Braised Rabbit with Coriander Seeds, Green Olives, and White Wine

Vegetarians can be an off-putting lot. I should know. I was one for years. I'd beat you with a carrot if you suggested I eat meat.

I'm still in sympathy with the cause. But I eat meat. We should talk about that dichotomy sometime.

Anyway, earlier this year I was on L.A. NPR to talk about our HAM book, the drop-dead funny cookbook (no lie) about all things piggishly back-ended (look for it here). I made some cracks about raising and eating our own pig. Very light-hearted stuff, despite its being about death.

Afterwards, I got about many requests from people in LalaLand to be facebook friends. Wow, I thought, NPR has quite a following out there.

Until I discovered they were militant vegetarians. And started writing horrible things on my wall. And posting videos of animal slaughter. And sending messages to all my facebook friends about what a nightmare I was.

I cleaned these people off my lists as quickly as I could. Bruce and I talked about it. Decided it was a strange quirk. And went on our way. Until he twittered two weeks ago about making rabbit for dinner. And got word-lashed and then unfollowed by a bunch of similar types who thought his meal choice was unethical.

Again, the ethics of eating meat. Let's talk about them sometime. But for now, I'd like to share with you the rabbit recipe that got him defriended and unfollowed. Because it's so darn wonderful. Every single bite of its four servings. If you've never eaten rabbit, now's the time. It's autumnal, comforting, light, and savory. What could be better?

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Let's Talk: The Fat Discussion

Since we're been having some good discussions on Wednesdays about food, I thought we'd continue that trend with one today about fats.

Specifically, tasteless fats.

We're on a war path against the tasteless stuff. During the third step of our new book REAL FOOD HAS CURVES, the mini-detox program, we first take on the myth that fats are somehow bad for us.

We need fats to live. Some vitamins are fat (not water) soluble. Dietary fats aid in proper digestion. They also build neural structures and connections in the body. And they build the wall of every single cell in the body. Want to recover from your work-out with weights? Don't forget the role of fats.

But most importantly, fats bring on satiety. If only we register that we're eating them.

The research is pretty solid: we eat more and more these days because what we eat is pretty darn tasteless. We're caught looking for satiety because we're not eating flavorful food.

Fats, too. We eat copious amounts of the no-flavor stuff. But we crave big, bold flavors for satiety.

Or as we put it in the book, "You'll never see anyone canola-oil-ing their bread."

Let's be honest: all liquid fats have 120 calories per tablespoon. Every one. So why would you "waste" 120 calories on something tasteless? Why wouldn't you DEMAND walnut oil, or hazelnut oil, or olive oil? Why would you not want butter (which actually has fewer calories that a liquid oil)? Or (wow) lard--which is actually a monounsaturated fat like olive oil?

Yes, we consume too many fats. Saturated, monounsaturated, whatever. No doubt about it. The modern world is awash in fat. But most of them are tasteless. And craving flavors, we search for more. But we also eat more because we can't taste what we're eating.

The answer is not to pull away from fat. The answer is to embrace is for the real pleasure it is. The answer is to demand more flavor from every calorie. The answer is to use less of better, not more of worse.

Got a favorite, full-flavored fat--and a way to use it? We'd all love to hear from you.

(Hey, did you know we now have a channel on youtube? Check it out here. OK, don't laugh at me. It's rudimentary, for sure. But hey, I'm working on it!)

Smoked Olive Oil

In the last post (here), I dropped a hint about one last finishing touch on the pizza made from the antipasto bits and bites off the salad bar at our supermarket.

Once the pizza was cut into its pieces, Bruce drizzled each with smoked olive oil from The Smoked Olive.

Holy cow. Or olive. Or whatever.

If you don't know this stuff, you must. Now. It's a decadent, fantastic drizzle, great over a slice of this pizza--or any pizza. We used the Sonoma bottling, a little heavier on the smoke, with a nice fruity finish.

No cooking with it. Rather, dot it over the top. Of just about anything: scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes, creamy goat cheese, a piece of pan-fried fish. In other words, it's a condiment, like a high-flavor, expensive olive oil, but with smoke! Check out the full line of products and order your own bottles here.

The Smoked Olive recommends using it over shucked oysters. I can't wait!