hyphenated - Filed under 'food'

May 8, 2010 9:39 AM

bivalves and the beach

Last weekend, we planned a trip up to Point Reyes for oysters. Well, not so much planned as discussed the idea over drinks on Thursday night with the conversation ending affirmatively. On Friday, a Google calendar event was created with start and end times on Sunday. On Sunday morning, half an hour before the proposed start time, we texted our friend, who had assumed the status of event organizers because: a) he had been to eat oysters in Point Reyes before and we all considered him an expert on the subject, b) he had a Zipcar membership and had volunteered to drive, and c) he had set up the calendar event, to confirm. He was running late, but we were good to go. At this point, all I knew was our day would involve oysters and a beach.

Just before noon, we all pilled into the swanky Zipcar. "All" consisted of five people and a small dog. We bough snacks (first things first) at Trader Joe's before navigating (i.e., Google mapping) our way to the Golden Gate and through Marin County. Some motion sickness ensued, but was tempered by ginger chews and playing the front-seat-of-the-car version of musical chairs at the stops that were required to locate ourselves when we lost cell coverage.

Oysters were procured. A spot on the beach was claimed. The spot was adjacent to a group of people listening to Van Morrison followed by Tom Petty. Their conversation was at once asinine and entertaining (e.g., "Imagine if Tom Petty cruised by on a boat playing this song. Wouldn't you just have to run down to the water's edge and dance? You'd just have to. How cool would that be?").

We ate oysters. Kevin and I learned how to shuck (a skill which I'm contemplating adding to my resume). Amidst the perceived lack of planning, the event organizer had brought a charcoal grill and all the ingredients for a yummy horseradish sauce. Soda cans served as wine glasses. A lid to a container was a cutting board for shallots (which were added to some of the larger oysters, along with some thyme and wine, before putting them on the grill just long enough to cook ever so slightly). We ate more oysters. We lounged in the late-day sun before packing up and heading home, back over the Golden Gate with the last remnants of sunlight highlighting the horizon. A great day.

The necessary postscript to this story is that if you told me ten years ago that I'd get excited and derive enjoyment from eating loads of oysters in one sitting, I would've call you crazy. Everything about oysters made me cringe: the mucousy texture, the fact that they're consumed raw and alive, the risk of food poisoning. But, I've gotten past the texture issue by sticking to the smaller ones (the really big ones are still gag-inducing to some extent) and I've gotten to a point where I'm not willing to sacrifice amazing eats for a fear of food poisoning. Some risks are worth it, especially those with relatively low probabilities. Admittedly, the alive factor was the last hurdle. I got past that by not thinking too much about it (which is exactly how most people are able to stomach eating meat, right?) until I read this really interesting article in the New York Times. Now, I can think about it without it affecting my appetite. The sustainability argument is an added bonus. In any case, I'm doubtful that any vegans will be jumping on the oyster bandwagon anytime soon. If they do, oysters might be the gateway substance of the meat and animal products realm. It's a slippery slope.

Click here to download:

bivalves_and_the_beach.zip (2228 KB)

Filed under // family & friends food San Francisco sustainability

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March 11, 2010 12:02 PM

mmmaple syrup

My morning routine has changed quite drastically since moving to San Francisco. The change has less to do with being unemployed (a combination of volunteer/intern work and personal projects provides motivation to get up at a reasonable hour) and more to do with having an iPhone.

Previously, I would wake up to the sound of CBC radio 1 emanating from my circa-1992 radio alarm clock and I'd lay in bed for awhile listening to the day's top stories and the weather (and get annoyed by Rick Cluff's tendency to trivialize and patronize). Now, I roll over, take my iPhone off the nightstand (the radio alarm clock was deemed obsolete) and check my email, scan Twitter and Facebook, peruse the NYT headlines, and check the weather... in four cities: San Francisco, Vancouver, and Montreal.

