Approximately one third of the world’s people suffer from a lack of micronutrients. Micronutrients are “any substance, such as a vitamin or trace element, essential for healthy growth and development but required only in minute amounts”  More specifically, micronutrients in food include essential things such as: folic acid, iron, vitamin D and iodine. Although they are consumed in minute amounts, the have profound implications on our health and wellbeing.

According to the World Health Organization, “these substances are the “magic wands” that enable the body to produce enzymes, hormones and other substances essential for proper growth and development. As tiny as the amounts are, however, the consequences of their absence are severe. Iodine, vitamin A and iron are most important in global public health terms; their lack represents a major threat to the health and development of populations the world over, particularly children and pregnant women in low-income countries.”

The proposal to address this problem is to enrich food staples and salts with micronutrients. It is true that enriching food staples such as adding iodine to salt and vitamin D to milk has been practiced in the US for a long time and is a primary cause in the elimination of nutrition based diseases such as rickets. Also, the article correctly notes that the cost of fortifying food stables with micronutrients is extremely cost efficient.

But, doesn’t this seem a bit like treating symptoms instead of treating problems?

The problem is not exclusively a lack of access to foods containing micronutrients. In all reality, the problem is a lack of access to an entire diet capable of meeting the current nutritional needs of people.

In a sense, fortifying food staples is the somewhat the nutritional equivalent of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The situation is akin to switching from regular to diet drinks as a way to regulate sugar and calorie consumption. The switch comes with the trade off of increased caffeine consumption as well as increased exposure to artificial sweeteners. At the end of the day, all you are doing is playing a game of nutritional three card monty by trading one bad thing for another.

It is critically important to ask what food staples that will be fortified. If fortified food products in the US serve as an example, they will be highly refined or processed, bearing little-to-no resemblance to their traditional form or place in a person’s regional or ancestral diet.

Considering:

“[When we eat refined foods] … we limit the opportunity to bolster our immune system, keep our blood sugar and emotions balanced, keep our blood sugar and emotions balanced, protect against degenerative diseases, maintain a trim and fit body, and in general, keep our integrated experience of life harmonious.”

“Our desire to overeat can stem from eating foods that are refined and therefore missing ingredients; these deficient foods can foster addiction as we are instinctively driven to over consume them in our endeavor to obtain the missing nutrients that are never there.”

Healing With Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford (2002 edition) pgs 16 -18

And, according to Harriet V. Kuhnlein, Professor of Human Nutrition and Founding Director of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE) at McGill University in Montreal, Canada:

The development, health and scientific communities do not usually understand the food resources that indigenous people know and use. Scientific identifications and laboratory data for nutrients and other phytochemicals for a food system may be unknown for many species.

A possibly better solution to this issue might be re-examining and then reintroducing traditional dietary and agricultural practices “upgraded” for current daily life instead relying upon artificially fortifying foods derived from highly refined and processed foods frequently from foreign sources and diets.

So, at first impression it seems this spouse deserves a gold star for supporting the partner and understanding the challenges of following an unconventional diet with many possible restrictions.

Then the spouse laments for the days of gluten foods and half jokingly says gluten free foods taste “like straw”. Now, it seems that re-evaluating those gold stars might be a god idea.

Since this is “FOOD for the rest of us” and not “MARRIAGE counseling, guidance, and judgement for the rest of us”, I lets focus on the food.

This spouse is not the only person in the world to consider gluten free foods to be unpleasant.  In fact, I have previously blogged about a NYT article where celiacs’ laments for gluten foods such as pasta and breads were followed with praises to the food industry for coming up with increasingly “better” imitation foods as substitutes.

In fact, while making a birthday cake with two layers of genoise brushed with sherry and iced with mocha butter-cream and chocolate icing using regular all purpose flour, I found myself thankful for not having to counter balance any of the garbanzo bean flavor sometimes found in many gluten free flour mixes. I was also glad to focus on the cake and not if the amount of xyntham gum added was sufficient or too much.

