Vitamix Happiness

Not long after we got the Instant Pot, we purchased a Vitamix (2018 was a banner kitchen-gadget year).  I am not sure what inspired that purchase, but I suddenly got a feeling we ought to have one and spent a lot of time researching before choosing a model.

We have had a bad history with blenders.  We registered for one when we got married in 1997.  We hardly used it, but when we did try to blend some things, it died on us.  Some internal fuse blew out.  Figured we had a dud, and exchanged it.  The replacement behaved the same way.  We tried another brand.  No luck. After a while, we just figured we were not blender people. 

Victor had brought an immersion blender to our household, and we loved that. We generally used that when we needed to blend.  When it died, we replaced it with a similar model but that one was not as durable.  I then did a ton of online research and bought the DeLonghi immersion blender, which is super over-engineered.  Very powerful. We have been thrilled with it.

From my reading about the Vitamix, it seemed to be similarly over-engineered so I thought it would be a good fit for us.  In the event, it certainly is. 

We have never worried about straining the motor.  It crushes ice and other frozen stuff with ease.  It can turn an apple into juice in seconds.  It is easy to clean and looks good on the counter.

Smoothies are now a routine part of our lives.  And while the immersion blender does a fine job pureeing soups, when we need something to be really smooth, nothing beats the Vitamix.

On the Instant Pot Bandwagon

I forget how I learned about the Instant Pot.  I suppose I saw an ad somewhere. I did a lot of reading online (checking out reviews, videos, and competing products). I was excited by the thought of a multifunctional device (it can make yogurt!  it can hardboil eggs!), by the promise of dry beans cooked quickly without soaking, and by the option of sous vide (available with the Ultra model that I decided to purchase) (even though I still haven't attempted it).

I've owned the Instant Pot for around 15 months, and it has become one of the most heavily used appliances in my kitchen.  I don't use it daily, but there are few weeks that it doesn't get set on the counter and plugged in.

The most frequent use, which I had not anticipated, is the preparation of vegetable broth.  I save vegetable scraps in the freezer and whenever I run out of fresh vegetable broth I throw the scraps into the Instant Pot with some herbs and spices and three quarts of water. Set some dials and push a button, and forget about it.  Whenever I get back to it, there's at least three quarts of broth, ready for use in soups and other recipes.  Cleanup is easy, but my favorite part is that the pot doesn't have to be watched.  I can go out and do errands; the Instant Pot finishes cooking and then keeps the contents safely warm until I get back.

The next most frequent use is for beans. We eat mostly vegetarian at home, which means beans are a significant part of our diet.  They turn out well in the Instant Pot, though I still try to soak beforehand if possible, because everybody says this helps the beans cook more evenly.  Even without soaking, though, you can get a good result.

The third most frequent use is for soups and stews.  The Instant Pot has a saute feature, so you can saute aromatics and other ingredients before the pressure cooking step if needed (it's not necessarily dump and cook).  But once that's done, I love locking the top and pushing the button and not having to futz. You can give your attention to other parts of the meal, or just take a rest. 

Finally, I've found the Instant Pot is a great partner for Indian food. Maybe the Instant Pot presses the spices into the food with more force? I don't know, but the Indian food I've made in the Instant Pot (saag, chickpea masala) turns out especially tasty. I've used recipes from the Internet as well as Urvashi Pitre's Indian Instant Pot Cookbook.

One really helpful resource for vegetarian cooking with the Instant Pot has been Lorna Sass' Complete Vegetarian Kitchen. This was written before the Instant Pot craze, but Sass has been a pressure cooker proponent for many years.  Most of her recipes include instructions for both pressure cooker and conventional equipment.  I have found the recipes pretty reliable and tasty.

The Instant Pot has turned out to be one of my favorite purchases for the kitchen.