Despite being severely lacking in detail and featuring obscure icons (what exactly should I expect when presented with an icon of the sun from which rain is failing without any clouds in the picture?), the weather app for the iPhone allows me to get a sense of what the weather is like in the places I feel connected to.

Most days, the comparison brings a smile to my face because the weather in SF tops that in the other cities (I've been warned that this will change come summer) but other days, like today, the weather also brings back memories as I conjure up past experiences that I associate with the time of year depicted by the forecast.

Along with remembering soggy walks to work in Vancouver, I thought about maple syrup this morning. Today's forecast in Montreal is perfect for sugaring off (which takes place in the rural areas around Montreal, including my hometown, Hemmingford). Warm days combined with nights where the mercury drops below freezing gets the sweet sap running.

My parents tapped some of the maple trees around our house for a few years, getting enough sap to distill down to a decent amount of syrup. I remember tramping around the woods, stomping in the patches of remaining snow, peeking into the pails to see if any sap had accumulated, and occasionally taking sips to taste the slightly sweet liquid that dripped so slowly from the trees. John had built an outdoor oven of sorts with a trough on the top for making syrup. We'd pour the sap into the trough and it would boil down to leave the delicious auburn syrup. We'd all sit around the oven, soaking in the spring sun (believe me, 8°C feels downright balmy after a few months temperatures averaging between -10 and -25°C) and keeping the fire burning. I can only imagine that I might have asked "is it ready yet?" enough to be considered annoying.

After a few years, perhaps after the novelty had warn off, my family stopped making our own maple syrup. Instead, we would help friends with their much larger, commercial syrup operation in exchange for cans of the dark, thick, smoky syrup that isn't considered high quality by supermarket shoppers. The dark stuff might not look so pretty, but it's very tasty.

We kids would help to some extent, handing empty cans from the box to the person operating the canning machine or dragging wood inside to fuel the boiler, but we largely played in the heat of the shanty. Play powered by massive sugar highs because doing quality control (i.e., drinking maple syrup straight up) was another way that the children helped.

This morning, I added some maple syrup to sweeten and flavor my yogurt and granola. The syrup was produced at the shanty where I used to 'help' and was given to us as a wedding gift by the friends who make it. Knowing where it came from and the simple, organic way it is produced, this maple syrup is especially tasty.

Now, I'm going to take advantage of the beautiful weather (and being unemployed) by going for a walk this afternoon.

Filed under // family & friends food Quebec & Montreal San Francisco Vancouver

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March 1, 2010 11:11 PM

shelf life

Bees, spiders, and expired food. These are a few of my least favorite things. More like greatest fears, actually.

I've never had food poisoning, but somehow I became very risk averse when it comes to consuming food products when the date permanently branded into the packaging corresponds to yesterday or earlier. I once ate chunky milk accidentally, when pouring cereal in the dark in an effort to avoid disturbing my roommates (I was up for an early class). While the taste was disgusting enough to spark a gag reflex, I wasn't ill as a result. The sour milk incident of 1999 transpired well after my fear of expired food had developed, so I can't attribute my double-checking of expiry dates to chewing my milk that time.

In the past, I often discarded food automatically based on the expiration date, despite knowing that the dates aren't necessarily hard and true (as pointed out humorously by Jerry Seinfeld and the comic I've included below). Just to be safe.

http://booru.nanochan.org/post/view/5562?search=asaekkiga

In more recent years, I've tried to be more rational about how I react to dates on packaging. For instance, if the date on the yogurt container is in the past but there is no mould or foul smell, I'll eat it (this was a big step for me). Less waste is a good thing.

When I noticed that we had just under half a gallon of milk in the fridge on February 17th and the date on the jug read February 16, I tweeted.

After the sour milk incident, drinking it straight up was not my first choice even though it didn't smell bad. But I didn't want to dump it either. So I baked. Cinnamon rolls and rice pudding (of course, I used real maple syrup for the latter). Win win: milk not wasted and yummy homemade edibles.

