Where is the Outrage?

The country is awash in people pouring out their sadness over the violent murder of 20 innocent children in Connecticut yesterday. Facebook posts overwhelmingly express grief and sadness and, while I agree that this is so sad that if I think too long about it I will cry until I vomit, where is the outrage?

Why aren’t people furious that we live in a country where it is easy to get guns? Where semiautomatic weapons are easily obtainable. Where mental health services are hard to obtain. Where Congress is so frightened of the National Rifle Association that lawmakers in this election year didn’t even mumble “gun control” after some nutter shot up a movie theater in Colorado. That even after this wretched event in Connecticut, there will be garbled mutterings about “doing something” but how much do you want to bet not a damned thing happens to keep guns out of the hands of murders?

I, for one, am really pissed off.

We live in an increasingly violent society with a culture steeped in blood and gore. The top television shows over the past decade include various forms of “Law and Order” and “CSI,” “The Sopranos” and “Dexter.”

The typical American child will view more than 200,000 acts of violence, including more than 16,000 murders before age 18. Television programs display 812 violent acts per hour; children's programming, particularly cartoons, displays up to 20 violent acts hourly.

Video games. Don’t even get me started.

While violence in the media is another topic entirely, do not think for one New York minute that seeing all that violence does not have a tremendous effect on children. It does and that has been proven time and again.

The FBI estimates that there are more than 200 million privately-owned firearms in the US. If you add those owned by the military, law enforcement agencies and museums, there is probably about 1 gun per person in the country.

For most United States citizens, purchasing a handgun is as simple as going to your local gun store, choosing a gun, showing photo I.D., filling out the background check form, and then paying for the gun upon approval from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is usually instantaneous but could take three days.

The bottom line is there are a hell of a lot of guns out there and it is pretty easy to get one.

For the record, I am not the sort of liberal who quakes at the thought of shooting someone down. If someone shot and killed Georgia, I would kill them with my bare hands. If they shot themselves, I would want to find a way to bring them back to life so I could kill them with my bare hands. We don’t have a gun in the house, not because I would have a problem using it on someone who came into my house uninvited, but because I fear I would blow my husband’s head off some night when he came in late and I was bleary from sleep and fright.

If I ever did decide to get a gun, I think I should have to take some kind of test to prove that I could shoot it safely and clean it properly. People aren’t supposed to drive cars without proving that they can motor about the streets without harming anyone else, so why on Earth should someone be able to buy something as potentially deadly as a gun without proving they can wield it safely?

I would expect to get a thorough background check from the FBI, any state I had ever lived in and undergo a mental evaluation to make sure I’m not stark raving mad.

But no. Fill out an application and presto – you get a gun. If you turn up at a gun show, you can pretty much avoid “all that red tape” (italics and quotes to indicate extreme sarcasm) and go home with a trunk full of firearms.

Gun advocates are just full of reasons why this is a good idea. Let’s address a few of the “myths” – I will be nice and call them myths and not lies or rationalizations of idiots and crazy people.

•          Guns don’t kill people. People do. What genius came up with that slogan? PEOPLE with guns kill people, ass hole. And guess who makes it easier for PEOPLE to get guns? The NRA and Congress. Yes, someone could walk into a public place with a knife and start slashing, but they aren’t going to get very far with that. But those semiautomatic weapons that gun-advocates so prize, can mow down dozens of people in a few seconds.
•         The second amendment that allows us to take up arms against the government is one of our most precious rights. Does anyone SERIOUSLY in this day and age think that a bunch of maniacs armed to the teeth are going to take down the United States government? If you do, you’re an idiot. That ship sailed so many years ago I can’t even pinpoint when that became utterly impossible. Suffice it to say, that ain’t going to happen. Get over it. It is high time the second amendment be reevaluated for modern reality.
•        If only EVERYONE had a gun, they could shoot the shooter. You know, that is just so stupid that I don’t even know where to begin. In the most violent “civilized” country in the world (that would be the U.S. in case you are confused), arming more people is just going to result in more people getting shot. And not the bad guys. Innocent people. It is well documented that countries with fewer guns have less gun violence. So just shut up about that. It’s stupid and you’re wrong.
•         The founding fathers WANTED us to have guns. I am so damned sick of the right wrapping themselves in the founding fathers, I want to scream. There is no way that the people who wrote the U.S. Constitution envisioned this world we live in. And I am going to go out on a limb and say that I bet they would be really annoyed that pedantic freaks use them to justify bad ideas.

