Somebody’s got to be a Scrooge. It’s only been a few short weeks after giving thanks, but I’ve already made a list of holiday gifts I’d have to say, “No, thanks” to, and imagine that many other moderate to serious cooks would, too. We, the avid, maybe obsessive foodies who liken ourselves to chefs, appreciate that so many try to give us the perfect gift to further our hobbies with for the holidays. It’s not about disrespect. But having been through many holiday seasons of this, I can offer some suggestions to avoid the awkwardness of a tool never used.

Bear in mind however that no cook is cookie-cutter, so to speak, and we all have our own tendencies. So my general tips here are pretty much null as long as you know the kind of home cook you’re dealing with. And I can’t say I haven’t been inspired to cook with something because it was given to me as a gift. But if I had to make a list, and check it twice, these are the top ten gifts I would NOT give. Got any no-no’s of your own? Leave a note to Santa in the comments below.

1. Cute, ruffly apron

With gingham or floral print, halter-top straps and tiers at the skirt — we’ve all seen them and somebody gets me one of these about once a year. They are cute, yes, but personally, I’d rather be splattered with sauce than look like a doll or lace doily while I cook. Yes, dear, those biscuits are coming right out of the oven… No dear, those aren’t yesterday’s tulips in the vase…

What to get instead: Clean, white farmhouse-style dishtowels. You can always use more.

2. Retro-looking appliances

They don’t make ‘em like they used to — at least maybe not in quality. As for appearances, it seems that every blender and popcorn-maker has a  circa-1950s air nowadays. I guess that’s all fine and dandy, but as someone who’s trying to propagate the everyday act of cooking today, I don’t need to be reminded that it’s an adorably oldschool thing. Also, that chrome standing juicer works no better than the much less wieldy hand-held kind that you squeeze.

What to get instead: A manual pasta crank, new or old. (I know of restaurants that still use these time-tested devices.)

3. Garlic baker

Seriously? I don’t see why these things exist. Roasted garlic does taste great, and it’ll probably make a pretty sweet addition to something you cook a lot. But you could just as well throw it in some covered vessel — or better yet, the cavity of a chicken — to get the job done. Wrap foil over a ramekin in a pinch. It’s okay that it’s not shaped like the ingredient in question.

What to get instead: Four ramekins. Works for serving, baking, and anything else you can think of.

4. Preposterously shaped cake molds

Apparently there’s a whole contingent of bakers who enjoy impressing their friends with cakes shaped like a medieval fort, a pirate’s ship, the Taj Mahal, or Mars in 2200… but I’m not one of them. I’d applaud anyone for getting the pointy peaks of their cake to come out cleanly from one of these molds, but wonder how to decorate it with icing next to justify this effort?

What to get instead: A Silpat.

5. Fondue set

Why aren’t I invited to any of these fondue parties? Oh right, because they rarely exist. Looking at the fondue sets in a kitchen store aisle always fills me with the inspiration to throw a fondue party and very soon, but this dream evaporates within five seconds after I walk away. I’m not sure why it has to be this way; but sadly, devastatingly, it is. Sniff.

What to get instead: A good, small, stainless steel saucepan.

6. Decorative salt and pepper shakers (that don’t grind)

If your giftee is really into food, he or she will likely have no use for ground black pepper flakes. I don’t trust anything that small it can fit through the tiny holes in traditional pepper shakers, and pre-ground pepper tastes nothing like the peppercorns that are noisily crushed on the spot. I suppose you can get those nifty magnetized salt and pepper grinders that attach to your fridge, but after trying them out, my hand got more workout for much less output, and they need to be refilled too quickly.

What to get instead: A spice grinder or mortar and pestle.

7. Baked good mixes and spice blends

Pancake mixes, banana bread mixes, cookie mixes, spice blends, and hoards of pre-made sauces all take away the fun and creativity of cooking to the cook. They won’t teach you how to become a better baker over time, as with making cookies from scratch, but rather begin you on a path of pre-mixed dependency, like a drug. And similarly, you won’t learn what to combine from the spice cabinet in order to get an authentically Moroccan flavor if you always just use a spice blend.

What to get instead: Mason jars or small glass canisters for storing spice.

9. Too-specific dishware

My motto is, if it’s only good for one purpose, it serves no purpose in my kitchen. And I get a little suspicious about what’s on my plate if the plate itself has to announce that it’s holding “pie.” So unless your giftee really likes corn, or has tons of space to store dusty stuff, you can probably do away with the corn dishes — or eggplant dishes, or “brunch” plates, or…

What to get instead: A white, rectangular serving plate. It’s versatile and non-committal.

8. So-so knife set

Knives are pretty tricky to buy for a cook. If he or she has a specific request for a set, then go for it. But there are a lot of choices when it comes to buying knives, even from a leading manufacturer. Many of them offer a handful of “entry-level,” or lower-price point sets of knives that are nowhere near the quality of their top-notch ones. If you really want to make an impressive gift with this, look for forged steel knives and long warranties, or give individual knives, like a good chef’s knife or a Japanese fish knife, one at a time each to ensure the kind of quality that your cook will appreciate (and that you can afford).

What to get instead: A knife roll (carrier bag).

10. Vintage seed ad poster or calendar

These prints look great hanging on a kitchen wall. But they originally served only to sell seeds — meaning, you grow the fruit or vegetable in the picture yourself, and that job ain’t always so pretty. So you can better capture the spirit of the poster art by growing some food yourself, or just appreciating those who did and the final product on the plate. And by the way, many seed banks still have some really beautifully illustrated packets (Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds to name one), filled with actual seeds, so you can always give your cook a bunch of those to frame (or plant) as well.

What to get instead: An indoor herb-growing kit.

