I’m a huge fan of Edward Tufte’s work on the visual displays of quantitative information, and nothing makes me happier than a new nomagram.  Jessica Prentice, Maggie Gosselin and Sarah Klein have just released the  most practical nomagram ever.  It’s a simple wheel that relates time of year with available local foods in the New York Metro area and local foods that are available year round.  The test of any good nomagram of course is the ease with which a five year old can understand it, the Local Foods Wheel definitely passes the test; it is easily understood without explanation and beautiful enough to touch.

I now use the Local Foods Wheel in conjunction with my Meal Planning Grid (see my previous blog post) to determine what dishes to make each week. I’d like to think that I know what foods are seasonal to where I live without looking, but I don’t.  Major thanks to Jessica, Maggie and Sarah for making this beautiful and cheap (only $13) new nomagram.

Ladies, yeah ladies. I’m talking to the ones with out glitter. What’s with that? It’s about time we all just accepted that we look better encrusted in glitter and rhinestones, for better or worse.

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of doing the makeup styling for Suspiciuos Package and Cherie Lily for a sweat dripping performance at Zebulon.  If you haven’t seen them yet, cake yourself in glitter, squeeze into a leotard and go sweat out your pain with them.  Cherie performs tomorrow night at the Highline ballroom and it’s guaranteed to get your heart beating.

If you were at the Girls after party in Bushwick you might of been surrounded by beautiful people in glitter and bright colors;  I made those people so shiny. Check out Todd P’s admiration for the power of my glitter.

The other week I attended Just Food’s cooking class entitled “Slow Food for the Urban Kitchen.”  I’m currently living and working in an urban area, specifically Brooklyn, NY, so it was great to get advice on how to make nourishing food without quitting my job and chaining myself to the kitchen.  Jessica Prentice of Three Stone Hearth in Berkeley led the class and made beef stew before our very eyes.

I really appreciated Jessica’s emphasis on finding cooking methods that work for one’s quirks. For example, if you hate cutting onions and it makes you so angry you scream and cry, which makes you the leave the house and just freaking buy pizza, than help yourself enjoy cooking and by all means buy something a little more expensive which doesn’t cause severe eye irritation like leeks or shallots.  I liked her point about making the cooking process manageable so that it becomes a part of the rhythm of life instead of a much dreaded chore.  I for one always bring friends over to keep me company while I cook or listen to my favorite podcasts (like Planet Money OMG I love thoughtful economic reporting).  Cooking from scratch can is nourishing and always cheaper, the trick is to adapt recipes to your preferences.

I joined the  Weston A Price Foundation about a year ago which introduced me to the nutritional value of using broth in my cooking, but I haven’t lived anywhere with a crock pot this year so I haven’t bothered.  I move on average every two months and I’ll be darned if I’m lugging an electric crockpot on a Chinatown bus anytime soon. Lucky for me Jessica pointed out that an oven set at 210 degrees F is just as good as a crockpot, though not quite as fire safe for long periods (friends . . . I promise I won’t have another house fire).  I’ve already made 3 batches of bone broth using this method. It’s incredible.  I browned the bones in a skillet, set them in a big old pot with some aromatics and sautéed vegetables, set a lid on it, and left it in the oven for 48 hours.  The house smelled like home cooked heaven and the broth made some fantastic minestrone, lentils, and various stews.

This oven as crock pot trick is also a great solution to cooking beans perfectly.  When beans are simmered on the stove it’s easy for them to get mangled from occasional stirred. More importantly though, who wants to stay home and watch the beans simmer?  Dried beans are way cheaper than canned bans in my neighborhood so I prefer to use them.  I just set the beans in a pot with a lid in the oven at 210 degrees F and as long as I’m back in 2 or 4 hours those beans are perfectly tender.

So I’ve been eating minestrone soup for one meal every day for a whole week . . . and I still love it.  It took me about 35 minutes to make it and it’s lasted all week and fed dozens of friends and even my boss. It probably cost about $15 to make and according to my records provided 16 servings.

Step Number One: Ask for Bones. I bought 4 lbs of beef stew bones. Do not crowd the pan! Sear the meat, don’t steam it (which can happen when there’s too much in the pan).  Broth made with browned bones is sooo much better. After browning the bones (and meat if you want to make it a hearty soup) deglaze the pan with red wine or tomato juice. Deglazing the pan allows one to capture the delicious flavor of browned meat left on the pan.  That delicious flavor is what food scientist worked very hard to imitate with the development of MSG.  Pour the deglazing liquid into the big old pot.

