Yay! It's hot!

At least, it's hot by San Francisco standards, and when I wake up and find the cats have made neat little piles of their fur next to the garbage can, I'm thinking it's hot.

Last May, we took our first trip to Mendocino. After breakfast at the most amazing bed and breakfast in the area and a hike along the coastal cliffs, we drove inland along the Redwooded Rt. 128 to the Philo Apple Farm.

When we arrived, marveling over the 15° temperature change from the coast, the place was silent. We probably would have thought it was deserted if we hadn't caught sight of a cooking class being held in the main house, but instead we just found the stillness -- broken only by two farm cats wandering out to roll in the dirt at our feet and mew for pets -- peaceful. Pleasantly left to our own devices, we walked around the farm and examined the kitchen garden and the tiny cabins. We enjoyed the seven chickens being chased into a rose bush by a single rooster, we decided not to look in said rose bush to see what was going on, and we bought some cider. Hard cider.

The Philo Apple Farm is known for many things applelicious. At their old fashioned farm stand, which adorably operates on the honor system, they sell vinegar and syrup, chutney and juice, jam and jellies. When in season, they've even got apples. However, what got our attention was the open crate of unlabeled bottles on the loading dock. While the pristinely labeled and primly shelved bottles of hard cider were going for $8.50, this hard cider was selling for $6.00 a bottle.

"Torn labels, moldy labels, no labels!" the cardboard sign above announced, "Still the same good stuff!"

Something about the layer of dust coating the dark green glass made this clutch of cider seem more authentic, more farmhouse-y, more like what you would find in Normandy. So we went for it. We didn't need to pay $2.50 extra per bottle for all that window dressing! We shared one bottle that night in our little cabin and heartily agreed with the sign: "good stuff!" (However, I have to admit that the guarantee, "if you are not completely satisfied, blah, blah," now has me saying, "If you don't like the way I'm driving, blah, blah!" or "I'M out of order? YOU'RE out of order! This whole COURTROOM is blah, blah!")

Thursday, just as the heat of the day was melting into the blue of night, just as the sunburn I acquired planting at Land's End started to flare with comic book stars, we turned off all the lights and cooled off with two icy glasses of cloudy Apple Farm cider by the glow of the Democratic National Convention.

The Philo Apple Farm cider may have had a few more particulates than it did three months ago, but it was just as bracing and refreshing as that first May bottle. Even better, it was the perfect nightcap to a hot, sweaty San Francisco day.

Visit the Philo Apple Farm for cider, chickens, apples, or blah, blah.

The Apple Farm
Bates and Schmitt
18501 Greenwood Rd
Philo, CA 95466

Summer is an ideal time for improvisation-- especially for those of us living in San Francisco. If the sun is shining for more than 30 minutes at a time, we get a bit giddy and wonder if we should just leave our sweaters at home and head for the nearest park or beach to get a much-needed dose of vitamin D. Long term planning is often shed as quickly as our layers of clothing.

Dinners are no exception. Last Sunday, I was invited down to Hillsborough for an al fresco meal in an impossibly rose-scented garden. The event had been in the planning for several weeks, owing to the varied schedules of the guests and host. All that was required of me was to show up-- with dessert. When the idea for the dinner was germinating, I had proudly announced that I would make cannoli because of some unaccountable need to flex the confectionery muscle of my father's people. Besides, I knew my friend Cybele, in whom Sicilian DNA also makes its home, would be there. I think I wanted to impress her.

For those of you with little or no experience with cannoli, it is about the least spur-of-the moment dessert one can make. The dough is made, it rests for a couple of hours. It is rolled and stretched and rested again. And rolled again. It is cut and fried, cooled and filled.

The day prior, I had the dough ready for preparation. The day of the dinner, I got as far as mixing the filling when, suddenly, it just felt allwrong. It was a warm day. Cannoli are for holidays. They are not for garden parties. The dough is still sitting on a shelf in my refrigerator, getting to know its neighbors, the cornichons and mustard.

When I arrived at Cybele's house, I showed her the cake I'd made, and the figs and cream with which I'd planned to serve it. I had planned to simply slice the figs, toss them with a little sugar, and be done with them.

