded to my criticism of Richard Olney's Lulu's Provencal Table by noting that I "missed something crucial" in neglecting to laud the book's "tribute to a great winemaking family and their 'extended family' of associations from Olney to Kermit Lynch to Alice Waters and her compatriots". That may well be true, but the thing is that I normally like this kind of book. But there are good tributes, and less good ones, and I just didn't sense Olney's usual sense of superior conviviality here. Tastes will differ, but I offer my penance in the form of this week's main recipe, drawn largely from the disputed book.
Highlights below the fold include a discussion of Meat me in Manhattan, and this week's recipe, pot au feu, langue de boeuf (beef tongue fire pot)
What I'm Reading About Food this Week
Meat me in Manhattan: A carnivore's Guide to New York: Mr. Cutlets
The author of this slim but amusing and useful volume describes himself as a "broad meat-like man" on the back cover. I don't know whether Mr. Cutlets really fits that description, but he has produced a good quick reference for meat, and especially in New York. For those who already have a Zagat's, Mr. Cutlets guides you to those destinations that deserve their rating, and some others that Zagat's misses - fried chicken restaurants, butchers, traditional steakhouses, the whole lot. There's some here too for those just interested in the world of meat, without access to Manhattan - a easy to follow discussion of various viands at the beginning, and little interesting bits of wisdom interspersed throughout. You won't, of course, always agree with the formidable author, but at least he tells you what he thinks. And that's better than most.
What I'm Eating this Week
Pot au Feu, Langue de Boeuf
"Tongue", says the Oxford Companion to Food, is a "fleshy muscular movable organ of the floor of the mouth which bears sensory taste buds, and has special functions in tasting and swallowing food". No kidding, I say. But it's also cheap, and packs a lot of taste.
That taste is why I'm always surprised to find that it's not favored here in America. I only found the tongue I'm planning to cook, in fact, while wandering lost in far flung Allston (across the dreaded Charles), where the supermarket had changed its offerings to accomodate a more heavily hispanic population. In fact, in my house, tongue has a festival connotation - we only eat it, cold, as an appetizer at Christmas.
Pot au feu, a stew like braise of (any) meat, plays perfectly to tongue's strengths and weaknesses. On one hand, the tongue flavours the otherwise bland ingredients, making the meal satisfying and of interest. On the other, braising, and especially three hours of it, renders the powerfully muscular organ tender, allows the inedible skin to be removed, and lets you slice the meat thinly to be eaten lukewarm. Olney recommends potatoes, carrots, and turnips as the vegetables to be added to the tongue, cold water, and white wine after the meat has cooked for two hours, but I doubt they're obligatory - one imagines that other additions would do as well. But what I think is more important is to remember to serve the broth with crusts of stale bread laid in the serving bowl. That's the authentic way most french people eat soups and light braises at home, and I think that starchy base at the bottom adds rather a lot to simple, healthy experience of eating tongue and its delicious stock.
I always hate posting just after Will, because I get the feeling I'm pushing him down his own page. I feel like a house guest who sets up shop in his host's bed. Nonetheless, his post just below on frozen vegetables reminds me of a favorite, and fast meal.
Frozen Pea Soup
Roast a full head of garlic in foil for an hour. By the end, the garlic will be luxurious, soft, and extraordinarily mild - the only problem is that you'll have been forced to wait for an hour in the gentle fug of roasting garlic before you can tear a few cloves out of their cover, dip them in salt, and eat them with ilicit speed before you finish the recipe.
Then, in keeping with the frozen pea convenience motif, just put some cold water in a pan, add some cubed chicken stock, and a bag of frozen peas. Drop the roasted garlic in the pan as well, heat briefly (just till hot) and then puree the whole thing. The best way to do it, obviously, is one of those hand held blenders you can just stick in the pot, but if you don't have one any kind of food processor will do. Stir in some grated parmesan, and you're done - the soup will be bright green, smooth, and delicious. Eat with bread, and thick ham sandwiches.