Happy holidays, and here’s to another delicious year. Last year, I had fun rounding up my favorite food books of 2009. I’m happy to share a new batch of books that have made cooking and eating a lot more interesting for me. I know, so many “best-of” lists to buzz about this time of year, so many not-so-new reasons to go buy something. In case you didn’t get what you wanted this year, here are some suggestions, from my kitchen to yours. With one exception: you won’t see the book in this photo above in my list (taken at a book signing at SXSW Interactive this year). I’m not sure I could call that one a favorite “read,” since I wrote it — ha!

American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It) by Jonathan Bloom

If that title sounds a little disconcerting, get ready to squirm in your easy chair. Jonathan Bloom’s book is a fascinating exploration of, first, how food is produced in this country, and how this massive effort gets undermined by nearly half. The main reasons? Maybe not what most would expect — Bloom illustrates our changed attitude towards food, from not knowing how to preserve or use leftovers, to our disconnect with the farms and people who grow it. There are practical solutions, too, which are offered in the book as well as on the author’s blog, Wasted Food. I really wish this book had been written before mine, so I could quote from it in the chapter about dumpster diving.

The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century edited by Amanda Hesser

It’s massive, it’s picture-less, and it’s packed. Instead of How to Cook Everything, this expansive collection of recipes from the last 150 years of the newspaper might be described as “Everything We Cooked.” Ever wonder when chocolate cake became flourless? Or who told us not to knead dough? This cookbook can read like a history in American home cooking and taste-making. And it’s compiled by a writer who knows a thing or two about that — Amanda Hesser, who shares her insights throughout. (Listen to Amanda and food52 co-founder Merrill’s interview with me on Let’s Eat In.)

Diet For A Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork and What You Can Do About It by Anna Lappe

Anna Lappe is one of our leading forward-thinkers when it comes to food, and here she makes a brilliant argument on how industrialized agriculture contributes to global warming. Anyone concerned with the future of our planet ought to be concerned with the way we feed ourselves now, and anyone interested in sustainable food practices has a new reason to be motivated for change. There’s hope yet: simple changes, starting with just an awareness, can be made by the average consumer to sway how food is made, she encourages. (Listen to Anna on Let’s Eat In.)

Put ‘em Up: A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook, from Drying and Freezing to Canning and Pickling by Sherri Brooks-Vinton

Here’s one way to a less wasteful kitchen: storing your food for the winter. The sustainable-minded Sherri Brooks-Vinton shares the traditional craft of canning for a new generation of home cooks with this delightful — and very comprehensive — book. Organized alphabetically, the book tackles recipes on how to pickle or otherwise put up, say, asparagus, and moves on, making it easy to find solutions for whatever you’ve got. Home gardeners will find this a must-have as well as anyone who loves homemade jam. (Listen to Sherri on Let’s Eat In.)

Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, With Authentic Recipes & Stories by Grace Young

I don’t think anyone could be as thorough or thoughtful about stir-frying than Grace Young. Taking this one cooking technique as a focal point she fills out this beautiful book with history and lore, practical advice, and tasty recipes. Young’s exploration of stir-frying is also not limited to just Chinese cuisine; she includes recipes from the Chinese diaspora, such as Cuban fried rice. Consider it a bigger and better sequel to her award-winning Breath of a Wok.

Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual by Frank Falcinelli, Frank Castronovo & Peter Meehan

Yum. I’m not Italian, but I feel like an Italian grandmother with this book. I can see why it’s on a lot of best-of book lists, too: it’s sleek and stylish in a down-home kind of way (I love the “kitchen companion” term) without being overly kitschy. With the help of Peter Meehan, the Franks write conversationally about their favorite foods, and how to pull them off with no sweat. But whether a recipe’s easy or difficult, interesting or mundane, you just want to eat it all — it sounds that good. (Listen to the Franks on Let’s Eat In.)

Locavore’s Handbook: The Busy Person’s Guide to Eating Local on a Budget by Leda Meredith

The title says it all, but Leda Meredith also makes a succinct case for why eating local is important. As an expert “locavore,” Leda shares her tips on urban gardening, joining (or starting) a CSA, and even foraging for fiddleheads. There are enough ideas provided to fit any lifestyle, and contrary to nay-sayers of the food movement, she demonstrates how eating “green” is actually cost-saving, too. A great way to start off a New Year’s Resolution. (Listen to Leda on Let’s Eat In.)

The New Brooklyn Cookbook: Recipes and Stories From 31 Restaurants That Put Brooklyn on the Culinary Map by Melissa and Brendan Vaughan

I had to include this one. Whatever you may think of Brooklyn being a marketing label, or an overrated foodie destination, I think this book is telling of a positive movement happening with food, in many areas. It’s one where the producers are more intimately tied with their community, and where consumers are interested in the “story” and people behind their food as well as the finished product. It might seem like nothing new — of course we know our butcher, or fishmongerer, you might be saying. But big ag and big-box grocery stores are diminishing the human face of food. That a book like this is so well-loved — and that these chefs and artisanal food producers in Brooklyn are so passionate about what they do — is putting a new spin on all that.

Which books did I miss that were your favorites of the year?

I recently wrote a post on Brooklyn Based about Where To Get Your Gobble Gobble, a round-up of sustainably-minded turkey farms and purveyors in the region that are now offering their best for the big, birdy holiday. But as I was walking through the Greenmarket today, I thought, these vegetables are pretty fascinating, too — and I’m never short of finding a new one with each stroll. So, since we all know the most exciting part of the Thanksgiving meal are the sides, here’s a few shout-outs to vegetables that might even be worthy of a main course of their own.

Because, no matter if you think the famed feast between the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians is bunk, Thanksgiving is essentially a fall harvest festival. And that means fall harvest food is the feast. I’m not sure when or how green beans came to be a standard addition (perhaps when the legume rose to popularity sometime in the 1990s, in glossy magazines), but they’re one of spring’s signature crops. So here — and instead of focusing on particular farms that have them — are seasonal veggies that are available in most parts late November. Hope you find them at your favorite markets, too.

