The Omnivores Dilemma = Required Reading

I picked up this book, "The Omnivores Dilemma" after watching the documentary "Food Inc." What I was expecting was a text book like march through the controversy surrounding the American food industry. What I found instead, was a mind bending thriller, which threw me from page to page, challenging my way of life and causing me to pause, several times, get up and look at the ingredients listed on the side panels of the food I hand to my children every day (AAHH! Chicken nuggets are EVIL!!).

The most interesting part of the book is all about the corn (and soy) industry. An industry subsidized with tax payer's money, to the point that the actual farmers could not survive without the supplemented money. The mantra of more, more, more, drives the mentality of the farmer, letting concepts such as nutrition, quality, and sustainability, become neglected to the extent that they are not even part of the equation anymore.

You know that thing that happens when you learn a new word, and then no less than 2 weeks later, you hear that word again and think "If I hadn't learned that word two weeks ago, I would have never noticed it this time around. I would have just passed over it." That happened to me, in a way, with this book. Pollan talks about the quality of an egg at a farm called Polyface farms. He talks about the bright orange color of the yolk and how it would stand up straight and tall due to the nutritional diet and general happiness of the chicken that had laid it. I had two cartons of eggs. One of the "organic" Costco variety and one from a barn raised, cage free,  family farm in Rippon CA. I never would have noticed prior to reading this book, but there was a world of difference between these two eggs. As I cracked the "organic" Costco egg onto my griddle, the yolk was a pale yellow color and fell flat with the egg white, while the family farm egg had the same qualities Pollan talked about with the Polyface egg, bright orange and strong.

Pollan not only calls into question the industrial food industry, but also the new big industrial organic food industry and how it may suffer from many of the same ailments as it's conventional counterpart.

Why shouldn't I know where the food I eat comes from. I get that some things you just can't get local. Some things you don't need too. Coffee, sugar, tea, other dry goods with naturally long shelf lives, but it is still important to know who the companies are, and be able to hold them accountable to a high standard of cleanliness and ensure they are using sustainable practices. Do we need more government intervention? New safety standards? Or how about a whole new rule book, that does not set the standard of success based on quantity, but instead on purity and sustainability.

But until then, I will begin to hunt for local food, from people I can talk to, from farms and ranches I can visit and evaluate myself. Of course I still have a LONG way to go with all of this. There is still a box of C&H refined sugar in my cupboard, there is still a couple pounds of Kirkland Beef in my freezer. I don't expect that I will suddenly be able to just shut down everything and switch over to an entirely local/seasonal diet. That would not be realistic at all. After all, I have been living at the whim of the industrial food market for 29 years now. No, this does not call for instant and extreme measures. This calls for a well thought transition to a more sustainable, local, seasonal diet.

Who am I and what is this blog about?

My name Michael Greene. Recently I have become obsessed with learning how to eat more locally, with the season and from suppliers who use more sustainable and ethical practices. This, coupled with the fact that I already love cooking, exploring cookbooks, blogs and tv shows, prompted me to start this blog. Partly to document what I am learning as I am learning it and partly to put all the knowledge I am gathering in one place, so that it is easier to share. Hope you enjoy!

Local Eggs and Dairy Products

I eat more eggs and dairy then most people I know. Every morning I eat 3 eggs, sometimes baked with cream and cheese, usually with a side of yogurt. I put sweet cream butter on my toast, in my sauces and on my vegetables. In addition to that, I consume at least 2 tall glasses of cold, whole milk everyday, some kind of cheese finds it's way onto my plate at almost every meal, and I use heavy cream in my coffee (if available, sometimes I have to settle for half and half). Bottom line, I love eggs and I love dairy products.

So how important is it for me to find the highest quality, closest, freshest product that I can? Not only is this very important to me, it is also one of the most challenging changes that I have had to make to my eating recently. Challenging because high quality eggs and dairy are EXPENSIVE!

As I stroll through the refrigerated isle at Costco, temptation sets in. 5 dozen eggs for under 6 bucks you say?? How can this be possible. I could make egg salad, deviled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs, frittata until I bust and still have extra eggs to figure out what to do with. But wait...how is that possible? What IS the true cost of eggs and why am I not paying that figure? What corner has been cut that I am not paying a reasonable and fair price for a product which claims to be clean, safe and nutritious? But hey, and egg is an egg right?...Right?! I won't go into all the nutritional and moral implications that go into buying this product here. But I will recommend everyone go out and watch the documentary "Food Inc." Its on Netflix right now and available to watch instantly. I've never been squeamish about animals having to die in order for me to eat, but the difference between the life of a free range chicken and that of the industrial, conventional bird is so drastically different, that there HAS to be serious differences in the final product, which ultimately ends up on my plate.

Is it important to me that the food I am eating had a life resembling that which could have occurred in nature? Yes. Even more so, I am concerned with what is going into my family's digestive system. I think that is something that more people can relate too.

We all have to trust the farmer to use clean, ethical and sustainable practices that will not destroy the earth, the health of the animals and ultimately the value of the food that we put into our mouths. So does it not make sense that we would want to check out the source of our food? Absolutely, which is why I am planning numerous trips this coming summer to local farms and ranches, so that I can make more educated decisions about what food I will purchase.

