September

The tomato is a plant originating in South America whose fruits are known as a vegetable because of the primary culinary use to which they are put. The Aztecs cultivated the plant, which traveled to Europe in the early 16th century. A Neapolitan book, La scalco alla moderna, contains a recipe for Tomato Sauce, Spanish Style which sounds very familiar: finely chopped parsley, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and oil added to finely chopped seared tomatoes. The fruit/vegetable took longer to gain popularity in France and England.

Miles Kington, a British writer who began his career at Punch, observed that knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. John Denver said that there are only two things that money can’t buy: true love and home-grown tomatoes. And Will Cuppy noted, “Just when you’re beginning to think pretty well of people, you run across somebody who puts sugar on sliced tomatoes.” Finally, here’s John Updike: “Of plants tomatoes seemed the most human, eager and fragile and prone to rot.”

Tomato ketchup, reportedly found in 97% of U.S. homes,  has interesting origins. The word “ketchup” comes from the Chinese and means a fermented fish sauce, and it was brought to Europe by Dutch traders. There were many different kinds, characterized by their salty taste and concentrated texture and the fact that they kept well.  Over the years, mushrooms, oysters, mussels, walnuts, lemons, celery, and many other ingredients have been used to make ketchup.

History.com tells us: “One oyster ketchup recipe from the 1700s called for 100 oysters, three pints of white wine and lemon peels spiked with mace and cloves. The commemorative “Prince of Wales” ketchup, meanwhile, was made from elderberries and anchovies. Mushroom ketchup was apparently Jane Austen’s favorite. But all these ketchups lacked the one important ingredient we take for granted in today’s ketchup.

National Geographic tells us: The first known published tomato ketchup recipe appeared in 1812, written by scientist and horticulturalist, James Mease, who referred to tomatoes as “love apples.” His recipe contained tomato pulp, spices, and brandy but lacked vinegar and sugar.

“A relatively new company called Heinz introduced its famous formulation in 1876, which contained tomatoes, distilled vinegar, brown sugar, salt and various spices. Heinz also pioneered the use of glass bottles, so customers could see what they were buying. ” These days, Heinz, the most popular ketchup producer, sells more than 650 million bottles a year. In this country, this translates to about three bottles per person per year.

In The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You can Stop Buying & Start Making, Alana Chernila suggests you make your own ketchup. You can find the recipe here.

Tomatoes are about 95% water. Besides being a major dietary source of the antioxidant lycopene, which is linked to many health benefits, tomatoes are also a great source of vitamin C, potassium, folate, and vitamin K. So a tomato a day certainly helps keep the doctor away.

 

October

Put “zucchini recipes” in a Google search and in 0.78 seconds you’ll see  about 95,900,000 results. We’ve tried but have not yet reached the half-way point on those dishes.  The 40 lucky noshers who followed The New Yorker’s Calvin Trillin on his annual two-and-a-half-hour restaurant crawl  sampled potato and zucchini pizza at Grandaisy Baker, among other savories. Anyone traveling to New York City should know you can still get pizza delight there, and yes, this still includes zucchini.

Adding  zucchini to your pizzas, soups, and stews offers a nutritional benefit. It has a high percentage of water content. Maybe not so obvious:  it’s low in calories, carbs, and sugars–very low on the glycemic index. And there are added benefits: Zucchini is high in essential nutrients like potassium, manganese and antioxidants like vitamin C and vitamin A. Alas, all this doesn’t quite add up to an excuse for an extra piece of chocolate zucchini cake.

Thomas Jefferson grew various species of Cucurbita (a genus that includes pumpkins, squash, and gourds) at Monticello and his writings are filled with references to it. In bloom at Monticello offers information on his gardens.  FDR hated broccoli, and we heard a lot about George H. W. Bush’s opinion of it, but maybe he wasn’t so hard on zucchini. Barbara Bush offered a recipe for zucchini soup to the USO Celebrity Cookbook.

