I Make Steak

As you may have noticed, I'm more of a foraged mushrooms and noodles kind of guy than I am a steak eater. But as you can tell from the photo above, I do also eat steak. And when I do, I lick the cutting board afterward. Hmm, maybe I should make steak more often.

There are several reasons I don't usually make steak. One is that I never buy it. Two is that it's kind of boring. Three is that eating copious amounts of beef doesn't set the best example for all of the aspiring third world peoples who are now destroying their resources to copy our lifestyles. Sorry, planet.

But I do eat beef on occasion, and in my world order there is certainly a place for small amounts of locally raised, lightly seared, grass fed cow flesh. Especially if it's cooked in butter and topped with a rioja reduction, as was the steak I made last night.

I picked up a Hardwick Beef flat iron (the steak formerly known as top blade) from City Feed and Supply in JP, one of the few markets in the Boston area that makes you feel like maybe, if you squint real hard, you could be in one of the lamest neighborhoods of San Francisco.

I did what I almost always do with steak. I heated a skillet, tossed in a lump of butter, waited until the foam subsided and then slapped in the salt-rubbed meat. I didn't touch it until the juice started to bubble up, at which point I flipped it, at which point it was basically done.

I then transfered the steak to a cutting board to rest (forever) while I deglazed the pan with a splash of wine and a little more butter and chopped shallots, rosemary, or whatever I happened to have on hand that made sense. I served the meat over arugula alongside basmati rice and a butternut squash and chicken stock puree, assuming you can still say "served" when it's just for yourself.



I don't describe this process because I feel that it's the best, or even because I want others to follow my technique, which isn't even "my" technique but something I once read somewhere. I share this information in the democratic and confessional spirit of food blogging: this is what I do, know that, and now go do what you do.

But if you do do what I did, you'll be as happy as a cow. Or as happy as I was when eating a cow that, from what I understand, had been relatively happy.

Also, for those of you who think you can't eat responsibly and well for an affordable sum, know that this steak was only a little over four bucks and that I was completely satiated after eating only half of it. In other words, I had one of the best steaks of my life for about two bucks and could still feel plenty smug about supporting a righteous cattle farmer.

And I'm going to do this again any time I'm by City Feed & Supply, so watch out.

The Real Deal

Over the weekend Elise and I stumbled upon what must be our best local cider hook-up: One Stack Farm in Stow, MA, which presses its own apples in the antique device pictured above.

And that's the only place you'll find it. Because One Stack doesn't pasteurize or add preservatives, they're only legally allowed to sell on-location. On top of that, the stuff they do sell has to be slapped with a warning label detailing the potential health hazards for the young and old.

Now think about the other potential health hazards in the food we eat, and think about what bullsh*t it is that that crap doesn't have to be labeled while this does. Meat cut by workers who don't get paid for the time it takes to clean their knives gets a pass, yet the kind, old pipe-smoking apple farmer down the road has to put a skull and cross bones on his juice.

Regardless, One Stack cider is so delicious, so fresh, round and balanced, that I'd drink it even if it could kill me.

Tea and Food... and Music!

Last night I had a perfectly good Jack Daniels and club soda at the Avett Brothers show at the Boston House of Blues. If you only read food blogs, stop reading now. For the rest of you, I now present my first ever post on music.

In a nutshell, the concert was absolutely rockin'. I can't think of any other band with two leads who, when not singing and simultaneously manning the drum set, are singing, playing guitar or banjo and banging out percussion with a kick drum or high hat, the latter being alternately played by pedal and by direct kicks from the taller Avett brother's boot tip. The crowd was up on their feet for the entirety of the concert, and not just because there weren't any seats.

Nor have I seen a cellist play with such emotion that it seemed like the bow was a saw he was drawing across his own stomach. Nor have I ever heard a band make a point of saying "Thanks for inviting us back to the stage" when doing that thing that bands do and coming back on after pretending to finish.

Perhaps that gratitude was not as sincere as it seemed and was instead an example of a highly polished folksy affect. If that's the case, then I'm just as impressed with the Brothers' theater skills. They're either the nicest, most earnest band I've ever seen ("Y'alls' enthusiasm is the only reason we can stand straight right now"), or they're superb actors.

I especially recommend checking out the AB's at this catalystic point in their career. As I type, they tip, and it remains to be seen whether they'll become a full blown stadium act with indie roots, like Wilco, or an indie band that plays like they're playing for a stadium regardless of the venue. By the end of their set last night, the Avett brothers, along with the non-Avett brother Avett Brothers, were drenched with sweat, hoarse, exhausted, and, it seemed, delighted.

For the first half of the set I marveled at the manic enthusiasm they brought to the stage, but for the second half I worried about them. Can the kind of guys you'd like to bring home to meet your mother survive an increasingly stacked tour schedule and continue to belt out their anthems with the same blend of ease and energy night after night? It remains to be seen, and the shorter of the Brothers sounded like he was really straining by the end, though not remotely holding back.

Listening to their music or watching their videos alone, the Brothers' shamelessly sincere lyrics and dreamy, lingering gazes sometimes verge on awkward. Watching them do the same live, you don't care, you just stomp your foot.

Peace and Hominy

There may be nothing more comforting than having a bubbling crockpot full of hominy stew. Except perhaps two bubbling crockpots full of hominy stew.

I've been making such meals ever since having the posole at Ole in Inman Square, and I have to say that I'm quite pleased with my results. I've used both beef bones and chicken legs and each has yielded a rich, buttery broth. After a long simmer, the hominy surrenders its starch to the surrounding liquid, and the whole thing tastes like the best corn tortilla.

I've also been using Amanda's slow cooked soup plus fresh garnish theory, which I think I can now call the slow cooked soup plush fresh garnish law. One day, Amanda thought "It seems like such a waste to make stock out of ingredients like vegetables that you could eat instead." And then she thought "What if you could make stock out of something that you wouldn't otherwise eat, like bones and spices?"

So she started making soups with just a spiced bone broth and finishing it with herbs and veggies at the very end, thereby creating the perfect yin and yang of slow cooked richness and last minute freshness.

Here's how my posole works, and I'm open to other suggestions. I brown a few chicken thighs and do the same with onion, garlic and cumin seeds. That all goes into a crockpot with the hominy (previously soaked overnight), a large can of tomatoes, a dried chile, salt and a splash of some leftover wine or vinegar. I forget about it pretty much all day, then take the meat off the bone, reintroduce it, and serve with chopped cilantro, diced raw onion, and lime wedges. It is divine.

