Before Food Was Fast

Meditation and Tea

2009-06-06T12:15:00.003-04:00

I haven't posted in almost a year but it is time to start musing again. This morning my husband took my son and the dog for a walk just as I was preparing my tea. My morning tea is a sacred ritual for me. It began in 1989 when I stopped drinking coffee. It has evolved over the years to be as precise and inviolable as any religious ritual. The quest for this perfect cup of tea has become a spiritual practice for me. It reminds me of the preparation for the Eucharist with each step defined and laden with purpose. And in the end there is surrender to the outcome and perfection is grace not of my doing. With every sip is gratitude and a sense of peace at the sameness, for ritual is comfort.

Now, to convert the lofty to the mundane this is my ritual for the perfect cup of tea. I have a 14oz mug, 12oz is too small and 16oz is too big. It is my mug and everyone in the house respects that. I heat filtered water to the brink of boiling. Once the water starts boiling the oxygen in the water is boiled out. The oxygen suppresses the tannins in the tea which make it bitter. So oxygenated water is important. I fill the mug with hot water for a minute or two and then discard it. A heated mug is important because the cold ceramic will leach the heat out of the water and the tea will not stay warm as long. I place two tea bags in the heated cup and pour in the remaining hot water. I steep for exactly 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. My favorite tea right now is Taylors of Harrogate Scottish Breakfast which I buy at Whole Foods. They don't always have it. On those occasions I use Trader Joe's Irish Breakfast which is very full bodied and quite inexpensive. When the timer on the tea hits one minute I heat 60z of Silk Soy Milk in the microwave. I then add the soy milk and two and a half teaspoons of organic, unbleached sugar to the tea. Most days I have an excellent, very satisfying cup of tea. But some days it is perfection. And on those days drinking that cup of tea is a meditation and a connection to my Higher Power.

Quote of the Day

2008-07-19T10:32:00.001-04:00

"Seating themselves on the greensward, they eat while the corks fly and there is talk, laughter and merriment, and perfect freedom, for the universe is their drawing room and the sun their lamp. Besides, they have appetite, Nature's special gift, which lends to such a meal a vivacity unknown indoors, however beautiful the surroundings."

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Dining al Fresco

2008-07-19T10:17:00.002-04:00

It's summertime and in the North it's the time of year when we can dine al fresco. I was reminded last week of a clambake I used to attend when I was a kid. I grew up in Massachusetts on the shore between New Bedford and Cape Cod. Every 4th of July the neighbors would get together and have a clambake. They would dig a pit in the sand and build a fire. They would layer it with seaweed and lobster and steamers and ears of corn. Folks would sit at wooden picnic tables or in the sand, dipping sweet pieces of lobster in to paper cups of salty, melted butter. The butter would get all over our fingers and run down our chins. There is something so primal about eating outside. Something so uninhibited about eating without utensils or four walls. And something so joyful about being in nature. I am so very grateful for those primal, uninhibited, joyful moments.

Quote of the Day

2008-07-13T11:37:00.000-04:00

"To have passion, to have a dream, to have a purpose in life. And there are three components to that purpose, one is to find out who you really are, to discover God, the second is to serve other human beings, because we are here to do that and the third is to express your unique talents and when you are expressing your unique talents you lose track of time."

Deepak Chopra

Late to the Game

2008-07-13T05:38:00.000-04:00

I have a dream of starting a business. It's bigger than a business really. And smaller than an empire. I would like to have a restaurant group; four or five restaurants and an inn. It's quite ambitious for a woman who is forty-six years old and has never owned a business before. I plan to start small with a product I will manufacture and distribute, thereby gaining capital and recognition and slowly, one by one, add in the businesses. As preparation for this venture I recently bought a book written by a man whose restaurants and business model I admire. I am taken aback by how young this man was when he discovered his passion for food, the breadth of his culinary education and his early start in the business. And the question that I keep asking myself is "Why so late to the game?"

It was only six years ago that I finally gave myself permission to claim my passion for food. I was in a restaurant on Manhattan's Upper West Side with some friends. I had just discovered epicurious.com and I was telling my friends about it. I was talking emphatically and excitedly about the ability to search recipes at will and view other cook's opinions about them. I noticed that 15 minutes into my monologue my friends were looking bored. The movie we had just seen needed discussing. I also realized that I could have gone on talking about food for hours.

It sounds benign but it was a life changing moment for me. My relationship with food is complicated in a love/hate sort of way. I began to gain weight at the age of 12. I also began cooking then. I loved to dine out with my father and I was always being put on a diet by my mother. Food began to wear too many hats; pleasure, comfort, companionship, creativity, necessity, deprivation, longing... I'm sure there are more. I loved food but were my feelings misplaced? Eating became a guilty pleasure, a secretive thing. The more weight I gained the more ashamed I felt about my love of food. For many years I did the yo-yo thing and at the age of thirty I stopped dieting once and for all. But it took me ten more years to realize that my passion for food was not gluttony but merely a passion for food.

Ultimately does any of this matter? Perhaps only in my own mind. But I wonder how many of us have passions we never felt permission to embrace and how much creativity has gone unexpressed as a result of it. I think there is an adage that goes something like this; It may take ten years to learn the piano but if you don't start now the ten years will come and go and you still won't know how to play the piano. So at forty-six I am starting my business and trusting it is never too late to join the game.

