Do-It-Yourself

Fresh fruit is so much better than canned in the summer. Making a salad? Don't buy canned fruit! Make citrus fruit sumpremes! Slice the ends of the fruit off (like the round piece pictured above). Set the fruit down on the cutting board and peel the skin down with your paring knife leaving the flesh exposed. You're undressing your fruit! Next, slice out each piece of citrus between the papery, tough dividers between the fruit. Now you have something similar to mandarin oranges out of a can, but you have made them yourself and they are fresh as fresh can be!

Sans season

I was craving butternut squash soup the other day. Normally reserved for cold fall and winter nights, for some reason I desired the hot, buttery goodness and roasted flavor of butternut squash in the midst of a humid, 95 degree day. Seasonality is important, unless you have a serious craving in the middle of summer for a decidedly fall and winter vegetable.

The butternut squash roasted, freshly harvested at the season-less produce section at my local grocery store. As sweat poured down my forehead, I thought of the pilgrims who had most likely brought squash to the first Thanksgiving. Or was it the Indians? A couple of hours later I was enjoying the fruits of my hot labors. Thanks to my climate controlled house, I had the luxury of Christmas in July, a summer getaway in the middle of winter, and a complete reversal of seasonality. Velvety, buttery goodness...thank you for a little unseasonal taste of winter.

Persistence. Determination. Focus.

Don't give yourself permission to do less than you know in your heart that you can do.

HFCS

Is High Fructose Corn Syrup bad for you? Yes, it is inherently sugar or glucose. It is as "bad" for you as sugar is. The problem with HFCS is that it is so darn cheap and readily available. Corn is cheap because it is subsidized and sugar is expensive because there are limits and quotas on the sugar that can enter this country. One recent study found that sugar was elevated to two to three times the global level due to quotas established in the 1980s. Australia has abundantly cheap sugar, but is experiencing similar rising obesity rates. So it is not the HFCS itself that is making us fat. It is that we consume 79 lbs of it every year. When you break down how much of the corn we grow goes to producing HFCS, it consumes almost as much farmland as that used to grow vegetables.

CHRM 1000 - Dining Adventure

My dining adventure day started with torrential rains and black clouds during two classes at Metro's Culinary Institute until about noon. I savored the thought of an afternoon and evening off of my feet and out of the hot kitchen. I looked forward to enjoying a glass of wine and a slow meal. One thing I have learned in my very short time in the food service business is that those that serve meals to others during dinner time rarely serve themselves dinner...at...dinner time. Coming off of a week of cut cantaloupe and cereal at 11:30 PM, I was ready to sit and enjoy myself.

In thinking about where to play restaurant critic, I wanted to find an independent place that was started by a chef looking to feed people good food. Ryan's Bistro was my choice. Let me first say that Omaha seems to be a small business mecca. There are many small restaurants spread around the city. Chains are definitely part of the landscape, but unlike some towns, you can find mom and pop shops fairly easily. I have lived in places where this is not the case and where it seems that chains run over mom and pops like semi trucks over squirrels. This is one reason why I like Omaha.

I walked into Ryan's Bistro in West Omaha and was pleased with the décor. It was appointed with dark leather and wood. The bar was very small and near the door. It definitely seemed to me more of a food centered place which excited me. I had heard good reviews and the place was held out to be "French dining". Whenever I hear someone describe a restaurant as "French dining" that can mean so many different things...maybe they use a lot of butter? I requested to sit outside on the patio since the hurricane from the morning had subsided and it was a pleasant evening. The hostess told me to sit wherever I liked on the patio sandwiched between two buildings in a strip mall. That sounds unpleasant, but the patio atmosphere was in fact very pleasant. (Until I had my fill of the Frank Sinatra hits audio assault that is...) There was a fire pit in the middle of the decked patio and imitation spiral evergreen trees looked like they would be lit with Christmas lights at night which would be a nice ambiance.

A server greeted me shortly after I sat down and asked what I would like to drink. I inquired about the house Zinfandel. She told me that they could offer me a nice white "Zinfandale" at the happy hour price which sparked visions of Franzia boxes dancing through my head. I asked for the wine list and after noticing a few misspellings on the bar menu (Guinnes and Baily's) ordered a nice red Zinfandel.

Upon perusing the menu, I noticed that most dishes contained meat and very few vegetarian items. Ok, I will go with it. "Order something you might not normally order" a little voice whispered to me. Rarely eating beef, I ordered the Filet Pasta to go with my red Zinfandel. Since I was back in Nebraska, I figured I would follow the crowd for once and try a red meat dish.

