Thursday “Things that make you go ‘hmmmm’ (or maybe ‘ew’)” 20 September 2007 11:24 pm
Posted by Tracy in : Marion Nestle, books, breakfast, coconut, garden, health, pictures , trackbackI’m finally on the mend from the gnarly cold I’ve been complaining about all week, but I’m still not up to organizing my thoughts about miso soup into even the vaguest of guidelines, so that project will have to wait for tomorrow. Instead, more randomness, starting with the awesome, proceeding to the relatively inoffensive and ranging all the way out to really, really gross (so if at any point in this entry you think “okay, that’s too gross for me to read any further,” I implore you — bail out! Come back tomorrow to read about fermented soybean paste soup, which I am only describing in those terms because “kinda gross” is a funny theme for this evening.
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A very good place to retreat from being grossed out might be this lovely Hungry Planet-esque photo essay about breakfast. So pretty! Lots of coffee, but that’s no surprise. I think the recurring item that raised my eyebrows the most was the number of people eating almonds. Which is not to say I’ve never had a handful of nuts in the morning when I’m out of Tracy granola, just that I wasn’t expecting to see so many other people exercising that option.
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I got a fun new book at my friendly local public library today: The United States of Arugula by David Kamp. It’s a history of sorts, all about the origins of the current U.S. culinary scene, with its increasingly crazy global gourmet tendencies and whatnot. You know, how there’s sushi bars in upscale grocery stores in even the Midwest these days. Stuff like that. What’s good about the book so far is that Kamps is very enthusiastic about how much good food is available these days, even if I think he could afford to devote a few more words to how much of that good food is available only to people who can afford it. I’ll have to read on to see if his optimism makes me all cynical in response, but for now the book’s upbeat tone is definitely refreshing. And of course I liked the shout-out to Marion Nestle’s Food Politics and Safe Food, which appears in the very most introductory chapter. Yay!
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Have I mentioned that I love Marion Nestle’s blog? Because I do. It is chock-full of tasty little tidbits of common sense, which make me happy to read.
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I know I’ve mentioned that I love my garden, but now there’s the Google spreadsheet to prove it. I’m still working on incorporating all my earlier bragging into the data — for instance, I don’t have exact weights for the red and yellow Brandywines of 5 September, so those numbers are just approximations — but I’m still pretty sure today’s epic haul sets a new record for this season. We’re talking 134.25 ounces, 8.4 pounds, or just under 4 kilograms of tomato goodness, including the first (and probably last) of the Caspian Pinks (very similar to Brandywines, not that I can really complain) and Ananas Noire, of which there are a few more on the vine because it’s really hard to tell when the crazy rainbow-colored heirloom tomatoes are ripe, kids! Still, hard to complain about homegrown tomato awesomeness (and the stupendously awesome Russian dressing that results when you’ve got a bunch of tomatoes that need to be used, pronto, and oh darn, actual horseradish for a change instead of the mustard with horseradish that usually stands in for it in this recipe around these parts). Peter and I had a really great dinner tonight, doubly so when I think about how completely uninspired we were at almost 9 PM when we finally, reluctantly, admitted that we should probably have some sort of food.
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We’re currently working on finishing a carton of eggs that has had TEN double-yolked eggs in it. That’s some freaky shit right there. We’re talking the brand of cage-free, hormone and antibiotic free (but not organic) eggs that Morning Glory uses, so it’s not like they’re from chickens on steroids or something, but still. Freaky.
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Finally, have you ever wondered what to do with leftover coconut milk when you opened a whole can for a recipe that only called for half a cup? Maybe you’re like me, and you thought, “Coconut milk can’t really go bad, can it?” and stuck it in the fridge in a reused salsa container, because hey, it could probably come in handy at some point, right? Well, if you’re really like me (in which case you should really get to bed because you’re getting over a nasty cold), then you might forget about that leftover coconut milk for oh, over three weeks. In which case it could end up looking like this:
Ew, ew, ewwity ew ew ew! The moral of the story is that leftover coconut milk should be frozen if you’re not going to use it in a few days’ time (for the sake of avoiding moral turpitude, let’s say three days). And, um, labeling leftovers with the date they were stuck in the fridge is always a good idea, so you can arbitrarily pick a cutoff date and throw out everything from before then with impunity, by which I mean without even opening the containers to see how nasty their contents have become.
And on that note, I will be going to bed. This is Tracy, discovering really nasty stuff in her fridge… so you don’t have to.
Comments»
You need to use that coconut milk to make koko rice, which is Samoan chocolate-coconut rice pudding and will make you die and go to heaven if you make it and eat it all in a single, fabulous day. Totally beats the fungus you have going on up there, although where you’ll get the fabulous Samoan koko I have no idea. Will think about that.