Here's the one problem: when the chicken is falling off the bone and everything else is just perfect, the hominy still needs to keep going. What I've been doing is finishing it on the stove on higher heat once I take the chicken out, but it would be nice to get everything to finish at the same time (single entendre). I suppose I could just start the whole thing earlier - any thoughts?

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Recipe: Posole (At Least I Think It's Posole - Call It Hominy Stew to Be Safe)
serves 4

The stew:

12 oz of hominy, soaked overnight
4 chicken thighs
1 28 oz can of tomatoes
2 cups water
2 onions
1 whole garlic clove
2 tbsp cumin seed
1 whole, dried, chile pepper
salt to taste
a splash of wine or a slightly smaller splash of balsamic or wine vinegar
2 tbsp pimenton

The garnish:

1/2 bunch chopped cilantro
1/4 diced, raw onion
1 lime, cut into wedges

1. Brown your chicken thighs, onions, garlic, and cumin seed.

2. Add the above to a crockpot with everything else in the stew list.

3. Simmer on "high," about forever.

4. Remove the chicken and shred like pulled pork. Put it back as such.

5. Serve with the garnish.

Destiny Fulfilled

I found this old photo of myself when I was back home in Florida. Guess I've been a foodie since the time that I might have referred to food itself as "foodie."

The Amateur Gourmet on Kimball on Gourmet, Plus Zombies

See here for Adam Roberts of the Amateur Gourmet's brilliant response to Christopher Kimball's op-ed in the Times regarding the fall of Gourmet. (And can we all just note the irony that an old media publication called Gourmet has fallen while a food blog called the Amateur Gourmet continues to thrive? )

Apparently, Christopher Kimball thinks that it's me, a blogger, who killed Gourmet, and Adam couldn't be more lucid in my (and his own) defense. He writes:

"These food blogs represent a welcome break from institutional food writing; they are fresher, brighter and more truthful than the kind of writing Kimball mourns—writing that must pass through board rooms, across copy desks, and into editorial meetings before it’s ok-ed and printed. By the time it hits the stands, it has all the relevancy of a tomato in January."

Well roared, Lion. Adam has voiced my own thoughts better than I could have, though I do have a few additional points and observations. The first is that, while I disagree with his position on new media, I do admire Kimball's dogged, "cold dead hands" defense of his crumbling ivory tower.

If you've seen Zombieland, it brings to mind Tallahassee's climactic stand-off at the film's close. Locked in a cage (closed minded thinking that fails to see the good in new media), Tallahassee (Christopher Kimball) fires his pistols (NYT op-eds) at a seemingly infinite wave of attacking, rabid zombies (Adam Roberts). The only difference is that Tallahassee wins.

Also, Kimball writes that if you "Google 'broccoli casserole' and make the first recipe you find. I guarantee it will be disappointing." But isn't every broccoli casserole disappointing?

Understanding the Chicken

After multiple dining experiences (and blog posts) involving the chicken of the woods mushrooms growing near my home, I have only just begun to know how to fully appreciate them.

Though this fungi can run tough and/or dry, when you pick the right parts of the right mushroom at the right time and prepare them correctly, the c.o.t.w. is absolutely divine. Sound like more trouble than it's worth? It isn't. The same guidelines apply to a zucchini, we're just more used to dealing with those.

Here are my rules for having a healthy relationship with this vegan chicken:

1. Only pick specimens that you want to eat. This is difficult to do, because in your ecstasy at having discovered an enormous, traffic cone-orange wild mushroom, you're going to want to take it all. But you really only want the tender, flexible tips of an older mushroom and not quite all of a younger one. They're most tender at the edges and become woodier as you move back towards the base. I suppose the tougher parts are good for stock, but so are onion peels.

2. A mushroom brush is not enough. Unless your 'shroom is growing high up on a tree, or in a hospital, it will have dirt not only on it but in its "skin." The mushroom seems to embed little pieces of the forest that can't just be wiped away, so before you cook it, taking a paring knife and gently scrape or poke out any dark bits. Remember, you'd do the same with an unsightly zucchini.

3. Keep it simple. It's only when I try to dream up fitting preparations for this glorious ingredient that I end up not using it and letting it turn pale and sad. Pick it, clean it, and just cook it up in a pan with a little olive oil and salt. Eat it straight up as an amuse, on toast, on noodles (pictured at top), or whatever. It is so richly flavorful - sometimes like poultry, sometimes like eggs, sometimes with a hint of lemon - that it needs little else.

4. Slice it thinly. Doing so will shorten the cooking time and enhance the texture, which, if you follow the other rules, can be as soft as an omelette.

4. Don't eat it if it's growing on a pine or another type of conifer. Apparently that can make you ill, though your odds are probably still better than if you were eating ground beef.

My Favorite of Michael Pollan's Favorite Reader Submitted Rules for Eating

"Eat foods in inverse proportions to how much its lobby spends to push it."

From this entertaining and thought provoking NYT feature.

Great Ingredients, Horrible Food

Dinner prospects couldn't have looked better.

I had chicken jus, chicken fat, and a fresh chicken of the woods mushroom harvested from the woods behind T&F HQ. I also had a can of coconut milk and an heirloom eggplant from Allandale Farm -- a Louisiana Green -- plus plenty of spices, fresh cilantro, scallion, and my go-to dried noodles. By all accounts, it should have made for a bangin' curry.

It was not, and I blame the Louisiana Green. The eggplant was gaggingly bitter and made my tongue prickle and itch in that special eggplant way. I would have just eaten around it, but like a skunk that's been hit by a car, its influence had spread.

The whole beautiful thing tasted as bitter and as mushy as the eggplant. I ate the noodles with as little of the sauce as possible and, out of respect for the slugs whose food I'd stolen, picked out the pieces of the mushroom with a pair of chopsticks. I was so disgraced that I couldn't even bear to empty the pot for another day, and so it remained on the stove, full of horrible curry, haunting me. It's final resting place was not my stomach, but the trash can. Hence the above photo.

Ironically, I had picked up the eggplant while researching an article on the resurgence of heirloom vegetables. My slant had so far been positive, but now I might reconsider.

It was definitely the worst tasting, highest quality food that I've ever eaten. In that one sense it takes the cake, though I wish I had taken a piece of cake for dinner instead, and I hate cake.

