Soup, (Sometimes) Glorious Soup

An apology to my regular readers (meaning, my mother) for not updating sooner. It's been almost two months since I last posted an entry, due to a variety of reasons, but I'm recuperating from a cold today and actually have a topic to discuss, so here I am.

I used to love just about any kind of soup, but for reasons I haven't quite been able to put my finger on, that love sort of died away as the years have passed. There are a couple of types of Campbell's soups I still am in the mood for now and again, and they are: Bean with Bacon and Split Pea. Otherwise, I much prefer homemade soups, but I don't make them very often, even though they really couldn't be easier. Every now and again I get a burst of energy and make homemade chicken stock, and I always congratulate myself when I do (even though I feel wasteful when, per Crescent Dragonwagon's instructions, I toss out the entirety of the chicken at the end, since as she correctly points out, by that time it's just "tasteless fiber"). Most of the time, though, I just use Swanson's Organic, and it's fine for most soups.

Now that the temperatures where I live may actually get below 80 degrees during the day (or so the meteorologists promise me), soup is a little more palatable. When it's 90 degrees outside in October, a steaming-hot bowl of anything isn't that appealing. But when it's cooler and/or when I'm sick, like today, not much sounds better. Today I adapted an asparagus soup recipe from Nathalie Dupree, and I couldn't have been happier with it. So, here it is:

Asparagus-Leek Soup

1 bunch asparagus, cut into about 2" pieces

1 leek, white part only, thoroughly washed and sliced into half-moons (or chopped, whichever you prefer)

1 Tbls. butter

1/4 tsp. fresh tarragon, chopped (if you don't have fresh in your garden like I do, I wouldn't run out and buy any for this; it's totally optional)

3-4 cups chicken stock, depending on how "broth-y" you like it

2-4 Tbls. heavy cream

Salt and pepper

1. Melt the butter. Saute the vegetables and tarragon in it for about ten minutes or so, until they're nice and soft.

2. Add the chicken stock and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the vegetables are completely soft. The asparagus may also be an unattractive grayish-green, but don't worry, somehow it all looks better after step #3, which . . .

3. Puree the soup in a food processor. Because the asparagus is fibrous, stick blenders really don't work, and even though I have a super-nice KitchenAid blender, I wouldn't trust it with this job either. Food processor it is, and puree to the texture you like. I like this soup pretty smooth.

4. Return to the pot and add the heavy cream. Start with the 2 Tbls. and see how you like it; you might want to add more, then again, you might not. Season to taste and serve hot.

Serves 2, but you'll probably want some bread alongside, or maybe a small salad. Although what I really want right now is a chocolate milkshake.

The Buffet: Only Good In Theory

In 2000, we visited Las Vegas for the first time, and a love affair was born. No, not between me and my husband (or either of us and anyone else)--between both of us and the city. Specifically, between us and the casinos. We have been every year since then and have yet to go see any of Vegas's famed shows--not Mystere, not O, not Celine Dion, no comedians, nothing. All we need are a craps table (him) and video poker (both of us) and slot machines (me, though Fred has been known to play them despite disdainfully referring to them as "drunk monkey machines," i.e., even a drunk monkey can play them). We also don't go to any of Vegas's famed high-end restaurants, preferring to use that money for gambling. It took a few years before we even tried one of Vegas's most famed fixtures: the buffet.

Here's our problem with the buffet: we can't and won't eat "enough" to make it worthwhile. In theory, a buffet sounds wonderful--unlimited choices for a reasonable price. The problem is, a lot of people seem to focus on the "unlimited" part as it comes to quantity to consume, not choice of what to consume. Plus, if you're going to try a variety of items, then each choice needs to be small, as in, having one slice of bacon and not six.

One thing that has seemed fairly consistent in the buffets where I've eaten (not just Las Vegas), is that the desserts are plentiful (probably because they're often cheap to make). However, they rarely seem to be any good. Dessert seems like an afterthought--just throw some cookies out there and some vaguely cheesecake-looking slices of cake and people will eat them just because they want something sweet. Personally, I would rather not waste the calories on something that isn't very good.

And so we come to today's recipe: a cookie that is good and that would be worth having even at the end of a generous buffet meal. My grandmother used to make a similar recipe and her recipe card called them "Cookies While You Sleep." Basically, they're a meringue cookie with chocolate chips. Supposedly, meringues aren't good when it's humid, but I live on the Texas coast so dry days come along once in a blue moon. These probably turn out crisp instead of chewy in dry climates, but I like them either way. I adapted this recipe from one of Kathleen Daelemann's.

Cookies While You Sleep

2 egg whites, room temperature
1/8 tsp. salt
6 Tbls. sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. almond extract
6 ozs. milk chocolate chips, frozen
1/2 cup pecans

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.

