The NY Times and Bittman meets cutting back meat

Jed blogged about cutting back on meat. Like him I don't eat red meat. Unfortunately I didn't find Mark Bittman's article "Putting Meat back in its place" to be at all helpful for my needs though others may find it useful. Unlike Jed, I have seen plenty of articles that address cutting back on meat or becoming more vegetarian while on briefly touching on the reasons. Jed says the reasons aren't addressed, but they are briefly mentioned. The vegetarian and sustainable and slow food movements are quite diverse. What is relatively rare about this article is it's in the NY Times. We have arrived.

I don't remember if Jed was a vegetarian, but I was actually an ovo vegetarian and a little pesco for four years. I gave it up because some of my red blood cells are smaller than others, a Burmese variation of Thalassemia (I tested negative for the known Thalassemia genes, but my blood cells are clinically different) and I became anemic. It is possible to get all one's protein and iron from a vegetarian meal, but it's harder and frankly I didn't always have time.

One of the ways Bittman's article didn't help is that living in Mountain View, I do eat out at a lot of Asian restaurants. I dunno where he eats where the food doesn't revolve around meat. It's not in any down home Asian restaurant I know. I can't help but think he only eats in fusion Asian restaurants.

Also his tips are based on the premise how to stop eating a meal that revolves around meat. Because I was a vegetarian, my life doesn't revolve around meat. I feel satisfied with a meal that contains entirely vegetarian ingredients. For example one of my favorite lunches is Trader Joe's Eggplant Parmesan. I also typically eat a vegetarian breakfast, though more for convenience. However at some point I need to eat a meal with a complete protein source and iron. I find most types of beans difficult to digest, except for soy. I really like soy if prepared properly but so many people can't cook tofu properly and it tests rubbery and horrid. So that leaves chicken and pork for me.

I focus more on I buy food on buying from the farmers' market if I can and organic. I have not done the calculations of the amount of waste and pollution the pork we buy from the farmers' market generates versus a factory farmed vegetable from Safeway. I do also eat out and the food probably comes from sources I would not buy from. But as Bittman says it's about creating a lifestyle you can maintain.

When will a president care about the fat and sugar offered to kids every day by the US government?

I am worried that the school will make my daughter fat and unhealthy with bad food choices. Is she going off to college? No she's going to kindergarten.

I looked at the school lunch menu for the entire months of August and September. I see items I might feed my child once in a while like hamburgers but not every day. During the Reagan era ketchup was declared a vegetable but I thought perhaps naively that things had gotten better with all these drive to get healthy. In fact at the bottom the menu declares in bold letters "Off to" (in an apple) A great Start" I also thought I could control whether or not my daughter ate lunch at school by choosing to give her money. No now they have a new convenient "card swipe system" so my child needs no money at all. It's a heavy burden for a five year old to make healthy choices and I am disappointed but unsurprised that I see so few healthy choices to make. The government rails that kids are fat and then offers them a host of fattening food subsided for $.40 to low income families. When will school meals actually become healthy instead of a victim of special interest groups? When will one of the presidential candidates actually speak up about this issue? I am listening and waiting and I am angry at the hypocrisy.

Here's Monday's lunch menu:

All white meat Chicken Drummies w/Tots Corn Dog (full of fat and nitrates) (some form of deep fried processed meat is offered four days a week one day a week the nuggets are baked whee!)
Reduced fat Pizza (offered twice a week)
Mini Twin Cheeseburger (offered twice a week under a different name)
Turkey (nitrates) and Cheese (processed) on whole wheat (a sad rather soggy sandwich).
Salad mix (a sad affair of iceberg lettuce and a couple carrots - offered twice a week)
Carrot Sticks with ranch dressing
Corn (buttered and heavily salted)
Mixed fruit (a fruit salad drenched in corn syrup - some form of fruit in corn syrup is offered every day)
Offered every day
Apples
Oranges
Bananas

Milk
1% Low Fat
Non Fat Chocolate

Now it's not that I expect the government to understand or value organic produce but to me "Off to a Great Start" implies more than just offering 3 types of fruit every day. What about some pasta? I have yet to meet a child who doesn't love mac and cheese. What about bagels?(Oh but they offer that twice a week at breakfast) along with Cinnamon roll Pancake on a stick and other ways to give your kid a great sugar high for the rest of their day.

