Wordless Wednesday

Rainy Kitchen

Going unprocessed is beginning to feel, more and more, like a virtuous circle. Except when it doesn't. This week has brought a couple successful food swaps, a small setback, and a taste test complete with blindfolded, giggling judges.

I've got updates to share but not enough time to blog (properly? thoroughly? Isn't speed the essence of blogging?). Please check back soon for news on bread making, DIY peanut butter and tacos. These stories will keep a few days longer, although I assure you that no chemical preservatives were added during manufacturing.

Also, a retraction: a friend tipped me off that our local grocery store does, in fact, now carry both Canadian and US garlic, alongside the imported product I complained about a few posts ago. I'm not sure when this happened--recently, I think. Having garlic sleeping in the backyard means never shopping for it again, a happy state of epic garlic self-sufficiency. I failed to notice the change, but good on the store managers. They've been making a visible effort, in the last few years, to sell more local produce in season.

Today I've been distracted by the weather--precipitation indoors and out. You know it's going to be a stellar morning when, before the coffee is even ready, you step barefoot in a puddle of water, look up, and see drops falling from a light in the ceiling and sodden drywall swelling around it. This is an instant call to action: forget coffee, run upstairs to locate leak, turn water off, mop. Again. The ancient bathroom, source of three leakage events to date, will soon be ripped back to the studs. Impending renovations reminded me of the last reno, which I wrote about in a short essay that appeared in The Globe and Mail. It's time to read it again, apparently, and prepare. Anyone else planning a demolition this spring?

Granola Payola

 gra·no·la noun \grə-ˈnō-lə\

Definition of GRANOLA: a mixture typically of rolled oats and various added ingredients (as brown sugar, raisins, coconut, and nuts) that is eaten especially for breakfast or as a snack

Origin of GRANOLA: from Granola, a trademark; first known use: 1970

Rhymes with GRANOLA: Angola, boffola, canola, crapola, Ebola, mandola, payola, plugola, scagliola, Tortola, Victrola, Vignola, viola

It's a granola weekend at the Unprocessed Project. Merriam-Webster's definition, above, contains everything one would expect in a cereal meaning and more. Since when are rhyming words included in definitions? I could have lived without rhymes. I did, however, enjoy the hop-skip-and-jump from granola to crapola--which is all I've been getting from my taste testers--and thence to payola--which is what I'll soon be demanding if they want me to keep feeding them. And while I might have come up with canola myself, ebola and the rest would have eluded me, so the list was fun in a found-poem kind of way.

Also, until looking up the word, I was not aware that granola began life as a trademark, like xerox and kleenex. Somehow granola seems above those utilitarian items--more granola-y. Which brings us to a usage not yet sanctioned by the mighty M-Ws of our language: granola the adjective. As in: tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, real food-blogging, perhaps someday moving to an organic farm in Vermont. As in: Laura's way more granola than her brothers (so they say) but less granola than pinecone-scarfing Euell Gibbons (remember him?). The Urban Dictionary provides a hip new definition of granola to fill the void left by M-W. Agree or not: it seems a tad overreaching to me.  

But enough word nerdery--food pictures demand recipes. This recipe comes, slightly amended, from Jane Brody's Good Food Book: Living the High-Carbohydrate Way. You read that right, paleo fans: a book that advocates low-fat, high-carb (really whole grain) eating. First published in 1985, it is, incredibly, still in print. My copy has plenty of life left in it, so I won't be rushing out to buy a new one (how granola of me).

   

Great Granola

Melt 1/4 c. butter or margarine in an ovenproof pan and stir in 1/4 c. honey.

Add 3 c. rolled oats (regular or quick), 1 c. shredded or flaked coconut (optional), 1 c. sunflower seeds (untoasted), 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, and any other grain or nuts you wish to use (note: if you add a LOT more, you'll want to adjust the butter/honey ratios).

Bake mixture at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, stirring several times.

Add 1/2 c. wheat germ (optional) and bake for ten more minutes, or until lightly browned.

