ColumnWould a revamped nutrition label help us deal with our sugar addiction?

When you grab a food product off the shelf, do you look at the nutrition label?

Chances are you do, but statistically more people look at the general nutrition facts than they do the ingredients. Our misunderstanding of nutrition makes it so that we’ll be tempted by something that has zero calories, zero fat, zero anything, and we’ll forget about what the thing was actually made with. A food product might have a bunch of zeros in it, but if you get to the ingredients and there’s a whole bunch of sugar, or a whole bunch of things that sound like sugar, you might as well throw the whole thing out.

Sugar is bad for you. There’s just no way around it. But beyond it being bad for you, it’s addictive, meaning that the more you consume, the more you consume.

As Americans, we consume a lot of it. The real sugar threat comes from added sugars, any sugar that has been added to a product that wasn’t naturally there before–that includes natural sweeteners. If you’re sweetening something, you’re adding sugar. While some of us may add a little sugar to our coffee, the serious problem comes in all that additional stuff used to sweeten processed foods. Flavored yogurts, sports drinks, condiments, even seemingly healthy granola… the list goes on. We are literally inundated with added sugar every time we go to the grocery store.

This is problematic given that in the United States we get 16 percent of our daily calories from added sugars. The World Health Organization recommends that globally, we need to get it down to 5 percent.

So the FDA has decided that it might be time to change the nutrition labels. Since people don’t always read through the ingredient list and have a reaction to items like high fructose corn syrup and dextrose, an easier way to make sure people know how much they are eating is simply to label whether or not a food product has added sugars in it.

Well that proposal sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Not if you’re in the sugar business. Making “added sugars” a line on the nutrition label wouldn’t be the only update, but it’s an update that people in sugar certainly don’t want. Eight trade groups are so vehemently opposed to the legislation that they wrote a letter to the FDA voicing their opinion and offered to fund a study on label effectiveness. Who are these groups?

• American Bakers Association
• American Beverage Association
• American Frozen Foods Institute
• Corn Refiners Association
• National Confectioners Association
• American Frozen Food Institute
• Sugar Association
• International Dairy Foods Association

Yup, Big Sugar.

Big Sugar is doing all that it can to make sure that we keep eating as much sugar as possible, tobacco industry style. Opposing labeling isn’t the only thing. They’ve also been known to misuse scientific data, even bury it, pour lobby dollars into local sugar debates, and feature misinformation on industry sites, all to mislead the public and keep them consuming – and addicted to – sugar.

As consumers, we deserve transparency. A label won’t stop someone from having a sugar addiction, but it will at least let them know if additional sugars have been added, and that kind of transparency is essential in a modern, developed society.

It’s going to take a lot to kick our sugar addiction, but maybe the first step is a big swift kick in the pants to Big Sugar. And that means the FDA pushing lobbying dollars aside and approving the new label.

Related on EcoSalon

12 Unusual Ways to Use Sugar (Without Eating It!)

5 Natural Sweeteners to Replace Sugar

10 Health Foods With More Sugar Than Coke

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Raj Stevenson

The post Sugar Addiction and Nutrition Labels: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnFour years of Foodie Underground means a lot of column writing. Here’s a look back.

Something last week made me go and search for the first Foodie Underground ever written. I remembered that it was around springtime, but couldn’t remembered the month. As it turned out, my first column devoted to my vision of good food was published on April 9, 2010 and it was titled “Amateur is the New Black” – this was back when I liked mysterious headlines. I read through, partly cringing, partly laughing. Reading your own writing from several years ago is a good way to induce these kinds of reactions.

Four years. That’s how long I have been writing this column. Four years, especially in the world of internet, is a long time. It’s like Foodie Underground is a toddler (and nowadays it even has its own website). Mostly well behaved, sometimes a little obnoxious, especially on those deadline days that I feel like I am grasping for a subject. Sometimes I simply feel like I am repeating the same thing I say every week, “Eat real food. Cook your own food. Don’t buy processed. Think about where your food comes from. Be creative in the kitchen.” But eventually it comes together, and the following Monday, it pops up once again.

