From the website World of 7 Billion: A fascinating wall chart illustrating how we went from 1 billion people in 1804 to 7 billion people in 2011. This chart shows when we began canning and freezing food as well a myriad of other things—not all of them bad—that came as a result of the industrial era.
From the New York Times: Mark Bittman takes on a controversial subject: not letting food stamp recipients buy unhealthy food with their food stamps. He makes a compelling case, and yet in the end I find myself agreeing with the food activist Mark Winne, who has suggested it would be much better to use positive reinforcement and give extra credit for healthy food rather rather than to restrict what people can buy.
Last weekend, my husband, Clif, and I went to our town’s Third Annual Chili/Chowder/Soup Throw Down. The Throw Down was a fund raiser for Keep Winthrop Warm, an organization that provides emergency oil, propane, and electricity to those in need. (So far this winter, 15 families have received aid.) The premise is simple—Winthrop businesses and individuals make chili, chowder, or soup, which is then served in little numbered cups. The admission fee is $5, which allows a person to sample chili, chowder, and soup to his or her heart’s content. Then, when the sampling is done, you pick your favorite from each category and vote.
The event was held at the high school cafeteria, and the place was packed. Not only were there cooks aplenty—spread out with their crockpots across three tables—but there were also plenty of eager eaters. The cafeteria had a good spicy smell, and it was filled with the happy sound of people eating and talking.
The crowd at the throw down
At the throw down, Clif and I met our friends Debbie and Dennis Maddi as well as Jim and Dawna, who brought their granddaughter Abigail. Our table was full of cardboard trays packed with little plastic cups of food. We all had different strategies. Jim just plowed through each cup, one by one, setting aside the ones he liked best. Dennis, making a quip about his OCD, ate his in numerical order. Clif and I, in our disorganized way, just sampled randomly, but we followed Jim’s example of setting aside the ones we liked best.
We were all impressed with the quality of the food, especially the chowders. For chowder, Clif and I really liked the one made by the Winthrop Ambulance Service. (Go figure!) It was a seafood chowder with a rich, deep taste, as though they had taken the time to simmer the lobster shells, just as Marjorie Standish instructs. Our favorite soup was Craig Hickman’s zesty seafood gumbo, chock full of shrimp, lobster, and other good things. (Not surprisingly, each won first place for chowder and soup, respectively.) I hate to admit it, but in all the hubbub, we lost track of who made which chili—there was a lot of chili to sample—but the winner was Burgess Builders.
By the end my tongue was tingling from the spices, and Clif and I vowed next year to share a tray with samples. Those little cups pack quite a punch, and neither Clif nor I could finish all that we had taken.
The throw down made $2,285, which with the price of fuel going ever upward, will be a big help to many families in Winthrop.
Linda Huff and Sarah Fuller from the Green CommitteeAnne Trenholm from Wholesome HolmsteadRosa Stratton and Kim Cognata of The Flaky Tart Cafe
Yesterday was a special day for me. After 3 long years—which included the death of my mother; the decision to stop publishing my magazine, Wolf Moon Journal; my daughter Shannon’s wedding; and breast cancer—I have finally finished writing my young-adult fantasy novel, Maya and the Book of Everything. There is still a fair amount of tinkering to do, and Maya has to go to various readers to check for plot holes, grammatical errors, and clumsy writing. Then, of course, the really hard work begins as I try to find an agent who will promote the book to publishers.
Nevertheless, there was a real feeling of accomplishment when I typed the last paragraph, the last word. And a little sadness, too. I’ve grown quite attached to the characters and to the world(s) I created.
When my friend Kate Johnson heard the news, via email, she gave me a call to congratulate me.
“Now, what are you going to do to celebrate?”
Good question, and for me, a celebration means food. However, yesterday was a noncheat day, so my celebration had to be relatively nonfattening as well as delicious.
Since, as Kate pointed out, maple syrup season is nearly upon us, I toyed with the idea of pancakes, but then I had another idea—a shrimp stir-fry. Both my husband, Clif, and I love shrimp, and as we eat mostly vegetarian, it truly is a treat for us, and one that is not terribly fattening.