"Figs?" she asked, "What about putting a little pomegranate molasses in them?" She took me into the kitchen, and poured two slow-moving drops of the stuff onto the end of a fork and put it in my mouth. It was a flavor new to me-- sweet, sour, full of depth. It was exactly what the figs needed to make them interesting without taking over the dessert. I learned something new.

One of the many things I love about this woman, apart from her warmth, humor, intelligence, and just-plain-great-to-look-at-ness, is her uncanny cooking-sense. She goes by instinct. She just gets food. It is something that cannot be taught. Not completely.

The dinner was a complete success. Boccalone salumi and Beecher's "Just Jack" cheese (in honor of our host) washed down with a couple bottles of cool Pinot d'Alsace, which fit in nicely with my current obsession with World War I military planning errors. Rib eye prepared by my friend Lyle (who often refers to himself as the luckiest man alive, owing to his partnering with Cybele), roasted, garlicky potatoes and mushrooms to smother- but-not-choke the steaks, accompanied by good, elegant bottles of Rioja. And a perfect salad of Asian pear, lettuces, and summer tomatoes ended the meal. Digestion-aiding conversation followed.

We were ready for dessert by sunset. Given the gargatuan nature of the meal consumed-- especially the 22-ounce steaks, I was grateful I followed my now-engorged gut and decided to leave to cannoli for another day. As I served out dessert, I asked for a bit of feedback, as is my habit with anything I make for the first time. I had mentioned substituting much of the cornmeal with corn flour. Jack rightly commented that "any more cornmeal would have made this a dessert for hamsters." I was rather inclined to agree. Everyone was in full agreement about the addition of the pomegranate molasses-- it was just the right touch.

This post is just my little way of thanking Cybele for simply being around. She is, in her own way, the pomegranate molasses in everyone's life- sweet, with just the right amount of acid wit. A blend of the exotic and oddly familiar, she adds a touch of subtlety and depth to everything she does. And, as if by instinct, it is always the right touch.

So, thanks, Cybele. You have a habit of making good things better.

Almond-Cornmeal Cake

The idea of this cake came from a recipe by Lorenza di Medici, who knows a thing or two about al fresco dining. And Italian food. As I made the dough, I realized it was going to be too dry for my purposes. I wanted something moist-- a word I detest but, at the same time, a quality I treasure in baked goods. Too late in the day for going back to the market for fresh supplies, I decided to wing it and make some major adjustments, in keeping with my own rigidly, self-imposed idea that improvisation was the theme of the day. Fortunately, it worked, and worked very well.

This cake plays well with late-summer fruits. I chose figs, but berries would do well, too. Or just a big dollop of sweetened cream and a good, cool glass of Tokaj.

Serves: 6 to 8

For Cake

Ingredients:

1 cup almonds, blanched and without skin
1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
2/3 cup corn flour
1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
4 ounces unsalted butter
3 egg yolks
a pinch of salt
powdered sugar for decoration

For Figs

Ingredients:

1 pint of fresh Mission figs
2-3 tablespoons of sugar, depending upon the ripeness of the figs
1 teaspoon pomegranate molasses

Preparation:

1. Grease with butter a 9-inch cake pan with removable bottom, lining the pan with similarly-greased parchment paper.

2. In a Cuisinart, or whatever you wish to call yours, combine almonds, cornmeal, corn flour, all purpose flour, baking powder and salt. Pulse until the almonds are crushed sufficiently to make a fine meal.

3. Cream butter and sugar until, well, creamy. Add yolks one at a time. The color should be roughly equivalent to that of a blinding afternoon sun.

4. Combine the butter mixture with the flour group until well incorporated. Spread into cake pan and bake on the middle rack of a pre-heated 400° oven for about 30 minutes, or until done.

5. Wash figs, slice into quarter segments. Toss them in sugar and molasses, but gently. Let sit for about an hour.

6. Remove from oven. Remember to turn off your oven. Place the now-baked cake on a rack to cool. Remove from pan. Please remove the parchment paper. Dust with powdered sugar when plated.

7. Slice cake and serve with prepared figs and sweetened cream.

Monday was the first day of school. Yes, school starts in August in our district, which always seems crazy to me as I used to start school after Labor Day when I was a kid. This means that instead of determining what my kids will eat for lunch at around noon, I am now frantically making lunches at 7:30 in the morning.

