My son loves fruit. Usually, this is one of those things that I feel incredibly fortunate about; I mean, there are a lot less healthy things out there that my boy could go crazy over, right? Every now and then, however, his fruit obsession causes me problems.
Marketing gurus have apparently decided that plain old cereal in a bowl just doesn’t look appetizing. Thus, there are snazzy photographs of cereal garnished with luscious-looking fruit on the outside of the box. Thanks, Madison Avenue; it has taken me MONTHS to convince my toddler that there really aren’t any raspberries inside that box of Oatios. Even now, he points hopefully to those glistening red jewels at breakfast time, hoping for a miracle. Try explaining what “serving suggestion” means to a toddler.
Enter Special K with Red Berries…I just knew that I could never let my son learn that this box of cereal was different. Any time he requested that cereal, a curious atmospheric phenomenon occurred whereby the aforementioned Red Berries mysteriously stayed behind, while the flakes were transferred to his bowl. (More berries for Mommy, that way). Did I feel guilty for withholding berries from my baby? Well, I might have, except that this child can put away a pint of dried strawberries in nothing flat and then frantically sign for more. Cooking extra meals I might be, but I will NOT pick out berries from a whole box of cereal. We all have our standards. (And it would be very expensive way to buy dried strawberries).
I was content in my duplicity until this morning, when…Daddy let the big red berry out of the bag. It’s my own fault for not including him in my deceit. At least I wasn’t in the room at the time, so I didn’t have to endure seeing the light of wonder in my son’s eyes turn to cruel understanding that Mommy has been lying. Maybe I can airbrush those raspberries off of the Oatios box.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
The Mouths of Babes, Part II
I always swore that I wouldn’t be one of those moms who make separate meals for their kids. My master plan was to introduce a variety of flavors early on, so Junior wouldn’t experience culinary culture shock when he made the leap from baby food to table food. So, I started adding small amounts of curry powder, soy sauce, and other flavorings that I cook with regularly so that he’d get used to the flavors in the food served at our house.
For over a year I’ve been strategizing, cooking, and serving him a healthy, balanced diet that includes a dizzying array of fresh fruit and a decent number of vegetables. Some examples: I use an overnight method to cook organic, steel-cut oats for his breakfast porridge (enhanced with unsweetened applesauce, almond butter, and sometimes ground flaxseeds). While he naps, I cook organic green veggies (broccoli or kale; frozen green beans or Brussels sprouts in a pinch), roast a Butternut squash, or microwave sweet potatoes to use at lunch or dinner, or even as snacks. The freezer is always stocked with kiddie-sized portions of homemade soups, stews, lasagna, muffins, and waffles for meals and snacks when I didn’t have time to cook during the day.
In other words, an embarrassingly large portion of my time is spent to ensure that an overabundance of healthy food is available to serve to my child on a moment’s notice.
In the middle of a cooking frenzy one day, it dawned on me that I was doing the very thing I’d vowed to avoid. I AM making separate meals for my child, but not because he’s a picky eater. The sad truth is that Mommy is a picky eater and she eats, well, poorly. As long as my son will accept it, I’ll keep giving him plain yogurt with tahini and wheat germ. But I’ll also keep sneaking bites of donut when I go into the pantry to get his organic, high-fiber crackers.
Discovering a dirty little secret about oneself is one thing; actually doing something about it is, well - is it necessary to do anything? If I’m making extra meals in the name of health, rather than catering to a picky toddler, it’s okay, right? With the way our schedules run, we don’t really have a family meal at our house, so we have some time before Junior discovers that Mommy and Daddy eat according to different rules. The day of reckoning will come, though, and I suspect that in the end, my boy will join his father (and me) on the Dark Side. Hopefully the positive effects of his current, über-healthy diet will carry on long after he begins to think of Cheetos an orange vegetable.
For over a year I’ve been strategizing, cooking, and serving him a healthy, balanced diet that includes a dizzying array of fresh fruit and a decent number of vegetables. Some examples: I use an overnight method to cook organic, steel-cut oats for his breakfast porridge (enhanced with unsweetened applesauce, almond butter, and sometimes ground flaxseeds). While he naps, I cook organic green veggies (broccoli or kale; frozen green beans or Brussels sprouts in a pinch), roast a Butternut squash, or microwave sweet potatoes to use at lunch or dinner, or even as snacks. The freezer is always stocked with kiddie-sized portions of homemade soups, stews, lasagna, muffins, and waffles for meals and snacks when I didn’t have time to cook during the day.
