Book doesn't hold interest; realize I am not a "foodie"

I finally finished reading David Kamp’s book The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation.

Motivation for reading:
The United States of Arugula has been on my reading list for some time. When I heard it was the current selection for the on-line book club called BookClubSandwich hosted by Kim and Andi I decided it was time to read it.

Synopsis from the book's cover:
The wickedly entertaining, hunger-inducing, behind-the-scenes story of the revolution in American food that has made exotic ingredients, celebrity chefs, rarefied cooking tools, and destination restaurants familiar aspects of our everyday lives.

One day we woke up and realized that our “macaroni” had become “pasta,” that our Wonder Bread had been replaced by organic whole wheat, that sushi was fast food, and that our tomatoes were heirlooms. How did all this happen, and who made it happen? The United States of Arugula is the rollicking, revealing chronicle of how gourmet eating in America went from obscure to pervasive, thanks to the contributions of some outsized, opinionated iconoclasts who couldn’t abide the status quo.

My Thoughts:
This book was not what I expected. I thought it was going to be about “the food” behind the “American Food Revolution.” Instead it is about the chefs who created the movement: James Beard, Julia Child and Craig Claiborne and the food figures who came after them. At times, depending on whom Kamp was covering, the book was interesting and engaging. At others, I found myself bored and barely able to keep reading. This is not the fault of David Kamp. His depiction of the characters behind the American food movement is fair and comprehensive. It's just I am not a foodie (a person inordinately obsessed with restaurant going and cooking fashions (Pg. 63) and wasn't overly interested in the subject matter.

I did appreciate Kamp’s honest portrayal of the chefs he wrote about. He points out how James Beard swallowed his principles and learned to love Niblets. (Pg. 62). That Alice Waters who receives all the credit for Chez Panisse’s success was really just the salad girl and the real credit belongs to Chez Panisse’s first real chef Jeremiah Towers.

The presence of Jeremiah is what changed everything. Jeremiah really made the restaurant. (Pg.146).

I also enjoyed the discussions of food. Especially this one:
In the beginning the quality of American ingredients was pretty lousy. Andre Soltner unable to locate chanterelle mushrooms (girolles) had to order them from Germany. They arrived in a half-liter can. Wanting to only cook with fresh ingredients he didn’t do anything with girolles. Then 15 years later a farmer from Oregon came and offered him fresh girolles. Soltner didn’t understand. You’re telling me girolles just started to grow?

No we’ve always had tons and tons of girolles in Oregon. But we had no market. So we had a contract with Germany for tons of girolles. We packed them up and sent them over. The Germans, they were putting them in cans and sending them back to us. (Pg.116).

Then there was Paul Prudhomme who made blackened redfish so popular the redfish population in the Gulf of Mexico became depleted and regulatory action was required to protect the species.

Most importantly Kamp wrote about where we are today. This is my favorite paragraph of the book:

At its current juncture, the story of American food is dominated by two phenomena: the “national eating disorder.” to use a phrase coined by the food writer and UC-Berkeley journalism professor Michael Pollan, that finds many Americans obsessing about being thin while getting still fatter, lurching from one faddist diet to the next (such as the Atkins madness that demonized “carbs”), and eating too many processed foods; and the quantum leap forward in ingredient availability and culinary sophistication that is described in this book. The problem is that these two phenomena have been running on parallel tracks, with some segments of the population depending ever more on fast food, and other segments getting deeper and deeper into foodie connoisseurship and/or organic, biodynamic and “slow” foods. (Pg. 359)

Kamp offers a solution:

The trick, the task America faces, is to get these two parallel tracks to converge. For the solution to the national eating disorder lies in the advances and lessons of the American food revolution. The junk-food and diet-food people need to learn that natural and gourmet foods need not be flavorless, expensive or “elitist”; the foodie sophisticates need to lose their smugness and patronizing tone and embrace capitalist enterprise and engagement with big companies as a good thing, the most effective means of proselytizing on behalf of real, healthful foods. (Pg. 359-360)

In the end despite realizing I am not a foodie, I am glad I read the book. It influenced me to think more about my own food choices and the food choices of others. I plan on writing more about foodies, the American diet and the politics of food in the future.

