The Christmas merchandise is already out in the shops. Perhaps you've noticed. This time of year, I always feel the urge to stock up on Christmas candy.
Every year at my parent's house, we fill each others stockings. My speciality is usually chocolate truffles or other special candy. And of course, it's pricey candy, or becoming pricier. I remember when Lindt truffles ran about 25 cents each. I remember when they went up to 30, then 35 cents. Somewhere in there, they got up to nearly 50 cents, then over. So now they are reeeeally pricey, considering I buy several per person, often tracking down rare or seasonal flavors. Spending thirty or forty dollars on truffles alone is not uncommon. And that's not even including other specialty chocolates.
I've had to cut back a little. There are some delicious imported "Mozart" chocolates I had to stop buying because they were getting upwards of eighty cents each. If I'm going to spend about a dollar per piece, I want to actually wrap it up for under the tree, not stuff it into a stocking! Or such is my thought. These are special treats that everyone loves to find in their stocking, not gold. I don't have to break the bank.
However, I'm having to moderate my truffle spending for other reasons as well.
I noticed my usual urge to stock up on truffles. Yes, maybe I can get some of them on sale. Maybe I can buy them before the season really heats up, and so avoid going to that crazy retailer after Thanksgiving. Maybe I can stash them in the back of the cabinet or in the closet. You know, to save them. So I don't have to inconveniently buy more later. Uh-huh.
I found myself feeling reluctant to stock up. I was remembering what really happened to that stash of chocolate the last couple of years. I had a pile of chocolate in the house, and no matter how well it's "hidden" or wedged into inconvenient corners, I always know it's there. And of course, we have to sample some every so often. The longer the stash is in the house, the more we eat. And the more we eat, the more stressed our bodies and minds are from the extra sugar and fat. And of course, that does nothing good for our overall diet. Yuk.
There is such a thing as overload, and we have hit it.
It seems clear that the more we have in the house, and the earlier it comes into the house, the more we eat. And if it's in the house, it'll get eaten. You can see where this is going. We're going to have to stop bringing candy into the house.
Horrors!!! Is that even possible? I do enjoy seasonal candy - in moderation. I only eat good chocolate, but that does not matter when I am faced with a large quantity of good chocolate. How many calories, I mean, bars of peppermint bark do I really want to find myself eating this year? Not that many.
So I am resisting the truffles' siren call. When I see the aisles of seasonal candy, I avert my eyes. If I pick it up, I put it back. When I see the tubs of specialty chocolates at the bulk buying store, I tell myself, "You don't want to eat that all by yourself, do you? No!" I will wait to buy exactly what I need for stocking candy when I need it. Like the week before the holiday. Or a couple days previously. Or maybe less of it overall.
A part of me is whining about not eating as much peppermint bark as I want. I'm telling myself gently but firmly that it's more fun to anticipate eating than have had eaten it.
So this year, I'll make my own peppermint bark again, and eat that instead. And bake fewer cookies but more varieties. Fewer cookies, fewer temptations. People might get fewer truffles, but I will too. It's a win-win! I keep telling myself that and eating more greens. Yum!
Not only do I not have to do it all, but I don't have to eat it all, either. Ha.
--
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Monday, November 21, 2011
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Potage Melange of Autumn
On Saturdays, I like to cook. The day stretches out leisurely before me, with hours to spend. I neaten a table, put away stranded items, put in another load of laundry, polish the door, put away socks, papers, and junk mail, and think of food.
Some weeks we go to the local Farmer's Market, with rows of stalls all selling something of specialty. Baked goods - bread, tarts, pies - and flowers, fused glass jewelry, beautifully polished bowls of locally salvaged wood, seeds and produce - fifteen small farmers organic or not, selling seasonal food bursting with the colors and health as the season intended. It's too late for tomatoes, but there's grain fed beef, braising greens, bok choy, and white turnips with greens intact. Turnips!
It's fall, and the root vegetables are calling me. I contemplate a hearty plate of roasted roots. Or perhaps sauteed? Or a stew? Perhaps roasted, and then stewed, then chunked into a mosaic. Yes.
