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Before I became an avid Greensboro Farmers' Curb Market devotee, I spent a fair amount of time at the Piedmont Triad Farmer's Market.  I liked that they're open everyday and the selection is pretty good.  J&S Farm in the back of the enclosed building also sells local, humanely raised meats like ostrich, bison and the turkey we have for Thanksgiving most years (last year the turkeys weren't grown in time and we ended up at the Fresh Market).

 

I rarely go there anymore for a couple of reasons:

1. There’s a fair amount of resale there, as in vendors going to wholesale produce warehouses and buying veggies to sell at a farmers’ market… which strikes me as a little dishonest and just not what I’m looking for.  I shop at farmers’ markets because I want to support the local farmers themselves and I want to know that my food was raised on a small farm which has a better chance of using sustainable farming methods than on the agribusiness mono-farming complexes.  GFCM doesn’t allow resale except in the winter when there’s not much local to be had.
2. The ambiance.  The GFCM is crowded and small, I’ll admit.  This time of year it’s a real chore to squeeze through the aisles empty-handed, let alone with a week’s worth of produce in tow. (Not that it’s really a problem for me with my faithful man servant to haul my produce stash, a guy I like to call Sweetie.)  Despite the crowd, the GFCM is a place to run into friends and get to know other shoppers who are also there every week… as well as the farmers themselves.

 

I really didn’t start this post to slam the PTFM but to announce their expansion as reported in the News and Record today.  Regardless of my shopping preferences, the PTFM has a lot to offer, especially for people breaking into eating locally.  And the fact that enough people are getting interested in eating locally to merit an expansion is wonderful! 

 

So go forth and eat locally – spend your food dollars to support our local food economy.  It’s the perfect time of year to start!

 

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In yet another act of lawmaking futility, Massachusetts state Senator Jarrett T. Barrios is going to war with marshmallow fluff which was recently served to his child, en flagrante delicto with peanut butter and bread.

Where to start with this one? The bread, which was likely white and bareing an ingredient list that would baffle many chemistry undergrads? Or the peanut butter, whose high-brow natural cousin is healthy (what with its protein and some monounsaturated fats) and has snuck its illegitimate cousin, Skippy, into the country club via elementary schools? Or should we focus on the fact that marshmallow fluff is only slightly less healthy than jelly (9g sugar and 60 calories per serving versus grape jelly's 7g sugar and 40 calories) and yet I'm guessing Senator Futility has no problem with his kid sucking back a glob of that sugary treat.

Seriously, Senator, there's a war going on. And real nutritional issues - like the cocoa puffs you fed your kid for breakfast this morning.

*Also posted on Thought for Food

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So this seven-year-old kid in DuBois, Pennsylvania loves peanut butter on everything and his mother obliges, though smearing it on hot dogs grossed her out.  At her son's pleading, she asked a local butcher to try to create a peanut butter hotdog - and they did.

"They won't discuss their process, combination of ingredients or brand of peanut butter. But they said the trick was to get the thick, oily peanut butter to blend smoothly before stuffing and cooking the franks," says the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Let me get this straight - the way to make a perfect peanut butter hotdog is to combine the fattiest, least edible sweepings of the butcher's floor with the thickest, oiliest peanut butter?  I'm really torn about which is worse: this or the double cheese bacon donut burger.

Actually, I think the worst part of the story is the son/mother duo that started this whole sordid affair.  (Let me insert my usual kid disclaimer here: I have no kids and am ambivalent about ever having any. I understand that having no kids, and therefore rarely having to feed kids, I have no true idea the agony parents go through in getting little ones to eat.  That said...) There isn't a picture of the mother in this story but there is one of the kid who is pretty overweight and uncomfortable looking.  This is a kid that really doesn't need peanut butter, much less hot dogs.

Personally, I treat hotdogs like funnel cake - they're booth "food" items that I eat no more than twice a year and only in appropriate settings: hot dogs at sporting events, preferably baseball games, and funnel cakes at street fares or other outdoor venues.  If I didn't love the buggers so much, I'd cut them out completely...

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Perhaps you missed Zaytoon in the first incarnation: they were in the Jan's House shopping center but were forced to close when their rent was unexpectedly hiked.  They've been closed for months, though we die-hard fans were able to get our organic pita and #9 (sweet hot peppers stuffed with goat cheese and topped with toasted almonds) fix at the Greensboro Farmers' Curb Market.

Ana and Masoud Awartini re-opened Zaytoon on June 1st in the lobby of the US Trust building at the corner of Elm and Bellemead.  They've made a few changes -  no table service and the hours are from breakfast to 6pm - but the food, and prices, are amazing as ever. 

Catch 'em at the Market, catch 'em at Zaytoon - just don't miss out on this Greensboro dining gem!

