Mark Bittman’s Potato and Leek Soup

Bill and I wanted grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch on Day 4 of our challenge, “How to Eat Healthy on $5.00 a Day.” So I was trying to think of an easy soup to make as an accompaniment. I knew some of last summer’s leeks (one of my favorite veggies) were in the freezer.

And we had some potatoes that Bill picked up at the Fulton Street winter farmers market last weekend.

Since my favorite recipe for leek and potato soup has several ingredients, which would complicate the process and add to cost, I decided to look in my trusty Mark Bittman cookbook, How to Cook Everything. There it was: a simple recipe for  Potato and Leek Soup.

That’s what I love about Bittman. If you want to learn–or relearn–how to cook, get this book. You won’t regret it.

An avid home cook, Bittman has filled his book with easy recipes and many variations, suggestions, and techniques for simple, healthy cooking.

His book may even be a replacement for the standard cook’s “bible” in my kitchen, The Joy of Cooking.

Anyway, here’s how  you make the soup:

Saute the potatoes and leeks in olive oil until slightly tender. Add stock or water, bring to boil, and simmer 20 minutes. When I made it I used water since the goal is to reduce costs. And it was still very tasty–a great soup for vegetarians. Normally, I’d use fresh leeks from the farmers market but that’s just not an option in Michigan in February!

Need a Book to Read?

From Take Part, a website and social action network, comes a very comprehensive list of books about food compiled by Take Part’s Food, Inc. community. Thanks to my friend Julie for sharing it with me, and for loaning me a number of books that are mentioned in the blog post.

All I can say is that I’m way behind on my reading!

Here are just a few of the books cited on the list:

Nothing to Sneeze At: Main Dishes for People with Allergies

There’s a little project I’ve been working on during the past six months with a few good and talented friends. And because many of my blog readers suffer from food allergies–or live with people who suffer from them–I thought I’d share the fruits of our labor: I just published my first cookbook and it’s called Nothing to Sneeze At: Main Dishes for People with Allergies.

In the last several years that I’ve lived with Bill, who is allergic to wheat, cow dairy, and corn, I learned how many unnecessary ingredients are in processed food. I also learned how to make substitutions for the foods he can’t eat: bread, milk, butter, tortillas, most cereals, waffles, cookies, crackers, yoghurt, ice cream, cheeses from cows, breadcrumbs, semolina pasta–and even regular ketchup–just to name a few.

Adapting and creating recipes–many of which are posted on this blog–simply became a fun challenge as I cooked in the kitchen. So I thought: Why not share the recipes with people who suffer from food allergies? Then others can see how easy it is to make delicious meals without sacrificing flavor or nutrition.

If you’re interesting in buying your own copy of Nothing to Sneeze At, please visit Lulu.com. I hope it offers hope and inspiration for those who suffer from allergies at the table!

Incremental Steps Toward Eating Responsibly

Time magazine interviewed Michael Pollan recently about his new book Food Rules.

Watch the video, in which Pollan answers readers’ questions.

Then, vote with your fork!

Eating Animals: A Carnivore’s Review

I finally finished reading Eating Animals, the new book by Jonathan Safran Foer. As I mentioned in a blog post earlier this month, it took me awhile to plod through because it’s not good bedtime reading, which is when I do most of mine. I thought watching videos such as “Meet Your Meat” about feedlot farms was bad; this is even tougher. (It’s just like they say about books and movies….the book is usually better–or worse in this case, due to the graphic descriptions.)

Since I’m a writer, I’ll cover the nuts and bolts first: Frankly, I find Safran Foer’s style difficult to follow. His language is a bit choppy. I don’t always follow his syntax–or his thoughts, for that matter. But, that’s just me.

As for content, he gives the reader a lot to digest. Maybe that’s why it took me three months to read the book. But, most impressively, he’s done his research. Safran Foer has supplied us with a ton of data about the industrialized world of feedlot farming….research we all need to know about. I admire him for taking on the challenge of interviewing people to hear their stories about maltreatment of animals. (Me, I can hardly look at road kill when I’m driving.) I guess if you want to take baby steps toward Eating Animals, try Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma first; it’ll help prepare you for the graphic depictions described by Safran Foer.

Here’s a basic synopsis of the content, which I snagged from The Huffington Post in October:

Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood–facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child’s behalf–his casual questioning took on an urgency. His quest for answers ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong. Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir and his own detective work, Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits–from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth–and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting….

That hits the nail on the head.

So why isn’t this a bedtime story? Let me provide a few excerpts from the book. (Beware: Reader discretion advised.)

Eating Animals: An Exploration of Eating Habits

Today’s Huffington Post announced that the site will be posting responses to Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book, Eating Animals. Check out the YouTube video for a peek at what’s behind this nonfiction book that Amazon sums up as follows:

“Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood–facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child’s behalf–his casual questioning took on an urgency. His quest for answers ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong. Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir and his own detective work, Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits–from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth–and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting….”

The author himself (okay, it’s really the publisher) will be hosting a discussion on his website (also called Eating Animals). The discussion goes live November 2.

I categorized tonight’s post under the topic “Good Reading for Good Eating,” but honestly, I haven’t read the book yet since I just heard about it today. I thought I’d give you all the heads-up about the discussion and I will write my own review (or send a comment to one of the above sites) as soon as I’m done with the book.

If you get to it before I do, let me know what you think!

The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Young Readers

This just in from Michael Pollan: Dial Books, a division of Penguin, has published a new young reader’s edition of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, aimed at middle- and high-schoolers. It’s shorter and more streamlined than the previous edition, but also has some new material and a wealth of visuals– photographs, charts, graphs, etc.

The holidays are coming….Is there a young reader on your list who might enjoy this version of The Omnivore’s Dilemma?