Food Rant

Today I spent the day writing letters. I am not supposed to swim or play sax for a few days while my lungs heal. So I baked an apple pie with raisins in it, boy, did it smell amazing and taste so good too. They should bake home-made apple pies at prisons, psych wards, and rehab hospitals and I suspect people would be healed more rapidly. How many psych hospitals and prisons are located above bakeries or near apple orchards? I bet there would be better results if they were coupled together. If I were an elected official (and I'm not trying to be) these would be my most pressing issues besides peace, ecology, world hunger, and animal rights. I'd declare that apple pie is a healthy delicious food and everyone should have the chance to learn to bake one - perhaps free lessons at the local library. All libraries should have free teaching kitchens. Apple pie should be considered a valid nutritious meal, especially when made with a corn-oil crust. I keep the apple skins on for extra vitamins, flavor, color and texture. (I do the same when I make my olive oil mashed potatoes.)

I made a simple vegetarian mushroom pasta sauce yesterday and it was divine. Pasta is such a comfort food. World peace through linguini! I feel very sad about the plethora of prepackaged foods in America. We started with the TV dinner (an interesting story behind that invention) and then it became a way of life; convenience. What the heck is convenience? What is the virtue of being done with a meal as quickly as possible? Let's linger a little. Turn off the TV, the computer and the phone. Why do we treat our bodies like cars, pumping in fuel and then driving off? Our cities and towns are full of drive-through meals made by robots, and supermarkets are full of frozen foods made by other robots. It's expensive, soul-less and sad.

We need to learn some lessons from the third world where making a dish with black-eyed peas means spending the day taking the skins off each pea. My patient husband did this once! Lovingly prepare your food! I believe that you ingest the love like vitamins. Grandma's home-made cookies were full of grandma love. How many people grow up learning to bake and experience the aroma of an apple pie or a simmering pasta sauce? I was lucky in this way. I ignored bread as a kid but became an avid and committed bread baker when I fell in love with the smell of bread baking at the local Italian bakery. In fourth grade I said I wanted to invent a bread perfume! I was a health nut so I didn't want to make white bread. I made multi-grain bread and still do to this day. I am not a gourmet by any means, I am proud to be a frugal but creative and enthusiastic soul-food cook.

There was a great kids book in the 60's called Old MacDonald Had an Apartment House. I was so inspired by this book. In the book Old MacDonald poured dirt on the floor of his flat and grew his carrots indoors! I've decided to try to grow basil indoors because it is so amazing to have it fresh in pasta sauce. But I won't lay the dirt on the floor! I am concerned that my house will be too cold and dark for it to thrive in the winter, but I will try. It's often chilly in my house in the heart of winter but it is still a far cry from a frost! Sometimes I consider returning to vegetarianism for health reasons but first I will enjoy my favorite meats in moderation over the holidays; turkey, lamb, beef, and ham! Meat is a treat and a rare thing in my diet, like chocolate. But when I crave it I figure I must need it since it is so infrequent. I used to be anemic when I was a vegetarian. Now I am a robust lap-swimming, bari-sax-playing, taking-long-walks-with-my-dog, polka-dancing-in-the-living-room, energized person.

Even junk food can be made healthily. I would like to make my own olive-oil potato chips, they sell them at Job Lot and they are so good. Has anyone ever tried to make a cheese doodle? I tried to pop rice in my hot-air popcorn maker to make rice cakes. I guess I don't get out much! Every time I like something I want to be able to make it myself. I even tried to make my own tofu in college. I would like to try it again, perhaps this time find a wooden tofu mold somewhere. I absolutely crave and love fresh bean curd and eat it as it is fished out of the buckets of water at the Asian market. Supposedly tofu prevents the bad symptoms of menopause, too. I have made bagels and they are fun. Making homemade pasta is a fun thing to do during a blizzard, indoors of course. I bake through storms and heat waves! There is an old-fashioned grist mill in southern Rhode Island called Kenyon's. I went there in college on a school trip, and it was amazing to see the gigantic stones grinding whole corn into nutritious meal. Let's make Johnnycakes!! Why does appetite increase with age? For some of us it seems to. I lived on nothing when I was a kid and as an adult I eat every twenty minutes. It seems backwards to me! Get inspired and make something simple, nutritious, and delicious today!