To use a crude analogy: Gojee is to blogs as Epicurious is to Conde Nast publications. The team invited bloggers—men, women, mothers, cooking couples, self-professed gastronomes, as well as established sites like food52 and serious eats to contribute to Gojee’s virtual recipe box.

Users type a food under “I have” or “I crave”, enter any food allergies and dislikes, and Gojee spits out recipes that meet those criteria. For New Yorkers with a D’Agostino loyalty card, Gojee can find recipes based on recent purchases.

When you’re looking at the ingredients list for a recipe, you can click on each item to generate ideas for using the rest of that nub of ginger. By curating recipes, the editorial team has streamlined the search process and reduced hits to a manageable list. They are also asking that we trust their tastes. As Cathy Erway asks Mike LaValle and Veronica Chan on Heritage Radio, “How did you become and expert in what’s delicious?”. [Abridged answer: family, work, life]

So how does it work? I typed “I have cabbage” and the first hit was “Suspiciously Delicious Cabbage” accompanied by a juicy photo, a brief write up, ingredients list, and link to the recipe on the fiveandspice blog. I laughed. I share an office with Emily a.k.a. fiveandspice and could have walked ten feet to talk cabbage. Hers is delicious.

I asked Emily about her involvement with the site. The writers let the editorial team select recipes and, in exchange, Gojee drives traffic–there are around 100,000 registered users–to contributors’ blogs. Including Emily’s. Everyone wins.

Whereas Epicurious and food52 have dedicated user communities, Gojee caters to individual preferences. Using the site feels more like hitting the thumbs up or thumbs down on Pandora. I see this as a plus. It contributes to the calm feel of the page and clean design. You can always troll reader comments on the blogs that feature the full recipes.

Gojee offers an easy way to search by ingredients and to expand your blogroll, but it’s not without some kinks. In my “I have green cabbage” search, Emily’s recipe came up twice, once from food52 and once from the fiveandspice blog, with different photos and copy. When I tried “I crave green cabbage”a recipe for Meringues Chantilly popped up among results with the note “no more matches” followed by a stream of other tasty-looking, cabbage-barren recipes. It’s easy to get distracted and forget that you are trying to use up that cabbage.

There’s no way to search by type of dish, so query ‘cinnamon’ and you’ll get responses savory and sweet, sides and mains, American comfort next to Asian inspired. This is a boon to the spontaneous and potential curse for the hangry. [Note: the more ingredients you put in, the more the results narrow]. For those short on time, you have to click through to the full recipe to get an estimate of active time and/or total preparation time.

Still, whether you’re eating through your pantry before a September 1st move (me), facing a bumper crop of zucchini but can’t stomach another muffin, or are just looking for lush pictures, Gojee is worth a visit.

The post Gojee: Is it short for ‘I want to go to there’? appeared first on The Faster Times.

Fathers are spending more time cooking–as in “cooking-cooking”, not just flipping burgers for a holiday weekend. Data from the 2006-2008 Eating and Health module of the American Time Use Survey show that 15% of non-single fathers with kids under 13 report being the primary household meal maker.

As a newbie time use researcher, I find this stuff fascinating. So does John Donohue, except he takes the opposite, and infinitely more readable, approach to addressing these themes. Rather than taking data, stripping it of identifying characteristics, and analyzing it in aggregate, Donohue has collected individual stories in a new, best-selling, anthology.

Donohue, a “Goings on About Town” editor at the New Yorker, blogger, cartoonist, husband, father, and avid cook, has collected (mis) adventures and recipes from home-cooking men of varied professions. Contributors include culinary stalwarts Mario Batali and Mark Bittman, writers Steven King and Sean Wilsey, a carpenter, a debt trader, and a guidance counselor/football coach/caterer. The end product, Man With A Pan, exudes the nuance and unique voice that narratives (as opposed to surveys) provide so well.

The diversity of experiences lends the anthology a confessional, at times conspiratorial, tone—imagine the Freemasons hosting a book club. Wesley Stace discovers patience and Yes while cooking his way through 50 Great Curries of India. Jesse Sheidlower basks in the social acceptance that cooking can afford us introverts. Stephen King bakes chocolatish cake. (For days I carried the image of King spoon feeding Kathy Bates in a Misery role reversal). For the kitchen fearing, Daniel Moulthrop’s approach should become a mantra,

“I was like, I’ve never done this before, but I’ll try it. It’s not rocket science, it’s not brain surgery; it’s just food.”

When I had the pleasure of speaking with John it was clear that a major driver behind the anthology was encouraging dads to get cooking. Highlights from the interview follow after the jump. For more, check out his blog stayatstovedad.

TFT: One thing that’s striking about this anthology is the diversity of the voices and perspectives. How did you go about selecting and finding contributors?

JD: I work in publishing, so I started out by reaching out to friends and friends of friends. The book’s genesis is when I first became a parent six years ago and the joys, panic, new responsibilities, and emotional turmoil that came with it. My reaction was to start cooking a lot. I wanted to see how other men, other dads, were doing it. I’d ask friends of mine who were new dads—How were they handling it? Then I just looked at different writers whose work I really admired. I’d find out if they had a family, really cooked, and I’d go from there.

TFT: What about the other guys in the book—the economists, the carpenter, the fireman?

JD: … I wanted to choose a cross-section of workers from blue-collar jobs, white-collar jobs, different ethnic groups. One of the goals was to inspire other men to start cooking. It’s one thing to read about writer who watches a pot boil while composing a poem—actually there are no poets in the book—it’s another thing to be a fireman, a bond-trader, to hold down a job and do cooking around the house. I wanted to ground it in the real world—not that writing isn’t the real world. You know what I mean.

TFT: Reading the entries, I was interested in the motivations guys had for picking up the pan. Some enjoy cooking to relax or de-stress. Others have found careers in the kitchen. But a lot of the men in the book started cooking to win over a woman or to win points with a spouse and the family. So for households where a pattern is already in place, do you have any tips for how to get a man into the kitchen?

JD: Tough call. It depends on the man. Some men are just never going to do it…If someone has a little bit of interest and they see benefits—health, social, relationship benefits they might start.

