Follow Michael Pollan on twitter (@michaelpollan) or Like him on facebook (Michael Pollan).

]]> http://peargallery.com/2012/02/21/michael-pollans-food-rules/feed/ 0 http://peargallery.com/2012/02/20/go-black-or-go-stevia/ http://peargallery.com/2012/02/20/go-black-or-go-stevia/#comments Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:46:25 +0000 PM http://peargallery.com/?p=3555 You know I wouldn’t recommend something unless I thought it was worth trying myself. So let’s meet stevia, the natural sweetener and sugar (AND artificial sweetener for that matter) alternative. What’s natural about it? It comes from a plant. It wasn’t widely used in the USA up until recently because the FDA hadn’t deemed it safe until 2008. Use away people, USE AWAY. It has ZERO calories, ZERO carbs, and ZERO effect on your blood glucose. Plus, it can also be 300 times sweeter than sugar, which means you wouldn’t need to use as much. What’s the catch? I don’t know! Maybe none. I wish it had a better name though!

LISTEN: [Podcast] NPR: California’s Stevia Growers Bet on Fast Track to Sweetener’s Success

Spotted at TARGET!

I can’t wait to switch my parents off of sugar. They drink a ton of sweetened coffee every day. No bueno. Go black or go stevia!

Thanks to MT for introducing them to me!

INGREDIENTS (Note — you can find most, if not all, of these ingredients at your local Asian food mart):

• 2-3lb whole roasting chicken
• 1/2 can of coconut milk
• 1 lemongrass stalk
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 thumb-size piece of galangal or ginger (I used ginger), minced
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 3 tbsp mushroom soy sauce
• 1 lime cut into wedges
• optional: Thai red chilis, 1 kaffir lime leaf, cilantro
• 1/2 cup water

DIRECTIONS:

1. Rinse and pat dry the chicken.
2. In a food processor, blender, or chopper, process coconut milk, lemongrass stalk, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, and soy sauce until well blended.

3. Place chicken in a baking dish (or dutch oven!) and using your hands, slather all the marinade onto and inside the chicken. You can stuff the cavity with some lime wedges, garlic cloves, red chilis, and anything else you might think could enhance the flavor. Cover and refrigerate for up to 3 hours, 30 minutes at the minimum. Preheat oven to 325-350 degrees.

4. Pour water into the baking dish, cover and roast for 2-2.5hours. Check the oven every 30-45minutes for dryness. Scoop up the marinade and pour over the chicken to ensure that it remains tender.

5. Use a meat thermometer to check for when the chicken is done cooking.
Serve with limes, red chili, and cilantro. Enjoy!

]]> http://peargallery.com/2012/02/13/recipe-coconut-lemongrass-roast-chicken/feed/ 0 http://peargallery.com/2012/02/12/broken-windows-theory/ http://peargallery.com/2012/02/12/broken-windows-theory/#comments Sun, 12 Feb 2012 22:53:47 +0000 PM http://peargallery.com/?p=3535 Every time I take Pip on a walk around the neighborhood I get so annoyed of all the litter that we come across. In some places the trash piles up so much, it’s as if there were an invisible trash can with a sign signaling people to “throw here!” This can probably be attributed to the lack of public trash cans in suburban residential areas, but this also reminds me of a social/anthropological concept: the Broken Windows Theory (wiki article).

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside. Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars. – “Broken Windows” by  James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling

Thus, if you fix a broken window or pick up litter in a timely or regular manner, it is less likely that another window will be broken or that trash accumulates. Today I decided to take a trash bag (and some latex gloves, gross!) with me on our walk and picked up any litter that we walked by. Here’s what I got after a 30 minutes:

It’s a full bag people! Filled mostly with empty chips and snacks bags, soda cans, plastic water bottles, newspapers, and plastic shopping bags. There was one spot behind a church in my neighborhood that had accumulated used cigarette buds. My OCD took over and I decided to pick up every last one of them counting up to 110 as I went. As I did this, I had this “broken windows” theory in my head and figured that if someone saw this pile of cigarette buds on the ground they probably thought adding one more to the pile wouldn’t cause much harm. So hopefully, with those now in the trash, they won’t start accumulating again!

I will probably start doing this on a more regular basis, my way of giving back to the community that I grew up in.

