Get to know the market, not the supermarket. ~ Mireille Guiliano, French Women Don't Get Fat
The most drastic change that has occurred since moving here full-time is in my day to day cooking. I used to start my menu planning by poring over cookbooks and recipe files, where I would choose five or so main dishes that I figured no one would complain about. After making a shopping list I would head for the store, and spend at least two hours wandering up and down every aisle, tossing in whatever new convenience products caught my eye. As an afterthought, I would toss in a few cans of fruits and vegetables and a head of lettuce, to be my "side dishes".
Nowadays, my menu planning starts at a farmers' market or on The Bountiful Sprout website, and it starts with fresh fruits and veggies. My weeknight meals are very simple and rarely ever include much meat, if any. I use basic recipes that adapt well to a variety of different ingredients, according to what's in season at any given time. My pantry and refrigerator are stocked with all the standards that these recipes require--good olive oil and several different vinegars, fresh from the farm eggs, real butter, dried porcini mushrooms, good pasta, sun-dried tomatoes and cans of San Marzano tomatoes, good (not processed!) cheeses, etc.--and about the only thing I go to the supermarket for these days is dry goods.
Sooo, Step #1 in The Good Life Plan would be much the same as Michael Pollen's now-famous manifesto: "Eat real food, mostly fruits and vegetable. Not too much." Only, I would probably add "according to what's in season, and grown or produced as close to your area as possible."
"In the end, seasonality is the key to the French woman's psychological pleasure in food--the natural pleasure of anticipation, change, the poignant joy we take in something we know we shall soon lose and cannot take for granted. Such heightened awareness of what we put in our mouths is the opposite of routine, mindless eating that promotes boredom and weight gain...Good food in season responds best to the simplest preparation. You really can't go wrong when you start with quality...The key to cooking, and therefore living well, is the best of ingredients." ~ Mireille Guiliano, French Women Don't Get Fat
P.S. This last photo is of last year's Thanksgiving dinner, using mostly local ingredients - except for a few cranberries, which were a splurge in honor of the occasion.
Nowadays, my menu planning starts at a farmers' market or on The Bountiful Sprout website, and it starts with fresh fruits and veggies. My weeknight meals are very simple and rarely ever include much meat, if any. I use basic recipes that adapt well to a variety of different ingredients, according to what's in season at any given time. My pantry and refrigerator are stocked with all the standards that these recipes require--good olive oil and several different vinegars, fresh from the farm eggs, real butter, dried porcini mushrooms, good pasta, sun-dried tomatoes and cans of San Marzano tomatoes, good (not processed!) cheeses, etc.--and about the only thing I go to the supermarket for these days is dry goods.
Sooo, Step #1 in The Good Life Plan would be much the same as Michael Pollen's now-famous manifesto: "Eat real food, mostly fruits and vegetable. Not too much." Only, I would probably add "according to what's in season, and grown or produced as close to your area as possible."
"In the end, seasonality is the key to the French woman's psychological pleasure in food--the natural pleasure of anticipation, change, the poignant joy we take in something we know we shall soon lose and cannot take for granted. Such heightened awareness of what we put in our mouths is the opposite of routine, mindless eating that promotes boredom and weight gain...Good food in season responds best to the simplest preparation. You really can't go wrong when you start with quality...The key to cooking, and therefore living well, is the best of ingredients." ~ Mireille Guiliano, French Women Don't Get Fat
P.S. This last photo is of last year's Thanksgiving dinner, using mostly local ingredients - except for a few cranberries, which were a splurge in honor of the occasion.
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2 comments:
What a lovely quotation describing seasonality: "the poignant joy we take in something we know we shall soon lose and cannot take for granted." Doesn't that apply as well to the passing joys of each day and the beloved people in our lives? Definitely thoughts to retain and remember when the sweet strawberry season has slipped away.
I think we all need to have things to look forward to and get excited about in our lives. Maybe it was our ever-increasing distance from knowing about and participating in the seasonality of food production, that caused us to try and replace that "poignant joy" with hunting and gathering at the malls!
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