Food (Section) Fight!: Week 19

Food (Section) Fight! is my weekly look at The Washington Post's Food section and The New York Times' Dining section with my verdict on which section had the better content for the week.

There are weeks when reading the Washington Post Food section and the New York Times Dining section is a true pleasure and source of inspiration. This isn't one of those weeks.


Washington Post

The cover of today's Food section featured a big picture of different types of ice creams, which got me excited off the bat. Unfortunately, Tim Carman's story about Jamaican ice cream left me feeling like a soggy cone. While I thought his description of the ice cream was well written, I felt like he didn't adequately explain what Jamaican ice cream is or why it's a "thing" (why Jamaican? Is Puero Rican ice cream also a thing? Cuban? And why is a Caribbean island known for ice cream anyway, since, as far as I know, the only other region I've heard of that produces a well-known distinctive ice cream is Italy and its gelato).

Jane Black contributed an informative piece about FreshPaper, a new food invention that helps prolong the life of refrigerated produce by further inhibiting the growth of bacteria and fungus that makes food go bad. Sounds great. My only gripe is that although she told us we could get the product at a couple of area farmers markets, she didn't say that you can also get it here.

On the plus side, Bonnie Benwick delivered on her usually good Dinner in Minutes column with a recipe for Pan-Fried Veal Chops with Rosemary-Almond Aioli that sounds quite delicious. I also liked the short Good to Go feature on Sugar Magnolia, the new bakery storefront at Cleveland Park's Ripple.

New York Times

The Dining cover story is Jeff Gordinier's feature about the rising quality of food at music festivals, which is clever, but doesn't really interest me. Neither does Cathy Barrow's story about canning vegetables. I'm really not into canning. Julia Moskin's story about chefs Thomas Keller and Andoni Luis Aduriz was interesting, in which the famous chefs discuss inflated views about chefs' roles in saving the planet (they think it's unrealistic) and the drive to source ingredients locally (they buy locally, but they're really more interested in quality than local for the sake of it). The interview was conducted a Per Se, a restaurant I would love to visit someday (well actually, I have visited it, sort of, having gazed longingly at its interior from the doors, which then opened automatically when I got too close, drawing the hostess. Oops... embarrassing).

As usual, the page 2 recipes both sound really good, particularly Melissa Clark's Asparagus with Walnuts, Parmesan and Brown Butter. The other recipe, an Asian stir-fry of Twice-Cooked Duck with Pea Shoots from David Tanis sounds like another good answer to my question about what to do with pea shoots. The best recipe, though, is Mark Bittman's Frank de Carlo's Black Chickpea Soup, the latest entry from his new How to Cook Everything column. I've opined at length about my Mark Bittman fandom, which has driven me to buy the iPad app version, even though I already had the iPhone version (the iPad version is a much richer experience and his recipes are so good, it's worth it).

Pete Wells reviews Perla, a new Greenwich Village Italian restaurant that sounds decent but not noteworthy.

Verdict

The New York Times. It's a tough call this week, but I think Mark Bittman and Thomas Keller beat veal chops and FreshPaper.

Score

The New York Times: 11
The Washington Post: 8

Asparagus with Mustard Dressing, Bacon and Eggs

Breakfast on the farm means eggs, although the ingredient in this dish from the farmers market is the asparagus, which is drizzled with a shallot-mustard vinaigrette and paired with bacon, hard-cooked eggs and toast. I was inspired by the recent New York Times' recipe for Asparagus with Mustard Vinaigrette, to which I made a few tweaks.

For the hard-cooked eggs, I tried the America's Test Kitchen technique. They claimed their method prevented that unappetizing gray-green layer from forming between the cooked yolk and white. Turns out, they were right. No green in sight and the eggs were perfectly cooked. I'll have to remember this when I decide to try my hand at deviled eggs.

For the dressing, I pretty much followed the recipe but added some honey for a little sweetness. The resulting dish was a satisfying savory meal to begin the day.

Asparagus with Mustard Dressing, Bacon and Eggs
Adapted from The New York Times' Asparagus with Mustard Vinaigrette

1/2 small shallot, finely minced
1 tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 tbsp. dijon mustard
1 tsp. honey
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
4 large eggs
4 thick bacon strips
1 lb. asparagus, tough root ends trimmed off
Salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste
2 pieces whole grain bread, toasted

1. To make vinaigrette, whisk together shallots, vinegar, mustard, honey, olive oil, salt and pepper. Set aside while cooking the rest, which will soften the shallots a bit.