Speaking of the founding fathers, does anyone think that they sat around weeping into their lace collars about how mean the British were for that taxation without representation thing? Hell no. They were mad. They threw some tea into the harbor. They took up arms and fought for the right to be independent. While I am not advocating war, I am merely saying that if they were merely “saddened” by the state of affairs, nothing would have changed.

The civil rights movement – yes, Martin Luther King Jr. advocated non-violence (good man), but do you think he decided to fight for the rights of black people because he was “disappointed” or saddened. Hell no. He was outraged and disgusted. He organized and through non-violent actions, he changed the world. He and the thousands of people who took part in the civil rights movement were warriors.

So to all my liberal friends who are weeping into their fancy coffee drinks about this sad state affairs, stop wringing your hands and get angry. We out number the gun-clinging fools and we need to stand up, express that outrage and demand that Congress and our state lawmakers make it hard for someone to get a gun and kill a bunch more kindergarteners.

Anyone who argues otherwise simply chooses to protect guns over protecting children. And if you’re in that camp, you’re an asshole.

Waste Not, Want Not and All That

Anyone feeding a kid, especially a baby trying new things, is probably going to waste a lot of food. “Beets? Are you kidding me! NOOOOOOOO!” Then the batch of beet puree or beet/blueberry puree (because you thought hiding the putrid beet taste amid plump, juicy blueberry yumminess would make beets palatable) is without a taker. I hate beets, so what did I expect? Blueberries seriously didn’t help.

Thanks to my much beloved “Good to the Grain” cookbook, the beet pancakes I made with the leftover puree were amazing. I hate beets. I hate pancakes. Beet pancakes were amazing. Go figure.

Or you have a food snob – can I amend my wish upon a star to “not so food snobby that she won’t eat leftovers or something that has been frozen?” I fear one does not get do-overs in the wish department. So that mango/carrot/apple puree, which was devoured right out of the food processor and eaten only one more time was rejected by Miss Picky Pants once it was frozen and thawed. That made lovely smoothies with plain yogurt.

I was raised by my grandmother, who grew up in the Great Depression, and wasting ANYTHING, let alone food, is immoral. Her influence greatly informs my everyday choices. I turn the light out every single time I leave the room. I save rubber bands. I save the pages from the page-a-day Basset Hound calendar to make grocery lists on the back. The thermostat is low – we wear sweaters.

Don’t get me wrong. I throw out food. Sometimes I wait days and days until whatever in the refrigerator looks spotty is, in fact, covered in some kind of slimy, fuzzy substance so I may throw it away without guilt. But who am I kidding? The ideal is to use that food and not throw it away.

Americans waste mountains of food every year. In fact, we toss 40 percent of the food supply, which amounts to a whapping $165 billion, or for the average family of four, that means $2,275 of food each year is tossed into the trash, according to a study released this past summer by the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) food and agriculture program.

Recently, NPR did a series on food waste in restaurants. All that food, which is the largest component of solid waste, according to the NRDC, goes into landfills, and makes methane. Surely I don’t need to go into what methane does to the environment, do I? Unsold fruits and vegetables in grocery stores account for a big part of the wasted food.

So what can we do? Bake bread!

I made spinach-zucchini puree and Georgia refused to eat it. The recipe looked lovely. I tried it. It was rather gross, so I couldn’t blame her. That sent me to my rather disturbingly large collection of cookbooks to find a good recipe for zucchini bread, figuring zucchini/zucchini-spinach – same(ish) thing.

Once again “Good to the Grain” came through with what looked like a great recipe for my processor bowl of rejects. I cut back on the sugar on the hope that Georgia would eat the bread and made some tweaks since I never have everything a recipe calls for just sitting about in the kitchen. If you have wheat germ, use ¼ c of that instead of the whole wheat flour in the recipe below. If you aren’t avoiding sugar, you can use the ½ c called for, although I swear it is not necessary.

The result was pretty dang good. The bread was slightly sweet, hearty and was the color of money. Not necessarily the most appetizing color, but not terribly off-putting either. Georgia gobbled it up. Drew inhaled it. I liked it, too. Several of my friends have asked for it via Facebook. Here it is:

Spinach Zucchini Bread

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

¾ c spinach zucchini puree (or use ½ lb grated zucchini)

½ c plain yogurt

2 eggs

1 c all-purpose flour

1 c multigrain flour mix* (or use whole wheat flour, all purpose or ½ c of each)

¼ whole wheat flour

¼ c sugar

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp kosher salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly butter a standard load pan.

Combine the melted butter, spinach puree, yogurt and eggs and whisk thoroughly.

