Fooddoings
with Deb and SteveSunday, May 1, 2005 -- Five Cubic Yards
Once a year, we try to get
our yard layered with about 3 inches of medium grade mulch to help preserve
moisture, cut down on weeds, and to improve our soil. We also use it to
amend our raised vegetable beds to improve output. We got rid of all of
our lawn when we moved into this place, so our current yard includes sections
of "working garden" for vegetables and herbs and sections of
perrenials with birdfeeding sites.
We usually have someone come layer the mulch for us. Two years ago, it
was a lovely hispanic couple who spoke little english but brought their
maybe seven year old girl with them who spoke better english than her
parents. These people did a great job, although the girl got quickly bored.
It was about Easter time so I went to the local store and purchased items
to make an Easter basket with candies and little stuffed animals. I brought
the little girl inside and we entertained ourselves with the Easter basket
and talked about her life. It was great fun.
Last year, though, we were unable to get these same folks and weren't
happy with the way it was spread by the folks who did it, so we decided
to do it ourselves this year. The minimum order from the place we get
the mulch delivered to us is five cubic yards. That doesn't sound like
so much. And, when you watch someone else spread it, it doesn't seem like
that much. But I can now say, with certainty, that five cubic yards is
a virtual mountain when you are hauling one bucket after another; crawling
into the outer crannies of your yard; and spreading that baby down. It's
a mountain that does not appear to diminish over time. It's a mountain
that seems, somehow, to replenish itself. It's a mountain that, you begin
to fear, will never go away. We will have this mountain of steaming mulch
sitting in our driveway for eternity. It is our destiny to keep carrying
bucket after bucket from this mountain until the day we die.
Menial, mindless labor seems to provide Steve with the opportunity to
do mental calculations. Does one bucket carry a cubic foot? Then how many
buckets will it take to finish out five cubic yards? His buckets might
contain a cubic foot, but mine don't. So how many buckets should this
be increased by to compensate for my comparatively meager bucketfuls.
I don't know the correct answer to this, but I am quite convinced it is
WAY more than 135 buckets, which makes me doubt the hypothetical one cubic
foot per bucket in the first place.
Into our second day of attacking the mountain; after we have put a good
three inches over every available space in our yard; and it's still looking
like a good cubic yard remains, the neighbor's yard starts to look good.
Plus, her side bed is right next to the mountain. So we start on her bed.
This was pure genius. Didn't Mark Twain write about this? Pretty soon,
she comes out all happy with us. It didn't take much for her to agree
that, yes, all of her beds could use some mulch and, since she is just
about to have some folks come in and re-landscape her back yard, why don't
we just let them do the rest of it. Yippee! I could have kissed her. What
a good deal for both of us, and I can easily live with a much smaller
mountain of mulch in my driveway for awhile.
We did sneak in another trip to the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning
before attacking the mountain and this is what we got:
A fillet of Oregon King Salmon - caught by the guys selling it. For dinner
last night, we cut this into about 1 1/2 inch slices; rubbed them with
olive oil and an herbed-salt rub; put it skin-side down in a hot cast
iron pan with a little more hot olive oil; let it go three minutes and
gave the pan a shake to release the skin from the pan; turned it after
another minute; put it in a pre-heated 450 degree oven and let it go another
four minutes. Beautiful.
Oregon white truffles - at $6.00 per ounce, we only got about an ounce
which amounted to three little brown knobby tuber-like things. I've never
had them before and wanted to try them. Some say they are almost as good
as Italian truffles. For an accompaniment to the salmon, we shaved these
over fresh linguini tossed with truffle oil, grated parmesan cheese, and
chives from our garden. It was very good, but it did not compete with
my memory of Steve and I eating pasta with truffles in some hilltown in
Italy. Maybe nothing can compete with that first memory. I would do these
Oregon truffles again though. I read that you are supposed to use them
when they start to have a truffle-like smell. And I can't say that these
did. I think I'll keep experimenting with these.
Sugar snap peas - also served with above after blanching, then stirfried
with butter and chopped marjoram.