So, while I wasn’t saying it tasted like straw, I was viewing it as something inferior to a gluten based product. Then I realized this was probably due to the fact that I was automatically assessing the possible tastes and textures of something made with out gluten against something made using gluten.

Just as substituting beef or chicken with some sort of soy based product, using vitamin pills instead of eating fruits and vegetables, or eating farm raised vs wild or “free range” fish, fowl, or beef leads to all kinds of dietary issues and doesn’t taste all that good; forcing an over processed, chemically stabilized, and artificial-in-nearly-all-aspects-of-its-existence food item to replace is not exactly a good idea.

Instead of looking for substitute food products or items that can be swapped in and out of your eating habits as if they computer parts or brake pads, maybe it is better to consider it time to undertake a food odyssey, searching for new to you foods that are fun to eat and do not conflict with your dietary choices.

After all, just because a meal or a specific dish or food item is made to be gluten free does not mean the food should not be good.

For example, the other weekend I cooked great meal.

The salad included fresh cherry tomatoes, sweetened red onions, basil, sheep’s milk feta, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

For the main course, I roasted beef sirloin with a rosemary, sage, thyme, parsley, Grana Padano cheese and garlic crust. The beef was accompanied by roasted apples, parsnips, sweet potatoes, and turnips, a pan sauce, and rustic mashed potatoes.

For dessert, I used Giffords’ double chocolate ice cream with warmed “Last of the Season” peaches and a ruby reduction.

Although I added toasted bread croutons with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, parsley, and basil to the salad, and the salad would have been equally good without them, the meal was essentially gluten free.

Nothing came out of a box, was almost entirely gluten free and it did not taste like straw. In fact, I was later told the meal was “Kick A** Good.”

Over the weekend, I happily and thankfully enjoyed some beers produced by a neighbor and friend. Although I could easily write this entire piece about those beers (and I will very soon), today’s focus is on how beer can be used in a marinade/BBQ sauce.

Interestingly, despite its popularity as a beverage of choice for BBQ, most of the recipes for marinades and BBQ sauces do not use beer and instead use wine, spirits or a fortified wine such as port or madera.

As most beer drinkers know, especially those whom have tasted “skunked” beer, beer frequently has a bitter element to its taste. Although this bitter element is not necessarily a bad thing, results from many potential causes, and is frequently used as a tool to bring out other flavors in a beer, the bitter element becomes increasingly strong as the liquid is reduced while making a marinade, sauce base, or the grilling.

Just as a little salt brings out a recipe’s sweet flavors, a beer’s bitter flavors can bring out many other great flavors. But, if the bitter flavors become too strong they will overpower everything.

The “trick” to using beer is not using it alone. If the beer is “cut” by another flavorful liquid such as chicken stock, orange juice or similar. Cutting the beer with this other liquid allows the beer to be reduced without becoming overwhelmingly better.

So, in order to have BBQ pork with a sauce/marinade complimenting my friend’s home brewed and excellent beer, I used a bottle of Old Dominion’s October Fest and cut it with some chicken stock, juice from two oranges and two diced peaches. The marinade also included toasted cumin, all spice, caraway seed, coriander, and fennel seed in addition to cayenne and chili pepper flakes.

The basic recipe is the same as the one used for my earlier blog “Sometimes Simpler is better” with an addition of two – three small peeled and diced carrots slightly browned before adding the onions.

Peach Cobbler No 2

With very few exceptions, sequels and/or copies, imitations or duplications are usually less entertaining, engaging or good as the premier version. I suspect the cause is some sort of motivation to “out-do” the original by some completely arbitrary and ultimately important-for-only-a-fleeting-moment form of measurement.

But, sequels are also second chances, opportunities to learn from previous experience and seek out additional information to improve upon the previous product.

Or, somewhat more appropriately, sometimes the only way to learn the difference between good and bad wine is to drink both, tasting is the only way to experience the difference for yourself.

The gluten free peach and blueberry cobbler I made earlier this month was good and well liked. Although the earlier peach cobbler was good, the crust did not have the crisp, almost cookie or scone texture I wanted. And, I was not all that happy with the taste of the crust.