Toast the pecans in a dry skillet over medium heat until fragrant, about 10 minutes. Put the chocolate chips in a food processor and chop up until they're basically grated but still sort of look like chocolate chips (the reason they should be frozen is so that they'll chop more easily). Remove them to a bowl. Put the pecans in the processor and process until they're finely ground.

In a stand mixer using the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites on medium low speed until frothy. Add the salt and whip until stiff peaks form. Add the extracts. With the mixer on high, gradually add the sugar until you have stiff, glossy peaks. Fold in the chocolate chips and pecans.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and drop the cookies by tablespoonful. Since these do not spread, it's okay to have them close to each other. Turn off the heat as soon as you put the cookie sheet in and let them sit in the oven overnight. It wouldn't hurt to tape a note on the oven door reminding yourself that they're in there, as I have preheated the oven in the past, forgetting about a tray of these.

The Sweet Tooth On A Small Scale

As I get older, I'm discovering that I like the idea of dessert more than I actually like dessert itself. At least, when I eat in restaurants, I don't have any appetite left at the end of the main course; I tend to prefer to spend those can't-afford-'em-anyway calories on appetizers, since I like salty and savory more than sweet. This is not to say that I can't be lured in by the dessert menu, but I've noticed over the years that my interest in anything that could fairly be called Chocolate Extravaganza or the like is waning.

I'm more likely to eat sweets during the day as a snack, rather than as an end-of-meal finish. I rarely bake cakes, as Fred doesn't like cake and I have this belief, perhaps untrue, that I can't freeze an iced cake. He loves cheesecake, but I don't, so that's also only a very occasional treat. Pies are better in theory than in execution, and even if I do want a piece of cherry pie or lemon icebox pie or the like, with just the two of us, both being indifferent to pie, there's not much point (I'd rather have a quiche if I'm going to the trouble to make a crust). Now, frozen desserts like grasshopper pie--that '70s delight (or perhaps earlier?) involving creme de menthe, marshmallow fluff, heavy cream and Oreo cookies--are nice to have around, but again, I prefer not to have a whole dessert sitting in the freezer "needing" to be eaten up.

My sweet snack solution tends to be cookies. It's often easy to halve the recipe, and many doughs can be portioned out and flash-frozen (i.e., put the balls of cookie dough on a sheet pan, freeze them for about half an hour or so, until hard, then place them in a freezer bag, to be baked a few at a time). This way you're not stuck with two dozen or more cookies that will inevitably turn stale before you can finish them.

And, it's hard to beat bar cookies for ease and convenience. They're typically very easy to mix up, you have one pan, not multiple sheets going in and out of the oven, and there's no need to cool the cookies on a rack first. Once the bar cookies have cooled, you can just cut them up and freeze them in one bag, removing one at a time to heat in the microwave.

For me, an ideal bar cookie involves chocolate chips but rarely nuts. I usually don't care for raisins either (I'm with Fannie Flagg, who wrote in her "Original Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook" that she spent the better part of her childhood removing raisins from bread puddings, rice puddings, cereals and cinnamon buns, and her cookbook was her revenge); however, in the recipe below they're nice. I do like Chunky bars so that was what I had in mind adding raisins (mixing chocolate chips and raisins, that is--nothing more complicated than that). I adapted this recipe from variations on a theme by Diane Mott Davidson and Nathalie Dupree.

Oatmeal Bar Cookies

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup quick oats
1/2 cup raisins
1 cup milk chocolate chips (use whatever you like; I just like milk chocolate)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8" square baking pan.

Cream the butter with the sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and stir to mix. Add the oats, raisins and chocolate chips. Spread in the pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean (it can have a few moist crumbs clinging to it but it shouldn't be wet).

This makes a thick bar cookie, so I recommend cutting it into fairly small squares, maybe 16 total.

Recommended reading: Fannie Flagg's "Original Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook." There's nothing fancy or gourmet about any of the recipes, but they're all down-home delicious (at least, the ones I've tried), and Ms. Flagg is so funny that even if you never make anything from it it's an entertaining read.

Breakfast, The Skippable Meal

I know, I know: nutritionists always tell you that breakfast is important, that people who eat breakfast are thinner, more active, and generally smarter and better-looking than the losers who skip it. For much of my life I've been a breakfast-skipper, and often still am; sometimes I'm just not hungry until late in the morning.