Filed under // food

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October 13, 2009 9:47 AM

savoring fall

autumnal [\ȯ-ˈtəm-nəl\] adj

of, occurring in, or characteristic of autumn
characteristic of late maturity verging on decline

❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧

The sun lays low in the sky and dips below the horizon earlier every day while flora and fauna brace themselves for the first hard frost of the season. Scarves emerge from closest and sandals reluctantly take their place in the darkness. Heavy humidity evaporates and the air alternates between damp and crisp, depending on whether the sky is an endless expanse of glorious blue or a low ceiling of matte, sombre grey. Summer has graciously retired and fall has arrived to advise that winter is en route to aggressively take its place.

In this corner of the world, fall is accompanied by birds noisily announcing their synchronized migration, fields producing the last gifts of the harvest, and trees making bold, fiery statements before going bald. Crimson, copper, gold, and amber leaves tremble and waver in the wind and, when they lose their grip, gracefully float to the ground.

Crunching through leaves along the forest path. The welcome warmth of the sun streaming between branches is subdued and easily stolen by the breeze. Sweet scents of decay rise from the ground along with memories of childhood screeches and giggles from when the chore of raking morphed into a game of diving into a crispy yet soft pile of browning leaves.

Giving thanks for the comforts of home. Heat radiating from the fire. Laughs and stories shared with family and friends. Pumpkin pie and fresh apples.

Click here to download:

savoring_fall.zip (232 KB)

Filed under // Canada family & friends food Quebec & Montreal

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October 9, 2009 6:15 AM

when chicken is an institution

As many readers of this blog know, I'm not a big meat eater. When I do eat meat, I tend towards organic/small farm options. However, there are rare exceptions. One of those exceptions is barbecued chicken. And not any barbecued chicken, only Châlet Bar-B-Q rotisserie chicken.

Like most cities, Montreal has its specialities when it comes to food, namely bagels, smoked meat, and rotisserie chicken. I never really got on the smoked meat bandwagon (I like it, but there's something fundamentally wrong with a sandwich that contains more meat than bread, in my opinion), but I'm all over the bagels and the rotisserie chicken.

Rotisserie chicken is the only of the aforementioned specialities that is quebecois to the core, as the other two have Jewish roots (Montreal is the home to the second largest Jewish community outside of Israel, after NYC). The argument could be made that my fondness for rotisserie chicken is in my blood, as my surname would have been Beauchamp-Berthelet if our society was matriarchal rather than patriarchal.

The ubiquity of rotisserie chicken in Quebec is epitomized by la sauce. When someone says la sauce in Quebec, they are most likely referring to this sauce, which was developed by les frères Berthelet (the brothers happen to be my great uncles, but I've never met them - I'm not on the gravy train).

When it comes to rotisserie chicken, Châlet Bar-B-Q in NDG is an institution. Recently voted the best rotisserie chicken in Montreal, Châlet Bar-B-Q doesn't seem to have changed much since it opened over sixty years ago. The decor is classic, with wood panelling on the walls, dim lighting, booths, and waitresses in outdated uniforms. And the chicken, served with fries, gravy, and a toasted bun, is unbeatable. Kevin and I went for lunch earlier this week and were not disappointed. If you're visiting Montreal, be sure to add Châlet Bar-B-Q, along with Schwartz's and St-Viateur, to your list of places to visit.

Photo owned by alanah.montreal (cc)

Filed under // family & friends food Quebec & Montreal

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September 19, 2009 11:25 AM

got milk?

Recent dairy-related news, from Lily and the CBC, got me thinking about milk. The CBC story concluded that "despite decades of being largely exempt from free market forces, farmers have not been protected by governments from the global financial crisis that caused demand to crash" while Lily noted that "dairy farmers are experiencing a tough time. Of the price paid by us consumers for a litre of milk, 37% goes to the processor, 42% goes to the supermarket and a miserable 21% goes to the farmer" in Ireland.

