Grocery Store Allegiances

I recently changed grocery stores. This is probably not of much interest to you unless you market grocery stores, but I did it for a number of reasons. The new store has more products I like, it’s smaller and closer to my home, and it’s in the same shopping plaza as a liquor store and my bank. (Note to Americans – In all Canadian provinces except Quebec you cannot buy wine in the grocery store, or anyplace outside of the liquor store. Pain. In. The. Posterior.) If I forget my re-usable bags they use paper instead of plastic, and the staff is very smiley.

Deciding that I like one grocery store better than the other is hardly earth-shattering. However, I feel a little guilty. I shopped at my old grocery store for over 6 years, from the time that we first moved into this house. I took my newborns there, and the staff knew them and commented on their growth. I had a relationship with that store, in many ways. But their parking lot is awful and the store is big and overwhelming and the don’t carry large jugs of organic milk.

Photo credit buck82 on Flickr.

It’s funny how wrapped up my identity can become in the place that I buy toilet paper. I feel almost as if shopping at Store X instead of Store Y says something about the kind of person I am. The store I choose is about the food I eat and the community I live in, and both of these are extremely important things. It’s also about my money and what I choose to spend it on. While I know that store preference is subjective and not values-based, it still implies something to me.

Photo credit steev-o on Flickr.

Grocery stores vary with where you live. In urban areas stores are small, but you can find a wide variety of specialty stores, too. Places that sell only nuts, but the best nuts you’ve ever eaten, or exotic foods without a single recognizable letter on them. Here in the suburbs the stores are big and the parking lots are bigger. A single grocery store is outfitted to look like a bunch of smaller specialty shops all put together, with a ‘cheese shoppe’ and a ‘butcher’ and a ‘patisserie’. One-stop shopping is the aspiration, but we like the illusion that it’s somehow fancier than the massive barn it really is. In rural settings the stores get smaller, again, and people may have to make long trips to stock up on certain items.

Photo credit Tim Murtaugh on Flickr.

If stores carry different food in different packaging for different prices, doesn’t that say something about a place? The way that people acquire and handle food is fundamental. The value that we assign to what we eat, and our relationship to it, is reflected in our grocery stores. For example, do we buy something that looks like a chicken, or do we buy chicken nuggets? Is there more store space devoted to pet food than vegetables? If we are what we eat, then our grocery stores matter.

Do you apply special weight to your choice of grocery store? Or, do you think I am blowing the significance of grocery store allegiance way out of proportion? Please share!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Monsters

I know a lot of moms who like to make healthy treats. Think muffins with hidden vegetables or mashed chick peas, or cookies sweetened with applesauce. I can see why you would do this, and I respect their efforts to make snack time healthier. I have to confess, though, that I am not one of those moms. Grating carrots or adding tofu on the sly just sounds like a lot of work to me, and thankfully my children will generally eat fruits and veggies and cheese and so on without any subterfuge. If that weren’t the case, I’d be keeping zucchini in my freezer, too, I’m sure.

When I bake I don’t make any particular gestures towards healthy eating. I make treats, which are understood to be such. These are ’sometimes foods’, and our favourite sometimes food is chocolate chip cookies. I have made these so many times I have long since given up using a recipe, or for that matter much in the way of measuring cups. I can do chocolate chip cookies by feel wearing a blindfold, more or less.

I think the secret to delicious chocolate chip cookies is not to overthink them. Use few ingredients and don’t get too creative. The perfect chocolate chip cookie is not an artistic creation, it is the simple stuff of childhood, and it is served warm. Or, if you’re like me, eaten in batter form, raw eggs and all.

It is a rare occasion when I make cookies without at least one little helper. Although they’re really not any help at all, truth be told, and I spend more time trying to keep them from eating butter like it’s a snack food than we spend in happy bonding moments. I’m sure I was the same way when I was a kid, though, and I remember baking fondly. So cookie creation becomes a family activity, and it drags on and leaves me more than a little frazzled.

The recipe here is based loosely on a recipe off of a bag of chocolate chips. It has been sufficiently modified by me that I feel comfortable calling it my own creation, although it’s hardly original in any way, shape or form.