Keeping Track of Cookbooks

I just learned about this terrific Web site called Eat Your Books.  It's a service that indexes cookbooks.  It may seem pretty random, but if you have a lot of cookbooks, and you cook a lot, it is sometimes hard to remember where a recipe you cooked once came from.  And going through your cookbooks to find it can be a chore--again, if you have a lot of cookbooks, and also if you have a tendency to distinctly remember things incorrectly.

For example, the other day I was wanting to make a vegetable soup I had cooked before.  I remembered it had lettuce.  I also remember it had no added water--rather, you stacked all the vegetables in the pot and cooked it slowly so the vegetables gave off their own water. 

I was pretty sure this was from one of Mark Bittman's books.  I remembered he referred to another cookbook writer for this recipe.  I looked quickly through my Bittman books and didn't find it.  Then I tried this site.

I searched for Bittman, lettuce, vegetable soup. No dice.

I tried to remember the name of the other cookbook writer.  I thought maybe it was Mimi Sheraton.  I looked up Mimi Sheraton, vegetable soup. No dice.

Then I decided to assume I was wrong about almost everything.  I looked up vegetable soup, lettuce.  And there it was.  Nika Hazelton's Garden Vegetable Soup, from Arthur Schwartz' Soup Suppers. A favorite cookbook of mine for more than 20 years.

Convinced, I bought a subscription ($30/yr) and quickly loaded in all my cookbooks.  Not all of them have been indexed yet, but many of them have.  What this means is, I get more use out of my cookbooks.  When I am not sure how I want to cook, say, a bunch of haricots verts, I can do a search for these on My Bookshelf and see the names and sources of most of my haricot vert recipes.  Instead of just looking randomly on Google (which is OK, too, but doesn't leverage my cookbooks).

Anyhow, I am delighted, looking forward to finding surprises in my own cookbooks, and getting further inspiration for my culinary adventures. And when I have time, maybe I'll help out by offering to index a few of my not-yet-indexed volumes.

Yet Another Purple Carrot/Meal Kit Delivery Update

We are still pretty big fans of the Purple Carrot though we continue to be troubled by all the packaging materials and the fact that the stuff is being sent to us from halfway across the country. The quality of the recipes is just excellent, and almost every recipe includes a new (to us) ingredient or technique, making our membership feel like a cooking class.

For example, we had not cooked much before with tofu products, and never with seitan, so it's nice to have excellent recipes that highlight really tasty uses for these products. A technique that surprised and then excited us was searing portabella mushrooms in a pan alongside a cut lemon.  The lemon's juice makes its way into the mushrooms without your squeezing it; you end up with a beautiful charred lemon for garnish and a remarkably delicious pan-grilled portabella mushroom.

There has been a lot of variety in the recipes so far, which has makes cooking (and eating) more exciting.  A lot of international influences (from Japan to Morocco to New Orleans) are evident, as is a bias toward seasonal ingredients (such as root vegetables and winter squash in December).  And it is a great convenience that hard-to-find ingredients not stocked at the local grocery store (such as fresh curry leaves) are included in the box.

Still, even with a somewhat relaxed holiday schedule, we fell behind, so I have put the delivery service on hold to give ourselves a chance to catch up. There are two meal kits in the fridge right now, and I have plans to make a meat-based dish (the traditional Eastern European Jewish cassoulet called cholent) tonight since the temperature has dropped so much lately.

Because of our travel schedule, we will probably keep The Purple Carrot suspended till the second part of February, at which point we may finally check out Lighter, A review I found online made it sound somewhat more personalized than Purple Carrot--you can tell them what you already have at home (for example, a can of pinto beans, or ground turmeric) so they don't send you unnecessary stuff.

I had researched other services such as Meez and Blue Apron, but these don't interest me as much, both because the vegan offerings are not as attractive and (at least in Meez' case) they use prepared sauces.  That makes me feel like I'm not doing the cooking. While I understand it's a convenience intended to make my own cooking go quicker, I'd rather take more time and cook it all myself.