The times are changing or perhaps, as the information above suggests, they have already changed. Is what was once considered a staple of the North American and European diet becoming less ubiquitous? Are dairy farms becoming less viable?

If the trend in my own consumption of milk is any indication, it would seem that the answer is yes. Over the past five years, my personal consumption of milk has decreased substantially. Growing up, a glass of milk with dinner was the norm and through CEGEP and my undergrad a bowl of Cheerios with milk was my typical breakfast. Now, I will occasionally have a glass of milk - usually to accompany chocolate, cake, or cookies. The reasoning behind the decline in my milk consumption is rooted in a few factors, the largest probably being my relationship and cohabitation with an Asian man. As his consumption of meat has dropped since we started living together, so has my intake of milk.

Obviously, I'm not prepared to defend the claim that my dietary fluctuations are in any way representative so I did some research. A few findings, based on USDA data:

Consumption of milk is dropping

Consumption of sweet dairy products is on the rise

Consumption of savory dairy products is also increasing

Subsidies
Forecasted Milk income loss program payments in 2009: $1.1 billion

The USDA Farm Service Agency's (FSA) MILC Program supports the dairy industry by providing direct counter-cyclical style payments to milk producers on a monthly basis when the Boston Federal Milk Marketing Order Class I price for fluid milk falls below the benchmark of $16.94 per hundredweight (cwt.) Source

Prices (The first graph is 2008 data)

Click here to download:

got_milk.zip (29 KB)

I'm sure I've only just scratched the surface in the depth and breadth of my research, but the preliminary results seem interesting nonetheless.

The data I dug up and presented here shows the trend away from the consumption of unadulterated milk, which seems to coincide with the obsolescence of milkmen. As an aside, there are little wooden boxes with doors that have been nailed shut embedded in the walls beside each door in my building. I can only guess that they were for the daily milk delivery because they're about the same size as a milk bottle (which I'm lucky enough to still be able to purchase my milk in, thanks to Avalon).

Consumption of value-added dairy products is one the rise (although demand for eggnog seems stable), but farmers get a smaller cut of the revenues on the sale of these products as compared to milk. As a result, the overall share of the value transmitted to the farmer is going down.

The interesting thing here, and it is alluded to in the CBC article, is that demand for milk used to be considered inelastic. Milk was a staple - everyone got it delivered to their door on a daily basis and changes in price or income would have very minor impacts on demand. However, an increasing percentage of dairy is being consumed as ice cream and cheese and other value-added products. Demand for these is probably more elastic - as prices rise or incomes drop, people are likely to omit these items from their grocery list. As such, with the recession, it is not surprising that farmers are feeling the pinch and that subsidies are on the rise.

Filed under // food

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September 4, 2009 12:20 AM

vital stats

Leave it to Twitter to raise some interesting questions to ponder. One that came up in my stream recently:

Would you be dead or alive if there was no western medicine during your lifetime?

via @finitor via @iangogame

Having given it quite a bit of thought, I don't know. Before the age at which I can recall events vividly, I had an asthma attack that resulted in being taken to the hospital and given a mask with some meds (I only remember the mask because I got to take it home and we played doctor with it for years after). It was the one and only asthma incident in my life and I'm not sure if I would've died without modern medicine, but it seems to be the closest I ever came.

Actually, the closest I probably ever came to dying was caused by modern medicine. I inherited a lazy eye such that I had double vision until it was surgically corrected when I was five. During the surgery, my heart started beating irregularly and may have stopped for a brief period. After diagnostic testing post-surgery, the conclusion was that I had an adverse reaction to the anesthetic. While modern medicine allows me to see straight most of the time (when I'm really tired, my left eye has a tendency to drift off center to this day - sexy, I know), it also threatened my very existence.

