Hilary Burns, "Cane, Rush and Willow: Weaving With Natural Materials"

This is the second book I checked out in my sudden strange urge to weave baskets.  (I've learned to just go with it when this happens.)  Of the two books, Cane, Rush and Willow is by far the more technical. 

It is also, as the subtitle implies, dedicated to weaving with twigs and grasses from the wild.  Whereas many weaving books, I have found, will incorporate just about every material, from nylon tubing to organdy ribbon and everything in between.

For the most part, Cane, Rush and Willow presumes that you want to gather and prepare your own material.  This was my original plan, although to be honest with you, after reading about what's involved, I have some reservations.  Do I REALLY want to go through all that?  I'm not sure. 

I didn't realize that you have to soak everything for a while before you use it.  You can buy materials pre-soaked of course, but considering the cost, why bother? 

Aside from gathering your material, there is a lot of instruction on how to cut it once you have it.  Nearly every technique includes instructions and pictures for using a sharp knife to perform some kind of critical procedure.  Most of which I am confident I would end up amputating my own thumb by accident, instead of nicely splitting the switch.

Cane, Rush and Willow uses a lot of jargon, which can be intimidating to the new user.  Although everything is defined in time, it's difficult to browse through and make sense of phrases like, "A scallom Is a long tail cut on the butt end of a rod.  By paring away the pith, the part left is flexible enough to use as a wrap."

The technique instruction takes up fully the first third of the book (as well it might).  The rest of the book is dedicated to patterns and projects, from simple to complex.  Most of these projects are gorgeous, although I have serious reservations about the dry wicker candle holders.  Even though the project specifies that the candle shouldn't be left unattended… I just couldn't recommend it, as pretty as it is.

I liked the gallery pages as much as anything.  Interspersed between the various projects, the gallery pages showcase finely crafted woven items from around the world, including everything from fine art to everyday cultural artifacts.  Aside from being fascinating objects to study, it served as an interesting reminder that weaving, and the process of forming grasses and twigs into necessary objects, is something that all cultures have in common.  From the Irish potato baskets to the African bracelets, these gallery items are wonderful.

As I flipped through the book, I kept thinking about how much I would have loved doing these projects as a kid.  From the coracle (a small but functional boat) to the arbor (perfect as a secret fort, if you let the blackberries grow over it), I think a lot of these projects would really appeal to teenagers and even pre-teens.  (Maybe not the knife work, though!)

Holding A Groupon Tiger By The Tail

If you're the owner of an independent restaurant and you want to drive throngs of traffic to your door (for better or worse), Groupon is clearly the way to do it. 

Groupon has been so successful that it has accidentally crushed some small businesses who failed to set an appropriate cap on the number of coupons sold.

The idea behind Groupon is simple: users sign up for Groupon's mailing list.  Every day they get an email with the day's deal. 

Meanwhile, Groupon contracts with local restaurants to offer super-steep deals: a $100 gift certificate for $50 is a typical deal.  Great, right? But not always!

Every time someone jumps on a Groupon deal, Groupon gets a cut, the users get an awesome deal, and business owners get traffic - both eyeballs on their website, and bodies in the seats.

Groupon has positioned itself as an interesting alternative to traditional print and television advertising, and in this sense it is ridiculously successful.  If I were an advertising manager, I would be very worried about the success of Groupon.

The big lesson that Groupon's success teaches is that for independent restaurants, it's all about managing risk.  Restaurant owners obviously need to learn to manage the risk of a wildly successful Groupon, as the story of Posies Cafe in Portland makes abundantly clear.

Put simply, Posies Café was utterly destroyed by their Groupon.  They had an $8,000 shortfall in income that month (despite crazy mad traffic) and had to dip into their own accounts in order to make payroll.  The owner of Posies Café has an incendiary blog post which is making the rounds. 

