In and Not in My Kitchen

What’s New in My Kitchen

New Recipes

New Recipe: Using Frozen Dumplings

Grilled chicken skewers. Very nice.

From New York Times Cooking. 

Another NYT recipe. I like it because it’s flavored with lemon, no garlic or onions.

Classic Meals in September

Most of our cooking in September involved old favorites. Here are a few photos:

Smoked salmon and traditional potato salad with hardboiled eggs and mayo.

An old favorite using frozen Alaska salmon.

Len’s Breads

Recipe from the Poilâne Baking Book

Just out of the oven: Len’s sourdough bread and sandwich rolls.

More Favorites

Smacks are a life-long favorite of mine.
Don’t mention ultra-processing. I’ll love them forever.

Even our beverage choices are classics!

Food Safety: What’s NOT in my Kitchen

One September Saturday in Kroger’s we were standing in front of a double refrigerator case stacked with egg cartons. More choices than one can imagine: free-range, organic, cage-free, pasture-raised, cheap, expensive, Large, Extra-Large, Jumbo, brown, white… and each carton has the name of a “farm” (actually some mass handler of eggs). 

What do we do? We look on our phones for the names of the two “farms” which have recently shipped eggs poisoned with salmonella. We didn’t see any cartons from Milo's Poultry Farms and Tony's Fresh Market. That’s reassuring because those are the recalled brands. (For a list of these and other recent recalls, look here.)

Earlier in our big Kroger shopping trip we noticed the huge sign above the deli: “Boar’s Head.” We shuddered because the Boar’s Head company has been responsible for one of the largest episodes of food poisoning in recent years. The implicated factory has been indefinitely shut down after horrendous discoveries of filthy, unethical procedures. Ten deaths so far, plus many illnesses and hospitalizations are known, and even more of them unreported. I’ve already been (mostly) avoiding deli meat for a number of reasons — now this brand is on my “never” list.

The website Food Safety News lists recalls and warnings about the food supply. Recent alerts for the US and Canada include several pet food recalls for listeria and salmonella, which endanger both pets and human caretakers. There’s a warning about spoiled milk in Canada, and a warning about serious problems at a producer of mung bean and soybean sprouts. Salmonella in eggs triggered a recall in Maine, and salmonella poisoning affected diners at a Mexican restaurant in California. A serious situation, including over 160 cases of mushroom poisoning and two deaths resulted from dangerous chemicals in “edibles.” And that’s just in the last half of September! Note: for more info, the FDA maintains a list of recalls including foods, drugs, and medical devices. The government website FoodSafety.gov also offers advice.

I’m not alone in having a “never” list of products that are (with any luck) banned from my kitchen. I think that everyone has a personally developed list of unacceptably risky choices. In my kitchen, one such item is any kind of sprouts — look at just about any list of recalls, and there will be a problem with sprouts like mung-bean sprouts or alfalfa sprouts. Problems have even occurred with harmful bacteria harbored in seeds from which you can sprout your own sprouts! 

Bagged salads have been another frequent source of food-borne illness and recalls: I mostly avoid them. Another obvious example of repeated bacterial contamination is from unpasteurized milk: I’ll never buy or drink it! I also watch expiration dates, and discard food that’s unreasonably past its sell-by or use-by date, but that’s a little complicated and needs much more to be said about it.

Finally, I feel I should mention that a frequent source of contamination in home kitchens is carelessly handled poultry. A number of disease-causing microbes are frequently present in raw chicken, specifically: Salmonella Enteritidis, Staphylococcus aureus, Campylobacter jejuni, and Listeria. I follow the recommendations for cooking chicken. Specifically: I do not wash raw chicken before preparing it; I clean all surfaces and utensils after preparing chicken; and I make sure that chicken is fully cooked (165 ° F or 74° C) before serving.

A Gallup Poll recently found widespread unease about the frequency of food contamination scandals:

“Polling conducted by Gallup between July 1 and July 21 found that 37 percent of Americans reported discarding or returning food in the past year due to a product recall or food safety advisory. Just over half the 1,010 respondents—53 percent—said they have avoided buying specific brands or types of food because of a recall or advisory, while 26 percent expressed concern that they may have consumed contaminated food.” (link)

No Sprouts!

Well, I’m afraid this isn’t a very cheery way to tell you about my kitchen. Next time I’ll try to be more upbeat! Have a good month in your kitchen, and thanks to Sherry who hosts “In My Kitchen” on her blog each month.