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Recipe: Ruined Curry

Directions: Combine the freshest, most flavorful, heirloom, organic, local, seasonal vegetables possible with spices of your choice and equal parts coconut milk and chicken stock. Add a nasty eggplant. Serve over noodles. Throw away.

My Latest

See the link for my latest article in Stuff magazine (the Boston one, not the now defunct lad mag). The topic: fall wines.

http://stuffboston.com/liquid/archive/2009/10/05/fall-up-your-glass.aspx

Fall Raspberries: The Best I've Ever Had

I'm going to be honest with you. Berries aren't as sweet as you think.

Yet when you think berries, you think sweet, largely because you think of what we do to them: crisps, cobblers, cream and sugar. Fresh from the bramble it's a different story, as the flavor profile of a berry is often dominated not by sugar but by pucker.

I generally prefer the taste of unadulterated ingredients, so I appreciate the tang of a real berry, but the fall raspberries I've been eating lately have me singing a sweeter tune. I don't really know what I'm talking about here, but it seems as though there are very different raspberries in summer and in fall. Also, there are raspberries in fall at all.

I usually think of raspberries as a strictly summer thing (barring tasteless - in more ways than one - imports) and am glad to see that they're getting a second wind. My hunch is that the fall raspberry is a different variety that's on the up and up as eating locally and seasonally gains ground.

From what I've observed (and not from any actual research), fall raspberries differ from their summer counterparts in two ways. The color, like the weather, is darker. The flavor is sweeter, more mellow, somewhat honey-like and almost absent of any acidity.

I'm reminded of a passage in the Omnivore's Dilemma about different recipes for eggs from different seasons, and I wouldn't be surprised if, in our recent past, there were similarly varied treatments for summer and fall raspb's.

I'm sure that in the annals of cookery there are absolutely delicious fall raspberry-specific tarts and sauces and such, but they're just so good that I can't stop myself from gobbling them up unaltered.

Mr. Vongerichten Goes to Boston

See today's Globe for my article on the Boston opening of Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten's 25th restaurant.

His farm-to-table concept, called Market, already exists in three other cities around the world. Which is why I thought it was so funny to write the following line:

"The Boston Market, not to confused with Boston Market..."

My editor disagreed. See the whole thing here:

http://www.boston.com/ae/food/restaurants/articles/2009/09/30/vongerichtens_latest_venture_has_international_flair_regional_flavor/?page=1

Cereal + Diabetes = Comedy

I try to do my part in helping the association between sugar and diabetes, but Boston area comic Tom Dunlap has taken it to the next level. I saw a recent set of his at The Comedy Studio and got him to send me the relevant bit. Here's the transcript, so you'll have to do your own comic timing:

These next few jokes are called, "Advertisers don't care about children."

Cookie Crisp Cereal: It's cookies for breakfast! And diabetes.

Kellogg's Corn Pops: Gotta have my type II diabetes.

Frosted Flakes: THEEEYY'RRRRRRRE diabetes.

I think you get the point. It upsets me that advertisers shove sugary cereal down kids throats, and they don't care! They don't care that Raisin Bran is just two scoops of diabetes, you know, they don't care there's some children in hospitals, snap-crackle-lost-a-foot to diabetes. What it comes to is Kix Cereal: It's kid tested...positive for diabetes.

A Shortcut to Food

As some loyal readers might know, T&F is in part a musing on how to eat well while working from home. And I think I've finally cracked the code.

The answer: highly seasoned ground meat and noodles. Don't be thrown off the seeming simplicity of the dish. This can be very, very good food.

For instance, dan dan noodles, perhaps the greatest culinary gift the Sichuan province has made to the rest of the world. If you can just look past your school room cafeteria associations -- to stop beating around the bush, that's "beefaroni" -- you'll see the vast potential in this elemental combo.

The version pictured at top includes ground pork from happy, heirloom pigs at nearby Drumlin Farm and mung bean noodles, which looked very cool and just a little scary while resting in a glass bowl.



My inspiration started with dan dan noodles, which is basically soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, Sichuan peppercorn, chili flakes, and something else that restaurants do that I can never replicate at home (and no, it's not MSG, unless they're lying to me). But now I just throw together real meat and complimentary spices and it always works out. The one in the photo, which was the best yet, had a sauteed onion and bell pepper and focused primarily on the interplay of pimenton and cumin. It was so rad.

And you really could make the whole thing in ten minutes. Add more veggies to the meat and you've got a balanced meal, assuming that phrase still means anything. Use non-wheat noodles such as mung bean, rice, or buckwheat and it's that much more interesting.

This really is the fastest, most filling and flavorful lunch (or dinner) I can think of.

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Recipe: Not Beefaroni

1 package mung bean noodles (or rice noodles, buckwheat, udon, spaghetti, etc.)
1 lb organic, sustainably raised meat (pork, beef, turkey, beefalo...)
1 onion
sesame oil
soy sauce
spices!

1. Boil the noodles until katame ni yuderu. Rinse and toss with oil.

1. Sautee the onion until translucent.

2. Add the meat to the same pan and cook until brown and slightly crispy.

3. Add the soy sauce and spices (such as pimenton and cumin).

4. Add the sesame oil.

5. Top the noodles with the meat.

The Reign of Gorditas Continues

Now just because the article isn't still up on the Globe's main food page, it doesn't mean that I'm not still cooking and eating tons of gorditas ala Chole Adams.

In fact, they're the most satisfying vegetarian - vegan, even - meal I can remember eating in a long time if not ever. Must be the starch combo of the beans and cornmeal. Or maybe it's all the fat? Either way, they're one of those perfect, transitional early Fall foods. A hearty base of corn and beans, and an end-of-summer topping of raw tomato, onion, and cilantro.

For the recipe, follow the link from the article, with two additional notes. Your choice of refried beans can really make or break the dish. I recommend taking cooked (canned works) beans and blending with a little water, some sauteed onion, garlic and ***pimenton***. Also, it's a lot easier to just dress the top of the gordita rather than slicing and stuffing it.

If you really want to be like me, you can also garnish with lemon (cucumbers) and lime, as pictured above.

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Recipe: Gorditas de Chole

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/food/articles/2009/09/09/gorditas_recipe/

Not Too Chicken to Eat Chicken of the Woods

I was recently poking around in the woods behind my house (by which I mean my rented apartment) with my dog, and as always, I had one eye out for wild edibles. But unlike most of our forays, this time I returned home with a few pounds of serious food tucked under my arm. As you can see from the photo above, it was a mushroom.

