Yesterday was another snowy day, another day to shovel the driveway and the paths around the house. The night before, the heating element in my oven broke, and I mean this literally—it’s in two pieces. We had to microwave the shells and cheese that I made for dinner. They were all right but not as good as they would have been had they been baked in the oven. As soon as possible, we will be replacing that heating element. 

Yesterday morning, I woke up to hear how Massachusetts had voted, how they had elected Scott Brown, a Republican who is dead-set against the current health care bill making its way through Congress. What an insult to Senator Kennedy, whose place Brown will be taking. Until the very end, Senator Kennedy worked long and hard on a health care bill that would provide coverage for the middle class and the poor, for every American, not just those who could afford it or who were lucky enough to work in jobs that provided good coverage. Like Moses, Senator Kennedy died before reaching the Promised Land and did not live to see such a bill passed. At the rate things are going, I’m beginning to think most of my generation—the baby boomers—will die before reaching the Promised Land, too. The pundits predict that some kind of health care bill will pass, and I hope they are right. But after yesterday’s election, I’m not so sure. After all, Massachusetts is supposed to be the bluest of states—liberal and progressive. And now this—a stunning reminder of how fast things can turn. 

So gray, gray, and gray. What a difference a day can make. The day before the election, I was so thankful for all that I have, and I wrote about it in a posting. Now, I feel apprehensive. 

I know this is supposed to be a blog about food and eating, and this posting might be regarded as a digression. But is it really? Consider this: According to Reuters, in the United States, one in eight people receives food stamps. One in eight. In supposedly one of the richest countries in the world, this is a shocking statistic. And here’s an even more shocking statistic. A recent article in the New York Times reported, “About one in 50 Americans now lives in a household with a reported income that consists of nothing but a food-stamp card.” This means that every day—at work, at the supermarket, at the library—you will come across someone who uses food stamps. “They” are not only out there; “they” are among us. And, if your luck turns bad, you might become one of “them.” 

So how do food stamps tie-in with health care? In a just society, it’s all of one piece, and what it boils down to is security for everyone, not just for those who are rich or fortunate. Two essential pieces of security are food and health care, and chances are if you have a hard time paying for one, then you have a hard time paying for the other. Conservatives and independents are forever warning liberals about the perils of the United States becoming like “nanny-state” Europe, as though Europe were some kind of hellhole to be avoided at all cost. Funny, but I’ve been to nanny-state Europe, and far from being a hellhole, it is a very nice place to visit, and it seems to be a good place to live, tool.  As many other Americans like to vacation there as well, I can’t be the only one who feels this way. Another interesting fact: Conservatives and independents never mention countries that provide minimal or no social services—countries such as Sudan or Somalia, where life is hard, brutal, and short. Perhaps those who are opposed to social services should plan a vacation in a country that doesn’t provide them. Then they can report back to the rest of us. 

Last night, my husband, Clif, and I discussed the Massachusetts election and the opposition to the health care bill. Clif thinks it all boils down to one thing—overpopulation and a corresponding scarcity of resources. (Indeed, those who oppose the health care bill are primarily those who have good coverage and are afraid their benefits won’t be as good if there is health care for all.) Instead of trying to figure out how to share resources, some people in this country get selfish and downright mean in the face of scarcity. In a way, I can understand it. None of us like to think about living in an age of less. We all like the idea of more, of abundance. But with world population expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, I expect our days of more are coming to an end, if they haven’t already. (I haven’t even touched on the subject of peak oil.) 

So how are we going to deal with it? Like nanny-state Europe, which makes an attempt to share resources and narrow the gap between the rich and the poor? Or, are we going to descend into the worst kind of individualism and disregard the larger community? It really is our choice, and the direction this country is taking is not a promising one. 

A big subject for a gloomy day, and one that is definitely beyond the scope of this posting. Yet it is something we all must be thinking about in the years to come. You can bet I will be, and, of course, writing about it from time to time.

