The Tin Lizard

Kale Chips

We eat a lot of kale and other greens around our house, usually in a southern-style "mess o'greens" concoction with a little oil, a few tomatoes, and definitely some bacon grease; or italicized with pancetta, white beans and a few black olives.

But here's an interesting novel idea for kale chips, worth consideration, offered by H. Mark Delman on his Planter Tomato blog.   I've tried this and they work out very well.  I recommend cutting down the salt a bit, and also cutting your "chips" fairly large, which makes them a little easier to flip.  They'll never replace potato chips in the overall scheme of my diet, nor are they the thing you need for your guacamole on superbowl day, but they are an interesting alternative for a light snack; and I imagine them as a garnish on a soup, too.

 

Food Costs Through The Roof

I had a surprise today, reviewing what we spent in various categories of ordinary household expenses last year.  The last time we conducted the same review was on expenses for 2005.

Shocker!  Our ordinary food costs, excluding meals out, and excluding wine/beer, were about fifty percent - 50% - higher in 2011 than in 2005.  This increase occurred even though, as we age, we tend to eat less (smaller portions and fewer big meals),  consistently shop price, and seldom buy anything that isn't "on sale."  One might be tempted to think there was a miscalculation somewhere, but I really doubted that; we have very good, thorough data for this in our financial software.

So, looking a bit farther, I ended up at the FAO website (via the intermediary of "ThinkProgress.org").  The FAO publishes a monthly index of world food prices.  It's worth a look.  It confirms not just that prices have gone up, but actually by far more than just 50%; comparing the average index number for 2005 (117) to that for 2011 (about 225) in fact, the FAO index suggests that costs have gone up by over 100%.   I guess we can congratulate ourselves on keeping costs down as much as we have! 

Food costs have increased more than any other category that we consider.  A related category for dining out shows an uncannily similar increase - about 50% - even though we consciously go out less often than we used to.  And while the media love to stir us up with almost daily reports that the cost of gasoline is up another penny or two, it's interesting to note that we paid only about 26% more for gas in 2011 than we did in 2005, for the same amount of driving.  These data suggest we ought to be paying more attention to those occasional reports about food increases, and less to those almost daily ones about gasoline. 

Still, as retirees, we have felt the effects of these rising food costs in the form of feeling frequently pinched, without consciously discerning to what to attribute it.  Other expenses has risen too, and far more quickly than our retirement income (even though the latter is somewhat buffered by cost-of-living increases). 

This insidious cost creep affects everyone, but it's particularly serious for seniors, and more so for seniors at marginal income levels.  It has some clear implications for the future of social security and current talk about altering its cost-of-living calculations downward. 

      

Juice And Old Lace

Everyone seems to be getting excited about arsenic content in commercial fruit juices.  Consumer Reports has put out a report; news media have propagated their study.  Not that we shouldn't expect this news.  Arsenic is not only present in nature - our air, our water - naturally, just as the juice bottlers maintain, but it's also a component of insecticides.

Juice has other disadvantages.  It's usually relatively caloric, because (for example) a typical glass of orange juice contains the juice and calories of at least three oranges.  It's also sweet; naturally, to some extent, but also often excessively so due to the addition of more sugars.   And finally, it's adulterated.  Many juices labeled as a fruit (cranberry juice, cherry juice, apricot juice) contain only a limited percentage of the juice of that fruit, and a large percentage of apple juice.  No doubt this is because apple juice adds sweetness, and because it's cheap.  But it's not what you're paying for.

I was surprised to learn that many mothers are giving infants juice in bottles, several times a day.  Wow.  I suppose they think of it as "natural," but besides the various indignities inflicted upon pure juice by the folks who bottle it, it's useful to keep in mind that drinking juice isn't "natural" at all.  Cavemen, I feel pretty certain, didn't squeeze the juice out of their fruit into some rudimentary stone bowl and drink it.  The ATE THE FRUIT.

So:  Save your kids.  Drink water.  Eat fruit. 

 

Dining Alone

It's not surprising, I suppose, that people who eat solo in restaurants are increasingly being seen fiddling with their smart phones at the table.  A Washington Post article, and a subseqent blog posting, offer a variety of excuses/reasons/justifications for the practice, but they miss a couple of points.

First, this is nothing new.  Before cell phones, solo diners could often be seen reading a book or a newspaper while eating; and at home, the traditional picture of the lonely guy was somebody eating in front of the television.

