The Better Part of 2013
Tomorrow is already New Year’s Eve. Man, I’m behind the ball. I’m leaving Pennsylvania today and will need to get cooking once I get home. There will be people coming over Tuesday at 6 o’clock and I don’t even have a single bottle of sparkling wine in the house.
Hopefully you aren’t nearly so ill prepared for whatever festivities you have planned. My plan had been to share some thoughts on the sparkling wines of the world in advance of the holiday. Maybe I can do that tomorrow.
But after realizing that last week’s rundown of the top stories from the past year was mostly gripes, I wanted to do another list that focused on more of the happier times. And 2013 was full of them. Maybe a few of these will jog your memory.
Sea Change
Looking through the list of the most viewed posts from 2013 there was more than a fair share of negativity. As a result, today I had planned to highlight some of my favorite positive stories from the past year.
But instead I have a story of hope for 2014.
There was some good news yesterday. Perhaps some really good news. But if you were getting your food news from the Albany Times Union, you probably missed it. The story was about Reel Seafood Company changing hands from LeGrande Serras to his daughter Aliki, and it was covered by a variety of outlets.
Ordinarily this would be a snooze fest. Mrs. Fussy ate their once and we’ve never been back. It’s not that they did anything wrong per se. It’s just that their food was mediocre and vastly overpriced for what it was.
So what could they possibly be doing that has me legitimately excited?
Thirteen in 2013
Bad luck doesn’t concern me. Thirteen is a baker’s dozen anyhow, and man do I love to get stuff from the baker. Bring on the white flour, fat and sugar. Or hold the sugar and just give me a dozen oily loaves of lard bread.
That reminds me, I’ve got to get back to Brooklyn.
If I was going to try and sum up 2013 in a phrase, it would be the year that I took the gloves off. That wasn’t readily apparent to me until I took a quick look back at the top posts from this past year. Honestly, that’s the reason I enjoy doing these year end retrospectives. I find it helpful to see what stories had some resonance with readers and which ones fell flat.
Part of me wonders how many of you read all of these posts the first time around. Certainly a few were written while Mrs. Fussy was away, so even she will have missed one or two.
Regardless, it has been a great year. Come with me on a walk down memory lane.
Driving Christmas Home
Not everyone is merry today. And I’m not talking about the significant population of the world that doesn’t celebrate Christmas.
Really, I’m thinking about those who do observe the holiday, yet to whom it brings little pleasure. Some are lonely. Some are surrounded by family, but would rather be alone. Some are surrounded by their family, yet still feel alone.
Given how much agita surrounds Christmas and the holidays, I wonder how many people are truly merry. Perhaps we greet people with a, “Merry Christmas” not because the holiday is innately joyful, but because so many people are sad around this time of the year, we try to give some active encouragement towards happiness. It could go a long way to explain the en masse retail therapy that has come to be synonymous with the Christmas season.
Of course, all of this is easy for me to say, since I have no expectations for the holiday. But sometimes it takes an outsider to point out what’s hiding in plain sight. For me Christmas is just like any other day. Well, maybe not entirely.
To Have and To Have Not
It’s Christmas Eve Day. I don’t know if that’s a thing or not. Usually though, I would spend this time reminding those of you who are having a Christmas ham from HoneyBaked to not let that sucker anywhere near the oven. Ever. Perhaps I would be ambitious and write about nog or give some ideas for last minute gifts.
But this year, I’m concerned that the Christmas spirit is in trouble. I’m comforted by the messages coming from Pope Francis in support of the poor and calling for the richest nations in the world to ensure their citizens don’t go hungry.
Yet still, there are letters like this one published in Albany’s local paper:
Deanna Fox’s column “Hunger Pains,” Dec. 19., is the latest in a string of articles that are pity parties for people receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
Ms. Fox moans about not being able to have her fair-trade coffee, buys eggs at twice the standard price in Albany supermarkets, and can’t seem to imagine buying a store brand of cereal instead of the equivalent name brand. She seems to think only maniacal coupon-cutters can live on a budget.
Her article reveals, more than anything, her inability to comparison shop and the fact that she has never budgeted for food before. This whole exercise has only served to convince me that people who get SNAP (paid for by people like me) are getting a generous subsidy.