President Obama sampled a baked zucchini fry after dropping by the Kids State Dinner.  

Zucchini Squash Blossoms were on the menu for the Trump White House State Dinner for the prime minister of Australia and his wife. No word on whether the president ate any. In 1985, he did write a letter to Mayor Koch complaining about  the “humongous vegetable stand” destroying property values at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street.

Writing in the Hartford Courant, Karent Mamone offered recipes ranging from a zucchini cocktail to lemon zucchini muffins. She says you can substitute apple for zucchini in the muffins, but “that doesn’t help you get rid of it.” Mamone  proposed a zucchini festival:  We could rival Mardi Gras with the Connecticut Zucchini Festival. We’ll call it Mardi Vert– Green Tuesday — and hold it on the last week in September just before the first frost ends the season and the kids are sick of school.

There would be awards for biggest zucchini, of course. Smallest. Longest, fattest. Zucchini that looks most like Richard Nixon or other presidents. And an adults-only category for zucchini that looks like naughty stuff.” 

Mamone suggested this more than a decade ago, and it didn’t catch on, so there’s an opportunity for Charlotters to step forward.

Of course, October also means pumpkin, and from John Greenleaf Whittier to David McCord, poets love pumpkins.  Cooks love pumpkin too: from Julia Child’s Aunt Helen’s Fluffy Pumpkin Pie (which contained  molasses and bourbon) to  Gordon Ramsay’s Pumpkin Risotto, everyone has plans on what to do with pumpkin.

Nutritionists are also pumpkin fans. The orange color tells you that pumpkins are filled with the antioxidant beta-carotene, which, in our bodies, converts to Vitamin A. This offers protection against some diseases as well as some degenerative aspects of aging. 

As Rick Bragg notes of sweet potato pie in The Best Cook in the World…Tales from My Momma’s Table,   “The thing about sweet potato pie is, it’s good for you,” my mother believes.                                             “What about the sugar?” I asked.                                                                                                                   “The good stuff makes up for it,” she said.  [The Charlotte Library has this wonderful book in print and in audio.]

 If you need further proof of the popularity of pumpkin, know that 1.1. billion pounds are produced each year and although some are produced to be used as decoration, most are processed for food.        

 November

Choosing the onion for the November feature stems not only because it has elevated the Thanksgiving green-bean casserole for more than fifty years. The onion has quite a history, with historians telling us that onion remains have been found in Neolithic Age settlements in Jericho, Palestine, dating back to 5000 BC. Onions appear in tomb paintings and ancient Egyptian documents dating from 3200 BC. The Romans took the onion to Britain; Columbus included the onion in his supplies on his voyages where it was appreciated in the sick bay as well as the galley.  One medicinal use was restoring circulation to frozen feet by rubbing them with raw onion. 

The onion abounds in literature and nature writing from the Newbery award winner  Onion John to Gunter Grass’s memoir Peeling the Onion  to the very local In the Land of the Wild Onion: Travels Along Vermont’s Winooski River .

Of course, it goes without saying that the onion is omnipresent in the kitchen. Julia Child announces, “It is hard to imagine a civilization without onions…their flavor blends into almost everything in the meal except the dessert. The Fannie Farmer Cookbook offers onions sliced, chopped, boiled, baked, sauteed, fried, stuffed, pickled, braised, roasted, suggesting they be used in soups, stews, casseroles, sauces, “and just about anything else.”

In his Odes to Common Things, here’s how Pablo Neruda begins his “Ode to the Onion” (Oda a la cebolla):

Onion,

shining flask,

Your beauty assembled

petal by petal…

(luminosa redoma)

Meal preparation at the Senior Center often begins with the onion, pretty much as related by the beginning  William Matthews’ poem “Onions”:

How easily happiness begins by

dicing onions.

