Melon memories: The third question

Posted on March 12, 2008 by Onecakebaker

http://www.etzchayim.org/documents/sederflyer2008r1PDF.pdf

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Back to Saul’s!

Posted on March 10, 2008 by Onecakebaker

Went back to Saul’s for more blintzes. They were great, this time they had Meyer lemon peel in the cheese filling.
Yum.

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It’s the Year of the Potato

Posted on February 21, 2008 by Onecakebaker

Potatoes and Pot Bellies

“You know, there’s no such thing as a good potato,” my friend Jess told me a couple of years ago, after talking to a doctor about a new understanding of diet and disease called Syndrome X. “Yeah, right,” I said, and stopped listening to her, since potatoes are a prized staple in the Eastern European cuisines my husband and I grew up with, and giving up potatoes would be harder than giving up bread. Then Jess, who is exactly my age, proceeded to lose 30 pounds, and when she started wearing her clothes from her mid-30s, I began to think about potatoes again. Could Jess be right? Could my beloved potato (see picture of my 2005 crop) really be bad for you?

As befits any serious food lover, I subscribe to an online diet newsletter. I really enjoy this newsletter—dieting is my favorite spectator sport—and at about the same time my friend started slimming down, this newsletter published a Glycemic Index (GI) diet, which bans potatoes. In the GI world, potatoes are a starch, not a vegetable. The basic principle behind GI diets is that the higher the GI of a food, the faster your body absorbs food energy, the more insulin you will produce, and, the faster you will ‘crash,’ and crave more food. It was really shocking when I learned that potatoes had about the highest GI of any food you could find. Did you know that a baked Russet Burbank potato has a Glycemic index higher than white bread? If the pundits of the Glycemic Index are right, potatoes are indeed a villainous tuber, worse for you than white bread.

The Linus Pauling institute at Oregon State University has this to say about potatoes and Glycemic index:
. The value is multiplied by 100 to represent a percentage of the control food. For example, a baked potato has a glycemic index of 76 relative to glucose and 108 relative to white bread, which means that the blood glucose response to the carbohydrate in a baked potato is 76% of the blood glucose response to the same amount of carbohydrate in pure glucose and 108% of the blood glucose response to the same amount of carbohydrate in white bread (

Perilous Potatoes? Not good for the Jews. The Jews, like poor people all over Europe, love potatoes, because produce more calories and protein per acre than anything else. They grow in rocky, sandy soil, sloping land that isn’t good for grain. Ever since the potato gained popularity by being planted in a guarded royal field in France and consequently stolen, Jews have eaten potatoes almost every day. I grew up singing a song that celebrates (and perhaps, bemoans) this fact. It goes:
“zuntig bulbes”
Muntig bulbes,
Mitvoch, Dienstag, bulbes
Donelschtig ,Freitag, bulbes
Shabbes hobt a bulbis kugele,
Zuntig, noch a mul, bulbes.
In English, “Sunday, potatoes,
Monday, potatoes,
Tuesday and Wednesday, potatoes.
Thursday and Friday, potatoes.
Shabbes we have a potato kugel,
Sunday, again potatoes”. I looked it up, and this song can be found on an album that captured Eastern European Jewish Life through folk songs made by Sidor Belarsky and Mashe Benya in 1956.

Could my Russian and Hungarian background, with its love of the potato, contribute to my problem with extra weight, as Jess suggested way at the beginning of this article? I have pictures of my Eastern European ancestors, and they were not fat people. Why not? The pat, obvious answer might be that in Eastern Europe, people ate potatoes and did not gain weight because they did not have enough of them. But the real answer may be different.

I asked Gerda Endemann, a nutritionist with a PhD from MIT, who teaches at Stanford and Foothill colleges and wrote a book called Healthy Fat, to give me an interview on the pros and cons of potatoes.
She considers potatoes a vegetable, not a starch, and a useful vegetable at that. “Potatoes have a lot of potassium and B vitamins, which is hard for adults to get.” When I asked about the questionable Glycemic Index of potatoes, Gerda replied that consuming protein or fat with the potatoes slows down the spike in blood glucose. She also pointed out that most potatoes in this country end up as Fries that accompany fast food, which is not healthy for a lot of other reasons.