It has been four years of writing about good food, exploring questions of food politics, all with a good dose of snark here and there. And while a weekly deadline sneaks up on you every single week, it’s a pretty fun thing to write. So in honor of Foodie Underground’s 4th birthday, I figured I would pull together a list of some of my personal favorite columns (in no particular order). A little Foodie Underground retrospective so to say.

I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing.

1. Formulating the Foolproof Foodie Menu

Hint: it involves mason jars and beets.

2. The 10 Types of Foodies and What to Do With Them

Because everyone loves defining themselves.

3. Things You Wish You Had Overheard a Foodie Say

“I name all of my fresh eggs before I eat them. I find that when my food has a personal identity I enjoy it more.”

4. Fast Food, Fast Fashion… It’s All About Choice

“If we expect change in the food system, we have to demand it, and that means making a choice every time we eat.”

5. The Summer Bucket List

There’s the 2012 version and the 2013 version.

6. Why Do We Love Markets?

I think I like this one purely for the photos.

7. Everything in Moderation

Including moderation of course.

8. The Beauty of Eating Outdoors

Because eating outside is always better. Always.

9. 50 Pick Up Lines for Scoring a Foodie

“You’re as intoxicating as a home distilled liquor.”

10. The Secret Diary of a Foodie

Dear diary…

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

The post 4 Years of a Column About Good Food: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnIn our modern, technology filled world, we’re busy, and so we cut corners, but food shouldn’t be one of them.

Checking your iPhone during dinner is rude (well, unless you’re food porning it up… and even then, there are limits). But what’s worse? Making your iPhone your dinner partner.

That’s right food lovers, you can now buy a bowl for ramen that magically connects your iPhone so that you can surf and text and check your updates while you’re slurping down a bowl of hot noodle broth. Great! Why enjoy your meal when you could be reading your email?

In the midst of articles about farmers markets, CSAs and urban gardens, it’s discoveries like this that give me cause for concern, particularly about our future as a society. Not because hip food cities may soon be filled with ramen/iPhone bars (isn’t there an app that turns your phone into a set of chopsticks??), but because it’s an indicator of a larger cultural dilemma.

We live in a fast-paced world, where work is longer and meals are shorter. We trade the conference room for the dinner table, and soon eating is just another task in the day; something to be checked off of a to-do list.

We’re busy and so we cut corners, but food shouldn’t be one of them. Seeking out devices to replace the fact that we aren’t sitting around a table with family or friends is not only depressing, it’s a sign of the times: we live in a world where eating is an afterthought–something that we know we must do, just like we must wash the dishes and we must go to work.

But if we take the pleasure and ceremony out of eating, what are we left with? A world where good food isn’t honored and fast food is the norm. There’s a causal relationship between our high octane modern world and our path towards a public health epidemic: we don’t take time to eat, much less honor the process, gather with friends, celebrate the food in front of us and the company around us. Put an emphasis back on living life, and maybe food politics falls in place right behind.

We complain that dinner takes time and energy to prepare; but aren’t we lucky enough to be taking a moment to work with our hands and produce something that sustains us? Somewhere our relationship to food went askew – instead of flavor and sustenance we chose efficiency and in turn have created a system where taste is in fact the last criteria that is used in most food that is grown. Genetically modified tomatoes that grow into squares so that they pack better? Why not?

Food is one of the few moments in the day where we can disconnect. Remove ourselves from our digital lives and appreciate something physical and tangible. An all-senses affair. If we want to change the world of food, maybe we need to start thinking about our own interactions with it first. Are we present? Are making something or merely hitting the “warm up” button? Do we make time for food or is it an afterthought?

A good friend emailed me in reference to last week’s column where I said that cooking is our thirty minutes a day to disconnect from everything else and merely commit to the creation of a single thing:

“My face fell at the idea of spending a mere 30 minutes cooking each day. Try as I might I spend far more than 30 minutes preparing food each day. I’d better start working towards more efficiency in the kitchen. All those hours add up in a hurry. And what did you do with your life, Mrs. Bryan?”

I responded simply by saying  “If all you did in your life, Mrs. Bryan, was spend time in the kitchen making amazing things and being aware of your surroundings, I would say that that is a life well lived.”

Good food doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does have to be conscious. If not, we risk a world in which real food disappears, and that is a world that is certainly not conducive to living well.