January in Maine means deep winter with the landscape suspended in a tight freeze of snow and quiet. Today, when I look out my office window I see snow falling on trees already white from yesterday’s storm. While it wouldn’t be accurate to say that the landscape is monochrome, the colors are definitely limited—the dark green of the conifers, the brown trunks of leafless trees, and, of course, white everywhere.  

With its service sector economy, Maine is not an easy place to live in the winter when the fuel bills are high, and tight budgets must be stretched even tighter so that families can stay warm. Still, when we compare our situation to, say, the situation of those living in Haiti, we have much to be thankful for. And we cannot help but be moved by the suffering of the thousands and thousands of people who are grief-stricken, hungry, thirsty, and homeless. My husband and I have done our small part to help, and I know this is true for many Mainers as well as for Americans in every state. 

Somehow, then, it seems appropriate in this posting to give thanks for what I have. First and foremost, I want to give thanks that I live in a country with a strong central government that at least provides a certain measure of social services. As my friend Brian Hannon put it in a recent email, “Without our strong, stable central government, we’d be no better off than Haiti or any other messed-up country. Obviously we don’t want to become some North Korean dictatorship, but without strong leadership in Washington, we’d have a lot more problems than we do, social, financial, security, etc.” Yes, we would, and those who huff and puff about the evils of the nanny state should take a long, hard look at what it’s like in countries where governments do as little as possible. Would these huffers and puffers really want to live in such countries? Unless they were tremendously wealthy and could thus insulate themselves from everyday life, I suspect they would not.  

I give thanks for my little house in the big woods. Modest though it is, our house has sheltered my family and me, and it has been a place where our friends can gather. Even though it is small, it has given me “a room of my own” and the quiet I need to work. 

Naturally I give thanks for my family and friends, and I shudder to think what Haitians are going through right now. Bad enough to lose your house; far worse to lose family and friends. 

Finally, I give thanks for my full cupboards, for the bags of beans, nuts, and rice. For the pasta and spices and flour. For the sugar and molasses. For the eggs that come from a local farm. For the big bag of apples in the guest room, which is closed off and cold. For the basket of squash also in the guest room. For the interest, time, and ability to turn these staples into hearty, satisfying meals. Like our house, these meals are not fancy, but they are tasty and nourishing, and they help keep my husband, Clif, and me healthy. 

So much to be thankful for in this long, cold month when slowly, slowly the days begin to get longer.

Once in a while, even as an adult, there is a Christmas gift that you really long for, one that you fervently hope you will find under the tree. So it was this Christmas for our daughter Shannon, and the present was How to Cook Everything by the inimitable Mark Bittman, who writes about food for the New York Times. It might be going too far to say that Shannon and I are Mark Bittman groupies. However, we are certainly enthusiastic fans, and we have both come to rely on and trust his cooking advice. Bittman advocates cooking at home and cooking from scratch using fresh ingredients, but he realizes that in this busy world, few home cooks have the luxury or the time to spend all day with a recipe. Therefore, his recipes are relatively quick—most take no more than an hour to prepare. They are also healthy and delicious. Bittman’s moniker is “the minimalist,” and his recipes are proof that fast food doesn’t have to be bad. 

Shannon works full time and has a fairly lengthy commute—about an hour each way. She and her fiancé, Mike, usually get home at about 6:00, and except for the occasional pizza, they cook dinner almost every night. Therefore, Shannon felt as though she really needed Mark Bittman’s book to expand her repertoire of tasty but relatively quick meals. 

“Do you think Mom got it for me for Christmas?” Shannon asked her sister, Dee, when the two of them went shopping just before Christmas. 

Dee, in turn, tried not to laugh because she was the one who had bought it for Shannon. But all Dee said was, “I don’t know what Mom got you, Shannon.” 

“Well,” came the retort, “if I don’t get it for Christmas, then I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and buy it for myself.” 

When Dee later related the conversation to me, I said, “Oh, she’ll be looking for it among the presents.” 

How to Cook Everything is a big book. After all, it has to be if it’s going to live up to its title. We both knew Shannon would spot in a flash if it was under the tree. 

