What is the abomination of McDonald's "oatmeal"?

This is the bowl of oatmeal shown on the McDonalds website page - a page that has its own jaunty "oatmeal" tune.

Why do we care that McDonalds has introduced "oatmeal" with more calories than their hamburger and with more sugar than a Snickers bar? I put "oatmeal" in quotes because, according to Mark Bittman's How to Make Oatmeal: Wrong, the product should be described as "oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never keep in your kitchen."

As of Saturday, the article has lived in the top 10 emailed list for The New York Times since it was published on Tuesday, February 22. Apparently, a lot of people care.

My question is why? Are they preaching to the choir? Or do people actually think in this day and age there is anything healthy about walking through the fabled double arches?

Whether it be SuperSize Me, Eric Schlosser's #1 bestseller Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, or a simple read through McDonalds menu ingredients online. We all know McDonalds is not healthy, yet stories continue to be written, emailed, and commented on - detailing the exact nature of the unhealthiness.

Conrad's "the fascination of the abomination" comes to mind, our inability to look away from a train wreck. However, the true abomination is this. Everyone knows McDonalds is unhealthy and people go there because they have no choice. They have no choice, because as Michel Nischan of the Wholesome Wave Foundation put it at the TEDx food conferece, "they can't afford" real food.

According to the Fair Food Network, 92% of all Detroit food stamp retailers offer no fresh fruits and vegetables. For an urban food desert like Detroit, and for the rural food deserts in Iowa, the dried fruit in McDonalds "oatmeal" might be the closest a child gets to biting into an apple. That is the real abomination, and worth talking about.

Here is the article on annarbor.com.

Kale chips are sublime

Last season, I was tired of kale. Tired of sauteing leaves, tired of putting green stalks in soup, tired of the dense chewiness, tired of hearing how good it is for me (high in flavonoids, blah blah). So, come late last October, I choked down the rest of the leaves, relieved to be finished with that duty for the season.

A farmer friend of mine had told me that kale would survive the winter and come back hardy and healthy in the spring if I cut off the dense stalk right at ground level. He was right. We have several thriving kale plants from last year’s stalk. Unfortunately, the passing of months did not diminish my kale fatigue and I have not harvested much of any of this year's leaves.

Yet here we are again, a new October, and I knew I needed something new to try to help me take my kale medicine before the frost.

So I tried a variant on a kale chips recipe I found in the world of dehydrators/raw food. I can honestly say that it was the closest I have ever come to eating a plate of food like an 18-year-old-boy eating a pizza (there was no chewing involved). I inhaled these delicate green chips.

Kale chips are crunchy, intensely subtle, salty, warm and wonderful. There is not any of the bitter flavor associated with kale when prepared this way. As an even better bonus the chips are super fast and easy.

When I did a bit more research I learned that you can bake kale chips in your oven for those who don’t have a dehydrator. Instead of dehydrating for two to three hours at 95 degrees F, you can pop them on a baking sheet for 20 minutes at 300 degrees F (or until crisp).

Here is the recipe I used for my chips.

- Cut four leaves from plant.

- Remove stem and cut into large pieces.

- Toss in a bowl with 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon olive oil and sea salt.

- Let sit for 10 minutes to wilt a bit from the liquid (one recipe I found said to wait an hour)

- Place in the dehydrator/baking sheet.

- When they are crispy and warm, they are finished.

- Devour them as fast as you can before your friends learn how good they are.

(I will end with a thank you to the earlier maligned plant.)

Oh kale, of cruciferous and flavonoid fame, thank you for being such a delicious chip. You pulled me in with your sturdy frame and healthy fronds, and though I strayed from eating your flesh, I am once again pulled back into the fold of loving you – with your sea salt, oil warmth beguiling me in. All hail kale!

Here is the article on annarbor.com

(March 2015 update: Here is an updated page from the great folks at Health Ambition about the health benefits of kale - with recipes too!)

Storing harvest bounty: canning vs. dehydrating

Last winter I received Mary Bell’s Food Drying with an Attitude: A Fun and Fabulous Guide to Creating Snacks, Meals, and Crafts - and I put it aside because I did not have a dehydrator. Like last year, I started this season with drying tomatoes in my oven, but the tomatoes take two full days to dry in the oven at 200 degrees. So I bit the bullet and bought an electric dehydrator - one built for the task.

I purchased the dehydrator week ago, reread all of Bell's engaging and intriguing book, and I have not turned the machine off since. I pack slivers of color, once hefty tomatoes and gleaming eggplants, into airtight jars and debate the pros and cons of dehydrating vegetables vs. canning vegetables. Here are my thoughts so far - I look forward to hearing yours.

