blog

I am almost ready to give birth to a project that's been incubating for ages. It's still rather sparse (or, as they say in Web 2.0 speak, 'beta'). If you take a look let me know what you think....

[Update:] Thank you for all of the positive comments! (If you have any criticism that's welcome too.) As you can probably see already, the site will be quite tutorial-heavy, especially since there are already a growing number of bento blogs. As I've written in Bento Basics, the focus of most of the bentos (I'm sure there will be some exceptions) I'll be writing about are 1) brown-rice based with a large portion of vegetables, 2) made in 20 minutes or under (with some prep work) and 2) 600 calories or under (a bit more for bigger guys). They won't be that cute - at least inside the bento box. I don't have a lot of patience for cute-fiddling in the morning. You can of course add cuteness with the bento box itself or the wrapper for the bento box.

The site is still 'beta' because I'm still ironing out some background kinks, but you can already subscribe to it and things.

Incidentally, I started to make a concerted effort to make bento earlier this year, as part of an overall 'eat healthier, dammit' thing. It's been a really positive experience health-wise and taste-wise, and as one side effect I've lost about 30 lbs (15 kg or so) since the beginning of the year. Does that give you an incentive to start making bento too? :)

The French-language blog sooshi has pictures of Uchitomi, a Japanese grocery with stores in Genève and Lausanne. The selection looks very nice!

I have also spotted real yuzu recently at the Bürkliplatz market in Zürich. In the summer I have seen live shiso plants there, both red and green too, Japanese-style sweet potatoes at Barkat, and satoimo (taro roots) at the Indian grocery store next the Hooter's at Helvetiaplatz. It's really great to see more 'exotic' Japanese and Asian produce more easily available here. When I first came to visit Switzerland back in the mid-'90s, you had to buy fresh ginger in the exotic food department at Globus! How times have changed. .

Yesterday, the Soil Association in Britain, a highly inflluential charitable organization, announced that in a year, they will only certify food that is air shipped into the country as organic if it also met fair trade standards. Since some thought that they should stop certifying any imported fresh food as organic, this looks like a compromise on their part. Even if on the surface organic and fair trade don't have much to do with each other, in the realm of fuzzy good-feeling consumerism they are certainly related.

I don't think that enough study has been done yet on just how greener locally produced food is though. As I've written about here before, food produced in cold to temperate climates with short growing seasons requires a lot of energy. It's probably beyond the scope of organizations like the Soil Association at this point in time to try to address complicated issues like that though. Far easier to place restrictions and requirements on far-flung producers with little or no political power.

Buy organic, support fair trade. Avoid trans-fats and simple sugars. Avoid additives and chemicals and extraneous packaging. Hope there are no harmful bacteria. Oh yes, and worry about the rising cost of food too. I used to love going to the supermarket. I still do mostly, but these days that enjoyment is tinged with a lot of stress.

(See also: should the supermarkets pre-edit our choices? Personally, even with all the thinking and decision-making that's required I'd rather make my own choices.)

Next year, the United Nations wants us to celebrate the humble potato for an entire year. I'm not certain how the UN makes its decisions about such things (why not the Year of the Tomato or the Year of the Turnip?), but I have no objections against the humble potato, one of my favorite foods. Unless you are an avowed anti-carb person, how could you not love the potato?

Forgive me for neglecting Just Hungry a bit this week - I've been spending all of my free waking time in Knightsbridge. I did want to follow up on the thoughtful comments left on my post about eating local in winter, in areas without 4-season growing conditions. Perhaps because I've been immersed in the 14th century has helped, but I'm increasingly intrigued by the idea of trying to experience how it would have been like to survive the winter in an age when fresh foods were not shipped in from far parts.

So I am going to try it out for at least a week in a few weeks - I think the end of January/beginning of February would be a good time. I don't think I will go back as far as the Middle Ages, but something prior to the 19th century anyway - prior to fast trading ships as well as the advent of refrigeration. (I'm not sure if I will aim for pre-canning days as well). I'm also a bit undecided as to if I'll try to emulate how it would have been in Switzerland, or something more generic, as well as what class in society I'd put myself (since rich people would have eaten a lot better then poor people, of course). When I've done more research into this I'll post what I'm going to do.

Celebrity chefs have been around for some time now, but they seem to have exploded all over the place in the last decade, mainly through food related TV shows.

The restaurant food world is becoming similar to the world of fashion. There are the actual restaurants, most of which are too expensive for the majority of the population - people without generous expense accounts or oodles of money - other than for a rare treat. These are the couture studios (as in real couture, not 'couture' as it's used to describe anything that's not a plain t-shirt these days) of the food world. Then you have all the merchandising, from cookbooks to dodgy cookware to frozen dinners bearing a chef's name. Those are the perfumes and bags and H & M special-designer label lines of the food world.

As long time readers of Just Hungry may know, I used to recap every single episode of the Bravo TV reality show Top Chef. The first season had me glued to my...er, computer screen. However for various reasons I did not do so for the third season that just concluded. I did watch it though, and have just a few thoughts.

Fall (or autumn) is really a wonderful time for local produce in temperate climates. The grapes in our garden are crying out to be picked every day, we still have a couple of late zucchini, and the markets are overflowing with winter squash, heirloom apples, pears, and more. In a couple of months though most of that will be gone, and we'll be very limited in what we can eat that's grown locally. Unless it comes from greenhouses of course, and, while there may be exceptions commercial greenhouses aren't usually that energy efficient.

I am a moderate in most things, including eating, so am not a dedicated locavore. If I were though, and I did not live in a four-season growing area like most of California, my winter choices would be severely limited.

If we truly ate like our ancestors, who were limited to locally grown foodstuffs, we'd be eating a lot of preserved foods in the winter months. A lot of those foods have disappeared from modern pantries, but a few do survive: jams, pickles, preserves; dried or salted meats like sausages and hams and corned beef; salt cod. (In Japan there are lots of salt-cured and dried foodstuffs ranging from fish to seaweed to vegetables.) Two of the best examples are both cabbage based: sauerkraut, and kimchee. The lactic-acid fermented cabbage retains quite a lot of its nutrition, and probably kept legions of people from dying of malnutrition.

I'd really like to see those dedicated, evangelical locavores to try living on a diet based on these traditional preserved foods in the winter months, because that would show a true dedication to the cause. No cheating on tropical imported fruits. I'm thinking of trying it out on a short term basis (like a week) myself, just to see if it's possible.

I was hoping that I would avoid my usual bout with a cold/flu around this time of the year with healthier eating and regular exercise and all that, but no such luck. Once again I'm enduring the stuffed head, sore throat, and achy body. My favorite home remedy to combat a cold, besides Ricola tea, is lemon-honey water: the juice of one lemon in a big mug with hot water and a spoonful of honey. My grandmother's favorite remedy was umeboshi, though I'm not sure why (she believed in umeboshi for a variety of ailments). What are your favorite homemade cold remedies?

I am a usually a big fan of the Italian design firm Alessi, who make, besides other things, all kinds of cool, funky and expensive kitchen gadgets. However, this Mr. Chin line of kitchen timers and other gadgets made me wonder, what were they thinking.