3 Strategies for Using Up All That CSA Produce (And ‘Soup’ Isn’t One of Them)

Last week, the Excelsior Farm Chronicle post touched on the fact that members new to the CSA lifestyle were probably about now realizing that being a part of a CSA is a lifestyle. My husband and I do struggle to get through all the produce each week, and it breaks my heart when something withers or wrinkles before I can get to it or finish it. To complicate matters, we’re looking at a solid week of over 90 degree weather ahead of us, so finding ways to use our produce with minimal heat is a whole new challenge. For that reason, I think now is a very good time to talk a little bit about how being a CSA member has changed our shopping and eating habits, as well as my strategies for using all that produce!

Take a Day Off

First of all, picking up our CSA box, finding and choosing recipes for the week, prepping and properly storing the haul, not to mention cleaning out the fridge before all that, is plenty of work for a day without even factoring in making dinner. To simplify things, we designated Wednesday, (pick-up day), as our eat-out day. If there are any leftovers then I will have that for lunch, but if I’m getting a little sick of something I made too big a batch of, or if the dish is questionably fresh, then I absolve myself of guilt for throwing it out and just buy myself take-out lunch while I’m out. My husband is free to enjoy a restaurant he likes, and an opportunity for networking or building relationships with his coworkers is built in to our schedule. To top it off, he knows he’ll be picking up dinner on the way home, which saves my energy for cooking for tomorrow’s meals. I can prepare a chopped or pasta salad without being rushed to make sure it’s chilled in time for dinner, or bake a quiche or strata for tomorrow’s breakfast, and wake up the next day able to hit the ground running with our CSA haul, all because we factor in a day off.

Think About Condiments First

Condiments are not only a smart way to turn some of that produce into manageable quantities, but with a well stocked freezer, are an easy way to up the production value of your cooking without adding work. A good place to start is with compound butters, and pesto.

If you follow my blog, you may have noticed that a compound butter is often in my plan. Compound butters are extremely easy to make, and freeze beautifully. With a nice selection in your freezer, you can slice a piece off to toss with any plain roasted, steamed, or sauteed vegetable(s). A dab melting on a piece of meat is an instant sauce, or dressing for a pasta and vegetable salad. Float a slice on soup in lieu of a drizzle of oil. Set it out with a sliced baguette or crudites and show off to your friends how awesome you are.

Next, learn to think outside the box in terms of pesto. In fact, pesto is so versatile and varied, “pesto” is now a verb. Arugula pesto, radish greens pesto, garlic scape pesto. Try this chart to start experimenting. Really anything can be blended into a sauce, and the line between a vegetable sauce and a vegetable soup is pretty vague when you really think about it. If you’re having trouble inventing a “pesto,” use vegetable soups for inspiration, but oil instead of broth, nuts for body, and something like soy, miso, Parmesan, or Worchestsire, for salt and umami. Then don’t forget to make lots of it, so you can freeze it and toss it with vegetables to come.

All Hail the Cheese Plate

If you’re like me, chances are you’re making a variety of salads, pickles, and “sauces,” and not necessarily serving them one at a time. There’s far too much produce to be thinking in terms of a single side dish, and often, our CSA box contains more than one thing that will go bad faster than the rest and therefore takes priority on the meal planning list. It can be hard to always have vegetables taking center stage, and just as hard to make all those salads and still need to prepare a protein in order to serve them. But that’s why there’s such a thing as good cheese. Go buy some, as well as some crackers or baguette, and pick up some fresh fruit while you’re at it. Then enjoy a lovely meal that includes a selection of beautiful salads, rounded out and made all the more elegant with the addition of good cheese and seasonal fruit.

This is also an excellent way to use up any pickles you’ve made without having to invent a whole dish to serve them with, and a shared wedge of cheese leaves a lot more room in the belly for those gorgeous salads you made than a pork chop does. Not to mention is a lot less work, and spares you use of the oven during summer heat waves.

Fear and Loathing: Regrets of a Child Food Critic

I got the job as a food critic at the age of 8 by writing a sample review. Though I don’t recall what I wrote about, it was the last time I remember writing what I really wanted to say.