Sift the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl, pouring back any bits left in the sifter. Add wet ingredients to dry and stir, gently folding until just combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

Bake for 60 to 70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. The bread should be dark golden brown and spring back when touched. Remove the cake from the oven and let cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then invert onto a cooling rack.

Wrapped tightly, the bread should keep for three days.

*The multigrain flour mix that Boyce alls for in “Good to the Grain” is

1 c whole wheat flour

1 c oat flour

1 c barley flour

½ c millet flour

½ c rye flour

If you don’t have the burning desire to bake with various flours like I do, or you think “are you kidding me, when will I ever use millet flour again?” mix whatever combination of these that you feel you might use again. Or just use whole wheat flour. You could use all-purpose flour, but I think the rustic element that whole wheat adds really helps out in a bread that has vegetables or fruit as an ingredient.

Thanksgiving Confessions Plus a Pumpkin Custard Recipe

Thanksgiving Confessions Plus a Pumpkin Custard Recipe

I must confess, I just don’t like Thanksgiving food. Especially turkey. You can brine it, fry it, slather the flesh with butter and herbs and always I think “Meh. The poor bird.”

The side dishes are generally OK. My homemade stuffing with a combo of hand-cubed rustic country bread and olive bread mixed with mushrooms and hazelnuts is good. That gloppy crap cooked inside the bird is horrifying to me. How about some salty glue with your bland meat?! No, thank you.

Homemade cranberry sauce is great, but the jellied kind that comes from a can, makes that creepy slurping noise on the way out and then has can ridges in it -- that is just wrong. 

The “New York Times Cookbook” has a mean creamed spinach recipe. My sweet potato biscuits are to die for. Those two dishes scarcely a holiday meal make. I mean, I would be fine with it, but guests would more than likely be disappointed.

Then there is the fact that we don’t eat a lot of meat in our house -- mostly because of the way the animals are treated in factory farms, partly because the idea of letting something be born just so you can kill and eat it kind of freaks me out and because I really don’t like the way most meat tastes.

In contemplating the holidays with a kid, we are giving a lot of thought to what kinds of traditions we want to create for Georgia. We will raise her mostly vegetarian with occasional fleshy meals, because that is how we eat.

Every year 45 million turkeys are killed for Thanksgiving. The vast majority of those turkeys live on big factory farms where they have a miserable existence before dying. They are filled with chemicals and hormones. PETA has captured on film the most violent and horrifying mistreatment of turkeys. It makes me really sick to think about it, fortifying my already lukewarm view of turkey as dinner.

Then there is the time I got stuck behind a chicken truck that was on the way to the Tyson’s plant. I still get weepy thinking about those poor birds, covered in the waste product of the bird above, unable to move, looking utterly, utterly miserable.

I am a thoughtful person who evaluates all my choices in conjunction with my moral/ethical compass, how it affects the wider world and what sort of message it will send to my daughter. The end result being most things are more complicated for me than for other people and we don't just follow traditions. We think about how we want to live and fit our beliefs in with the mainstream. Or not. 

So what should be on holiday menus? No turkey. On some distance Thanksgiving, I envision venison stuffed with mushroom duxelles. I have a vague idea that if a deer is wandering about in the forest and never knew what hit it, it isn’t as sad as being born to be dinner. Maybe I am making justifications to fuel my love of Bambi.

If Georgia goes to school and feels like a freak for not having turkey, we will find humanely raised turkey and experiment. Maybe some sort of Bobby Flay-inspired Southwestern recipe that involves a cumin spice rub and a green chile mac and cheese side dish. The mind whirls with possibilities. Maybe Georgia will decide to be completely vegetarian and then we will have great fun finding delicious, festive meals that do not involve tofurkey, because seriously. That is just gross.

While not one to cave to tradition in any way, I do see the sense in pumpkin on a fall menu. They are abundant this time of year. Their brilliant orange color is festive. I had this darling little sugar pumpkin from my farm share and I needed to find something to make with it.

I thought some sort of sugar-free custard might be nice. I wanted a bit of egg yolk to add fat and protein for Georgia. I needed a milky substance, but babies aren’t supposed to have milk so I decided upon coconut milk. Those fall spices like ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon were a must. The result was brilliant, if I do say so myself. Georgia ate an entire ramekin full when they came out of the oven and adored the leftovers. Drew spread it on toast and thought it was genius. Because there is no sugar, this recipe isn’t ideal for adult palates, which have been conditioned for sugar, sugar, sugar. A drizzle of maple syrup over top should do the trick.