Remove granola from oven, stir in 2/3 c. raisins (and/or any other dried fruit--I added dried apricots today). Let cool completely before transferring to a storage container.

Nothing could be simpler.

Wordless Wednesday Walnuts

The Garlic is Sleeping

homegrown garlic, 2012

Several years ago, locally grown garlic disappeared from our grocery stores. Since I use garlic in practically everything I cook, this was a problem. I wanted the local stuff. Produce bins overflowed with garlic from China, but I could no longer find Ontario or even California garlic. Why?

Cheap imports had flooded the market; local producers couldn't compete. In response to a complaint brought by the Garlic Growers Association of Ontario, the Canadian Government eventually found that Chinese, and later, Vietnamese, garlic was being "dumped" here--that is, unfairly sold at prices below those prevailing in the producers' country. Antidumping duties were imposed, and still there is no local garlic in our stores. In Europe, a similar scenario unfolded, only the EU's high protective tariffs have inspired a massive trade in contraband Chinese garlic, The Globe and Mail reported earlier this month.

As a consumer and mother, I spent too long fuming about this situation--buying the Chinese garlic and worrying about safety. Although I didn't know anything specifically negative about the growing conditions, certainly this garlic had traveled long distances in shipping containers and was far from fresh. Fertilized with who-knows-what, doused with mystery pesticides, and probably irradiated. Whether it had been properly inspected upon importation is anyone's guess. And it just seemed absurd to import a low-value item that could be produced so easily here, with much less burning of fossil fuels. Local beats imported when it comes to the environment, as this 2-pager from the National Resources Defense Council shows. (Yes, free marketeers, I have heard of the gains from trade. Thank you for your input and please stop shouting.) 

I kept wondering if we could grow our own garlic, but I didn't know what was involved. A colleague filled me in, and here's the good news: it's dead easy.

Plant individual garlic cloves exactly as you would onion sets, but plant in the fall, and let them overwinter . . . let them undersnow. Come spring, lush shoots miraculously appear. Garlic requires almost no work--a little weeding (or not), a splash of water during prolonged dry spells, and in July, when the plants die back, dig the bulbs out, pulling gently so as not to nick the outer cloves. Air-dry for a week or so with the tops still on--it's always a good idea to drape garlands around the entrance of your home so vampires take note--and then store in a cool, dry place.

The first season, we planted about fifteen cloves, which produced just enough garlic for an entire year. The second year we planted more and this past fall added another row in order to have plenty to give away. If you decide to grow garlic, buy your first "seed" bulb at the farmers' market, not the store (in case it's been irradiated). You'll be assured of getting a variety that is hardy for your region, and the vendor will be happy to advise you. Farmers' markets still offer local garlic, thank goodness. We are lucky to have the Lakefield Farmers' Market and  Peterborough Farmers' Market nearby.

The snow is back today, after last week's unseasonably warm spell. I look out my kitchen window and think about the garlic hidden in frozen ground: sleeping, gathering energy for spring.

Escape

I'm hitting the open and snowy road in a few moments to visit my mother, who will celebrate her birthday next week. I hear murmurings of a junk food rebellion in my absence. The offspring are restless. Whatever. I'm not the food police.

A beef vegetable stew is simmering in the crockpot, the kitchen is stocked with fruit and homemade granola bars, and I've left helpful notes about tortilla chips (fewer than five ingredients) that might be purchased, along with some baking suggestions. My work here is done. All culinary pyrotechnics are cancelled until Monday.

At my Italian-American mother's house, there is no such thing as ramen noodles, no instant soup or Kraft Dinner. She has never stirred flourescent orange dust into overcooked macaroni. These things simply do not exist. She has a hard time understanding this KD-loving country.

I will borrow from her foodie bookshelf--titles such as Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, and another book on real food (I forget the author and title) that I want to re-read. This last calls for keeping a cow and eating raw liver, neither of which will be happening here.

