Since I've been taking the subway and there's a branch of Toronto's excellent public library near me, I've been reading a lot. I just put holds on books I might find interesting online, and then get an email when they're ready to be picked up. So in no particular order, here's what I've been reading lately:
My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'Homme - I haven't actually seen Julie & Julia. I'm horrible at watching movies, even ones that I know I'll like. But I borrowed this from my mom and devoured it. Of course, it made me want to live in France, etc etc. But it also gave me a lot of admiration for Julia Child, since I haven't watched her show much and didn't know much about her.
In Search of Memory by Eric Kandel - This book was great. Eric Kandel is a Nobel-winning neuroscientist who fled Vienna with his family at the beginning of WW2, started out planning planning to be a psychoanalyst, and eventually reinvented himself (and later, his lab) as a cell biologist, biochemist, and finally molecular biologist, all for the goal of trying to determine the biological basis of memory. The book was pretty heavy on the science (although not particularly obscure or technical) and it's obvious that he was totally devoted to his research. But the most interesting part for me was to read about how his research played out over decades (a perspective that I am sorely lacking), and how he collaborated with a wide variety of people in order to tackle problems in various subfields. I want to find more books like this - any recommendations?
The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food by Judith Jones - Judith Jones is the editor behind Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, as well as many other cookbooks, etc. She also had an interesting life, going to Paris for a trip and then...staying. In 1948. She recently wrote a book about cooking for one, something she had to do after her husband passed away.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - Been meaning to read this for a while. Excellent book but very sad. Not much else to say except that I recommend it. Just put a hold on his other book, A Thousand Splendid Suns.
The Alchemy of Air by Thomas Hager - This book is about the discovery and development of the Born-Haber process, which is used to turn gaseous nitrogen (which is plentiful but useless biologically) into the useful form that is the basis, among other things, fertilizer and explosives. It sounds boring but it was actually a really interesting book. I had no idea how important this development was, and the role of the German chemical companies in the Second World War was also all new to me.
This list doesn't include the many cookbooks I've also taken out recently. But I don't read those on the subway.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Crisis at 0ºC
I reached a point where I had to actually take stuff out of my freezer and store it in the fridge for a couple days in order to be able to close the freezer door. The issue was mostly the 6 different varieties of soup (something like 15 servings total) I have in there. Plus a bunch of other stuff. So yeah, my name is Kate and I am a soupaholic.
But I've managed to deal with the problem by....eating lots of soup. It's actually a good thing I did have that much, to be honest, because I've been working a lot and not wanting to cook many nights. (I know, crazy) Plus, being able to pop a frozen block of soup and an apple in my bag for lunch = very handy.
I bought a buttercup squash a little while ago, and today I picked up some cheese and spinach, and tomorrow I'm going to make a cheesy squashy baked pasta thing that sort of exists in my head and is sort of spread out over several foodblogs. The spinach is so I can eat just that for dinner and not feel like I'm shorting myself on vegetables. One of the consequences of being so busy is that I've become enamored of simple one-dish meals (see: soup crisis), which is not in itself a bad thing. Less dishes to wash, anyway.
But I've managed to deal with the problem by....eating lots of soup. It's actually a good thing I did have that much, to be honest, because I've been working a lot and not wanting to cook many nights. (I know, crazy) Plus, being able to pop a frozen block of soup and an apple in my bag for lunch = very handy.
I bought a buttercup squash a little while ago, and today I picked up some cheese and spinach, and tomorrow I'm going to make a cheesy squashy baked pasta thing that sort of exists in my head and is sort of spread out over several foodblogs. The spinach is so I can eat just that for dinner and not feel like I'm shorting myself on vegetables. One of the consequences of being so busy is that I've become enamored of simple one-dish meals (see: soup crisis), which is not in itself a bad thing. Less dishes to wash, anyway.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Link: Jacqueline Church on Sensible Sustainability
I cannot for the life of me remember from which site I was linked to this article, because it took me a day or two to get around to reading it.