I have a handy-dandy stir-fry I make that can take a wide variety of ingredients—chicken, beef, pork, broccoli, mushrooms, peppers, onions, carrots, celery, well, you get the point. I always add peanuts, which I think give heft to a vegetarian stir-fry.
So here are the basic ingredients and technique:
2 or 3 cloves garlic, chopped
3 or 4 think slices of ginger, minced
3/4 cup cold water mixed with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. (Clif likes a sauce with his stir-fry.)
soy sauce to taste
Oil for stir-frying
Chopped cilantro or chives, for a garnish. (Optional but really adds another dimension, as Rosa at The Flaky Tart would say.)
When I use meat (anywhere from a half-pound to a pound), I stir-fry or steam the veggies first and have them ready in little bowls—mise en place—on the counter near my stove. Then, in a big frying pan, I stir-fry the meat, and when it is pretty much done, I add the ginger and the garlic, then the veggies, and stir-fry for a minute or two. Next come the cornstarch and water and the soy sauce. I don’t know how much soy sauce I use. I just shake it in until I get a color and a taste I like. Last added are the nuts and maybe a bit more water if the mixture doesn’t look “saucy” enough. I let everything get hot, thick, and bubbly but not mushy, and serve immediately over rice that I started cooking before beginning the stir-fry. When I have it, I use cilantro as a garnish.
Last night, with the shrimp, I used a different technique. I started stir-frying a quarter pound of sliced mushrooms. When they were soft but not entirely cooked, I added chopped, sweet red pepper (a whole one), and stir-fried them until they were quite soft but not mushy. Then I added the ginger and garlic and stir-fried for a minute or so. Next came the corn starch and water and the soy sauce, which I stirred into the veggies and heated it all until it became thick and bubbly. Finally I added a pound of raw shrimp, which were thawed and only take few minutes to cook. The peanuts were thrown in after the shrimp. (Note: Do not overcook the shrimp. I have learned the hard way that if overcooked, shrimp will curl until it resembles a little rubber ball and is correspondingly as tough.)
Clif’s response? “Pretty darned good.”
And indeed it was, a fitting way to celebrate finishing the rough draft of Maya.
In a recent post, I wrote about my friends John and Beth Clark and how by scouting and scrounging for used books, they have enhanced a very small Maine library and have provided children’s books to their daughter’s classroom in the Bronx, where she teaches. I noted that the lesson of creatively reusing resources could be applied to many other aspects of life, in particular, cooking.
Last night, I made a tomato soup that falls right into this creative reuse tradition. From meals from the past few days, I had saved the water from steaming broccoli and corn, which I knew would make a good base for a soup. I had leftover white beans and leftover pasta. Naturally, I also had “new” ingredients to add: canned tomatoes, carrots, celery, garlic, onion, and rosemary.
Before I even started the soup, a choice had to be made, and I left it up to my husband, Clif. Should I blend the tomatoes in the food processor, thereby leaving the soup a little chunky with the vegetables, or should I simmer everything—except the white beans and pasta—and use an immersion blender to get an extremely smooth soup? Clif opted for the smooth soup with the immersion blender.
What a great choice! After the vegetables, the rosemary, the tomatoes, and the water from the broccoli and corn had simmered for an hour, I put the stockpot in the sink, and blended the mixture until it was smooth. Then I added the pasta and the white beans to the soup, returned it to the stove, and brought it all back to a gentle boil.
“What do you think?” I asked my husband, Clif, as we ate our soup.
“Pretty darned good,” came his Yankee reply, which is extremely high praise. Normally, I get a “not too bad” from Clif.
He even elaborated. “It’s smooth and creamy yet tangy, and it doesn’t have that acidic back-kick that tomato soup often has.”
Clif was right. My guess is that blending the carrots and celery into the soup helped neutralize some of the acidity of the tomatoes. And who knows? Maybe the broccoli and corn water helped, too.
Whatever the case, this tomato soup makes a great base for a variety of ingredients. I had white beans and pasta. Rice and mushrooms would have been good, too. Or barley. And, to really spruce up this soup and make it a company meal, cooked shrimp or sausage could be added to the soup. If you’re feeling really extravagant, then both.