N.B. - if you've got a parmesan rind, throw that into the soup while cooking. It gives a wonderful flavor
Frozen Pea Soup
Roast a full head of garlic in foil for an hour. By the end, the garlic will be luxurious, soft, and extraordinarily mild - the only problem is that you'll have been forced to wait for an hour in the gentle fug of roasting garlic before you can tear a few cloves out of their cover, dip them in salt, and eat them with ilicit speed before you finish the recipe.
Then, in keeping with the frozen pea convenience motif, just put some cold water in a pan, add some cubed chicken stock, and a bag of frozen peas. Drop the roasted garlic in the pan as well, heat briefly (just till hot) and then puree the whole thing. The best way to do it, obviously, is one of those hand held blenders you can just stick in the pot, but if you don't have one any kind of food processor will do. Stir in some grated parmesan, and you're done - the soup will be bright green, smooth, and delicious. Eat with bread, and thick ham sandwiches.
N.B. - if you've got a parmesan rind, throw that into the soup while cooking. It gives a wonderful flavor
Book #16: Camembert: A National Myth, by Pierre Boisard
Between the fact that this book was originally written in French, and that the author acknowledges the French ministry of Culture, one can imagine that American cheese makers come in for a bit of a slating in this friendly history of the great cheese. And they do - Boisard's depiction of the sophisticated American capitalists hoodwinking artisanal French cheese producers into teaching them their secrets - on the pretense of protecting their traditions- is really pretty funny. And I couldn't help chuckling at the (understandable) French reaction when American cheese makers offered to replace the the bombed statue of Camembert's patron saint Marie Harel with a figure inscribed "This statue was the gift of the Borden Ohio Camembert Factory". As if there could be a Camembert factory in Ohio - I mean, really!
But the overwhelming sense from this book isn't the failure of American cheese making, but the apparently troublesome state of the French industry. As Boisard points out, both France and Europe as a whole have started to fall prey to the pasteurization trend - the book reports that 90% of the cheese made in France is now treated. And even if you think you're buying the real article, Boisard points out , worryingly, that not all raw milk Camembert is made equal. Traditional camembert is made by spooning the curds of local milk into molds by hand. The hand ladling ensures that the curd is never cut, distinguishing Camembert from other cheeses (such as Pont L'Eveque) where this doesn't matter. As for the provenance of the milk, ideally you should be able to tell if you're eating a Camembert of Isigny or one of Auge. As the former head of a dairy mill told the author,
"Save for its origin, what is traditional about a Camembert whose milk comes from Dutch Holstein cows fed on imported cattle cakes and corn silage . . . and whose broken curd is ladle-molded by robots?".
Set in the context of our problems here in the US when it comes to cheese, a robot ladle doesn't seem so bad. But if France falters, where can we turn? I'm really not sure.
Between the fact that this book was originally written in French, and that the author acknowledges the French ministry of Culture, one can imagine that American cheese makers come in for a bit of a slating in this friendly history of the great cheese. And they do - Boisard's depiction of the sophisticated American capitalists hoodwinking artisanal French cheese producers into teaching them their secrets - on the pretense of protecting their traditions- is really pretty funny. And I couldn't help chuckling at the (understandable) French reaction when American cheese makers offered to replace the the bombed statue of Camembert's patron saint Marie Harel with a figure inscribed "This statue was the gift of the Borden Ohio Camembert Factory". As if there could be a Camembert factory in Ohio - I mean, really!
But the overwhelming sense from this book isn't the failure of American cheese making, but the apparently troublesome state of the French industry. As Boisard points out, both France and Europe as a whole have started to fall prey to the pasteurization trend - the book reports that 90% of the cheese made in France is now treated. And even if you think you're buying the real article, Boisard points out , worryingly, that not all raw milk Camembert is made equal. Traditional camembert is made by spooning the curds of local milk into molds by hand. The hand ladling ensures that the curd is never cut, distinguishing Camembert from other cheeses (such as Pont L'Eveque) where this doesn't matter. As for the provenance of the milk, ideally you should be able to tell if you're eating a Camembert of Isigny or one of Auge. As the former head of a dairy mill told the author,
"Save for its origin, what is traditional about a Camembert whose milk comes from Dutch Holstein cows fed on imported cattle cakes and corn silage . . . and whose broken curd is ladle-molded by robots?".