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Photo Credit: MisoSoupDesign

The post Foodie Underground: Is Technology Killing Our Relationship to Real Food? appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnHow does a foodie decide what to eat and what not to eat?

It was early in the morning, NPR was on, and my mother and I were sitting at my kitchen table drinking tea. An interview came on the radio with an executive of a certain well known specialty food chain that prides itself on healthy foods. He was describing his diet, which was something along the lines of vegan paired with an acronym that described a diet with no oil, low salt and no refined foods. I looked at my mother and we both rolled our eyes.

Before you judge me for judging someone else and their dietary choices let me say this: I am very conscious about what I eat, and so is my mother. I live in one of those gluten free, often vegan, a little bit of lamb tagine here and there kind of worlds. If I’m in a French bakery you can be sure that I will order a croissant, and pronounce it correctly. It has taken a long time, but I know what works best for my body. You know what else works best for my body: not existing in a world of black and white. Celebrating living. Call it French, call it European, whatever it is, it’s about enjoying what’s in front of you, the company that you’re with and the moment that you’re in.

We cut things out, we add them in. One week it’s no white flour the next it’s salt. If we’re lucky enough to be in a place where we can think about what we eat, the routine becomes about determining what works and what doesn’t work for us. But how good are we at really doing that? Temptation sets in and we can’t help but each for that flour/butter/sugar/egg concoction while a little voice in our head tells us that we should know better.

We go on our quinoa rampages, but even that isn’t great. Moral of the story: there is no right or wrong way to eat. There is merely identifying what works well for you, both physically and emotionally, and incorporating that into your daily routine, while at the same time maintaining a certain level of social grace.

Here’s the real problem: We live in a society where mass media tells us we have to look one way and fast food chains encourage us to eat another. That leads to an ongoing battle within ourselves where we feel so guilty about indulgences that our only alternative is to turn to overly strict diets. We can’t commit to the personal responsibility of cutting out most processed grains, so we end up on the Paleo diet. We can’t resist the temptation of a buttery baked good so we nix out any trace of dairy in what we eat. We’re not able to turn down a second glass of wine so we go on a booze-free cleanse. Do we live with dietary restrictions, or do we restrict our diet because we simply can’t trust ourselves to eat well? In a world that we know isn’t black and white, there’s a balance to be had somewhere in the middle, somewhere that allows us to live well and eat in moderation.

There are people with real food allergies; the kind of thing that they will die or get severely ill from. Then there are the rest of us. If a certain food makes you break out in hives, don’t eat it. But if you manage to find a balance where most of the time you eat well, don’t get down on yourself because of a moment of indulgence. We all have them and we all need them. Appreciation is as much a part of good food as preparation is.

Looking through a vintage cookbook from the 1950s, I was thinking about how much butter and sugar there was, and how many variations of cookie could be had in one book. But this was back when society wasn’t facing an obesity epidemic, people ate real and not processed foods, and if you made a batch of cookies, you ate one. Not seven. There’s a lesson to be learned somewhere in those pages.

Yes, we should all eat more kale, reduce our intake of meat and stick to whole grains, but our focus on specific ingredients or beneficial elements – hey! it’s packed with omega 3 AND antioxidants! – detracts from our understanding of real food. Diets let us oversimplify, reducing what we eat to individuals elements that all put together, don’t paint the full picture of who we’re eating with, where our food came from, its effect on the planet and a whole other laundry list of items. Eating is just as much about emotion as it is about physique.

Food is supposed to give us pleasure, and while a variety of different diets certainly provide a lot of pleasure, guilt is just as much a part of the problem as individual ingredients. Know what your body needs and eat it. Eat food with friends. Indulge on occasion. Remember that eating is a multidimensional process; celebrate it.

You know what Julie Child says? “Everything in moderation… including moderation.” I couldn’t agree more.

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

The post Foodie Underground: Everything in Moderation appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnFolds that shoot right for our imaginations.

It is not unusual for a five-year-old child to fold paper into an airplane. What sets Sipho Mabona apart is that fifteen years after that first fold, he had exhausted his airplane designs and ventured into origami where his passion took a twist.

