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.