Everybody doesn’t like something

Another day, another recall. On the tail of recalls affecting Thomas the Tank Engine wooden trains and Castleberry Chili (should we be concerned that pet food ran off the same line as the chili? Or that some of the product is over two years old?), we now have Sara Lee (nobody doesn’t like her, remember?) recalling bread that may contain bits of metal that broke off a sifter.

I am compelled to click through to the Sara Lee site to get the corporate take on this. I’m especially curious because I’ve never been the least bit tempted to sift flour when making bread. Granted, I use mostly whole grain flour for my breadmaking, but even when baking using cake flour, I don’t sift: I whisk to mix ingredients. It’s much more efficient, and helps the dry ingredients absorb the moist ones more evenly. And that’s not just an old wives’ technique, there are a couple of published studies out there that prove it.

So I click away, to Sara Lee land, which proudly exclaims, “Our mission is to simply delight you… every day.” The illustrations are of two women, obviously great friends, enjoying a cup of tea together on a sunny day, a freckled kid eating a hot dog with mustard artistically squeezed on it, a Douwe Egbert coffee machine, a loaf of Sara Lee Soft & Smooth whole grain white bread, and an Ambi Pur 90-day plug-in air freshener.

I know I’m not a typical housewife, but none of these images delight me: the women are obviously having a great time with their Douwe Egbert tea, but seeing the name reminds me of the hundreds of tins of Douwe Egbert Amphora pipe tobacco that my father burned up coating his lungs with black gunk. I dig a bit and discover that Sara Lee sold off the tobacco division in 1998, a full 20 years after it acquired the Dutch brand.

The other brand, Ambi Pur, is one I have never heard of, but I readily admit that I have never bought air freshener. My idea of fresh air is the stuff you get when you open the window, and I think that a kitchen that smells of cooking is a good thing. In spite of the studies linking the usage of highly scented products to increased asthma attacks, Sara Lee boldly states that its Ambi Pur products actually improve “the quality of air in the home.” I am delighted that the report on the hazards of household cleaners issued by Women and Environment has garnered a good deal of press, but am less than delighted to note that Ambi Pur products are being marketed in over 30 countries. Having increased asthma levels by 160% in this country, it seems we’re off the conquer the world.

But back to what brought us here: our daily bread. It is an unfortunate choice for the flash animation that fills the home page for the company, but it’s probably too expensive to slip a different image in, and the company is probably hoping it will blow over soon. And it probably will, because it is of limited scope. Well, limited in the context of the American food distribution system. The affected bread comes from a single plant in Mississippi, and was only shipped to “the entire states of Mississippi and Alabama, most of Arkansas, far southeastern Missouri, western Georgia, southwestern Tennessee, southeastern Louisiana and the panhandle of Florida.” This may sound like it's pretty far-reaching, but it’s relatively localized—think of how far and wide the tainted spinach of last summer spread.

The complexity compounds when I start reading the list of products. Of the 27 products affected by the recall, only seven are Sara Lee brand. Products include such wholesome-sounding loaves as Earthgrains 100% Natural Wheat Berry and Golden Bake Wheat Bread, as well as store brands for IGA and Piggly-Wiggly. I chuckle at the name “Shurfresh Split Top Wheat," which has a two week window on freshness.

However, I am concerned that the AP article I read makes mention of only two of the off-brand products. If someone reads the article and assumes they are safe because they bought Piggly-Wiggly Wheat bread instead of Sara Lee; if they do not bother to find the producer’s site and wade through the press release, they will be none the wiser.

Once again, protecting ourselves and our families boils down to knowing the source of our food, and buying locally. Bread, when we buy it instead of baking it ourselves, comes from the shelf at the co-op: We usually reach for the locally baked Old Mill Bread spelt sandwich loaf and crusty loaves from The Essential Baking Company over in Fremont, which makes a rosemary diamante that was destined to hold up a piece of brie. I am particularly fond of the notion their name implies, that essentials include things like pain au chocolat and chocolate chip cookies. Oh, and their loaves, like mine, are made by hand using organic ingredients.

