Never miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or Subscribe via EMAIL.

I didn’t know about this, I just found it on Serious Eats . Here is Michael Pollan, author of “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto” and “Omnivore’s Dilemma”:

• 0 Any thoughts?

I love Chicken Piccata — so much that get it each time when we’re at the Cheesecake Factory. Or Maggiano’s. As much as I like it, I’ve never made it before this. Yup, first time. It’s bound to happen somehow, eh? And I had my Duh Joy! moment when I realized how easy it was to make. My ’sign’ was in the free, promotional issue of Cuisine at Home, right there on page 8. Did you get this magazine in the mail, too? All I know is that these marketers sure know who to lure. We are practically magazine haven and I shouldn’t admit that because I’m trying to be more environment-friendly, remember? Having a collective of magazines to rival a salon’s is shameful. But I digress. Here’s the short of this long story:

It was delish but it could’ve been better if the reducing wine didn’t burn. I was struggling to open the chicken broth can when it was a minute before I needed to pour it in, and it wouldn’t budge. Oops. That’ll teach me to get that out of the way before cooking.

On the subject of Lemons, there was a feature on the news the other night about the lemons you get from restaurants. They tested them and one sample had salmonella! Others had fecal bacteria. Atrocious! Watch out for those lemons when you eat out!

Of course, after grossing you out I’m giving you the recipes to the Chicken Piccata. Classy me. Enjoy the dish!

Continue reading »

• 1 Comment

I’m back in the desert and to be honest, I haven’t cooked since I flew in. It’s been so hot I do not even want to move. But anyway, at least I had the weekend to unpack (one of my least favorite activities), watch Dan perform at an improv show (give it up for my man!), attend a Cinco de Mayo party where our friends served a fantabulous Italian feast fit for a hundred guests and we were serenaded by Mexican music (his dad is a Mariachi!), enjoy dinner cooked by Dan, and watch Iron Man (very good movie).

Now that things are beginning to go back to ‘normal’, I’ll refer back to my promise to talk more about Michael Pollan’s book, “In Defense of Food“, which have me going organic and local. I couldn’t recommend it enough to everyone who eats. Yes, that’s you…and you. It re-focused my eating to what is important: Real Food. By ‘real food’, I mean…food that actually looks like the sources of the food. Unrefined. Unprocessed. Doesn’t have incomprehensible ingredients. Y’know — like food our great grandparents recognized as food. We’ve been so focused on counting calories, carbs, fats, getting into diets, swaying along with the latest scientific studies about different nutrients, that all these have been taken out of the context of food, diet, and culture and that’s how our health troubles started to get out of hand. In fact, Pollan highly criticized the Western Diet and blamed it for all sorts of problems we have now — from obesity to heart attack. So what do we do? The author gives these three basic rules: ” Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Sounds simple, eh?

Michael Pollan provides ‘practical ways to separate, and defend, real food from the cascade of foodlike products, that now surround and confound us, especially on the supermarket’:

1) Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognized as food.

It sounds like a really conservative way to eat, as if being told to wear leggings under your skirt, but if you think about it it makes a lot of sense. Considering that my great grandparents died of old age and not from any diseases, at more than 80 years old (or almost 90 — help, mom!), and they ate food from their own garden and farm, I think this is something I want to follow.

2) Don’t eat anything incapable of rotting.

Twinkies anyone?

3) Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable, c) more than five in number, or that include d) high fructose corn syrup.

Although they’re not necessarily bad for us, they are reliable markers for foods that have been highly processed to the point that they may not be what they say they are. They’ve crossed the line between food and food products.

4) Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle. [Go click on the link for a 'supermarket map']

5) Get out of the supermarket.

Go to the farmer’s market or subscribe to community-supported agriculture (CSA). Better yet, grown your own garden.

6) You are what you eat eats too.

This is why we should all be concerned about where our food comes from. I mean, this is basic and pretty much common sense, but we don’t usually think of it. The diet of the animals we eat affects the quality of the food we eat. Grass diets mean much healthier fats in the meat, milk, and eggs, and higher levels of vitamins and antioxidants.

7) Eat like an omnivore.

Diversify your diet. Discover new vegetables. Carrots and potatoes aren’t the only vegetables. According to people who have subscribed to a local community-supported agriculture (CSA), they’ve discovered food they would never buy on their own. I love that!

8) Eat well-grown food from healthy soils.

9) Eat wild foods when you can. [except endangered ones]

10) Be the kind of person who takes supplements.

Y’know, the kind who are more health-conscious and better educated. LEARN about your food. Don’t just mindlessly stuff yourself with it. It’s your body, so take care of it!

11) Have a glass of wine with dinner.

And you know this is my favorite. Haha. According to the book, most experts recommend no more than two drinks a day for men, and one for women. And a little every day is better than drinking a lot on the weekends. Moral of the story: have a happy hour every day. Do as I do. Oh, and drinking with food is always better than drinking without it.

12) Pay more, eat less.

Pay for better-quality food. One of the ’side effects’ is that you’ll eat less, too. Eat until you’re 80% full. Avoid seconds.

13) Eat meals.

Eat at the table. Don’t get your fuel form the same place your car does. Try not to eat alone. Eat slowly. Cook your food.