Ah, so it isn’t that potatoes are intrinsically bad, it is just that they hang with the wrong crowd! This made me feel so much better that I made a batch of potato gnocchi, served them with low-fat turkey meat sauce, and invited Jess over for dinner.

(gnocchi di patate recipe from Machlin book)
GNOCCHETTI DI PATATE from “The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews” by Edda Servi Machlin AND ME

4 lbs. baking potatoes 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan
3 cups unbleached flour 3 cups tomato sauce (see recipe)
6 quarts water 4 TB olive oil

Boil or steam potatoes until very soft. Peel while still hot and mash or force though a sieve. Add enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead 2 minutes on a floured board. Cut into 6 or 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ¾- inch rope. At this point, I diverged from Ms. Machlin’s instructions , and cut ropes into 3/4-inch pieces, and rolled the pieces into balls, as it was much faster, and I had some ‘gnocchetti’ in Italy which were that shape and size and just wonderful.

Put 1 TB of the olive oil into your serving dish and place in warm oven. Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil. Add 3 tablespoons salt and one-fourth the gnocchetti. As soon as boiling resumes, and gnocchetti float to the surface, remove with a slotted spoon and place in a colander. Place the next quarter of the gnochetti in the water, then while they are cooking, walk over to the oven, take the warmed serving dish, and place gnochetti and ¼ of parmesan cheese in it, and put back in oven. Repeat until all gnochetti are done. Dress gnochetti with sauce as you go along, or serve sauce separately.

TURKEY (if you’re trayf) or SOY (if you’re not) Meat Sauce
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
Olive oil
1.5 lb Ground Turkey breast or Soy ground meat substitute
1 jar or can tomato sauce
Salt, Pepper, Basil, Oregano,Sage

Saute onion in olive oil until translucent. Remove onion from pan to preserve it’s texture if you have extra clean dishes handy, or just leave onion in frying pan if you don’t. Over medium heat, brown meat or soyburger in olive oil, and add spices and herbs to taste. Add whatever tomato sauce you have in the closet. Put onions back in pan, and cook until warmed through. Plain sauce from Trader Joe’s works fine with ground turkey breast. This sauce should be very thick with meat and onions.

Serve in warmed serving bowl alongside gnochetti, or layer in serving dish with gnochetti.

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International Year of the Potato, How about that?

Posted on February 21, 2008 by Onecakebaker

http://www.potato2008.org/en/index.html

I read in US News and World Report, and saw it on the UN website and it is true, October 18, 2007, marked the beginning of the International Year of the Potato.
Whoo Hoo! There are monuments going up all over the world.

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The One True Cake

Posted on February 8, 2008 by Onecakebaker

One cake to rule them all
One cake to find them
One cake to eat with milk
And at the table, bind them

In the land of Momma where the memories grow

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A New Motto–Humble sentiment, expressed in pompous writing

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Onecakebaker


I just finished “Comfort me with Apples,” by Ruth Reichl, and it has given me a new motto.
The setting is Barcelona; the circumstance is that Reichl has just suffered through losing a baby she and her husband had adopted, and to for reasons not made clear, she has chosen to accompany five noted American chefs who have been invited to cook for “every winemaker and chef in the region…the Julia Child of Spain…” These chefs suffer a small tragedy of their own; while cooking for this august grouping, they produce a bad meal.

There are extenuating circumstances, of course. These chefs get a tiny, under-equipped kitchen and ingredients from the local market don’t live up to expectations. However, they get a great deal of satisfaction that under bad circumstances, they work hard, and together, and get the meal out. As one of the chefs, Lydia, says “We fought for it…We did our best. Sometimes that is all you can do. And then you move on.”

Reichl repeats this a couple of times in the chapter, and I will repeat it for you (often):

“Sometimes, even your best is not good enough. And in those times you have to give it everything you’ve got. And then move on.”

