A Week In the Maritimes

Part Two: The Good Stuff

Now, I don’t want to give the impression that we just ate junk food the entire time we were away—although I do think it would be forgiven since we were on vacation. But, as Girlfriend and I are wont to do, we went to some nice places on our trip around the Maritimes. We spread them out across the whole of Nova Scotia and even threw in a place on Prince Edward Island to make sure we took advantage of what we were there for: seafood.

With mussels selling at the stores for as low as $2.99 a pound (WHAT?!), we knew we had to eat as much as we could from the ocean. Before the trip, I made a list of the things I wanted; fish & chips and P.E.I. mussels were at the top.

The first place we stopped in Halifax, was called the Golden Monkey. It was chosen for a variety of reasons; a great cocktail list, an above-average beer list, and a focus on all the things we love in our food: local, seasonal, pastured, etc. and with options for vegans, vegetarians, and whatever people who can’t eat gluten are called. I opted for the fish and chips right off the bat; I figured it would be a good time to get them out of the way because here they were breaded and baked rather than battered and deep fried. They also came with the house specialty “roasties”—fries cooked in a variety of fresh herbs and spices—and a wonderful house-made tartar sauce that was heavy on the lemon and dill, which really took it to the next level. Girlfriend had a salad with scallops in it, which was so good she actually finished the entire thing.

While we were on Prince Edward Island, I insisted that we had to visit the Gahan House, P.E.I.’s only brewery. How many other people can say they’ve had the only beer brewed on P.E.I.? Not only that, but it was a brewpub and offered plenty of excellent food. We only stopped in for a quick nosh, taking place of a late lunch. Each of us had appetizers; Girlfriend and I opted for the P.E.I. mussels cooked in a broth made from the brewery’s red ale, her sister got the brown bag fish & chips (delicious), and her parents ordered smothered house-made potato chips (picture potato skins: bacon, sour cream, cheese, etc. except with chips) and spare ribs with a sweet and sour dipping sauce. There was plenty of sharing and it actually turned out to be one of the better meals we had. The mussels were especially delicious (of course).

Finally, Girlfriend and I went out with some friends on our last night in Nova Scotia to a new restaurant in Sydney called Flavors, which turned out to be the official caterer of Snoop Dogg[1]. I know! Despite that, the food turned out to be excellent. I started with a seafood chowder, which had chunks of salmon, white fish, shrimp and potatoes and a side of a deliciously buttery and dense tea biscuit. Girlfriend had the mussels in a garlic broth, which were delicious but no match for the Gahan House[2]. For our mains, Girlfriend got citrus scallops with a few sides; the scallops were delicious. I had a scallop, shrimp and chicken curry over brown rice. I cannot use words to describe how excellent this curry was. I was more than a little surprise to discover the best curry I’d ever had at a small restaurant in Sydney, Nova Scotia. But kudos to them for upping the area’s collective ante into the great food pot.

So, we’ve covered junk food and haute cuisine, but we haven’t quite touched on the leftovers: local favorites, coffee shops, and the always-loved home cooking. Check back on Friday for a taste of all that.

[1] He was playing a local festival on Sunday night, which had the entirety of Cape Breton Island in an uproar, as no one ever comes there.

2 The broth turned out to be way too salty.

A Quick Opinion About the Latest Recalls

Congratulations, American food system, for once again sneaking a few diseases into our food. Thank you for keeping us on our toes and making sure we can never fully trust the pre-packaged, processed foods we, as a people, have come to rely too heavily on. Or is this your way of warning us that we should stick to all-natural, unprocessed foods from animals that don’t wallow in their own diseased feces all day? If that is the case, an even bigger thanks to you!

Not wanting to be left out after two Iowa farms have recalled over 550,000 eggs (that’s almost 46,000 dozen, for those of you keeping track at home) infected with salmonella enteritidis, Zemco Industries of Buffalo, NY has issued a recall of almost 380,000 pounds of processed deli meat contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, which can cause listeriosis. According to the USDA, this is an “uncommon but potentially fatal disease” which can cause miscarriages, stillbirths, and fatal infections in those with weakened immune systems (infants, elderly, HIV, etc.).

One thing is obvious: if you’re pregnant, you should be eating better than the Marketside Grab and Go Sandwiches that have been recalled. You probably also shouldn’t be feeding them to an infant. And while the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service wouldn’t name the single retail chain that these sandwiches were distributed to, a quick search of “Marketside Grab and Go Sandwiches” showed that retailer is—wait for it—WalMart! Knowing the usual WalMart clientele, it is now obvious how pregnant women and infants are going to get sick from this meat. For this recall, at least, the origin of the disease has not yet been stated (that I’ve seen).

The reason for the infected eggs, however, has been narrowed down to three possibilities: rodents, contaminated hens, or tainted feed. All of which, I’m sure, can be prevented if you have responsible chicken farmers who don’t keep their hens cooped up (literally) and who don’t feed them the awful food they generally get.

