It’s apparently somewhat a la mode in blogging circles to snicker and make fun of people who like food and buy organic fruits and vegetables from farmer’s markets. As a person who does this, I take these criticisms in stride, realizing that spending half your day traveling to 3, sometimes 4, different places to buy your food probably isn’t high on most people’s lists, but this Adam Ozimek post about frozen vegetables is absolutely absurd:

Are future blue collar workers really going to take the time to grow themselves vegetable gardens in window boxes outside their apartments? A lot of working people, like Megan McArdle and Matt Yglesias, frequently don’t have time for fresh vegetables. Like Matt, many people have to teach themselves late in life how to make quick delicious snacks out of frozen vegetables. This would be a much more valuable lesson for poor kids then how to select the freshest kale at your local organic farmers market, or even more ridiculously, how to grow your own …

If you can get kids to eat and prefer frozen vegetables then you’ve got a sustainable improvement in diet and nutrition. If you get them to like fresh organic vegetables they’ve grown in the garden or bought at the farmers market, then you’ve temporarily instilled in them the tastes of upper middle class people with enough time and money on their hands for such luxuries.

The first thing I’ll point out is how incredibly ironic it is that this person (and others) think that vegetables (!) are a luxury item that only upper middle class yuppies can afford. This would be news to our ancestors, who survived almost entirely on grains and vegetables, with meat being served on special occasions. This would also be news to most Chinese people, seeing as the majority of their diet is fresh vegetables. We all know that China is the upper-middle class yuppie capitol of Earth.

Furthermore, the condescension towards “blue collar” workers is outrageous. As if these “workers” simply can’t be bothered to go shopping at grocery stores. Or that they simply don’t have the time to actually feed themselves. Or that it’s just ridiculous that they could even think of having a *gasp* garden! I mean, two urban, young bloggers who work 70 hours a week don’t have time for fresh vegetables, so that means all “workers” can’t possibly have the time.

As for kids and vegetables, I have a long-held theory that most kids don’t like vegetables because they are prepared very poorly. Ever had frozen spinach? Kinda sucks. Same goes for frozen green beans. But fresh sauteed spinach with garlic? That’s good. Roasted green beans tossed with butter and thyme? Delicious.

Both of these things take 15 minutes or less, and taste significantly better than their frozen counterparts. So here’s my counter thesis to Adam Ozimek’s idiotic thought: If you get kids to eat frozen vegetables, they may end up thinking that all vegetables taste like garbage and eliminate them from their diet permanently. If you get them to like fresh vegetables prepared simply, they’ll end up loving vegetables as much as a McDonald’s double cheeseburger.

On a much broader note, I do think that the Slow Food movement has some serious image problems. This class-based fight seems to come up often, whether in the form of frozen vegetables, organic vegetable nutritional content, or shopping at Whole Foods. To me the whole point of the movement is not these specific pieces, but a more holistic approach to food and feeding yourself. It’s about taking back ownership of your diet and proving that you can make wholesome food that tastes great, and is good for your health and the environment at the same time. Somewhere along the way this got lost (or misinterpreted).

Somebody (William?) had a lot of fun designing this stove.  All around, it seems like a pretty significant advance in stove-top tech:

[h/t Davison Creators]

It looks like a lot of fun to play with, but the designers don’t seem to address what I consider to be the #1 problem with electric stoves: thermal inertia.  Gas stoves are great because you have the option of instantly reducing or increasing the cooking temperature.  With electric stoves this is much less convenient — expecially if you want to go from high to low heat — and can easily lead to scalding.  You always have the option of changing the heating element you’re using, but then you get caught playing musical pots.  I suppose the 21 possible signatures could come in handy then.

I’m curious to see what Juicers think: do you prefer gas or electric stoves?  How do you feel about the UI on “The William”?

So, I noticed we have had a famine when it comes to cooking posts. What a shame. Cooking is a great way to take control of your own food and have a lot of fun. Kyle, I hope we get some more Cooking Corner posts in the future, but in the meantime I’ve decided to do a series of Adventures.

Cooking Adventures will be me cooking a meal with only general guidance online. No specific recipes will be followed. It will really be an adventure. Some meals will be good, some will not.

Today, I’ll be showing you my attempt at Spicy Beans and Rice. Rice and beans is a classic dish made in tons of cultures. I’ll try to whip together my own version. I did not go shopping in preparation for this dish. I simply went into my pantry and grabbed what I could find. Join me after the jump to see how it all went down.

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Hey guys,

Big post today.  Since I last wrote I have cooked up 3 delicious new meals.  The first is a pretty standard dinner, pan seared steak with a montreal rub served with some cut green beans.  A delicious quick meal I reccomend anyone cook if you need a quick manly dinner.

Later in the week I decided to try something new, a recipe called “Sweet Orange Chicken”.  This was my first experience cooking with the oven.  I put two boneless chicken breasts in a big glass dish with dijon mustard and diced onions spread on top each piece.  The final touch was a cup of orange juice poured over the whole thing.  After about 25 mins of baking I took out the chicken, flipped each piece, and sprinkled some brown sugar on the underside before putting it back in the oven for another 10 minutes.  I served this dish on a bed of spinach with some Rice-A-Roni.

The third dish I cooked also involved the oven.  The reciepie is called “Crispy Cracker Chicken”.  It involves crushing up some crackers, I used wheat thins, and mixing it with grated parmesan cheese to use as a coat on the chicken.  Once the chicken is prepared you just toss it in the oven for 35 mins and BAM you have a delicious meal.  I served this one up with some brocolli and Pasta Roni.  The chicken tasted amazing, I highly reccomend giving this one a shot.

That sums up Kyle’s Cooking Corner pt. 2, next post I will be cooking with Salmon.  Go cook some food!

So I recently decided to start cooking my own meals and elevate my lifestyle to a new level of health awareness.  I also watched a decent amount of Food Network this summer and I might have caught the cooking bug… So begins “Kyle’s Cooking Corner”, a series of posts cataloging my various creations and experiments in the cooking world.

This first post contains my first creation, chicken and broccolli with carrots sauted with garlic and onions in a teriaki sauce.  I then served it on a bed of rice aroni.  It was delicious.