RomCom without a Recipe

This evening, after a wonderful pizza that Pam made without a recipe (and a side of applesauce that I had made without a recipe), we watched the delightful film Today's Special. It is a romantic comedy that does not follow the usual recipe (spoiler: there is no "boy loses girl" scene), about a chef who learns how not to follow recipes.

It is a most enjoyable food movie and romance and growing up. Watch it just because. And if you have Netflix, it is available streaming.

To Market To Market

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig,
Home again, home again, dancing a jig;
To market, to market, to buy a fat hog;
Home again, home again, jiggety-jog;
To market, to market, to buy a plum bun,
Home again, home again, market is done.


So wrote Mother Goose, and generations have had this jingle stuck in their heads. So when Rick Sebak and his team from WQED-Pittsburgh decided to make a paean to public markets throughout the United States, they chose the opening line as both their title and a bit of a quest.


I watch a lot of films about the geography of food and teach many aspects of it in my classes. The films that show what is wrong -- drastically wrong, criminally wrong -- with our food systems are important and sometimes even enjoyable. This film is different and quite important, as it leads by example. 


To Market To Market to Buy a Fat Pig is a pure celebration of that which is most right about food in the United States. (See Netflix listing -- available in streaming format.) The film explores farmers' markets in nine of these United States. The markets differ in all the ways that markets vary. Some are recent inventions while others have enjoyed a century of continuous operation. Some attract dozens of shoppers; others thousands. Some operate in fixed buildings every day of the week; others are set up in tents on city streets. Some are supplied only by local, organic farms; some include seafood; some include a lot of food pre-packaged or prepared on the premises.


In our own community, a small group of residents have worked over the past years to build and sustain Bridgewater Farmers Market. Results have been a robust mix of successes and difficult lessons, but the market seems close to a critical mass of both vendors and shoppers. As the film makes clear, no single model is appropriate to every community, and Bridgewater continues to work toward a model that will serve this community well.

Farmers markets are about getting closer to one's food, those who produce it, and others who happen to care. In a good market, we can find out more about that food and the conditions under which it is grown, fed, or caught. Several markets in the film offer seafood, as did our Bridgewater market for a few weeks this summer. Markets also encourage cooking -- the actual preparation of food from ingredients -- which we find making a bit of a comeback as the economy tightens and people look for ways to improve their lives while saving money.


I am proud to be playing a small part in the cultivation of a farmers' market in my own town, and equally proud that a young person who once studied coffee with me is now well-known as the manager of one of the most successful markets in the Boston area, the Union Square Farmers Market in Somerville.


Educators who wish to show this video to their classes may find my viewing companion (Word format) useful. Feel free to adapt to your own class, and please notify me if you do so.

Sandwiches that You Will Like

Taking its name from an old sandwich shop slogan, this documentary visits sandwich shops all over the country to find out what is unique and special in America's hometowns. From Beef on Weck in Buffalo, New York; to the Philadelphia Cheesesteak; and the Maid Rite in Marshalltown, Iowa; and many others to the north, south, east and west, we found out all about why some folks take special pride in their hometown flavors. We'd heard of Elvis Presley's favorite sandwich before, grilled banana and peanut butter with bacon, but we watched one being prepared at Peanut Butter and Company in New York City, and now have a true hankerin' to try one. Next time we can get some good bacon it will be put to good use! This is a fun movie to watch, but maybe not so much for vegetarians. With a few exceptions, "a lot of beef" is how I can best sum up the sandwiches featured in this film. The companion website does not include any of the recipes featured in the movie, but it offers an opportunity to purchase a cookbook, and provided one "teaser" recipe (not found in the film) and so I prepared the "Spiedie" a favorite of locals in Binghamton, New York.

The first thing one must be aware of is that this dish requires a minimum of 24 hours to marinate, so preparation must begin at least one day in advance.