Perfect

July is racing to a close, and I am pedalling furiously to keep up. The culminating Marrowstone in the City concert for Number One Son is this evening, Little One has a sleepover, and tomorrow is that yearly debauchery otherwise known as the Microsoft Picnic. Sunday we “relax” by going clamming, and we might even be able to do nothing that evening by watching The Two Gentlemen of Verona in the park. I don’t think we’ll be able to squeeze in a leisurely stroll through the Bellevue Arts Fair or kick back and watch the hydro races, though. We might catch the brides one more time before they fly back to Switzerland, but even if we don’t, we’ll have some sweet memories.

For it was the absolutely most perfect wedding I have ever been to. No pretenses, only pure, unbridled joy. There were oodles of children, resplendent in summer dresses, clip-on ties, and keens. The brides’ two daughters and two nieces created a path of rose petals, a string trio played the Wedding March, and, after toasts were made with champagne and the cake was cut, they danced a slow waltz together. Hopeless romantics dabbed their eyes.

But it wasn’t a wedding. Because legally, the brides, who have been together nearly as long as me and my Darling Husband and who have grown their family in parallel, were not getting married. Rather, they were celebrating the civil union that they registered in Switzerland on Valentine’s Day of this year. There were numerous mentions of the irony of an American lawyer having to go overseas to marry, but the fact remains that this was a great wedding party: the brides, still very much in love, weren’t twenty and had had plenty of time to think about what they wanted in a wedding. And what they decided was that family came first, both their own and those of their friends. No one needed to hire a sitter to come to this event, we all brought them with—and they nearly outnumbered us. There were buttered noodles in the buffet (along with more adult roasted potatoes and asparagus, broiled salmon and a tasty organic greens salad put together by Tuxedos and Tennis Shoes), an entire room was set aside for kids with coloring, hula hoops and games, and an ice cream truck stopped by just when nerves were getting ragged. With meltdowns averted, at least for now, parents packed up their sticky children and headed home. We returned home thoroughly content at how things turned out.

The Saturday before the wedding was a different story altogether. With some of the muggiest weather I’ve ever sweated through, I had set to baking on Friday afternoon, turning out a handsome enough pair of 9” layers. As they cooled, though, the middle of one layer collapsed. No matter, I said to myself, I can bake a new one tomorrow. With the kids in bed, I tucked a 12” cake into the oven. It came out heavy, refusing to rise more than a quarter inch. Not good.

Saturday was supposed to be an easy day: I only had to bake the little 6” topper (in génoise, the brides’ first choice) and an extra 12” (for the kitchen, a bit of slight-of-hand that magically produces plates of cut cake within minutes of the ceremonial cutting). The big layers did a repeat non-performance, barely budging upwards. But the little six-inch cake, destined for the aptly-named bridal suite at the Salish Lodge, puffed up perfectly, and made me wonder just what I was doing wrong with the supposedly easier butter cake. I reviewed Rose’s prose, checked my math, and tried the big butter cake again, this time using a bit more batter. Still domed, still dense and just plain heavy. Not at all what I had in mind.

By this time, my family had been relegated to eating at the little kids table in the corner, as our normal table was covered with an expanding collection of failed layers, not to mention having to tiptoe around an increasingly edgy chef. Darling Husband earned years of brownie points by not only washing up after each failure, but not complaining about it at all. But I clearly needed some perspective. So, I curled up and read, not a cookbook, but Hunting and Gathering, a novel I’d been sipping all week. There’s an intense scene where the protagnist sits at her easel and begins a pastel nude. She picks up the blue pastel, but after a few strokes she stops and changes to red: the subject demanded it. I tuck in my bookmark and head back to the store for more eggs and cream (to assuage the nightmares about not having enough cream to cover the cake).

And so I do what the brides wanted all along. I bake three more cakes, all génoise this time, enough for a beautiful three-tiered wedding cake—for all the little girls to dream and wonder about—and one more 12” cake for the inevitable second helpings.

The day of the wedding—sorry, the celebration—dawned even muggier, and I changed my worrying to the cream. If I felt like I needed a shower after the effort of getting dressed, how must the cake feel, having to stand there, smiling and looking pretty for three hours? As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about, for it was, as I mentioned before, a perfect wedding.

(photo by Cory Parris)

And no, there were no leftovers—unless you count the four butter cakes in my fridge, covered in all that extra cream.