Carrots: Glazed and grilled, roasted or even served raw, these tough roots of beta-carotene are a sure-fire fall treat. They’re almost so ubiquitous to seasoning, though, that we seldom think of serving them alone, as a vegetable side. Once again, bunk! Go ahead and roast them with rosemary, or shred them in a raw salad.
Recipe: Ginger-Glazed Grilled Carrots
Grilled Carrots with Carrot Greens Pesto

Radishes: Radishes are one of the most prolific plants I have seen; they refuse to not grow into dainty red bulbs after just a few weeks from planting. It’s high time we found more uses for the easy-going source of fiber and Vitamin C, aside from just slicing them up to toss into salads. Melissa Clark had a great article about roasting radishes, and since then I’ve seen it done in restaurants here and there. Radishes vary incredibly; these are some watermelon radishes that are large and dense, good for slicing up raw but pretty cool to cook with, too.
Recipe: Brown Rice & Radish BiBimBap

Kabocha Squash: This one is a bit of an “on-trend” winter squash, but it’s not without well-deserved warrant. You can eat the rind of the kabocha squash as it’s near undetectable when cooked, and hence, you can cook it in a number of ways, such as by simply braising or sauteeing. Plus, it’s so dense and creamy when roasted and pureed, that it’s a killer for soups. No wonder the Japanese have been cooking with this winter squash only for centuries.
Recipe: Cider-Braised Kabocha Squash with Golden Raisins & Chile

Parsnips: This root often finds its way into “roasted vegetable” medleys, but it’s really delicious on its own. I sometimes liken the taste of a roasted-til-caramelized parsnip to a banana, for its similar mild, sweet taste and texture. Whatever tropical visions you may have of the crop, though, it does well when you attempt to replace it for potatoes, I’ve found. They’re a ton sweeter, but they still retain that starchy fluffiness, especially when baked. Let’s check it out some more.
Recipe: Parsnip Pancakes

Kale: Okay, you can choose collard greens, or if you can find it at this late harvest time, Swiss chard, but a leafy green that’s dense in Vitamin K and antioxidants should be part of any meal, period. And Thanksgiving, notwithstanding. I love kale in all its crazy varieties, which can range from having thick and bristly leaves like the common variety, or being more delicate (but no less a sponge of deep jade-colored juice), like Tuscan or Dinosaur. No matter the variety, they all cook well into soups or garlic-infused braises. And if you’re blessed with a very fresh bunch (or if you grow it on your porch, which is no big deal at all), you can have a wonderfully crisp and filling salad with this stuff when it’s shredded. Spinach salads, step aside.
Recipe: Tuscan Kale Salad with Pomegranate Seeds
-Acorn Squash Soup with Kale Chips

So… that’s what I’ll be doing from here on out, and I hope you’ll follow my adventures in food at Lunch at Sixpoint. In the coming weeks, I’ll be revamping Not Eating Out in New York so that it’s a more search-friendly resource for recipes, cooking and entertaining tips, food event recaps, and, of course, Reasons For Not Eating Out. It will be an easy-to-access archive. But the real story has moved on. As much as I still want to stress “not eating out” as a benefit for the body, soul and wallet, I want to add home gardening, and communal dining onto that mantra, which is what we’ll be seeing on Lunch at Sixpoint.

some freshly harvested lettuces

beaker and MeiMei, two of the heritage hens, peck at pea shoots

This comes at a time when I feel that the message of “consuming less, eating more” has caught on with more and more of the people around me, and those afar. For instance, this week’s issue of Newsweek ran an article that basically dissed a new “eco” restaurant chain which I will not mention (I have never eaten at, nor heard about it before this piece). The bottom line of the article? Just don’t go out to restaurants as much, if you’re looking to reduce your carbon footprint. And they quoted a line from this blog, to my very humbled surprise.

As motivating and heartwarming as nods like these have been, I’m simply itching to branch out. Lunch at Sixpoint also just reflects my real life right now, and I always blogged from that vantage point here. Let’s face it, I’m no longer not eating out as a strict rule anymore, as much as those two years in which I did were life-altering (and fun). I hope to share you my next ones. Let’s keep eating, cooking, and feeding each other, and it’s high time for home gardening right now — get dirty!

It’s summer. There’s produce, plenty of it local. It’s coming to supermarkets, restaurants and Greenmarkets throughout New York City. But one place you won’t hardly ever find it at is a bodega, those convenient, often round-the-clock shops where you can get toothpaste and telephone cards or tonight’s dinner of ramen and chips. Unfortunately, this is the only type of grocery store that exists in increasingly more communities here.

That’s why the Healthy Bodegas Initiative was formed in 2005, aimed at increasing access to fresh food and improving the health of all New Yorkers through its bodegas. Targeting the most underserved areas, or healthy “food deserts,” the mission has partnered with many bodegas and local organizations, such as the Greenmarket of Grow NYC (previously called CENYC). Check out Kerry Trueman’s great interview with the initiative’s founder, Donya Williams, on Food Systems NYC. And read below for an interview with Justone Bossert, Director of NYC Operations for Red Jacket Orchards, an upstate, family-operated fruit farm that’s joined the cause.

But first, check out their Kickstarter campaign, and pledge what you can to help them innovate and implement solutions to bringing good food to bodega shelves in the places that need it most. If you’ve already been deluged with Kickstarter campaigns coming from everyone and your cousin’s uncle, I can relate. But one play of that video might make you want to pitch in. Read on for Justone’s explanation of what your donation will go toward. And hot tip: they’ve “just harvested some early season white cherries,” which should be available at the Greenmarket soon.

According to your website, Red Jacket grows apples, strawberries, raspberries, cherries, peaches and plums — and then of course, all different varieties of which. That’s a lot of orchards! Am I missing anything else?

JB: It is a lot of orchards, and that’s good. It means we are increasing the amount of locally grown fruit available and saving farmland from being developed. A big part of our success is always having the next new thing and being very focused on what the customer wants. It is our goal to make fresh, healthy fruit available  to all of New York.

