Best Half-Baked Idea: An Edible Cookbook

Dishing out food has never been my forte. I like to read gorgeous cookbooks, but I tend to gravitate towards the table setting images. The rest is like a foreign language to me. I'm easily dazed, confused and distracted. When I do set out to execute a recipe, just as the timer goes off, I realize I’ve left out an ingredient…usually, the main one.

Luckily, the other three members of my family, and my mom, are spectacularly adept pan-slayers. I’ve mentioned before that my husband is truly a gifted gourmet. And that’s a good thing, because I do enjoy eating well.

Along comes my kind of cookbook, The Real Cookbook from the German design agency, Korefe

Here are 3 reasons why I love it:

  1. It’s made of 100% fresh pasta (yum).
  2. The pasta pages are used as sheets of lasagna (yum, yum).
  3. Just bake the book and eat (yum, yum yum).

Don't you think there’s something really delicious to be said about food that comes with its own instructions?

READ MORE: Fixing Food On A Starving Planet Food Rules Backlash DIY Eco-Gifts For The Vegan And Vegetarian

Last Minute Holiday DIY

Did you think I was going to go all Scrooge on you and not extend my deep well of holiday DIY projects this year? Maybe you thought the holiday’s predictability with its earlier and earlier seasonal creep, and obsessive waste had taken over my good will and peace towards the blogosphere? Or, could it be you remember last year's A-Z Holiday DIY Gift-Guide burnout?

The truth is I've been collecting and squirreling away these three project ideas.

One of my greatest pleasures is gift-giving. While I may have ditched the mall and mostly shopped local with some online purchases sprinkled in, the bottom line on the greenest holiday gifts and decorations are still the ones that don't consume our planet's resources. They contribute in ways that bring beauty, sustainability and meaning...and they can't hold a candle to those that roll off assembly the line.

So, you have a choice: grab your keys and make that last mad dash to the mall, or make meaning.

Favorite Hanukkah Project of the Season

Twig Menorah: For a Hanukkah centerpiece, you just can't go wrong with a twig and a candle...or 8.

Favorite Christmas DIY Project of the Season

Crystal Chandelier Ornament (main image): I have a box of mix-matched crystals that my father-in-law gave me years ago. Just attach Christmas tree hooks to the crystals for a sparkling holiday reuse.

Favorite Food Project of the Season

After teaching young kids...and raising a few, I thought I was over playing with food, but sappiness took over and these Black Olive Penguins (cute, huh?) almost got the better of me. But I'll spare you such silliness and instead share these Good For You Whoopie Pies. Apparently, I've been living under a Whoopie Pie rock because I never had one of these compact morsels of sweet goodness until this past Thanksgiving. My daughter's college roommate visited and brought pumpkin Whoopie Pies from the Whoopie Pie capital of NY...Brooklyn. Enjoy!

Photo credits: HomeShoppingSpy, Shelterness, Eating Well

Food Rule Backlash

"Do all your eating at a table. No, a desk is not a table.”

Guilty.

Ted says the illustration above is of me. It's not, but it could be.

How many food rules do you break? Michael Pollan has added 19 new rules in his latest book, Food Rules: an eater's manual, and they’ve been brought to life by the fabulous illustrations from artist, Maira Kalman.

I just read an interview with Michael Pollan by writer, Sarah Henry of Civil Eats. The interview digs into how his collaboration with Kalman came to be. When asked during the interview whether or not Pollan feels our interest in the food movement has peaked, he expanded upon why he keeps pushing food:

“I do feel a sense of urgency to keep writing about food. We’re just beginning to see the impact of our food choices on health care and insurance costs—obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are soaring—and we need to keep the pressure on the government and corporations for change.”

I mostly like Pollan’s rules and abide by this one:

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

This rule has been my food mantra for years:

"The fewer the feet, the better the meat”

…minus the feet.

More and more I’m noticing that I have conflicting issues around food--but they're the opposite problem than those who eat too much meat have. For years, my family has chided me to loosen up on my no red meat rule. Friends I’ve known my entire life can’t seem to remember that I haven’t eaten red meat since college. When I'm invited to dinner, they still ask,

“What is it again that you don’t eat?”

Why don’t I eat red meat? I can’t remember. I do know I’ve lost my taste for it. A part of me wishes I could find a reason to bring a little meat back into my diet because I’m getting increasingly paranoid about all the mercury in fish. I'm told, the cute cows I can hear mooing from the farm behind my backyard are the best meat around.

I want to live the life of a locavore. Yet, I can’t eat red meat...and I can’t remember anymore why I hold on tight to that food rule.

Pollan says to those who want to know if they need food rules:

“When you eat real food, you don’t need rules.”

Oh no, this one doesn’t fly with me because I have food rules and I eat real food. Anyone else have this food rule backlash problem?

Food issues are complicated, and the act of eating should be part pleasure, part communion with a hefty dose of healthy nutrition.

Maira Kalman’s illustrations are poignant, funny and sad all at the same time, which just about sums up my latest food feelings. Her art adds a large dollop of cream to Pollan’s book.

http://youtu.be/fugCMaPp0mY

If you’re in mood for a little humor, Pollan brings his food rules to Stephen Colbert’s plate. Watch the funny exchange here.

Main image: Maira Kalman for Food Rules

Fixing Food On A Starving Planet

How we farm and how we eat may prove to be one of the largest issues of our time. There seems to be a lot of deep thinking around this topic, viagra buy and I believe the multi-dimensional problem of climate change reaches into the core of why we need a realignment of the inequalities in our food system – both locally and globally.

How do we fix food on a warming planet? Can we find a solution that will not cause worse damage and more starvation?

Planet Food

In regards to climate change, sick agriculture is a double-edge sword. It’s a sector of our society that is adversely affected by environmental changes. Yet our global food system is one of the greatest contributors to climate change.

“Climate change, price in turn, is contributing to rising rates of hunger and food insecurity. As much as 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions come from the food system.” ~ Slow Food

Pollutants such as pesticides (insecticides and herbicides) sprayed on our food, and injected into the soil, are landing on our plates. We have fumigants in our strawberries, growth inhibitors sprayed on our potatoes, hazardous chemicals like mercury swimming in our fish, and antibiotics pumped into our livestock. Even chocolate and peanut butter are threatened by global warming.

Agriculture has the ability to pollute the environment and make us sick. It also poses potential solutions as we create smarter food alternatives for our families. Growing chemical-free food, and shopping locally can help push back against a broken food system.

But, what about our global community? How can we worry about eating organic spinach when people are dying of malnutrion?

Starving Planet

Changes in climate have exasperated the problem of famine. 

"Higher temperatures and changes in precipitation result in pressure on yields from important crops in much of the world…Biological impacts on crop yields work through the economic system resulting in reduced production, higher crop and meat prices, and a reduction in cereal consumption. This reduction means reduced calorie intake and increased childhood malnutrition." ~ Scientific American

I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject, as I’ve just scratched the surface of the issue of food. To create a cleaner plate, the fix won’t just happen organically. As our planet grows warmer, we are going to need to do something. I believe we’ll need to start voting with our stomachs, and healing with our hearts.

Here’s one way to start...