a salad without a name. it wasn't bad, though.

i only have the word of two mathematicians to tell me that this salad was good. actually ..

[re-counts]
.. three mathematicians.

sometimes i forget that i count, too. this is the sort of salad which might be easier to eat with a spoon than with a fork. thinking about it, it would work well as a topping on crispbread.

anyway, here's the recipe.

"i don't know but it might be good" salad.

INGREDIENTS:

• one package pea pods, from a farmer's market.
  
• 1/2 can of black beans that you're trying to get rid of
  
• 3/4's a bunch of curly parsley, finely chopped
  
  (i saved 1/4 in case i needed it later in the week. as long as the food is good, there's nothing wrong with holding out on dinner. it's your groceries after all.)
  
  
• one package cherry tomatoes, cut in halfs and quarters and sixths
  
• two handful of walnuts, pan-toasted.
  
• olive oil
  
• rice vinegar
  
• salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.
  

[remembers]
.. f*ck! i forgot the diced red onion!!!!
i was wondering if it would taste good if i added some ..

.. no matter.

DIRECTIONS (of which there are few):

i boiled the peas in their pods for 4 minutes, in the event that my company didn't like raw peas, and then i popped them out of their pods. this is quite easy, because after boiling, the pods are very soft whilst the peas are not.

(they're easier than edamame and fava beans, at any rate.)

as for toasting walnuts, take out a frying pan, set to medium, and add walnuts. NO OIL. shake the pan every so often. when you smell a nutty smell, count to 30 and then remove from heat.


MOTIVATIONS:

1. if i didn't use the peas, then they would go bad. the same goes with cherry tomatoes. it's a sin to waste food from a farmer's market.
   
   
2. i'm on a curly parsley kick since my ann arbor days, because so many places there make good tabbouleh. to name a few, jerusalem garden, pita kebab .. and that place on south university avenue which used to be a hole in the wall but has remodeled to be a sit-down place and won't give you free baklava with a large wrap anymore ..
   
   .. i really liked the free baklava. it wasn't great baklava, but there was this crunch and hint of honey that would be good with afternoon coffee ..
   
   
3. the black beans were left over from when i made .. er, never mind. it wasn't very good -- one of my culinary experiments to which i refuse to subject others. i vowed, however, to make something better with the latter half of the can.
   
   
4. rice vinegar isn't necessary. any acid would work: balsamic vinegar, perhaps apple cider vinegar .. heck, even lemon juice or lime juice. i draw the line at orange juice, because the sweetness would overwhelm the salad.

thoughts after: food, inc.

for the type of film that it is, food inc. is rather watchable. i wouldn't call it a balanced opinion .. not that i want one, of course.

what struck me, though, was that they made a lot of use of commercial-ish images and video footage in a way which resembled brainwashing, or rather, debrainwashing.

in tv commercials, one watches people eating hamburgers with enjoyment and gusto;

everyone eating a hamburger in this film appeared doing so out of habit and certainly not out of joy. that, of course, is reality. there are a lot of hamburgers and fast food out there and people do eat them regularly.

as a film, it followed a core agenda: industrial food. they did it quite well.

the end guidelines -- suggesting what we can do to make healthy food accessible and affordable -- included cooking for and eating with your family.

fine and dandy:
the problem is, how do you start?

it's not hard to learn how to cook. it's not easy to learn how to cook well, without help. it's not easy to learn how to cook well and fast, without practice. barring a really good, quick recipe -- of which many do exist, but you have to look for them -- a beginning home cook cannot compete with restaurant food.

there are several dice loaded into this. what's the point of going to a farmer's market if you can't cook?

there goes another guideline.

restaurants are really good at their job, which is making tasty food. if it's a question of immediate gratification by taste, the restaurant will win, even if it's less healthy and bad for the ecosystem / farmers / health / world / etc.

i guess i was hoping for a few words like "starting out, it's not going to be easy, but you'll get there." it's hard enough for people to gain enough momentum to try to change ..

you say dinner, i say breakfast ..

so far i've nothing but breakfast food, today.

breakfast: coffee, doughnut
lunch: spinach-mushroom omelette with a green salad
just now: whole grain bagel

to be honest, i'm tempted to go home and make myself oatmeal now -- maybe with some brown sugar, cloves, and cardamom. (-:

choy, glorious choy!

these days a lot of supermarkets sell bok choy and napa cabbage, and broccoli rabe is a reasonably good substitute for gai lan.

nonetheless, there are plenty of types of asian greens which never find their way into suburbia. the contrast is striking when you realise that, in new york chinatown, they will sell these otherwise-rare veg ..

.. on street corners, by the pound.

---

when i was younger, supermarkets in nyc chinatown were rare. visiting now, i see more of them.

lao wai choi (老 外 菜), mostly.

11 & 1 o'clock: radish-like root veg,

then there are other asian sundries, like tofu, fresh rice noodles, as well as rice-flour wrappers used to make wontons:



soy sauce, anyone?

4 o'clock, green label: organic soy sauce!