Advent Meditation

Isaiah 25

6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
...
8 He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
9 It will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

Reading List for December 6-17

1. "The Largest Black Market Fish Bust Ever?" from Forbes - in the Chesapeake Bay!

2. "Go Ahead and Think (Repeatedly) about Eating that Food You're Craving" from WSJ

“A paper just published in Science suggests that taking several minutes to actively contemplate eating our beloved macarons — one after the other — may actually make us want them less.”

3. Soda Taxes
- "Soda Taxes May Raise Money, Don't Produce Huge Weight Loss" from WSJ
- " 'Save the Children' Breaks with Soda Tax Effort" from NYTimes

4. Food in culture/politics
- "How did junk food & obesity become a red state/blue state debate?" by Marion Nestle on Civil Eats blog
- "Junking Junk Food" from NYTimes
- "Food is not a partisan issue - or one just about culture" from Grist.org

5. Just for fun: "Sprinkle Guns, Egg Washers, and Other Food Contraptions" from The Atlantic
MIT students take on the task of inventing gadgets and gizmos for the modern kitchen.

Happy reading, and have a great weekend!

Southern Comfort

After several evenings in a row of us being out or having people over, Topher suggested that we have a date night at home on Tuesday. Isn't he great? Knowing that his Georgia girl likes Southern cooking, he made a feast of comfort foods.

What We Ate:

• baked ham in a mustard-bourbon-brown sugar-ginger glaze - incredibly delicious! He used an Alton Brown recipe (this was a dress rehearsal for Christmas dinner, when both sets of parents will be in town and eating at our house!)
• collard greens
• baked macaroni & cheese
• homemade biscuits - we used the leftovers to make ham biscuits for breakfast the next morning
• Atlas Peak Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon - a true Cab! very oaky & dry, but with a good finish

After dinner, we watched "The Interpreter" (2005) starring Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn, and Katherine Keener. Kidman plays a UN interpreter who accidentally overhears a conversation about a plot to assassinate a corrupt African leader while he's delivering a speech to the UN General Assembly later that week. Penn plays the US Secret Service agent assigned to first investigate, and then protect her.

Both Topher & I had seen it before, but I like it and wanted to see it again. Sure, there are a few holes in the plot, and some parts are a little predictable; but overall I think it's an entertaining, not-too-violent political thriller - an African conflict film set on the floor of the UN.

My Winter "To Dine" List

I did okay on my fall "to dine" list: we made it two of the four restaurants on the list - A Chef's Kitchen in Williamsburg, VA, and Union Square Cafe in Manhattan.

Here's where I'd like to eat this winter:

• I still haven't made it to the Boot (not for lack of trying!), so it stays on the list.
• Topher & I still haven't made it to One Fish Two Fish either (my fault on that one).
• I'll add Blue Talon Bistro and Fat Canary, both in Williamsburg. (I'm hoping for another weekend getaway!)
• Terrapin - New American cuisine near the Virginia Beach oceanfront (a recommendation from Lisa Has Chickens via her aunt, who's a good friend of mine)

Let's see how well we do this quarter!

Catching Up

My apologies: I haven't blogged in, oh, 10 days or so. I'm not sure where all my time went ... maybe into Christmas shopping, Christmas parties, Christmas concert rehearsals, and addressing Christmas cards? Every year I seem to blink and miss the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas!

What we've been eating
Topher has been making variations of "cream of (insert vegetable here) soup." A few weeks ago he made a creamy mushroom soup; on a chilly night last week we had grilled cheese sandwiches with Bobby Flay's roasted tomato soup (my favorite so far!); and for dinner with friends this past weekend he made a crème d'asperges (cream of asparagus) soup to go with coq au vin and risotto. Yum!

What we've been drinking
- Buena Vista Ramal Vineyard Syrah (over a bowl of chili, for dinner with friends)
- Shafer Napa Valley Merlot (at Press 626 for Topher's birthday, courtesy of our dear friend Jen)
- lots of green tea (from Yogi and Bigelow) - I haven't cut out coffee entirely, but on two out of three mornings I'm drinking green tea instead. And even if I don't drink it for breakfast, I still usually have 2-3 cups of tea per day; so I guess the green tea experiment has been a success!

What I've been reading
- Wendell Berry's Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food
- Marion Nestle's blog "Food Politics"
- "Divided We Eat: What food says about class in America" from Newsweek

Hope you're doing well and enjoying this holiday season!

