August Workcation

In an effort to beat the humidity and visit the family in one fell swoop, I escaped the stifling confines of August in NYC for the cooling summer effects of my native California.  Certain familial complications have resulted in my mom and me spending hours on end working my father's garden with almost total responsibility for the survival and upkeep of innumerable tomatoes, a virtual orchard of apples and a more-than-unruly potato patch.  7:30 am raspberry harvests, fruit fly infestations and backache aside, my august workcation has been surprisingly therapeutic.  It has made me look twice at my own presumed locavorism.

With food gleaning ever-more high profile recognition, from the great egg recall to the latest "it" foods to the great food truck race, it begs the question: the more we see/read/view our food, are we more or less connected to it?  Farmers markets are the latest locale for the visual comestible smorgasbord, where a little dirt creates an aura of authenticity and that "fresh off the vine" vibe.  Having spent the last three weeks living off the bounty of my own family's garden I've realized that maybe just eating locally isn't what locavorism should be about. (Garlic marinated roasted red and yellow peppers, delicious! Fresh-from-the-tree apple tarte tatin? Yes please.)   I'm all for reducing carbon footprints, supporting local farmers and eating less processed more healthful foods, don't get me wrong, but is it possible that focusing on farmers markets instead of superstores, organics instead of factory-produced has been reduced to a game of advertising semantics--are we missing the message?

Having given myself some distance from New York City (it seems I needed the physical for the sake of the mental), I realize how easy it is to get caught up in the faddishness of it all, to forget that eating local should be about more than paying for the label (and the peace of mind that comes with it).  After harvesting a bushel of tomatoes (alright, it was less than an actual bushel, allow me the term metaphorically), it was time to convert the harvest into a preservable food supply, also known as Aufmuth pasta sauce.  While slicing the freshly dug garlic cloves I realized that not only is eating local dirtier and more labor-intensive but it represents an incredibly satisfying engagement of the physical senses.  It is tactile and sticky, fragrant and decaying, it literally embodies our living cycle.  Maybe it's my California-hippie roots rearing their ugly heads, but it made me realize how much we miss when we focus merely on the labels and images and lose all of the work and the physical energy required for the "farm fresh"--we seem to have lost sight of how incredibly visceral the edible experience can be.

In short, just because we buy "organic" doesn't bring us any closer to the man (or woman) who grew it.  Perhaps engaging food should be more about entertaining trends or watching someone else do the cooking.  With food awareness poised in the forefront of the American conscience, we should remember that the hands on approach is generally the best learning experience...and the most satisfying.

Air fare...or lack thereof

If Steven Slater's shenanigans have taught us anything it's that a) avoiding the wait on the JFK tarmac is worth committing felonies and b) air travel just isn't what it used to be.  Disgruntled flight attendants aside, flights longer than two hours have become a Ghandian exercise in self-preservation.  That is to say, where the heck has all the food gone?

Frankly, I've never been overwhelmed by in-flight meals...something about witnessing 250 previously-frozen-now-radioactive packages being passed aisle by aisle doesn't do it for me, but damnit if I'm not starving after 6 hours from New York to San Francisco.  My most recent cross-country journey afforded me a first-hand peek at those few rogue passengers attempting to beat the system and simultaneously survive their very limited personal space with on-board sustenance, as well as the few hundred others of us who didn't. 

The cleverest of passengers trade in contraband, those "outside real world" foods that actually make it through the security checkpoint.  I have yet to see a full meal get successfully past TSA (I'm talking burritos--they are portable after all--maybe a nice tupperwared pasta or a deli sandwich), although smaller snacks abound.  Most popular among these are the obvious: apples, bananas, fruit and nut mixes, carrot sticks, pretzels (if one is so unlucky as to be flying on an airline that offers NO free snacks whatsoever....yes I mean you, American), and of course assorted less-than-healthy nibbles along gummy bear/mike-n-ike lines.  When I witness a co-passenger pulling out a Trader Joe's labeled snack bag I think to myself, "Here is someone with foresight, someone who plans ahead, cares for their welfare and will thereby be effective in an emergency situation".  These are the people you want to align yourself with in case of emergency or flight-attendant mutiny.

Then there are those who fall prey to the airport cuisine (if TGI Friday's, McDonald's and Sbarro can be called that), knowing full well their on-board options will be limited.  This group of travelers possesses expendable resources and a hearty appetite yet lacks the wherewithal of those in the first category.  These are the misguided souls who feel that wasting $15 for a sub-par wrap or less-than-authentic sushi in the terminal will ultimately be rewarding mid-flight, and who fail to realize they are really supporting the very system they believe they are bucking.  Airport food most generally sucks, and what with airlines now serving little to no food at all, an all-out passenger boycott and a handful of clever restaurateurs could really turn things around terminal-wise (an attempt to do just this is being made at La Guardia, for now I will reserve judgment).

