Buying into "local"

Living in California, I realize that my view of the world is considered "skewed" and sometimes whacky. What can I say, I've lived here since I was six, so it's just what it is. I'm not an extremist of any sort, but I do understand trying to do little things to keep our world a little healthier.

Amongst our circle of friends, we believe in trading on Craigslist and Freecycle. We recycle and shop at farmers' markets. I can't say that any of us go out of our way to do other things such as buy eco-friendly materials or live more simply.

The one thing that is making me think more is the practice of buying locally and seasonally. Now that foods (except processed foods) must display their country of origin, I wonder if people will make different choices knowing this? When I've browsed the product aisles, I've put things back after seeing labels reading "Product of Chile." I mean, I love blueberries, but do I need to buy them in January from a country 9000 miles away? No, I will wait until they are from Central Valley in June.

Some people rationalize that it's okay because transportation is cheap and we're supporting their economy and creating jobs. But do we really know that? Could we actually be making them too dependent on foreign economies, destroying more land for farming, and discouraging innovation for a quick buck? I also tend to think the importation of cheap goods and government subsidies make people focus on price rather than quality. This is where all the rhetoric is lost on me. I want to do the right thing, but there doesn't seem to be a simple answer.

If you apply that practice to all foods, tropical fruits such as bananas and mangoes are pretty much non-existent. How can a kid not have bananas? And man, I'd miss mangoes.

Indulgence

Happy Birthday to a few of my blogging buddies out there! I know you've just had or are about to celebrate another year.

Tim and I celebrated my birthday over the weekend. (Ignore the year, it's not worth mentioning any more.) We started out by having a mellow morning wandering the local Farmers' Market. The weather was perfect, sunny and cool. We picked up some sweet strawberries and some blood orange juice. We also bought a few sweet peppers and squash for a meal I was planning to make for some friends. I didn't realize they were going out of season so I was only able to pick enough for them, not any for us to enjoy.

As we were leaving the market, Tim noticed the flower stand and asked if I would like a bouquet for my birthday. I hesitated because I will be leaving town next week and didn't want to spend the money if I wasn't going to have time to enjoy them. We picked an inexpensive arrangement of tulip that are just about to bloom. It's really lovely to look at the mix of colors when I'm in the kitchen.

When we returned home, Tim cooked up some eggs with cheese, turkey, and greens. He decorated the plate with a few strawberries. What a lovely breakfast treat. Even better, Tim's mom and aunt were sweet enough to call and wish me a happy birthday.

I immediately started on my cooking once we cleaned up breakfast. Our friends just had twins and we were planning to visit in the afternoon. If there's one thing that I've learned from friends is that it's hard for people to eat during the early months of parenthood. The best thing friends can do for new parents is to bring them so tasty homemade food. I found a great mac and cheese recipe that's been quite tasty. I figured this would be a good comfy food for them, balanced with the fresh peppers and squash.

For fun, I curled my hair and buffed my nails to a perfect shine before we headed out. I dresses up in a cute BCBG black skirt that sits high on the waist to elongate my stubby legs and wore a burgandy top with a floral, satin trim. It's fun to dress up after months of jeans and knit tops. The only faux pas was that Tim chose to wear some black jeans and a reddish-orange suede shirt. We almost looked like twins. (Yipes, is this what happens when you live too long with one person?) I had showed my new outfit last week, but he forgot that my plan was to wear this for our night out.

Meeting the twins was great. Other than a couple of brief cries, they were very well-behaved. Eight pounds can really hurt the arms quickly. I found myself trying to rest or lean on furniture to lessen the load. The parents seemed amazing collected and content for all that's going on. Of course, they are incredibly organize with a clipboard to track all the bodily changes of the twins. We haven't seen them since January, so it was really great to catch up. Hopefully they'll be able to take small outings with the kids by summer.

For the past few weeks, Tim had been telling me that we'd be going to a restaurant based on a Top Chef episode. While I thought it would be good, I wasn't totally excited because I had been openingly wishing for two other restaurants for a couple months. I was a little disappointed that he had not chosen one of them. As we drove through the city streets, however, it soon became clear that we were not headed to the restaurant he had been claiming.