I like to say to people who are thinking about cooking and haven’t done it before, ‘Remember when learned to ride a bike? It was scary to balance. You thought you could never could do it. Then riding a bike becomes second nature and you bike all over the place.’ It seems a little scarier than to actually do it…

TFT: There’s this sense of joy and pride that comes through really clearly—and has been commented on in many of the book reviews. But there’s also this great honesty about things getting tedious. Manny Howard talks about the challenges of transitioning from stunt cooking to feeding a family. For guys that might be on the fence, or drawn to the more macho cooking, do you have any advice for making it through the day-to day?

JD: That was other motivation for the book. I was finding I was getting into a grind and wanted to see what other guys were doing. The book has about fifty recipes.

TFT: Have you tried any of them out yet?

JD: I’m still caught up with daily grind. I’m working two full time jobs between being editor and the book, the book blog. I don’t really experiment as much as I’d like. I hope to get to a point where I’m experimenting more…

TFT: Many of the fathers mention having picky eaters. I’ve team taught a nutrition/cooking skills class to parents of preschoolers. For a lot of the mothers in the class, having picky eaters escalated into power dynamics, stress, and feeling rejected/frustrated when kids won’t eat. I didn’t pick up that tone [of anxiety, frustration] in reading these entries. Do you think the guys are being tough or, from the interviews you’ve done, do you feel fathers experience picky eating differently?

JD: Depends on the dad. I’ve come to believe picky eating is all about the power dynamic and being listened to. If they [kids] say no, they can really stop the conversation and make it into a way to get their way—in a way they usually can’t. They suddenly have the power. It’s tricky you know. My older daughter doesn’t eat any fruit. She won’t eat candied fruit, or jam, the cherry in bottom of a Shirley temple… It’s become part of her self-image—Someone Who Just Can’t Eat Fruit. I’m a little concerned and disappointed that she might not be getting the vitamins she can get in fruit.

…Maybe guys can let things slide better. You can’t make generalizations.

TFT: Yeah of course. From a nutrition point of view, what you’re saying is pretty much spot on. The experts in the field say it’s a power dynamic and to try not to pay attention to it. Just put food on the table and not make a big deal about it…you know, not say “eat it”.

JD: Yeah. That’s the common wisdom. But it doesn’t always work like that…

TFT: I don’t have kids, so in the class I helped teach, I’d have to preface everything with “SO, the experts say….How would that work for you?” and they’d just look at me like, ‘uh huh. You don’t know my kid.’…

Have you learned anything about yourself through the process of cooking more?

JD: Yeah, I learned it’s a treat to be able to cook for everybody. There’s a visceral sensation of bringing joy to people and providing to people in a way I wouldn’t expect. I used to just cook for myself because I was hungry. Now I’m cooking for family.

TFT: What are their favorites?

JD: It kind of changes. The girls like Bolognese, my black beans. My elder daughter loves linguine with clam sauce. I just made pesto with youngest… she really loved the pesto. But I mean, they also love Koala Krisp Cereal. It’s hard to compete with the food companies.

TFT: I saw on your blog that you roasted a pig in a box. It kind of loses the Man! Pig! Flame! factor but also looks like a magic trick in the box.

JD: That’s an astute observation…Was there a question?

TFT: Yeah. How did it turn out? I’ve never seen a pig in a box before.

JD: It was a high wire act for me. I was doing it to raise money; doing it in public; doing it with people from the book. One of them was the inspiration for it. Manny Howard roasted a pig with his girlfriend on the beach and then she becomes his wife…He fell off a ladder and cracked his pelvis. I had to take charge…

It is like a magic trick. When it’s well crafted it just can’t fail.

That’s the other lesson about cooking. You don’t have to worry about a fancy recipe. You just need good ingredients.

We had a Greenmarket pig and just put salt on it. People were gnawing on hooves, picked over the brain. We had a 50 pound pig, 40 people, and it was gone in 10 minutes. People would come up and be like “Where’s the pig?” They’d go over to the bones and pick over the already picked over bones…

TFT: Would you do it again? JD: I would under the right circumstances. In a backyard. It takes four hours. It would be nice to be able to go in and use the Internet. You really don’t do anything for four hours. You just have to keep someone from wandering into it. We burned it…. We just kept it in the box for the whole four hours. All we did was flip it over. No one knows what it’s supposed to look like. We lost a little meat off the burned part but it had this crazy crispy skin.

Nobody knew.…

TFT: …Maybe it’s the threat of disaster that makes it a true success.

Thanks, John.

The post Home on the (Stove) Range: The Faster Times Interview with John Donohue, editor of Man with a Pan appeared first on The Faster Times.

AdWeek points out that the campaign, designed by PR agency Weber-Shandwick, “goes out of its way to show consumers exactly how the pancakes and other menu items from its frozen breakfasts division are made. Turns out its similar to the way consumers make them at home, except for the huge freezer that preps the flapjacks, waffles and other food items for packaging and delivery. (And the pots, pans and utensils are a little bigger too)”.

Given concerns about transparency in the food supply, a tour of the factory and its upbeat employees is a savvy move. Compared to the widely circulated photos of mechanically separated chicken, a.k.a. the “pink goop” that nuggets come from, pancake batter is a welcome sight. Feel good as the videos are, most of the comments on the site are about the “$1 off 2 boxes of product” coupon offer, suggesting that cost-savings are a major driver of traffic to the site.

The Aunt Jemima Frozen website is completely separate from the regular website site, evidence that the product lines are intended to appeal to distinct customer groups. It also feels different than the Facebook page. Whereas the social media site simultaneously broadly appeals to interests in pancakes and “scratch-cooking”, the website bluntly targets “the busy mom”. I study the relationship between time-use, maternal employment, and meal-related behaviors. There’s an entire body of research devoted to “work-family spillover” and related stress and conflict. I get it: time constraints are real. Still, I hate the way food companies pray on maternal concerns about balancing work and family. For years, advertisers have threatened that your loved ones will turn on you if dinner sucks. Sarah Haskins tears this apart in 2008 in her video “Feeding Your F—ing Family”. Why wait until dinner to fail, when you can start with breakfast?