 Onion peeling and dicing are a ubiquitous activity at the Senior Center, but certainly cooks  there, who with much laughter, guess at who will cry first, aren’t the only ones who will relate to this Neruda line: You make us cry without hurting us. (Nos hiciste llorar sin afligirnos).

Julia Child’s French Onion Soup is, of course, legendary. Sit back and just enjoy watching her prepare it–right here.

We’ll give Jonathan Swift the last word with his onion rhyme:

                     This is every cook’s opinion—

                     No savory dish without an onion,

                     But lest your kissing should be spoiled

                      Your onions must be fully boiled.

 

December

When you think of December food, probably celery isn’t the first thing that comes to mind, but in mid-November, The New York Times featured this headline, Celery Is Ready for a Starring Role. Alexa Weibel, Senior Staff Editor, New York Times Cooking, demonstrates its versatility.

Celery (Apium graveolens) a marshland plant in the family Apiaceae. Cultivated as a vegetable since antiquity, celery is mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey as selinon. It had medical and religious uses for both Egyptians and Greeks. Celery garlands were made for funerals.  In A potted history of Vegetables, Lorraine Harrison points out that The plant “was so popular with Greeks that when they founded Selinunte, Sicily in 628 BCE, they impressed its image on their coins.”

Some modern health experts say we should be eating celery much much more often. You can find websites telling you it will help in everything from lowering blood pressure to improving your love life. And much much more. Celery is also the center of a recent juice craze featuring celebrities who will not be named.

Celery, raw
Develops the jaw,
But celery, stewed,
Is more quietly chewed.–Ogden Nash

Celery waxes and wanes in popularity. Stalks were prominently featured on 19th century Thanksgiving tables, and ornate serving sets were considered incomplete without celery vases.  Before 1850, the glasses were blown, hand cut, and sometimes engraved for fine households. 

 Amy Bentley, a professor of Food Studies at New York University, notes, “Celery was a status item for a long time in the Edwardian era.” 

We know of three presidential mentions of celery: Thomas Jefferson recorded planting “Nasturcium,” “Cresses,” “Celery,” and “Radichio” on March 26, 1774, “in the meadow.” 

The Lincoln solferino china service, purchased in April 1861 by First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, included fish platters of various sizes, butter dishes, vegetable platters, soup bowls, water pitchers, ice bowls, custard cups, fruit bowls, strawberry bowls, sugar bowls, fruit baskets. dessert plates, coffee cups,  preserve plates, coffee cups, egg cups, tea cups, cake plates, punch bowls,water glasses, red wine glass, white wine glasses, champagne flutes, dessert wine glasses,  all-purpose glasses… and celery vases.

A  favorite stuffing of President Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt contained 48 ounces cooked, peeled chestnuts and 1/4 cup of chopped celery.

At President Harry Truman’s Thanksgiving meal, braised celery was on the menu. 

Apr 2, 2019 – President Donald Trump has threatened to “seal” the U.S.-Mexico border … Migrant farm workers are picking  celery crop in Yuma, Arizona.

If you have a membership to New York Times cooking  highly recommended), you can access these celery recipes: Celery-Leek Soup With Potato and Parsley | Braised Celery With Thyme and White Wine | Celery Salad With Apples and Blue Cheese

And here’s an informative free site that tells you how easy it is to grow your own celery at home. How to Grow Celery Indoors

Happy Horticulture!

January

We get the name January from the Roman goddess Janus, literally the two-faced (or two-headed) deity who faced both backwards and forwards, recalling the past even while she looked ahead to the future. 

According to Chinese lore, we are now in  the year of the rat, the first sign in the Chinese zodiac cycle. We mention this because, according to this lore, rats can eat anything, delicacies or plain food. Here at the Senior Center, we don’t offer just “anything,” but  freshly-cooked food that is bountiful and nutritious. 

Eat your carrots, apples, and greens!

Here’s the beginning of the William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) challenge to this cold, often brutal month.