Once he punched in the address into the GPS, I was excited. We were headed to a Michelin-rated restaurant that many friends have loved. We each customized our four-course dinner. I loved every dish I tasted - complimentary carrot ginger soup, risotto with lobster and shrimp, seared scallops with a fresh pea puree, quail stuffed with quinoa and foie gras, a perfect strawberry-rhubarb tart, and a little petite four birthday plate. Needless to say I was stuffed. Thank goodness there was a tiny bit of give in my skirt's waistline.

We wrapped up the evening by watching a couple episodes of the first season of Top Chef. I'm pretty sure I know who wins, but it's still interesting to watch because the format and cast of characters is so different from season five. It's interesting how much more I analyzed dinner because of watching this show. Tim was all cuddly and loving. It was a fabulous was to celebrate.

Dream diet

I noticed this on a news board... what an ideal thing to get paid to do. (Though I'm sure the perks beyond the chocolate are small.)

If anyone out there is part of this study, do share details as you progress. :)


Volunteers Needed For Chocolate Study, University of East Anglia
4/28/2008

LONDON (Reuters) - Calling all chocoholics: British researchers recruiting volunteers willing to eat a bar of chocolate daily for a year, guilt-free and all in the name of science. The trial starting in June will explore whether compounds called flavonoids found in chocolate and other foods can reduce the risk of heart disease for menopausal women with type 2 diabetes, the researchers said on Monday.

The life of food

The recent beef recall combined with learning about the industry through books such as "Omnivore's Dilemma" make a visit to the meat counter all the more bizarre.

At any time, you'll find chicken and pork products frozen in my refrigerator. For whatever reason I rarely cook beef. That's not to say that I don't eat it. I will order beef for lunch if there are fajitas or burgers. It's certainly nice to order a plate of stir-fry beef when I eat Chinese food. Most of the time, however, I eat chicken.

I really do wonder how this recall and news footage will affect people's eating habits. Sadly, I don't think people will think about this the right way. People will think they're more safe avoiding beef products when the truth is that any meat product could be questionably raised and processed. Do people actually think the 3lb. tray of pork or chicken they buy at Costco is that much safer? Pigs probably sit in just as much filth as cows. Chickens are locked inside huge coops for the six weeks they are grown. All animals (minus truly hand-raised, organic) for consumption are injected with all sorts of antibiotics and growth or vitamin supplements. Out of sight, out of mind... . Sorry if you're eating as you read this, but it makes you think about how little we question what goes into out bodies.

I'm thinking about all this because I just spent the past few hours folding dumplings. My hands still smell of the raw pork that I mixed and dolloped into wonton and potsticker wraps. A couple times during the year, I buy a couple pounds of pork along with various ingredients, mix them together, and stock my freezer with bags of freshly made dumplings. It's more work than buying a bag from the store, but at least I know what goes into them. By having both wontons and potstickers, I can choose between soup or frying. And I love being able to come home and have something to cook up when I'm lazy or have a craving for them. They last me a couple months since I only eat them once per week. Wonton soup today was perfect with the cooler weather returning.

Say no to pot pies

Last week, I decide not to cook, and I forgot my lunch leftovers at work. So, I pulled out one of the frozen Marie Callender's pot pies I've had in the freezer for a couple weeks. These days, I try not to buy a lot of prepared frozen meals, but there are just those days when it's nice to have some for backup.

Pot pies are a comfort food for me. I remember eating many of those Banquet meat pies at home as a kid. I just loved eating the hot filling and flakey crust as I watched cartoons.

I've perfected the speed at which I cook these pies. The problem with the box instructions is that the microwave fails to cook the crust properly and the oven just takes too darn long. The best compromise I've found is to microwave the pie for 7-8 minutes and then pop it in the toaster oven for 5-10 minutes. It's great because the filling is hot and I still get my flakey crust.

