Hunter Stewart at Lake Michigan. His last vacation before he died on Sept. 2, 2010.

Take Me for a Walk

Before my eyes open and

The sun is barely awake

Hunter quietly begs for an easy hike

Not a full out torrent of talk

Just a look that says, “Take me for a walk”

Take me for a walk before the coffee is dripped

And the emails are checked

Take me for a walk before the weeds are plucked

And the tomatoes are picked.

To him, the farm is none of that

It’s a place where his old body is young again

Where he is fast and thin, not tired and fat

Take me for a walk, he says, before summer is over

And my old hips fail to hold me up

Take me for a walk until my paws are tired

And scented sweet from earth’s green clover.

Take me for a walk

–Kimberly Lord Stewart, Hunter’s walking companion–

]]> http://eatingbetweenthelines.net/?feed=rss2&p=413 0 http://eatingbetweenthelines.net/?p=397 http://eatingbetweenthelines.net/?p=397#comments Wed, 25 Aug 2010 22:11:55 +0000 admin http://eatingbetweenthelines.net/?p=397 I admit it, I have a sweet tooth. I resist the temptation everyday. So imagine my delight when Elisa Bosley, food editor of Delicious Living magazine assigned me a story to develop some healthy desserts. If ever I had an excuse to indulge this was it. I had visions of sugarplums dancing in my head (what are sugarplums?), then the other sweet shoe fell. The recipes had to use alternative sweeteners like stevia, sugar alcohols, rice bran syrup. I swept the sugarplums from my brain and sequestered myself in the kitchen for a week. I tested and retested dozens of recipes using dozens of sweeteners. It was a tough assignment (no really, it was), with a really high failure rate. My trash bin was filled with blobs of sunken cake batter, cookies hard as dog biscuits and custards that weeped more than I did at the Eat, Pray, Love movie last week. Now I understand why sugar is so popular. It not only tastes good, but it also gives recipes a strong scaffolding to hold up the fragile ingredients. My kitchen chemistry experiment unveiled five recipes that actually worked and will satisfy a sweet tooth but won’t spike your blood sugar. Sweet…yes? Link here to the five recipes. If you have your own sweet nothing recipes, I would love to post them on the site.

I guarantee the egg recalls with continue. FDA laws changed in July, requiring egg producers to refrigerate eggs, test the egg barns and eggs more frequently and most importantly, report contamination which will lead to mandatory recalls when salmonella turns up in tests.

So what can you do to protect yourself? First, don’t remove your eggs from the carton and place them in those little plastic egg holder in the refrigerator. The number on the side of the carton are your only hope of tracing those eggs back to the farm. Packing dates are expressed in a Julien Calendar number, which assigns a number to the day of the year the eggs were packed. Also don’t wash eggs, they have a tasteless protective mineral oil coating. Refrigerate them right away, within two hours any bacteria in the egg will proliferate. Lastly, if you get sick, and you suspect it’s from egg, see a doctor so your illness gets reported to health authorities.
For more on egg safety, read Chapter 4, Hard Boiled Facts about Egg Safety, Eating Between the Lines.

Kid's Farmer's Market, Fairview Elementary, Denver

Summer is nearly over and that means back to school. Many parents tell me summer means their kids eat healthier than during the school year and the three warm months are an opportunity to teach about where their foods comes from. This winter,  use the dinner table as life’s chalkboard. Teach kids about the history of the food on their plate. What region of the country or the world does it come from? Let your children play with their food by practicing food presentation just like the Top Chefs in TV. Move your herbs from outside to the kitchen sill. And by all means, let them cook. It might take a little longer than you’d like, and a few messes will naturally land on the floor, but they will gain a life-long skill. Read on to learn more about what a group of Denver 5th graders learned about their food, or should I say, read on to learn what they taught me. If you want to develop a garden, and culinary nutrition program for your kids school, contact www.dug.org for some tips.

This month UC Davis published a study showing that 69% of the oil tested was inferior. Brands like Bertolli, Filippo Berio, Carapelli, Star, Colavita, Mezzetta, Pompeian, Rachael Ray, Mazola, and Safeway Select, and retailers like Bristol Farms, Gelson’s Markets, Vons/Pavilions, Ralphs, Stater Brothers, Albertson’s Market, Target, WalMart, KMart, and Nob Hill Foods are named in the suit. The North American Olive Oil Assoc. and Int’l. Olive Oil Assoc. are challenging the suit.

The outcome will take time, maybe years, to resolve. In the meantime, remember the rules in my book. Good EVOO should have a kick in the back of your throat. Old oil smells like Play-dough and has a flat taste. When shopping remember the acronym PAGE: Price: Olive oil cost more than canola oil and prices are expected to rise by 20% this year. Age: EVOO is highly perishable, it lasts for 18 months, so look for a bottling date. Geography: Higher quality oil is from single regions, not from multiple countries. Extra-Virgin: Pure olive oil is refined oil with fewer health properties than EVOO.

