Dark Days: ISO Apple Dishes

Here's a case of things not turning out quite as planned.

Last weekend on our trip to the farmers market I bought three pounds of apples. Apples are in plentiful supply, even with most of the farmers markets closed for the season.

My plan was to make the kind of apple torte we used to have for dinner when I was an exchange student in Switzerland. This was centuries ago, of course. But I still have vivid memories of my host mother--Tante Marie--rolling dough onto a sheet pan and covering it with whatever fruit was in season at the moment--apricots, plums, peaches, apples--adding some kind of custard and baking it in the oven.

The torte--if that's what you want to call it--seemed a little like dessert for dinner: not too sugary, with the fruit, the eggs and the soft crust postitioned somewhere between sweet and savory and bringing plenty of wholesome nutrition to the table. It was a perfect meal as far as I was concerned, simple yet satisfying. So I had a vision of recreating that torte with apples, serving it with our homegrown salad and calling that our Dark Days meal for the week.

Except I was not able to find the recipe. Okay, I didn't spend that much time looking. My sister, who lived many years in the German-speaking part of Europe, brought over a couple of her German pastry cookbooks. There were all kinds of cakes and tortes, but nothing hitting the mark. By the end of the day, I was desperate for something to make with apples and landed on this simple recipe in Joy of Cooking.

It calls for layering sliced apples with almost-cooked sweet potatoes (from our CSA box), along with brown sugar, raisins and pecans. Add some apple cider and bake in the oven at 350 degree for about 30 minutes. It didn't sound like much, and it turned out to be about how it sounded. That's what you see in the picture, along with a homegrown salad and a biscuit made with fresh buttermilk and smeared with the tomato jelly we made from our garden.

It occurs to me now that although I like very much the idea of making dinner out of apples, I am woefully short on apple know-how. So I am broadcasting this appeal: If you know of any great ideas for apples entrees--especially if you know how to make the torte I described above--please do send along your suggestions.

Kids Cook Caramelized, Sweet & Sour Brussels Sprouts and Carrots

Preparing a menu for the recent parents night dinner at the elementary school where I teach "food appreciation" classes, I looked over our lessons for the fall and realized I did not have a green vegetable for the entree plate.

Well, the closest thing would have been zucchini. But since the whole point of our work this semester has been seasonal fruits and vegetables, I didn't think zucchini in November really worked.

What did seem to work was my favorite method for cooking Brussels sprouts--searing them in a scorching hot pan, then dousing with red wine vinegar and seasoning with granulated sugar. I wanted to add some carrots for color and variety. Voila, one of my newest most favorite vegetable side dishes: caramelized sweet-and-sour Brussels sprouts and carrots.

Since we'd already served the dish to the parents, I thought it was high time the kids actually made it in class. So that is what we did this week.

I've had the kids in my classes repeatedly practicing their vegetable peeling technique. This is no small matter, since they should all know at a minimum how to properly peel fruits and vegetables. In the case of carrots, I've shown them how to make slow, sure strokes with the peeler--not whack away with the tool getting nowhere--and how to peel one end of the carrot, then turn it around and peel the other end. The first inclination kids have is to try and peel the whole carrot, being ever so careful not to remove the end of a finger in the process. Flipping the carrot end-over-end really does speed things up.

The Brussels sprouts are another thing altogether. I demonstrated how to trim the brown stem end, then cut the sprouts in half lengthwise. But the only cutting tool we have plenty of for the kids is a plastic knife. Have you ever tried slicing a Brussels sprout with a plastic knife? Naturally, it's almost impossible. So the kids get several minutes to saw away at their sprouts, making very little progress, then I take over and slice them with a chef's knife.

Still, I think it's good practice for them.

We then cook the carrots and sprouts--separately--in boiling salted water until they are just done. Plunge them into a bowl of cold water, then dry them with paper towels. My assistant finished cooking the sprouts while we read a book called Herb, The vegetarian Dragon. Then I heat an iron skillet blistering hot, cover the bottom with extra-virgin olive oil and toss in the sprouts, sending a great cloud of smoke rising toward the ceiling.