The Purple Carrot Update and Other Healthy Food Delivery Options

We changed our minds quicker than I expected about The Purple Carrot, and are anticipating another delivery this Wednesday. A couple of immediate spurs to this this decision: last week due to foul weather I didn’t make it to the grocery store on the day I’d planned, and then the meal I’d planned to make required ethnic ingredients that weren’t available in my neighborhood. So my good intentions basically collapsed due to poor planning.

Instead, we ordered from Sprig, which a friend had tipped me off about: it’s an organic meal delivery service. On the upside, the meals are priced reasonably, arrive relatively quickly, and are made of wholesome organic ingredients (which—along with calorie counts—are clearly communicated). On the downside, the flavors (on the two occasions on which we ordered) are underwhelming.

My new interest in grocery and/or meal delivery pointed me to another service, Lighter, which serves Chicago.  Like The Purple Carrot, Lighter delivers the ingredients and recipes of wholesome meals; however, ingredients are sourced locally and delivered in person rather than by FedEx (you schedule your delivery so you can receive it).  Other big differences: you can choose a plan that includes meat or only vegetables and meal plans start at nine meals a week and go up from there—but meals may include breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner—you choose how many of each (The Purple Carrot offers a standard meal size/type).  Further, Lighter has a more custom bent: the idea is that you choose your goals, indicate what foods you can’t/won’t eat, and their nutritionists design a meal plan.

I like the idea of a more complete, customized meal plan, and would prefer that my ingredients aren’t sent from across the country, but our schedule right now doesn’t permit us to try Lighter.  Maybe next year.

In the meantime, we look forward to our next delivery from The Purple Carrot. Since we are traveling a few days each week until mid-December, it’s actually going to be a great convenience to have the ingredients of three healthy vegan meals delivered to our home—during a very hectic period we won’t have to plan anything. We are also excited about the opportunity to learn more relatively quick techniques (preparation of the meals takes 45 minutes or less). In the first week of using The Purple Carrot I learned to make tahini sauce, massage kale, and make the quickest black bean burger ever, all of which I found pretty thrilling. Also, every (Mark Bittman-written) recipe we have tried from The Purple Carrot has turned out delicious, which is hugely persuasive.

Checking out The Purple Carrot

Last year around this time, I read Mark Bittman’s VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good after hearing him talk about it at last year’s Chicago Humanities Festival. Bittman was promoting the idea of eating vegan, whole foods for breakfast and lunch—and relaxing restrictions at dinner. He explained that he invented the system to deal with his own health issues (creeping weight gain, newly borderline cholesterol, blood pressure, and pre-diabetes conditions) and found it to be eminently doable, effective, and also delicious.

I found his talk inspiring, and his book equally so. The book includes great advice, like prepping vegetables when you bring them home from the grocery store, so it’s less of a chore to cook on a weeknight. For some months I was cooking a lot more at home, but frequent travel would get me out of the habit.

Recently Bittman left the New York Times to join The Purple Carrot, a vegan food delivery service. It’s a business that suits his ideals, encouraging families to eat vegan at least a couple of times a week. He makes the recipes, and the delivery service makes it easy by providing the ingredients you need to cook those recipes, already portioned out.

So I tried it. The recipes are great, but I was underwhelmed by the delivery service. Last Wednesday I got a big heavy box, with ingredients for three recipes. I found all the packaging embarrassing. They make a big deal about how you can recycle the cold packs (slit them open, dump the gel in the trash, and then put the plastic in the recycle), but doing that weekly just seemed an awful waste to me. And I didn’t see the need to get stuff delivered that I normally keep in my pantry (cans of black beans, or cumin). So while I had success with the recipes (even with one for which the packers omitted one of the requisite vegetables), I cancelled.  I thought I’d work with the recipes (which are available to anybody) and do my own shopping.

Today I’m questioning that decision. I’d planned to go to the grocery store, but it’s pouring. And tomorrow I can’t shop, either.

Hmm.

Maybe in the new year I’ll rejoin.