“Let’s hide it in the entertainment center,” I suggested.  “We can give it to her after all the presents have been opened.” 

This we did, and I must say that after all the gifts were opened, and How to Cook Everything was not among her pile of presents, Shannon’s expression was still cheerful. “I decided to be philosophical about it,” Shannon would say later. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she had received a couple of gift cards that could be used for the book’s purchase. 

Naturally, Shannon was delighted when we retrieved the book from its hiding place, and we gave it to her. She didn’t even scold us for tucking it away where she couldn’t see it.

Now, the older we get, the more we know that presents come and presents go, and even longed-for gifts sometimes lose their luster as time goes by. However, unless I am very much mistaken, How to Cook Everything will be a present that is used for years and years. 

In fact, Shannon has a plan, slightly reminiscent of Julie and Julia. In a recent email to me, she wrote, “I’m creating an Excel spreadsheet and putting all of the recipes and their variations that are in Mark Bittman’s book (excluding anything that Michael and I are either allergic to or know that we’re not going to like—no onion or peanut butter soups!). I’m also breaking them up by the chapters in the book to make them easier to find. I’m up to page 500 in the cookbook right now (I think there’s almost 1000 pages—so about half way there!). And in that Excel spreadsheet I also have for each recipe a column to put the page number it’s on, if Michael liked it, if I liked it, and whether I thought the recipe was good for company or just us. And so there’s no timeline for this—some of the recipes (like a lot of the seafood) are ones that we can’t afford to make right now. But I’m just going to try to make at least two or three new recipes a week and note them down in the Excel spreadsheet so that I can keep track of what I’ve done and what I haven’t. I thought about just writing notes in the book—but with the spreadsheet, it seemed easier to see what had been done and what hadn’t. And also I don’t like to write in books.” 

Shannon has promised to share some of these meals with us, and I will be reporting on how they turn out. 

And based on Shannon’s plans, How to Cook Everything certainly seems to be a gift that, as the saying goes, will keep giving.

I love a homemade cookie.  So, I assume everyone else does, as well.  How can one resist that tempting texture and flavor combination that it seems only a homemade cookie can provide? 

There are several people in my life who are unable to eat anything with gluten. 

This makes cookie baking a bit challenging. I decided to try baking three different types of cookies that would be gluten free to give as Christmas presents to these loved ones. 

It turned out to be so much easier and more satisfying than I had anticipated. 

First, I chose a flourless cookie, a peanut butter and chocolate sandwich cookie recipe I found in the December 2007 Fine Cooking magazine. It reminded me of the famous peanut butter cookie with the Hershey Kiss in the middle, a classic holiday cookie that brings warm memories of childhood celebrations. 

It was easy to prepare and delicious. 

Next, I chose a Ghirardelli Ultimate Double Chocolate Cookie recipe that called for only 1/3 cup flour. I’d made this cookie before using wheat flour and can vouch for its delightful chocolate flavor and chewy texture.  Instead of the wheat flour, I substituted a gluten-free flour consisting of a combination of white and brown rice flour, potato starch, and tapioca flour that I purchased at Anello’s Gluten Free Cafe in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The gracious owner gave me the needed xanthum gum product that “binds” the flour ingredients. You can buy off-the-shelf products in most grocery stores that have similar mixtures, but I love this shop and make local purchases as often as possible. (After the holidays, I went to Portsmouth and found that Anello’s had closed. I hope it is going somewhere else and not folding.) 

Using the same gluten-free flour, I went out on a limb and prepared a slice and bake shortbread type cookie that called for 3 1/3 cups of flour.  This recipe was found in the same December 2007 Fine Cooking magazine, and I added the ginger and cinnamon it suggested as a flavor variation. 

I packaged the cookies for a family of five, four of whom have Celiac’s Disease and must not eat wheat flour. They have a traditional family party on Christmas Eve Day with several extended family members. 

I received a text message in the midst of their party, “My family is LOVING your cookies!”

Merry Christmas to me!!