Amber’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups yellow sugar*
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (I use semi-sweet)

Making the cookies:
Cream together the butter and sugar, and then add the eggs and vanilla. Beat together until smooth. Add the baking soda and mix well, then add the flour and mix well. Sometimes it can be hard to mix in the flour, and when this happens I use my (clean!) hands. Because, let’s be honest, I am eating generous amounts of the batter anyway, and your hands are better at mixing than a wooden spoon could ever be. Finally, add the chocolate chips and mix one last time.

Drop the batter in balls on the cookie sheet. I like to bake with parchment paper to keep the cookies from sticking, but you can also bake them on an ungreased cookie sheet and they should be fine. I use my hands for this step, too. I’ve found it’s faster just to grab a big hunk of dough and break off small pieces than to try to scoop with a spoon. Make the cookies as large or small as you like, there is no right or wrong here within reason. Bake at 375 F for about 10 minutes.

If you have not made yourself sick eating cookie dough, then now is the time to make yourself sick eating warm cookies. Leave the rest on a cooling rack to, you know, cool. And, if your child likes to ‘help’ like mine, you might want to get out the dustbuster.

Happy cookie making!

* Yellow sugar is like brown sugar, but lighter. I use a ‘Golden Yellow‘ sugar, mostly because it’s what is available locally.

PS – I originally omitted the flour from the recipe. Which, you know, does not make a good cookie. Luckily, it’s all fixed now. Oops!

Experiments with Sourdough

A couple of weeks ago I decided to make some sourdough bread. I have local flour, so I have been making mostly-local bread. By making sourdough starter I could eliminate the yeast and bake some true 100 mile loaves. It sounded so crazy it just might work. So I turned to my good friend Mr. Google and found a great intro to sourdough baking.

To start with you mix a cup of water and a cup of flour to make this sort of paste-like thing, which you leave on your countertop in a glass jar. 24 hours later you pour out half of the goo and add another 1/2 cup each of water and flour. You continue this process (called ‘feeding the sourdough’) every 24 hours until you have a bubbly, frothy, sourdough-smelling starter. Then you can put it in the fridge and feed it weekly, or use it bake some bread. I opted to bake bread.

To bake the bread you need to proof the starter, so you add 1 cup each of water and flour and wait for it to do its thing.

The sourdough starter

Flour and water added for proofing

Bubbles starting to form

Starter proofed and ready to go

At this point, you measure out however much of the starter you need, and put the rest in a glass jar, feed it, and refrigerate. This will be your starter for next time. Then you follow your recipe and make your bread. The whole process can take a long time, since sourdough rises much more slowly than yeast bread. Eventually, though, my bread was ready for its final rise. I decided I would try making a lovely, round loaf just like you see in the grocery store.

My first sourdough loaf, ready for its final rise

This is where it all went off the rails for me. Instead of rising, my loaf sort of spread out. I’m not sure if there was too much oil on the baking sheet, or if it was the recipe, or if there is some trick to making a round loaf. If you know the answer I would love to hear it. The net result, though, was my bread ended up more pancake-like than bread-like. I tried to salvage it by putting it into a baking dish, to no avail.

Deflated loaf in a baking dish

At this point, I decided that I needed to go back to basics for my second loaf. I was using 100% whole wheat flour for my sourdough, since my local flour is all whole wheat. I continued using the whole wheat for the starter, but I decided to use unbleached white flour when I mixed up the bread, as the recipe instructed. (Following the recipe? How novel!) I also decided to use a loaf pan. This time, I got a lovely loaf of bread. And it tasted great, to boot. Victory!

I couldn’t wait to sample the bread until after I got the picture

Have you ever baked sourdough? If so, please share your tips and tricks!

I Can, Can You?

I love to can food. It’s one of those things that makes me feel all domestic and competent and old-timey. I first tried it two years ago, when my friend and I attempted crushed tomatoes. At first I was seriously apprehensive at the prospect of preparing the jars and processing the finished product. I read and re-read the instructions, including dire warnings about botulism and acidity and how you can kill yourself and your family if you’re not careful. And then I decided that if I wanted to do it, the best thing was to just jump right in.

Since my first foray into crushed tomatoes I have also canned pears, applesauce, pickles and lots and lots of jam. I have canned with a friend, by myself, and with screaming children for company. I have opened each jar with trepidation. Would it be good? Would I poison my friends and family? I am thankful to say that no illness or death has occurred as a result of my canning, and that in general the food I’ve canned has been delicious. I totally rock the food preservation, yo!