Fruit

When I was in grad school, I remember a friend saying, “I wish we could just live on fruit.” Many creatures do, of course, live on mainly fruit. I’m thinking of certain berry-eating birds and tropical monkeys; no doubt there are others. But humans aren’t made that way.  We need our veggies, our protein and fat. Still, many of us probably don’t consume enough fruit, although we’re lucky, in this stage of human history, to have access to so much of it so much of the time.

Right now, for instance, there are two apples, an orange, a plantain, a mango, a lemon, and three limes on our kitchen counter. In the refrigerator, there is a bunch of grapes. Only the apples are seasonal now in the Midwest. None of the other fruits ever grow here. We’re already nostalgic for summer, when we feasted on peaches, nectarines, and plums that came from nearby states.  Even when they came from the West Coast, they tasted good.

(I’ve never had winter stone fruit—what my mom called “fresh fruit”—that tasted good.)

When I go back to the grocery store, I expect to pick up more citrus, maybe some berries, bananas, pears, more apples.  The apples and pears might be from around here; the rest will come from California, Mexico, or even further afield.

A lot is being written about our unsustainable food system. It’s kind of crazy that I can be eating mangos from Brazil and grapefruits from Texas, not to mention bananas from equatorial countries and citrus from wherever it’s warm right now.  It’s possible that in some years or decades, we’ll be back to a situation where oranges are a special winter treat (which I almost remember from my childhood—at least, I remember we had a relative in Florida who would annually send us a box of oranges and it was a big deal) and we almost never see papaya or pomegranates in Chicago.

But we are so used to having whatever we want, whenever we want it. Produce has gotten a lot more expensive in the past 10 years, but when you consider that you can buy a mango for a dollar—less than you spend for an apple from Michigan—you realize how ridiculously cheap food really is. One solution probably involves pricing food more realistically.  It doesn’t make sense that a pound of bananas from Honduras costs much less than a pound of pears from a local farm. 

Does it?

I guess issues of scale come into it. This is something discussed in the fine carbon footprint primer How Bad Are Bananas? (The answer to the title question is “not so bad, actually,” because they are transported in ships, which are pretty efficient.) Locally grown produce is transported in more and smaller vehicles, which may not be as energy efficient as a large truck—certainly not as efficient as a giant container ship.

So it’s complicated. For now, I remember to be grateful for the variety and deliciousness available and try not to let it go to waste.

Life without Refined Grains

A few months ago, Victor came home from a business trip committed to a higher-protein, lower- carbohydrate diet.  Partly this was because he'd noticed a colleague of his had become significantly trimmer in the past year, and his colleague attributed his long-term weight loss to a higher-protein diet.

We did not want to omit vegetables of any kind, but we have found Michael Pollan's arguments against processed foods and over-consumption of grains persuasive (see In Defense of Food, for example) and so we decided to avoid refined grains, and try not to automatically "replace" with whole-grain versions, but really to change our eating habits (sashimi instead of brown rice maki). We used to eat all the bread in the breadbasket at restaurants--now we ask them not to bring the bread, even if the rolls are "whole-grain."  This means we deny ourselves some of our favorite foods, so once a week we allow an "exception." But practically speaking, we avoid bread, pasta, and rice.

It's a challenge, especially on-the-go, since sandwiches are out.  Nuts and fruit are a frequent fallback.  This morning I was at a big meeting, catered with "continental breakfast" that was mainly pastries and fruit.  So I ate the fruit. At mid-morning the food table was refreshed with cookies and--happily--granola bars. Oats--rarely if ever refined--are permitted. 

While we have been limiting refined grains, we have been increasing protein, in the form of animal products (eggs, milk, cheese) as well as meat, at the same time trying to maintain or increase the amount of vegetables that we consume. We eat saucy Asian dishes (stir-fries or curries) without accompaniment or over simple vegetables like steamed cabbage.

And we learn new things.  Today's lesson: buckwheat is not a grain.  Grain is only associated with cereals, which are grasses.  Grain is "botanically, a type of fruit" composed of endosperm, germ, and bran. Buckwheat, on the other hand, is the seed of a broadleaf plant related to rhubarb. It's called a pseudocereal because it's used as a cereal grain  but the name is as close as it gets to being grain. 