Blog post and photos © 2024 mae sander

 

Botanical Gardens: Fall Flowers and Birds

Mosaic murals on the wall of the greenhouse and laboratory building at the Botanical Gardens.
Each mural is displayed separately, but I’ve put them all together.

This kingfisher was one of many birds we saw on our walk. Many birds are flocking and either already on the move or getting ready to migrate. We saw goldfinches, a blue-headed vireo, a blue heron, and several species of sparrows, warblers, woodpeckers, and others.

I liked the two turtles on a rock in the pond.

Photos © 2024 mae sander

Sally Rooney

“Peter is refilling their glasses now, and the server is bringing their main courses to the table. Ivan has ordered the salmon: a glistening pink fillet topped with delicate dissolving flakes of salt, surrounded by buttered green peas and asparagus and baby potatoes. … In his mouth, the salmon melts hot into an abstraction of flavour: salt savoury fish and the bright sparkling taste of lemon juice, melting together on the palate. It is extremely flavourful, Ivan thinks, extremely good to eat” (Intermezzo, p. 156)

That’s how Sally Rooney describes food. Vividly, but not very originally. It’s also how she writes sex scenes — vividly but not very originally. These scenes are numerous in the book Intermezzo. Maybe too numerous and a bit overdone. My thoughts on the book as a whole involve the way I feel about her character development.

People who think of themselves as complicated, and who try to impress others with their complexity and with how interesting it makes them, have always annoyed me. Ultimately, I think these “complicated” people are boring. At least that’s been true in my experience (though the trend is more pronounced in people much younger than I, so I haven’t been involved with it recently). Well, I have to face it. All the characters in Sally Rooney’s book Intermezzo are exactly this type of self-conscious “complicated” people who in my opinion aren’t really that interesting.

After I wrote this paragraph, I read an article in the New York Times called “Sally Rooney is the Least Interesting thing about her Novels” which said:

”Sally Rooney is not an interesting person. She’ll tell you this herself — recently, in an interview with The New York Times for her new novel, ‘Intermezzo,’ she replied to a question about her hobbies with: ‘What do I like to do? I feel like I’m so uninteresting.’”

The article makes the point that you shouldn’t presume that the characters in a novel are really versions of the author herself (the book is pointedly talking about women authors). This isn’t news to me — I spent years trying to convince my former book club that we shouldn’t think that way. I can see how the book tempts people to view the characters as more real than fictional because of the writing style: maybe being too vivid creates an illusion that you aren’t in a fictional world. I feel as if there’s a lack of distance.

Intermezzo is about two brothers, Peter and Ivan, and their girlfriends. Peter is in his mid-thirties. One of his two girlfriends is around 23; the other one is his age, and has been in his life since they were in college. Ivan is (sort of ) in college, and his girl friend is in her mid-thirties. Each character worries about why they are attracted to someone so different in age. The three in the triangle worry about being judged for that. And they all worry that their friends and acquaintances will judge them for having a relationship that’s age-unbalanced. After a while, I got tired of hearing about the age hang-ups from all five main characters. They spend too much energy on what other people think.

Peter and Ivan have a very strained fraternal relationship. A key scene in the book is a quarrel between them that leaves them estranged for several weeks. They think about everything in their relationship going back to childhood as very complicated. Peter was much older, and Ivan looked up to him but didn’t get all the attention he wanted from him. Their parents split up when Ivan was very small, and they had to live with their mother and her boyfriend sometimes. Their father had died a week before the novel’s beginning. (It’s a conventional novel with events in chronological order and flashbacks or memories as needed.) Both are mourning him and are feeling a sort of rivalry about who was closest to him, who had done the most for him. Neither of them is close to the mother at the time of the novel. Does this make them complicated and interesting? Well, in my opinion, not really.

Peter is depressive. He drinks too much and takes lots of prescription pills to help his moods. He obsesses about this that and the other thing. He can’t decide which girlfriend he loves better because he loves both of them. All the other characters are very patient and forbearing with him, including his mother. That is, until Ivan gets mad. Does this make him interesting. Unfortunately, no. And with Ivan, it’s similar, though he also worries about winning chess tournaments as well as about his love affair.

Intermezzo is a very well written and readable book, but its two main characters aren’t really likable, especially Peter. The women are described in less emotional detail than the men; they are a bit more likable but they are overshadowed, as characters, by the men. The story works, but somehow it seems a little bit hollow.

Sally Rooney is a very popular author, to a much greater extent than I realized when I decided to read her new book. Although I liked it and respected her talents, I suspect I’m not really in sync with her vast fan base. I admire this book, but just didn’t enjoy it the way I sometimes enjoy a novel.