February

February is American Heart Month, and so it makes sense to declare February your month of New Year’s resolutions. For starters, resolve to get two hours and 30 minutes of moderate exercise weekly and you will lower your risk for heart disease.

And while you are thinking about good health, take a look at this info on the avocado. Unless your talent for getting avocados to ripen nicely is over-the-top successful, you probably don’t have to worry about being tempted to eat more than one a day. Nonetheless, the info on calories and good fat/bad fat is helpful. In moderation, the avocado has more health benefits that you might realize.

Now if we could only figure out to get them to ripen on command. Apparently, some people have this talent. According to the Hass Avocado Board, some 162 million pounds were consumed during last year’s Super Bowl Sunday.

February is also a good month for Compost Resolutions. The Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District has some do-able tips to help us get started.

http://www.cvswmd.org/zero-waste-at-home.html

And the Charlotte Library has books with more tips:

101 ways to go zero waste / Kathryn Kellogg

Kellogg’s message is “Change starts here.” She starts by saying “no” to straws and grocery bags, and “yes” to a reusable water bottle and compostable dish scrubbers.

The post carbon reader : managing the 21st century’s sustainability crises  edited by Richard Heinberg and Daniel Lerch,  offers essays on many topics related to carbon reduction.  One offers a challenge about the food we eat: “Get Fossil Fuels Off the Plate.” Another chapter is “Growing Community Food Systems.”

 

 

 

March

 Backdoor Bread, baked in Charlotte from wheat grown in Charlotte, has a fascinating history. 

The fact that you missed  “Alligators in the Sewer Day” in New York City on Feb. 9 doesn’t mean missing out on fascinating lore about the gaters in the city.

And moving on to March, which is Peanut Month, we get a long list of food possibilities.

• March 1 is  Peanut Butter Lover’s Day. Peanut  butter has a long history, dating back to the Aztecs and the Incas.
• March 2 brings us Banana Cream Pie Day, but this is not America’s favorite pie.
• March 7 is Cereal Day. James Caleb Jackson invented America’s first cold breakfast cereal in 1863, Granula, graham flour pieces that needed to be soaked overnight in milk. By 1900 Dr. John Harvey Kellogg came out with Corn Flakes for his patients in his famous Battle Creek sanitarium. Wheaties debuted in 1920. In 1940, General Mills introduced CheeriOats, soon changing the name to Cheerios.
• March 13 is Chicken Soup Day. In 1934, Campbell’s introduced its version as “Noodle with Chicken Soup” but soon renamed it. The Senior Center is offering infinitely more tasty  soups this month: Carrot Soup and Sweet Potato Soup are featured; for chicken, fortunate diners will eat Moroccan Chicken and Chicken Parmesan. Enjoy!
• March 17 is “Eat Like An Irishman” Day. slàinte mhaith!
• Please note March 24: American Diabetes Alert Day. There are 29 million people in the United States, or 9% of the population, affected by diabetes. Learn more about this day from American Diabetes Association or National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Please take the Type 2 Diabetes Risk Test from the American Diabetes Association to find out if you are at risk for developing type 2 diabetes.
• March 26 is Spinach Day, and Popeye was right! Spinach is good for you. It contains high levels of omega-3 fatty acids–which is part of what makes it so good for your cardiac health. There are a lot of other benefits which you can read about here. To help you get spinach into your day, here are three recipes. 
• Gingery Chicken and Spinach Stir-Fry
• Sweet Potatoes Stuffed With Black Beans and Spinach
• Wild Rice and Spinach Egg Bowl

Bon Appetit!

 

 

April

April has its Food Days, ranging from National Sourdough Bread Day on April 1 to National Oatmeal Cookie Day on April 30. National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day, on April 2, marks a food that was first mentioned in the 1901 cookbook Boston Cooking-School Magazine of Culinary Science and Dometsic Economics.  The food became very popular after World War II when soldiers brought home a taste for what had been wartime ration.

