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2001.december.29 ---------------- i put up the recipe for peanut butter chocolate dipped cookie-things. they're really easy and super good! 2001.december.28 ---------------- florida roundup: the most fresh produce i saw in one place (didn't make it to the farmer's market) was at fleamasters, one of the biggest fleamarkets i've ever seen. it was a great place for shiny things: i got an awesomely tacky gold visor and a rhinestone-studded purple bandana. unfortunately, i couldn't find a replacement pair of shades; apparently jackie o's just aren't the current fashion in sunglasses. too bad; i like them because they're big and dark enough to wear over my (prescription) glasses. but i digress. being at the fleamarket reminded me how much i love the megamall near my house, and all of its shady glory. in keeping with my "shop cheap and local" ethos, i told myself months ago that i'd try and buy all of my holiday gifts at the megamall; unfortunately, i forgot about that and now (most of) my shopping is done. so i'm back in chicago, applying some of my florida adventures to my home state. i found this guide to u-picks, and since we aren't a citrus state, a listing of apple orchards. i've been thinking about farming a lot lately, particularly sustainable agriculture. the attra (appropriate technology transfer for rural areas) site seems to have a lot of good information on the practices of intercropping and successive planting. and though it's dc, not illinois, this site has some good information on how food distribution works, from farm to table. i've always been a city girl, but previous generations of my family worked their farms. growing your own food sounds incredibly fulfilling to me. in college i took a class on home vegetable gardening, though it inspired more poems than crops. currently, i don't even have a real back yard in which to plant veggies, but i would like to start up an herb garden before spring. 2001.december.27 ---------------- well, i'm back from florida, with goodies! my carry-on for the flight home to chi-town was a bag of 8 grapefruit, 15 tomatoes, and a lemon :) florida amazes me. the culture is a bit odd, but citrus trees are ubiquitous. the grapefruit i brought back were picked from a tree in my uncle's backyard; i ate some every day while i was there. i wish i had a picture of the lemon i picked (also from a tree in my uncle's backyard); it's ridiculously big and juicy. the tomatoes down there were salivatingly delicious; i absolutely had to bring some back. so my dad and i went to a u-pick called biggar farms, where they grow massive fields of tomatoes and strawberries. at 98 cents a pound, i picked about seven dollars worth of tomatoes, at various stages of ripening green. they should last me at least a couple weeks and several batches of salad caprese. wherever i went in fort myers there seemed to be produce stands by the side of the road. i am lamenting the fact that i couldn't take more fresh food back with me, and that i didn't get to pick any starfruit either, since they were all over pine island. i definitely have more to say on florida and food shopping, as well as a few recipes to share. but i also have some reacclimating to do, some unpacking and some work, so i'll post more on my holiday excursions in the next couple days. --- afternoon snack update: pretzel rods dipped in nutella are *goooooooooood* 2001.december.20 ---------------- meant to post this a few days ago: my roommate ellen put up the recipe for her "no cooka da noodles" veggie lasagna. it's good stuff, and relatively easy to make. this evening i'm leaving for six days in florida, so updates won't be as regular. i do, however, hope to explore some farmer's markets, maybe tour an orange farm, and eat a lot of really fresh fish. 2001.december.19 ---------------- yesterday, after stocking up on frango mints for family holiday gifts, atomly and i went to lunch at the oasis cafe. it's not a grocery store, but i feel i should mention it, since it's one of the best (and cheapest!) lunches you can get in the loop. the oasis cafe is located at 21 n. wabash, in the back of a jewelry mall collective-type thing. their lentil soup is amazing, as is the falafel, shawarma, and eggplant sandwich. they even carry ibc cream soda! i can't recommend their dolmas though; i don't like them served hot. you have to walk through a jewelry store to get to the oasis, so it's not the easiest place to find; it's not even listed on metromix. but now you know, and knowing's half the battle. 2001.december.18 ---------------- time for a perspective check. it's been almost four months since i stopped shopping at corporate grocery stores, and so far it's been a pretty rewarding experience. i spend less money on food while buying fresher ingredients, cook more instead of making so many just-add-water meals from a box, and explore chicago's neighbourhoods and ethnic food shops while blogging the whole thing. all this has been great fun for me. so i was a little disappointed in myself when, while in a crunch for time on saturday, i had to go to whole foods. i was behind schedule on food preparation for the potluck, and the convenience of being able to buy everything i needed in one place (a place with an espresso bar, might i add) got me shopping in corporate groceryville. it also helped that whole foods is right next to sam's wine and spirits, where we did our liqueur stockin' up. the first thing i noticed about whole foods is their selection of rice/soy/alternative milks. it's huge. i was able to get two cartons of my beloved vanilla vitasoy, which can be difficult to find (whole foods carried almost the entire vitasoy product