The eggs, by the way, are coming from Hillandale Farms and Wright County Egg (both in Iowa) and have been much more widely distributed than the tainted meat. According to the AP:

“The eggs recalled Friday were distributed under the brand names Hillandale Farms, Sunny Farms, Sunny Meadow, Wholesome Farms and West Creek. The new recall applies to eggs sold between April and August.

“Hillandale said the eggs were distributed to grocery distribution centers, retail groceries and food service companies which service or are located in fourteen states, including Arkansas, California, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin.”[1]

For once, we’re lucky to live in Pennsylvania. If you’re not “lucky” enough to live in PA, or unlucky enough to live in one of the above states, be sure to check the information at your local grocery stores and steer clear of the brands listed above. It would also be a good idea to be sure that your eggs come from pastured, grass-fed chickens, which won’t have the problem of eating tainted food. As an even better idea, if you have the option, get your eggs from your local grower’s market. They will be cheaper, better tasting, and better quality than any of the eggs you get in your grocery store.

[1] www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38741401/ns/health-food_safety/Story continues below More below

A Week In the Maritimes

Part One: Dough Canada

Whenever I go to Canada, I’m always surprised at some of the food items they have that can’t be found in America. We’re the fattest country in the world, but somehow our friendly—and decidedly more healthy—neighbors to the North have so many snack options that put ours to shame in terms of variety and deliciousness. And unhealthiness. How do they do it? Chances are, Canadians are much more responsible than Americans; most of us are gluttons with little or no self-control when it comes to eating. Many Americans don’t even know what a normal portion of food is.

But I digress—my intentions were not to talk about how badly America handles its food, but about how well Canada does theirs. There are many food-related reasons I always look forward to going to Canada, and most of them are more “hog” than “healthy.” Just the French fries are enough to draw me back time after time. How poutine has never caught on in the states is beyond me: how can fries covered in cheese curds and gravy possibly be bad?[1] I suppose most people don’t like the term “curd,” but if you can get over that, you’re in for a treat. And one step up from that is Newfie Fries (so named after the Newfoundlanders): fries topped in turkey stuffing and gravy. How is this not the biggest fast food craze in the US? If you called it “Thanksgiving Fries” you’d have a best-seller on your hands. Someone please do this, because it is a true celebration of the taste buds.

And the chips. O, the chips! We love to snack on chips in America, so why don’t we have roasted chicken flavor or sour cream and bacon or hot wing or Zesty Cheese Doritos? Or the amazing All Dressed by Ruffles, a palate-busting combination of three or four different chip flavors all rolled into one. Whenever I go to Canada, or whenever Girlfriend’s parents come to visit the states, there is always a bag of All Dressed involved. I think I would cry if I ever went all the way to Canada and missed out on those tangy, delicious wonders of nature.

Even though I mentioned Donair sauce in a previous article, I would be remiss to ignore it here. We made it a point to order pizza once while we were there (not Sonny’s, unfortunately) just to get the sauce. We had two “combination” pizzas—green peppers and mushrooms—and one large order of garlic sticks with bacon[2]. This time, the pizza was from a place called Fatboy’s (you can tell it’s good by the name) and the donair sauce was even better than I remembered. Though while it seems that most of the other stuff mentioned is available throughout Canada, you’ll probably have to go a little further East to the Maritimes to find the sauce.

Needless to say, the vacation to Canada didn’t do any favors for my healthy eating initiative. It was, of course, constantly justified with the “But it’s vacation!” line. At least, that’s what I was doing because I have no self-control. Girlfriend made sure to keep things reasonable, for the most part, and even kept me reigned in as much as she could[3].

Now, there’s not much I love more than junk food, but we did have much more variety on my food trip through the Maritimes, so check back on Wednesday to learn about the higher quality food we ate.

[1] They can’t.

2 In the Maritimes, “garlic sticks” actually means a pizza crust covered in garlic (and, in this case, bacon), cooked and cut into strips; they’re not the doughy mockeries you get here.

3 As evidenced by the fact that I only ordered fish and chips once and didn’t get poutine at all (I got Newfie fries instead this time around).

No Time To Cook? I Don’t Believe You Pt. 2

On Monday, I verbally abused you for saying you have no time to cook. Today, I will switch to Good Cop and give you a few helpful hints about cooking at home and not losing your social life to do so.

Breakfast is the easiest meal of the day—and the most important. Neither of us want to get up any earlier than we already do, so we keep it simple. An egg casserole filled with veggies and topped with a small bit of cheese is not only great for you (and filling), it only takes about an hour to make—including 35 minutes when it’s baking and you have to do absolutely nothing. Portion it out and you have a week’s worth of breakfasts that take two minutes in the microwave. Dunkin Donuts can’t even get you breakfast that fast. When we want something a little more fresh, it’s as simple as:

½ C Fat-free yogurt

1 C Kashi Go-Lean cereal

Any berries you want

Drizzle of agave nectar

Including taking everything out of the refrigerator and putting them back, it takes five minutes to prepare.