Second, those whose eyes are glued to their phones may cite various reasons for doing so but they don't seem to acknowledge the real reason:  They're alone and feel uncomfortable at being so.   And they fail to recognize the overriding reason for NOT doing so, which is that dining is an experience to be savored, and if you're a "foodie," as some of these folks claim to be, you're missing the main event while playing with your phone.

The traditional sensible advice for people eating by themselves was to get their noses out of the book, take interest in their food and surroundings, and conquer their sense of awkwardness.  It still works today.  Conquer your fear, throw away your social crutch, and proclaim your independence when you're dining.       

 

Desperation in Cheezit Land

Once upon a time, there was a pair of Cheez-Its.  There was Big Cheez-It, a little older, and Little Cheez-It.   They got married and started a family.  They had a son, Hot-and-Spicy Cheez-It.   For a long time, that was the Cheez-It family story.  But they wanted more.   Big took viagra; Little took fertility drugs; and before long, the family started growing -- FAST!   There was Swiss Cheez-It, Pepper Jack Cheez-It, Colby Cheez-It, and even White Cheddar Cheez-It.  

Makers of industrial foods seem to believe that if a brand is successful, you can make more money by producing more and more versions of it in different colors, flavors, or other attributes.  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes it doesn't.  

Lately the Cheez-It brand of snack crackers has gone that route.  It smacks of desperation to me.  The original product is an OK snack with a very mild cheese taste, and I enjoy the "hot and spicy" ones.  But really, how distinguishable can all these new versions really be?  A taste-test between white cheddar and orange cheddar?  The mind boggles.  I tried pepper jack and confirmed to my satisfaction that a Cheez-It is still a Cheez-It.  There's not "a dime's worth of difference" between them, as one politician used to say about the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates years ago.  (I think it was George Wallace?)

Underlying the flood-the-market strategy is the fight for supermarket shelf space.  If you have 12 "different" products, rather than just one, you have more eyeball exposure.  But it helps if they really are different.  The downside can be consumer confusion, or drawoff of customers from the original product to a host of others, without much increase in the overall customer base.

I speculate that these new versions aren't selling too well and most, if not all of them, are about to be axed.   Or maybe that's just wishful thinking - after all, I've noticed that the three most common adjectives in manufactured food ads are "mild," "creamy," and "sweet."   These Cheez-Its are category leaders in "mild."  The only one that stands out as different is the "hot and spicy," but - as if to prove my point - that one is hard to find on supermarket shelves.

    

How Many Nuggets Does A Chicken Have?

If you doubt that advertisers of mass market products think we're all idiots, read this:

Overheard recently in an ad for one of the many chicken fast-food joints (can't recall which one):

"What part of the chicken is 'nuggets'?  We don't make nuggets."

Nope, no nuggets.  It turns out they make ... POPCORNS!  This clarifies everything.  Everybody knows a chicken has four popcorns... there is one behind each ear, and one at each elbow.  And they're way better than nuggets.   

The Power-Outage Gourmet: Twinkies And Spam?

We weren't terribly hard-hit, in the Washington area, by Hurricane Irene, but nevertheless, when people hear that a category-3 hurricane is headed their way, they do tend to prepare a bit. 

We naturally assume the power will go out during such storms.  Oddly, it didn't, this time, but normally it takes little more than the breeze stirred by a butterfly's wing to knock out our power around here. Nevertheless, the frequency of being without electricity for days has created a whole new branch of cuisine as we all try to plan for having a several meals without having to open the fridge. 

Sausage (to be grilled outdoors), potato salad, the makings of a chicken sandwich, all in the cooler?  Sure.  But we also make sure we have some of the stuff that doesn't need cooking:  Canned tuna, peanut butter, hard-boiled eggs, ham, canned soup (which can be heated on the grill if you're persnickety), crackers and such.  I believe I could probably live for a week on potato chips - but that's just me.  These things are generally around the house, so we don't usually race out to the grocery store to stock up.