Quote of the Day

2008-07-11T15:41:00.000-04:00

"We all have hometown appetites. Every other person is a bundle of longing for the simplicities of good taste once enjoyed on the farm or in the hometown left behind."
Clementine Paddleford

Ah, The Cookie

2008-07-11T07:07:00.003-04:00

Ah, the chocolate chip cookie, home-made, buttery, sweet and chocolaty with a glass of cold milk. How much like a mother's hug is a chocolate chip cookie? Is there anything that can take us back to a time when the world was less complicated more than a chocolate chip cookie? It seems not. I read an article this week in the New York Times about the perfect chocolate chip cookie. The article is interesting from a culinary point of view but what is really interesting to me is the 179 comments about what makes the best chocolate chip cookie. That and the fact that for a week it has been on the 10 most emailed articles list. The responses are filled with nostalgia and mother love. And the big debate: chewy v. crunchy.

When I was nine my dad had a housekeeper named Mrs. Weider. Mrs. Weider made the best chocolate chip cookies. They were dense and chewy with a rich, caramel flavor and a smattering of chocolate chips. I dream about those cookies often. They were legendary in my neighborhood. Back in March I had a visit from a childhood friend. She asked me if I remembered Mrs. Weider' s chocolate chip cookies. Thirty-five years later we are still talking about them.

After my friend returned home the conversation about the cookies wouldn't leave my brain. I set about replicating Mrs. Weider's cookies. First I tried the recipe for chewy cookies from Cook's Illustrated. Definitely not the same. Next I found a recipe on-line from Alton Brown called the "Chewy". The cookies are excellent and everyone loved them but I would say they are soft and not chewy.

Yesterday I called my sister. "Do you remember Mrs. Weider's chocolate chip cookies?" I asked. "Of course." she said enthusiastically. I asked if she remembered what made them so chewy but she did not know. We speculated a bit, salted butter, less flour. But we had nothing concrete. I remain undaunted. I will keep experimenting until I am able to replicate Mrs. Weider's elusive chewy cookie. I'll keep you posted.

Keep It Simple Stupid

2008-07-10T09:03:00.010-04:00

The other day I was cruising the TV channels and I came across a Food Network show called "Diners, Drive-in and Dives." They were featuring a Diner called Joe's Farm and Grill in Gilbert, Arizona. This farm grows organic produce that the restaurant then uses. Talk about local. What I loved was that the menu is essentially diner food, simple food. But they have taken the diner food to a whole new level. They make almost everything from scratch including pickles made from home grown cucumbers. What they don't grow they buy from local farms and ranches. It's a beautiful thing to see such common food made in such an uncommon way. This is food the way it was made before food was fast.

Italian Lessons

2008-07-05T10:18:00.004-04:00

When I was twenty-eight I went to Italy. Milan to be precise. It was there I had a food epiphany. I was in a small cafe with an Italian friend. He had ordered us food since my college Italian was far from fluent. My plate arrived and it contained sliced green tomatoes, prosciutto and mozzarella, all drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with cracked pepper. It was accompanied by some crusty bread. I was skeptical. I don't think I had ever seen more naked food. Where was the mayonnaise so ubiquitous in my childhood home?

If you have been to Italy you know the food needs no mayonnaise. This simple plate was perfection. Each item with it's own complexity; salty, smokey ham and cool, creamy cheese. Tart, full-bodied tomatoes with rich, buttery olive oil. All of them stacked on crunchy/chewy bread. Eighteen years later I still remember. It was in that moment that I learned that food is not about gimmicks or sauces or fancy techniques, it is about ingredients. Great food is synergy. And great food is pleasure. I think most times we rev so high and spin so fast and drink so much coffee and eat so much sugar that simplicity is lost on us.

Yesterday a friend told me that it had been suggested to him that he write a business mission statement and a personal mission statement. As I write this blog I continue to refine my mission statement. I think my business and personal are the same. It is still a little ethereal. Pleasure, simplicity and going backwards in order to be present. I will keep you posted.

Longing

2008-06-28T02:57:00.003-04:00

I will turn forty-six in a few days. I don't know if my memories are real or wishful but I remember a time when food was different. A time before food was fast. We had a general store in my home town. It's still there actually. It has unvarnished wooden floors that are worn down in front of the cash register by years of foot traffic. The butcher would grind the beef for us to take home. There was an ice cream parlor in town too. That's no longer there. It had oak booths and leaded glass lights and made the best ice cream, all fresh and different flavors everyday. We would ride our bikes there for boysenberry and peppermint stick and grapenut ice cream. And on Wednesday nights we take it across the street to the band stand where we would listen to what I'm sure were pretty dreadful concerts. But it was a slower time. We didn't have cable or cell phones or internet. We had fresh air and sunsets and ice cream.

My parents divorced when I was nine. I would come home from school and the cupboard would be full of Ring Dings and Fritos. There were always Fudgesicles and Dreamsicles in the freezer. The age of innocence was dead, both figuratively and literally. I don't know when food actually changed. I could look it up easily enough. But for me in 1971 food went from fresh and wholesome and homemade to preserved and packaged and drive through.

So I am nostalgic for a time when food was lovingly and carefully prepared. A time when the foods that were purchased were local or grown in the back yard, free of pesticides and hormones. I long for a tomato that is picked ripe off the vine, not picked a week ahead of time to ripen in the freezer of a large chain grocery. And I want my family to sit down at the table for a meal together without interference from television or soccer practice. I know that time has a way of softening the pain of bad memories and crystallizing the good ones. No time in history is perfect. But we have lost something of the value of breaking bread with each other, good wholesome, simple bread, shared leisurely and with love.