Jacqueline Church presents a reasoned and, well, sensible look at the difficulty of choosing which foods are "best", and does it a million times better than I could.
One of her main points is that we should embrace incompetence. In realizing that the qualities of "good" food: local, organic, sustainable, (healthy, reasonably priced, ...) can often be in conflict with each other, and we shouldn't be looking for easy answers or a quick fix.
Jacqueline Church presents a reasoned and, well, sensible look at the difficulty of choosing which foods are "best", and does it a million times better than I could.
One of her main points is that we should embrace incompetence. In realizing that the qualities of "good" food: local, organic, sustainable, (healthy, reasonably priced, ...) can often be in conflict with each other, and we shouldn't be looking for easy answers or a quick fix.
There's no point in me reiterating the whole article though, when you could be reading it right now. So go. Yes you. Git!
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Market & Kitchen, July 18
Rainclouds are gathering here now, but at least it was sunny this morning. Going to the farmers market is much more pleasant when it's not raining. It's been cool, too: I doubt it got above 23ºC here today. But that means I can cook & bake without heating up my apartment, so I'm happy.
Groceries this week started yesterday at Strictly Bulk with some almonds ($0.99), a bag of organic kamut (64 cents! May need to make this a staple, since I cooked some and tasted it and it's great), and 2L of milk ($5.78). They only had one of the 1%, so I'll make my yogurt with 2% this week. And some chocolate chips to satisfy a serious chocolate craving I was undergoing. Really people, it was a crisis situation. And walking past 3 or 4 chocolate shops on my way home (at least 2 of which were advertising sales) did not help in the least. The chocolate chips ($0.33) hit the spot though. I didn't eat them all.
I also stopped at Valumart for olive oil (1L $5.99), orange juice concentrate ($1.29 each, a staple for me), and soft goat cheese ($2.99).
At the farmers' market I bought redskinned new potatoes, some sort of elongated beets (I hunted around for the ones with the nicest tops), green&yellow beans (very fresh and sweet, they're delicious--and I don't even really like green beans that much), a cabbage and a horrible purchase of mulberries. Bland bland bland. And $5. Shoulda gone for the blueberries, but I wanted to try something new. Ah well, live and learn. Spent $19 total.
One last stop at the fruit & veg shop for bananas, onions, garlic and mushrooms. $3.93 there, which brings me to a total of $42.23 for the week. Technically under budget, but I wanted to see if I could only spend $175 on groceries for the month, which means I have $33.09 left. Doable, considering how much I have in my pantry & freezer, but I'm nearly out of bread flour and I wanted to get a bag of red fife flour which I estimate will run me ~$8. I'm also nearly out of peanut butter and tea supply's getting low. So we'll see.
I've already done a bunch of cooking for this week: I made vegetable stock, cooked up some cannellini beans, boiled the kamut, and baked oatmeal raisin muffins. I also cooked some caramelized onions, and they went into...bread pockety things. I also did some pizza ones with sauce, mozzarella cheese, and spinach. I guess those would be closer to pizza pockets. I thought about doing some with black beans, salsa, and cheddar cheese, but I decided to keep it to 2 kinds this time.
Yogurt is fermenting as we speak. I didn't use any powdered milk this time like I did last time; I'm interested in seeing what thickness it gets to. I might also leave it to ferment for 6 hours to see what happens. A third change: I didn't sterilize the jars before I started. Decided it was too much fuss. If my yogurt turns, that will be a lesson learned I guess.
I also did a load of laundry, washed the bathroom, and pulled up my plants the succumbed to the flies. (TODO: buy new herb plants) Pretty pooped.
Oh, yeah. The menu! Shuffled things around a bit last week so I could use up my vegetables. This week I'll be making:
Groceries this week started yesterday at Strictly Bulk with some almonds ($0.99), a bag of organic kamut (64 cents! May need to make this a staple, since I cooked some and tasted it and it's great), and 2L of milk ($5.78). They only had one of the 1%, so I'll make my yogurt with 2% this week. And some chocolate chips to satisfy a serious chocolate craving I was undergoing. Really people, it was a crisis situation. And walking past 3 or 4 chocolate shops on my way home (at least 2 of which were advertising sales) did not help in the least. The chocolate chips ($0.33) hit the spot though. I didn't eat them all.