Says Mabona:

I grew up in small, picturesque Lucerne, Switzerland. My mom taught me how to fold paper airplanes around age five and I fell in love with the self-made toys right away. I always threw the planes out of our 3rd floor apartment window. The landlord wrote several letters to my parents telling them this needed to stop but I kept on throwing them into my neighbors’ gardens, until they finally threatened to evict us. 

A beautiful origami octopus became the tipping point for Mabona’s career which took off when it was spotted online, and inspired the shoe company, Asics, to create the movie shown below.

Origami In the Pursuit of Perfection from MABONA ORIGAMI on Vimeo.

Whether creating installations and interiors, crafting animals or abstracts, Mabona works with geometry to crease patterns of intricate beauty and precision. It’s a long way from disturbing the neighbors, and shoots right for our imagination.

Inspired by an article in D Pages.

Eco, trends, art, creativity and how they tumble through social media to shape culture fascinate EcoSalon columnist Dominique Pacheco. Her trends blog, mixingreality, speaks to these topics daily, and here at EcoSalon, she takes a weekly look at the intersection of eco and art. We call it heARTbeat.

The post heARTbeat: The Twists & Turns of Sipho Mabona’s Origami appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnOur ongoing look inside the intriguing world of a foodie.

While madly searching for food trucks, a good greens blog and love – we get another look into the secret life of a foodie. (Part 1 and 2 in case you missed them.)

Saturday September 1, 2012, 7:33 p.m.

Dear Diary,

This summer has been hectic! The Barista ended up being a total nightmare (you just can’t date people that bring PBR to dinner parties). Finished the coffee roasting class and then debated on building my own roasting machine in the backyard, but decided instead to focus my efforts on developing a new artisan salt business. Have been bottling up all kinds of infused salts, and everyone loves them so much, I figure I can totally sell them at farmers market. Or at least via my new salt blog. Who eats regular salt these days anyway? Boring.

Sunday September 2, 2012 4:42 p.m.

Dear Diary,

I love the final days of summer… so many good foraging adventures. I joined the local urban underground fruit collective and we’ve been going on undercover midnight pear and fig missions. There’s nothing like sneaking a juicy fig from someone’s yard as a midnight snack, it’s exhilarating. Plus that fruit is just going to go to waste anyway, I might as well make some fig anise jam out of it, right?

Wednesday September 5, 2012 7:38 p.m.

Dear Diary,

Biked home with a new set of small mason jars for all the new salts that I have been working on. As much as I try to save jars that my friends bring food over in, I just never have enough. So new ones it is… All because I am trying to bottle all these new salts. Fennel cardamon sea salt is my current favorite. Even delicious sprinkled over some homemade vegan caramel ice cream. Must launch the website soon. Should I start a salt blog in conjunction?

Friday September 7, 2012 2:14 p.m.

Dear Diary,

So overwhelmed by the severe tomato problem I am having this week.  Is six quarts of salsa too much?

Another midnight urban foraging expedition. I brought a jar of my fig anise jam and gave it to the really cute guy that has been on the last two midnight missions. He mentioned he recently got back from a trip to Mexico City and learned a super secret sauce to put on tacos. Perfect.

Saturday September 8, 2012 9:56 a.m.

Dear Diary,

I am so excited. I just got invited to take part in a food writing immersion class in Provence. It costs $8,000 (ack!) but I think it will totally be worth it to have a better understanding of southern French food culture, and really get to work on my food writing skills. Will be good for networking too, which can only help the salt business. Which by the way I just bought the domain for: www.infusedseasaltisbettersalt.com

Monday September 10, 2012 10:32 p.m.

Dear Diary,

Got yelled at when I picked a few rosemary stalks from a house on my ride home today. What is wrong with people? Ok, so by “a few” I mean I filled my bike basket. But I needed enough to dry out so I can make a full batch of Rosemary Chocolate Salt. Delicious right?

Wednesday September 12, 2012 9:48 p.m.

Dear Diary,

Cute Mr. Urban Forager asked me if I wanted to go and pick chanterelles this weekend. He said he knew of a secret spot. Yes, please.

Sunday September 16, 2012 8:18 p.m.