I pick potatoes and carrots, of course, and then a bunch of turnips, of course, and a few parsnips because they are supposed to be yummy in this sort of combination of course. Onions and garlic and plenty of salt and pepper. Roasted with olive oil, then sauteed in butter, and melted into softness, mashed or spun into flecks, a whole family of flavors in every bite.
On a cold but sunny autumn day, this potage sticks to the ribs, mortar against the windy bite. It's fall. So let's fall to it.
--
Some weeks we go to the local Farmer's Market, with rows of stalls all selling something of specialty. Baked goods - bread, tarts, pies - and flowers, fused glass jewelry, beautifully polished bowls of locally salvaged wood, seeds and produce - fifteen small farmers organic or not, selling seasonal food bursting with the colors and health as the season intended. It's too late for tomatoes, but there's grain fed beef, braising greens, bok choy, and white turnips with greens intact. Turnips!
It's fall, and the root vegetables are calling me. I contemplate a hearty plate of roasted roots. Or perhaps sauteed? Or a stew? Perhaps roasted, and then stewed, then chunked into a mosaic. Yes.
I pick potatoes and carrots, of course, and then a bunch of turnips, of course, and a few parsnips because they are supposed to be yummy in this sort of combination of course. Onions and garlic and plenty of salt and pepper. Roasted with olive oil, then sauteed in butter, and melted into softness, mashed or spun into flecks, a whole family of flavors in every bite.
On a cold but sunny autumn day, this potage sticks to the ribs, mortar against the windy bite. It's fall. So let's fall to it.
--
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Green Peas & Toasters: Where Quality and Thrift Collide
Where do quality and thrift collide, you ask? For me, it's at green peas and toasters.
Let me tell you this saga.
I love green peas, frozen, not canned. I have fond childhood memories of simmering them in water until their skins puff up and they are just tender, neither too hard nor at all mushy, then sprinkled with a grind of black pepper. Even now, I can eat a huge plate of them in one sitting. But a couple years ago, my green pea experience started being tough and tasteless. I would start to dig into a serving, and find myself unable to eat them. Bleh! I was baffled and disappointed. My lovely peas! I just could not eat them. I thought this might be leftover food sensitivity from my pregnancy, but the tasteless peas lingered. I finally gave up on ever eating greens peas again. If I was just going to keep throwing away plates of peas, what was the point?
I mentioned the sad situation to one of my foodie friends. She said - "Oh, they are probably irradiated. The heat makes them tougher."
Now, I had not heard of irradiation toughening vegetables. After all, it's supposed to help increase shelf life, not decrease quality, right? But whatever the cause of it, I realized that it wasn't me; it was indeed the peas. It was a sad, sad day. I love peas!
But anyway, I started looking for alternatives. I tried different varieties. I tried I don't know how many different brands in hope of retrieving my earlier experience, but nothing really lived up to my ideal. Damn tasteless peas!
The only brand that came close was an organic label from Oregon, sold in small expensive bags at my local food co-op. I took a breath and bought a bag on sale for under three dollars!
Well. They were good. Really quite good. Good enough to eat on a regular basis. Other than being nearly a dollar a serving, of course. I would have to restrain myself and eat only one serving at a time, which for me is a very modest portion. I couldn't justify eating the whole bag at one sitting at that price! (I've eaten gourmet muffins for that price, but those are huge portions and a different story.)
So I'm thinking to myself: is this a dilemma for the modern age? So many things have been getting cheaper and cheaper -- cheap clothing, cheap food -- but they are not really better at all. The quality that one used to be able to expect as a matter of course is not only harder to find, but much more expensive. And so to have the same quality one had before one will have to pony up the cash to support it.
Which reminds me of cheap clothing. I am still astounded at the common tendency to throw away clothes after a year or two. Who does this? I'm still wearing some of my clothes from twenty years ago, and they have held up all this time, some of it just recently starting to fray. I thought it was just our disposable society at work, but apparently, it's true - all that cheap clothing doesn't hold up at all. What is this crap clothing? It's the new normal, I guess. That's "prosperity" for you - you think you are getting glitzed out, but it all goes threadbare in a year.
Ah. So to buy really excellent, decent quality clothing (if one can find it), one will be paying some big bucks, apparently. Same things as with the peas.
