Also, on a semi-related note, did your mother ever use the phrase “Starving Armenian” when you were little? Mine did, but not in the usual context, which would be as a part of a guilt trip to encourage a spoiled and recalcitrant child to finish their food (similar to the “starving children in China/Africa/Wherever”). No, my mother, and maybe even my father, too, I can’t remember, referred to me as a Starving Armenian because of my unending appetite. How weird is that? And très inappropriate, too, like most things in the 80′s. The older I get the more frequently random memories from way back bubble up to the surface of my consciousness. But the older I get, the less I trust the truth of those memories. What really happened, and what has been turned into something different by the passage of time?

Unfortunately these terms can really just be a lot of jargon. Who defines what food is “whole,” “organic,” or “local” anyway? For me, it all comes down to eating real food: something that has recognizable origins and is minimally processed if at all. I also try to choose foods that are grown near where I live because they are fresher and thus more nutritious, and because they have a much lower environmental impact than foods that are shipped from far away. Eating local foods also ensures that we eat seasonally, which I personally believe is better from a health standpoint. Organic is probably another topic that deserves its own post (I actually did an independent study on organic foods my senior year of college!) but the short, very general, answer is that it means the food has been grown sans pesticides and in an environmentally responsible way. Sustainably-raised, the way I use it, refers specifically to meats, fish, and eggs–are the animals raised in ways that are healthy for them and limit the negative environmental impact?

Where am I going with this? Well, something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time is use this blog as a way to disseminate information that could help other people live more consciously and healthfully. Eating is a huge part of everyone’s lifestyle, so it follows that if you want to change your lifestyle, altering your eating habits is part of puzzle. Because I get a lot of questions about what we eat, how to eat healthier, or how to eat whole foods/local foods/etc., I thought it would be fun to start a regular feature here that would highlight some of our meals. Hopefully the photos and descriptions of what we’re eating will inspire you to try something new, or at least entertain you a little bit. I am also going to be posting a lot more recipes here, and while I already have several requests please leave a comment if there is something you want to know how to cook!

We joined a CSA here in Austin recently and got our first box of food last week. It was very exciting for me, as I am still unfamiliar with the seasons of food in this strange climate. In DC we bought all our food at the Dupont Circle farmer’s market and thus became very familiar with what was in season when. Austin has unpredictable cycles of warm and cold, which, combined with my limited knowledge of edibles, means that I don’t really know what is in season at any given time aside from the very obvious stuff. Our box contained a typical mix of winter veggies as well as some fruit:

Carrots
Radishes
Collard greens
Kohlrabi
Cabbage
Parsley
Spinach
Broccoli florets
Scallions
Green garlic
Lettuce
Oranges
Grapefruit

Kohlrabi

The quality of the food was incredible. It was picked the morning that we received our box and was clearly extremely fresh. When Brian came home with the box he set it on the floor and Dylan immediately crawled over, pulled himself up to standing using the side of the box, and began playing with all of the food inside. Somehow he snuck part of a spinach leaf into his mouth. We noticed something in his mouth 10 minutes later and fished out the little piece of spinach, which was not chewed up or anything (the kid only has two teeth!) but was thoroughly slimed. He must have learned that trick from Cooper, who was notorious in his younger days for carrying things like a blueberry or an acorn around in his mouth for long periods of time without chewing them. You’d give him a blueberry and he’d be all like, “Thanks!” and you’d think he had swallowed it until two hours later when it rolled out of his mouth and onto the rug. He actually did this recently and our baby helper had the misfortune of sitting upon the blueberry; luckily she was wearing dark pants.

Thumbs up for super fresh, still-dirty veggies!

