Green Cuisine

Any of you old enough to remember the classic rock tune "My City Was Gone" by the Pretenders? Like singer Chrissie Hynde, I go back to Ohio, but my city (Akron, aka The Rubber City) is not gone. Can you imagine my surprise to find a great organic restaurant, VegiTERRANEAN, by none other than Chrissie Hynde herself, on my last visit?

While other little girls were into Barbie, I was idolizing Chrissie as the world's coolest rock chick. I think of her as a true pioneer, back in the day when MTV actually played videos. "Back on The Chain Gang" and "Middle of the Road" may have been bigger hits, but the anti-development anthem "My City Was Gone" has a blues rock riff that still inspires me.

My mother told me about VegiTERRANEAN and I was immediately on board. I must admit that despite my green leanings, kicking the meat habit has not been easy. Nevertheless, onward we went for our vegan meal.

Surprisingly, VegiTERRANEAN is not a tribute to Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders. There are a select few bits of memorabilia, a guitar on the wall type of thing, but Hard Rock Café it is not.

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Things are not always as they appear.

I quit meat for 2010 to reduce my carbon footprint. But this past week I've come to realize that vegetarianism is not a be-all, end-all. For example, the other day I noticed after the fact that the grapes I bought were from Chile. Whoops. And then I read Mr. Green's articles here and here about why purchasing meat from small farmers might be better than eating no meat at all. He makes a very persuasive "eat less meat" argument.

Meanwhile, I am in the middle of The Omnivore's Dilemma by food guru Michael Pollan. I was struck by the chapter about Big Organic and the industry's steady morph into something that resembles the conventional. I'm always leery of "organic" microwable dinners that I periodically see at my grocery store. But what Pollan writes here (p.182) really stuck out:

[P]erhaps most discouraging of all, my industrial organic meal is nearly as drenched in fossil fuel as its conventional counterpart. Asparagus traveling in a 747 from Argentina; blackberries trucked up from Mexico; a salad chilled to thirty-six degrees from the moment it was picked in Arizona [...] to the moment I walk it out the doors of my Whole Foods.[...] Today it takes between seven and ten calories of fossil fuel energy to deliver one calorie of food energy to an American plate. And while it is true that organic farmers don't spread fertilizers made from natural gas or spray pesticides made from petroleum, industrial organic farmers often wind up burning more diesel fuel than their conventional counterparts: in trucking bulky loads of compost across the countryside and weeding their fields, a particularly energy-intensive process involving extra irrigation and extra cultivation.

I guess there are a few lessons here: eat local; eat seasonal; and while quitting meat probably does wonders to one's carbon footprint, it's not the whole enchilada, so to speak. And last but not least, food labels (i.e. "organic", "cage-free") are not always what they insinuate. There's vegetarianism and then there's smart vegetarianism.

(I quit meat for 2010 and I'm writing about it. Read my previous posts here, here, and here.)

I love cooking intricate, involved recipes using all of my wacky mystery box ingredients, but on some nights all the energy I can muster goes toward reaching for my local Chinese takeout menu. Eating local, fresh produce is really important to me, but sometimes I can't be bothered to think about and plan the entire menu.

I went looking for ideas about what to do when laziness strikes, and found a few that I wanted to share with you.

NoTakeout.com looks like a great compromise between cooking an extravagant meal and eating pork fried rice -- they provide you with a menu, shopping list, and game plan for a fresh, home cooked meal.

The Serious Eats Recipe page is also a great resource for those lazy evenings when I can just scroll through the pictures until one makes me sufficiently hungry enough to think about making it.

I'm off for a beer and burrito now, cheers!

I like GOOD Magazine and all, but did we really need proof that food produced locally travels less than conventionally produced food? 

 

Looks like he already ate a truffle!  Ah, the bliss.  But actually, that's why dogs are used instead of pigs (besides the unconditional love).  The pigs will actually eat the fungi!

It's almost time for Americans to visit with loved ones, express gratitude, and eat a really, really big meal. This year, the Green Life is providing tips to help you celebrate Thanksgiving with less impact.

Tip #1: Try Regional Recipes
Traditional Thanksgiving meals tend to favor fall produce, so it's a great time to focus on locally grown fruits and veggies. Consider adapting time-honored recipes to reflect your region's growing season and history. For a fun challenge, plan either one dish or the entire meal with ingredients grown or produced within 100 miles of your home. Check out the Daily Green's 100-mile Thanksgiving meal plans for five different U.S. cities to find examples of creative, local solutions.

Tip #2: Buy a Heritage Bird or Go Meatless
Want to celebrate "Turkey Day" without supporting environmentally destructive factory farms? You can help preserve species diversity by purchasing a free-range heritage turkey from a local farm. If meat isn't a must-have, consider skipping the bird altogether and building a hearty meal around vegetarian dishes such as autumn tempeh salad or butternut squash enchiladas.

Tip #3: Appreciate the Natural World
Thanksgiving traditions vary, but most celebrations include some form of appreciation for the year's blessings. When expressing gratitude, take note of nature's gifts. You may feel thankful for a beautiful sunrise, a bountiful harvest, clean water, or colorful autumn leaves. By nurturing your connection with the planet, you will energize your environmental activism.