It's not that I don't like breakfast. I do. I particularly like it on vacation, when somebody else is frying the eggs and bacon. Of course, even breakfast is not immune to the immense portion sizes most restaurants seem to dish out these days. For example, the hotel where we stay in Las Vegas has quite a decent coffee shop-type restaurant, with good breakfasts. But even though we order the smallest breakfast plate (one egg, choice of bacon or sausage, hash browns and toast), that's still a ton of food. The hash browns (which we rarely eat and need to remember to tell them to leave off) take up half the plate and there are two slices of toast to complete the carbohydrate festival. Unfortunately for my restraint, their toast is notably good; I get the sourdough, Fred gets the wheat, and it comes lavishly buttered for you. I can usually make myself leave half of one slice but leaving a full slice behind is something of a struggle. The good news, though, is that we can gamble right on through lunch and not have to eat until late in the afternoon.

I don't cook breakfast for Fred during the week, since he leaves for work at 5 a.m. (Five a.m.!) On the weekends, though, I do fix breakfasts, usually featuring over easy or sunny side up eggs, bacon, and toast. Sometimes I fix pancakes, though Fred had his fill of pancakes in his scouting days so I don't make them too often. He's not fond of waffles so when I make them, they're just for me. I don't crave waffles very often but now and again, I do, so I make them in my Belgian waffle maker which was a wedding shower gift back in 1991. Still works! He likes French toast, I don't, so when I make that I usually don't make any for myself. We actually don't have that many shared breakfast likes, the exceptions being bacon and toast. He doesn't like biscuits, so I almost never make them, despite the fact they were always one of my favorite foods, especially with gravy, but I can't even remember the last time I had biscuits and gravy.

During weekdays, when I do want breakfast, I often turn to a smoothie. Ellie Krieger has some great recipes in her two cookbooks, and the one below is one I adapted from her. I cut up bananas and keep them in the freezer, but if you happen to be out of frozen bananas when you get an urge for a smoothie like this, it works ok to use a non-frozen banana plus a handful of ice cubes.

Banana Peanut Butter Smoothie

1/4 c. plain fat-free Greek or regular yogurt
1/2 c. skim milk
1 Tbls. peanut butter
1 banana, cut into chunks and frozen
2 Tbls. toasted wheat germ
1 tsp. honey
1/4 tsp. vanilla

Put all ingredients into blender and puree.

You could certainly skip the wheat germ if you felt like it. The new KitchenAid blender I bought a few months back is terrific at liquifying everything, but my old one (a cheap model I probably bought at Wal-Mart sometime in the early to mid '90s) was barely one step up from a wooden spoon and didn't incorporate the wheat germ hardly at all. So feel free to skip it if you have a crappy blender or you don't feel like buying wheat germ because you'll hardly ever use it or you don't like it . . . or, hey, you don't have to explain yourself to me! Just do what you like.

Recommended reading: "Breakfast in Bed," by Jesse Ziff Cool. The recipes are what I might call upscale simple. The Cinnamon-Brown Sugar drop biscuits are fabulous. I kind of have to wait for company to make them, though, since they're not Fred's cup of tea, though the recipe does say you can freeze the unbaked biscuits. Maybe I'll try that sometime, since that way I could just bake one or two at a time.

A Wonderful, Magical Animal

Fans of "The Simpsons" will probably recognize the title as a quote from the episode in which Lisa becomes a vegetarian. Homer is utterly confused by her decision, questioning her about whether that means she'll never eat any animal, that she won't eat bacon? No. Ham? No. Pork chops? Lisa points out those are all from the same aminal, and Homer replies, with heavy sarcasm, "Yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal."

So in my household, when we eat pork, which we do often, it's the magical animal. Admittedly, I've read some horror stories about how pigs are raised and how they're treated at slaughter, and that pigs are quite intelligent. Those things do give me pause sometimes, and it may be that at a future point in my life I give up pork, as I have done in the past. Unfortunately, bacon alone can make a vegetarian fall off the wagon--nothing compares to it, in either aroma or flavor. Ham runs a close second in terms of versatility and flavor appeal. Both are very useful to have around and are delicious at any time of day.

The other two pork treatments that get the most play in my household are baby back ribs--I always make my own barbecue sauce and bake the ribs, couldn't be easier--and pork chops. Early in our marriage my husband and I visited my paternal grandparents one day and my grandmother fixed pork chops and gravy (along with her usual seemingly endless assortment of vegetable side dishes, most using produce from her own large garden). To this day those pork chops remain as the pinnacle of pork for Fred. It's hard to compete with the memory of a dish, because in memory the dish is always better than we can possibly recreate. Not to mention which, pork seems to keep getting leaner and leaner--I distinctly recall more fat on pork chops I had in my childhood than you could possibly find today, though rib chops usually have at least a bit of fat. However, I think my pork chops are pretty good; the secret is mainly in the cooking time--as in, a couple of hours, if you want them fork tender.

For a changeup in my pork habits, I recently tried a recipe from Cook's Country that didn't quite do it for me, but I liked the idea of it, so I adapted the recipe to my own preferences. This is a way to use pork chops that doesn't require hours of cooking but the meat is still pretty tender, and the sauce is yummy (for which we can thank the heavy cream).

