Happy Food Day, Canada!

You know what makes a food geek want to celebrate? A whole day devoted to food! Today is Food Day Canada, so I thought I would share some of my favourite ways to celebrate food. Pick one to try today or try them all while the sun is still shining this August!


1. Go U-Pick. Nothing will make you appreciate those gorgeous overflowing cartons of berries more than realizing how long it takes you to pick them yourself. Plus, I can't think of a better way to spend a summer morning than out in the sunshine, plucking sweet, juicy berries. Followed by eating said berries.


2. Have an amazing, leisurely meal at a local restaurant celebrating Food Day. One of my favourite neighbourhood haunts, Campagnolo, is taking part.


3. Go to the farmer's market and say thank you to a farmer for all of their hard work. Not from Vancouver? Search for Canadian markets here or US markets here. Then rustle yourself up some gorgeous grub and pick a shady spot for a picnic lunch. 


4. Invite friends over for a potluck. My favourite dinner party is one I didn't have to spend 6 hours preparing for. 


5. Take a cooking class. Here is one sweet and one savoury on my wish list.


6. Go to the beach. Bring along tasty snacks and some foodie reading. 


7. Try making something you have never cooked or baked before. For inspiration, try this or this or this.


8. Treat yourself to your favourite food. Write a haiku about its pleasures.


9. Have a recipe swap. Ask friends to email you their best family recipes and then you can distribute them all to the group. No chain letters, please!!


10. Tell me what Food Day means to you!

The Secret to Eating Healthier for Life

...Now that I have your attention...I am feeling inspired to share the one habit I feel everyone must acquire in order to be truly healthy: cooking at home.


Before you dismiss this statement in a flurry of memories of triple fudge cheesecakes and double cheese lasagnas of meals past, let me explain. At home, you have the ultimate control over what you eat. You choose exactly how much oil or butter or salt or sugar to add (or to leave out). You can pile your plate high with broccoli and tofu or raspberries and Greek yogurt. When you dine or grab take out, you have no idea how much oil or salt or MSG got loaded into the dish you are about to consume. Typically, the calorie counts will be two to three times what you expect. It often doesn't actually taste that good - that "delicious" sensation you are experiencing is solely a reaction to all the fat, sugar and salt you are eating. You also don't appreciate a meal as much.


I feel like so many of our maladies nowadays are caused by disconnection. Disconnection from loved ones, our physical bodies and especially food. When food is simply something to be ordered and consumed, we forget how nourishing it can truly be. We want food cheaper, faster and richer. Our waistlines are bulging, our energy is lagging and we feel miserable when we should be feeling amazing.


To cook at home, you don't have to be a fancy cook...or even to love cooking. If you can boil water, you can make a simple pasta with some olive oil, garlic and baby spinach. This might not taste like much...but give your taste buds time. Add a little crunchy sea salt to enliven the dish. The more you eat simple foods at home, the more the flavour of real, natural foods will come alive. Consider this an investment in yourself and your family's health. 


I thought I would share some of my favourite things to help inspire you to get connected with your food and get in the kitchen. Remember, it doesn't have to be fancy. Often, it is better if it isn't. Make a ritual of preparing good quality food simply and enjoying your nourishment. 


If you haven't discovered my recipe blog that I write with my friend Heather, check out one of our favourite snacks here. To make the idea of cooking a pastime and not a chore, it doesn't hurt to treat yourself to a few pretty (or functional) gadgets. And if you can read, you can cook...but this cookbook is especially helpful for those new to the kitchen. This cookbook is a great one to introduce you to beans...one of my favourite foods. And if you really want to make cooking an event, sign up with your spouse, roommates or girlfriends for a cooking class or if you want to get fancy, a lesson in patissierie francais. And of course, you can't talk about a cook at home revolution without talking about one of my food heroes.


Stroll out to a farmer's market this weekend, pop open a bottle of wine and have a leisurely afternoon with friends in the kitchen.

UnDiet...Week 21

Hello UnDieters,

I hope you are enjoying the summer sun. Did you get out to the farmers market today? My friends Heather, Melissa and I visited the Trout Lake market in Vancouver and I can't wait to show you the result of our trip. Hopefully in a week or two...

For today, however, let's talk UnDiet. With all that gorgeous summer produce out there, the same old crackers or pasta just won't cut it. You need a worthy grain to show off next to those heirloom tomatoes. So this week's challenge is to try a new whole grain. While some of us still might view grains as unneccessary carbs, let me differentiate a true whole grain from mere starch.

