Edible Tulip

POM Wonderful's Pomegranate, Pecan and Persimmon Salad

 

There is no doubt about it that pomegranates are interesting. They grow into that ruddy bulbous orb out of a flower. Their leathery surface defies the beauty of the sweet jewelled arils you find nestled in miniature honeycomb-like pockets. They are ridiculously messy to eat but if you're the kind of person who doesn't like to get her fingers sticky then you probably eat apples and bananas and crackers over mangos and pomegranates and pistachios anyway, in which case, what are you doing here on this mud puddle jumping avocado half licking utensil free site of nonsense? At any rate, even though pomegranates are one of mankind's earliest cultivated fruits, up until recently I rarely saw them displayed in the supermarket, or green grocer, except around the Christmas season. And then came POM Wonderful**, the cheery logo with the heart in place of the O, and the exceptionally successful marketing campaign that put POM juice in coveted display sections everywhere you shopped. I see POM juice more often in the drink section of stores now than I do cranberry juice and iced tea. I really applaud the work of a company to promote a fruit that has so many positive health benefits instead of an exercise drink loaded with sugar or a soda with no nutritional value. So, when Molly, from POM Wonderful blogger, sent me an email asking if I'd like to try a few free samples of POM juice, naturally I said yes. Because of customs regulations she couldn't ship me samples but she did send me a few coupons for juice and I took one up to my neighbourhood Kitchen Table grocery store because I knew they carried them (see how effective that logo is?? I've never bought POM Wonderful juice before but the sweet simplicity of its name resonates and I knew I'd seen it at my local store) and picked out one plain 100% pure pomegranate juice to take home and drink on ice. (Other flavours include pomegranate blends: blueberry, tangerine, cherry, all 100% pure fruit juice).

It tasted less bitter than I thought it might, and also less syrupy. I found it tangy-sweet, but less mouth puckering than pure cranberry juice i.e., it doesn't strip the back of your throat. Instead, it's a fruity refreshing zing of goodness. On ice, it's perfect; with soda water, it'd be marvelous; add a shot of vodka, even better.

A few quick health facts:

• POM Wonderful juice has more antioxidants than red wine and green tea
• POM Wonderful is the only brand to guarantee 100% authentic pomegranate juice (POM Wonderful is located in California which is the origin for their pomegranates/juice; most other pomeogranates and pomegranate products come from Iran, Turkey and the Former USSR, so take your chances with those labels and verity!)
• Pomegranate juice is known to have medically verified positive effects on heart health (hence the heart in the name POM), prostate health, diabetes, erectile dysfunction (50% improval over 4 weeks, now there's incentive!), and other age-related health conditions

**Wonderful refers to the variety of pomegranate grown specificially for POM Wonderful in the San Joaquin Valley in California. They are known for having a unique combination of super antioxidants, a sweet rather than too pungent taste, and a deep crimson colour.

(Disclaimer: The pomegranate salad picture is used, with courtesy, from the POM Wonderful website, which is an excellent reference source)

Pomegranate, Pecan and Persimmon Salad from the POM Wonderful website which features a broad range of delicious recipes using pomegranates for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and drinks

Salad:

- 1 cup arils from 1 - 2 large POM Wonderful pomegranates

- 8 cups baby romaine lettuce (substitute butter lettuce, or any other subtle, tender, sweet lettuce like Bibb)

- 1/2 cup thinly sliced green onion

- 2 ripe persimmons, peeled and cut into thin wedges

- 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans (feel free to substitute your own candied or roasted salted pecans in place of plain)

Dressing:

- juice from 1 large POM Wonderful pomegranate (cut the fruit in half, and juice with a citrus reamer) OR 2 tbsp POM Wonderful 100% Pomegrante Juice

- 2 tbsps white wine vinegar

- 1/8 tsp cinnamon

- 1 tsp honey

- 3 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Score 1-2 pomegranates and place in a bowl of water. Break open the pomegrantes under water to free the arils/seed sacs. The arils will sink to the bottom of the bowl and the membrane will float to the top. Sieve and put the arils in a separate bowl. Reserve 1 cup of the arils from the fruit and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, combine the leaf lettuce, arils, green onion, ripe persimmons, and pecans.