I took a few liberties with the marinade, using red wine vinegar instead of cider vinegar, since we had the former, but not the latter, and I also added tomatillos from our garden, just because I had so many of them. (And, I will take this opportunity to thank my friend Rob for providing me with the tomatillo seedlings from which James has also made a tasty salsa (you should post that, honey) ). I also used fresh basil and mint because we had those in our garden as well. Otherwise, I used the ingredients as listed. I also deviated from the recipe by not putting the meat on skewers, and simply cooked them on our indespensible cast iron griddle. These were served on nice soft hogie rolls with a side of organic mashed potatoes. Delicious.

Pressure Cooker Education

We love to cook, but only as amateurs! A chef is not simply someone who cooks really well; it is a seriously challenging profession, preparation for which is arduous. From various documentaries, I have noticed the great attention paid to planning, organizing, and economizing, with even more attention to training. Culinary students practice cutting, slicing, paring until most regular people would be bored crazy!

As part of our quest to see all things foodie, we were drawn to Pressure Cooker, a film about something even more important to us: education. The film traces a year in the life of the demanding and extraordinary culinary-arts teacher Wilma Stephenson and of the students who rise to the constant challenges she presents. The stakes could not be higher for these Philadelphia high school students: a year-end culinary contest can spell the difference between no college at all and a full ride to some of the best cooking schools on the planet.

Viewers learn quickly that Stephenson pushes her students very hard, brooking no nonsense, laziness, or disrespect. She seems to view success in her class as a matter of life and death, and given the retreat of support networks from American inner cities, that view is well-founded. The students in the middle and end of the year number far fewer than those the viewer sees on opening day. The demands are unrelenting, but so is the love. Better than many films of this kind, Pressure Cooker reveals various dimensions of the lives of the students involved, some of whom do simultaneously pursue excellence in other areas, scholastic, artistic, and athletic.

Throughout the film, students cut an extraordinary number of potatoes into little football shapes and store them  in water so that they will have uniform pieces with which to cook. This combined with many scenes of dicing and sharpening to reinforce our understanding that culinary education has at its foundation the mastery of skills that culinary students think they have already mastered. It is in this context that I was profoundly moved when a contest judge exclaimed that the pieces of a student's diced vegetables looked "like little jewels."

Rote mastery of the basics is not all that is going on, of course; it is the foundation. The teachers (mostly Stephenson but also some of the judges) exude passion for food and a balance of compassion and high expectations for the students. Viewers can almost taste the results!

Culinary students with
good coffee.
Click to enlarge.

What is shown on screen is compelling enough, but we know that much more is going on in the hours that are not shown. We know that the pots and pans and knives and spoons the students use -- much less the cans and bottles and fresh vegetables -- do not appear on their own, and that dedicated teachers all too often use their own time -- and often their own funds -- to make sure classrooms are equipped. This is one of the challenges of teaching any subject, but must be all the more pressing in culinary education.

Pam and I got a brief glimpse of this world a few years ago when we did some coffee education for the culinary students of Bob Buccino at Nantucket High School. Mr. Buccino recognizes that as difficult as it is for non-millionaire families to live on the beautiful island now, it will only be more difficult in the future, and educating students for professional positions in the island's incredible number of high-end restaurants is a real key to Nantucket's social and economic development. Our own small contribution to his work with students was to help them understand the value of pairing good coffee with the good food -- a lesson that had not yet been learned at most island establishments we have visited (even the coffee shops!).

At this point, I have to have a healthy serving of crow, as my only writing about Rachael Ray has been an unfortunate incident with Dunkin' Donuts I describe on my Coffee Hell page. Without backing off from that particular rant, I have to say that she has more than redeemed herself with her reaction to the Wilma Stephenson story. Recognizing the tremendous successes that Stephenson and her students had achieved with a modest investment in equipment and supplies, she invested very heavily in both, and also in the individual students. At a time when politicians across the so-called political spectrum are willing to slash investments in education, Rachael Ray deserves a lot of credit for championing this teacher and her students.