We grow every type of fruit this climate can support. In addition to the one you mentioned we also grow blueberries, wild black raspberries, currants (black, red and champagne), red and green gooseberries, nectarines, apricots, prunes, rhubarb, and grapes.

How long has Red Jacket Orchard been selling at the NYC Greenmarket?

JB: We started attending Greenmarkets in 1992 and it didn’t take long for gourmet stores to start seeking us out and we have continued to broaden the types of places that carry our product ever since.

How did you get involved with the Healthy Bodegas Initiative?

JB: We were contacted by Michael Hurwitz of Greenmarket and Donya Williams of the NYC Dept. of Health about the city’s Healthy Bodegas Initiative. This program had made some great progress reaching out to Bodegas and getting people interested in selling healthy food, but did not have anyway to get it to them. That is where we come in. We are one of the few farms that not only grow food, but also distribute it. It is part of our mission to increase the availability of great tasting local fruit and having our own trucks allows us to take on the gaps in the existing food system.

How many bodegas have you partnered with so far, and how did the owners overall respond to your idea?

JB: We have only just started, but we are already working with a dozen or so bodegas and the owner’s have been enthusiastic about a distribution system designed to get them better product to sell to their customers. Bodega owners often want to sell fresh produce, the problem is that there isn’t a system to support them. That is the problem we are trying to solve.

samples of Red Jacket Orchards apples at Union Square Greenmarket

Many bodegas in my neighborhood carry some fresh fruit, but not enough people buy them. How do you hope to engage and entice the community to purchase them?

JB: The main problem with the fruit that you usually find in bodegas, if they have any, is that it doesn’t taste good. The reason it doesn’t taste good is because its probably old, not properly handled, and certainly not local. Our program aims to help the bodegas properly handle and display the product so that in can compete with the unhealthy stuff. When people try something fresh picked and tree-ripened their reaction is “Wow.” All you have to do is let people know that this fruit is different and let them try it. The pleasure they get from tasting it does the rest.

What do you think the biggest challenges are going to be with selling your product in these bodegas?

JB: The biggest challenge is that the entire food system is stacked in favor of the least healthy foods. Turning that around is going to take a long time, but the first steps are simple: get fresh local food to the places where people shop, handle it in such a way to ensure its quality, and let people know it is there and why it is different. The good food movement has succeeded because fresh picked local food tastes great. Once people get access to it and try it they don’t want to eat anything else.

What do you hope the best takeaway from this project will be?

JB: The goal of this project is to create a self sustaining model for distributing healthy local produce to food desserts.  The best takeaway would be for this model to be adopted and adapted in other places it is needed.

There has been much talk about the dearth of fresh food in underserved communities throughout NYC. Have you been inspired by or took lessons from any other initiatives for the same cause?

JB: We are lucky enough to be living in a time and place where many people are attempting to correct these sorts of inequities. There are so many groups and individuals that we learn from, but I think the most inspiring thing is the feeling in the air that comes from a lot of little steps happening at the same time. There is a lot of energy around solving these problems and I hope we all see a lasting solution come to fruition.

Aside from donating through the Kickstarter campaign, what else can we do to lend a hand?

JB: The Kickstarter campaign is important, it will allow us to expand the program to the point where it will become self sustaining.  Other than contributions to the campaign, going to these bodegas and buying the produce is a great way to support the initiative. We will be listing the bodegas we are working with on our Kickstarter page.

When naysayers argue that local, sustainable food is elite, they’re missing one crazy loophole: the average cost of a CSA share. Community Supported Agriculture is designed to benefit both you and the farm, profit-seeking middle men out of the equation. It’s simple, rustic, and fun in an Iron Chef sort of way: you pay up front for a whole season’s worth of produce, and receive weekly batches of food from a local farm. The cost of a full share in the New York City area, for a twenty-two week season, ranges around $500. It’s far more than enough food for one person, though, so if you split one share or get a half-share (which are now offered at most), it’s more like $12 a week, and it’s still a lot of food.

To search for the closest CSA in your neighborhood, see Just Food’s website. Be sure to check if one of the 20 new CSAs in NYC are in your area. Do you want meat, milk and raw cheese? There’s a new meat CSA served by High Points Farms, in the Finger Lakes. Grass-fed beef, pastured pork, free-range eggs and local cheese are coming to two pick-up locations in the city, in the East Village and Brooklyn Heights. Don’t miss out.

strawberries came with my first pick-up of the CSA season last year

There’s much more besides food that you can enjoy from joining a CSA, though. In addition to becoming acquainted with all manner of radishes (like the Easter egg ones at top), I got to know many folks who live in my neighborhood from joining one last year. Visiting the farm that served my CSA, Sang Lee, and meeting the family that operated it was another wonderful bonus. I ate better, and for way less than eating “poorly,” for sure. And because my refrigerator was so full of good food most of the time, I had a lot of fun sharing it at picnics and parties. Clearly, I can’t say enough good things about joining a CSA, so I’ll stop and let someone else talk about it instead.

Maia Raposo

Maia Raposo is a CSA Development & Nutrition Education associate at the New York City Coalition Against Hunger (and makes a mean homemade barbecue sauce for grilled chicken, too). She has been organizing the Central Brooklyn CSA, one of the new ones in town this year, and took a moment to explain here how and why it was started up. The deadline to apply for this one is tomorrow, though! Check out how cheap the prices of this CSA’s shares are, and note how they’re scaled depending on how much income the member makes. I don’t know what’s a more democratic, un-elite way to get food than that.

What was it like getting a new CSA up and running this year? Where did you start?

MP: It’s extremely exciting to start a CSA from scratch. The best part about it is getting the community members excited about the project. We’re working within a church that is French-speaking, and made up of a large immigrant population, many of whom have never heard of CSA before. Getting them interested in the concept and recruiting community members has been the most rewarding part thus far.