Supposedly one box is enough to feed a family of 2-4 people for one week, which is pretty much a load of crap as far as I can tell. We eat a lot of veggies around here, but not an obscene amount, and have had to supplement with non-local veggies and fruits from the grocery store (a travesty, really). But of the veggies we received, nothing went to waste. I am actually quite proud of myself for figuring out how to use everything we got, including things we’d never eaten before like kohlrabi. Oh, it was all so delicious! Here’s what I made:

Sauteed radish tops, kohlrabi bulb, & green garlic
Carrot-quinoa soup (using both the roots and the tops)
Pureed carrots for Dylan
Cole slaw (cabbage, carrots, parsley)
Sauteed collard greens & kohlrabi greens
Spinach salads with radishes, scallions, and carrot tops
Steamed broccoli
And of course we ate the fruit straight-up as snacks

Sauteed radish tops, kohlrabi bulb, & green garlic with cole slaw

We have three more weeks in our 4-week CSA trial. I would like to continue with it because the quality of the food was so good, and because it is very important to me to eat local, sustainably-produced food, but we will need to see if the cost comparison comes out in favor of the CSA or not. I don’t mind spending a little bit more for quality local organic produce, but with my nursing-mama appetite it’s a challenge to keep our food costs under control so we’ll need to see how things shake out.

• Two cases of chocolate (this has been discussed previously)
• Corn popper toy for Dylan
• Magazine subscriptions (Rolling Stone for Brian, Vogue & Allure for me)
• Cast iron stovetop grill/griddle
• A case of produce wash

The cast iron grill pan arrived yesterday. It is 20 inches long and weighs 16 pounds. It is clearly intended for some serious two-burner cooking action. I have wanted one of these for a couple of years because I thought it would be a good alternative to our detested Foreman grill. (Really I just want to get a house and have a proper outdoor grill, but all things in good time.)

I feel I should note at this point that in the previous 24 hours I had roasted two chickens and six yams, made chicken salad out of one of those chickens, made 17 hamburgers (two flavors), and made eight cups of a new trail mix creation (recipe to be posted soon, I promise). I still had eight burgers to cook so I was super excited about the grill pan because I could fit all eight of the burgers on it (our Foreman grill only fits four). Though I’ve used cast iron previously, I really had no idea what I was doing. I just wanted to use my new pan and save myself the trouble of cooking two batches of burgers. I cranked the stove up to high and when the grill was hot, put the burgers on. They immediately began smoking. A LOT. I thought once they got seared that the smoke would stop. I was wrong. Our entire kitchen, dining room, and living room immediately filled with smoke. Thick smoke. A lot of thick smoke. I couldn’t see six feet in front of me. I thought maybe I had the heat too high since cast iron is such a good heat conductor so I turned it down to medium and then opened all the windows and the door and put a box fan in the doorway to blow the smoke out. I was coughing the whole time, freaking out about whether Dylan was inhaling all the smoke (he wasn’t because he is short!), and shutting the doors to our bedrooms so they wouldn’t get smokey. I flipped the bugers and celebrated briefly because they had grill marks. Grill marks! The lower heat seemed to reduce the amount of smoke spewing off of the stove, but that is like comparing the flow of a river to that of a firehose. Less, but still a lot. The box fan was doing its job, as evidenced by the thick plumes of smoke billowing out our front door. I was certain that one of our neighbors would call the fire department.

It took about 45 minutes before the air in our apartment was see-through again, and I made an incredible mess. There were grease splatters everywhere, and thanks to the fact that I forgot to oil the grill, we were still trying to liberate charred bits of burger from it this morning. Despite the smoke and the mess and the panic, the burgers did turn out really well, much better than on the Foreman grill. And when the maintenance guys showed up later to fix our eternally-running toilet they were all like, “Mmmm, what are you cooking? It smells really good in here!”

Today I will be making my first rump roast. The rump is denoted by the number “3″ in the image above. I will be attempting to do my roast on the stovetop, as my 6-quart pot is not oven-safe. (Yeah, I know, I need to remedy that!) I’ve roasted chickens, turkeys, and pork shoulders (also known as pork butts; that probably deserves its own post), but all in the oven. I’ve made beef stew on the stovetop, but that was different because the beef was in chunks and I always use my mom’s foolproof beef bourguignon recipe. Anyway, my rump is small (Ha! Sorry, I couldn’t resist), only about 2 lbs., so I figure the stovetop method shouldn’t pose too much of a problem. I will report back with stories of my grand success!

