My Apologies to Dr. Johnson

This past week I got off the couch and went back to school. High school that is; I went to speak to the culinary classes at Liberty North High School. The teacher, Ms. Fowler, was the "home economics" teacher back in my day and recently made the switch to strictly culinary teacher. As a bored senior in high school, who already knew what they were going to do after graduating, I didn't see any purpose in my classes. So I invented one: pastry show pieces. I proposed that the school just let me spend my last semester making big sugar, chocolate, and cake show pieces like the ones featured on the Food Network Challenges. I had watched Jaques Torres' show on the Food Network for many years so I was cocky and sure of my abilities, when in reality I had little idea what was going on...

Never the less, I made showpieces; they were displayed in the library and front office. I made a jungle themed chocolate piece, a sunken treasure scene with coral and fish  out of cookies and quick breads, and an outer space piece featuring extra large suckers, pulled and blown sugar and hard candies. I was proud of them and I should have been, considering that the only training I had had was watching TV. However, Ms. Fowler recently told me that she found her pictures of my pieces and I groaned with embarrassment. (Nothing is as humbling as getting reminded of a first attempt and where you came from.)  

 When Ms. Fowler asked me to come talk to her classes and give a demo, she told me that they are currently talking about grains, seeds and root vegetables. So the perfect subject for me to talk about was flour. I put together a 10 slide slideshow describing the components of wheat, gluten and its development, and the different types of flour. I was very excited to talk about flour and I naively assumed the students would be as well. They weren't. I was not sure they paid attention, I wasn't sure they were awake, I wasn't even sure there were souls in those bodies...

 

I did manage to catch a few twinkling eyes when I started demonstrating the cake. I thought it would be fun to show them a Valentine's cake with lots of garnishes. I made Red Velvet Roulades with Cream Cheese Mousse, Rosewater Macarons, Modeling Chocolate Roses and Chocolate Plaques.



One students was very concerned that I kissed each chocolate plaque. It is red cocoa butter that I stamped on with a rubber stamp from Micheal's.



When I had spoken to half of the classes, I thought about how I could be more exciting so that the students might appear to care and my mind drifted back two months, when I was a student at the Culinary Institute of America. When I bothered to show up to my 8 AM Ethics and Leadership class at all, I sat in my chair with droopy eye lids, counting the seconds to the end of class. My apologies to Dr. Johnson who showed up every morning with a cheerful smile. He had a "can do" attitude and never seemed phased by his sleepy, lack luster audience. Now that I was in his shoes, pangs of guilt filled me for all the times I didn't care, didn't raise my hand, and didn't bother to show up. Dr. Johnson is a great professor, I was just too sleepy and too close to graduating to see it. 

In a moment of clarity, I realized that the student's blank faces weren't personal, it was the morning and it was school. The students wouldn't have been more interested if I had run into the room on fire, naked, juggling fresh fish. So I pushed through the lectures, trying to be interesting. When I had finished all of the classes, Ms. Fowler praised my speaking ability and said that I should consider teaching. High praise from a professional, however I'm not likely to take up a class soon.  To be a successful teacher, you need more than knowledge, you need the ability to draw energy from yourself at 8 AM. I had fun talking to the culinary classes, but more than two days in a row and I probably would have rather slapped a student with the fish for attention than juggle it. I'll leave the teaching to the professionals.

Achtung! Giant Mountain Eagles Have Been Spotted in the Area

In the spring of 2009, my Oma(grandma) and I went on her farewell tour of her homeland, the Alto Adige region of Italy or Südtirol as it is known to the people who live there. During and after the turmoil of war, Südtirol was claimed by many countries. In 1990, it was finally, once and for all declared a semi autonomus region of Italy. However, the people follow their Austrain heritage and speak German.

At the age of 89, Oma was probably healthier than me, but it was deffinately her last trip to Europe. Though, last year she went to Peru and climbed up Machu Picchu, crediting her Alpine mountain heritage.
Oma and I had many adventures and misadventures that trip, which amuse my friends for days when I share the stories. There are quite a few after traveling for almost two months through Italy and Germany with an 89 year old, nearly deaf, stubborn Oma without an itinerary.

After spending a week in Oma's birthplace: Meran, Italy, Oma and I travelled to the tiny Alpine village of Teisten, where her family moved when she was very young. I was excited to see the house her father had built and the castle on the next hill which I had heard so much about from Oma. I stepped out of the taxi in the driveway of Oma's house where her only two remaining spinster sisters live. Pia, now 80 and Miranda, now 79 have lived in that house their entire lives. They have never left Südtirol and only Pia has ever had a job, she is the bread winner. Miranda does the cooking,cleaning, gardening and wood chopping.