In other words, an embarrassingly large portion of my time is spent to ensure that an overabundance of healthy food is available to serve to my child on a moment’s notice.
In the middle of a cooking frenzy one day, it dawned on me that I was doing the very thing I’d vowed to avoid. I AM making separate meals for my child, but not because he’s a picky eater. The sad truth is that Mommy is a picky eater and she eats, well, poorly. As long as my son will accept it, I’ll keep giving him plain yogurt with tahini and wheat germ. But I’ll also keep sneaking bites of donut when I go into the pantry to get his organic, high-fiber crackers.
Discovering a dirty little secret about oneself is one thing; actually doing something about it is, well - is it necessary to do anything? If I’m making extra meals in the name of health, rather than catering to a picky toddler, it’s okay, right? With the way our schedules run, we don’t really have a family meal at our house, so we have some time before Junior discovers that Mommy and Daddy eat according to different rules. The day of reckoning will come, though, and I suspect that in the end, my boy will join his father (and me) on the Dark Side. Hopefully the positive effects of his current, über-healthy diet will carry on long after he begins to think of Cheetos an orange vegetable.
The Mouths of Babes
I’d heard that having children changed your life, but I didn’t realize that included my perspective on food. For example: serving sizes. I vaguely recall hearing my friends grumble about the tiny amounts of food that they could coax their children to eat. So, I wasn’t completely surprised to discover that 3/8th of a mini-muffin are more than sufficient to fuel my toddler for an entire morning. What did come as a shock, though, was the reason why: a mini-muffin is much larger than it innocently appears to be.
Don’t believe me? Try this: place half of a mini-muffin on a plate. Cut the half into quarters, then - and this is the key step - use your fingers to carefully squish each piece into crumbs. (It’s a delicate operation. You want to break up the muffin without compressing it. If you can’t master the technique, borrow someone’s toddler and have them do it for you). Magically, the muffin half will grow into an enormous pile of fluffy muffin bits. It’s a huge portion! No wonder our little ones full up so quickly.
Still not convinced? Take the plate into your living room and shake the crumbs all over your couch. Now measure the surface area of the muffin-coated regions and back-calculate to get the total volume of muffin. Or, just trust me when I tell you that those muffin bits will have mysteriously multiplied into a full-sized muffin.
It turns out that the food professionals who write baby food cookbooks are wise to this bit of infant wizardry and have built correction factors into their recipes. I remember thinking that Ruth Yaron (author of “Super Baby Food”) must be nuts for suggesting that my baby would consume ½ to 1 cup of yogurt in a meal (even if he didn’t eat anything else). The actual amount of yogurt that goes down the hatch, however, is on the order of 2 tablespoons, leaving plenty for him to spread around. (And did you all know that it’s possible to cover every surface in your kitchen with less than half a cup of yogurt? More food magic, brought to you by your friendly neighborhood toddler).
For my part, I’m thinking that eating like a toddler just might be the key to a successful diet plan. It takes a lot longer to eat a muffin when you have to hunt down each crumb. If you have a dog you’ll eat even less because you’ll be competing for muffin bits as you search all over the couch. Ah, but the symbiotic feeding habits of dogs and babies is a topic for another post.
Don’t believe me? Try this: place half of a mini-muffin on a plate. Cut the half into quarters, then - and this is the key step - use your fingers to carefully squish each piece into crumbs. (It’s a delicate operation. You want to break up the muffin without compressing it. If you can’t master the technique, borrow someone’s toddler and have them do it for you). Magically, the muffin half will grow into an enormous pile of fluffy muffin bits. It’s a huge portion! No wonder our little ones full up so quickly.
Still not convinced? Take the plate into your living room and shake the crumbs all over your couch. Now measure the surface area of the muffin-coated regions and back-calculate to get the total volume of muffin. Or, just trust me when I tell you that those muffin bits will have mysteriously multiplied into a full-sized muffin.