Becoming an adventurous eater is something I have struggled with for many years now, and a title I still don’t think I have really earned. Whether it was growing up afraid of eggs because my mother never stopped reminding me of the dangers of salmonella, or the insanely picky-eater college boyfriend that kept my grocery budget tied up with rice, mac n’ cheese, and teriyaki chicken, or just the middle class background that never afforded travel outside the country, there are a great many more things I have longed to eat than I have actually eaten.

If you ask my parents, the fact that these days I don’t shy away from octopus, or goat, or tofu, makes me some kind of fearless foodie/member of the Addams family. In between sudden mentions of a happy memory of ham hocks or soft boiled eggs, my mother will shake her head like a scared toddler at things like goat cheese. My father’s finickiness falls under the culturally accepted “meat and potatoes” category, a personality type I suspect explains why country club menus are so non-challenging.

So what happens when you take a child with narrow minded parents in regards to food and let them order off the adult menu from every restaurant in town? You get someone who doesn’t really remember much of what they ate as a child food critic, but has a lot of memories of things they wish they ate.

In Little Italy in San Diego, there was a deli at which I ate a great many meatball subs, across the street from an art supply store at which I bought a great many paints and markers. Customers lined up along the refrigerator case and could admire the selection of salads while they waited their turn. Except on sad days, there was always a bowl of marinated mushrooms, tart with vinegar and still the standard from which I judge all marinated mushrooms. There was also a seafood salad, vivid purple and green in my mind from chunks of octopus and herbs. I was terrified of it but couldn’t look away, always trying to imagine its taste and texture while I waited patiently for my meatball sub. Was is slimy? Could you hold a piece of tentacle in your mouth and feel the individual suckers with your tongue? Would it smell fishy? Was it some Italian equivalent of jell-o salad, always found on salad bars but which only weird old people ever actually ate?

There were many factors at work that shaped my food experience, my parents being merely the instrument of numerous cultural problems that shape how everyone eats and thinks about food. The American emphasis on meat and mass production, widespread Americanized cuisines which give the illusion of having a multicultural palate, Jamie Oliver-style ideas of “good” and “bad” foods with their inherent xenophobia and even racism. Then of course there’s the sexism and the ridiculous gendering of food: if things like octopus are “icky” and proper little girls are repelled by, much less interested in things that are “icky,” then the whole of society was already dictating what I was going to even try.

If I could just fly back down to San Diego for a day, or a weekend, maybe that deli is still there. Maybe I could stand in line and there would be marinated mushrooms again, but this time I could get octopus and a little of this and a little of that. And I could stop and peruse the cases of wine and actually buy some, and see the salt cod laid out and know what it was and what to do with it (and definitely buy some of that, too). Then I could wander across the street to look at art supplies, and come back later for dinner at the restaurant two doors down that serves mostly rabbit, and no one will ever know how I was there once before when my parents walked out after reading the menu and took us for burgers, probably, instead.

The Carnivore’s Manifesto

On Tuesday I had the great pleasure of attending the reading and book signing for Patrick Martins’ new book, The Carnivore’s Manifesto. Hosted at Vanilla Jill’s in the Whit, and catered by grit, I expected nothing more than to enjoy a small cup of frozen yogurt, have a tasty sample or two of the “free food” provided, and leave glad that I managed to do one more thing outside of the house in the last three weeks of my life before becoming a parent. However, I left with my purse bulging from a gallon-size bag of leftover pesto meatballs, the founder of Slow Food USA’s card in my pocket, and high off an impromptu two minutes on stage.

For those unfamiliar with grit, the Whiteaker restaurant serves high quality seasonal dishes made from locally sourced ingredients, well aligned with the politics outlined in The Carnivore’s Manifesto. Aside from the heaping bowls of pesto meatballs, the spread generously provided also included tall stacks of various sandwiches, and pork tacos with a vegetable salsa. All made with heritage meat, as well. Since the event started at 7 and I expected something along the lines of someone walking around with a tray of thinly sliced beef on pieces of baguette, I ate beforehand and paid the price for doing so. But what I didn’t eat was more than made up for by a solitary homeless man that had stumbled onto the event, and I was glad to see the hosts happily encouraging him to continue helping himself.

