Sunday, January 29, 2006

Peugeot

To the left is the pepper mill I was blessed to receive for Christmas. We were desperate for a new pepper mill. I'd been cooking without one for, oh, let's say 4 months. It was trying. You may not be able to relate to this, but work with me, if you can. It was like trying to cook beef bourguignon without...a dutch oven...or, for the rest of you, like trying to flip a grilled cheese without a spatula...very difficult. Trust me.

So, I put "pepper mill" at the top of my Christmas list. And Chef Santa was good to me. This particular model is a Peugeot - yes, the same Peugeot people who manufacture cars. They actually have been making pepper mills longer than they've been making cars, since 1810. It all started when the Peugeot brothers transformed their family mill into a steel manufacturing outfit. Good job, brothers Peugeot!

This is pretty near the top of the line when it comes to pepper mills. I can adjust the size of the grind - 6 options: finest, finer, fine, course, courser, coursest. I might use finest in making a sauce, coursest for coating a ribeye steak before grilling.

Or a tuna steak. Tonight we had pan-seared yellow fin tuna au poivre. Pretty simple to whip up, really. Take a couple of nice, thick, fresh hunks of tuna; coat both top and bottom with a significant amount of coursely ground black pepper and sprinkle with salt. Sear in a little bit of olive oil on medium high for about 3.5 minutes on each side. Remove from heat and keep warm.

In the same pan I made a simple sauce of butter, onion, chicken stock and brandy, reduced, thickened, and flavorful, with just a little salt and pepper (finely ground) added at the end. We had our sauce over the tuna and over a blend of brown rice and quinoa, which adds a delicate nutty flavor (and some fiber) to the rice. Plain ol' steamed broccoli on the side. Delicioso!

It was so good that it all most makes up for the Bruins' loss last night and the increasingly tenuous lead that the Duke Blue Devils still maintain over the women from UNC. Go Duke!

Monday, January 23, 2006

Banana Dog

For whatever reason, I haven't been a very inspired cook lately. My plate has been full with work since the beginning of the new year. I've been trying to eat more fiber, but haven't been terribly creative about how to do that. I'll steam up some brown rice to get through the week; open a couple of cans of organic pinto beans and saute them with some onion, garlic, salt and pepper; steam some broccoli; and then take a little of all of the above with me to work. Then, for supper, more of the same to accompany some chicken thighs or fish - whatever's in the larder. Like I said, not terribly inspired or creative, but wholesome and healthy and fiber-filled.

Well, it's snowing today here in New England and I'm at home enjoying a day off, hanging out with the dogs, cozying up with a nice fire in the woodstove, and anticipating a good deal of shoveling before the day is done.

And I'm hungry. I need a little something that is inspired by the day. Something filled with the energy and calories I'll need for keeping warm while tossing snow around and for bringing in armful after armful of wood. At the same time, I need something playful, a treat - the sort of thing a child might look forward to eating on a "snow day."

Well, I think I've found it. This morning in one of the "local" papers, I read about something that sounds kind of fun: the banana dog. Simple, healthful, and a little more playful than your average foodstuff. Perfect for the blizzard we're having - good sustenance for shovellers and sledders. Here's the basic recipe:

One slice of whole-wheat bread or a whole-wheat hotdog roll
A tablespoon or two of your favorite peanut (or other nut) butter
One banana

Think "hotdog." Assemble as pictured.

I'm thinking - and here's me beginning to get creative again - that you could spice all this up with some finely chopped apple, either by itself or in the form of a "relish" made with some raisens or chopped up prunes, just a touch of maple syrup, and maybe some cinnamon. Applesauce would work nicely if you already had some handy. You could sprinkle a few walnuts on it, too, if you feel so moved.

Sounds good with a glass of milk - or kefir - or, in my case, I think a cup of coffee.

I'll let you know how this little snow-day experiment works out.

In the meantime, Happy Shoveling, New England!

Friday, January 13, 2006

Food and Meaning


Just after Christmas I ordered a copy of Ronna Kabatznick's The Zen of Eating. I'm about half way through it and I must say, I'm very pleased. It is both a good introduction to Buddhism - to the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path - and an enlightening reflection on how our attachments to food-related desires can cause us suffering. Our attachment to our desire to indulge in food can cause us suffering, and so, too, can our attachment to our desire to restrain from eating food.

Earlier this week I finished the chapter on Right Aspiration, the 2nd of the 8 steps along the Eightfold Path. Right Aspiration is about cultivating wholesome attitudes and behaviors regarding food and avoiding unwholesome attitudes and behaviors.

Our attitudes about food and consumption are so very important. As Kabatznick writes, "It takes more than a desire to make changes in your behavior. It also takes putting these changes into a meaningful context. If the context is not meaningful enough, turning down food is difficult."

She explores, for example, the difference between dieting and fasting. We often have a very difficult time restraining from eating certain foods when we are trying to diet, and she says that that is basically because our motivation in dieting is usually very self-focused. We want to lose weight so that we feel better and look thinner. It's all about us.

Fasting is easier, she contends, because our restraint is motivated by a higher purpose, often religious. "There's satisfaction in knowing that what you eat (or don't eat) actually means something more than how it is going to affect a number on the scale or how your clothes fit." Fasting, or following religiously inspired dietary restrictions, can move us beyond the boundaries of our tiny, little circle of self-centeredness and into a larger and more expansive relationship with something far bigger and far more important - God, the interdependent web of existence, our community of fellow religious practitioners, or the hungry children of the world, to name a few examples.

Kabatznick gives some ideas about how to make our relationship with food and eating more meaningful. Saying grace before meals is one way. Learning about the context of our food - where it's from, how it came to be before us, and whose hands helped to produce, distribute, and prepare it - is another.

An idea that is somewhat new to me is that which she calls "Dedication of Merit." It's not an entirely new idea to me, actually. I have learned about it before in the context of Buddhist practice. Buddhist monks usually say a gatha or blessing before eating, which ends with their saying, in essence, that they are eating the food before them for the benefit of all beings. In other words, that they are eating not first and foremost for themselves, but instead to sustain their practice, so that others might ultimately be saved through it. They dedicate the merit that comes from eating to all sentient beings.

What was new to me was Kabatznick's application of this concept of dedicating merit to a non-Buddhist context. She describes it as "the practice of offering any benefit that comes from your commitment to healthful eating to specific people or groups of people." She explains that a friend of hers who is a survivor of cancer dedicates the merit from eating well to her husband and daughter. As her friends says, "What I put in my body is my future, and my future affects my family." Thinking about the impact of her food choices on her loved ones makes it easier, she says, to eat well.

In the same way, we can choose to make our relationship with food more meaningful by dedicating the merit from eating well to our partners and spouses, our children, our grandchildren, even our as-yet-unborn grandchildren. Or we can dedicate the merit that comes from eating locally grown produce to the wellbeing of the farmers who grow it. Or the benefits of eating well to lose weight to all those who themselves struggle with weight loss.

Great idea. Great book.

Think about this at your next meal: to whom will you dedicate the merits of your eating today?

Now, eat well and be well...