Komen Foundation Struggles to Lure Back Donors

February 6, 2012

One of the nation’s biggest charities is fighting to keep the latest controversy from undermining what has become one of the most powerful fundraising machines in the world. The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation spends tens of millions of dollars for cancer research, education and screening. But how it spends that money has been the subject of criticism long before the current flap over its Planned Parenthood grants.

I leave the dinner ideas up to PV while I focus on playing around with toys in the kitchen. He first requested Baked Spaghetti (pic) which turned out quite well, but I made way too much and it had incredible amounts of 3 different types of cheeses. We were sick of it after two days.

This past week I attempted my first beef stew. PV didn’t think I’d be able to pull it off, but his doubts only made me more determined to learn. I got great advice from friends (TAL in partic!) and online sources, and based my recipe off of Foodjimoto‘s.

I honestly don’t know if I did anything “wrong,” but it turned out well so I’m ok with sharing. Here it is!

INGREDIENTS

• 2-3lbs short ribs (Springfield Butcher!)
• flour
• 2tbsp flour or cornstarch
• olive oil
• 1/2c red wine
• 32oz beef stock
• 5 carrots, chopped
• 3-4 stalks of celery, chopped
• 1-2 medium sweet onions, chopped
• 1-1.5 cups leeks, chopped
• 6 cloves of garlic (3 minced, 3 smashed)
• 4 medium potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces
• 14oz can tomatoes
• worcestershire sauce
• spices (fresh rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil) – combination or whichever you like
• salt and pepper
• butter (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large sauce pan, sauté  the aromatics (leeks, onions, and garlic) until soft and lightly browned. Be careful not to burn the garlic. Set aside.

2. Cut short ribs into 1-1.5in cubes and dredge in flour to prepare for browning.

3. Line the bottom of a dutch oven (mine is 5qt) with olive oil, and on medium-heat sear the meat. To ensure even cooking, don’t overcrowd the pot and sear a little at a time. To prevent the pot from burning, keep a thin layer of oil at the bottom. Tongs can be especially helpful for this step. Leave the seared meat in a bowl on the side.

4. Add red wine to deglaze and scrape the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon. This should take a minute or two.

5. Return the meat and add the aromatics, beef stock, canned tomatoes, and smashed garlic. Turn the stove to low heat for simmering. Add desired spices (I had fresh rosemary because I ran out of dried) and worcestershire sauce (I used about 2tbsps). Simmer for about 90minutes. It’s important to cook low and slow so that the meat doesn’t overcook and end up tough.

6. Remove excess fat that forms at the top throughout the simmering process.

7. Prep the veggies.

8. After 90minutes of simmering, add the celery, carrots, and potatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer for an additional 30-40minutes (or until veggies are soft, but not mushy).

9. Combine 2 tablespoons of flour or cornstarch with 1/4c of water. Add the mixture to the stew a little at a time until desired consistency is reached.

(Optional) Add a tbsp of butter.

Done! Enjoy with warm, crusty bread (I chose Rosemary Olive Oil bread).

Makes 8-10 servings. Store in the refrigerator up to a week or keep in tight containers in the freezer up to 3 months. I doubt you’ll have it for that long though, mine was all gone within days.

This was definitely a learning experience and I’m glad I wasn’t afraid to attempt it. Hope you enjoy yours!

Undoubtedly, it’s infuriating that sound science and nutrition policy can still be trumped by the interests of Big Food, especially when the health of kids is on the line. | Mark Bittman

Great news overall, but still.. freaking lobbyists!

Here’s what elementary school lunches look like in FCPS (Fairfax Co., where I went). Remember those awful pink lunch trays and plastic milk pouches?!

Some people say that organic or local food is expensive, but is it really? With all these things I’ve been learning about the ‘food system,’ it seems to me that we can either pay the farmer or we can pay the hospital.

Zing. You go Birke Baehr, you go. What a smart kid. Watch this TEDtalk video and you’ll learn that no matter how old or young you are, you can make a difference.

I love this so much. I hope there are more Birke Baehrs out in our world, we sure could use some.

While some of it is useful (ie. the glossary and race terms, calendar of races, etc), other parts are a bit confusing (ie. common injuries and correlating percentages — data isn’t really displayed well). It kind of just feels like they scraped it together quickly, hoping that the aesthetics would make up for some flaws. Maybe I’m being overly critical, maybe I’ve seen too many infographics, I don’t know! Here it is regardless: