May 2009


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Is Organic Always Good?

organic market

We all know Gansie is a huge proponent of farmer’s market/local produce, and that the nation’s First Lady has recently been a prominent supporter of vegetable garden fun. A lot of my friends belong to this CSA or that CSA. And everyone I know seems to be buying or farming organic these days. Organic is one of those words that often gets bandied about in the local-foodie/farmer’s-markety circles. I was reminded of this fact when ES fan and new ES commenter NeeNee, who also happens to be one of my best friends from undergrad, recently reported to me:

I’m getting my green thumb on. I’ve had a severe problem at garden stores this spring, but we hope to be totally overflowing with veggies this summer. However, good plants grow in good dirt, and our dirt is friggin terrible. It has no organic matter, and we can’t possibly make enough compost to make it good. I’m ashamed to say that I’m not a very organic farmer….

Sorry, NeeNee, I didn’t ask for your permission before I broadcasted your addiction to gardening to the whole world via the interwebs! But as I was saying, I recently read this Huffington Post article on organic farming, Organic vs. Conventional: Have you been robbed?, that led me to question whether organic is really all that good. Now I’m not sure that NeeNee has all that much to be ashamed of. The author of the afore mentioned article,Makenna Goodman, a sustainable-living blogger and free-range egg farmer from Vermont, describes the reason she chose not to farm organic eggs, but instead opts for feeding the chickens cheaper grain and letting them roam free on her bucolic Vermont farm. Makenna argues:

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in Rants & Raves / Veggie 18 comments
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How Not to Fuck-Up Dessert

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Stop. Do not preheat the oven. Do not bring out a mixing bowl. No spatula required. No fucking recipe that doesn’t lend itself to substitutions.

Just three pretty, small bowls. Fill each bowl with a different no-bake ingredient. Use up that cursed bag of white chocolate chips. And those splurge-purchased peanut butter chips, yup, they’ll work too. Chocolate covered coffee beans–can’t go wrong. And just serve.

Just serve.

Experiment with different combinations. Experiment in your mouth, that is. Try two white chocolate chips and one peanut butter chip and let them slowly melt on your tongue. Eat all three very fast. Put a coffee bean on one side of your mouth and a white chocolate chip on the other. Switch. Let a white chocolate chip dissolve from the heat of your mouth, then add a peanut butter chip, then quickly bite down on a coffee bean. It’s a trial in patience. Can you keep your jaws from clamping down on the sweetness.

It’s all so illicit. Like licking batter from your boyfriends’ fingertips.

It’s so simple. So indulgent. You’ll forget that you never even turned on the oven?

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in Desserts / Rants & Raves / Recipe 4 comments
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Cheflebrity Smörgåsbord: A Dingo Ate My Soufflé

Food movies can be a dicey proposition.  Sure, we were able to find plenty of great food movie scenes, but the truth of the matter is that there are plenty of bad food-centric movies out there.  Does anybody remember Simply Irresistable?  Yeah, that’s what I mean.

But I’m pretty sure that I’m going to like Julie & Julia.  Why? For starters, it’s about Julia Child, who is scheduled to be canonized by the Pope any day now. Second, it stars Meryl Streep, and she’s doing an accent.  I smell Oscar. And finally, I’m certain that I’ll love it because — as the trailer points out — it’s about a blogger!  Once J&J takes off like gangbusters, it’s only a matter of time before Endless Simmer: The Movie.  What will it be about?  Who knows, but I guarantee strong language, needless violence and gratuitous nudity.  Lots and lots of nudity.

Which leads me to my first point in the smörg…

– Padma Lakshmi showed up at the White House Correspondents Dinner in DC wearing a see-through dress.  Really, Padma?  Can’t you just cry out for attention with an overdose like every other celebrity?  Photos NSFW, obviously.

– Two of our favorite food competition show runners-up, Kelsey Nixon of Next Food Network Star and Spike Mendelsohn of Top Chef, are starring in a new video series for Food2.com, the new site from the Food Network folks that features all kinds of original content and social media integration.

After the jump…a less-than-rare celebrity fashion sighting, two pretty boys team up to make America skinnier and the world’s greatest chef sends out for a slice.

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in Celebs / TV 2 comments
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It’s On

Now, I know ES is like a big family or whatever and we all share the spotlight equally and we all get along because we have the greater good in mind – food obsession. But, you know what, BS:

EGGS ARE MINE

Don’t think you can “write” a post with a ton of pictures of eggs and think you’ve become the reigning monarch of the land of eggs. Or something like that.

Well, this is what I’m been up to. And, TVFF, I’m not done with you either.

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Cream cheese, wilted arugula, lox, sunny side up egg on my friend Hickey’s dad’s awesome homemade bread. It was baked with some craziness like molasses and oats.

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in Breakfast / Cheese / Eggs / Fish / Veggie 9 comments
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Hott Link: Red Fever

red-velvet

Just some quick breakfast porn for ya’ll. This recipe caught my eye since C. Christy was wondering a couple weeks back ’bout whether putting red velvet in cupcakes was flagrantly un-kosher (is there a southern equivalent for kosher?)

Anyway, I’m gonna say it’s definitely A-OK, because southern food guru Doug DuCap of Hugging the Coast is putting it all up in his pancakes! I know it’s food coloring, but still, that’s a damn pretty plate. Is it the weekend yet? I’m ready for brunch.

Red Velvet Pancakes with Brandied Cherry Butter [Hugging the Coast]

in Breakfast / Desserts 2 comments
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A Very Uniq Salad

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I want you guys to meet my new friend Uniq.  Say hi Uniq.  Aww, he’s a bit shy.  But in fairness if you were the ugly duckling in the family, you may not always warm to strangers either.  Give Uniq a break next time you see him on the produce isle, he kinda looks like shit, but this little guy has some really excellent goodies inside.

The Uniq fruit hails all the way from the island of Jamaica where someone that had very recently smoked a dubie had an epiphany about marrying a grapefruit with a tangerine.  Amazingly, this idea lasted past the munchies phase and Jamaica began harvesting and exporting the fruit by branding it with the tragically fitting name, the Ugli fruit.  Shockingly, the orders for the exotic ugli fruit were not overwhelming.  Fortunately for us, some marketing exec (also probably after smoking a dubie) pushed to have the fruit rebranded as the Uniq fruit.  That’s right Uniq, you’re not fat, you’re just big-boned.

Still suspect?  Maybe a little jump will change your mind..

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in Cheese / Featured / Recipe / Trends 6 comments
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