Our first Christmas guest arrives tomorrow, so I will start laying them out to sample. I’ll let you know what the biggest hits are and hopefully give some directions here for you to make some of the highlights in your kitchens! Speaking of which, I still have dreams of a wonderful shortbread. Does anyone have a recipe?

Hungrily,

L

It started with the beans themselves–heirloom Christmas beans splashed with maroon and cream. They are the size of giant Lima beans. Broad and flat, with  rich, chesnut flavor and creamy texture. These are the beans I wanted.

I soak them, cook them, whir them into a nutty cream with vanilla, eggs, agave nectar, and barley malt, and pour the fragrant mixture into a flaky cream cheese crust. I sprinkle the top liberally with pecans and bake the pie for the better part of an hour.

I wait.

The house smells delicious. And soon, I will be trying a recipe from Native Seeds that I have been wanting to try for literally years.

I just had to wait for the perfect beans. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Things have changed drastically around here, beyond the new job that kept me hopping. The Unicyclist and I moved to Wisconsin in August, a move we had been talking about for more than a year. Southeastern Wisconsin certainly has no shortage of food adventures, however, and now that we are as unpacked as we will be for a while, I’ll be posting here again more regularly. Farms and orchards and CSAs and co-ops are plentiful here, not to mention family and community gardens. Plus, we folk like to eat.

In the meantime, Jessica tipped me off to this very fun map of regional recipe searches for Thanksgiving, which illustrates that regional food is not entirely dead…though it is sometimes odd. Why is Nevada devouring mac and cheese and a virtual desert of cheesy carbs, for example? Who can say? Take a peek and let me know, if you did up a Thanksgiving feast for the holiday–what are your must-have staples, and where did you try something new this year?

(I do still promise to give the details on the rest of that Colorado trip…that cholocate is still pretty vivid in my mind. But for now…it’s just about lunchtime.)

And there was food. Did I mention the food? Post-wedding, our first big adventure was at Denver’s The Oven. It’s owned by the amazing Mark Tarbell, who is responsible for our favorite spot here in Phoenix as well: the eponymous Tarbell’s.

Of course, since the week was a family fest, we had a party of great aunties and moms and dads along for the feast, which was perfect for the laid-back atmosphere of the place. The house-made mozzarella was delicious, the focaccia amazing, the variety of spreads tangy and savory and rich. And the pizzas, of course, were perfection. The company was the best part, especially with the long wooden tables and shared dishes. The staff even comped us dessert when they found out we’d stopped in as fans of the Phoenix restaurant. If you’re ever fortunate enough to come across anything Mark Tarbell has had a hand in cooking, pull up a chair and tuck in. That’s all I have to say about that.

Leaving Denver, we headed up to the Rockies for some hiking, sightseeing, and wildlife watching. As we wound up the mountains into the thin air and the fierce summer squalls, the temperature dropped. The triple-digit temperatures of Phoenix gave way to peaks dusted with snow.

This lake was one of the most beautiful places I have been. There’s something about the meeting of still water, silent mountains, and the evergreen trees.

We spied baby marmots in the alpine area, plenty of elk and mule deer, vultures and hawks, and some large groupings of big horned sheep, but no moose. This is something of a personal issue for me: I have been in moose country on several occasions, but I have yet to spot a moose. Pretty soon I’m just going to pack my bags and set out for Alaska and not come home until I have achieved moose!

Even moose-less, Colorado had quite a bit to offer. Like ice cream. And chocolate.

More on that later…

I have been hard to catch lately in part due to work, but equally due to play. The past six weeks have been peppered with jaunts to Michigan, the Coconino National Forest, Colorado, and the Petrified Forest. The sights were stunning, and there was plenty of good eating. I’m going to try to get you caught up on the eats and the sights this week.

I’m going to start small: Prescott. Only a brief jaunt away, it was a great escape to higher elevation and cooler climes on Fourth of July weekend. We camped under pine trees and spent a day hiking just before the rains came and soaked the town.

The Unicyclist, as you can see, was working his mid-project mountain man look. Since then, his project has been completed and released, and the Unicyclist has been shaved and shorn. The Great Circle of Life or something, I’m sure. Here, you can see Mountain Man trying out his mini-binoculars, seeing something cool and many-legged, no doubt.

Prescott wasn’t much in the way of delicious eats, however. The downtown was packed for Rodeo Days, so we picked the least crowded establishment. Unfortunately, that meant our Prescott lunch was greasy and forgettable. Thank heavens for the breakfast cookies and hummus that saw us through the previous night. On the plus side, the fauna was definitely fun. Think horned lizards and blue hitchhiker bugs.