Although making a school lunch may seem like a no brainer (PB&J with a banana, anyone?), a lot has changed since my mom threw cellophane-wrapped sandwiches into my childhood Scooby Doo lunch box. For one thing, most lunch boxes are no longer made of tin, but polyester and nylon. For another, people are now starting to take note of how much trash is created during the school lunch hour.

Did you know that a typical American school kid’s lunch generates 67 pounds of trash a year? When I first heard about this statistic, I was amazed. I then did a little math and realized that a class of 20 kids produces 1,340 pounds of trash in the school year, and was horrified when I further calculated that a school with 200 kids (which is a small school), creates 133,400 pounds of school lunch trash a year!

The day-to-day issues of dealing with all this trash, combined with a desire to help students become more environmentally aware, led the administrators and parents club at my children’s school to initiate a No Trash Lunch program. What, you may ask, is a no trash lunch? Well, it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a lunch that doesn’t use anything you would throw away -- no baggies, plastic sporks, juice boxes, or paper napkins. I started making no trash lunches two years ago, and although I sometimes slip and use a baggy in moments of desperation -- usually when the containers aren’t clean -- I’ve found that packing a no trash lunch can be just as convenient as making one that generates piles of trash.

But making a no trash lunch isn’t just about giving up baggies and paper napkins. The fad of toting a disposable water bottle has also thankfully fallen out of vogue. Kids are now being taught that those little plastic bottles of Crystal Geyser and Evian clog up land fills and are bad for the environment. The current trend is to use stainless steel water bottles. I’ve seen these available everywhere from REI and Whole Foods, to the L.L. Bean web site and our school’s parents club. Although the stainless steel bottles cost more than the plastic variety, they will last for years and are not made of plastics that could potentially leach chemicals into your child's water. Many reusable plastic bottles are also great, but be sure to purchase those with a 1, 2, 4 or 5 on them as they are thought to be safer.

So if you’re ready to give up baggies and plastic bottles, here are some tips that might help. Once you invest in the basics, a no trash lunch can be just as fast and easy to make as one full of waste.

Making a No Trash Lunch

1. Buy a reusable lunch box. I like the ones made out of Nylon and Polyester that can be washed.
2. Get some sandwich and snack-sized containers. These are sold everywhere from Target and Longs, to IKEA.
3. Purchase a reusable water container. I like the stainless steel ones, but these can be pricey. If you get a plastic bottle, try to purchase one that does not have the numbers 3, 6, or 7 imprinted on the bottom as these are most likely to leach chemicals. The best choices are those with the numbers 1, 2, 4 and 5 (although these are often more difficult to find).
4. Give your child a cloth napkin instead of a paper one.
5. If your child will need a fork or spoon, include a metal one that can be taken home, washed and reused. You can buy inexpensive sets of four at most drug stores.
6. If your child likes warm food, purchase a reusable thermos.

If you have any other ideas for how to create a No Trash Lunch, I’d love to hear them.

Listen to Slow Food Nation on KQED's Forum.

Slow Food Nation
This Labor Day weekend San Francisco will host Slow Food Nation -- a four day gathering to promote sustainable and healthy food. We talk with organizers and experts in the slow food movement, exploring the connection between our plates and the planet.

Host: Michael Krasny

Guests:
• Anya Fernald, executive director of Slow Food Nation
• Dr. Vandana Shiva, author of "Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature" and founder and director of Navdanya, an organization supporting conservation, renewal and rejuvenation of biodiversity
• Eric Schlosser, award-winning journalist, author of "Fast Food Nation" and a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly
• Michael Pollan, professor of journalism at UC Berkeley and author of "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto"

Read Amy Sherman's Event post about Slow Food Nation.

The first weekend in September I will be flying off to Portugal to learn about cork, but if I was in town I'd be sauntering down to Ghirardelli Square to check out the annual Chocolate Festival. It's free to attend, but tickets are sold for "tastings" and all proceeds benefit Project Open Hand. There are close to 30 vendors including Ghirardelli chocolate, Ciao Bella Gelato, Kara's Cupcakes, Presidio Cafe and Young's Double Chocolate Stout.

Some highlights include a chance to meet Kara Lind, owner of Kara's Cupcakes and learn about cupcake making and decorating, a wine and chocolate pairing seminar and demonstrations by Master Chocolatier Ann Czaja who will share chocolate recipes and entertaining ideas. Yes, there will be samples!