A chicken of the woods, aka sulfur shelf mushroom, as I've previously covered here.

Though I am interested in foraging, I am not at all interested in eating a mushroom that might kill me. Luckily the c.o.t.w. is no such mushroom. Known as a "beginner fungi," it has no poisonous counterparts and is ridiculously easy to spot. It's like it wants us to eat it.



And the feeling is mutual.



We made a risotto with little else but the wild fungi for flavor, and also sautéed a few hunks of it in butter and pan drippings from a chicken not of the woods. These were absolutely outstanding.



The sulfur shelf ain't no slimy, watery tasteless white button. It's a wild mushroom, and it tastes like it. The 'shroom is meaty in both texture and flavor, hence the name (I think). In fact I can't recall any other vegetarian foodstuff with a chew so downright steak-like.

Of course the actual chicken pan drippings accentuated the fungi's umami, but it worked with what was already there. As the drippings reduced, the mushroom took on a glaze and the edges began to candy. Little bits of hand-torn fresh rosemary didn't hurt either.

I don't eat every wild edible I find in the woods behind my house, largely because of concerns for the health of the soil. Though the woods are beautiful, they're low and surrounded by suburbia, and I imagine that much of the pesticide from my neighbor's lawns and the oil from our cars all finds its way down there. There's a beautiful elder growing out of the middle of a stream at the nadir, and at present it's full of berries, and I love elderberries, but I don't love lead.

But when I saw the chicken of the woods, I couldn't resist. After all, it wanted me to eat it.

Late Night

The only thing worse than being woken up at 3am by raccoons scattering your trash is then knocking a glass bowl of compost-ready noodles down the stairs, and then cutting your finger picking up the pieces.

News Flash: Filet-o-Fish Not Sustainable

I can't say that I'm shocked that the tasteless fish served in anonymous, fried patties by McDonald's, Denny's, and Long John Silvers is not being harvested sustainably:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/science/10fish.html?_r=1&no_interstitial

Article In Today's Globe

See here for my article and photos in today's Globe.

The subject: great Mexican food very close to Canada. Click on the recipe link to see the second photo. And the recipe.

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/food/articles/2009/09/09/chole_adams_nearly_always_sells_out_her_mexican_food_at_vermont_farmers_markets/

Ceci N'est Pas Une Orange Juice

To round out a brunch I made for visiting family over the weekend, I decided to buy orange juice. When I took a sip, I was surprised how much like orange juice it tasted, given the fact that orange juice isn't really orange juice any more.

I first had this realization thanks to my acupuncturist's blog, which referenced the book Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice. This excerpt from an interview with the author is what made me realize just how different the orange juice on the shelf is from what we think of as orange juice:

"The leading producers of “not from concentrate” (a.k.a. pasteurized) orange juice keep their juice in million-gallon aseptic storage tanks to ensure a year-round supply. Juice stored this way has to be stripped of oxygen, a process known as de-aeration, so it doesn’t oxidize in the tanks. When the juice is stripped of oxygen, it is also stripped of flavour-providing chemicals … If you were to try the juice coming out of the tanks, it would taste like sugar water. Juice companies therefore hire flavour and fragrance companies, the same ones that make popular perfumes and colognes, to fabricate flavour packs to add back to their product to make it taste like orange juice."

And that goes for the stuff they're still allowed to call not from concentrate, or worse, grove-style or whatever the latest, homiest qualifier is (smooshed by grammy and grampy?).

So it was surprising that the orange juice I bought at the grocery store still tasted more or less like what I think orange juice tastes like. Kudos, flavour and fragrance companies.

Nice Try

An anonymous commenter responded to my post on acai, saying only "acai is great food." The comment was then signed with a link to something called "weight loss diet pills."

I don't which the internet is better for: food blogging or hucksterism.

Lobster Bolognese, Revealed

I'm sure you all think about The Best Thing I've Had All Year as much as I do, but you may not have realized that we received the recipe for it in a comment.

I'm also sure that you all comb through the comments as obsessively as I do, but just in case this one slipped past you, I thought I'd showcase it here. Thanks to Rick Rodgers for sending it along. He wrote:

This recipe was popularized by Alfred Portale at Gotham Bar and Grill in NYC, and is in his first cookbook. You are right--cream, stock, and veggies are the ingredients. I have the recipe in my computer because I worked on the book as the recipe tester and writer.

Recipe: Fettuccine with Lobster Bolognese
makes 4 to 6 main course servings

Lobster Bolognese Sauce:

l/4 cup distilled white vinegar
3 (l to l l/4 pounds) live lobsters
2 tablespoons olive oil
l medium onion, chopped
l/2 cup chopped carrot (about l/2 medium carrot)
l/3 cup chopped celery (about l/2 small celery rib)
4 garlic cloves, sliced
5 sprigs flat-leaf parsley
5 sprigs tarragon
5 sprigs basil
l dried bay leaf
3 tablespoons tomato paste
l/4 cup Cognac or brandy
l/2 cup dry white wine
6 cups white chicken stock, or as needed
1 cup heavy cream
Coarse salt and cayenne pepper

Bring a large stockpot of 10 quarts salted water and the vinegar to a boil over high heat. In batches, if necessary, add the lobsters and cover. Cook for 5 minutes. (The lobsters will only be partially cooked.)

Drain the lobsters, place in a bowl, and set aside until cool enough to handle.

Working over a bowl to catch the juices, twist the lobster bodies away from the tails; reserve the bodies. Saving as much of the juices as possible while working, crack the lobster tails and claws. Remove the meat and cut into 3/4-inch dice. Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Coarsely chop the lobster shells.

In a large stockpot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, garlic, and parsley sprigs and cover. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables soften, about l0 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste. Add the lobster shells and bodies and cook, stirring often, for 2 minutes. Add the cognac and reduce by half, about 2 minutes. Add the wine and reduce by half, about 3 minutes. Add the reserved juices and enough stock to barely cover the ingredients. Bring to a boil over high heat, skimming off any foam that rises to the surface. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until well-flavored, about 45 minutes.

Strain into a large bowl, pressing hard on the solids to extract as much flavor as possible, then discard the solids. (If making in advance, cool, cover, and refrigerate.)