Baby white turnips - which we plan to serve sauteed along with their greens
and some vinegar and something else probably.
A bunch of spring green garlic.
Fresh chicken livers from our local organic chicken farmer - which I plan
to serve sauteed with the green garlic tonight.
Shitake mushrooms from the mushroom guy - hmmm, maybe with the chicken
livers. (No morels this week. He says next week.)
A bunch of pencil-thick asparagus.
And some German Butterball potatoes.
Next weekend, I'll be down in the Sonoma-Napa Valley area in California
with my friend Joanne, her mother, and her two sisters to celebrate Mother's
Day. I'm sure we will be doing some winery touring and I hope to explore
the local food products there. It should be a good adventure!
Eat well, and enjoy the small things. And Mom - happy Mother's Day to
the best Mom in the world!
Saturday, May 7, 2005 -- Grilling
Deb is out of town for a few
days, with her friend Joanne in Sonoma, California, visiting Joanne's
sister. I'm sure when she gets back, she'll share some experiences from
her visit. In the meantime, I've been having an interesting, if not quite
the fine-dining, experience.
Our next door neighbor Shirley is a woman in her eighties, quite independent,
very much altogether, and a delight to talk to. She owns a bug-eye Sprite
convertible (which I covet) and a Boston Terrier named Schatzie (which
I do not). She shares her house with an old friend of hers named Frank.
(They are just friends, and he has his own bedroom, which Shirley is quick
to point out.) Although Frank is nice too, he is not quite as altogether
as Shirley is. He walks very slowly with a cane, just sort of tipping
forward and then shuffling his feet to catch up. His speech is slurred,
and his memory is pretty spotty. He had an episode a few months back in
which he got all confused and thought Shirley was his sister. He was taken
to the hospital, and although he was released the next day and returned
home with his senses restored, his doctor had his drivers license suspended.
This, however, did not stop him from driving. Because he can barely walk,
and because Shirley doesn't drive (probably because she knows her own
limitations), the only way Frank can get around by himself is to drive
illegally, which he does to Deb's and my chagrin. The only saving grace
is that his old Jeep Cherokee has got some sort of electrical problem
and the battery is usually dead.
Last week, Shirley, who is much more agile than Frank, tripped on a stairstep,
fell down, and broke her hip. We didn't know anything about it until the
next day when I saw Frank in the back yard. Apparently, when Shirley called
for the ambulance (I think Frank was a little discombobulated by the incident),
she told them to turn off the siren when they got close so that all the
neighbors wouldn't come rushing out to see. It worked.
They took her into the hospital and immediately did hip replacement surgery.
When we found out, we went to visit, and found her in good spirits, with
her wig and makeup firmly in place. She was convinced she would be released
in a day or so, at least to a recovery facility, and be home in a couple
more. Her grandkids were looking after her dog, and she thought Frank
would be OK.
When we got home, Deb immediately made a hotdish and we took it over to
Frank, who very much appreciated it. He showed us the step where Shirley
tripped, and I said I would get something to tack onto it to cover up
the loose linoleum. Deb and I promised to ourselves that we would make
sure to check on him every day until Shirley got home, which of course
meant that for some of that time I would check, because Deb was going
to California.
A couple of days later, I got a call from Shirley who was indeed coming
home that day, but she couldn't get through to Frank on the phone, because
the line was always busy. She needed him to move his "blasted car"
from the driveway so the transportation van could deposit her right at
the door. I immediately went over and found Frank in a funk. The electricity
wasn't working, he said, and neither was the phone. Since the lights were
on in the house, I discounted the electricity complaint, so I went to
work on the phone problem. Like most people nowadays, they have cordless
phones. It's much easier for people who don't get around too well to have
phones near them all the time, so cordless makes sense. However, if your
thinking is a little muddled, they can cause problems. In Frank's case,
he knows how to push the button to answer the phone, but he forgets to
push the other button to hang up. So then everyone gets a busy signal.