What: Chocolate Festival Indulge in chocolate treats, sip at the Wine & Chocolate Bar, and enjoy Chef Demonstrations and other family activities.

Where: Ghirardelli Square, 900 North Point St, San Francisco

When:9:00am-5:00pm, September 6-7, 2008

How: Admission is free, but tickets are available for tastings, 15 tastings for $20 or 6 tastings for $10

Why: This is a fundraiser for Project Open Hand, for over 20 years, Project Open Hand has provided meals and bags of groceries to men, women and children living with symptomatic HIV and AIDS. They also provide daily congregate lunches to seniors and provide meals to people who are homebound and critically ill.

Here is the winning recipe from Ghirardelli's America's Most Intense Chocolate Recipe:

Triple Chocolate Truffle Cake

Ingredients:
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened, plus additional for pan
3 cups Ghirardelli Semi Sweet Chocolate Baking Chips
8 large eggs, cold
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Baking Chips
2 ounces Ghirardelli White Chocolate Baking Bar, chilled

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325° F. Arrange rack in center of oven. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9 by 2-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.

2. Melt butter and semi-sweet chocolate chips over double boiler until smooth; cool slightly. Meanwhile, with a hand mixer or in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whip attachment, whip eggs and salt on medium speed until doubled in volume, about 5 minutes.

3. Gently fold, in thirds, whipped eggs into melted chocolate. Pour batter into prepared cake pan and place pan in water bath. Bake until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan and is set in the center, about 40 minutes. Remove pan from water bath to a cooling rack and cool cake completely in pan. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. To remove cake, dip the bottom and halfway up the sides of the pan in warm water and run a thin metal spatula around the inside of the pan. Invert onto a plate to unmold, remove parchment paper.

4. To prepare ganache, bring heavy cream to a simmer and pour over milk chocolate chips. Stir gently until smooth; cool slightly. Pour ganache over top of cake and spread with an offset spatula to evenly cover. (There will be some ganache leftover.) Chill cake until ganache sets, about 30 minutes. To garnish, grate white chocolate bar on top of cake.

I have a really amazing circle of friends and family. Because of this, I am always on the lookout for great gifts that are easy on the wallet, and that hold to my buying philosophy: buy from mom-and-pop shops over chain superstores whenever possible. While I definitely have some San Francisco stores that I frequent in order to find unique gifts, my obsession lately has been Etsy.

Etsy is an online marketplace of over 100,000 sellers who sell all things handmade.

I've had particular luck using Etsy for my food-loving friends.

A couple of months ago, I purchased the above apron from Bella Bee Designs. Wendy at Bella Bee uses fantastic fabrics, and is currently selling aprons, napkins and totes. As has been the case with all of my Etsy transactions, customer service was friendly and she even worked with me to get a gift out very quickly to a friend. The friend was thrilled, and by the time I saw the apron I was jealous that I hadn't bought one for myself. I am really looking forward to buying more gifts from Bella Bee Designs.

This necklace was a purchase for myself about a year ago. It was made by Rachael Sudlow, and I love wearing it to the farmers market during sweet pea season. Sudlow also makes this cute cupcake necklace.

Sumiko makes really beautiful pottery including the sushi set above. I was so pleased when I purchased this gift for a friend. Not only was the sushi set exactly as advertised, but the wrapping and attention to packaging detail was impeccable. I have my eye on this olive plate as a purchase for myself.

It's hard to go wrong with Etsy. It seems to be a relatively safe buying environment, and I've never had trouble receiving a purchased item. I keep an eye on ratings and feedback which are available for every seller. If I'm purchasing from a seller with relatively few ratings, I use a little more caution than I do from sellers with many high ratings.

In gathering links for this story, I came across several new Etsy items that I'd like to purchase including a hemp tote bag from Uzura, this "pretty peas" bag from dailybread, cute floursack towels from YourWayEmbroidery, this lovely soup bowl from kimwestad, and this gorgeous bag from iragrant.

It's easy to spend a lot of time on Etsy. One search leads to another, and two hours later you are still clicking around looking at beautiful items. Etsy provides some tools to help you refine searches.

My favorite ways to search are:
• Using gift guides
• Checking out featured sellers
• By color

CAKE by Camille Holvoet, 2008.