I implore you to read the book and make good decisions about your food and eating. If you already have, let me know what you think of the book!

• 7 Comments

I was thinking while shopping for dinner on Sunday, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye that was not there the last time I was there: Panko Bread Crumbs. I was squealing with my inside voice. Making Chicken Katsu would be fun! But there inlies my issues. The meat for the week I picked up was beef. Thick cut steaks, to be more specific. When I arrived home with my panko booty, I checked online for any panko beef recipes.

They did not exist. Oh, sure, people made SOMETHING with it, but as of the day I have been writing this article, I have never seen a public recipe involving it. I devised one of my own.

Continue reading »

• 8 Comments

I used to hate Mondays like the plague. I had anxiety attack-like symptoms that petrify me during Sundays that I don’t even get to enjoy that day. I know several people who dread Mondays and just know it’s going to be another ‘case of the Mondays’. Wow, way too many M-words. I’m happy to say that I’ve freed myself from that crutch.

My strategy the past few years? Schedule fun things that I like for Mondays, so I’ll have good things to look forward to, Like this:

This afternoon I’m going to get a few of these incredibly delicious donuts to bring for Dan. This is my absolute favorite donut in the whole world, and that says a lot because I’ve eaten hundreds of them. [Scary.] If you’re ever in Vancouver — as if I haven’t given you enough reasons to go — don’t forget to visit Granville Island. I’m also seeing a good friend later to talk about exciting things (haha).

How do you beat your Case of the Mondays?

• 4 Comments

Ever since I’ve finished reading Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food [I'll talk more about the book later, it's a real gem.], I can’t help but think of ways to eat organic and local. I’ve been doing my best to eat organic food for years now, but didn’t pay much attention to where they came from. By eating locally farmed food, not only do we get really fresh food, but it traveled less so the nutrients are more intact compared to (fresh food) that braved thousands of miles to get to our grocery stores. That’s one of the things I remember reading.

I actually picked up Pollan’s book when I got here in Vancouver. Was it such a coincidence that my frequent weekly stops — my friend’s spa and my chiropractor — are within the same vicinity as the Granville Island public market? It’s meant. :-) Last week, after having a facial that made my skin very happy and getting one of my last few therapies for my back, I headed down to the public market to shop for dinner. I picked some beautiful fresh sea scallops, fresh spinach linguine, rye sourdough bread [not in photos], pancetta [what a deal for $2.29 for 100 grams!], and rosemary.

And voila, dinner:

The scallops were to die for. They were so unbelievably fresh, sweet, and did I mention they were huge? I seared them on the same pan and oil where the pancetta was fried. I cooked the ’sauce’ on that pan as well, so it had all the nice flavors to go with the tomatoes, onions, and garlic. The scallops cooked darker than usual because of the whole wheat flour it was rolled in, but you can use white flour if you prefer. I placed the crispy pancetta one on top of another, then a little stem of rosemary (you’ll be using just one rosemary sprig divided into three for this recipe), and the hot scallop going on top. The heat brought out the nice aroma of the rosemary.

I’m still trying to learn to sear scallops. It looked so easy during our cooking class but alas, I couldn’t replicate them. Ugh. Here I go again, being the perfectionist. I hope it’s not going to be an obsession like those Cinnamon Rolls.

Without further ado, here’s the recipe [and almost step-by-step photos]:

Continue reading »

• 7 Comments

In celebration of Earth Day, here a few things you can do:

• Make Homemade Cleaning Supplies (from the David Suzuki Foundation) - This is definitely something I will try next month. Not only are they eco-friendly, they’re cheap to make, too.
• Say No To Junk Mail. Sign up for the Junk Mail registries in your country like Red Dot Campaign (Canada) and Forest Ethics (USA), or put a sign by your mailbox that you don’t accept junk mail.
• Re-use packaging. Those boxes and mailers that go with things you ordered? Find ways to reuse them. The paperbags from stores? Re-use them. I use those envelopes and bags for bookkeeping purposes.
• Bring your own bag for your groceries. Whole Foods is officially eliminating plastic bags today. Here in Canada, the big supermarket, The Real Canadian Superstore, has been doing this for a long time. They charge you for the plastic bag if you opt to get one from them — it disciplines shoppers to either reuse their plastics or pay up.
• Use old magazines to wrap gifts. I’ll start doing this. Now there’s some use for those old New Yorker magazines! Hah.
• If you mail a lot of stuff, why don’t you shred your junk mail or the pages from your unwanted phone books and use that as padding instead of plastic bubble wrap? [Well, as long as it doesn't have your info.]
• I’m sure you can think of other things to do. Please share them in the comments section!

Did you know that we, our food sources, and our Mother Earth, are all related and we’re all affected by what happens to each other? We literally swallow the bad things we do the Earth. The environment provides food for our food, and we eat that food, and well — we do things to the environment — a lot of harmful things, unfortunately.  It’s this inescapable cycle.  If you care about your food (and I know you do!), you should care about the environment. 

Please, please, please…find it in your heart to be good to the environment — Reuse, Reduce, Recycle. Make earth-conscious choices and good changes in your life, even little by little. That’s how it starts. :-)

• 6 Comments