Dehydrating pros

- Food is considered raw when dehydrated below 105 degrees (because it maintains enzymes and nutrients that are leached by higher temperatures).

- The labor involved is minimal. I cut the vegetables at night and pack them into jars in the morning.

- The equivalent ingredients take up less room when dehydrated than when canned.

Dehydrating cons

- Dried fruit and vegetables do not last as long as canned items.

Canning pros

- The recipe is finished when you open the jar, as opposed to drying the basic ingredients, and then making a recipe in the winter. (This could also be considered a con.)

Canning cons

- The labor involved is focused, hot, and continuous. From cooking the sauce, to the hot water bath, to preparing the jars - unlike dehydrating, it does not happen while you sleep.

This last point for me is the crux of the matter. A food preservation technique that is self-contained, creating results while I sleep, is incredible. To me, that is a winning food preservation technique.

Here is the article on annarbor.com

A locavore discussion: why preserve tomatoes for the winter?

I have been scratching my head recently over a recent Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, called Math Lessons for Locavores, by Stephen Budiansky. First, I felt kinship with the author when he agreed with what I learned when I did my organic berry jam cost comparison article - namely, the efficiencies involved in shipping food long distances, “adds next to nothing to the total energy bill." Then, he goes on to posit that household energy usage is the true culprit, accounting for “32 percent of all energy use in our food system, the largest component by far."

The Op-Ed piece concludes with the same argument I learned from economics in high school; we should “grow lettuce, oranges, wheat, peppers, bananas, whatever, in the places where they grow best and with the most efficient technologies – and then pay the relatively tiny energy cost to get them to market, as we do with every other commodity in the economy." This is his rationale for being wary of the terms “food-miles" and “sustainability" - which are rapidly joining “organic", “natural", and “free-range" as words that connote gold and denote tin.

He gives very convincing evidence that the energy used in transporting grapes from Chile can be less than the energy used for the extra freezer your family buys to freeze your local rhubarb. But his fallacy is assuming that we need, as a nation of Americans, to be eating those grapes in March.

For the last three weeks, at the Westside Farmers' Market, I have overheard customers ask the vendors whether or not they have any lettuce to sell. I think this is because tomatoes are ripe. At some point in our national assumptions, a burger became married to “lettuce and tomato." The question, “would you like lettuce and tomato on that?” became coupled together and ingrained into our national consciousness. Therefore, when you go to the farmers market and see tomatoes, our brains look for the lettuce - “it must be here! How can I make a proper burger without it?" But the two vegetables are not ripe at the same time: lettuce typically arrives in the spring and tomatoes in the fall.

Bananas on our breakfast cereal, apple pie in May, watermelon for the 4th of July picnic, orange juice and coffee in the mornings, chocolate for Valentines Day, lettuce with tomatoes for BLTs in March ~ many food pairings in our American culture assume cheap oil, willing trading partners, and organized large-scale transportation.

Our supermarkets groan under the volume and the diversity of our food choices - during all seasons of the year. That abundance of choice and quantity is not serving us. According to a recent article in Scientific American, Americans throw away between 25% and 50% of all of the food we produce for domestic sale and consumption. A 2009 study from the National Institute of Health concluded, "US per capita food waste has progressively increased by ~50% since 1974 reaching more than 1400 kcal per person per day or 150 trillion kcal per year. Food waste now accounts for more than one quarter of the total freshwater consumption and ~300 million barrels of oil per year."

You only throw away that which you do not value. The NIH study tells us that Americans are a spoiled nation when it comes to food. There are 6.8 billion people in the world - 1.02 billion of them are hungry.

One out of six people is hungry, yet we are overwhelmed with a relentless supply of bananas and lettuce and avocados and apples all seasons of the year. It is understandable that our national barometer for what to expect at the market has been skewed. It is understandable, and a huge tragedy, that we throw so much food away.

Why preserve tomatoes for the winter? I preserve my tomatoes for the winter to help me reset my internal barometer as for what I should expect on my burger.

Here is the article on annarbor.com.

Berry jam: a novice's first attempt

As our household creeps toward food self-sufficiency, you would think our decision to keep backyard chickens would incite more concern than canning fruits and vegetables. However, botulism is a big word and scenes from Louisa May Alcott books where women in full-length wool dresses sweat over a hot stove in the middle of August stirring the gelling fruit are writ large in my psyche.

Last fall we canned tomato sauce for the second year in a row, and we did applesauce as well. I have learned the trick of the popping metal top and the stove was not that hot. So this weekend, inspired by the gorgeous fruit at Makielski's Berry Farm (site of my most recent Farm to Fork visit), I made blackberry jam - and I used their raspberry honey for the sweetener. I learned several important lessons.

#1 - I need a bigger stovetop or I need to make smaller batches.

