Freshworthy Friday: A New Food Label?

A snapshot from the full graphic at New York Times.

My Dream Food Label
Mark Bittman, New York Times

Move over, confusing nutritional information label. Mark Bittman has a solution for you. (Oh Bitty, thank you for being in my life... from your cookbooks to your adventures on TV with Claudia and Gwen to your columns in the Times, I am such a fan!)

When I read Bittman's argument for a more well-rounded food label I found myself nodding along in agreement. Before I finished reading the entire infographic, I realized I was standing on top of my desk with my hands held high exclaiming, "THIS GUY GETS IT. THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!"

His suggestion gives the consumer a nutritional gauge as well as a "foodness" gauge (how "real" or natural is the food?) and a welfare gauge for humans, animals, and planet that would together give consumers the opportunity to purchase products that passed their personal level of food satisfaction.

I can't tell you how much I love this idea. I also believe that food is not just about counting calories and milligrams of sugar; I want to know how my food choices are impacting the community, how sustainable and ethical they are, and how good for me it is. At the grocery store, this type of visual guide for consumers would help everyone make the best choices for their desired diet.

The whole idea behind Sustainable Diet, in fact, is not one of losing weight or eating only kale and quinoa. It is about having a well-rounded grasp on the food that sustains us. An approach to eating by which we are able to enjoy our food and ensure that our food appropriates resources wisely. It is a way to nourish body, soul, mind, earth, community. It's food for all.

Too dramatic?

I stand by my conviction that food binds us all—rich or poor, young or old, happy or sad, animal or human or plant, in the office or on the farm—and we can all benefit from a more ethically, sustainably, heathfully curated food environment.

Supporting local farmers, growing your own food, and making more informed choices at the grocery store are three easy ways to eat healthier in a broad sense. Add more seasonal fruits and vegetables to your family's diet, and reduce meat consumption (even slightly) in favor of a few more whole grains on your plate. And remember, too, that food is meant to be enjoyed!

I have been challenged many times by people who question my way of eating. But it comes down to this: at the end of the day, I want to be able to say that I made healthy decisions that had a positive impact on my body, but also a positive impact on my planet. It's simple. It's just food. Real food. Good food.

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Barley Bites

Barley Bites

Our love for our dog Fin knows no bounds. On our European vacation—the trip of a lifetime—we laid in bed each night muttering to one another about how much we missed our dog. Yes, of course we missed our family and of course we were happy to be on vacation. But boy oh boy, did Finley's name get dropped more often even than the phrase, "I could go for gelato right now."And who came to the airport to pick us up? My sister... but she brought Fin along and videoed our mutually high-pitched, furious tail-wagging reactions.

So it should come as no surprise to you that when Ryan and I made a trip to Austin Homebrew Supply for a little foray into brewing (a story for another day), we were wondering how Fin would be a part of our homebrew experience.

Giant bag o' grains after steeping for about 2 hours...

Turns out, you make beer with grains. Not news to you?

Grains smell amazing, and brought me back to hanging out in the barn as a kid while my grandfather grained the cows. Happy memories.

At this point in the beer brewing process, there are no hops or alcohol involved. And it turns out the spent grains you use to flavor the beer in the first stage of brewing can be used in myriad recipes. We found recipes for breads, cookies, and—best of all—dog treats.

An awesome local brewery called Hops and Grain makes dog treats called Brew Bites. How cute is that? Really cute. Oh, and their beer is amazing too, so it's fun for the whole family.

In our house, I kept calling our homemade dog treats "barley bites," and Fin and her buddy Axel seemed to enjoy them quite a lot. I tried one and... while they needed a little bit of cinnamon perhaps, pretty tasty nonetheless.

Fin and Axel are pretty excited to try their first Barley Bite. Gotta love eager taste-testers!

Barley Bites
Ingredients:
4 cups spent grains from beer brewing (NO hops—hops can be toxic to some dogs!)
1 cup peanut butter
2 eggs
1-2 cups flour

Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: approx. 4 hours

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Mix all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl until they hold together well (it will be very crumbly). If it's too dry, add a little water or some of the liquid that has drained out of the grains after you're done steeping them.

Dump the mixture onto the baking sheet lined with parchment, and press it firmly into a layer that's about 3/4 inch thick.