line). next, we headed over to the coffee bar for a shot of espresso, where i found the vanilla syrup i needed for chai. (side note: check out this interesting breakdown of flavoured coffee syrups.) while we were waiting for coffee i had a kind of culture shock: this whole foods was in lincoln park, and the place was overrun with yuppies. people talking on cell phones, wearing expensive hiking gear, driving massive suv's, filling just about every bad yuppie stereotype i could think of. it made me cringe. most of the places i've been shopping for the last four months have been small, family-run, and usually have somewhat of an ethnic focus, with a clientele that speaks primarily spanish, korean, chinese or polish. i think i felt more out of place at whole foods than any other grocery store lately, despite the language barrier. it just seemed so garish to me. anyhoo. after downing espressos we checked out the veggie section. damien couldn't find the special kind of mushroom he wanted, but ellen got a head of cauliflower. too bad it turned out to be a *five dollar* shriveled head of cauliflower, and too bad she didn't notice till she got up to the register. all in all, my excursion into corporate groceryville made me want to retreat back to pete's, the little shop at the end of my street. chain grocery stores may be convenient and have a wider selection of products, but they're more expensive, and their "ethnic food aisles" are usually a joke. if anything, this little trip to whole foods showed me what i've been missing from a different perspective, a "no more of my grocery money goes to the man" perspective. yeah. 2001.december.17 ---------------- in preparation for our potluck on saturday, i ran around town gathering ingredients for myself and my roommates. at family fruit market i acquired: + 10 hothouse tomatoes + 3 lemons + 1 lb. large mozzarella balls + 1/2 lb. medium mozzarella balls + some fresh basil + tub o' margarine + 1 lb. honey + flour + hazelnut wafers + deli octopus in olive oil i can't find the receipt, so i don't remember how much it all cost, maybe twenty-something? on the way back from family fruit market we also stopped at arirang, a korean market on lawrence. it had several different sections: a deli, a video counter, a vegetable area, a liquor area and a cosmetics counter. at the deli, where you had to pay for your purchase separately from the rest of the store, i got a spicy onion dish, kind of like kimchi without the cabbage. spicyhot but good! i also got a 3 kg. tub of miso, some rice noodle balls and a peach bits drink, kinda like the mango bits drink from diho. after a lot of shopping and not much planning, the potluck was a lot of fun! more food than everyone could eat was brought, including veggie curry, lasagna, quiche, potatoes, bean salad, apple crisp, rice krispie treats, cookies, cheesecake, roasted vegetables and rice, tiramisu, enchiladas, chocolate pie, strawberry spinach salad and some other stuff i'm forgetting. ridiculous amounts of alcohol showed up as well; our bar has been restocked with a shockingly diverse selection of liquor. preparing the salad caprese made me realize that it really is winter, even if we don't have snow yet. damn, i'll be glad when i can get good fresh red juicy homegrown tomatoes again. as a side note, my roommates and i are all omnivores, but everything people brought to the potluck was vegetarian, and half of it was vegan, so everyone ate well :) 2001.december.14 ---------------- hopefully after my company party at twelve 12 tonight i'll have time to go to family fruit market for good veggies and fresh mozzarella; i'm making salad caprese for the potluck tomorrow. i also need to remember to pick up some ginger and a few other ingredients for chai. time to start a grocery list... 2001.december.13 ---------------- i ordered this book yesterday, since i've been practically living off miso this week (with buckwheat yam soba mmmmmm). even after extended periods of miso ingestion i don't get sick of it, but i have been craving a good steak lately. 2001.december.12 ---------------- after discussing how awesome diho was, jen told me about a few other asian markets i should check out. chicago foods is relatively close to my house, so i'll probably go there when i run out of miso later this week (wish i could get this stuff!). the other place, mitsuwa, is a japanese mall out by ikea. besides being a grocery store, it also has a japanese book store, bakery, noodle shop, and some other stuff that i look forward to investigating. until recently, i've done most of my asian food shopping in chinatown, but i'm excited to try out these other places. i'll still go there for my bubble tea fix, though. 2001.december.11 ---------------- for the holidays, i am asking for grapefruit spoons and a grocery cart. while searching on the spoons, i found this link about how to eat fruit politely. now you know. i've been eating a lot of grapefruit lately (stanley's usually has them pretty cheap), though i don't do much other than the standard cut-in-half-and-add-sugar routine. good thing i found this guide to citrus fruits. also, someone out there seems to think that grapefruit spoons and sporks are related. huh. 2001.december.10 ---------------- on the way to buy a new receiver in the burbs saturday, we passed by an interesting looking asian grocery store, and stopped in. it was called diho market, and i'm glad we stopped! it turns out that the store we went to, on dempster, was only a branch location, but i found more than enough stuff to buy: + sugared dried mango + teriyaki nori + buckwheat yam noodles (tororo soba) + fried gluten in peanuts + edamame + fried tofu puffs + mango bits drink + wasabi peas + spicy