When research on the health benefits of whole grains started surfacing, manufacturers responded by adding "whole grains" to their products. Across the supermarket, "made with whole grain!" shouted at you from breads, granola bars, cereals and even yogurts. This marketing classic can be very deceptive: made WITH whole grain doesn't mean 100%. There is no guarantee how much whole grain you are getting. Technically, a product can be considered a whole grain if it contains all three parts of the original grain: the endosperm, the germ and the bran.Looking for a food made from 100% whole grains is a step in the right direction; however, eating intact whole grains is not the same as eating sugary cereals, aka candy, with added fibre.  However, you can then pulverize, gelatinize and puff up and sweeten the grain however you want to and still sell yourself as whole grain goodness. But whole grain Ritz crackers are not the same as cooking up some barley.

Intact, unprocessed whole grains are slowly digested, providing sustained energy that won't spike blood sugars. They are rich in minerals and vitamins and contain antioxidant phytochemicals. They also provide protein and fibre to help you feel satisfied. Most crackers, granola bars and pasta just spike your blood sugar and leave you hungry. Intact, unprocessed whole grains are a true superfood that are well worth the calories. They are also economical, great for any healthy eater on a budget.

For this week, go to your bulk bins or grains aisle and choose something you haven't cooked with before. Try barley as a base for risotto, black rice for a rich twist on traditional sushi, buckwheat toasted in a salad, amaranth sprinkled over berries and yogurt or even teff baked into a homemade granola bar. Teff??? Oh yes, get ready to be surprised by how many whole grains are out there that you haven't heard of before. Many grains cook up just like rice, but not all, so check out this cooking chart from dietitian Leslie Beck's website for water proportions and cooking time.

Note! Couscous is not a grain...it is a pasta. Ditto orzo. And buckwheat is not wheat.

I would love to hear how you used your grains this week....enjoy!
Desiree

UnDiet...Week Nine

The new Dietitians of Canada Cookbook...featuring a recipe by yours truly! Available in my Amazon store.

Hello UnDieters!

This week, I want to appeal to the adventurer in you...your mission this week is to try a recipe that you have never tried before. Whether you hoard cookbooks that you rarely use (like me) or think that a big cooking day is boiling pasta, it is time to be bold. Make the effort. You can make something elaborate or search for a 30 minute meal that will help you survive the weeknight dinner crush. It is up to you: choose a recipe, shop for the ingredients, make something fantastic and have fun!

Life is busy; the effort involved in planning a meal with multiple ingredients can seem daunting but once you have mastered a recipe it becomes part of your repertoire and effortless to enjoy on a regular basis. Also, when you get stuck in a rut, healthy eating becomes boring. Way more boring than ordering a pizza. Weekends are the perfect time for a culinary adventure. You have got the time to browse recipes over morning coffee, make a shopping list and maybe even check out a farmer's market without the stress of trying to decide on how you are going to get dinner on the table after work.

So crack open one of your dusty cookbooks or browse online for a recipe...I know you are tempted to skip this week because "it isn't as important" as eating blueberries but believe me, I have your best interests at heart. Cooking is a critical skill for eating well and trying something new is important for keeping healthy eating fresh.

I have included a few of my favourite sites for you here so you have literally thousands of free recipes at your fingertips:

http://www.eatingwell.com/

http://www.epicurious.com/

http://www.choicesmarkets.com/

http://www.chatelaine.com/

http://www.canadianliving.com/

Get Cooking...let me know how your culinary adventures went!

Desiree

Eat...just like old times...part two

One of my grandfather's four apple trees

My grandparents’ garden, where I spent many a summer reading books and eating raspberries, is still producing in October. There are 4 apple and pear trees, grafted so many times that they form unusual shapes, that bear 20 different varieties for which my grandfather cannot offer names. The simple greenhouse still houses pimento peppers and pickling cucumbers. Portuguese winter kale, paler and softer and sweeter than that which you find in the grocery store, is flourishing and there are still plump blackberries on the (unthinkably smooth) vines. Pumpkins are hiding in tall grass.