April 6 marks Caramel Popcorn Day. In the 1870s, Frederick and Louis Ruekheim started experimenting with different types of popcorn flavorings at their popcorn store in Chicago. Their peanut and molasses combination was a huge hit, and Cracker Jack was born.

April 26 is Pretzel Day, and anyone who has walked the streets of Philadelphia won’t be surprised to learn that Philadelphians eat twelve times as many soft pretzels per year as other Americans. The Pennsylvania Dutch are credited with bringing their pretzel-making skills to the Philadelphia region when they settled there.

 

 

May

The Dandelion

by Vachel Lindsay

O dandelion, rich and haughty,

King of village flowers!

Each day is coronation time,

You have no humble hours.

I like to see you bring a troop

To beat the blue-grass spears,

To scorn the lawn-mower that would be

Like fate’s triumphant shears.

Your yellow heads are cut away,

It seems your reign is o’er.

By noon you raise a sea of stars

More golden than before.

This poem is in the public domain.

Think of May flowers and the lovely daffodil comes to mind but the pesky dandelion, omnipresent, offers a lot in the way of eating. One of the most widespread of wild plants, its leaves, root, and flowers are all edible.

“Dandelion” comes from the French dent de lion (lion’s tooth) and refers to the serrated leaves. Its other name, pissenlit (pissabed), refers to the diuretic properties attributed to dandelion root.

Dandelion leaves are an excellent source of vitamin C, and all parts of the plant are rich in vitamin A and iron.

Dandelion leaves can be served in salad. Fanny Farmer says to add bacon. Alice Waters recommends shallots, fennel, small red radishes, and lemon zest. During the 19th century the dandelion root, roasted and ground, was tried as a substitute for coffee–and it’s still around. You can get Dandelion Mocha Chicory Herbal Coffee as well as Dandelion Tea.

The French cramaillotte is a brownish-orange jelly made from dandelion flowers.

Here’s a recipe for dandelion wine–and dandelion pesto sounds delicious.

Bon appétit !

Of course, with May comes one more persistent entity: the ant:
the ants who also appeared in the kitchen as if
the first daffodils in the yard trumpeted directions to them

to carry items thrice their size right away
finding just what they needed.

from “Regardless of Disaster” by Jessica Greenbaum

NOTE:

iPads* at the Library

The library has two new Health & Wellness iPads.* with links and apps on a variety of topics. For example: A to Z info on herbs from acai to yohimbe; five things you should know about stress; Household Products updates (from Abhusha Jewelry Cldander to Zyban WSB pesticide). And lots more. Go to the library and take a look! 

*Funded in part by the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Cooperative Agreement Number UG4LM012347 with the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester.

 

June

Garlic, allium sativum, the most powerfully flavored member of the onion family, has been known in China since antiquity, has been found in Egyptian tombs. In the Old Testament the exiled Israelites lamented, “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic.” The Greeks saw garlic as a strengthening food, ideal for workers and soldiers, and respected for medicinal value.

Garlic evokes strong feelings. The Roman poet Horace declared it was more harmful than hemlock. When Dr. Seuss described  Mr. Grinch as having garlic in  his soul, he wasn’t being complimentary. But William Shatner counters with  “Stop and smell the garlic! That’s all you have to do.” 

Vermont: Fresh: A Fruit and Vegetable Handbook, available from Salvation Farms as a book or a pdf file, offers history, growing and storage tips, and recipes for cooking garlic, including Garlic Scape Soup.

Vermont’s own Mary Azarian has a wonderful woodblock print titled “A Tribute to Garlic.” It begins:   

             GARLIC ALL POWERFUL;

             MARVELOUS SEASONING;

             YOU ARE THE ESSENCE,

             THE INCENSE WHICH

             REVIVES AND EXHILARATES….

Go to www.maryazarian.com for the rest of this ode as well as lots more of her delicious art, much of which is available as notecards.