Pork With Mushrooms and Noodles (serves 2)

2 thin-cut pork chops (they don't have to be the wafer-thin breakfast chops, just not the big thick ones--about 1/2" thick is good)
2 Tbls. flour
2 Tbls. butter
4-8 ozs. mushrooms, quartered (depending on how much you like mushrooms)
1/2 onion, chopped fine
1/2 c. white wine
1/4 c. chicken broth
1/2 lemon
2 Tbls. heavy cream
A couple of handfuls of washed baby spinach leaves
Cooked pasta, whatever kind and however much you like

Cut the meat off the bone and then cut it into small, bite-size pieces; you don't want big hunks because you want them to cook through quickly. Salt and pepper the meat, then dredge it lightly in the flour. Don't discard the flour. Melt 1 Tbls. butter in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the meat and cook until browned on both sides. Personally, I like to be extra-sure pork is cooked through so I go with 4-5 minutes per side here and then test the thickest piece to make sure it's properly done and for some reason it's not, I can cook longer. They need to be thoroughly cooked since they really won't cook more than a minute or two at the end.

Remove the meat to a plate. Melt the remaining butter and add the mushrooms, onion (seriously, take your time and chop the onion finely--don't be lazy about it--this doesn't cook that long and you don't want big chunks of onion here), and salt and pepper to taste. Cook until the vegetables are browned and tender, about 8 minutes or so. Stir in the flour left over from the dredging and cook about one minute to remove the flour-y taste. Whisk in the wine and the broth and simmer until the sauce is a bit thickened. Return the pork and any juices from the meat to the pan. Add the lemon juice, heavy cream and spinach. Let cook for a minute or two, until the spinach is wilted to your liking.

Serve over pasta--but you know what, I might try this with mashed potatoes sometime, on a cold day, or what passes for cold days around here.

Simple Foods, Childhood Foods

I suppose all of us have foods that we loved as a child and still, maybe inexplicably, love, even if they're full of chemicals and preservatives. In that category for me would be Kraft Macaroni n' Cheese, Oreos, Cheetos (though I haven't eaten any since I read in one of those "Eat This, Not That" books that for some reason Cheetos are like, one of the worst things you could ever eat--sigh) and Hershey bars. Although obviously I had some affinity for junk food, I was always thin, in part due to genetics but also in part due to the fact that portion sizes used to be reasonable. When I was growing up lasagna (made with cottage cheese!) came in small squares, not in sheet-cake size slabs, muffins were the size of a fist, not a softball, and there was no such thing as Super Sizing. In fact, I think I was in junior high school before we even got a McDonald's in my home town, and even once we did I almost never ate there.

So, we've covered junk food, but what about simple food that children like but still appeal to adults? I still like peanut butter and bananas on toast, for one. Egg salad is a longtime favorite: hardboiled eggs, Duke's or Hellman's mayonnaise (full fat, please, NO SUBSTITUTES), and salt. If I want to fancy it up, and I usually don't, I might add chopped dill or curry powder. I use the same formula for deviled eggs: eggs, mayo, salt. No pickles, capers, or anything else extraneous. Pickles, though--there's a childhood love that never went away. Clausen's, please, no other kind will do. I still have an affection for the much-maligned (by foodies) California black olives, yes, the rubbery, salty kind in the can. Love them. I also still like tuna salad, but even though I like it using my basic pattern of mayo, salt and nothing else, I also like it fancied up a bit, though I wouldn't have as a child. Marcia Adams, the Midwestern cookbook author who had some PBS television shows, has a recipe I like for tuna salad that includes cream cheese, chopped black olives, lemon juice and chopped pecans. As a child I would have rejected, vehemently and with horror, this recipe on the basis of its inclusion of nuts--shoot, I would have rejected it on that basis as late as my 20s. But, I've stretched my horizons a bit.

As for sweets, the chocolate chip cookie has been a constant throughout my life. Flourless chocolate cakes, creme brulees, tortes, tarts, they may all come and go, but I have found no improvement on the chocolate chip cookie. Or chocolate chip cookie dough. I like them chewy but will accept them crisp sometimes too. Here I will not tolerate nuts; I like nuts in savory foods only and occasionally in sweets, but not chocolate chip cookies. On this I do not yield.

Finally, on the subject of beverages: I grew up in a sweetened tea household and hated it. At that time in Texas, that was the norm, and restaurants rarely offered tea unsweetened. That tide finally changed, but by that time I had developed a strong preference for Cokes. (In my part of Texas, the brand name "Coke" was used as a catch-all for any type of soft drink, i.e., "Do you want a Coke?" "Sure, I'll take a Dr. Pepper.") In my 20s I finally weaned myself off of regular Cokes and moved on to diet Dr. Peppers, Diet Rite, and the like. Now, I'm struggling, with some success, to limit those and drink more unsweetened teas and water (this last is hard, I like flavor). I can recommend Twinings Jasmine Green Tea, as well as their Mixed Berry and Black Currant flavors.