As I popped my turkey pie into the over, my eyes caught a glance of the nutrition label on the back of the box. You know, that lovely black and white rectangle that reminds you whether you're eating healthy.

My first glance was the calorie content per serving, 530 calories. Things seemed to register rather slowly in my head because before I could decide whether that was a reasonable number of calories to be consuming, my eye had moved up to a little box that appeared to have been added in hindsight just above nutrition label. The box was sized just enough to fit the one line of text which read:

"This entire box contains 1060 calories."

Say WHAAAAAT! Holy cow!!! Okay, I know these pies can't be super healthy, but that super unhealthy. They are big, but I can't see feeling full after eating half of one. It must be all the cream in the sauce and the pie crust. I'm really sad because this means that I can't go buying these much in the future. 1060 calories is more than half of the calories I should be eating in one day.

No wonder Americans are so overweight these days, look what we're being sold in the stores! (Take a look at this obesity map CNN created.) You know people are living off fast food and frozen meals rather than cook something from scratch. Evil, evil food manufacturers.

I've been eating much healthier in the past week - lots of farmers' market veggies (heirloom tomatoes are awesome) and fruits. (Okay, I do have homemade chocolate ice cream in the freezer, but I only eat a scoop a day.) But gosh, sometimes I do miss that fattening and salty flavors.

The little things

It's been a good week, I'm way behind at work and yet it doesn't bother me. There's always going to be something I can't finish. I'm just enjoying my summer.

And it's been a plenty good week in terms of little accomplishments:

- secured a last-minute reservation for Yosemite (I'm training for a big hiking adventure in the fall; someone cancelled and I scooped up the camp site)

- redeemed some mileage for tickets to Hawaii for a long Labor Day weekend (got vacation, will use)

- rode my bike to work after promising myself that I'd do this for the past three months (it's not that far and yet it's so easy to just drive like so many other people)

- arrange to have an information chat with someone (career research)

- watched a minor league baseball game with friends

- received a free tin of Spicy Maya Hot Chocolate drink for commenting that I was disappoint with how a local cafe prepared it (here's to hoping I can make it at home as well as they do at their Chuao shops)

This weekend, I'm going to go browse all the clearance sales and hang out with friends. I love summer. Somehow it always fills up with fun things.

Now if I could just find time to actually clean my place... ;)

Now pouring Coke

I was on the United.com website the other day an noticed this headline below their main page art - "Now pouring Coke on most United flights."

I recall some time in the past hearing people talk about the choices of beverages on flights and how one airline (who's name I cannot recall) had switched to only serving one brand's line of beverages.

I think it's funny how loyal (or picky) people are about what carbonated beverages they are willing to drink. In one of those e-mail chains where you share answers with friends, I remember my cousin answering "Coke or Pepsi? Pepsi, it took a long time to convert." It was interesting because she bothered to comment on it. I can't help wonder what caused the conversion (maybe the kids?) and how dramatic a change it has made in day to day life.

I myself don't drink much soda in the first place. As a kid, we used to have it around all the time. We had stock piles of 2-liter bottles and 12-packs of soda piled up in the garage. It's the result of buying when things are on sale and even cheaper with promotional coupons. We had so much that some of the rotten neighborhood kids took notice and would steal from our garage if we left it open.

Strangely, the minute I went to college, soda all but disappeared from my eating habits. In addition to prefering other drinks like juices, I think I got scared by the fact that they say Coke is a good solvent for cleaning car batteries. Yipes! And, if you leave an egg in a glass of Coke, it with gradually soften the shell. I just worries me what all the Coke must do to teeth enamel. Now, I tend to swish a little water around my mouth after I finish drinking soda.

On those occasion when I have a itch for a cola, I probably would choose Coke. I don't particularly like sweet drinks. I need to have ice so that it dilutes the sugar. I wonder if I'd like soda better if they had real sugar in them rather than all the high fructose corn syrup junk.

It's probably a good thing. I'd like to think I'm a bit healthier not consuming a thirsty-two ouncer every day. I think I have a can of root beer in the refrigerator at home that's been there for... months. Maybe.