Set in the context of our problems here in the US when it comes to cheese, a robot ladle doesn't seem so bad. But if France falters, where can we turn? I'm really not sure.
The New York Times today has this profile of Gordon Ramsay, probably the most famous (and best) chef currently active in the United Kingdom. You can see my just-after-the-fact post about my visit to his 3 Michelin starred restaurant last summer here.
On a slightly different note, the fact that my law firm paid for that meal came as close to a breach of fiduciary duty as I saw all summer. Whether it convinces me to work there or not in the end is a more interesting question. We'll see.
On a slightly different note, the fact that my law firm paid for that meal came as close to a breach of fiduciary duty as I saw all summer. Whether it convinces me to work there or not in the end is a more interesting question. We'll see.
I obviously prefer home made food, but that doesn't mean I don't care about processed and other ready made food. This is the stuff that's feeding America, and somone ought to pay attention. Here, for example, you can see my brief thoughts about C2 cola, and here my review of the sugar free baby ruth.
The target of my eating this week has been 7-Eleven's relatively new "gourmet" sandwiches, called "Big Eats Deli". They claim to be made with artisanal bread, fresh meats, and interesting cheeses. In an area where one local bakery sells a single sandwich for $8.25, 7-Eleven has come into the market at between $2.99 and $3.49. That's the good news.
And the sandwiches aren't appalling either. The basic offerings, such as smoked turkey & Jack cheese on Wheatberry bread, are perfectly serviceable - made relatively close by in Brockton with ingredients as advertised. No, the supposed southwestern mayonnaise wasn't that exciting, and the bread had generally gone a bit gummy, but I've had worse sandwiches at places purporting to serve sandwiches. That 7-Eleven is matching even some sandwich shops is pretty impressive.
And as much as it worries me to say this, the Mediterranean Style Turkey with Pepper Supreme spread is actually decent. Like, I'd have it again. The tomato and basil bread was fresh and tasty, there was some sort of tapenade (yes, I'm serious), and the pepper sauce was an interesting mix of bell peppers and some sort of cheese. No, I wouldn't pay any more than $3.50 for it, but at that price it's a pretty good deal. If you're hungry and desperate, 7-Eleven has moved into the market with at least one relatively impressive offering. Go for it.
The target of my eating this week has been 7-Eleven's relatively new "gourmet" sandwiches, called "Big Eats Deli". They claim to be made with artisanal bread, fresh meats, and interesting cheeses. In an area where one local bakery sells a single sandwich for $8.25, 7-Eleven has come into the market at between $2.99 and $3.49. That's the good news.
And the sandwiches aren't appalling either. The basic offerings, such as smoked turkey & Jack cheese on Wheatberry bread, are perfectly serviceable - made relatively close by in Brockton with ingredients as advertised. No, the supposed southwestern mayonnaise wasn't that exciting, and the bread had generally gone a bit gummy, but I've had worse sandwiches at places purporting to serve sandwiches. That 7-Eleven is matching even some sandwich shops is pretty impressive.
And as much as it worries me to say this, the Mediterranean Style Turkey with Pepper Supreme spread is actually decent. Like, I'd have it again. The tomato and basil bread was fresh and tasty, there was some sort of tapenade (yes, I'm serious), and the pepper sauce was an interesting mix of bell peppers and some sort of cheese. No, I wouldn't pay any more than $3.50 for it, but at that price it's a pretty good deal. If you're hungry and desperate, 7-Eleven has moved into the market with at least one relatively impressive offering. Go for it.
