tongue tied

From Caroline — Blog by Caroline Cummins

October 24, 2009

So last summer, my husband and I bought a quarter of a cow. Hung, butchered, wrapped, and frozen, it filled our entire chest freezer. Most of it wound up as ground beef, but a few less-than-choice cuts come with the territory. Thus far, we’ve tackled beef liver and beef tongue.

The liver was, to put it succinctly, a bust. We soaked it in milk for a few days, on the theory that this would dull some of the, well, livery taste. (It’s a good theory, since, as Matthew Amster-Burton explained in his column on milkshakes, the fat in dairy can flatten out sharper flavors.) Then we pan-fried it, ate a few bites, looked at each other, and gave the rest to the cat.

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african cooking challenge

By Caroline Cummins

August 20, 2009

we have friends currently living in lesotho. (never heard of it? think south africa, and you’re about there.) they are culinarily challenged right now, given their limited food options and kitchen supplies. check out their post about it and feel free to leave them suggestions for one-pot meals.

how much $ does gardening really save?

From Caroline — Blog by Caroline Cummins

April 30, 2009

everybody these days is gardening to save money on produce. or raising chickens to do the same on eggs.

the articles tell you things like, say, one flat of bok choy starts will save you hundreds of dollars come harvesttime. sure, if your boy choy starts actually produce a prolific (i.e., lots of crop) and edible (i.e., the bugs and birds don’t destroy it) harvest. and if you can actually eat the dozens of pounds of bok choy you’ve grown come harvesttime. freezing all that extra bok choy? not so appetizing.

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hospital food

From Caroline — Blog by Caroline Cummins

March 27, 2009

After three post-partum days in the hospital, it was a relief to get home to genuine homemade food.

My hospital made an effort towards food awareness (statements on the patient menu about trying to source food locally, etc.), and some of the food was actually quite flavorful (salmon with fresh lemon and sour cream). But, by and large, the food was the expected amalgam of blah (lots of Jell-O and saltines) and pseudo-healthy (a breakfast sandwich that featured “reduced-fat cheese, lean ham, and a low-cholesterol egg”).

Most of the selections tasted canned (cream of tomato soup) instead of homemade as the menu promised. Worse, the food-service staff had been instructed to keep patients off whole grains and fiber for the first few days after surgery, on the theory that such foods would be difficult for recovering patients to digest. But if you’re already used to, say, oat-bran bread — and if you’re on constipation-inducing pain relievers — wouldn’t it be better to down some whole grains instead of white bread?

the mysteries of powdered milk

From Caroline — Blog by Caroline Cummins

March 12, 2009

Still haven’t made any homemade yogurt — although I like Sarah’s idea of using a slow cooker, a gadget I’ve been fooling around with lately. (See her comment in the Nancy’s Yogurt blog post, below.)

Mostly I’ve been poking around the Interweb and the library, trying to find out basic information about milk powder. It’s kind of like trying to research atomic scientists during WWII — very hush-hush.

One thing I’ve noticed, on ingredient labels and in the bulk bins at various local grocery stores, is that all the milk powder circulating out there seems to be of the nonfat variety. As Anne Mendelson points out in her book Milk, milk fat causes problems in the dehydration process, specifically the fat’s “tendency to develop spoiled or harsh flavors . . . This is why virtually all commercial brands [of dried milk powder] are nonfat.”

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ultimate chocolate pudding

From Caroline — Blog by Caroline Cummins

March 8, 2009

Carrie Floyd, our food editor, was raving about a chocolate pudding her daughter made recently, from a Martha Stewart recipe designed to encourage parents to cook with their kids.

So I decided to try it out, although I was a little nonplussed by the instructions to stir the pudding in an ice bath to cool it after cooking it. I’ve done this for gelatin puddings, but never for a cornstarch pudding. The results? A lot of stirring and a rather grainy texture. And for all that the Martha recipe calls for a ton of melted chocolate chips, the recipe wasn’t particularly chocolatey.

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my sad break-up with nancy’s yogurt

From Caroline — Blog by Caroline Cummins

February 10, 2009

i’ve eaten nancy's yogurt for years. it’s local. it’s organic. it actually has live bacterial cultures in it, unlike many commercial yogurts.

but yesterday i took a look at the ingredients list on a tub of nancy’s yogurt (my husband had bought a different type of nancy’s than our usual plain whole-milk variety) and was startled to see that the yogurt contains milk powder. i grabbed our usual variety for comparison purposes and yep, it has the powdered stuff, too.

if i wanted dried milk powder — which is manufactured in a process that oxidizes the milk's cholesterol, making it not exactly healthy for your heart — i’d buy, you know, dried milk powder and mix it with water, telling myself that i’m saving money in my milk budget (short-term savings!) while presumably wreaking havoc on my arteries (long-term expense!).

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not sure how I feel about Sally Fallon

From Caroline — Blog by Caroline Cummins

February 9, 2009

skimmed her 2001 book Nourishing Traditions over the weekend. seems like a book with a useful niche, but I doubt that niche is on my shelf.

sure, there’s a lotta footnotes backing up Fallon’s various health claims, but am I really gonna go look up all those studies and see if my take on them jives with hers? nah.

and I know she’s got a lotta fans, but I really couldn’t, erm, stomach the bossy tone of the book. attitude goes a long way toward converting the masses, ya know, and this one wasn’t for me.

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Who brings home the bacon?

From Caroline — Blog by Caroline Cummins

February 4, 2009

Last fall, the New Yorker ran a Malcolm Gladwell article about late bloomers. Ostensibly about the nature of genius — youthful prodigies vs. late-emerging talents — the piece was actually strongest in its assessment of what it takes to produce late bloomers.

The answer? A twist on the old adage of “Behind every succesful man is a woman.”

In the New Yorker’s case study, the answer was indeed a woman — the supportive wife of novelist Ben Fountain, who bore his children and brought home the bacon as a lawyer while he spent years trying to make it as a writer.

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roast duck

From Caroline — Blog by Caroline Cummins

February 3, 2009

we have a duck (labeled “Peking duck,” although I always thought this was a dish, not a breed) defrosting in our fridge. I guess we’ll roast it, although other suggestions are welcome .... especially for dealing with all the fat that will probably run off the bird (how best to roast it so we can, you know, catch all that fat and save it for cooking potatoes?) ...