all my personal blogging now takes place at she who rants and you can find all my cook.eat.drink.laugh posts there.

I will be writing more about food on a new website but that will be news for later.

thanks

My position as education director for our cooperative means I am responsible for giving our member-owners accurate information about the products we provide for them. Asking questions about the veracity of the information provided on a website promoting a product is part of my job. Since the inception of our co-op in 1936, our education mission has been to give all sides of a story so that our member-owners can make informed decisions and be critical thinkers when it comes to the food industry. This includes asking questions about organic as it is practiced by the food industry today. I work directly for the consumers of the goods our co-op purchases for them. I agree on the need for accuracy. Messaging, on the other hand, is not in my vocabulary. I am not marketing organic, I am asking questions for our member-owners.

Rosemary Fifield
Director of Education and Member Services Co-op Food Stores
Hanover and Lebanon, NH
www.coopfoodstore.coop

This is a beautiful expression of why co-ops are different. It is not about marketing. It is not about deciding for you. It is about giving you information so you can make your own decision. The current issues with peanut butter are far reaching and disturbing to many of us who have worked for years to keep our food safe. When organic products are being recalled, we start to wonder about things – how bad is it? Can it be fixed? Can companies claim that the products they manufacture are safe because they are organic? Seems their granola bars have a bit of a problem.

We have created an environment in which cheap food is demanded and cost cutting common. Facilities are not properly monitored and inspected. The industrialization of food presents some significant challenges and more importantly makes me wonder – do I need granola bars or little debbie anything? What about buying local produce and meats from producers I know. Do I really want strawberries from china or apples from chile when both can grow in my backyard? Why do we talk about ‘marketing’ and ‘manufacturing’ food.

I want to eat food that is cooked – not manufactured.

The “Peanut Corporation of America – Processors of the World’s Finest Peanut Products” announced a recall of peanut butter, peanut paste and now Little Debbie Peanut Butter Crackers as they remind us that it “prides itself on the quality and freshness of its products and strives constantly to maintain an environment in compliance with federal, state and local regulations and guidelines to provide a clean, safe product.”

Safe? If they ‘maintain an environment that is in compliance. . . then perhaps there is a problem with what those standards are. I don’t know much about making ‘peanut products’ like ‘peanut paste’ but I sure wanna know how you get salmonella in there. The 2008 outbreak affecting tomatoes, jalapenos, and cilantro was related to contaminated irrigation water and caused at least 1329 documented cases in 43 states. You can check out this most awesome map that the CDC put together in an effort to control the disease ummm I mean, work with other government agencies to keep our food safe oh wait. . . . never mind – let’s just get back to the peanut butter.

The FDA is a great source for tracking product recalls related to this outbreak. To date, recalls have been announced by: Peanut Corp, Little Debbie, Hy-Vee, Perry’s, Kellogs – including Austin, Famous Amos, and Keebler, and King Nut bulk peanut butters and pastes. If you have purchased any of the recalled products in the last 5 or 6 months, throw them away, but retain the ‘freshness code’ just in case you get sick because that is the information the CDC and FDA will want to know.

The CDC is actually a big part of tracking down the source of this outbreak and they tell us that “To date, no association has been found with major national brand name jars of peanut butter sold in grocery stores.” They have been issuing updates daily since January 8th and you can read all about it on their website.

More from the CDC:

“The Minnesota Department of Agriculture Laboratory isolated the outbreak strain of Salmonella Typhimurium from an open 5-pound container of King Nut brand creamy peanut butter. This product is distributed in many states to establishments such as long-term care facilities, hospitals, schools, universities, restaurants, delis, cafeterias, and bakeries.”

“The Connecticut Department of Public Health Laboratory and the Georgia Department of Agriculture independently isolated Salmonella from unopened 5-pound containers of King Nut brand peanut butter.”

“Clusters of infections in several states have been reported in schools and other institutions, such as long-term care facilities and hospitals. King Nut is the only brand of peanut butter used in those facilities for which we have information.
King Nut is produced by Peanut Corporation of America in Blakely, Georgia.  This facility is now recalling two products it makes:  (1) peanut butter and (2) peanut paste at the Georgia facility.   In many instances, the peanut butter and peanut paste is further distributed to manufacturers to be used as ingredients in many products, including cookies, crackers, cereal, candy, ice cream and other foods.”

The CDC website goes on to tell us that “most persons infected with Salmonella develop diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps 12–72 hours after infection. Infection is usually diagnosed by culture of a stool sample. The illness usually lasts 4 to 7 days. Although most people recover without treatment, severe infections may occur. Infants, elderly persons, and those with impaired immune systems are more likely than others to develop severe illness. When severe infection occurs, Salmonella may spread from the intestines to the bloodstream and then to other body sites and can cause death unless the person is treated promptly with antibiotics.”