(At this point, one group of kids was captivated by the aroma of the pot liquor I had been cooking the vegetables in. Before I knew it, they were ladling it into cups and drinking it. Why not?)

We don't have a fan over the stove at school, so the other teachers at this point are in a bit of a panic. The kids think it's the best thing since the circus came to town. More exciting is when the sprouts have browned and I douse them with red wine vinegar, which creates a giant hissing noise and a cloud of steam. Then season the sprouts with granulated sugar, salt and pepper. Repeat this process with the carrots, then combine the two vegetables in a bowl and serve warm.

Honest, the youngest of the children--those being the four and five year olds--mostly walked away from this dish when it was served. They found a million reasons not to like a combination of browned Brussels sprouts and carrots. In the next age group, the kids were talking about how certain they were the sprouts would make them vomit. I offered a $1 reward to the first kid who actually up-chucked after eating this dish. One of the boys made a great show of being sick, but in the end, they all ate it and some even loved it.

So do make this dish sometime when you want to impress friends with how good Brussels sprouts can be in the middle of winter.

True Buttermilk Biscuits

Sometimes the presence of a single ingredient in the pantry takes us places we would not ordinarily go.

Part of my reward for helping farmer friend Mike Klein butcher his turkeys this year was a small bottle of genuine buttermilk. Well, it wasn't just any bottle. It was a Coca Cola bottle he'd cleaned and reclaimed because I suppose he didn't have anything else to put the buttermilk in. So along with our turkey, a stewing chicken and some pickling watermelons, I walked away from the farm with this Coca Cola bottle half-filled with a milky-yellowish liquid I wasn't quite sure what to do with.

Finding authentic buttermilk these days, like so much else that used to arrive in its natural state from the farm to the grocery store, seems darned near impossible. Sometimes at the farmer's market you will see a vendor making a big deal of selling quarts of "real" buttermilk. You may then walk away mumbling to yourself, wondering what the difference is between the "real" buttermilk being sold at the farmer's market and the stuff you buy in a plastic carton at the grocery stored labeled "buttermilk."

Originally, "buttermilk" was the liquid left over from the process of churning cream into butter. It is tart, low-fat, and sometimes flecked with bits of butter. Nowadays, "buttermilk" is a manufactured, cultured product made by adding lactic acid bacteria to regular or skin milk, then fermenting it for a period of days. It's that acidity that makes buttermilk ideal for a chemical rise in baking, as in pancakes and biscuits. Because of the acidity, it will also keep for months in the refrigerator without going bad.

Reading the labels on the "buttermilk" products at the supermarket can be a jolt to the senses. When we were in Maine over the summer, I found three varieties of buttermilk under three different labels at the local grocery. One of them listed the following ingredients: "pasteurized culture fat-free milk, modified food starch, mono and diglycerides, carrageenan, locust bean gum."

Who needs all that?

Anyway, last night the stars seemed to line up perfectly for that Coca Cola bottle of buttermilk sitting in the fridge. I had several different leftovers, including some of the intensely flavorful pilaf from last week's pot roast, pumpkin and wild rice pilaf, cooked squash, salad greens. The buttermilk called out to me. It wanted to be turned into biscuits.

The recipe I use is from Bill Neal's classic text, Biscuits, Spoonbread, and Sweet Potato Pie. This is a perfect example of a chemical rise in baking, or pairing acid and base ingredients with a liquid to create carbon dioxide, which puts the puff in the baked good.

As Neal explains, "The acceptance and availability of reliable commercial baking powders has become the general principle of Southern home baking, overshadowing yeast, eggs, and general arm power."

