Two out of three ain't bad...

So I got ambitious yesterday. Cooking for me is relaxing; spending time thinking about food is getting to be a great barometer of how crazy my life is. When I don't have time to think about it or cook, then life is just too darn hectic.

So in recovering from Rosh Hashanah, I decided to cook up a storm. And I wouldn't, of course, want to pick EASY things to make, so I decided to make pasta as a main dish-- specifically, tortellini. Note to self: don't try to make pasta without a pasta maker. Elyssa did a masterful job rolling the dough out by hand, thin as we could make it. We used an Alton Brown recipe, which, I have to say, was less than Altonesque, what with the ingredients listed out of order and the instructions kind of unclear, too. But ultimately, it came down to too-thick pasta. We cooked the stuff for 45 minutes and it was still, let's generously call it, "chewy." Yuck. The filling was nice (with garlic and basil from the farm), but the stuff was generally one of the more complete failures I've ever prepared. "The Story of the Pasta" was, in this case, a comedy of errors.

On to the garlic bread-- a gourmet Emeril recipe that was a fantastic success. And because of the utter meltdown of the main dish, it became the primary source of calories in the meal portion of this program. We used fresh parsely from the farm and a range of spices that left our mouths pleasantly tingly. It was great-- a definite keeper.

And then, the piece d'resistance (sp?). Peach upside down cake. Alton Brown redeems himself with this gourmet but incredibly simple recipe. It would be very impressive for a party. So chic. So delicious. And with peaches in season, quite fresh as well.

So two out of three made for a nice evening, especially since we fed the kids earlier and ate after they went to bed!

On Rosh Hashanah it is written...

I spoke about "The Pizza" at my synagogue today-- about the value of knowing what we're eating and where it comes from. And I was impressed and amazed to learn just how many people were inspired to think more deeply about their diets.

I was also impressed by the number of people who are already buying CSA shares, or who have been contemplating it and may well have been pushed "off the fence" by my talk.

I met some new folks today, as happens at Rosh Hashanah inevitably, and also learned some new things about congregants I thought I knew. I met a couple of nutritionists who offered to come and run educational sessions at the synagogue; I heard from a congregant who is a biologist and another who is a chemical engineer. They each had a view about my comments from their own perspectives, and I really like that. I'm hoping folks will visit "The Pizza" and let us know what they're thinking about food.

I'm off to find some use for daikon radishes we received from the farm this past week; I've never seen or heard of them-- if you've got any ideas, let us know!

To all of our Jewish friends, Happy New Year!

It's really putting a crimp in my style...

This whole "thinking about what I eat" thing is really putting a crimp in my old habits. I'm eating lunch at home more often, and when I know in advance I won't be able to get home for lunch I take lunch from home, and when I didn't know in advance that I wouldn't be able to make it home, my car seems to have forgotten the way to the Golden Arches and I have to be more creative in my food choices.

It's really getting annoying.

I'm also not spending the same amount of money I had been on fast-food; I think my favorite ATM machine is starting to miss me.

I don't know what to do with myself.

I certainly don't remember the last time I thought this much about what I was consuming calorically. Maybe that whole "garbage in, garbage out" thing can apply to people and not just computers.

Thanks to some help from my wonderful mother-in-law, we are freezing some of the tomatoes that came from the farm this week so that we'll be able to taste some of the freshness of summer in the cold of winter. I didn't know you could do that!

Scraping the bottom of an organic, local barrel

When I came home on Tuesday with our farm share, it was a heavy load-- by far the most we'd received all summer.

And with the close of Shabbat, other than a random assortment of chili peppers and three small unidentifiable summer squash, it's all gone. I found a recipe that involves chili peppers and chocolate; since we began this adventure, Lys has been willing to try any recipe I've come up with. We've given the old college try to well-disguised god-forbids and chatzilim (eggplant), but I think she's going to draw the line at chili peppers and chocolate.