Woe to all of us who eat of the industrialized food supply! The human race has done so much – we invented the printing press, the internal combustion engine, the atomic bomb. . . . we have reproduced at a rate that is arguably parasitic and leveraged ourselves as the most dominant species on the planet since trilobites (which, I guess, were actually a class of arthropods consisting of more than 17,000 species, so yeah. . .) but bacteria will be our downfall.

More information on Salmonellosis. . . .

I wrote this article for Bloomingfoods. The current recalls do not affect products that are stocked at Bloomingfoods and as with past recalls, staff are tracking the outbreak, keeping customers informed and removing all product that is addressed in a recall. Safe eating!

I have been thinking a lot of ‘when I was a kid’ food thoughts lately. I guess I am realizing just how connected my life is to food. There are so many vivid memories I have that involve favorite foods. No wonder that I have such an addiction to great food.

So, when I was a kid there was this baker my mom knew and he made the rainbow cookies. They were amazing. I remember one year where there was a whole box of them stashed in the freezer and I ate them every day. This memory makes me think of the way the food was packaged – white box tied shut with white and red striped twine. I will never forget this – there is something so perfect and right about a box of cookies tied up with this particular string.

When the holiday season rolls around, I start to plan my baking. I feel this coming on this year so if you are blessed to be counted among the list of friends I actually see around town -there may be something coming your way.

I have decided that I am going to perfect my truffles. I have a few different recipes and I am going to test the all and create the perfect truffle. My thing is adding odd ingredients. It seems that in our food traditions we limit ourselves to rather conventional combinations and I want to get beyond that.

Tonight has been filled with chocolate and bacon. Yes, you heard me correctly. I made truffles with bacon in them. They will be finished with a mixture of cocoa, bacon crumbles, and maybe a bit of chili pepper. Yummy.

There are several spots I frequent with the expectation that I will be disappointed and if I happen to really enjoy it, it becomes a pleasant surprise. What a terrible thing to say about a restaurant. . . “yeah, we can go there. I never like it and it will probably suck but I am willing to be surprised.” Seriously – I have three or four breakfast spots I say this about and I really wish they could manage to get the bacon right (I simply can’t enjoy my meal if it happens to include inferior bacon) and use decent bread for the toast, simple stuff.

I lack words to describe the disappointment that often comes of ordering eggs benedict in this town but I would love it if we could get more of these line cooks making a decent hollandaise (although I must admit to knowing several who do a lovely job with their sauces.) Truly it is beyond me to understand how they are allowed to mangle it as they do and that I am so discouraged by some of my experiences that I am simply afraid to order such a dish.

All this has been put aside however – I decided to try again at finding wonderful little breakfast spots.

I am most pleased with Michael’s Uptown Cafe – lots of choices for your eggs including ‘The Number One’ and ‘The Number Two,’ tasty bacon and some of my favorite pancakes. I like sitting in the bar and watching soccer with my meal. Currently, Michael’s has the distinction of serving up a lovely hollandaise and the smoked salmon bene makes for a lovely twist if you are so inclined.  Lots of variety; granola, coffee cake, french toast, pancakes, eggs anyway you like them, biscuits and gravy, mimosa. . . . My two complaints – 1. always a wait to get in (a sure sign of popularity but an inconvenience to the me) 2. they seem to think that I should be out of bed and to the restaurant before 2pm on the weekend (when I have been out on the town until 3or4pm the night before, it is tough to do.) I like to languish in bed on Sunday.

If you read much of my blah blah then you know that I really adore FARMbloomington. Great people, great atmosphere, yummy food. Well imagine my surprise when I open up my newly arrived issue of bon appetitit (the ‘best of the year’ issue – January 09) to find them giving props to Chef Daniel Orr and his grandma’s biscuit recipe. There is also a mention of Rhodes Family Farms eggs! My favorite weekday am meal is the breakfast sandwich – the biscuits are amazing. If you happen to make it in for a late Sunday brunch (the kitchen closes at 3pm,) the french toast is decadent, the omelettes big and satisfying and the bacon – goes without saying that the bacon is amazing. They have a well stocked bar with skilled bar tenders so be sure to toss in a Bloody Mary for a super-happy start to your day.

As a child, I can remember the weekend bagel ritual. My Dad was an early bird and would run out at 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning and come back with a big bag of still warm bagels. We would have plain, salt, cinnamon raisin, egg, blueberry, and every-seed – but the every-seed had to go in a separate bag because that flavor would contaminate the other bagels.

It is amazing how food can capture so many memories. I can close my eyes and be in the bagel shop. I remember waiting in line – vividly. There are so many things in life I have forgotten, things that are blurry. But I remember the bagel shop.

All these memories came back when I discovered a Chow recipe for bagels. The author was lamenting the fact that although bagels are everywhere, they are not really the same as a proper NYC bagel. There is also a nice piece with some great photos.

Try it – you might like it.

It is easy to make a great cup of coffee and so I wonder how it is that there might be so much bad coffee. How is it that humans have developed a taste for such low quality, mass produced coffee. This lovely bean has become known as a watered down commodity that includes the production of things like ‘instant coffee’ and gas station coffee.

