You know what's good?

Hot cocoa with a peppermint teabag in it. I thought I invented it, but then I realized there's a Facebook page devoted to it. Oh well. Back to the test-kitchen drawing board...

Mac 'n' NYF

Macaroni and nutritional yeast flakes (aka NYF) was a rib-sticking standby at Fairchild Co-op, my college dining hall/social hub/home away from home. So I was pleased to prepare a fine version in my own kitchen, with help from The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook. The recipe, which came to me via the excellent blog C'est La Vegan, is below. The photo above is of my finished product, which was delicious, if maybe a touch too salty. (I think soy sauce or Bragg's is enough; no need for the added salt. Oh, and substitute a clove of fresh minced garlic for the garlic powder. And, if you're feeling subversive, butter for the margarine. Shhh -- it'll be our secret.)

New Farm Vegetarian Mac n’ Cheese

3 1/2 cups elbow macaroni (or your favorite type of pasta)
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons vegan margarine
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour (you might need to use up to a 1/2 Cup if your roux is too thin)
3 1/2 cups boiling water
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
pinch of turmeric
2-4 tablespoons canola oil (depends how tight you want your pants to get!)
1 cup nutritional yeast flakes
Paprika to taste for topping

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cook pasta according to package directions. In a saucepan, melt margarine over low heat. Beat the flour in with a whisk, and continue to beat over a medium flame until the mixture (roux) is smooth and bubbly. You may need to turn the heat up slightly.

Whip in the boiling water, salt, soy sauce, garlic powder and turmeric, beating well to dissolve the roux. The sauce should cook until it thickens and bubbles. Whip in the oil and nutritional yeast flakes.

Mix part of the sauce with the cooked noodles and pour into a 9 x 13 casserole dish. Pour a generous amount of sauce on top and smooth out. Sprinkle with paprika to taste and bake for 15 minutes. And the end of the baking time, heat the broiler and broil until the “cheese” sauce starts to bubble.

The song that's stuck in my head this weekend, plus gelato

YouTube isn't letting me embed the music video for "Black Sheep," from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which I saw yesterday afternoon. Ah, well. The movie was loads of fun, and Brie Larson, as the title character's ex-girlfriend, delivers a stronger version of the song than Metric, the Canadian pop band that wrote it. Pity her rendition isn't on the soundtrack, which I hope to get at some point. I've already requested the Scott Pilgrim comic book from the library.

In other breaking news, I went to D'Ambrosio today and was blown away. Best gelato I've had since I visited Italy in 2000. Best flavor I've tasted so far? Fig-caramel. God, it's heavenly. About food and movies I'm still extremely capable of geeking out, which is nice to know. Why let yourself become jaded when you can remain an excited little kid inside a grown-up body?

The yummy and the profane

Few sites have as straightforward a domain name as this one. Just another iteration of the popular rule that if you can imagine it, it exists on the Internet -- and it's swearing at you for no good reason.

Bleeding heart

I'm working on an essay for Jew-ish.com that promises to be the most personal thing I've ever published anyplace other than here. It's about Jewishness and compulsive overeating, which seem correlated, though mostly through semi-anecdotal evidence and studies from quite a few years ago. I mentioned in therapy today that talking about my struggle with food addiction is a way of cutting through the shame of that insidious, widely misunderstood problem, and I think that's true.

It's possible that opening my heart in a piece of writing that the whole world can theoretically see isn't the wisest move. But I think there are some advantages to our tell-all Internet culture; one is that if the majority of people give TMI, it's no longer such a faux pas. I doubt anybody will decide not to hire me because they Googled my name and found me waxing philosophic about my Lexapro use or disordered eating.

It's certainly possible, but I think the positive aspects of putting it out there outweigh the negative ones. It's not like there's anything online that truly impugns my character. Talking about struggle, making it public, means it's no longer a secret. It also suggests a readiness to deal with things directly, to come out of isolation and embarrassment and work with myself as I am, not as I wish I was. That's why I chose my friend Michelle's recent picture of me as a Facebook profile photo:

My decision to take off my glasses makes this a slightly strange portrait, but what I focused on when I first saw it was its unsparing nature. It's easy to see my weight here: It's in my face, my cheeks, my chin. This is how I actually look, and while I'm not doing cartwheels about it, I'm trying to view this image with clear eyes and a peaceful mind. This is what I'm working with, and it's hardly perfect, but it's not a disaster, either. It's a pretty decent place to start.