3. Mix all the dressing ingredients together and toss into the salad.

Beetroot and What On Earth To Do With It

**beets from my parents vegetable garden

~ roasted beetroot are deliciously sweet and fragrant. Wrap individuallly in foil and peel after they are cooked.
~ if you are using smaller sized beets, wash and peel before placing in a large wrap of aluminum foil, and toss with olive oil, rosemary, whole garlic cloves and sea salt and cook on the barbecue on medium for an hour
~ eaten raw, beets are the perfect salad ingredient adding a garnet coloured festiveness to plain leaf lettuce. Wash, peel and then grate the beetroot. Squeeze the grated beetroot of excess liquid before adding to the salad.
~ wash and peel the beets and then cut into wedges. Cook in butter over medium-high heat on the stovetop until done and then quickly braise in red wine and stock with peppercorns and serve with game meats such as venison.
~ make a dip! Beetroot tastes fantastic raw in a dip and looks marvelous served in a white bowl with cucumber wedges and toasted pita crackers for colour contrast. Roast the beets without peeling them; once cooked and cooled, peel, puree with a bit of sour cream, and flavour to taste with garlic, cumiin and salt.

It's true I was a picky eater as a child. I remember feeling irritable before even sitting down at the dinner table. Irritable that I had to eat "with company", meaning my family, meaning my mother who breathed too loudly and who crunched her lettuce in a slow, methodical way that made my palms start to sweat, and my father who chewed with his mouth open while taking in gulps of wine simultaneously and the sensation in my mouth of what was going on in his made me gag and lose my appetite, my older sister who had a way of describing a mundane detail of the day, something like inserting a new lead cartridge into a pencil, with such importance and articulation that it was dessert at about the time I felt like raising a white flag, and my younger brother who was the only person I would have chosen to take with me should the house have begun to burn and I was anywhere between 5 and 18 years of age. Books became my distraction, my touchstone of sanity during the long boring hour of family dinnertime. I kept one on my lap and could speed read a paragraph between each pretend bite. I remember liking broccoli stems, not the furry florets that tickled the throat on the way down, and possibly mashed potatoes with small pockets of butter like shimmering gold in a sea of pale sand. I also remember hating everything else, most especially anything that had eyes or a tail or was once covered in fur or scales, and beetroot, pickled or boiled be damned, the smell of them cooking, the combination acrid sweetness, was as awful to me at the time as being tossed head first into a deep compost bin at the end of a sweltering August. When I moved away at the age of 16, I never looked at a beet again. In fact, I don't think I even had to try that hard, it was the 80s after all and local produce and the celebration of it hadn't reached the religious fervor of today, and people weren't really eating vegetables as anything more than a sprig of parsley as decoration or a side salad. I went away to University as a vegetarian and at the mercy of the local catering service lived on a dinner of boiled peas and corn on top of a mound of white rice for 321 days. And then I discovered both the flavour and art of raw vegetables and this was a long time back. Nowadays, almost every vegetable comes in an array of natural colours (white carrots, orange beets, purple potatoes, tiger striped tomatoes, etc.) and miniature sizes. This past weekend, while at the Creemore Farmers Market, I picked up two large hearty bunches of beets from The New Farm. They were glorious round globes of earth tones. After clipping off 2 large bags of beet leaves (to be used later in pasta sauce), I scrubbed the beets, cut them in half, added olive oil and coarse salt and roasted for an hour in the oven. It's true I have become a beet convert. After 15 years of not seeing or smelling one, I could say it's true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, or perhaps it's just that memories that used to punctuate all the senses have grown blurry lines. And I will mention to people who still have a hate on for beets, that when they are shredded while raw, and added to a salad, they really, truly taste exactly like carrot. I would not tell a lie, at least when beets are involved.

Musing Over the Politics of Food (Plus a Salad Recipe, Of Course!)

The two times I felt the most enmeshed with the producers of the food I ate was when I lived in smaller, rural communities. Roadside fruit and vegetable stands stayed open in all seasons except for winter. The farmers market in town was populated with all the farmers within a 10 km radius who wore overalls and sported several missing teeth. In the city, the farmers markets tend to attract sellers of expensive heirloom vegetables and exotic naturally raised meats and they are often young with goatees and wearing Blundstones. One is not necessarily better than the other, it just goes to illustrate how both farming and food have come since the early days of Wendell Berry. As a person who eats meals almost exclusively made out of fruits and vegetables, it makes sense for me to try to source locally, but for several reasons, I don't get all foamy at the mouth over the subject.