I empathize with their situation, but the owner says that Groupon refuses to set a cap, which is - according to Groupon - completely untrue.  She blames Groupon for the problem, but I'm really not sure what to think.  Maybe she didn't know how to set a cap, or didn't think it would be necessary, or got a bad tech support rep when she contacted Groupon.  I don't know. 

In hindsight, I doubt that Posies Café would have spent $8,000 in advertising over three months. But that is basically what they did.  The loss the business owner takes (in the above example, $50 on a $100 certificate) should be considered advertising.  Extremely effective advertising.

The second way that risk plays into this is, the main reason Groupon is successful is that it mitigates risk for people wanting to try a new restaurant. 

Are you willing to drop $100 at that new sushi place around the corner?  Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you would prefer to go back to your favorite restaurant instead.  Maybe, god help you, you would prefer to dine at Applebees.

Groupon basically gives you a chunk of money to try a new restaurant.  (In our example, Groupon gives you $50.)  Based on its success, I deduce that people want to try new restaurants, but they're reluctant to risk wasting money on a bad experience.

This has some interesting ramifications for restaurant owners who rely on basic advertising to get people in the door.  Obviously, a newspaper or radio ad that just gets your name out there is not enough.  You should definitely try Groupon… but be sure to set a prudent cap on the number of deals that can be sold!

Photo credit: Flickr/Dominc's pics

My New Bland Invention: Meatloaf With Flax Seed

I’ve made meatloaf before- in fact, I think I learned the basics of meatloaf in elementary school in a class called Meatloaf 101 (which had absolutely nothing to do with Meatloaf, the man), but don’t make it often now. Today, I was a little stretched for time and didn’t have many ingredients to work with, so went with the obvious choice of meatloaf using the grain-fed beef that I had in the freezer. Luckily,  I was on my own, so I didn’t have to worry about any Foodies complaining about my choice to make meatloaf.

I  then made the relatively painless decision to check out Betty Crocker’s meatloaf recipe. Since the dish was invented roughly about the time the mythical corporate icon for General Mills was born in Minnesota,  I figured that Betty’s cook book would be the best bet.

After a quick cupboard check, I determined that I had most of the ingredients, but no bread crumbs, so once again, was forced to improvise, which is definitely not my strong point in the kitchen. I looked for crackers, but there weren’t any, so I decided to use a combination of unsweetened bulk granola and flax seed instead. I was worried about the choice of ingredients beforehand as they sounded kind of weird and more hippie-ish than meatloaf should be, but I figured that I could eat it even if it didn’t taste quite as well as I thought it would. 

I know you can’t wait to know how my meatloaf turned out. Your mouth is probably watering at the thought of flax seed inside grain-fed beef. I know, in all actuality, it probably sounds horrible and might bring back thoughts of your younger hippie days before you became a vegan.

Feel free to mentally insert a drum roll at any time- the meatloaf was ok. Nothing to write home about (which is kind of ironic since I’m actually taking up my precious time to write about it), but when is meatloaf ever anything special? Do you ever hear anyone bragging about how great their mom’s meatloaf is? No, you don’t because it’s the easiest thing to cook on the face of the planet.

I should be proud of my accomplishment of adding the hippie ingredients, but since neither the granola of the flax seed added anything to the taste of the meal, I’m not that impressed with myself. I think I’ll cook spaghetti the next time I try to find a use for my hamburger instead.

High Fructose Corn Syrup Now Known as The Sugar Formerly Known as Syrup

In a highly comical move following a lengthy campaign to establish high fructose corn syrup as being “the same as table sugar,” the industry has decided to rename their product—after, of course, a pile of evidence that it’s actually more unhealthy than regular sugar continues to grow. High fructose corn syrup, which increases one’s risk of liver disease, diabetes, obesity, and other conditions, will now be referred to as simply, “corn sugar.”

