Buy Nothing Day

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I tried not to buy anything yesterday. When I first heard about Buy Nothing Day campaigns to get consumers to abstain from the frenzy of day-after-Thanksgiving shopping, it sounded like no big deal. I mean, many Jews do it every Saturday. But it’s tougher than you think to avoid picking up a coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts, buying a newspaper, or paying for some form of transportation.

Most of what I buy is food, so I’m going to talk about it here.

As you probably know, preparing all of your meals for the day is time-consuming, as is making your own coffee. For me, the problem is stubbornness. I am the queen of Made From Scratch. My freezer knows not the frozen entrée nor the veggie burger. The great irony is that I often give up on making my own labor-intensive food and buy a hot meal or salad bar salad that costs twice as much as the convenience foods would. At any rate, I did take the time to make breakfast and lunch.

Sparing you the rest of the details, let’s skip to about 6:30 p.m. I headed to my CSA veggie pickup with a hunger that made me dream of delicious snacks available at the nearby Dupont Whole Foods. I made it through, though, and left with another familiar irony–starving as I carried a veritable cornucopia of food. There were plenty of nutritious and tasty vegetables in there, but all required slicing, dicing, and/or cooking.

When I got home, I quickly made some dinner, rendering the not-immediately-edible goodies quite edible indeed, if I do say so myself.

As I ate triumphantly and voraciously, I congratulated myself on a day of no purchasing. Well, that is if the movie I was treated to makes it by the judges…

* * *

Here’s one dish I made, using the cukes that are coming out of my CSA at an impressive rate:

Seven O’Clock Cucumber Salad

3-6 servings

2 medium cucumbers, peeled if not organic, seeds scooped out, and diced
½ medium onion, minced
1 Tbs. umeboshi plum vinegar, or 1 Tbs. apple cider vinegar plus salt to taste
1 tsp. dried mint or 1 Tbs. fresh mint (if you don’t have mint that you swiped from a nearby apartment building’s backyard on hand like I did, you can try Thai or Italian basil).
2 tsp. black sesame seeds (optional)

Toss all ingredients together. Chill for a few hours and toss again, or begin devouring right then and there.

Je me souviens

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Je me souviens (I remember), the Québec license plates vow. This past weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting the province’s largest city and was left with the question of what, gastronomically speaking, I would remember most from Montréal.

Yes, Casa Tapas, with its rustic sangria pitchers, Spanish-French-English-Italian (and maybe Turkish and German?)-speaking waiter, and roses sculpted into the ladies room walls won for ambiance:

sangria

Casa Tapas bathroom

But then again, there was the unique experience of eating a beaver tail, Montréal’s lighter, wholegrain-looking answer to America’s fried dough:

 

beaver tail

 

…And then, of course, there’s the crepes! (This one was a sweet corn and sesame batter with seasonal vegetables, Calamata olives, and three cheeses inside):

crepe

However, I have to say that the winner was the simple name of a dish:

Gâteau Fauxmage*

I didn’t even order it. I just happened to see it on a card marking a raspberry-covered cake in the dessert case at Aux Vivres. So cute, so vegan, so lingui-tastic.

 

Yes, I ventured into a city known for having a rich history and culture and the best strip clubs in the world, and came away with that. Next time I make it there, I may put less emphasis on the food and take recommendations for places like Le 281 more seriously. So keep your eyes peeled and you may see a review of another kind of tasty dish.

*For the non-French speakers, this is a play on gâteau fromage, a.k.a. cheesecake.

IMHO – Giant inflatable Corona bottles (second in the series)

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Giant inflatable Corona bottles are friggin’ cool. I’d never dream of wearing a Coca Cola t-shirt or sweatpants that say Abercrombie across the butt, but I wouldn’t mind one of those marketing pieces in my living room. Next time you walk past a liquor store window, seriously take a look.  I think you will marvel at what you see. I mean, there’s a lime slice twice the size of your head suspended inside! Just try to tell me that’s not friggin’ cool.

Heh?

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“‘What am I eating? And where in the world did it come from?’ Not very long ago an eater didn’t need a journalist to answer these questions.”

-Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Papadzules

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Well, I tried that papadzule recipe from a few posts back. I can’t say I was too impressed. The bright green oil never came out of the ground pumpkin seeds (disappointment!) and the overall taste was kinda blah. Maybe I should have trusted my aversion to pumpkin seeds, which I think began with the large amounts of egusi I ate during my months in Ghana.

Luckily, the food adventure was not wasted. For one thing, the ingredients lent themselves to a nice presentation:

Papadzules

I also got out of it the realizations that a) whole roasted pumpkin seeds are delightful, especially when you know you’re supposed to be saving them for a recipe and not snacking on them and b) epazote broth is really delish. I’d use it in place of chicken stock in recipes. To make it, use one large sprig of epazote and a scant half teaspoon salt per cup of water. Simmer together for 5 minutes and remove the sprigs.

I say take with you what you can, my friends — the tasty with the dull.

Feminists? Jews? Food? I’m there!

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Wow. I will need to read Leah Koenig’s posts on various blogs often.

Here’s a sample.

And for more great food news for socially-conscious Jews, check out The Jew and the Carrot. One highlight from this week, especially helpful if you’ve ever traveled in Israel and wondered what was up with that eggs-in-a-bed-of-cooked-tomato stuff (turns out it’s shakshuka, and you should make it while the tomato season is hot!): http://jcarrot.org/when-the-farm-gives-you-tomatoes-make-shakshuka/.

Edible verse

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Choking Hazard

We should have outgrown
swallowing each other by now.
First comes the choking hazard, then we
want to inhale him/
devour her.

And then? Then we take
spoonful by spoonful

by spoonful
(it seems, for the rest of our days).

But fish bones still get stuck and grown hands clutch.
In the end, the lucky ones
sustain on others’ mouths.

-By Rhea