Comment of the week

Julia responded to my recent post about antidepressants and weight gain:

You might want to try fish oil or flaxseed oil supplements instead of (or in addition to) meds. A Harvard study found that omega-3 fatty acids help with bipolar disorder and depression. I have used it for about ten years with no need for antidepressants or other meds to regulate my moods. And, whether or not it helps with moods, it's good for your heart and HDL. Good luck.

Good advice. Someone recommended St. John's wort before I started on Lexapro, but I've heard mixed things about it. Re: fish oil, I'm vegetarian, but flaxseed would work. I could even eat it on popcorn. Thanks, Julia!

"Wake up your eggs..."

I wholeheartedly object to the product, but the ad is fantastic:



(Hat tip to Sheri.)

R.I.P., Eileen

Earlier today, I found an obituary from February that listed a friend I'd lost touch with: Eileen Mintz, whose passion for food matched her formidable PR skills. I met her through my work as a food writer for Seattle Weekly, but she was more than just a professional acquaintance. Even though we didn't see each other too often, her kindness to me resembled that of a loving aunt, albeit one with better connections and juicier gossip than any actual relative I've ever had. Eileen was a matchmaker, too, and though she never made any money at it, she probably could have.

I interviewed her about her knack for pairing people up for the Weekly's Valentine's Day issue in 2006, and the resulting piece provides a sample of Eileen's offhand wisdom and joie de vivre. After the interview, she drove me to the house of Emily Cunningham, whom I'd just started dating. That very night, Emily and I began a relationship that would last two and a half years. Coincidence? Doubtful. Befriending a matchmaker gives you an unfair advantage in matters romantic; I highly recommend it.

Wherever you are, Eileen, I hope you're eating well and helping people date better. I'm really sorry I missed your memorial service.

Comment of the week

This one comes from Diana, a college friend with a lovely blog of her own, in reference to my tell-all post about the nutritional intricacies of my diet:

Any way I can get my hands on that program? I'm one of those people that convinces myself that everything is just fine... until confronted with hard evidence. We eat more than half our meals vegetarian now, but we still need less cheese/pasta and more actual vegetables. Email me if you have a copy or something.

There's nothing like gardening to make you eat more veggies; I say GO for it. There's no WAY you're going to let that home-grown stuff go to waste: it becomes precious. We ate tomato-pepper-basil salads almost 3x per week this last summer, and just knowing how much work went into it made it seem delicious every time. I'm very sad that we won't have a garden next year (because of the shade issue) or perhaps even the next (since we can't afford to get the land cleared and I'm afraid of chainsaws).

White pages

Sasha redesigned her blog, transforming its aesthetic into something strikingly minimalist. Makes me want to tinker around with mine. We'll see. Maybe something new for 2010.

I'm also still thinking about buying MazelTofu.com, a domain I've wanted for a while now. The concept: a site devoted to Jewish vegetarian cooking, including recipes, test-kitchen adventures, and anecdotes. I'd probably build the page using WordPress; I'm just concerned that it would be frivolous to buy cyber-property during a low-income month. Perhaps posting the idea here will prompt me to finally act, before someone else nabs the URL.

Best. Toy. Ever!

It also happens to have one of the best names ever: the Executive Elite Marshmallow Blaster. Check out that bad-ass carrying case! This product was clearly designed for professional marshmallow assassins. It shoots up to 40 feet. Two words: Diabetics, beware!

Kelly carves a mean cat-o'-lantern

She and I turned our Jubilee Farm pumpkins into characters tonight. I went with the classic, albeit with a Sloth twist:


Whereas Kelly created a lovingly detailed portrait of her feline housemate, Maggie:


We also drank hot spiced cider and roasted the pumpkins seeds with olive oil and salt. They're delicious.

The simple life

A pumpkin patch, squash everywhere, hot apple cider, delicious corn on the cob, livestock, musicians, and hay rides -- that's the sort of wholesome fun Jubilee Farm in Carnation provides. Kelly and I visited earlier today, and I took this fabulous still life:

Amen, sister

My prolific blogger friend Sasha recently had the following to say:

People who are all like “I’m really passionate about fitness and health” can’t appreciate how hard it is to be fit and healthy when you are passionate about neither fitness nor health. Also: how do I not keep chocolate sauce in the house?

