Liz On Food

The Power of Social Media: Tweeting Against Hunger

On the evening of July 30, 2009, a group of foodie tweeters came together for a food chat organized as a fundraiser by Share Our Strength. Over 170 food lovers and bloggers tweeted about blogging, food and what it takes to make it as a blogger, coming together through the hashtag #SOSfood.

Here's a call-out to the bloggers who moderated the Food chat.

Kate Miller, Moderator StolenMomentsCooking.com  @asimplewalk

Erin Chase  $5Dinners.com  @5dollardinners

Jaden Hair steamykitchen.com  @steamykitchen

Ryan Stern Foodbuzz.com  @ryanthegirl

Chris Perrin  Blogwelldone.com  @blogwelldone

Michael Ruhlman Ruhlman.com  @ruhlman

The constant stream of encouraging and creative tweets throughout the #SOSfood chat reinforced what I already know: Far from elitist, the online foodie community is supportive and open. Stream-of-consciousness topics included best types of cameras and lenses for food blog pictures, favorite kinds of fruit pie, how to increase blog traffic, how to encourage comments to posts, how bloggers got their start in media (print or electronic) and hunger issues. If you're a Twitter user, you can still check out the event's chatter through the hashtag #SOSfood.

That's social media at its best - being used for social action.

Update August 1, 2009: A fellow #SOSfood tweeter also posted about the event. Check it out at My Kitchen Addiction.

A Cherry Pickin' Treat

When out walking our Golden Retriever with my husband a couple weeks ago, I noticed one of our neighbors sipping an evening beer while picking cherries from one of six cherry trees in his front yard. One of six (trees, not beer)! And except for the eastern-most tree, which had already been stripped clean by birds, they were all laden and just now ripening. In chilly higher-altitude Colorado, our cherry harvest season comes a bit later than other parts of the country.

With an eye for wildcrafting in suburban America (Is that an oxymoron?), I shouted over to our neighbor, "What a beautiful bunch of cherries!" And I received the hoped-for response: "We have way too many cherries; come back and pick some. In fact, come and pick as many as you want." Oh blessed be! A ready source of free pie-making sour cherries.

Armed with baskets, I roped my husband into a Saturday morning foray back to the cherry trees. We picked, and picked, and picked some more. We filled our baskets, then lugged them back home. I dumped the cherries into the sink and filled it with water. Then, I contemplated the task ahead while we ate lunch. That's when my husband made a speedy exit, and the kids were nowhere to be found.

If you have ever pitted cherries, you know that's when the real fun begins. I figured we had at least 10 pounds of cherries. Really, the pitting, itself, is not difficult if you have ripe cherries. A gentle squeeze and the seed pops right out. (Hold the cherry over the bowl of finished pitted product so as to capture the juice that drips out when you squeeze the fruit.) But, when you've harvested 10 pounds, the task can be daunting just from the sheer number of cherries. I started timing myself with the pitting process to estimate how long it would take to pit the entire batch. I stopped to crank up the stereo connected to my iPod. Any chore is easier with good tunes. Then back to the cherries. About an hour later I was finished with about a quarter of the cherries. I took a quick break to size up the situation. No way was I going to pit cherries for four straight hours. Either I had to stall out and recruit help, or it was time to do what any sensible home chef would do: start baking a cherry pie. I opted for the latter, ensuring we'd have a warm mouth-watering dessert that evening. Vanilla ice cream in the freezer? Check.

I measured out the pitted cherries and arrived at five cups, just the perfect amount for a 9-inch pie. (I refrigerated the remaining cherries, a temporary measure.) I like to make baked fruit pies with a lattice work crust, rather than a full double crust, because I think it's prettier and because it's easier to see when the fruit and filling are fully baked. I also use all butter rather than mixing with Crisco or lard, as many pie crust recipes suggest. I like the texture and flavor provided by the butter. As seldom as we eat home-baked pies in our household (maybe five or six during the year), I don't worry about the nutrition content of the crust. I'm looking for maximum flakiness and flavor to honor the rare treat of summer cherries, berries or peaches. Be sure to use ice-cold water when you're making the crust and handle as little as possible to reduce gluten development. These tips help ensure a flaky, rather than tough, crust.