So what have I learned this week? It's been a great one for a number of reasons. Food just tastes better to me when I know it just came out the ground, for one thing. I'm no scientist or nutrition expert or flavor tester. I'm not sure I can quantify or qualify it, but I can just taste the difference between a tomato that has been on a jet and one that hasn't. Don't ask me how. Perhaps it's all psychological, but even if it is, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Tomatoes with no frequent flyer miles taste like wind and sun to me, much more so than ones that were fed peanuts on their flight. Cucumbers that only have earth to be washed off before munching taste different than ones that need the wax removed.

And making a menu around what's been grown up the block instead of going down the block to the grocery store with my mind already made up--there's something so richly spiritual about it. When we say the blessing before a meal whose ingredients we know haven't come too far, literally or figuratively, from their source, I feel closer to The Source of our blessings. There's something about it that just feels like this was the way things were meant to be. Don't get me wrong: I love fresh strawberries in December as much as anyone. But when I do go to the supermarket this days, I am thinking more about the providence of the food, and whether it's what I am meant to be eating right now. And when the applesplumsorangesstrawberriesorwhatever has a sticker that says Costa Rica or some other far-flung place, I tend to put it back in favor of something--almost anything-- that was grown closer to home. And it feels good.

I can't wait till Tuesday. And if you ask me what I'll do when the growing season is well and truly over around here, the answer is, I don't know. It'll be an honestly sad day for me.

Eggplant innoculation

When I was a kid, we had a garden on the side of our house, next to the garage. It wasn't too big, but it was big enough to grow a bunch of different things. A little sun, a little shade -- just right for growing so many things that I would never dream of eating. OK, maybe I'd eat some green beans, but that was it.

My parents, relative newcomers to the whole gardening scene, were nonetheless enthusiastic. So one summer, my dad decided to try his hand at eggplant. Never having seen eggplant in its unpicked state, he thought it prudent to plant a bunch, in case some didn't make it. So he planted 10 or 12 -- that is, 10 or 12 individual plants.

Well. Remember about the "a little sun, a little shade"? Apparently, that's just what eggplant likes. Every plant shot up, strong and fertile. And each blessed one grew probably 10 or 12 eggplants.

Eventually, the neighbors started to pretend they weren't home when they saw us coming, bearing our brown paper bags full of eggplant. We had so much, we literally couldn't give it away. It piled up in the kitchen, was cooked every which way. I'm not sure how we did it, but we all survived that summer.

And since then, no one in my family (except my mother) will eat eggplant.

But we got one in our farm share delivery this week, and Joel wouldn't let me give it away (like I did last week, when he wasn't home). He asked if I'd be willing to give it another try, and I said that if he could find a recipe that disguised it sufficiently, I'd be a big girl and try it again. He found a recipe for Grilled Eggplant and Peppers with Creamy Pesto Sauce, and that's what we had for dinner tonight.

I wish the story had a happy, uplifting ending: "Girl Discovers New Love of Eggplant!" Sorry, not today. The peppers were amazing, and the creamy pesto (basically pesto mixed with plain yogurt) was fantastic. But no dice on the eggplant.

At least I've done my duty. I figure it's like a tetanus shot -- I'm pretty sure that now I don't have to try it again for another ten years.

Earth to the Pizza Family

I know, we're terrible bloggers. We promise descriptions of fabulous meals, then disappear for two months. Sorry! We're back to veggie pickup this week (thanks to all our kind friends who did pickup for us over the summer, and made excellent meals, even if they couldn't quite identify everything they received...), so hopefully back to blogging soon.

I will tell you we had an Indian feast last night, courtesy of Joel. No organic veggies were harmed during the making of the meal, but it was mighty good. And to go with dinner tomorrow, tonight we made a tomato-herb bread from an Emeril recipe, which just smelled too good so we had to cheat and try it. Mmm, mmm, mmm!

Veggie pickup tomorrow, so stay tuned for more merriment and eggplant!

Here today, gone tomorrow

Sorry things are so quiet here at the House of Pizza. We've been away, having fun driving around the country and eating fabulous food with family and friends (wild mushroom and goat cheese quesadillas with the EK family -- man, were those good!) To all of you who hosted and fed us, our unending thanks!

Now we're off to camp for two weeks. Mmm, grilled cheese (and the occasional tofu dish for the vegetarians). We had an amazing dinner while we were home, which Joel promises to post about real soon. 'Til then, enjoy your veggies before the deer eat them (caught one red-hoofed in the garden yesterday)!