The recent opening of a gallery exhibition at Creativity Explored in the Mission District was a reminder of just how much San Franciscans love their food. The exhibit, entitled Tasty, highlighted the work of local artists who had explored the shape and color of eating in a variety of media. During the reception, both the small gallery up front and the large studio space in back were packed wall to wall with friends, donors and hungry viewers. It was the most crowded I’d ever seen their gallery. Attach the word "food" to any event here in Northern California, especially if your normal operations have nothing to do with anything edible, and you can expect to sell out.

In this month’s noise of food and more food, though, the art on the walls at Creativity Explored reminded me of two vital gifts, the same forces that pushed me into my own work and that inspire me still after all these years. One, the power of unleashed creativity and uncensored expression to reveal who we are as individuals. And two, the power of people coming together to support each other and help each other thrive.

Camille Holvoet, one of the studio artists at Creativity Explored, is known for her rich, lush oil pastels of cakes, pies and pastries.

If you haven’t visited the exhibit yet, please try to carve some time out of these waning weeks of summer to stop by and see the works. Be sure to linger at Steven Greeter’s Popsicles, Kevin Roach’s interpretation of meat in Pork Cut Chart, the vivid montage of green in Peter Cordova’s papier mache Vegetable Bowl, John Patrick McKenzie’s hand-lettered Tablecloth, Betty Benard’s Watermelon collage, and Camille Holvoet’s many cupcakes. They are truly stunning, and while I may be biased about the provocative images (yes, a few of those red dots marking sold paintings and sculptures are mine), I also believe Creatively Explored to be one of the most important nonprofits in the Bay Area. Their mission, to support the creative efforts of developmentally disabled adults, has been realized through an ambitious vision pushed forward with much hard work. In addition to offering a safe studio space and workshops for their artists, they promote their artists’ works at their Valencia Street gallery and in museum exhibits around the world. Like many mainstream, for-profit galleries, half of the money received from buyers goes directly to the artist.

I’d been lucky enough to help teach a workshop earlier this summer at their studio with Sharon Smith, one of many instructors who teach there and a friend who nurses her own personal mission to show the artists how to eat more healthfully. Wanting to offer easy, nutritious and delicious alternatives to the daily snack truck that arrives everyday at the studio, Sharon had asked me to assist her with transforming whole fruit into edible art.

FAVORITE FOODS, by Camille Holvoet, 2007.

It was new territory for Creativity Explored. A hands-on cooking class had never been on their list of objectives, but with some dedicated fundraising through Sharon’s contacts with the food industry and lots of paring knives, we were able to come up with four tables worth of colorful, edible art.

After the artists had a chance to sketch the fruit whole, we all worked together to prepare platters of rainbow-bright snack skewers. Melon-ballers helped us transform large, unwieldy, intimidating orbs into small, friendly finger-food. Oranges kept their peels, as color and convenience dictated the results as much as flavor, while five different hues of apples fueled debates on everyone’s preferences for sweet vs. tart. To my delight, I noticed that both green and red grapes managed to travel more directly to mouths than skewers. The patterns, shapes, textures and rhythms that emerged on each artist’s skewer informed a second wave of sketches. Along the way, we all shared stories about our favorite fruit.

The recipe for the day was a dessert dip made with three ingredients: yogurt, honey and orange juice mixed to taste (lots of tasting!) and poured into a colorful bowl. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

It’s a challenge for all of us to eat healthfully but especially so for adults of diverse development levels who may not have full kitchens, basic cooking skills, steady incomes or an attentive family. Thanks to Sharon, though, Creativity Explored has an instructor as dedicated to their artists’ physical health as their creative spirit.

CREATIVITY EXPLORED
Gallery Exhibition: Tasty
Curator: Judith La Rosa
August 14 through October 1, 2008
3245 16th Street (at Guerrero Street)
San Francisco CA 94103
(415) 863-2108
Map

CAKES by Camille Holvoet, 2008.

When I was growing up, Happy Days was my favorite show on TV. In addition to thinking The Fonz was the coolest and Potsie was funny, I loved when Richie Cunningham would sing “I found my thrill, on blueberry hill…” Whenever he would start to croon, I would day dream about walking on a big hill full of blueberries, picking fruit and eating all along the way. I was a kid and so didn’t realize the Fats Domino song was being played to show that Ritchie was feeling “frisky.” All I knew was that I desperately wanted to live near a blueberry hill.