Step Number Two: Add mirepiox .  Put the bones and meat in the big old pot and pour hot water on top.  Saute the mirepiox (that’s onions, carrots and celery for those non-french speakers).  Olive oil and butter won’t get the veggies hot enough so use lard. Just use it, you’ll thank yourself later.  A

Step Number Three: Add some flavor. I added some tomatoes, potatoes, celeriac, bay leaves, salt, parsley, crushed red pepper, and paprika.

Step Number Four: Add some Protein:  I added stew beef chunks and barely browned them.  Drain the blood from the meat or pat with a towel to absorb extra blood so it doesn’t coagulate in the stew.  Salt the meat before cooking to get that really amazing seared meat flavor.  And don’t crowd the pan. All they needs is to be lightly seared on high heat on one or two sides.  The first time I tried this soup I over browned the meat and when I added them to the soup to simmer for  8 hours at 230 degrees F their texture was rubber like.  If adding beans, cook the beans to a good tenderness and add them at the end.

Step Number Five:  Simmer in a crockpot for 5 to 9 hours. I don’t have a crockpot so I stick the whole pot in the oven at 230 degrees F. Warning: your house will smell like stew.

Finishing the Soup: The next morning or later in the afternoon when they stew seems ready taste it to determine what it needs to be a complete soup.  For minestrone soup I added al dente pasta shells, baby lima beans, fresh corn and chopped some of the veggies up a bit finer.

Mylar is magical this I know.  A few weeks ago Mat spotted a shiny sphere hovering near the pond in Prospect Park, Brooklyn.  Naturally we ran after it and here’s what we found.

It turns out this helium filled mylar balloon was originally built for Fashion Week, but they decided to take it our for one more spin.

So I’ve introduced some new dishes into my life now that I’m actually keeping myself on a strict budget of $40 a week for food.   The secret weapon to fighting hunger on a budget?  Just look to the Middle East, the Mediterranean, India or Turkey.  It’s called tabbouleh and it’s freaking brilliant.  (I’m not sure whether tabouli or tabbouleh is the preferred spelling . . . ) The back bone of tabbouleh is bulgur. Bulgur is a parboiled cracked wheat usually made from durum wheat.  It’s sold dried and can be bought whole or de-branned (it has a fairly high fiber content either way).  Every 100 g of bulgur has 12.5 g of protein and 8 g of fiber and it cost $1.75 a pound at the Park Slope Food Coop.

I love cold grain salads but I never made them because it involves cooking the grains first and then chilling them, which is a bit beyond my interest level.  But then I read about how the best wives of Turkey don’t use water to prepare their bulgur  . . . nay! in the summer they use tomato , onion or lemon juice to soak bulgur with out cooking.  You can find that tabouli recipe on Epicurious dot com.

Imaginary scenario:  It’s monday morning and there’s 15 minutes before I need to leave for work. I was gone all weekend so there’s no prepared food in the fridge, not even a slice of bread for a  peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I’m going to have to buy a sandwich from the lunch truck for $8 and risk indigestion.  But wait, what’s that bag of  unassuming uncooked grains doing in the cabinet! It’s bulgar, the unbeatable cracked wheat of the lord.

diretions for last minute tabbouleh lunch:

Fill a peanut butter size jar 1/4 to 1/3 full with dry uncooked bulgar.

Add tomatoe juice or diced tomatoes with juice from a can until the jar is about 3/4 full. (If you have time squeeze some lemon juice in there too).  The bulgar will absorb all the liquid.

Add salt, pepper, 1 tbsp olive oil,  1 tsp cinnamon.

Grab a handful of parsley, mint, scallions, peppers, cucumbers and what ever vegetables you have on hand and put them in plastic bag to take with you to work.  Rinse and dice the veggies when you get to work,  no point bringing lunch if you get fired for tardiness.  I like to have a ratio of 40% vegetables, 40% bulgur and 20% fatty protein rich ingredients, but the decide for yourself.

Fill another container with at least a half cup of fatty protein rich delcious tidbits from your fridge.  Feta, olives, capers, and nuts give the tabbouleh enough umph to keep me going.

Put the jar of bulgar in your bag and don’t forget the veggies, and the olives and nuts.

What about cooking the bulgar?  Because the bulgar is parboiled it doesn’t actually need cooking if it’s soaked in acidic juices.  In about 1 or 2 hours the bulgar will absorb the liquid and be fluffy and delicious. It’ll fluff up whether or not it’s refridgerated. Mix all the ingredients together and enjoy the flavors.  Convince your co-workers to give you parts of their lunches in exchange for spoonfuls of tabbouleh.