Dear Diary,

Foraging disaster. Never say that you know of a super secret spot for chanterelles if you don’t really know of one. Ending up with a basket of two chanterelles is not impressive. We can go ahead and cross Mr. Urban Forager off the list. As it turns out, I think he rarely showers anyway and he wore the same flannel he wore on the last two midnight missions. Which means I am going to have to find a new urban underground fruit collective. I need to focus on Infused Sea Salt is Better Salt anyway.

Tuesday September 18, 2012 9:26 p.m.

Dear Diary,

Overwhelmed by all that goes into launching an artisan food business. Realized that over drinking a few too many glasses of pinot and doing expenses last night. And what if I get sick of sea salt? Then what? I think my time could be better spent on focusing on my writing, so I went ahead and signed up for the immersion food writing class. Maybe I’ll meet a Frenchman. Countdown to Provence: 65 days! Can’t wait.

Friday September 21, 2012 6:34 a.m.

Dear Diary,

Woke up to the best email ever: a publisher dug up the book proposal I sent in earlier this year and wants to talk. It was the proposal for The Story of Greens and the People that Grow Them, all about people that have obsessions with kale, arugula and beyond. I can’t believe it. Looks like I’ll have to lay off the sea salt business right now, and maybe the immersion class will have to wait. As will this journal, and the potential Frenchman. All writing from now on goes into my book. I wonder if I can put kale chips on top of a chocolate cake?

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

The post Foodie Underground: The Secret Diary of a Foodie, Part Three appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnWealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants. – Epictetus

Qingiun began photographing people and their possessions ten years ago:

Huang took his first pictures as a teenager, inspired by an uncle in an era when the obvious hobbies for young Chinese were calligraphy and singing. His first proper camera, bought when he was 18, was the most valuable item in the family home.  He was clearly committed to the process.

Next year marks the 10th anniversary of the first photograph Huang took in the series. He plans to mark it by returning to the places he’s visited, or rather locations that are still recognizable – to see what has changed.

“In the last 10 years, China has seen such a fast rate of growth, I want to go back and see what the effects have been on their lives,” he says. “From the possessions each family uses in their daily lives, you get a good sense of the real levels of life for China’s people.”

Inspired by an article in BBC News.

Eco, trends, art, creativity and how they tumble through social media to shape culture fascinate EcoSalon columnist Dominique Pacheco. Her trends blog, mixingreality, speaks to these topics daily, and here at EcoSalon, she takes a weekly look at the intersection of eco and art. We call it heARTbeat.

The post heARTbeat: Huang Qingjun Photographs Chinese Families’ Worldly Goods appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnThe joy of delving into a good cookbook.

When I was home earlier this summer, I asked my mother for a recipe. She pulled out her worn 3-ring binder. This binder is blue, has yellowed pages falling out of it and has sat in the same place on the bookshelf for as long as I can remember. In it are recipes scratched in her handwriting of her earlier years, additions by her sisters, and almost four decades’ worth of recipe inspiration ripped from magazines.

My natural instinct when I need a recipe is to go to that online thing that starts with G. For my mother, it’s to go to her recipe shelf. If it’s not in the blue book then there has to be a recipe that can be improvised on elsewhere among the culinary titles. In fact, it was only recently that she called to tell me that she was wondering about a specific recipe and went to her computer herself to search around the internet for it (normally she calls me and has me cull the pages and select a few links, her personal search engine so to say).

I am ashamed to say that I have not started such a recipe collection myself. Raised in the digital age, my own is a mish-mash of bookmarked links and emails that I always plan to organize but never get around to. But although I am quick to tap in a search query that combines a few ingredients that I have lying around and I don’t know what to do with (raspberry, kale, go…), I have an affinity for my small cookbook stash.

The collection is small because I have limited space, and it’s worth committing to the tried and true: The Essential New York Times Cookbook (Amanda Hesser what would I do without you?), Vår Kokbok (a Swedish essential) Swedish Cakes and Cookies, a few from Moosewood Collective, Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking, and Sheila Lutkins’ All Around the World Cookbook. There are a few others here and there, but that is the staple collection and it doesn’t shift very much. I have a favorite recipe in each, and they all have numerous dog eared pages.

In need of dinner inspiration? Sit on the couch with a few of the books and a pen and paper and good things are bound to happen.

