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Roundup: Beyond tainted tomatoes and floods

June 29th, 2008 · Food in the news, Roundup, local food

Finally, here’s a roundup of some food news in the area, aside from the daily reports of tomato-borne salmonella and rising food cost forecasts due to the Iowa floods.

Going against the grain. Gordon D. Fiedler Jr. over in Salina snags a bushel of wheat in this funny-serious take on eating locally. (Salina Journal)

Pizza cone in Kansas. Yes, just up the road in Overland Park, the odd (to my mind) conical take on pizza, makes its U.S. debut. Yes, I’m slow to find out. (Slice)

KCK saved from cow tonsils. Well, cow tonsils from a little processor in Missouri, anyway. Too bad the inspectors aren’t as good at the big plants as they are with the little guys. (Cattle Network)

Why not multicrop? Salina’s Fiedler did it last week, too, with the observation that lots of things grow in Kansas but not on the farm. (Salina Journal)

Kansas eager for lab. If anybody in Kansas is worried about farm and ranch pathogens being brought here on purpose, they aren’t very noisy about it. (KC Star)

Food safety, or not. K-State’s Doug Powell has been getting a lot of press with the tomato salmonella issue and other food safety questions. (Barfblog)

Food safety, or not 2. Not exactly a local news item, although it does refer to one Kansan’s efforts, Paul Krugman explains why food safety has been neglected. (NY Times)

Food bank hungry. The Harvesters in KC has fewer donations, more demand and higher fuel costs. (KMBC-TV)

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Tip: Household items work fine for pitting cherries

June 27th, 2008 · Cooking tips, Tools

There’s more than one way to pit a cherry, and here are five.

For sour (pie) cherries

These beauties are small, which means you need more of them, so easy pitting is definitely desirable. Try these methods.

  • Your fingers. If the cherries are very ripe, just squeeze the stem end, and the pit will squirt out the blossom end.
  • A paper clip. Insert end of small paper clip into the stem end of cherry, and lift out the pit. Observe (and ignore a lack of focus in one shot):

Insert paper clip

Slip clip under pit Cherry pitted

  • A hairpin. Same deal as the paper clip.

For sweet cherries

These bigger fruits, which may hang on to their pits more than sour cherries, are well-suited to standard tools, and I recommend them.

  • Plunger-type pitter (at right). Set a cherry on the rounded dish opening, preferably stem-end up, and press down with the plunger.
  • Pincer-type pitter (below). Same deal. Set a cherry in the dish, and squeeze the two arms of the pitter to push the pit out. This type works better for me.

Other options

You can try these improvised tools, too:

  • Chopstick or skewer. I’ve had mixed results with these, but you can give them a try. They seem most useful with ripe sour cherries, when you combine a poke with a chopstick and a pinch with your fingers.
  • Soda straw. I haven’t tried this one, but I’ve heard about it, and it makes sense to me that it might work and, unlike the chopstick option, the opening in the straw might keep the pit from sliding away under pressure.

Your method

How do you pit cherries, if you pit cherries. Got any other tips to offer?

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Cherry pie is a group effort, and worth it

June 26th, 2008 · Food selection, local food

When your busy neighbor’s cherry tree is flush with the brilliant sour fruits, the best solution is to pick them (with permission, of course) and share in the bounty. That’s what I did the other evening, and I’m glad I did.

I was eager to get at those cherries, because I’ve lost out in the past to hungry birds. (The early bird gets the cherries, too, and one robin was there to keep me on my toes.) With a stepladder and basket, I attacked. The tree is tall enough that there are plenty of cherries I can’t reach, but I got a lot by pulling limber branches down to my level.

I still didn’t have enough for a pie, but another neighbor stopped by on his way to the city pool and lent a hand. He’s tall and got hold of more branches, and we both picked. I didn’t have time to deal with them that evening, so I put them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for pie-baking the next day.

Using a friend’s paperclip technique (see the related cooking tip), I pitted the cherries, made a basic crust with Joy of Cooking directions, and followed Joy’s filling suggestion, too, although I added a 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract.

Once the pie was in the oven, I issued invitations to the tree-owning people and the fellow picker and family. An hour or so later, the pie suitably cooled just like in the cartoons (I can’t remember ever before baking a pie when the weather was suitable for window-sill pie-cooling), the neighbors arrived.

We savored. We swooned. We didn’t even need ice cream. Two of us had seconds.

One friend took home the pastry crisps made with the leftover dough. (Do you do that, too? Roll it out, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon and bake?) To my surprise, there was enough pie left for one big or two small slices. I called the couple across the street. How could they say no?

I delivered and laughed as Gordon sighed. Cherry is his favorite, and this pie ranked up there with his grandmother’s. What else could I do that would give my friends as much pleasure?

The funny thing is, cherry pie isn’t my favorite, though I do love fruit pies in general. Still, there’s something about those beautiful fruits that demand my attention. Maybe it’s some innate attraction to pure, unadulterated food on the vine, or stem, or stalk—food that you can pop in your mouth and relish, even if it’s sour like these cherries.

To my amazement, that tree still has cherries. Maybe this year is so good for fruits, thank goodness, that the bird competition isn’t as fierce. I may have to go back for more and think of something else to do with them.

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Return of the raspberries a joy to behold

June 25th, 2008 · local food

There. Yes, there at the Rolling Prairie pickup site were raspberries. Beautiful, succulent, just-picked local early-summer raspberries. Oh, how I missed them last year!

Raspberries in pint box

A few got a bit squished between the pickup site (the Community Mercantile) and home. I was forced to eat half of them right away. The sacrifice! I sigh with pleasure at the thought. Is there anything better than a fresh-picked raspberry? Well, maybe, but I could think of none while they were in my sight.