Happy dirt

I nearly ran to the garden this muggy afternoon, anxious to see what the rains have wrought. A couple of huge slugs, to be sure, but then I saw the peas! Those lovely shelling peas that we smuggled in from Ireland are in full glory, enjoying the damp, cloudy days. The two dozen pods I pick aren’t enough for a whole plate of peas, but they combine well with some leftover baby carrots from the next valley over for the classic peas and carrots dish. A dot of butter will insure they disappear.

I turn to the rows of potatoes, and choose the one marked “Misc. Pots.” It’s the garden equivalent of Google’s “I’m felling lucky” button, odd potatoes that didn't fit in the red, yellow or russet categories. My pitchfork turns over handfuls of little golden fingerling potatoes. I am feeling very lucky indeed.

This is the time of Darling Husband’s home town festival, Rutenfest. Today would have been the culmination of the festival, with drummers noisily filling every corner of town, and just about every school kid dressed up to take part in the big parade. Germans grow misty-eyed about these things, so to make him feel better we throw some sausage in the pan, and hang the city’s big blue and white banner out front. There’s even a commemorative glass at his place to remind him of home and welcome him home.

Summer snowball

A bicycle rider rear-ended my car today. Despite flying glass, we were unscathed (though Little One is quite shaken), but the bike rider was cut up a bit and will likely be very sore tomorrow. We exchanged addresses and dispensed first aid, and were ready to depart when we heard sirens; in this day and age of cell phones, somebody must have called for help, and flashing lights announced the arrival of the police and a trio of red trucks.

Yesterday’s mail brought the glossy magazine from my Alma Mater: Willamette University’s motto is non nobis solum nati sumus – not unto ourselves alone are we born. It’s from Cicero’s De Officiis, a tome that has been required reading for classically-educated persons for centuries. The whole thing got me thinking about the events that are cascading from that momentary glance away by the fellow behind me, the glance that meant he couldn’t stop in time.

As I was talking to the policeman, I looked up to see my Darling Husband walking towards me. He was returning from a team lunch at Mayuri’s, their favorite Indian restaurant (great lunch buffet: don’t miss the chicken makhani), when he saw my distinctive old Volvo stopping traffic and Number One Son standing outside of it. He asked his co-worker to stop, and hopped out. As they drove off, his co-worker called out that he would cover for my Darling in his presentation that was to start in five minutes.

The policeman, clearly unimpressed with my husband’s miraculous appearance, instructed me to pull over into the next parking lot, since I was blocking traffic. (Yes, I had decided to block traffic to protect the bicycle rider who had fallen in the street.) The next parking lot was a long half-block away, but as we drove off we could see the fire truck (a tiller), fire engine and aid car arrive on the scene and offer the bike rider some real first aid (more effective at stopping the bleeding than the neon knee Band-Aids we usually carry). Number One Son informs me that the three emergency response vehicles are crewed by five people. Two more police cars arrived, one carrying an officer who specializes in accident investigation, and one sent by dispatch because they fear the worst when they hear the words “car” and “bicycle” used in the same sentence as “accident.”

At this point, I can stop to tally it up: there were three of us in the car, the shaken bike rider, an anonymous 911 caller, at least one 911 dispatcher, a passer-by who kindly pointed the way to the hospital, my Darling Husband, his two co-workers, three police officers, and five fire department personnel. That’s a total of 18 people caught in the rolling snowball, and that’s before I start calling glass replacement and insurance folks.

So what does this have to do with sustainability and food, you ask? It’s about paying attention. It’s easy to see the cause and effect if you don’t pay attention at the wheel, even if it is a two-wheeler, ostensibly doing the right thing for the planet. It’s less clear what happens when you don’t pay attention, blindly assuming you’re doing the right thing in how you source your food or feed yourself. But that’s just what we need to do – pay attention. Because a lot of people, from the farmer to those we love, will be affected if we don’t. Or, as Willamette’s classics professor put it, “Because we exist in society, to harm another is to harm ourselves.” And vice-versa.

From the bottom up

Procrastination aside, I was waiting patiently for the opportunity to try out the largest layer of The Wedding Cake, when our conductor announced “party Monday evening!” before the downbeat of our finale (Stars and Stripes Forever, since it’s that time of year).