2. To hard-cook the eggs, place the eggs in a medium sauce pan and cover with cold water until there is an inch of water above the eggs. Place pan on stove and heat over medium-high heat until the water boils. Immediately remove pan from heat, cover and let sit for 10 minutes. Then place eggs in ice water for 5 minutes (this makes them easier to peel). Carefully crack eggs all over, roll gently on a hard surface, and then use your hands to remove the shell, starting at the less-pointy end. Rinse the peeled eggs by dipping them in the bowl with the ice water. Slice into fourths.

3. Cook the bacon over medium heat until crisp. Drain and set aside.

4. To cook the asparagus, fill a large saucepan about halfway, salt the water and bring to a boil. Cook asparagus for about 3-4 minutes. Remove asparagus from water once cooked.

5. Serve eggs, bacon and asparagus over toast topped with a few spoonfuls of vinaigrette.

From the Farmers Market

With the weather getting warmer, I'm feeling the pull to visit farmers markets. This week's recipes will feature ingredients available now at markets local to D.C., specifically asparagus, mushrooms, ramps, greens and strawberries, used in dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Although many farmers markets operate year-round, their winter selection often pales to the greater abundance of foods available in the spring and summer, a cycle that peaks in late summer, by which times markets will be brimming with tomatoes, corn, fresh herbs, greens, and...I could go on a long time.

Why buy at farmers markets? The big difference in buying ingredients from a farmers market vs. a conventional supermarket is that the food at the farmers market is grown locally, which yields a number of benefits. With all the buzz about buying organic food, a second perhaps more important drive to buy locally hasn't gotten as much attention. Often, you kill two birds with one stone, as farmers market food often is organic.

The benefits of buying food produced locally are numerous. Since it hasn't been shipped long distances, it's fresher, which means it tastes better and has more nutrients. It's thus also better for the environment, having avoided the energy requirements of international shipping. By eliminating the grocery store as distributor, you get to buy the food directly from the supplier, allowing you to form a closer relationship to the source of your food.

You also get to experience food in a more natural manner that reflects the seasons. The variety available at the farmers market constantly changes as foods come in to season. Shopping at a grocery store, you may not even be aware of what's in season, since apart from a few ingredients like corn, grocery stores tend to stock the same things year-round, whereas farmers markets offer only what's available seasonally. If you like buying tomatoes in January, that may be a downside; however, let's be frank: tomatoes in January are nasty ghost-like things that bear little resemblance to a juicy, ripe, red-fleshed tomato. Buying food seasonally means you're getting ingredients at their peak, which means your dishes will taste better.

Farmers markets also often have items that you'll never find at a grocery store: garlic scapes, heirloom tomatoes, specialty herbs, beets in colors other than purple and carrots in colors other than orange. They also have foraged foods like ramps, unusual types of mushrooms and stinging nettles. Often you have to really hunt for those things (since, after all, the farmer had to as well).

The downside of the farmers market is that it is often more expensive than buying at the grocery store, since they aren't able to take advantage of economies of scale to drive down prices. However, you can get good deals, particularly at peak harvest time. And I find that the old adage "you get what you pay for" is true. A panzanella salad made with tomatoes, basil and cucumbers harvested just days ago locally will taste markedly better than making the same salad with ingredients trucked from California or flown in from South America.

Coq au Vin Blanc

Since I'm an Oregon boy, I couldn't help but feel a connection with The New York Times' recent article about Oregon chardonnays. In fact, for awhile, my father co-owned a winery with some of his friends, although I don't think they made much, if any, chardonnay (it was mostly pinot noir and riesling and, since I was about 8 at the time, I wasn't into it).

To pair with the wine, the Times also ran a recipe for Coq au Vin Blanc, a variation on the classic French dish made with white wine instead of red. It's a lighter version of the dish, perfect for spring, as it also ditches the cream and bacon that typify the dish. I lightened it up even further by substituting boneless/skinless chicken pieces. Don't worry, there's still a nice dash of truffle butter added at the end for richness.

Perhaps the biggest challenge with this dish was procuring the oyster mushrooms. What exactly are they? I had no idea. At Whole Foods, the bin marked "oyster mushrooms" was filled with creminis. Even the nearby employee mixing up guacamole samples had no idea what they looked like (thankfully another shopper found them for me in an unmarked bin). I also wasn't quite sure how to prep them, but I read that their stems are really tough, so I cut off all the flat pieces and trimmed off and discarded any remaining connecting stems.

One thing I did differently was to dredge the chicken in flour, this also helped to thicken the resulting sauce when the wine is added, so no additional flour or cream was needed as a thickener. I also added some thyme, in addition to the tarragon the recipe called for.

I served this with a crusty baguette for soaking up the sauce and a simple salad of arugula and frisée with a lemon-white wine vinaigrette.