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According to Dean Ornish, MD, of Newsweek online fame, recent studies suggest that omega-3s can be dangerous for people with congestive heart failure or chronic recurrent angina (chest pain), perhaps even fatal.  Ornish stresses that these findings do not negate the health benefits of omega-3s for healthy people, for whom omega-3s may have positive benefits from reducing the risk of sudden cardiac death to promoting the neurological development of fetuses. Read the whole story here.

A study from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis has found that dieting teens are more likely to have eating disorders and other weight control problems later on, though the researchers were unable to determine whether the dieting caused the disorders or was simply an indicative warning. It brings up an interesting dilemma in this time of increasing obesity in children - how can we combat obesity without encouraging diets?  I wish I knew - though I suppose teaching better healthier eating and exercise habits, like eating more fruit and veggies along with reasonable exercise, would be a good start.

In tastier news, strawberry season is upon us!  Due to the bizarrely warm weather, I bought my first pint at the Greensboro Farmers' Curb Market a couple of weeks ago and was thrilled at how flavorful they were!  While I mostly eat strawberries plain or in a fruit salad, I also like to toss them with a balsamic-brown sugar dressing for a wonderfully sophisticated and simple dessert.  This is a great time to take the kids to pick their own strawberries - there are tons of farms around here that offer pick-your-own.

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Forty-nine thousand women and the National Institute of Health agree that carbohydrates are not the evil Atkins would have liked us to believe.  In an 11 year study, nearly 48,000 postmenopausal women were assigned to either a low fat/high fruit, veggie & fiber diet or were given diet-related educational materials but not specific guidance.  While the study was not specifically intended to explore weight loss (the focus, in fact, was to see if a low-fat, fiber-rich diet could prevent cardiovascular disease, breast cancer or colorectal cancer - the results of which were oddly excluded from the article), researchers did find that the old traditions still hold true: the only real way to lose weight is to ditch the trends and focus on fewer calories.  So much for my chickpeas and chocolate diet...

MSNBC look back to 2005 for 6 more reasons to exercise in 06.  Most of us get moving when we realize it's been a while since we've seen our toes (that's when I joined Weight Watchers) but there are a pile of other great reasons to get off the couch: exercise fights cardiovascular disease and diabetes which, of course, leads to a not only a longer life but a better quality of life.  My personal favorite motivator is stress relief and general mood improvement.  I did my own non-scientific study recently when I was spitting mad at my husband for no good reason.  I went to the gym for an hour, at the end of which I came home smiling and relaxed.  Come to think of it, I think it's my husband's favorite reason for me to exercise too.

MSNBC also let the experts ring in on the best ways to improve your health in 06.  Of course, the bottom line was the same as it ever is: small, gradual changes - a half hour of exercise here, an extra veggie there - lead to sustainable change.  Go figure.

In late December, the New York Times ran a piece (yeah, I just read it) about the new spate of fortified foods: fruity beverages with glucosamine for joint health, orange juice with added fiber and, my personal favorite, yogurt with probiotics to "speed up intestinal transit time".  Silly me, all this time I thought probiotics were the point to eating yogurt!  NYT points out some problems with this approach to healthy eating: people often add these foods to their existing daily intake (instead of adjusting their diets for these new foods) which ultimately leads to excess calories and any benefits derived from these foods probably take longer to present than the average American attention span.  A few additional concerns I have: 1) people who eat these foods probably won't think to tell their primary care physicians which could potentially lead to problematic interactions - for example, my husband recently tried glucosamine when his knees were aching only to find research suggesting that it could promote diabetes in people already prone – of course, several members of his family have had diabetes; 2)research is inconclusive as to the health benefits of added fiber - I haven't read that it can hurt you but it could all turn out to be a waste of money and effort when you could have been eating oatmeal the whole time; 3)companies that make packaged food add these health benefits because it's what the American consumer seems to want, not because they care about our health - the problems with packaged foods (additives, trans-fats, etc) probably aren't outweighed by anything they add.

The latest Newsweek has a great piece about why we should stop our search for the pill version of the fountain of youth.  By featuring five "super nutrients" (calcium, vitamin D, Omega-3 fatty acids, chromium and potassium), Ann Underwood (the reporter) shows why foods containing these nutrients are much healthier than taking a supplement due to the other nutrients the foods supply and the way those other nutrients interact with the super nutrients for added benefit.  I could summarize the whole thing, but you wouldn't want the supplement of the article, would you?

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News & Record

Copyright (c)2005 Greensboro News & Record, Inc.

Date Published: Sunday October 9, 2005

Page: H5

Story Name: New Accents on Southern Cooking

SEASONED IN THE SOUTH                                             EMERIL'S DELMONICO

Recipes from Crook's Corner and from Home                  A Restaurant with a Past

By Bill Smith                                                                         By Emeril Lagasse

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill                                       HarperCollins

192 pages. $19.95                                                                 288 pages $29.95

While "Southern cooking" often brings to mind grits, greens and fatback, new cookbooks from two famed Southern restaurants celebrate and expand on that definition. Superstar chef Emeril Lagasse and North Carolina favorite Bill Smith offer fusion recipes that merge traditional Southern fare and Creole cooking with flavors from across the globe.

