Real Food Has Curves

Mark Scarbrough | Posted on

Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 11:37AM | in

Salads,

Vegetarian

tagged

slaw,

Monday

Jul262010

Barbecued Meatballs

4 Comments

I realize this is a fall dish. Call me nuts, but I've got a hankering for this sort of thing right about now.

OK, I'll make a confession. I don't tell this to just anybody. I'm a Henry James fanatic.

I told you I shouldn't tell it to everybody. People look at you like you're nuts. Anyway, I am--and I'm in the second year of a five-year plan to read everything old Harry ever published: every novel (all twenty of them), every travel piece (a whole set, several books plus lots of articles, from many trips to Europe--and then his final sojourn there), every short story (about 122 of them), every piece of published literary criticism, his three-part autobiography, and his two unfinished novels.

See? A nutso fanatic. I've already done this, believe it or not, with William Faulkner and Willa Cather. When I go, I really go.

In the last few weeks, I've been reading a bunch of chilly James short stories, all about how a hostile world chews up the innocent at every turn.

Naturally, I crave comfort food. Which is why I made these meatballs late last week.

They're an adaptation of the meatball technique in COOKING KNOW-HOW--which explains the whole science and art behind perfect meatballs. These were my own whimsy--and ridiculously real food. So let's get to it. We're going to make four hefty servings, six moderate ones.

Mark Scarbrough | Posted on

Monday, July 26, 2010 at 3:48PM | in

tagged

Friday

Jul232010

Peach Crisp

5 Comments

We're almost done. Here in rural New England, the peaches are almost finished. And what a season it's been! It was so warm early and so wet early and then so very dry now that the berries and stone fruits have been in ridiculous abundance, sweet and juicy, almost beyond belief. We'll see if this current dry spell bodes well for tomatoes in the weeks ahead. But for now, peaches are making their last fling.

Which means we're stocking up. When we see peaches, berries, plums, or cherries in the markets, we go for it, buying way more than we need, then freezing them for the winter ahead. (Stone fruits like plums, cherries, and peaches should be pitted--the larger ones, sliced. Berries can go into the freezer as they are.) None will then be worth eating on its own. But a peach crisp in December is a thing of beauty indeed!

While we're on the subject, let's just say that frozen fruit is real food, no doubt. In fact, frozen fruit is often a better choice. If the peaches in December have been trucked to the store from Chile or Morocco, you're better off buying the sliced frozen ones in bags. The ones trucked in were picked green and won't be worth much for their taste. The frozen ones were picked at the height of ripeness, even by large-scale growers, and flash-frozen, often right in the fields. These fruits and berries (and vegetables, too) retain more of their essential nutrients--and taste!--than those brought over thousands of miles.

In fact, frozen vegetables are often picked at a better stage than the fresh ones going to a standard supermarket. The ripe green beans and carrots, the ones ready to eat now, are culled for the freezer truck. The less-than-ripe veggies and fruits are then packed for longer shelf-life at the store. So if peaches are out of season where you live and you want to make this peach crisp, consider the sliced ones in the freezer case--provided there are no chemical shenanigans going on in the package. (Read those labels!)

OK, the crisp.

Fabulously Empty Calories

Mark Scarbrough | Posted on

Friday, July 23, 2010 at 9:06AM | in

Desserts,

tagged

peaches

Wednesday

Jul212010

White Bean, Pecan, and Sage Burgers

7 Comments

You may already know this, but I can't stand veggie burgers.

Well, I can't stand the ones you get at most stores. I find them irritatingly coarse, not satisfying at all, and ridiculously overpriced. Plus, I find the nutrition content deplorable, the chemical signature outrageous.

As you can see, I'm pretty passionate about it all. Because veggie burgers of all sorts are a go-to meal around here. Because they're relatively easy to make. And because they're so darn delicious.

Bean burgers may be my favorite of all. The "batter" can be made in advance and saved back in the fridge for a couple days. Or you can fry them up and save them back for lunch in the days ahead. They're great cold with a salad alongside. Or reheated on a baking sheet in a preheated 350F oven for 10 minutes or so.

Bruce's recipe is genius. It's found in toto in COOKING KNOW-HOW, our step-by-step tome explaining the science and art behind sixty-nine dishes. But lacking all that know-how, here's one way to make them.

Mark Scarbrough | Posted on

Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 3:23PM | in

tagged

Tuesday

Jul202010

Let's Talk: Presumed Rich

14 Comments

I’ve been thinking about the great responses to my declaration of independence last week. If you haven’t checked back in to that post to read the comments, there’s a lot of food for thought. Click here for more.

Truth be told, I’ve been pondering a couple in particular—one about how telling people to take the time to make real food is about as callous as telling them to spend more money on it. And the other, about how the farmers’ market too often proves out of range.

Have we bitten off more than we can chew?

Mark Scarbrough | Posted on

Tuesday, July 20, 2010 at 4:58PM | in

Discussions

tagged

Gourmand,

above your means,

conspicuous consumption,

food above your means,

food fetish,

gourmet,

presumption of wealth,

wealth

Thursday

Jul152010

Brown Sugar Brownies

8 Comments

For us, the process of writing a cookbook involves finding the middle ground.

It's ever the dream, no? I once had a discussion once with a sommelier who told me that he tries to gauge the middle bottle of wine and then build the list out from there in both directions. (Unfortunately, he thought the middle bottle ran about $90US. Ah, well!)

When Bruce and I write cookbooks, we also try to figure out that illusive middle. Which recipe stakes it out--and which then have the freedom to break it?