My dish arrived in a timely manner. Upon arrival, my pasta dish looked appetizing. My very first thought was "beef stroganoff" which then reminded me of Hamburger Helper...a busy weeknight kid special. "Oh my, that would be disappointing if this tasted like beef stroganoff," I thought to myself. It was barely off. It was possibly more salty than Hamburger Helper due to the blue cheese crumbles and an abuse of sodium chloride. The first bite of the dish had a slight note of soy sauce and I wondered for a split second if I would get fortune cookies with the bill. As I dug into the dish, I found it was sitting in too much sauce. Grape tomatoes: disappointing and nothing special. Portion: way too big. Plate: a shallow "plate/bowl" to accommodate the soupy sauce of which there was way too much. This was a lesson in less is more: less salt, less sauce, less tangy blue cheese, less food. More freshness, less Hamburger Helper, please. As I enjoyed the cool breeze and my food cooled down, it only got saltier. My eyeballs felt as though they were shriveling.

As I ate my heavy dish that did not quite fit with the seasonal change to summer, a person who was either the owner or manager sat down with a group of people at the table next to me. He lazily drifted in and out of the conversation with a styrofoam beverage cup in hand. It struck me as slightly unprofessional.

Feeling full and very dehydrated from the salt lick, I paid my $30 bill for an entrée and a glass of wine. Although I only had the chance to experience one item off the menu, there is no compelling food reason for me to go back. The service was the restaurant's redeeming quality, and that may bring me back at some point to try a different, more flavorful, less salty dish. Salt is your friend, but perhaps not your best friend.

Overall, good potential, but it did not meet my expectations. I will now go attempt to hydrate my body back to normal levels.

The Omnivore's Dilema by Michael Pollan

When you walk into the modern grocery store, you are given the opportunity to purchase items from around the world. The produce section is void of seasonality or locality. Mangoes in January. Asparagus in December. Globalization and the industrialization of agriculture has made this possible. Standing in front of over 40,000 products makes the question of what to have for dinner more than a just a simple choice. It is sheer anxiety of too many choices.

Michael Pollan tackles these daily decisions that we make in a land where industrial agriculture produces 500 additional calories per U.S. eater every day. Food producers talk in terms of the "fixed stomach". In order to make more money, you either have to get people to pay more for the same food by arranging it in fashionable, new, delicious ways or get people to eat more of it. Fast food companies are great at tackling both of these challenges. Super Size me.

Corn is king. 10 billion bushels of corn is harvested every year. Corn has a long history dating back to the Mayans referring to themselves as "corn people". Americans are now "corn people", but more accurately "petroleum people". As long as fossil fuels are relatively cheap, it makes sense to grow corn and lots of it. It takes more than a calorie of fossil fuel energy to produce a calorie of food. Every step in the "industrial digestion" wet milling process of refining corn and rearranging it in different creative ways, about 10 calories are burned for every calorie produced. All calories are the same when you get right down to it, and corn is the cheapest. We eat only a fraction of corn directly as corn. The rest is used to cleverly rearrange the molecules into additives like xanthan gum, high fructose corn syrup, thanol, MSG, sorbitol, maltodextrin, starches, and lactic acid.

It used to be that farms were fully sustainable. Legumes replenishing nitrogen back into the soil feeding corn. Livestock grazing on grass and manure fertilizing the grass. We have gone from capturing sun energy and turning it into food to converting fossil fuels into food. This process is economically cheap, but ecologically expensive. War time converting to peace time created excess fertilizers (amonium nitrate). The Department of Agriculture's idea in 1947 was to spread this excess of America's fields with the goal of increasing the amount of food an acre of land could support. They succeeded beyond their expectations. However, the unintended consequences of fertilizer runoff being high levels of algae growth in waterways contributing to oxygen depletion and dying fish.

Three of every 5 Americans are obese. We fatten our cows faster (12-14 months compared to 4-5 years at the beginning of the 20th century). We engineer chickens to have larger breasts, so much so that they have a difficult time standing. Our society has evolved from a meal-in-a-pill futuristic dream to a pill-in-a-meal reality. A human being simply cannot consume more calories than they burn without gaining weight. Or can they? Food scientists are tackling the problem of food that cannot be absorbed and stored as fat. Olestra. Splenda. We can eat what we want, have access to seasonal food any time of year, 24/7, in our cars, without consequence. But what are the consequences?