At one point in the film, Wilma Stephenson admonishes a student to improve the presentation of a dish, with an upscale restaurant in mind. By the time I was in high school, I had probably been in only one restaurant that even had upscale ambitions, and none that would really qualify as the kind of place these students are preparing for. It occurred to me that the experiences of Stephenson's students with fine dining would be even more limited. For that reason, it is all the more helpful that Ray invested not only in a glorious new kitchen for the classroom, but also in a "bistro" that now provides an upscale restaurant experience for the students. Alas! I would love to have this kind of immersion in coffee education on my own campus.

The closing credits of the film mention two important web sites. The Pressure Cooker page on Take Part: Inspiration to Action puts the culinary program in the context of other education projects. The CCAP web site provides details about culinary competitions, scholarships, and programs in Philadelphia and other cities.

FoodMatters

This documentary on nutrition featured quite a lot of anecdotes about people who were cured of diseases, from cancer to depression, by taking the right vitamins and eating the right foods. While I believe some of what I heard in the film (e.g. doctors get very little education in nutrition, or that pharmeceutical companies are driving the health care industry, and that most Americans don't eat well) most of this I took with a grain of salt (actually, more like a pillar). There were plenty of stories by alternative health care practicioners about patients they'd cured, but we never saw any testimonials from those who had been cured. And while I am aware that cooking foods removes some of the nutrients, is it really true that cooking them makes them "toxic"? The clincher was at the end of the credits when a very long disclaimer flew by, the gist of which, from the glimpse I got of it, was that the filmmakers were not responsible if any of the viewers decided not to seek medical treatment based on what they saw in the movie. This, ironically, gave the feel of watching an ad for a prescription medication.

Food and Life

Last night we watched the first of a three-part PBS series called The Meaning of Food. The rich cultural and ritual uses of food in the United States were highlighted in this episode entitled "Food and Life". Life is celebrated in an Italian wedding feast, and a Greek restaurteur who cooks to honor his deceased wife. Preparing food for religious purposes was explored through the Muslim celebration of Ramadan; a cookbook originally written from recipes passed by word-of-mouth by prisoners at Auschwitz; and a former Texas inmate who found his Christian calling through preparation of the last meals of death row inmates. I am looking forward to seeing the next to parts of this series.

The Adventures of Food Boy - the movie

Begin with the basic premise found in the classic '80s movie Teen Wolf , throw in a couple of Animal House allusions, add peanut butter, pastrami, and mix well. The result?

The Adventures of Food Boy

Although not entirely orginal, this film about a lad who discovers that he has the ability to conjure up food from his hands, does have some rather funny moments, and a few surprises. Lucas Gabreel, plays Ezra (a.k.a. Food Boy) who is baffled by the lunch meat that flys from his hands during his bid to become Junior class president. He learns from his grandmother that he has inherited a "gift" and he must not only learn to control it, but to use it for good - not evil. Ezra, who thought his grandmother was just an old lady sitting around waiting to die, is chagrined to find himself under her tutelage. As well he should be! He also discovers there is more to life than getting into the Ivy League. Even my teenage daughter admitted to liking this one.

The Future of Food-The movie

Deborah Koons' documentary about the loss of diversity in food, really tells the story of food's past, present and future. Viewers learn why the potato famine hit Ireland so severely, but not Peru, which grew the same variety of potato, but also many others; and how the Supreme Court's decision to allow genes to be patented has had a tremendous, negative effect on the small farmers. Monsanto comes off as the evil corporate agribusiness, as well it should. Having infiltrated the federal government at the cabinet level with former executives in the positions of Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Secretary of Agriculture, Monsanto has put several small farmers out of business by discovering their own patented seeds in the the farmer's fields - seeds that blew into the fields without the farmers' knowledge or desire. Nevertheless, the courts have found in favor of Monsanto in several cases, even while acknowleding that the farmers could have done nothing to prevent the seeds from germinating in their fields. Interestingly, today I received this information about the deregulation of Monsanto's genetically modifided "Roundup Ready" alfalfa seeds. There are no laws which require the labeling of genetically modified foods in the United States.