The holidays are over. I made more chocolate chip cookies than it’s even decent to consider, plenty of peanut butter balls, and lemon-frosted shortbread as well as tourtière pies and potato cheese soup. Clif made—not once, but twice—some of his wonderful waffles. Then there were the home fries and French toast. Our daughter Shannon, who is really getting into the cooking spirit, made us some treats from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. These included roasted chickpeas and pistachios (oh my, they are good!); stuffed mushrooms; an olive tapenade; and a chickpea soup with tahini and cumin. Well done, Shannon! Give this young woman a gold star, says her proud mother. 

A few short years ago, Shannon’s claim to culinary fame was limited to scrambled eggs. Now, there is nothing wrong with scrambled eggs. I like them, too, but they can get a bit tedious if served every night for dinner or supper or whatever you want to call it. But things can change, and so it has with Shannon. She’s gone from being an indifferent cook to someone who fervently hoped that Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything would be waiting for her under the Christmas tree. (It was, courtesy of her sister, Dee.) 

This ability to change, in turn, brings me to New Year’s resolutions. Some people dismiss them as unrealistic, nagging goals that can never be attained and whose only purpose seems to be to induce guilt. Certainly, resolutions can have this effect. But taken in the right spirit, New Year’s resolutions also can be seen as guidelines that encourage us to grow and to become more creative, more mindful. And here’s the good thing about resolutions: whatever progress we make is more than we would have made if we had done nothing. If we fall short—which, being human, we probably will—then there is always next year. 

So in the creative, mindful sense, here are my New Year’s resolutions: 

Buy more in bulk
This can be tricky when there are usually only two people to feed, the way it is in our household. However, nuts, beans, rice, popcorn, oatmeal, and spices are much more affordable when bought in bulk. In fact, so much so that it is often possible to buy organic, even with a frugal food budget. With careful planning and organization, a small family can take advantage of bulk prices. Unfortunately, because I am right-brained and rather disorganized, this one will be a real challenge for me. But this year I am determined to buy more in bulk, use what I buy, and thus save money. 

Cook even more from scratch
Yes, I know. I cook a lot from scratch, probably more than many people do. However, I still have some weak spots, so to speak. The most glaring one is salad dressing. With all the meals I make, you might think that salad dressing would be a snap, but for some reason it isn’t. Somehow, I always turn to the bottled ones, which are loaded with ingredients that can hardly be pronounced and are certainly not good for you. Crackers are another weak spot. Mark Bittman has assured readers that crackers are a cinch to make. Not only that, but they taste better, are healthier, and are much less expensive than boxed crackers. Plus, they keep a long time. Crackers and salad dressings, I will master you in 2010.

Used dried beans rather than canned ones
This corresponds to my buying in bulk resolution. Canned beans have many advantages. They are quick, and they don’t have to be soaked. They can be a last-minute choice, say, when you are really craving black bean burritos. But compared with dried beans, the canned ones are very expensive, and I am a cook with a modest budget. 

Eat less meat
While my husband and I don’t want to become vegetarians, we both want to reduce our meat consumption. The junk that is fed to commercially-raised cows, pigs, and chickens is the stuff of horror stories, and if people really dwelled on this, meat consumption in the United States would plummet. (For graphic descriptions about how our meat is raised read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma or watch the documentary Food, Inc.) There are, of course, healthier ways to raise animals for meat, but this meat is much more expensive, and, as I have mentioned previously, we have a modest food budget. Finally, there is the environmental impact—-the resources and the land that go into producing meat are far greater than they are for growing vegetables. When you consider that Earth’s population is projected to reach 9 billion by 2050, this is no small matter. How are all the people on the planet going to eat? By a happy coincidence, Mark Bittman, in his New York Times blog Bitten (http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/?ref=dining), has recently written about ways to fix lentils, and there’s a recipe for curried lentils with cashews that I’ll soon be making.