So what is the perfect meal? As Michael Pollan contemplates "Perhaps the perfect meal is one that's been fully paid for, that leaves no debt outstanding. This is almost impossible ever to do, which is why I said there was nothing very realistic or applicable about this meal. But as a sometimes thing, as a kind of ritual, a meal that is eaten in full consciousness of what it took to make it is worth preparing every now and again, if only as a way to remind us of the true costs of the things we take for granted." Having the "Omnivore's Thanksgiving" every day is not realistic or probable in the way our society functions today. But to eat obliviously without understanding what we are doing is also, in my opinion, unfortunate.

Michael Pollan's dilemma, laid out in 411 pages was to open people's eyes to what they are eating, where it is coming from, how it got to where it is, and what the total cost was. It encourages the audience geared mostly those who want to know about what they are putting in their bodies, onto the earth, and in the air to ask ourselves, if we are what we eat, then what exactly are we?

To be successful in the restaurant industry, one not only has to make good food, but also have a story. The better the story, the more people will connect to the food. Examples are "Iowa Pork Chops" or "Home made ketchup". This is not imperative, but will help you succeed. One must have a passion for cooking for others and no matter what you are cooking, feel good about serving it to people, however that feels to you. Lastly, one must be open to always learning. There will never be a day where you will know it all. Tomorrow is special because you can always do something better than you did today. And that is the fun part.

Attitude Is Everything

"Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it." -Lou Holtz

In a hot kitchen full of fire, stress, and sharp things, how do tempers not get heated? To expect human beings to never to get upset is an unachievable goal. To expect human beings to learn from their experiences and to be able to communicate effectively and professionally with a passion for their desired result is a reasonable goal.

The word temper means "habit of mind". You choose your attitude; it is a habit. You have the choice to be a player or a spectator in your life, in your relationships, in your work. To show up is a choice. To excel is a choice. The way you eat is a choice: no one forces you to eat unhealthy food. The way you react to the actions of others is also a choice. Unfavorable situations are inevitable and uncontrollable. Your reactions are controllable. To every action, there will be a subsequent reaction. What will be yours when the heat is on high?

"All Natural"

Going to the grocery store and paying full attention to what you are purchasing is no small task. Many people are watching what they eat, choosing items with lower sodium, less calories, less fat, lower carb, and perhaps organic. Good, healthy, informed choices are supposed to be made while weaving in and out of the aisles, trying to decide what to make for dinner, with kids screaming or pulling products off the shelves whining "can we get this?" Right. The quickest and easiest way that most consumers make a decision about what to buy are the nutritional claims on the front of the package. But do you know what those nutritional claims actually mean?

Take fat for instance. It's one of our favorite topics after all. At 9 kilocalories per gram, and a fast highway to high cholesterol through the animal variety, it's always on our minds. According to the FDA which is the agency that regulates nutrition claims, for an item to be fat free, it must contain no more than 0.5 grams of fat per serving. If the "fat free" item contains 0.5 grams of fat and you eat 5 servings, you have just consumed 2.5 grams of fat. It is, therefore, not fat free.

The organic industry has grown exponentially since its entrance onto the fringes of food consumption in the 60s and 70s. Most grocery stores stock organic products in almost every section from produce to spices. What does the word organic really mean? The USDA regulates organic labeling and the USDA organic seal of which about half of organic producers display on their product. Only the term “100% Organic” means that the item has been certified to be chemical-free, produced organically, and not transported with non-organic foods. “Certified Organic” means that the item is 95% organic. Only these two certifications are allowed to carry the USDA Organic seal. There is also a qualification for “Made with Organic Ingredients” which is at least 70% organic. If a product contains less than 70% organic ingredients they are only allowed to show those items in the ingredients list specified as organic. Confusing? It can be. Do you think you are getting what you pay for? Flashy marketing sells. Food labels do not. To be the most informed consumer, just check the label.

Oh, and "all natural"? It it meaningless.

The Opportunity Cost of Home Cookin'

In a USDA report entitled "Who Has Time to Cook? How Family Resources Influence Food Preparation" takes a look at the relationship between home food preparation and wage rate. The other factor that was explored was the precious resource of time. Lower income households are less able and less willing to substitute time for money. It was found that the opportunity cost of sacrificing time, which can be converted into money or wages, was too large for those earning lower incomes. As of 2005 women still performed 3 times as much of the meal preparation as men, therefore the study focuses mostly on women as the correlations don't coincide as strongly with men. It is noted that as women's work hours increase, their time spent preparing food decreases. Non-working women spent on average 71 minutes daily preparing food and women who worked full-time spent on average 38 to 46 minutes. Interestingly, the women who had lower incomes were near the 46 minute range. One can conclude that time resources are the largest determinant on whether meals are made at home; income is only a secondary determinant. Being a single parent and working full-time are the most detrimental factors on home cooking.