Dinner is also easy, if you want it to be. There are endless numbers of cookbooks dedicated to meals that take 20-30 minutes to prepare and cook. Rachel Ray has a show dedicated to them. South Beach has a 30 minute cookbook. Cookinglight.com has a section of quick and easy meals, broken up into 20, 30, or 40 minute categories. It seems everyone caters to the person with no time to cook, except the person themselves.

Lunch is a write-off as far as time goes. Make extra dinner, package a portion and have leftovers for lunch. Done. Even if you don’t want leftovers (or don’t have them), preparing a salad while dinner is cooking or taking all the necessary items for a week of sandwiches to work is quick, easy, and so much better for you than anything from a fast-food establishment.

It’s also cheaper. For Girlfriend and I, our average grocery bill is $200 per week. If we were to both eat out, I’d assume we’d each pay $5 for breakfast and $8 for lunch (which is conservative), on average. That’s $26 per day, $130 per week. That leaves us $80 in our grocery budget for dinners all week—$16 per night for the both of us combined—and we haven’t even accounted for the weekends. Whoops!

Unfortunately, I can already hear the naysayers: I don’t have two hours on Sunday. I don’t have an amazing girlfriend like you to help me. My worst-case scenario came when Girlfriend went to Chicago on business for the last week of June. I was on my own. I didn’t have a car. The World Cup was on and I didn’t want to leave the couch on Sunday. Sunday night for dinner, I did the easiest thing imaginable, something I like to call “pasta whatevera.” Cook pasta; while doing so, sauté veggies and heat sauce. Combine. Dinner in 20 minutes. Be sure to make extras for lunch.

Monday, while I was at work, I used my lunch break and the aforementioned South Beach 30-minute meal book to plan my meals for the week. Not having a car and not wanting to carry everything at once, all I had to do was stop at the grocery store every day on the way home from work and pick up ingredients for that night only[1]. Each night only needed a few ingredients; shopping took me ten minutes each day. Since I’d made it part of my commute, it didn’t seem like it was taking anything away from my couch time.

Eating quick, easy and healthy meals every day at home can be done, but the priority must be made. DVR your show and watch it while you eat. Talk to your girlfriend while you cook. Surf the internet at the office when you should be working. Whatever you do, cook most of your meals at home. It will be much healthier and much more cost-effective than the alternative. And trust me: you’ve got the time.

Check back before the weekend for a few simple recipes and ideas for quick, inexpensive and healthy meals.

[1] I’d also planned well enough to “trickle down” ingredients. If I needed something for two separate meals, I’d buy enough the first night and I wouldn’t have to worry about it the second night.

No Time To Cook? I Don’t Believe You

If there is one complaint about eating healthy that occurs with the same—or greater—frequency than the cost of the food, it’s the amount of time it takes to prepare it. With all of the time-saving gadgets we have these days, designed to lessen our loads and make things so much more efficient, it’s amazing that no one seems to have the time to prepare a home-cooked meal anymore. In 1900, the average American woman spent six hours a day on meal preparation. In 2008, that number was down to 31 minutes.

When people tell me they’d love to eat better but just don’t have the time, I think: “You’re lazy and full of shit.” This is a bit hypocritical—I, myself, am lazy and oftentimes full of shit—so what I actually say is, “I don’t think that’s completely accurate.”

Unless you’re working 18 hours a day, you’ve got time to cook. The Duggar family eats home-cooked meals every day and they’ve got NINETEEN kids. Nineteen! And while Michelle is cooking dinner, there’s a 98% chance she’s either pregnant or actually in labor. If you can watch your favorite TV show, surf Facebook, or chat with your best friend on the phone, you’ve got time to cook—which can usually be done concurrently with any of those activities. When people say they don’t have time to cook, it just means cooking isn’t a priority for them. The Bachelor is more important than a home-cooked, healthy meal.

But, if you’d like to get your priorities in order, it won’t take a major life realignment. Girlfriend and I both work full-time jobs (which often become more-than-full-time jobs), have a dog, a commute, and generally active lives—yet still manage to cook at home at least six nights a week. This includes breakfast, lunch and dinner. How do we possibly have time for all that?

Every Sunday morning, with a pot of coffee and a sleepy pug between us, Girlfriend and I menu-plan for the week. This takes, at most, an hour of surfing various websites, saving links to recipes, and writing up a grocery list. As an added time-saver, if you use the same website for all of your recipes (ie, cookinglight.com), they can usually combine everything into a grocery list for you. All you have to do is print it out.

After the menu for the week is set and the list is written, we head to the grocery store. It usually takes us anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours, but only because we’re food nerds who like to browse and examine all the cool produce and meats and fish. Also, our Whole Foods has a tavern—there’s no time waster like beer and wine at the grocery store. But, when we’ve been in a hurry, we’ve made it through and entire week’s worth of shipping in less than 45 minutes. So far, we’ve used two hours of our time and the hardest part is over.

Check back later this week for a few quick and easy ideas for each meal of the day. Also upcoming this week is a rundown of all the amazing food we had in Canada. Stay tuned!