When I stepped out I was greeted heartily by both of Oma's sisters and a wall of chatter I could not understand. This was the first time I had expirienced this. In Meran I understood everything, my four years of high school German sprang back to life in an instant. This, whatever, they were speaking puzzeled me. I asked the cab driver if they were speaking German and he erupted with laughter. He explained that they were speaking in dialect. We stayed in Teisten for almost a month so I became very acustomed to their dialect but in that first hour I didn't understand a word.

Oma stood and chatted with her sisters while I looked around not able to understand what was being said. Eager to see the castle behind the house, I started marching to the back. Pia quickly came running after me and stopped me. She spoke very dramitcaly about a giant mountain Eagle, spreading her arms wide. Oma had told me at least a dozen times at that point about how giant, black mountain eales used to eat their chickens. Pia didn't want me to go back there because the eagle had already eaten several village children and she was afraid it might take me too. Immeadiately, I thought of an old Popeye cartoon I watched as a kid: "Popeye meets Sinbad the Sailor." Sinbad(Bluto) had a giant bird that he used to do his ill biding.

I stood there in disbelief with an eyebrow cocked trying to formulate the words in German for "I'm not scared of a giant eagle. I can fight it off." Luckily, before I opened my mouth and made a fool out of myself, Oma was at my side listening to Pia. I looked down at Oma as if to say "is she for real?!" and Oma said to me "isn't that great! they have a....a..... (she stumbled for the english word) peacock.
A PEACOCK?! I thought to myself... how the hell do two old ladies who hardly leave their tiny village have a pet peacock?!

Seeing that I didn't understand, Oma translated the story: they claim that it just showed up in the woods on the backside of their house as a young pult. They named it Hansi and hand raised it, but it is very shy because they think several village kids had tortured it. They didn't want me to go to the back of the house because I might scare it away and it might never come back. BOY, was I wrong!

I did go all around the house and climbed all over those hills and I never did get a good look at Hansi. Just a quick snap shot of him running away when he saw me. But the day that Oma and I hiked up the hills surronding Teisten, we heard his screach like caw ringing through the valley.

An Addict Will Get His Fix

Ordinarily, my desire for a garden spurred on by catalogs is a fleeting infatuation. I have no permanent residence to keep plants, no yard of my own to garden. Alas, the itinerant lifestyle I crave is also a burden. Nothing kills the excitement of a dream faster than a pinch from reality. However, because I am a gardening addict and suffer from a still unnamed disease that makes people desire to garden, I have found a way to satisfy my cravings. As any addict would. I invented a need for special vegetables that I must have that cannot be purchased at a grocery store. 

Every summer I cater a dinner party for my mother and 14 of her friends. She gives me free reign to make whatever I want. The first year I did a playful take on food from the fair; last year I designed an elaborate dinner brunch. I didn't think I would be home this summer to cater a dinner party, but that proved to be false. To celebrate, I am planing the most extravagant dinner party yet. I am planning an extravagant dinner in honor of "the chef of kings and the king of chefs" Marie Antonin Careme.

Careme was a child of the French revolution and elevated himself to cook for the likes of France's top diplomat to kings and Napoleon, the prince regent of England, Czar Alexander 1 of Russia and James Mayer Rothchild. An impressive resume, clearly someone who deserves to be honored with the freshest ingredients possible AND the most flavorful. Which ingredients are those: the ones Careme likely used himself.

For the dinner, I will be growing all french heirloom vegetables that date back to the 1800's and before. I thought that finding such vegetable seeds might prove to be an impossible feat. However, with the help of a local seed bank, Baker Creek, it was very easy to source everything I needed. (I found a few other [necessities] at a few other websites.)

On the menu will be:
Crapaudine Beet, it is believed to be the oldest cultivated beet
Jaune Obtuse du Doubs Carrot, a large yellow carrot
Parisienne Carrot, 1" orb carrot
Lunar White Carrot, a large white carrot with green shoulders
Geante Dore Ameliore Celery, a large stalked celery with few strings
Jaune Dickfleischige Cucumber, a yellow skinned variety when mature, but is eaten young.
Fin de Meaux Cucumber, a small cucumber used for cornichon pickles
Carentan Leek, an old European favorite leek
Merveille des Quatre Saisons Lettuce, very old french heirloom with speckled red leaves
Brune D'hiver Lettuce, butterhead type lettuce
Charentais Melon, very old orange fleshed French favorite melon
Jaune Paille de Vertus Onion, European standard onion for hundreds of years
French Breakfast Radish, mild, very old French heirloom
Jaune D'or Ovale Radish, sicy, old French heirloom
White Wonder Watermelon, white watermelons were more available then than they are now
Harlequin French Marigold, yellow and red stripped heirloom marigold
Nicaise Pumpkin, small, flat ribbed red-orange skinned
Jaune et Vert patty-pan squash
Fin de Bagnol, heirloom haricot vert

I know it is a lot of vegetables, but these along with several heirloom tomatoes and a few hot peppers will be spilt between garden beds at my mom's house and a large garden plot at my dad's house. (Go big or go home)

Old Food Commercials Revisited

It is time for the Super Bowl again and that means great commercials. These are some of my favorite food commercials from all over the world.