Pumpkin Custard

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

½ roasted and pureed sugar pumpkin (or about 1 can of pumpkin)

2 egg yolks, beaten

1/3 c coconut milk

Any combination of the spices below and in amounts you like or use all of them – this is a guideline

¼ tsp powdered ginger

¼ nutmeg

¼ cinnamon

Whisk all ingredients together and pour into one-cup ramekins. Place in a ceramic baker and fill half way to sides of ramkeins with water that has recently boiled. Bake for 30 minutes or until middle is set.

You can use the rest of the coconut milk for a lovely curry with mixed vegetables and your choice of protein. The rest of the pumpkin can be baked into scones or some other baked good if you don’t have a baby who will eat the puree.

Let Georgia Eat Cake

Oh the irony/horror/hypocrisy/appropriateness of the second entry of a blog dedicated to teaching a child to eat good food being about making and eating cake.

When Georgia was born I was adamant that she would not get sweets until she was much older. Nope, she was going to eat vegetables and the only sweet taste she would get would be from fruit. Not fruit juice. Fruit.

Americans consume about 152 lbs. of caloric sweeteners per year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Caloric sweeteners are defined as cane and beet sugars, corn sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners. I assume things like honey or maple syrup.

That type of sugar intake is directly linked to type 2 diabetes and obesity. Americans eat more sugar (in its various forms) than any other country. We’re the fattest and we are among the sickest from preventable diseases. Diseases which are linked to how fat we are, which (did I mention?) is linked to the shocking amounts of sugar we consume.

The horror. I vowed my kid was NOT going to be a sugar-sucking fiend, walking around with Pixie sticks in her fists and gobbling up cake. No freaking way. No sugar for her.

Then I was making plum shortcakes for a dinner party and I simmered the plums in a sprinkling of light brown sugar, a splash of water, cardamom, some ginger, a bit of brandy.* Georgia was staring at it so intently and I thought, “oh, why not” and gave her a little spoonful of the plum syrup. Her eyes grew wide and sparkled. She smiled. I clearly had to fish out some plums and set them aside to blend up. Georgia LOVED those plums.

The more I thought about how I want Georgia to grow up, I realized I want her to get pleasure from life and especially have a fondness for meal times with family and friends. Eating shouldn’t be a chore about shoveling in nutrients. It should be about learning to eat a variety of foods that include kale and spinach and whole grains, but also dessert.

Also factoring into my evolving thoughts was Drew talking about how sugary things – candy, sugared cereal, etc – were banned from his house when he was growing up. That not only created a mystique about them and a desire to try them out, but because Drew is the nice guy that he is, it also caused him a great deal of guilt when he would have a bowl of Cocoa Puffs at a friend’s house. He also said he thought those things would taste a whole lot better and didn’t get what all the carrying on was about.

I felt that same confusion the first time I saw the Alamo.

I do not want Georgia to be sneaking Cocoa Puffs and then feeling guilty about it. That would make me sad for her and sad for our relationship. If she wants to try Cocoa Puffs, then that is a great dessert option on occasion. We can make our own candy, which I trust will put all those Nestle products to shame.

Oh wait, this is a story about cake. I did not set out to make cake for Georgia. I had a bunch of apples. I had buttermilk I needed to use. I had been flipping through my much-loved copy of “Good to the Grain.” I saw a recipe for Apple Graham Coffee Cake. It called for exactly those ingredients. You do the math. I obviously had to make that cake, but tweaked for an infant.

Because Georgia would be eating this, I wanted to cut back on the sugar and I had to make a few changes, because I didn’t have a couple of ingredients. I didn’t have whole wheat pastry flour, but I did have oat flour. I didn’t have apple sauce, but I did have some homemade spiced pear puree.

The result had a moist but rustic crumb, just a hint of sweetness, which made it taste more like bread with maple kissed apple chunks on top rather than a coffee cake. It was awesome. We all three loved it, although Georgia prefers pureed figs or plain yogurt. Good girl!

Apple Coffee “Cake”

 Apple Topping

3 large apples, peeled, cored, cut into small chunks (about 1 inch)

¼ stick unsalted butter

1 to 2 TBSP maple syrup

½ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp powdered ginger

Dry Mix

¾ c all-purpose flour

1 ¼ c whole wheat flour

¼ c oat flour

¼ c light brown sugar

half of ¼ c sugar

1 tsp baking powder

½ TBSP cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

Wet Mix

½ stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 c buttermilk

¼ c plain, whole milk yogurt

¼ c roasted pear puree

1 egg

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rub the inside of a 9-inch round cake pan with butter.

2. Melt the ¼ stick of butter, maple syrup and cinnamon in a skillet over medium-high heat until bubbly. Add the apples and toss to coat them with the butter mixture and let the apples sear for one minute without stirring. Cook 6 to 10 minutes or until tender and slightly caramelized. Don’t keep messing with them – let them sit a bit before stirring so they get a nice color. When done, remove from the pan and scrape apples and their juices onto a plate. Set aside.

3. Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl, pouring back into the bowl bits of grain or other ingredients left in the sifter.

4. Whisk the wet ingredients until thoroughly combined. Scrape the wet ingredients into the dry ones and mix together. Scrape the batter into the cake pan, smooth the top and sprinkle with the apples, ensuring that the entire the cake is covered.

5. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until the cake is golden brown, springs back when lightly touched and/or a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

*Don’t freak out about the brandy. It was probably less than a tablespoon (who measures?) and had been boiling away, so alcohol content bye bye. I did not get a baby drunk.

First Foods

Welcome to Cooking with Georgia, an adventure in raising a sassy, compassionate girl who (I hope, hope, hope) will love to eat good food and possibly cook it, too. You’ll find (I hope, hope, hope) some good recipes for your kids and the rest of the family, be inspired to explore local farms and food, and think more deeply about issues and topics, probably all food related, that perhaps you have only given a cursory glance. Probably I will make you mad at some point, because I prize being thought provoking over being nice.

All parents want their children to have a better life than they, themselves, had. In the great cosmic sense, I want that for my daughter; but specifically I want her to be a better eater. I have the lofty goal of my daughter eating lots of fruits and vegetables, a chicken nugget never passing her lips and I’d like her to develop a healthy disdain for box macaroni and cheese. She will never, ever eat a cake from a box. Not on my watch.

My goals stem from concern over the current obesity rate in the United States and are inspired by the other f-word – French -- parenting, thanks to reading Pamela Druckerman’s “Bringing Up Bebe” shortly before Georgia was born.

Nearly 36 percent of U.S. adults and almost 17 percent of children are currently obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control. To paint an even gloomier picture, a recent study by the Trust for American’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation predicts that unless something drastically changes in the American diet and lifestyle, the U.S. will see obesity rates averaging 50 percent by 2030. For the first time, children are expected to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents and kids are being diagnosed with diabetes and other diseases that had been the provenance of old age.

I also am intrigued by the idea that children can eat a variety of foods, not kidded up (or would that be down?) and can behave like civilized human beings in a restaurant.

Let me just say up front, this journey is not about judging other mothers and their choices. Everyone has to make parenting (and eating) decisions according to their own values, free time, budget, interest, goals, etc. Although, if you are putting soda in the bottle and feeding your baby cheese doodles, I am totally going to judge you for that. I am fortunate to have lots of free time and the ability to buy organic produce for my daughter, plus I have a passion and obsession for food – mostly baking, but a girl cannot live on biscuits alone; at least not without becoming a statistic in the obesity epidemic.

But I digress … at eight months old, Georgia has eaten things I hadn’t even heard of until recently – thanks to the odd assortment from our CSA box. She loved ground cherry marmalade, for example. I am making all of Georgia’s baby food, mostly from the ingredients in our CSA box, but supplemented from organic produce as necessary.

As a first foray into this blog, I will simply list the things that Georgia has eaten in her first two-plus months of trying real food.

• Avocado
• Beets
• Apples
• Pears
• Figs
• Roasted Brussels sprouts and potatoes with blue cheese
• Cottage cheese
• Plain yogurt
• Bagel and vegetable cream cheese
• Scone with dried cherries
• Butternut squash
• Whole wheat macaroni with roasted squash puree in place of the cheese
• Herbed goat cheese
• Black beans with cumin and quinoa
• Roasted kuri squash
• Split pea soup
• Curried red lentil soup with brown rice
• Lentil pilaf with dates and coconut
• Pumpkin custard made with egg yolk, coconut milk and spices (no sugar)
• Fish
• Plums
• Mango
• Carrot, mango, apple puree
• Beets 
• Pasta with tomato sauce
• Chocolate pudding (I know! But it was just one bite.)
• Peaches
• Banana
• Kale, potato, parmesan puree
• Spinach
• Zucchini
• Carrots
• Carrots and zucchini together
• Mushrooms
• Peanut butter
• Scrambled egg yolk
• Cauliflower
• Apple cake sweetened with roasted pear puree and apples on top
• Baby cereal – mixed grain with apple and sweet potatoes rather than rice given the recent reports on arsenic levels in rice
• Yams
• Sweet potato

It is possible all of this will backfire and Georgia, despite her varied baby diet, will emerge into toddlerhood insisting on only beige food. I don’t know. This is a journey. An adventure. A real-life experiment and I hope you come along with us to see how it all turns out.