Crook's Corner was originally the name of a Chapel Hill fish market owned by Rachel Crook in the 1940s. Thirty years after Crook's mysterious murder, Bill Neal and Gene Hamer resurrected her name for their Southern cuisine restaurant situated on the Franklin Street site of the fish market. In the early '90s, Bill Smith took over the restaurant, preserving many of the traditional favorites, like Shrimp and Grits, while adding his own flair.

Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook's Corner and from Home is Smith's cookbook debut. To take advantage of the bountiful North Carolina crops, the Crook's Corner menu and this cookbook are arranged according to seasons. Fall features green tomatoes and root vegetables like sweet potatoes and rutabagas. Winter is the season for hearty, slow-cooked meats such as Pork Cutlets with Slow Cooked Onion and Side Meat. Though delicate greens and soft-shelled crabs are featured in the spring, I will be waiting for next spring's first heady scents to try the recipe for Honeysuckle Sorbet. Summer offers soups, tarts and pastas to use August's overwhelming supply of tomatoes. 

The recipes themselves are conversational, as though someone took them down as Smith puttered around his kitchen.  Concluding a particularly detailed description of cleaning soft-shelled crabs, Smith says, "Very appetizing so far, yes?"  For all his chattiness, though, this is not one of those, "pinch of this, scoop of that" cookbooks. The recipes are well-defined and straightforward. Most display a simple elegance featuring common ingredients and fairly quick execution.

Smith's sweet-and-sour Skillet Eggplant requires little prep, mostly hands-off cooking and features a unique flavor that ensures it will be on regular dinner rotation in my home.  Others, such as the section entitled "Using a Whole Duck," warn of extended cooking times and offer suggestions for tasks that may be intimidating for the average home cook, such as boning a duck. The rare, unusual ingredients, such as the pappadams in the Soup Dakar, are prefaced with shopping suggestions. (Pappadam, incidentally, is a wafer-thin Indian bread available at most Asian markets.)

Food and Smith's love of it are certainly the centerpieces of this book, but his storytelling makes a lovely garnish. Who knew that Jimmy Carter liked a buttermilk digestif?

 

Much more formal in its elegance is famed-chef Emeril Lagasse's 11th cookbook, Emeril's Delmonico: A Restaurant with a Past, whose pages are laced with New Orleans history made all the more solemn by the recent devastation that closed most of the city, including all three of Emeril's New Orleans restaurants. (Emerils.com says the restaurants will reopen, though no date has been set.)

Anthony Commander originally opened Delmonico in 1895 with a menu that honored both its New York namesake and its New Orleans surroundings. In 1911, the restaurant was sold to Anthony LaFranca, whose wife, Marie, took over upon his death in 1943. Marie LaFranca updated the façade, expanded the menu and grew the restaurant into a New Orleans institution with her unparalleled customer service. After Marie LaFranca passed away in 1975, her daughters, Angie and Rose, carried on the Delmonico tradition until 1997 when Emeril, a New Orleans native and Food Network star, gave the building a historic makeover, promising to "preserve the traditional and classic origins ... while adding inventive flavors."

With a team of longtime Delmonico employees, such as Ernest "Jitterbug" Rome, Emeril has compiled a beautiful glossy cookbook filled with mouth-watering photos and fascinating food history punctuated with Emeril's distinct voice. ("You don't need a large serving - but, hey, do whatever makes you happy.") Its often complex recipes are suited for the serious home cook who is happy to spend hours in the kitchen assembling dishes that sometimes include up to three separate recipes, such as Chicken a la King for which Quick Cooked Chicken and Herb Biscuits must first be made before moving on to the involved preparation of the final dish. Many recipes also assume a certain level of kitchen expertise, including several flambéed dishes with minimal instruction.

After a day in my test kitchen, I came away with several dishes that were good but not good enough to justify the work, which left me wondering what happened to the "Bam!"

A notable exception was the Citrus-Cured Gravlax, which required 48 hours to cure and two fresh-water soaks not included in the recipe but which resulted in an appetizer with a flavor similar to smoked salmon with pronounced citrus notes.

The Lemon-Caper Creole Cream Cheese meant to accompany the gravlax introduced another problem: hard-to-find ingredients. According to Emeril, "Creole cream cheese has faded from the local food scene for some years, but is being made again by small, independent New Orleans-area dairies. It has a unique tart flavor that seems a cross between plain yogurt and sour cream." But Creole cream cheese is neither included in the ordering guide at the back of the book nor is a commonly found substitute offered in the recipe. I was able to find lengthy home preparation recipes online, but nowhere to order this mysterious ingredient.

