Every few years some lawmaker re-launches the argument that food stamp recipients should have more restrictions on their purchases. The sight of some single mom with a herd of kids handing over her tax-supported food card for bags of chips is a knife to the heart of these politicos. Not one of whom has waited in line to pay $1.79 for a single bell pepper in recent memory.

The idea that junk food should be taxed is the latest buzz. This meets with predictable outrage from people like me who think telling folks  what they can eat is a civil-rights violation. (Yes, the fact that this puts me alongside a lot of right-wing and tea-party morons who hate government troubles me.)

But this notion is not going to disappear, especially with sharp guys like the New York Times writer Mark Bittman is talking it up. This respected  food writer constructs a good case with actual stats: Want to keep health care costs down? Tax the crap out of sugar-laden soda, and boom — billions saved.

He’s right, but wrong.

It would save a pile if we could make it harder for people to eat and drink bad stuff. The flaw in this plan is that the government would be in charge of enforcement. Do I need to list the reasons why that is a lame idea? I thought not.

If we’re serious about this,  the government does have a role: Give tax breaks to companies that retool their factories from soda to–oh, I don’t know–maybe whole wheat crackers in the shape of Coke bottles. Whatever. The lobby for junk food/drink is too strong to allow a meaningful tax to survive the legislative process.

Then make it easier and cheaper for folks to buy healthy food. That’s different than a tax.

Say a portion of my taxes went to a local nonprofit. The agency could oversee fresh food kiosks located all over the place, especially near transit stops. If I can buy a bag of salad greens and a sweet potato when I get off the bus or train, I’m gonna do it. Especially if the prices are reasonable and they take food debit cards.

There’s plenty of expertise out there to help the government get rolling. The smooth network of folks that sell weed and pills at the transit stations in my city have the distribution details all worked out.

(This ran first on The Food Watchdog)

It’s not that the stuff is shockingly tasty. Even the typically enthusiastic Whole Foods website describes it with qualifiers, such as its “somewhat nutty flavor.” But it’s called the “Mother of All Grains” for its healthful properties and versatile nature.  It works in just about any recipe and it’s hard to ruin when cooking. When The New York Times is pushing quinoa pancakes, you know the stuff is hot.

(An aside: Why does everyone feel that pancakes need to be improved upon? What other dish gives us the chance to have butter, maple syrup and bacon on the same plate without raising eyebrows? Leave the pancakes alone, people.)

A mouthful of the stuff is seemingly healthier than a week at a spa.  It’s got essential amino acids and lots of fiber. It’s nutritional pedigree is fabulous.

I wondered how this beloved-by-the-ancient-Incas food happened to take the culinary world by storm in the last year or so.  A gang called the Quinoa Corporation promotes itself as the first to bring quinoa to the US. When was the last time you heard of a company taking credit for bringing a desirable new substance into this country? I mean, besides the drug cartels.

Actually,  research reveals that quinoa is just like those actors who are described in People and US magazines as “overnight” successes.  Quinoa been quietly taking bit parts in the US for more than 20 years–a trade group of  producers formed in the late 1980s. It’s been waiting in the wings for a break, and finally it got the culinary equivalent of a miniseries on HBO, the network that made even President John Adams a hot character.

The food’s popularity is a direct result of the influence of vegetarians and the growing number of gluten-avoiders who have risen up and demanded foods that won’t (a) offend them politically; (b) make them sick and (c) cause dinner guests to gag.

I’ve been wondering…is there anything bad about this dish? The only criticism I could find was that too much quinoa can be bad for people who need to avoid oxalates in food, which can cause or aggravate inflammation among other bad experiences.  But if there is a food or drink out there (besides water) that has less controversy, I can’t name it.

So, hike on over to the store (or the internet) and buy a bag. If you don’t like it, you can always sprinkle it on the sidewalk to create traction during freezing spells. Step over the squirrels eating it and be on your way.

(This post ran first on The Food Watchdog.)

