Spice

I ran out of Dill on Thursday. Lamb, with garlic and dill. It was easy to shake the jar until the whole mound of dill, saved from the farm and hung to dry in the kitchen last August, was in my hand, ready to be rubbed between my palms over the roasting pan.

I scribble "dill" on the chalkboard reserved for such purposes, and will transfer it to my shopping list for the co-op (for the CSA doesn't start for three weeks yet, and it's too early for fresh dill anyway). The empty jar goes in the dishwasher.

But the clean jar in my hand stops me dead in my track: the plastic tub of spice jars is overflowing, a testament to my love affair with flavors from near and far (thus the empty juniper berry jar). There is no room at the inn for one more.

I could chuck it in the recycle bin, and then I think better: the jar will join my shopping bags in the car for the next trip to the co-op. For there I can buy herbs and spices in bulk (and they will gladly weigh my empty), meaning I can not only save a jar from the landfill, but I can buy just enough to tide me over until the end of summer, when I will be sure to pick more than I did last year.

And what do you know--I ran out of cloves on Friday.

Shopping at home

The dish has gone through a family evolution: in my childhood, it used plastic-wrapped ground beef from a white styrofoam tray from Fred Meyer, two cans of Contadina sauce  and a packet of Lawry's spaghetti seasoning. By the time I had moved out to my college apartment, the ingredients list on the seasoning packet was a turnoff, so I replaced it with real (well, Spice Island) herbs.

In the piles of my past is an essay written as part of a freshman English class in which we were to instruct someone how to do something: I wrote, unsurprisingly, about preparing a meal. Spaghetti, as it would have it, and I instruct the dutiful reader to add red wine to the mix and to pour a glass for themselves and whomever else might be around. I'd like to tell you I waited until my 21st birthday before I started adding it to the mix, but given that I was underage throughout my university career, that seems unlikely.

In France, it took patience while the slow hotplate heated water to boil noodles, and I admit to resorting to jarred sauce--cold. It was one of the first dishes I taught my darling to-be-husband, and soon became a code for I'm not making it:

"Hi honey, I'm home! What's for supper?"
"Spaghetti."
"Oh, that bad? I'll make it."

As food sensitivities mounted and our numbers increased, the basics have been replaced by fare from the co-op, including pork sausage (my Italian Girlfriend admonished me).  My shopping list and habits changed. Until this year. This year, or rather last summer, we shopped the farmers markets, peeled, chopped, boiled, dried, and stuffed our larder and freezer full. Add to it a quarter pig that we affectionately call 'Porker,' and I haven't had to shop for anything but the pasta and onions since July.

Instead of making a shopping list, I head out to the garage, and reach into the arctic box for some Porker sausage and a bag of chopped heritage tomatoes (Yellow? Black? Or red?). Behind me, one jar breaks rank from the soldiers of tomato sauce. Upstairs, hanging from wrought iron hooks (from the blacksmith who visits at Michaelmas) are garlic and herbs.

This is the first year we have tried this, and it has been a glorious 7 weeks. Only seven, as the last of Porker's sausage (there are still chops and ribs and bacon) went in the pan this evening, so we shall revert to the co-op's decent-but-not-as-good stuff. The chopped tomatoes should last until late spring, and the canned ones should last 32 more weeks--until just about the time that the first local tomatoes start showing up at the farmer's market.

Big brother

I was happily puttering in the kitchen this evening making supper (spaghetti day: plus sautéed fresh spinach and garlic and parsnip chips and hummus), when the phone rang. Nothing out of the ordinary about that, but the call was anything but ordinary.

It was a fellow from our local co-op, and he asked for me by name. Fair enough, I thought, I just wrote them a missive about some changes in the deli, and thought this might be a follow-up to my email. Though probably not, since I had already received a well-thought-out reply the same day to that one.

Nope, this cordial fellow wanted to let me know that the sun-dried tomato and chicken sausage I bought last  week--and ate last night--may have contained traces of turkey that were not included on the label. No problem here, no allergies to that particular bird. My guess is that they didn't clean the machine well enough between batches. Says the woman who uses the same workbowl on the food processor for slicing the parsnip chips and making the dip.

Even if it is kind of scary that the co-op knows that I bought it, but even that's not really scary, because I was using my member discount that day, so they scanned my membership card. So of course they knew. That they put together the data is nothing that mainstream supermarkets don't do when they extract demographic data to drive their marketing efforts by asking you to swipe your club card.

Of course, recalls were on my mind this week, as I just filed a spate of FDA recalls (and yes, Virginia, they are a daily occurrence, it's not just you). This batch featured a voluntary recall of Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP) tainted with salmonella that's an unlabeled additive in many items, including spice mixtures that are sold as is or contained in other processed foodstuffs. Already I've seen recall notices for bouillon cubes, pretzels, Pringles, ready-to-eat bacon, and a curry spice powder sold in bulk. More will come.

In this case, the apparent abuse of the voluntary nature of the recall system and the hidden nature of the ingredient (the FDA does not require disclosing it on the label) is a particularly nasty combination, and one that food writer Marion Nestlé blogged about this morning. Her piece quite rightly calls for a stronger FDA, one that does not have to beg manufacturers to do the right thing.

So it is a reaffirmation that the co-op is doing the right thing: calling me to check and make sure things are right when they made a mistake.  While it was good of them to call (wouldn't you call your friend if you found out something you made for them was bad?), I also applaud their use of media channels to get the word out: they issued a notice on their website, and used Facebook and Twitter to spread the word. All things that, by the way, cost them nothing at all to do. I got to thinking that this is probably what was intended when the system of voluntary recalls was developed. Unfortunately, like all reasonable institutions, it is open to abuse by those who play the system to their own benefit.

If we had been talking about two schoolchildren, one who owned up to making a mistake and did their best to make it right, and one who had obfuscated a deed for their own benefit, the teacher's course of action would have been clear: reward the virtuous child, and both remove the privilege of trust and require retribution of some sort from the other. To subject both of them to a harsher regime would be a mistake, and the fallen angel must have a chance to re-earn his wings.

An empty spice rack

One of the admittedly minor annoyances of moving internationally is the seemingly arbitrary list from movers and customs agents about what you can and cannot bring out or in. The moving company (or removal firm, as our British Neighbor calls them), wouldn't let her bring any foodstuffs, including herbs and spices. The same applied to our friends moving back to England and Switzerland: the spices couldn't go with. The irony of course, is that these herbs and spices come from all over the globe.

But annoying it is: my cupboard is now bursting with the cast-off from friends leaving (I really don't need three bottles of dill). Translated into everyday life, it means that our new British neighbor often finds her ability to make a certain dish hampered by a missing but key flavoring. Sometimes you can fake it, but there are no good substitutions when making curry.
Since it's her birthday today, we thought it would be nice to help her refill her spice rack. I went to the local luxury supermarket and paced up and down the aisle before I made a random selection of herbs and spices. I'm pretty sure she's brought in salt and pepper and a few others, but I haven't the foggiest idea what she's missing and what she's already bought. So, I stood there, asking myself what she likes to cook and eat, and made choices based on what little of her taste I know, and what looked pretty and exotic. I hope we've provided her without too much overlap, and a few things to inspire her.

The punch line is that I always return to the US with my suitcase filled with herbs and spices gleaned from European supermarket shelves. So if she's still missing something from home, we'll make sure she gets it on our next foray over the pond.