1/24/2005
Large food corporations are responsible for a lot of our eating. As much as I like to rhapsodize about "fresh" eggs, and lashings of cream, this isn't what's happening across the country. Therefore, I like trying out the new products these companies put out occasionally. Even among processed foods, people deserve a decent product.
With that in mind, I picked up Nestle's new "Sugar Free" Baby Ruth candy bar over the weekend. Obviously, the bar is a creature of the Atkins craze - a serious point against it. But how does it taste, and does it make sense to buy?
Well, first, even though FDA has required the label to say so, I just want to reiterate that there's nothing low calorie or low fat about the bar. A normal Baby Ruth, weighing in at roughly 60 grams, provides 280 calories and 12 grams of fat. The sheer numbers on the sugar free bar are indeed smaller (140 calories, 8 grams of fat), but that's because the bar itself is smaller - a mere 36.8 grams. One wonders if Nestle (and its consumers) wouldn't be better off just making their normal bar a little smaller, and leaving it at that. I should also note that you pay a lot more for the privilege of eating Nestle's sugar free offering - I noticed a premium of about 40 cents over the larger sugar-filled Baby Ruth, but it might differ elsewhere. I suspect the price difference isn't purely marketing - the artificial sweetener Nestle uses, sucralose (brand name Splenda) is much more expensive than even good sugar.
As for taste, it tastes exactly how you would imagine sugar free chocolate might taste, but with an unexpected (label warned) threat of laxative effect - flat, insipid, slightly sickly - with a few nuts strewn within. It certainly doesn't taste of chocolate. As people who read my writing realize, I can't imagine the mentality that drives people to eat this horrible thing regularly. Eat one square of real chocolate and give the rest away - buy an apple - drop a spare few blueberries into a pot of full fat yogurt - anything but this.
I sometimes wonder whether I'm being unfair to this kind of product. The bar tastes kind of sweet, after all, and there are some nuts in there, and the brown stuff covering the filling does kind of look like chocolate, even if it doesn't taste anything like it. And anyway, the chocolate of the normal Baby Ruth doesn't taste like chocolate either. Am I just sneering at something people want to eat? Well, yes, but I think my sneer is deserved. If even one person reads this and decides to put aside the sugar free Baby Ruth and do something else instead, I'll be glad. We don't all need to suddenly become yoeman farmers - but if we can put the person who invented this candy out of a job, then we'll have done something good anyway.
With that in mind, I picked up Nestle's new "Sugar Free" Baby Ruth candy bar over the weekend. Obviously, the bar is a creature of the Atkins craze - a serious point against it. But how does it taste, and does it make sense to buy?
Well, first, even though FDA has required the label to say so, I just want to reiterate that there's nothing low calorie or low fat about the bar. A normal Baby Ruth, weighing in at roughly 60 grams, provides 280 calories and 12 grams of fat. The sheer numbers on the sugar free bar are indeed smaller (140 calories, 8 grams of fat), but that's because the bar itself is smaller - a mere 36.8 grams. One wonders if Nestle (and its consumers) wouldn't be better off just making their normal bar a little smaller, and leaving it at that. I should also note that you pay a lot more for the privilege of eating Nestle's sugar free offering - I noticed a premium of about 40 cents over the larger sugar-filled Baby Ruth, but it might differ elsewhere. I suspect the price difference isn't purely marketing - the artificial sweetener Nestle uses, sucralose (brand name Splenda) is much more expensive than even good sugar.
As for taste, it tastes exactly how you would imagine sugar free chocolate might taste, but with an unexpected (label warned) threat of laxative effect - flat, insipid, slightly sickly - with a few nuts strewn within. It certainly doesn't taste of chocolate. As people who read my writing realize, I can't imagine the mentality that drives people to eat this horrible thing regularly. Eat one square of real chocolate and give the rest away - buy an apple - drop a spare few blueberries into a pot of full fat yogurt - anything but this.