A week and a half ago I returned to crushed tomatoes. While our daughters were at preschool my friend and I and our two babies put away 40 pounds of canning tomatoes. Although, truth be told the babies didn’t exactly pull their weight. But we managed, and we got 42 pints of tomatoes as a reward. Look at how impressive they are, all lined up on my kitchen counter:

If you are interested in canning, or food preservation of any kind, I highly recommend the USDA Publications. Read them, get your bearings, and give it a try. It’s not as hard as it looks, I promise. And there are few things quite as satisfying as a shelf in your garage, full of food you made. It fulfills all of my natural impulses to prepare for the winter, and it makes me smile when I eat the food many months later. Because it’s mine, you know?

I like taking responsibility for my own food like this. I know exactly what is in it. There’s nothing genetically modified in my tomatoes. No BPA lining the jars. And while it’s kind of a shift in thinking for someone like me who’s used to buying my food in neat little containers at the grocery store, it’s a good kind of shift. A shift towards understanding what I’m eating and where it came from. And I like it.

Do you can, or preserve food in other ways? If so, what’s your favourite thing to squirrel away for later?

Ode to Peanut Butter and Jam

For as long as I’ve known my husband Jon (and that’s a pretty long time), he has been a devotee of the peanut butter and jam sandwich. He eats them toasted for breakfast, untoasted at night, and sometimes on a single folded-over piece of bread when he’s on the go. It is the staple food of his diet. He is really lucky that he went to school in the age when peanut products were allowed in lunchboxes, is all I can say.

There is a mythology surrounding the humble PB & J in my husband’s family. It was the first food item that Jon could prepare himself, and when he was a preschooler he would get up in the morning and make himself one. It was also his father’s specialty, and Jon remembers childhood weekends when his mother would go to work and his dad made him peanut butter sandwiches. With butter on them, to boot. Apparently the butter was very good, and Jon says this is why he loves peanut butter and jam so much today.

Jon has a method to his sandwiches which differs from mine. I have a heavy hand with the peanut butter, and a really heavy hand with the jam. I like sweet stuff, and I find that having lots of jam keeps the sandwich from adhering to the roof of your mouth as much. Jon, on the other hand, has a lighter hand with the peanut butter, and puts on only the slightest hint of jam. I suppose that I can’t judge his jam skimpiness, as it seems to be working for him, but the result is that neither of us has ever made a PB and J for the other. Because, you know, we would do it wrong.

Being set in your peanut butter ways is understandable. There’s a certain truth that you always prefer your mother’s cooking. We form many of our tastes in childhood, and any deviation will never be quite right. In Jon’s case I think he prefers his dad’s peanut butter creations. And he’s passed that on – our 4-year-old Hannah tells me, “Dad makes fabulous peanut butter and jam sandwiches!” I will always be the peanut butter also-ran in our household.

13-month-old Jacob is also a huge fan of peanut butter and jam. He squeals when he sees me take the peanut butter jar out of the fridge. He mooches pieces of sandwich off anyone with the audacity to eat one in his presence. He smears peanut butter in his hair and laughs with glee. As it turns out, he is his father’s son. And he has the peanut butter breath to prove it.

Jacob eating a peanut butter and jam ’sand’-wich in Bamfield

What about you? What’s the official food of your family?

Tastes Like Home

Back in January I told you about an initiative to grow local grain in the Vancouver area.

I like to eat local when I can. I believe that sourcing food from people you know with high standards is usually worth the effort and expense. Family farms and small local producers are in jeopardy because it’s hard for them to compete with large-scale industrial operations. The food distribution system is now set up around these large-scale producers, so if we want the family farm to survive it’s up to us. We need to support them, financially and otherwise.

I feel lucky that where I live I am able to find a wide variety of local food. Seafood, meat, eggs, dairy, and lots and lots of fruit and veggies. However, one of the things that is nearly impossible to come by locally is grain. While it can grow here, and it did in the past, farmers have long since switched to other crops. In Canada, wheat is grown on the prairies and that’s pretty much it. So I was very excited that Urban Grains offered a community-supported agriculture project that grows and processes grain right here in my own backyard.