The pumpkins in question

When I was little, this garden was my hideaway. I was always a bit of a loner, preferring to spend the long summer days reading books and stuffing my face by myself. The garden was the perfect spot to pass the time: I could sit undisturbed and enjoy the sun and whenever the urge struck, I would just reach up a grab a snack. Cherries, blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries, strawberries and green peas kept my belly full. I remember eating so many cherries that I would get a stomachache. I can also remember afternoons spent with my grandmother in the basement, fingers green from shelling peas to store in the freezer. I am not sure how many of my peas escaped my mouth, but I at least I though I had contributed.
 Pomace from wine making the week before my arrival is pungently fertilizing the resting soil. I am sorry I missed the crush. While many grandfathers make their own “two buck chuck” from commercial wine juice, my grandfather has grapes shipped here and actually crushes his own wine, which is then stored in oak barrels in the basement.

The seeds for this kale came directly from Portugal

Not that a touch of grandfatherly thrift isn’t present: instead of making wine from 17 cases of grapes, he learned that he can create it from fewer cases if he adds raisins. I just found this out. I had always wondered why it tastes like raisins…I guess my palette isn’t so useless after all. I remember as a child watching this process with an intensity befitting a future food geek. On tip toe, I would peek into the pungent barrels, frothy as the yeast did their business. When the barrels weren’t present, I would bound into the basement at speed. When it was winemaking time, some part of me expected that quiet and stealth were necessary so as not to disturb the alchemy at hand. The grapes are crushed via a small hand crank crush that sits on top of the barrels. I always wanted to try and crush the grapes myself and would attempt, each year, in vain to muster up the strength necessary to get the crank a full turn, always succeeding only when a strong hand came to my assistance. One turn, and my work was done. My little hands had made wine.


In this house, the next meal begins as soon as this one is done. Breakfast dishes cleared, one must set to marinating meat for dinner. There are ingredients to be defrosted. More food from the cold room brought up to be crammed, impossibly, into the overloaded fridge.


The basement in any Portuguese home is where the dirty work of feeding a family really happens. There is a second fridge, an area under the stairs that serves as a pantry, barrels for wine, a cold storage room, a deep freeze and of course, a bar where the men congregate to drink and gossip.

Taro...not just for poi...we fry it in the drippings left over from making linguica

In preparation for our arrival, linguiça, or Portuguese sausage, has been chopped, filled and cured in the basement. The cold room is filled with this fall’s harvest (and the surplus of shopping trips that could feed a small army). The a deep freeze is filled with blackberries, raspberries and rhubarb, beans and peas…but not cherries this year, as a late frost stunted the supply down to 15 pounds.


Having been a vegetarian for 14 years, my grandparents are still confounded by what I will eat. Not eating bacon (my childhood favourite) is suspicious. Actually, not eating meat at all is suspicious. The young me ate steak, bacon and chicken with vigor. My grandmother cannot reconcile that my tastes could have changed so dramatically. The first trip back to Terrace after changing my eating habits as a teenager, my grandmother was convinced that it was my mother who would not let me eat meat. She implored my mother at every meal to allow me to eat each dish, as it had once been a favourite.


My grandparents seem to be more accepting, or at least used to my unusual lifestyle choices. The first morning I was here, my grandfather took me to Save on Foods and instructed me to buy whatever I needed. At the checkout, the cashier saw my 82 year old grandfather and a basket full of tofu, plain yogurt, All Bran Buds, veggie burgers, sprouted grain bread and soy milk and astutely remarked that she didn’t think grandpa would be indulging in said delicacies.


This trip, I have initiated an even stranger habit: taking pictures and video of the everyday dishes that my grandmother has made for our family for years. I am actually shocked that she has allowed me to document her in the kitchen. Notoriously camera shy, I managed to convince her that I was not taking pictures of anything but the food and her hands (and if I caught a few of her in the process for my own memory books, no one needs to know).


Where my grandmother has been accommodating, my grandfather has been surprisingly enthusiastic. Each meal, he kept dreaming up new delicacies to document and stories from our food history to be shared. I wish I could document every last bit of this incredible knowledge because my grandmother famously refuses to write recipes. Hers is an expertise that doesn’t bother with such crude utility. For her, food is a living, breathing substance that needs to be expertly coaxed and crafted to perfection despite variations in weather, taste or texture. A recipe does not offer the subtlety required to produce such nourishing fare.