Central Brooklyn CSA share prices are tiered by household income level. Why did you decide on this?

This CSA is part of the Farm Fresh Initiative, a project run by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.  This breakdown in pricing is how all of our CSAs run (We also partner with Long Island City and West Harlem). Our main objective is to make CSAs affordable for people regardless of income level;  low-income members are usually left out of purchasing CSA shares because of the up-front cost. NYCCAH’s program allows low-income members to pay using their food stamps and by paying weekly. This ensures that everyone who is interested in joining, can!

What farm is going to be serving this CSA, and what can we expect from them?

The farm that we are partnering with is MimoMex Farm in Goshen NY.  This farm is run by Martin and Gaudencia Rodriguez; they are the first graduates of the New Farmer Development Program to own their own farm land. The NFDP trains immigrants with agricultural experience on farming in the Northeast. They specialize in Mexican produce, but we can also expect lots of standard NYS CSA crops like kale, broccoli, eggplant, and pumpkins!

Besides the food, what’s most rewarding about being part of a CSA to you?

Definitely becoming closer with your community. It’s been so wonderful to see the diverse group of people coming together and working so hard on this project. Every CSA I’ve been a part of has resulted in new friends and great memories. The season hasn’t even started yet, and I can already see that happening within our members. It’s so awesome!

[Full disclosure: readers of The Art of Eating In, same Maia here!]

If you’d like to receive a free download of How to Cook Everything, just come up with a creative answer to this question in a comment on this post: What would you like to see a new food-related app for? I’ll select five winners at random.

And now, a few questions for Mr. Bittman himself. Thanks to Culinate for helping set up our phone interview. Also, you can hear us chat more when Mark Bittman joins me live in the studio on Let’s Eat In on Monday, May 3th. So don’t forget to tune in for that! For now, let’s hear what Mark had to say about this app, the future of the cookbook, and his next projects in store.

Me: So this iPhone app is really a milestone in food literature, or technology, as it were.

MB: Do you think so? I haven’t been following the app world, I knew it was a huge deal to get HTCE in an electronic searchable form, and Culinate was really great at developing the shopping lists, timers, etc., but I didn’t really know until this week that it was sort of groundbreaking. So it’s really exciting, it’s really useful.

Me: Do you think it’s more practical than the cookbook?

MB: I think the app’s strengths… while it’s not harmful in the kitchen, its strengths are going to be in the supermarket, or in the subway, in the bathroom –

Me: Well that’s where I do most of my cooking anyway!

MB: (laughs) Well, when you’re thinking, what should I make? And suddenly, you have a database with 1,500 or more recipes, then you can take that to the supermarket and go shopping. You can cook from the iPhone app, but I’d still rather cook from the book.

Me: So maybe it’s a good device for beginners? Who are just starting to cook more. A lot of people ask me, how do I know what to cook with X?

MB: Yeah, that’s true. I think for me, I might say, I want to make a pasta with… I don’t know, artichokes, and, what am I forgetting? Oh yeah, I have to have some butter. Or, here’s some nice artichokes at the market, and on the spot look up recipes to make with them.

mmm… artichokes

Me: So since this app is really groundbreaking, would you consider yourself a pioneer in the food world?

MB: Certainly not in the electronic food world. The short answer is no, I don’t. But when it came out ten years ago, How to Cook Everything was the first sort of modern, ground-up, basic, comprehensive cookbook that really took international flavors into it — maybe ever. There were international cookbooks before, but they didn’t incorporate standard American aesthetics and ingredients, and what you can find in average supermarkets. Supermarkets have a lot of international foods now, and that was not the case before.

Among the biggest changes in American eating in the last twenty years is that maybe we’ll no longer think of European food as superior to Asian food. We were a largely European country for 200 years, and now, really, we’re not. I think the beauty of Asian cuisine in a non-specific Asian cookbook is a large part of its contribution, and I’m proud of that.

Me: I know you must have learned how to cook many things after publishing How to Cook Everything. What are some of the foods or techniques you’ve discovered since?

MB: I think if you look at HTCE and Food Matters, you can sort of see a general shift in style between less-meatarian cooking, I think it describes a lot of what I’m doing now, which is very vegetarian and vegan-friendly — there’s a lot of vegetarian recipes, that’s an overall trend in my cooking and I expect it will continue. I feel like I learned something and I do something new every day — I often wake up, like today, and I know I’m not home for lunch or dinner, so what I did was I looked around in my kitchen and saw some tomatoes on the counter, and had some baby artichokes and made a kind of artichoke and tomato stew. It’s about 8-10 baby artichokes, garlic and tomatoes. I don’t recall having made that before. And I’m really happy about that. It’s not revolutionary cooking, but I’ll probably blog about it, that’s the nice thing about blogging is that you can just do this, as I’m sure you know.

let’s grow, tomatoes!

Me: So do you prefer blogging, or electronic to print media? Are books dead?

MB: I don’t think print is dead, there’s still a role for cookbooks in the kitchen, and if more people end up using iPads, it’s not that far from print. It can’t be free and there’s a whole discussion about that. I don’t think that good work by good people is going to be free, and we all should be able to discern between people who are just throwing stuff up there and those who are talented and hardworking and experienced, and is really worth something. This is not strictly a cooking question but a journalism question, it’s the same in the arts or anything — anyone can claim to be a painter, but presumably the cream rises to the top.

Me: On that topic, what’s the story with this new markbittman.com site relaunch?

MB: I haven’t thought about any sort of official launch publicity, hopefully it’ll be launched next Monday, on the day of your radio show, or the next, next Monday. But it will be much more dynamic and not a static site, with myself a bunch of other people blogging hopefully two to three posts per day, and not only food writers, but activists, farmers, producers, economists, anyone with something interesting to say in the world of food. It’ll sort of follow the salon type of blog, or a slog, where people can say what they want and meet and hopefully it’ll be a little more interactive. But we’ll see, I’m approaching it with great optimism and also great caution. We have a lot of exciting people who have decided to contribute. When I started markbittman.com, I didn’t know how popular it would be. It’s a tough world like with so many other sites, but I saw that there was a great need out there in the food world and I wasn’t doing what I should or could be doing for it, and I wanted to give this a chance, and to try it out.