Reading NW

Scattered thoughts on Zadie Smith's NW:

1. NW was my last book of 2012 and also my first of 2013, because I made the mistake of starting it while riding the December tilt-a-whirl of exam marking and holiday preparation--but I couldn't wait. My reading, therefore, was as fragmented as the book itself. This did not matter. Even after days or weeks away from the story, re-entry was effortless. The principal characters--two women and two men in NW London working out how to live in this world--stick with you.

2. Upon finishing, I immediately began re-reading.

3. I tried to avoid reviews. There was a lot of noise about this book, and I wanted an unmediated experience--which really isn't possible when you've read Smith's other novels and the essays collected in Changing my Mind. (Read the essays! Especially, "Speaking in Tongues," which addresses the burdens of the multi-voiced, with a close look at then-newly elected Barack Obama and themes that Smith returns to in the NW character of Keisha/Natalie.) 

4. There's much to hate about Zadie Smith: brilliant, bestselling, beautiful. And, chances are, younger than you, dear reader. But it's impossible to hate someone so hilarious.

5. Why two covers? Is one of them the British or US edition? My copy has the plain cover, but both are for sale in Canadian bookstores.  

6. Notwithstanding #3, I stumbled across a couple articles online, luckily after I finished the book for the first time. Darin Strauss, in a review published in The New York Times last month, "Reasons to Re-Joyce" [ugh, that title!--otherwise great] called NW a masterpiece directly descended from Joyce. He defended Smith against criticisms that the work was difficult and gimmicky. A few months earlier, Lisa Moore had given NW a glowing review in The Globe and Mail, citing Smith's "bionic hearing" for conversations that happen in an urban zone crammed with immigrants "from everywhere" and their more settled children. Oddly, in praising Smith's ability to render social fault lines in a few spare strokes, both Moore and Strauss quote the same short passage from a dinner party scene, so here it is:

Pass the heirloom tomato salad. The thing about Islam. Let me tell you about Islam. Everyone is suddenly an expert on Islam. But what do you think, Samhita, yeah what do you think, Samhita, what’s your take on this? Samhita, the copyright lawyer. Pass the tuna.

7. Each time I savored those lines, my mind jumped to Lorrie Moore's jumbled dinner party dialogue (many pages lengthier, but a similar disembodied technique) in her 2009 novel, A Gate at the Stairs. Also brilliant and heartbreaking.

8. Sure, the book is full of unconventional syntax and punctuation, but so what? It didn't seem particularly daring, just utterly vivid and compelling. Anyone who says it's difficult isn't paying much attention.

9. The ending left me with questions, a few reservations. It's not that I want the plot tied up neatly, but after establishing the fractured/competing identities of the women so convincingly, the resolutions, or hints of resolutions to come, seemed glib. And what are we to make of the enthusiastic ratting out of Nathan? Is it meant as a shared indulgence to cement renewed closeness between the women and distract them from their (very real) problems, or a comment on life's winners and losers and the ever-shifting alliances in a place like NW? Or have I misread that completely? 

10. NW is a finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. The list was announced earlier this week.
 
11. I just discovered this audio clip from Toronto's International Festival of Authors this past October: the CBC's Eleanor Wachtel interviews Smith about NW.

The Tyranny of Five Ingredients

Week 2  . . . and a half.

How's the deindustrialization of our kitchen going? Slowly. We're in transition. Along with grocery shopping according to the five-ingredient rule (see Michael Pollan's Food Rules--more than five ingredients serving as a proxy for heavy processing), I've been trying to use up all the manufactured food in our cupboards, such as the case of ramen noodles that I couldn't help buying last month. A whole 2-4 of salt, fat and heat, on sale for $4.25--how could I pass that up? Yes, it's probably an "edible foodlike substance", in Pollan parlance, but guaranteed to be eaten by the most discriminating child in the family, the one I try to feed constantly. She'll eat ramen noodles anywhere, anytime, will even snack on them dry out of the cellophane. Number of ingredients: 17.