There is something that happens with cookbooks that doesn’t happen with food blogs or obsessively looking at food porn on Pinterest. Away from the screen, you engage with a recipe in a different way. You take time to think about the preparation and the process. That is why I prefer predominantly text cookbooks; you are not seduced by photos the way you are int he digital world, your are swayed by words and culinary combinations. A good cookbook is the one you can put your trust in; let it guide you through the cooking process.

And that is what a cookbook should be: a guidebook, a resource. The kind of thing you can go to again and again and again. Not because you loved one recipe, but because no matter how many times you read it, you’ll always learn something new. That is what I discovered in Roots: The Definitive Compendium with more than 225 Recipes, which arrived at my doorstep just a couple of weeks ago.

Let me restate the fact that I am hesitant to add new cookbooks to the collection; my appetite for more food inspiration is countered by an acceptance of the reality of space, and the fact that too many cookbooks can be a bad thing. But Roots was meant to be added to that space, it hit all of my cookbook expectations. It’s a resource (and a good one at that), the photos are beautiful but the recipes aren’t over dominated by them, the story is personal, and in reading it, you get a lesson in food. For example, I had no idea that carrots are believed to have originated in Afghanistan.

I had never given root vegetables much thought, but after reading through numerous sections I soon wondered how I had gone without this book for so long. Sauteed beet greens with a little lemon juice will now certainly be a regular concoction.

Newly obsessed with root vegetables, I caught up with Roots author Diane Morgan to learn more about the cookbook, the most underrated root vegetable out there and her favorite recipe (hint: it might be the only time I am ever tempted to make a cupcake, because these look good).

This book is such a valuable resource. Why do you think something like it hasn’t been done before?

There are a couple of much older books focused on the “common” root vegetables (beets, turnips, rutabagas, sweet potatoes), and there are encyclopedic books written on vegetables, but an encyclopedic book written on the large family of root vegetables along with a large selection of recipes hasn’t been written until now. I went looking for the book I wanted to own and realized it didn’t exist, so I decided to tackle the subject and write the book I wanted to own.

As a very comprehensive guide, this cookbook packs in a lot of information. How long did the research and writing process for it take? Any glitches along the way?

It took me two and a half years to develop the book proposal, and then research and write the entire book. I am not a botanist(!), so the research to make sure I found all the edible roots that exist was challenging. Even as I was turning in the manuscript I would double check some exotic root to make sure it was classified properly. With regard to glitches, there is a lot of confusion between malanga and taro and it took me time to resolve the distinctions. They are fascinating roots with interesting cooking properties. The high starch factor makes them delightful to mash and terrific as fritters.

I am assuming you ate a lot of root vegetable dishes while doing recipe development. Are you sick of them now? Or do you incorporate more roots into your diet than before?

I have never tired of eating roots. They are so varied and so seasonal that something that goes out of season, such as celery root, delivered a new-found excitement when I see it again the next season.

What was the most interesting thing you learned while writing the book?

There were many interesting discoveries, but I did love learning about all the edible tops – beet greens, radish tops, carrot tops, turnip tops – all are edible and highly nutritious.

Which is the most underrated root?

It would be a toss up between rutabagas and burdock root! Rutabagas take on many flavors – they are delicious when braised in beer and also paired with apples for a wonderful wintertime sweet galette. On the other hand, burdock root, used commonly in Japanese cuisine, is amazing when paired with mussels. If you love mussels then you must try my recipes for Steamed Mussels with Burdock Root, Shallots, and Sun-Dried Tomatoes.

If you had to pick one, what is your favorite root and why?

That’s like asking which is your favorite child. They all have such unique characteristics! However, since writing the book, I have incorporated the dark orange-fleshed sweet potatoes into my diet more often. They are an incredible superfood, packed with vitamins. I roast them or even grill-roast them and then rewarm them for breakfast. Skip your morning toast and eat a sweet potato!

Can you share one of your favorite recipes with us?