My Life in France

Motivation for reading:
I added Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme's book My Life in France to my reading list after a friend recommended it. He found Julia’s story fascinating and was convinced her husband Paul worked as a spy while they were in Europe. The book is also included on the list of 50 Books Every Young Woman Should Read.

What is the book about?
The book was written by Julia Child in the last few years of her life with the assistance of her grand-nephew, writer Alex Prud'Homme. It is based on the letters Julia and her husband Paul wrote to family and friends while living in Europe most notably the letters Paul sent to his twin brother Charles. The book begins when Julia moves to France in 1948 and covers her life while emphasizing her passion for French cooking.

My thoughts:
This book is a delightful read; there is so much to learn and enjoy from Julia's story:

First, I have come to the conclusion there is not a woman out there who has not suffered from imposter syndrome at some point during their lives.

When Julia and Paul first arrive in France:

Paul strode ahead, full of anticipation, but I hung back, concerned that I didn't look chic enough, that I wouldn't be able to communicate, and that the waiters would look down their long Gallic noses at us Yankee tourists. (Pg. 16)

And:

My biggest problem was my continuing lack of worldliness. Maybe if you concentrate on the fact that you are 41 years old. I scolded my reflection; you'd remember to be more worldly. (Pg. 177)

Maybe there is hope for me yet ~ Julia was a late bloomer:
Julia married Paul Child, the love of her life, when she was 34. Upon arriving in France, she didn’t know a word of French, nothing about the country or French cooking. She was 37 when she enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu cooking school:

Upon reflection, I decided I had three main weaknesses: I was confused (evidenced by a lack of facts, an inability to coordinate my thoughts, and an inability to verbalize my ideas); I had a lack of confidence, which caused me to back down from forcefully stated positions; and I was overly emotional at the expense of careful, “scientific” thought. I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was. (Pg. 67)

Julia's success has to be attributed to her perfectionism and her uncompromising work ethic:
While working on her first book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which took her almost eight years to complete, she tested, and re-tested the recipes, sometimes dozens of times. All of this was done with no guarantee that the book would ever be published.

I had to iron out all those questions of how and why and for what reason: otherwise we'd end up with just an ordinary recipe- which was not the point of the book. I felt we should show our readers how to make everything top notch, and explain, if possible,, why things work one way and not another. There should be no compromise. (Pg, 133)

Her cooking advice ~ don’t make excuses:

I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make. When one's hostess starts in with self-deprecations such as "Oh, I don't know how to cook...," or "Poor little me...," or "This may taste awful...," it is so dreadful to have to reassure her that everything is delicious and fine, whether it is or not. Besides, such admissions only draw attention to one's shortcomings (or perceived shortcomings), and make the other person think, "Yes, you're right, this really is an awful meal!" (Pg. 71)

And have fun:

My hope was that readers would use From Julia Child's Kitchen as if it were a private cooking school. I tried to structure each recipe as a class. And the great lesson embedded in the book is that no one is born a great cook, one learns by doing. This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook- try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun! (Pg. 297)

On why she never opened a restaurant ~ she knew herself:

I had long ago decided not to go into the restaurant trade myself, because it required total commitment; furthermore, in a restaurant one is restricted to cooking what’s on the menu, and I preferred to experiment with many different dishes. (Pg. 294)

A lesson on moving on ~ giving up La Pitchoune her beloved home in France:

People seemed surprised when I told them that it wasn’t an especially difficult or emotional decision. But I have never been very sentimental. La Pitchoune was a special place, but the heart had gone out of it for me now. It was the people I shared it with, more than the physical property, that I would miss. (Pg. 300)

In closing:
Julia’s success in a male-dominated field came at a time when few American middle-class women worked out of the home. There are many business and life lessons to attain from her story, for example how Julia used her network to get Mastering the Art of French Cooking published, how she managed working with her two partners and her graduation from Le Cordon Bleu despite initially failing the final exam. In addition to her incredible work ethic, Julia was gracious and had fun. Read her book to learn how she did it.