But the white beans and pasta were perfect for a simple week-night supper. I made corn bread to go with the soup, thus compounding my husband’s happiness.
The following is the recipe for the basic tomato soup, with the understanding that a variety of leftovers or ingredients could be added to the soup. I have given a few suggestions, but obviously they are just suggestions. Use your creativity and your leftovers.
Tomato Soup Base
1 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes, including the juice
3 cups of water, ideally from steamed or boiled vegetables
2 carrots, diced
3 stalks of celery, diced
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons of dried onion (See note)
Two sprigs of rosemary
2 tablespoons of oil
Salt and pepper to taste
In a stock pan, heat the oil and add the carrots and celery, cooking and stirring occasionally until the vegetables are fairly soft. Add the garlic and let it sizzle for a minute or so with the carrots and celery. Add the tomatoes, the water, the dried onion, the sprigs of rosemary, and let it all simmer for 45 minutes to an hour. Blend it smooth, using whatever device you might have, and then add the pasta, beans, rice, etc. Whatever appeals to you. Salt and pepper to taste.
Note about the onion: Unfortunately, my digestive system has an extremely hard time with onions. Over the years, I’ve discovered dried onions are an acceptable, if not ideal, substitute. The advantage is, they don’t make me sick. For readers who don’t have this culinary handicap, which I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, it would be easy enough to substitute a medium onion for the dried onions. Chop that onion, add it to the celery and carrots, and let them cook on a very low heat so that the carrots are soft but the onion doesn’t burn.
Yesterday, when I took my dog, Liam, for a walk, the weather was so warm I could hardly believe it. A quick look at the thermometer told me that I should wear fleece rather than wool and that no hat would be necessary.
Not far from our house, the little swamp is still iced-up, and recently a neighborhood boy threw big rocks onto the ice, where the stones sit like sentinels, waiting to be submerged by the spring melt. On the sides of the road, the snow has pulled back so much that not only are the shoulders bare, but the ditches are free of snow as well.
Up the road we went. Finches frisked in the big forsythia bush by the Stebbins’s house. A bird feeder has been placed strategically close to the bush so that between beak-fulls, the birds can dart to safety should they need to do so. As we turned on to the Holmes Road, I thought about maple syrup and Mike’s Sugar House, which is just down the road. Mike should be boiling pretty soon, and I decided the sugar house could be no more than 2 miles from our home.
“We could walk to the sugar house,” I said to the dog, and he gave me his usual perky look. “We will walk to the sugar house when the sap is boiling,” I decided. On the weekends during maple syrup season, the dirt road leading to the sugar house is so clogged with customers’ cars that it’s hard to find a place to park. Walking would be much easier, we would get exercise, and it would be a low-carbon method of transportation. Three pluses. And if I brought one of my trusty backpacks, then carrying the syrup home would be easy.
But yesterday, Liam and I went for our usual walk of a mile or so down the Holmes Road, after which we turned around. By then I was so warm that I stuffed my mittens in my pocket and tied my fleece jacket around my waist. When have I ever done this in February? Never, in my memory.
As we approached the end of the road, I saw Jeff pull his van into the driveway of his house. Jeff is a trim, energetic man, who, as it turns out, is the homemaker of the family. Jumping out of the van, he waved, and his children bounded after him.
“Hello!” I called.
“Hi, there!” he called back. “Do you think I can make meat balls in 60 minutes?”
“Have you ever made this recipe?”
“No.”
“Well, you better get cracking, then.”
Jeff laughed. “These meatballs have both mozzarella and Parmesan cheese in them.”
“Sounds great! Good luck.”
Jeff and his children sped into the house, and the dog and I rounded the corner onto Narrows Pond Road. I was thinking of meat balls and stir-fries using maple syrup.
By the time I reached home, I was definitely ready for my tea and my late afternoon snack of a small bowl of pretzels and an orange. The dog, of course, had hoped for a better snack, but he resigned himself to the pretzels and orange and lay beside me on the couch.