While I have many favorite recipes in the book, I am delighted with the Red Velvet Cupcakes because it is so unexpected and most folks think red velvet cake is made with food coloring, when, in fact, the gorgeous magenta color of the cupcakes comes from pureeing fresh-roasted beets.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Orange Buttercream

These darling magenta-hued cupcakes are brilliantly colored all the way through. No food coloring is used here; the color comes from pureeing freshly roasted beets. I tested the recipe with canned beets and the color is drab and faded, but given how easy it is to roast beets this simple step can be done while you measure and prepare the ingredients for the cupcakes and buttercream. I finely chop the roasted beets and then puree them in a food processor. It is important to let the machine run for a couple of minutes, scraping down the sides of the workbowl once or twice, until the puree is completely smooth.

Makes 12 cupcakes

Cupcakes

• 2 cups/200 g sifted cake/soft-wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp kosher or sea salt
• 1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 cups/342 g puréed red roasted beets
• 1 cup plus 2 tbsp/225 g granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs, beaten
• 2/3 cup/180 ml canola oil
• 3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

Orange Buttercream

• 1 1/4 cups/280 g unsalted butter at room temperature
• 2 cups confectioners’/icing sugar
• 1 tbsp heavy (whipping)/double cream
• 1/2 tsp pure orange oil (see Cook’s Notes)
• 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 to 3 tbsp fresh orange juice

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F/180°C/gas 4. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the beets, sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla. Using a rubber spatula, stir in one-third of the flour mixture, and continue stirring just until the flour disappears. Do not beat or overmix. Repeat, adding the remaining flour mixture in 2 batches.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, dividing the batter evenly and filling each cup almost to the top of the liner. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. Let the cupcakes rest in the pan, set on a wire rack, for 10 minutes. Transfer the cupcakes to the wire rack to cool completely, about an hour.

To make the buttercream, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or in a mixing bowl with a handheld electric mixer, cream the butter on low speed. Add the sugar, cream, orange oil, and vanilla, and beat until incorporated, about 2 minutes. Add the orange juice, a little at a time, until the buttercream is fluffy and smooth.

When the cupcakes are completely cool, spread a thick layer of buttercream over the tops, swirling the frosting to decorate the tops. Alternatively, the frosting can be transferred to a pastry bag and piped around the tops of the cupcakes. The cupcakes can be made up to 2 days in advance. Store, covered, at room temperature.

Cook’s Notes
Pure orange oil is an essential oil cold pressed from the rind of oranges. It is different from pure orange extract. Look for pure orange oil in the baking section of natural foods stores, at baking supply stores, or Middle Eastern grocers. Two brands I see often is Boyajian or Frontier.

The cupcakes freeze well and are handy to have on hand for a party. Freeze the cupcakes unwrapped on a baking sheet/tray. Once frozen, wrap them individually, first with plastic wrap/cling film and then with aluminum foil. The cupcakes can be frozen up to 1 month. Unwrap the cupcakes and thaw at room temperature.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

The post Foodie Underground: For the Love of Roots and Cookbooks appeared first on EcoSalon.

Column“We believe in participation – empowering people to have a place in the stories that are told around them. We research new ways to interact and tell stories.” – Daily tous les jours

The senses are tricky. One whiff of an ingredient in our favorite meal, or the sound of that love song’s minor notes, and we are transported to another time and another space, instantly. When the senses are blended, the effect can be proportionately enhanced. Such is the thinking behind the project 21 Balançoires: swinging with the  joy and freedom of abandon coupled with the creative collaboration of making sound.

21 Balançoires (21 Swings) from Daily Tous Les Jours on Vimeo

The multi-skilled, Daily tous les jours explored the topic of cooperation when designing 21 Balançoires. Cooperation, which states that together we achieve better things than separately, is at the center of the group’s success. Daily tous les jours consists of Mouna Andraos, Melissa Mongiat, Kelsey Snook who say about themselves:

We come from the fields of interaction design and narrative environments. With those skills, we design large scale projects that impact cities down to tiny ones that fit inside a pocket. Our projects bring magic to everyday places, behaviors and objects, inviting the public to become active contributors in the process and surrounding environments.

For 21 Balançoires, the result is a giant collective instrument made of 21 musical swings; each swing in motion triggers different notes, all the swings together compose a piece, but some sounds only emerge from cooperation. The project stimulates ownership of the new space, bringing together people of all ages and backgrounds, and creating a place for playing and hanging out in the middle of the city centre.  We owe the musical interpretation of this playful experiment to composer Radwan Ghazi-Moumneh.

