Gumbo v. Jambalaya

Do you know the difference? An infamous story in my household concerns a fourth grade reading teacher and her mind-boggling, multiple-choice pop quizzes. You now, the ones designed to make children hate reading? On one of these 5-question tests, my daughter incorrectly matched the definition of jambalaya to the word gumbo and the definition of gumbo to the word jambalaya. She ended up with a big fat "D" on the quiz.

I told this tale to my college friends at our roomie reunion this weekend, here in Chicago. While we were eating lunch at Heaven on Seven! So before we left the restaurant, we made sure we all understood what makes gumbo gumbo.

And Then There Was One (Daikon Radish)

Here's what I'm making with all that remains of this week's farm share.

Otherwise, I would have eaten it raw (what they heck)!

I Didn't Make Salsa with the Cilantro (for Once)

It seems like people either love cilantro or hate it. I love the stuff, and one reason I frequent this Mexican restaurant is their lovely cilantro salad dressing.

I was trying to find a similar recipe online last night, so I could use my fresh cilantro. I found this recipe instead, and I decided to make it because I had all the ingredients on hand. It was delicious and worked really well with the chipotle chicken we grilled.

Note: A friend of a friend owns a lavender farm, which is why I actually have a stash of lavender buds.

'Cuz People Asked What I Do with the Turnips

I enjoy reading cookbooks more than I actually enjoy cooking. Likewise watching cooking shows. Here's a recipe I thought I found in a 700+ page cookbook someone gave me, but turns out I googled it.

Nice essay on gratin dauphinois in the cookbook, though, in which I learned this technique: "Pour heavy cream over it and bake."

For My Girls Who Love Biscuits

We've eaten all the produce except the thyme. Right now I'm making Honey Thyme Butter for breakfast tomorrow:

1 stick butter
3 T honey
1 T fresh thyme leaves, chopped

Serve with biscuits.

Food Labels

Although I've learned to decipher Big Ag food labels, English labeling is still a crutch I lean on.

I don't think I can handle all the international products at Fresh Farms. I'm impressed by the selection - I just want to know what I'm eating!

More on Fresh Farms later.

I believe I can live the rest of my life without eating another Totino’s Pizza Roll

Ingredients: tomato puree (water, tomato paste), enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), pepperoni pizza topping (pepperoni made with port, chicken and beef [pork, mechanically separated chicken, beef, salt, spice, dextrose, oleoresin of paprika, sodium ascorbate, garlic power, sodium nitrite, lactic acid starter culture, BHA and BHT and citric acid added to protect flavor] water, soy protein isolate), water, mozzarella cheese substitute (water, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, rennet casein, modified corn start, potato starch, sodium aluminum phosphate, vital wheat gluten, salt potassium chloride, citric acid, potassium sorbate [preservative], sodium phosphate, sodium citrate, titanium dioxide [color], maltodextrin, magnesium oxide, zinc oxide, vitamin A palmitate, riboflavin, vitamin B12) partially hydrogenated soybean oil, modified corn starch, rehydrated pasteurized process nonfat mozzarella cheese (water, nonfat milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes, citric acid, vitamin A palmitate, vitamin B6, sodium aluminum phosphate, sodium citrate, sodium phosphate), salt, sugar, defatted soy flour, dried whey, dried onion, spice, methylcellulose, rehydrated enzyme modified cheese (water, milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), natural flavor.

Notes on ingredients:
1) I love the vagueness of “spice” and “natural flavor” and the irony of including them on the ingredient list.
2) One of these days I really would like to see the machine that mechanically separates chicken.

Ginger Ale

My daughter can't seem to beat this bug she picked up somewhere. The BRAT diet of Broth, Rice, Applesauce, & Tea is getting old, so we offer her flattened ginger ale, too.

We've discovered something about the stuff, besides the fact that it's delicious mixed with cranberry juice. Not all ginger ales are the same. Well, they're mostly all the same, except the ginger ale you get at Whole Foods. Which tastes really weird. In a bad way. Too gingery? I don't know if that's it, but the cranberry juice doesn't mask the odd flavor.

