Putting food on your family

Procrastinating here trying not to get my grant, due tomorrow, in an actual day in advance.

So, musing about food and the family, partly due to starting Michael Pollan's new book, In defense of food, and partly due to shopping alone at Trader Joe's this afternoon in the shadow of Pollan. His basic line: Eat food. Not too much. The book, of course, has a lot more to say on what constitutes food, but let's boil it down to "whole foods". Shopping, I was trying, as usual, to buy almost entirely whole foods: real whole foods, not the stuff sold at Whole Foods of which a large fraction is preassembled. We do miss one of the highlights of life in Princeton: our joint membership in a CSA farmshare with our friends Tom and Rachael. Figuring out how to use our allotment of unconventional vegetables was great fun. Picking basil, sunflowers and berries late on a summer evening with Tom and Rachael was an extraordinary pleasure and an experience that keys me into Pollan's perspective (laid out so powerfully in his mind-altering Omnivore's Dilemma).

We are a fussy family with respect to food-- in order of decreasing fussiness: Blaise, Anselm, Eliot, me. High standards are expected. Anselm has had a limited range in the last year or two, which seems to be finally expanding again, but it must be good (apart from his taste for corn dogs). For instance, he refuses-- entirely without posiness-- milk chocolate; he only likes bittersweet dark chocolate, and in cheeses only eats parmigiano and mozzarella (the real, fresh stuff). We buy very few processed foods, because someone doesn't like the flavor or texture of whatever additive. (I think it's fair to count bread and cheese--pure, real cheese-- as a whole food.) We are definitely running into a rut of things we all like to eat that are not too torturous to make. Even so, most of our favourite dishes take an hour or two at least.

Favorite weeknight dishes:

-- broccoli pasta. Everyone's #1. With garlic, anchovies (don't tell the kids), broccoli, pine nuts. It's a joy to see two small children chowing down broccoli.

-- pasta with peas and prosciutto. And garlic and cream.

-- coq au vin. Requiring weekend night preparation of ~2 hours, this usually feeds us for several days, including the final day tocco d'arrosto with pasta.

-- Blaise's Marcella Hazan meat sauce. Takes a long time (3 hours plus) but is worth it for the delicacy of texture and richness of flavour.

-- lasagne made with said meat sauce. And Blaise's great bechamel. Barilla has a newish lasagna type which is quite delicate, and does not require any intervention, just layering and baking.

-- Blaise's Marcella tomato sauce with spaghetti. Easy and popular.

-- pot roast. Anselm won't eat the meat but the kids both love the carrots and potatoes cooked this way.

-- chili. Kids like this with rice.

-- black beans with sausages, peppers and zucchini; rice and sauteed greens, like kale or swiss chard, on the side.

-- vegetable couscous with grilled lamb tenders.

-- pizza. The two versions are concessions to pre-prepared. TJ's Alsatian flatbread! And the TJs prepared dough with their buffalo mozzarella and Parma prosciutto. If I knew how to make the dough, I would, but I'm scared of yeast. Kate says it's easy, but I tried it, and it wasn't :-(. For me.

We used to eat a lot of Blaise's excellent Thai curries, til the kids. Anselm's food fussinesses, including his quasi-vegetarianism (ground meat and smooth sausage seems to somehow escape the ban), has cramped the style, especially pan casseroles of chicken, which I love.

Blaise wants me to mention some summer dishes that we are looking forward to.

-- salmon on the grill

-- penne with fresh heirloom tomatoes, basil and pinenuts

-- homemade pesto

-- Vietnamese chicken spring rolls