Category Archives: food
things i love to eat and drink and cook and smell (whole foods, seasoned well, naturally prepared)
fresh
fresh produce makes me giddy. when my fridge is stocked with flavorful veggies and my counter is overflowing with colorful fruit, i am thrilled. creating delicious meals is so much better with lots of fresh ingredients.
i like to purchase some produce at the ethnic markets around the city for the interesting variety they offer. there is a tiny, but well-known, mediterranean deli in okc that i frequent. the food is delicious and authentic, the owner always happy and helpful, and the small market is somehow stocked with every possible item you might want to put together a wonderful mediterranean meal. between stopping in occasionally for lunch, stocking up on fatayah and lebni for my titu, and general shopping trips for my own kitchen, i visit often enough that they know my “usual” order.
they have exotic produce choices like prickly pears, sweet limes, and unusual varieties of eggplant and cucumbers. recently i noticed some baskets filled with small orbs i couldn’t identify, and the friendly owner of the deli informed me that they are just the very fresh versions of familiar foods. so of course i bought some to try.
my first exploratory sample was these straight-off-the-tree pistachios. once you break through the thick skin, the recognizable clam-shaped shell is revealed, with the green nut inside. the shell and nut are not completely dried like the pistachios i’m used to eating, so they have a softer texture with less crunch. still yummy, but too much extra work to get inside.
these unripe dates were fun, because they tasted good crunchy or soft (but much better fully ripened). the difficult part was waiting for them to get soft and sweet before eating them. and the pit was harder to remove before they fully ripened.
i never would have guessed that this little pod contained a fresh green garbanzo bean! it was a strange to eat a handful of raw beans—they were soft and a little tangy. the flavor was nothing like the dried-then-cooked chickpea that i’m familiar with. i’m not sure exactly how one would use them…as is, cook from this stage, or dry then cook?
i also tried some fresh almonds that were white and kinda juicy beneath the fuzzy exterior. i like that they retain their natural water, because i usually soak my nuts prior to eating, anyway. but the flavor was not “nutty” to me (which i prefer), and some were still a bit jelly-like in the center (which i did not prefer).
in the end my adventure in eating fresh was short-lived, at least when it comes to beans and nuts. it was a fun experiment to share, but i don’t see these foods being in my regular rotation of snacks.
cooking up an un-cook book
it’s rewarding to see hard work come to fruition. the project i mentioned working on with chef mandy is almost complete! she’s crafted a brilliant set of recipes, and the publisher has designed a breathtaking piece of eye candy with so-vivid-you-could-lick-the-page photos on every spread. The Raw Food Feast: 7 Days Through the Rainbow is in the final stages of production, and i couldn’t be more excited about it’s june release!
the unique thing about this living cuisine cookbook is that it’s devised to help you organize and streamline your preparations so that you can easily put together three raw meals a day (plus a snack) with a real-life schedule. mandy provides a shopping list and menu for seven entire days, with each day’s recipes focusing around a different color of the rainbow. what a fantastic way to appreciate all the colorful produce God has created!
by concentrating on a few main ingredients to be used in several recipes, chef mandy shows you how to cut down on waste. this book makes it so easy to achieve raw food yummy-ness and reap the healthy benefits. there are even detailed step-by-step photos to accompany the instructions. another feature exclusive to this book is the demonstration of how to incorporate therapeutic-grade essential oils into the recipes, which adds a whole other dimension of taste and health advantages.
i can vouch that every single recipe is mouth-watering delicious. it was a ton of fun working with the team, and i feel very honored to be a part of this project. you can view more behind-the-scenes action of our adventures in recipe testing, planning, and final photo shoot here. so sorry – no food photos ’til the book is out! you can pre-order a copy now at the growing healthy homes store for only $16. Let me know if you want a signed copy!
overbooked
a good project is like an adrenaline shot into an otherwise often routine existence. i die a little when i have too much routine, and so in the spells where i don’t have a trip, event, or (regrettably) a crisis happening, i self assign a task or challenge – a nice meaty one i can sink my teeth in to. it needs to be big enough that it takes planning and more than a few steps, but small enough that i can see it to completion before i crave another change. it’s rewarding to satisfy both the planner and scanner in me at once.
when i’m free to set the objective and deadline, my extracurricular exploits flow from one to another, with minimal overlap. but sometimes exciting projects find me, and come with a pre-stamped due date. and occasionally many opportunities come at once…and i tend to say yes more than no.