The Aunt Jemima Frozen website insinuates that busy moms with adorable children—specifically, adorable toddler girls—should 1) feel guilty that they aren’t making pancakes on most days and 2) be relieved that they can make amends in the frozen aisle—now with blueberries. Just ignore the fact that pancake syrup doubles as glue. And, while you’re at it, ignore the nutrition facts panel too. The pancakes come in at 240 calories per serving, without any syrup. Add 105 calories for an 1/8 cup of Aunt Jemima syrup; 210 for the full serving and a breakfast marketed at a small child all of a sudden exceeds 350 calories. With the exception of the whole grain variety, that’s a breakfast entirely comprised of refined carbohydrates, and packed with sodium. Whole grains or not, it blatantly violates the “breakfast trio” goal advanced by many nutritionists. (The idea is to eat foods from at least three food groups at breakfast: e.g. eggs in a corn tortilla with tomato or cheese; oatmeal with nuts and dried fruit).

The ‘busy mom angle’ for breakfast is bold, because it’s really not that hard to do well in a pinch, even if you have limited cooking skills. You can throw together a bowl of a decent cereal with sliced banana in less than 2 minutes. Hit the stop clock on your cell phone and see how long it takes to spoon some yogurt into a bowl and drizzle with a little honey. Scrambled egg on an English muffin with a hit of cheddar? Roughly 5. The frozen breakfasts take at least two minutes. Why settle for ‘tasting home-made’ when you really can just make it yourself.

Save the pancakes for when you can have time to sit down and enjoy them. In the meantime, what’s your favorite five minute breakfast?

The post Not Warming Up To Aunt Jemima’s Frozen Breakfast Campaign appeared first on The Faster Times.

Aromas become calling cards. Recipes beget introductions. The storytelling potential of mealtime has driven many narrative cookbooks. ‘Cooking With Italian Grandmothers’ (2010, Welcome Books) continues this tradition. Jessica Theroux presents a young woman’s journey across Italy in search of companionship, advice and an education in food and culinary traditions from talented home-cooking nonne. With personal essays, photographs, and recipes, Theroux documents her travels in the year following her college graduation. Video footage from her travels can be found online at The Kitchn.

At once travelogue, cookbook, and memoir, this is a sit-down affair. Instructions are narrated without bullets or numbers. Want to know how long a recipe will take? Read the instructions and add up minutes, step by step. Slow Food International, based and founded in Italy, helped Jessica network with nonne. The emphasis on craftsmanship and unhurried preparation is apparent. [Read as: lots of handmade pasta]

I’ve had the book for nearly two weeks and have broached only the simplest of the recipes for dinner: Mary’s roasted potatoes with rosemary and olive oil; Carluccia’s roasted broccoli shoots (here, florets) with olive oil and salt, fennel and lemon salad, and dried figs with walnuts and fennel seeds. I’ve been roasting potatoes for years and wish I’d known sooner how much of a difference it makes to truly dry them off before baking. These recipes are straightforward and their results, satisfying.

By contrast, the Panelle (chickpea fritters) were fried doom. The batter was “dead easy to make,” but transferring the cooled dough slices into hot oil was more deadly than easy. Burnt fritter bits littered the skillet. Where I hoped for salty crispness, I bit into undercooked batter. Desserts fared better. The Croccante di Mandorle (crunchy almond caramels) are as addictive they are attractive. The subtle lemon flavor melds with sea salt to temper the caramel sweetness. I had two with breakfast and another as soon as I got home from work today.

The beauty and the challenge of Italian home cooking are one and the same: high quality and fresh ingredients are essential. The shorter the ingredients list, the higher the quality demanded. It’s fall in Boston so I’ve ruled out anything calling for fresh tomatoes and basil until next summer. Fortunately, there are recipes for all of the seasons. Irene’s Cavolo Rosso (Sweet-and-Sour Red Cabbage) sounds like the perfect vehicle for fall apples and second-day red wine. As the weather grows colder still, I look forward to Roman style gnocchi, desserts from Lombardy, bread and kale soup, and chicken broth with poached eggs.

The book as a whole exceeds the sum of its parts. Reading it as memoir, one notices redundant language, misplaced apostrophes, and a surfeit of adverbs. The writing, though thoughtful, tends to ‘tell’ where a cookbook needs to ‘show’. A sequenced diagram of rabbit butchering would be more useful than the current prose. In the absence of kitchen patter, Theroux seems comfortable filling in the blanks–two parts Carrie Bradshaw, one part David Attenborough. Sicilian Maddalena’s guarded nature inspired broad generalizations about gender roles in Italy.

It made me wonder about the impact of larger social structures; how in Italy everything had its place, for better or worse, and people knew their position within the grand scheme of things and inhabited it well. In many ways it felt repressive, but in certain ways there was a kind of freedom that came from not questioning one’s role in life. It was hard for me to imagine.

We are shown so little of Italy beyond the stove that these statements seem out of place. Theroux was driven to ‘learn about food in a country whose culture centered on cooking and eating’. Throughout her travels, Jessica gained access to the often solitary space that is a grandmother’s kitchen. The intimacy is palpable. However, as reader and eater, I also want to see the meals and mouths around the table–the community formed around home cooking. The food photography highlights the freshness of ingredients, and the texture and color of individual dishes, but often obfuscates the human context that presumably anchors this book.

As a cookbook, it offers a range of appealing recipes: seasonal noshes, weeknight suppers, breakfast treats, labor intensive acts of love, and a welcome reminder of how very good simple food can be. Ultimately, Cooking With Italian Grandmothers is best read as a celebration and record of twelve women, their stories, and their kitchens. It it makes a compelling case for me to find the time to cook with my own grandmother and to learn from her. I’ve been thinking about doing this for years. No other cookbook has ever given me dessert and a (gentle) kick in the pants. Thanks.

As part of the book tour, restaurants across the country will celebrate the publication and its recipes. For more information, see the Welcome Books website.

The post Cooking With Italian Grandmothers: A Review appeared first on The Faster Times.

(image by cormac70)

Looking to cleanse your exquisite palate?

Manishevitz Granita

This recipe is a basic tool guide. I have no clue how much you have leftover. You may only have enough for an ice cube, which just might be one of my better ideas. Manishevitz ice cubes in your iced tea! Club soda! 32 oz Dunkin Donuts Marshmallow Almond Meatloaf iced coffee!