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Feeding the Frenzied Shark Fans

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Onecakebaker

So, why would anyone eat dinner at the San Jose Arena? I’ve been doing it for over 14 years, and, if the lines are any indication, so have a lot of other people.
I started having dinner at the Arena as a matter of convenience. My children were very small when I started going to the 7:30 pm, games, and it was just easier to get a sitter to come at 6:30 or 7:00 and give them clean, fed babies to watch. Also, the traffic on the highway near me peaks about 6:30 pm, so you spend less time on the road the later you leave the house. After a couple of years, eating at the Tank (another name for the Arena, because the San Jose Sharks ice hockey team plays there) has become a deeply entrenched habit. The cheers of the crowd, the vibrations of the loud music, and the salty-sweet taste of junk food washed down with diet soda all go together for me now. Roaming around looking for something to eat gives me an excuse to walk around the arena. Sometimes, I can also use an excuse to take a break from the intensity of play, especially when Detroit is in town. At the last game, I asked the people around me why they ate Arena food, instead of eating at a restaurant in downtown San Jose before the game started. There were one or two purists in my section who always eat in a restaurant before the game, but for many of the people around me, junk food was part of the reason they came out in the first place. Hot dogs, fried food, and peanuts, Popcorn and sport peppers, fried shrimp and garlic fries—lowbrow eaters of the world, unite!

Here are some of the things there are to eat, with prices as of January 2008. The holy trinity of American fast food—burgers, fries, and a Coke—costs $12.00 at the Grillworks (2 locations at the San Jose Arena). A jumbo dog costs $4.50, and they are of good size and available at the 4 ‘regular’ concession stand locations, but you can get a better dog, and much better toppings for $6.50 at the one location that serves Chicago and NY hot dogs and baked potatoes. You can get a really good cardboard tray of nachos at Una Mas with crispy triangular chips and beans, salsa, guacamole, mild sauce and good melted cheese, for $7.50, at 2 locations, or a really bad plastic tray of nachos, with thick, cardboard-like circular chips and orange cheese sauce, next door for $5.50 , at one of the same 4 general concession stands that sell the jumbo dogs. You can get a 20-oz Corona beer for $11.00, and a 12-oz “beer of the world” for $6.00. Good “kettle chips” brand potato chips can be had for $2.50, sold along with the international beer. Beer is the most commonly available food at the Arena, I counted 14 separate places that sell it in different size cups and plastic bottles. If you want to eat something halfway healthy, there is sushi and edamame at Tengu, and caesar salad wraps and decent sandwiches at Coffee Caffe and Chinese chicken salads at Tied House but you have to know where those places are. Get a map at the information desk at the South Entrance to guide you, and stay away from the chicken strips at Fowl Play unless you like really salty chicken strips.

As a general rule, the better food is upstairs, where there are high tables to stand at, and tall chairs as well, you don’t have to look hard for napkins and utensils, and there are lots of TVs so you don’t miss any action. There seems to be one anchor–the BBQ place, which changes hands every few years but stays BBQ. The rest of the food up there changes. One week there is a carvery in a spot next to the Smoke Tiki Lounge BBQ, and the next, there will be pulled pork and meatball subs in the same place. Tengu Sushi has been serving the healthiest food at the Tank for at least 5 years. The nicest surprise I ever got was at the Smoke Tiki Lounge, where their pretty good coleslaw actually had some fresh ginger in it that made really good coleslaw. A semi-romantic dinner is available at the Arena Grill, down on the club level, where the most expensive seats are, but service there can be as slow as traffic on 101, it’s REALLY expensive, and tablecloths and hockey jerseys just don’t go together for me very well.

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Humane or fascist?

Posted on January 22, 2008 by Onecakebaker

At a Farmer’s Market on Sunday, I was accosted by a nice lady from the Humane Society that wanted me to sign a petition to get an initiative on the ballot regarding living conditions for farm animals. I told her no, saying that was fascist. That totally flummoxed her. “Fascist?” she said, wandering away shaking her head in bewilderment.

Yes, nice lady. I agree that chickens and pigs and beef and especially veal don’t have room to turn around on most farms. That is why I buy free range poultry and meat and never buy veal at all. What I do to keep meat animals happy, is buy humanely raised animals. Forcing every farmer in California to give their meat animals more room will just make those farmers go out of business faster. More than likely, their inhumane operations will be bought up by large companies with lawyers good at finding loopholes.

So, no ballot measures for humane treatment of meat animals for me.