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

In a bowl, mix 2 cups all-purpose flour, a heaping 1/2-teaspoon salt, 3 1/14 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 5 tablespoons chilled shortening (lard or butter or a combination). Using fingers, quickly work the shortening into the dry ingredients until every bit of the flour is combined with a bit of fat. Add 7/8 cup buttermilk and stir vigorously until a ball forms.

The secret to light, crumbly biscuits it to work the dough as little as possible, or only as much as necessary. You don't knead this dough hardly at all--more like pushing it this way and that until it holds together. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, dusting the dough with a little more flour if it seems too sticky. Pat the dough into a circle about 1/2-inch thick and cut into 2-inch rounds (I use a biscuit cutter for this, dipping the cutter into flour to keep the dough from sticking).

Transfer the rounds to an ungreased baking sheet and place in the oven for about 8 minutes, or until the tops have turned golden. Serve warm with butter and your favorite jam or preserves.

Chesapeake Bay is Dying

The Chesapeake Bay used to be one of the greatest food sources in the world. It teemed with fish, crabs and oysters.

But the latest "State of the Bay" report from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) says conditions on the bay are getting worse, not better. This year the foundation gave the bay's health a score of 28 points out of 100, down a point from the year before. Reasons for the lower score: Increased pollution from phosphorous, worsening water clarity and a continuing decline in the bay's crab population.

States in the Chesapeake watershed in 2000 signed an agreement to clean up the bay by the year 2012. It's pretty clear that won't happen, despite many promises and words spoken by area officials. While there have been some inroads made in combating nitrogen pollution from fertilizers, phosphorous continues to pour in the bay from agriculture and from lawns as millions of new people crowd into the area. The worst phosphorous levels are coming from the Potomac and James rivers, according to the CBF.

The bay's crab population, driven down by overharvesting and pollution, now stands at a level not seen since the 1940s. Crabs also are suffering because of the overfishing of menhaden (used to make fish oil). The rebounding striped bass, which favor menhaden, are now eating more crabs instead. Meanwhile, pollution and murkier water are killing the bottom grasses that crabs depend on. Pullution is feeding enormous algae blooms, which create an aquatic "dead zone" that stretches from the Bay Bridge outside Annapolis all the way to the mouth of the bay in Virginia.

Nitrogen levels, dissolved oxygen, water clarity, underwater grasses, oysters, shad--all are listed as "critical" in the CBF report. Commercial fishing has all but vanished. Now when you order a crab cake at one of our local crab houses you don't know if the crab hasn't been flown in from Southeast Asia.

Is there any previous example of a species other than humans destroying the habitat on which it depends? I wonder if there will be some sort of ceremony if the Chesapeake Bay does, indeed, expire. What words will seem apt when the last fish, the last crab, is pulled from the water?

To Market, To Market

Nearly all of the farmers markets in our area here in the District of Columbia have closed for the season. As I see it, this presents a real challenge to those locavores among us who've signed up for making Dark Days meals. Unless you have found a way to grow your own food through the winter (a personal hot house, perhaps?) or had the foresight to stock your cellar with several months worth of canned goods, where are all those local ingredients supposed to come from? (And I'm not talking to you, West Coast, Southwest, Texas, Florida).




One of the few farmers markets in our area that remains open year-round is the one at Dupont Circle, the biggest and most diversely stocked market in the city. Yesterday was cold and overcast--perfect for the 20-minute walk from our house to the upscale Dupont Circle neighborhood. As you can see, we were not the only ones thinking along these lines. It may be just three weeks till Christmas, but the farmers market was jammed.

We found that there are still loads of apples for sale in many different varieties...




As well as apple products.



There are always cheeses, jams, preserves, soaps and other handmade goods on display at the Dupont Circle market. I was impressed with this vendor's large selection of local yarns in a range of colors and textures.


But what I really came for was to get a sense of the kinds of foods that might be available to fill our caloric needs in the months ahead. So I was glad to see lots of sweet potatoes and standard potatoes, turnips, rutabagas...