Today we had a somewhat disturbing conversation to me. "Is it true that you need to drink three cups of milk a day?" she asked. I blinked a bit. "There's a cow in the cafeteria... A picture of a cow." she added hastily as she interpreted my gimlet gaze as perhaps thinking there was a real cow in the cafeteria. Instead of I confess I was thinking hormones from nonorganic milk. I take a deep breath. Well maybe a little hormones aren't so bad. Then she continues "I love chocolate milk. I dream of chocolate milk in class. I dream everybody except the people are made of chocolate milk."

Sending my oldest child my daughter off to kindergarten brings with it a whole host of worries. Will she enjoy kindergarten and learn? Will she make friends? Will her teacher like her? But all my typical fears have been addressed. She comes home each day excited and happy. But I did not expect to worry about her health.

I have solved this problem by telling her the school cafeteria is completely out of the control of the school. True. That she goes to a wonderful school. But the school lunches are terrible. And the school has no choice in the matter. It works for a five year old. But I think about other parents who go to the school. The one who qualify for the $.40 cent reduced price lunch -- a really low income level. Or even those who are at a slightly higher income level for whom spending $3 for lunch versus spending the money to get a proper lunch is an issue. I think it's fundamentally unfair. I also get angry with people who argue that kids will only eat fat and sugar. Sure that's what they'll eat if that's the only thing on offer.

More on Trader Joe's milk

tempusfugit asks "Can you talk more about the Strauss Family products? Is this for all Trader Joe's or only in the West Coast or East Coast. What about the Trader Joe's brand milk and yogurt?"

I don't know about the distribution of milk of Trader Joe's nationwide. What I do know is that the cream top Trader Joe's milk is almost certainly Straus Family. Currently this is sold in whole and 1% half gallons. In our local Trader Joe's, the only organic yogurt isn't Trader Joe's brand, but is still Straus Family. Straus Family is a northern California dairy producer, so it may not be able to produce enough for Trader Joe's nationwide. On the other hand, there actually aren't that many Trader Joe's relative to other grocery stores. You should check your local Trader Joe's.

Technorati tags:organic food,organic milk,Trader Joe's

Trader Joe's Organic milk gets four cows in my book

Earlier I blogged about my difficulties finding organic milk that wasn't factory farmed. Well I'm 90% sure that Trader Joe's organic whole and 2% milk is Straus Family milk and therefore four cows.

• Trader Joes sells Straus Family Yogurt.
  
• Straus Family milk is unhomogenized
  
• Trader Joe's whole and 2% milk is unhomogenized.
  

Note that the 1% milk and other homogenized milk is NOT Straus Family milk. Therefore the cows are not guaranteed to have the idyllic conditions seen here,

but more like here



Technorati tags:organic food,organic milk,Trader Joe's

Some organic milk is factory farmed

I buy organic milk, because they give tons of hormones to non-organic milk cows to make them produce milk. The other day I learned from that some 'organic' cows are raised on "formula where a primary ingredient is blood byproduct." Eww! I don't want vampire cows, please. Sadly the qualifications for organic milk are fairly weak and the NY Times reported in November that organic milk is a cash cow. C says "it's the gateway drug that gets folks started on organic."

Now there's a Dairy Scorecard which rates organic dairy for the entire country.

If you live in California, Straus Family Creamery and Clover Stornetta are both rated 4 out of 5 cows. Organic Pastures is rated 5, but it sells raw milk, which I would never give to young children, and I've never seen it anyway.

Interestingly I do think the Straus Family milk tastes the best. But it's somewhat annoying as it's not homogenized. I didn't regularly buy Clover Stornetta, but now I'll look for it. I think organic milk tastes better in general. I can drink 1% organic milk. Non-organic milk, I need 2%.