The third category of passenger are the foodless, those who pass the hours examining what everyone else may or may not be eating. These travelers are split into two separate groups, the stubborn old-schoolers who believe in-flight snacks are a god given right (and damnit if they will spend $12 for a bullsh*t Lays snack pack), determined to starve it out at all costs and damn The Man! (I fall into this category); the second are the naive Europeans who have yet to realize that domestic American carriers really screw you over both monetarily and gastronomically.  There is, however, a proven test to distinguish between these two sub-categories lest you be confused: the stubborn Americans maintain more of a teeth-clenching, temple-pulsing rage while the faces of the unsuspecting Europeans become more gaunt and drawn as the hours drag on.

Over the course of 6 hours I witnessed a family of three savor and suckle the remaining half a tin of winterfresh Altoids while up in business class they were enjoying a choise of cedar-plank smoked salmon or New York strip steak (complete with accouterments) accompanied by a crisp Northern California Chardonnay or a robust Cabernet Sauvignon, respectively.  Perhaps classicism comes with the territory but it seems largely un-American to relegate all of coach to the fickle whims of large-scale conglomerate snack producers...or maybe that it is so wholly American is what makes it so upsetting.  I'm beginning to think Mr. Slater was really onto something...

Ode to Round Table

Considering I currently reside in what many people (erroneously, in my opinion--cue angry New Yorkers) believe to be the mecca of pizza slices, I often wonder why my belly pines for the Round Table pizzas of my childhood.  No NY slice will do--frankly I've never been over the moon about thin crusts, unevenly distributed cheese and anything requiring origami acts en route to my mouth (I'm surprised an NYC pigeon hasn't targeted me for all of this pizza-blasphemy) and in Manhattan that's pretty much the only way it comes.

Pizza is such a big to-do here, in fact, that statisticians have actually used mathematical calculations and occurrences of online reviews to deduce New York's favorite slice.  No two sources (authoritative or otherwise) can agree, what with over 5,000 yellow pages listings for pizza it's no wonder.  In the year that I have been living at the center of the "pizzaverse," I have sampled my fair share--from late night slices to full-blown pies, Sicilian (thicker crust, more cheese) to Neapolitan (your classic Italian-American NY style)--and have yet to be wildly impressed. (Lombardi's pizza--one of NYC's most famous pictured to the right)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not eschewing pizza entirely yet I rarely find myself inspired to eat that extra slice.  Most striking, there is very little variation.  While Manhattan generally considers itself the center of the culinary universe, the world of pizza is kept on a tight leash, never straying from the standards and keeping the crust a strict quarter inch thick.  You'd think with a city full of chefs making the most of what they've got, someone would think to do something about that damn pizza!  Maybe it's nostalgia that's holding me back, but give me a Round Table any day--savory rich sauce (none of that "grandma's recipe" sickly sweet stuff they have over here), prefect three-cheese blend (spread like a blanket for the toppings to nestle in), that not-too-thin/not-too-thick crust--nothing in New York compares.

We talk a lot about nostalgia and food: how it can play tricks in your mind, make flavors seem more than what they were.  Round Table for me is chock full of memories: girls nights when dad worked late, Monday night football dinners, slumber party snacks--that pizza smacks of family and friends and good eatin'.  To this day, though, the pizza is just as good as it was when I was five years old--no matter how full I get I can always eat that extra slice (I've been known to accomplish impressive gastronomic feats involving the family classic, a large pepperoni)...and it's damned good leftover/cold/and just about any other way.  I'm off to California in a few days and my mom and I already have our RTP date set.  There are some things I can skip on the rare occasions I get back to my homeland (god forgive me In-n-Out), but not that pizza.  Cheers to safe travels, happy homecomings and my all-time favorite slice.

(I'm not the first person to be wooed by RTP's culinary charms--and most certainly not the last.  This man wrote his own ode to the pie.)

Zea Mays Everta

That's corn turned inside out to you....yup, popcorn! With Americans consuming 4.25 billion gallons of popcorn per year as well as producing around half of the world's annual popcorn supply (around 300 million tons), it is no small surprise that popcorn has an incredibly long and fascinating cultural history.  Although National Popcorn Poppin Month isn't until October, it never hurts to be prepared...

Despite massive google-efforts, my attempts to discover the hidden roots of my personal popcorn obsession have been relatively unsuccessful.  My grandmother's popcorn song seems to have been an invention all her own, or at least an obscure and unpublished folk ditty that has yet to make its viral debut:
"Poppity poppity poppity pop, somehow I never can stop.
Whenever they put me over the fire it seems like I have to jump higher and higher,
And that's why I leap and pop!"
Vivid memories dancing anxiously in front of the stove spring to mind, complete with the willful leapings of enthusiastic kernels as the patented scent of snack-time deliciousness fills the room.

In fact, popcorn (like baking bread or tortillas) contains an aroma compound (released by chemical reactions during the heating process) that is especially attractive to human beings...and you thought that whole subliminal marketing thing was merely a conspiracy theory.  Since the advent of the mobile popcorn cart 1885 by Charles Cretors (a Chicago based confectioner), clever use of the wafting scents of popping corn have been attracting customers to street corners, fairs, circuses, and of course, the movies.