The question also got me thinking about something I've pondered a bit in the past: how has modern medicine impacted gene frequencies within the population? I started contemplating this when a friend of mine was speculating on the reasons for the increased prevalence of allergies amongst children.

source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db10.pdf

I've heard the hypotheses about the links between immunizations, cleanliness, etc. and allergies, but I've yet to be convinced and I'm sticking to my theory: more and more people with potentially fatal food allergies are surviving to reproduce (due to modern medicine) and, as a result, the prevalence of food allergies is increasing. My theory is that modern medicine is to some extent responsible for the rise in allergies. Modern medicine has essentially transformed traits that once greatly compromised a person's fitness into traits that are almost inconsequential from a Darwinian perspective.

Back in the day, if you were unknowingly allergic to peanuts as a child and ate a peanut you'd probably go into anaphylactic shock and die, such that the genes that contributed to the allergy would not propagate. Today, children with severe peanut allergies are more likely to survive allergic reactions (due to advances in modern medicine), learn to avoid peanuts, and live to reproduce. And, the gene(s) responsible for the allergy are more likely to be passed on to the next generation. And so on, with the frequency of the gene(s) and the number of people with the allergy increasing with every subsequent generation.

Just some more food for thought.

Filed under // food science & technology

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August 13, 2009 8:16 PM

fruits of my labour

Click here to download:

fruits_of_my_labour.zip (2221 KB)

Filed under // food

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July 12, 2009 12:30 PM

you don't know what you've got till it's gone

I've added something new to my morning routine - shower, eat breakfast, check email, brush teeth, pollinate, get dressed, do hair, do makeup. If you guessed that pollinate was the recent addition, you're right.

When growing fruit, tomatoes in my case, indoors the absence of bees and other pollinators is an issue. Without spreading the pollen from one flower to another, tomatoes will not grow. The pollination process is not very complicated - I basically poke my finger in all the flowers that are open, starting and ending with the same flower. Seems to do the trick, as tomatoes are developing on my plants.

Having to take time to pollinate, water, and fertilize my indoor garden simply because it is indoors and isolated from the natural environment really exemplifies the extent of the natural processes that we traditionally depend on in the production of food. For the most part, humanity has supplemented or replaced many ecosystem services, such as fertilization and irrigation, by relying on technological innovation and finite resources (such as fossil water and fossil fuels) in order to increase yield. But pollination is one ecosystem service we haven't yet replaced and that we rely on tremendously. To think that our current food supply depends intrinsically on the activity of insects, largely bees, and other pollinators is humbling.

Humans are at the top of the food chain, but we rely extensively on the links in the chain that extend right to the bottom. Pollination is a prime example.

In contemplating the importance of bees, a verse from a well-known Joni Mitchell song entered my thoughts:

Hey farmer farmer

Put away that DDT now

Give me spots on my apples

But leave me the birds and the bees

Please!

Dont it always seem to go

That you dont know what youve got

Till it's gone

They paved paradise

And put up a parking lot

Combined with the recent discovery that bees are on the decline for reasons yet to be fully understood, reading the lyrics to the song left me feeling ... nostalgic. Nostalgic in the sense of "a bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past." Partly because this is a song from my childhood and reminds me of hot summer afternoons on the porch with family and partly because I find myself mourning the loss of the bees in nature (the latter being a feeling in direct conflict with my phobia of bees and other insects with stingers) resulting from what is referred to as colony collapse disorder.

If human activity is causing the decline of the bees, I hope that we, as a society, have the common sense to rectify the situation. Loosing the bees seems like a case of not really knowing what we've got till it's gone. Pollinating ten tomatoes plants manually is one thing - pollinating all crops without help from bees is quite another.

Filed under // family & friends food science & technology sustainability

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June 20, 2009 1:45 PM

seedling (?) status IV

At what point are seedlings no longer seedlings? Somehow, I think that
my tomatoes and basil are now full-fledged plants. They have matured
past the seedling stage. To think that these plants emerged from tiny
seeds about a month ago and that some of them are already flowering
amazes me. Nature is phenomenal.

Click here to download:

seedling_status_IV.zip (1891 KB)

Filed under // food sustainability

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