A shift to the real stuff is definitely happening, but I don't want to waste what we already have. According to a new report publicized last week in the Guardian, between 30-50% of the food produced worldwide is trashed. The reasons and proposed solutions vary by country, but there's no doubt that throwing food away is shameful when so many are hungry.

Getting back to the micro-level of my household: I went shopping with the intention of sticking to the perimeter aisles, where the mostly-natural food resides. I successfully dodged the specials: half-price ersatz cheese slices and 2/$1 canned soup. Far too many ingredients in both, and really, how hard is it to make soup? But even being virtuous was cause for guilt, because my children love these particular items. Although I have their best (health) interests at heart, they wouldn't thank me if they knew what I didn't buy. And as always, it bothers me that the cheapest food, that which is most accessible to people living on a low income, is nutritionally vacant.

My shopping trips (plural because I live at that damned store) were filled with label-reading indecision, so the hunting/gathering took longer than usual. Part of the cost of this project must be measured in time--the hours spent buying, cooking, cleaning up. I've baked a lot. No cookies, granola bars or muffins have been purchased since the Project began. (Luckily, my kids like to bake, so there will soon be a shared production schedule posted. Right now, however, it seems the populace is overtaxed with end-of-term schoolwork. Exhausted, in general, by the demands of life. De-toxing their diet should help raise the energy level around here--I'm hoping.)

The one supermarket product to defeat me? Mayonnaise, believe it or not. A condiment, certainly not a necessity of life, but a staple in the sandwiches my husband packs for lunch every day. Every. Day. Since spousal buy-in for the Unprocessed Project is tenuous at best--full of goodwill, but perhaps not ready to face bread smeared with newfangled mayo-alternatives like hummous or, God forbid, anything containing eggplant or artichokes--flexibility won the day. I briefly contemplated whipping up a batch of fresh mayonnaise, but then I remembered that my husband's childhood gross-out food was his mother's vinegary home-brewed mayo. I rather like it, but then, we're different. 

So what's in the jar of Compliments Real Mayonnaise ("Made with Whole Eggs")? Twelve ingredients: soybean oil, water, liquid whole egg, liquid egg yolk, vinegar, salt, sugar, spice extracts, concentrated lemon juice, calcium disodium EDTA, citric acid (and may contain mustard). Not the worst junk in the world, but not the best, either. I think I can do better. Anyone have a good recipe for mayonnaise?

Book Curses

Today I tackled a long-overdue project: excavating the home office in order to reclaim my writing space from the junkyard that surrounds it. Soon, I will have organized, proper files; I will stop leaving cryptic notes all over the house. The office isn't free and clear yet, but a desktop is now visible, and stacks of no-longer-relevant work documents have been recycled, shredded or burned, as appropriate for the contents. How satisfying it is to evict other people's priorities and even more satisfying to burn papers that on occasion have burned me.

And in a celebratory/cynical mood, I came upon this lovely little book curse:

Here's another version, printed on a miniature tri-fold card embellished with illustrations of owls:

For him that stealeth,

or borroweth and

returneth not, this

book from its owner,

let him be struck

with palsy, and all

his members blasted.

Let him languis [sic] in

pain crying aloud

for mercy, and let

there be no surcease

to this agony til he

sing in dissolution.

Let bookworms gnaw

his entrails . . . and 

when at last he goeth to his final punish-

ment, let the flames of Hell consume him

forever.

                                                                                           --A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for books

Both were produced by the letterpress Print Room at St. Michael's College library, University of Toronto. This outfit creates prints for paying customers and also serves as a laboratory for students in the flagship Book and Media Studies program. I bought the cards last fall, intending to tuck them into gift books--a kind of extended warranty for the recipients.

An uncle of mine trained as a typesetter in the 1950's and plied his trade for the Binghamton Sun-Press (now part of the mammoth Gannett chain) until typesetting vanished with the advent of computers. I wonder what he would make of the resurgence of letterpress printing in art posters and books (such as the inspiring Gaspereau Press)? I'll have to ask him one of these days.

