Well it’s the end of the year and we are into a bit of cleaning out mode. So my job today is to sit back with a glass of Torii Mor 2014 Viognier and go through some Wine Spectator mags, tough job but someone has to to it. theWinesketcher is always up to the job at hand.
Mac and Cheese
My never ending quest for Mac and cheese just found an addition to the really good category. At Moonshine BBQ in Lynnwood. 
You are what you eat. So what are we eating?
I challenge you to read Omnivores Dilemma, Fast Food Nation, and Pandora’s Lunchbox and not change how you eat and view the food industry. I read all three this year and I cannot eat like I once did.
Omnivores Dilemma
Omnivores Dilemma reveals the pervasive intrusion of corn into our food. This is not the wonderful sweet corn that I grill in the husks with butter and chili powder, accompanied by a summer lager, a treat to be savored. No this is the Monsanto/Cargill, GMO modified, non-food, that is called corn, but other than appearance has little in common with my grilled treat.
This corn is bred to be resistant to Roundup, the weed killer that just coincidently is manufactured by Monsanto. This stuff is inedible as it comes from the plan, it is industrial and represents the majority of the corn grown in this country. If you plant kernels of the sweet corn, you can grow more sweet corn, but not this Monsanto aberration, it is designed to not reproduce. Yet Monsanto will graciously sell you more corn seed next year, along with their Roundup, lining their coffers with profits which increase thanks to government subsidies.
This corn is fed to over 80% of beef cattle to quickly fatten them, but of course cattle can not digest corn, they resist it to the point of getting sick which requires antibiotics just to keep them alive, but get fat they do, and in record time. This corn is turned into corn syrup, of little to no nutritional value, yet it is a component of most of the processed food we eat.
The alternative – eat local, eat organic, eat healthy.
Fast Food Nation
Drive down any main street in most any city, chain restaurants abound – burgers, Mexican, Italian, Seafood. The convenience is attractive, the signs and decor are enticing. But, behind the signs and the convenience is an industry that has changed our world and not for the better.
The beef comes from an industry dominated by, what a surprise, Monsanto and Cargill. Cattle that are mistreated and almost force fed, employees that are treated as inhumanely as slaves. Employees are paid the bare minimum while the companies receive government grants which enables them to pay low wages and offer few benefits. The whole operation makes the “Iowa corn fed beef” slogan sickening.
Our desire for cheap fast-food has created a food industry that mistreats animals and people, promotes e-coli, while delivering a product that has increased obesity at epidemic rates.
The response is simple, “Friends don’t let friends eat fast food or at big chains.”
Pandora’s Lunchbox
This book explores the chemistry and processes of the additives and ingredients in processed food. Things that sound healthy may come from questionable sources.
Vitamin C sounds good, it is actually ascorbic acid, natural in chilis and citrus to name just two Yet most of the Vitamin C added to our food comes from China. They buy the majority of the wool that is sheared from Australian sheep. It is the lanolin in the wool that is converted into ascorbic acid through a process using some pretty nasty chemicals, then added to our food.
The author of Pandora’s Lunchbox has kept quite an inventory of processed foods, some for many years, it does not spoil. Bread and cheese that does not mold, it is like plastic, and sadly edible. The choice is eating a mouth full of manufactured chemicals that have little to do with actual food, or eat real food.
There is only one conclusion, food was meant to be grown, harvested, and consumed locally. Sadly, we have sacrificed convenience and cheap, for health, humane, and sustainable.
There are some glimmers of hope. That bastion of fast food, the original franchise, McDonald’s is actually changing ever so slightly. WalMart, known for how poorly they treat their employees in the pursuit of profits, is actually selling organic and local in its stores. Even Tyson, the embodiment of cruel treatment of birds, is making some subtle changes in caging. These are not big, and not near enough, but could it be that consumer demand will one day change the food industry?
In the meantime, eat local, eat organic, eat humanly-treated, and for the health of you and your family stop eating processed, big food industry products. Tell others, and send a message to big food by not spending your money. You are what you eat, really.
Polcari’s Italian, Woburn, MA
This is an old Italian American place, we don’t have these in Seattle. Good house Chiante, and Spicy Diavolo flatbread.
Food, a celebration of Gratitude
It is Thanksgiving morning and the preparations are well under way. Every dish is a reminder of how much we have to be thankful for.
The turkey has been in the brine since yesterday morning, this is Tricia’s one day a year for turkey, but I have never had better, she does it so well. The brine has apples, rosemary, herbs, mustard seed, fennel seed, onion, cranberries, a bottle of white wine, and probably a lot I am forgetting. Then she will put herbed butter under the skin.
Don’t overcook your turkey, 163F is perfect. The days of cooking turkey for 5 hours like they did generations ago are gone, it only dries it out. If gravy is the only way you can swallow the turkey it is overcooked, it should be juicy and flavorful.
I baked skillet cornbread for individual puddings that will be stuffed with collard greens. We boiled and mashed the potatoes that will be used for a potato casserole with a parmesan-butter-breadcrumb crumble.
Tricia made her fabulous cranberry sauce, none of that canned jellied stuff, her’s is cooked like you would jam, with Chambord Liqueur added.
We picked out a bottle of a 2010 D’Alfonso-Curran Pinot Noir from Sta. Rita Hills, California.
I think someone is bringing pumpkin pie, but desert is never high on my priority list so I am not sure.
So all that is left is a bit more cleaning – windows in the dinning room, mop the floor, blow the leaves off the driveway – then it is down to the final prep.