Mike Edison played a few folksy, theremin accented songs to get the event going, which was thoroughly enjoyable, but somewhat confusing since it wasn’t immediately apparent that Edison co-authored the book. Martins’ discussion of the book included summarizing a few chapters which I assume were selected to reflect many of his main points regarding Slow Food and eating meat sustainably while promoting humane animal practices. Martins never advertised he was the founder of Slow Food USA, and this information had to be gleaned from his accompanying partners from Heritage Radio Network, and Heritage Foods USA, where Martins sources heritage livestock breeds and distributes the high quality cuts to home cooks and restaurants.

During the question and answer part, a woman asked why anyone should eat meat at all. Since I’ve now made it through the introduction to The Carnivore’s Manifesto where Martins mentions that is the first question brought up at every sustainable food conference, I’m now especially surprised he didn’t have an answer. Like any good speaker, he re-directed by explaining something somewhat related from his book (which I barely followed), told a joke, and looked for a next question. In his book, he simply states, “Wow! That is one stupid question!,” (p. 18), pointing out that the US eats a hell of a lot of meat and because MEAT.

I quickly raised my hand to say I thought I could help answer her question, at which point I found myself being told to come stand behind the microphone. Though the last time I spoke was (briefly) in front of over 200 people, that was around 2 years ago and thank god I hadn’t yet totally forgotten everything I learned in Toastmasters. I explained, slightly less eloquently than I will now, if you’re looking for a scientific answer, then you should eat meat because it’s one of the most nutritionally dense foods there is and a well balanced omnivorous diet is objectively healthier than a vegetarian or vegan diet. But, if you’re looking for a philosophical answer, then we wouldn’t be who we are today, with the brains we have today, if ancient man hadn’t sucked marrow from bones and eaten all the meat he and she had. To tie it in with Martins’ book, perhaps the choices we make today in the meat we consume will help shape who we are to become, just as what our ancestors ate shaped who we are today.

Thankfully Martins welcomed my interjection, and a number of people in attendance also found my contribution interesting. Unfortunately much of the lavish catering threatened to go to waste, and I was rewarded for my participation with a hell of a lot of meatballs. However, I hope Martins will revise his response at all the sustainable food conferences he attends in the future, and I look forward to reading the rest of The Carnivore’s Manifesto.

How I Learned to Cook (And You Can Too)

Having spent my childhood sampling specialty eateries, socializing with chefs, and snubbing lobster bisque, I developed a taste for food that was far beyond my means once my critiquing career ended. However, it wasn’t until I proclaimed myself a vegetarian at age 14 that I fully realized just how far I had fallen. My mother wouldn’t prepare a separate meal for me, tofu was confounding, and the locally produced kalamata and chive hummus was only available once a week, if anyone happened to be going past the farmers’ market that day. Hunger alone is a powerful motivator, and coupled with the knowledge of finer things, the will to feed myself good food has remained strong. Whatever your motivation, this is how I’ve taught myself to cook, and you can, too.

3 Truths about Learning to Cook

1. You’ll go a lot further and be a lot better if you’re sincerely interested in cooking.
2. It’s going to take a while.
3. Don’t buy unnecessary gadgets.

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Directions: Any and all of the following can be done in any order, or simultaneously, or whatever. What follows are the tools I used to educate myself about cooking. The kind of cooking we’re talking about here is not just being able to follow a recipe and have it turn out. We’re talking about being able to freestyle in the kitchen, with comfort, ease, and delicious outcomes.

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Watch every episode of Good Eats, at least once. Alton Brown is my hero, because he doesn’t just tell you what to do, but why you should do it that way. His frequent reminders against buying “uni-taskers,” (see Truth #3), DIY solutions for unusual equipment, and philosophy of “Organization will set you free,” are all damn good advice, too.

Nearly every episode of Good Eats is available on Youtube, though in parts, and typically low quality video. Lots of episodes however can be found here, in much better quality. Check out the Wikipedia list of episodes to decide where to start. I suggest selecting an ingredient you especially like, and going from there. Remember, you won’t actually learn to cook unless you actually cook, so start simple and try out recipes and techniques.

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Follow Foodgawker, or a similar site. Look at pretty pictures of food. Read recipes that appeal to you. You don’t have to cook everything, just read, and read, and read. You can check out cookbooks from the library and do the same.