One of the anticipated treats is quail eggs with celery salt. Now, there’s some confusion about what else will be served with the little treats; some accounts claim goat cheese and caramelized walnuts. But everyone is in agreement on the celery-salt part.

That may not sound like a difficult thing to produce, but considering that an estimated 10,000 total canapes will be served, if you divide by the 16 types, that could mean something like 625 quail-egg items lined up for sprinkling. That’s a lot of celery salt. Enough to give the chef a good case of repetitive-stress injury, even.  If they have worker’s comp in England, we’d like to see the wording on that request-for-benefits form.

(Before you bird-rights people start, uh, flocking here to comment–do not worry–this is not a lot of work for the quail. Some types apparently lay an egg a day. Which is roughly equivalent, in energy expended, to writing half of a blog post. Trust me, this is E-Z.)

Our big attraction to royal doings stems from our amazement at the ways they make simple things more complicated. Even though they can afford to send a score of footmen over the pond to get a planeload of frozen stuffed mushrooms at Costco, keeping them on ice for the return trip and up to the reception, they insist on doing things the hard way. Put out bids for quail eggs, organizing the celery-salt experts. On and on.

Given the furor over invitations to the canape reception, you know there will be someone who finds a way to smuggle a quail egg out in a pocket and get it bronzed. Or, two quail eggs, which could be bronzed and used for book-ends.

Personally, I think canapes would be much more enjoyable if they were made of familiar comfort foods. If  bubble-and-squeak is too common for the Royals (or too difficult to crowd onto a cracker) they could use American comfort foods. A square of meatloaf and a dab of mashed potato on a toast point. Carefully sculpted peanut butter and jelly towers, maybe. Tiny pancakes with bacon bits and a dab of maple syrup.

I’ve stalled long enough. No one wants to say it out loud, but someone has to tell the Queen: No one wants to stand around all dressed up and eat salted eggs. They just don’t.

(This post ran on The Food Watchdog too.)

Once upon a time I would have headed for Dunkin’ Donuts, but in Portland, Oregon, that just is not the done thing.

Here one goes to a real bakery. I did not want to make do with some gluten-free, high-fiber nonsense in the shape of a doughnut, so I opted for the Helen Bernhard Bakery. All you need to know to verify the veracity of this place is that the counter and baking staff, all Women of a Certain Age, wear white uniforms. Any baker there would sooner cut off an arm than show up without a hairnet.

I got my chocolate-frosted cake doughnut, brought it home, and I cut it up with a knife to make it last. I placed it on an attractive plate.

I lifted it in a toast: “Good times!” Down the hatch.

All this brings to mind my short list of things that make bakeries so wonderful:

1. No ingredient list is ever posted with calories or fat grams.

2. Customers do not help themselves. (Laypeople do not know how to properly use those little sheets of bakery paper or tongs. Only trained professionals should get near those tools.)

3. No one ever asks, “Do you want a bag?” And in fact, any order with more than four cookies goes into a cardboard box. Tied up with string. (See No. 2; string is another thing that the customers should not handle.) This is an especially pleasing moment now that so many stores act as if handing over a paper bag is like skinning a bunny.

4. The names of the products are accurate. When they say “butter-cream frosting,” you know exactly what you’re in for.

5. No one gets surly while waiting in line.

(This post ran on The Food Watchdog too.)

“Apple pie? The Pilgrims ate apple pie,” he’d say.”It’s fine.”

Childhood imprints us with many traits, and this defensiveness about food is still with me.

My husband has been known to observe that while I certainly recognize good food, I may not actually know bad food when I see it.

Even though I believe the nutritional wisdom promoting fiber, fruit and lean protein, I can’t shake the familial facts: I come from a long line of people who ate horrible food and lived a long time.

(There are glaring exceptions, but those who checked out early usually did so in some spectacular accident, so they don’t count.)

Apparently this is more common than I thought.

My Southern maternal roots grew in Crisco, Coca-Cola, Moonpies, very well-done beef and fried chicken. A bit of pork rind floated in any vegetables that made it to the table.

My refrigerator today is filled with green stuff I didn’t even know existed when I was a kid.