William R. Thomas
Sure, I know Deanna Fox and if you are a regular reader of the FLB you probably know her better as Silly Goose Farm. So no, I’m not entirely a neutral third party observer here. But I still have a few words for Mr. Thomas and a bit more about the “generous subsidy” provided by S.N.A.P.
Troy’s Christmas Spirit
This is getting posted at the very last minute. I’ve been away from the computer, but Jessica R. asked me to share the news about what Daisy Baker’s is doing tonight in support of their employees.
You may remember how Jessica R. went above and beyond the call of duty by picking up the gauntlet for the Tour de Buffalo Wings – Troy Edition. So what Jessica wants, Jessica gets.
P.S. If you do go, I’m quite curious about their duck confit and their braised lamb shank.
Mapping Out a Meal
We’re in the thick of the holiday season. Sure, Chanukah and the winter solstice have passed. But there is still Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year’s Eve. That means more eating. And where there is eating, there is bound to be cooking.
Generally, I cook simply. Very, very simply. There are almost never multiple dishes on the table at dinner. Maybe it will be some kind of legume over rice. Perhaps we’ll have some kind of pasta. There could be a soup or stew served with toast. Sometimes I’ll make a nice frittata.
If I’m lucky, I’ll have found a way to squeeze vegetables into the main dish. Occasionally, I’ll prepare some very simple side, just so I can say that I served my kids a vegetable.
Festive meals are another thing entirely. We’ll be traveling on Christmas day, so I wholly suspect we’ll have a very Jewish Christmas dinner at some Chinese restaurant in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. New Year’s Eve we’ll be hosting a potluck for a few families at the Institute. So I may be done for the year. But just last night I prepared dinner for eight with three different entrees that required all four burners and the oven.
Naturally, I drew a map. Read more…
The Straight Story
Lies and misdirection don’t just apply to the food we buy in the grocery store. No, these two pillars of American capitalism are alive and well in the wine and spirits trade too.
Just last night I was at a sparkling wine tasting where the instructor cautioned to participants to be vigilant for the phrase “Fermented in this bottle” instead of the less desirable, “Fermented in the bottle.” The former is indicative of a time honored tradition that one associates with the production of Champagne. The later sounds virtually identical, but takes meaningful shortcuts which result in a different outcome.
But I was thinking of something even more devious. Something that almost never appears on a bottle’s label in most of the world, and something that makes consumers believe a product may be of a higher quality than it is.
New Developments in the War on Food
This is not a post about GMOs. I’m starting to sound like a one-note Johnny on the matter. But there is something else I would like to talk about regarding the War on Food.
However, I would be remiss not to mention the news that Whole Foods announced they will be removing Chobani yogurt from its shelves based on its use of GMOs. Except there are no GMOs in Chobani. Whole Foods is rejecting the brand because the cows that make the milk which is used in Chobani are fed a diet that includes GMO grains.
Yikes. I have no love for the current GMO crops available on the market today, but Whole Foods’ decision seems arbitrary at best. Really, it feels like a spin job to explain to consumers why the store is jettisoning a widely popular product from its shelves to make room for more expensive/profitable products.
Mr. Dave will likely want to talk more about how GMOs as a technology aren’t inherently evil, and he does have a point. But any reduction in acres of GM corn, soy, cotton, canola, sugar beet and alfalfa planted is surely a good thing.
That’s all old news. Earlier this week I was reminded of a troublesome food additive. So, I thought, I would share an investigative report on the matter with you.
Licking the Bowl
How do you know when food is good? It’s a big question, and it honestly has lots of different answers. I won’t bore you with them. Over the years I’ve revealed some clear biases on a few of these fronts.
Years and years ago, David Rosengarten wrote a book called Taste. I remember being very impressed with it the moment I saw it for because it included one innovation that I had never encountered in a cookbook. At the end of each recipe he had a checklist of criteria to evaluate your completed dish.
It was brilliant, if maybe a wee bit obnoxious.
Mostly because after a couple hours working on a challenging recipe with multiple components that require a variety of techniques, many people are simply proud to have completed the task. And they should be. Pat yourself on the back if you’ve ever tackled something out of the French Laundry cookbook.
But it’s one thing to make a recipe and another thing to make it well. And Rosengarten’s book helped to give home cooks the ability to step back from their dish and look at it a bit more critically.
Although lately, I’ve been taking a more primitive route when considering when a dish has been successful or not. And it simply involves a finger and my mouth.
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