Happy Birthday, Julia Child

Today is not going to be about cooking. Today is going to be about planning to cook. Happy Birthday, Julia Child. You started it all, for most of us, so many years ago. I wish that I, like you, could hire someone to wash the pots and tidy up the kitchen, but no teenager wants a job like that anymore!

Considering the Food Industry: What I Said on Facebook

I spent the storm considering the hurricane cabinet. A necessity in Florida, alongside the pantry supplies and with one gas burner, I can make simple meals for myself and my neighbors. These emergencies are times are when we are lucky, as a nation, to have the food industry pumping out cans and boxes for our consumption. We are blessed beyond reason.

Caroline Walton Mathews Where would we be during a storm without the food industry? We can lobby to make changes, but we can't ignore those inner grocery aisles completely. We can cook fresh and locally grown foods until we're blue in the face but, twenty days out from a devastating storm, you won't see me making mayonnaise, pasta, and sauces from scratch. I'll be opening cans of tuna, chicken, sardines and salmon, veggies, and fruit whether they are too salty and full of food additives or not.

Fourth Quarter Cooking: Taking Stock

It's a beautiful morning, sunny with impending thunderstorms making the air heavy with moisture and the scent of the herb garden. A yard full of butterflies. I was planning to go out early and find a local chicken for afternoon stock-making. I decided to "take stock" instead. Forget the chicken right now. Plan a trip to the Growers' Market at Lake Ella this afternoon and ask about the local poultry there. 

Instead, I ordered Cooked and The Art of Fermentation each written by Michael Pollan. I also ordered Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson, even though I already own half a dozen bread cookbooks. As much as I adore my Kindle, hardcover will be best for what I am calling Fourth Quarter Cooking: A Year of Taking (and Making) Stock.

I have numerous stock recipes. I went through them all just now, narrowing them down to two. Although I rejected my (once) old - favorite Louisiana Brown Chicken Stock recipe from Terry Thompson's Cajun-Creole Cooking, I hung (the book is falling apart and all of the pages are unattached to the spine) her tips for preparing stock and making roux on the fridge.

I'll use my own recipe (it's just like all the others) for regular stock. For the Oriental cuisine dishes, I've chosen a recipe from the Thai cookbook, The Elements of Life, by Su-Mei Yu. I will cook the stocks ala Michael Pollan, however. Slowly. Perfectly. 

In my spare time, tonight, I need to inventory my freezing containers, gather up any packaged stocks and broths - there must be some - for the food pantry, and shuffle the freezer around to make room for two different stocks. I also want to keep two sauces on hand, frozen:  a supply of ragu and a simple tomato sauce.

And so it is that the Fourth Quarter Cooking experiment/experience is officially underway until August 14, 2014 and hopefully beyond.

More About the Food Industry

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As shocking as the antics of the food industry are, there is no use whining about it. I am proceeding to distance myself from that whole business of food-like products. I'm doing a pretty good job at it, too.

This is a must-read for those who mindlessly shop the grocery inner aisles, nuke their dinners, eat at restaurants that throw salad out of a bag and use frozen beef, and for those who graze on fast food 24-7.

Two stars for all that research and one more for preaching to the choir. Who besides the choir, after all, is going to read this book?

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Summer Non-Fiction Book Review

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've finished reading Cooked by Michael Pollan and I am busy re-examining the section on bread. I know I said that I wasn't going to review this summer's non-fiction. There was such a formidable stack of large tomes on the shelf and I knew that each one was going to be a four-star experience.

I do want to tell you this, however. I had a dread of Michael Pollan. He is an activist, after all, whom I had already become acquainted with in the Times and around and about. Yet, this very reading experience has led me to join an internet breadmaking group and to follow a few names on Facebook. And it has also made me think.

What if a person simplified her cooking/shopping/dining routines and experiences to fit within the confines of the topics in this book? Wouldn't that be a wonderful full-year project in living alone yet eating only the most thoughtfully prepared dishes made from the freshest ingredients grown in the very best places which are somewhere near home?

Couldn't Cooked become the foundation for a wonderful creative experience/hobby? Wouldn't my inside tract, where most of the circus that is the immune system resides, thank me? Mightn't the food taste better; the preparation become more fun to do?