Tip #4: Streamline Your Meal

Welcome to Cool Cuisine, a new blog looking at the connections between food, environment and cooking. As a private chef and culinary health educator for Kaiser Permenente, I've found that a great way to teach people about these connections is not by the use of words, but pictures. If we really want to change the world with great tasting food - we need to stop reading about it and start spending more time learning how to shop for, and cook with, the foods. So this blog tells stories and shares lessons through pictures taken during my classes and events.

SPECIAL NOTE: Unfortunately many people don't know a lot about food and cooking. So -  if you want to change the way anyone (or society) eats - don't talk to them about what NOT to eat. Teach them what TO eat. Give them options.

This first blog is about a seasonal cooking class taught at the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers Market. The market is a wonderful place to spend a Saturday - if you're around San Francisco and haven't gone yet -  make a date to visit soon. The market is run by the nonprofit group - The Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) See CUESA.org.

 

On October 31, 2009, chef Rick Debeaord of Berkeley's Cafe Rouge and myself taught a community cooking class and the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers Market.

 

The theme of the class (and the recipe) came from my recent book, Cool Cuisine - Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming.

 

The day started with a market trip shopping for the freshest, local ingredients around. All farms at the Ferry building are a 150 miles to the market or closer. What a dramatic improvement from the 1,500 mile trip that the average meal travels to get to your dinner plate.

 

Today's recipe is Autumn Tempeh Salad (recipe at the end of blog). It starts with Kabocha squash, known to be one of the sweetest winter squashes.

 

Cut the squash in half, remove the seeds (you can bake and eat them just like pumpkin seeds) and take off the skin.

 

Cut into 1" squares, toss with olive oil, fresh rosemary and salt, and roast on a baking sheet in a SINGLE layer. This is ideal because where the squash and pan touch is where the most caramelization (sugar enhancement) of the squash occurs.

Next step is to marinate our protein -  tempeh. Tempeh is made from soybeans like tofu, but it is less processed, fermented and has a stronger, nutty flavor. If we want to fight the Global Warming Diet and move toward a Cool Cuisine - learning more about meat alternatives is important. Livestock add at least 18% to world wide green house gas emissions. Cutting down the amount we eat is key.

 

Once tempeh is marinating, prep the other veggies. Celery stix offer the best "mouth feel" if we "string" them before we eat them.

When cutting peppers, cut down right where the white "vein" attaches to the outside pepper. This technique leaves a "pepper skeleton," which requires no further cleanup and is easy to compost.

Dicing of onions is also assisted with proper technique. Cut onion in half, slice each half vertically and horizontally to create a checkerboard, then slice into a dice. Watch the video on http://www.globalwarmingdiet.org/resources for a closer look at this process.

Preheat a pan and saute the tempeh in olive oil to form a crispy crust.

Wow! For best results, get your pan really hot. If it gets too hot though, add A LITTLE wine, water or verjus to cool it off and release the "fond" (the brown flavor-filled stuff that attaches to the bottom of the pan.

Verjus is a delicious "not-so-sweet" cooking liquid / juice made from "non ripe" grapes.

 

Always show your students what the food looks like. This is the best way for them to learn.

 

 

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and voila!  - Autumn Tempeh Salad!

 
Autumn Tempeh Salad
Adapted from a recipe by chef Carolyn Peters

Serve four

1 1/2 # Kabocha or other winter squash, cut into 1” cubes
1# turnip or rutabega, cut into 1” cubes
1 T olive oil
1 ts. salt
1 ts. each dried rosemary, thyme and sage
1 10-oz package tempeh, any style
2 T. soy sauce
3 T verjus (see note)
1 T olive oil
2 stalks celery, diced
½ red pepper, chopped
½ red onion, finely diced
¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped
2 T. dried currants or raisins

1.    Preheat oven to 400F. Toss root vegetables with olive oil and salt and dried herbs; place in a baking dish in one layer.  Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes.  Remove foil and stir squash. Return to oven uncovered and bake another 15-20 minutes. Check for doneness; fork should easily pierce squash, but not too soft that it’s falling apart. Set aside to cool.

2.    While squash is baking, cut tempeh in half and steam for 15 minutes. Remove from steamer and let cool. Mix together remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Add tempeh, cut into 1” cubes. Toss in cooled squash and taste for seasoning. Serve.

NOTE:  Verjus is a tart, slightly sweet, fresh juice made from unripe wine grapes. It is used for things such as deglazing pans, in sauces, dressing and for poaching fish. Similar to wine, it adds acidity and flavor to a dish.

 

650-855-7100      www.laurastec.com       Laura@LauraStec.com

The Oregon Truffle Festival is coming to Eugene in January, and this year includes a "seminar" on training your dog to hunt truffles.

The seminar entails introducing the dogs "to the aroma of French and Oregon truffles and then dogs and their owners will share the authentic woodland experience of hunting wild truffles untouched by human hands."

Do you think this dog will be up to the task?