Some of it has to do with context. I recently spent the weekend in my old stomping grounds - southern Georgian Bay around Creemore, Ontario. Now this town is unusual for many reasons. It has a slightly sketchy typical small town aura but only in minute degradations and you have to look and smell really hard to find it. Otherwise, it's a blend of full time folks who are all actively engaged in the local BIA, and help to drive the town in the direction it's going which is running with a hot docs festival, a music festival, community fundraisers with big time names, and a main street checkered with successful independent businesses - a bookstore, a 100 Mile grocery store, a beloved children's toy shop, art galleries, pottery shops, salvage stores and an array of high end catering/coffee stores. There isn't a Tim Horton's in spitting distance, let alone a McDonalds, a Walmart, or a Canadian Tire. The hardware store and the meat shop are local derived and locally driven. The town also has a large weekend populace, including Margaret Wente and Andy Barrie. The farmers market has Michael Statdlander's bread. So let's just say, well the whole environment is intoxicating it isn't necessarily the most accurate indicator of what is going on in the world. That said, I give kudos to how supportive the residents are of their local farmers and producers. The Georgian Bay magazine, On the Bay, who I used to write for when I lived in the area, has a bunch of food articles in their recent release: how to cook and eat local, profiles of local farmers, write ups on local wine producers and reviews of in town restaurants. When you are up in these parts it is easy to swallow the yellow countryside as the sun sets and wade in the various running rapids let alone head to town and pick up homemade breads and fresh picked flowers and a vegetable bounty previously unseen. I was up there this past weekend and we ate flank steak and fresh fish from the 100 mile store in addition to local new potatoes, beets, beans, corn, melons, tomatoes, garlic plus organic milk and yogurt for the kids and Creemore Coffee blends. Such is the life. If you can have it, afford, be born into it.

As much as I admire those who parachute on weekends into small towns and buy local. It's admirable and the right thing to do. It shows engagement and support and those are two key things locals pick up on from their wayfarers. I also have questions about the whole politicising of food and how it is presented. I believe in organic but I've never really bought it. I agree with Margaret Wente that a little pesticide never really hurt anyone and I can't frankly afford organic. Basically, I buy it ON SALE. So there. I'm a foodie and I don't give a rats ass for organics. Local I agree with, but only to a point. I'm not going to pay a farmer from Guelph to drive into Toronto to deliver me fresh free range eggs. I can get those at my local grocery and save on the carbon tax. Plus I don't need to pretend to my friends, as I jet around the world first class, and work for a multinational, that I "care" because I know a single farmer in the province. That is not me. I make judicious choices not flagrant ones. Recently I worked a contract at the Ministry of Children and Youth Services. I was in the policy department and these people, these good, hardworking, passionate people, are scurrying around day and night, just so you know, writing policies and programs to help youth succeed after getting out of crown care or foster care or a group home. Have you ever thought about these kids? Probably not, neither had I. Until then. I met a few and not only were they mature and smart and savvy they were frustrated and angry about the lack of life skills they were given. These are kids in an urban environment who do not care about an organic yam from Peru in your good food box and how to prepare it rather they want to know how to survive. How to grocery shop. How to grocery budget. How to prepare a simple meal. So, for all of us locavores, and food activisits, what to do when a kid, one of many, says, well, I eat packaged cereal/eggos/crackers/junk all day and every day because I don't know a single thiing about what is good for me, how to shop, how to cook. So as I step away from this post gently, I am thinking that I care more about people eating well, eating nutritionally, than I do about where the food comes from. No Frills and Price Choppers should combine with local nutritionists or chefs and hold seminars once a month. The government should not only make nutrition/home economics related to food a requisite course in high school, it should encourage the combined relationship of food growers and crown care youth. Working on a farm or in a kitchen is often one of the most inspiring places to be. I grew up in a privileged environment and I know I would've glommed onto the experience. I can only imagine what some struggling youths might feel about having a purpose around where food comes from, why it's important, how to feed yourself and your family, and your loved ones, and the beauty wrapped up inside all of that.

And oh yeah, the salad. Well, I'm unemployed at the moment, working contract, figuring out next life steps. I'm careful about my money down to the penny. But I like to eat well. So, there's nothing that goes further in giving you a smack of vitamins than a huge head of Italian parsley. Chop it up finely and add it in doses to salads. Floss afterwards. Radicchio, the red, Italian bitter lettuce, can also be had for cheap in some green grocers. It adds colour. Then buy romaine or green leaf or whatever looks good, edible and isn't overly pricey. Wash, toss and chop. I bought a huge head of Ontario cauliflower because it was cheap and because I like it roasted with cumin seeds and the damn thing, like a head of cabbage, lasts forever.  I added a few cubes of gruyere cheese that was in a large block on sale in the no name section of Loblaws. It tasted delicious. I also added a tin of 99 cent flaked tuna. Some bulk sunflower seeds would have been good too. Or some grated beets. I just added a touch of canola oil and a dash of lemon juice and salt and pepper.

Eating On The Cheap! - Lentil, Parsley and Lemon Salad.