Sweet pea

I must confess, I never really liked peas.

I'm sure I drove my mom nuts. Growing up, the only kind of peas I would eat were LeSueur -- you know, the Young Early Tiny Very Expensive Baby Peas in the Silver Can. No frozen peas, no store brand, no way, no how. I'd push them around the plate, pick them out of whatever they were in...

Then I started eating Indian food, which I adore. And there's peas in everything -- the rice, the samosas, the aloo gobi, all my favorite dishes. I was older, and no one would eat with me if I was still picking peas out of everything. So I tolerated them. But not more than that.

Until today. Our weekly Tuesday produce delivery came with fresh peas, the kind you have to shell yourself. Never had those before, but Joel had plans for a stir-fry, and the peas were going in. OK, set a good example for the kids, eat the peas, yeah yeah. Then, as I was shelling them, I thought I'd try one.

Holy cow! It's as if it's a totally different vegetable. Sweet, firm, not mushy... Whoa. I know what's going in the garden next year.

I've got the itch...

Poison ivy, that is.

Even as we enjoy our weekly community support agriculture share this summer, we are attempting to develop our own extremely locally grown agriculture in our backyard garden. I guess than in a certain way, what I really want is for "The Story of the Mosbacher Pizza" to be really really short-- as short as "we picked everthing in our backyard and mixed it in the right measure and voila, pizza!" That's an ideal worth working towards.

Since the days when I watched my father, of blessed memory, make his garden larger and larger each year until it seemed to take over half the yard, I always imagined that I'd have a vegetable garden of my own some day. For some years, first in Atlanta and now here, I've learned through trial and error about the pleasures and pain of growing your own food. My first real experience in gardening sans advice from my dad involved planting bulbs. I planted them too early, so they came up in the middle of the winter. And, not knowing or really contemplating that bulbs had tops and bottoms, I planted about half of them upside down altogether. My gardening knowledge has been more empirical than textbook learning.

Now that we've got young kids of our own, having a garden is even more fun. Each year, the kids help me pick out what we should grow. We've started more and more things from seed in the late winter/early spring. So that as the Jewish calendar matures from Tu B'Shevat (the Jewish festival for trees which falls in January usually) towards Passover, we are more accutely aware of the argicultural cycle in our home. So, too, we are more and more aware of the frailty of farming. This spring, we planted about six different plants in small pots and put them in this great windowbox we have in our kitchen. Everything came up and has taken root beautifully in the garden, except the lupine, which, for reasons which remain a mystery, simply never so much as peeked their heads above the soil in the pot. Who knows why? And it's amazing. It's now months later, and our three year old still mourns for the lupine that never were. Each time we talk about the garden, we "oo" and "ah", and then inevitably the little one gets a little sad and says, "but the lupine never grewed up." It's a huge disappointment to him, and yet an amazing lesson for us all.

In any case, for each year for the past three summers since we've lived in this house, I've tinkered with a small plot, perhaps 3X6 feet. We've grown tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, squash, and a few other things over the years. But it's been crowded in there.

This spring, though, I got ambitious. I decided that we were going to clear the whole entire other side of the yard, which was covered in vines of suspicious variety. My wife warned me that there was poison ivy, but me, being me (just ask her!), determined that I was going to clear it all, sans chemicals, of course.

I spent several days in there-- probably eight hours in total. Each time, I emerged scott-free of itches or allergies. I had rigged up a veritable haz-mat suit for myself--longs and longs, rubber dishwashing gloves with gardening gloves. No problem.

On what I estimated to be my last day of work on the project, I guess I must have gotten cocky. I didn't suit up with quite the care as I had-- heck-- I hadn't gotten poison ivy yet. I got to thinking that I had mastered this thing-- I was teflon man.

Well, I was wrong. Not a major case of the itches-- just on my forearms. But I'm off to the doctor tomorrow for prednisone or whatever will make it go away.

What can I say? My learning curve-- about life, the universe, and gardening-- is a steep one.