Folks, calling it another name isn’t going to help increase your sales, nor is it going to make it a better product. I’m glad your sales are down; your product helps kill people. I’d be just as happy to hear that fast food or tobacco sales were down as well. Maybe instead of trying to re-brand yourselves with something that sounds more organic and natural, you should simply make a product that is—something like stevia, perhaps?—and help implement that into American products. Not only would that give you the better image you seem to be seeking so desperately, it would also actually improve the health of the nation, make you a more ethical company, and help (rather than harm) quite a lot of people. In short, you have a divine opportunity here to really re-establish yourselves as something more—and you’re blowing it with a cheap name change.

Do you know what happens when an artist changes his or her name? He or she typically undergoes a substantial new look, new sound, or other significant period in his or her life. Maybe he or she was touched by tragedy, or inspired by a whole new lifestyle; perhaps a band member even left, creating a whole new group with a different sound. Whatever the reason, a name change is usually only the whipped cream on top of the pie—the whole pie itself changes to be called a new name.

You, of course, are serving the same sticky, often mercury-contaminated, chemically-treated, unnatural crap, and pushing it to be included in everything from yogurt to breakfast cereal to anything and everything else that could potentially be healthy. HFCS people, we’re onto you. We’re not going to buy products that contain “corn sugar,” either, because a turd by any other name would stink as much. If you’d like to increase your sales, perhaps you should try the whole “100% natural” thing you were laughably calling your products at one point, only really making a “100% natural” product in the first place.

Bimbuñuelos Crispy Wheels Pastry

I live in an area of the Pacific Northwest (the Skagit Valley) with a thriving Hispanic population.  The grocery stores here have a much more comprehensive selection of Hispanic foods and brands than I used to see in Seattle, which is pretty fun.  I like new food!

One thing that always puzzled me was the snacks section.  Not the savory snacks, the chips and such - those are all delicious.  But the sweet snacks baffled me.  Whenever I picked one out, it inevitably tasted like heavily sweetened sawdust. 

Obviously they are popular, or Safeway wouldn't carry them.  But I eventually chalked it up to one of those "acquired taste" things, the way that adults hold that nostalgia for childhood sweets.  And the way that children are none too picky about sweets, and would probably enjoy these terrible cookies just fine.

Last night at the store, I happened to be following a Hispanic man who was pushing a cart, and shepherding three young children.  He seemed exasperated, and the kids - a child, a toddler, and a baby - were getting pretty strung out.

He paused at the display of cookies, then grabbed six blue packages off the shelf.  The kids literally cheered and jumped up and down as he tossed them into his cart with a sly grin.  It was very much a "Mom's not here, and can't say no" moment.

Intrigued by what snack could inspire this kind of excitement, I followed in his path and bought one for myself.  The small blue package was labeled "Bimbo Bimbuñuelos Crispy Wheels Pastry" which wasn't terribly helpful.  The wrapper art shows a white bear dressed in a t-shirt, shorts, and a chef's hat.  The bear appears to be using one of the "crispy wheels pastry" as a skateboard.

Bimbo is one of the biggest snack providers outside the United States.  It's big like Nabisco.  So I gather "Bimbuñuelos" would be like a cracker named "Nabis-kins."  Again, not very descriptive or helpful.

Once home, I couldn't resist tearing into the package.  Inside a plastic tray I found four crispy sweet sugar-dusted things that reminded me of churros.  Like churros combined with funnel cake.  The smell was rich, and sweet, and oily.  You don't often find deep fried items in the pre-packaged snacks aisle, which now that I think of it is a damned shame, because these things are delicious.

The pastry is hollow and thin, as well as brittle and sharp.  It snaps when you bite it, and the wise snacker will try to avoid jabbing a fragment into their gumline.  Biting into a Bimbuñuelos causes cinnamon sugar to spray everywhere.  I ended up eating mine carefully over the plastic tray they come in, using the tray to catch the sugar like some kind of demented eating trough.

The crunch is loud enough that I wouldn't want to eat one while watching a television show I cared about.  They leave behind a glorious patina of oil, and the taste of brown sugar. 