So, some food tastes come and go and others, it seems, have better staying power. I wouldn't want to eat nothing but egg salad, pickles and chocolate chip cookies for the rest of my life--not least because it wouldn't be a very balanced diet--but I like to know they're still around, easy to create and always satisfying.

Recommended reading: Marcia Adams' "Cooking From Quilt Country." It's just a beautiful book and a pleasure to read, with its look into the kitchens of the Amish and Mennonite. My Texas tastes are somewhat different so I rarely use the recipes, but it's a book I'm glad to have on my shelf.

Learning to Like the Yucky

We all have foods that we just can't stand, whether due to taste, texture, appearance, or some combination thereof, and it doesn't necessarily have to make sense. My husband will eat *sensitive stomach alert* raw hamburger meat and canned cream of mushroom soup straight out of the can, but rejects blueberries because "food isn't supposed to be blue." Early on in our marriage I realized that if I wanted to make something exotic (and I use the term loosely), it would be just for me. Though, in fairness to him, as long as I stay within some loose general guidelines (no fish, no casseroles, no blueberries), he usually eats what's put in front of him--or else it's potato chips for dinner.

For me, tomatoes were a childhood dislike, but years ago I learned to love them and now I can't imagine cooking or eating without them. With vegetables in particular, I go on occasional campaigns to learn to like the few that I don't; I'm not going to bother learning to love escargots or sweetbreads or rattlesnake meat, because there is no way that I will ever even taste any of those things. We all have our limits.

So, in honor of learning to like foods that you don't, I'm posting here my first recipe, for a roasted vegetable salad featuring eggplant, which I don't like much as a general rule but which I know is good for me. This salad was inspired by Ina Garten's Roasted Vegetable Salad with Orzo (very delicious), but is vegan (not that I am vegan, mind you, just pointing that out for anyone who might find that a selling point) and has no pasta. And it does have zucchini and tomatoes, which hers does not. And a totally different dressing--the dressing having been inspired in part by a slaw recipe by Crescent Dragonwagon in her "Dairy Hollow House Cookbook." So--here we go. The amount of vegetables you use is certainly flexible and you can use more or less of whatever you like to use up your vegetables. Servings--I don't know. For me, with this constituting the entire meal, this would be one serving. If you put it over pasta, then I'd say two servings. But maybe you're a lighter (or bigger) eater than me.

Roasted Vegetable Salad

1 Chinese eggplant, peeled, sliced and salted
1 zucchini, diced in 1" pieces
1/4 to 1/2 red onion, diced
1 or 2 small red and/or yellow bell peppers
1 handful cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbls. olive oil
1 lime, juiced
1 Tbls. light sesame oil
1/2 jalapeno, minced, seeds and ribs removed to reduce the heat or leave them in if you want it hotter (optional)
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Peel and slice the eggplant and place in a colander. Salt the slices and let sit for 20 minutes or so. Rinse them (DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS! I forgot the first time I tried this and they were, of course, too salty) and pat them dry with a paper towel.

Line a baking sheet with foil. Toss the eggplant, zucchini, onion, and pepper with 1 Tbls. olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Roast for 20 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and turn the vegetables. Add the cherry tomatoes and garlic and roast for 10 more minutes, enough to soften the tomatoes.

Whisk together the sesame oil, lime juice and jalapeno. Salt and pepper to taste. Toss the vegetables in the dressing.

I think this recipe makes eggplant very easy to eat!

Recommended reading: Crescent Dragonwagon's "Dairy Hollow House Cookbook." I do not know if it is still in print, but if you can find it, check it out. My mother and I stayed once at the lovely namesake inn, though sadly, Ms. Dragonwagon no longer runs it and I do not know anyone bought it. Also sadly, her beloved husband Ned, with whom she ran the inn, was killed while riding his bicycle one day. But, it's still a treat to read her stories about the inn and her husband--she's an excellent writer, being also a children's book author--and many of the recipes have a nostalgic hippie slant.

Eating Less: The Multi-Purpose Solution

Like nearly every American woman, I'm intrigued every time I hear the promise that if I just eliminate "x" from and/or add "y" to my diet, any extra pounds will magically vanish. Every time my husband senses that I'm tempted to try a new Eating Plan for Life, he says, for the hundredth time (we've been married a long time, so we've heard everything each other has to say more than once), "Eat less, exercise more." And, every time, I have to acknowledge that that's the deep dark secret indeed, the one that we all wish wasn't true but all know is. I'm sure some people do have medical problems preventing them from losing weight no matter how carefully they exercise and watch what they eat, but I tend to feel they are in the minority. Most of us just shouldn't have eaten as much as we did.