dried bean curd (beef jerky-esque) + 3 boxes of botan rice candy + a packet of soup mix + dried shitake mushrooms + chili garlic sauce + rice vinegar total: 23.81 damien got a tub of jelly candy, a bottle of plum wine, grape gum, beef jerky, a bottle of oolong tea, and a box of botan rice candy. then on sunday night i used the shitake, noddles and tofu to make some miso soup. 2001.december.07 ---------------- jen made some really awesome gingerbread chocolate chip "chookies" and brought them in to the office today. oh yeah. 2001.december.06 ---------------- so zoe told me about angelic organics, something i'd like to try next year. it's a "biodynamic community supported agriculture" vegetable and herb farm about two hours south of chicago. if you become a member you can get a bushel of good veggies every week between june and november from one of their chicago neighbourhood pick up sites. obviously, i'm a bit late to do it this year, but it's something i'd like to try next year. it's only about twenty dollars a week, and i'd probably share the box with roommates or something. i've been interested in eating organic for a while, but it's something that's always seemed too expensive, and difficult to acquire. getting involved with angelic organics would resolve both of those issues :) a few more organic resources: * official government standards for organic are on the national organic program site. * organic kitchen has a good listing of markets, vineyards, restaurants, vendors, and recipes. * the organic farming research foundation and organic trade association also have a lot of good info. 2001.december.05 ---------------- last night's dinner was lovely: rosemary potatoes, roasted acorn squash, baba ghanouj, hot portabella salad, and chips and salsa. the chips and salsa were purchased at a coop in milwaukee, which takes us to... milwaukee edition: part 2 on sunday i got to check out the riverwest coop, which my friend whendee has help set up, an effort that's taken almost three years. she gave me some info on it, pamphlets and such, which i promptly lost. it seemed like a lot of planning and hard work had gone into it; they just opened last month, so it was neat to see it actualized. since it hasn't been open long, whendee said they can only afford to keep two or three thousand dollars worth of inventory. they seemed to do a good job of covering the bases (basics) of health food, though the bulk bins had not been stocked yet. the coop just got a big freezer though, so i'm guessing frozen food is up next. they also had several bushy herb plants (cilantro, basil, etc.) from which you can get clippings. i don't remember if they had any veggies. i was pretty impressed to see the coop come together. it's still small, but has a lot of room and energy to grow. we left discussing the idea of donating a few old pentiums and 486's to set up an inventory system. i also left with an unlabeled jar of el ray's garlic lime salsa, which got snarfed up last night, and a can of mango fandango spritzer. the idea of community effort and trading labor for cheap food really appeals to me. i joined the common ground coop in college, but didn't really make much of the opportunity. i think perhaps it's time to start investigating the coop options in my neighbourhood. 2001.december.04 ---------------- ex-roommate tuesday dinner interlude: in preparation for tonight's dinner, ellen and i went to stanley's yesterday. since we will be hitting up margie's candies afterwards for some quality ice cream, fudge, and caramel, we decided to keep the dinner light and veggie-focused. i got: + 2 bags of spinach + 3 large portabella mushrooms + 5 plum tomatoes + 4 acorn squash + 2 grapefruit + 2 green peppers + 2 zucchini + broccoli total: $13.74 ellen did even better: + some fresh rosemary + green onions + white onion + a head of boston lettuce + a head of romaine + 2 red peppers + 2 cloves of garlic + celery + 3 limes + 2 lemons + 4 bananas + a bag of potatoes + a yellow pepper + 4 gala apples + a bag of carrots total: $10.42 on the way home from stanley's we stopped at jimenez to get some brown sugar for the squash, and i also picked up some nescafe clasico. as a coffee snob, i've always frowned on instant. but this weekend i tried this stuff iced, shaken up with some water and cream and sugar and damn it was fast caffeinated goodness. when we got home i didn't feel like cooking much, so i had bonzos allegra (using goya), then raw broccoli dipped in ranch, followed by toast with some lovely strawberry rhubarb jam. now all that's left to get for dinner tonight is bread from panadaria la central and baba ghanouj from the sultan's market. 2001.december.03 ---------------- milwaukee edition: part 1 this past weekend was spent in milwaukee, where i had the opportunity to explore several new stores and restaurants. first of all, it was getting cold out, and my face was dry, so damien took me to beans and barley. they have this special lotion there, rachel perry's calendula-cucumber moisturizer. yeah, that stuff rocks, and i don't even like cucumbers. besides the lotion, i also got my favourite annie's salad dressing, shitake and sesame, and a couple of homemade caramels. i'd like to make my own caramels sometime, they're so good. overall, beans and barley seemed to be a pretty good natural food store. they had a lot of different luna bars, and a pretty good alternative milk selection, even carrying huge cartons of refrigerated rice dream, but no vitasoy vanilla delite. the deli seemed pretty standard, lots of bean salads and such. i was tempted to get a chocolate chip cookie, but the only ones they made had nuts in them, so i called skips. more on milwaukee food shoppin' tomorrow. |