it seems that i have quadruple-booked myself this weekend. which translates into double-header all-nighters. so since i’m up anyway, i decided to take a few minutes to debrief a bit. or perhaps just marvel at the insane number of ways i’ve over committed myself. each of these projects requires my full-time attention, ideally. the perfectionist in me that demands excellence without compromise is screaming right now. behold my four ring circus:
ring one: my raw chef mentor and dear friend mandilyn canistelle, who trained me in the fine art of living foods preparation, is writing a book. The Raw Food Feast: 7 days through the Rainbow will be released in April, and she’s invited me to be her sous-chef on the pre-production, which includes recipe testing as well as planning each shot that will be photographed. over the past three weeks i’ve spent over 75 hours with mandy and a team of helpers refining every detail of the recipes and how they will be presented in the book. this weekend is the culmination of all that work, with three whole days of photography. every dish must be prepared, plated, and captured with step by step shots for each recipe. we have a professional photographer, a videographer (for the publisher’s behind-the-scenes), and a food stylist flying in to make this happen – and i should really be there for all of it. if only i were running a one-act show.
ring two: 30 of my female family members are descending on okc this weekend for a girly saddic reunion. as one of the locals, i would normally be helping to coordinate the airport pickups, hotel rooms, and entertaining activities. seeing as i’m a little tied up, my mom & sister have carried that baton, but at a minimum i want to be present for every minute of the story-telling, belly-laughing, baklava-eating, picture-sharing fun. too bad i’m supposed to spend 8 hours each day at mandy’s, plus…
ring three: with almost no effort on my part to advertise the new biz, i’ve found myself with three editing jobs: one includes some ghost writing, one is volunteer work for my church, and one has good potential to lead to bigger assignments. all three have immediate deadlines. although i had intended to pursue growth on the language training side of the services i offer, i’m thrilled that this aspect of Communicate Clearly is blossoming. too bad the projects are all flowing in during rush hour.
ring four: this is the center ring, the main act under the big top. i’ve been hired to develop living foods program for a lifestyle center near loveland, colorado. this center welcomes guests with life-threatening conditions and incorporates healing therapies and a healthy lifestyle into a holistic treatment. they’ve requested an 18-day menu plan, training for their kitchen staff, seven cooking classes to offer the guests, plus an educational event for their community that includes an hour lecture and 3 hours of demonstrations with tastings. i’ll be spending the month of march at their facility to implement the plan. oh, and we’ll be serving 3 meals a day during this time. um, wow. wow that they’ve commissioned me. wow that this is a really big job. actually, four really big jobs in one. did i mention we finalized this contract less than two weeks ago? so when i haven’t been in mandy’s kitchen or trying to maintain my day job and side jobs, i’ve been buried under my recipe books developing menus and classes and training.
i leave monday morning, so somewhere between cookbook production and family reunioning, i’ll need to find some time to pack. should packing for four weeks count as a fifth circus ring?
i’ll most likely be scarce on the interweb for the next month – a few weeks without ambient awareness should be good for me. carry on, cyberworld; i’m checking out!
cookie monster
i haven’t created a monster, i AM the monster. for the past 5 months i’ve been a cookie baking fool. i am a bake-ette on a mission: develop a chocolate chip cookie recipe that is irresistibly yummy, distinctly mine, and relatively healthy. i was inspired to embark on this quest by my brother in law, who always seems to have a fresh batch of homemade cookies ready for dessert or an after-school snack (he’s a teacher). i was lucky enough to partake in the cookies often because i’d often stop by my sister’s house while i was working nearby last summer. i began to request the cookies and even got a batch of my own on my birthday last november.
i realized i don’t have a personal “go-to” goodie that i can whip up anytime from scratch. for some reason i want to establish a signature treat that my friends and family can expect to greet them in my home or at gatherings…one that my (eventual) kids will look forward to when they come home after a long day or to share when they invite friends over. so it has to be great (if everyone’s gonna love it) and it has to be healthful (if it’s gonna be mine). and therein lies the hitch. there are plenty of “healthy” recipes out there that use alternative ingredients and still manage to produce an okay result, but i have found none are that great, in my opinion. the goal is to create a cookie that both my junkfood-loving husband and my nutrition-dedicated self could enjoy. he is my most discriminating taster. if i win over his tastebuds, i have achieved uncompromising success.
the classic chocolate chip cookie seemed to be the way to go. (although i can certainly appreciate a good oatmeal cookie, or peanut butter, or snickerdoodle…) i started by comparing two recipes: my BIL’s dairy-free version and the Original Nestlé® Toll House® formula. from there my kitchen launched into cookie chaos. i am well aware that i’m certainly not the first (or last) to set out on the quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe, so i didn’t even try to reinvent any wheels.
i found the recipe touted as the perfect chocolate chip cookie from this nytimes article circulating on the web, and incorporated some of the extra steps and sophisticated methods. a few batches into my r&d, i was fortunate enough to be listening to NPR at the right moment and catch an interview with a chemist in the kitchen. as many of you may know, the tricky thing about baking is that it’s all chemistry. certain ingredients play specific roles, and different concoctions will produce a more crispy or gooey or fluffy texture. (and everyone seems to have an adamant opinion on which texture is best – and they remain fiercely loyal to that type.)