Don't I know it, except my "chocolate sauce" is non-whole-wheat pasta. Stuff is like crack/heroin/your favorite trivially invoked hardcore drug. In other vaguely nutrition-related news, here's Sasha's adorable dog Leo in a too-large banana costume:

Robin lives to cook another day

Despite being teamed with a grumpy partner on the "French protein/French sauce" contest and nearly biting it during the high-stakes quick-fire challenge, Robin Leventhal, one of Seattle's two Top Chef contenders (and the only one I know personally), survived tonight's episode. Various Kibbutzniks have already begged me to ask her to dinner; maybe we can get a taste of her TV-worthy cooking sometime soon, if we promise not to pepper her (no pun intended) with Top Chef questions. Having eaten many, many times at her restaurant, Crave, I know just how good her food really is.

Sign of the week

Reed snapped the photo at Uwajimaya, presumably with his fancy iPhone. Nothing says vegetarianism like halibut and pork!

Class guilt

Today, for the first time in my life, I visited a food bank. I showed a recent piece of mail to prove my current address, presented my driver's license to prove that I'm me, and filled out a brief form. Then I got a laminated card that told me how many cans of fruit, dairy products, grain products, proteins (beans, in my case), and cans of vegetables I could claim. (Fresh veggies were apparently just up for grabs.) While I was shopping, a volunteer started shouting at a tall, skinny woman whom he accused of stealing. She and her boyfriend were running some kind of scam wherein one of them exited out the back door rather than the front one. They were trying to make off with more than their share, the volunteer alleged. The woman was ejected from the food bank and told not to come back. Outside, people in line shook their heads, and another volunteer expressed amazement. Stealing from a food bank!

From my perspective, it's just a sign of the times, like the nervous-looking crowd today at WorkSource, the state-run employment support agency that provides workshops and other resources free of charge to the un- and underemployed. I took a three-hour class today on writing effective résumés and cover letters, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, thanks to the humor and enthusiasm of the teacher. I plan to go back later this month for the workshop on interviewing. I didn't feel particularly guilty taking advantage of WorkSource's free class, since I am unemployed, and my unemployment isn't voluntary. Being at the food bank, on the other hand, made me a little uneasy. Was I taking food from the mouths of people who needed it more? The form I filled out included the question: Are you homeless?

I'm the furthest thing from homeless, and I think my risk of becoming homeless in the immediate future in extremely low. My mother owns a house outside Detroit; worse-case scenario, I'd move back there. I'm also not poor in terms of my upbringing, or my family's current standing. We have money; I have an inheritance fund that I still receive monthly installments of $1,000 from. I just don't have any work-based income right now. Maybe visiting the food bank every week as a way to supplement purchases from Rising Sun, the cheap grocery stand eight blocks from our house, and the occasional PCC or Whole Foods splurge (though I'm trying to avoid those now), isn't causing some truly impoverished local family to go hungry.

Still, texting a friend outside the food bank, I felt like a tourist. Hell, I felt like one when I reached the checkout and the guy bagging my food asked: "No meat?" I didn't want to confess to being a vegetarian; it seemed privileged and precious and not in the spirit of taking as much food as you're allowed, because hey, maybe that's the only food you can afford this week. I didn't feel like figuring out which produce was worth taking home. I didn't want to take an unlabeled can of corn. Some kind of bourgeois instinct kicked in: Unlabeled stuff is sketchy. Don't do it!

As a friend pointed out, I had a day that exposed me to the lives of the poor and unemployed. I may be the latter, but I'm not really the former, and while I'll definitely revisit WorkSource, I'm not sure about the food bank. I'll have to give that some thought.

Not kosher

Seattle-based Top Chef contender Robin Leventhal recently whipped up this little masterpiece:


Her caption: In celebration of International Bacon day.... 3 am Culinary Creativity: Bacon Sauteed Matzo Brei with a Coffee-Star Anis-Molasses syrup....OMFG, i am a VERY BAD JEW!

Food ref

The artwork above, created by Alli Arnold, accompanied a 2004 piece I wrote for the Weekly about Seattle's Jewish dining scene. In light of Jew-ish.com editor Leyna Krow's recent post about the relative abundance of kosher options in town, I figured it was worth digging up. If only for the awesome illustration.

How (not) to raise a(n) (un)healthy eater

Michelle pointed out this excellent Times piece about the dilemmas modern parents face when it comes to teaching (and modeling) smart eating patterns. The following bit, about everyday disordered eating that lies outside the realm of diagnosable conditions, is especially sharp:

Neither of these children, with whom I interact occasionally, comes close to being a statistic or case study. He isn’t obese; she isn’t anorexic.

But they represent a larger group of young people between those widely publicized (and much more complicated) extremes. And they speak to a subtler parental challenge: how to coach children away from unhealthy eating without sowing panic; how to make them conscious of their intake without making them too self-conscious about its consequences.

See also: "I Was a Baby Bulimic."