Coq au Vin Blanc

Adapted from Coq au Vin Blanc, New York Times

2 tbsp. olive oil

2-3 lbs. boneless-skinless chicken breasts and thighs

3 tbsp. flour

Seasoned salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste

8 oz. white pearl onions, peeled

1 sweet onion, chopped finely

1/4 cup chopped celery

4 garlic cloves, sliced

9 oz. oyster mushrooms, separated and stems trimmed off

1 cup dry white wine (chardonnay)
1 clump thyme

1 tbsp. lemon juice

2 tbsp. black truffle butter

1 tbsp. minced fresh tarragon

1. Heat olive oil in a 4-quart dutch oven over medium heat. Pat chicken pieces dry and dredge in flour. Add half the chicken to the pot and season with seasoned salt and fresh-ground pepper. After a couple minutes, turn over to brown other side. Remove to a plate when done and brown the remaining chicken pieces (chicken will cook fully later).


2. Add the pearl onions and saute until lightly browned. Remove. Add the chopped onion, celery and garlic, and cook until softened. Stir in the mushrooms. When they wilt, add the wine and thyme, bring to a simmer and season with salt, pepper and lemon juice. Return chicken to pot, cover and cook 25-30 minutes. Check the temperature of the chicken with an instead-read thermometer and remove the chicken when it has cooked (165-170 F). 


3. Return the pearl onions and chicken to the pot, add truffle butter and simmer a few minutes to reheat ingredients. Serve chicken pieces with a generous portion of sauce and vegetables topped with chopped tarragon.

Cocktail: Brazilian Ginger Mojito

On a recent rather lovely Sunday afternoon, I discovered a batch of mint I wasn't planning on using that would otherwise go bad and decided the perfect way to prevent that was to make mojitos.

I could have made the traditional version with rum, lime, simple syrup and soda, but decided to switch it up a bit. Instead of rum, I used cachaca, a similar spirit from Brazil best known as the base of the caipirinha cocktail. Mostly because I have a big bag of them right now, I also swapped lemons for limes and some ginger liqueur for some of the syrup. The resulting drink was quite refreshing--perfect for sipping on your balcony during a sunny weekend afternoon.

Brazilian Ginger Mojito

8 mint leaves
1/2 oz. simple syrup
1/2 oz. lemon juice
1 oz. cachaca
1/2 oz. ginger liqueur
2 oz. club soda

1. Add mint leaves and simple syrup to shaker cup and muddle. Add ice, lemon juice, cachaca and ginger liqueur and shake until cold. Strain into collins glass and top with club soda. Stir to combine. Garnish with a mint sprig.

Food (Section) Fight!: Week 18

Food (Section) Fight! is my weekly look at The Washington Post's Food section and The New York Times' Dining section with my verdict on which section had the better content for the week.

New York Times
Dining did something very special today: pay homage to Craig Claiborne, a longtime New York Times' food editor and arguably the father of contemporary restaurant criticism. In 1962, he started the practice of reviewing restaurants in the Times and developed the venerated star system that accompanies those reviews (and is widely used in publications around the world). Pete Wells' centerpiece story is a thoroughly enjoyable read, as is Jacques Pepin's short essay, in which he describes Claiborne as part of the "trinity of cooking" along with Julia Child and James Beard. The impetus for this article is the newly published biography of Claiborne, The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat, by Thomas McNamee.

Two beautiful recipes appear on page D2. The more interesting of the two is David Tanis' Farro Pasta with Nettles and Sausage, but Melissa Clark's Splayed Roast Chicken with Caramelized Ramps, Garlic and Capers looks delicious too. I can see myself making both of these, particularly since they include farmers market ingredients currently available.

Washington Post
Cathy Barrow has an insightful cover story about the art of butchery, which was a surprisingly engaging read. Apparently culinary schools aren't teaching it much, making it an endangered and highly sought skill.

Bonnie Benwick's Dinner in Minutes recipe was exactly something I was interested in making very soon. In fact, I woke up this morning thinking that I wanted a good spring risotto recipe to make for dinner tomorrow and as if by magic, there it was: Brown Butter Asparagus Risotto.

Lastly, Spirits columnist Jason Wilson takes an entertaining look at the (generally poor) state of the hotel minibar, including a few hotels that are trying to elevate its profile to something worth their exorbitant prices.

Verdict
New York Times. It's not a bad week for the Post, not at all, but the Times was really good today.

