Oh, Canada...

Happy New Year! (For my thoughts on that, see saucylittledish). I spent the past weekend in Toronto (which Canadians seem to pronounce "Tronno") for a wedding, and though there was plenty of drinking and dancing, I had eyes for all the food things that crossed my path.



There were a lot of festive goings on and when everyone crashed the afternoon after the wedding I went to the grocery store for an hour and a half. I could have tortured someone by dragging them along, but it was probably better I went alone. It can be useful to go with someone so I don't look as insane as I go though every aisle in slow motion-and it defends against getting in trouble for taking pictures...Oh well, I had a fine time. I went to an incredibly regular, mainstream neighborhood grocery store, which luckily still gave me plenty of perspective, though I would have loved to visit more kinds of places. Grocery stores give me an idea of what makes a place tick. I had forgotten that they sell milk in bags here, (and are way into recycling) and everyone has a handy oval milk pitcher in their fridge. (I did not see smaller pitchers for cream). I am so tickled by this, I must have really needed to get out of town. Seriously, I am really excited about these minorly different customs.

More dairy: I decided to buy cheese, hoping the pasteurization laws would be less stringent than in the U.S. (I have pined on about this before). I picked some soft, young French cheese too, because I wanted cheese made from milk from French cows...(Meux). All of the cheeses list the milkfat and moisture content on the packaging, and I bought a camembert, a "washed rind" young cheese, and some "pressed cottage cheese". We also had that old standby black pepper Boursin. I honestly am not sure if they were much different than what I can get in New York, but they were meltingly lovely anyway.

This was the best flavored hummus I've ever had. If you examine the photo close-up you will see it includes apricots, almonds, spices and honey. It wasn't overly sweet or over seasoned, just perfectly balanced and interesting. Word.



I couldn't resist this tiniest of pimiento jars that was all the way from, well, Tennessee.

I couldn't get away without throwing some meal together. It was my wedding present. I made a vegetable soup and and a potato leek soup, and a pasta/green salad situation. We had bread with those luscious cheeses and humus and jam alongside.

Real fruit gummies. My favorites are cherry and black currant, and of course there were hardly any of those, darnit.

Popcorn being thrown out behind a movie theater. I was surprised at first, but I suppose if they dumped two of these every day, and they just scattered it on the ground, the street would look like a sandy beach with obese pigeons and black squirrels lolling like walruses freezing to death.

Though this minitrip made me ever hungrier to go farther afield, thank you Canada for adding some depth to my marinade, as it were.

Multicultural

You might have to click on this picture to see what's going on. This is the kefir section at Key Foods, which is a pretty regular-sized grocery store with a parking lot. It's a place that stupidly sells a lot of fresh produce packaged on Styrofoam trays wrapped in plastic, but it is thoughtful enough to carry Itallian "00" flour, fresh yeast, shmancy D'Artagnan products, and all the flavors of cheap, big-bottled fruit syrups. What I just learned though, is that it also carries a ridiculous line of cultured dairy products. In this line up you will see the common:

-Strawberry/Banana
-Raspberry
-Strawberry
-Apricot

But you can also choose from:

-Classic
-Original
-Plain
-Apollo
-Mountain ("Drincable")

All have distinct labels, but no real clues (minus "Mountain") as to where they fall in the spectrum, if indeed there is one. Getting all of them at once for a taste-test seems very unlikely.

Have You Been To Brighton Beach?

These are huge sheet cakes from a grocery store in the Russian neighborhood of Brighton Beach, just a ways down from Coney Island, in Brooklyn. The one on the right is covered in poppy seeds and golden raisins. I had a cold red borscht at Gina's which was perfect with beets, dill, and a crunch of cucumber.

Pickled watermelon.

Pastries were for sale all around the store. There were savory ones by the hot bar of Stroganoff and cabbage, cherry turnovers by the salads, and enormous slabs of cake and piles of cookies that filled a case as long as my apartment.

The actual beach.

Fine in '09

How many will she eat this year?

Happy New Year! Its time again to eat blackeyed peas for luck and fortune, a superstitious and delicious tradition. Usually I've used canned which works great but I happen to be in New Mexico where the options are broader! Frozen, fresh, dry AND organic? Alright!

Blackeyed Peas For New Years

-Blackeyed Peas, in some form, say two cans, drained (in my case this year, the fresh and frozens needed a lot of liquid to cook in to get done, so the green chile sort of dissolved into a stewy surrounding. There were also some cubes of pork involved.)
-Bacon, a few strips of thick cut, cut crosswise
-1 onion, diced
-1 bell pepper, diced
-3 cloves of garlic, minced
-1 bay leaf
-5 roasted, peeled, seeded, chopped green chiles
-Crushed red pepper flakes
-Shake of Sherry
-Chicken stock and/or water
-Lots of S&P

Cook the Bacon, and take it out before it gets crispy. Brown the pork cubes and take them out before they're too done. Saute the onion, garlic, bay leaf and green pepper in the bacon fat till soft and add the peas, chile, stock, sherry and red pepper flakes. Season as you go along, but mostly at the end. Let cook for about 45 minutes, till tender and spicy and come together. Eat each bite knowing that it can only improve your chances this year. Salud!