The Charlotte Library has a new cookbook, Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen, by Yasmin Khan, where you can find “Za’atar roast salmon with garlicky bean mash”–and lots more.

Here’s a food preparation tip for another item found in all kitchens: How to hard-boil a freaking egg

Put your eggs gently into a small pot filled with cold water. Bring the water to a rapid boil. As soon as the water is boiling, shut off the heat and put a lid on top. After 10 minutes, remove the eggs and slide them carefully into ice water to cool. When cool? Peel. Here’s how you know if you’ve done it right: If the egg is cooked through, the shell peels off cleanly, and the yolk is not surrounded by an unsightly gray ring.–Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking

July

In an article titled “Food for the Soul,” The Washington Post offered this observation:

“Cooking for others is a powerful wellness-booster because it is a fundamentally altruistic act. And research shows that altruism can help release endorphins and boost feelings of gratitude. If you can do the cooking together, even better. It’s a vehicle to share recipes, stories, and memories.”

Monday Munch at the Charlotte Senior Center offers you this wellness-booster opportunity. Altruists of all ages have joined our ranks. The youngest was 7, the oldest isn’t telling. The results have ranged from that 7-year-old advising that the soup needed more salt to a highschooler’s pickled onions to Grandma’s rice pudding. What lingers are the stories that traveled with each one.

Some stories, such as the time our tomato soup exploded, set the fire alarm off, and brought the fire department, continue to resonate years later.

Yes, our kitchen can be frantic at times, but it is mostly fun-filled and very satisfying. It is a smile-filled place. So come join us and release some endorphins.

In Inside the Elaborate Schemes Restaurants Use to Survive Health Inspections, the New York Times describes dramatic tactics employed in city restaurants when health department inspectors arrive.

Health department inspections are, of course, unannounced–in New York and in Vermont. Recently when the health department inspector arrived at the Charlotte Senior Center it was business as usual in the kitchen. No diversion tactics needed. We are proud to report that our grade was 99.

Bon appétit!

August

     When one has tasted watermelon, he knows what the angels eat.

                                                             –Mark Twain

Enjoy a little history of watermelon before coming on in to the Monday Munch for Cool Watermelon Salad on Monday, August 9. Citrullus lanatus is quite distinct from other sweet melons and, according to The Oxford Companion to Food, has  a longer history of cultivation.  According to research provided in this volume, the large green fruits can be seen on ancient wall paintings and was cultivated in Egypt before 2000 B.C. Watermelon is 92% water, and this made it a useful source of potable liquid and it was carried  to the Mediterranean, to India, and eventually to China in the 10th to 12th centuries A.D. 

The watermelon wasn’t  all that important in Europe but, brought to the Americas directly from Africa by slave traders, it reached Brazil by 1613 and to Massachusetts not long after. Native Americans cultivated it, as did white settlers, producing sweeter and larger melons.

Here’s award-winning poet Charles Simic having some watermelon fun:

Watermelon

Green Buddhas

On the fruit stand.

We eat the smile

And spit out the teeth.

Cool Watermelon Salad is only one part of the good food at Monday Munch. Check out the menu. We confess that even though we couldn’t find a poem about Barefoot Contessa’s Chicken Salad, but if Mark Twain had eaten it, surely he would have waxed enthusiastic. 

A word about those wonderful August blueberries:  Blueberries are a healthy food, but they are not a panacea. As Marion Nestle observes in Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What we Eat, observes: From 1997 to 2000, half the Maine Wild Blueberry Commission’s marketing resources went into repositioning blueberries as a health icon. . .   Studies of how well antioxidants protect against disease yield results that are annoyingly inconsistent…The USDA no longer publishes data on food antioxidant levels “due to mounting evidence that the values indicating antioxidant capacity have no relevance to the effects of specific bioactive compounds, including polyphenols on human  health.”

People who eat more fruits and vegetables have less risk of chronic disease, but nobody really knows whether this is because of antioxidants, other food components, or other life-style choices.