Bulgar salads have become such a great side dish or main dish in my hear that I now make a huge batch every week ( using about 2 lbs of dry bulgar a week).

Simple Tabbouleh: I like to make a simple batch with just bulgar, red onions, scallions, mint, parsley, cukes and peppers to keep in the fridge all week.  Through out the week I add different ingredients with to this to keep it fresh and exciting.

Bulgar Prep:

Rinse the bulgar first and pat dry (if you have time). I use about 2 cups of tomatoe and lemon juice for every 1 cup of bulgar.  Add olive oil, cinnaomon salt and pepper.  Instead of tomatoe juice I often buy a can of diced tomatoes in juice and add the whole can to the bulgar.

Mango Fennel Bulgar salad:

Use the Simple Tabbouleh recipe described above and add:

diced mango, fennel, walnuts, currants, goat cheese and a little bit of honey.

Delicous Tabbouleh:

Use the Simple Tabbouleh recipe described above and add:

crumbled feta, olives, red peppers, capers, spinach, cherry tomatoes and serve with roasted egg plant on the side.

Hello, friends. As you probably know, Mat and I are saving up money to go traveling again. As part of our savings plan we have decided to spend $40 per person per week on groceries.  This includes alcohol and cheap toiletry products (dental floss, tooth brushes, toilet paper, etc).

I designed this grid/worksheet to fill out before I go to the grocery store to help me buy enough food for the week, enough variety of food and stick to my budget.  I’ve been using the grid for 4 weeks now. I’ve made some major improvements and now it’s finally ready for open review and feedback.

Before implementing this grid I was going to the grocery store about 2 to 3 times a week and spending about $120- 130 a week.  I hate running to the store multiple times  a week because it eats up my free time and it increases the chance that I just “pick up a treat” while I’m there which wrecks my budget.  Since Mathew’s right arm has “tramatic tendinitis” I’m doing all the grocery shopping right now until it heals.  Since I can’t rely on Mathew to “pick up a few items” if I forget them I decided I needed to go pro.

Here’s the MEAl Plan Grid worksheet to fill in with poundage and the # of dishes to make per catergory for feeding 2 people.

How it Works:

1. Time Available for Preparation

For Mathew and I the struggle to fight hunger in our own lives is a serious issue.  When we’re hungry we quickly regress to something between cranky babies and predatory dinosaurs: helpless, confusable and aggresive.  It’s important for us to have food on hand that can be quickly put into our mouths. If we get too hungry we will buy food out to avoid the misery of trying to cook when we’re too hungry to think. Just one cheese and cracker can give us the strength to throw a quieche and salad together.

2. Food Type

Like many Americans, Mat and I have pitiful health care coverage. Given that, it’d be expensive for us to rely on pills and antibiotics to help us out in a pickle. I really believe that a healthy diet and exercise can prevent and possibly cure most health problems I face living here in Brooklyn.  I decided to make a meal grid that would guide me into buying a healthy amount of the things I need like fruits, vegetables, dairy, protein and grains.  There’s a lot of debate about what food groups we should be consuming and at what ratios. I used these 5 categories as my general guide and tracked how much of each I bought by weight over the past 4 weeks.  I loosely follow the Weston A Price Foundations guidelines for good nutrition.

The numbers in this grid are based on the quantities we actually prepared over the past month. In each section write down a dish that uses mostly vegetables or is vegetables based (same for the other sections). After the grid is complete I list all the ingredients of each dish on my grocery list .

Vegetables:

I start my chart with veggies and then fruits since they have the most seasonal variability and thus dictate the ingredients available for the rest of the menu.

Vegetables < 5 minutes: I like to have cucumbers around so I can have cucumbers and goat cheese on WASA crackers when I come home hungry.  Other good veggies to snack on raw: peppers

Vegetables < 5 minutes of prep:  This category is soo important to people who aren’t always in the mood to cook or need for RIGHT NOW. If I can’t put the thing in my mouth with in five minutes from the time I looked at it, then it doesn’t qualify for this prestigious title.  About half the food I buy (by pound) is intended to be eaten with less than five minutes of prep. In the summer I usually eat about 50-75% uncooked food (if I include fermented veggies like sauerkraut and kimchi).

vegetables <30 minutes of prep: This category is reserved for salads and quick soups that require are contain mostly vegetables.  For example: pear, walnut, goat cheese and currants on salad greens.  Miso soup with seaweed, scallions and shiitakes.

vegetables 1 hour or more of prep:  My co-worker told me about how her mom always had 3 or 4 different cold salads on hand at any given time and would serve them as side dishes (baba ghannoush, tabouli, etc) at meals and it freaking blew my mind.  There are so many dishes that taste great and even better after several days of mingling together a few days: mayonnaise free cole slaw, tabouli, black bean and citrus salad with cilantro, cucumber salad, etc. Most of my favorite dishes to keep on hand through out the week are Middle Eastern or Swedish.  Every culture has dishes they’ve developed because they keep well.  These are the dishes that require an hour of prep, but can make 8 or 10 servings that last as side dishes and main dishes for a whole week.