My problem at this point was figuring out how many cordless phones there
were in the house, and where they were. I found the first one and turned
it off, but that didn't solve the problem. Frank wasn't quite sure, but
he said he'd go upstairs and look around. After the trip up, which took
some time, he hollered down that he couldn't find another phone there.
However, I had the foresight (blind luck) to be playing with the first
cordless phone just then and I could hear him plain as day over the phone.
"Just keep talking, Frank," I said, and I found the other culprit
and turned it off too.
This all took time, and Shirley would be arriving any minute, I thought.
So I asked Frank to give me his car keys and I would move the car out
of the driveway. He agreed, and I went out to move it. You can guess where
this is heading, right? Yup, battery is dead as a doornail. Luckily, the
car is pointed down the driveway, which is downhill, so I roll it down,
make the turn, and put it at the curb. Then I make the mistake of bringing
my car over and trying to jump-start his, which wasted a lot of time and
didn't work at all because his was really, really dead.
Shirley did make it home, and Deb and I stopped over to check (and of
course, to see if we could make them some food). Shirley adamantly refused
our cooking help, saying that she appreciated our help but that she really
needed to do this herself. I know this is her way of maintaining her independence,
and it is really impressive. Just a few days out of surgery, and she's
frustrated at not being able to do everything she used to do.
However, she and Frank often have steaks on the grill, and she doesn't
have the appetite for meat or the energy to prepare things. She said that
not tonight but tomorrow night, could I take Frank to the grocery store
to get some ears of corn, and then grill the steaks for him (and one for
me). I didn't necessarily want a steak, but how could I refuse.
The trip to the store was interesting. (No, you can't smoke in the car,
Frank.) And slow (he did smoke an entire cigarette during the walk from
the parking lot to the store -- all of about ten car lengths). But the
best part was when we were getting ready to go home, Frank said he wanted
to stop at the liquor store because we needed a drink, didn't we? (In
Oregon, you can't get liquor in grocery stores.) The liquor store is right
on the way home, and we pulled into a spot right next to the door. When
we got into the store, the clerk (a nice kid who's always glad to see
you) is already standing at the counter with the exact bottle of vodka
that Frank wants. All he has to do is write a check and head out. "Wow,
they really know you here, don't they," I say, and they both nod
their heads.
This has turned into much too long of a story, but to keep on topic, I
will close with the recipe for grilled steaks I did, which I took straight
from the Weber gas grill manual. They turned out terrific, if I do say
so myself. Mostly because of the quality of the meat Frank and Shirley
had, which was inch-thick, well-marbled beef.
- First, preheat the gas
grill on high, waiting until the thermometer pegs at about 550 degrees.
- Then, liberally anoint
the steaks with salt and pepper, rubbing it into the meat.
- Then lightly spray both
sides of the meat with olive oil.
- Then throw the steaks on the grill, leaving all burners on high and closing the top. At four minutes, turn the steaks over and close the lid again. After about three minutes, use a meat thermometer and check the internal temp. It should be about 140 degrees. Remove steaks, cover and wait a few minutes before eating.
Well, that's it until Deb gets back. Live long, and prosper (or whatever it is that Deb always closes with).
Wednesday, May 18, 2005 -- Girl Meets Vinegar
"Could you help up with some cheese selections?" I call to the keeper of the shop.
The shop is conveniently located on the same block of our San Francisco hotel where my friend Joanne and I had convened the night before – she, coming from Houston, after speaking at an international conference related to the criminal justice system and me, coming from Portland, and a much less glamorous, (albeit less-stressful) life. We are here for Mother’s Day weekend to meet up with her mother from Portland and her sister from Boise at her other sister’s home in Sonoma in order to enjoy the weekend in California wine country.