In a large saucepan, bring the stock to a boil over high heat and reduce to l cup, about 30 minutes. Add the cream, return to a boil, and cook until the sauce thickens slightly, about 5 minutes. Taste and season carefully with salt and cayenne pepper.

Assembly:

l pound fresh fettuccine
l tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 teaspoons finely chopped tarragon
l0 basil leaves, cut into chiffonade
Sprigs of chervil for garnish

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the fettuccine and cook until al dente, 2 to 3 minutes. Drain and return the pasta to the pot.

If necessary, reheat the lobster sauce over low heat. Add the lobster meat and cook just to heat the lobster meat through, about 2 minutes. Stir in the parsley, tarragon, and basil. Add the warm lobster sauce to the pasta and toss well.

Serve in warmed pasta bowls, garnishing each serving with the chervil leaves.

To Eat Wheat?

You can imagine a well sculpted, deeply researched New York Times piece about the increasing numbers of those who cannot (or just think they cannot) tolerate wheat, but this isn't it. This is a baseless morning blog post.

As I've said before, when it comes to the burgeoning realm of food sensitivities, I'm torn. There's my inner Michael Ruhlman, who thinks people who don't eat everything are sissies. Then's there's the inhaler that I stopped using once I stopped using dairy.

Wheat, or gluten, is by far the fastest growing intolerant food. I'm shocked by the sheer volume of people who are giving it up. Often these tales of abstinence are accompanied by miraculous recoveries. Suddenly that chronic back pain you've had for years just disappears, all because you switched to quinoa pasta like that pictured above (with bacon, escarole, garlic and chili flakes).

Sounds fishy, doesn't it? And yet I have my own health success story with cutting out dairy, so I'm left wondering if perhaps it isn't the wheat itself that's to blame. Why would one of the oldest crops known to humanity suddenly turn on us?

Probably because we turned on it. I'm no farmer, but I know we don't grow wheat like we used to. Perhaps we've done to wheat what cell phones did to good old to human interaction.

I don't know if it's the pesticide, genetic modification, over-processing or... well, it's probably some combination of those.

Do I eat wheat? All the time. We all do, and the number of those who cannot is vastly outnumbered by those who can. And I wouldn't be surprised if those who think they can't eat wheat could eat some kinds of wheat, perhaps an heirloom variety not processed into white bread. But to be perfectly honest, I now eat less of it and feel better.


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Recipe: Quinoa-Corn Pasta With Escarole

Ingredients: just look at the directions. The ingredients are in there.

1. Boil pasta.

2. Sautee diced bacon and chili flakes. When the bacon is crisp, add escarole and garlic.

3. Toss the pasta with the escarole, bacon, spices, and one dipper of the pasta water.

"Food"

I just made a curious discovery that I feel obliged to share. If you google image search the word "food," this is what you get:



The irony is that many of us do not consider to above to be food, but rather what Michael Pollan famously called food-like substances. In other words, corn manipulated beyond recognition.

Pollan also suggests that we not eat anything our great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. That excludes pretty much everything in the image above. Then again, great-grandma didn't know what google was either.

Which begs the question: was great-grandma better off? Hard to say, though she was certainly better at not getting obese and diabetic.

What I Ate On Or The Night Before My Birthday

-chips and guacamole
-ribs with chile de arbol
-pozole
-the best flan I've ever had
-coffee with orange rind and cinnamon
-Tres Generaciones Plata
-oats and eggs
-leftover yellow dumpling soup broth
-trail mix: almonds, raisins, coconut
-water
-coconut water
-ham, mustard and cilantro sandwiches (it's what we had)
-trail mix: peanuts and cranberries
-wild mountain cranberries
-wild blueberries
-one partridge berry
-an accidental mouthful of Sculptured Rocks creek water
-beef tongue and tendon in vinegar peanut sauce
-pork belly in garlic sauce
-Sichuan dumplings
-towel gourd with bamboo fungus
-cumin beef
-crispy salt and pepper ribs
-white rice
-lots of sake
-tea smoked duck
-dan dan noodles

Neither Tea nor Food

This morning I was jogging with Oli, the official dog of T&F. As he often does when off-leash and drunk on freedom, he was running circles around me. Literally.

At one point he darted in to nip at my heels and his rabies tag became ensnared by my shoe lace. He pulled away to free himself but instead got twisted up and landed on his back. He stared up at me as if to ask "Master, what is this cruel new magic?"

Moments later, while dashing through the woods, he flushed a deer. The only other time he'd seen one, my typically calm and quiet dog essentially flipped out. He let loose a horrible, primal sound from deep within, sort of a cross between a howl and a garbage truck going off a cliff.

That time, he was on-leash and could not pursue the creature that had bemusedly pranced away. But since then I've always been worried about him seeing another hind while unhindered.

Or to be more precise, I was worried about how many miles he would chase it and how many dangerous, Froggeresque intersections he might cross in doing so.

When he discovered the deer this morning, of course it ran off and of course he pursued. But here's the surprising part: when I called him, he came right back. My only explanation is that he did a quick calculation of how much meat he would get from that one deer compared to how much I would feed him for the rest of his life.

Clearly, my cruel, new magic worked. He trotted happily back to my side and we kept jogging without incident. Except for when he picked up a pointed, six foot long fallen sapling and galloped at me full speed, ramming it into the back of my knee.

But who who needs a patella when you've got loyalty?

Photo courtesy of Cailin, my vet tech.

The Lemon Cucumber

Like many of you out there, I grew up after the Industrial Revolution but before the Delicious Revolution. In that awkward phase of human history, which I hope is drawing to a close, there was only one kind of cucumber: The Cucumber.

I grew up in a healthy household, for the time. That meant no soda, but it also meant industrially produced produce. Even though I lived in Florida, where one could potentially eat from the garden every day of the year, we only had access to the same stuff that everyone else in the country was eating. And everyone was eating The Cucumber, which, like the County Paris, is as bland as it is handsome.

Flash forward to a world in the midst of a food revolution, sometimes delicious, sometimes not. The revolution takes many forms, from riots over rising food costs in Haiti to those locally made logs of goat cheese at your neighborhood farmers market. Though the stakes vary, these are opposite sides of the same coin. Both say, in very different ways, that the system we've been relying on is broken, and that it's time to look elsewhere.

We now live in an era in which there are many, many kinds of cucumbers. Or rather we live there/then again. Before The Cucumber was singled out for its ability to survive long truck rides and still arrive looking like a cartoon, there were many cucumbers bred for many different climates and culinary purposes.