So, if you are anything like me, you are broke. Down to your last few dollars. Scraping the coins to buy your dog some lean ground beef for dinner, tossed with a raw egg, some maple syrup, and a clove of garlic. Buying things and chopping and cutting them at night for the next day at work so when you find yourself "peckish" mid-morning, mid-afternoon, or again, if you're like me, and get hungry when bored, then, sadly an all day emptiness, you can just grab another ziplock of whatever: grapes, cherries, almonds and dried apricots, baby carrots & hummous. I prepare both breakfast (cut up melon and berries, my new favourite melon in season being an orange flesh coloured honeydew: sweet and flavourful) and lunch (a large tupper of salad greens, a protein, or 2 (legumes and a sprinkling of nuts or seeds), a dairy (cubes of crumbled feta or diced hard cheese), and an array of pretty things: radishes, sugar snap peas, currants, pepitas, rose hued sea salt. I can't afford to buy breakfast and coffee and snacks and lunch these days. Nope, I'm still in penance for thinking it was a good idea last July to quit my job and move up north with my boyfriend whom I fought with. A lot. I had all sorts of visions in my hand, a century home, a beach, turquoise fresh water, small town charm, ice skating, getting pregnant, getting married, and, well, moving to Italy. By month three, it was pretty clear things were diverting south, downward, and fast. I spent a hefty winter alone in 12 feet of snow. Toronto has been refreshing in many ways but career wise I skidded myself short. I never thought I'd missed paid vacation days but oh, yes, dear god, I do. I keep interviewing with places where they work long hours and on Christmas Eve and until 5 pm on Fridays and again, Oh God, I didn't know how good I had it.

Anyway, back to food, and being broke, if you are as penny pinching as I am these days, well, I have the recipe for you. Provided you like beans and fresh herbs. Buy a large bag of dried split green lentils, the smaller the better. I rinsed and drained about 3 cups worth and added to a large pot with 5x that amount of water. I brought ot a boil and reduced to medium-low and cooked for about 20 minutes. I rinsed and drained and tossed into a large bowl. I chopped up into medium-smallish sized pieces a whole bunch of Italian flat leaf parsley. I tossed with the warm lentils, and added a few tablespoons of toasted sesame seeds, some sea salt, a squeeze of lemon, a few rounds of olive oil drizzles, and a last dash of red wine vinegar. The salad will last me all week. I will add several heaping spoonfuls to shredded red leaf lettuce and call it lunch. Split into five, it costs about 75 cents a day and is marvelously delicious and filling and healthy. Try adding a curry vinaigrette instead to add more punch. Also try adding cooked bulgur or whole wheat couscous. Or, heck, cherry tomatoes.

Lentils have a fair bit of calcium in them, and good amounts of vitamins A and B, as well as being excellent sources of iron and phosphorous.

How To Eat More Fruit

 

I'm back working downtown in an office which means I am back struggling to find ways to eat fresh and healthy homemade food throughout the long days. A couple tips that might help you if you face the same challenges.

1. Find a supermarket near where you work. I'm at Yonge and College and there is a Metro grocery store under the office tower. Not only can I pick up things for dinner on my break, I can also buy things to keep at the office: half melons that are ready to eat for breakfast, baby carrots, hummous, fruit that bruises during travel, i.e. nectarines, plums, peaches and bananas to keep on the desk. 

2. Take 15 minutes on a Sunday and cut up whatever fruit concoction you like and put it in a large container in the fridge. Above I have canteloup melon, an atulfo mango, and organic blueberries. I took one serving of the fruit and put it in a smaller tupperware. I have my breakfast ready to take with me to work each morning with no preparation required. 

3. Forget the attitude that the day is so packed with meetings that you won't have time for lunch and therefore nibble on crackers and the end of a baguette. Because the nibbling will turn into broken off pieces until you've eaten an entire loaf of bread. You won't feel satisfied because you won't have ingested any nutrients of value! Prepare lunches that are mostly devoid of carbs (an afternoon buzz killer, you'll be dozing off by 3 pm) and instead stick to vegetables, protein, and little fat. In the summer, large salads full of romaine lettuce, nuts, legumes and cubes of cheese provide tons of energy. A tin of tuna, mixed with cut up radishes, chopped cucumber and seasoned with sea salt, lemon and olive oil is easy to prepare and more nutritious than almost anything you could find at a salad bar. To make preparing lunches easier, I wash my lettuce and put it into large sealed freezer bags. When the huge plastic tubs of spring lettuces are on sale at the supermarket I buy those and use that lettuce throughout my work week. I make my lunches the night before as I'm preparing dinner then it doesn't become a separate chore to find motivation to tackle.