Wildflowers

Yesterday, I was walking back from our family-owned produce market, Hyde Park Produce, when I heard someone playing music. I followed the sounds to Nichols Park, which I'd never walked through before, and found a band playing the blues while people casually stopped by to listen. I sat by a fountain surrounded by wild roses, and listened for a few moments, then went on my way.

Further into the park, I spotted a wildflower path, where a few people were weeding out the flowers and taking care of the space. I turned and decided to walk through the path. While I was wandering through, one of the women working told me that if I wanted them, I should take a bunch of the beautiful yellow wildflowers they were cutting, that they had too many.

I thanked her with surprise and sincere gratitude, and walked the rest of the way home with a huge bunch of flowers, stems, and leaves bundled in my arms, and a smile on my face. So many people stopped me and commented on my pretty flowers, and they smiled too. It was something I'd never experienced before quite like that.

When I got home, we cut the flowers out of all the brush, and put them in vases. Then we took the rest of the cuttings over to the compost pile in the community garden across the street from us. What a beautiful gift from nature, and from a kind stranger who must have intuited my love for wildflowers!

Ingredients: The Movie

We watched the movie "Ingredients," and it really inspired us to get into the sustainable food movement even more than we already had- beyond Whole Foods, beyond eating healthy, beyond even organic.

This movie does a good job of looking at the relationship between production and consumption, in this case, in the form of the restaurant industry. However, I really internalized the consumption aspect, seeing how supporting farmers is vital to supporting so many things I care about: family business, the earth, the health of the soil, the availability of quality, nutritious food, empowering ourselves against corporate and hierarchical structures, etc., etc.

In this, we see Alice Waters' oft-quoted perspective: that paying higher prices for these things is not a painful reality we accept, but a thing we choose and want to do in order to make every step of this process a worthwhile living choice for everyone involved. If we continue to demand cheaper and cheaper food, we price farmers out of making a living. More than that, we discourage those who might otherwise choose this career as a passion, an art (which then increases quality and intention of good) from pursuing this life.

However, if we offer good, fair prices, we increase the odds that passionate, talented people will pursue a way of life in farming in a way that supports a healthier economy (one that challenges corporate, detached ways of life), a healthier planet, and a healthier population.

After watching this movie, we decided to dedicate ourselves even more to what we believe in: we will be composting (WITH WORMS) in the apartment, we will be seeking out local foods in the form of farmers markets and CSA's, we will be structuring our menus around what is seasonally and locally available (which is a fun and welcome challange to my creativity), and we will be in general more sustainably-minded.

Don't get me wrong; we still bought some lemons and limes, and even an avocado (things that CLEARLY do not grow in Illinois!) for our menu. But, as a wise mentor has always impressed upon me, every little thing you do makes a difference. We hope that every step we take to dedicate ourselves to what we believe in will make us feel more purposeful and excited about, well, life! I'm certainly excited about the new challenges in cooking!

I realize that not everyone has the resources we have in Chicago, and that our resources will become vastlty more scant in the coming winter months. But, again, every little effort to eat what's in season, or grow your own herb garden on the windowsill, is something towards taking the power from forces outside of ourselves (namely, the food industry), and empowering ourselves.

More to come, especially on the worms!

Cooking Channel Seasonal Recipe Finder!

This is so cool! Cookingchanneltv.com has a recipe finder for produce that's in season! I'm not necessarily endorsing the recipes (but anything Jamie Oliver does is always good!), but at the very least, it's a good tool to find out what actually IS in season right now.

Just go to: http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/index.html and look on the right side toward the bottom in the box "In Season Now."

So cool!

Raspberry Pots de Creme

Well, here it is! I tried this recipe by Giada de Laurentiis that I mentioned before, and we LOVED it. Plus, it was super easy to make and didn't require crazy/expensive ingredients. But by far the best part about this recipe is that I got to buy and legitimately use RAMEKINS!

Check out the recipe here:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/raspberry-rose-pots-de-creme-recipe/index.html

I halved the recipe and made it for two- it was perfect. It still bakes and sets for exactly the same time. It's not too much and not too sweet. And the rosewater (the only kind of weird ingredient- unless you're a hippy like me, in which case you always have a bottle lying around) is pretty unnecessary. I couldn't even really taste it. But I still like the idea of it!