For instance, the lemon cucumber, which is not named for its flavor but for its appearance. And though it doesn't taste like a lemon, it does taste about a bajillion times better than The Cucumber. I'm thrilled to see that heirlooms such as these are regaining popularity, and I plan to eat them all.

But wait, you say. Isn't the lemon cucumber just for limp wristed East Coast liberal elitist foodies, bloggers and food bloggers? Isn't the whole Delicious Revolution a bit "unrealistic" as Anthony Bourdain says?

No. While I now have lemon cucumbers like the one pictured at top growing in my garden, I had my first at an immigrant-run farmers market booth in the parking lot of a shopping mall in Springfield, Missouri. Now that's crop diversity.

Return From Vermmmont Raw Corn Salad

Returning from my annual two weeks teaching in VT is usually a drag. When I would come back to Somerville, I found the urban setting abrasive if not hostile. Luckily my new place of residence is much greener, but in comparison to VT, our nature somehow seems less natural.

So I was cheered to see that in my absence things had been growing back home. Oli had a short, sleek, summer coat, and despite the lack of soil, light, attention and planning, there was actually some food in the garden.

The apples had blushed.



The blackberry blossoms had transmogrified into blackberries.



And there was a cucumber...



... that went into a raw corn salad, along with some of the local sunflower oil I picked up at Pete's Greens.



In the summer I crave unadulteration more than I crave any specific ingredients. I eat less and I eat dishes made with less preparation, if you could call taking a cucumber out of the refrigerator and eating it whole a "dish" that underwent "preparation." But when I can overcome my estivation, I make a raw corn salad.

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Recipe: Raw Corn and Cucumber Salad
(serves 2)

Note: variations are limitless.

1 cucumber
2 ears of corn (suitable for eating raw, i.e. sweet and picked that day)
Pete's Greens sunflower seed oil for dressing (or olive oil)
salt to taste

1. Dice the cucumber, keeping the peel on, unless you're a total weiner.

2. Slice the kernels from the shucked corn cobs.

3. Combine both with salt to taste and an ample drizzle of the sunflower (or olive) oil. If you got 'em, add fresh herbs or nearly anything else.

White Mountains, Blue Berries

One way to beat the summer heat in New England is to rise above it. Yesterday I left the steamy, swampy lowlands of Boston for a chilly, misty mountaintop in New Hampshire. Cardigan, to be exact.

As if the dramatic weather wasn't enough of a reward, the summit was also rife with wild blueberries.



And mountain cranberries.



Now maybe you're not supposed to pick the berries in a National Park, but it's better for everyone if you eat the fruit growing at your feet rather than stuff trucked in from Mexico.

Just leave some for the bears, and for me.

Vermmmont: My First Eggs

In case I haven't made it clear already, Vermont is a really interesting place to eat.

For instance, when visiting the homes of various campers, I was treated to the following meals: elk chili (shot in New Mexico), halibut kebobs (caught in Alaska), and homemade wontons (fried in the kitchen).

Equally impressive is the sheer bounty available in many VT backyards. Nearly every house I visited had an ample vegetable garden, plus many had sizable crops of blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and black raspberries with apples en route. Several had both meat and laying chickens, one had ducks and guinea fowl, another pigs.



One home even had its own fully stocked trout pond. Talk about a sustainable source of seafood (pondfood?): instead of overfishing and mercury poisoning, all you have worry to about is otters.

It was in one such backyard that I gathered my first eggs. Then, in an expression of gratitude, I tenderly held my first chicken.



Before then, I had only ever held a chicken tender.

Links Galore, Links Galore

I've received a few link exchange requests recently, and it's often difficult to tell which are from actual people and which are from capitalists. I'll let you figure it out:

Kalahari Tea: an eco-friendly, organic tea company that sources raw materials and products from South Africa to support the local economy. Their tea bags are made of unbleached hemp and wood chips, they contribute to the African Wildlife Foundation and are members of 1% for the Planet (which is about the environment, not milk).

The Teacup Tango: I received this tea-themed music video from a wife and husband duo who created it to win a scholarship competition. From their experience they have concluded that "Tea is awesome and there is so much more to it – whichever type you prefer – than we ever realized."

I highly recommend watching it. FYI, my favorite moment occurs at 50 seconds in.

Local Food, Thanks to the Enemy

How f'ed up is it that this Serious Eats video about a local farmer starts with a plug from Kraft?

On the one hand, the local food movement needs whatever support it can get, and if that video only exists because of cash from Kraft, it's still a net positive. On the other hand, I hope no one puts the "Kraft Lite Raspberry Vinagerette Dressing" advertised at the beginning on the veggies they buy at the greenmarket.

I do, however, like that Ed Levine uses the phrase "to grow a crop in their shoes." Isn't that what farms are for?

Vermmmont: Barely Sweet Red Currant Tart

One of the things I look forward to during my annual two week gig in VT is the Dunbar's red currant bush. Lucky for me, the fruit ripens during my stay. Also lucky for me is that the Dunbars don't really like currants, so I'm always encouraged to take as big of a haul as I want.

In the past I've never had the wherewithal to do anything but eat them out of hand, but this year I got it together to whip up a crude tart.



As I prepared it, the berry topping somehow became a black hole for sugar; the more I added, the same it tasted.

I prefer barely-sweet desserts, but even for my palate I had to keep sprinkling on the cane dust. All the while a little devil sat on my shoulder, whispering "Just dump it in! People will like it better!"

Meanwhile, the little angel that, inevitably, sat on the other shoulder, meekly suggested: " Sugar is bad for you. Maybe your friends would enjoy a horribly sour tart and better health?"

In the end, neither won, as I compromised. But the tart was perfect for me, with a challenging level of tartness yet just enough sugar to walk you through it. I made one for the Dunbars as a thank you for years of free currants, but I'm told it met with mixed results. Some of them ate it straight up, some added more sugar, and some passed on it altogether.

Angel: "Even if they didn't like it that much, at least everyone had a healthy dessert."

Devil: "That means more for us! Rrrrrrrrrah! (<-- a devil roar)."

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Etymology for Karen:

"currant" origin: Middle English "raisons of Corauntz," translating Anglo-Norman French raisins de Corauntz, meaning ‘grapes of Corinth ’ (the original source).

Hot, Hot, Hot

See here for more of my stuff (writing) in Stuff (magazine). I wrote 8 of the entries for this year's Hot 100 list, and not surprisingly, most of mine are about food. If you're a truly loyal reader, see if you can pick out my prose.