Seriously, the next time I put these in my cart, I just might jump up and down and cheer, too.

The Secrets of Sauce

Often the difference between "meh" cooking and haute cuisine is a good sauce. Strangely, a lot of people don't know the esoteric but simple techniques behind making a proper sauce. Truly a lot of the preliminary steps seem odd or counter-intuitive, but the magic of food science is part of the fun of cooking. Two ways to go about creating excellent sauce are to create either a fond or a roux.

Roux and fond are good at doing different things, so which method you use all depends on what dish you're making. Roux is good for creating simpler, less potent sauces called "mother sauces" that can be further augmented to make specific sauces while fond is a more ad hoc sauce made from elements of the dish it will be topping.

Roux is created by mixing, by weight, equal parts liquid fat and a dry thickening agent, usually flour. Traditional French dishes as well as many Asian roux variations use clarified butter, though vegetable oil and even rendered bacon fat can be used as well. To make the roux, simply heat the fat in a sauce pan on low to medium-low heat and very gradually incorporate the thickener. The best way to do this is to sift it in while whisking. This keeps the thickener from clumping up early and burning. Depending on the intended sauce the mixture is heated for varying lengths of time. The most important part is making sure the two elements are fully incorporated into a sort of homogeneous paste.

At this point you can add any number of things to the roux to make a sauce. Bechamel sauce is a mixture of roux and scalded milk, serving as the base for any number of creamy sauces like Mornay and Nantua, while darker sauces like Espagnole can be made by adding stock, vegetables and seasoning. From there the sky's the limit for additions and applications for specific sauces.

 

Fond is a faster, more specific sauce preparation method. Unlike roux, which is made independent of the final dish, fond is prepared through the process of deglazing, which requires some cooking beforehand. When something is fried or roasted in a pan it usually leaves behind bits of caramelized or carbonized matter on the bottom of the pan. While these hard pieces can end up just being a nuisance at cleanup time, they're packed with flavor and potential. Start by taking the pan off the heat temporarily then add a moderate amount of liquid, such as wine, brandy, milk or even water. Use a spatula to scrap the hard bits off the bottom of the pan and then return to the pan to a stove top on medium-low heat. Let the mixture reduce to your desired thickness and season with herbs and spices. If the mixture needs to be thicker you can add flour or cornstarch, though you should be aware that this will add some starchy flavor to the final product. Return the cooked food to the pan or pour the new sauce over the food. Voila, fond-style sauce.

The benefits of fond are that it's fast and uses flavors already present in the final dish so it will taste fitting. It's generally less fussy than roux-based sauce and has a more intense flavor.

Creating sauce at home is easy and it guarantees an extra "wow" factor in your dishes. Once you perfect your roux and fond methods, you'll wonder how you ever cooked without them.

Cleaning the Cupboards

I'm with Helen - I don't know why, but I always get caught up in a big bout of "spring cleaning" at about this time of the year.  Something about heading into the long dark winter makes me want to clear the decks, both mentally and physically.

Also, late summer is when the pantry pests tend to really go wild.  Blecch!  Pantry moths and pantry beetles can wreak havoc on your supplies and seriously gross you out.  They also indicate that foods are not being safely stored, which can lead to mold and serious illness.

Twice a year I try to rotate all the items in my pantry.  Six months is long enough that if I haven't eaten something, I'm probably not likely to.  This is the "fish or cut bait" stage when I go through everything I have and decide whether I want to find some way to use it, or find a better place for it.

Food banks used to accept canned and packaged foods, and for all I know they still do.  But most of the food banks in my area have gone to "cash only please," because they can get better deals buying foods in bulk.  And they don't have to worry about the quality, variety, and safety of random foods they get from the public.

Anything that's expired should be eaten immediately or thrown out.  (Or composted!)  I'm flexible on expiration dates.  If the container looks good and it hasn't been opened, I'll probably eat it.  However, any expired food that's in an open container gets composted.  It's just not worth the risk over $2 of yellow mustard or whatever.