So eating less should help eliminate extra weight, and it has the bonus of cutting down on the grocery bill. The three things that eating less food positively affects--vanity, health and money--are some of the most powerful forces in our lives. So how do we do it? Why is it so hard? Just stop eating when you're hungry, right?

Well, sometimes stopping when you're full works (when it's summer and 100 degrees outside), and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes what you're eating is just really good and it's hard to keep your spoon out of the chocolate chip cookie dough (before you eat three cookies right out of the oven). Sometimes it's a social event ("buttered" popcorn at the movies, barbecue at the Fourth of July, second helpings of cornbread dressing at Thanksgiving). But not every day is a special occasion or a day when you are or should be unable to resist the siren call of mashed potatoes made with lots of butter and heavy cream, right?

For me, trying to eat less requires reshaping my thinking in a couple of ways. First of all, it seems to me, it helps to stop thinking of food as "snacks." "Snack" is such an innocent little word; why, it makes it seem like you're not really eating anything at all. What's the harm in a few peanut butter crackers here, or half a candy bar, or a slice of cheese? Well, nothing, individually, but when you start eating all those things in one day in addition to your meals, your calorie count and your grocery bill inevitably go in the wrong direction. I don't obsessively count calories, but recognizing that all calories count can go a long way. If I eat something in the afternoon, then I need to remember that at dinnertime and not take that second helping of whatever.

The other, and admittedly more depressing, thought to keep me on track is to remember how comparatively luxurious my pantry and refrigerator are. There are people all over the world who can't just go to the refrigerator at all--not having a refrigerator, or even electricity--let alone open it up and be tempted by sliced roast beef and Gruyere cheese and Ben & Jerry's oatmeal chocolate chip ice cream. Thinking of food as a precious commodity that I should not take for granted can help prevent mindless eating. And thinking of how scarce food is for some people helps make reasonable servings of plainly-cooked and inexpensive food seem like more of a blessing and less of an annoyance. Which in turn, is good for my weight and my checkbook.

Recommended reading: "The Healing Foods," by Patricia Hausman and Judith Benn Hurley. I can't guarantee that it is, as advertised on the cover, "The Ultimate Authority on the Curative Power of Nutrition," but it is a good place to look when you're wondering what the health benefits are of some commonly available fruits, vegetables, dairy products and meat. Its tips on what to look for when shopping for fruits and vegetables and how to store them are valuable too.

Cooking Shows and Food Culture

I admit, I was never a Julia Child fan. The shows were boring to me when I was a child, and as an adult they seem dated and unhelpful. So we can cross off Julia as an influence in my interest in food and cooking. However, the PBS cooking shows in the early '90s, though I remember them only dimly, did capture my attention on Saturday mornings. Nathalie Dupree made perhaps the biggest impression on me then; her cooking style was accessible, her personality sweet and goofy (she, more so to me than the legendary Julia, is who I think of when I think of cooking show hosts who drop things, spill things, or just generally screw up and cheerfully move on). All of Ms. Dupree's cookbooks are worth a look, particularly her beautiful "Southern Memories." Rare is the recipe of hers for which you have to search out a special grocery store or ethnic food market, and rare is the use of convenience products, and yet the vast majority of her recipes couldn't be simpler and more flavorful.

There are a few other PBS chefs I remember, if not always by name. There was an Italian-American woman (not Lidia), who I have a faint memory of cooking vegetables from her garden. There was the late Justin Wilson ("I gar-on-tee!), and John Folse, of course (remember I was watching in Baton Rouge, so Louisiana shows took precedence). There was a very large chef whose name I do not recall, but who also, I believe, specialized in Louisiana cooking; I remember him mainly because his kitchen looked like, well, his kitchen--not a set. No six-burner range or Sub-Zero refrigerator there, as I recall.

Then, sometime in the mid-90s, I discovered the Food Network. My early loves were Michele Urvater, "Ready, Set, Cook!" and "How to Boil Water." If they put the original "How to Boil Water" on DVD, I'd buy it; I just loved it. I never did much care for Emeril's shows, which was inconvenient since he was on A LOT, but there was enough other programming that I liked that I could live with it.

Over the years, I lost some shows I liked, gained some I liked (and a lot I couldn't stand). I really dislike the competition shows for the most part, especially anything that has to do with building fancy cakes. I can't express how uninterested I am in that entire topic. Some of the travel shows are ok--I love Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives," for example. He's the perfect host for that type of program, as he's genuinely friendly and outgoing and seems to get along well with the cooks he meets. It's fun to see restaurants across America, in places I might someday go and others where I'll never set foot. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I don't care for Giada di Laurentiis, and her travel show did not interest me in the least, nor do her regular cooking shows.

