My Food Life

Yesterday I was finally able to pick one of my own home-grown Better Boy tomatoes! I forgot to get a photo of it before I started chopping, but I can tell you that it was ugly-- yet delicious!!! I made a spaghetti sauce out of it, along with some market fresh zucchini, broccoli & mushrooms.

It just so happens that a personal interest of mine is knowing exactly what I put into my body. I have close relatives in poor health, and as a young person I see this and think "I want to do what I can to prevent this from happening to myself." Important aspects of this goal are knowing what I eat, and making good choices about what I eat. This is why lately I have been so captivated by authors and documentaries that take an interest in this as well.

One such author is Michael Pollan, who's film Food, Inc. helped to springboard my interest in food and its consequences, its identity and roles in civilization. Food, Inc. can be graphic at times (I admit to skipping through the bits where animals were being made into food), but I found it to also be well-informed, informative, and fascinating. I think anyone who eats meat should watch it, not as a case for vegetarianism, but a case for eating meat in a better, healthier, safer way if you want to continue to eat meat.

I recently watched his PBS documentary called The Botany of Desire, which is also quite captivating for something that is about the history of four different plants, their effect on us, and in turn our effect on them. I don't think this documentary has such a sense of immediacy as Food, Inc., in that it's not going to change your way of thought about your entire sense of food as you know it, but the facts it presents are certainly worth knowing if you already have an interest.

The first book I have read by Pollan is called Food Rules: An Eater's Manual, and presents basic guidelines to eating well and making good decisions about food. By the time I got my hands on this one I was well aware of the rules being laid out. I tend to think he didn't give enough disclaimer in certain parts, and perhaps waters down things just a little too much at times, but in general what he makes are good points and the book itself can be quickly "digested."

I plan to continue to read more by Pollan, and in fact I would like to read all of his books because I think he presents good information and makes points that should be more publicized. I've learned a great deal of information from his documentaries especially, and he has a talent in making facts feel accessible and not too laden with scientific terminology. His works have made me realize the importance of what's going on with food in America (and globally), and have inspired me to read more by other authors and make more efforts myself in getting away from main-stream food.

And let me just note that eating well is not about being a snob, it's not about being able to have the pretentious "Oh I'm a vegetarian" attitude that can be, purposefully or accidentally, projected. My interest in eating well lies in my own health, and the health of this country and this earth because what we're doing to it in the name of cheaper, bigger food is going to affect us negatively in the long run. It's not about being a hippie or a liberal, as those sometimes have negative connotations, it's about being wise to your own health and the health of our future generations. We, as Americans especially, tend to ignore good sense and make ourselves blind for the sake of saving a dime in the present. I think this is going to come back to bite us in so many ways. And I admit, I know I don't always do what I should to eat well. It's hard sometimes. I just graduated from college and my paycheck is, well, lackluster. But all I can do is make as much of an effort as I can. Eating well doesn't mean you have to be paranoid always, it just requires some honesty and effort from producer and consumer.

I'll take a step down from my soap box now and bury my nose back into books. Currently I'm reading one called Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, so you can expect a report (and probably a rant) on that as well!

PESTO. Pesto, pesto, pesto. I could put you on anything.

This summer I was able to grow about 6 healthy basil plants, and with them I've been able to do two rounds of pesto and still have leftovers.

I'm still using the recipe from this link, but I will type it out here for convenient future reference.

Fresh Basil Pesto Recipe
(posted by Elise on Simply Recipes)
Makes 1 cup.

Ingredients
• 2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts
• 3 medium sized garlic cloves, minced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• Special equipment needed: A food processor

Method
1. Combine the basil in with the pine nuts, pulse a few times in a food processor. (If you are using walnuts instead of pine nuts and they are not already chopped, pulse them a few times first, before adding the basil.) Add the garlic, pulse a few times more.