Waste Less Food
We all do it. No matter how conscientious we are, food gets shoved to the back of the refrigerator. By the time we come across it, this food has turned an alarming shade of green and has such a horrific odor that it nearly makes us pass out when we open the container. This year, I resolve to have more diligence when it comes to leftovers. Throwing them away is just like throwing money into the trashcan. Then, there is this to consider: According to a recent article in the New York Times, “One in eight Americans now receives food stamps, including one in four children.” In this light, throwing away food seems, well, worse than wasteful.

The quest for true spaghetti carbonara in Maine
I added this somewhat lighthearted one because I didn’t want readers to think it was all resolve and no play for A Good Eater. I love spaghetti carbonara the way my husband, Clif, loves turkey—with a zeal that goes beyond human reasoning. I could eat it once a week, maybe even twice. But here’s the thing. What most restaurants in Maine call spaghetti carbonara is, in fact, spaghetti Alfredo. Instead of being an egg-based sauce, it is made with cream. Now, there is nothing wrong with Alfredo, and I like it very well. But Alfredo is not carbonara, which should consist of eggs, garlic, some kind of cured pork, black pepper, and grated cheese. (I’ll be writing more about carbonara later.) So, do any restaurants in Maine serve true carbonara?  In the course of the year, I’ll be going to Italian restaurants in Maine. I’ll order the spaghetti carbonara and then determine whether it’s true carbonara or usurped carbonara. I’ll be sure to keep readers posted.

For the past couple of years, my husband, Clif, has struggled with high blood sugar, which, as I’m sure readers know, can lead to adult-onset diabetes. Mostly he’s been able to control it with diet and exercise, and often when Clif goes for his checkups, he gets a “gold star” from his doctor. Clif’s weight and blood sugar are exactly where they should be. However, occasionally Clif backslides, and if I’m going to be honest, I have to admit that it’s partly my fault. After all, what’s a husband to do when his wife gives him a sidelong glance and whispers, “Do you want to go to Bolley’s for fish and chips and donuts?” Does he take the high road and refuse? Of course he doesn’t. He succumbs every time. And who can blame him? No man worth knowing is immune to the siren call of Bolley’s, to those hand-cut potatoes, deep fried to perfection, crispy on the outside with just the right amount of give on the inside. To the fresh, flaky fish in a crumb batter so good that we eagerly eat the crumbs left behind. Then, there are the donuts, those tender, sugared circles of fried dough, which taste as though they’ve been fried in lard, even though the owner assures us that they have not. 

When Clif backslides too much, he gets a “wag of the finger” from his doctor as well as a stern lecture about the evils of high blood sugar, which, of course, are very real. Chastened, Clif turns to salads, at least for a time, and brings his weight and blood sugar down to where they should be. 

As every foodie knows, we are now in what might be called the “High Holy Days of Eating,” a time of sweet and savory excess where the appetite is fondly and shamelessly indulged. No sensible person tries to diet in December.  After all, New Year’s Day, with its emphasis on penance and resolution, is just around the corner. Until then, bring on the eggnog and cognac. 

For some inexplicable reason, Clif has chosen to have one of his frequent blood tests and doctor visits in December, and not surprisingly, this is when the wag of the finger usually comes. Last week, Clif went for the blood test, and yesterday he went to his doctor. We had both prepared ourselves for the usual holiday lecture. Instead, what Clif heard was so astonishing that at first neither of us could really believe it. Blood sugar, bad cholesterol, and weight were down. Good cholesterol was up. How could this be? How could this be happening in December, when sugarplums are dancing into our mouths as well as in our heads? 

We thought about what had changed over the past few months, since Clif’s last appointment, and we both came to the same conclusion. The biggest change is that we started this blog, which means that local, made-from-scratch food is absolutely at the center of things in our household. Now, we’ve been heading in this direction for some time. We didn’t, say, go from Little Debbie Snack Cakes one day to homemade carrot ginger soup the next. It’s been a gradual process that has spanned many years. But with this blog—the cooking, the writing, the thinking, the talking, and the photos—everything clicked into place, and intent and practice have finally combined to become a way of life for us. 