And of course squashes...





Plenty of greens...



Radishes, leeks, onions, garlic. I also noticed cabbage--makes me think it's time for sauerkraut. There were also several vendors hawking meats: lamb, pork, beef chicken, even local oysters. No lack of protein there.


By January, when we are in the depths of winter--and it can get pretty cold and nasty here in the nation's capitol--there will probably be no more than a handful of vendors still standing. That will be the true test of our local food supply.



For now, it was enough to visit the Churreria Madrid and warm ourselves over a hot cup of chocolate and a plate of fresh churros.

Weekend Update

Not one penny more!

That's what Burger King is saying to the lowly tomato pickers of Florida, who have negotiated with other fast-food chains to be rewarded 1-cent-per-pound raise for their work supplying the nation's tomatoes.

Florida farm workers had gotten McDonald's and Yum! brands on board with this tiny recognition of the work performed by mostly immigrant and poor workers. But Burger King has balked, joining the Florida Tomato Growers Association in opposing the deal.

Florida workers earn about 45 cents for filling a 32-pound bucket. That can mean upward of $11 an hour for those who hustle to fill more than 200 buckets a day. But work is not guaranteed, and tomato pickers get neither health insurance nor overtime. Most field workers are immigrants, many of them here illegally.

So what would one little penny cost the corporate fast-food giants?

Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, weighed in at the New York Times with a scathing rebuke of the food robber barons:


Three private equity firms — Bain Capital, the Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners — control most of Burger King’s stock. Last year, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd C. Blankfein, earned the largest annual bonus in Wall Street history, and this year he stands to receive an even larger one. Goldman Sachs has served its investors well lately, avoiding the subprime mortgage meltdown and, according to Business Week, doubling the value of its Burger King investment within three years.

Telling Burger King to pay an extra penny for tomatoes and provide a decent wage to migrant workers would hardly bankrupt the company. Indeed, it would cost Burger King only $250,000 a year. At Goldman Sachs, that sort of money shouldn’t be too hard to find. In 2006, the bonuses of the top 12 Goldman Sachs executives exceeded $200 million — more than twice as much money as all of the roughly 10,000 tomato pickers in southern Florida earned that year. Now Mr. Blankfein should find a way to share some of his company’s good fortune with the workers at the bottom of the food chain.

Marc R. at Ethicurean was equally outraged:

According to Burger King’s most recent proxy statement, CEO John Childers received $4.1 million and North American President Charles Fallon received $1.8 million in total compensation for fiscal 2007. The tomato pickers earn an average of $10,000 per year — or less — without benefits like health insurance (you can be sure that Burger King’s executives receive top-flight insurance for themselves and their families). At the current per-pound rate, workers must pick more than 2.5 tons of tomatoes just to earn minimum wage for a typical backbreaking 10-hour day.

What do you suppose would happen if we all ordered our Whoppers without the tomato. Or maybe, just don't eat at Burger King...

*****

Elsewhere on the how-can-we-screw-the-little-guy front...

While Congress is scurrying to find the cash to fund all those famous crop subsidy payments in the U.S. Farm Bill, it has has been little noted that the big losers in the Big Ag money grab may be mothers with small children. They normally are the beneficiaries of Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), a program that provides nutritious foods, counseling on healthy eating, and health care referrals to millions of low-income pregnant and postpartum women, infants, and hungry children under age five.

The problem is, WIC is not an entitlement program. Congress sets aside a certain amount to fund the program. But if the cost of food goes up (and it has) and the number of people seeking help rises (it has) someone has to get squeezed out.

We've already seen how U.S. food banks and international food aid programs are failing to keep up with the rising cost of food versus need (thanks again to the ethanol and bio-fuel craze for jacking up the price of food).

Now the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities--the most authoritative voice in the country on federal nutrition assistance policy--issued a report describing how budget pressures and rising food prices may deny WIC benefits to hundreds of thousands of low-income women and their babies. (Thanks, Mulch Blog.)