A Closed Mouth Don't Get Fed

New Mexico July Part 4

It used to be that Santa Fe was served by many tiny local grocery stores tucked into every neighborhood. Most of these are gone, and the city has the big mainstream grocery stores. There's an Albertson's and a Whole Foods and a Wild Oats and a Trader Joes along with some successful smaller local stores like the Market Place and Kaune's Foodtown. And happily, there is still Johnny's Cash Store, a tiny one room grocery that opened in 1946 and is still run by Johnny and his family. The store is hidden up a hill in an old part of town, where the streets are narrow and twisting, and turning into the dirt parking lot could feel accidetal.

In high school, this is where we went if we had a break or ditched school and bought tamales and Dr. Pepper and individual cigarettes and sat outside on the portal to share them. The tamales are excellent and hot. This one was red chile pork and had ideal proportions of filling and masa.

Blue Sky soda is from Santa Fe and many flavors are made with real sugar. I like the grapefruit because it is not too sweet and makes a great substitute for tonic.





Johnny's also offers burritos.

Even though I bought the large bag of tamales from Johnny's, I still stopped at Albertsons to buy tubs of frozen chile. Everything (15-20 lbs) went into an insulated tote bag and got checked at the airport. It should last at least a month.

Fridge Trophies

I like to think that I am aware of eating locally. I even think that I buy many local products. And beyond that, I tend to consider whole, organic foods as being important to me for a host of reasons. I DO go to the farmers market sometimes. And I shop in small, frequent, neighborhood trips, so my food is fresh and supports my neighborhood stores.

But when I look in the fridge, and stand there to pick items from my thoughtfully chosen collection of groceries, I realize that I don’t have tons of local stuff, and if I try to see myself through the labels of the cold storage products I keep around, really who AM I ANYWAY? I am clearly fascinated with eating a WIDE variety of items from very far away, and have no intention of avoiding or slowing this pattern.

I think that perhaps I collect them as prizes. Each one is a gem, a score, a novelty or a cherished standby. Here is a current portrait of my fridge, not including regular stuff like ketchup, mayo, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, relish, O.J., soy milk, leftovers of take out and stuff I cook. Note- this isn’t really a proper portrait of my diet, just my fridge trophies.

Cherry kefir
French sheep’s milk feta
Marmite
Gold’s horseradish
Pickled ginger
Mole paste from Oaxaca, Mexico
Kalamata olives
Fig and sesame jam
Pink grapefruit marmalade
Chardonnay jelly
Tamarind chutney
Fig Greek yogurt
Organic brown, free-range, Omega-3 eggs
Happy chicken breasts
Nitrite-free uncured bacon
Nitrite-free smoked salmon
Herb polenta
5 kinds of unsalted butter
Organic Carrots
Lemons
Basil
Black sesame butter
New Mexican green chile sauce (which may be the MOST local product since it runs in my veins)

Should I go on about the cupboards too? There are dried jackfruit chips, Heritage Bites cereal, three kinds of vanilla extract, blue cornmeal, coconut milk, chestnut cream, packets of borsht, active dry yeast, brown rice, almonds, agave nectar.

I adore ethnic grocery stores and grocery stores in general, and I blame my Dad for this. I will continue to pursue a local, seasonal, sustainable value system regarding my food, and y'know, try and do the right thing. But I'm no milquetoast, just check out my fridge.

A Side of Brooklyn

Michigan 2008

Starting the year off right with 2008 calories? This plate is loaded with essentials: black eyed peas with green chile and bacon, eggs, and homemade biscuits and gravy.



The Meijer superstore in Monroe, Michigan is a place where you can buy jeans, live goldfish, children's furniture, a soldering iron, and um, pink eggs. Just in case you need those.



Donut Palace: reigning over the industrial slums of Detroit.



The Lotto is everywhere. All the bars and grocery stores and gas stations make participation easy. I didn't technically win with this one, but obviously this ticket was a winner for me anyway.

Three Days in the South

I was in far western North Carolina last weekend. I'm not from there, and neither are my parents or grandparents, but my great aunt lives in Cherokee, and all of us on my dad's side have spent some time growing up, living, or working there. I have the least amount of experience with the place, but being there with my family and my 90 year-old great aunt, I could hear and feel many layers of memories surrounding us. It was a moving trip that further informed me of my heritage and of the region. There was lots and lots of driving, some hanging out and eating in the hip coziness of Asheville, and some time in the mountains, being with each other and the past.

The leaves are so late here!
(I'm not complaining)



At the gas station, there is a sign alerting drivers what kind of snack (?) they can get when they fill up.





I was hoping for some boiled peanuts, but alas, I only found shells littering the ground.






Coffee, Tea, Cereal, Grits.



Battery-powered ice cream toothbrush.



For scale, the containers on the right are gallon size.

These (Maker's Diet approved) (organic) breakfast cereals are a convenient way to follow through with "God's dietary guidelines", a specific mode of eating drawn from biblical principles. I like to picture the food stylist aranging the spoonful on the box, and the graphic designer charged with creating catchy packaging. (Where should the dove go? should we create a background pattern using scripture?) The diet has rules about animals with cloven hoof who do and do not chew the cud (apparently you should really stay away from the tempting, unclean "does not chew the cud" items.) The diet is 40 days long. So I guess Noah was pretty good lookin after that storm.