Review © 2024 mae sander

A Good Week On TV and in the Neighborhood

What we did this week

Vicarious BAKING!

Friday morning: we watched the first episode of the new Great British Baking Show.
The 2024 season was released in England earlier this week and loved by my friend in London.

In my living room.

Illusion cake in the shape of a duck — much praised by the judges.

The big challenge — “Show Stopper” — was an illusion cake — one that looks like something else.
I really liked this sewing machine, but the judges didn’t like the way it tasted.

An Amusing Trailer from the British TV Channel

In a clever cartoon trailer, the Baking Show hosts and judges are depicted as flying insects!

Where to watch this highly amusing cartoon trailer: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vlocY14FuX0

Moonflower Mysteries

So far this is a great mystery! We will surely be watching each new episode as it arrives on Sundays for however long it takes. We very much enjoyed the first two episodes that are already available.

Random Thoughts this Week

A beautiful hawk we saw last January in Costa Rica. We have been planning our next big birding trip.

Another campaign sign in my neighborhood, new since I posted them last week.

Tuesday lunch downtown at Bao Space — besides Bao, dumplings, and shu mai, they also have rice and noodle bowls.

Another sewing machine: an old Singer on display in a shop window downtown. Such antiques are now considered decorative. This machine is not equipped with the belts that would actually allow the treadle to drive it. I learned to sew on a Singer of this vintage. 

Blog post and original photos © 2024 mae sander

Shared with Sunday Salon at Readerbuzz

and with Viewing Nature with Eileen

Pumpkin Everything (Also Pumpkin Spice)

Trader Joe’s is a leader in pumpkin flavors…

Although I’m not a big fan of pumpkin pie, I’m fascinated by the vast selection of TJ’s products that echo the flavor of this old American favorite. That is, a favorite of other people, not me. I havn’t tried a single one of these products, I’m just a tourist while doing my shopping. I only really like pumpkin in savory dishes like stews or in pumpkin lasagne.

In any case, looking at these products — so essentially frivolous — takes my mind off the many depressing problems of the food supply these days. Forget the impact of climate change on agriculture. Forget the impact of ultra-processed foods on public health. Forget the issues of hunger in the third world and in our world. Have some fun.

Pumpkin pancakes sound pretty normal. Ingredients include both actual pumpkin
in the form of dried flakes, and the classic spice blend once dedicated to pumpkin pie.

 

As far as I can see from the ingredient list, the “chocolate mousse pumpkins”
have NEITHER actual pumpkin NOR actual spices.
But they have a lot of artificial stuff, and some real cocoa powder.

These madeleines have pumpkin spice, but not pumpkin.

Pumpkin butter, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin cheesecake croissants…

Trader Joe’s introduced pumpkin pie-spiced coffee in 2011. According to the TJ website, flavors include
"things like orange peel, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, vanilla beans, and pumpkin spice oil.”
I am a purist when it comes to coffee: no flavoring for me.

No pumpkin or spice here: just normal Joe-Joes with cute faces.
I did buy a box of these.

This is where it gets a little strange: pumpkin corn chips?
This was their featured tasting item. I didn’t try them.

Pumpkin soup is actually a recipe with a very long history. I make it from scratch.

For all I know, pumpkin could be a traditional samosa filling.

Pumpkin-flavored breakfast: O’s Cereal and cold brew coffee.

Maybe it’s good for your skin.

Can dogs taste pumpkin? 

Outside of TJ’s, you can also find all manner of pumpkin foods.

Oreos are known for constantly offering many special flavors.

Ok, I guess folks do like breakfast to have pumpkin spice. Or real pumpkin. Or pumpkin seeds.

Twenty Years of Pumpkin Spice

The pumpkin spice craze started at Starbucks in 2003 and 2004. This image is on their current website.
Full disclosure: I’ve never tried any of these drinks. Maybe I will this year. Probably not.

Sources: The photos inside Trader Joe’s are all mine — I took them while I was buying meat, vegetables, cake, tomato sauce, and other foods that might seem boring to a pumpkin/pumpkin spice aficionado. The non-TJ images came from web searches, and some of them may have been discontinued since the photos were posted.

Of course there’s nothing new about a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice,
cloves, and ginger. This is a vintage spice tin from 1947, on offer at eBay.
I’m pretty sure my mother had a tin of this spice for her Thanksgiving pies.

Blog post and original photos © 2024 mae sander.