As far as the filling goes, canned cherry filling has turned off many a person to cherry pie. The only way I will make cherry pie is with fresh sour cherries. Otherwise, it's not worth my effort. Some cherry pie recipes call for almond extract but I forgo that ingredient because it can easily overpower the cherry flavor profile. Other than these suggestions, I'm not providing a recipe outright because I have followed recipes from several common cookbooks (with my suggested modifications and tips), all with fabulous results. The key: Start with good pie cherries!

We enjoyed our first cherry pie that evening, with dollops of vanilla ice cream. Originally I had intended to make cherry preserves as well, but the pie was just too good! And it vanished that evening, no such thing as leftovers when it comes to pie.

So I pitted more the next day and baked another pie. Two nights in a row with summer cherry pie. What a heavenly treat. I thought about writing a blog post, A Week of Cherry Pies. But I thought the better of it, waited another day and pitted the rest, which gave us enough cherries for two more pies. I froze those cherries in two sugar-pack batches, measuring cherries and sugar for one pie per batch. (I marked the amounts on the freezer packs, for future reference.) That will make for easy cherry pie baking later in the year. Frozen sugar-packed cherries should last about six months. So when a fall breeze is in the air and the leaves start to turn, we'll relive our summer treat.

"Lifestyle Nutritionists" Mitchell and Webb Strike Again

For your entertainment, presenting "lifestyle nutritionists" Mitchell and Webb. Thanks to fellow RD Dave Grotto for the heads up on Facebook.

Reflecting on Family Food Ways and Women's Work

Central to women's health is making connections that help support emotional well-being. And I have found one key connection to be family food traditions.

This summer I have been immersed in family genealogy and have thus been reflecting on how my family history has influenced our own household, including food ways. In an era when families are flung across the country, and even across the globe, traditions can be an important way to center and ground one's self. My husband and I live over 1,000 miles away from our parents, with only one sibling, an aunt and cousin in the state. Lacking inter-generational family community in a geographical sense for the past 25 years, I have come to recognize that a crucial contribution to my own emotional well-being comes from understanding and honoring my roots - the glories, losses, inequities, joys, tragedies and triumphs.
 

Just across the Missouri River from Leavenworth, Kansas, is Platte County, Missouri, where my family settled in the 1800s. These ancestors were part of the great Western migration that displaced and decimated Native Americans, and most were farmers. One of the towns in Platte County, Weston, was a thriving economic center in the western Missouri frontier. The image to the right is an engraving of Weston from 1853. The city boasts the oldest continuously operating distillery in the United States: McCormick Distilling Company. At one time larger than Kansas City, Weston was a port town along the Muddy Missouri until the river flooded and changed course. That event spelled the end of growth for Weston but allowed for preservation of its 19th-century history. Many antebellum homes still exist there and have been restored, including my parents' home, where Grandma Marr lived in her latter years.

My heritage is primarily an eclectic mix of Northern European, reflecting the melting pot that was Platte County in the 19th century. During the Civil War, western Missouri was a bitterly war-torn area, and family members fought on both sides of the war. Some earlier-arriving ancestors migrated from Virgina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky, while others immigrated from Germany, Ireland and Holland.

What resulted is a family food culture that blends Southern American traditions with a very strong German influence. Childhood food experiences included springerle, lebekuchen and pfeffernusse, along with fried chicken, and ham and beans. Mom tells of her extended family, living on four neighboring farms, butchering hogs in the winter, the men fabricating the meat in the cellars, and the women in the kitchens preparing blutwurst, pickled pigs' feet and other German delicacies.

Some time in the mid-90s, I read the book Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times by linguist and anthropologist Elizabeth Wayland Barber. Textiles, like food, leave no direct lasting record. Barber reconstructs textile history through archaeology, geology, art, and ancient texts. For most women, our inter-generational experiences are the key to preserving family food traditions.

At home, I caught the bug for cooking from my home-economist mother, and she passed down many of her family's food traditions. When I was growing up, we visited my grandparents in Platte County nearly every summer. That was a time when we could cook in the kitchen with Grandma. At Mom's parents, we had freshly killed fried chicken, and we helped pluck the feathers. (Watching Grandma Poss chop the head off the chickens provided morbid fascination for we suburban children.) On nearby farmland was a pecan tree that supplied a key ingredient for caramel-frosted, rolled sugar cookies. At Grandma Marr's house we would feast over ham with green beans and potatoes, cooked with bacon. Grandma had a peach tree, and we sometimes made peach cobbler.

