The things we carry

At Earth Hour dinner the other night, my hostess Holly sent us all home with slices of chocolate chip date cake. I didn't realize how deeply I had internalized the idea of avoiding one-use plastic until I felt myself cringe as she casually pulled out a ziplock bag to wrap it in. I didn't say anything, but that ziplock bag is sitting on my counter still, several days later, like Banquo's ghost.

Holly is about as green as they come--active on the American Institute of Architect green design committees, spearheads construction debris reuse for a department of the city of Chicago, an avid cook. But she didn't think twice about pulling out that ziplock bag.

We pack a lot of things in throwaway wrappers that we ought to be reusing. How many times have you gone to the grocery store and left your 14 canvas bags in the car? And you get to the check out, and just say, oh they're in the car I'll just use plastic today. But why not go back out to the car and get the bags? Or put the groceries back into the cart and bag them when you get to the car. I shake my head in wonder every time I see some young mother, of a generation who should know better, and in affluent areas of the city where one assumes a degree of awareness and buy-in, leaving the grocery store with groceries stuffed into 20 or 30 petroleum-based plastic bags. What will it take to create awareness and a willingness to act when mothers like that don't even understand that what they're doing is wrong.

Doggie bags made of styrofoam. Lunchboxes made of plastic. When will we learn that avoiding these things is easy, cheap and necessary. We simply cannot keep casually wrapping in plastic a piece of cake that's going to be consumed 10 minutes later.

We need to teach our children to be thoughtful and planning-oriented. We need to train ourselves to stewardship; to bring the bags in from the car, or go back out for them if we forget. We need to pack our fruit in paper bags, and never buy another ziplock again. Or at the very least, to wash them.

Green isn't just reading the proper blogs and donating to Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Green is getting to the point where you cannot bring yourself to use plastic when there's an alternative, and to have the courage to tell your friend, "just wrap it in wax paper."

Another risotto
1 cup Arborio rice
4 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup raisins (they can be crusty old dry ones, which is what actually inspired this)
1 medium onion, diced
1 eggplant, roasted (or from frozen preserved)
2-3 cups broth
salt and pepper to taste
grated hard cheese

Remember, you cannot leave risotto for even a minute--keep stirring or you'll be scrubbing a burnt pot later.

Heat the broth to a simmer, and keep it there. Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the raisins and saute about a minute, add the onions and saute until they just start to go transparent. Add the rice and saute about 5 minutes, until they start to look a little toasted (not burnt).

Start adding the simmering broth 1/2 cup at a time. It's important to add the broth in small amount and allow it to absorb into the rice completely before you add more. When the first 1/2 cup is absorbed, add another, and allow it to be absorbed. When you've used half the broth, add the eggplant, stirring thoroughly. The eggplant adds a lot of moisture, so allow that moisture to be absorbed as well.

Continue to add the simmering broth 1/2 cup at a time, until the dish is sticky but not glutinous. I've never used all the broth, the one I made last night used only 2 cups because of all the moisture in the eggplant.

Serve hot, sprinkle with grated cheese. This dish does not keep well.

Economies of scale

One thing about eating "real" and local is convenience. It is terribly counter intuitive. It turns out to be much more challenging, expensive, and time consuming to buy flour, eggs, milk and meat from Wisconsin, 50 miles away, than it is to buy kiwifruits from Chile.

I did finally find a local-ish place to get chicken and eggs, Harrison Poultry Farms, about 15 miles. They weren't on localharvest.com so maybe their farm in southern Wisconsin doesn't make the "local" cut.

There's another Wisconsin farm called Great River that seems to sell flour to Sam's Club, so I'm off to Sam's Club some time this week to buy $2.20 a pound flour, grown and milled in Southern Wisconsin, as opposed to 70c a pound flour, grown and milled god knows where-- you can't tell from the packaging. India for all I know. I worked out the cost-- if I make all my own bread, the expensive flour makes each loaf about the same price as the store brand. If you count my time as having no monetary value.

I can get local milk at Whole Foods; I just have to forsake a 20-year-old vow never to shop at Whole Foods since they closed down all the old locally owned organic grocers that they bought when they moved in, despite promises not to. (And the ones they couldn't buy they forced out of business.) Local cheese is abundant at the regular chain markets, thank goodness. I actually have a neighborhood butcher (!); he tells me his meat is from Iowa, and I'm going to count that as close enough for jazz.

In all, the thing that this challenge seems to boil down to is the American character. As a red blooded rugged individualist I find myself resisting the time I have to carve out of a tight schedule, greater good bedamned. Not counting cooking time, I figure I have about 8 hours a week for non-work work, if you see what I mean, like blogging and meeting these challenges. Instead of one-stop-shopping for groceries, and being able to walk to the store, I have to go to several different shops all over the north side (I just can't justify trekking to the south side or the 'burbs for this). I realize that doing this might start a butterfly effect. If every singleton decides "not worth the trouble" then we'll never create a critical mass to force change. But do I really want to be the pebble that starts the landslide? Do I really have that power?