In the meantime, I have found a dairy farm with an exceptional reputation and a very informative website about what they are all about. The Straus Family Creamery. Their products can be found at Whole Foods if you are in the Bay Area, and they are more expensive than anything else on the shelf. But that is one investment that I have decided to make, for the health of my family and the future health of the California countryside. Every time we buy a product, we tell the food companies what we want, and how we want them to perform. I hope more people start making this investment into our health and future with me.

I am open for any suggestions on where I can get the best quality products, beef, chicken, eggs, whatever.

Spinach Salad with Walnuts and Apples

This is a great side to any meal, or can be a great lunch all by itself. A lot of times I will just go through the fridge and cupboards and see what I can throw together. Every once in a while I come up with something worth writing down, this is one of those.

INGREDIENTS:

1 handful of walnuts
Olive oil
Red wine vinegar
Sea salt and pepper
1 sliced golden delicious apple (or whatever you want, I just prefer the softer texture)
1 clove of garlic(minced)
1/2 of a cucumber (chopped)
2 handfuls of cherry tomatoes (chopped)
1 small handful of dried cranberries
2 handfuls of spinach
1 small handful of Italian parsley (chopped)
5 leaves of basil (sliced in thin strips)
Feta Cheese

DIRECTIONS:

Put the oil in a pan and heat on medium. Throw a little sea salt and the garlic into the pan and let it cook for a minute or two. Add the walnuts and let them fry until they get a little browned on each side. Even if they get a little bit black on tips, it will still taste great. Throw in the apples with a splash of red wine vinegar. Let it all cook together for about 5 minutes. When you feel like it is done, throw it all in a salad bowl with the rest of the ingredients and toss with olive oil and red wine vinegar. Add salt and pepper to taste.

You can add anything else you have around, like strawberries, pomegranates, dried fruit, nuts, herbs, whatever you like, this was just the combination I came up with, but the red wine vinegar is essential.

Chicken Piccata

I leaned to cook Chicken Piccata out of necessity. My wife, Milana, would order the chicken piccata everytime we went out to get Italian food. When we first got married, I was still in art school (studying film) and Milana was working in the HR department at Kaiser. It is safe to say that we were just scraping by in the cash department at that point, so going out to a restaurant was out of the question. I started learning to make the dish myself with a recipe from the Food Network's Giada De Laurentiis. Her recipe is very basic and a great starting point for further experimentation. Over the next few years I made slight adjustments to the recipe and tweaked it until we got a consistent, quick and tasty recipe that I could whip up in short order whenever Milana's craving for her special dish set in.

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 chicken breast fillets
• Sea Salt and black pepper 
• 1-2 cups of flour
  
• 1 cube (8 tbsp) of butter
• 1/4 cup of olive oil 
• 1 small shallot (optional)
• splash of dry white wine (optional)
  
• 1 cup of chicken stock
• 1-2 fresh lemons
• 1/4 cup of capers (if they are in brine then rinse them off first, if they are in salt, add any other salt sparingly and use try using unsalted butter instead)

DIRECTIONS:

If your going to use a shallot (which I like to do sometimes), saute them first in a little olive oil until they are soft and translucent. Add the white wine and continue cooking until the little bit of wine is almost gone. Take the shallots from the pan and set them aside. Rub the chicken with some salt and pepper and then coat them in flour. Put 1/2 cube of butter and the olive oil into a heavy bottomed pan (I always use my dutch oven) and set the heat to medium high. When the pan starts to crackle, throw in the chicken and brown on both sides (a few minutes a side). If your pan isn't big enough just do it in two batches.

Note: I like when the chicken gets crispy brown on the outside, even if you think it looks a little too well done, its probably just right. So cook them fast and hot, you need some of the brown crisp to stick to the pan so you can scrape it up later into the sauce.

Take the chicken out and set them aside. I always sprinkle a little sea salt on them at this stage, and maybe a squeeze of lemon, straight onto the browned chicken too. 

Add the chicken stock, capers, fresh squeezed lemon juice into the pan and bring to a boil. Scrape the pan so all the browned chicken that stuck to the pan gets mixed in with the sauce and re-introduce the shallot.

Put the chicken back into the pan and rotate them around in the sauce a little. There should be enough sauce that you can mostly cover the chicken with it. Cook the chicken in the sauce for another 4-5 minutes on each side and remove the chicken again from the pan. The chicken will get dry if you overcook them, so you have to watch them close. If you using thin breast fillets then reduce the time a little for the second stage.

Take the sauce off of the heat and add the rest of the butter. If you want the sauce a little thicker, throw in a Tbsp or 2 of the flour and beat it with a wire whisk. Pour the sauce on the chicken and enjoy.

This recipe can be altered a million different ways. Some days I start out by sauteing a shallot in before the chicken. Some days I add a little white wine to the sauce, garnish with parsley or even add a little sliced basil if I have some laying around. Experiment with less stock and more lemon depending on your tastes.