I went on the mailing list in January and waited. I eagerly read the emails they sent, outlining their adventures in trying to find local farmers to partner with. I was very happy when they finally located someone, and overjoyed when I was offered a share. I sent in my cheque, and I waited some more. (Grain takes sort of a long time to grow, as it turns out.)

Finally, on September 21, I got my flour. 20kg of the stuff, plus a little bonus because it was such a good harvest. My friend picked up my share for me, and then dropped it off at my house. Me? I started cooking.

The verdict? It tastes like flour. I’m not sure that I can tell the difference just from eating it. But so far my bread has been successful, my pancakes scrumptious, and my pizza really rather good. And I feel good about it, which is really the whole point. To me it’s not just bread, it tastes like home. And I love that.

Ice Cream and the Meaning of Life

Today I am participating in the Carnival of Breastfeeding. So after you read my super deep and meaningful ruminations here, check out what everyone had to say about combining breastfeeding and working.

A couple of weeks ago the kids and I went away to Bamfield, a remote village with a population of 250. During our visit we took a walk along the boardwalk and stopped in at the general store, which was much smaller than your average convenience store in my neighbourhood. This is not a big place, and so the local merchants do not carry a lot of goods. If you need groceries you order them and they come by boat a couple of times a week. I am sure that quantities of exotic cheese and grass-fed beef would go bad before anyone bought them in Bamfield.

But this general store does offer ice cream cones. And after schlepping my 20-pound toddler up and down the boardwalk in the baby carrier, I was ready for something sweet and cold. So we stopped in at the store on the way back for some ice cream. I walked to the back case with anticipation, and discovered they had only 4 flavours. And one of those flavours was ‘a little soft’ because it had just arrived in town. I admit it, I was sort of disappointed.

But here’s the thing. I happened to like all four flavours on offer. In fact, three of them are in the running for my favourite flavour ever, and I usually choose them even when I have 197 options. Really, it was no poverty to me that they didn’t have bubblegum or cotton candy or rum raisin, because I wouldn’t eat them anyway. Plus, having ice cream cones at all in a remote village in the off season is really quite the luxury in the first place.

Those four tubs just looked so forlorn in the ice cream case. Really, it was half-empty. And that’s not something I’m used to. So my first reaction was sort of negative. I just automatically thought, “Where is all the ice cream? Is this it?”

I think there’s some sort of metaphor for life in this. Looking at the ice cream case I realized that really I like the illusion of choice. Even if it doesn’t particularly benefit me, or all the options I would ever consider are available, I like thinking that I have limitless flavours to pick from. It makes me feel important or something, I guess. Like the world’s my oyster and the heavens are at my feet. But I’m not sure that it makes me happy, wanting all of these options that I will never use.

I think that happiness probably lies more in saying, “Oh, wow, they have moose tracks ice cream in Bamfield! I love moose tracks!” In appreciating what you have, instead of being sad about what you don’t. And so I forced myself to have an attitude adjustment. I bought my ice cream, and I liked it. I bought some for Hannah, and she liked it, too. I gave my empty cone to Jacob. He was thrilled. Really, no one lost out in this little exercise in treat acquisition.

What about you? Are you able to be happy for the ice cream cone, or do you sometimes get caught up in the choices (or lack of choices)? I’m sure I’m not the only spoiled suburbanite who expects a full ice cream case.

Attack of the Cucumbers

Today I am bringing you a new installment in ‘as the garden turns’. You may remember that back in May I was plagued by something eating my plants. To compensate I planted more and more and more. Eventually the plants won the battle against the pests and I had too much lettuce.

It’s August now, and the lettuce is winding down. But it turns out the overabundance of leafy greens are not going to hold a candle to the overenthusiastic cucumbers.

Back in June I had a dozen or so timid and small cucumber plants. I still have a dozen or so plants, but no one would think of calling them ’small’ or ‘timid’. They have taken over the whole garden, and they just keep going and going and going. To date I have harvested 18 cucumbers, and there is no end in sight. Luckily my 4-year-old adores cucumber, and the baby’s a fan, too. I’m also pressing friends with at least a few whenever I see them. So far we’re staying on top of the cukes, and I have plans to do some pickling. Although the last time I made sweet pickles I went into labour, so I do find the idea a little intimidating.