I started off my Monday morning by infusing 4 cups of cream with saffron, and adding cornstarch to cook it to stabilize the cream once whipped. Once it’s cool, I’m to add rosewater, so I open up the cupboard and take out two bottles: one half bottle leftover from Germany, and a new blue plastic bottle from Whole Foods. I open the German flask and sniff; it smells heavenly, like delicate roses on a dewy morning. But I only have a little bit left, and I need three teaspoons. Since this is a test, I figure I should open the other one. The smell is heady and strong, like a purple-haired lady’s perfumed soap. Vexed, I take both bottles upstairs to Number One’s nose, which is buried in a thick book. He validates my impression: the blue bottle is soapy-smelling – clearly, we need to investigate alternate sources, but I need to use it for now. I make a note to visit the Persian market to see what they have to offer, and dash off an email to my mother-in-law in the Vaterland to see if she’s game to picking some up. I set the pudding-like mixture out in the cool morning air with a sheet of plastic wrap to keep it from skinning over. The boys eye and sniff it, but wisely decided it isn’t interesting enough to stick their fingers in.

I then set up to make two 12-inch layers. The Cake Goddess warns me that I can’t go larger than 12 inches, since the genoise doesn’t have the structural integrity to support itself in a larger size. I set up the bowls to separate 10 eggs, when Number One happens by (the way the adolescent male stomach reacts to activity in the kitchen is an interesting phenomenon). He receives the same explanation my mother gave me when I asked why she used three bowls to separate eggs, and grabs an apple from the fruit bowl. He does humor me by cutting the parchment circles for the cake pans – with one hand, since the apple takes a few minutes to devour.

Mixing the batter goes off without a hitch, though I make a note in the margin of the recipe to use my absolutely largest bowl to fold in the egg whites. The batter fits in my big bread bowl, but there’s not a lot of room to spare.

Thirty minutes later, I remove the two layers from the oven, and go to turn them out on the racks. It is here that I discover I should have read Rose more carefully, for she admonishes me to not only check that my pans fit the oven, but that I have enough and sufficiently large racks. Alas, my racks are a scant 10 inches. I grab a roasting rack that is just barely 12 inches for one, then do a quick wipe-down of my oven rack. They’ll do in a pinch, but their wires are a bit far apart, so I make yet another note, this time to go to the restaurant supply house and get some real ones.

We pile in the car to go grocery shopping (I have used up the last of the canola oil and we are running short on ice cream). The Persian market has rose water, to be sure – in quart-sized bottles. But it’s only $4.99, so I buy one. The woman must think we’re odd, as we pile in the car and immediately twist off the cap, our noses vying to get a sniff. It smells good – stronger than the German one, but not as soapy as the blue bottle. We devise another test with little bowls of cream flavored with A, B, and C rose waters. We three decide that the Persian bottle is fine, but Darling Husband is adamant that only the German one will do, and promptly issues stern orders to his mother to hie to the store and express a package hence.

With but a few hours until the party, I begin assembling the cake. The Cake Bible notes that a layer can be expected to shrink a bit, but I am alarmed to note that the shrinkage that was apparent in the six-inch layer is greatly magnified for the twelve, with the bottom diameter now a full two inches smaller than the top. I have two options at this point: either trim the cake or fill the voids with cream. Fearing a syndrome similar to trimming table legs, I opt for the latter, and whip up eight cups of cream. I end up using about six cups, half a cup more than Rose predicted, but it doesn’t look lopsided at all.

The party-goers’ reviews are unanimously rave; one person asks for the recipe, another for my business card. However, that same light texture that makes the cake delicately yield makes it very difficult to cut the cake into small portions, and I only get 30 servings out of a layer that is supposed to yield 75. Even an extra layer in the back room won’t make up for this shortcoming, and I must consider other options.

The next morning, I sit down and spend some quality time with Rose, adapting her basic butter cake for this recipe. Instead of whites or yolks only, I opt for whole eggs; butter is replaced by oil, since I fear the butter flavor will overwhelm. A single six-inch layer is my test subject, and it holds its shape perfectly as it cools. I feed it to Darling Husband and British Neighbor, both of whom are familiar with the original. We are surprised to find the delicate flavors of cardamom and lemon peel more pronounced in this cake, but there is no consensus on the texture: Darling Husband feels it has lost its special quality, but British Neighbor is pragmatic, pointing out that if she had never tasted the fluffy genoise she would consider this a terrific cake.