Ginger ale consists of carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, natural flavors, sodium benzoate (preservative), and caramel color. The Whole Foods 365 brand doesn't use high fructose corn syrup, though. This ginger ale is sweetened with regular old cane sugar.

Which makes me freak out some more about high fructose corn syrup. What is it, exactly?

My other daughter was more optimistic about the strange ginger ale. She said it will probably start to taste better then the regular stuff after a while. Kind of like natural peanut butter. "You know, it tastes bad at first, but then you get used to it? Now JIF just tastes nasty."

Easter Candy 2008

It’s not as much fun buying candy when your kids are wearing braces. That became very clear to me in the Easter candy aisle at Target on Saturday. I had to tear myself away from all those lovely jellybeans and Starbursts and Tootsie Rolls, but I bought a lot of chocolate—the best I could find. Our daughters can coat their teeth in the stuff, and the brackets will remain intact.

Still, I hung around examining the wares. The blood-orange colored Peeps made me gag. The mom standing next to me and I both agreed that the flavored, edible grass for the Easter baskets was just weird.

Easy, Healthy Dinners

Because of my mommy blogging, I was invited to a National Dairy Council event at Super Suppers in Northbrook. I like dairy and I like suppers, so on a Wednesday night I dropped my daughters off at my sister’s house and drove to the burbs during rush hour. It wasn’t so bad. I avoided construction on the Edens Expressway by taking Waukegan Rd., and when I arrived at my destination, I was welcomed into a cozy little party with wine and dairy-friendly appetizers and fun food people.

When I first heard about these dinner prep businesses, I was skeptical. Kind of like when I saw those frozen pb & j sandwiches at the grocery store. “Come on!” I thought to myself. “Where are we heading as a society?” But, I don’t know—maybe because of my 4-H roots—the dairy angle hooked me. I’m always trying to work more dairy into my daughters’ diet.

Well, it was a great event. A nutritionist was on hand to answer our questions, a cooking demonstration got us in the mood to cook, and then we all did the Super Supper thing. Which is to move from station to station following easy recipes using pre-chopped ingredients and foil pans. No cleaning, no shopping for ingredients, no reading of labels, and no thinking involved. Cover the pan, stick heating instructions on top, and walk out the door with six meals ($125 value) in two hours. I put all but one of the dinners in my freezer. I left the pan-fried ravioli in my fridge, so I could make it the next evening.

Today—three weeks later—there is one dinner left in the freezer. These meals helped me get through a very busy month, with numerous evening meetings. They freed me up once a week (or even twice, because of leftovers) from the dinner hassle.

Super Suppers sells gift cards. If you don’t want to or can’t afford to splurge on your family, do it for your parents or grandparents. I was talking to my 76-year-old father recently, giving him some hints about cooking dinners. We were commiserating about what a drag it is making dinner night after night after night. Even if you like to cook. The owner of Super Suppers told me 27% of Northbrook’s population is made up of seniors. If those seniors are anything like my dad (widowed, losing interest in cooking, flush with cash), then they would welcome this service.

So thanks, Dairy Council & Super Suppers. I left with lots of new ideas and recipes. In fact, here’s a good, fast one I’ve made for my daughters twice already. I think I'll send it to my dad, too.

Peanut Butter Banana Breakfast Shake
Makes 1 serving

1 c. fat-free or low-fat milk*
½ c. frozen banana slices (about ½ banana)
1 T. peanut butter*
¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. vanilla extract
sprinkle of sweet cocoa powder (optional)

*Substitute soy/rice milk or soy butter. Combine all ingredients in a blender until smooth and creamy.

What's So Controversial about Chocolate?

I thought I’d learn more about that catchy “Don’t Mess With Our Chocolate” campaign.