I also stopped at Valumart for olive oil (1L $5.99), orange juice concentrate ($1.29 each, a staple for me), and soft goat cheese ($2.99).
At the farmers' market I bought redskinned new potatoes, some sort of elongated beets (I hunted around for the ones with the nicest tops), green&yellow beans (very fresh and sweet, they're delicious--and I don't even really like green beans that much), a cabbage and a horrible purchase of mulberries. Bland bland bland. And $5. Shoulda gone for the blueberries, but I wanted to try something new. Ah well, live and learn. Spent $19 total.
One last stop at the fruit & veg shop for bananas, onions, garlic and mushrooms. $3.93 there, which brings me to a total of $42.23 for the week. Technically under budget, but I wanted to see if I could only spend $175 on groceries for the month, which means I have $33.09 left. Doable, considering how much I have in my pantry & freezer, but I'm nearly out of bread flour and I wanted to get a bag of red fife flour which I estimate will run me ~$8. I'm also nearly out of peanut butter and tea supply's getting low. So we'll see.
I've already done a bunch of cooking for this week: I made vegetable stock, cooked up some cannellini beans, boiled the kamut, and baked oatmeal raisin muffins. I also cooked some caramelized onions, and they went into...bread pockety things. I also did some pizza ones with sauce, mozzarella cheese, and spinach. I guess those would be closer to pizza pockets. I thought about doing some with black beans, salsa, and cheddar cheese, but I decided to keep it to 2 kinds this time.
Yogurt is fermenting as we speak. I didn't use any powdered milk this time like I did last time; I'm interested in seeing what thickness it gets to. I might also leave it to ferment for 6 hours to see what happens. A third change: I didn't sterilize the jars before I started. Decided it was too much fuss. If my yogurt turns, that will be a lesson learned I guess.
I also did a load of laundry, washed the bathroom, and pulled up my plants the succumbed to the flies. (TODO: buy new herb plants) Pretty pooped.
Oh, yeah. The menu! Shuffled things around a bit last week so I could use up my vegetables. This week I'll be making:
- Pizza pockets, cabbage slaw.
- Kamut, cannellini bean and mushroom salad (inspired, and very roughly based on this salad from Cooking Light) - will probably add some goat cheese...
- Pasta with beet greens, cannellini beans, and goat cheese
- Smoked pork chop, sauteed cabbage, steamed beets, roasted garlic mashed potatoes
- spicy cabbage/black bean pancake with soy/ginger/lime/molasses dipping sauce
- potato pancakes (leftover mashed potatoes, egg, bit of flour) with beet/yogurt or beet/goat cheese sauce/salad/condiment.
- baked salmon with some sort of flavouring TBD, potatoes or rice...probably cabbage, maybe spinach from the freezer...whatever vegetables I have left.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Food Waste Friday July 17
Woohoo! No waste this week--barely. I realized after shopping last week that I'd overbought on vegetables a bit, so I planned dishes that could expand to accommodate more veggies and froze the extra portions. I also blanched & froze a bunch of spinach that I wasn't able to otherwise use. Now I have a freezer full of black bean soup and vegetable curry with rice (my own version of microwave dinners), and a fridge that's looking preeeeeeetty empty. Good thing tomorrow is grocery day chez Kate.
And just so that I don't get too full of myself I would like to point out the sad state of my produce drawer which I am going to have to clean before I put anything else in it. But not tonight.
These fridge photos make me think I should do a full profile of my fridge/freezer/pantry. Stay tuned for that. I've also got a post about the science behind calorie counts (or more specifically: what's wrong with them) in the works. Should be up some time next week. Happy Friday!
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