Enjoy!

Does Mickey Work For The Chemical Companies?

I consider myself to be a very fair minded person; to be against something, you need to understand it. So if you will indulge me, I will try to explain an "evil" I stand against: synthetic chemical pesticides. I hated discussing this topic in the Food Ecology class I took my senior year at the Culinary Institute of America. I thought it was redundant and depressing. I prefer to focus on positive, ingenious problem solvers who are developing new techniques in agriculture to bring fresh, healthy food to the masses without the need for large monoculture farms supported with a myriad of chemicals that have adverse effects of humans, animals and the Earth.

This 1935 Disney cartoon reflects the mood of the time while being ahead its time: chemical poisons are the answer, however, there may be side effects.

OK, maybe I'm reading too much into this cartoon. It is not likely that Walt Disney or his animators were concerned about chemical use; DDT, the miracle pesticide, now banned, would not be discovered for three more years and the "golden age of pesticides" was not until the 40's and 50's. However, I find it to be prophetic and very poignant. Let me explain:

There has always been a serious battle between Man and pests. There is evidence that in ancient Mesopotamia, sulphur was dusted on crops to discourage pests. Over the centuries, farmers discovered other natural compounds like lead, mercury, and arsenic kept bugs at bay. In the 19th century, scientists began experimenting with synthetic compounds that did not break down quickly meaning that they did not need to be applied as often, were cheap, and did not appear to affect human health.

After the drought and depression of the early 1930's, I can see how DDT appeared to be a gift from God. Can you blame any poor Midwestern farmer for using it? On LivingHistoryFarm.org there is detailed history of farming in the Midwest during the "golden age of pesticides," including testimony by Diena Thieszen Schmidt about what battling the bugs was like without insecticides. "We did everything we could think of," she says. "We made noises at the end of the field. We smoked [set up smoke pots]. We tried everything to try to get rid of those army bugs."
To its credit, DDT effectively minimized malaria, typhus and countless insects and parasites against humans and crops. But at what costs?

In the 60's, the environmental movement began with the publishing of "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson. She examined the widespread and unchecked use of pesticides. The title was meant to evoke a silent Spring season because all the birds had died. Later, it was proved that DDT effected not only insects, but some shellfish and many species of fish, as well as causing mostly birds of prey to lay eggs with very thin shells. The eggs would be too fragile to survive, thus the bird's populations dwindled. Not to mention the possible effects on humans: contaminated breast milk, cancer, male infertility, and diabetes.

How did Disney know? Not only does DDT effect more creatures than it was intended to, but now many  insects are immune to it. So it is not hard to understand why it was banned. The same is true about

modern pesticides, over use casues immunity and many unintended side effects. At least now, despite any flaws, pesticide use is monitored by the EPA.

Worst case scenario, in the future we could be facing the mutant insects that Hollywood has long foretold.
How would Walt Disney react today if he knew the true effects of using so many chemicals?

Would he have made a cartoon with an organic garden? Maybe. There are DDT supporters today who say the benefits outwiegh any controversial side effects. Keep in mind that organics prohibits the use of these synthetic chemicals, making crops vulnerable to anything. This reduces the yeild and means there would be less food available to feed an already hunger filled world. That is the major complaint against orgaincs, however it is not true. Have hope because there are natural deterants and techniques to protect crops. We are not lost without chemical poisons; don't rely on them.

I Have A Disease

Hi, my name is Jason and I'm an urban homesteader. OK, I'm not a homesteader but I'm addicted to the idea that I will be. I have been for a very long time; I used to think I just had a healthy fondness for gardening, but recently I have accepted that I have an addiction.

A homesteader from the beginning, here I am picking cherries in the backyard at 14 months old.

My gardening adventure at my first apartment in Orlando, FL. I should have seen the signs at the time. By the end of the summer, my little patio was full of pots of tomatoes, beans, mini pumpkins, sunflowers, basil, thyme, mints, rosemary, strawberries, and a pineapple. I always had some fresh vegetables for what little time I was actually home that summer. I was working 40-50 hour weeks at Primo By Melissa Kelly.