Meanwhile, some of my reading will now be performed on a mini-iPad, given to my family by an amazingly generous fairy godmother. I believe the mini-iPad is a newish gizmo--yes?--which a lifelong late-adopter like me has no business owning. But I've been cycling through the book apps, trying to decide: the iBook, Kobo and Kindle icons all glow with promise. If there's a digital curse in the machine, I haven't found it yet. (Let's not ruin the moment by speaking of privacy.)

And this week I discovered the public library app, which allows me to "borrow" eBooks in an instant and never return them. When my lending period expires, the books auto-disappear. How great is that? No more fines, and nary a book curse on my head. 

Wordless Wednesday

Do I Need Rules?

It's probably human nature, after the flexible chaos of holidays, to crave work/school structures that seemed oppressive only weeks ago. We return to our schedules with a secret sigh of relief, and often, a list of resolutions. What are resolutions if not self-imposed rules? And yet: Rules, Shmools, I want to scream. Who needs them?

Less than one week into the project of "going unprocessed"--however defined--I've already run up against the space-time continuum. As in: bare cupboard shelves the night before school lunches must be packed, regretting my stubborn avoidance of the baked goods aisle while buying this week's groceries. Close to midnight and classes to prep? It must be time to bake something! Two things: I made labour-intensive ginger snaps (to use up a hunk of fresh ginger) and a toffee-chocolate bar cookie that was super-easy and loved by all (victory!). I'll spare you the recipes, though. This is not a cooking show, and I'm no professional.

As for stretching time, if only we could all manage our homes like JK Rowling's Mrs. Weasley, whose dinner cooks itself, or even better, believe Mrs. Whatsit when she claims, "There is such a thing as a tesseract," how grand life would be. (Madeleine L'Engle devotees, have you seen Hope Larson's graphic-novel version of A Wrinkle in Time? She gave an interesting interview not long ago about her decision to adapt the story that's become a touchstone for so many readers. This new book appeared under our Christmas tree, to the delight of [so far] the eldest and youngest children.)

But I digress. Here's the dilemma: how hard-core will this Unprocessed Project be? I've already decided on a gradual approach, making substitutions as we go, but what is the ultimate destination? Some rules would be helpful, or at least some pirated guidelines. (Sorry, but I do love that scene with Geoffrey Rush, and it somehow seems apt to invoke the unsteady Barbossa to celebrate the first failures of the New Year.)

Concerns about unhealthful industrialized food products have saturated our culture, probably beginning with Michael Pollan's books and a host of others. Pollan's widely touted rule that we shouldn't eat anything our grandparents wouldn't recognize seems like simple wisdom--although if it eliminates "foreign" fare, food that would have been considered exotic in early-20th-century upstate New York--a lot of good stuff, in other words--I'm out.

Another resource, the 100 Days of Real Food, proposes a fairly practical set of rules to shop by. From now on, I'm going to follow this one: buy no packaged food that contains more than five ingredients. That's a start, anyway.

Thanks are due to The Nourish Project, a new community food initiative, for referring me to the 100-day challenge site. Check out their video clips: interviews on kitchen literacy with environmental historian Ann Vileisis and on food sovereignty with renowned economist Raj Patel. There's even a poem about the humble onion.

So I've got my first unprocessed rule now. I'd be interested in knowing what works for others on this quest. What more do I need?

Hot Chocolate Recipe Credits

Woops, I should have provided sources for those two recipes.

I've been making the scratch hot chocolate for so long that I have no idea where the recipe came from originally--probably the back of a cocoa tin.

The whipped cream recipe is from The Culinary Arts Institute Cookbook (1985). This heavy book, which calls itself an encyclopedia in the subtitle, contains over 4000 recipes. It was a gift from my other grandmother.

Honest Hot Chocolate

I set up pages hoping to compartmentalize my blog posts, and just as in my life, compartmentalizing doesn't work.