I don’t know the real name for these sky-blue beetles; I just know they found their way to us, one after another, grabbing on to our sleeves, our backpacks, our pant legs as we skidded and scrambled down the mountain. They were some of the prettiest beetles I’ve seen.

But enough about beetles. Next post, I will give you the skinny on a much more food-focused adventure in the high country: the mile-high family extravaganza in Denver at the end of July. There were Norwegian great-aunts, piles of classic lefse, an amazing pizza place downtown, rustic small-town ice cream, and an incredibly addictive variety of Pikes Peak chocolate. I will learn to reproduce that chocolate or die in the attempt.

Yes, it was that good. Stay tuned for the next installment!

It’s been a week of peanut butter sandwiches, if you know what I mean. It’s been several weeks of peanut butter sandwiches, in fact. With the Unicyclist and myself both in crunchtime, “real” meals are sorely neglected. There’s a lot of peanut butter, a lot of omelet, a good deal of hummus and raw veggies, and a fair bit of pancake. It’s all about the quick and the easy—what real food we can whip up and eat in a half hour.

Since I’ve been so busy, I’ve definitely missed updating the community here on the fabulous summer events we’ve enjoyed thus far: the second farm day, our escape to cooler climes in northern Arizona, and a darn fine Vietnamese noodle salad I will be enjoying for lunch this week. While I could begin with any one of those things, it seems best to begin by showing some of the pictures from the most recent farm day. Frankly, farm day embodies hope. After all, when my own garden is decidedly borwn and crunchy, it’s incredibly encouraging that someone is able to grow things during the months of triple-digit weather.

As you will recall, last farm day hit during artichoke season. This time around, however, it was a stand of June corn that sat ripe and ready in the hundred-degree heat. The rows of artichokes were overgrown and buzzing with bees. The buds had burst into bloom like hundreds of violet fireworks.

I couldn’t decide if I was astounded or amused by the artichoke flowers. They were brilliant and soft, purple flattops above the spiny chokes. The bees were as amazed by them as I was. A steady, industrious hum hung over the otherwise neglected rows.

Plenty more was growing in Farmer Frank’s Crooked Sky farm. There were rows of still-green tomatoes, dotted with red, ripe ones. The first crop of corn was on its way out—husks turning brittle and kernels lost to the area critters. The melons were swelling fat (Frank planted some 40 varieties this year), the onions stood in straight rows, rich purple eggplants dangled from bushy green growth, massive summer squash in green and yellow crouched hidden under the broad squash leaves, and the Armenian cucumbers wound snakelike on the ground.

These are the same cucumbers we are still getting in our weekly share, a couple months later. It turns out that a foot-long cuke like the one you see above is just a baby. Frank’s crew doesn’t serve them up until they stretch to 2-3 feet in length. They are enormous, cool, and crisp. We can’t seem to get through one in a week. Of course, fresh cucumber is a good way to make friends.

The wheat fields were beautiful, rippling like song. We still have several bags of wheat berries in our freezer I am looking forward to using once the temperatures drop again. Or perhaps for a batch of pancakes next weekend.

Just like before, we had the privilege of gathering all we could carry from the fields. People came in comfortable clothes and floppy hats—even a bonnet or two to protect against the sun. This woman is searching for a ripe cucumber to go with the handful of I’itois onions she has already pulled from the ground.

The farm was, as always, beautiful, hot, and buggy. Frank’s crew served up another amazing feast showcasing the current crop, and we all ate ourselves silly. We left with slight cases of sunburn and massively full stomachs, already anticipating our next visit to this patch of earth in Central Phoenix.

I heard about it on NPR on my drive this afternoon. Sam Kass, White House Associate Chef, was talking about all the things the students of Bancroft Elementary have learned while working with Michelle Obama. These are the students who dug the dirt back in early spring, the students who planted the seeds and helped tend the garden. Today, these students joined the First Lady and a whole mess of press for a harvest meal.

For today’s feast, lettuces, chard, peas, and kale were in abundance, the early tomatoes were just shy of ready, and Sam had the opportunity to show off the first eggplant snuggled in the greens. Kids were eating vegetables seconds after picking them today. The best part of all, however, was listening to Kass describe the effects the garden had on the students. He focused on one student in particular, who spoke of having learned the importance of gentleness—with the plants, with the earthworm he dug up—and what that meant for his relationships outside the garden.

Give it a listen. It will make you smile.