Trader Joe's Peppermint Bark

I was also disappointed in Trader Joe's peppermint bark. I think I bought it before, and forgot it was disappointing. Now it's here in my blog, so I can read it again and save my money. Perhaps you can save yours. I paid $9.99 for 6 3x3" squares. Those are expensive squares. It comes in a big tin, so I guess that's part of where your money goes.

The white fudge tastes creamy and milky, but lacks any other particular flavour. That's okay. We're here for the chocolate. The dark fudge tastes rich velvety chocolate, made from decent chocolate liqueor. It's a good combination with the peppermint candy, which has a strong minty flavour. However for some reason the candy maker skimps on the peppermint candy, so it's quite unsatisfying as peppermint bark. It's actually just white-dark chocolate at a high price. I guess I could go and buy some peppermint candy, crush it and make it good, but at that price, it seems rather ridiculous.

I tried Ghiradelli peppermint bark at a party. The peppermint tasted strong and minty, but paled against the bland chocolate.

I know I bought peppermint bark somewhere and I loved it. It was expensive though, so I think I blocked it out of my mind. Where can I buy good peppermint bark? Why is it expensive?

C says I should blog about Trader Joe's food since I buy so much of it. Problem is that it changes all the time. But I do find that Trader Joe's food is very hit or miss. Some of their food is wonderful. And well, then there's the peppermint bark. Want to read more Trader Joe's food reviews? Tell me.

Gateway drugs and opera

Organic milk is the gateway drug C said. Though organic milk wasn't my first foray into organic foods.

On Friday night C, my dad and I had a good meal at Indigo. I really enjoyed the Butternut squash soup with pesto, but the salmon was overcooked, though the bed of miso noodles was delicious. Then we saw The Force of Destiny. The singing blew me away, but for the first time in a long time, the plot of an opera disturbed me. "Leonora and Alvaro attempt to elope but are foiled by Leonora’s father. Alvaro’s pistol goes off accidentally and mortally wounds the old man, who curses his daughter. Leonora’s brother Carlo seeks to avenge their father’s death." Carlo and Alvaro save each other's lives in war, but Carlo is unpersuaded by this fact nor by the fact that his dad's death was an accident. He goads Alvaro into a duel. Alvaro escapes and becomes a monk. However Carlo finds him again and goads him into another duel.

The plot both stretched the limits of my incredulity and struck me as terribly immoral and illogical even by the standards of opera. Usually operas follow a terrible moral code. I don't agree that unfaithful lovers should be killed or that women should kill themselves for love, but there's a certain logic to the whole thing. In this case it just made no sense to me.

The scenes between the men were among the most improbable. They switch from fast friendship to dueling in five minutes. But through their impeccable gripping singing I was most transported. Vladimir Kuzmenko and Orlin Anastassov made their SF opera debuts. And I'd happily go hear Vladimir in any opera. He exhilarated me. Zeljko Lucic as Carlo made me believe in his vengenance, even though once he was done, I remembered again how it made no sense. Unfortunately Andrea Gruber as Leonara wasn't so alluring and I had time to think and maybe that was the problem. However I thought dressing Jill Grove in a bustier and shiny vinyl coat as a gypsy was inspired, but maybe I just felt that way about her singing.

Evening out

C and I went to Bambuddha Lounge in SF last night. It describes itself as a "hot spot" which usually means it's too cool for us. It serves fusion Asian cuisine, but it was delicious. And it had an amusing mixture of forced retro and Asian stuff that I think of as SF culture. Outside was a drive-in motel which was still painted in the retro 70's colours, but had fresh paint and electronic doors. Arranged outside were funky sculptures and a bamboo garden with black and bright colours. We didn't sit outside, because it was a bit chilly and we also didn't have dyed hair.

I didn't dye my hair in my youth. I never regretted the decision, because I'd have to bleach my hair to do it and I wouldn't want to abuse my hair that much. BTW the only colour I'd want would be purple. I'm still deciding if I want to dye my hair now that I'm older and it's turning white. It's a nice silver white, so I feel lucky.

There was a live DJ, but no-one was in the DJ area. Some Asians lounged outside wearing Mardi gras beads with cups. A few with purple and red hair. They all looked cool and cold.