Fruits:

fruits <5 minutes: Right now it’s mango and papaya season in Mexico so we’ve been eating about 5 lbs of papaya and 3 mangoes.  By the time I’m sick of mangoes strawberries should be at the farmer’s market.

fruits <30 minutes prep:  this category is to remind me to buy fruits that accent main dishes like limes and lemons.  I usually do 3-4 lemons per week and 3 limes. Mat like to make juice out of cheap seasonal fruits sometimes.

fruits 1 hour or more:  I usually go over my budget because I love pastries, chocolate and delicious treats.  In order to avoid blowing all my money on pastries marked up at fancy cafes I try to make delicious things that I can bring with me when I’m out and about.  A thermos of hot coffee and a bag of homemade zucchini bread makes me feel like a queen when I’m running errands on a rainy day in the city. The price of a pastry and coffee at a coffee shop costs the same as making a whole loaf of zucchini bread and a bag of fresh ground coffee at Gorilla, one of my favorite coffee joints.

Dairy:  I never ate much dairy until I started getting raw milk last fall.  It’s like everything I ever dreamed milk could be: creamy, milk, sweet and totally satisfying.  I also think it’s the best placebo for all my ailments.

dairy <5 minutes: cheese & crackers, yoghurt with honey and nuts, bread and butter. Dairy is delicious and keeps me from getting hungry. thank you goats. thank you cows.

dairy < 30 minutes: smoothies? omelet? Totally cheap way to feed the hungry kid who just woke up on your couch, fast.

dairy 1 hour or more:  Mat makes a quiche every week.  I never see it coming and I never get sick of it and I always make out with him while it’s cooking.

Protein:  I like protein.  Our cells are built from protein.  That seems like an important thing to include.

protein <5 minutes:  Nuts, cured meats, and nut butters they’re not just for hikers, they’re for hungry people.

protein <30 minutes: I skipped having meat around last week and we totally got by with out this category, but it sure is great to have a few pounds of meat on hand for quick dinners.

protein 1 hour or more of prep:  Bean dishes are forever.  We make a huge bean dish once a week and it serves as a back up meal whenever we need it. Having well seasoned, tender lentils in the fridge is such a money saver.  Often if I’m taking the subway somewhere around meal time I just bring a jar of lentils with a scoop of yoghurt and some crackers to eat on the run.

Grains:  grains are great.

IMPLEMENTATION:

1. Check your current inventory and list it in the side bar.

2. Fill out the grid based on what you like to eat and what you have in your inventory.

The cool thing about the grid is that it imposes fairly healthy proportions of different food groups.

I filled out the meal plan grid on loose leaf of paper this week and promptly lost it. I have no idea why I bought zucchini or what I was going to do with them.  From now on I will fill out the grid on my computer so I don’t lose it.

3.  Right down everything you need to make everything in your week’s menu. I do this on a separate piece of paper that I take with me shopping.

4. Estimate how much the protein and grain categories cost and make necessary changes to stay in budget. I only check these categories because they’re usually the most costly.

5. Bring the menu planning grid and your shopping list with you when you go shopping.  It’s important to bring the grid with you in case substitutions need to me made to stay in budget.

6.  If I’m under budget I spend rest of the budgeted money on beer or ice cream. For me, immediate rewards are way more satisfying than murky long term rewards like “saving money” and “fiscal responsibility”.  Buying goodies every time I stay in the budget gives me a direct and immediate reward for staying in budget.

7. If over budget REMOVE items until within the budget.  I’ve tried telling myself that I’ll make up for blowing my budget this week by spending less next week, but I never do.

8. Cooking during the week: More on this later.

I drew this portrait of Harry Gassel back in 2007 during my last spring in Oberlin, Ohio.  Not shown here is his left hand browsing the internet.

Charcoal and ink on paper, 35 by 45 inches.

Tonight is the official end of the “holiday season” for me.  What better way to celebrate than drawing a portrait of what the holidays have done to my boyfriend?  He was actually laying down for the portrait, but it works either way.