Perhaps the only commonality between "Seasons of the South" and "Emeril's Delmonico," other than the distinctive Creole-style Turtle Soup recipes offered by both, is the chefs' love of pure, unadulterated fats like butter and lard, making many of the recipes in each better suited for special occasions than everyday dining.  For its lighter recipes (and the ones that can be easily lightened), the often-simple preparations and the attention to North Carolina agriculture, "Seasons of the South" will get plenty of use in my kitchen. "Emeril's Delmonico," on the other hand, will look lovely on my coffee table.

 

Sarah Jones of Greensboro is a writer who has worked as a personal chef and now writes a food blog at www.EpiCourier.comThoughtForFood. She reviews food-related books for the News & Record.

 

Because of an editing error, celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse was identified as being a native of New Orleans in Sarah Jones' Oct. 9 "What's cooking" column. Lagasse was born in Fall River, Mass.

 

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In the past few years, as I’ve cultivated my love of eating into a full-blown love of food and fascination with how it effects our bodies and souls, I have done a lot of reading, an article here, a website there, that kind of thing.  And in the scattered pages, I have gotten the impression that fish farming isn’t so great for us, the fish or the environment and that animals raised for meat probably aren’t treated that well and that commercial farming probably isn’t so ethical.  But if there is one thing I am more than a foodie, it’s practical, so for a while now I’ve been telling my husband that someday, when we’re living the high life and have money to throw around, we’re switching completely to the more expensive organics and small-farm-raised, no hormone meats.  Meanwhile, I continue to shop at my favorite mega-mart, buying boneless skinless chicken breasts by the value pack and choosing my cheap mealy tomato from the dozens of others that look exactly the same.   

 

Well, I can tell you, it is one thing to read a thousand-word Newsweek article that suggests that organic farming is better for the earth and a whole other thing to read a 280-page book the details why.  Welcome to The Real Food Revival , a book about farming and ranching practices both big and small and their effect on our planet and our bodies.

 

I started reading this book with a pack of post-it flags to mark the important details, but by Isle 2 (as they call chapters) there were so many flags that I was afraid my book would take flight with the least breeze.  That said, I’m going to try to give you my impression without this review turning into a novella. 

 

So let’s start with the short list, things I didn’t like about this book. Okay, so there’s only one thing and it’s the old adage that ignorance is bliss.  I was happily buying my convenience ingredients, eating asparagus in the dead of winter and pretending my flank steak was born in its cellophane package but no more.  Now I know there are better ways to eat and shop and my conscious commands that I at least try.

 

Now on to what I liked: Sherri Brooks Vinton and Anna ClarkEspuelas educate, they don’t preach.  As Vinton even says in the book, it’s not about making the perfect choices all the time, it’s about making better choices more of the time.  They’re not trying to recruit new vegetarians, they’re providing information on more earth-friendly, body-friendly meat choices.  Their suggestions are practical and doable: shop at a farmer’s market or independent grocery when possible, diversify your meat choices, read ingredient lists and above all, ask questions – about where the food came from and how it was raised or grown. 

 

Since reading this book, I have started the gradual process of becoming a more conscious shopper: I have turned my occasional farmer’s market visit into a weekly shopping spree.  Here in Greensboro, we have a great, small curb market on Yanceyville, across from the old baseball stadium, which is open on Saturdays and Wednesdays.  Saturday mornings, I take $40 cash and buy my fruit, vegetables and eggs for the week and have yet to spend more than $30, and that’s only when I add a tub of creamy, herbed goat cheese from our local Goat Lady Dairy.  More often than not, I’m buying my groceries from the farmer’s themselves who always have cooking tips and unusual produce that inspires me to experiment with new dishes, like the caramelized onion and crab stuffed patty-pan squash I made last week.  It’s not often that I invent a recipe and it’s actually good, but this was certainly an exception! 

 

I’ve also started looking for recipes for unusual meats because, as Vinton and Espuelas point out, the demand for chicken, pork and beef is what spurs on the eco-disaster of industrial ranching.  Coincidentally, Ted on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy just happened to grill up Tandori-Style Ostrich Breasts the other week, a meat that is both lean and produced locally.  I’ll post an update once I have a chance to try it out.

 

I’m not planning on giving up my favorite mega-mart, where I know many of the people by name, but I’m down to once or twice a week, for pet food, ice cream and even a bunch of cilantro the other day.   On a side note, though, I used to love how friendly grocery stores were: laughing with strangers I ran into isle after isle, sharing cooking tips and favorite products, a community that has faded with the rise of the harried over-scheduled lifestyle.  It’s a community I have rediscovered in the isles of the curb market where recipes are again shared, smiles exchanged and a stranger in the parking lot jokingly asked if I would share my coffee as we passed. 

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