Me: Well I’m very excited about it. Thanks for sharing!

So let’s say you’re a budget-conscious eater, but you care about the quality of your food. Then you have a kindred spirit in public broadcasting. With its thoughtful, if less prolific or snazzily packaged, programming than basic TV, it’s kind of like an apple to a puffed-up Apple Jack. So when I was asked by PBS’s POV documentary series to throw a potluck to celebrate the television premiere of Food, Inc., it was an easy sell. (You’re probably a fan of potlucks already, too.) What better way to sit back and enjoy the documentary that stirred public concern over the food system, than at home before an array of good food?

And it was a surprisingly easy feat to pull off, too. On a weekday night, armed with an advance screening copy of the film, I invited about a dozen friends over, cleared aside some space on the coffee table, and put out cheese. No, I didn’t even cook for this potluck. But thanks to those who were coming, I knew there’d be a plenty spread. That’s the beauty of hosting a potluck. And guess what, many of them stuck around for the dishwashing chore, too!

a bold beet soup was as good as it looked

the can’t-be-bothered-to-cook platter: cheese, bread, apples & homemade pickles

It turned out to be the best feast of 2010 thus far. There was a chilled beet soup with creme fraiche and chives prepared by Emily C., a veggie lasagna from Emily F., excellent vino and a spare friend from out of town from Erik, a ton of different homemade truffles from Noah, cauliflower from Jenn. (The company, before their food, was really the best part.) And then, I also asked them to bring unwanted stuff from their households, and called it a spring cleaning “stuff swap.” So in the center of the living room floor were scattered all sorts of random extras from peoples’ apartments: books, makeup samples, chintzy throw pillows, kitchen gadgets and clothes. Not all of it was great; not even most of it was very good. But I think we all got to leave with some new stuff to recycle around the neighborhood.

So when throwing a potluck, I’d advise at least one extra-curricular activities, besides just having food. The movie, and the swap, were the randomly chosen ones of this. It could be anything — or you can resort to playing card games like we did at the last one. Anything goes. That’s my two cents to add to the list of tips that PBS has already provided online for how to throw a potluck screening party, along with some tasty recipes. My other one would be to cook as little as possible, so you’re not left with a sink full of pots and pans on top of the plates.

the stuff-swapping session

If you’ve already caught the film (as I did, at a Brooklyn Based screening party with the filmmaker last fall), then you’ll probably enjoy an encore as much as myself and a handful of friends did last week. If you haven’t, here’s your chance. Upon that first viewing, [SPOILER ALERT] the thing that stuck with me most was how much genetically modified seeds have taken over our food supply, and how commercial farmers are forced to keep buying them, rather than saving their own. (To which a friend seated close by who’d never seen the film before gawked, “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard!”) This time around, what pulled at me was a bit toward the end of the film discussing the sway that industry has on the media, as well as federal policy. It was when Barbara Kowalcyk, the mother of a child who died from e. coli, refused to answer a seemingly innocuous question from the interviewer about what she preferred to eat now. Her rationale being, that she’ll have to pay for it somehow.

There’s always something to be gained from another screening, and especially with several people around. I learned much more thanks to the peanut gallery alone as we watched. I also learned that you don’t need to have a fancy TV or even comfy seats for everyone to have a good time sitting before an 11-inch old Panasonic. And it reinforced the belief (practiced at the Hungry Filmmakers screenings) that films are the perfect launching pad for long discussions afterward into the night.

You can actually gain more if you throw a potluck and tell PBS about it from April 22-May 3, too. In doing so, you’ll be entered for a chance to win gift baskets with autographed copies of Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser books, a copy of the Food, Inc. DVD, coffee from Equator Coffees, coupons for free products from Amy’s Kitchen and more. Good stuff you probably won’t want to swap!

The Farmers’ Market Sweep is April 11th — come down to cheer on these contestants in a food-politics trivia! Louisa Shafia, Just Food staff, and more will go head-to-head on their food-movement know-how at this live music-filled party. (Goodness knows I would have loved to be there with everyone if that date didn’t find me in Boston for a sustainable expo, D2E. D’oh!) In any case, you can learn more about the upcoming bike tour from Aaron and Robert yourself then, and you can also VOTE now to help get it off the ground at their Pepsi Refresh fundraising page. Voting ends March 31, and their proposal will need to stay among the top ten most-voted to get funding.

I’m sure you’re full of questions for these intrepid biker-foodies. So let’s hear it from Aaron and Robert themselves. Both of them chimed in for this interview via email below, which I’ve peppered with photos from some of my favorite potlucks over the years.

What inspired you to start spreading awareness about local food? Was there any one kicker or was it just a growing concern?

Ever since reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma in 2007, we’ve been thinking a lot about the food system – a grand irony, considering at that time we were studying at a school funded by Big Ag and CAFOs in Northern Colorado.

Over the last couple of years we took in a lot of information from friends, articles, films, and books, and became increasingly concerned, yet optimistic, about the current state of our food system.

We wanted to do something that would encompass communities across the country, and our original plan was to create a simple book at the end of the trip. But we felt we’d have a greater impact sharing our journey online as it unfolds, using social media as a vehicle to tell the stories to thousands.

How do you hope to engage people over the course of your tour?

Over food! As they say, great discussion happens at the dinner table, or in our case,
with food in hand. We felt that spurring discussion about local food, while sharing edibles grown and cooked in the community, would make everyone feel comfortable about sharing stories and ideas – and what better way to broach the subject of food!