Apparently Blogger offers only "static" pages. Although a few technical workarounds are available, they all seem iffy. Therefore I'm labeling posts with the page category names. All posts will appear on the Home page in an unbroken flow. A veritable waterfall of information and opinion. We'll see how it goes. If anyone knows an easier way, do tell.

The Unprocessed Project, Week 1

This may be cheating, but I'm starting our project by sharing a few foods we already make from scratch. Since it's a brisk winter day, and a couple of the kids have made a backyard quinzy (see happy child below), hot chocolate is in order.
One of the things I stopped buying long ago is pre-mixed cocoa powder with dessicated marshmallow pellets. It tastes horrible: a mess of watery brownness redolent of hockey arenas and church basements. You can see from the ingredients list of a popular brand just how much extra junk is in there, including corn syrup solids and hydrogenated vegetable oil: Nestle's Carnation Hot Cocoa Mix

My cocoa powder* is the unsweetened old-fashioned type--Fry's or a generic brand--suitable for baking, with only two ingredients: cocoa and potassium carbonate. The latter is a food additive approved for use in practically everything, according to Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization Food Standards found here: http://www.codexalimentarius.net/gsfaonline/additives/details.html?id=199. (Not that said approval makes it healthful . . . )

Try our simple recipe for traditional hot cocoa, which takes only a few minutes to make:

• In a saucepan, mix 3 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, and a pinch of salt. Add 1/2 c. water and heat, stirring until dissolved. Add 2 cups of milk and heat to taste (don't boil, obviously).  Yields 2 1/2 cups--double or triple the recipe as needed.

Today, we added the special holiday treat of REAL whipped cream. Yes, it's easier and kind of fun to squirt foam propellent Cool Whip (notice they don't use the word "cream"?) directly into your mouth, but again, it's full of stuff you shouldn't ingest. Homemade whipped cream is not a low-fat choice, but it's pure and flavourful--just use it sparingly. Nostalgia bonus: as a child, I watched my grandmother make this countless times.

•   Pour 2 c. cold whipping cream (with 35% milk fat, NOT Half and Half) into a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until the stiff peaks form. (Note: this takes only about a minute IF you use a pre-chilled metal bowl and beaters, so plan ahead--thanks to my mother-in-law for this bit of corrective advice, given in response to a past dessert failure.) Stir in 5-6 tbsp (to taste) icing sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla. That's it.

Total elapsed time: about 15 minutes for an easy recipe that anyone can make. Real food, guaranteed joy.

* About chocolate: one of this project's multiple goals is to use Fair Trade products when possible. Chocolate is notorious for being grown and harvested in unsafe conditions, often by children. Today I purchased fair trade-certified cocoa (minus the potassium carbonate, by the way) and chocolate chips. They cost more, for a good reason, but I struggle with limiting the food budget for six people. There are a lot of resources out there, and I'm learning on the fly. More on this in future posts. For now, you may want to read the Fair Labor Association's report on Nestle's (biggest food company in the world) recent agreement to audit its Ivory Coast supply chain all the way back and take mitigating actions to help families working in remote areas:  FLA Report.
 

A Blog is Born, 2013

Welcome to my virtual home. Let's have a pretend conversation over coffee. Admire my bouncing newborn cyberbaby. No, no. It's a road, an online road. Unlike the real places I go to walk and think (see one of my favourites at right), this one leads nowhere. Or, more optimistically, anywhere.

This is a space (as real as anything) to record observations and ask questions about the things that preoccupy me: books, writing, politics (there's no need to be polite here, and much to occupy us), global and local issues, domestic life with children--for now, the focus of that last item will be firmly fixed on my Unprocessed Project, and not on anecdotes starring the adorable children in question. That could change, though. I have a feeling they might drop by, in time.

I hope you'll visit, too, and join me for a walk or two. I'm still figuring out all the gadgets and thingies . . . our landscape could change.

Happy New Year.