How to Ruin Cheese

Warning: this post is going to gross you out.

Here's how to take one of the most perfect foods in the world and ruin it:

1. Exploit your wife after she gives birth
2. Use her breast milk to make cheese
3. Offer it at your restaurant

This is exactly what Chef Daniel Angerer has done at Klee Brasserie, as reported in today's New York Post, which has quickly coined it as Klee Brassiere.

I don't really know where to begin. Social mores, anyone? Turns out, Angerer's wife is encouraging him to try making gelato next. Maybe we can start using sweat as a flavoring- you know, since no two musks are the same, like snowflakes. How about booger garnishes?

Breast milk, on its own, is beautiful and flawless by nature's design. It is also meant to be for babies during the crucial first year or so of development. If it is disturbing to see a 5-year-old still nursing, then why shouldn't it be that much more taboo for an adult to consume?

While there is absolutely nothing wrong with breast milk, I am completely against using any kind of ingredients produced by the human body in cuisine. No thanks. I'll stick to the moral code set by the Western world. If I was in a remote part of an underdeveloped country and breast milk was part of the food culture and was offered to me by the chief of a tribe honoring me as their guest, then that might be another story, but come on. We're New Yorkers. We don't eat shark fins, monkey brains, tiger bones, whales, endangered species; nor do we practice cannibalism. And as far as I know, breast milk is hands off, too.

If this couple wants to do experimental cooking with their bodily secretions, I don't think it should be offered as haute-cuisine at a trendy Chelsea restaurant in New York City. It seems awfully attention-seeking and out for shock value. It's gross. What does their baby think about all this?

Read all about it here. That is, when you're done throwing up. The comments at the end are fantastic.

Sharing a Wish with Jamie Oliver

Photo: jamieoliver.com

Jamie Oliver just soared to the top of my celebrity chef chart. Last month he was honored as winner of the 2010 TED Prize, awarded each year to an exceptional individual with a wish to change the world. His wish? To teach every child about food.

At the Ted Talk, Jamie stressed the need for food education in this country to set an example for the rest of the world in conquering the obesity epidemic. Two-thirds of the U.S. population is overweight or obese. Our main causes of death are related to diet and make up ten percent of health care costs today. In ten years, costs are expected to double to 20 percent- a staggering 300 billion dollars a year just on diet-related diseases. And it's all preventable.

Jamie humbly introduced himself as not a doctor, but a chef. He shared experiences from his visit to West Virginia, home of our country's largest percentage of obesity. During a school visit, children could not recognize basic vegetables, including cauliflower and tomatoes. Most schools actually promote fast food by limiting cutlery and serving quick, hand-held meals loaded with sugar and fat additives, which lead to addiction. (Anyone with a sweet tooth, I know you know.)

I never realized the severity of the situation until I moved to New York. I spent most of last year teaching cooking and nutrition to kids in the south Bronx, most of whom rely on school for their main meal each day.

You don't have to be a teacher in New York to see the destruction of unbalanced diets a million times a day. Watching teenage mothers feed their children Cheetos and candy on the subway makes me feel helpless because I can't say anything. Two-year-olds who eat McDonald's have no idea how much harm the parent is inflicting.

Adding insult to injury is the misguided idea that fast food is affordable. Excuse me? A $5 minimum for each meal per person, which are designed to make you hungry again in an hour or two? So it's expensive in the long AND the short run? It's enough to make my blood boil.

What resonated with me about Jamie's presentation was his statement that children having poor nutrition is a form of child abuse. I could not agree more, and I love him for having the guts to say it. Children are growing up to be the first generation with a shorter life expectancy than their parents. Food diets are something you are taught- they become a habit. Kids don't have a choice what they are served, so when adults are being irresponsible on their behalf, what will that lead to for them?

Adults should know better, but they are also entitled to make poor choices, whether it's once in a while or, God forbid, every day. We can't expect children to know any differently, unless we teach them.

The truth is, though limited, kids do have a choice. I will never forget one of the third-grade girls tell me she didn't want to drink cow's milk because of all the hormones added to make the cow produce more milk. I applauded her for making an informed decision and we talked about other ways her body can get calcium and why it's important for bone growth.

If you have twenty minutes, I urge you to watch Jamie Oliver's presentation here. If time is crunched, at least skip ahead to 9:30, when he starts really getting to the meat of the issue and offers reasonable solutions to our nation's most damaging epidemic.

Yogoraphobia

I hate exercise. I hate the gym. I hate team sports. And for a long time, I hated yoga, too.

Before the entire free world boos me off the internet for slandering yoga, allow me to explain. I have no flexibility whatsoever. My hamstrings are so tight that when I bend to touch my toes, I'm still about a foot away. A foot!

I took a yoga class once in college, only to be made an example of by the teacher (who was as amazed by my lack of flexibility as one would be horrified by a circus performer). I cut my losses and never went back.

Since I learned to swim last year and ride a bike the year before, my stiff joints are all I have left in the freaky body department. I thought I had come to a resolved knowledge and acceptance about my physical limitations. At least I can still rock climb, even if the rest of my body is like a clumsy giraffe.

My roommate, Bessie, wouldn't let me off the hook. Have I mentioned she's a professional dancer and has been practicing yoga for 15 years?

Since I alternate Sundays between being lazy and bettering myself, I decided to better myself and join her for a class at Greenhouse Holistic in Williamsburg.