We offer blueberries at the Senior Center for their good taste. We don’t present them as a miracle food.

For a quirky change of pace, take a look at the way Sean Charmatz anthropomorphizes everyday objects. From bananas to chewing gum, he offers universal emotions of surprise, frustration, and togetherness. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August

Blueberries

Blueberries are a healthy food, but they are not a panacea. As Marion Nestle observes in Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What we Eat, observes: From 1997 to 2000, half the Maine Wild Blueberry Commission’s marketing resources went into repositioning blueberries as a health icon. . .   Studies of how well antioxidants protect against disease yield results that are annoyingly inconsistent…The USDA no longer publishes data on food antioxidant levels “due to mounting evidence that the values indicating antioxidant capacity have no relevance to the effects of specific bioactive compounds, including polyphenols on human  health.”

People who eat more fruits and vegetables have less risk of chronic disease, but nobody really knows whether this is because of antioxidants, other food components, or other life-style choices.

We offer blueberries at the Senior Center for their good taste. We don’t present them as a miracle food.

For a quirky change of pace, take a look at the way Sean Charmatz anthropomorphizes everyday objects. From bananas to chewing gum, he offers universal emotions of surprise, frustration, and togetherness. 

 

 

 

JULY

In an article titled “Food for the Soul,” The Washington Post offered this observation:

“Cooking for others is a powerful wellness-booster because it is a fundamentally altruistic act. And research shows that altruism can help release endorphins and boost feelings of gratitude. If you can do the cooking together, even better. It’s a vehicle to share recipes, stories, and memories.”

Monday Munch at the Charlotte Senior Center offers you this wellness-booster opportunity. Altruists of all ages have joined our ranks. The youngest was 7, the oldest isn’t telling. The results have ranged from that 7-year-old advising that the soup needed more salt to a highschooler’s pickled onions to Grandma’s rice pudding. What lingers are the stories that traveled with each one.

Some stories, such as the time our tomato soup exploded, set the fire alarm off, and brought the fire department, continue to resonate years later.

Yes, our kitchen can be frantic at times, but it is mostly fun-filled and very satisfying. It is a smile-filled place. So come join us and release some endorphins.

In Inside the Elaborate Schemes Restaurants Use to Survive Health Inspections, the New York Times describes dramatic tactics employed in city restaurants when health department inspectors arrive.

Health department inspections are, of course, unannounced–in New York and in Vermont. Recently when the health department inspector arrived at the Charlotte Senior Center it was business as usual in the kitchen. No diversion tactics needed. We are proud to report that our grade was 99.

Bon appétit!

 

 

Food Quiz: Healthy or Not?

Is Sushi ‘Healthy’? What About Granola? Where Americans and Nutritionists Disagree

by Kevin Quealy & Margot Sanger-Katz,

New York Times, July 5, 2016

Take a look at these foods. Which ones do you consider healthy? Check your answers with those of the public and nutritionists here:

*Granola bar

*Frozen yogurt

*Granola

*SlimFast shake

*Orange juice

*American cheese

Here’s where they mostly agree.

Percent describing a food as “healthy”	Nutritionists	Public
Apples	99%	96%
Oranges	99%	96%
Oatmeal	97%	92%
Chicken	91%	91%
Turkey	91%	90%
Peanut butter	81%	79%
Baked potatoes	72%	71%

Climate Tip: Those coffee grounds are compostable. Dump them into your garden, NOT in your trash.

 

MARCH

March comes in like a lion, but we’re ever hopeful for the appearance of the lamb.

• And so by degrees the winter wore away…and the chill,bitter, windy, early spring came round. The comic almanacks give us dreadful pictures of January and February; but, in truth, the months which should be made to look gloomy are March and April. Let no man boast himself that he has got through the perils of winter till at least the seventh of May.–Anthony Trollope, Doctor Thorne, 1858
• It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.–Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1861
• In a couple of months, we’ll have asparagus, fava beans, baby lettuces, ramps, fiddleheads and pea greens, the bounty of early spring. We’re moving forward. It will get better.–Sam Sifton, “What to Cook This Week,” New York Times, March 3, 2019

May the good meals you’ll find at the Senior Center inspire conversations about friendship and food, and not too much griping about the weather.