It turns out that the food professionals who write baby food cookbooks are wise to this bit of infant wizardry and have built correction factors into their recipes. I remember thinking that Ruth Yaron (author of “Super Baby Food”) must be nuts for suggesting that my baby would consume ½ to 1 cup of yogurt in a meal (even if he didn’t eat anything else). The actual amount of yogurt that goes down the hatch, however, is on the order of 2 tablespoons, leaving plenty for him to spread around. (And did you all know that it’s possible to cover every surface in your kitchen with less than half a cup of yogurt? More food magic, brought to you by your friendly neighborhood toddler).
For my part, I’m thinking that eating like a toddler just might be the key to a successful diet plan. It takes a lot longer to eat a muffin when you have to hunt down each crumb. If you have a dog you’ll eat even less because you’ll be competing for muffin bits as you search all over the couch. Ah, but the symbiotic feeding habits of dogs and babies is a topic for another post.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Loss and Translation
Yesterday, my friend Marta came over to make paczki, a Polish donut that is traditionally prepared before the Lenten season. My husband, Jeff, is Polish-American and his family also makes them, though they usually have their paczki closer to Easter.
Like many treasured family recipes, Jeff’s family really didn’t have an exact recipe for paczki – his grandmother (Babci, in Polish) just knew when the stop adding the flour, when to stop kneading, when the dough was ready. Fortunately Jeff’s parents had the foresight to sit down with Babci and figure out just how much flour was being added and to describe, in some detail, how the dough looked when it was ready. Thus the treasured family recipe was preserved.
…until they started tinkering with it. Can you use more whole eggs, fewer yolks? Can you cut back on the butter? Some cooks just can’t resist altering a recipe (myself included). In this case, the paczki recipe got somewhat leaner for a while, then slid back toward its original all-egg-yolk glory (what’s the point of trying to make low-fat dough that’s going to be deep-fried, after all). I doubt that the paczki being made this year are strictly according to Babci’s original recipe. I also doubt that, in the end, it truly matters. So many things affect our perceptions of taste; would any paczki, other than those made by Babci herself and eaten when we were children, ever taste just like Babci’s?
The paczki themselves seem to differ from one family to the next. Most paczki lovers, it seems, dream of jelly donuts as the season approaches. Jeff’s family adds raisins to the dough, shapes it into balls for frying and skips the jelly. One family I know fries balls of dough, then splits them in half and fills them with both jelly and whipped cream. (Talk about decadent…).
The paczki we made yesterday were filled with plum butter. Marta brought her cookbook from home and translated the recipe as we worked, so I’m thinking that those paczki must be pretty darn authentic. Unless we missed something in the translation. I must admit, I preferred them to the raisin-studded version of Jeff’s childhood, and I’ll probably switch over to the new recipe from here on. It might turn out for the best – just having paczki in the house should be enough to bring back memories of childhood treats, but since the recipe is so different, Jeff won't be sad that they aren't just like Babci's.
Like many treasured family recipes, Jeff’s family really didn’t have an exact recipe for paczki – his grandmother (Babci, in Polish) just knew when the stop adding the flour, when to stop kneading, when the dough was ready. Fortunately Jeff’s parents had the foresight to sit down with Babci and figure out just how much flour was being added and to describe, in some detail, how the dough looked when it was ready. Thus the treasured family recipe was preserved.
…until they started tinkering with it. Can you use more whole eggs, fewer yolks? Can you cut back on the butter? Some cooks just can’t resist altering a recipe (myself included). In this case, the paczki recipe got somewhat leaner for a while, then slid back toward its original all-egg-yolk glory (what’s the point of trying to make low-fat dough that’s going to be deep-fried, after all). I doubt that the paczki being made this year are strictly according to Babci’s original recipe. I also doubt that, in the end, it truly matters. So many things affect our perceptions of taste; would any paczki, other than those made by Babci herself and eaten when we were children, ever taste just like Babci’s?
The paczki themselves seem to differ from one family to the next. Most paczki lovers, it seems, dream of jelly donuts as the season approaches. Jeff’s family adds raisins to the dough, shapes it into balls for frying and skips the jelly. One family I know fries balls of dough, then splits them in half and fills them with both jelly and whipped cream. (Talk about decadent…).