For two years in a row [FY 2006 & 2007] the per-participant cost of WIC foods had actually declined. Since the budget was developed, however, dairy prices have soared, and they are expected to remain elevated in fiscal year 2008. Milk and cheese account for about 40 percent of WIC food expenditures. Prices have also risen to high levels for juice and eggs, which account for another 25 percent of WIC food costs. As a result of higher food prices, it will cost significantly more than the Administration had anticipated to serve each WIC participant in fiscal year 2008.

Based on current food prices (and the latest estimates of food prices for the rest of fiscal year 2008), the funding level provided in the President’s budget would serve an average monthly caseload of only 7.97 million participants, significantly fewer than the Administration intended. Moreover, participation has risen somewhat in recent months as WIC food prices have spiked, making it more difficult for low-income families to afford these foods without assistance, and as unemployment has started to climb. The program served 8.48 million participants in the final quarter of fiscal year 2007, the most recent period for which data are available. Thus, the number of women, infants, and children that the program serves is 510,000 above the number who could be served under the funding level in the President’s budget.

Given a choice between maintaining subsidies to big farmland owners or continuing food support to women and children, which way do you suppose Congress will vote?

*****

The Center for Science in the Public Interest says you should be worried about the food your child is eating at school. Very worried.

The CSPI recently gave 20 of the nation's 50 states a big fat "F" for food nutrition policies that either fall way short of what's needed or don't exist at all.

Only two states--Kentucky and Oregon--earned the best grade giving by CSPI: an "A-."

Meanwhile, only 2 percent of all children eat a healthy diet and obesity rates have tripled in the last 20 years. Still, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that sugary drinks, snack cakes, candy and chips continue to be sold at about one-third of the country’s elementary schools, 71 percent of middle schools and 89 percent of high schools.

“Over the last ten years, states have been strengthening their school nutrition policies,” said Margo G. Wootan, the CSPI’s director of nutrition policy. “But overall, the changes, while positive, are fragmented, incremental, and not happening quickly enough to reach all children in a timely way.”

“You would think that with all the concern about childhood obesity that getting junk food and soda out of schools would be easy,” said Mary Lou Hennrich, who led the effort to improve nutrition in Oregon schools. “But, it took us six years of hard work to pass our school nutrition legislation.”
Hennrich is executive director of the Community Health Partnership: Oregon’s Public Health Institute.

The CSPI report card graded states as follows: A-minus (Kentucky, Oregon), B-plus (Nevada, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Washington, New Mexico), B (New Jersey, Arizona, Tennessee), B-minus (Louisiana, Texas, West Virginia, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Florida), C-plus (Hawaii), C (Maine, Mississippi, Illinois, District of Columbia), C-minus (Colorado, South Carolina), D-plus (New York, Maryland, North Carolina), D (Oklahoma, Virginia), D-minus (Indiana, Georgia), F (Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin, Wyoming).

*****

But you can get a healthy meal at a restaurant, right?

Well, maybe not.

Researchers at Clemson University recently surveyed some 300 professional chefs and found that most of them not only have no idea what a healthy portion size is but think that calories in food don't matter nearly as much to diner's health as fat content.

The study, published in the August issue of Obesity, found big differences between what chefs consider a regular portion compared to the standard serving sizes dictated by the United States Department of Agriculture. For instance, when chef's were asked to describe a portion size for penne pasta, it was often six to eight times as large as the 1-ounce size recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Further, nearly half the chefs say they typically serve 12-ounce steaks, when the USDA says daily meat consumption should not exceed 5.5 ounces. Only 41 percent said calories consumed are the biggest influence on a person's weight.

And are we to infer that these chefs were professionally trained?