But, purchasing half a bushel of peaches (in other words many, many pounds of fresh peaches) and a visit by a cousin participating in a GW master’s program provided me with a chance to make a sequel, as if I really needed the excuse.

Without blue or blackberries to go with the peaches and since some were less ripe than others, macerating them in sugar with a splash of vanilla extract for a few hours heightened their sweetness, making them even richer in flavor. Maceration, similar in concept to marinating, adds or heightens foods’ flavors by immersing the food in sugar, spices, salt, vinegar or other substances.

For the crust, I wanted something with a bit of a crust, not a thick distracting crust but enough of a crust to have its own flavor and contrast-to-compliment the peaches. Somehow shortcake came to mind. Using the “Fluffy Biscuits or Shortcake Dough” from Joy of Cooking as a base; I substituted Bob’s Redmill Gluten Free All-Purpose flour for regular AP flour, 6-7 tablespoons chilled butter, a bit extra sugar, and some cinnamon for extra flavor.

The resulting dough was thick, perfect for baked or pan fried drop biscuits. After spreading the dough over the peaches sitting in nearly all of the maceration “juice”, remembering to spread it evenly and leave space around the edge, I baked it It was baked at 450 for about one hour.

The results were great! The high heat browned the dough, caramelizing some of the sugar in the dough and making a firm but crumbly crust covering. Served with freshly made goat milk ice cream, the cobbler was a perfect end to a hot summer’s day.

Pan Roasted Venison, Roasted Finglering Potatoes with Green Sauce of Cilantro, Galic, Lime juice, and seasoning

Growing up in Oregon, I knew people – friends in school or friends of friends – who hunted deer each fall. I knew they also ate the deer successfully hunted but called it venison. Although I was never really one to associate Bambi with a food item, the concept of eating venison was foreign to me and foreign enough to many more that it was not exactly something seen on every menu.

Fortunately, times and tastes have changed.

It seems the unique flavoring and the healthier-than-beef-if-not-raised-like-beef traits of venison have helped bring it to many menus. At the same time, since moving to the East from the West I have had the pleasure of cooking and eating amazing venison many times with each better than the last.

Last Monday, January 12, 2009, I threw together the venison dish pictured and described on the right.  Normally I try to complete most, if not all, of the main preparations or cooking for the week by Sunday or, if time allows, Monday afternoon or evening. On this particular Monday I had cooked the meals for the week and so was faced with trying to cook food for the week and dinner, at the same time and to be completed with the cooking before 10:00 p.m.

So, once I put a chicken in the oven to roast (more on this particular chicken in another blog entry), I focused on the venison.

Broken down, the venison dish has three components: venison, roasted potatoes, and sauce.

Here are the guidelines I followed for each:

Venison- although last to be put on the stove or to put into an oven, the seasoning and cooking of this meat was probably the most important part of the dish.  I seared each side in a cast-ion saute pan and then placed it in an approximately 400 degree oven to finish (about 12 – 14 min total.  The venison steaks were seasoned with salt, pepper, just enough to coat olive oil, and freshly grated or cut lime zest. The lime zest was a great addition and really added a lot to the flavor of the meet.

Roasted Fingerlings-a variation on my standby – olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper: instead of putting them to roast in the oven after either starting on the stove or at least warming (or more accurately heating) the pan in a 450 – 500 degree oven, the potatoes were put into a pan with some grape seed oil and the heat at high. Once they started to brown, the heat was dropped and freshly chopped garlic was added. Keeping the pan on the stove top instead of the oven was a challenge because I had to stir the potatoes and garlic to prevent everything from burning.

Green Sauce: Basically – a cilantro version of a more traditional parsley green sauce.  I loosely or hash chopped the cilantro and garlic, added them to a blender with a touch of olive oil and season with salt and pepper to taste. Blend just enough to mix all the flavors with the oil. As you can see in the picture, this is a rough or “country style” sauce, it should be bold and not look like it was just pureed.