Score the baking sheet with a knife to make square or rectangular treats* and bake for about 45 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven and break apart the treats. Lower the temperature to 225 degrees and bake the treats until they have dried out, about 3 hours**. Can be stored in an airtight container for about two weeks. If you make a huge batch, throw some in the freezer!

*If you're feeling ambitious, try cutting out shapes—but be warned, this dough is very thick and the shapes may not work out very well. You'll notice my final product looks pretty crumbly. Cutting into squares saves a little time and will leave you with more full-sized treats.

**The treats need to be completely dried so they will be crunchy and not get moldy.

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The First Harvest: Lettuce Be Glad

Even a tiny harvest such as this is still food enough to eat.

Lately I've been enjoying one of my favorite evening rituals: I grab my pair of red kitchen shears and my favorite colander, tell Finley it's time to "check the gardens," and the two of us head outside, swatting at mosquitoes, foraging for part of our dinner.

A simple dinner of salad, bread, and pesto.

Our lettuces are only a few inches tall, but combined with our fledgling arugula, I trimmed enough to make a small salad with Texas grapefruit, avocado, and olive oil. A bounty of basil meant a batch of fresh pesto, which I served atop toasted homemade bread—and voila! Dinner from the garden, despite the tiny harvest.

It's so simple and rewarding to add a few garden leaves to every meal. And today, a new development: one of the volunteer tomatoes has fruit on the vine! What a lovely thing, to have fresh tomatoes this time of year... let's hope the volunteers keep up the great work.

What's going on in your garden?

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And Now, Back To Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

The view from a mountaintop in Cinque Terre, Italy.

What a month this has been!

Ryan and I just returned from our first trip to Europe. We spent four days in Paris, followed by a week traipsing through Italy: Venice, Florence, Pisa, Cinque Terre, and Rome. It was an adventure to say the very least. There was initial culture shock, amazing red wine, a language barrier, unbelievable macarons, a language breakthrough, the best pizza we've ever had (ever), more amazing red wine, some incredible white wine, an unforgettable hike through a terraced vineyard on a mountainside overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, gelato for breakfast, and more pizza.

The tiny village of Manarola, tucked into a mountainside covered in terraced vineyards.

We met wonderful people, made it to the top of the Eiffel Tower, missed out on the Louvre, saw the Statue of David, stood on the sacred ground where Michelangelo, Dante, Machiavelli, and Galileo are all buried, walked more miles than ever before, learned the Paris Metro system, took trains from Veneto to Lazio, saw the Colosseum, and so much more.

Gelato for breakfast in Venice.

Despite the difficulty posed by a language barrier (it was easier in Italy, since I had three semesters of Italian buried in the back of my brain), one thing rang true throughout the trip. Food binds us all.

My favorite part of our adventure was the time spent in a tiny village called Manarola. It is part of the Cinque Terre region, and it makes for a surprising agrarian community.

Olives, lemons, and grapes grow beautifully with the cool mountain air and fresh Mediterranean mist, but in order to farm these crops, farmers must work in very interesting conditions.

I found myself entranced by the backyard gardens everywhere we went, and in Manarola everyone had their own tiny patch of land. Gardens dotted the landscape, and offered everything from sorrel to chard, peppers to artichokes, and more. Some gardeners were growing pomodorini (little tomatoes) on trellises—with limited room, everything was growing up. In such a small community that's so far from a large town, everyone pitches in for the local food economy. Between the fruits, vegetables, and seafood, I don't know how anyone has room for the other local specialty—focaccia—but I'm sure glad that was a part of our experience. Yum!

Grapes with one wonderful view. 

The local wine in Cinque Terre is a white varietal, and it is wonderful. We had two bottles that were made specifically with the grapes on the mountain in Manarola. Slightly dry, somewhat fruity, undertones of peach and apricot (note, I'm not a sommelier), both bottles were well balanced and while they weren't touted as organic, it's very likely that the grapes are grown without pesticides.

We also enjoyed the other local specialties: limoncino (northern Italy's answer to limoncello) and fresh seafood. Ryan had his fill of anchovies, and I tried calamari, homemade seafood ravioli with shrimp sauce, and whole grilled fish too.

Backyard gardens in Cinque Terre: one lemon tree sports a capri blue trunk!

I love that food and agriculture carry the same importance, no matter where you go.

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