News from the Food Front

Here are links to stories related to the ongoing national conversation about food.

This one is about a contest to redesign the food pyramid; the winning design was not a pyramid at all, and it incorporates the ideas we just studied.  I really like its simplicity and directness.  The commentary by one of the judges is pretty interesting, too. 

December 20 -- Late Sunday Night, Unanimous Approval:
The Senate just unanimously approved the Food Safety Bill.  Although it doesn't solve all our food problems, it is a start, and we are grateful for that.   Lots of legislation gets pushed through when Congress is anxious to start their winter vacation.  Good stuff passes unnoticed; unfortunately, so does bad stuff.

December 30 -- Food Prices Rise Sharply   Watch what happens as this storyline unfolds.  This article was published on December 17 but it went by on my Twitter Timeline today -- another reason I really like Twitter.  Serendipity happens.

Happy Holidays!

New Years Party Food

Chocolate Chili and Loaded Potato Skins

Enough for 10-12 people — comforting cold weather food

POTATO SKINS can be made in advance, and popped into the oven as your guests start to arrive.   You want to be where the people are, and not slaving away in the kitchen. 

INGREDIENTS

• 10 baking potatoes
• 225g strong cheddar or red leicester
• 250ml sour cream
• 4 spring onions
• 1 teaspoon table salt or to taste
• good grinding of black pepper
• 1 x 15ml tablespoon worcestershire sauce
• oil for frying
• thick sliced bacon

METHOD

   1. The day (or up to 2 days) before you load them, preheat your oven to 400F and bake the potatoes (pricking them first) for about 1½ hours, or until the skins are crisp and the insides fluffy. As soon as you can bear to tackle the hot potatoes, cut them in half lengthways and scoop the insides into a bowl.

   2. Put the husk-like skins of the potatoes on a tray and, when cool, cover until you are ready to fill them. Let the potato cool in the bowl, and then cover until needed.

   3. When you are ready to fill the potatoes, preheat your oven to 400F. Grate the cheese, and add most of it to the cold potato along with the sour cream. Chop the spring onions and add to the potato, with the salt, pepper and worcestershire sauce.

   4. Spoon the potato filling into the potato skins, and lay each half on a baking tray so they fit snugly together. Sprinkle over the remaining cheese, giving each potato skin a light covering, and cook for 20-30 minutes until golden.

   5. Fry (or grill) the bacon rashers in oil until crispy, then crumble them and sprinkle half a rasher’s worth over each potato skin to make them fully loaded.

MAKE AHEAD TIP Fill the potato skins, as directed, and sprinkle with the cheese and crispy bacon (or add the crispy bacon after cooking if preferred). Cover loosely and keep in the fridge for up to 2 days. Cook as directed.

FREEZE AHEAD TIP Fill the potato skins as above, wrap in cling film and freeze for up to 1 week. To cook, lay the frozen potato skins on a baking sheet and cover loosely with foil. Cook in the oven for 35-40 minutes, removing the foil after the first 15 minutes.

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Chip Chili — Unbelievably good and pretty easy

1lb Italian sausages  (hot!)

3lb 4oz shin of beef cut into three quarter inch cubes  (I used "stew meat")

1lb onions

3 cloves garlic

1 long red chili, seeded

1/4 cup vegetable or olive oil

3 cardamom pods

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon dried crushed chilis

1/4 cup tomato paste

1/4 cup tomato ketchup

2 (14oz) cans kidney beans

2 (14oz) cans black beans

3 (14oz) cans chopped tomatoes

1 tablespoon chili sauce (optional)

1/4 cup dark chocolate chips

1 cup water (swilled out in the chopped tomato cans)

Preheat the oven to 325F.

Finely chop, or process the onion, garlic and chili. Heat the oil in a large pan and fry this mixture until soft, add the cardamom seeds, cumin, coriander, cinnamon and dried chilis. Stir the oniony-spiced mixture together and then add the sausages sliced into eighth-inch coins.  (On TV, Nigella used sausage that wasn't in casings and she crumbled it into the pot and cooked it. That's what I did.)  Drop in the cubes of beef turning them in the pan with the sausages to brown the meat.  (It won't brown.)

Stir in the tomato paste, tomatoes, ketchup and drained kidney and black beans. Add the chili sauce and water and bring the chili to a boil, sprinkle over the chocolate and stir it all together. Season with salt, and once simmering cover the pan with a lid.

Put the chili in the oven and cook for 3 hours. Once cooked it is best left overnight as the flavor improves.

Serves 10-12

Vegetarians:  this chili can easily be made without meat.  Bake, peel and  cube up an acorn squash and add it to the chili for the flavor, texture and beautiful color.  Sweet potato or yam would also work.

A Question for You

Composition teachers think deeply about the comments we put on papers.  What is helpful?  What will students learn from?  What will they use?  What will they ignore?

Because grading and writing comments is so time intensive, these are not idle questions.  No comments at all is not the answer; receiving a paper back without a comment opens the question, "Did she even read this?"  On the other hand, if teachers spend too much time on each paper, then the papers on the bottom of the stack don't get a timely read.

I have read and returned only 6-8 papers, and I'm about to sit down and read for an hour.  My goal:  one or two comments per paper -- comments that will be helpful, and hopefully will help you to learn something new about your writing and how it is received by others. 

I'd love to hear back from you on this.  I think I will poll the class.

The Clasp, by Sharon Olds

The Clasp

by Sharon Olds

She was four, he was one, it was raining, we had colds,

we had been in the apartment two weeks straight,

I grabbed her to keep her from shoving him over on his

face, again, and when I had her wrist

in my grasp I compressed it, fiercely, for a couple

of seconds, to make an impression on her,

to hurt her, our beloved firstborn, I even almost

savored the stinging sensation of the squeezing,

the expression, into her, of my anger,

“Never, never, again,” the righteous

chant accompanying the clasp. It happened very

fast—grab, crush, crush,

crush, release—and at the first extra

force, she swung her head, as if checking

who this was, and looked at me,

and saw me—yes, this was her mom,

her mom was doing this. Her dark,

deeply open eyes took me

in, she knew me, in the shock of the moment

she learned me. This was her mother, one of the

two whom she most loved, the two

who loved her most, near the source of love

was this.

Meet bell hooks!

Her Wikipedia article.
A YouTube video of a lecture called "Cultural Criticism & Transformation."
Another YouTube video inspired by the work of bell hooks.
An publisher's biography.

How to mark a book, by Mortimer Adler

The best, most inspiring annotation advice I know of, AND it's written by a guy named Mortimer -- posted at the Radical Academy.  Three good reasons to take a look.

Just wanted to share this blog post

Letter to my daughter in the wake of a tragedy

This is a mother, reflecting on the Tyler Clementi suicide.  She expresses what many of us feel.