mixed (food) messages

happy (belated) earth day, everyone!

in honor of our mama earth i am going to share some new salads i recently came up with, but first i want to talk about some serious mixed messages i've been getting lately.

there seems to be a fight going on. one side says we should eat healthy; things that grow from the earth, greens that help fight cancer and strengthen our heart. we should subscribe to the ideals of vegetarianism or at least eat less meat. our food should be sourced locally if possible without the use of harmful pesticides, and if you must consume meat, do it in the most ethically responsible way possible, with the least environmental impact and cruelty inflicted. seems like a good idea, right?

well, the other side says put bacon in everything.

i live in nyc, which may not be the center of the universe, but it sure feels like it sometimes. here, there has been a major foodie trend in the past year or so of adding bacon to everything. now i admit i understand why people like bacon, but what i don't get is the neglect for our health.  just today i read about the monstrous caloric explosion known as the bacon and peanut-butter burger  at shake shack. i'm all for culinary creativity, but i think before we all marvel at the ingeniousness of flavor combinations this patty provides, we should also consider the health repercussions. one of the most applauded restaurants that opened this season in new york is the breslin at the ace hotel. well-regarded chef, april bloomfield has long-since secured her position as one the leading carnivorous players in the nyc food scene with her restaurant, the spotted pig. the beef tongues and calf's livers she was doing there seem like old hat compared to the deep-fried stuffed pig's foot for two at the shiny new breslin. in the ny times review by sam sifton, he describes the process of serving the fat from the foot in the following way:

"She serves the fat result in gravy made of reduced braising liquid, thick with pillowy shallots and green flecks of deconstructed brussels sprouts. It’s very good: meat that is fat; fat that is meat. (Food that is sticky.)" he also says  the following about his aftermath experience, "it is the sort of restaurant you end up thinking about a lot, not always pleasantly, staring up at the ceiling at 3 in the morning in cold sweat and mild panic. Yes, the food is good. But it is monochromatically good: it is 10 colors of fat. Excess can become wretched, and fast. It’s cool to hook up with the Breslin, especially if you’re lucky enough to sit in one of the semiprivate nooks near the open kitchen. But we should see other people. It would be death to be a regular there."

literally. so then why are people waiting in line for 3 hours to eat deep-fried fat these days?

other bacon trends popping up all over town include bacon-infused cocktails, like the bacon-bourbon old-fashioned from notoriously covert bar, pdt. this article from endlesssimmer.com compares bacon drinks from different bars across the us. there are also bacon desserts, like bread pudding with bacon brittle from dovetail in nyc featured in time.com. (on the flipside, dovetail is now exclusively offering a 3-course vegetarian dinner on mondays with two vegetarian menus to choose from!) the linked article also mentions the bacon chocolate crunch bar at animal  in los angeles pictured below:

and then of course there are the old standby's, the sandwiches. porchetta opened in 2008 claiming that they had achieved porcine perfection with their version of the (what else) porchetta sandwich (topped with fatty cracklings). a wave of competitors soon opened trying to out-pork them, but as far as i know they are still at the head of the class.

in other news, there are more vegetarian and like-minded restaurants than ever! gardens are cropping up on rooftops, our first lady is teaching children how to eat healthy, there has a never been a better time or a stronger movement  to learn about the food we eat and how it affects our bodies and our planet.

so what's going on? new yorkers and other urban dwellers who are consuming artisanal pork by the bucket-full may feel better about the food they're eating because it comes from restaurants with celebrity chefs who get their meat from fancy upstate farms, but it has become too much; too excessive, too glutinous, too much jelly for their jowls. city folk may take pride in resisting  kfc double downs, (thank you nate silver) but we have still reverted to the "super-size" mentality when we are ordering fried pork stuffed with fat. it's not okay, and even though you may feel good about supporting local farms, your heart will be less forgiving, in fact, i think the locavore movement has gotten too comfortable with themselves. there seems to be an invincibility regarding consumption as long as there is a "local" or "sustainable" tag attached to it. just because we are not neglecting our farmers, does not mean we can neglect our bodies. this new food wave has become indulgent and it is time to wake up. a perfect example of this juxtaposition can be seen by viewing the home page for the spotted pig restaurant in nyc. if you click on it you will see the graphic of a pig with a bubble caption encouraging you to join jamie oliver's food revolution. ok, april bloomfield, it is all well and good that your restaurants uses local ingredients when possible, and by no means is jamie oliver a vegetarian, but come on! 

for those of you who haven't been following, jamie oliver's food revolution is an amazing new show on abc that documents chef jamie oliver's (a.k.a the naked chef) attempts at reforming the eating habits of huntington, west virginia, which (according to a report issued by the centers for disease control in 2008) was statistically ranked as being the unhealthiest city in the united states. jamie has been working to reform the school cafeterias (as he did in his native england) by eliminating processed foods from their meals and also educating the community about food and nutrition through free cooking classes, meetings with families, etc. i can't say enough positive things about this show and the fact that it is on network television is huge. jamie is trying to teach people how to eat healthy so that they can live better lives and prevent obesity and early death from heart disease and diabetes. april bloomfield is serving people fried head cheese and duck fat potatoes in low lighting at exorbitant prices. not quite the same message.

so what has happened since we all saw 'super-size me' and read 'fast-food nation' and swore off burgers for good? is this wave of fatty couture a backlash against all the people who ever made us feel badly about ordering that big mac? is ordering a hormone free burger at minetta tavern really better than a whopper with cheese? yes, it is. but it's still not good. and we know that now, so why is everyone clawing for a table there? because it tastes good? because it feels good to be bad? because it's a new decade? probably all of the above. as sam sifton of the ny times lamented in this past sunday's magazine, it is incredibly unhealthy to eat out in restaurants and consume rich foods almost every day of the week. this is not rocket science, but both fortunately and unfortunately for him, this is the nature of his job. in fact, it is his job because he is a food critic. he is all too aware of the negative affects this life style of reckless consumption has had on many of his peers and predecessors, so for now his anecdotes are lots of exercise and a holy day of salad on sundays.

on that note, as part of my personal prescription for healthy living, here are two delicious and satisfying salads i've cooked of late that are perfect for the spring/summertime.

WATERMELON & MINT SALAD

1 whole watermelon sliced into cubes (grilled if possible)

2 cups arugula

1 cup sliced fennel

1 cup fresh mint

1/2 cup chopped endive

1/2 cup raddichio

1/2 cup thinly sliced radishes

1/2 cup crumbled feta

black pepper (to taste)

balsamic vinaigrette (to taste)

CORN, PINEAPPLE, & BLACK BEAN SALAD

2 cups fresh corn
1 cup cubed pineapple (grilled if possible)

1 cup black beans

1 cup sliced tomatoes

1/2 cup chopped onions

1/2 chopped avocado

1/2 cilantro

1/2 sliced hearts of palm

1/4  sliced jalapeno (deseeded)
1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese (optional)

so, enjoy your life. eat delicious healthy food. make choices that make you happy and stronger. we are what we eat, right? so don't be a fried pig's foot!