The seed catalogs know about me. They are my pushers, tempting me to embrace my desires and run away with my dreams. I have not ordered from one in more than five years, nor I remember ever signing up to receive one, yet in the last week I have received six, and a poultry catalog in the mail. I tried to resist, I tried to behave, but it was impossible. I went on a gardening binge, spending hours flipping through their tempting pages. Many hours of sleep were lost thinking about uprooting a yard I do not have to cultivate the garden of my dreams.
It is a dangerous addiction. I spend all my time researching ways to raise small livestock like rabbits, chicken, quail, pigeons, fish, etc. in the backyard. I once blurted out at a gathering of friends that "people underestimate me, but I spent all weekend researching peacock genetics!" I don't really want to raise peacocks in my backyard, they are lovely creatures except for their screech like crow. Besides, have you ever heard of someone with a peacock in the backyard? (Actually, I have! My two great Aunts, who live in a tiny Alpine village have a pet peacock named Hansi, but that story is for another post.)

Now, I am coming down off my seed catalog high and the cold slap of reality is setting in: I can't homestead now because I don't even have a yard. I travel too much, there are still too many things I would like to do before I have commitments like a house and an urban farm. The pressures of living with people who don't understand my disease force me to conform. I take my dose of "medicine" (bland, insipid GMO produce from Chile) which sedates me into living a "normal" life, eating "normal" food, that some scientist modified genetically to make it grow "normally." Then it was boxed and shipped hundreds of miles to my "normal" grocery store, where my mother bought it to cook a "normal" dinner. The masses eat this "medicine" everyday and they like it. They buy it on sale and say it tastes wonderful. If someone doesn't like that flavor of "medicine," they can buy 1000's of processed combinations of rearranged corn. (I guarantee every boxed item and meat product you buy has some form of corn in it)Is there a cure for someone like me? Someone obsessed with a need to eat at least something that they grew and harvested, is there any help for those of us that cannot tolerate "normal medicine?"

There are those who also suffer with my affliction and they embrace it. They are my heroes. Rachel, of Rachel's Tiny Farm, is probably my favorite homesteader. I am constantly amazed by the things she accomplishes in her Arizona backyard. This is not even her full time job, she just wants to provide fresh, healthy food for her family. Barbra Kingsolver wrote a wonderful book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" with her family about their story of moving to Tennessee to eat locally and farm their own food. If you want to see a full scale working urban farm operation, the Dervaes family created it. Their whole life style is about growing organic food in their yard and it is their only source of income. If you think you might be infected like me, their Path to Freedom website will inspire you!

Slowly, awareness and thus, acceptance for my disease is spreading. If you think you might be catching the germs, I urge you to embrace them! Then infect everyone you know, especially your family. Do the bare minimum and plant heirloom tomatoes and a few vegetables your family will enjoy over the summer. If you enjoy that, plant a fall garden. There are many vegetables you can grow right up to first snow and store some for the winter. If you don't have a green thumb, visit your local farmer's market. It is 2011, every city in the country has one! Buy your produce there and support those who have a severe case of the disease; they grow so much food, they have to sell the excess. If you do nothing else, please, challenge yourself not buy "medicine."

I Heart Baozi: Chinese Steamed Buns

The last and final food in my special food series is Chinese Dumplings. Last April I was blessed with the opportunity to travel to China with the lovely and very talented Chef Shirley Cheng. Chef Cheng is an instructor at the Culinary Institute of America and every few months she arranges for a hand full students to take a three week culinary tour of China. I was lucky to be on the first school sponsored trip, travelling with Chef Cheng herself. We spent the first half of our trip in Chef's home town of Chengdu. Next, we flew to Xi'an (a sister city of Kansas City) and finished our trip in Beijing. There were dumplings to be had everywhere, but the best were in Xi'an. It is famous for its dumplings and dumpling banquets. Large halls fill with people everyday to be served large steamer baskets of dumplings. The dumplings come in every shape and flavor, actually the two are correlated. The dumpling is shaped to look like the filling.

This is the last, lonely chicken dumpling from our dumpling banquet in Xi'an.

Every morning we had great big Baozi(bao- tze), steamed dumplings, for breakfast. In Chengdu, we spent a day at the Sichuan Culinary Institute where a master chef, and former student of Chef Cheng demonstrated several Chinese dishes including Boazi.

The master Chef shows us the steam bun dough.

First, portion the dough and flatten it with your palm.

Chef Cheng demonstrates how to fill and form the dumplings.
First, spoon the filling onto the flattened round of dough.

Push the filling down with your thumb and draw the edges of the dough up.

Keeping your thumb in the center, pinch the edge of the dough together.

Keep pinching the edge of the dough all the way around until you have closed dough around the filling.

Chef Cheng's perfect dumpling in the steamer.
 Mine looked just like that so it would be redundant to post a picture of it... haha!

For the graduation open house I made some pork and cabbage Dim Sum dumplings with a ginger soy dipping sauce.