Mostly because I adore chocolate. As a matter of fact, I’m eating a small bag of Raisinets as I write, and sure enough, even on this unremarkable candy, cocoa butter and milk are still on the ingredient list. But I’m also curious because, as a parent, I know a lot about the manufacture of chocolate. (All those field trips and educational television shows have left their mark on me!) Back in 2002, for example, our family visited the Field Museum to see its exhibition on chocolate, which takes a visitor through all the steps in the process. This past February we hit the Chocolate Fest at Garfield Park. (This is the event where you learn about making chocolate while you weave slowly through the conservatory on your way to free chocolate samples.)

So I started surfing the Net, and here’s what I found out. I need Michael Pollan to translate for me. This is a classic game of Big Industry v. Big Government, and I don't see how consumers can make any sense of it at all. Maybe this is about trans fats. Or new technologies. Or protecting the public.

My overwhelming sense, though, is it's not the latter.

I’d be curious to know what you think.

So give it a go. Start anywhere, and make sure to check out the docket page!

FAQs from the CMA (representing 90% of America’s chocolate manufacturers and including World’s Finest Chocolate, Inc. and The Blommer Chocolate Co. here in Chicago).

Also from the CMA website, this letter to its membership.

Grocery Manufacturers Association/Food Products Association website (original petition filer).

And, the FDA docket of legal documents surrounding the issue.

The Licorice Fix

My sister introduced me to the new licorice Altoids. They are curiously strong, and barely sweet. I cannot find them at my grocery store, and now I’m craving a product I can’t locate in my part of Chicago.

But while driving around with this craving I can’t shake, I remembered a conversation I had a year or two ago with a friend of mine who grew up in Sweden. She was eating a bag of Swedish-style licorice, and she offered me a piece—with some trepidation.

“I love licorice!” I said.

“This is salted licorice,” she replied. “Americans aren’t usually fans.”

It wasn’t like any licorice I’d ever sampled before—more intensely flavored. An acquired taste, I suppose. But I liked it enough to try it again at her house a few months later.

Last week after a Swedish lunch together, my friends wanted to walk across the street to visit The Sweden Store before they drove home. I had to rush to meet my daughter at the bus stop, and I was disappointed I couldn’t linger in the store and maybe pick up a bag of salted licorice if they had it in stock.

That’s when it occurred to me that I liked the Altoids so much because they reminded me of Swedish licorice.

This afternoon I looked up The Sweden Store in the phone book, gave them a call, and sure enough—they have exactly what I need.

I’ll happily pick some up tomorrow.

A Great Food Town

One of the great pleasures of my childhood was my Sicilian grandmother’s cooking. On any occasion she could whip up a magnificent plate of spaghetti and meatballs, or veal cutlets, or a pizza, or a pot of what my family called “Grandma’s Soup.” She also made stuffed artichokes I will miss for the rest of my life, now that she’s gone. At the top of her game, she would produce a briciole—a rolled, stuffed flank steak served with her homemade sauce and a plate of pasta.

But that part of my life is over, and now I live in the great food town called Chicago. Over the last 15 years I’ve grown to love Indian food and Thai food and dim sum. And though I’ve reduced my intake of red meat substantially, I still need to hit a Chicago steak house once in a while. I eat differently, now, but there is one hard and fast rule of eating in Chicago that I always follow:

“If briciole is on the menu, order it.”

It turns up in unlikely places. If I was seeking it out, I assume I could find it in the restaurants on Talyor Street or Harlem Avenue, but I’m not usually craving briciole. I don’t really think about it that much. It’s just one of those lovely surprises, like a fond memory, that turns up now and again when I don’t expect it.

That happened on Tuesday night. We were going to an author reading at a bookstore. We arrived a bit early, found street parking, and wandered up and down the street looking for an interesting place to eat. I was thinking pot stickers but wasn’t seeing anything promising, so we went into the bookstore and asked the owner for suggestions.

He said, “Go next door to Jimmy’s, he’ll take care of you. Tell him I sent you.”

So we did, and I opened the menu, and there it was—briciole—right at the top. It’s the best feeling! You don’t even have to read the rest of the menu. And even though every briciole is different (and none are like my Grandma’s), it is always excellent, it always hits the spot, and it makes me deeply, deeply happy.