It was a precariously balanced stovetop with two water sterilizations going for the glass jars, the large black canning pot, and the pot for the cooking of the fruit.

#2 - When the recipe says “Measured Ingredients: 4 cups mashed fruit” - read it twice.

I had measured out fruit, then mashed it, then put in the lemon juice, and then read that it is “mashed.”

#3 - Don’t wear a white shirt while making blackberry jam.

Indeed.

#4 - The whole house is infused with sweet warm berry goodness - absolutely divine.

I followed the recipe included in the Pomona's Universal Pectin, which I purchased from Downtown Home and Garden. Based on my experience with applesauce last fall - I thought I did not need pectin. But I was kindly corrected by Mark Hodesh, owner of Downtown Home and Garden, who shared that apple and quince are the only two fruits that have high enough pectin to gel - otherwise one must augment. According to Wikipedia, guavas, plums, gooseberries, and oranges can be added to the high pectin list.

I am happy there are more weeks of blackberry, cherry, blueberry, and raspberry picking because I would like to experiment further. I am curious to hear from those of you who have done this before - aside from not wearing a white shirt, are there more things I should watch for as I dabble?

This is the recipe I followed (well, except for the fact that I put in enough lemon for 12 cups and only ended up with 9 cups of mashed fruit). It did gel and it tastes like blackberries.

- Wash and rinse jars; let stand in hot water. Bring lids and rings to boil; turn down heat; let stand in hot water. - Measure mashed berries into pan with lemon or lime juice (4 cups of mashed berries for every ¼ cup of lemon or lime juice). - Add proper amount of calcium water (an addition that Pomona’s includes that helps to activate their pectin, 2 teaspoons). - Measure 1/3 cup honey and mix in 2 teaspoons of pectin. - Bring fruit to a boil. Add pectin-honey; stir vigorously 1-2 minutes while cooking to dissolve pectin. Return to boil and remove from heat. - Fill jars to ¼ inch of top. Boil 10 minutes. Check seals - lids should be sucked down. Lasts about 3 weeks once opened.

Here is the link to the article.

For a laugh

This video makes me laugh every time.

Inaugural Introduction on AnnArbor.com

During my interview in 2005 for a job at Zingerman's Deli I told my future managers I loved eating because it is the only carnal thing you can do in public. That sophomoric, and true, sentiment aside, I am happy to talk about food as a new lead food blogger at AnnArbor.com for several reasons. Every country I visit I can't resist trying new foods. Cactus tacos with eyeball soup in Mexico? Sure. Oodles of noodles with mystery meat while crouched on a street in Vietnam? I got really good with chopsticks. Lukewarm sweet cardamom tea on an Indian train? Bring it on. Unrolling a perfect croissant while looking at Notre Dame? I will bring the napkins.

Beyond the pleasure of eating, food is company, food nourishes the soul, food engenders laughter, debate, and love. It is a universal connection one can share with any person.

Moreover, food has become very political. The locavore movement gains traction as Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, and Prince Charles continue to push the national and international conversations forward. Educated consumers want to make choices that are tasty, healthy, and sustainable. Like a perfect mille feuille, there are thousands of layers to what at first appears very simple: the access to healthy food for all people.

I am writing for all of those "whys". Food tastes good. Dinner in company feeds my soul. Food justice sparks my passion and my intellect. I have to eat to live. I can't think of anything I would rather spend my time on.

So that explains the why; here is the "who."

I moved to Ann Arbor in the summer of 2005 - my husband works for the University. We live near enough to the stadium that on game days we don't have to turn on the radio to hear if we are winning. I am an East Coast transplant - born in Washington DC.

I shocked some city friends with our decision to get backyard chickens this summer. They should start laying this winter (I hope). Here are some pictures of our chickens and the building of the coop this summer.

I run the Westside Farmers Market during the summer season. Here is a video of us at the HomeGrown Festival (which was a blast).

I love to eat food with chopsticks. Sometimes I can read a magazine at the same time, but not always. I can laugh no matter what my utensils are.

Check out the article on annarbor.com.

There are no ordinary days

This past weekend my husband and I drove to Chicago so he could run in the marathon. I was able to catch a glimpse of a very inspiring man, Richard Whitehead, who runs on two prosthetic legs. Richard's example is perfect in many ways. I did not think that I was going to be watching a man with two prosthetic legs running the marathon as I waited for my husband on that chilly morning. Dan Millman, in his great book Way of the Peaceful Warrior, says there is no such thing as a an ordinary day. I have been trying to hold that possibility and focus on it as a goal. So far, I am AMAZED what happens to my day when I look at it as a series of miracles that are waiting to happen.

I am going to keep track of my miracles and write them down. What is miracle is happening for you today?