The point of this exercise is to gradually expose yourself to cooking styles, archetype dishes, successful flavor combinations, and techniques. Eventually you’ll be able to distinguish good recipes from bad (usually), or look at a recipe and be able to improvise ingredients or switch seasonings or generally tweak it to your liking. Exposure to good food is as important in learning to cook as exposure to good art is crucial in understanding and appreciating it.

You can also use sites like Foodgawker to expand your knowledge of a certain dish, or uses of an ingredient. For example, if you want to make macaroni and cheese, do a search for it and compare the recipes that come up. How are they similar? How are they different? What techniques do they use? What ingredient/flavor combinations come up?

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Stick to cookbooks that help you break free of recipes. Recipes are fine sometimes, but if your goal is to achieve enough cooking skill and knowledge to throw together healthy and decent weeknight dinners, then recipes will be a crutch more often than not. My favorites are Ratio and The Flavor Bible. You can splurge on other cookbooks later, when you can already cook, because only then can they really be appreciated or useful.

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Document what you do. No need to be weird about it, but if something you made turns out really well, then make a note somewhere of what you did, or bookmark the recipe. Evernote Food is kind of cool for this purpose. Soon you’ll have a nice, custom recipe list to turn to for direction or just ideas.

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Some final advice:

1. Don’t stress about not having the equipment you want or need. If all you’ve got is a skillet or a hotplate, use your creativity and get damn good at cooking as wide a variety of dishes as you can with what you’ve got. Eventually you’ll get a new appliance and realize you hardly use it. But then you’ll know what direction to advance your cooking.
2. Just like uni-taskers, don’t bother with ingredients you’ll only use for one dish and then have no idea what to do with the rest of it. If you must have it, learn more than one way to use it. At least try to experiment with it.
3. Archetype dishes are the best place to start learning improvisation. Think salads, soups, eggs, casseroles, etc.
4. Take the time to learn some basics of nutrition.
5. For God’s sake, have fun!

Why Chicken Nuggets are Awesome, or, Fuck You, Jamie Oliver

While American fast food carries a widespread stigma, chicken nuggets are burdened by a special level of hate. A popular image online of something that looks like strawberry frozen yogurt is identified as uncooked, unformed, chicken nugget “goop,” and hasn’t exactly done the dish any favors. While it’s true that this kind of chicken nugget is far from gourmet, it is worth your respect as an innovative use of what would otherwise be food waste, managing to appeal to both the eye and the stomach.

Jamie Oliver is among those that particularly enjoy trashing chicken nuggets. It makes sense for him to attack them in his crusade to overhaul school lunches, as the golden morsels keep kids happy and can be prepared by any idiot with a food handler’s card. Turning kids against them seems the best strategy in a bottom-up approach to rethinking what we serve our children.

In his 2010 series, Oliver recreates a demonstration in attempt to do just that, and fails, miserably. To summarize, a chicken is divided in to “good” and “bad” parts. The bad parts are blended until smooth, and some flour and spices are thrown in. Up to that point, the kids are disgusted. But as Oliver begins frying up patties, the kids are no less eager to gobble them up. Oliver is dumbfounded, stating that this demonstration “always works.”

So, what went wrong? When I was in 6^th grade, a friend told me that sausage was made with intestines. I swore off it for a few weeks, but that was all, because damn it, sausage is good. Kids know chicken nuggets are good, and any attempt at disgusting them is going to be short lived, at best. Not only that, but Oliver may have actually hurt his goal of raising conscious eaters by instilling an exceptionally vague and narrow minded idea of “good” and “bad” foods. Are chicken nuggets “bad” because of what part of the animal they’re made from? Are we supposed to learn to judge others for what they eat? Is it important we shun certain cuts and organ meat and continue in our wasteful culinary tradition?

This is not to say I necessarily disagree with Oliver that chicken nuggets ought to be in the “bad” category. Like many foods, the potential healthfulness of chicken nuggets is typically compromised for the sake of flavor and texture. This is not good. However, it’s awesome that the leftovers of a chicken carcass can be morphed into dish that even kids will happily eat. Food efficiency is a worthwhile objective, and one that the development of chicken nuggets has fulfilled beautifully. It’s innovations like this that have contributed to the abundance, and affordability, of food that so few of us are lucky enough to enjoy.

Go be a bully somewhere else, Oliver.