Ingredients: Manishevitz (preferably Concord Grape or Elderberry) Water Juice and zest of 1-2 limes (or lemon) Pinch of salt

Equipment: Freezer proof flat bottomed dish Fork Oven timer if you’re forgetful

1. Combine Manishevitz with enough water so it’s flavorful, but less medicinal. 2. Stir in the zest and juice to taste, starting with a pinch of zest and 1 tsp of juice. 3. Taste the mixture. You want an intensely flavored base. If it’s too dilute, add more “wine”. If it’s too syrupy, add more water and more lime juice. 4. Pour the mixture into container and freeze uncovered for 1 hour. 5. After 1 hour, drag a fork through the granita to break up any ice solidifying on the top of the granita and sides of the mold. If your base is boozier, it will take longer to freeze. 6. Return to freezer and continue breaking up the ice clumps every 15 minutes for about 1 hour. This helps ensure the granita will be slushy rather than shards-like. Shardy should be a word, right? Drag the fork through the mixture well and scrape the sides, but do not press the ice crystals down. 7. Once the mixture is solid enough that you can’t drag the fork through it, cover the baking mold with plastic wrap and freeze at least 1 hour.

To serve: Place a spoon and the serving bowl(s)/cup(s) in the freezer for 10 minutes. Use the cold spoon to quickly scrape across the top of the granita, allowing the shavings to pile up in a mound, until you hit the bottom of the dish. Return the container to the freezer for 5 minutes. Scoop granita into cold glasses and serve at once.

Variations:

–Try adding some grated ginger/ginger juice –Try adding Vodka.

The Lady McDeath*

Hate to vacuum? Turn the world la dee da delighful. Most improved spring cleaning award.

Ingredients: Cava (I’m partial to the $6.99 Cristalino Brut Cava for mixed drinks.) Manishevitz ( Concord Grape or Elderberry)

1. Pour the cava (~6 oz) and the Manishevitz (~.5 oz) into a flute. A mug will do. 2. Stir.

You’re welcome.

Variation: No bubbly? Think spritzer. Do it. I’m serious.

Other ideas, in order of desperation.

On Fruit: m ix 50/50 with balsamic vinegar and add to sliced strawberries.

At Brunch: pancake and waffle topping. Fresh berries are still months away. Thaw berries and cook with some good ole’ Mani, some lemon juice, and sugar if desired.

For That Family Member That Still Likes Wishbone Raspberry Vinaigrette: mix with lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, mustard, olive oil, and salt pepper.

At Halloween: reduce Manishevitz over the stove until thickened. Fake blood never tasted so…good? (image by bfeely)

*Shamelessly borrowing someone’s roller derby name here.

The post Loving the Leftover: Manishevitz Redux appeared first on The Faster Times.

Despite their mainstay on prime-time television–in Glee, Friday Night Lights, the new 90210 and the eternally syndicated original–high school students are rarely spotlighted in school food campaigns. Let’s Move, the First Lady’s laudable childhood obesity reversal initiative is focused on “children”, and “kids”, and less obviously inclusive of adolescents. It’s time we keep the big kid in the picture, too.

Elementary schools and middle schools are more captive environments than high schools. This means that changes to the school food environment may exert a more powerful influence over younger students. Since food preferences are often formed early in life, and school lunch participation is highest in the younger grades, there are sound reasons to focus school food service efforts on the earlier years. Younger students are also more likely to respond to posters of athletes drinking milk, and stickers announcing “I tried something new”.

Older kids are a tougher sell. They are versed in irony and sarcasm. And as teenagers shape their own identities, it’s developmentally expected for them to question the views of their parents and adults. Maybe I’m overly suspicious, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a feel-good story effect working against older children as well. A freckled Little Leaguer holding fist fulls of carrots is adorable. Acne-spotted teens are less photo friendly, no matter how much they love ratatouille.

High school students also have more disposable income and greater autonomy than younger students. This translates into greater purchasing power, more opportunities to buy food, and a goldmine for fast-food chains and food manufacturers looking to grow their customer base. For the food industry, the understanding that teens are actively constructing their ‘sense of self’ translates into the creation and sale of food-based identities.

Many school wellness policies as well as recommendations from reputable institutions, like the Institute of Medicine, offer multiple tiers of guidelines. The recommendations for high schools are often weaker. Compared to elementary schools and middle-schools, high schools are more likely to have vending machines, food or beverage based fundraisers, and “a la carte” food and beverage offerings.

For food service departments in many school districts, high schools present an opportunity to narrow budget gaps that may be incurred when purchasing new equipment, changing procurement practices, training staff etc. as part of broader efforts to offer and promote healthier and fresher options in the school cafeterias.

In addition, many high schools allow students to leave campus for lunch, relieving cafeteria capacity constraints but at the risk of diminishing revenue opportunities for the school. [Not to mention, fast-food chains have been shown to cluster near urban high schools]. As a result, school lunch competes with food off campus and often feels pressure to mimic fast-food in order to sell. School lunch participation declines in the older grades. This may signal a stay-at-home parent’s return to the workforce, a growing dislike of school lunches, or stigma associated with school lunch (these concerns are more common among older students). These patterns speak to the fact that changes to school lunch, critical as they are, may not be sufficient to change older students’ eating behaviors during the school day.

Older students are packing their own lunches, buying a la carte options and/or off campus food. They are making lots of choices. But what are they choosing? This matters–both in the short term and in the years to come. Teenagers have the highest nutrient needs of school-aged children but are also the most likely to be inadequate in their daily intake of key nutrients, including vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, magnesium, phosphorus, and zinc. Dietary shortfalls may impact an adolescent’s ability to achieve full growth. Furthermore, food habits developed throughout childhood and adolescence often form an armature for the eating patterns followed as adults.

Just as students approach graduation, living away from home, being responsible for feeding themselves, and managing a budget, they are provided with fewer opportunities to learn how to select, handle, and prepare foods. These skills are urgently needed in the context of our current economic and overnutrition crises. Knowing how to prepare food cheaply and quickly can help save time, money, and excess calories. High school may be the last, and far too often lost, opportunity to introduce these topics before students move on to college or the workforce.

