Food, food, food

Blah, blah, blah. Ok, I know I have been sucking at blogging since I started this bad boy. Graduate school is ruining/consuming my life, but that is no excuse. More to the point, I’ve been continuing my lifelong struggle with food issues over the past nine or so months, and I’ve reached the conclusion that I’m going to (try) to start using this blog to a better purpose than just documenting food & recipes.

I know, “Great, another chick food blogger who used to have an eating disorder and is gonna write about how eating two carrot sticks a day is TOTALLY better than eating one.” Yes, and no.

When I say “food issues” I mean like “for my entire life I have not been able to control my eating, and have gone through this horrible cycle of restricting and binge eating.” I also mean that in the past 1.5 years I have made significant alterations to the way I view food, nutrition and diet, but I still struggle with restriction, arbitrary food rules and poor control of my cravings almost daily.

So, here it is, my food philosophy:

1) Eat real food. Like Kath over at KathEats, I think eating food in its whole, unprocessed and natural state is the paramount rule to follow when cooking and eating. I’d rather eat sugar than Splenda, and real cheese than Cheetos any day. I also prefer to do things like bake my own bread and make my own soup, when I can (which is pretty often).

2.) Meat is murder (for the environment) [kinda] If you go back to my very first post, I talk about being a “flexitarian.” What this means is, I don’t really eat meat. Sometimes I eat fish or seafood, and if someone cooked a meat-based meal for me, or I was at a restaurant famous for a meat specialty, I wouldn’t turn up my nose at it. And sometimes I eat bacon. Whatever.

3.) Cheap and healthy Look, I am broke. I work a part-time job, and go to graduate school. On top of that, I’m not in a field where I’ll ever be making the big bucks. So for me, the primary directives when shopping, cooking and eating are to stretch my dollar and eat as healthy as possible. What this means is I will not live on ramen & mac n’ cheese just because its cheap, but I have to make due with natural peanut butter instead of almond butter, because I’m po’.

Anyway, I know this has been a long post, but I’m hoping to put the pep back in my blogging step by starting to expand on these ideas, and talk about how I apply them to my daily life. Also, blogging=accountability. Let’s do this.

The most important meal of the day

Since I was little, I have always been a huge fan of breakfast. Growing up, my dad would always make up breakfast on Sunday mornings, a time rendered otherwise unbearable by mandatory Catholic mass. His weapon of choice was pancakes, be sometimes when we had stale bread, he would make french toast. Other times, it was a huge pot of oatmeal with cinnamon and raisins, or Cream of Wheat. One of my earliest kitchen duties was toasting stacks and stacks of bread to go with those hot cereals.

Now my favorite place to go for breakfast is Golden Harvest, a tiny little classic diner in Lansing, MI. Seriously, it only seats about 30 people, and if you’re going on a weekend with more than two people, you can expect to wait quite a long time before you get seated.

This just in!

BLERG

Y’all I am sucking at this blog in its first week and I apologize. I am trying to finish the single hardest quarter of school I have ever attended. And my apartment is hideously messy and so is my kitchen and I just am eating junk out of the fridge, when I remember to eat. Don’t blame me, blame journalism school.

SO, anticipate lots of awesome posts in a week, when I am done with school. I am going to Michigan and plan on having lots of exciting culinary adventures with my boyf, not the least of which is visiting my favorite diner in the whole entire world, Golden Harvest.

abstract art and carrot soup

Abstract art, or kitchen disaster?

No, I haven’t decided to become an abstract artist in the vein of Jackson Pollack. Yes, I did try to puree a soup in my blender and had some issues with it. But, look, that is what this blog is about. I am awesome, but not perfect. Behind the jump, tales of my ineptitude, plus a pretty damn good recipe.

No-Bake Apple Crisp

Perfect for a rainy day

As I said in my farmer’s market post, the weather on Saturday was certainly dreary, and after my long morning of arduous videography, I was starving and craving comfort food. My lunch was pretty lackluster, but afterward I wanted something sweet — namely apple crisp. But I only had three apples, and no baking vessel small enough for an individual crisp. I was not going to let these minor details keep me from my crisp. The end result was what you see above, an improvised recipe for no-bake apple crisp.

The Green City Market is the sexiest thing in Lincoln Park

Jars of honey from the Chicago Honey Co-op

Yesterday, on a gray and rainy, but definitely warm day, I went to the Chicago Green City Market’s winter location at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. It was teaming with people, and while I was there I had a delicious leek, spinach, mushroom and Grueyre quiche from Floriole Bakery. I also sampled drinkable yogurt from Blue Marble Family Farms — Now, I am a plain yogurt addict but this stuff was so wild and savory tasting I just about lost my mind. Another tasting highlight was the buckwheat honey from the Chicago Honey Co-op — a little bit bitter, and tasting like molasses. Enough of my mouth flapping though, the best part of this post is the pictures.

A sammich (or 3) a day

My third sandwich of the day

I didn’t mean for it to happen,; it just did. On Friday, I ate sammiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This is not particularly unusual. Sometimes I just get this strange craving for sandwiches. During my undergrad, often when I was struck with a particularly nasty hangover, I would stagger to the front door muttering “I’m going to Quiznos does anyone want anything?” (Honey mustard chicken on wheat with approximately a half ton of pickles was my poison. This was also the only time I ate Quiznos.). The sandwich is arguably the perfect food. It’s quick to make, filling, soulful and satisfying. It uses up left over ingredients in your fridge and is something you can pick up and eat with one hand while your other is busy typing, turning a page, lighting a cigarette or petting the cat.

Flexitarianism and the dying Jewish deli

We need to talk about this. And by “this” I mean the enormous pile of animal products I scarfed down today. Normally, I am a non-meat eater, but if you put a BLT from Zingermans or a steak from Craft in front of me, I am not gonna turn up my nose and say “Pardon, but I do not eat ze animals.” (I’m not sure why my inner snobby voice is French, but let’s roll with it)

Similarly, I am not about to wlk into a Jewish deli and exit with nothing more than some ruggelach. Hence, the monstrous pile of delicious you see up there, from Kaufman Deli and Bakery in Skokie, IL. That’s the New York Special — corned beef, chopped chicken livers, red onion and horseradish on rye bread.

That’s right. Livers.