Now and then as I stare into its interior, wishing vaguely for something with actual sugar, fat and preservatives, I feel guilty that I have strayed so far from my ancestral traditions.

A Pilgrim would starve around here.

(This ran on The Food Watchdog first.)

Well, bigger news to my mother, anyway.

Verdon died Feb 2 at age 86. Despite other successes–posh restaurants and bestselling cookbooks–Verdon was always best known for the five years he spent in the White House kitchen. Before his arrival, the food had all the allure of a Navy chow line. Under his leadership, White House state dinners were fabulous…and guests no longer spent the cocktail hour stuffing themselves with crackers and olives.

The rumor was that Verdon was so offended by LBJ’s plebeian tastebuds that he quit. It’s more likely that he was exhausted. The White House chef  usually works with the First Lady, Chief Usher, White House Social Secretary and…get this, the Executive Pastry Chef. (Now there’s a business card worth having.) If you assume that each relationship means at least one teeth-gritting compromise a day on the part of a chef, then you can imagine how exhausting this all gets.

The workplace was fascinating, however. One section of a great time-wasting site, The White House Museum, has a selection of very cool kitchen photographs–including an award winner of Mamie Eisenhower consulting with her staff.  Ike may have been a bland, middle-of-the-road sort of guy, but his wife had some very memorable dresses.

By all accounts, the late Mr. Verdon was a talented and even-tempered man. He came close to losing it once when the Secret Service was spraying bug killer too close to his crabmeat appetizer, but you can’t hold that against a guy.

We owe him (and his patroness, Jacqueline Kennedy) a debt of gratitude for giving the White House some much-needed class. It was time for iceberg lettuce to go.

(This appeared first on The Food Watchdog.)

(I also noticed that a teeny bunch of  cauliflower was going to cost me upwards of $4…that’s a story for another time.)

Right inside the entrance was an enormous display of avocados, salsa and bags of organic chips–hey, even vegans watch the Superbowl. A big sign hung over the table blaring:

CONVENTIONAL AVOCADOS:  5 for $5

No, “conventional” here does not mean middle-class, suit-wearing avocados clinging to the status quo, it means “not organic.” It is a common term now; I had somehow managed to miss this linguistic development. When I checked out the WF website, I read this:

Organic foods set the standard for top quality freshness, texture, flavor and variety. These foods are produced without the standard array of potentially harmful, environmentally long-lasting agricultural chemicals commonly used on conventional food products since the 1950s.

WF is, of course, right to label the provenance of  produce. “Organic” is a USDA designation that must be earned, and these avocados, tasty as they may be, were not worthy of the O-badge. But I couldn’t help feeling, well, judged, as I grabbed my $5 worth and hurried off: Suddenly I’m conventional, typical, pedestrian in my choice of guacamole ingredients. I am conforming.

Maybe a sign saying “Old School Avocados” would be better.

In the past month I’ve had vegan Southwest tacos, fresh-ahi tacos, and Thai basil-quinoa tacos. Just for the hell of it, I made taco-tacos the other night. You know, the ones with ground beef, tomatoes, olives, cheese, salsa all gathered quietly under the friendly roof of an actual corn tortilla.

I decided to look into this trend. First, etymology: The word supposedly comes down from a Spanish reference to a wadded-up cloth used for patches when firing musket balls. I’m guessing the cruelty free raw bar around the corner where I had the Thai taco with organic-soynut sauce does not know the origins of this word.

The idea of an entrée wrapped in an edible container isn’t new or unique to Mexican culture. Every cuisine has some version of it, from dim sum on down.

I’ve discovered something useful. Tacos, it turns out, are reliable tools for gauging the state of the economy. Here’s why: In tough times we like to touch our food. In boom times, we don’t.

Think about it. Remember those silly towers of fusion food marooned on big white plates during the dot-com years? Those cilantro truffle lamb aperitifs rising above reductions of pear that went for $19? No one dared touch that stuff with a hand…a chopstick, maybe. Mostly folks just left them on the plate and ordered more imported vodka.