*****

And while chefs are serving up huge slabs of meat to a grateful restaurant clientele, hardly anyone is bothering to eat their whole grains

The USDA (they're just about everywhere, aren't they?) has published a report finding that only 7 percent of people are eating whole grains the way they should be. Mostly, those are the same people who read food labels and worry about nutrition. In other words, those people you saw in line at the last Barbara Kingsolver book signing.

Apparently, most Americans are sticking with those nasty refined grains that put the puff in Kispy Kreme donuts. And could we have another slice of white bread to go with those pork ribs?

Bon appetit...

Teaching More Creatively

Last night was our fall semester parents night dinner at the private elementary school where I teach "food appreciation" to the kids in the "after school" program. When I was first asked to take on these classes I challenged myself not to look at this as a glorified baby-sitting position but to actually teach the kids something memorable during the two hours they spend between the end of classes and the time when Mom (or the nanny) arrives to take them home.

I'm always surprised how well this strategy has worked, especially when a parent shares an amusing anecdote. "I took my son to the grocery store the other day and told him I'd buy him a treat. I was expecting to end up in the candy section. But instead, he said he wanted a zucchini," said one mother, who also happens to be the school nurse. "I've never been able to get him to eat zucchini. But there he was, slicing it up and drizzling it with olive oil.."

Another mother approached me last night after the dinner. "My daughter loves the food classes. I can't believe it. She's actually eating cucumber! I don't know who you are, but I think you must be some sort of god."

I don't know about the last part. But I do think that teaching children about whole foods and fresh raw ingredients, allowing them to handle food--touch it, smell it, taste it--and participate in the preparation of food opens their minds to trying new things. It's certainly not a cure-all: kids still have their likes and dislikes. The younger ones especially tend to say they don't like something before they've ever tried it. But even if they refuse to eat something the first time, exposing them to different foods in a learning environment increases the chances that they will be more open to new things in the future.

It's certainly not easy. Any time you get two or more kids together they will find ways to be distracted and get into trouble. Engaging children--getting them to focus and stay focused--is a real challenge. Good teachers do not get nearly the respect--or the rewards--they deserve. There is a huge temptation to be sharp or angry with children who misbehave in a classroom situation. But I've learned over the months that getting mad doesn't solve anything. It's a sign of failure, a signal that the teacher needs to get more creative.

That's not so hard in a cooking class. I can always bring some new kitchen gadget. I can't wait, for instance, to see how the kids react to the pasta machine. I even went out and bought a chitarra: that's an Italian device that looks like the guts from a piano. You roll pasta dough over the wire strings and it slices into linguine.

But sometimes there are no more rabbits to pull out of the hat and you have to fall back on human ingenuity. That's what makes some teachers god-like, I think. They connect with children in a way that's hard to fathom, never harsh or frustrated, always coaxing, leading, teaching.

I was reminded of that this week when I entered the garden at my daughter's school and found things in disarray. Someone had unwound the garden hose and it was laying in a tangled heap around the hose reel. The watering wand had been removed and disassembled, the pieces were scattered about. And the water had been left on.

I sent an indignant e-mail to all the powers-that-be at the school. Doesn't anyone respect our garden equipment? I wondered aloud. I got a sheepish reply from one of the teachers, explaining that the kids in her class had been out of control, squirting each other with the hose and goofing around. She was so busy trying to control them she wasn't able to pay attention to anything else. And she didn't know who had turned the water on (you need a special key) and forgotten to turn it off.

"Blame me," she said.

Well, I wasn't really looking for someone to blame. And what I wrote back to this teacher was, maybe the garden should be more of an opportunity to teach the kids about good behavior. Maybe there was some routine or ritual we could develop to engage and focus the kids so that when they walked into the garden it was with an attitude of respect and readiness for learning, rather than starting a riot. In other words, let's try to make this about teaching the kids, rather than just controlling them.

Don't get me wrong. I certainly don't claim to have all the answers. But if I've learned anything over the last couple of years, it's that we as adults need to fight our first impulse to get angry at children who don't behave the way we'd like them to and try harder to be good teachers.