I'll bet the new regime would continue after the passage of twelve months time. At that point, changes would be happily ingrained.

I think I'll spend this year hounding local experts, gathering any equipment I need, making decisions about my repertoire - how to become, in the last quarter, a singularly unique cook. Different from most others. Espousing my own, definite, point of view. POV they call it on Next Food Network Star.

Less will become more.

Pollan's fire, water, air and earth remind me of Thai cooking. In Thailand my birthdate identifies me as earth. According to the weather, the season, and the time of day, I should be cooking and eating this or that much spiciness, sweetness, acidity, or sourness.

The technique is similar to a form of Chinese medicine/food combining that I've been adapting to and adopting in the past few months. I won't lose that experiment - I'll simply merge the two.

So, here I go again. I'll check back with you concerning my progress on the blog. I'll be writing about how my experiment is going - whether or not I feel eccentric, zany, or just plain better than ever!





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Caroline's Book Reviews

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the end, I was delighted that I read this book, Zealot. I'll admit it. I hesitated to begin, jealous of my personal interpretation of Jesus, the man of Nazareth. I didn't exactly want to waste any time on a volume of descent.

As I read, I began to realize that Reza Aslan was not "messing with" my own distinct and life-long picture of the adult Jesus. Nor was this self-proclaimed historian denying that "my" Jesus the Nazarene actually walked the walked and talked the talk - even more so when presented in context - and he may have done it with a zeal that the gospels do not portray.

The history of the Jews under Rome during the life of Jesus and, later, of the twelve (James taking the place of Judas) and of Paul, was told once more; this time, in an absolutely amazing and lifelike scenario. Aslan hauled me down into a land that was not of my own making.

The adulthood of Jesus became clearer in some ways. I realize now that most of the "historical facts" that I knew were dry statistics; lists of names of kings, rabbis, and Roman statesmen paired with recounted dates of wars and rebellions. I could suddenly, while reading, see Jesus and his followers as a group alive in the active, dangerous, remarkable world of their time.

I was particularly interested in the relationship of James, the brother of Jesus, to Paul, who never met the man Jesus. How was it that Paul's doctrine was accepted as the foundation of the church while James's was disregarded? Now I understand that historical events stepped in and solved the question forever.

Don't read this book if you have a totally closed mind or if you are ultra-sensitive as to whether or not the New Testament, written so long after Jesus lived, is 100% accurate.

I remember remarking that I was not going to review any of this summer's non-fiction but would simply give stars. Yet, I had to let you know that, all in all, my personal image of Jesus the Man remains intact, has not suffered any affront, and has even grown to some extent. Four Stars for Reza Aslan and Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.







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Thinking about Yogurt (a Facebook Note)

I've been thinking, this morning, about yogurt. I made my own (off and on) for many years. 

My Jacksonville kitchen was a room in constant motion; yogurt making, juicing, wine brewing, bread baking. Everywhere, something was in progress; bowls of Florida oranges and fresh-harvested grapes waiting, herbs and peppers drying, Vidalia onions hanging, scallions growing outside the door. 

The butcher was local, a friend who could be trusted. Seafood was right off the boat. It was nothing to see a wild boar hanging, freshly hunted, from my grape arbor. The freezer was full of turtle, alligator, rattlesnake, and venison. Smokers or grills were perpetually as hot as fire. I never grill in Tallahassee. Birds make a nest in my hibachi. My charcoal grill acts as a tool case in the garage. I've given the gas grills away. 

But back to the yogurt! You do not need a machine to make a delicious, tangy batch. Yet, I don't think I want to get into that again simply because I was disappointed to read about the additives in several commercial (even organic) yogurt brands and, last night, discovered the sugar content (in my own refrigerator) of a flavored helping.

This is a good chance to try some of the new Greek Yogurt brands. I'll buy the unflavored variety that I once made and mix it with my berries! I'm not running out shopping for Goats' Milk until I exhaust my other options! And, I certainly am not buying a new yogurt maker. I've gone through three in thirty years. I think that's plenty.