• Peanut butter and banana sandwiches on sprouted cinnamon raisin bread
• Cucumber, tomato, feta, and olive chopped salad
• Hummus with a variety of dipping vegetables
• Plenty of fresh fruit (with or without yogurt) for snacking
• Avocado sandwiches with lettuce and tomato on lightly toasted bread
• Trail mix (that I mix myself) for snacking
• Cold grilled eggplant with cream cheese, tomato, and lettuce on toasted bread or a fresh, whole-grain bagel
• Curry (eaten at room temp, as I dislike the microwave)
• Smoothies (loads of frozen fruit and yogurt from grass-fed cows)

I’m starting to feel the need for more creativity, however…I will let you know what I dream up as the summer progresses!  I’m sure our farm goodies will provide inspiration.  Tomatoes and sweet corn are coming ripe, as are loads of summer squash.  Expect an update this weekend sometime!  In the meantime, what dishes are you enjoying for work lunches or picnics these days?

1) Six German states banned Red Bull Cola after the food safety agency in North Rhine-Westphalia (LIGA) found trace amounts of cocaine in the brew.  Austria-based Red Bull claims that no such traces were found in their internal tests, but that if those Rhinelanders thought they found something, well, it was certainly just due to Red Bull’s participation in the common industry practice of including decocainised coca leaf extract to give it that little sumpin’ sumpin’.  Decocainised coca leaf.  Like decaf tea leaves, but with cocaine.  Meanwhile, Coca-Cola has refused to comment on whether it still uses coca leaves in its famous beverage.  Food industry execs, predictably, are trying to quash the concern before it grows.  My favorite quote, from the Time article, is this: “If you start examining lots of other drinks and food so carefully, you’d find a lot of surprising things.”

2)  After studying the bacterial cultures in reusable grocery bags, two independent labs commissioned by (wait for it) the Canadian Plastics Industry Association determined that reusable grocery bags are potential breeding grounds for all sorts of nasty bacteria and may pose a threat to consumer health.  Naturally, many people are all in a flutter over the idea that maybe the throw-away plastic bags were a better idea.  Over here at Simple Spoonful, however, we beg to differ.  Not surprisingly, we have a rather hum-drum, simple solution to the problem…one which doesn’t involve petrochemicals.  It does have two parts, though.  Are you ready?  Okay.  First: don’t buy meat, or at least not much of it. It leaks bloody juices on things, creating a contamination risk.  Second: use cloth tote bags and run them through the washer once a week.  Ta-da!  Disaster averted, environment saved.  Huzzah!

3)  Following in the footsteps of the meat industry (which emphasizes the internal temperature that, say, a hamburger patty must reach to kill the E. coli bacteria present—a result, as Eric Schloesser none-too-gently puts it, of “shit in the meat”), a number of frozen food companies are putting the consumer in charge of the “kill step.” Since several of them are unable to figure out where the salmonella et al is coming from, they are carrying on with business as usual and instead adding very precise instructions for consumers to follow in reheating their products.  Why does this not quite smack of a true solution to me?

It’s about 20 minutes long, but there’s plenty of good stuff. Pollan is a man who keeps things simple: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Seeing as she’s a red-blooded, all-American, all-capitalist sort of columnist, the (fortunately) inimitable Michelle Malkin has stepped up to decry the attack on Cheerios.  In the sparse lines of a non-article, Malkin manages to equate the Cheerio dust-up with both Nazi fascism (see the title of her post, an echo of the first line of Martin Niemöller’s famous poem) and socialism (complaining of proposed public funding of health care), an interesting paradox that defies my best attempts at logic.  To wit: based on Niemoller’s poem and Malkin’s clumsy invocation of its first line, somehow the Cheerios actually became the communists in this scenario. I honestly didn’t see that one coming.  (I doubt Malkin did, either.)

So, what’s the problem here, anyway?

According to the FDA, the problem is the liberal sprinkling of overambitious qualified health claims stamped all over every box of Cheerios, particularly this one: “[It can] lower your cholesterol 4 percent in 6 weeks.”

The FDA, being the killjoy that it is, had the gall to point out that a few of these claims are not backed up by  actual science.  Simply, unless GM were to add in some info about fat levels, fruits and veggies, and some other odds and ends in making a truly heart-healthy diet, these claims are misleading.  Naturally, the FDA wants these claims taken off or General Mills to consider reclassifying Cheerios as a drug, seeing as how they are trying to use a claim that “according to federal law, should apply only to drugs designed to cure disease.”  Imagine.  Those little cardboard-flavored oaty-O’s that give thousands of American children weird-tasting burps each day…soon available by prescription only?

Because I like bottom lines, I’m going to give you one.

Ain’t nobody trying to take your Cheerios away.

All the FDA is asking is that companies try not to convince consumers that good health comes in the shape of highly-processed oaty-O’s, wrapped in plastic and sitting in a pretty box.  They don’t have to stop selling them.  They just have to stop bending the truth into funny shapes while trying to sell them.

What’s the problem again?