The next post will have more pretty pictures of sustainable food, I promise.

Muscadine Wine

See here for my first piece in Stuff magazine, on the conspicuous lack of Muscadine wine in Boston:

http://stuffboston.com/liquid/archive/2009/07/28/an-appalachian-appellation.aspx

Vermmmont: Wood Fired Pizza

Last night's dinner centered around flatbreads baked in the handmade, homemade clay oven pictured above.

The first course, though prepared in a less exciting cooking vessel, was even better: Turkish cucumber soup, resplendent with curry, yogurt and tomatoes and topped with fresh cilantro.



Dinner companions included hummingbirds, a nearly full moon, and my personified jealousy for the clay oven.

Quote of the Day

From a student at the camp in VT where I'm currently teaching:

"My mom once castrated a lamb with her teeth."

Vermmmont: Maple Roasted Chicken

Last night we were invited to dinner at the home of one of our campers. I was thrilled to learn that we would be having maple roasted chicken. I was even more thrilled to find out what that meant: instead of being covered in a syrupy glaze, the birds had slowly roasted in a haze of maple wood smoke.

The family serving the meal keeps a log near the barbecue for just that very purpose. When they feel like adding a touch of sweet smoke to whatever they're grilling, they simply hack off a few chips to scatter on top of charcoal.



As you can see above, the chicken skin was a deep bronze, and the meat beneath it was tender and juicy. The faintly sweet taste of smoke permeated every nook and cranny.

For dessert we were served a carrot cake garnished with local strawberries and raspberries from "around back." Why don't I live here again?

Non-Dairy Moose Tracks

One ran by outside of the camp I'm teaching at here in Craftsbury, VT. Later in the day I went down to look for tracks, which I found clearly stamped into the mud. A faint channel was visible where it had trotted through the tall grass en route to the woods.

I'd only seen one up here once before: last summer, on my plate.

Back in Vermont

I'm currently up in Craftsbury, Vermont for my annual two weeks of teaching at a Shakespeare camp. (See here for last year's posts.)

Internet access is scant, but I'll do my best to keep posting from this fascinating foodshed. Just today one of my campers told me she's been woken up each of the past few nights by the grunting of a moose.

If you think that's Vermonty, consider this. The following sentence was spoken by a mother to her children at a local natural foods coop:

"Brocoli, Arugula, stop that!"

Homemade Jam: As Easy as Pie

Homemade jam. Go ahead, think about it. The mess, the effort, the special equipment, the self righteousness. Now think again.

If you have fruit and sugar, and you do, homemade jam is at your (sticky) fingertips. You don't have to pick the berries. You don't have to hermetically seal the end product. You don't have worry about odorless, tasteless, killer bacteria.

You don't even have to be a hipster. You just have to cook a little fruit with a little sugar.

I had some strawberries that were on their way out. They weren't even local berries, just some Big Organic (not that good for the planet, but also not that bad, right?) fruit that I had lying around, getting a little fuzzy around the edges. I halved them and simmered with less sugar than you think goes into jam for less time than you think jam cooks for.

I didn't add pectin. I didn't add rosemary or anything else that doesn't belong in jam but increasingly finds its way there.

As soon as the heat and sugar permeated the fruit, my limp, squishy strawberries transformed into vivid, cartoon like fruit. They went from looking like something that you wouldn't want to eat to looking like something that you wouldn't want to eat because you'd think they'd been dyed and thickened with cornstarch.

But no. The thick, ruby red concoction was more natural than most of the girls who went to my South Florida private high school. The berries were plump and toothsome, full of seeds that popped and crunched between my teeth. The flavor was tart and fruity, just a shade sweeter than what you might pick from the vine, and nowhere near as cloying as, say, Smuckers.

It was easy. It tasted amazing. It resurrected my fruit.

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Recipe: Homemade Strawberry Jam

-strawberries that no longer look good enough to eat fresh
(about 2 cups)
-enough water to cover the bottom of the pan - no more!
-a fat pinch of unrefined sugar

1. Wash and halve the strawberries.
2. Combine all ingredients in a small pot or pan.
3. Cook until the berries are vivid and surrounded by thick syrup.
4. Cool and store in the fridge, if it lasts that long.

The Best Thing I've Had All Year

..was a lobster bolognese at the Green Street Grill last Sunday night. I simply couldn't understand how any combination of earthly ingredients could taste so good.

My guess is cream. Lots of cream. And lobster stock. Generous hunks of lobster meat, including claw, didn't hurt either.

Yet even those incredibly delicious components don't fully explain the dish's magical powers. I could combine cream, lobster and lobster stock at home, but they did something else, something I don't understand, and it left me awestruck. Probably, it was butter.

Go there just to eat it.

Buffalo Shepherd's Pie

Not only is this dish good in and of itself, but it's also a superior recreation of a childhood comfort food. Without lunch lady hairs.

Even though I secretly liked the version slopped onto my lunch tray as a school boy, this shepherd's pie is a vast improvement, with buffalo meat instead of beef (leaner, hipper), smoked paprika, fresh sage and a touch of cumin. Instead of the classic trinity of frozen peas, frozen carrots and canned corn, we use whatever fresh veggies we have around. Last time our friends brought over some of the surplus bounty of their CSA, including turnips and chard, which worked great.

I also appreciate the irony of a shepherd's pie made from buffalo, since buffalo can't actually be shepherded. The only downside is that while it's still hot, using the term "pie" is really being generous. Even though it doesn't taste like slop, it still kind of looks like slop.

But when you have the leftovers the next day, as you invariably do because you make an entire skillet's worth, because it looks gorgeous and rustic to do so, that slop sets into distinct strata that can easily be sliced into a clean, self-supported wedge.

While eating one such pie during last night's dinner, conversation turned to talk of sprouting grains. Our guests, an enterprising young family that bakes their own bread and makes their own cheese, are in the habit of sprouting everything from grains to nuts. That's a food wagon I haven't boarded yet, largely because of the extra effort required.

That said, when I looked in the dog's water dish this morning, I noticed that two buckwheat grains had accidentally fallen in and sprouted. Guess it's not that hard after all.



Now if only buffalo shepherd's pie appeared so spontaneously.

