How Julia Child Became the Story of Red Algae

More from her legend than having watched her on TV, I have respected greatly Julia Child. My family was in the "Today Show" side of early morning shows, so I never saw her clips on "Good Morning America."

Sadly, my first real glimpse of Julia Child's life was in the movie Julia & Julia. I say sadly, only because it seems odd to become familiar with such a culinary giant third hand. However, with all the inclement weather we have been experiencing thus far during this peculiar winter, I was finally able to settle down with her book My Life in France.

I adore My Life in France! If given the chance, I would love to travel to all the locations she mentioned in the books. More than her sentimental descriptions of Paris and the French country side, I adored her attitude towards cooking. Though, once again, I have returned the book to the library and cannot quote the correct page, I remember very clearly she wrote "I detest cooks who apologize for their food." In a nutshell, in cooking, as in most things, we are going to make mistakes. Do the best you can to correct them, and if nothing can be done, accept it for what it is. Use the wisdom from that situation to learn how to do things better in the future.

And, of course, I was enchanted by the food and recipes mentioned in the book! Eventually, I will pick up a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, however, I don't feel that I have the time to devote to it while school is in session. Cooking from Child's masterpiece will probably be a summer project. I'm particularly looking forward to cooking her different sauces and fish dishes. In the meantime, I've been experimenting with quiches and tarts.

It should be noted, that very rarely do I ever cook a recipe as written. In fact, I'm hard pressed to think of a recipe that I have not tinkered with. One of my most frequent changes is using whole wheat or whole grain flour. It does have a different consistency, and when baked can denser than traditional flour.

I began with quiches. I used the this recipe for a whole wheat crust. I must say, this is my favorite new recipe. It was easy to make, came out beautifully, and required minimal labor. I opted for an asparagus quiche. I adapted this Roquefort and Asparagus quiche recipe. Some years ago, I had a fantastic asparagus and goat cheese omelet for brunch at a hotel while traveling. Using the recipe as a guide, I substituted extra egg and goat cheese for the Roquefort and cream cheese. All in all, I was pleased. In fact, this week, I'm making the same dish, but adding some pumpkin, herbs, and tart plain Greek yogurt.

After my success with the quiche, I happen to run into this awesome recipe for a Berry Cream Tart with Coco Olive Oil Crust by the Post Punk Kitchen. Vegan baking fascinates me. I'm more of a cook than a baker. Bakers are scientific in their measurements and so much of the success of the recipe comes down to a deep understanding of the underlying chemistry of a dish. To be able to bake without using any animal products is quite a feat.

Isa Chandra is quite clever. In order to mimic the effects of cold butter in the recipe, she uses semi-frozen olive oil. Semi-frozen olive oil! It's such a simple solution, but not an obvious one. Let me add, that both recipes for tart/pie/quiche crust that have used olive oil have worked beautifully with whole grain pastry flour. Whereas, recipes that use cold butter often turn out so dense and unyielding they could be used as hockey pucks or door stops.

One of the thickening agents that Chandra used was agar agar. I'm familiar with agar from high school biology class. I remember that it was a gelatin substance that grew bacteria. Obviously, it couldn't be pure gelatin, as gelatin is made from bone marrow. I decided that it must be a type of fruit pectin. So after looking at Ellwood Thompson, a fantastic local store, I wound up in Whole Foods. After not seeing in the baking aisle, I finally asked the most helpful clerk there. He proceeded to the food guide, then to the international aisle, where he handed me seaweed flakes! Seaweed flakes! For me, this recipe just became all that much cooler.

After some investigation, I found out that agar agar was not exactly seaweed- in fact, it's red algae. It's often used as a texturizer and thickening agent in different cuisine. Best of all, no seaweed taste.

Though the filling did not have the intense berry flavor I was hoping for, I think they were a success. Thanks, Julia Child, for leading me to toy with tarts and seaweed!

Defending Food

Being somewhat obscure myself, it's very odd that I ever read anything culturally relevant while it's still relevant. If a book appears on The New York Times list of best books, then I probably won't get around to reading it until everyone has long since forgotten about it. This year, I've been a smidge more current in my reading selections.

There are some book that you read for entertainment; then there are others that you read that change how you see things. Of all the different book I've read over the past year, The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Easter's Manifesto by Miachel Pollan have really stuck with me. Food is a central part of any one's life and almost every culture. Can you think of a major event where food did not somehow play a part? Neither can I. However, not all food is equal.