At the Faster Times holiday party, Ryan Joe (Comics) mentioned that his mom is currently a ‘home ec’ teacher. I jumped at the opportunity to speak with Irene Joe, who teaches Culinary Arts and Food and Nutrition in Modesto, California. The abridged interview follows. Thanks, Mrs Joe!

Faster Times: I remember having home ec when I was in Middle School. We sewed boxers from patterns and made veggie calzones. With an increasing focus on standardized testing, I’ve heard a lot about about ‘home ec’ and ‘family sciences’ being cut from school electives and how new schools are often built without facilities for these types of classes. What does home ec look like today?

Irene Joe: In Modesto, we’re still building schools with kitchens. They just built a new school. Overall, there are fewer home ec teachers. Colleges are not churning out home ec teachers like they’re used to. [In Modesto] Even though we have the home ec room, as we retire, they tend to convert the ‘foods room’ (e.g. food and nutrition) into a culinary arts program. The culinary arts really don’t talk about nutrition so much. It’s really meant for people who want a career–it’s much more vocational. The focus right now is not so much on home ec as life skills but as a career. I think that’s the wrong path…But that’s just me. If you’re taking foods and nutrition, and learning about the pathways, you could be inspired to be a nutritionist, not just (go into) the restaurant industry.

Faster Times: I couldn’t agree more. Everyone stands to benefit. The vocational programs are important but even if you have no intention of becoming a chef or caterer, you are still putting food in your mouth every day. Are there any trends that you’ve noticed over the years among students’ attitudes and comfort levels in the kitchen?

Irene Joe: Things like the Food Network. Some of the kids really enjoy watching that. They’ll ask if i’ve seen an episode of one thing or say “oh yeah…I saw that on…” The main change is that there are more boys taking it. Every once in a while I’ll get more boys than girls. The foods classes, you get about half-half. A lot of times the boys are there because they just want to eat. The classes sell themselves: you really don’t have to recruit. They’ll smell food and sign up.

Faster Times: What’s the dreaded subject? What do your students groan about?

Irene Joe: Groan the most about…right now it’s the nutrition unit. They ask me “Well, do you think this really helps us?.” I was talking about healthier eating “Do you really think anyone changes their mind because of this class.” Well yeah… actually, every year some students do change. Some lose weight. Some change their habits. But this is usually unit where they moan and groan.

Faster Times: Do any of the units surprise the students?

Irene Joe: I have to say that they’re really really surprised when you give them something low fat and it doesn’t taste “Low Fat”. When they’ve picked their own recipe and then they prepare it–they try it. I would say ‘You can substitute ground turkey instead of ground beef’ and they would say “Ewww.” If nobody told you it was lower fat, would you have thought it was low fat? They do realize that low fat is not a dirty word. Not a bad word. I think that’s probably the thing that makes me keep teaching the nutrition unit.

Faster Times: What do you see as the future for home economics type classes in the public schools?

Irene Joe: (laughs) I’m not real optimistic actually. As far as the teachers… I don’t know of many people going into home ec in college. There’s R.O.P Culinary Arts. That’s of a work type program. Culinary teachers who teach under ROP don’t have to be credentialled teachers. There’s good and bad to that. If you’re a chef you can actually teach kids, but then you have people who just want to teach and the district will hire them and they’re really not that well qualified.

Faster Times: Do you think there’s an opportunity to build off a growing national concern about healthy eating and health care?

Irene Joe: They keep talking about how there’s this big obesity problem. They talk about Phys Ed, but how about talking about eating right and cooking food?

Many of my students don’t sit down with their families to eat. Families are busy and everyone has different schedules. They (students) eat whenever and then they fend for themselves. At least when they fend for themselves, they can have some wholesome food to prepare.

A lot of the parents don’t cook. Sometimes, when I do a demonstration, they say “You would make all that on a week night?” As if, when they cook, it would only be on a weekend.

I guess politically, if they are worried about kids getting more obese, they should also be worried about what kids are eating and if they know how to feed themselves–how to cook.

As I said, I’m really pessimistic about the future of home ec, but I hope that I’m wrong. I’ll be pleasantly surprised. In our district, home ec classes are really popular. I teach three and it could have easily been five. Even with that, when we opened up those two culinary classes, they got filled up. I know a teacher in one of the newer schools; she’s teaching five classes and administration is teaching one more.

It’s not because kids don’t want it. It’s just that when there’s cuts, that might be an area to trim. So far, it’s fine. When I student-taught there were three home ec teachers. Now I’m a department of one. It’s definitely not for shortage of demand on the students’ part. I have classes of 36-40. Facilities are meant for probably 24. I have 6 stations. But they just kept adding and adding (students). It is really difficult for them to all have something to do.

Faster Times: I’m a big believer that all students–boys and girls–should have the opportunity to take cooking and nutrition classes as part of a public school education. I’m happy to hear that not only is Modesto building new schools with cooking facilities but that the classes are filled. That’s awesome! Congratulations. Thanks so much for talking with me. Good luck!

Photo by Gronberg

The post “Low Fat Is Not a Dirty Word.” The Faster Times Interviews Irene Joe, High School Food and Nutrition Teacher appeared first on The Faster Times.

As for moi? My focus is on lunch, so let’s talk “Let’s Make a Sandwich”. In this scene, Gaga and her fey dance crew bond slices of Wonder Bread together with squirts of Miracle Whip, opting to use the baguettes as phallic dance props. A natural choice. While Wonder Bread was part of Ms. Gaga’s vision, Miracle Whip paid for its appearance.

Miracle Whip has been working hard to lure the ‘hipster dollar’ and with lackluster results. Its recent campaign has been widely mocked and peaked with the Mayo-Miracle showdown on the Colbert Report last fall. Did they really think “That’s so mayo” would succeed as a catch phrase? The Zingr browser plug-in that was developed for Kraft Foods has failed to ‘go viral’ and the people that elect to engage with Miracle Whip on Facebook aren’t always nice. Miracle Whip encourages fans to ‘learn the language of Zinglish’ and to suggest new Zinglish on the page. One suggestion: “Zingleberries – What hangs off your ass after you eat Miracle Whip.”