We had the fastest service we've had in a while before an opera, so we made in plenty of time before Girl From Algiers started. In many ways, the opera seems similar to the restaurant with a silly fusion of cultures. It's a silly opera, though unlike the restaurant it has an underlying seriousness and patriotism. I thought William Burden as Lindero was particularly touching. I was a little annoyed, because even though we have season tickets, we got the second billing stars for this opera: Isabella and Mustafa. And I found Isabella to be second rate. C found her funny, but I found her voice to have a slight burr in it, which grated on me. Mustafa had great antics, but his voice wasn't as robust as I would expect for the part.

However the set was wonderful with a great 20's storybook Indiana Jones feel with some good playacting to counterbalance the repetition of the silly phrases. Sometimes particularly SF opera goes overboard with the playacting, and you miss the words of the opera, but I think this production had the right balance. They let the singer sing the phrase the first couple of times and then start buffooning.

Actually William Burden transported me. Sometimes I think to myself, going to the opera is such a PITA. It's expensive. It costs a lot of time and money. Sure I get to go out with C, but I could walk with C to a restaurant downtown. But when I listened to William Burden singing about missing his love, I was transported back to a time when I missed my long distance loves. Okay it was better than that since they were never perfect operatic lovers. So we had a wonderful evening. Unfortunately the opera was almost 3 hours long, so I was too tired to drop by my brother's birthday party. But I did think of my brother while I was at the Bambuddha Lounge. Because he would have enjoyed the place.

Tea

My friend owlmoose blogged about our tea tasting yesterday. I really love drinking tea. In the US, some folks sit down to relax with a beer or glass of wine, I sit down with a nice cup of tea. I've discussed most important conversations with my relatives over tea. I can't help it. Both the Burmese and English sides combine to view tea in pretty much the same way. I'm privileged to have friends who do. It's lovely.

My husband C. doesn't really get it. Sure he drinks tea with every morning, but he says it's because he can't be fished to make coffee as well. Coffee is a different beverage. Nothing wrong with it, but few describe coffee as relaxing.

In France, the tea houses were ferments of dissident views. The Americans used to get it. They rioted over tea in the Boston Tea party. I just read that Emma Larkin in her book Finding George Orwell in Burma saw spies listening in Burmese tea houses. I'm no Burmese dissident, but...well this is a public site, which anyone can read, so draw your own conclusions.

Fathers' Day

My father's in England right now and the times didn't sync up for me to call him. But I thought of him yesterday and what he's given me. He gave me vivid memories of his own childhood. He shared his sense of childlike wonder and showed me how to keep that wonder into adulthood. He still yells with excitement. He still enjoys a slow walk with Kerensa to examine the rocks in someone's garden. He literally showed me the world. He took me all over the world from the slums of Calcutta to Machu Picchu and many many museums. He explained to me the mythology depicted in art. He always listens intently to me and asks lots of questions. Even the smallest things I do interest him. At my best, I listen to people like him. He's willing to try almost anything once, which has led to lots of interesting adventures. He's both an inspiration and a cautionary tale.

On Fathers' Day, we drove down to SF. Both kids fell asleep on the way down. We put them both in the stroller and walked to the SFMOMA. We found out it was Family Day, so we only paid $2 each. We walked to an arts and crafts activity where you were supposed to add rooms to the Winchester Mystery House using cardboard and fabrics. K slept on, so we just ate the chips and salsa that was provided. Then we went up to the fifth floor and looked at some conceptual art including a DVD montage of altered photographs of the Winchester Mystery House.

The most interesting piece I saw was a room painted with a paint-by number mural of the forest. The sound of flowing water filled the room, but instead of a beautiful fountain, it was a plain utility sink with the taps left on. Underneath was a box of rat bait. Piles of newspapers were scattered throughout the room with various articles on top about freedom and the lack of it. High up was a small window with prison bars. It was both a celebration of nature and a parody of how we celebrate nature.

Then we drove to Ethan's place for a tea tasting. Ethan ordered three tea sampler packs from Les Palais Des Thes a French tea company. The teas came complete with a little booklet that described all the teas. The booklet was the same size and general format of little French guidebooks. It appealed to me, because it fit comfortably in my hand and contained lots of glossy photos of tea. It gave the tea an added air of importance.