2. Slowly add the olive oil in a constant stream while the food processor is on. Stop to scrape down the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula. Add the grated cheese and pulse again until blended. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

I do, however, have a couple notes to make to this recipe:

- If you're going to make pesto from fresh basil, I have learned to both thoroughly check the leaves for bugs and spiders. As a safety precaution (because I would prefer to be as vegetarian as possible—or else just not ingest spiders) I also rinse the leaves. Do try to dry them off a bit if you rinse so as not to add excess liquid to your pesto.

- I have yet to figure out how the devil to "pack" basil when measuring, since it seems to be a thing that completely physically revolts against the method of packing. I used 3 cups loosely pressed down and the results seemed fine.

- The recipe does seem to require a bit of salt if you add to pasta. Eating it fresh on bread or toast, it doesn't seem to need the extra salt, so I suggest adding a little in the blending process and adding it as needed depending on how you use it in meals.

- For frugal shoppers: one thing to know is that pine nuts are tremendously more expensive than walnuts, and while they may add an element of being fancy to your pesto, they aren't necessarily "better" than walnuts. Needless to say, I used walnuts.

So that's what I've learned so far in my pesto-making adventures. I do plan to try other recipes either later this summer or next, so hopefully I'll had even more to add on future rounds. But, all in all, the main lesson is: Pesto is great. Freshly made pesto is greater. Make it, put it on (almost) everything.

I suddenly had LOTS of egg whites on hand a few days ago, and no idea what to do with them all. In doing research, I found very helpful articles, like this one by my favorite professional dessert-er David Lebovitz, but in the end I found myself interested in more simple options. I didn't feel like making a dessert with lots of ingredients, so when I stumbled across a recipe for a simple White Cake that used up 8 egg whites, I was very happy.

I didn't have much vanilla extract left, so I wound up using half a tsp of it, plus half a tsp of coconut flavoring. The substitution was nice and went well with the simple cake. The texture was very soft and fluffy. I paired it with milk chocolate icing (store bought - so sue me) and it made the nice, uncomplicated dessert I was looking for.

It also made quite a large amount of cake, so I would recommend using the recipe when you're baking for more than just two people like I was! It got a little stale, but not too bad, after about 3 days. It could have been frozen, but I find that that usually dries cake out as well.

Overall, it wasn't anything fancy, but it was very good when it was fresh. I would definitely recommend it to anyone seeking to use up loads of egg whites!

A month or two ago I inherited two Better Boy tomato plants from my boyfriend, who works at a local grocery co-op. I believe they had overstocked the plants and were giving the less healthy extras away that weren't selling.

Armed with two large pots and rich soil, I planted the tomatoes and hoped for the best. I didn't know much about growing tomatoes until mid-way through their major growth spurt, so I have them staked rather awkwardly and haphazardly. But I'm trying to ignore the embarrassingly poor stake-job since I have 5 tomatoes growing, at this point at least, rather successfully.

I've learned that these tomatoes take ~70 days to harvest from planting time, and that they are sortof an average but pretty resilient red tomato variety. A few websites have suggested that they are a medium to large size, juicy yet meaty, and good for fresh slicing. (...is this making anyone else want a tomato sandwich?)

One thing I'm not familiar with is why some tomato plants take longer to yield fruit than others. These were growing and planted for what seemed like a long time before I saw any sign of tomatoes growing. It will be interesting to try other varieties next summer and see how they grow in comparison.

Gardening, especially tomatoes, runs in my family. My father's father made his living thanks to tomatoes; he grew up in a farming family, and I believe one of their biggest sales were tomatoes. He began his own company by selling them out of a back of a truck, and this grew into a wholesale produce business that my father runs today. My mother's father is also from a farming family, and has a green thumb to be rivaled. Even though I never had any interest in farming or gardening growing up, I'm suddenly finding it to be a completely intriguing, challenging, and rewarding hobby.

My tomatoes are obviously still young, so I'm hoping I'll be able to bring them to harvest without any problems. I've never had full sun and a warm climate available to successfully raise tomatoes, so maybe this time will be different! Wish me luck!