Beef recall, can you eat healthily without going nuts?

Did you hear the one about 19 tons of frozen bacon-cheeseburger patties being recalled because they might contain gasket material? That's right, the USDA just issued this recall on behalf of Kenosha Beef's terrific product. While I don't know how many cows had to die in vain for these gasket-laden delicacies, I'm sure it was in the thousands, and I feel really upset about it. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, industrial beef is a disaster, an abomination, from animal welfare, environmental and human health perspectives. On another health-related front, this article about "healthy eating" was an interesting one. I came across it on Grist but it originated on the blog, Northwest Edible Life.

Friday food for thought!

So.Tired.

Oh my gawd..... I am beyond tired. It could be that I worked outside for a long while this morning, and it's darn hot here. Perhaps I didn't hydrate enough. It could be that the boys have been up between 5:30 and 5:50am every day for, oh, the past two years. It could be a lot of things but does it really matter? Probably not. I've tried to find the time to nap and to get to bed early, proper sleep hygiene a doctor once called it. I get enough exercise, I eat well, but regardless, I'm flipping tired. Real tired. Exhausted tired. Can't finish a sentence tired. I did manage to blow dry my hair today which is really quite an accomplishment, so to start off my weekend (no different from the week), I've just opened a bottle of lovely white wine and toasted myself. I'm pretending to be doing some "very important" work downstairs while T manages the ridiculous brouhaha that teeth-brushing always devolves into. More evidence that without the civilizing influence of parents (esp moms), young children (esp boys) would definitely grow up tending towards the boorish and crass, not to mention just plain dirty. Are you all anticipating the start of the Olympics? I love the Olympics but I do not thrill over the opening ceremonies. Why on earth would you make the best athletes in the world wear the ridiculous outfits some fashion-challenged Board orders? I mean, have you seen the US teams' get-ups? What are they, waitstaff on the Love Boat? The women's skirts make me cringe. And then there is the whole political going-on about the clothing being Made in China. Obviously this is a critical point of contention when half the counties in America are in dire straits because their crops and livestock are DYING because of the climate change NO ONE will actually deal with in any responsible way. I mean, let's definitely go nuts over Chinese-made garb but let's definitely not do anything about what is going to cook and/or starve us all. And while we're at it, let's consider electing Mittens who is traveling to impress us with his foreign policy know-how but managed to offend England before even taking off from the US. Good god, people. This man is out.of.touch.

I bought LOTS of salmon today at the Whole Foods sale but have completely lost the will to do anything with it tonight. As does Trixie in Knuffle Bunny, I have gone boneless (great description of a toddler tantrum, btw).

Paccheri with slave-free tomatoes

If you read Em-i-lis during our trip to Italy in March, you might recall that I wrote about my love of and experiences there with paccheri, this wonderful, fat, tubular pasta.

The first time I had it this past visit was the night we moved to Florence from Venice. I bought some paccheri at a local market along with some eggplant and other pretty produce and while cooking up a beautiful dinner, felt myself grow sicker and sicker: the vomitous ailment that had plagued the boys in Venice had jumped to me, and I spent the next three days upchucking. Due to negative association, I looked askance at paccheri for the remainder of our trip until our penultimate night in Italy. Tom, my father and I went to Fabbio Picchi's Teatro del Sale, a truly marvelous "dinner theater" (that phrase does not even begin to do justice to the evening we had). One of the seemingly innumerable courses we enjoyed that evening was paccheri in the MOST incredibly creamy, unctuous, fresh tomato sauce. It slurped and sucked as your fork overcame the noodles' cling to one another, and really, I feel that's always a good and authentic sound. I have no idea how that sauce came to be, but it was truly a nectar of the gods and rendered me speechless for quite some time.

I made the tomato sauce this morning in honor of that wonderfully fun night at Picchi's place and so served it over some lovely paccheri. Mine doesn't even touch the magnificence of his complexly simple sugo di pomodoro at Teatro del Sale, but it was fun to muse about the larger-than-life Picchi - Attenzione! Attenzione!!- and a special night. As always and especially today, these tomatoes are slave-free. If you haven't yet signed this letter to supermarket CEOs urging them to sign on in support of the Fair Food Program, please tTake 30 seconds right now to raise your voice: sign your name to help ensure that supermarket tomatoes are slave-free!