panic, ponderings and butternut squash

Part I: Panic

I can't find my camera. In my privileged little world, this is a class-A disaster. Not only does my memory card hold untransferred food pictures I've been meaning to post forever, it also has sweet pictures of Jonathan and I from Valentine's Day. Plus, with the onset of Huffington Post's Week of Eating In (and my own Lenten fast on eating out), I was hoping to whip up some fun and unusual things (unusual for me = yawn-inducing in even the lowliest of chefs...but I digress), and of course chronicle their makings and lookings. But losing my camera put a mondo damper on my mood. So, I made pesto chicken wraps and couscous salad (hey, I still gotta eat), but I'm saving my more savory creations for when I can track down my little silver friend. He was last seen at my mini Mardi Gras fête chez Jon and Karam. Apparently Jon did not sense the urgency in my texts and is tardy in responding. I am fighting the urge to drive up and look around myself - I will move on.

Part II: Ponderings

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. This is because I have been doing a lot of reading - reading about food. A month ago, I picked up Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma despite my sister's complaint that it was, and I quote, "soooo boring." (Berkeley provided copies to incoming freshman this year as some kind of pseudo-required reading.) Turns out she was right - Pollan is an intriguing writer, but I can only read so much about corn. The book has been collecting dust ever since, along with the corner of my mind that was curious about food in a way other than how much it costs and how it tastes and does it go well with peanut butter. That is, until recently.

My interest in exploring the more cerebral aspect of eating and food started as a seed planted by my friend and former roommate Sarah. A long-time vegetarian and green living advocate, I have great respect for Sarah's own respect for the environment and her concern over what she puts in her body. When I was making Kraft mac 'n' cheese from the box and throwing away my plastic bags, she was shopping organically (au revoir, Kraft - hellooo, Annie's!), planting trees on campus, and using words like "sustainable" and "eco-friendly". Over time, I changed in little ways, like re-using my bags and trying to support gasoline and other companies that are responsible when it comes to the environment, their employees, and the community. It wasn't until recently that I really started to apply that thinking to what I was eating.

Not gonna lie, for a post-college grad budget (heck, even in-college-my-parents-are-supporting-me budget), organic food is darn expensive. I've always been a tightwad when it comes to groceries, drooling over bulk items and scouring coupons.com for the best deals on toilet paper and toothpaste. There's also been some recent chatter that "organic" might not always be better, for you or the planet. "Well, that's that," I thought, wiping my hands of any responsibility to buy organic and hushing that nagging voice telling me that I could do better than that.

In September 2009, I joined Weight Watchers, intending to lose 15-20 pounds of excess me I'd stored up through college (see: Kraft mac 'n' cheese). In my first meeting, my upbeat leader Meredith recited in her charming New York accent how she joined Weight Watchers and lost over 40 pounds and was now a lifetime member, etc etc. I perked up a little; if she could lose 40 pounds, I could definitely lose 15. So I leaped into my program with abandon, overhauling my pantry, refrigerator, and my basic concepts of food and eating. I was no longer living to eat; I was eating to live. Food was the fuel my body needed to perform, whether I was getting through the day or getting through a half marathon. After a few months, I'd lost a respectable amount of weight, and I could tell the difference in how my body felt after eating a roasted chicken breast versus after eating, say, a cheeseburger. Reaching my goal weight and achieving lifetime membership was a huge accomplishment; I feel better than I have in years, my confidence is sky-high, and my choices at the grocery store are a thousand times better than they once were. Don't get me wrong, I still love food, especially the sweet and/or bready kinds (thanks Grandpa Wade and Dad respectively for those genes). I love cooking (an irony, I discovered - but that's for another entry), I love eating, I love the way my fridge looks full of options sure to please my taste buds and do good for my body.

At the risk of being repetitive, I recently came across Cathy Erway's blog NotEatingOutInNY.com. Cathy highlights the importance of eating at home in a culture that not only encourages, but sometimes necessitates eating out. I just started reading her book, The Art of Eating In - I REALLY REALLY RECOMMEND IT. Ahem. She also stresses eating local, seasonal ingredients. The ingredients in her recipes range from the familiar (spinach, ginger, prosciutto) to the bizarre (freekeh - pronounced FREE-ka, kale, kimchee), but they share one thing in common: almost all are purchased from local farms or markets that offer fresh local goods. Cathy's blog got me thinking more about what sustainable eating meant to me, why and how I should do it, and what other people have to say about it. For starters, I turned back to Mr. Michael Pollan, printing his article Unhappy Food at work. I have yet to read it through, but here's a blurb from the introduction:

Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.

Mmm. Food for thought, no? It's certainly relevant to me now that I'm eating in; it's not always easy to discern what is food and what is "food" in the supermarket. And I'm not just talking about the dubious origins of hot dogs. The frozen bulk bag of chicken breasts I'm fond of are treated with 15% broth, my cereal has 100% of my daily vitamins (awesome, but still...cereal??), and then of course there's I Can't Believe It's Not Butter (the name says it all). While I've been guilty in some ways (see: chicken and ICBINB) of sacrificing food-ness for convenience and low fat content, I really want to focus on buying foods that are whole, unprocessed, and preferrably local. Just took a peek at my butternut squash - it's from Mexico. Granted, Mexico isn't that far from me, but surely there are myriad farms in the San Diego area that produce imperfect, yes, but still edible butternut squash. It would be nice to know a little bit more about where my food comes from, and even better if I can support local agriculture.

So, here I am, immersing myself in food lore, hungry for fresh foods and more knowledge.

Speaking of hungry...

Part III: Butternut Squash

...I just roasted my first butternut squash. I peeled it, chopped it (no easy feat - it's quite firm), tossed with olive oil and roasted at 375 for about 40 minutes or so (my chunks were pretty large). The outsides are now softer, but some sides have a crispy, sweet caramelized coating that gives a satisfying crunch when you bite into it. I couldn't help popping several pieces in my mouth while I was adding them to my couscous salad for tomorrow. The flavor is mild, not as sweet as a sweet potato, but still pleasant and rich. Not sure what to do with the rest...maybe I'll keep them around as a snack, or blend them into soup. So many options! But as it's getting late, I'll tupperware it up and save these decision for tomorrow when I am well-rested and can be sure that my food processor is clean.