Reading List for Nov 29 - Dec 3

1. Food Safety Bill (aka the Food Safety Modernization Act)
- Michael Pollan & Eric Schlosser expressed their support for the bill on Monday: "A Stale Food Fight" from NYTimes
- The Senate passed the bill on Tuesday night: "Senate Passes Overhaul of Food Safety Regulations" from NYTimes
- But the bill might be held up in the House due to a technical error by the Senate: "House May Block Food Safety Bill over Senate Error" from Roll Call
- Final passage of the bill is still uncertain: "Fingers Crossed When It Comes to Food Safety" by Marion Nestle in The Atlantic

2. Child Nutrition Bill (aka the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act)
- Mark Bittman blogged on Tuesday about ways to improve the bill: "Want Healthy Kids? Cut Soda, Not Food Stamps"
- On Thursday the House passed the bill (approved by the Senate in August): "Congress Approves Child Nutrition Bill" from NYTimes

3. Vitamin D (aka the "sunshine vitamin")
- "New vitamin D recommendations" from Washington Post's The Checkup blog
- "Extra Vitamin D and Calcium Aren’t Needed, Report Says" from NYTimes

4. "Overeating, Like Drug Use, Rewards and Alters Brain" from NPR

Researchers from Yale University have "found that, at least in animals, sweet or fatty foods can act a lot like a drug in the brain, ... And there's growing evidence that eating too much of these foods can cause long-term changes in the brain circuits that control eating behavior. ... That doesn't necessarily mean food is addictive the way cocaine is, ... [but] there is growing evidence that eating a lot of certain foods early in life can alter your brain the way drugs do."

5. "The new front in the culture wars: food" from Washington Post

"… [M]any in this country who have access to good food and can afford it simply don't think it's important. To them, food has become a front in America's culture wars, and the crusade against fast and processed food is an obsession of 'elites,' not 'real Americans.' "

"... The Golden Arches long ago replaced Mom's apple pie as a symbol of the all-American meal. Thus, 'Don't let them take away your Big Mac!' becomes a rallying cry."

"… For the good-food revolution to have a chance, people have to make finding and preparing fresh food a priority at a time when everything about our modern food system urges us not to bother. And that won't happen if people think healthy food is an elitist plot to take away their McRib."

Happy reading, and have a great weekend!

A Birthday Dinner for a Wonderful Husband

Today is my husband Topher's birthday (yay!), and last night we celebrated with our friends Randy & Kim at Stove restaurant in Portsmouth.

One thing I like about their menu: most of their dishes come in both small and large portion sizes. So, if you can't decide between two dishes, you can order one as an appetizer and one as your entrée. Which is exactly what Topher and I did last night.

What We Ate:

• artisan cheese plate: Syd's Neo-Pimento, Farmstead Fresh goat cheese (Virginia), Gorgonzola (Italy), and Bellavitano Black Pepper served with bread & house relish
• my appetizer: the "Stove-o-tarian," a mix of local, in-season vegetables including Brussels sprouts and several different squashes, topped with a fried onion ring
• Topher's appetizer: "visiting greens" salad - "different lettuces from the farms with our visiting cheese tossed with a mustard vinaigrette"
• my entrée: rockfish topped with cabbage and rutabagas - I love rockfish, but I mainly ordered this dish for the rutabagas, and they didn't disappoint
• Topher's entrée: Hereford strip steak topped with brie and "lardo," served with Brussels sprouts and smoked tomatoes
• for dessert: country apple tart - the crust on this was amazing: so light, flaky, and buttery!
• to drink: Trinitas Old Vine Petite Sirah

Randy & Kim have been to Stove at least half a dozen times, and Randy always orders the "Pork-o-rama" - "local darden farm’s pork sausage, my smoochie bear ham & black pig pork belly on visiting potato sauté with cured lardo and stove-b-que sauce."

Well, last night after our meal, chef Syd Meers came out and sat & talked with us for a while, and he ended up giving Randy and Topher the recipe for his "stove-b-que" sauce. It must have 2 dozen ingredients in it! Fresh herbs & spices, peppers, bacon, ketchup, molasses, apple cider vinegar - the list just went on and on. I know the guys are going to want to try to make it sometime, but grocery shopping for all the ingredients is going to be a genuine scavenger hunt.