You know, gardening is something you just kind of learn as you go. And I’ve learned not to underestimate the ability of a plant to overcome a rough start. Really. Life is tenacious, and will overcome all obstacles. And you want to be able to walk through your yard without becoming entangled in creeping cucumber vines.

Why Organic?

At the end of July I read an article in my morning paper discussing the nutritional benefits of organic food. Or, more specifically, the lack of nutritional benefits. It seems that a review was recently published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which suggested that conventionally-grown and organically-grown food have the same nutritional content. Or at least, no significant difference in most of the nutrient categories analyzed. The conclusion is that if you’re looking for nutritional superiority, there’s no reason to buy organic.

There have been studies and reviews that found some health benefits associated with organic production. This study didn’t. I’m not in a position to judge who is right and who is wrong. My guess is it’s not that clear cut anyways, since the researchers who found no benefit also called for more and better research into the nutritional content of food and the factors that affect it. There is much about food and how it grows that we don’t understand, and we shouldn’t conclude that the final verdict is in based on one review.

I contend than none of that really matters, though. Few people buy organic food because they’re looking for nutritional superiority. Or at least, that’s not why I opt for organic food. I choose to buy food that is organic, or sustainably produced, or what-have-you because I don’t want pesticides or genetically modified organisms in my food. I especially don’t want them in my children’s food. And I don’t want them leaching into our waterways and our ecosystem. While there may or may not be other benefits to eating organic food, avoiding exposure to potentially toxic chemicals is enough for me.

How bad are all those pesticides, really? As it turns out, they’re really pretty bad. Pesticides have been implicated in the widespread disappearance of honeybees. They are also highly toxic to amphibians, including frogs, whose numbers are in serious decline. And pesticides are harmful to birds, causing effects ranging from a reduction in insect food to thinning eggshells. And there are negative effects on humans, as well, as some pesticides are potential carcinogens or endocrine disruptors.

I will be honest and say that I don’t eat a completely organic diet. For various reasons, I buy a lot of conventionally produced food, although I would say that the proportion of organic food in my diet is steadily increasing. I’m doing the best I can, just as we all are. And while I believe that my efforts do matter, I also recognize that this issue is much bigger than I am, and requires large-scale change to resolve.

So, maybe the organic blueberries I bought at the farmer’s market are the same as the conventionally-grown blueberries at the supermarket, nutritionally-speaking. But that doesn’t mean that they’re the same blueberries on all counts, you know? Which is why I will opt for the organic and local food, given the choice.

What about you? Do you opt for organic or sustainably-grown food, or do you think it’s just not worth the extra money?

Canada Day Cake

Today is Canada Day. It’s this great land’s 142nd birthday (although we like to say she doesn’t look a day over 129). We celebrate by waving paper flags, getting maple leaves temporarily tattooed on our cheeks, and eating cake.

But not just any cake. No sirree Bob. Not just any cake will do on Canada Day. On Canada Day, you must have Canada Day cake. It must be a vanilla sponge cake decorated with whipped cream and strawberries to look like a Canada flag.

Canada Day cake photo courtesy of Yogi on Flickr

There is some part of my soul that thrills to the idea of the Canada Day cake. I’m not sure why, exactly. I’m normally a chocolate fan myself. Perhaps it’s the fresh strawberries, perhaps it’s my patriotism shining through, but I adore the idea of this cake. Which makes it all the stranger that I’ve never actually had any.

I suppose if you don’t like cake you could go this route

Every year I scour the paper in search of Canada Day functions that feature cake. Many of them do. Some of them even up the ante and include lemonade. But somehow I’ve never actually managed to find a piece. Either the cake’s all gone by the time we get there, or we don’t make it to the event at all, or there’s just way too long of a line-up for my impatient self my kids to handle. So the cake remains ever elusive, just out of my reach.

I’m not even sure I would eat a piece now if it were offered, because it couldn’t possibly live up to my expectations. Actually, who am I kidding? I would never turn down cake, no matter how dry or bad-tasting I would soldier through. But I think my point is made – the cake is mythical in my mind, elevated beyond mere cake to something symbolic of Canada as a nation.

Canada has its upsides and downsides. I’m not afraid to admit that there are days I wish I enjoyed the same retail options as my American friends. But no matter what we have cake. Not just any old cake, either, Canada Day cake. And I’m almost positive that it’s delicious.

Happy Canada Day!