All in This Tea

"Food" includes "beverage" and in our household, a dedication to quality coffee has grown to encompass many of the lesser beverages, including beer, whisky, and tea. (We've not yet delved into milk, but it appears to be equally deserving of attention, as does sake.)

It is in this context that Pam found the intriguing documentary, All in This Tea, which is available both as a DVD and streaming video from Netflix. This 2007 film follows tea buyer David Lee Hoffman as he pursues tea in China. As I've read elsewhere, China has always preferred to keep its tea at home. Most of the tea that does get out goes through a series of intermediaries, lowering both pay to farmers and the quality to customers. This film follows Hoffman from the institutional sellers to the farmers themselves.

Online reviews of this film have been mixed, some emphasizing the education about tea and the insights into rural China and others noting Hoffman's arrogance and (apparent) lack of language skills. The former is evident throughout, though his arrogance is directed at sellers who appear to care little for their product or the producers, and it is on behalf of the farmers and the tea itself that he sometimes waxes strident, so I cannot blame him for being a bit curt with these merchants. The equivalent characters in coffee circles are known as coyotes, and even though I'm polite to these folks, I don't blame anyone who calls them out, as Hoffman does. Regarding his language skills (which I do consider to be very important), the fact that he speaks only English on camera has several possible explanations, aside from Ugly American-ness.

At least one online review suggests that the film provides a field-to-cup overview of tea, and I consider this overstated. Many steps are shown, but not in any systematic way, so that a much richer appreciation of tea can be gained, though not a comprehensive understanding. The film, in fact, does create one very serious false impression, as it implies that black, green, and oolong teas are different. In fact, they all are produced from Camellia sinensis, with differing levels of post-harvest oxidation.

Far more important than any technical details or personality traits, however, is the great appreciation for tea and tea farmers that this film conveys. The lush landscapes and intimate portrayals of a variety of tea-producing locales are memorable. As with every tea documentary I have watched so far, this one is extremely soothing, with sights and sounds that leave the viewer with a memory more like that of a dream than of a waking journey.

Eating: A Very Serious Comedy about Women & Food

Three women are celebrating milestone birthdays in Henry Jaglom's film about food. The premise is that one of the party guests is also a filmmaker and is interviewing the other guests about their relationship with food. There are also some "off camera" conversations about men, and other interpersonal relationships. This came off as nothing more than a bunch of rich women whining about how they will never be thin enough, and never be good enough for their boyfriends, husbands or mothers, and never be able to enjoy eating: dieting, starving, and binging were the main topics covered. The tone was misogynistic and none of the women came off as likeable, strong, or secure. When one of the guests of honor, Helene, discovers that her husband is not coming home from a business trip because he is having an affair she goes on an embarassing quest to find out with whom. The backstabbing and cat fighting was really enough to make me want to just turn it off. I did end up finishing the film, but I had to watch in two sittings. I have seen similar films that don't really have a plot but rather "eavesdrop" on party conversations and I remember liking them. This one was just bad though.

Eat, Pray, Love - the movie

I read Elizabeth Gilbert's book during my Year of Reading "Year of" Books. I had been looking forward to the movie, and finally got to see it last night. One of the things Gilbert learns on her pilgrimage to Italy, India and Bali is the joy of eating. She stops worrying about the weight she is gaining from eating so much pasta and simply buys new jeans. At the ashram her new friend Richard dubs her "Groceries" for all the food she enjoys. She does not let this bother her, rather she embraces the name. Another important lesson she learns is "bel far niente" (the beauty of doing nothing) - a concept American's really have a hard time with.

Although I liked the book better, I did enjoy movie, and that Javier Bardem sure isn't hard to look at.