Very little of what we eat comes from a box. Bread, muffins, and biscuits are made by my hand and baked in my oven. I don’t buy skim or low-fat dairy products, but they all come from New England, indeed, mostly Maine, including Kate’s butter, which we now swear by. No margarine or butter substitutes for us. Our eggs come from a small farm, and the yolks are nearly orange. In the summer, we buy almost all our vegetables from the farmers’ market or a wonderful farm stand just up the road from where we live. Winters are harder, but we do what we can, and our emphasis is on soup, which we never seem to get tired of. How we love soup—warm, nourishing, economical, delicious, and, again, made by me. 

This posting could go on and on about the various implications of cooking from scratch, eating locally, and their effect on health, both on a personal level and on a national level. There are issues of time, which Americans never seem to have enough of; money spent on food; the advertising and subsequent pull of highly processed food; misconceptions about healthy and unhealthy food; and the role of joy and pleasure in food and eating. The list is long, and no doubt I’ll be returning to these issues over the next year. 

But, in brief, the food writer Michael Pollan is right when he advises, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” For more about this, read Pollan’s excellent In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.  He writes at great length about the health benefits of food that is grown locally, organically, and naturally. As he puts it, we are what our food eats.

Then, for heaven’s sake, if you aren’t already (and I suspect most readers already are) buy as much local food as possible, and go forth and cook from scratch. Your body will thank you.

We had our big party on Saturday night. The weather was clear but cold, the steps were scraped clear, and the driveway was salted enough so that nobody slipped and fell. Halleluiah! Guests started arriving around 3:00, and by 4:00 our “little house in the big woods” had over twenty people spilling from the dining room to the kitchen and to the living room. The house, shall we say, was very cozy and was noisy with conversation and laughter. In short, it was just great.

Then, of course, there was the food. I made potato cheddar cheese soup and my “award-winning” chili (more on that in a future posting). Both went into crockpots, which were then left on the counter so that people could serve themselves. Fortunately, I have a lot of small white mugs, which I arrayed by the crockpots, and by the end of the evening, the crockpots were nearly empty, and there were a lot of dirty mugs. (Thank God for the dishwasher!)

To make more room, we pushed our dining room table into a corner, and onto that table went the appetizers—hummus, cheese, little quiches, a cream cheese torte, crackers, corn bread, spiced nuts, celery stuffed with cream cheese, and more, I’m sure, that I’ve forgotten. As guests came, more dishes were added to the table.

Drinks and desserts were spread out on a counter and a table in the kitchen, and the sweets were just as abundant as the appetizers—chocolate cookies, walnut-filled bread, mincemeat squares, fudge, peanut butter balls. Well, you get the picture. Again, guests contributed much of the food.

The conversation ran the gamut from family to movies to politics to football. Joel Johnson and Chuck Marecic (and perhaps Mike Mulkeen and Bob Johnson) were fairly certain that by the time the evening was over, they had solved many of the world’s problems. My daughter Shannon and I got to discuss one of our favorite books—Pride and Prejudice—with Roger Carpentter. Alice Rohman and I talked about what we were doing on Christmas Day. Food and recipes and this blog were discussed. (Cheryl Harrington commented on my, ahem, enthusiasm for writing about food. It is a charge that I cannot deny.) Alice Johnson, seeing the nearly empty crockpot of cheddar cheese soup, suggested I use the rest as a sort of rarebit over the cornbread. What a great idea, and one I wouldn’t have thought of. And so it went, for over five hours.

After the party was over, Clif and I talked about how grateful we were to have such a wide and interesting assortment of friends who would come out on a cold afternoon and evening to spend time with us. What a blessing!

And, as an added bonus, a number of friends have pledged to send me recipes. If I’m lucky, I might even get some of them before Christmas. I’m especially working on Alice Johnson and her spiced nuts, which would make wonderful presents to nut lovers on anyone’s gift-giving list. In fact, Alice has promised to send the recipe as soon as her Christmas packages are mailed. So stay tuned.