I sometimes wonder whether I'm being unfair to this kind of product. The bar tastes kind of sweet, after all, and there are some nuts in there, and the brown stuff covering the filling does kind of look like chocolate, even if it doesn't taste anything like it. And anyway, the chocolate of the normal Baby Ruth doesn't taste like chocolate either. Am I just sneering at something people want to eat? Well, yes, but I think my sneer is deserved. If even one person reads this and decides to put aside the sugar free Baby Ruth and do something else instead, I'll be glad. We don't all need to suddenly become yoeman farmers - but if we can put the person who invented this candy out of a job, then we'll have done something good anyway.
Today is Championship sunday in the NFL, and two great games bookend the afternoon. As much as it pains me to say something nice about the despised AFC, however, the class of the games today is clearly New England's visit to Pittsburgh - the two best teams in the league, both tough, and nasty, and happy to play outside on a freezing, snow filled Pennsylvania evening. This kind of game is why I'm a football fan.
And, coincidentally, the games give me a great excuse to make one of my favorite stews (chili), and accompaniments (cornbread). Read below the fold for recipes
Football Chili
I don't put beans in my chili, and I don't use ground beef. I know some people do both those things, and the chili tastes great, but I think of chili as a normal beef stew with some different spices - and for that you need good, fatty, cubes of beef. I had some wonderful chuck, but a number of other cuts would do as well. I also always try to add some bony meat for its fat content and for its gelatinous properties, which help thicken the stew. The chili I'm eating today is flavored with a great looking lamb neck bone.
I brown the beef in olive oil until crusty and caramelized, and then take them out of the pan to sautee my thinly sliced onions and crushed garlic in the mix of beef fat and the vegetable oil until soft. Then the beef gets put back into the pan, is salted and peppered, and gets spiced by 5 chopped habanero peppers. I know the conventional wisdom is to seed the peppers before cooking, but I like my food spicy. Others will disagree.
I then add a tin of good diced tomatoes to the pan, and then a bottle of decent beer - I like to use German or Eastern European lagers. If you need more liquid, some water or chicken stock will do fine. I add cumin that I've ground from the seeds, and also add some herbs tied up in a cheese cloth - I used thyme, coriander, and parsley today. From then on, the chili is easy. Let it bubble at a very low simmer for three or four hours, until quite thick. Let cool, and refrigerate for a night. Chili (and all stews) are always better slowly reheated the next day.
"Easy" Corn Bread
I found this cornbread on a bag of cornmeal, but it's remarkably good. normally, I eat much rougher cornbreads (that is to say, with higher ratios of corn to flour) with very little sugar, but I was in the mood for this one today. If you want a slightly more authentic experience, instead of pouring the batter into a prepared pan you can put the pan with oil and butter into the oven, and pour the batter into this sizzling fat before putting back into the oven.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Combine 1.25 cups of self raising flour with .75 cups of cornmeal (and this can be adjusted as you like). Add up to .25 cups of sugar, though I like a lot less. Finally, stir in a cup of whole milk, a beaten egg, and .25 cups of olive oil (though less will work too). Mix throughly and pour into a prepared (i.e, oiled) loaf pan. Bake for about 25 minutes until golden and done.
And, coincidentally, the games give me a great excuse to make one of my favorite stews (chili), and accompaniments (cornbread). Read below the fold for recipes
Football Chili
I don't put beans in my chili, and I don't use ground beef. I know some people do both those things, and the chili tastes great, but I think of chili as a normal beef stew with some different spices - and for that you need good, fatty, cubes of beef. I had some wonderful chuck, but a number of other cuts would do as well. I also always try to add some bony meat for its fat content and for its gelatinous properties, which help thicken the stew. The chili I'm eating today is flavored with a great looking lamb neck bone.
I brown the beef in olive oil until crusty and caramelized, and then take them out of the pan to sautee my thinly sliced onions and crushed garlic in the mix of beef fat and the vegetable oil until soft. Then the beef gets put back into the pan, is salted and peppered, and gets spiced by 5 chopped habanero peppers. I know the conventional wisdom is to seed the peppers before cooking, but I like my food spicy. Others will disagree.