You don't like feeling manipulated by large corporations taking your money while you wolf down synthetically-buttered snacks salted to a threshold requiring refreshments?  Neither do I.  Popcorn wasn't always a tool of corporate capitalism.  For thousands of years before those pesky European explorers got their hands on it, popcorn was a dietary and religiously significant aspect for the majority of ancient civilizations in the Americas. 

Corn, believed to be indigenous to Mesoamerica, formed one third of the dietary trifecta of the majority of Central and Latin American peoples (the other two thirds being beans and squash).  With such an important role in the indigenous diet, it is no wonder that corn was represented in religion as well.  The Olmec, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec all worshipped gods of corn, and we know that corn played a roll in Native American and South American (particularly Peruvian) indigenous societies as well.  During the conquest of Mexico in the early 1500s, Hernan Cortes noted popcorn's use in Aztec ceremonies honoring the god Tlaloc.  Uses included headdresses, garlands and necklaces, and symbolic ornaments in adittion to dietary supplement.

We've come a long way from revering popcorn--although we still see remnants today on a lesser scale (popcorn balls at Christmas?) we've lost any sense of sanctity or respect for the grain.  Popcorn today is more a vehicle for ulterior motivations (including government agricultural policy as well as private interests) than a representation of sacred meanings or cultural truths.  Check out this article about a woman suing ConAgra because of health complications from inhaling the chemical additives in their microwave popcorn. 

However we eat it--buttered, candied, salted, or my personal favorite, spiked with a healthy dose of pepperoncinis--popcorn has been a part of our continental heritage since the beginnings of civilization.  Arguably one of Mesoamerica's most enduring gifts, popcorn has been a staple from the "first Thanksgiving" (don't even get me started on the Thanksgiving myth--invented during the Civil War to unify the country...although it is said the Wampanoag Indians gave gifts of popcorn to the settlers), through good times and bad (popcorn was immensely popular during the Depression and WWII as a cheap luxury), and continues to gain popularity around the world today--a street food, a holiday treat, a night-out snack, popcorn is one of the great universally appealing foods.

Read more!!  On Mesoamerican contributions to the world's food supply see Jared Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel, on popcorn in the U.S. see Andrew F. Smith's Popped Culture

 

Crazy little thing called...BRUNCH!

Brunch--that clever combination of breakfast and lunch--as American as apple pie, whose permutations across the continent run the gamut of culinary genius and savory skill...the bane of all chef's (there is literally nothing worse than slaving over bacon and eggs fighting the hangover from last night's post-dinner shift) and the joy of Saturday night owls (there is literally nothing better than scarfing down eggs and bacon to help the hangover from last night's shenanigans).  In the land of the 10,000 restaurants (actually, according to Restaurant Inspection Information New York City has closer to 20,000 restaurants) the iconic brunch has taken on a life force of it's own.

My understanding of brunch was a meal taken between 10am and 1pm featuring an assortment of breakfast classics with some clever savory lunch twists thrown in.  Obviously, a light cocktail is always an option (making brunch one of the great american excuses to drink during the day--the others being football Sundays, any sort of sporting playoff, wedding showers, etc.), light conversation with friends and family, and general merrymaking.

New Yorkers, however, (as they tend to do with most everything) have made brunch bigger and better--the meals are longer, the drinks are stiffer...brunch is, in effect, a day-long activity where drinking is encouraged and the possibilities for gastronomic expression are literally endless.  From dim sum to Latin American huevos to Malaysian curry crab, brunch in New York City is a culinary experience like no other that plays by its own rules:

1) Although Manhattanites are notoriously impatient with a knack for making reservations months in advance, brunch is something they will wait for--anywhere from 30 minutes to 2+ hours, all in the name of a fiery Bloody Mary, great locavore eggs, or the newest "it" chef (the lines at Prune make this abundantly clear). 

2) 11:30-12:00 is unfashionably early unless you have theater tickets.  Manhattan brunch is traditionally an afternoon affair lasting from 1 o'clock until anywhere as late as 5 PM.  If a friend calls to say she's at brunch and will be in touch afterward, don't hold your breath.

3) As an afternoon adventure, New York brunch is, for almost everyone, a drinking excursion.  Bloody Mary's and mimosas aside, brunch beverages range from microbrewed beers to the newest mixologist concoctions

4) Brunch is not, as in some parts, a special event.  It is a Sunday staple that can also be found on Wednesdays, Thursdays and the occasional Saturday.  It is celebratory of nothing in particular, festively sociable and never undertaken solo.  It is a free for all, a freebie and fallacy all in one.  

In NYC, brunch is "as much a state of mind as it is a meal," where the city that never sleeps can kick its heels up for an afternoon and just relax.  Summer brunches are the epitome of NYC where the lazy, the hungover, and go-getters and do-gooders come together in thousands of restaurants across the city to enjoy the delightful blend of savory and sweet, the high and the low-brow, astounding culinary combinations and the classics, all in the name of of that crazy little thing we call BRUNCH.