Most recently, Steve Simpson at Adweek took aim in his “Revolution Diary”, which lampoons the radicalism sold by mainstream companies. He quotes the Miracle Whip mantra:

Don’t go unnoticed. Don’t blend in. Don’t be ordinary, boring or bland. In other words, don’t be so mayo. We are our own unique one of a kind flavor. We are Miracle Whip and we will not tone it down.

Only Gaga could take a product as white bread as Miracle Whip and infuse it with the masochism and kink I had never imagined the brand name could imply. For Kraft Foods, this was likely money well spent.

Jezebel and the Guardian were quick to question the effectiveness of these placements. Lady Gaga might get me to consider putting a bow in my hair, but to change my sandwich preferences? I am interested to see what happens with product sales. Mayonnaise is the status quo. Accordingly, the condiment is neither cool nor celebrated, yet people buy it regularly for sandwiches and ‘salads’. Made fresh, it is a revelation. Miracle Whip commercials sell a life without mayo as a multicultural rooftop party. I beg to differ. Even as Telephone promises to boost its visibility, the spread will never be hip and with good reason: it tastes like Miracle Whip.

* For what it’s worth, I think B does a nice job in Cadillac Records

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Coinciding with the start of a new year, Taco Bell has launched the Drive Thru Diet and is asking Americans to make a “Frescolution”, a commitment to eating off the Fresco menu, which offers seven choices with <9 grams of fat. These menu items aren’t new, but the rebranding is. And it’s not always tasteful. The ‘Frescolution’ pledge is meant to be cheeky but it effectively enforces the idea that excess weight is primarily a function of individual sloth and gluttony. Answers to the prompt “my idea of exercise involves:” include “The baker’s dozen donut carry; ten reps of snooze button pushes; the all-you-can-eat buffet marathon.”

The Drive Thru Diet is “not a weight-loss program” but it’s sold like one, using many conventions of the diet industry. Blond, dietician-in-a-suit talking about a balanced diet? Check. Bikini-clad success story with ‘results not typical’ disclaimer? Check. Mention of the importance of physical activity? Check. The LATimes does a great job dissecting the Fresco menu and Christine Dougherty’s diet success, challenging the extent to which she can really attribute her 500 calories/day reduction (to 1,250 calories/day) to thinking outside the bun. Maintaining a significantly reduced calorie diet over two years demands more than convenience. It takes lifestyle change.

What’s uniquely insipid about the Drive-Thru Diet is its explicit focus on the drive-thru.

There’s a new weapon in helping you make smarter choices… it’s your car. THAT’S RIGHT!! IT”S YOUR CAR!!

I understand that they are positioning these products as convenient, quick, and cheap. Most drive-thru users are looking for convenience and, typically, lunch. Yet the ads don’t show people using Taco Bell as a safety-net in a hectic day. One shows someone leaving the house, getting in the car, and driving to Taco Bell to calmly order food. In that same time, you could make a bean and cheese burrito in the comfort of your own kitchen and eat it off a real plate. Maybe even put it down between bites to talk to a friend or family member. And it would still be cheaper.

My boyfriend, Ben, started cooking large batches of snooty burritos for rock climbing trips. He made a Burrito Calculator in excel to figure out if this saves him any money. His recipe includes organic brown rice, Cabot Hunter’s Choice cheddar, organic garlic and onion, organic red and green peppers, organic black beans/red kidney, organic spices (cumin, black pepper, cayenne, pepper flakes), olive oil, salt, flour tortillas, and a Secret Ingredient that will not be disclosed. Cost per burrito? $1.50. And I can barely eat half. (Disclaimer: his takes more time than a straight bean-cheese burrito; cooking the brown rice takes time)

If you make ‘em Taco Bell size, you’re under a dollar. For sure”, Ben said. “I would say, on average, for the nice sized ones that I like it’s about $1.25 to 1.30′-and that’s putting a whole thing of cheese on them. The cheese is the biggest contributor (to the cost). If I took the cheese out, it would cut the costs hugely.”

Indeed, most of the calorie savings in the Fresco items come from reductions in cheese.

Taco Bell is by no means the first fast-food chain to market lower-fat choices. Subway has demonstrated that offering healthier options can be smart business for quick serve restaurants. Subway has watched both profits and growth per store soar since the launch of the Jared campaign. Subway co-brands with The Biggest Loser and sponsors The American Heart Association’s Start! Heart Walk. Apparently, the 2009 Zagats rated Subway as the #1 provider of “Healthy Options” among fast-food providers and the number one “Mega chain”.

Many Taco-Bell locations make for dangerous walking destinations and it’s likely that a large percentage of their customers use the drive-thru. Still, naming this campaign the “Drive-Thru Diet” rather than, I don’t know, Fresco Fit, champions an eating-in-your car lifestyle that conflicts with many broader goals of healthy living. Like, taking time to enjoy food. The spots focus on individuals and their cars. People aren’t shown enjoying Fresco tacos together. The ads reinforce a lifestyle characterized by mindless eating. Why take 10 minutes out of your day to sit down, and eat lunch from a plate, when you can be behind the wheel, tearing at wrappers with one hand, and tweeting to your friends with the other? The most creative Tweet praise wins Fresco for a year!

So enjoy your Drive Thru Diet and, if you’re feeling a little peckish after your light and balanced dinner, get in your car and come back! You’ll be just in time for the 4th meal at Taco Bell.

Image from www.drivethrudiet.com

hat tip to Sabrina Lopez

The post Why Run For The Border, When You Can Just Drive on Thru? The Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet appeared first on The Faster Times.

If you shop at farmers’ markets you might already associate farming with the young, rosy-cheeked vendors who bag your beets and apples. By contrast, the 2007 Ag census reports (although not in these words) that America’s farm operators are primarily white men who are not getting any younger. The average American farmer is 57 years old. Farmers aged 65 and up operate 30% of all farms in the United States. Young farmers, 35 and under, operate less than 6%. (graph from USDA Agricultural Census 2007)

The ‘graying’ of farmers is not a new trend, but it’s especially pointed as baby boomers enter the over-50 group much faster than young farmers take to the soil. Economies of scale in agriculture have encouraged a shift towards big operations, which have come to concentrate land and profits.