The paczki we made yesterday were filled with plum butter. Marta brought her cookbook from home and translated the recipe as we worked, so I’m thinking that those paczki must be pretty darn authentic. Unless we missed something in the translation. I must admit, I preferred them to the raisin-studded version of Jeff’s childhood, and I’ll probably switch over to the new recipe from here on. It might turn out for the best – just having paczki in the house should be enough to bring back memories of childhood treats, but since the recipe is so different, Jeff won't be sad that they aren't just like Babci's.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Holiday Eating Tips
Happy Holidays,
My sister forwarded these to me via email. Perhaps you've already seen them. Karen and I thought they were worth sharing. Enjoy!
1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffettable knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leaveimmediately. Go next door, where they're serving rum balls.
2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. Like fine single-maltscotch, it's rare. In fact, it's even rarer than single-malt scotch. You can'tfind it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into aneggnog-alcoholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Havetwo. It's later than you think. It's Christmas!
3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point ofgravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of yourmashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.
4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk orwhole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car withan automatic transmission.
5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to controlyour eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat otherpeople's food for free. Lots of it. Hello?
6. Under no circumstance should you exercise between now and New Year's.You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the timefor long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carryinga 10-pound plate of food and a vat of eggnog.
7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, likefrosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourselfnear them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the centerof attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind,you're never going to see them again.
8. Same for pies. Apple. Pumpkin. Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or,if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always havethree. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?
9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with themandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have somestandards.
10. One final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the partyor get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention. Reread tips; startover, but hurry, January is just around the corner.
Remember: Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arrivingsafely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways,chocolate in one hand, margarita in the other, body thoroughly used up, totallyworn out and screaming WOO HOO what a ride!
My sister forwarded these to me via email. Perhaps you've already seen them. Karen and I thought they were worth sharing. Enjoy!
1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffettable knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leaveimmediately. Go next door, where they're serving rum balls.
2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. Like fine single-maltscotch, it's rare. In fact, it's even rarer than single-malt scotch. You can'tfind it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into aneggnog-alcoholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Havetwo. It's later than you think. It's Christmas!
3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point ofgravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of yourmashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.
4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk orwhole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car withan automatic transmission.
5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to controlyour eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat otherpeople's food for free. Lots of it. Hello?
6. Under no circumstance should you exercise between now and New Year's.You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the timefor long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carryinga 10-pound plate of food and a vat of eggnog.
7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, likefrosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourselfnear them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the centerof attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind,you're never going to see them again.
8. Same for pies. Apple. Pumpkin. Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or,if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always havethree. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?
9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with themandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have somestandards.
10. One final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the partyor get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention. Reread tips; startover, but hurry, January is just around the corner.
Remember: Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arrivingsafely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways,chocolate in one hand, margarita in the other, body thoroughly used up, totallyworn out and screaming WOO HOO what a ride!
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
One cook's garam masala is another baker's gingerbread
One of the secrets to making great-tasting cookies (or great-tasting anything, for that matter) is to start with really good ingredients. But, you may not want to spend big bucks for premium vanilla and whatnot, especially if you are not into baking year-round. I thought that I would share some of my favorite places to buy ingredients for holiday goodies.
I like to buy spices such as cinnamon, ginger, and coriander at an Indian market. There’s one right in Malden center, on Pleasant Street. The quality is soooo much better than that brand that starts with an “M,” and the price is much better too –~$4 for a 4-ounce bag of cinnamon. (If you think you can’t use that much cinnamon, go shopping with a friend and share everything). Indian markets are also good places to get golden raisins (for fruitcake!) and cashews (for nut brittle, mixed nuts, spiced nuts…).
Trader Joe’s has good prices on good-quality spices, nuts, dried fruit, and chocolate. I like their 4-ounce bottles of vanilla for ~$5 – swanky brands of vanilla are nice, but unless you’re making a cookie in which the vanilla is the main flavor (like a butter cookie), I think it’s a waste of money. Also Marty’s Liquors in Allston used to carry vanilla, chocolate and some nuts; I haven’t been there in a while but I got some good deals in years past.
