Eating and Writing

It's a Pie Thing

Pie Lovers United in Ypsilanti, Michigan on Saturday, September 1, 2007!

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, first you must create the universe.

-- E.O. Wilson

If there is a sensory pleasure better than wrapping your mouth around sweet, warm fruit swaddled in a crisp pastry crust, it hasn't been invented yet. And if there is a gesture than conveys more caring than a freshly baked pie in front of an expectant table of family and friends, it can't compete. Human history's greatest…

9/10/07 6:27 PM

Pie for Strength

"By the turn of the century, it was not unusual for an American to eat a slice of pie daily. In 1902 when an Englishman suggested this was gluttony and that, perhaps two slices a week would be plenty the New York Times responded thusly:

'It is utterly insufficient...as anyone who knows the secret of our strength as a nation and the foundation of our industrial supremacy must admit. Pie is the American synonym of prosperity, and its varying contents mark the calendar of the changing seasons. PIE IS THE…

8/22/07 11:29 AM

Soylent Green: Why Go on a Slow Food Farm Tour?

Steve Toth at The Blueberry Patch

Soylent Green. That has to be what they're selling in grocery stores now. Marion Nestle, author of What to Eat says there are more than 30,000 different products in any good-sized grocery. Our ridiculous laws about information on food packaging mean that as a consumer you can't really know what exactly is inside. It might well be Soylent Green. You should look and try to find out. Where do Doritos come from and what exactly are the origins of the things that grew to make them? Except for the produce…

8/15/07 6:07 PM

Meditation on a Tomato

Tomatoes, corn, basil. The summer trifecta. The real summer ephemerals. Daily happiness for about 1 or 2 months, then gone for another year. Everyone has the experience of looking forward to and waiting for your own county's tomatoes and corn to be ripe - because they are the best. Wherever you are, the ones from the farmstand down the road are the best in the entire country. Period. They just are.

What I wonder about us as Americans, is why we're so easily pacified with inferior substitutes for …

7/30/07 1:03 PM

Press On

"Press on: Nothing can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

-- Calvin Coolidge

7/20/07 1:19 PM

Eating Local in Ann Arbor - Redux

A few weeks ago at the end of April, we tried the Eat Local Challenge to see if my husband and I could eat food produced locally, within the $144 weekly budget of the average American 2-income family. I started out by making a list of what's available locally in Michigan in April and then arranged those ingredients into dishes and meals that we would make. On the menu were things like Leek and Potato Soup, Eggs and Sausage, Lamb Stew, Spinach Quiche with Bacon, Roasted Root Veggies, and Rhubarb Pie!

…

6/18/07 6:10 PM

Michigan Dairy - Of Artisanal Cheeses

Yes, Virginia, there is a Michigan Artisanal Cheese. And surprise - according to the Michigan Department of Agriculture, Michigan is the 8th largest producer of cow's milk in the country, with 300,000 cows producing 5.7 billion pounds of milk. While everyone in Michigan probably knows about Pinconning cheese produced on a massive scale and sold in hard orange vacuum packed bricks, less well-known is that Michigan also has a few small scale cheesemakers turning out some very unique regional specialties.…

6/18/07 6:09 PM

Harbinger of Spring - The Farmer's Market

There is joy in Muddville when the first robins materialize, the first crocus blooms and the first spring offerings appear at the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market. For those of us who spend the cold months hibernating inside, swaddled in woolens, and finding solace in pots of hot soup, Market days in early spring are the grace for our penance.

Ann Arbor residents have been buying fresh from the farm at the Farmer’s Market for almost 90 years. When it started in 1919 it was situated in front of the courthouse…

6/18/07 6:08 PM

Building the Beloved Food Community

“Slow Food" is a phrase that gets a quizzical glance from most of the people I mention it to. It has a kind of oxymoronic ring to it but, like Global Warming, it's just a simple way of referring to a multi-faceted idea. The Italian founder, Carlo Petrini, says “The Slow Food principles are that food must be good, clean and fair." To me it means something both my reptilian brain and my evolved brain can grab onto: it's delicious and delicious in a number of ways that make a difference.

Yes, food can be…

6/18/07 6:00 PM

Greens - Leaves of Not Grass

In meditating upon the nature of edible leaves, the thought bubble above my head says that these early spinach leaves (like everything else) are recycled from everything and everyone. The idea that I am eating a small part of everything that has ever been on the earth and perhaps of every person who has ever been here too is a thought too deep and profound to sustain. My thought bubble happily floats back up to figuring out what's for dinner, if it's only greens that we're eating rather than the totality…

6/2/07 12:00 PM

Farmer's Market in June - Tantré Today

Our first box of Tantré vegetables arrived today. We will be tingeing green from eating many, many leaves. Including: beet, radish, turnip, bok choy, arugula, spinach, spicy, and 2 kinds of lettuce. There is about a laundry tub full of greens to wash. My favorite technique: fill a clean sink with cool water, remove any roots, inedible stems, or particularly dirty bits, submerge. Rinse greens then repeat, refilling sink with clean water. The repeat step is important. I hate the crunch of sand in my food! …

6/2/07 11:39 AM

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Steve Toth at The Blueberry Patch