I realized that I knew nothing about the history of coffee and began to investigate. Coffee was ‘discovered’ in Ethiopia by goat herders. This is not the most glamorous beginning but that was thousands of years ago so what can we expect? It first roasted and brewed in Arabia around 1000AD and the bean was long kept under lock and key. Folks started smuggling fertile beans and then in 1616 Pieter van den Broeck smuggled a live plant into Europe. In 1696, the Dutch founded the first European-owned coffee estate (on colonial Java, now part of Indonesia.) They began giving the gift of coffee trees to aristocrats throughout Europe and the caffeine craze spread.

1714 rolls around and Louis the XIV received the gift of a coffee tree. Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, headed for Martinique, requested a cutting that he might take with him. When he was denied, he crept into the palace and stole it – pretty classy way to start a worldwide craze. The tree survived the long and difficult sea journey to become the first of many coffee trees this side of the Atlantic. In 1727, intrigue and infidelity led to the theft of the bean by a Lt. Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta starting Brazil down the path to becoming the largest coffee producer on the planet thus fueling our coffee obsession and providing plenty of cheap beans.

I can’t settle for the cheap beans. I don’t care for the flavor, the processing techniques, the working conditions. . . . I have a friend who roasts his own beans – the resulting coffee is quite good. I am inspired to try it for myself but for now I have been purchasing fair trade beans at the co-op and grinding them at home. I prefer Equal Exchange and Peace Coffee for my daily cup. I prefer my french press, it is the only method I have of brewing coffee in my home. This method lacks a filter and makes a particularly rich cup of coffee. I prefer full city or breakfast roasts for everyday drinking – but a nice french roast with a bit of milk makes for a lovely afternoon.

I recently found a wonderful little article from Zingerman’s that gives five tips for better tasting coffee.

I highly recommend the purchase of some high quality beans and a bodum.

Today the ingredient of note was winter squash.  I think it’s one of those foods that you either adore or have absolutely no idea what you might do to make agreeable.  This was the topic for Alan and I as it is the chosen ingredient for the first of his in store cooking demos. I hope that it goes well, he loves to cook, loves to talk about cooking, and is really very, very good at it. I think that getting him into the store as a chef and a teacher will bring a lot of happiness into his work. He has been a great deal of thinking and administration (which he is very good at) but it is fun to do something you love and share that with others.

So we sit today and debate the risotto – a butternut squash, diced and caramelized.

What size of dice? What type of oil? How long to cook it, how hot the oven (that all depends on the oil you choose and if you have a convection oven or not. . . .) Bacon to be rendered – what sort of bacon? How much bacon? Save a bit for garnish. Should we just go for pancetta? Save a bit of the fat for cooking the leeks and shallots. . . . Would it be overdoing it to use both? Will the flavor of the shallot be lost? Olive oil. White wine? Chicken stock. . . to make it a bit more challenging, he can only use those items which he is able to purchase in the store so probably not a stock made from chicken necks and backs. What cheese do we put on the top? We decided on that (Mike had a great suggestion) but I can’t possibly spoil the surprise.

This went on for a while for it seems the debate and discussion of such things is as much fun as the actual cooking of the thing. When you invent the recipe it takes on a whole new life for although the inventing of a recipe requires a certain knowledge of cooking – to be certain – there is always the adventure of creating something that you have only dreamed and never tasted. . . .

A bit later on he announced his plan for the stuffed acorn squash – no bacon in that but it sounds amazing.

I am designing the recipe cards. Getting a recipe out of a man who never uses recipes requires tenacity. This has been going on since last week and I hope to have something tomorrow. Oi! It is going to be so good and I hope that I might see you there.

This occurred to me as I have lately been eating pomegranates. It takes me about an hour to eat a large pomegranate. It makes a big mess but every mouthful is a delight. I remember the first time I ever ate one – I was covered in juice and just giggling at what a mess and a joy the whole thing was.

Pomegranates are native to northern Africa, eastern Europe and western Asia. They are found growing in places like Turkey, Iran – think the Caucus mountains – and all the way west to the Himalayas where they reach into northern India. They have been cultivated for millennia and remain a popular food around the world and are naturalized in many regions.

Recently, there is an interest in the health benefits of drinking the juice – but I have noticed this phenomenon with just about anything that comes from a tree or a plant – it seems we have to use science to prove just how good fresh natural foods are and that is a shame.

I love eating pomegranates. It takes time to pull it apart and pick out each of the juicy seeds. There is something primal about it. . . I have been eating them for years now and somehow I am yet to grow tired of it. They are very good right now and will be through January. Try some on your granola or in your salad. I think it would be wonderful on pork, I must try that soon and let you know what I think.

If you have never had one I encourage you to try it. There is something ancient and mysterious about the fruit and it is an adventure and a delight to pull one apart and savor every bit.