A few of said recipes are to come…stay tuned!
Desiree

Eat...just like old times...part one

Tree Carvings on Ferry Island in Terrace BC

As I write, I am sitting in the house that formed my primary education in food. My mother is Portuguese by birth, having arrived on chilly Canadian soil as a child in 1959…and I am Portuguese by acculturation via these four walls. I grew up, for all intents and purposes, in my grandparent’s house here in Terrace. The small, simple house at the end of a quiet street, anchored by a giant old cherry tree and flanked by lovingly tended gardens. The house where there is always more food than its inhabitants (and neighbours, for that matter) could possibly eat. Where my grandmother does not greet you with a traditional “Hi” or “So good to see you” but “Did you eat?”



After 48 hours here, memories are flooding back and now in a more reflective state, induced no doubt by my recent foray into motherhood, I am starting to make myriad connections between who I am now as a dietitian, a cook and an eater and my formative food experiences which occurred right here.

Life in this house revolves around food and wine. Everyone who enters will either help themselves to whatever is on the kitchen counter - cake, boiled taro, fried broad beans – or will be lovingly force fed these and more upon taking a seat. If you don’t eat, my grandmother will offer more and different types of food until she finds one that you like and will eat. Not being hungry is unfathomable and therefore you are refusing because she has not correctly guessed what might be appetizing to you.

 My culinary history is filled with a historically appropriate dichotomy of traditional and “modern”, simple and processed, home grown and store bought. Arriving in Canada without immediate access to the foods she knew and wanting to make a life in harmony with her new nation, as was common for immigrants of the time, my grandmother embraced Canadian foods with open arms. Mid century marvels such as Shake and Bake chicken, Jello molds, Cool Whip and Duncan Hines cake mixes shared pride of place alongside the familiar caldo verde, feijoa assado, massa sovada and arroz doce of our Azorean homeland. I remember as a child eating all of these traditional foods happily but still wanting the brand name treats I saw on the Saturday morning commercials. So I pleaded for my grandmother to buy Lucky Charms (from which I removed the toy and left in the cupboard, uneaten). I bought Chips Ahoy and Oreos instead of eating homemade meringues and butter cookies. But I sat down and ate every kind of vegetable imaginable (Brussels sprouts! Kale! Cabbage!) without complaint. And then I downed Pringles for dessert. Now that all of the grandkids are grown up, the processed foods feature somewhat less frequently than the foods of my grandparent's youth but the chips and candy are still hiding in the same spot…ready for snack attacks whenever they occur.

 I spent my childhood watching my grandmother move deftly through the kitchen with admiration. A chair beside the counter was my prime vantage point. There were bowls to be licked (cake batter and cookie dough) and chicken to be shook and I didn't want to miss a minute of it. The turning point in my culinary education occurred one day when I was waiting to shake chicken. My grandmother had received a phone call before she could stuff the first piece in the bag, leaving me on the chair, staring at the chicken…dying to shake it. Patience was not one of my early virtues, sufficed to say. Pestering my grandmother as to when we could make the chicken, she simply stated, “you can do it yourself”. I could? This was serious business. I had not touched raw chicken before. It was slimy. And weird. But as my pulse quickened with the weight of the decision, my impatience finally outweighed my trepidation and so the fingers gingerly grabbed the chicken and placed it in the bag and shook away. Emboldened, I tried another piece, then another, until I proceeded to finish the entire batch.


Do you remember those commercials, the one where the little girl exclaims “It’s Shake and Bake…and I helped!” That day, I did...indeed.
My grandfather, as in many traditional European homes, dictates the menu by virtue of what he will and will not eat. This makes learning to cook in this house more difficult. One can assist my grandmother, but taking over the menu will leave you at the mercy of my grandfather’s critique, honed by years of exacting standards at my grandmother’s hands. My mother knew better than to try and take over the reigns until she had her own family to cook for. I, however, had to learn the hard way.



I remember getting permission as a child to make dinner with my friend, T, one summer vacation. We decided to make fajitas. My grandfather took us to the grocery store to gather our ingredients and once at home we set out creating chaos in the kitchen from which a fairly passable meal emerged. We were so excited to present the first “real” dinner we had ever made. I must have been 8 at the time but what I remember most vividly from that experience was that my grandfather informed us that we had sliced the steak incorrectly, going against the grain.
My grandfather had been a meat cutter when he first arrived in Canada.

Thankfully, he was not able to dampen my enthusiasm for cookery…but let’s just say that young child never again attempted to feed her grandfather. My husband, however, has fared far worse experiments and eats them without complaint. How times have changed...

More to come,
Desiree