Now, as our home equity vaporizes, we’re all about “finger foods.” Did you not notice that even Starbucks is selling its coffee as instant in itty-bitty bags? You can’t handle their prepared coffee because it’s heated to something like 700 degrees, but you can dip a finger into that jumped-up Sanka-esque stuff and breathe a sigh of relief: It’s all going to hell, but I’ve still got java.

There’s really no need to listen to those economic “experts” or try to keep up with the rapidly accumulating issues of the Economist that get pushed to the bottom of the magazine stack. Just keep your eye on the menus around town.

When you need a knife and fork  for all the daily specials, you’ll know that the long, dark night is ending.

(This and other food news appears on The Food Watchdog. Check it out.)

The Xtreme Eating Awards of 2010 are sort of like that. Folks at The Center for the Science in the Public Interest know that railing about junk food doesn’t change anything, but humor might. So they sent out their best (undoubtedly thin) investigators to discover which restaurants in this country are the worst, most “Xtreme” offenders in the calorie war.

I don’t know about you, but I read this list holding my breath. Will any of my favorite places be outed? Thankfully, no, not this year. The names up in lights are: Five Guys; Cheesecake Factory, California Pizza Kitchen, PF Chang’s and Outback.

Not to diminish the important work of the CSPI people, but did we really need to be told that things from these restaurants were big and bad?  I may be over-analyzing here, but it can’t be coincidence that most of these names hint at things large — FIVE guys…CALIFORNIA pizza….OUTBACK….

And the most obvious, CHEESECAKE FACTORY.  Anyone who dines in a place with that name and wants a good salad is just not thinking things through.

But, back to the actual offending plates. A sample of the Xtreme-ist items:

Five Guys bacon cheeseburger (take a deep breath, Rabbi) is  930 calories with 30 grams saturated fat. Remember, if you got a cow to swallow a small pig and added ketchup, it would be 932 calories, so it could be worse.

Cheesecake Factory’s Chocolate Tower Trouble Cake weighs in at 1,670 calories and 48 grams of saturated fat. No one can say the C-Factory folks are not delivering what the name promises; this thing is six inches high and weighs three-quarters of a pound. I only hope they serve it with a verbal warning that taking it home in a tiny SmartCar is risky. Be safe: Finish it at one of the restaurant’s specially reinforced tables.

For more about this research, which actually does have a lot more merit than those yearbook awards ever did, click here.

(This post appeared first on TheFoodWatchdog.)

You know, National Fruit and Vegetable Month.

That’s right, the month-long holiday is looming and I’m in danger of being caught with a fridge full of diet soda and a fruit bowl full of car keys and old rubber bands.

And, no, that article headline is not misspelled. “ROYGBIV” is indeed intended.

It’s meant to be a little reminder about the need to eat fruit and veggies of different colors. Or, to spell it out:

Red

Orange and Yellow

Green

Blue and Indigo and Violet

White

Each group has its own particular value. Take Reds, for example. As James writes, red peppers, potatoes and their similarly hued relatives have lycopene, which:

“Helps rid the body of damaging free radicals, protects against prostate cancer, as well as heart and lung disease. The red foods are loaded with antioxidants thought to protect against heart disease by preventing blood clots and may also delay the aging of cells in the body.”

James knows that a little memory trick goes a long way to keeping people with the program. Yet I can’t help but feel that she may be a bit too optimistic about my grasp of this approach.

If I could remember ROYGBIV, I could also remember the 97 passwords associated with my computer and internet use. I’d never stand in front of the ATM in a frozen panic. I would sort out the destinations of Interstate 205-South and Interstate 205-North, once and for all.

This is not to say that we don’t need rules. We do. They just need to be a little easier to remember. For example:

1 – If the food item can sit on its own without packaging and has a peel, seeds, stem or stalk, eat it.

2 – Make the food items take turns. If Green went at lunchtime, then Yellow gets a turn at dinner.

There, done.

Have a great month. Don’t forget to hang that eggplant out on the flagpole on June 1.