I know a lot of people online complain that FN is "dumbed down," that they treat cooking like it's a chore that needs to be gotten over with, in as little time as possible and for as cheaply as possible. Foodies want to be catered to a little more, with programming reflective of upscale lifestyles. While I don't dispute that FN has erred on the side of quick/easy cooking shows, I think the reality probably is that that actually is what most people are looking for. Particularly in this economy, I would guess most people would probably like to have their need to reduce the food budget acknowledged and addressed in creative ways. Of course, Sandra Lee is not the answer, but most of the TV chefs do a pretty good job using "real" ingredients that are not too expensive, Ina Garten's occasional lobster mac n' cheese excepted. I would like for the FN to order some new programming that shows us how to cook some cuisines that people are more likely to think of mysterious and complicated: Indian, Lebanese, Japanese, you name it. A vegetarian/vegan show would be nice (what happened to Curtis Aikens?). I guess Ellie Krieger isn't on any more, but I loved her approach to healthy cooking. There is room for the FN to improve, but I, for one, think that improvement can come from programming reflecting a wider variety of cooking styles. And if those shows demystify certain cuisines and are still showing how to get in and out of the kitchen quickly and cheaply, then that's all the better.

Recommended reading: "Barefoot Contessa Family Style," by Ina Garten. Yes, there are a few expensive recipes in here, but most of them aren't, and most are also easy to prepare and delicious. The Pumpkin Banana Mousse Tart may change your life, at least at Thanksgiving. Suggestion: Ina's salads are wonderful, but I find it's best to cut back her dressings by at least 1/3 to 1/2.

Why It Takes Me So Long to Shop

Relatively early in my marriage, I had gone to the grocery store--Albertson's on Perkins Road in Baton Rouge. The Internet tells me it's still there, though I don't know if the house where we lived is, but I lived about five minutes from the store. (By car, that is; one time my truck wouldn't start and I couldn't reach my husband on the phone, and I walked home carrying a large bag of dog food. That must have looked strange, and it was certainly exhausting. But this story isn't about that time, not that there's any more to tell.) Anyway, I had been gone for quite some time and Fred asked me where I had been for so long. When I said I had just been at the grocery store, I could tell that, although he believed me, he couldn't understand it. What could take so long? You go in, you get what you need, selecting the very cheapest option, and you leave. Simple. Well, it isn't for me.


When I go to the grocery store, I usually have a list, but it usually isn't a very comprehensive one. I always anticipate that I'll be looking for things that are on sale and things that are in season, so those things are hard to plan. I use coupons that they give me at the register, but I don't bother with buying the Sunday paper to get coupons, since I don't buy much processed food and it seems like the vast majority of coupons are for things like Hamburger Helper and Pop-Tarts and other things that I don't like and don't use.

Once I'm actually in the store, I start with things that don't have to be kept cold, i.e., baking goods, canned foods, and the like. I don't buy many canned items, but when I do buy them, I spend an agonizingly long time checking each can over for dents. One of my obsessive fears is botulism; I imagine carelessly using the contents of a dented can then, 18 hours later, Fred and I both struggling to reach the telephone, as the paralysis and breathing problems start taking over. So there I stand, studying my canned tomatoes and black olives and the occasional canned soup and canned beans. And for some reason tuna fish cans seem to be the worst offenders at being dented. I've shuffled through many a tuna fish can in frustration, looking for a perfect one.

On to produce--another time-consuming area. Is it even still possible to buy an orange that smells and tastes like one? There I stand, smelling oranges, trying to find out. And I smell cantaloupes. And peaches. And anything else that signals ripeness through aroma. What if I want cauliflower? Nine of ten heads have brown spots, so that takes a lot of culling. Potatoes require much study, to make sure they're firm and free of eyes and green spots. Onions have to be sorted through to make sure they have no mold. Asparagus, my most favorite vegetable--are the tips tight? Are the stalks limp? Did the store force me to buy too many poor-quality spears in order to get a few good ones? Same question with strawberries and other berries--are there moldy ones in the carton?

Produce finally over, I can move on to meat and dairy. Meats: that's a question of what's available that looks good. I can usually rely on baby back ribs, ground sirloin, and ham. But beyond that, it's a crapshoot, especially at my local grocery store. Pork chips are either too thin or ridiculously thick. Pork tenderloins come already marinated in flavors I don't want. Fred isn't fond of chicken (nor am I), so I have to really have something in mind before buying it. I've bought ribeye steaks that were too expensive to have as much gristle as they did. But we like meat and don't want grilled cheese sandwiches every night, so I do my best with what they have.