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Food Review of the San Jose Arena

Posted on January 19, 2008 by Onecakebaker

Aside from home, the place I eat most often, especially during hockey season, is the San Jose Arena, aka the Tank, or the HP Pavillion, or Compaq Pavillion or Center or HUGE ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITY or whatever else they are calling it now. About the worst thing about corporate sponsorship is that the the name of the place you love keeps changing. Also, what if you don’t like the company, or the company doesn’t like you? I can understand the prohibition against bringing outside food and drink to 525 Santa Clara Street, they make a lot of money selling food, but… If I buy a Dell computer, will the guy with the bar code sensor who scans the tickets sense that I am a DEll owner somhow it and ban me from the building? If it WAS the Shark Tank, and now it’s a Pavillion, how are the poor Sharkies breathing?
Achhh, never mind. I am here to go over the food options for a hockey fan who did not get dinner before the game.. There are a lot of things to eat available on the Councourse level, where the majority of the people sit. I counted 12 places to have something that might be called dinner, one place for soft serve ice cream, 2 popcorn stands, 1 nut stand, 1 frozen lemonade stand, 1 dippin’ dots, and six places to buy beer. Now, about half the places that serve food serve beer, too, and there are 4 places that serve hard liquor, but I don’t drink, so suffice to say the alcholics out there are well serviced and should be content…
So what is thre to eat? Mexican, at Uno Mas (2 counters at opposite ends of the arena), fried chicken and fish and shrimp at Fowl Play (also 2 counters) hamburgers, grilled hot dogs, chili dogs and philly cheesesteaks at Grillworks (2 counters) , of course regular style hotdogs at the Favorites counters (2) , and BBQ from Smoke Tiki Lounge at an upstairs counter, Sushi and Bento from Tengu Sushi, Chicago hotdogs & baked potatoes which are served with similar toppings, and two kinds of sandwiches (meatball and carved) at 2 different locations. A place where you can get paninis and wraps and lattes just opened upstairs, across from Section 221. I see a lot of dating couples there. Oh, and there is pizza from Round Table, too.
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Food and Funerals

Posted on January 14, 2008 by Onecakebaker

I have a friend, call him Bruce. Bruce’s father died a year ago, and instead of being buried, he was put in a mausoleum. This is called being encrypted. This led me to write a joke: “My friend’s father died, and instead of being buried, he was encrypted. Now before they can visit their father’s resting place, his kids have to look up the name of his first girlfriend.”

Yesterday was the unveiling, and since the mausoleum is in Rockridge, we went to lunch in Berkeley aftwards, to a deli called Saul’s. Saul’s is kosher-style, which is another word for treyf, meat, both meat and dairy on the menu, but no pork or shellfish. The walls of Saul’s are covered with LP jackets of Yiddish singers and Jewish comdedians from the heyday of the Borscht Belt, Mort Sahl, and Jackie Mason, and music albums with titles like “Bagels and Bongos.” It is around the corner from the Berkeley-Richmond JCC, and next to a Long’s Drugs, in case you need a Pepto-Bismol afterwards.

The menu at Saul’s reflects an odd kind of Berkeley-Jewish sensibility, honoring the concept of local eating and health-the meat is organic, from Niman Ranch, which means the cows lived in Marin, Napa or Sonoma and had a good life, the eggs are from Glaum Ranch, so the chickens are free range, fed on organic feed, and the whitefish are flown in from the best places, like Russ and Daughters in New York. There is chopped liver, chicken soup with matzo balls, cabbage soup, and beef borscht on the menu, as well as the usual complement of deli sandwiches.

I had the Ukrainian blintzes. I don’t know what made them Ukrainian, but both my mother and father’s hometowns are now part of the Ukraine, and these blintzes were just like my mother’s blintzes on a good day, tender ‘bletlech’ or wrappings, (means leaves),slightly sweet, lightly fried, filled with farmer’s cheese that was soft but not too soft. Really nice. I also had the whitefish salad with toasted bagel. The salad was fresh, with very little mayo and nice cruncy chunks of celery.
As we ate our lunch, the two children, grown men with kids in college, reminisced about their father, and how much he, a non-observant Jew from Chicago who nevertheless came back to the fold and was Bar Mitzvah’d on his deathbed, would have liked the restaurant. We also discussed mortality, and the irony of how the people we know with the healthiest lifestyles are struck down by heart attacks all the time. Then we did NOT order the dessert–we had begun the meal with potato pancakes, and shared around our entrees, and ordered more food than we needed, anyway.

I’m going back.
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