Given their process, and the magical visceral appeal of 21 Balançoires, one could say that, indeed, this project has been more than an exercise of musical cooperation. It creates the kind of memories that can be stirred by the sight of a swing set and the sounds that it emits.

Eco, trends, art, creativity and how they tumble through social media to shape culture fascinate EcoSalon columnist Dominique Pacheco. Her trends blog, mixingreality, speaks to these topics daily, and here at EcoSalon, she takes a weekly look at the intersection of eco and art. We call it heARTbeat.

The post heARTbeat: 21 Balançoires = 21 Musical Chairs appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnFood is a privilege. Treat it that way.

“Making food makes you happy?”

I was on a walk with two friends and we had somehow arrived on the subject of food- a frequent occurrence in my everyday life. She was a bit surprised that food in general was on my list of things that made me feel good.

“Well, yeah.”

I thought about it for a second. “It’s a way to de-stress… if I have too much going on I feel good being in the kitchen and making something. It’s like a meditation.”

This was probably why I was feeling like I was having the Best. Weekend. Ever. I had discovered a new Mexican restaurant that didn’t have the typical Portland feel on Friday, scored a vial of truffle salt at farmers market on Saturday, and been offered up full access to a friend’s overflowing garden of tomato plants on Sunday. For a food lover, that is a pretty good three-day stretch.

Food does make me happy. Making it, thinking about it, talking about it. It’s true that in stressful moments I have been known to toss out the to-do list and go bake something instead.

I am not alone. Food can even be a way of dealing with larger issues. It can help us escape the mundane and it can help us romanticize our reality. Whether you like to cook it or just eat it, we are all affected by food in one way or another. There is a thrill in finding a new restaurant, thumbing through a new cookbook. Food is love. But that feeling is a luxury.

My mother and I were discussing a phone call she had had with my aunt, who in the course of talking about recipes had said, “isn’t it amazing how many recipes float around and yet we still can’t manage to feed everyone on the planet?”

It’s true. The fact that we even have time to discuss food is a luxury. While most of the world is concerned with putting the next meal on the table, or even just having access to basic nutrition, we’re frustrated because the steak was too salty, the artisan aioli was off the menu for the evening, or the creme brulée was burnt.

There is nothing wrong with the aforementioned behaviors – we do live in a modern society after all, and for those of us that have access to food, we have turned it into an art – but it is important to have perspective.

There were 925 million hungry people in the world in 2010, 19 million of those in developed countries. There are 10.9 million child deaths every year; poor nutrition plays a role in at least half of them.

Even if you are on a budget, when it comes to food, you are part of the 1%, and it’s important not to take our access and ability to talk about food for granted. The ability to appreciate food in the way that many of us do is because food is more than sustenance. We have what we need, and we know when we’re going to get it, which means we can relish in the details, be they locally harvested sea salt or homegrown fennel.

As I wrote last week, “In the modern age, if you are able to comfortably put food on the table, it is inexcusable to not think about what you are eating.” But that means more than just thinking about where your beef came from. It also means celebrating the people that produce your food, reveling in the simple joys of buying a handmade product, and thanking friends when they open up their garden to you. Not because these things are popular or trendy, but because they’re bettering our planet and communities.

I thought about all of this as I picked my way through 12 varieties of heirloom tomatoes on Sunday. To quote John Denver: “Only two things that money can’t buy and that’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.” It’s true. There are few things that are comparable to the smell of a tomato vine basking in the sun. I picked an entire backpack’s worth and carted it home on my bicycle, intent on making sun-dried tomatoes and storing them in olive oil and mason jars. This is not just late summer bliss, this is luxury.

We are privileged to be able to celebrate the moments where we grow our own food, when we produce a meal that is made with all local ingredients, when we make a meal from scratch instead of opting for something processed. Mere decades ago, these things were the norm, but in an agribusiness, monocrop, fast food kind of world,  they have fallen by the wayside, only to be slowly picked back up again.

Food may not be what you’re passionate about, but we could all take more time to think about it.

So this week, take time to be thankful for what you’re eating, appreciate the simple pleasures, and find a friend that grows tomatoes.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

The post Foodie Underground: Appreciating What You Have appeared first on EcoSalon.