We can't measure our own spices!

I came across a new product in my grocery store’s spice aisle called McCormick Recipe Inspirations. I was drawn to its eye-catching package which includes six pre-measured packets of McCormick dried seasonings and a step-by-step recipe to make one of six dishes. The dishes include:

Apple & Sage Pork Chops
Rosemary Roasted Chicken with Potatoes
Garlic Lime Fajitas
Quesadilla Casserole
Spanish Chicken Skillet
Shrimp & Pasta Primavera.

Each package sells for $1.99.

I must have been staring intensely because a fellow shopper commented, "I am sure the spice you're looking for is there somewhere" as he passed. But I was no longer shopping. I was thinking:

“Has it really come to this? Are we this lazy and inept we can no longer measure our own spices. "

Here are the spices included with Shrimp & Pasta Primavera:
Garlic, onion, dill weed, black pepper, and thyme.

Black Pepper! Doesn’t everyone own black pepper? And Quesadilla Casserole comes with salt. Salt and pepper sold in pre-measured plastic packages ~ what a waste.

Supposedly, the product is designed for the newbie cook who doesn’t own a large variety of seasonings. Recipe Inspirations give them the opportunity to sample a more unusual spice to see if they like it before investing in an entire container.

I have a better idea. Take Spanish Chicken Skillet which includes:
Paprika, garlic, red pepper, thyme, and black pepper.

Why doesn’t McCormick give away a free sample of one of the spices as a grocery store giveaway, include the recipe and a coupon for a future purchase and call it a day.

Scaling Back This Holiday Season

December is typically a busy month for me both at home and at work. In addition to holiday activities, I am closing my company’s books and finalizing next year’s budget. This year has been exceptionally busy; it’s my turn to host my extended family’s holiday meal. Last week, in the midst of shopping, decorating, and cleaning I realized I had three parties to attend over a two day period all of which required I bring a dish to pass. To save my sanity, I decided I had to scale back. This is what I came up with:

The neighborhood cookie exchange:
I am not going to participate this year. I don’t have time to make 5 dozen cookies, nor do I need to eat them. Plus, my husband doesn't particularly like the exchange. He can’t understand why I give away his favorite cookies only to receive ones he doesn't like.

Holiday cards:
I am not sending cards this year. This isn’t a new practice; I didn’t mail cards last year either. My thinking is if I don’t take the time to write a note, send something creative or purchase cards from a charitable organization what is the point. Hopefully, my friends and family don’t feel slighted by not receiving the token Hallmark card with just my signature on it. I love receiving their cards especially the ones that are handmade and include family photos.

Volunteer work:
I am not attending my professional organization’s mid-year board meeting. I am no longer on the board and am not sure why I feel obligated to travel across town during rush hour traffic to attend a meeting in which I most likely will be persuaded to chair another committee.

The work pot-luck:
I am bringing Frito snack mix as my dish to pass. A bag of Fritos is mixed with plain M&M’s, peanut M&M’s, peanuts, chocolate stars and chocolate peanuts. No cooking. No cleanup. No hauling of crock pots and no searching for room in the work refrigerator. This is my kind of dish.

Buying gifts for family:
Instead of spending hours searching for the perfect gift, I have asked for gift ideas from my recipient's spouses and their children. I have been surprised by their practical suggestions; slow cooker, gloves and socks. (Also, as a group my family decided to lower the spending limit for our gift exchange this year.)

Giving gifts to co-workers:
I am not going to rush out to buy a gift for my HR manager just because she gave me one. It's kind of weird; she gave only me and one other person in my department a gift. To reciprocate I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving a gift just to her; what about the other people in my department or the employees I work closely with in other departments. I've already participated in my company's gift-exchange. I am going to leave it at that.

Holiday Dinner menu:
After a failed trial run making slow-cooked wild rice, I've decided to serve Uncle Ben’s wild rice out of a box as one of my holiday meal side dishes.

Scaling back doesn’t always have to be about money, sometimes we need to step back, evaluate our situation and be realistic about what we can and can’t easily accomplish in a tight time frame.