The Omnivore's Dilemma primarily looks at where our food comes from. Very cleverly, Pollan follows four meals from start to finish: a fast food meal, an organic meal from Whole Foods, a meal produced at a family-owned farm, and a meal where he grew or collected all of the ingredients. With the fast food meal, Pollan starts by buying a calf and following it as it leaves the farm and goes to the processing plant. Of note to me, is the particular effect of eating corn on cattle. Cows are grazers that are meant to eat different grasses. Corn is often toxic for them. Since most cows now, through a variety of methods, grow at such a rapid rate, they are often butchered before the harmful effects of corn would require that they be put down. Pollan recommends that you buy grass fed organic beef that clearly states on the label that no hormones were used on the cows. Though I've eaten a total number of 3 hamburgers since reading this book, I think I'm more apt to just cut beef out of my diet. Why? Well, one, grass fed organic beef is often out of my price range. Second, I think we rely too much on animal based proteins in our diet.

Since the fast food meal came with fries, Pollan discusses the potato market. As I have already returned both copies of these books to the library, I won't be able to quote exact statistics or cite the correct page number. However, I found it really interesting on the strength of the pesticides used buy potato farms. According to The Omnivore's Dilemma, the pesticides are so strong that farms will not go out into the fields for days after spraying. Though the potatoes are harvested weeks later when the pesticides have had time to work their way out of the plant, it's still shocking to me. The pesticides might not infiltrate the actual potatoes, but they do go into the ecosystem. Who knows the long term effects these chemicals may have. Needless to day, I am now a big fan of buying organic potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yams. On average, organic potatoes in my area cost $0.30 to $0.50 more a pound. This I can do.

Though the fast food meal section is a bit scary, the other three sections are just as interesting. Being the uberdork that I am, I was really happy to find that Polyface Farms is within just a few hours of where I live and that, through a local collective, it makes deliveries to different places in my areas. At Polyface Farms, they practice more traditional farming without the use of pesticides or the more harmful practices listed in the fast food section. I haven't been able to make it to the different locations where Polyface Farms does deliveries in order to purchase some of their eggs yet, but I'm hoping that I can in the near future.

In Defense of Food centers around three principals: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants." This would seem to most to be common sense. Though that being said, it is not often practiced in modern western diets. Here, Pollan focuses on food verses edible products. Edible products are food stuffs that are highly processed that contain more chemical ingredients than actual food ingredients (like flour or water). Arguably, most of what you find in super markets would be considered to be edible products instead of food.

One of the proponents of this book is that consuming these edible products in large amounts and/or in place of actual food had greatly contributed to the wide spread phenomenon of Western Diseases. Western diseases, in this case, are considered to be type II diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and high cholesterol. Pollan discuss numerous studies that show when populations consume traditional diets (of whatever variety) that eat real food, the incidence of western diseases is low. When these populations adapt a modern western diet that focus on edible products, the rate of western diseases sky rocket. Basically, the edible products reek havoc on our systems.

Type II diabetes runs in my family, so this particular topic hit home with me. Managing diabetes is tricky. Everything has to be balanced- from the different types of carbs you eat to the exact amount of protein you should have in a meal- 3 ounces, about the size of a deck of cards. Not to mention, depending on the severity, you have to eat a certain times in order to keep your blood sugar from spiking or dipping too low. They know that poor diet and lack of physical activities over time can lead to the onset of diabetes. Processed foods normally have much higher rates of refined carbs and sugar that your body metabolizes quickly, leading to spikes in insulin. Changing your diet to revolve around real food- like fruits, veggies, and whole grains- just seems to be an obvious choice.... in my humble opinion.

All this being said, now that I have read these books, just what exactly am I doing differently? I've already mention virtually cutting out beef from my diet and buying organic potatoes. Also, based on the discussion of soy products In Defense of Food, I'm reading the labels to see how many ingredients there are to see how closely it follows the original process. For example, Lite Soy Milk (or at least the brand I have gotten recently) takes soy milk powder and mixes it with water and cane sugar to cut down on 30 calories per serving. Regular Soy Milk has much fewer ingredients and more closely resembles the traditional process of breaking down soy into tofu.

Though I would not currently call myself a vegetarian, I am trying to plan my meals around complete veg table proteins. I'm hoping to eat mostly fruits, veggies, legumes, and whole grains, while eating less processed foods. While grocery shopping I'm going to really look at the ingredient labels. When the chemical additives out number the actual food ingredients, then I'm going to put it back on the shelf. For now, I think that's enough.

(Note: Both pictures came from Amazon.com. I haven't figured out how to put the source under the picture yet.)