I am not willing to buy all organic food any more because I just can't afford it, but I need my green peas. I'll dole it out like gold bullion or high-end chocolate.
Did they pick these peas by hand? Sing them lullabies? Pay off the agribusiness mob? For two-thirds of a cup per dollar? Okay, okay, I'm sure that's what it actually costs to produce quality food these days, living wage and organic practices and all, and it's worth it, but oh, my!
Lesson learned: to get something of quality, sometimes you just have to pay the true price of its value.
That brings me to toasters.
I had a very nice toaster once upon a time. Wide slots, useable settings, even heating, quiet yet distinctive pop-up. Must have been twenty-some years ago. One day, the toaster died, and I went off in search of a replacement. I found plenty of inexpensive toasters, so I bought one. You might guess where this is going. Yes, that toaster lasted me about fifteen months before it too died. Now I do eat a lot of toast, but this was ridiculous.
Off I went to look for yet another new toaster. The really good high-quality toasters with metals sides and innards were upwards of US $130. I love my toast, but that was not in the budget. I looked a little closer and noticed that most of the toasters available were made of cheap, flimsy plastic. I could not find a decent toaster without plastic! They were all just as flimsy than the toaster that had just died.
In disgust, I stomped off, refusing to buy any of that crap. I made toast in my broiler for more than a year, and it was good if a trifle inconvenient. Piers Anthony wrote a funny philosophical short story once about the simple pleasure of toast through the space ages, but I digress...
Flash forward a couple years, and I was browsing through a thrift store and spotted a toaster. An older toaster with some life left in it. It was modest, a bit beat up. It was metal! I took it home for seven dollars, and I've had it ever since. It is now even more beat up, but still it keeps going. I don't know what I'm going to do when that one finally kicks the bucket. Does anyone know how to fix toasters any more? I mean, fix toasters in this country where it's cheaper to buy something new than to fix a perfectly good appliance. pause to roll eyes
It's true; I had my sewing machine cleaned and refurbished a couple years ago, and it cost me at least as much it would to buy a brand new machine. But, as the repair mechanic noted with a touch of awe, it has metal parts, and "you just can't find that any more." I told him there was no way I was giving up my old machine. I think he was pleased. I know I was delighted.
Lesson learned: if you are lucky enough to have anything "old fashioned" yet well-made, hang onto it for dear life, or you'll be stuck with a steady stream of cheaply-made plastic crap.
I think this is just the way it is these days: a profusion of cheap goods and a small selection of really quality goods for those able to discern the difference and willing to pay.
And why are so many of our goods getting cheaper and, well, cheaper? I'll leave you to contemplate the variety of likely reasons. Too big of a conversation for this post. I'm no economist, but I've learned a few things from green peas and toasters.
--
Let me tell you this saga.
I love green peas, frozen, not canned. I have fond childhood memories of simmering them in water until their skins puff up and they are just tender, neither too hard nor at all mushy, then sprinkled with a grind of black pepper. Even now, I can eat a huge plate of them in one sitting. But a couple years ago, my green pea experience started being tough and tasteless. I would start to dig into a serving, and find myself unable to eat them. Bleh! I was baffled and disappointed. My lovely peas! I just could not eat them. I thought this might be leftover food sensitivity from my pregnancy, but the tasteless peas lingered. I finally gave up on ever eating greens peas again. If I was just going to keep throwing away plates of peas, what was the point?
I mentioned the sad situation to one of my foodie friends. She said - "Oh, they are probably irradiated. The heat makes them tougher."
Now, I had not heard of irradiation toughening vegetables. After all, it's supposed to help increase shelf life, not decrease quality, right? But whatever the cause of it, I realized that it wasn't me; it was indeed the peas. It was a sad, sad day. I love peas!
But anyway, I started looking for alternatives. I tried different varieties. I tried I don't know how many different brands in hope of retrieving my earlier experience, but nothing really lived up to my ideal. Damn tasteless peas!
The only brand that came close was an organic label from Oregon, sold in small expensive bags at my local food co-op. I took a breath and bought a bag on sale for under three dollars!
Well. They were good. Really quite good. Good enough to eat on a regular basis. Other than being nearly a dollar a serving, of course. I would have to restrain myself and eat only one serving at a time, which for me is a very modest portion. I couldn't justify eating the whole bag at one sitting at that price! (I've eaten gourmet muffins for that price, but those are huge portions and a different story.)
