To Eat Like A Peasant

I am feeling the reality of this statement: YOU HAVE TO BE RICH TO EAT LIKE A PEASANT. I want to buy organic and locally. And I do. But I am limited. I don't get as much variety as I would like. I should stop buying so many cook books because I want to make everything in them, but most recipes will only last one meal yet cost a fortune. Alas! The solution would be to have a garden...where to put one when you live in an apartment? There's so so so much to invest in right now: a garden. juicer. dehydrator. mandolin. etc. etc. None of these are inexpensive. Sorry to complain. I know that if I was a little more disciplined in my consumption in other areas I would be able to save some pennies for these cooking investments. I'm a book-aholic these days.

I am also interested in finding a part-time job where I could learn to bake bread & pastries or a job where I could learn how to cook "outside the box" so to say. Anyone know of anything in my Sacramento area?

Mini Cupcakes: Unsuccessful

I bought a mini cupcake pan over the weekend and was very excited to try it out on Sunday. Last time I made cupcakes I set the oven 50 degrees cooler than what was called for (since my old old oven is more than dead) and everything turned out perfect. So I tried the same trick with the vanilla mini cupcakes. Not so good. The cupcakes on the edges were golden, but the cupcakes toward the center of the pan were still gooey. Hm. My other mistake was filling each cupcake slot 2/3 full (like the recipe said). They overflowed into each other. Next time I will fill them only 1/2 way full. The photo is NOT of my cupcakes. These ones are pretty. I didn't take pictures of my not-so-pretty cupcakes. I'm always a little miffed when things don't work out, but that's how cooking goes, yes? You win some and you lose some. The good news is the cupcakes tasted very yummy, and we ate them with blueberries, strawberries, covered with a citrus glaze. Mmmm.

Adding To The Library

I am oh so excited for this one. Yes, I am all for eating healthy. And sweets are healthy if they are not everyday for every meal...AND if they are made from real ingredients. Eating should be a pleasure and a joy. Sometimes that means sweets! Thank goodness!
I like cook books that challenge me. I'm okay with the words "easy" and "organic" when it comes to cooking. "Seasonal" is where the challenge comes in. No strawberries in winter? This is a hard thought for me at first. But as I think it through a bit more I like the idea of seasonal food...it makes you look forward to each new season. Strawberries for summer, apples for fall, oranges for winter, etc. To be honest, I have no idea what vegetables are in season and when. I'll be finding out soon enough.

English Allotments

Allotments in England are gardens throughout the city that are in empty, unused spaces. They started springing up in the 1860's! During World War II they helped to feed those who were starving. They sound a lot like our current Guerrilla Gardens in our cities here (except Allotments are, well, not a secretive)...we're a bit behind. You can read a bit more about them here.

Almond Milk: Homemade!

So I've just discovered how easy and tasty it is to make my own almond milk. This puts an end to my store-bought-almond-milk-it's-not-food dilemma. If you buy almond milk from a store it has a whole slew of ingredients that are not recognizable as food. But now, thanks to this cookbook, I can make my own. Almonds, water and agave nectar. That's it. Try it!

Whole Grain Cranberry Muffins

I go through phases where I eat these every morning for weeks. I'm in one of those phases right now. These muffins are oh so yummy...and no refined sugars! They're super filling too. Lately I've been eating them with fresh strawberries from the farmers market. The strawberries are amazingly sweet...no white centers and a deep red. No added sweetness needed. Here's the recipe:

Whole Grain Cranberry Muffins
INGREDIENTS

3 eggs
½ salad oil (or canola oil)
½ cup honey
2 cups flaxseed meal
1 ½ cups bran
1 ½ cups milk or homemade almond milk
2 cups whole wheat flour (whole wheat pastry if you’ve got it)
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
Cranberries…as much as you like.

DIRECTIONS

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk together the eggs, oil, and honey. Then slowly stir in the flaxseed meal and bran. Next, add the milk. Add the whole wheat flour ½ cup at a time as you stir the mixture. Finally add the cinnamon, baking soda, and cranberries and mix well. (You can mix this by hand or use an electric hand-held mixer). The mixture should be wet and sticky. Spray an aluminum muffin tin and fill each cup 2/3 way with the batter.

Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

VARIATION: I also like to add a couple of very ripe bananas to the mix when I happen to have some.

Farmer's Market: Every Tuesday

Every Tuesday I go to the Farmer's Market (I go on Wednesdays too...and sometimes on Saturdays as well). Cherries, peaches, and squash are everywhere right now. I'm thinking of making a cherry cheesecake this weekend...we shall see.