If you want to spend a little more money for premium nuts and dried fruit, go to Dairy Fresh Candies in the North End. It’s a tiny little store that’s a baking junkie’s heaven. They also have chocolate, almond paste, and marzipan. Polcari’s, which is also in the North End, carries some nuts and dried fruit in bulk as well.
If price is no object, then try one of the mail-order companies offering everything that your little baker’s heart desires. Check out Penzey’s, or the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Catalog for a dizzying array of ingredients (just how many kinds of vanilla are there, anyway?). Maybe Santa will put a Penzey’s gift certificate in my stocking this year.
I like to buy spices such as cinnamon, ginger, and coriander at an Indian market. There’s one right in Malden center, on Pleasant Street. The quality is soooo much better than that brand that starts with an “M,” and the price is much better too –~$4 for a 4-ounce bag of cinnamon. (If you think you can’t use that much cinnamon, go shopping with a friend and share everything). Indian markets are also good places to get golden raisins (for fruitcake!) and cashews (for nut brittle, mixed nuts, spiced nuts…).
Trader Joe’s has good prices on good-quality spices, nuts, dried fruit, and chocolate. I like their 4-ounce bottles of vanilla for ~$5 – swanky brands of vanilla are nice, but unless you’re making a cookie in which the vanilla is the main flavor (like a butter cookie), I think it’s a waste of money. Also Marty’s Liquors in Allston used to carry vanilla, chocolate and some nuts; I haven’t been there in a while but I got some good deals in years past.
If you want to spend a little more money for premium nuts and dried fruit, go to Dairy Fresh Candies in the North End. It’s a tiny little store that’s a baking junkie’s heaven. They also have chocolate, almond paste, and marzipan. Polcari’s, which is also in the North End, carries some nuts and dried fruit in bulk as well.
If price is no object, then try one of the mail-order companies offering everything that your little baker’s heart desires. Check out Penzey’s, or the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Catalog for a dizzying array of ingredients (just how many kinds of vanilla are there, anyway?). Maybe Santa will put a Penzey’s gift certificate in my stocking this year.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Some thoughts on upcoming holidays
For many people, things start to get crazy busy this time of year. Family dinners to plan, holiday parties to juggle, and maybe some shopping to do. So this year, we’d like to remind everyone who feels overwhelmed by the whirlwind to remember to stop and… well, just…stop.
That’s right – Relax! Everything will be fine. Somewhere along the line, preparing a holiday dinner turned into a competitive sport. It’s time to take a deep breath and let go of all that. No matter how well prepared you are, how many lists you’ve made (or spreadsheets – I’m one of those spreadsheeters) or timetables you’ve developed, something will probably go wrong.
Every Christmas, we bake hundreds of cookies. We make the same recipes from year to year and you’d think that we’d have everything down pat by now. Nonetheless, a few key points are always forgotten on one or two types of cookies. After much gnashing of teeth and shouted colorful expressions those essential bits of information finally pop back into the conscious mind, and at least part of the batch is usually salvageable.
The point is, nobody’s perfect. Television chefs have an army of assistants and food stylists to make everything look perfect (and they still run into trouble sometimes). Unless you’re willing to get out the blowtorch for touch-ups, that Thanksgiving turkey is probably not going to be perfectly golden brown. And we say, that’s okay.
That’s right – Relax! Everything will be fine. Somewhere along the line, preparing a holiday dinner turned into a competitive sport. It’s time to take a deep breath and let go of all that. No matter how well prepared you are, how many lists you’ve made (or spreadsheets – I’m one of those spreadsheeters) or timetables you’ve developed, something will probably go wrong.
Every Christmas, we bake hundreds of cookies. We make the same recipes from year to year and you’d think that we’d have everything down pat by now. Nonetheless, a few key points are always forgotten on one or two types of cookies. After much gnashing of teeth and shouted colorful expressions those essential bits of information finally pop back into the conscious mind, and at least part of the batch is usually salvageable.
The point is, nobody’s perfect. Television chefs have an army of assistants and food stylists to make everything look perfect (and they still run into trouble sometimes). Unless you’re willing to get out the blowtorch for touch-ups, that Thanksgiving turkey is probably not going to be perfectly golden brown. And we say, that’s okay.
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