Wrapping up as I fall asleep, the sauce a normally good meal and elevated it to excellent, we even used it for salad dressing the next night.

Don’t you agree it is a wonderful day in the neighborhood? Well at least it was a wonderful day in the neighborhood.  With fall finally showing some gusto over the last few days, Wife, Dog, and I took a trip out to the Northern Neck area of Virginia.

We ended up camping at the Westmoreland Virginia State Park campsite.  It is very beautiful there and definitely worth checking out, especially now while the days still offer some warmth and the crowds are not around.  If you have time, make sure to hunt for fossils on Fossil Beach, look for Osprey and Eagles from the cliffs near the visitor center, and then remark on the ironic fact that George Washington and Robert E. Lee were born and raised approximately 10 miles from each other.

More to the point of this blog, we toured around the area on Sunday and ended up stopping at the Ingleside Winery as well as the Westmoreland Berry Farm.  Two very special but very different places.

Pulling into the Ingleside winery was a very pleasant surprise.  After a very short but picturesque cruz down the gravel driveway along vines flirting with fall colors on the leaves, a turn into the parking area reveals a happy but simple entrance marked by old oak foudres and an ivy covered silo.

Deciding to leave Dog in the car, we parked in the shade with the windows rolled down and water in his dish. Walking through the entrance revealed a pleasant outdoor seating area with a bubbly fountain in the middle and tables with umbrellas and fall leaf garland wrapped around each post.

After a quick sugar snack of delicious shortbread cookie and coffee cake, the pre-wine tasting snack of champions, we stepped back into the winery tasting room and shop, after all we were there for the wine as well as the atmosphere.

Wife choose the regular tasting for $3 and I chose the full, $10. Both tastings came with a complementary glass form the winery. The full allowed me to taste the regular, and the reserve wines while Wife was limited to regular wines only.

As it turned out, Wife didn’t seem to enjoy the few sips of reserve wines she mooched from me.  Although I thought the reserve reds were good and very food friendly, she wasn’t all that impressed.  We both agreed the merlot was a little of a let down compared to Merlots from Western Virginia we sampled recently and the Syrah seemed to be a mutual favorite. I also thought the Petit Verdot was another good food wine, seeing how I could easily pour it with smoked ham or turkey, roast pork or beef, and winter vegetables roasted and served with a sweet and tangy mustard.

With our mutual dislike for heavily oaked Chardonnay, we both were surprised and happy with their Chesapeake Chardonnay.  It was light with acids, having just enough to not be too sweat, and just enough mineral to go with and not against oysters, heavy cream or blue cheese, tangy asian chicken, summer melon wrapped in prosciutto, or even roasted figs with pancetta. At the same time, by avoiding the curse of oak barrel aging, oak is good for some wines but not and especially Chardonnays, the Chesapeake Chardonnay doesn’t offer the same woody and thick taste as many of its counterparts, including Ingleside’s Reserve Chardonnay.

All in all I had a great time and was pleasantly pleased with the wines.  I greatly look forward to going back and trying their wines as well as the many wines offered by the wineries of the Northern Neck sometime very soon.

As a kid, my friends and our parents would head out to Sauvie’s Island to pick berries in the summer, pumpkins in the fall, pet goats and hold freshly hatched chicks in the spring. Watching kids climb aboard a hay ride, bounce and bumble down the lane past the plank climbing goats, and descend upon the pumpkin patch as if searching for a leprechaun’s pot of gold brought back many of those gilded memories. Feasting upon a very good pulled pork barbeque sandwich, baked beans, coleslaw, and a truly glutinous and yet gleefully great strawberry combo (strawberry shortcake with ice cream and whipped cream) created new gilded memories and very full tummies. Originally I would have said one combo was enough to last a long while. But, after using some of their blackberry preserves on freshly baked cornbread at breakfast this morning, I am now wondering if they serve a blackberry combo and if it would taste better with the air just a little cooler.

All in all, I have to say that I am grateful to have ventured out to the Northern Neck area of Virginia and look forward to venturing out there again soon.