When I see blueberries, I still sometimes hum Mr. Domino’s song. I’ve been doing this a lot lately as we are now in the height of blueberry season. In addition to stuffing those plump, round, bluish-purple balls of juicy delight into tarts and pies, I have been making fresh blueberry muffins for breakfast.

Although you can easily use frozen blueberries for muffins, there’s no reason to do that now, when berries are fresh, in season, and moderately inexpensive. Frozen berries are for the winter, when you have to pay little buckets of gold for a half pint of fresh ones. Plus, fresh berries exude bursts of sweetness that are unmatched by their frozen cousins.

Although I sometimes like streusel toppings, when I have the luxury of fresh seasonal blueberries, I don’t want to overshadow the berry flavor with a thick lid of butter and sugar. Crowning each muffin with just a sprinkle of brown sugar is a more simple and straightforward way to get the crunchy muffin top I want, while still highlighting all that blueberry goodness inside.

Here’s my recipe for fresh blueberry muffins. It’s fast and easy enough that you can whip it up in the morning for breakfast. It’s also a great way to enjoy blueberries in the height of the season. I imagine Mrs. Cunningham served these to Ritchie all the time.

Fresh Blueberry Muffins

Makes: 12 medium muffins

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 Tbsp milk
1 cup fresh blueberries
1/4 cup brown sugar

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Oil your muffin pan or set in paper muffin liners.
3. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the sugar into the eggs and mix in the sour cream, vegetable oil and milk.
5. Add in the blueberries.
6. Incorporate the dry mixture into the wet ingredients and gently stir, being sure not to over mix the flour.
7. Divide the batter into the muffin pan. I like to spoon out the batter using an ice cream scoop.
8. Sprinkle brown sugar on top of each muffin.
9. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 - 20 minutes (depending on whether or not you have a convection oven and how hot your oven runs).
10. When you can cleanly run a toothpick through the middle muffin, pull them out and left them cool for few minutes before diving in.

Several weeks ago, Amy Sherman gave me a cookbook entitled Hungry Girl: Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World, because she knew it would drive me crazy.

How well she knows me.

I browsed through the pink-tinged pages looking at the recipes, fighting my way through the over-enthusiastic use of exclamation marks and cute-and-confusing titles like “pizzalicious chop chop” (page 44) and “amazing ate-layer dip” (page 158). Intending to be “sassy” and “fun”, the writing comes across as though it were the product of a calorie-obsessed teen-aged girl rather than an adult woman.

The author, Lisa Lillien, is “a self-appointed ‘foodoligist’ (sic)” and founder of the website HungryGirl.com – a popular website with more than 100,000 subscribers. According to her website, she rightly states that she is neither a dietitian nor a food professional, but “an average female, struggling with the same food issues most females struggle with every day.” Losing and gaining the same 10-15 pounds several times over, and trying “every diet under the sun,” she has a self-admitted food obsession– counting calories and finding low-fat, low-carbohydrate substitutes for a wide variety of foods.

The book, which is a natural extension of her popular website, is sadly rife with rather unnatural foods. For example, her “2-good twice-baked potato” (page 124, from”Manly Meals” Chapter 6) calls for fat-free American cheese and fat-free liquid non-dairy creamer. Is substituting the fats found in natural dairy products with things like corn syrup solids and Polysorbate 60 (both found in non-dairy creamer) such an excellent idea, however many calories might be saved? Polysorbate 60, as I have learned from a rather amusing article posted at Wired magazine, is:

…made by polymerizing ethylene oxide (a precursor to antifreeze) with a sugar alcohol derivative. The result can be a detergent, an emulsifier, or, in the case of polysorbate 60, a major ingredient in some sexual lubricants.

Perhaps the dish should be re-christened “2-good twice-lubed potato.” (And hint to the recipe testers– you might want to sprinkle the potato with paprika and parsley after removing it from the oven.)