It is no doubt that income is a determining factor in food choice. In a recent national campaign to improve Americans' nutritional decisions, establishments with more than 20 locations will be required to post nutritional data. New York City was ahead of this trend and mandated in 2008 that nutritional data be posted at restaurants with more than 15 locations. In a joint study by Yale and New York University professors, the choices of fast food customers in poor areas of NYC were followed. The results showed that the attempt at calorie sticker shock had little to no impact on how many calories were ultimately consumed. Michael Jacobson, executive director for the Washington DC Center for Science in the Public Interest, says "Nutrition is not the top concern of low-income people, who are probably the least amenable to calorie labeling." Given the above USDA study, could it be that people just need access to more quick, healthy choices? Could it be that Americans who are both busy and have lower incomes are simply looking for quick, calorie dense foods? More bang for the buck, perhaps? I believe it comes down to education around the cost and value of food. Simple carbohydrates, high fructose corn syrup, and sugar will cause the blood sugar to spike and the subsequent energy crash will ensue. That value meal really isn't much of a value now is it?

Condiment crazy

Ah, condiments. Our refrigerator doors are weighed down at the hinges due to rows of mustards, dressings, sauces, mayonnaise, jellies, relishes, and marinades. We dip, we spread, we squeeze, we squirt, shake, and spoon these flavorful many times high-fat, high-sodium content additions onto our food. Long ago before the days of refrigeration, sauces and gravies were used to mask the flavor of spoiled meat. Today, they are many times used to add flavor (fat) and enhance lack of flavor (sodium) in food that is neither nutritious nor fresh. Americans are obsessed with condiments. We encourage kids to dip their veggies in ranch dressing so they will get their daily recommended amount of vegetables. According to Better Homes & Gardens, "If you have picky eaters in your home, you already know the magic a bit of ranch dressing can work on a turned-up nose." We love to dip our chicken nuggets into various little tubs of salty, corn syrup concoctions. Sometimes the food itself is nothing but an answer to the question "what can I spread this on?" Do you know anyone who eats plain celery without dipping it into dressing or slathering it with peanut butter?

Doesn't "enriched" mean it's better?

Flour enrichment began in 1941 when it was found that many Americans were lacking important nutrients in their diets. In the instance of enriched flour, nutrients are stripped from the wheat: the germ containing all of the nutrients and fiber. The flour is then "enriched" with B vitamins like thiamine, riboflavin, folic acid, and niacin. Iron is also added. White flour gained popularity in Europe during the middle ages because it was seen as "cleaner" and "healthier". During the 1920s, it was discovered that this white flour lacked many nutrients that whole wheat flour offered. The 1940s brought rationing and the nutritional deficiencies that went along with it. When grains are refined, the bran and the germ are removed leaving the endosperm which is similar to the white of an egg in that it surrounds the embryo (germ) and provides nutrition and energy in the form of starch. The bran, which is the outer shell, of the whole grain provides the fiber. A main concern for producers of baked goods is shelf life. The wheat germ, which contains all of the vitamins and essential fatty acids also contains oil which spoils products faster (rancidity) when it is present. Therefore, there is monetary incentive for food producers to make products containing flour from which the wheat germ has been stripped.

I am not a mathematician, but when you take away more than 10 essential nutrients, and add 5 lab-produced vitamins, the result is not an "enriched" product. As a consumer, you must also be aware of nutritional claims involving the words "whole wheat". The first item on the list of ingredients must be "whole wheat flour" NOT "enriched wheat flour". Pay no attention to the flashy marketing on the front of the package. "Made with whole grains!" can mean the product contains 5% whole grain flour. What is the incentive to keep whole grains out of food? If you were selling a product and you had a choice between a 1 month shelf life or a 6 month shelf life, which one would you choose? Do a 180 and turn to the boring side of the package. It may not be what you thought you were buying.

The Bokeh of Food

Blurry. The untold story. The background. Bokeh; the Japanese word that means blur or haze. The unfocused areas of a photograph are bokeh. Some of my favorite photographs tell a story through the indistinct reflections of light and color behind the subject. We are not trained to focus on the bokeh, but there is always a story there to be told. Our eyes tune it out, but do we dig deeper? Dig deeper into the earth where your food is grown. Dig deeper into the warehouses where your meat is raised. Dig deeper into what your kids are eating before school, at school, after school, and in front of the tele at night. Make connections between where the money flows and the health issues facing this nation. Pull the out of focus into focus.