Last Saturday, we visited with our friends Beth and John Clark in Hartland, about an hour from where we live. They had invited us over to their home for dinner and afterwards we went to a community play in a nearby town. Before dinner, we sat in their cozy living room, made even cozier by a pellet stove, and John told us about his new book-selling venture as we ate cheese and crackers.
A bit of backstory first: John is the town’s librarian, and while there are volunteers, I believe he is the only paid employee. Hartland is small and poor, and not surprisingly it doesn’t have much of a budget for the library. Has this deterred John? It has not. He has a knack for acquiring inexpensive books and DVDs, which he either adds to the library’s collection or sells online so that he can then buy something for the library. He acquires the books and DVDs in a variety of ways—through donations and through scrounging at the town’s transfer station (aka the dump). John has become so well known at the transfer station that the workers now set aside books they think he will want. At a very low price, John also acquired the collection of an entire library, which was closing, but that is a whole story in itself, and I won’t be going into it here.
Because of John’s resourcefulness, Hartland library has a decent collection of books and DVDs, and the library has become a real hub in a community that has seen more than its share of hard times. (John has also made the library a welcome place for people just scraping by, who need his help in a variety of other ways.)
After years of scrounging and selling second-hand books for the library, John has decided he likes it so much that he has started a little part-time book-selling business for himself, which he will expand when he retires. (I want to hasten to add that John is still devoted to the library and does all that he can to enhance its collection. He has plenty of energy for both himself and the library.) For his own business, he and Beth go to thrift shops and book sales, looking for items to sell online through Amazon. They make a great team. John has acquired the knowledge of what sells and what doesn’t, and Beth is organized and methodical and conscientious. John has such faith in Beth’s abilities that he gives her money, and on Saturdays off she goes by herself to sales to scout for books while John is working at the library.
Now, the point of this piece is not to brag about John and Beth, although I am very happy to do so. The point is to illustrate how creative resourcefulness, hard work, and team work can enhance the life of a community and a family, and, by extension, the world. (In their thrift store/book sale forays, John and Beth even find children’s books for their daughter Lisa, who teaches in the Bronx.) It shows how one might thrive in a world of finite resources and an ever-growing population, in a world of peak oil and “peak everything.”
Books and libraries are just one example, but John and Beth’s approach can be applied to other aspects of life. Let’s take food, one of my favorite subjects. In a household, a frugal, creative cook can do a lot with basic ingredients and scraps saved from previous meals. I have used the bones of barbecued chicken to make a mostly-bean soup with a zesty broth. Last night, I saved water from cooking broccoli to use as the base of a soup that will include leftover pasta, tomatoes, white beans, and rosemary.
On a broader scope, there is gleaning of fruit and vegetables that would go to waste. On a walk this fall, I went through a little apartment complex with an apple tree, and there, on the ground, were bunches of rotting apples. Perhaps they weren’t good eating apples, but they would have made good jelly. Another way to conserve resources is to make use of slightly outdated food that is still good. There is plenty of room for improvement here, which I have discussed in previous posts. Despite our country’s hard times, we are still a wasteful nation. However, my town’s food pantry and the Hot Meals Kitchen does use food that would otherwise have been thrown out. And, yes, I admire the dumpster divers, who retrieve perfectly good food.
To my way of thinking, the heroes of the 21st century are not people like Steve Jobs, however admirable he might have been. Rather, they are people like John and Beth whose careful and creative use of resources show us an alternative to heedless waste and consumerism. They show all of us that there is a better way to live, and we would do well to follow their examples.
In a recent piece in the New York Times, Dwight Garner reviewed the book The American Way of Eating by Tracie McMillan, who grew up in a working-class home with a mother who was too ill to cook and a busy father who relied on box meals such as Tuna Helper. Garner writes “[McMillan’s] central concern, in her journalism and in this provocative book, is food and class. She stares at America’s bounty, noting that so few seem able to share in it fully, and she asks: ‘What would it take for us all to eat well?'”
In The American Way of Eating, McMillan goes undercover as she picks grapes and garlic and works at Walmart, that store we all love to hate, and at Applebee’s, which some of us hate even more. But McMillan is not just fooling around, and a cook at Applebee’s notes:“You see that white girl work? Damn, she can work.”