One of Mr. Pollan's food rules is "know the hand that feeds you"...so go out and meet the farmers in your area by frequenting the farmer's markets often. Plus, your food will taste better (and it's usually cheaper!).

Summer Solstice: Our Tradition

The loot from the Woodland Farmer's Market: figs, apricots, beets, green tomatoes, big beef tomatoes, early girl tomatoes, ambrosia cantaloupe, grapefruit, and corn on the cob.
figs, fried green tomatoes, corn on the cob, and...
Ambrosia cantaloupe with vanilla bean ice cream for dessert. The ambrosia has 30% more natural sugars than a typical store-bought cantaloupe...which is why we ate it for dessert.

Ceej and I originally called this holiday "Mid-Christmas" as we felt there was a dearth of gift-giving holidays in the summer. Until this year, we never really nailed down the specific rituals that would go along with the holiday. Now that we've changed it to the Summer Solstice celebration we will celebrate with produce of the season, jump over bonfires (well, candles at least), send flowers down the river for fertility goddesses, and give thanks for the approaching new seasons.

New Tradition: Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

These cupcakes are an absolute dream to another mythical realm. I love the cinnamon and cayenne pepper in the mix. It made me feel very much like Vianne Rocher herself...truly a witch of the best sort. The sunken middle is due to an oven that is older than myself.
A treat now reserved only for our Summer Solstice festivities. Much to Ceej's dismay. He wants them all year.
This book was gifted to me just as we were moving from Salt Lake City to Sacramento by my favorite girls in the whole Salt Lake Valley: Sophia, Caroleine, Isabella, and Julie. I will be forever in their debt for adding to my traditions!
Ceej and I had seconds.

Why Traditions: Profane vs. Sacred Life

You must know this about me to really understand my passion for food and the importance that it plays in my traditions. The creating and keeping of tradition is what creates a "sacred" life. Here's why:

"In imitating the exemplary acts of a god or of a mythic hero, or simply by recounting their adventures, the man of an archaic society detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time." -Mircea Eliade.

What I mean to say is by living a life of ritual where one returns again and again to the past in a cyclical manner there is a connection of the present with what has gone on before. It is the process of remembering. It is my goal to fill my life with as many rituals and traditions as possible. This includes creating "Theme Nights" as well as learning Grandma Thayne's shortbread recipe...to make the shortbread just like she did decades ago (while wearing her apron that I "borrowed" from my mom), to gather around feasts for special holidays like I did with my cousins as we were growing up. To go back to these moments over and over again is to remember where I came from...to remember who I am.

Below are some other interesting Eliade statements:

"...an object or an act becomes real only insofar as I imitates or repeats archtype. Thus, reality is acquired solely through repetition or participation; everything which lacks an exemplary model is 'meaningless', i.e., it lacks reality."

"A sacrifice, for example, not only exactly reproduces the initial sacrifice revealed by a god ab origine, at the beginning of time, it also takes place at the same primordial mythical moment; in other words, every sacrifice repeats the initial sacrifice and coincides with it."

"Just as profane space is abolished by the symbolism of the Center, which projects any temple, palace, or building into the same central point of mythical space, so any meaningful act performed by archaic man, any real act, i.e., any repetition of an archetypal gesture, suspends duration, abolishes profane time, and participates in mythical time."

Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, pg. 34-36

The Catalyst

For years now I have been concerned with eating healthy. But what does that really mean? This book written by Michael Pollan was the book I read most recently that truly opened my eyes, and urged me to take immediate action in improving the way I eat. I blogged about this book and Michael Pollan on my other blog here and here.

Here's a taste of the introduction (I think you'll like it):

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy.

I hate to give the game away right here at the beginning of a whole book devoted to the subject, and I'm tempted to complicate matters in teh interest of keeping things going for a couple hundred more pages or so. I'll try to resist, but will go ahead and add a few more details to flesh out the recommendations. Like, eating a little meat isn't going to kill you, though it might be better approached as a side dish than as a main. And you're better off eating whole fresh foods rather than processed food products. That's what I mean by the recommendation to "eat food," which is not quite as simple as it sounds. For while it used to be that food was all you could eat, today there are thousands of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages elaborately festooned with health claims, which brings me to another, somewhat counterintuitive, piece of advice: If you're concerned about your health, you should probably avoid products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a strong indication it's not really food, and food is what you want to eat.

You can see how quickly things can get complicated.

It's In My Blood

My great-grandpa George David Ward had a farm in Declo, Idaho. My grandpa, Newel, is also a farmer. I desparately want to learn the art of gardening. I want to be more aware of the seasons and the heartbeat of the earth. I want to grow food with no chemicals and that tastes oh so good. I want to cook the food I've grown. So here it goes. It might take some time. So be patient.