Why does it matter? It means we can eat buckwheat crepes!  And soba noodles! Yay!

What everyone wants to know is if we've lost weight.  Only a tiny bit.  But we seem to have at least halted the upward-sloping trajectory. And we've eliminated much of the "filler" from our diet--the useless stuff--which feels good.

Chicago French Market

Victor and I used to live in a building directly across the street from the new Chicago French Market, so we have been waiting for it for a long time (we lived there more than five years ago, and even then there were signs promising, "Metra Market Coming Soon").

Chicago has long lacked a year-round multi-vendor market, and placing one adjacent to a commuter rail station (Ogilvie Transportation Center) seems like a smart idea. A block from the Clinton Green Line stop, it is also an easy destination for non-commuters (like myself) seeking better grocery options downtown (as well as a fun place for lunch).

The market includes at least three different produce vendors, one of them organic. Prices vary widely. An outpost of Devon Avenue's City Fresh Market seems to consistently boast the most reasonable prices, and also offers dairy products, meat (including Tallgrass Beef), and very nice looking fish and seafood. There are a couple of outlets for fresh bread (including Pastoral, which sells loaves baked by the award-winning Bennison's Bakery in Evanston), and several for sweet baked goods (Vanille Patisserie, Delightful Pastries), not to mention caramel corn, honey-roasted nuts, and artisan chocolates. A wide variety of cheeses are available from Pastoral and from a Wisconsin vendor. Also, a purveyor of smoked and cured meats, Fumare, carries a terrific inventory. (I am right now addicted to the Gypsy Bacon.)

But the market is not just about groceries to take home; you can also eat there. A sharp-looking Lavazza cafe serves up decent cappuccino and a varied assortment of stands offers Mexican, Indian-fusion, Korean, vegan-raw, Vietnamese, and other cuisines.

According to Time Out, more vendors are coming soon.

I visited the market for the first time on Tuesday and went back yesterday. Of course it is no Pike Place. It is not even as big as the North Market in Columbus. OH. Still, it is a fun, accessible grocery and lunch alternative in a neighborhood that is not exactly abounding with interesting options. I can easily see myself adding this venue to my grocery rotation; in fact, you could say I have already done so: I returned there yesterday to get some meat for tonight's dinner.

No Room for Kale or Chard at Jewel

For the past year or more I have been doing most of my produce shopping at small neighborhood markets rather than the corporate supermarkets. I bus out to neighborhoods like Andersonville and Rogers Park. But the other day, Victor and I were downtown and I really needed some greens for our next soup. I was thinking kale, or chard. There aren't a lot of grocery options downtown--Fox & Obel is great, but it was a little out of our way; Trader Joe's didn't have what I wanted; and then there's the Jewel at Grand & State.

Located in a busy, touristy, kind of ritzy neighborhood, this Jewel might be the nicest one in the city--clean, atmospheric. But despite its size (compared to the neighborhood markets where I usually shop), Victor and I couldn't find what I wanted in the produce section. Finally we tracked down an employee. He pointed at the torn collard greens packaged in plastic bags and said, "We don't carry chard."

Our mouths must have dropped open, because he then added, defensively, "They might carry it at some of our larger stores."

"There are larger stores than this?"

(Because you see, it had been a long time since we were in a Jewel.)

"This is the smallest Jewel in the city."

Oh. We thanked the young man, looked around, and realized every leafy green vegetable was packaged in a plastic bag or container. No loose heads of lettuce, no loose spinach, and no substantial greens at all, except the collards in the bag.

Since Consumer Reports recently published results of its study of cleanliness of bagged salad (conclusion--even if it says triple-washed, wash it anyhow), I haven't been keen on buying stuff in bags, but I didn't have much choice, so I picked up a bag of spinach.

And washed it before I put it in the soup.

