Csquared Thoughts

polenta

It's been a long time since I've done something entirely new in the kitchen.

One of the restaurants we frequent has a neat dish that consists of polenta wedges, spinach, cheese, and marinara sauce.We thought it would be fun to try to re-create it at home. I've never made polenta before, but I had some polenta-style cornmeal that I've used in bread recipes, and the package contained a couple of recipes for making polenta. We decided to give this a try on Monday. I had my doubts mixing 1 cup polenta with 3+ cups water and putting it in the oven in the baking dish, but it turned out well. I used the result and put it together with the other ingredients, and the meal was quite good. Not your typical Memorial Day cookout dinner, but it was a much cooler than average Memorial Day, so it worked out fine.

Looking forward to trying polenta variations with different seasonings.

buying produce

Several months ago the produce market we really like, Kachy's, moved from an inconvenient location with awful parking to a new location just a couple of minutes from our house with really good parking.

Kachy's definitely has a Latino focus. If you want Shitake or Portobello mushrooms, or bean or alfalfa sprouts you won't find them there. But for your basic produce items and Latino products (chilis of all sorts, tortillas and the like) it's great.

Unlike the grocery store, items like lemons don't have to be unblemished to pass muster. But the prices are much better than the grocery store.

We really appreciate having Kachy's here.

Christina Cooks

I recently wrote about the Hippy Gourmet television program. Here's another cooking show for your consideration: Christina Cooks. This program is strictly vegetarian. Unlike the Hippy Gourmet, no fish, and, in fact, it's pretty much entirely vegan. At least I don't recall seeing her using any egg or milk products. It's on various PBS stations. So check your local listings, as the cliche goes.

I don't think there's any really recent episodes, and you'll find it's not as polished as most cooking shows you see on TV. I'm certain the show is shot in a real kitchen and not on a set. In one episode Christina bangs into her pots and pans a couple of times at the beginning of episode. And in another episode, she cooks up pasta, but never does anything with it.

Nonetheless, there's a lot of good information and recipes. In addition to demonstrating vegetarian cooking, she offers hints and tips on a healthy vegetarian lifestyle.

If you're interested in vegetarian cooking, this program is well worth checking out if it's available in your area.

The Hippy Gourmet

Terry and I love watching cooking shows on TV. If you are interested in vegetarian cooking (well, pescatarian, really) check out The Hippy Gourmet. There's an older set of shows that airs on various PBS stations around the country. There's a newer series, Organic Living with the Hippy Gourmet, which, as far as I know, only airs on Channel 20 in San Francisco weekend afternoons. Lots of good discussion about sustainability, buying and eating locally, and related topics, along with some great cooking by chefs who get those ideas. A lot of the segments from the Organic Living series can be found on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/hippygourmet.

Great stuff.

more veggies!

We had thought that our garden was done for the season. But we got home from Cambria to discover several tomatoes, a bell pepper, and a cucumber. Way cool! I used the tomatoes and bell pepper in a black bean and tofu concoction I made. But I've got to remember to blanch the tomatoes and peel off the skin before throwing them in the pan. Still, it turned out well.

how should I then eat?

I went to see my doctor for my annual physical at the end of August. He asked me about eating habits and told me that I should include olive oil, whole grains, and nuts in my diet.

That, perhaps, is not so surprising, except that the past two years he has strongly advocated a pescatarian diet: vegetarian + fish. He took this approach due to the cholesterol impact. This year he did not come anywhere near taking such an strong position.

So what does that mean?

For one thing, I've lost the "my doctor says" authoritative argument for a vegetarian diet when discussing the subject with Terry.

I was talking to my spiritual director about this, and she told me that the latest research seems to indicate that you can have beef three times a day, and if you eliminate refined flour and sugar from your diet your cholesterol is going to be fine. Maybe that research has to do with my doctor's new position.

ARGH!

OK, so what do I do? Was I trying to eat vegetarian just because my doctor said I should? No, not really.

My vegetarian tendencies go back over thirty years to 1974, when I was a senior at Pitzer College and became familiar with Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet. She wrote about how much more grain it takes to grow a chicken and beyond that to grow a cow, as opposed to what's needed if you just eat the grain directly.

I've had interludes at various times, particularly in the seventies and eighties, of attempting to be (and sometimes calling myself) a vegetarian. I'm not a vegetarian right now. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. But I rarely cook with meat. Never with beef. Sometimes with chicken. Weekly with fish. Frequently with vegetarian ingredients. And I've got a good collection of vegetarian cookbooks. Not to mention a binder full of recipes I've gotten online.

I often think about why one becomes a vegetarian. The Lappe philosophy is one reason, and it has a lot of pull with me. Others become vegetarians for Buddhist-like reasons of choosing "not to eat anything with a face." Still others do it for health reasons.Their bodies don't react well to meat or dairy. Others simply because they believe it's just plain healthier. If you visit vegetarian_group on Yahoo! Groups you'll find a great resource of folks who are vegetarian for a lot of different reasons and even some who appreciate the vegetarian diet but are not currently vegetarian (like me).

A more recent development: Terry has decided to re-join Weight Watchers. So she is now more willing to eat something closer to a vegetarian diet because vegetarian cooking means less points in the Weight Watcher system. And besides, she really does know it's healthier.

I'm workin' on it. I'll let you know how (and what) I do.