The brides will blow into town in a few days, and we have decided that they will be greeted by two cakes. They will have to make the final call.

Full moon

Last night, I watched the moon set and the sun begin its rise, thanks to a visit from the insomnia gremlins. I had hoped to be in good form, as we had planned a hike with Darling Husband’s Tea Buddy, and had had to reschedule it one too many times already. As I drifted off near morning, I was sure I wouldn’t have the energy to go, let alone hike a canyon. But the day rose sunny, with riotous bird song, and we decided on a late start rather than a rain check.

On our trek away from suburbia, we had driven past successively rustic-looking past farm stands (some with fireworks for sale as well), and it was nearing snack time. But we were anxious to meet up at the trail head, so we promised ourselves local fruit later in the day. We took our time descending into Robe Canyon, pausing often to examine the lush flora. What a pleasant discovery to find local as local could be right here on the trail: oodles of ripe salmonberries, fat and juicy, yielding to our fingers, the boys like baby birds opening their mouths wide for me to pop them in. And then the mother lode of wild berries, the black-capped raspberry, though only enough for one apiece.

The boys and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know this man who has quietly mentored my husband for years now. Little One announced that he wanted to go play at Tea Buddy's house, Number One decided he was cool, and I indulged in the rarity of being able to use Americanisms and have them be understood. After we had consumed everything in our backpacks, mentor opened his bag and shared the contents, including Gummi Incredibles and Junior Mints. It would be a travesty to describe the purchases made at the Tom Thumb Grocery Store in Granite Falls for the sun-drenched drive home as food, but they did add to the texture of the day’s experiences.

But the best part was waking late the next morning to sunlight streaming through my window, the house still blissfully still. Little One did not wander during the wee hours, and we all had slept like proverbial logs.

Blind dates

One of the side effects of our peripatetic lifestyle last week was needing to shop in unfamiliar stores. Initially, I was feeling guilty about shopping somewhere other than the coop, like I was cheating or something. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the mainstream supermarket scene.

My first dalliance was on the way home on the last day of school. I just didn’t have time (or so I thought) to get all the way out to the co-op and back and still have time to get my cooking done. Into QFC, the local Kroger brand, I head. I find the “natural” section, flanked by fake hardwood floors and pretty borders of silk greenery, and locate some organic sugar. I then head for the produce department for celery for shrimp étouffé. I am taken aback that produce is not labeled by its provenance. Yes, the shelf tag tells me things like what it is, how much it costs, and even some nutritional information (did you know celery was high in fiber? If you didn’t, you haven’t been paying attention), but nowhere can I find anything about where it was grown. There’s no breaking the bundle apart either, so I take a huge bunch of generic celery home with me, and I’m not still sure if I should encourage or discourage the kids from eating it.

On the way to Portland the first time, we make a bathroom and lunch break in the parking lot of a Fred Meyer somewhere south of Olympia. I grab sushi for the boys and bread for Darling Husband, and then look around for something for me. A big tub of organic greens sounds good, I just need some dressing. And here I discover that my co-op has been holding out on me: Freddy’s, another Kroger puppet, has five milk-free salad dressings made by Nasoya that I’ve never seen before. With a stinging sense of betrayal, I grab a bottle of Garden Herb. It is delicious, and I am overjoyed that I don’t have to eat allergens to have a creamy dressing.

In Redding, I don’t expect to find anything I can’t get at home. No Trader Joe’s, no co-ops here. Raley’s is the high-end supermarket, and the one-and-only place in town to find organic meats, which I must buy, since my mother doesn’t consider it a meal without meat (I didn’t tell her about the soy grind in the spaghetti until after she’d eaten it). As I cruise their natural foods section, my jaw hits the floor. Glutino, makers of yummy gluten-free sandwich cookies that I have been known to dabble in, also makes crackers and – gasp – bread sticks! In two flavors! I read the label twice, just to be sure it is not too good to be true. What’s more, they’re so tasty the kids start munching them out of the box.

I ask myself why I can’t get them at my store? The answer is simple: shelf space is at a premium. However, a supermarket manager once told me that they take customer comments very seriously, reckoning that for every person that speaks up, ten hold their tongues and just go elsewhere. I’ll be talking to the manager at my local store, and failing seeing these products, will be buying online.