Score
The New York Times: 10
The Washington Post: 8

The American Way of Eating

An apt metaphor for Tracie McMillan's The American Way of Eating would be Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma meets Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed. Just as Pollan examined three systems of food production (industrial, organic and foraged), McMillan explores the three institutions most involved in delivering food to your plate: farming, grocery stores and restaurants. And like Ehrenreich, McMillan puts herself in the shoes of the underpaid and overworked responsible for keeping those institutions running, seeking work as a day laborer in California fields, a produce clerk in Walmart and a line cook at Applebee's. In doing so, she  provides both a well-researched and firsthand view into how these institutions and the workers that inhabit them operate.

I wouldn't call it a polemic. McMillan doesn't eviscerate the institutions she examines so much as air their dirty laundry. For example, her goal in writing about Walmart isn't necessarily to take down the giant (although after working there she may want to). "I chose Walmart not for its reputation as a union-busting machine, and not even because it's the nation's largest employer. I'm here because Walmart is the largest grocer in both the U.S. and the world." (According to The New York Times, it has 1/3 of the U.S. grocery market share). Using similar reasoning, she chose farm work in California because it's the state that produces the most volume and variety of produce and Applebee's because it's the country's largest casual dining chain. So when the average American goes to buy groceries or goes out to eat, this is what's going on behind the swinging doors.

McMillan's first-person perspective is the book's most compelling aspect, particularly her work in the fields, giving a face to the least visible worker in this food chain. She was the only "gringa" among people who showed remarkable camaraderie and generosity despite their squalid living conditions. Her story is sometimes harrowing: Finding work in the fields involves meeting strange men at 4:30 a.m. and while working at Applebee's she endured sexual assault by a coworker (nothing so harrowing at Walmart, thankfully).

Then there are the insights into the food itself. In the field, we learn that a lot of what's grown is wasted. Vegetables deemed too small or somehow imperfect are left behind to rot, despite the fact that they are perfectly edible. At Walmart, our suspicions that the produce isn't exactly fresh is confirmed, but we learn further that there's a cutting and crisping station in the back dedicated to rehabilitating wilted produce to make it attractive enough to sell. Ever buy produce only to have it go limp and nasty within a couple days? Now you know why. Applebee's is the most troubling. McMillan describes how, apart from the grilled food cooked on site, most of the food comes precooked or is made from processed ingredients that get reheated or reconstituted in the microwave, sometimes resulting in the plastic packaging melting into the food. Yummy.

McMillan's thoroughly researched writing makes her work even more compelling, putting an analytical spin on the political and economic forces driving what she describes. Her view is at once micro- and macro-scopic, giving her case studies greater resonance.

There's a lot going on this book and, for the most part, McMillan handles it quite effectively. She loses her way a bit with a brief look at urban agriculture--efforts to grow fresh vegetables within the city of Detroit, which lacks for many decent grocery stores, particularly in poorer areas. While the topic is interesting, it feels like a detour. Is she suggesting this is a possible solution to some of the issue she raises? The economics of urban agriculture would suggest it lacks sufficient output to feed many people, certainly at prices they could afford.

That the book aims to highlight an issue of social justice and not just economics, is another of its greatest strengths. In Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan makes the case that Americans should be willing to pay more for their food, which, no doubt would result in Americans eating better. Although paradoxical to some, for those that have studied the issue, it is well known that fresh produce and meats are more expensive than processed foods like frozen entrees and pasta-and-salt-powder dinners. Diet-related illness is a serious problem, its rise correlated with our love of all things high-fructose corn syrup, to name one offender. European countries that pay more for their food have overall lower obesity and incidence of diet-related illness.

Certainly McMillan would agree the economics of the American food supply chain are out of whack. Like Pollan, she discusses how Americans' diet is creating costs other than at the grocery register (such as $75 million per year in obesity-related healthcare costs, with the poor realizing such costs in disproportionate numbers). However, she also looks at the issue with a lens towards fairness, which naturally leads her to raise a class issue. Is it fair to suggest that Americans pay more more their food when many struggle to afford what they buy now? She points out that Europeans' social nets allow them to enjoy other services at a cost lower than Americans, such as child care, and thus their decision to spend more on food makes sense. McMillan is galled by people who spend $6 per pound on farmers market tomatoes and are seemingly unaware that others struggle to afford the mass-market type at the grocery store. Thus her call for better access to affordable and healthy food feels all the more urgent.

Her solutions are not simple, underscoring the scope of the problem. She calls for more jobs, higher wages, government-sponsored incentives to eat more fruits and vegetables, and government intervention to better distribute food to reach populations that currently lack access to healthy foods. That these aren't particularly satisfying solutions merely underscores the extent to which feeding ourselves as a nation is an issue worth exploring not just at the individual level but as a national issue too.