“Lifestyle” farms, operations that need to supplement their incomes with off-farm work, comprise over one third (36%) of all farms, but nearly two thirds (65%) of all small farms. Despite a surging demand for healthier foods, farming is still a hard way to make a living.

The looming drought of farmers is troubling when you think about the future of domestic agriculture. There are serious environmental, economic, and security implications at stake. If we want to ensure the future of industrial agriculture, where large and expensive machinery reduces labor needs (often while increasing farmer debt), then the aging of America’s farmers may not seem so dire. If instead we recognize the need for a more adaptive, entrepreneurial, and diversified food system–we’re going to need some recruitment in the ag. sector. Fortunately, there are those who see a problem as an opportunity in disguise. The graying of farming in America may signal a changing of the guard and the chance to try something else.

Severine von Tscharner Fleming is an agrarian, activist, organizer, and the director of The Greenhorns, a documentary film about young farmers, and a non-profit of the same name. The project began in 2007 with a nationwide search for mentors, young farmers, and their stories. Two years, and hundreds of hours of footage later, there is a film (complete with a heavy-hitting advisory council) and, more importantly, a movement. The Greenhorns blog, “the irresistible fleet of bicycles“, gets 700 hits a day and is, in Severine’s words, “a central hub for young farmer news, land opps(opportunities), job opps, gossip and video ephemera.”

The Greenhorns is about recruitment, enlisting protofarmers to take on sustainable farming and eaters to support the fruits of that labor. The young farmers in the film exude a sense of purpose and idealism. Severine, who runs Smithereen farm on rented land in the Hudson Valley, is the first to admit that farming is hard. It demands skills and training. This is not meant as caveat, but fact.

The Greenhorns produce a Guide for Beginning Farmers with tips on how to get started in sustainable agriculture, starting at the very beginning. The guide is encouraging but doesn’t sugar-coat the realities new farmers should expect; namely, that market prices that don’t necessarily reflect the efforts of production. The Greenhorns film is a Transformer: it provokes and doubles as a vehicle–say, bicycle–for launching conversations about access to credit, to land, to training, to markets, and the policies needed to make sustainable farming happen and keep happening.

Severine is relentlessly critical, boundlessly optimistic, and ready. I had the opportunity to ask her a few questions about the film, and what’s next. It’s highly abridged. I’d like to pick up themes from our conversation (e.g. edible landscaping, processing, stimulating/activating consumers) in future posts.

Who would you want to see your film?

The core audience that I’m trying to reach is potential farmers and people who may be on the edge of stepping onto the bicycle-meaning the film is mostly about the logistics of bravery and the logistics of forming a farm and forming a business and the relationships around farming and business. And figuring out that organism as a practical, economical way of feeding people. It’s about the power of a farm organism made by a couple, by a few individuals; about the farm organism as a critical unit in a future we all need.

What about those who realistically aren’t going to start farming?

I see the farmer as an analog for other local businesses and the institutionalization of personal initiative. ‘I have an intention and the farm is an institution that represents my intention.’

One of things that’s so appealing about The Greenhorns is the do-it- yourself ethos shared among those interviewed. You talk about young farmers as being “punks” and “ninjas” in their approach. There’s a subversive energy. At the same time, the Guide for Beginning Farmers talks about the need for tens of millions of new farmers in the United States. Can you talk a little bit about growing a movement with integrity to your original goals?

Right. Those numbers come from Richard Heinberg who says 50 million. Wendell Berry says 30 million. Michael Pollan says 20 million. New, young, beginning: they’re all interchangeable.

It’s the acknowledgment of the fact that the fastest growing sector is the small farm sector. (ed-The 2007 Ag Census reports that 91% of all farms are small farms). That’s revenue of less than 250, 000 dollars year; it’s the size of a small business. So for models of scaling up, I think about entrepreneurial people in really small towns. There are medium scale businesses like High Mowing Seeds; Vermont Soy and Natural Coatings and Jasper Hill Farm that are all lending money to other players in the regional food system. The way they were able to scale it up was working by a team. They all fully acknowledge the importance of collaboration.

There’s that proverbial saying ‘the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker’. Except it’s the paint maker, the seed maker, the veggie maker, the cheese maker. (laughs)

Could you talk about the balance between the need for millions of new farmers and the need for profitability?

Chose niche; grow niche. There are so many unplugged niches. Even in a town where there’s a fully functional farmer’s market, we’re now seeing so much potential for processing–preserved foods, and meats, and jerky–as ways of bringing profitability into your business.

The next level of entrepreneurs will capture the fruit to make fruit leather. They’ll value-add. It’s sequential. It’s not only the extension of one business but the evolution of food chain.

Thinking about scaling up…

Small is beautiful. Big is subsidized. And the middle is gone.

It’s pretty important to re-grow the middle-the middle class, the medium sized farms. We need agriculture that supports people going to college. There’s a more difficult sweet spot to achieve… and that’s the middle.

Take for instance my friend’s family that runs a 4th generation apple farm/orchard in the Northeast. It employs 13 people, 1.5 million in revenue. It’s middle class, middle scale, 200 acre. They have invested in labor saving equipment that they could be amortizing with double the acreage, but too much land not to have those expensive tools. They get none of the benefits of being small and none of the benefits of being big.

The Greenhorns sell a great “Serve your country food” poster that’s “eco printed by unionized leftists in Berkeley, California”. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some conservative, anti-government types that are also into self-sufficient farming. Have you encountered any in your interviews? Do you see room for working across ‘red’ and ‘blue’ lines.

Yeah. Eggplants are purple. We’ve come across hardcore Christians that are super conservative. Joel Salatin is kind of the Godfather of sustainable agriculture and he’s really conservative, but that’s not what people are paying attention to.

We grew up in an office in Berkeley. That’s where we’re coming from as an organization. Now that Greenhorns is basically ducking under the skirts of the New Young Farmers Coalition 501 3(c) it strives to be representative of a broader range of folks.

Start where you are and work towards common values with people who are on the same team. I think it’s going to take all of us. [links to director's statement/film treatment. Being a farmer and reclaiming the food system where you live is a very political act. There are sides where the (political) spectrum disagrees, but if you’re respectful of that shared line, you can keep moving forward. We have to.