A restorative class was the route we went- it was gentle and "not aggressive," good for a yoga virgin like me. We did gentle stretches like child's pose, cat and cow. There was also a lot of napping. It's strange to me that yoga is aimed to center most people and find inner quiet. For me, my internal voice just gets louder.

While everyone else closed their eyes and lay still, here's what went on in my head:

"Hey! So this is how you have a productive weekend? You're gonna nap all day? Don't forget you still have to grocery shop, pay your bills, clean the house and cook something with that hamburger left in the fridge. And you need to call your mother."

"Try to find the quiet within," the instructor said. "Put a block up against distractions. Find clarity in this moment. Strive to be satisfied with everything right now, just as it is."

"Yeah, quit getting distracted. Listen to the teacher, sucker."

When I thought that yoga's purpose is perfecting the body and deciding who's the most flexible in a class, I realize now that I'm the only one looking around. It's just like when I was in kindergarten and couldn't fall asleep with the rest of the kids during nap time.

I also have a hard time relaxing my shoulders back to open up my chest and solar plexus, which I know is one of the main chakras in the body (though I can't think too hard about chakras or I'm really going to start getting lost).

The challenge is not going to be how far I can stretch, if I do continue to practice yoga. It's going to be finding a quiet place within myself, within Brooklyn, and remembering to keep my heart open.

Ghetto Sundaes

What do you get when you have two roommates together on a Saturday night with cheap whiskey, junky ice cream, cake mix, and frosting?

The invention of something wonderful.

Behold the ghetto sundae.

Bloods vs. Crips

Photo by Lee Emmert


It's time to pick your side. It's new-age vs. traditional cooking, battling head to head! Hank Sawtelle loves the sous-vide method of cooking he picked up from his days working at wd-50 in Manhattan. Louisa Neumann is a classically-trained French chef. Whose side are you on?

Louisa and I go back to staging in France together through the La Varenne trainee program, so naturally I'm on her team. She can turn any animal or vegetable into a poem. Check her out at the Portland Pickle.

Sous-vide is a method of cooking food sealed in plastic bags at low temperatures in controlled water baths. The French developed this idea in the 70s, and apparently, the results can be sublime. There's something very artificial about it for me, and lots of drawbacks. Cooking sous-vide is expensive, it takes forever (sometimes days for one dish), and makes ideal conditions for breeding bacteria and botulism. In other words, you really need to know what you're doing.

You can read about the fierce battle between these Oregon chefs in the cover story of Mix, based in Portland.

This proves Anthony Bourdain's theory that chefs are either Bloods or Crips. (For more on this, read The Nasty Bits- it's gritty and wonderful.) I stand corrected, Bourdain was actually quoting Timothy Taylor from his novel, Stanley Park. Bloods are old-school and can devote their entire careers to mastering classic recipes with a strong emphasis on technique. A Crip, on the other hand, reinvents, deconstructs, fuses, and makes foams.

Crips keep the industry moving, set trends, inspire awe. Bloods send you home with a full stomach.




If the results are fantastic, I'll give the sous-vide method a shot some day, in small doses. It is all about how the food tastes in the end. But, like most things in life, the 'journey" to get there is also important. Louisa's quote in the article pretty much sums it up for me:

"...sous vide is cooking at arm’s length — the cook doesn’t seem necessary since there’s no browning, deglazing, sauce-building. It’s also much less of a sensory experience; no sizzling, bubbling, wafting aromas. “Cooking” without those things should go by another name! Hundreds of years of French culinary tradition is good enough for me."

What can I say? I'm a Blood.

Makeover Giveaway!

My prayers have been answered. Zesty Cook is offering a blog makeover giveaway! I don't often enter these contests, but my blog is in desperate need of tech savviness to match its sassy tartness.

For you new bloggers out there, check the link. If you win instead of me, you owe me big time.

Please pick me, Zesty Cook! Or just a hint on how to imbed videos and organize my posts into categories. Or just a clue on what "imbed" means.

I refuse to lose my sanity to technology.

Brooklyn Tarts and Cowgirl Hearts

I haven't spoken much about music in this blog, but since moving to Brooklyn, it's become an increasingly important part of my life.

This past year, I've welcomed Emmylou Harris into my life. I've welcomed a lot of new music to my life thanks to the influence of wise friends.

The biggest change has been adding country to the mix. I fought and fought it for so long, making concessions only for Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson. Neko Case came along and shook up my world. Then Randy Travis was thrown in the mix and the floodgates were opened.

While everyone is entitled to their musical opinions and preferences, no one can deny that there is a point in your life when lyrics suddenly mean something. It's a pivotal rite of passage- like when you realize your parents' music is actually really great. Country, more than any other genre with exception to the blues, captures the emotion of the human condition through its lyrics.

Brooklyn has brought a musical awakening to my musical coma of my stale, tired favorites. I resisted the indie scene as long as I could, but inadvertently fell in love with it (probably through osmosis- hey, I live in Williamsburg). The free summer concerts in Prospect and Central Parks have added to my repertoire, along with all the crazy punks I've worked with the past few years who have insisted that I listen to that amazing song or playlist. Now that country's in the picture, I know I'll never be the same.

It is only after seeing Neko and Emmylou on stage (at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco) that I fully realized the truth. Underneath it all I am just a simple cowgirl, tripping over my heart, but following it nonetheless.

Now as I sip my coffee and savor the morning, Emmylou croons, while beautiful baby Liliana sleeps in the next room. And maybe, just maybe, she will grow up to be a cowgirl, heeding Emmylou's advice to follow her heart, too.

Wanna listen?

Old School Emmylou

Newer Emmylou