I then add a tin of good diced tomatoes to the pan, and then a bottle of decent beer - I like to use German or Eastern European lagers. If you need more liquid, some water or chicken stock will do fine. I add cumin that I've ground from the seeds, and also add some herbs tied up in a cheese cloth - I used thyme, coriander, and parsley today. From then on, the chili is easy. Let it bubble at a very low simmer for three or four hours, until quite thick. Let cool, and refrigerate for a night. Chili (and all stews) are always better slowly reheated the next day.
"Easy" Corn Bread
I found this cornbread on a bag of cornmeal, but it's remarkably good. normally, I eat much rougher cornbreads (that is to say, with higher ratios of corn to flour) with very little sugar, but I was in the mood for this one today. If you want a slightly more authentic experience, instead of pouring the batter into a prepared pan you can put the pan with oil and butter into the oven, and pour the batter into this sizzling fat before putting back into the oven.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Combine 1.25 cups of self raising flour with .75 cups of cornmeal (and this can be adjusted as you like). Add up to .25 cups of sugar, though I like a lot less. Finally, stir in a cup of whole milk, a beaten egg, and .25 cups of olive oil (though less will work too). Mix throughly and pour into a prepared (i.e, oiled) loaf pan. Bake for about 25 minutes until golden and done.
Phoebe disagrees with my post on French Women Don't Get Fat below. She makes two points - first, that I overstate the French health advantage, and second, that "incidental walking", as I describe it, is ineffective in producing weight loss. I suspect we agree on more than not, but I do want to address these two points.
As to the magnitude of the French obesity advantage, it is broadly true that the French are slowly getting fatter. As Phoebe concedes, however, the extent to which this is true can be pretty closely tied to their increasing abandoment of the lifestyle I was lauding. No, it's not true that literally all French people are lean and trim - I overstated the case. But obesity in France in at least half of what it is in the US according to the statistics I've seen, which is astonishing for a country so singularly unobsessed with weight. I've lived with French people at universities, both men and women - I've spent a lot of time there as well. Weight loss is simply not on the agenda in the way it is here. And that's because the people are leaner - not because wine is some sort of mysterious de-fatter, but because they eat less and exercise (in a broad sense) more.
Second, incidental walking is indeed effective in burning calories and fat. The article to which Phoebe links makes no claim otherwise - it merely says there are better ways of burning calories, and that walking doesn't create muscle. Those are both true, but a constant burn of even 300 or 400 calories per day (an hour or so of brisk walking) will have powerful effects on weight. I hate pulling out personal anecdotes, but it certainly worked for me. Do I now do other sports as well? Of course - that's how you develop cardiovascular fitness and muscle tone. But walking will help, and it will help because if you design your life right, you can't avoid doing it.
As to the magnitude of the French obesity advantage, it is broadly true that the French are slowly getting fatter. As Phoebe concedes, however, the extent to which this is true can be pretty closely tied to their increasing abandoment of the lifestyle I was lauding. No, it's not true that literally all French people are lean and trim - I overstated the case. But obesity in France in at least half of what it is in the US according to the statistics I've seen, which is astonishing for a country so singularly unobsessed with weight. I've lived with French people at universities, both men and women - I've spent a lot of time there as well. Weight loss is simply not on the agenda in the way it is here. And that's because the people are leaner - not because wine is some sort of mysterious de-fatter, but because they eat less and exercise (in a broad sense) more.
Second, incidental walking is indeed effective in burning calories and fat. The article to which Phoebe links makes no claim otherwise - it merely says there are better ways of burning calories, and that walking doesn't create muscle. Those are both true, but a constant burn of even 300 or 400 calories per day (an hour or so of brisk walking) will have powerful effects on weight. I hate pulling out personal anecdotes, but it certainly worked for me. Do I now do other sports as well? Of course - that's how you develop cardiovascular fitness and muscle tone. But walking will help, and it will help because if you design your life right, you can't avoid doing it.
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