I’ve always enjoyed my family’s holiday traditions, and now that I’m a mom I am getting pretty amped up about establishing our own unique traditions. When I think about holidays growing up, I think about eating pumpkin pie for breakfast on Thanksgiving (and sometimes on Christmas, too), watching The Nutcracker on PBS on Christmas Eve, and of course watching A Christmas Story on Christmas Day. This year, I did none of those things! And oddly, I didn’t miss them too much, I suppose because we are in Texas away from family and because so much of our focus right now is on just getting through the days with the whole new baby and broken back situation.

Ideally I’d like to continue most of my childhood holiday traditions as well as create new ones for our little family. Of course most of the possible traditions I’m thinking of involve food! Some ideas include:

• Seven Fishes Christmas Eve Dinner
• Board games on Christmas Eve
• Driving around to look at holiday decorations before Christmas
• New pajamas for the kids on Christmas Eve
• Eating something other than turkey for Christmas dinner–maybe a beef roast or beef bourguignon
• A special New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day meal. Or maybe I should just get to decide on the New Year’s Day meal every year since it’s my birthday!
• New Year’s Day hike (I’ve actually done this several times when it’s been freakishly warm, but I’d like to institute it as an official tradition!)

I’d also like to get in the habit of making Christmas cookies each year. This is something I did a lot in my high school and college years, but stopped doing as I got older and more focused on healthy eating. I am still enamored with healthy eating, but I want to provide balance for my kids in terms of having some treats for special occasions. I mean, I grew up gorging myself on Halloween candy and Christmas cookies and I turned out okay! I like the idea of having “signature” cookies that I make each year, but I’m also given to experimentation in the kitchen so who knows. Some options I’m already considering for next year:

• Pine Nut Rosemary Shortbread
• Chocolate Crinkles
• Sugar Cookies (I made these this year and they were fantastic! I would do a few variations since sugar cookies are so versatile.)

All that being said, the real purpose of this post isn’t to tell you about our traditions, it’s to find out what your traditions are. I love hearing about the special and unique things that people do around the holidays, things they look forward to and that really “make” the season. So spill ‘em! What are your favorite holiday traditions?

Our awesome nanny Tara recently brought over a bag of the most insidious candy I’ve ever encountered: Candy Cane Hershey’s Kisses. They are mint-flavored and have itty bitty bits of candy canes in them. Have you ever had them? I didn’t even know they existed until this year, which is a good thing, because that bag we got on Thursday? Yeah, it’s gone. I’ve been binging on those Kisses for four days and I still can’t say I even like them that much. But they are tricky little buggers and have an addictive quality that causes you to eat 10 of them in rapid succession and still want more.

The funny thing is that when Tara showed up with them I thanked her politely while thinking really snobby thoughts about Hershey’s chocolate and how it’s crappy and I don’t eat it. But of course I had to try one of these seasonal Kisses since they were a gift and I’d never had one. Oh man. These are not a quality treat but they are creamy and minty and the candy cane bits provide the perfect amount of subtle crunchiness. What else can I say? They’re dangerous, stay away unless you like to over-consume poor quality sugary foods that trick you into thinking they taste good.

It should be noted that I had to borrow a photo from flickr because there were no Candy Cane Kisses left in our house for me to photograph. I couldn’t risk buying another bag because they are evil insidious little bastards and I clearly do not have the self-control required to resist their siren song.

Me, after just finishing lunch: I need more food.

Brian: Do you want some of these leftover potatoes?

Me: Yes, I was going to fry them up in the skillet that’s soaking in the sink.

Brian: I’ll do it. Do you want cheese on top?

Me: YES! GRATED CHEDDAR! AND COOK THEM IN BACON FAT!

Brian: Well, of course.

Note: Potatoes were small Yukon Golds that I quartered and roasted the other night, but I messed up and they came out more baked than roasted. Brian sauteed them in a cast iron skillet with bacon fat and onions and then grated very sharp Vermont cheddar on top. You should do this!