So I'm thinking to myself: is this a dilemma for the modern age? So many things have been getting cheaper and cheaper -- cheap clothing, cheap food -- but they are not really better at all. The quality that one used to be able to expect as a matter of course is not only harder to find, but much more expensive. And so to have the same quality one had before one will have to pony up the cash to support it.
Which reminds me of cheap clothing. I am still astounded at the common tendency to throw away clothes after a year or two. Who does this? I'm still wearing some of my clothes from twenty years ago, and they have held up all this time, some of it just recently starting to fray. I thought it was just our disposable society at work, but apparently, it's true - all that cheap clothing doesn't hold up at all. What is this crap clothing? It's the new normal, I guess. That's "prosperity" for you - you think you are getting glitzed out, but it all goes threadbare in a year.
Ah. So to buy really excellent, decent quality clothing (if one can find it), one will be paying some big bucks, apparently. Same things as with the peas.
I am not willing to buy all organic food any more because I just can't afford it, but I need my green peas. I'll dole it out like gold bullion or high-end chocolate.
Did they pick these peas by hand? Sing them lullabies? Pay off the agribusiness mob? For two-thirds of a cup per dollar? Okay, okay, I'm sure that's what it actually costs to produce quality food these days, living wage and organic practices and all, and it's worth it, but oh, my!
Lesson learned: to get something of quality, sometimes you just have to pay the true price of its value.
That brings me to toasters.
I had a very nice toaster once upon a time. Wide slots, useable settings, even heating, quiet yet distinctive pop-up. Must have been twenty-some years ago. One day, the toaster died, and I went off in search of a replacement. I found plenty of inexpensive toasters, so I bought one. You might guess where this is going. Yes, that toaster lasted me about fifteen months before it too died. Now I do eat a lot of toast, but this was ridiculous.
Off I went to look for yet another new toaster. The really good high-quality toasters with metals sides and innards were upwards of US $130. I love my toast, but that was not in the budget. I looked a little closer and noticed that most of the toasters available were made of cheap, flimsy plastic. I could not find a decent toaster without plastic! They were all just as flimsy than the toaster that had just died.
In disgust, I stomped off, refusing to buy any of that crap. I made toast in my broiler for more than a year, and it was good if a trifle inconvenient. Piers Anthony wrote a funny philosophical short story once about the simple pleasure of toast through the space ages, but I digress...
Flash forward a couple years, and I was browsing through a thrift store and spotted a toaster. An older toaster with some life left in it. It was modest, a bit beat up. It was metal! I took it home for seven dollars, and I've had it ever since. It is now even more beat up, but still it keeps going. I don't know what I'm going to do when that one finally kicks the bucket. Does anyone know how to fix toasters any more? I mean, fix toasters in this country where it's cheaper to buy something new than to fix a perfectly good appliance. pause to roll eyes
It's true; I had my sewing machine cleaned and refurbished a couple years ago, and it cost me at least as much it would to buy a brand new machine. But, as the repair mechanic noted with a touch of awe, it has metal parts, and "you just can't find that any more." I told him there was no way I was giving up my old machine. I think he was pleased. I know I was delighted.
Lesson learned: if you are lucky enough to have anything "old fashioned" yet well-made, hang onto it for dear life, or you'll be stuck with a steady stream of cheaply-made plastic crap.
I think this is just the way it is these days: a profusion of cheap goods and a small selection of really quality goods for those able to discern the difference and willing to pay.
And why are so many of our goods getting cheaper and, well, cheaper? I'll leave you to contemplate the variety of likely reasons. Too big of a conversation for this post. I'm no economist, but I've learned a few things from green peas and toasters.
--
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Asiago and Apples and Happiness
I had lunch with a friend recently. We both had not only a wonderful Persian Aash (savory herb soup with various beans and thick wheat noodles), but also a delectable mixed green salad with slices of apple and a generous pile of shaved slabs of asiago cheese, topped with a few curls of dried tomato and their wonderfully creamy dill-yogurt dressing. Oh my God. I'm drooling just thinking about it!