****

If you’d like to help keep the Greenhorns moving forward, check out their website. They are accepting donations to help distribute the film and grow the organization. They also sell merchandise, including posters by artist cum urban Victory Gardener, Brooke Budner.

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Follow up from Severine about “Berkeley”: It’s no secret that in Berkeley, California the Green presses are run by old radicals. Unfortunately, in Berkeley, California the University is not as radical as legend would have it– with major funding coming from Novartis and British Petroleum supporting biotech and cellulosic ethanol research. Those are both technologies that serve to concentrate power, a more conservative tendency. So it’s complicated.

The post Greenhorns, Warm heart. An Interview with Severine von Tsharner Fleming, Director of The Greenhorns appeared first on The Faster Times.

In the past three weeks, reports have pointed to the increasing rates of food insecurity and food stamp enrollment as clear signs of hardship. The stories of struggling American families personalize a growing problem and help bring it to life for New York Times readers. [Who, according to 30Rock's Jack Donaghy, need to be coddled like high-strung actresses] At the same time, these narratives overshadow what should have been a key point in the article.

We get seven paragraphs about Greg Dawson, father of five, and one about a study from the Washington University of St. Louis that found that 90% of black children will receive food stamps (i.e. live in a household receiving food stamps), at least briefly, by the time they turn 20. [Compared to 49% of all Americans, 37% of white children]. And that one paragraph is really just two sentences.

So let me say it again: the study reports that nine in ten black children are growing up in homes that not only qualify for food stamps, but also apply to receive them at some point. The study uses thirty years of longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to construct life tables examining the extent to which specific events occur across intervals. In homes where a parent has not completed a high school education, 97% of black children, will have received food stamps by the time they are ten. Startling as these figures are, they may be underestimates. Not everyone who is eligible for SNAP benefits enrolls. Historically, participation among those eligible for food stamps has varied greatly state by state; in 2006 participation ranged from 50% (CA) to 98% (ME). Application requires time and ample documentation, including utility bills, pay stubs, rent or mortgage receipts and other records.

Film critic A.O Scott talks more about race and poverty in America in a short column discussing “Precious” and “The Blind Side” than Jason DeParle and Robert Gebeloff dare in a lengthy front page feature about hunger. What does that say to you? DeParle and Gebeloff make the effort of analyzing county level statistics in the name of nuance but sidestep glaring disparities in food security and poverty. There is some discussion of chronic poverty in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, and Native-American regions and reservations, but the authors are much more comfortable discussing the symbolism of pot roast.

Hopefully disparities will be addressed in a different article in the series on social safety nets. In the meantime let’s hear it from the film section: “But it is nonetheless possible – and, I think, useful – to imagine these movies in dialogue with each other, taking part in a conversation on race that the American public is always supposedly eager to have, but never right now.”

And we’re not going to have it here and now either. I feel under qualified.

Instead, I”ll keep playing Backseat Editor. The article missed a great opportunity to talk about some of the spillover benefits of food stamps. To acknowledge alternate viewpoints, the authors quote a representative from the conservative Heritage Foundation: “Food stamps is quasi money”. This is presented as a criticism and, coming from the Heritage Foundation, it’s probably meant that way. But it is a statement of fact. Food stamps are designed to act like a cash transfer. Food is a basic need and one that politicians can embrace. (Even W. got behind food stamps and a SNAPpy name change with the 2008 Farm Bill). Giving financial support in the form of food is more politically salient than offering money unconditionally and it ensures that the funds go to the purchase of food. Moreover, low income households tend to spend slightly more on food when given food stamps than if given the same value in cash. The Healthy Incentives Pilot program is trying to find ways to encourage increase purchases of fruits, vegetables, and healthful foods among SNAP participants. Receiving $130 a month in food stamps, the average benefit per household member, can free up money to spend on other goods-like utilities. It’s here that the authors needed to mention that putting money into the food stamp program was identified as one of the fastest ways to pump money into the economy. Money spent in supermarkets helps pay cashier salaries; contributes to demand for farm goods etc. and, where the supplement is sufficient to free up money for other uses, SNAP benefits can increase nonfood spending too.

Studies have estimated that for every dollar spent on food stamps, $1.50 to $2.00 is generated throughout the economy. This is called a multiplier effect. In other words, increasing food stamp spending helps stimulate the economy, potentially improving the livelihoods of most Americans, not just SNAP recipients. This argument was part of the rationale behind expanding SNAP by $20 billion, or 13%.

Food Stamp “Challenges”

When it comes to politicians’ and bloggers’ attempts to follow a typical food stamp budget for a stretch of time, my feelings are mixed. On one hand I can see this as an effective awareness building campaign that asks residents and readers to reflect upon the constraints that millions of Americans face when making everyday food choices. This can build humility and empathy.

But there’s an ickiness to framing these efforts as a “challenge”. Challenge implies competition; and, yes, feeding a family nutritious meals throughout its Oliver Twist dress rehearsal is a success. As Hannah argues, these efforts demonstrate that eating on the cheap need not equate with eating crap. I couldn’t agree more. I feel uncomfortable with the implication that low-income families struggling to eat healthfully are challenge ‘losers.’ Budgeting one’s food spending to match the average SNAP allotment is not the same as being poor. Poverty is not unidimensional. Done wrong, these ‘experiments’ come across like a reality show stunt. Getting Paris Hilton to tug a cow’s teat on the Simple Life is light years from handing her the deed to the farm.

I think Rebecca Blood is sensitive to the ways that she is different from the majority of Americans that participate in SNAP. I wish she had talked more about the time it took for her to prepare her meals.

Data from the American Time Use Survey show that low-income women that work full-time spend roughly 40 minutes a day in food preparation. With some conservative groups clamoring for food stamp reform that emphasizes employment, it’s important to consider time constraints of employed SNAP participants. Food Stamp benefits are based on the Thrifty Food Plan, a set of hypothetical lowest-cost market baskets made up of 29 food categories, on which the food stamp allotment is based. According to a study by the USDA Economic Research Service, the Thrifty Food Plan recipes, which focus on scratch-cooked, nutritious meals within a SNAP budget, take at least 80 minutes a day to follow, with an average of 2.3 hours a day. There is a big gap between assumptions and realities of time-use among the working poor. This needs to change.

photo by Chris Devers

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