Once you've inspected and sorted all the unopened packages, it's time to start in on the opened stuff.  I often find that if I start pulling things out of the cupboard, I'll unearth a half-used package of dry pasta hidden in the back.  Last weekend I made a "casserole's casserole" with three different types of pasta, all open packages I had found in the pantry.  It felt good to use it all up!

For things you don't intend to use immediately, seriously consider the packaging situation.  I keep a bunch of quart mason jars around.  These are great for storing half a bag of raisins or an open sack of corn meal.  Not only will they keep the contents fresh, but the glass and metal is impervious to pests.

Let us speak of the pests now.  Once you have inspected and removed everything, clean the inside of your cupboards with an antiseptic solution.  I wipe everything down with Simple Green to get the crumbs and sticky bits, then spray the entire inside of the cupboard with a 50/50 solution of white vinegar and water.  This will kill any germs and lurking beasties (or more to the point, the eggs of beasties).

While you're waiting for the inside of the cupboard to dry, take the time to wipe down all the open bottles.  Syrup, cooking oil, vinegar - these are all things that tend to collect drips, which get sticky and attract pests.

Now put everything back where it belongs and admire your spic and span handiwork!

Photo credit: Flickr/Lynda Giddens

Coupons: An Evil Lie

A recent post on the Consumerist blog is the perfect illustration of the problem with coupons.  In fact, it's such a perfect illustration that I can't help but think that's exactly why the Consumerist folks posted it in the first place.

Consumerist forum user LadySiren, "married with five kids," managed to buy 51 items for $45.46, saving a whopping $99.48 with coupons.  The problem?  With two exceptions, there isn't any, you know, FOOD in there.  Just an awful lot of what Michael Pollan calls "edible food-like substances."

Problem #1: Coupons are rarely for food.  Usually, they are for crap. 

LadySiren's take includes Spaghettios, Pop Tarts, ice cream, bottled sweetened iced tea, Snickers bars, tubes of Pillsbury cookie dough, Tuna Helper, Fudge Shoppe cookies, Progresso soup, and more.  The caloric value of her haul is staggering - and not in a good way.  The fat, sodium, and sugar is terrifying to contemplate.

I'm not interested in castigating LadySiren as a person, or as a mother.  We all make choices every day, and sometimes those choices aren't the best.  My point here is just that coupons entice you to buy stuff that you don't need, shouldn't eat, and that will eventually kill you.

Problem #2: Coupons only make you think you're saving money.

This actually breaks down into two sub-categories:
2A: foods you should never ever buy.  Like Pop Tarts.  No one should ever buy Pop Tarts.  The fact that we all occasionally buy a box of Pop Tarts is cause for shame; it should not be encouraged.

2B: foods you can cook a lot more cheaply on your own.  The false thrift of a product like Tuna Helper is astonishing.  Not only does Tuna Helper not save you any money versus making tuna casserole from scratch, it also adds a ton of salt, fat, and weird chemicals you don't need.  

Iced tea is pretty darned easy to make, and better for you to boot.  Your own iced tea won't have all the artificial sweeteners and preservatives, and it will have a lot more antioxidants compared to the manufactured pre-bottled kind.

Problem #3: Coupons favor high-waste items

Most of the things you buy with coupons are highly marketed, and thus heavy on the packaging.  Most of the things in LadySiren's picture have at least two layers of packaging, very little of which is recyclable.

As a culture, we need to get away from single-use plastic packaging.  It leaches harmful chemicals like BPA into our bodies, wastes natural resources, contributes to climate change thanks to petroleum processing, and either takes up space forever in a landfill or blows off and clogs our waterways and oceans.

Also, that packaging isn't free.  You're paying for it, even if you don't realize it.  Ever wondered why bulk food is so cheap?  It's because it's not individually shrink wrapped into single serving packets, which are stacked in a plastic tray, in a cardboard box, inside a plastic shrink wrap, with a cartoon mascot.