This article offers a somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at the things people buy.  Most of the snack foods mentioned here don't appeal much (pop tarts? no thanks!) though the mention of Twinkies elicits a slight sniffle of childhood nostalgia -- a favorite then, but I haven't eaten one in probably over 50 years, not even a deep fried one.  On the other hand, I recommend Spam as the perfect food for the "powerless."  It needs no refrigeration and you can do almost anything with it:  cold from the can with a spoon, sliced on crackers or in a sandwich, cooked on a grill, tie it in a knot/tie it in a bow... you name it.  Unfortunately my wife, whom I love dearly but in a very few minor matters suffers from blind spots, turns up her nose at the thought of Spam, so I don't buy it.  A power-outage food that not everyone in the house will eat isn't very practical.

Another useful point that I was reminded of in the storm:  So much of the bottled food we buy - condiments, salad dressings, and the like - come with reminders to "refrigerate after opening."  I was astounded to find that legend on a bottle of rice vinegar I bought just the other day.  Vinegar?  C'mon, now!  I suppose mayonnaise still should be kept chilled (though I suspect the commercial version these days has enough preservatives to choke a horse) but otherwise I think back to days of yore, when I can clearly recall my mother never kept such stuff as salad dressing in the refrigerator.  We kept only mustard there, because my dad thought mustard tasted better cold (same with his bottled picked pigs' feet).  Even today, we still don't keep ketchup, chili sauce, or hot sauces under refrigeration.  A lot of these items, loaded with salt and other preservatives, seem to do just fine on the shelf.     

Foraging Afoul Of The Law

The New York Times reported yesterday about the growth of -- and efforts to curb -- foraging for food plants (or even fish and turtles!) in New York's Central Park.  It seems the movement has got a bit out of control, as more people have taken to removing things from the park for their dinner.

Admirably noble-savage though it may be, I have to side with city officials on their efforts to crack down.  Foraging in this case has another name:  it's called stealing.  It's called poaching, too.  If you sneak over the fence to your neighbor's yard to grab a watermelon or a few tomatoes from her garden, that's theft.  In a public park, if you pull up watercress, or mushrooms, or net a fish from a pond, that's theft - multiple counts, since the owners in this case are the entire citizenry of New York City.   Add to that charges of vandalism, because the park can be ravaged by such raids, and you see why public officials have good reason to increase enforcement efforts.

Foraging isn't new.  In the midwest, at least, it used to be accepted practice.  My mother had a favorite patch of wild asparagus she used to stop at in the spring.  My father-in-law used to gather watercress from nearby streams.  No one thought much about stopping alongside the road to pluck a few wildflowers.  But times have changed, and we now understand (some of us do, anyway) that there are too many of us gol-durned people in the world to make it possible for everyone to "forage" without destroying our environment. 

Unfortunately for foragers, I suspect there's very little land anywhere anymore where their pursuit would be technically and strictly legal.  Everything is owned by somebody.  There may be spots along country roadsides where no one objects; there may be large plots of private land where an owner might even give permission (especially if the foraging is limited to certain sorts of invasive species or troublesome plants); but by and large, foraging these days depends on taking something that isn't yours.

As an alternative perhaps today's foragers could get the same thrill out of scavenging in garbage cans.  Almost universally, objections are unlikely unless the searcher leaves a mess; a real service is provided, waste is prevented, and the forager gets what he seeks - free food. 

Shrimp: Thereby Hangs A Tail

Years ago, a kid who was a little smaller than others in his grade at school might have been called "shrimp" by his peers.  These days, I suppose, anyone who did so would face expulsion.  People are just so sensitive to minor insults these days.  But it's not just that.  It's really become a much bigger insult than it used to be.  Have you seen a shrimp lately?   Just look what they've done to that interesting looking, colorful creature, which now too often turns out looking like this:

 

 

Pale, its head whacked off, its shell stripped (except for that shell left on the tail, like allowing a concentration camp inmate to keep his underwear for dignity's sake), frozen within an inch of its life and cloaked in a layer of ice.  Surely, anyone would be much insulted to be likened to such an unsightly thing?  It looks a little better when it's cooked, but look, the shell that's left on covers about 1/3 of the shrimp meat:

 

 

Sometime about a decade ago, maybe longer, shrimp began appearing universally in restaurants with the tail section of their shell attached.   I'm pretty sure the trend was driven by our increased reliance on imported frozen shrimp, and by restaurant suppliers, who find it convenient to deliver them this way.  From the commercial point of view, this may make sense:  that tail section is hard to remove without removing the meat inside it; the shrimp looks a little forlorn without its point; and I suppose that little bit of tail shell adds to the net weight of the package.  