Our aim is not to preach, or even teach — we’re not experts — but to ask questions, listen, and document the stories we find. We’ve already put some feelers out at our respective homes, with positive results. But we can’t wait to start meeting folks.

What’s the most important practice or lesson you hope people will take away from it?

Think before you buy! We want to get people thinking more about the positive
implications of buying locally, of supporting sustainable agriculture, no matter how much they currently know about our food system.

It’s very important to us that we talk with a wide range of individuals in terms of their food knowledge and eating habits – foodies and farmers, of course, but all sorts of other Americans, too. We want someone who hadn’t thought about the implications of eating locally to start thinking about it; someone who occasionally buys locally to visit the farmers’ market more often or start a monthly dinner discussion group; someone who knows a lot about the food system but hasn’t been very active or vocal to make something happen in their community.

We’ve heard of marches and walks for a cause — for disease research, social justice, etc. Do you think that your cause (the good food movement) will go down as a major concern of our generation?

Without a doubt. When we began to plan this trip last year, it seemed awareness of the Local Food Movement was nowhere near what it is now – it’s phenomenal to see how much momentum this movement has gained over the past couple of years, propelled by celebrity journalists and farmers and smaller projects like ours too. We’ve seen restaurants switch to locally-sourced foods, Michelle Obama plant a garden, and just recently, Jamie Oliver talk about healthy eating at a school in West Virginia.

This generation is more environmentally conscious than many before it. And it’s showing through in what we’re choosing to eat. Community gardens are popping up all over and farmer’s markets are busier than ever. We don’t think it’s a fad.

Your ride reminds me of another bike ride, by three women who visited small farms around the country and documented their journey in a film, Faces From the New Farm (shown at Hungry Filmmakers I). Were you aware of that project before deciding on yours?

We had no idea their film was made prior to deciding to potluck across America – but it was a nice surprise. Shortly after we learned of Women’s Garden Cycles, we found out that Robert lives near one of the filmmakers. Robert and Lara from WGC had the opportunity to exchange thoughts, ideas, and advice about the trip.

That’s one of the great things about the Local Food Movement right now – there is an overwhelming sense of mutual support. We hope to meet up with the rest of their group in Nebraska this summer.

Are you and Robert looking for other bikers to possibly join you along the ride?

Sure! Our schedule might be tight from place to place, but we’d love to have folks join us for a stretch of the ride and share in some good local food.

Aside from the twelve potlucks you’ll be throwing throughout the country, what do you think you’ll be eating on the bike tour?

Wild garlic, cattails, and dandelions. We’ve picked up a couple of books on foraging and have been talking with Ava Chin, the NY Times wild food blogger. We are excited to explore many of the foragable foods typically perceived as simple grass, weeds, or berries not typically found at the store. We wouldn’t mind happening upon a raspberry bush or fig tree, either. Yum.

Aside from our wild food adventures, we’ll eat locally whenever possible, shopping at local farmers markets and roadside stands. It’s going to be tough at times, and completely unreasonable at others, but we’ll do our best.

Have you always enjoyed cooking, or having potlucks?

Both! We started cooking together in college, getting into the finer side of knife skills, food prep, and delicious dishes. After school, we found that a great way to meet folks and engage in good discussion was through big dinners and potlucks. The last couple of years have been filled with many potlucks of varying themes: Foods-that-start-with-the-letter-A-luck, Internationaluck, Localluck, Social-Movement-luck, Soupluck, etc. We’ve also been participating in a weekly ‘family dinner’ in Brooklyn.

What’s on your ideal potluck spread? Feel free to describe a favorite communal feast you had in detail!

We had a great Thanksgiving meal this year in DC with pumpkin pies, zesty stuffing, figgy pudding, and sweet potato casserole. But the centerpiece of the meal was the Squrkey. We wanted the meal to be local and vegetarian, so we roasted a massive turkey-shaped blue hubbard squash from Pennsylvania, stuffed it with roasted veggies from local markets and built it up like a bird. Voila — a squrkey! It was delicious. And it kept our bellies full all weekend.

Ditching the blizzard in New York and being delayed twice thanks to frost on the planes, I finally arrived in Madison, Wisconsin Friday evening, well-fed from my carry-on meal. I was picked up at the airport by Jonny Hunter of the Underground Food Collective, and from that point on, taken on a whirlwind tour of one of the most inspiring food destinations I’ve been. It was also at this point that I decided to let things happen as they may — to eat, out or in, whatever was on the menu, so to speak. To be sure, my trip had a few eaten-in missions: I would be cooking for a collaborative dinner between three supper clubs, and leading a guest chef menu at Slow Food UW‘s Monday night dinner series, too. It turned out I was the only member of Hapa Kitchen who could make it to Madison, but I knew that I was in capable hands.

Throughout the weekend, I was reminded of one of the reasons why I gave up “not eating out in New York” strictly in the first place: the food community I was becoming involved with was too close-knit to draw such divides. And in Madison, too, community is the operative word when it comes to consuming. Every other shop seems to be a co-op: there’s Nature’s Bakery, worker-owned and managed for decades; Rainbow Books, where I was thrilled to give a book reading Saturday (and whose food politics book section was massive); Just Coffee, which goes beyond fair trade by innovating ways to empower its farmers afar; and the Willy St. Food Co-Op, so vast it has everything one could need. At the Saturday farmers’ market, which is thankfully held indoors during the winter, volunteers organize a guest chef brunch series served right in the market, for peanuts compared to the proper restaurant plate. There’s Bradbury’s Coffee, a cafe that serves espresso and crepes by day, and every once in a while, supper club dinners to an RSVP-only crowd. The cooks of this series, called Glass House Supper Club (for Bradbury’s tall panes of crystal-clear wall) are cafe workers with a knack for home cooking, and the owners, Josh and Jill, were eager to let them run it and lend a hand at the cooking, too. In other words, drawing a distinction between “professional” and “amateur” cook was thorny during my time here in Madison, nor was it my utmost concern.

the interior of Bradbury’s Coffee, aka the “Glass House,” and a board with their food’s sources

Then there is the Underground Food Collective, a group that I’m not sure what to call anymore. A supper club, food consultants, caterers, underground chefs, and soon-to-be owners of a new restaurant and a meat processing business in town — let’s call it a cooking community with a passion for creating really good, unique food, from the region’s best sustainable-minded farms.