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Recipe: Buffalo Shepherd's Pie

1 lb ground buffalo (it goes a long way, 6-8 servings)
8 potatoes
chopped seasonal vegetables
pimenton (smoked paprika)
fresh sage (about a handful)
cumin
salt

1. Make mashed potatoes.

2. Brown the buffalo meat in an iron skillet with a healthy dash of pimenton and slightly less cumin.

3. Layer the chopped veggies and chopped sage on top of the meat, sweating anything that would produce a lot of water first (i.e. chard or spinach).

4. Top with the mashed potatoes. Top the mashed potatoes with a heavy sprinkling of pimenton and a drizzle of olive oil (and cheese, if that's your thing).

5. Bake at 400 until it begins to brown, then slide under the broiler to finish the job.

6. Serve as is or let set in the fridge over night for pretty slices.

Ghana Fishin'

This morning's The World made the obvious link between the G8's proposal to fund agriculture in nations like Ghana and the old "teach a (hu)man to fish" saying.

I just want to go on record saying that I too think it's better to build roads that will help distribute food rather than letting it rot in the fields and then feeding Africans stuff that we grew. I too think it makes more sense to enable farmers to produce their own food rather than continuing to send aid after the fact (which we'll still need to keep doing, at least for a while).

This is that powerful part of the local food movement that is all too often obscured by obnoxious foodies like myself going gaga over scapes or black raspberries. Here eating locally is associated with stuffing yourself with goat cheese, but in other parts of the world it means being able to feed yourself at all.

Big Agriculture stole the word organic, they're working on co-opting "local," and soon Super Walmarts will probably have a little sticker that denotes (alleged) sustainability. But real sustainability is, not to be too dramatic, the key to our survival as a species, and local food is a big part of it.

So the next time you hear a foodie holding court about what they made from their most recent CSA pick-up, try this mental exercise: replace phrases like "ramp tartlets" with "food security."

Personally, I'm looking forward to the first issue of Edible Accra.

Today's Lunch

Eating while working from home is often a double edged sword. On the one hand, you can make whatever you want. On the other, that never happens.

I usually wait too long to eat or don't have anything on hand that I actually want. In both cases, I consume whatever I first set eyes on, and it's never ideal (though I have developed a soft spot for pasta with canned sardines).

But today I had the presence of mind - and the ingredients - to whip up a perfectly acceptable, well timed meal. I browned and then simmered chicken thighs with artichoke hearts and had one with salad and a white bean dip laced with za'atar. The latter might sound fancy, but the only faster starch I can think of is a slice of bread. Also, I had a slice of bread.

The salad consisted of local greens and even more local, accidental wild edibles harvested/weeded from the kitchen garden. As far as I'm concerned, romaine, purslane, and lamb's quarters are just as good a combo as walnuts, pears and gorgonzola. You know, that salad.

It was fast, it was easy, and it was good. The only downside is that I'm not eating it again right this second.

I Scream You Scream, We All Scream for Pee

If you're a reindeer, that is. See for yourself here. It's one of many impressive pics from Globe photographer Essdras Suarez, whose work accompanied my last article.

I'd been meaning to post some of his stuff, but for copyright reasons I think you have to go check it out yourself. You can see more, including his food photography, here:

http://www.essdrasmsuarez.com/phocont.html

The Best Tisane I've Ever Had

Expletives and herbal tea don't often go together, but I'm pretty sure I muttered one after taking a sip of this after last night's dinner. Made from freshly plucked anise hyssop and cilantro flowers, it was the best tisane I've ever had.

For those who poo-poo herbal tea in favor of true tea, know that equally complex flavors are possible from plants besides camellia sinensis. I didn't fully believe it myself, but this tea was the most powerfully flavorful thing I've put in my mouth this year.

Like garlic scapes, the flowers of herbs are a double boon. A culinary asset on their own, removing them also make the parts of the plant that you really want to eat (the bulb of the garlic and the leaves of the herb) more productive. The flowers of the anise hyssop were a shade of purple that would look at home in a Monet, but once hit by the hot water they became pale. I took comfort in knowing that the purple was now somewhere in the liquor, and that I drank a color.

The hyssop is incredibly sweet and of course very licorice like, and the cilantro flowers are, unsurprisingly, a very floral incarnation of the already cool and lovely cilantro. Together the two were sweet and deeply aromatic with just a hint of savory, no stronger than an association.

We spend so much time comparing the flavors of tea and wine to other things like flowers and herbs. So why not go straight to the source and just drink the flowers and herbs?

Or, as a friend of mine one said, if people want things to sell like hotcakes, why not just sell hotcakes?

Bacon, Broccoli, Bean Noodles

The weather is so wet, so damp and clammy, that if we want to be warm and dry we must bypass the sky and look to food. For lunch yesterday, I made my artificial sun of bacon.

I was hungry. I looked in the fridge. These stories usually don't end well, but this was a delicious exception.

I found three strips of bacon. I found a head of broccoli. In the pantry I unearthed a package of my favorite dry noodles: Amoy Bean Strips. I put them together and I had lunch. Great lunch.

Using the meat-as-a-seasoning approach, I snipped the bacon into the kind of tiny rectangles you'll find in non-vegetarian veggie dishes at some Chinese restaurants. I browned it in a skillet, adding diced onion about halfway through. Meanwhile, the noodles boiled and the broccoli steamed. Of course I could have cooked the broccoli with the bacon, but it can be a much cleaner operation to assemble the parts separately and then sauce together.

When everything was cooked to my liking (crispy bacon, translucent and slightly brown onions, bright green broccoli), I tossed it all with a splash of sesame oil and a drip of soy sauce. And of course the ample fat surrendered by the bacon as it gently sizzled.

It wasn't warm outside, but it was nice and warm inside (my stomach).

On Acai

See here for Adam Stark's latest dispatch, this time tackling the dubious qualities of the so-called "superfood" acai.

Personally, I think all foods are super, and my suspicion is always aroused when any one is singled out as a magic bullet. I never knew precisely why acai was bullsh*t, and am glad for Adam's thorough debunking.

As Michael Pollan so succinctly put it, "Avoid foods that make health claims." After all, broccoli doesn't advertise, except in this brilliant Onion article.

Again, you can read the acai piece here and an excerpt here:

Q: But I don’t care about science – it’s all sponsored by the fascist military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex, anyways! What matters to me is the shamanic healing wisdom of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin. Don’t they use açaí for, like, everything down there?

A: Actually, they mostly use it for breakfast. Sort of like we use grapefruit.