I guess that's why they call it a challenge.

All in all, it seemed appropriate to go rogue here in my frustration, and propose a risotto which I made with imported rice (already in the larder), hothouse tomatoes (yay! local, and extremely expensive) and summer squash. Ah, irony.

Tomato risotto with summer squash

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil (or use the oil from the sundrieds)
1/2 cup minced yellow onion (about 1/4 pound)
1 tablespoon minced garlic (about 4 cloves)
1 tablespoon sun dried tomatoes, diced
1 cup Arborio rice
3 medium tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 medium summer squash, diced
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups vegetable stock
Freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (from Wisconsin, hooray!)
coarse salt (optional)

Melt butter with oil in a 2 quart stock pot; stir in onions, sundried tomatoes, and garlic, saute until onions are translucent. Add rice and stir to coat, cook for about 4 more minutes. Add tomatoes. Start adding broth 1/2 cup at a time, simmering each time until all the liquid is absorbed. There may be some stock left over. Halfway through this process, add the squash.

Stir in pepper and cheese, add salt to taste, if desired, and serve hot.

Risotto is stone soup, too

Risotto is my new favorite thing to make. That is all I will write on this one, because I have already had two beers.

Goat cheese-mushroom-spinach risotto

6 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1 medium onion, diced
4 oz spinach (6 cups), chopped up.
1 pint mushrooms, chopped fine
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice (9 oz)
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon ground parsley
small goat cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1-2 teaspoons black peppercorns, ground
2/3 cup almont slices, toasted
1 apple, roasted and chopped

for the risotto:
Bring broth to a simmer and keep at a bare simmer, covered. Meanwhile, cook onion, mushrooms and chopped spinach in butter in a 4-quart heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring until softened. Add rice, garlic, and parsley and cook, stirring, 3 minutes. Stir in 1/2 cup simmering broth and cook at a strong simmer, stirring frequently, until broth is absorbed. Continue simmering and adding broth 1/2 cup at a time, stirring constantly and letting each addition be absorbed before adding the next, until rice is creamy-looking but still al dente (it should be the consistency of thick soup), about 18 minutes total. (There will be leftover broth.)

Stir in apple pieces and mix. Stir in cheese, salt, pepper, almonds and simmer, stirring, 1 minute. (If necessary, thin risotto with some leftover broth.)

Blessed be

I tried something new for the Winter Solstice, as this day symbolizes newness with the start of the sun's return journey through longer days. It symbolizes renewal in every religion of the world. People have been celebrating the Solstices ever since some genius figured out that it marks the largest variance between day and night, nearly 5,000 years ago. It seemed to me a Solstice meal had to have body, and, here in the frozen north, had to come from the larder, rather than fresh-picked (or modernly preserved).

So, for a blessed Solstice, with a little help (okay, pretty much the entire recipe) from my friends at Epicurious.com.

Winter squash risotto
large acorn squash (or other winter squash)
6 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1 medium onion, diced
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice (9 oz)
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
5 tablespoons finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (1/2 oz) or other hard cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1-2 teaspoons white peppercorns, ground
2/3 cup walnut pieces, lightly crushed and toasted
4 oz arugula, swiss chard, or spinach (6 cups), or broccoli florets, chopped up.

Roast squash:
Halve squash lengthwise and seed, roast slices, skin side down, in a shallow baking pan in middle of oven until tender and golden, about 50 minutes at 350F/175C. Remove from oven and cool until you can handle it, then peel and cut roughly into 1/2-inch pieces. (Peel can be reserved to make more broth).

Toast walnuts by placing on an ungreased baking sheet in the cooling oven. Do not turn the oven back on; the residual heat is plenty.

for the risotto:
Bring broth to a simmer and keep at a bare simmer, covered. Meanwhile, cook onion in butter in a 4-quart heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring until softened. Add rice, garlic, and cumin and cook, stirring, 3 minutes. Stir in 1/2 cup simmering broth and cook at a strong simmer, stirring frequently, until broth is absorbed. Continue simmering and adding broth 1/2 cup at a time, stirring constantly and letting each addition be absorbed before adding the next, until rice is creamy-looking but still al dente (it should be the consistency of thick soup), about 18 minutes total. (There will be leftover broth.)
NB: I was completely amazed at the accuracy of this description for adding the broth, by the way. Having never made risotto before, I was a little worried about how to get that wonderful texture.

Stir in squash pieces. These broke down, as the squash was quite soft, giving the mixture a lovely golden color, and distributing the sweet flavor of the squash through the whole thing. Stir in cheese, salt, pepper, walnuts and greens and simmer, stirring, 1 minute. (If necessary, thin risotto with some leftover broth.) You can also add other herbs. Epicurious suggested sage, but I'd go "to taste" here.

Serve risotto immediately. It also tasted great the next day, but had lost the nice texture.

Blessed be is a traditional Wiccan greeting (or as traditional as Wicca gets, anyway), and I just like it as an all-purpose holiday greeting, nice and ecumenical.