It's an impressive-looking and -sounding dessert. Plus, now that I have myself a pair of RAMEKINS!, I can now venture into the world of souffles and who knows what else! The world of cooking is now my oyster...

Ciao Bella Blood Orange Sorbet Bars

Today, it was 60 degrees here in Chicago! This is very exciting- it's been about 4 or 5 months since we've seen a temperature like that, and coming from Vegas, that's just plain sinful! I thought spring might never come...

But it did today. And while I unfortunately spent the first part of this gorgeous day in bed not feeling well, thankfully I began to feel much better in the afternoon. A walk in the much-needed warm sunshine was just what the doctor ordered.

I ambled up the street to our little produce market to get some things for a Raspberry Rose Pots de Creme (a link to this recipe will be posted at some point if it works out as well as it sounds), and I came across these little gems:



We were so impressed! They're not cheap (we paid $5.49 for a box of 3), but for a treat once in a while, they're amazing. And they're only 60 calories a pop (literally!). My honey is a HUGE fan of blood oranges (which I proudly introduced him to), and he has very particular tastes when it comes to blood-orange-flavored things. And he loved them.

They're fresh, they're fun, and they're very naturally and authentically flavored. A great match for spring!

Chocolate Banana Cardamom Cake

So call me competitive... I heard of a girl who made a Banana Cardamom cake, and I had to admit, it was a good idea. The only problem was: I didn't come up with it first! So, what could I do but improve upon her idea? Add a little chocolate and- voila! Genius!

Ingredients

Milk Chocolate Cake Mix (I used Duncan Hines)
3 eggs
1/2 cup MINUS 1 Tbsp mashed ripe banana
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp cardamom powder
1 1/4 C water
(follow the directions on the cake mix box, but exchange all but 1 Tbsp of the oil for banana. Ex: if your cake mix says to use 1/3 C oil, then use 1/3 C mashed banana, minus 1 Tbsp, and 1 Tbsp oil)
chocolate frosting
1/4 c pecans, chopped


Directions

1. Mash the banana well, and measure out 1/2 c. Then take 1 Tbsp out and discard.

2. Put all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Don't beat eggs first. Mix really well- an electric hand mixer works best.

3. Grease and flour 2- 9 inch cake pans (I LOVE the new Pam cooking spray with flour already added)

4. Pour the batter in the pans and follow the baking directions for your cake mix. I baked mine in a 350 degree oven for 25 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, if your pecans are not toasted, toast the pieces lightly for a few minutes over a low-medium flame in a saute pan.

6. Take the cake out when a toothpick comes out clean in the middle.

7. When FULLY COOLED, frost the cake with the chocolate frosting.

8. Sprinkle the top with pecans.

This cake has a unique flavor because of the cardamom, and the banana actually makes the cake really moist. It also replaces over 600 calories of oil with about 120 calories of banana, so it's healthy to boot!

This would be an impressive dessert to serve to your worldly, sophisticated guests!

Blame it on Fidel

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm writing about another French movie...

Blame it on Fidel is a little more lively than some of the cinema Francais I've seen lately, mainly because the protaganist is a nine-year-old girl, Anna. Anna is dealing with the loss of her old, comfortable middle class life when her parents decide to take on new roles and jobs to support causes they believe in- Allende in Chile, and the women's lib movement in 1970 Paris.

The beauty of the movie is that nowhere along the way does the movie advertise a certain point of view. In fact, it explores the perspectives of Communism, Feminism, Catholicism, Greek mythology, Asian mythology, and various other philosophies. This might frustrate and confuse the average American movie viewer, but I always prefer a question mark to a period (or an exclamation mark) in these cases.

The movie, then, becomes about how we piece together our own philosophies, how we manage to meld things that sometimes clash, and how we deal with finding out the diasppointing truth about idealism. In this movie, as in life, there are no absolutes, and the right answers are only right if they're right for you.

It is, quite simply, beautifully and impressively done, and I love that all of this difficult material is dealt with through the eyes of a little girl. Because in the end, I think we all deal with these issues with the same naive, grudging, curious, and opinionated gusto as our heroine, Anna.

A nice thought-provoking look inside ourselves and our own worldviews. And it's on Netflix instant watch right now. Yay French movies!