feeding the monkey

Some women while away their pregnancies worrying about things like jogging strollers and day care applications. Not here. What I want to know is what the little person is going to eat, and how to diversify beyond chicken fingers.

Looks like there are several schools of thought from which to choose. There’s the laissez-faire approach, which concedes that kids will eat what they eat, aka mac and cheese. There’s the sneaky parent approach, which involves baking vitamins into chocolate chip cookies. And then, once in a while, you find those kids who seem to eat everything. Like my friend Denise’s children. During our last visit I witnessed her first grader snacking on veal sweetbreads, a food most adults won’t touch. Denise’s husband happens to be a chef. What’s the approach there?

Could there just possibly be a correlation between children who love to eat and parents who love to eat, too? That’s my hunch, and I’ve set about trying to learn more. Luckily, there are dozens of books on the topic. But most of them don’t quite do it for me. There’s the cute Petite Appetit cookbook, which doesn’t get much beyond boiling water. There’s Ruth Yaron’s Super Baby Food, a strident guide to maximizing child nutrition, never mind actual enjoyment.

Enter local food writer Matthew Amster-Burton’s new book, Hungry Monkey, an eating adventure that involves the author’s now five-year-old daughter Iris. Amster-Burton claims that Iris has been eating pad thai and sushi since age 1. It’s a story I want to believe in, a story that has the power to put all of those raging mommy debates about cloth diapers and nursing bras into context for me.

There are many things I look forward to about parenthood, and one is sitting around a table with my family and sharing good meals together. What I especially like about Hungry Monkey is that most of the recipes are ones I’d like to cook and eat myself, which makes them recipes a family can eat together. Sure, not every ingredient is seasonal or local. Sure, it’s not Jerry Traunfeld’s Herbfarm Kitchen. All the same, Hungry Monkey gets at the idea that food isn’t just fuel. This author appreciates eating as a form of culture, and that’s a good reminder right now.

What are your tips for eating with kids?

shortcuts to scallions

My garden plans call for a perennial scallion patch, but last year’s plants succumbed to an unusually cold winter. So I started over this spring using a shortcut gleaned from Organic Gardening. You trim the root section from a mature scallion stalk, about a half-inch above the base, then plant right into the garden, and the roots put up new stems a few weeks later.

It’s so incredibly simple — you’re trimming away the base of the scallion before you cook, anyway — that I was kind of surprised to find it really works. Above is an old scallion stem that grew new white roots while in our fridge’s crisper; below, about two months later, are new scallions growing from root trimmings.

The scallions growing from root trimmings are already sturdier looking than the thin, lanky ones produced from a round of spring seeding. I’m hoping the size advantage will mean survival advantage during the cold season.

My old Rodale guide notes that scallions aren’t bothered by tight quarters; clumps can be separated just like chives when things get really crowded.

the politics of organic

Arctic Organics is a small (six acres in production) organic farm tucked beneath the jagged ridges of Matanuska Peak just outside of Palmer, Alaska. Owners Sarah and River Bean serve 150 families with their CSA program, sell at the Anchorage Farmers Market, provide greens to two Palmer restaurants (Vagabond Blues and Turkey Red), and open their farm stand to the public for two hours each Friday.

They are committed to organic, sustainable agriculture yet they can’t label their produce as organic. Until the fall of 2002 they held an “Alaska organic” certification from the Alaska Organic Association but when the Federal government took over the term “organic” the Beans decided to pass on the label. This was part cost (the new regulations require certifying agencies to be accredited, which Sarah estimated would cost $10,000, or $2,500 per AOA farm) and part philosophy, since the language created, as Sarah puts it, “standards we didn’t feel were high enough anymore” (visit the ‘organic certification’ page of the Arctic Organics site for more on their decision to skip the ‘organic’ label).

It doesn’t surprise me that reading a label isn’t enough to protect against industrial farming but it does make walking into a grocery store a little dispiriting, especially in a place like Alaska with limited local food choices.

[Still image gallery from Arctic Organics]

garden ruthlessness

Ain’t easy pulling up plants that aren’t working, even when you know it’s what good gardeners do. For days I had been dithering over the idea of cutting down my spring peas, which were lagging at eighteen inches tall. It was starting to seem that patience alone wasn’t going to do much for these guys. They were planted in a good south-facing location, by the backyard trellises, but about a month ago the fava beans in front of them took off, casting everything else in shadow.

I wasn’t about to sacrifice the favas, which are looking pretty edible lately.

The way the math works right now, every day the peas aren’t growing is another day that nothing else is up and going, either. It’s opportunity cost. And now that the calendar says summer, it’s high time to get beans into the ground.

Still I dithered. On solstice I began ripping out the peas one by one, staring with the runtiest, and it took me all day long. But it got easier the more I pulled — because suddenly there was space in the garden again.

garden improvement

Good garden soil is critical to success so this summer we’re making a real effort to compost our yard waste. Within an hour or so of building our new pile – four layers so far, alternating between 3 inches of grass clippings (nitrogen) and 3 inches of straw (carbon) — the thermometer was reading over 110 degrees, a vast improvement over our previous dump-everything-in-a-pile technique.

There’s an art to creating good soil and Alaskan Ellen Vande Visse has provided some tips on her Good Earth Garden School site. The direct link to her composting information (available as PDFs) is here.

hangzhou-style pork belly

About a year after the arrival of our half-pig and six months from the most recent beef delivery, we’ve still got a decent supply of meat on hand. But the cuts are less and less familiar as we go. No surprise, I suppose. We’ve got ten pounds of pork belly, for example, that I’d intended to cure, nitrates and all. Didn’t happen, and here we are now with pork belly that’s old old old.

So I scouted alternative ways with the cut, looking specifically for preparations that may not depend so particularly on fresh, pliant pork. Brined and roasted the way Fergus Henderson does it was one thought, but this old Hangzhou preparation intrigued me more — it seemed like exactly thing to melt down long-frozen meat (and fat) into one tasty, rich dish.

The number of different takes on the recipe, from cooks all over the world, made me think I could probably take my liberties. I used Eileen Fei-Lo’s recipe as a base, adding just a little bit of star anise and a cinnamon stick to cook down with the meat. It comes out rich enough that a thin slab is all you need, so rich that you’ll want to eat it with plain steamed rice and plain steamed vegetables; a few weeks back I used kale raab from the garden.

Braised Pork Belly with Star Anise

1½ lbs pork belly / 8 chive stems or 1 foot lengths of kitchen twine / 2 cups chicken broth / 2 cups water / 3 tbls shao xing wine or sherry / 2 tbls brown sugar / 1 inch slice ginger root / 1 stick cinnamon / 1 star anise / 2 tbls dark soy sauce / 1 clove garlic, bruised

Cut pork belly into 4-inch x 1-inch squares. Tie each piece like a present using chive stems, to keep layers from falling apart during cooking. Place belly packages, broth, water, wine or sherry, brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon, and star anise in a medium sized pot. Bring liquid to a boil then add soy sauce. Turn heat down to low and cook at a simmer for 3 hours. Add garlic and cook until pork is tender and fat melts to the touch, about 1 hour more. Carefully remove pork packages and reserve. Skim fat if you desire. Bring liquid to a boil and cook at a steady heat until liquid is somewhat thickened. Return pork to the pot to warm through, then serve over plain rice.

first peas

The best thing about coming back from vacation — it’s a short list — is getting back to the garden. Everything that isn’t dead is taller and bigger. We came back to peas that were ready to eat. So very exciting!

19 hours

Our hot-house plants are finally starting to respond to Alaska’s long summer days. First to harvest was basil, which went directly into a what’s-in-the-pantry pesto sauce:

Pesto (double batch)
2/3 cup of chopped fresh basil / 4 cloves crushed garlic / 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese / 1 cup olive oil / walnuts / fresh ground pepper

Blend ingredients in a food processor or blender until (mostly) smooth. I ended up using walnuts in this recipe because there were no pine nuts or cashews in the house. Serve with pasta.

After dinner, we freeze the remaining pesto sauce in an ice cube tray to preserve it in single-serving units.

the good life with peaches

It’s so easy adjusting to the good life — defined, for our purposes, as a farmers market with four kinds of nectarines and three types of peaches. With raw flavors this bold, the eating couldn’t be better. Sweet peaches cut into a simple bowl of yogurt made for a perfect breakfast. Sweet-sour nectarines sliced and layered with tangy cooked apricots and vanilla-infused cream made for a delicious dessert.

And don’t forget savory — we marked nectarines quarters on the grill and tossed with a basil and jalapeno vinaigrette. Sounds strange, but I find that smoky heat enriches the the fruit flesh, making them perfect alongside marinated flank steak and chilled soba noodles. Good living, indeed.

Grilled Nectarines

5 nectarines or peaches, about 2 pounds / juice of 1 lime / 1 tsp sugar / 1 tsp ginger, minced /chili paste to taste / 1 tsp fresh basil, sliced thinly

Halve nectarines and remove pits. Stir together remaining ingredients and marinate nectarines 30 minutes, then grill over medium heat until flesh is marked and soft, about 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix together dressing ingredients: 3 tbls rice vinegar / 3 tbls olive oil / 1 tsp jalapeno, minced / 2 tsp fresh basil, chopped / 1 tsp lime juice / 1 tsp sugar / salt & pepper to taste / chili paste to taste

Toss with grilled nectarines and serve in a salad with arugula and watercress, or alongside grilled meat if you like. Adapted from Jerry Traunfeld.

fast and easy times with japanese eggplant

It took many an unsuccessful attempt to get a handle on cooking aubergines, those ubiquitous Barney-shaped eggplants. Not so with their Japanese kin. These slender beauties were at the farmers market this weekend in northern California, and I couldn’t have been happier. I like cutting Japanese eggplants into beef stir fries but even easier is grilling them a la Jerry Traunfeld, who dips the halves in a soy marinade, then grills over a moderate flame until silky. Finished, they’re a rich, delicious accompaniment to many Asian foods.

Grilled Eggplant with Rosemary

4 medium-sized eggplants, halved lengthwise / 3 tbls soy sauce / 3 tbls olive oil / 1 tsp rosemary, minced / 1 clove garlic, minced

Stir together soy sauce, olive oil, rosemary, and garlic. Coat eggplant flesh with marinade and let rest 10 minutes. Grill eggplant halves over medium heat (about 300 degrees), flesh side down, turning after 5 minutes or so. Continue grilling until the flesh is silky, another 5-10 minutes depending on heat. Serve immediately. Feeds 4 as a side. Adapted from Jerry Traunfeld.