The teas had a surprising variety of flavours if you paid close attention. One had the aftertaste of scallions; Sarah said onions. I loved their Grand Lapsang Souchong tea. I hadn't realised Lapsang could be delicate. Everyone else but Simon thought I was crazy. Ethan gave me the tea. I'll try my best to save it until my parents return from overseas. Jasmine Pearls with its fragant delicate scent and taste was a lovely soothing way to end the tasting. After 8 teas, we were all exhausted from tasting and smelling so intently.

We walked a circutious route to avoid the hills over to Tangerine, another Asian-Fusion restaurant. One the way in we ran into Bill a college friend of C's. And he joined us for most of the meal. The food worked a lot better than at Sauce. I had a tender roast duck with delicious yellow curry sauce. It was very much like the Straits dish we used to have before the chef left for another Straits restaurant and things went down hill. C generously traded his duck dish for my rib dish. The waitress said the pork ribs weren't sweet, but in fact they were quite sweet.

We took the tram back to Ethan's house. K exclaimed with excitement at the twists and turns of the tram as it climbed the hill. Of course both kids fell asleep on the way home.

We didn't get back until after 10pm. And we still had a lot to do. We had to change Little T's Broviac dressing, change his tube dressing, insert a new tube, and prepare his formula for his night pump feeding. We also had to take out the garbage and recycling. We weren't finished until just after midnight. Even so C said "It was a good Fathers' Day." I'm so glad.

An evening out with Sauce and an opera

On Saturday C and I had our first evening out in months. We dined at Sauce. It's a new restaurant and it was fairly quiet. The staff was pretty efficient and very pleasant. Unfortunately the food had problems. Maybe we just picked the wrong dishes, or maybe it just needs to work things out. The ingredients were all fresh and things were cooked properly, but the different tastes and texture didn't meld well together.

The concept of the restaurant is comfort food meets Californian Asian-Fusion cuisine. The theme ingredient a la Iron Chef was bacon. Now I love bacon, but bacon has a very strong flavor and can overwhelm any dish. My entree was tender warm salmon over a bed of spinach. The bacon in the spinach drowned out the delicate flavour of the salmon, so I ate the salmon separately. Unfortunately the bacon combined with horseradish dressing overwhelmed me. C's meatloaf was also wrapped in bacon, but it fared better. My starter, chicken soup, was delicious and subtle, but at first I thought it was bland. I was eating it with the bits of roast chicken that came with the soup. Unfortunately the roast chicken was very dry and sucked the taste out of my mouth. Once I set it aside, I enjoyed my soup a lot more.

Then we went to our first opera of the summer season, The Pearl Fishers It's one of Bizet's early works and it's no Carmen. The first half of the opera I kept getting distracted by the clunky plot and the clearly Christian metaphors and concepts with Hindu gods occasionally thrown in. I read part of a review in the program that said the relationship between Zurga and Nadir was all about Leila. Then the second half, the opera finally made sense and I was sucked into the opera. Warning: spoilers ahead.








The story was really about Zurga's love of Nadir. He has the "love that dare not speak its name." in the time the opera was written. In the first act, the gay couple are reunited and sing a tender duet about never parting. The words are a classic lovers reunited duet. When Nadir falls in love with Leila, Zurga's horribly jealous and makes Nadir swear not to see her again. He says he loves Leila too. Yeah, right. But Nadir breaks his oath and makes Leila break her oath to remain veiled at all times. And so Nadir condemns them both to death.

In the second act after the het couple has been sentenced, Zurga sings "One thought torments me: Nadir." He sings his anguish about Nadir; not one mention of Leila at all. He wonders how he can free Nadir. Then Leila appears to beg for Nadir's life and proclaims her love for Nadir. Zurga fumes with jealousy and rage. He says he wants Leila, but his assault is more violent and angry than loverlike. He's jealous, because he realises he's lost Nadir.