Mushroom Choice As a Moral Issue

At the Green City Market, a mushroom vendor responded to a query about the difference between cultivated white mushrooms and creminis:

"It's like white bread and wheat bread. I hope you eat wheat bread, not white bread..."

Am I Turning into Julie Powell?

Not really. But Victor came home from a business trip last night to find me cooking with a vengeance. I'd settled on ratatouille, and maybe some broiled chicken. When I decided on ratatouille, I was thinking of it as a sort of sloppy stew with eggplant, tomato, and zucchini, that you sop up with a nice arborio rice...easy. But the recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking is for something completely different: a composed casserole, with each vegetable distinct, in its place--you wouldn't believe the hours that go into making it.

However, the result was quite outstanding. Victor was not sure if it was outstanding enough to go through all that again, but I suggested it might be worth doing it for company (it doesn't just taste impressive, it looks pretty beautiful, too). And then after a few more bites, I decided it really might be worth doing again just for us.

By comparison with the ratatouille, the broiled chicken was a breeze. And its preparation neatly fit in the gaps of the ratatouille routine. Never broiled chicken before. Turned out delicious. But, overall, I have to say that cooking meat is a messy business. (We're not--by any means--vegetarians, but we cook mostly vegetarian at home.) All that grease! I remember thinking the same thing some months ago after I'd made a bunch of chicken stock...

So, what was so tough about the ratatouille? First you peel and slice the eggplant--quarter-inch thick, 3-inch long, 1-inch wide slices. Then you scrub and slice the zucchini--pieces roughly the same size. Toss the slices in a bowl with some salt and let them sit for half an hour, to draw the water out. Drain. Dry the slices with a towel. Then you separate the eggplant from the zucchini and saute the eggplant in olive oil in a single layer at a time, turning to brown lightly. Remove to a plate. Saute the zucchini the same way. I added a step, which was to layer the browned slices between paper towels to blot some of the oil.

All this browning takes a lot of oil.

Then you saute onions and peppers, throw in some garlic, pepper and salt. Meanwhile, you peel, seed, and juice a bunch of tomatoes. Cut them into strips. Lay them on top of the onion-pepper mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Cover, lower heat, wait for the liquid to be drawn out. When liquid has been drawn out, uncover, raise heat, and cook off all the liquid.

Take out a stovetop casserole. Divide your ingredients (fresh herbs (parsley, basil), tomato mixture) into thirds; divide the eggplant/zucchini slices in half. Put a third of the tomato mixture at the bottom of the casserole. Top with a third of the herbs. Then half the eggplant/zucchini (place the slices nicely). Then another third of the tomato mixture and another third of the herbs. Then the rest of the eggplant/zucchini. Then the rest of the tomato mixture and herbs. Cook covered on low heat till there's liquid at the bottom when you tip the casserole. Baste with the liquid. Then cook, uncovered, basting, till there's no more liquid.

When you're done, you have this very elegant, very beautiful, and very delicious casserole. In this case, taking all that care produces terrific results.

Julie & Julia

Though reviews we'd seen were lukewarm (except for universal praise of Meryl Streep's turn as Julia Child) all our friends (and it really does seem like all our friends have seen this movie) told us it was great, so we went to see Julie & Julia last weekend.

We were not disappointed. It's a really enjoyable movie about marriage, finding your life's passion, and--of course--food. Also inspiring. After the movie, we took Mastering the Art of French Cooking off the shelf and started browsing through it again. And found some Julia Child snippets on YouTube. And found Julia Powell's blog, which is still online.

As a result, we ate well last weekend: Victor learned to make a really delicious omelet from this video and I made potage parmentier and a simple vinaigrette for a salad. The most important thing I learned was that adding butter to a boiled soup tastes as good as adding water (or stock) to sauteed ingredients.

But I digress. And that tells you something, doesn't it? It's nice when movies do that: give you an hour or two of enjoyment and then send you back, energized, into your own life.

The Counter

Victor and I were on our way to a show when we passed by this new(ish) outpost of California-based The Counter, a burger joint. I hadn't heard of this place before, but our decision to stop was somewhat influenced by an ad posted several hundred feet east on Diversey claiming Oprah had called it "Best Burger."