Our mission, that morning, was to garner a selection of fine cheeses to share with the rest of the "girls" at our first evening in Sonoma. We saunter into the shop feeling confident about our mission and, immediately discover, that this is no ordinary shop. Narrow aisles meander through the interior piled high with a plethora of foodstuffs from all over the world. One wall is devoted to a panoply of fragrant spices and herbs. And, at the back of the shop, is another wall devoted to cheeses of all types, all flavors, all whatevers. We peruse the cheese wall slowly – recognizing some and not-recognizing others. We glance over to a distinguished fifty-something year old man (AKA "keeper of the shop") who was conversing intelligently with another staff person and think "Heck, let’s consult the expert."
He graciously concedes and proves that he does, indeed, know his cheese. After delicately inquiring as to the adventurousness of tastes in his final consumers (very adventurous, we assure him) he proceeds to offer us slivers from a variety of cheeses to taste and comment upon. After much consultation and tasting, we agree on a selection of three luscious cheeses to be packaged up.
Pointing to a different item in the cooler, I ask, "Will this last a day-trip in the car?" upon noticing a perfect little package of white anchovies nestled in a vinaigrette marinade. He confers with his staff. "No, probably best not," he says with regret. Then, sailing down a narrow aisle, says "What about these?" offering a jar of green olives stuffed with the very same anchovies. I accept gratefully, knowing these will be going home for Steve to enjoy in a martini. He pauses, looking at me, and says "Here, have you ever tried these?" hurrying behind his counter and proffering two succulent Mt. Athos green olives stuffed with citrus to Joanne and I. They are big, meaty, beautiful, and suffused with citrus. I nod, saying "Yes. They are good.", adding them to the pile and thinking "Oh, these would be great in a Moroccan couscous."
He looks again at us speculatively and says "You know, I have some vinegars you might enjoy tasting." At 9 a.m. in the morning, you might think twice about this but, Joanne and I look at each other and respond in unison, "Oh yes, please."
He brings out a bottle of Spanish Unio Moscatel Wine Vinegar and pours us each a taste in tiny paper cups. It’s made from Muscatel wine. It is golden amber. The smell is aromatically rich. It is smooth on the tongue and tastes like tart fruit and honey. I think "Vinaigrette with arugula salad and toasted walnuts" and add it to the growing pile.
Like an enthusiastic host, he then brings out a bottle of Austrian Colles Balsamic Apple Vinegar made from the cooked "must" of Styrian cider apples and aged at least eight years in oak barrels. The color is sable brown . It is thick and velvety on the tongue. The aroma is apple-like. It is fruity sweet-tart and gorgeous. I think, " Dribbled over perfectly sautéed chicken livers or in a vinaigrette for baby spinach and goat cheese." On to the pile it goes.
He pauses, looking us over again. "There’s another thing I wonder if you have ever tried," striding down another aisle and pointing majestically at an Aceto Balsamico Di Modena. I feel like swooning. The famous Balsamic Vinegar of Modena Italy – this one from Villa Bellentani. I have read about Modena Balsamic vinegars a lot. I have seen them many times in markets, but there is usually a variety of choices provided and, unquestionably, they are costly. I have never purchased one, not knowing which one to choose and hesitating at the cost. I murmur, "No, I have not, but I would be honored."
He hurries back to the counter and, buried deep in the back, he finds and, almost worshipfully, displays the bottle. We nod. He pours a taste in two more tiny paper cups. The color is deep, deep brown, almost black. It pours like a thick syrup. The aroma is, I want to say almost prunish, but a good prunish. An indescribable aroma. We sip. It is superb – complex, musty, simply a food in itself. At this point, I am almost embarrassed to admit, tears spring to my eyes. "It’s fantastic!" I cry. I lick out my paper cup clean. He glows with my appreciation.
Well, it gets added to the pile as well and, yes, maybe this guy was just a great salesman who knows how to make the sale and knows which customers to mark. But I prefer to think that he doesn’t, in fact, pull out that bottle of Modena Balsamic Vinegar for just anyone. I believe he pulled it out especially for us because he appreciates the great stuff, and he saw the opportunity to share an incomparable taste sensation with some others of equal mind. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
The weekend was great – great food, great wine, great company. I left with treasured memories – I mean, how can you forget a day in Napa Valley, driven by our limousine driver ("Dottie"), tasting and enjoying everything with my good friend, her lovely sisters and their mom. But that vinegar tasting holds a very special memory that "keeps on giving" as we enjoy these outstanding vinegars in our day-to-day cooking. They continue to be a wonderful addition to our pantry and our palate.