In Chapter 12, or, “Happy Hour”, Lillien states up front that it’s no secret that alcohol has “lots of calories”, and guides her readers towards lower-calorie choices if one must drink, but her drink recipes fumble. The “kickin’ cranberry cosmo“ (page 249), for example:

Ingredients:
5 ounces Diet Ocean Spray Cranberry Spray Juice drink
1 1⁄2 ounces of vodka
1 teaspoon lime juice
5 to 8 ice cubes

Optional: splash of diet lemon-lime soda, lime wedge (for garnish)

By omitting the Cointreau or triple sec for the sake of approximately 20 calories, Lillien has turned the Cosmopolitan into a Cape Cod. I should think any author as attached to the color pink as Miss Lillien is would know the difference.

And dessert? How about the “ginormous creamy frozen caramel crunchcake” (page 227)? Cover the top half of one caramel-flavored rice cake with Cool Whip Free. Gently place another rice cake on top, making a sandwich. Freeze for at least 1 hour, then enjoy. There’s that Polysorbate 60 again. And high-fructose corn syrup? Yup. A diet high in fructose makes lab rats fatter than those placed on other diets. Read that Wired article again – it’s all about Cool Whip. Oh, it’s also been pointed out that the Sorbitan Monostearate, which is also found in this fat-free topping is sometimes used as hemorrhoid cream.

Super fab!

This book isn’t all bad. In fact, it contains some excellent, sensible advice for those of us out there battling with our own weight issues. For example, Lillien suggests ways of staying active at work, how to avoid mindless snacking, and is vigilant about listing the per-serving calories, fat, sodium, fiber, carbs, sugars, and proteins in all of her recipes.

And not all of the recipes are creepy, just most of the names. For example, the “v10 soup” is completely devoid of atomic-age substitutes and comes with a warning that it is “jam-packed with an INSANE amount of veggies!!!”

Perhaps I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe living as I do in the heart of the Bay Area has spoiled me to the point of not recognizing what the “real world” might be, in terms of day-to-day eating. I’m not an on-the-go girl trying to fit into cute, size 2 pants. Nope, I’m a nearly-40 year-old man. But, as a gay man, the tyranny of body consciousness and fitness is not unknown to me.

In a country which is growing fatter by the year, it’s a shame that the author, who has such a large following, should choose to lead her readers down the path of empty calories and diet tricks. In an effort to help people avoid the “real world” dangers of fast food and junk food, Miss Lillien merely offers pale substitutes of the originals. In obsessing over calorie and fat content, she offers little in the way of whole foods–relying heavily upon heavily processed, store-bought items instead– many of which are thought to contribute to weight-gain in the first place, like high-fructose corn syrup.

Is Hungry Girl’s cookbook “guilt-free” as advertised? Hardly. This book, however well-intentioned, offers little in the way of substance. If anything, it’s guilty of promoting the same unhealthy food obsessions that drove Miss Lillien to create her popular website in the first place.

Now, if you will please excuse me, I’ve got a big bowl of Fiber One® drowning in some delicious non-dairy creamer to consume.

Photo credit Scott Chernis

Slow Food is a movement that started in Italy and promotes a return to the way people used to eat. While it's a sentiment most of us can get behind, life is very different in Italy. Perhaps that is part of the reason why Slow Food USA has had a difficult time building massive grassroots support.

Certainly there have been public statements by the founder of Slow Food that have turned off potential local supporters. Many Slow Food programs have also left believers in the cause feeling, as the New York Times put it recently, as if Slow Food was "just one big wine tasting with really hard to find cheeses that you weren’t invited to."

But the Slow Food Nation events in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend are intended to be accessible to everyone. While some of the events are still pricey to attend, the good news is, there are plenty of events that are free. Here's a round up of just a handful of some of the major free events and programs. Head to the Slow Food Nation site for the complete Slow Food Nation schedule.

Slow Arts
Poetry by peach farmer David "Mas" Masumoto, a photography exhibit on the theme of Life in a Tuscan Town and a Bulgarian Honeybee and Harvest dance are just some of the many arts programs that are part of Slow Food Nation. All but the photo exhibit take place at the Victory Garden.

Youth Food Movement programs
Retreats, films and workshops and a culminating "Eat-In" are planned for those in the 16-34 age range.

Marketplace
The Marketplace will take place in the Civic Center Plaza. There will be produce for sale, street food, "soap box" story telling and water stations for everyone.

Food for Thought films
You'll need to RSVP and tickets are limited, but there will be showings of films such as The Future of Food and Our Daily Bread. Films take place at the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason.

Whichever events you end up taking part in, here's hoping you have a very slow Labor Day weekend.