We all have to start somewhere

It's summer in New Jersey, so the strawberries are ready. We had strawberry shortcake for dessert one night last week. Our own strawberries, grown right next to the house, totally organic, local, seasonal. And on top, Cool Whip. Not even close to organic, totally processed. It made me wonder about this food thing we're trying to do. What good is it to know where your food's coming from, if you keep eating Cool Whip?

Then, interesting news from Whole Foods today. They're not going to sell live lobsters anymore, because they can't be sure the lobsters don't feel pain or distress in transit or in their tanks.

I must admit, my gut reaction was a large dose of skepticism. They're still going to sell dead lobsters (frozen, etc.), and they sell dead chickens, dead fish... you get the idea. [In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a tuna-tarian -- mostly vegetarian, but I eat fish.] So I'm not sure exactly how Whole Foods not selling live lobsters is going to do much -- the lobsters are still going to end up dead, one way or another. So someone else does them in before they get to Whole Foods -- big deal.

But then I thought about it some more. OK, so people who want to eat lobster are still going to eat it. But, as little a step as it may be, Whole Foods has taken a small step toward making sure that the food in its stores is not only grown in a way that's better for the planet and us, but also treated in a way that's more humane (I know, there's a whole other post in the irony of nice, kind behavior being called "humane," given how we treat each other).

Jewish tradition teaches that though we are not expected to finish the work of repairing the world, we still have do our share. So today, strawberries and live lobsters. Tomorrow, we'll take another step.

The fungus that must not be named

The comedian Stephen Wright has a funny bit about waking up one morning to find that everything in his house had been stolen and replaced with an exact replica. I think that's how my mother is going to feel when she reads this post.

Mom, if you're reading this, sit down.

Are you sitting? Good. Perhaps you'll want to pour yourself a glass of wine before you continue.

Now you're ready for the earth-shattering news.

I have eaten mushrooms. Voluntarily.

More than that, I bought mushrooms and prepared them myself. Under no duress.

More than that, (please don't disown me), I liked them. Yes, you read that right.

For those of you who didn't grow up in my house, you need to know that there were some foods in our family that we called "God-fers," as in, "God forbid I should have to eat them." And mushrooms are the Platonic form of the "God-fer." Never was a mushroom to be found in food that my mom, my brother, or I ate. I think my dad used to eat them, but only when we were out of the house. Mushrooms were practically treif (unkosher) in our abode. Which is what makes my actions today so utterly bizarre, so out of character, so unheard of for someone who grew up at 730 Palm Drive. My brother, a world-class chef, still to this day does not each mushrooms, I believe.

Today, when I went to Trader Joes, I was in an open-minded mood. I bought a number of odd things. But oddest of all was mushrooms. Inspired once again by my recent reading, I decided, what the heck. I'm always telling the kiddos that they need to try stuff. The mushrooms at Trader Joes were grown less than an hour from my house. I'm trying to eat in the moment. I decided that I must try them.

I went from there to Toys-R-Us to pick up a birthday present for my son's friend. I called Elyssa to consult with her about what to buy, and in passing, I mentioned that I had purchased(the fungus that must not be named), and she almost dropped the phone. She's never been a fungus fan herself-- feels that the texture is too "squeaky". She threatened to take my temperature when I got home. But she agreed to keep an open mind.

Anyway, an already long story short, I purchased the white button mushrooms, and added them to some squash, barley, red pepper, onion, garlic, vegetable broth, sherry, and dill, and, bada-bing-- a not half-bad mushroom barley soup!

Elyssa is still suspicious about the texture. She said that perhaps it'd be okay if I cut them smaller. She offered me the last few mushrooms. And God-forbid if I didn't say yes!

I need to go check on my mom and make sure she still recognizes me.

Mom, it's me. Really.

Eating in the Moment

Tonight, in the continued effort to use the unusual and interesting harvest we received from our community supported agriculture share, we made a different salad with mixed oriental greens, adolescent shanghai cabbage, white hailstone radishes, and green garlic. I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever eaten any of those veggies before, and it was really quite good (especially since we made a point of looking for slugs before we put the salad in bowls tonight)! We especially liked the green garlic, which looks like scallions but taste like garlic.