Yesterday, my afternoon walk with the dog felt like a mid-March walk, and here we are, in the middle of February. The little swamp not far from our house is still frozen and surrounded by snow as is the stream across the street. But the sides of the road are free from snow, and the weather was so warm that the dirt on the shoulders was muddy, and the dog’s paws were a mess. (Thank goodness there is plenty of snow in the backyard, where he can run off the dirt before he comes inside.)
As we were walking down the Holmes Road, a blue truck pulled along side of us. It was Mike Smith of Mike’s Maple House.
He rolled down his window. “I’ve tapped 250 trees.”
My pulse quickened. “Are you boiling yet?”
“Nope, the sap ain’t running very good.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Mike nodded. “Let me tell you, it’s not much fun tromping through the snow in the woods.”
I shook my head in sympathy and waved as he pulled past me. I bet it’s not much fun being in the woods right now. The snow is slushy and loose, not quite deep enough for snowshoes but too deep to walk comfortably.
The weather has been so mild this winter. What kind of syrup season will it be? Two years ago, we had a winter very similar to this, and maple syrup season lasted two weeks rather than the usual four or five.
Well, only time will tell, but it seems as though sometime soon, Mike Smith will have enough sap so that he can start boiling.
Recently, on his Facebook page, the New York Times writer Frank Bruni grumbled about eating out on Valentine’s Day. I couldn’t agree more. Usually the restaurants are crowded, the wait is long, and the service is at best rushed or at worst abysmal. I would much rather prepare something special at home, and this is what I have done for many years on Valentine’s Day.
For my husband, Clif, and me, steak is a special meal. As a rule, we eat mostly vegetarian, and we usually have steak twice a year, once in the summer on the grill and once in the winter, broiled. A few weeks ago, I bought a big New York sirloin from Wholesome Holmstead, and I popped that steak right into the freezer. My plan was to serve it for Valentine’s Day, and that is what I did.
Really, the meal couldn’t have been more simple to prepare. Clif and I always want baked potatoes with our steak, so an hour before dinner, I put two potatoes into the oven to bake.
“What about a vegetable?” I asked Clif
“Steamed corn,” came his prompt reply. Again, what could be easier? I didn’t even have to mix up a salad dressing. (I am happy to report that finally I have gotten the knack of making salad dressings. Phew! I was a late bloomer on that one.)
We would, of course, want some kind of bread to go with the meal. Recently, I had made bread, and it was still fresh enough to eat untoasted.
Dessert, especially for me on a noncheat day, was a little trickier, but I came up with an idea for a dessert that was not only delicious but would also keep for a while. I could eat a small amount and still be within acceptable parameters for a noncheat day. The solution? Homemade chocolate ice cream, so smooth and rich that it almost tasted like mousse rather than ice cream.
I briefly considered making some kind of wine and mushroom sauce to go with the steak, but here’s the thing—Clif and I have steak so infrequently that when we do have it, we just want to taste the meat. (We have a similar attitude about lobster.) So no wine sauce.
The whole meal, including making the ice cream, took about an hour and a half, and much of that was baking time for the potatoes. There were no annoying crowds, no harried servers. Just me, Clif, the dog, and the two cats.
And the price? Well, for us it was little expensive, and by my calculation the whole meal came to about $25 for the two of us. Not something we could do on a regular basis but well below the equivalent of a similar meal in a restaurant.
After the steak had cooked, I lit the candles on the dining room table. In the flickering light, Clif and I ate our steak and enjoyed it hugely. The animals got their fair share, and when the meal was done and the dessert cups were scraped for the last bit of chocolate ice cream and the kitchen was cleaned, we all headed into the living room for a contented snooze on the couch as we sort of watched the NewsHour. Growling in his sleep, the dog lay in his spot by the entertainment center. The rest of us settled on the couch, me in the corner spot with my fleece blanket and Clif right beside me. The orange cat sprawled on my legs, and the black and white cat was perched on the back of the couch.
A very happy Valentine’s Day for all of us.
A blog about nature, home, books, movies, television, food, and rural life.
Notes From the Hinterland 