(Incidentally, cans have an inner layer of BPA plastic.  And canned food tends to be very acidic, thus leaching more BPA into the contents.  But on the up side, cans make for good recycling.)

Photo credit: Flickr/sdc2027

Porkin' the Crock Pot

Pork is by far one of my favorite meats to cook in the crockpot. No matter what flavor you are shooting for or dish to make, the meat is always super juicy and melts in your mouth. No knife needed ever when it comes to slow cooking pork. My family loves it too and that is why when we do our grocery shopping, we always buy a couple large pork tenderloins. We break it down ourselves and stock our freezer and it saves us a lot of money too.

Looking for something new to do with pork I came across this recipe. It’s called Pork Tenderloin with Apples and let me tell you, it was a huge hit and the kids couldn’t get enough. Even my 11 month old devoured it. It is made with chopped apples, apple sauce, brown sugar and balsamic vinegar. The recipe calls for you to cut off all excess fat off your pork but I left the fat on mine for extra flavor. For the best results, always keep in mind that the longer you leave the meat in, the better it will be when it comes out of the crockpot. I always leave mine in for as long as possible.

Just because summer time is over, that doesn’t mean that you can’t still have your barbeque dinners. I don’t have the actual recipe anymore for this yummy BBQ pork crockpot dish but it’s so easy to do, there’s no need to dig it out. Use about 1 to 2lbs. of pork tenderloin and put it in the crockpot, fat side up. Add a box of beef stock and 1 cup of water. Then, use Johnny’s Seasoning Salt or something similar and coat the top of the pork. Cook your ingredients over night if you can but if not, try to let it cook for at least 10 hours on low. Then, remove the juice from the pot (save it to make gravy for mashed potatoes) and empty your favorite brand of BBQ sauce over the pork and cook for another 2 to 3 hours on low. I couldn’t believe how great this turned out and highly suggest cooking over night if you can.

Another thing that is great about crockpot meals is that if you have little ones at home that are just old enough to be able to start helping in the kitchen, can. My daughter loves to help make dinner and be a part of the action.

Crock Pot Dinners

???It’s the season to pull the crockpot out of the cupboard and wipe the dust off. Quick and easy dinners couldn’t get any easier with a crockpot and you can make just about anything in them. There is nothing like a yummy soup or stew that has been cooking all day on a cold, rainy day to warm you up. Earlier I posted some quick and easy dinners and promised to share some of my family’s crockpot favorites and here are some to get you started and even a cheat to make things even quicker for those of you that don’t have the time to prep before going off to work.

Let’s start with the super quick and easy crockpot cheat. In the frozen food aisle at your local grocery store there are crockpot dinners pre-prepped. They are called Crock Pot Classics. I have used these before and all of them are very good. I used them a lot when I worked in the nursing field and had crazy and unpredictable hours. They cost about $10 and have everything in them ready to go including the meat. All you have to do is dump the contents into your crockpot, add the amount of water it asks for and turn the pot on. When you get home, dinner is done and there is absolutely no mess to clean up. They are wonderful to have on hand in your freezer for those nights you just don’t feel like cooking at all.

I love to make chicken soup in the crockpot and it’s really easy to do. You don’t even have to worry about thawing out chicken breasts because you can throw them straight in and worry about cutting them up later. To make the soup I use two large cans of chicken broth and one box of chicken stock to cook the chicken and veggies in. For veggies, you can simply add a bag of frozen mixed or cut up your own carrots, celery, onion and whatever else you like to have. Add in all the tasty herbs you want but if you are running low, I cheat and use Montreal Chicken Seasoning. Mix everything together well and cook on low. About 20 minutes before dinner, add in your noodles if you want them.

Like all busy mom’s out there, I’m always looking for new quick and easy recipes that the family will love. I’m looking forward to sharing with all of you the new and old I find this season and hopefully will learn some new ones from you all too.

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