We believe the middle ground is made up of three things: taste, effort, and cost. To give you a little peak into the behind-the-scenes thinking in our latest book, REAL FOOD HAS CURVES, the seven-step plan to get off processed food, we staked out the middle ground with the oven-fried fish fillets, the ones included in the discussion about effort v. cost in our food choices, found in chapter 2, "Make Informed Choices."

We later included far easier and less costly recipes (like the no-cook peach salsa) and more difficult, challenging ones (like the Mapo Dofou--which you can also find on this blog here).

That process is perhaps nowhere more evident than in The Ultimate Brownie Book. So many people have their notion of brownies: there's the caky camp and the fudgy camp, for one thing. So we first sat down to try to find something that fell right in the middle, all other brownies moving out to the edges. And believe me, there some out on the edges. Like the caky brownies made with a can of Coca-Cola, a riff on my Cousin Wilma Faye's "co'-cola cake." (Yes, I had a cousin named Wilma Faye. Doesn't everybody?) Or like the fudgy Sour Cream Brownies. Crazy. Barely holding together in the pan. One minute less baking time and you could use them as an ice cream topping.

So here's the middle ground of brownies, a little bit cakey, a little bit fudgy, with only one kind of chocolate not three or four, certainly indulgent as a treat but not too much so, a little decadent but certainly not too much so.

Fabulously Empty Calories

Mark Scarbrough | Posted on

Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 1:13PM | in

Cake,

Chocolate,

Desserts,

tagged

baking,

brown sugar brownies,

brownies,

butter,

butter and chocolate,

chocolate,

desserts,

middle ground

Tuesday

Jul132010

Quinoa Tabbouleh

9 Comments

When I planted my kitchen garden this spring, I decided, sort on a whim, to put in a few Brussels sprouts plants. I've never grown them and I thought it'd be a blast to see what would happen.

Lo and behold, I've got a parsley 9-1-1! The poor plants are being overrun. And some other herbs, too. There's also oregano under those big leaves.

I need to use up that parsley before it gets run out of Dodge. And I have a feeling most people who buy a bunch of parsley at the store have the same feeling: what am I going to do now with all this?

So it's back to our regularly scheduled program: fridge salads. Today's whole grain version is a whimsical one from Bruce. It's like a traditional tabbouleh but with red quinoa instead of bulgur wheat. Honestly, it's a lighter treat on a hot summer day. This salad has been a staple around our house for the last week as the temperature has skyrocketed into the 90s.

So here we go.

Mark Scarbrough | Posted on

Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 2:03PM | in

Salads,

tagged

salad,

vegan,

Friday

Jul092010

Cinnamon Gelato

3 Comments

You gotta love TV. Not the watching it, per se. The being on it. Because it's always something. Particularly when you get Bruce and me on set. There's no telling what will happen. Remind me to tell you about the first time I got bleeped on air. (Ugh.) Or the time I dissed Barbara Walters to her face on The View. (Ugh again.) It's amazing we ever get on TV at all. Or another book contract.

But despite my big mouth, I guess it's pretty easy to get on when you're making gelato--as we did this week on WTNH in New Haven.

For those who may not know, gelato is ice cream without the cream. It's made with whole milk--and lots of whole eggs. Tons of them. Which gives it this eggy, rich feel.

But there's a fly in the ointment (or the custard, as it were). Italian whole milk production has a higher butter fat content than American milk production. Italian milk runs about 3.7% cream. It differs state by state in the U. S., with most running around 3% and California's (the nation's largest dairy state) running slightly higher. (Lucky ducks in California with their richer milk!)

Anyway, the long and short of all this is that you need to add a little cream to get that Italian "mouthfeel." (That's the technical term, by the way. And no jokes, please. This is a family blog.)

So let's get to it.

Fabulously Empty Calories,

Mark Scarbrough | Posted on

Friday, July 9, 2010 at 3:56PM | in

Desserts,

Frozen Treats

tagged

cinnamon gelato,

frozen desserts,

gelato

Thursday

Jul082010

Summer Slaw

3 Comments

I'm pondering all those fantastic responses to the declaration of independence post. If you haven't read through them, don't miss them here. (And thanks to everyone who has emailed me as well! It's all fodder for a new discussion, coming soon.)

Still and all, those responses at the end of the post are an excellent discussion with great honesty on the part of many--and some snarkiness, to boot.

You know I love the snark. You can't be a Southern guy lost in New England without loving the snark.

Anyway, I thought I'd take a break from thinking about all that to offer a recipe for a quick, all-vegetable slaw: all raw, no-cook, and perfect for these hot days that have descended like a scratchy wool sweater on us up here in the land of the Puritans.

This isn't going to be a recipe exactly. Rather, it's a recipe concept that you can adapt at will. So let's get to it.

Mark Scarbrough | Posted on

Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 10:10AM | in

Salads,

Vegetarian

tagged

carrot,

slaw,

Monday

Jul052010

Let's Talk: My Declaration of Independence

34 Comments

After writing so many cookbooks, after leaving the confines of Manhattan for open-pastured New England, and after embracing everything seasonal and organic in the past few years, Bruce and I might as well be card-carrying foodies.

Except I've recently burned my card. It happened when I read this among Michael Pollan’s many food rules: It’s not food if it arrived through your car window.

That did it—even though I’d already looked the other way after reading his article in The New York Times blaming women for the obesity epidemic. Even though I’d bit my tongue when Alice Waters told viewers on 60 Minutes to buy organic grapes rather than a second pair of designer sneakers. Even though I’d chalked up Jonathan Safran Foer’s claims about the complex emotional life of chickens to a hipster misfire.

No, it's the sheer elitism of Pollan’s it’s not food that caused me to torch my foodie card. Not It’s not real food. Nor It’s not the best food for me. Instead, It’s not food.