Tips:

• Homemade baking powder: Sift together two parts cream of tartar to one part baking soda. –New York Times Cooking   
• Warning: Fast-Growth Chickens Produce New Industry Woe: ‘Spaghetti Meat’

The delicious Monday desserts served this month all come with stories.

• Here’s the story of chocolate chips
• Read how early American skillet cake became Pineapple Upside Down Cake
• Often associated with Lent, Hot Cross Buns may date much earlier. Historians note that Egyptians and Saxons used small bun-like breads in sacrificial ceremonies to their goddesses, including Eostre, the goddess of spring. The cross also stood for the four seasons and the four phases of the moon and was used on breads made in honor of lunar goddesses in several cultures.
• Assessing the fruit available in Paris, Thomas Jefferson concluded that “they have no apple here to compare with our Newtown pippin,” and he requested that James Madison arrange shipment of both a barrel of the apples and fifty to one hundred of its grafts…less for his own use than to establish the American product in France.
  —Dining at Monticello, edited by Damon Lee Fowler (Thomas Jefferson Foundation)

• Asparagus is surely a harbinger of spring. In his Garden Book, Jefferson noted its harvesting and arrival at his table twenty-two times, the average date being April 8.
• Cork City, Ireland exported vast quantities of Corned Beef around the world from the 1600s to the 1820ies, but whether Corned Beef & Cabbage is a traditional Irish dish or as American as apple pie is up for discussion.
• Enjoy Chicken Cordon Bleu, while noting that Cordon Bleu was originally a title reserved for the Chevaliers of the Order of Saint Esprit (the highest order of chivalry under the Bourbon Kings), to whom it belonged because of the blue sash they wore. The term gradually focused on cooks, particularly a very skillful female cook (une cuisinière très-habile).
• As for Boeuf Bourguigon we’ll just let Julia Child have the last word: Boeuf Bourguignon: one of the most delicious beef stews concocted.

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FEBRUARY

More often than not, Monday Munch features soup, a great variety of soup. Here’s a bit of White House soup lore.

Richard Nixon did not agree with the old Spanish proverb “Of soup and love, the first is best.” After his first state dinner, Nixon complained that the meal had gone on too long and since “Men don’t really like soup,” the soup course should thereafter be omitted. Other presidents disagreed. Thomas Jefferson wrote out directions for preparing  white bean soup, which you can read here.

Abraham Lincoln chose Mock Turtle Soup for his Inaugural luncheon menu in March 1861, along with Corned Beef and Cabbage, Parsley Potatoes, and Blackberry Pie.

President Eisenhower, more interested in cooking than his wife, offered a recipe for Green Green Turtle Soup that begins, “Cut off the head from a live green turtle and drain the blood.” 

President James Garfield, in office for only 6 ½ months before he was assassinated, liked squirrel soup, as did Benjamin Harrison. The recipe requires three or four good-sized squirrels. 

If your travels take you to New York City, you can give sheep’s head soup a try. The New York Times calls kelle paca “a velvet sheath for the tongue, a declaration against winter.”

One of the Wednesday lunches this month features Shepherd’s pie, which can be dated to the introduction of potatoes, a New World food, in England. Introduced by the Spanish in the early 1500s, potatoes did not gain popularity in England until the 18^th century when frugal housewives in the north of England and Scotland came up with the idea for Shepherd’s Pie, using minced meat and topped with mashed potatoes. According to The Oxford Companion to Food, the name comes from the fact that there are large numbers of sheep in that region.

*Image from https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/?te=1&nl=cooking&emc=edit_ck_20190127