You don’t use great Modena Balsamic Vinegar in vinaigrettes or in cooking. You dribble it from the bottle on perfectly roasted fish or chicken; or onto perfectly sautéed vegetables; or even on strawberries or ice cream. You use it sparingly and sigh while you enjoy it. You can’t help yourself.
Eat Well and Enjoy the Small Stuff. Looking forward to North Carolina.
Friday, May 27, 2005 -- The Other End of the Continuum
"It’s over there on the right," I say, as we pass by a prisonlike shopping center that houses the, apparently unnamed, "Hair Salon" along side, the equally unnamed, "Ammo Sales." This is right past Kurt Warner’s Used Car Lot, ( who, as I learned, happens to be a former Seattle Seahawk football star now in his second stellar career) and the "Cigarette City" drive-thru.
We are in Vancouver, Washington, and, yes , Steve and I are on another Field Trip. This one prompted by an article in the June, 2005 Gourmet magazine about, of all things, Wal-Mart and its impact on the grocery industry. This was a very interesting article, of which, I will provide the highlights of. But the field trip was largely prompted by the fact that I have NEVER gone shopping for food at a Wal-Mart despite the fact, as I learned, that Wal-Mart is now the number ONE seller of food in this country, accounting for an estimated 15 percent of all sales. And my failure to shop at Wal-Mart was NOT because of any food snobbishness on my part NOR due to any fashionable hatred of the "evil empire" of Wal-Mart. I’m a girl who LOVES Cost-co, for example. I love the overabundance; the warehouse feel; the just bigness of the whole thing. I believe in capitalism, and do my best to make sure that small artisanal food purveyors and my local "Mom and Pop" store gets my business as well as the large purveyors. I appreciate a good bargain (remember the really large jar of marinated artichoke hearts?) I just thought that, somehow, I had missed the boat about Wal-Mart.
But, as it turns out, perhaps the main reason for my failure to shop at Wal-Mart for food is because there are no Wal-Mart Supercenters in the central Portland area and Wal-Mart sells groceries only at the "Supercenters" rather than the general run-of-the-mill Wal-Mart store. The closest Wal-Mart Supercenter to Portland is in Vancouver, Washington – so a Field Trip was in order.
First, this is what I learned from this article or, at least, what this article claimed:
- In your average supermarket,
consumer choice is a "marginal" factor in the decision as
to what food items you have to choose from on the shelves. A more central
factor might be that the distributor or wholesaler has provided someone
in the retail grocery chain with, say, some Super Bowl tickets.
- "Lots of food companies"
are described by retailers as "just a bunch of thieves." On
top of things like those hypothetical Super Bowl tickets, retailers
are charged fees for promotions, advertising, and "slotting"
(where your product is put on the shelf.)
- In the New York market,
the slotting fee is about $150,000 per item.
- Traditionally, food markets
have made their money when they bought food from the supplier rather
than selling to the consumer.
- This market arena has been
slowly changing since 1988, when Wal-Mart decided to add food products
to its stores. Wal-Mart is, by their report, driven by consumer choice.
That is, if it doesn’t sell, and sell in large quantities, it is
off the shelf.
- Wal-Mart has changed the
general practice of negotiations with the retailer. Wal-Mart does not
accept nor ask for Super Bowl tickets nor does it, apparently, charge
extra fees. Some experts say that the company owes its current astonishing
position with its reputation for transparency in negotiations. As one
professor of food marketing says, "When some suppliers do business
with many of the big supermarket chains, they feel like they’re
being mugged in an alley. Whereas, when they do business with Wal-Mart,
it’s like a championship fight – big and bloody, but they
respect each other in the end."