The House of Pies, Oden MI

Great Lakes! It’s pie season in the mitten state. We are on the road this week, exploring this great state. I can tell we are getting close to Traverse City, the cherry tree town. I stopped in the The House of Pie in Oden, MI and met a mother and daughter pie baking team. The shop is full of all manner of pies, wild blueberry, cherry and rhubarb, and whole other shelf of silky custard pies banana, butterscotch, coconut, chocolate, lemon sweet potato and pumpkin. Don’t even get me started on the pecan and peanut butter. We took a half a cherry and half a blackberry, raspberry for the road. Pie for breakfast, mmm.

Cherry Pitter

Unfortunately the pie ladies don’t mail order pies, they tell me the post office isn’t too kind to their crumbly crust. I’ll have to make my own. Luckily, my Aunt B. has this cherry pitter, circa 1900ish. It spits out the pits on one side of the contraption and the cherry meat out the other. Just one of the many wonders of the industrial revolution that took the pits out of daily life for the Michigan farmer’s wife at the turn of the last century.

Since living here, I’ve learned that mint has a lot of purposes. Remember the scene in the Big Fat Greek Wedding when the father of the bride uses the blue spray for just about everything, well mint is a lot like nature’s Windex. It can cure all manner of ailments from bad breath to bee stings (My husband found out the latter after a nasty entanglement with a mean wasp). But my all time favorite use for a handful of fresh mint is a mojito.

This year the Crosby Mint Farm, the longest family run mint farm in continuous production, introduced a fresh, sweet, minty mojito mixer. It’s made by a mint farming family living on a small farm that competes with big corporate mint farms. The mix hasn’t a drop of high fructose corn syrup and it’s made from real mint. Not many other products can make all those claims–even spearmint gum isn’t always made from real mint these days.

Add a jigger of rum, a splash of sparkling water and a muddle of mint and you have a cool summer drink fit for Fidel Castro himself. It’s fitting that the mojito was a favorite drink of Michigan author Ernest Hemingway. His favorite bar to imbibe was La Bodeguita del medio. To this day his handwriting on the bar wall reads, “Mi mojito en la Bodeguita” (My mojito at the Bodeguita). To order your own bottle of the Crosby’s Mojito mix (better order two), with their dog Mojita on the label, click here and thank me later.

First, understand that I am so glad that someone figured out how to bottle kombucha into a pleasing, consumer friendly form. Let’s face it, kombucha fermentation is bizarre and takes a strong stomach to even touch, much less drink. I mean just look at that fungus…it’s humongous.

Anyway, Lohan was a strong supporter of GT’s Organic Raw Kombucha, so much so that even  GT Dave, the founder of Kombucha said: “We are thrilled to be a part of Lindsay’s new found healthy lifestyle. But we’re not surprised she was photographed carrying our product. She’s actually been drinking Kombucha for over a year… great to see that she’s taking her health seriously.”

Much to Lohan’s surprise, Kombucha fermentation is perhaps a little too “healthy” for the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Bureau to turn a blind eye.  Is that enough to link the drink to jail time?

It’s hard to know how much she drank. Papparazzi pics frequently show Lohan with a bottle of GT Kambucha in her hand.  Two drinks raise blood alcohol levels by .o5 percent. At that rate, Lohan would have to drink a lot of Kambucha to set off the SCRAM bracelet.

Does this mean the end of Kombucha products? GT Dave, owner of the company told Mind Body Green that he expects the products back on the shelves in weeks, not months. I suspect that raw Kombucha may a thing of the past unless GT Dave figures out how to stop the fermentation process. If nothing else, kombucha is no longer just a strange fungus growing in a jar,  it’s the stuff of Hollywood dreams and one big tragedy.

This is one study I wish I had volunteered to participate. After consuming a cup of cocoa twice daily, made from Mars Cocoapro® process (high in flavanols), the study participants’ blood vessels were in better health and were able to relax more easily than those who drank a low-flavanol cocoa. The high-flavanol cocoa also reduced systolic blood pressure by 47% as compared to low flavanol cocoa. To order the type of cocoa used in the study, go to https://cirkuhealth.com.

Here is a Heart Healthy Cocoa that is sure to keep the doctor away. The recipe works as well with milk or almond milk. The cayenne is secret from the ancient Aztecs, who liked dark rich spicy cocoa. For a low-calorie version, use water in place of the milk. If you prefer a cold beverage, blend in a blender with 2 cups ice.

INGREDIENTS:

4 ounces 74% cacao bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons natural dark cocoa
1 tsp. granulated sugar
Few grains of salt
Dash of cayenne (optional)
1 cup milk, or almond milk or water
1 tsp. vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

In bowl of food processor fitted with steel blade, or a blender combine both chocolate and cocoa, sugar, salt and cayenne. Cover and process at high speed just until chocolate is finely ground.
In a heavy saucepan or microwave safe container, heat until steamy but not boiling. Add chocolate mixture. Heat over medium-low heat (50% power in microwave) for another 2-4 minutes, stirring often. The cocoa should come back up to a low simmer, the bubbles will form along the sides of the pan or microwave container. Allow to cook for another 30 seconds to thicken. Add vanilla and serve.
Makes 4 small servings or two mugs.