Do I watch Oprah? No. But for some reason I imagine she knows her burgers.

So we tried it. The build-your-own-burger concept is way fun: you get a checklist and choose everything from meat (beef, turkey, veggie, chicken) to toppings (options include various cheeses, vegetables, and relishes--up to four of these are included), to premium toppings (such as sauteed mushrooms, bacon, or avocado--these cost another dollar each), to buns. We built one burger and chose their special burger of the day (or was it month?). We weren't so crazy, as it turned out, about the special burger of the month--it was a lamb burger, which sounded intriguing, but--who knew?--we don't much like lamb burgers. We built ourselves a burger with corn and black bean salsa, sprouts, avocado, tomato, and sauteed onions. Perfectly cooked and quite delicious. We had a side of fries and onion strings. The fries were fine, but the onion strings were excellent, if greasy. Beautiful crunch.

So. Not a virtuous meal, but very tasty. In future, we'd share a burger. (Even the smallest--1/3 lb--burger was plenty big.)

Pizza Roundup

So in the past few months, Victor and I have finally been to a few of the trendy new pizza places in town--spots that boast 800 degree coal- or wood-burning ovens that produce authentic Neopolitan pizza.

Trendy and new? I'm afraid we are rather behind the curve. They were trendy and new; they are now a Chicago institution.

Closest to us is Sapore di Napoli, which was the first one we tried. We ordered a Margherita pizza and liked it: particularly the tasty sauce. Not NYC pizza, but a nice alternative.

My painting class was very close to Spacca Napoli, so I went there once without Victor and had a pizza marinara (no cheese), which I thought was delicious. But yesterday evening Victor and I tried the Margherita and the one with mushrooms and sausage--we loved the crust, which was nice and chewy, but the tomato sauce and cheese were surprisingly bland.

And a couple of weeks ago, we checked out Coalfire, which recently made some list for best Chicago pizza. Our verdict: okay. Nice crust, but the sauce (again) didn't turn us on.

Wanted to love these places, but just...didn't.

On the bright side, we'll be in NYC this weekend, and I'm sure we'll be eating some real pizza.

What's So Great about Lurpak?

So Victor and I were in one of the nice neighborhood grocery stores I've started to trek out to (it was Andy's Fruit Ranch, on Kedzie near Lawrence), and noticed this Danish butter.

I should say right out, I'm a butter lover. You won't find margarine in my house; my mother can insist all she likes. Nothing will convince me that butter is bad. Luckily, Victor agrees with me on this, though for cooking we tend more toward olive oil than butter as a sauteing medium.

So after years of buying Land o' Lakes, or whatever organic product was available (when we were feeling flush) or whatever was cheapest (when we weren't), we decided to splurge on Lurpak, which we had seen before, and heard about (as in, "I knew it was a decent supermarket when I saw Lurpak in the cooler"), but never tried. When I saw the price (something like $3.69), for a moment I imagined it was cheaper than the more run-of-the-mill stuff I was used to (for which I've gotten accustomed to paying around five bucks), and then I realized that the Lurpak package contained only a half pound.

Ouch!

Still, we splurged. And it was good.

How good? Well, despite my fondness for butter, I'm not a connoisseur. There are doubtless specialized terms that demarcate the boundary between the good and the really good. One thing, though, is that it's remarkably creamy. Just out of the refrigerator, you can spread it on toast without much trouble (as opposed to a stick of Land o' Lakes, which is damned hard when it comes out of the fridge). It tastes great on toast.

But, finally, not great enough to spend almost twice as much for it. I might buy it again when we expect houseguests--guests we expect to serve buttered bread. Otherwise, when I'm feeling flush I'll buy organic.

