Nourish Me

what actually matters

I was talking with Phoebe after yoga late last monday night, chatting about food and the politics of it all at the end of a class, about the awful (god, how) paleo diet and the energy that food picked, then cooked and eaten fresh as possible brings to the table. It's hardly surprising that Phoebe is a vegetarian. She's the spiritual kind of yoga teacher, not the sweat-it-out-in-a-gym kind. It was quite nice to have a sensible conversation about food for a change.

There's some pretty farking weird stuff going down in Healthfoodland at the moment. I want to stick a fork in my eye about Belle Gibson.  

How to eat responsibly? Simple. This, from Michael Pollan, is all you need to know:

Eat food. Not too Much. Mostly plants. 

It won't cure cancer, but it might help prevent it, and you'll be energetic enough to enjoy all the Good Things that life throws your way. It's easier to hop on the latest food trend wagon than it is to face up to what is true, to what actually matters. Just eat your vegetables, okay. And if you don't happen to like vegetables? Grow up. 

(note to self: during winter, when planning for summer, try to remember that yellow tomatoes suck... :') 

kale, porcini and rosemary pesto

So. I have a bit of a thing for Deborah Madison. She cooks the kind of food I want to eat, the kind of food that would make Michael Pollan's heart sing the sweetest tune imaginable. A prolific writer, her books have become subtly simpler over the years and Vegetable Literacy, her latest, is, I reckon, the best yet.  

I'm in the middle of writing something for The Guardian about simple dressings, things you can make ahead of time when you have a moment or two, that can turn plain things into much worthier meals. Toying with the idea of sharing Madison's kale pesto (below), the decision to share it here, instead, is one I feel far more comfortable with. Puts to good use just a fraction of the kale I planted in the flower garden, and it's something I've made often this winter. Took a tonne of photos, too.

Grab yourself some kale, enough to fill a litre (quart) measuring jug once trimmed and stemmed. 

Then you get about this many porcini (you know it means little pig, right?) 'shrooms,    

and gather your other ingredients (4 thick slices of onion, a couple of cloves of garlic and 2 teaspoons-worth of chopped rosemary) while the kettle boils. Pour a little boiling water over the porcini while you heat some oil in a frying pan and cook onions, garlic and rosemary until they are soft.    

Add the washed-but-not-dried kale, the porcini plus their soaking liquor and a little bit of salt to the pan. The kale needs to be tender, so turn it over in the pan with tongs from time to time and let it wilt. About 6 minutes should be right. 

You want to retain the bright green of the kale, as you should with most greenery.

Cool slightly, then whizz in a processor until (nearly, in my case) smooth, adding additional oil as required to make it do so. Great stirred through minestrone, eaten with a spoon from the jar, spread on toast, tossed through white beans, melted into hot polenta...

 

 

chocolate cake for a glass of milk

Maybe it was seeing the richly-iced cake at the top of my last post each time I logged on to the 'puter, or perhaps it was the huge bag of couverture chocolate staring out wantonly each time the pantry door is opened. Maybe, even, it was the typically sage advice a friend of Kathryn's shared with her, then subsequently with me, from Michael Pollan's Food Rules - that you may eat any kind of junk food you like, so long as you make it yourself.     

 

Maybe. But over the weekend an odd, serendipitous, and most exciting thing happened. On Friday morning I opened an old, old Donna Hay book, one I've not so much as glanced at in years, and cooked her "chocolate cake for a glass of milk" - an iced, layered, and dairy-heavy affair - simply because Quentin Bacon's polaroid transfers are so damned dreamy. It's a work of Art, that book, and I'm rather glad - given it's current (ouch) price point - that I kept my copy. A few hours later, cake cooling on the sink, awaiting its ganache topping, Peter walked in the door and handed me a paper bag with a POLAROID CAMERA and two packs of Impossible film inside.

Forget the cake - it was nice, yes, of course it was - it's the camera that really made my weekend shine. 

 

 

botany of desire

Of course my preferred choice is your top-notch, bio-dynamic, super-cool variety of vegetable of which these King Edward's were a shining example. Finished The Botany of Desire over Easter, and it's got me thinking.

Toward the end of The Potato (read GM debate) chapter, Pollan - isn't his webpage beautiful? - offers this:

A fishmonger told me about a Martha Stewart tip for keeping grilled fish from sticking to a barbecue: rub the grill with a raw potato sliced down the middle. It works , by the way.

That this was the sole use Pollan - an avid home vegetable grower - could find for his GM NewLeaf crop speaks volumes. The book's great. Get thee to the bookshop immediately.