Dairy is probably the easiest. Short of making sure the milk and buttermilk aren't leaking and that their expiration date is far in the future, there isn't much to worry about. (Except, of course, the bigger questions: do I need to buy organic? Can I get away with 1% milk instead of skim? But I try not to philosophize about those things too much when I'm actually at the store; people are trying to get by.) Cheese, oh cheese--should I splurge on Gruyere or just pick up some Monterey Jack? My grocery store's house brand of unsalted butter is fine, and cheap. I admit I do like to splurge on a certain brand of free-range eggs if I'm at a store that carries them; they're $2.99 for six, but they are very fresh and have the deepest-colored yolks I've ever seen. I've bought farmstand eggs that weren't as photogenic. I don't buy much frozen food; other than the occasional ice cream purchase, I pretty much stay away from the freezers, so once I'm done with dairy, I'm (finally) ready to check out.

Even though I probably make grocery shopping harder than it should be, I really have been trying to minimize waste and carefully selecting what I need helps eliminate it. Some waste will sometimes be unavoidable, but if I plan well enough I should be able to use all or almost all of what I buy and not have things rotting in the produce drawers, molding in the cheese drawer, or becoming unrecognizable in the freezer.

Recommended reading: "Monday to Friday Cookbook," by Michele Urvater. It's a good mix of practical advice on planning meals, buying food and serving the family economically, but since Ms. Urvater's tastes are somewhat unusual it's a little different than your average family cookbook. Her rice pudding recipe, made with evaporated milk and raspberries, is the only one I've ever liked, and her polenta soup is delicious.

Confessions Of An Ex-Sort-Of-Foodie

This year, I turned 40 and, while I think I still look and feel pretty good for my age, I think I can't put off calling myself "middle-aged" anymore. (Though, for all I know I could die tomorrow, so there would be no "middle" about it; best not to dwell on that, I suppose.) Classically, this is the time of life where people take stock, let go of some dreams and start coming to terms with what really matters. Either that, or they buy a convertible and dump their spouse for someone half their age, but I'm not going to be doing either of those things. Instead, I'm blogging about food and how, why, and how much it matters to me.

Some background: I grew up in Seguin, Texas, a small town which, although not a bad place to grow up in a lot of ways, was and is not a beacon for foodies. When I was growing up, "salad" meant mostly iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and seedy, waxed cucumbers. Italian food was spaghetti with meat sauce or pizza, usually pepperoni. I was at least in my teens before I heard of a bagel.

Since my parents will be reading this, they'll no doubt want me to defend them, as indeed I should, by saying that they did have an interest in food and our meals were well-cooked, reasonably wholesome and, perhaps most importantly, usually shared together (a dying tradition). One of the exotic things I remember them making occasionally was paella, though that was an expensive treat. If they didn't cook dishes from around the world, it wasn't for lack of interest, it was for lack of ingredients. Good luck finding fresh mozzarella or smoked salmon or arugula in those days; it just didn't happen, not in Seguin, Texas. So you made do with what you had and often, it was in fact very good; it just wasn't exotic.

Eventually, as I went to college, got married, and then moved to Baton Rouge for law school, I became more and more exposed to what the food world had to offer. I had flings with vegetarianism and semi-vegitarianism along the way. I loved reading cookbooks and in Baton Rouge, a food town, I was able to find a lot of the ingredients that I had never seen before. I began to get a little (ok, a lot) snobbier about what was "acceptable," and to look down my nose at Wonder Bread and Velveeta. This, even though I am married to a man who thinks Velveeta is perfectly lovely, and who would buy Miracle Whip if I let him grocery shop. After we moved back to Texas in 1999, my location about 2 hours from San Antonio allowed me to shop sometimes at Central Market, a place that for me is better than Disneyland: I can get anything from Tomme d' Savoie cheese to garnet sweet potatoes to French wines to garlic-marinated olives to fancy prepared foods to Dr. Pepper, all under one roof.

But I noticed somewhere along the way, in my late 30s, that I was getting, in a way, a little tired of thinking so much about food and continually upgrading my limit on what was "acceptable." I started disliking myself for thinking that way when so many people worldwide don't have enough to eat and would love to have the variety of ingredients at my closest supermarket; what I find inadequate (why don't they have flank steak? why did they quit carrying White Lily flour?) would seem like paradise to many. I'm still fascinated by food, but now I'm more interested in where it comes from, how much is wasted, how healthy (or unhealthy) it is, and even how to grow (some) of it. It is not my intent to be judgmental or condescending about the foodie culture in this or future posts; I just want to think through some of the other issues surrounding food, and to remind myself to be grateful for what I do have.

Recommended reading: "The Silver Palate Cookbook," by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins, a book that opened up a whole new world for me in the 1980s. I still flip through it from time to time.