- So that may be the good
stuff. The maybe bad stuff is the quiet and, perhaps, insidious effect
that Wal-Mart is having on the diversity of our food product choices.
Despite the enormity of its food aisles, Wal-Mart stocks about one-third
fewer food item choices than the average of large supermarket chains.
And, in today's world, if you are a large producer of food products,
"if Wal-Mart doesn’t want the product you make, then, well,
you might as well not make it."
- As a result, food manufacturers
are shrinking their lines: Heinz eliminated 40% of its items globally
in the past two years. That’s huge! Other big producers are also
eliminating items to a lesser degree. Now, some of what’s vanishing
is different sizes and flavors and, of course, Wal-Mart is not the only
reason that companies are slimming down. But, it is undoubtedly a factor,
according to experts.
- And Wal-Mart is growing at the rate of 240 Supercenters a year, with a target of dominating 35 percent of food sales by 2007. Whatever a factor they currently play, it is going to grow.
What does that mean for us? It means, potentially, that consumers of Wal-Mart
can play a significant role in what food items will continue to be available
in the general market. So, what IS currently being offered at Wal-Mart
if, in fact, consumers have driven this selection? And, can I play a role
in this future diversity of food selections?
Thus, the Field Trip.
Vancouver’s Wal-Mart Supercenter probably looks like every other Wal-Mart Supercenter out there. It’s just the first one I have ever been in. It is huge. Looks a lot like Costco except that the grocery section is more like a regular grocery store than a warehouse. Inexplicably, it is housed in the same shopping center as the "Always Food Center" that advertises that "We Sell for Less." (Wal-Mart hasn’t seemed to have driven these guys out of business.) In the store, there are folks with blue uniforms running around with "How May I Help You" printed on the back. Wal-Mart has its own TV Network, so they claim, with TV’s fastened to the ceiling showing the "Wal-Mart Network" offerings. (Kind of like that channel on cable television selling things.)
But, mostly, it’s just like every other big grocery chain I’ve been in. Some of the prices were clearly less expensive. (We did purchase a frozen two pound wild salmon for $6.97 - although the fillet does seem a little thin.) Some were about what else you can get around here. Some seemed high. Some of the choices seemed a bit restrictive. (For example, a very limited range of mustards were available.) Yet, on the other hand, you could buy FROG’S LEGS, BABY OCTOPUS, and BEEF TONGUE –these are not things typically seen in our local grocery stores. (Well, sometimes, you can find tongue, which we love, and deserves a whole story to itself.) AND, you could purchase a variety of JELLO RINGS in individual hard plastic containers, some with fruit and some without, some creamy and some clear gel - which seemed like WAY more choices of jello rings than I could imagine wanting nor is typically available in our local stores. AND, a whole aisle of toilet paper types. (To each, his own.) But, you certainly would not want to purchase any quality olive oils nor vinegars here. Very mundane. And the meat selections (which are all prepackaged thus getting rid of the well-paid in-house meat cutters), contain up to 12% water, salt, and preservatives by weight - which is affecting the choices of meats other supermarkets sell, (at least, according to Gourmet magazine.)
So, I left without any resolved position on Wal-Mart and it’s effect on our grocery diversity. I mean, if Wal-Mart’s food options are truly driven by consumer choice, it’s a bit difficult to generalize who that consumer is. One can imagine someone who enjoys the odd meat item such as frog legs, octopus, and beef tongue, followed by a dessert of fruity jello ring. (We’ll leave the toilet paper out of this.) Or, just perhaps, the jello ring seller did, indeed, give someone in Wal-Mart some Super Bowl tickets. Anyway, at least in the Portland area, which is rich in its variety of food options, Wal-Mart does not seem to be making a huge impact. It’s effect in more rural or less expansive markets is probably more significant in terms of diversity of products offered in, at least, chain stores.
P.S. – Just in case that consumer driven thing is for real, we did buy some beef tongue from Wal-Mart - just to add our purchasing power to the mix.
Eat well, and enjoy the small things (such as field trips to Wal-Mart!)
© 2005, 2006 Deborah Young