There is something so satisfying and explosively delighting about the contrast in textures and flavors. The sweet crunch of the apple contrasting with the sharp softness of the cheese, with some of the other textures and flavors in play. Reminds me of that scene in the animated movie, Rattattoui, in which the connoisseur rat experiences the combination of flavors in ever increasing explosions of color and light. Fireworks! In my case, blissful fireworks.
It was sunny and we lingered for a while on the sidewalk afterward, getting in another couple of minutes of conversation. The apparent warmness of the day was mitigated by the breezy conditions, though, adding a substantial nip in the air! After a while, I started to shiver and regret my lack of a jacket. But then, when I stepped back into the truck... ah! The delicious warmth! Pure sun-baked cozy. Neat how, again, the contrast heightens the experience. The warmth seemed luscious after the chill.
We'd had a good visit. We hadn't seen each other for a few months, so we hit on a variety of topics to catch each other up. We touched on work, our aged parents, what we thought of the Democratic primary race, adventures and travels, and the state of several groups we both belong to. I told her the latest about my calling + teaching and the projects-with-great-potential that my husband has been pursuing.
Once she remarked with something like surprise: You sound happy! I had to consider and say, Huh, yeah. Yes, I am... And that's an interesting state to find myself in after years of various personal struggles and disappointments! Pretty cool in fact.
Schmutzie wrote recently about not being able to accomplish as much as she would have liked or thought during/after her 1.5 years of trauma and stress. Made me realize that there is something to the idea of processing.
Processing is usually not as quick and easy as we'd like. For myself, it involved a certain amount of ennui, anger, confusion, and anxiety and mutter mutter mutter (lots of crap and swearing and whining). Oh wait, maybe that WAS my process. Anyway, I suddenly have noticed a lot of things coming together personally and professionally. I also seem to be at peace (or maybe fatalistic? ha!) about some of those big disappointments, and even found new things that work for me.
It's no big whooping deal. It's just very, very nice to realize, hey, I am pretty happy about where I am and where I'm going. Maybe it's the contrast that really shows off the bright happy stuff in higher relief. Apparently, one CAn get through to the other side.
There is something so satisfying and explosively delighting about the contrast in textures and flavors. The sweet crunch of the apple contrasting with the sharp softness of the cheese, with some of the other textures and flavors in play. Reminds me of that scene in the animated movie, Rattattoui, in which the connoisseur rat experiences the combination of flavors in ever increasing explosions of color and light. Fireworks! In my case, blissful fireworks.
It was sunny and we lingered for a while on the sidewalk afterward, getting in another couple of minutes of conversation. The apparent warmness of the day was mitigated by the breezy conditions, though, adding a substantial nip in the air! After a while, I started to shiver and regret my lack of a jacket. But then, when I stepped back into the truck... ah! The delicious warmth! Pure sun-baked cozy. Neat how, again, the contrast heightens the experience. The warmth seemed luscious after the chill.
We'd had a good visit. We hadn't seen each other for a few months, so we hit on a variety of topics to catch each other up. We touched on work, our aged parents, what we thought of the Democratic primary race, adventures and travels, and the state of several groups we both belong to. I told her the latest about my calling + teaching and the projects-with-great-potential that my husband has been pursuing.
Once she remarked with something like surprise: You sound happy! I had to consider and say, Huh, yeah. Yes, I am... And that's an interesting state to find myself in after years of various personal struggles and disappointments! Pretty cool in fact.
Schmutzie wrote recently about not being able to accomplish as much as she would have liked or thought during/after her 1.5 years of trauma and stress. Made me realize that there is something to the idea of processing.
Processing is usually not as quick and easy as we'd like. For myself, it involved a certain amount of ennui, anger, confusion, and anxiety and mutter mutter mutter (lots of crap and swearing and whining). Oh wait, maybe that WAS my process. Anyway, I suddenly have noticed a lot of things coming together personally and professionally. I also seem to be at peace (or maybe fatalistic? ha!) about some of those big disappointments, and even found new things that work for me.
It's no big whooping deal. It's just very, very nice to realize, hey, I am pretty happy about where I am and where I'm going. Maybe it's the contrast that really shows off the bright happy stuff in higher relief. Apparently, one CAn get through to the other side.
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