I went to the grocery store yesterday afternoon and spent way too much money. It was seriously heartbreaking watching the total increase as the cashier rang up my groceries. I’ve had a hard time with the food stuff lately. I find it shocking and frustrating that we spend so much more on food in Texas than we ever did in DC. I have some ideas about why that is:

1. We buy more processed stuff than we used to. We still hardly eat any processed food compared to the average American, and probably compared to most health-conscious Americans, too, but it’s more than we used to and boy is that stuff costly. Examples of this are things like ice cream, Clif Bars (ew, but a necessary evil so I can always eat on the go if I have to), and cereal (our homemade granola was getting to me, so I’ve been digging on Ezequiel Sprouted Whole Grain Cereal lately – it is high in protein and very easy to digest since it contains no flour).
2. We are definitely consuming more luxury foods like avocados, which I used to only purchase if they were on sale. I justify the avocados because I need the fat and calories for the baby, and I buy the $5 bag of 4 organic avocados so they’re not super crazy expensive, but we never used to buy a bag every week. Ditto strawberries, which we only used to get if they were on sale at the farmer’s market. Now I buy a plastic box of California berries every week, and a little bit of me dies each time I do (see the next item about local, seasonal produce).
3. The biggest culprit is probably our now-routine consumption of out-of-season and non-local produce. It used to be that we only went to the grocery store for lemons, fish, and pantry items, and occasionally meat or chicken. We haven’t found a good source for local produce here yet, and with my appetite being what it is (um, can you say fickle?), I’ll buy almost anything if I think I’ll want to eat it. I really, really miss the bounty of the Dupont Circle Farmer’s Market. They had everything there, and once we figured out how to shop that market, we were able to eat extremely well without spending a ton of money.
4. Mass consumption of meat and dairy. We eat so much more of this stuff than we used to, in my attempt to pack in lots of fat, protein, and calories in general. Lots of burgers, which I admit are cheap in the grand scheme of meat, but we are really eating A LOT of them. Also cheese and yogurt, substances that rarely, if ever, made their way into our fridge. And it doesn’t help that the only cheese I have an appetite for lately is the nicely aged Parmigiano Reggiano. Let’s not talk about how much that costs.

So, I’m frustrated that we’re spending all this money on food when our income is so erratic and unpredictable. But even more than that, I’m frustrated that we’re so out of sync with our beliefs when it comes to food. When we were buying almost all our food locally, we were supporting small farmers and eating in season, and feeling really great about both. Shopping at the grocery store for things I feel like I should be able to buy straight from a farmer makes me feel empty and sad. It’s more than guilt, it’s a deeper feeling of just plain ol’ wrongness.

For now, we’ll probably keep this grocery store-centric eating up since the baby is due in a week (a week!) and I am still trying to gain as much weight as possible. I had a prenatal check-up yesterday and only gained 1 lb in the past two weeks, so I still really need to be focusing on eating all the time. On top of that I have been exhausted, which makes it harder to plan and prepare the type of nutritious meals that typically form the foundation of our diet – especially since I have nearly lost my appetite for a lot of our old favorites (greens? ew!). But once the baby’s here and we have established some sort of rhythm (don’t laugh, I believe it is possible!) I am going to see about getting involved with a local farm or farmer’s market. I was so disappointed with the main Saturday farmer’s market downtown, but I heard the Wednesday one closer to our home is better. Maybe I can even get there next week to check it out. My hope is that I’ll be able to get involved in the local food community in some way – both to support and nurture the community and also to make it easier for us to eat in a way that makes us feel healthy and happy instead of sad and broke.

Now, on a happier note, that photo at the top of this post is of the gigantic organic heirloom tomato I picked up at Boggy Creek Farm a couple of days ago. It is finally ripe, and we are going to eat it tonight, unless I devour it sometime between now and dinner. This week was the first in a while that I’ve made it to Boggy Creek, and while it feels great to go to the farm and purchase directly from the farmer, it is not cheap and the variety is limited since, you know, it’s just one farm. That being said, the farmers that own and operate Boggy Creek are incredible people who are very involved in the sustainable food movement, and their farm is at the top of the list of places where I’d love to volunteer. I can just see myself now, with the baby in the sling, helping out around the farm or at one of the two weekly farm stands….