yeah, cookies seem like they’d be the simplest dessert in the world, but there are vastly more ways to go about it than i ever dreamed. aside from the multitude of varying opinions on what makes the perfect cookie texture and flavor, different bakers advise conflicting methods to achieving that: mix well/don’t overmix; let the dough sit overnight/bake immediately, use an ungreased cookie sheet/line with parchment paper, make small dough balls, always add nuts, flatten before baking, sprinkle with salt, use this specific chocolate chunk… whoa!
so this blog post has been in draft mode for several months, growing in length with each new batch and tweak to the recipe. every time i’ve gone to post it a i’ve had a new development on the cookie front that has caused me to delay and add to the record of my madness – a rapidly growing trail of enticing and disastrous desserts as my cookie experiment progressed.
overall i’ve been pleased with the results after carefully replacing refined ingredients for less processed ones. the key is to keep the ratios of fat and sugar and starch the same (don’t try to low-fat-ize or reduce-carb-inate it). so far my family has served as the eager taste-testers, regularly receiving large batches of surplus. (although some have been more enjoyable than others.) i’ve just recently felt confident enough to bestow a few dozen on close friends, but we are still in the testing phase… i’m sure the recipe will continue to evolve, and hopefully it will only improve. the task may have been more involved than i had anticipated, but i don’t think anyone minds extra cookies of any kind hanging around. they never last long!
behold a selection of the wide array of specimens that emerged from my oven:
- puffy, muffin-y cookies
- flat, dense cookies (sandwich inspiration from babycakes nyc)
- springy, cakey cookies
- cookie calamities (what the…?!)
- crumbly, fragile cookies
- round cookie balls
- …and near perfect cookies
cultured, yet unrefined
it’s well established that i like a little culture and growth in my life. if it’s different, if it’s new, i’m interested.
i also like a bit of culture and growth in the kitchen, meaning foods that have so much more to offer nutritionally when you’re patient enough to wait. fermented and sprouted foods are something i became more familiar with while completing my certification as a living foods chef. “live” doesn’t just mean not killing the food’s live enzymes with high heat. sometimes it’s about breaking down the natural enzyme inhibitors to release the life. (like nuts and seeds that can grow a tree, but not until soaked with water.) at other times it means creating beneficial, live probiotic bacteria. (think yogurt, sauerkraut, and cultured drinks like kombucha and kefir.)
when training under chef mandy i learned how to do these things myself. now i periodically soak, sprout, culture, and ferment at home, which requires things to be…well…out. so my kitchen counters often look like this:
- sprouting nuts, seeds, grains, and legumes
- culturing coconut yogurt, kombucha, and sauerkraut
my most used room of the house is unfortunately located in the direct line of sight from the front door, so the first thing you might see when you walk in is what appears to be a bizarre science experiment. i enjoy the end result, but i feel like i need an extra room dedicated to these projects.
the draining rack of jars full of lentils with little tails and the bowls draped in flour sack cloth may look weird – hey, maybe it is weird – but i think it’s worth it. the awe of watching what develops brings out the inner mad scientist in me, and i value the health benefits of maximizing the life in the food by allowing it to naturally grow. the opposite of refined foods!
spice it up
- image courtesy of spices brokerage
when it comes to food, my taste buds are not finicky. i will try anything once – if for no other reason than sheer curiosity, and i rarely encounter flavors i can’t tolerate. i certainly have my favorites, but even those seasonings i don’t prefer are interesting to me for the variety, discovery, and experience.
much to my dismay, my husband’s taste in food is not nearly as adventurous as mine. much to his annoyance, i insist on labeling him “vanilla.” i suppose he represents the people of the world who want to know what to expect, and want to expect to like what’s on their plate – but i can’t relate. lee is of the “why would i ever want to risk not enjoying my meal when i am certain that i will be happy with what i know i love?” mindset; i tend more toward the “but what if the flavor i love the most i haven’t even tried yet?” mentality. this was amusing while we dated, but is slightly more challenging in marriage. cooking dinner is quite impossible without a compromise or dual preparation.
i like to cook for many of the same reasons that i find joy in my other passions – i get to create, i get to forge into the unknown, i get to learn, and of course, the vast array of options! readily accessible in my kitchen is virtually every culinary herb and spice i can get my hands on – fresh and dried. and although none of the tins are labeled, they are each used frequently enough that i can instantly identify each one. but if i dare add even a pinch of exciting seasoning to one of lee’s favorite dishes, it is automatically not as good simply because “it’s not the same.” sigh.
i could lament the plight of being doomed to a lifetime of “same,” but i think our differing approaches to variety is one way that we’re good together. he’s the vanilla to my chunky monkey, the legal pad to my handmade journals, the plain tee to my layered patterns. without each other we might not find balance between planning and spontaneity. he encourages the consistency i often lack and i motivate the movement needed to avoid stagnation. together we can learn to appreciate “there’s no place like home” as well as “boldly go where no man has gone before.” but fixing dinner is still an issue.
