Tomatoes and watermelon—perfect on their own

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Cross-posted from Examiner.com

What’s with tomatoes and watermelon this year? I have seen them side by side at local farmers markets, of course, having both come into season recently. But in an odd development, I started to see them together in recipes, too.

At first, I noticed the usual myriad recipes for watermelon-feta salad sometimes included halved cherry tomatoes. Then came the watermelon gazpacho. Then, as if that weren’t enough, watermelon bloody Marys have now poured into the fray, celery sticks and all.

While I cheer combinations like chipotle and chocolate or peaches and basil, I just can’t get into this one. Continue reading →

Disastrously Delicious: Food Writers Get Together and Shake Things Up

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The following is cross-posted from The Jew & the Carrot

Ratatouille

A group of Jewish food lovers, a spread of delectable dishes, and milkshakes made of laughter. If it were possible for one afternoon to be too good, this is where it would start.

A group of Jew & the Carrot writers, editors, and friends faced the risk—overflowing goodness and all—this past Sunday. Of course, it all started with the food. I arrived at host Avigail’s Clinton Hill, Brooklyn apartment to find hand-layered ratatouille swirling from the center of a clay baking dish, crusty homemade beer bread, a cake topped with the purple velvet of baked plums, aromatic rosemary bread, peach-basil salad, and made-from-scratch yogurt. That alone nearly tipped the scales to the side of the too good. Did I mention that we washed this down with homemade sparkling ginger-grapefruit juice? Spiked with gin? Continue reading →

Eggrolls, tummy bulge, and the food revolution

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Eggrolls and tummy bulge. Those were the concerns of Cornell University researches in a study released last year in the journal Obesity, but the research–and the discussion about it–may have fallen short.

The study tracked the habits of people with various body mass indexes (BMIs) at a Chinese buffet, and found several differences in the actions of people with high and low BMIs. All good and helpful, I say.

Then this week, David Zinczenko, co-author of the hit Eat This, Not That! book series, turned the findings into a guide to the habits of people who qualified as obese versus their daintier lo mein-slurping counterparts. The top two Zinczenko singles out:

  • They use larger plates. When offered two plate sizes, 98.6 percent of those with the highest BMIs took the larger of the two plates to the buffet. A bigger plate tricks your eye into thinking you’re not eating as much, and stuffing more food onto your plate — and into your mouth. Use a smaller plate, get a smaller belly.
  • They eat while looking at food. 41.7 percent of those with high BMIs took seats that overlooked the buffet, instead of sitting in a booth or facing in a different direction. The site of food tends to make our minds think we have more work to do, eating-wise. Keep your food stored in the fridge or the pantry, not out on the countertops. Continue reading →

Last day for a free mocha

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Today, August 3, is your last chance to get a free mocha at McDonald’s. But you didn’t hear it from me. No, not from your favorite advocate of healthy, sustainable, and local foods! Not from the farmers market enthusiast!

Okay, can I help it if I was a little curious about this whole McCafe menu since it first started? Am I to blame if a McDonald’s jumped in my way as I headed back from my dentist’s appointment this morning? I didn’t think so.

The mocha wasn’t bad, I have to say. It had the sharp flavor, smooth texture, and silty sediment of a real espresso drink. Not too shabby, Mickey D’s. Now let’s just talk about that factory farming…

Show us your frittatas!

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It’s summer, which means incidences of people yelling inappropriate things out car windows are on the rise. Perhaps that is what inspired the title of this post. Or perhaps the inspiration is just my own personal decline. But no matter–even if this blog is diminishing in taste, I’ll do my darndest to keep it rich in flavor.

See, another phenomenon that explodes this time of year is surplus garden veggies. For me and my fellow soil toilers at DC’s Blair Road Community Garden, the biggest overflow is in Swiss chard and summer squash. Continue reading →

Farmers Markets 101: How to find a market near you

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One farmers market found - a few hundred to go!

Savoring that just-picked flavor. Supporting the local economy. Making a direct connection to the people who grow your food. Reasons for shopping at farmers markets are as rich and abundant as the farm-fresh produce they sell.

If you are reading this article, chances are good that you already have a reason, and now want to find a market nearby your home or work place. Or perhaps you shop regularly at a farmers market, but would like to sample a new one.

Luckily, you have over 220 farmers markets to choose from in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Several online resources offer ways to sort through them to find a market that fits your needs and location.

Each listing below includes location, day, time, and contact information for each market. Note that the information is always changing, so I recommend calling or emailing first before heading to a new destination.

Still not sure where to find a farmers market? Email me.

Hey, readers – this is a re-post from my Examiner.com site.

Watch that salmon go! Seafood guidance and a recipe for ginger-coconut salmon cakes–Updated!

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Although never explicitly a vegetarian blog, this site struck many readers as meat-free—probably because I was. Yes, I WAS. I’ve been eating fish for a few months now, though I haven’t really said anything on YaD.

While keeping up my babble about veggies, I’ve been engaging in a little self-education and finding new cooking opportunities around fish. This means that when the new Seafood Watch guides from the Monterey Bay Aquarium came across my Twitter feed, I eagerly clicked over. It also means I have developed a new recipe using the wild salmon that continues to star in the “Best Choices” category. Continue reading →

15 minutes on… my heroes

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10:45.

The past 30 days, 22 hours, and 45 minutes have been a National Blog Posting Month (aka NaBloPoMo) dedicated to heroes. I did not post every day this month, and I have yet to type a word about the people I look up to. But still I will embrace the last minute (my favorite time of day) to give a shout out to some important–yes, I’d dare say heroic–foodies.

Alice Waters – Big mama of the local and slow foods movement. I like her so much, I named a goldfish after her. She’s one of the few survivors.

Wendell Berry – A dude dedicated to both small-scale agriculture and beautiful writing about it

Arden Andersen – An MD with the audacity to say that nutrient-dense food, grown in good soil, is the best medicine

Mollie Katzen – A woman who started with a simple cookbook and an ernest little restaurant, and grew a huge & veggie-loving following. I also named a goldfish after her, but the poor gal (or guy?) didn’t make it.

Bill McKibben – Advocate of a locally-based economy. I need to read his latest book!

In the remaining hour of the month, I shall be reflecting on these wonderful people. And cleaning my fish tank.

11:04

15 minutes on… incidental wonders

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11:54 p.m.
Wild strawberries

Wild strawberries: one of the small, sweet pleasures of my home town. These berries shine from patches of grass and forest without any cultivation or any say-so by any human.

Black caps

Black raspberries, aka black caps (they are a deep purple when ripe. The pictured berries aren’t quite there). Yet another serendipitous find. When I was a kid, they were curly wigs on my imagined finger people, or crowns or coins or cakes.  Unfortunately, they love to grow near poison ivy. Almost every summer, those insidious oils found me and laid me out with oatmeal compresses on the backs of my legs or calamine lotion covering one swollen eye. Even the plumpest of these berries won’t fit on my finger anymore, but I still savor them whenever I’m willing to hunt — and court itchy disaster.

Mulberry close-up

Mulberries. I still feel a smile every time I walk by a mulberry tree. Whether it’s in someone’s back yard, or along the exhaust-laden sidewalks of 16th Street, I’ll halt my purposeful D.C. walk to pick them. The older trees give you the sweetest berries, my dad used to tell me. I know people who have special shirts just for picking mulberries because of the stains, my mother said.

Perennial wild berries: You could walk by and not even notice them. Or you could notice them.

12:09 a.m.