Beyond recipes, I have a few mementos that are put to use in my kitchen during cookie baking endeavors. Grandma (Tudy) Marr's family owned the St. George Hotel in Weston, and I have one of her tea towels inked with her and the hotel's names. Well loved, the cloth is still used for cooling cookies fresh from the oven. From Grandma Poss, I have cookie cutters that I use with her sugar cookie recipe.

In the future, I will be posting recipes for some of the family food traditions mentioned in this article.

Update December 18, 2009: Happy Holidays: Grandma's Sugar Cookies with Caramel Frosting

Update January 17, 2010: Anise Schnitte or Toasted Anise Cakes

Update December 12, 2010: Grandma Poss' Caramel Frosting

This post is part of the Women's Health Blogfest:

Angela White at Blisstree's Breastfeeding 1-2-3 -  Helpful Skills of Breastfeeding Counselors
Angie Tillman, RD, LDN, CDE - You Are Beautiful Today
Anthony J. Sepe - Women's Health and Migraines
Ashley Colpaart - Women's Health Through Women
Charisse McElwaine - Spending too Much Time on the "Throne?"
Danielle Omar - Yoga, Mindful Eating and Food Confidence
Diane Preves M.S.,R.D - Balance for Health
Joan Sather - A Woman's Healthy Choices Affect More Than Herself
Laura Wittke - Fibro Study Recruits Participants
Marjorie Geiser, MBA, RD, NSCA-CPT - Healthy Women, Healthy Business: How Your Health Impacts a Powerful Business
Marsha Hudnall - Breakfast Protein Helps Light Eaters Feel Full
Michelle Loy, MPH, MS, RD - A Nutritionista's Super Foods for Super Skin
Monika Woolsey, MS, RD - To Effectively Work with PCOS is to Understand a Woman's Health Issues Throughout Her Life
Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog - How Breastfeeding Helps You, Too
Rebecca Scritchfield, MA, RD, LD - Four Keys to Wellness, Just for Women
Renata Mangrum, MPH, RD - The Busy Busy Woman
Robin Plotkin, RD, LD - Feeding the Appetites of the Culinary, Epicurious and Nutrition Worlds-One Bite at a Time
Sharon Solomon - Calories, Longevity and Do I Care
Terri L Mozingo, RD, CDN & D. Milton Stokes, MPH, RD, CDN of One Source Nutrition, LLC - Crossing the Line: From Health to Hurt
Wendy Jo Peterson, RD - Watch Your Garden Grow

Changes in Food Shopping During the Recession

I'm seeing more reports about changes in consumers' food shopping habits during the current economic recession. AC Nielsen reported in a July 10, 2009 blog post:

As the “great recession” continues and consumers hear conflicting messaging about when the U.S. economy will improve, shoppers from all income levels are increasingly seeking out and taking advantage of deals at the grocery store. Whether in the form of store promotion or deal or manufacturers coupon, deal rates are up more than 8% from a year ago for households earning more than $70K, a faster rise than the 6% uptick for middle-income households ($30K-$69.9K) and 5% gain for the lower income households earning less than $30K per year.

Those affluent households are also making more trips to the grocery, accounting for the largest share (41%) of total basket ring dollars versus middle-income and low-income households. For the past 13 periods, affluent households posted trip growth in every period, while grocery trips by middle-income households were about flat and grocery trips among low-income households were off in all periods.

Affluent households are also driving faster trip growth in value retail channels like supercenters, warehouse clubs and dollar stores, but their overall importance to the sales in each channel ranges from a low of 19% for dollar stores to a high of 57% for warehouse clubs.

Such changes in shopping habits are bound to hit higher-end retailers hard. Analysist Matt Carallaro of Forbes magazine suggests that that Whole Food's recent stock hike was due to "the rather soft news that the organic food retailer will take part in a program to confirm it only sells products that have not been genetically modified."

He goes on to say, "While Whole Foods' menu is certainly a healthier alternative to processed food distributors, consumers' wallets are emaciated."