For consumers, the advantages are less clear.  Probably the most common way of serving shrimp is at buffets and cocktail parties, boiled, their flavor masked with a sauce, and eaten with the fingers.  Some say the tail provides a "handle" for this purpose.  But to me, it's a wasteful nuisance.  So there you are, ready to nibble your shrimp.  The shrimp tail can be just crunched up and swallowed, but I'm going on the assumption that most people don't enjoy doing that.  And the shell covers not just the little tailfins, but the entire, perfectly edible, last section of the shrimp, making it accessible only by dint of great gnawing and gnashing.   Of course many people, I suppose, ignore that and aren't concerned about the waste involved. 

OK, you've eaten your shrimp and either jettisoned the tail section or not -- now what do you do with that shell?  Plates are nice when they're provided but often, they're not.  In the days when shrimp didn't have their tails you used your fingers, or plucked them up with a toothpick.  Fingers can be wiped and a toothpick dropped in a pocket, but who wants to drop a shrimp tail, or a dozen of them, in a pocket?

Beyond the cocktail-sauce circuit, shrimp turn up in a variety of cooked dishes in restaurants.  Batter-fried at a fast-food joint?  Same problems as above, though you are more likely to have a plate or cardboard tray to drop them in.  Even worse:  shrimp with their tails still hanging right in there, grilled, or served with grits and dolloped with a sauce, or even plunked into a bouillabaisse or a soup (as I encountered last night) where you're given only a large spoon to eat them with. 

These kinds of preparations, requiring the diner to resort to fingers, or to splash around in his broth with clumsy instruments, to me reflect a thoughtless and inconsiderate chef.   Restaurants ought to think harder about serving their customers, rather than the Sysco production-line managers.  In most cases, those tails ought to be removed in the kitchen.   

One final word about so-called fine dining establishments:  Shrimp with tail shell bring the whole tone of the place down a notch, because they scream "frozen shrimp!"  Famous chefs, get thee to a seafood market, shell them in your own kitchen (including the tails).  And if by chance you're serving them just grilled, then it's fair to give us the whole shrimp -- head, tail, shell and all. 

The Fifties Bloat - Weight Gain And What You Eat

By now I'm sure we've all seen multiple repetitions of the Harvard study which last week "revealed" that eating things like potatoes can cause you to gain weight.  Not that this would surprise anyone, but I suppose for science, it's helpful to have the effect quantified, e.g., if you eat an extra helping of french fries every day, you gain 4 pounds in four years. 

These studies are always treated in the media as if they imply immediate changes in your diet, but generally, it seems to me, that's overreaction.  First, they often point out what we know:  "What?  French fries are fattening?  Wow, who knew?"   Second, the amounts can be pretty ridiculous:  Let's look at the French fry statistic again:  4 pounds results from one additional helping per day, every day for four years.  That's a lot.  

And finally, of course, everyone needs to take into account his/her personal circumstances.  I like a lot of those "good" foods like yogurt, nuts, whole grains, fruit, vegetables, and eat a fairly balanced diet.  But when it comes to the main villains of the Harvard study, those potatoes, I like those too, and in inverse order.  I'll eat a lot more French fries than mashed potato, and as for chips, I consider an 8-ounce bag little more than a personal size serving.   But I'm not a blimp, and I've been at about the same weight for 15 years or more, so why would I change?

One thing I've noticed that doesn't seem to be reflected in any of the material I see about weigh gain/loss:  The Fifties Bloat.  Many people seem to swell up like balloons in their early to mid fifties but then lose the excess and get back to their "normal" or even less within five years or so.  That was the case with my father, who at 50 took on the look of an overstuffed knackwurst; it happened to me; it happened to my wife; and I see it in lots of my friends.  I've never seen an explanation of what might cause this.  I could guess it's caused by changing metabolism at about that age.  Maybe as people's activity levels slow down, they keep eating at the same pace until they realize it's taking a toll on them, and/or their appetite wanes to match their new lowered metabolism rate.   Whatever the cause, it might merit some attention from the food-watchers who did the Harvard study.

I'm going to leave them to think about that while I go get a bag of potato chips... by the way, the Utz ones that are fried in lard are really good, but are available only in certain markets within 100 miles or so of the company's Hanover, Pennsylvania factory.