My father in law is in town for the weekend. As his daughter in law and mother of the grandchildren he dotes on it is my duty to spoil him. The only way I really know how to spoil is through food. A few blogs ago I wrote about how I'm working with a naturopath to become healthy again. She gave me some strict guidelines on diet and I really haven't had any problems following those guidelines, until tonight.
I wanted to show my father in law what the Grand Experiment was all about. He sort of expressed approbation at the clothesline, was a little more excited about the limoncello, and devoured our bread for breakfast. So today I pulled out all the stops. Sophie and I made doughnuts for breakfast. Chocolate covered, yeast raised, deep fried doughnuts. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Then we went to the Olive Mill for lunch and indulged in cured meats from the Pork Shop. Yummmmm. The real coup de grace was dinner. I had ordered some phenomenal lamb loin chops from Double Check Ranch when I found out Dave was coming to visit. I stuffed them with garlic and mint (courtesy of Taste of Paradise) paired them with a salad derived from Taste of Paradise produce and dressed in olive oil and white balsamic vinegar from the Olive Mill, added couscous steeped in homemade chicken broth and locally purchased shallots and topped the whole thing off with crostini made from spinach feta bread from my dear friend Leslie at Great Harvest. We sat down to a table laden with almost completely local goodies. The food had come from my grocery store, otherwise known as Super Farm Market. The olive oil, vinegar and wine had come from a little further down the road at Queen Creek Olive Mill. The love was my own addition.
It. Was. Phenomenal. I rock. I may be a so so housekeeper, and everybody knows I'll never win a math award, but I can cook like no other. Sophie asked me if we could have the "steak" every night. Orion chowed down on dinner until he was covered in it. Although, to be honest, he does that every night. Dave, who is quite the foodie, called it amazing. Mike was too busy eating to tell me what he thought.
Was it healthy? Yes and no. I waaaaay over-ate on carbs and fat today (I blame Leslie, that bread is diabolical). And yet, we ate no preservatives, we ate no additives, we ate no corn syrup. So while it would probably be inadvisable to eat doughnuts for breakfast followed by massive sandwiches stuffed with cured pork products for lunch and then follow it up with lamb and couscous for dinner every day, once in awhile it is amazingly worth it. There are many things that I dislike about our current state but the local food is certainly not one of them. So while I am stuffed and sated and content right now I have one question. Does anyone know a good personal trainer?
I have a book called Food Rules by Michael Pollan that gives general guidelines for what kind of food to eat. One of them is "Eat all the junk food you want as long as you can cook it yourself." He says "The french fry did not become America's most popular veggie until industry took over the jobs of washing, peeling, cutting, and frying the potatoes -- and cleaning up the mess. If you made all the french fries you ate, you would eat them much less often, if only because they're so much work. The same holds true for fried chicken, chips, cakes, pies, and ice cream. Enjoy these treats as often as you're willing to prepare them -- chances are it won't be every day."
ReplyDeleteIt's absolutely true. I make killer french fries and killer potato chips but they are such a pain to make we have them rarely.
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