Now, of course, I want only one thing: More.

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Joanne takes the prize, but suggestions still wanted

June 22nd, 2008 · General, Healthy eating

No doubt everybody thinks this blog is just about perfect, and that’s why they didn’t say anything in my call for suggestions.

That means Joanne Seiff, who offered the only suggestion, is the winner of my now out-of-print cookbook, Recipes Worth Sharing. (I have no idea why anyone is offering to sell these for the prices showing up on Amazon; I just offer the link in case you want to know what the book looks like.) Joanne has a fiber-focused blog at http://joanneseiff.blogspot.com/ but the title you’ll see on the page is Yarn Spinner, and you should think of that term’s two meanings, since Joanne also is a writer.

Joanne, send me your mailing address via the form on the Contact page, and I’ll get a book in the mail to you. The always-generous Diane offered a compliment, and I’m giving her a book, too. I know where to find her, though.

Joanne’s suggestion:

… to do some reviews of healthy “prepared” condiments and food? That would be super. Like, when you go to the super market, and you need, say, mayonnaise, is the new olive oil mayonnaise put out by Hellman’s better for us? Or are they all about the same? Are there grocery store products that one can’t make from scratch that you’d recommend?

My response: I’m going to keep the suggestion in mind, Joanne, but among the obstacles to putting it to work is that I don’t buy too many prepared foods.

Regarding the mayo specifically, you might be interested in this discussion on Chowhound. It would appear that the olive oil version is better for you in that it has fewer calories, but possibly worse for you because it’s got extra additives. So, I guess it depends on what your criteria are. As one who leans to real food, I’d probably stick with the original mayonnaise.

Meanwhile, though the prize has been awarded, I’m always eager for your suggestions. Let me have them in comments or through the Contact page if you don’t want to make a public comment. (Email subscribers, you just reply to your email.) Thanks, everybody!

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Kansas’ beef country gets orchestral exposure

June 20th, 2008 · Eating out, Environment

What do you think of when you think of Kansas beef? The old Kansas City Stock Yards? The feed lots? Old Dodge City? You might, but to be in touch with contemporary food, you probably should think about ranches and packing plants, too. That’s because beef in Kansas is huge. Kansas may be the Wheat State or the Sunflower State, but it could very well be the Beef State, and plenty of Kansans, I suspect, don’t have any idea about it.

Those who do know, however, have to include the thousands who’ve attended the Symphony in the Flint Hills at one time or another. I went to this hugely popular event last weekend, and the importance of the cattle industry to this part of the world was evident. Cowboys and cowgirls kept sentinel as visitors arrived in the afternoon at the location just outside Council Grove. (I’m hoping the map will give you some sense of the terrain if my camera doesn’t.) They moved some cattle around, too.

Although developing good will and educating the public about the beef industry isn’t part of the Symphony in the Flint Hills’ mission, the event wouldn’t occur without the ranchers, because they own nearly all of this marvelous Flint Hills landscape, the biggest stretch of tallgrass prairie in the world. A nice thing about the symphony event is that is is preceded by presentations on prairie wildlife, ranching, American Indians, pioneer history and other related topics.

Hays House dinner, prairie supper

Midday meals in the country still are dinners, as far as I know, and the lighter evening meal is supper. In that tradition, we had dinner at the Hays House. It prepared us for a stroll through Council Grove and the 3/4-mile walk from the parking area to the concert site, with several calories left over. I can’t remember the last time I had fried chicken but it was really good. The mashed potatoes and gravy were fine though not memorable, the salad was generic, and the rolls had some whole grain. Dessert (bread pudding) was beside the point.

Supper was served at the concert site. A small army of volunteers fed the horde with little waiting. The menu: pulled pork, shredded brisket or veggie burger plus choice of two sides from among potato salad, pasta salad, cole slaw and baked beans. I had the veggie burger, as I didn’t think I was ready for a meat sandwich so soon after dinner, but it wasn’t very good. Those who had the other sandwiches rated them as delicious. The sides were, well, typical American fare, and I’ll leave it at that.

(click for larger images)

Music fills the air

The featured event, the concert, began shortly after 6:30 p.m. Although the skies were clear (two days after a nearby tornado) and the temperature comfortable in the shade, the sun sizzled. Most nevertheless suffered the sun gladly during the concert. The program leaned toward a pops sensibility, and during its course some of those roving cowpunchers moved a herd of cattle, about 150 head I’m guessing, into view of the crowd. When the orchestra hit a familiar cattle theme (sorry I can’t recall which), the riders got those cattle running a short distance to the delight of the crowd.

Somebody nearby commented, “That’s a lot of hamburger,” and indeed it was. I’m guessing this ranch is a cow-calf operation, which breeds cows and raises calves until they’re ready to be finished at one of those feedlots several months later.

This area is perfect for raising cattle. The rocky, thin soil isn’t good for crops, and the bison did well on it for years. These prairies do better in terms of plant and animal diversity when properly grazed, and I hope you can see from the photos that those prairies aren’t a sea of grass, grass and more grass.

To eat beef

The Flint Hills may be one reason I eat beef. I see this landscape, and I think the cattle belong there in the absence of the decimated bison. I wish that most cattle didn’t end up in feedlots, and maybe that method of fattening cattle will wane under the current corn and fuel prices.

I’ve struggled to arrive at some conclusion on how I feel about the Symphony on the Prairie, but my effort gets mixed in with thoughts about preserving the prairie ecosystem and about the unsustainable state of our agriculture system. I guess I’ll stay ambivalent. Still, I’m glad I went. I just don’t know if I’ll do it again.

Addendum: I uploaded more photos to flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/foodperson/sets/72157605727685973/. Since I’d formatted them for the blog, they are fairly small, still, they’re there if you’re interested.

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