This Mark Bittman article on pantry staples has been much discussed around here. I see Megan did a follow up.
A fantastic house.
Fun smackdown of Douthat and Goldberg by Walt. Welcome to the blogosphere, Prof. Walt!
I'm following the child tax credit story.
Do not get plastic surgery.
Apt. 11d 
Megan’s thread also has a lot of back and forth between people saying “I’ve got little kids! I can’t cook!” and people giving pep talks about how they manage to cook every night while working and raising five kids (no, that’s not an exaggeration–read the thread).
I got my husband a mortar and pestle for his birthday. Hopefully, good things will follow.
I’m very dubious of these cross-country comparisons of child poverty. Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary have less child poverty than Japan? No way.
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That house is terrible — 99 and 44/100 percent pure suck. Spectacular setting and all she can think to do is plop down a concrete block with windows cut out so that it looks like a bad Tetris position? And that so-called garden – I can’t decide whether it’s a kennel run that ought to be reported to the ASPCA for cruelty or a prison exercise space that the ACLU is trying to shut down. All the brand names in the world won’t save a space that’s got as much soul as one of George Lucas’ later projects. No wonder the kids wanted to stay in exciting metropolitan Ketchum. Yech.
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That one dude in the thread at Megan McArdle’s who keeps insisting that his kids are going to kill each other if he ever spends any time cooking dinner? Settle down, dude. Seriously. People with little kids cook all the time, even if it’s not fancy gourmet cooking.
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Re the kids and cooking thing. I’m not worried about my kids killing each other, but the fact that I have children does mean I have less time to cook than I used to before children. I still cook 6 nights a week. Simple meals usually. But I juggle a lot more schedules than my own, so yeah I think cooking as a parent is more problematic.
However, I’m sure there are childless people with demanding jobs who feel like they have less time than a “normal” person.
Frankly, this is why a one size fits all list of “shoulds” doesn’t work. I read Megan’s list and thought some of it was applicable, and a lot of it wasn’t. Then I moved on. It cracks me up that some of the people on that thread are arguing or telling people the classic internet “u r doin it rong.” Different strokes, folks.
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My wife and I laughed over that Bittman article. For some reason, the part that really struck me as odd was his call to use dried beans instead of canned. I’ve never noticed much difference and if I had sufficient memory left at the end of the day to remember to soak beans for tomorrow, there are dozens of higher priorities.
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I suppose canned beans are probably saltier than dry. What puzzles me is MM’s recipe for “homemade” tomato sauce, which calls for canned tomatoes and Hunt’s tomato paste, with a few fresh ingredients like basil and garlic. As I recall, Hunt’s tomato paste tastes like wallpaper glue. MM alleges that these ingredients will magically produce a cheaper, tastier sauce than Ragu.
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My mom, who is no culinary snob, also contends that pasta sauce made out of tomato paste and canned tomatoes is far far superior to Ragu, fwiw.
I don’t get it either.
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Here’s C’s and D’s dinner from tonight (we just got back from a big outing to IKEA).
1. C starts with oatmeal (usually a favorite). She says she can’t taste the brown sugar. I get the brilliant idea of adding some of the gingerbread syrup that I got on sale from Starbucks. Tastes terrible. I toss it out.
2. I slice up a Golden Delicious apple for C and D. They both have some.
3. C says she wants what D is having. It’s slightly overcooked Ramen noodles without the salty flavor packet. I dish up some for both and D asks for spice on his (I add some dried basil to his). They both decide they don’t like it.
4. I open up a can of kidney beans and dish some up for both kids. D eats his. C reports that she ate 6 or 7 beans.
5. C asks for the KEX crackers we got from IKEA, which are whole wheat and are shaped like Is, Ks, Es, and As. I give her some.
6. C asks for hot chocolate. I tell her I want to see her finish the apple.
This was not one of my better efforts, but in my defence, if I had actually spent 45 minutes over a hot stove with any of these items, I’d be pretty bent of shape right now. As it was, I wasn’t emotionally invested.
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My grandma (hence me) always made sauce from tomato paste and canned tomatoes. And it is far superior to Ragu/Prego. It’s even better than Newman’s Tomato Basil (the best jarred sauce by far). Never used Hunt’s paste though. Always the one that starts with a ‘C’ and has the Italian peasant lady on the can (sorry, blanking on the name). She never made sauce from fresh tomatoes that I can recall. If one of her relatives got a hold of a bunch of fresh tomatoes, they’d make sort of a cross between tomato sauce and dried tomatoes. That would make very good sauce, but the homemade tomato paste was a great deal of work.
The trick to turn good sauce into great sauce is to cook really good sausages or meatballs in the sauce.
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everything that MH just said.
Sauce from canned tomatoes (not Hunts) is waaaay better than any jarred sauce. It just is.
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I thought Bittman & McCardle’s posts and the responses were intresting. I’m a non-cooker who thinks that folks who cook underestimate the time that it takes them. I’m not arguing that the food isn’t much better that way. I’m also pretty sure that if you get proficient that reasonably good meals can be prepared in a *reasonable* amount of time.
But, I think that cooks, like readers and bloggers, underestimate the amount of time it takes them because they enjoy the activity. I’m an amateur photographer, and I comment on blogs, as well as maintain a personal blog. Most of the people I know think that this all takes way too much time, and can’t imagine how one would do it, and still have kids + work + a life. The key, though, is those activities are all part of my life (and, I always choose those activities over cooking). Others, I’m sure, feel the same way about cooking — that they’d much rather do that then organize the 2000 pictures they took on their last vacation. I’m better at managing the photos than I am at cooking (just as they’re better at cooking). The “time” argument though is a red herring. People (like us — I’m not arguing that the same is true for refugees, or the jobless, or the truly poor) make time for the activities that are important to us. I read a lot, and have always, because that will always be my priority over making tomato sauce. Of course, that means I eat very very badly.
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I suspect there’s also a big difference in people’s definition of what “cook” means, and also by their idea of a reasonable diet. One of the people on Megan’s thread says she cooks every night, meaning cooks in bulk twice a week and then microwaves on the other nights. Meanwhile, If I slice up and microwave some ham and microwave some veggies, or pour jarred sauce over pasta (ideally whole wheat), I don’t really think of that as “cooking.” Meanwhile, making whole wheat pancakes for the family on occasion (as my husband does from time to time) that is cooking (with flour and everything) and it takes a lot more trouble than either the ham or the jarred sauce, but I don’t think the pancakes are nutritionally superior in any way. They just take longer.
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I thought the house was interesting, and was intrigued that Laura likes it, in spite of living in a very traditional looking house herself.
The concrete box & internal wood are not my style, but I do like the boxy lines, open floor plan, lofts, and window walls.
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With apologies to Schoolhouse Rock:
I unpacked “hideous” first.
Reached in and found the word “worst”.
Then I picked “boxy” and
Next I picked “poxy” and
Then I was ready to talk ’bout that house
‘Cause I’d unpacked my adjectives.
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So, I had to look at those picture again to see what all the fuss was about. And I still like that house.
We live in a turn of the century house right now. An arts and crafts house. It works really well with mid-century modern furniture and design, because of all the straight lines and high ceilings. Most apartments and townhouses in NYC went up at the same time, so it feels very Brooklyn to me. That’s why we bought it. But Steve and I think our next house is going to be the glass box in the woods. Something that makes nature the primary decorative element. I liked that this house is all about the mountains in the distance. But it still had plenty of comfy places to sit and bookshelves.
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