I am compelled by the idea that where what we eat comes from, and how it was grown, is as important as what we eat. As Michael Pollan points out in his "Omnivore's Dillema," why would we let something as important as food to chance? I am a huge fan of Consumer Reports. I wouldn't buy a toaster, a blender, an oven, or a dishwasher without first studying about it, learning about the varieties, the various models, the reported reliability of the gadgets, the warranties which the makers put behind them. So why is it that I don't demand a "Consumer Reports" for my food? Why would I, why would any of us, do something so foundational on Maslow's hierarchy of needs as eating, and yet give so little thought to what we were actually consuming?

There are 56 ingredients in the tofu patties my kids eat for dinner almost every night. Fifty-six! That's way too complicated, as far as I'm concerned. And of course, I haven't heard of nearly any of them. And of course, other than wheat and water, I don't believe that any of them grow naturally. They're almost all extracts of corn or soybeans. All that processed stuff. I guess that I want to be much closer to the earth than that. Carlo Petrini calls it slow food, and I think that that may be the eating ethic I'm looking for. It might be the kind of kosher I've been looking for. I want to be able to look the farmer in the eye and shake his hand, as I was able to do yesterday when I picked up our first harvest from the CSA. I want to be able to see for myself how my food is being grown. And I want to eat what's being grown right now, locally. A friend of mine has taught me alot about Thich Nhat Han and his focus on living in the moment. I might just start a new movement. I think I'd call it "eating in the moment." Eating what's growing right now, in this area, in this season. What a concept.

I'm off to seek out recipies for what to do with red mustard greens and tokyo bekana and rosemary. The farmer says that's what will be dinner tomorrow night, in some form or another.

Be careful what you wish for

So we joined this community-supported farm for the summer/fall growing season. This particular one works by "selling" shares in the farm (max 50) for the season, and then the harvest gets divided up between the shareholders. The farm is local, seasonal, totally pesticide-free. This week was our first delivery, and we were eagerly waiting to see what we'd get. What we got was a lot of green: arugula, lettuce, mustard greens, enough rosemary to make the whole house fragrant.

So we settled in to make a huge salad, with arugula, Tokyo Bekana (an oriental green), mandarin oranges and walnuts. We sat down and dug in. It tasted wonderful -- sun energy instead of corn energy (read Michael Pollan's book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" for more about corn). We were happily chomping away (I'd eaten about half of a big bowl), when I noticed something on the side of my bowl. There, slowly climbing its way out of my honey-mustard dressing, was a small black snail (slug? who knows...).

Pesticide-free food is amazing, and knowing where your food comes from and who's growing it is fantastic. The unexpected protein I could probably do without...

--Elyssa

How it all began

Elyssa says it really all began with "The Story of the Pizza."

The story of the pizza began when we were out at a local pizza joint with our two kiddos one evening. We had waited a bit too long to decide what to do, and, of course, once we decided, we picked one of the most popular restaurants in town. The wait was long, the kids were antsy, and we had just about had it even before we sat down at a table. Then we ordered-- pizza for everyone-- and the kids were bouncing off the walls.

So I decided, in a fit of either inspiration or persperation, to tell The Story of the Pizza. And it went something like this:

You know why the pizza is taking so long? Because the chef had to fly off to Iowa in his supersonic jet to pick the wheat for the dough. Then he had to bring it back here to the
restaurant, mix it with yeast and water, and let it rise for an hour or so before he could make it into pizza dough.

While the dough was rising, the chef jumped back in his jet and flew off to Wisconsin where he milked a good old Holstein cow. He took the milk to Rudolph, Wisconsin, where they made the milk into cheese. Then the chef jetted off to Florida where he picked some vine-ripened tomatoes for the tomato sauce. He brought it all back here, threw it all together and just on cue here comes the waitress with the pizza! alakazam! He made the pizza!

Telling the story of the pizza got me thinking a lot about where our food comes from-- really. Before it gets to our table. Before it gets to A & P or Shoprite. As Jews, we thanks God for what we eat before we eat it. It seems to me that being aware of the story of the pizza might just be a kind of food ethic I'd really like to live by.