Eating Dirt

Chicken Soup - april 19 2013

Did you read the New York Times piece on the science of junk food from a few weeks back? I did, and it left me feeling outraged and insulted. While I’ve know for years that processed foods taste different than homemade foods, often aren’t as healthy and require resource intensive packaging, I’d never fully realized just how much effort goes in to manipulating me and my family into buying these things. And the worst part? It is all done under the guise of helping out with our busy lives and giving us better food options, when the real reason is none other than to increase the profits of businesses.

When this and so many other things seem wrong and crazy, especially on a day like today as a nightmarish manhunt is going on in Boston, searchers are seeking survivors from an explosion at a fertilizer plant in Texas and more international cities than I can list are similarly exploding with violence, I need to hunker down and comfort myself with food. Sharing something that is delicious, nourishing, pure and easy to make is the best solace I have to offer on dark days, and helps to alleviate my own feelings of powerlessness.

 

Indian Spinach - may 4, 2011

Sometimes dinner needs to be fast and furious, and a plan made in haste can go badly awry. But occasionally a crazed forage through the pantry yields exciting surprises, like last night. In this case, Nigel Slater's Indian Inspired Spinach and Potatoes were on the menu (from Tender, my second favorite kitchen garden cookbook), but after dumping my son in front of TV and gearing up for dinner, I found no spinach and only a single potato in the house. Luckily, we had some sweet potatoes leftover from a past CSA box, fresh chard, spring onions and green garlic, all of which remade a semi-traditional take on saag aloo into a delightfully Springy Californian version. For a little extra protein that the kids would eat I warmed some frozen chickpeas with a little bit of curry powder and tossed those on top.  

Gnocchi Soup with Chard or Fun with Snakes - january 22, 2011

I may sound out of my head when I say this, but I had a great time making homemade gnocchi with my 3 1/2 year old son last week. It was the most enjoyable cooking experience I’ve shared with either of my kids so far. While I like to get messy and watch them engage their senses, I am not an unusually patient parent, so fully enjoying their help in the kitchen doesn't really happen very often. Anyone who has attempted cooking with young kids will probably know what I mean.