What To Eat
A list of thoughts about the food I buy and my family eats. It’s not comprehensive (yet), but gives you a sense of my thought process as I shop – where I go to get stuff, what I buy, and why. I hope you find it useful.
APPLES
Gala, fuji, braeburn, honeycrisp. That’s basically it. Crisp, crunchy, sweet. I use them for anything and everything and don’t worry too much about it.
BUTTER
Unsalted reigns. It has a higher smoke point so it won’t burn as quickly at high heats; it allows for use in all recipes whether salty or sweet; it lives in my freezer and gets taken out a stick at a time except when we’re cooking with butter a lot (i.e., Thanksgiving). We *do* keep a stick of salted butter out on the counter, though, for bread/toast.
FLOUR
White unbleached all-purpose reigns here. I also have white whole wheat on hand all the time and often substitute ¼ of a recipe’s white flour with it, sometimes more. To lower glycemic index I have tried chickpea and coconut flours alone or cut into all-prupose, but the end result is often a significant compromise in the final product’s quality.
LAMB
Our favorites are herbed racks (I get them frozen from Trader Joe’s and they are wonderful), stew (I buy a boneless shoulder at Costco and process it myself into three freezer packs of cubes), and ground lamb meat for burgers – from Fleisher’s, our local sustainable humane meat purveyors. Any other chops or shanks usually come from them, too, but these are rarer treats.
MAPLE SYRUP
Yes, please. Lots. I like all grades equally and use it liberally in place of sugar. I avoid “pancake syrup” (flavored with fenugreek and has nothing to do with maple trees – it’s just HFCS!) at all costs. In my view the only limiting factor in our liberal use is its cost.
NUTS
We eat a *lot* of these. Mostly almonds and pistachios, by the handful. Some peanuts, mostly in the form of peanut butter. We don’t get the natural kind of peanut butter; we all prefer the sweeter processed stuff and balance the sugar load with other healthy choices at mealtimes. I adore a good natural almond butter, though, and my favorite is made of marcona almonds. My morning muesli includes slivered almonds and we’ve got a giant bag of pine nuts (never from China – go google “pine nut mouth” – seriously) for pesto.
OIL/FATS
For high-heat cooking, I use avocado oil. Healthy fat, high smoke point, neutral flavor: awesome. Coconut oil: such a pain chilled, and most jars require refrigeration… many are still mostly solid even at room temp, so I don’t use it much, though I like it for stir-frying thai dishes. I frequently use nut oils for vinaigrettes. I do not routinely use corn, canola, “vegetable,” or other oils. I use butter a fair amount (see above). I am not well versed in using lard and prefer my butter pie crusts anyways!
OLIVE OIL
After reading Extra Virginity, I became much more of an olive oil snob. Honestly, I’ll use any oil that tastes good to me, but I’d like to reward honesty in food and if the label says EVOO, I’d really like it to actually be – and taste like – EVOO. I prefer a fruity, even bitter olive oil; I use it for vinaigrettes, a drizzle on breads or vegetables; never in baking or frying. I enjoy Frankie’s Spuntino oil, and the more widely commercially available Lucini, though California Olive Ranch puts out some of the best oils I’ve tasted outside of Italy. The big brands have a pretty dirty track record, and until the laws and commercial cutting of oils with adulterants change, I don’t plan on buying them.
PASTA
We buy almost exclusively italian brands – usually Barilla or DeCecco. Garofalo makes some interesting specialty shapes. My mom likes the “healthier” pastas with chickpea flour; I like regular or straight-up whole wheat best. But I also adore shiritake noodles, made of soy: super low carb, low glycemic index, and similar in texture and use to a wide rice noodle.
POTATOES
Hardly ever eat them: I adore them, but my family is rather meh. Yukon golds and fingerlings make rare appearances; sweet potatoes become oven fries on occasion and are far better received. Unpeeled. Salted, oiled, chili powdered, and dipped in maple glaze at the table.
RICE
Jasmine and short-grain brown rice are my staples. I find basmati wonderful but can get dry pretty easily; I don’t enjoy long grain brown nearly as much. I don’t love the exotics (red, black, wild) enough to justify their costs.
SQUASH
For soup, nothing beats Honeynut – it’s butternut’s smaller, sweeter, smoother cousin. For recipes and roasting, I really love kabocha. There are LOTS of varieties and I love almost all of them, but these are my favorites flavor and texture wise. If you want butternut for a soup recipe and can’t find a whole fresh squash, I’d choose frozen over the packages of fresh cubed stuff anyday (which always has lost too much moisture by the time it gets to your kitchen, and in a texture-altering way that all the soup stock in the world can’t help).
SUGAR
I need to do more research here. Right now there’s some less-processed turbinado sugar in my pantry, but I’d like to know more about cane vs beet sugars, processing, sustainability, and cost. I don’t know enough about any of it yet. Stay tuned.
TOMATOES
San Marzano, in cans, for sauce. Plum, fresh, for sauce. “Cocktail” or campari tomatoes for good off-season eating. Brandywine or other heirloom varieties in summer. I almost never use beefsteak, and I eat grape tomatoes less and less now that the delicious other larger types are available.
TUNA
There is great pleasure in oil-packed tuna in jars. It can be hard to find types that are Seafood Watch approved, in which case we get canned stuff. We limit our consumption to once weekly (or less) due to mercury concerns.
FISH
A mainstay in our house. It’s a tricky subject: the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch app is helpful, but a lot of packaging isn’t specific enough to be of use and many fishmongers (and even sushi restaurants!) either can’t vouch for chain of command or species type – or out and out lie about fish types. We love Mermaid’s Garden, our local sustainable source, for reliable information and fish we (and the oceans) can live with. So we source through them when we can, follow the app when we can’t, and try to make good decisions as often as possible knowing sometimes our best choices for health aren’t the best choices for the environment – and I work on finding an alternative. A work perpetually in progress.
There’s more…. Lots more. I’ll add to this periodically, and someday divide it more carefully. But as a first pass for food advice I follow and would give, BON APPETIT!