Then at the end, Zurga sets fire to the village, so Nadir and Leila can escape. He's killed for his crimes. As with many operatic heroines, he sacrifices himself for the man he loves.

I usually make it a rule not to read opera reviews beforehand. I find they color my views unfairly. I think a lot of opera critics miss gay and feminist themes in operas. I don't think it would have taken me so long to recognise Zurga's love if I hadn't read that review.

In my youth, especially in high school, I was a bit of a fag hag. Opera satisfies that desire. A lot of operas have gay lovers that often pass under the radar of the het audience and critics. I enjoy that. I also enjoy the juxaposition of older het couples and younger gay couples. I enjoy opera's drama and absurdity that allows a composer to explore the fundamental questions of the human existence.

Apricot jamming is so much fun

Making apricot jam was a blast. Jenny, Laurel and I chopped 24lb of apricots and chatted. C and I searched on the Internet for some recipes, but in the end we followed the recipe on the pectin box. The directions were peppered with EXACT. We measured as exactly as one can using cups. Maybe we did it all wrong, but it was surprisingly easy. You just had to keep stirring and pay attention when it started to boil. Definitely not something you can do alone with two children, but "this was like a quilting bee!" Jenny exclaimed.

We mixed apricots, pectin and lemon juice and stirred it until it came to a rolling boil. Then added the sugar and stirred again to a rolling boil and let it boil for EXACTLY one minute, then immediately laddled the jam into jam jars. We boiled the jam jars afterwards to be safe instead of turning them upside down. We tasted the leftover jam and it was just right -- sugar sweet and tart with apricots and a hint of lemon. I hope the jam in jars tastes as good.

My friend Robert claims the right equipment means the difference between a fun experience and a difficult one. I agree with him about jam making. We bought a Back To Basics Home Canning Kit. The funnel contained the boiling sticky jam and made decanting a lot easier. The jar lifter saved our fingers from scalding in boiling hot water. The jar opener gave Special K practice with chopsticks. I thought C was brilliant to think of OSH for canning supplies and so did he. Then today a friend pointed out that it is Orchard Supply Hardware. Doh!

In the first batch, large pieces bobbed to the surface on the boil. So we chopped the rest finer. Jenn displayed her knife skills while Jenny and I watched in awe. The children were louder than her chopping.

Sylvia and Special K played princess. They found "princess shoes, princess necklaces, princess dolls." They dressed up in princess clothes.

We feasted on a delicious supper. We roasted pork tenderloin with apricot and Mary Anne's curry rub. My sister steamed squash and mashed potatoes. Jenny whipped up apricot cobbler.

We be jamming apricots

On the way home from the hospital, I picked up my Happy Child CSA. It's the first time we've actually had fruit from Frog Hollow Farm Some mothers on the PAMP email list raved about their peaches, but they just tasted okay to us, as did the cherries. But it's still early in the season.

I like the idea of having fresh produce direct from a farm, but so far I've been disappointed with boxes. I tried Planet Organics and I thought the produce was lower quality than at our local farmers' market. I grew up with a mother who always shopped at the local farmers' market. And we mostly buy produce at our local farmers' market, because it's cheaper, more flavourful and C enjoys walking there every Sunday. I feel if we're going to make the effort to cook, it should turn out well and the best way to guarantee a decent meal is to use the most flavourful ingredients.

We're very lucky, because the best organic tree-ripened apricots I've ever tasted come to our local market from Needmore Farms for four short weeks. I dream about their orange fruit kissed with red. Your teeth sink easily into the fruit, rewarding you with the sweet tart juice flavoured with a hint of apricot flowers. Their first apricots of the season just arrived on Sunday. And C. didn't buy enough so we scarfed them all down by Monday.

However C ordered a box of "apricot jammers" for this Sunday. And I've organised an apricot jamming session with two of my friends. For someone who hardly cooks it's a huge effort, but I'm salivating just thinking about those ripe apricots oozing with juice.

We also buy amazing magic brown mushrooms from Far West Fungi. No, not magic as in psychedelic. I mean magic like you find in fairy tales. You put these unassuming small brown mushrooms in any dish and it tastes like a gourmet meal fit for a king!