Five Guys

We weren't intending to go to Five Guys. We were on our way to meet friends at Bar Louie in Oak Park, and as we were parking the car, I noticed the Five Guys sign across the street. Here's how I've heard of Five Guys: a mention of their great fries in TimeOut Chicago recently (can't find it now), and listening to two friends dish about the place. They turned to me at one point and said, "Have you been to Five Guys yet?"

No.

"Oh, you have to go."

So when we pulled up across the street from one, it seemed like kismet.

It's a retro little place, kind of like a Johnny Rocket's but without so many tables. Like any fast food joint, you give your order at the counter and get a number. There aren't too many choices: burgers, hot dogs, fries, grilled cheese (for, I suppose, the poor vegetarians whose omnivorous friends have dragged them along). But burgers automatically come with a host of toppings that many places charge for: sauteed mushrooms and sauteed onions, for example. And you can add other toppings just for the asking.

So, in a way, the Five Guys Burger is a burger version of a Chicago hot dog, if you want to eat it that way. And if you do, it's a very rewarding burger: messy, but tasty. Plus, the fries are hands-down the best fast-food fries I've tasted. Skin-on, crispy, potatoey.

Not to be compared with a steakhouse burger, or even a bar-and-grill burger--it's a different entity. But for a quick, $5 bite, this is a great addition to our burger options.

I guess I should be glad that there isn't one too close to our home.

Might Not Want to Buy Hershey Bars for a While...

Man dies at chocolate factory.

Diversifying Our Diet

Each week I try to get one "different" item of produce--something we've never eaten before or don't usually eat or cook with. Some of these start getting added to the regular repertoire--like beets, which I now buy a couple of most weeks when Victor isn't traveling, because he likes them so much. Some of them won't ever get added to the regular repertoire--like sweet potatoes, because I just don't like them that much, and jicama, because Victor just doesn't like it that much.

Why not more than one? At least for us, one has experimentally proven to be a manageable number. When I pick one, I can start thinking right away how I might use it--when I pick several, it's just too complicated and food tends to get wasted.

Last week we tried chayote for the first time. It has a very mild taste, sort of like a cross between a pear (texture) and cucumber (flavor). Most sources say it doesn't need to be peeled, and I have no doubt that the peel is edible, but I found the peel unpalatable--it smelled (and therefore tasted) just like grass, which is not something I care to eat.

We cut the (peeled) chayote into pieces and included it in a tomato-beet-cucumber salad, with a basil-herb vinagrette and walnuts. I hardly noticed it was there, but Victor said he particularly liked it.

Like most whole foods, chayote is associated with particular health benefits; some cultures use the fruit medicinally. And this is part of the point of trying to diversify the mix of things we eat: periodically one food or another becomes a kind of fad--oats are good for your heart, or broccoli fights cancer--as if the fact that food is good for you is news. I imagine some people do add huge quantities of broccoli, or oats, or whatever to their diet as a result of such studies, but that seems misguided.

We just figure that if you vary what you eat, you end up getting the benefits of a lot of different foods. It's easy to fall into dietary ruts. Consciously trying to add something new to the mix each week helps make those ruts shallower, and potentially promotes good health by introducing diverse nutrients and other beneficial properties.

The Benefits of Advance Work

Who wants to cut up carrot sticks when you're feeling peckish? Or trim radishes? These are not difficult things to do, but when I'm hungry, I want something to eat immediately. So I've taken to making sure there's always a small supply of cut carrots (peeling the carrots when I'm not hungry) in the refrigerator drawer, and I wash, trim, and store the radishes as soon as I buy them.

We enjoy cut-up beets in salad, but baking a beet takes up to two hours. So I've added beet-baking to my post-grocery run routine. The peeled baked beet goes into the fridge, ready to be cut up and eaten.

One of my favorite nibbles is a simple marinated cucumber-dill salad from the Second Avenue Deli Cookbook. Overnight marination is recommended before consumption, which is a deterrent if you want your cucumber salad right away. But I am starting to just make it routinely--again, shortly after I get back with the groceries--so it's always waiting in the fridge.

These simple prep tasks make for healthier snacking and foster a little more variety in the diet.