Wherever this day finds you and however you celebrate, alone or with others, take a moment to be grateful for all that you have. I am reminded of the Psalm, “He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Even when life is hard there is much to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving from theWinsketcher.
Wines Not To Drink For Thanksgiving
Pinot is good, be sure its from Oregon
Thanksgiving is this week here in the U.S. and that means that just about every wine blog in the country will have a post on what wines to serve at Thanksgiving. They will all cite the fact that it is near impossible to find a single “perfect” wine that will pair well with all the foods that will find their way on to the table.
And they would be right.
I would hazard to guess that most wine people spend more time figuring out what wines to consume on Thanksgiving than they will spend exercising the following month trying to burn off all those extra calories consumed.
I say: don’t waste your time, as there is no “perfect” Thanksgiving wine. Instead, follow these simple guidelines on what not to do.
Don’t be bold: Unless you are at home and can go down into the cellar to grab something else, now is not the time…
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Share a meal with a friend
Over the last twenty years or so I discovered genuine cooking. Growing up in the 50’s and 60’s I experienced, unknowingly, a transformation that made the task of family food preparation easier and less expensive, while sacrificing quality and health in the process. Processed food must have seemed like manna from Heaven, it was cheap and easy to a generation that was still reeling from the shortages and rationing of the depression and a war.
My cooking ancestry comes from a family of migrant farm workers, and immigrant homesteaders that moved to the big city of Portland, Oregon. My perception, some six decades after the fact, is that the Portland branch, my fathers side, approached food from a utilitarian perspective, they ate to live, food was a necessity, and simplicity with economy was the objective.
The first great cook I remember was my Grandma, my mother’s mother. Two foods stand out, her homemade bread, and her turkey with egg noodles. Grandma grew up in Nebraska, she lived through the dust bowl; she learned how to cook when ingredients were scarce and limited. Like centuries of cooks before her, the most amazing meals were born from poverty.
The smell of her fresh baked bread is as vivid today as it was all those years ago, a thick slice while still warm, loaded with butter; thankfully we were not concerned in those days with fat and cholesterol. She made “egg noodles” – any chef would be impressed – eggs and flour, a bit of salt, rolled by hand, no pasta machine for her. Boiled quickly, then served with a wonderful sauce of leftover turkey and gravy, a comfort food I have not had in at least 40 years.
My mother tells people that I liked to cook when I was 12, I do remember it vaguely but until I was in my late thirties I must confess Hamburger Helper and instant Kraft Au-gratin Potatoes were common, even Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Such is life, economics, and reality.
Then Tricia came into my life. She has been fascinated with food her whole life, has a degree in food science from Central Washington University, and is so realistic about food, it must be good, and in moderation. Our early meals were eclectic, a mix of creative cooking, and sadly more processed than we would ever do today. But someplace along the line we became foodies.
I started traveling, eating at better restaurants, we ate out a lot and traveled, we watched cooking shows on PBS, trying out new recipes; we were transformed. Today food and wine are our hobbies, and what a wonderful hobby it is.
Our best times are cooking together, eating together, and talking. We are devoted to local, organic, humane, and sustainable food. When we travel we shop at local markets, look for restaurants that don’t have the menu in English. Food brings us together, it is what calms when there is stress, encourages conversation, makes us laugh, and how we show we care.
My advice to couples is learn to cook, it’s not that hard. Pour a glass of wine, put on some music, cook together and talk. Set aside the worries and frustrations of the day, even those issues that all couples deal with, and cook, and eat, and talk. From the beginning of time meals have brought people together, it still works. We need our relationships in these stressful times, so share a meal with someone you care about, in a small way it adds to the peace we so need.
Eyeopening day in Genoa,
For some reason, obscure I am sure, when the idea of visiting Italy came up I was always hesitant. As ridiculous as it sounds all I can connect it to was their trains. Someplace, sometime I heard that the trains in Italy were not punctual and they were dirty. Thus my astute conclusion was is that was what the whole country was like.
I have never been on the trains but thankfully in September I had one glorious day in Genoa, it was an eyeopening day. How could you not love this city?
My best guess it that I wandered over 12 miles of the winding streets, sat and sketched in plazas, ate pizza and sipped wine and Italian beer. I even embraced the coffee shops. It was a wonderful day. Now I can’t wait to get back and explore more of the country.
I will let you know about the trains, but my old prejudice toward Italy has been replaced with appreciation.
I changed the site name
Welcome to Been there Eating this – the new name for my travel and food blog. For some time it has bothered me that my old site, Been There Reading This was not quite right as I had not posted a book I was reading for a long time. What I write about here is travel, food, and wine, so the name change makes sense. All of the old blogs are in the process of being imported, so if technology works all will be well.
Faites Votre Choix….
This is a delightful read
My friend and Napa county neighbor, the Traveling Wine Chick, had the winner’s honor of picking the theme for this Monthly Wine Writing Challenge #MWWC19 . I can only hope the dissertation I am about to put forth is worthy of her motif – “choice.”
I had the good fortune of being a guest at the wedding of two dear friends in Biarritz, France. Merely a week from this last Saturday, I was strolling the gardens and walking the halls of a beautiful chateau on Lac Brindos surrounded by nuptial brilliance and celestial beauty (the wedding designer is genius and there was no expense spared for this union.) I could go enviously on and on and on giving you enough time to stitch a voodoo doll of my likeness, but I shall refrain.
Biarritz is a gorgeous seaside city on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast in southwestern France. A luxurious destination that is popular with tourists…
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Been There, Eating This 