Backing up: I attended a dinner that the UFC hosted last winter in Brooklyn, called “The Pre-Industrial Pig.” The group brought along a farmer whose pig was the focal point of the dinner, featured in each of the family style-served courses in numerous ways. I would attend dinners each time the UFC came again to Brooklyn, teaming up with local food institutions in New York such as Added Value, Sweet Deliverance, and most recently, the Meat Hook and The Brooklyn Kitchen.

I was fairly aware before arriving in Madison that I’d be getting the best guide to local food by tagging along with the UFC. But I didn’t know quite the extent that brothers Jonny and Ben Hunter, in particular, were heroes of a certain food scene. Immediately, it became clear: the greetings and intimate chatter with every single farmer at the market, the fact that every food in the group’s commercial kitchen space seemed to have an origin not so far from Madison, and a name attached (“those are so-and-so’s chickens”). Using all parts of whole animals in their cooking, the members have recently expanded the meat processing part of their work and plan to make much more cured, preserved, aged and offal delicacies for the community in which they’ve been a hit so far. And that’s not such a small feat, educating consumers to eat all the nasty bits of an animal by making them delicious.

Elsewhere, I would find touches of UFC’s influence: at Ironworks Cafe at Goodman Community Center, Ben oversees the farm-to-table menu and helps train the teens that play every role at the restaurant. The cafe has a partnership with a local high school’s alternative program, and the kids are excelling at cooking, according to the Hunters. The pastry program is practically run by a fourteen-year-old girl named Zola, who’d stepped up to the plate and really found a passion for baking. We went there for breakfast the next morning, and Ben stepped outside the kitchen to sit down and chat.

a short rib hash brunch platter at Ironworks Cafe

I ordered a short rib hash entree from a small handful of choices on a blackboard, from one of the kids at the cash register. Served with a salad of spicy mustard greens, pickled radish and dripping with a conspicuous red wine braise, the dish was delicious, and just the perfect portion for brunch. I also grabbed a day-old cookie, sold at discount at the counter, and was given a tour of the kitchen, where I met everyone who’d just made my meal by name. Somehow, I didn’t end up paying for any of it, and I’m guessing that Ben made our table gratis. So if that counts as eating out this Week of Eating In, a farm-sourced breakfast made by kids who were connecting with food, and friends who were teaching them, free, no less, then I’m proud of breaking the rule.

the indoor farmers’ market in Madison

I paid visit to the Saturday farmers’ market that day, where Jonny and I loaded up for the dinners. Held in a seniors center, the winter market was packed thanks to the brunch special of the day, a tomatillo sauce-drenched fried egg platter with some crisp greens and cherry cobbler prepared by Tory Miller, Executive Chef of L’Etoile. We stepped into the kitchen to say hi to the chef, and watch his operation a moment. The kitchen was expansive, and it was bustling with volunteers (“there are always volunteers to help cook” they explained). We also met some of the organizers of the brunch series, and I began wondering if there wasn’t a seniors center — or some sort of place — where a copycat project could take place for Greenmarkets in NYC.

L’Etoile chef Tory serving brunch at the farmers’ market

After gathering crates and recycled boxes full of produce, eggs, meat and dairy, we made a few last stops at the market to meet and greet. At the table for Fountain Prairie Farm, Jonny bought a ruby red strip of dry-aged hanger steak, for a homemade family dinner that night. I got some goat milk soap from Scotch Hill Farm; Jonny picked up a precious 15-year aged cheddar for me to deliver especially to Anne Saxelby (who’d hooked him up big time at UFC’s last NYC dinner); and I grabbed a bag of “squeaky cheese” curds, a true Wisconsin treasure, for my plane ride back home, if they’d last that long.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent prepping in the Underground Food Collective’s kitchen for the next night’s dinner. It would be the Hapa Kitchen-written menu at Bradbury’s, with the Glass House Supper Club co-hosting. Our menu had finally been pinned down, after making final choices based on what was at the market. We’d start with three appetizers: a Chinese soup dumpling with lamb, mint and cilantro, and jellied pork aspic to make it explode, a Hong Kong-style steamed bun stuffed with a confit of kidneys and other organs on hand, and Korean barbecue sauce-drenched chicken wings served with a silken and fermented tofu “blue cheese” sauce (pictured at top). The first course would be a salad, of fresh, yet slightly leathery (at this time of year) spinach, cut into chiffonades and served with a bacon vinaigrette, lardo strips and one of my Taiwanese tea leaf eggs. The main course was a handmade udon-style noodle dish, with duck sausages, soy-pickled shiitakes and a meaty, black peppery sauce. For dessert, we decided on sweet cream ice cream with apple and candied ginger tempura pieces, a take on the classic a la mode.

a kitchen with makings for a homemade meal

Once prepwork was done for the day, Jonny, his partner Sarah, and their newborn and I headed over to Ben’s place for dinner. After checking out the chickens, ducks and geese pecking away in a coop in the family’s backyard, we entered the kitchen, where Ben had a bunch of half-cooked things and some stock bubbling away on the stove. Probably the best meal I’d enjoy during my entire trip here was this one. With Ben’s three toddlers scurrying about below our knees, I watched as the brothers held various conversations amongst themselves, about their business, classes (Jonny was completing a graduate degree in public affairs), and other goings-on of the day, simultaneously and nonchalantly making a magical meal appear before eyes. They cut up chunks of a beautiful loaf of sourdough rye baked by their friend Jeff, of Cress Spring Bakery, to crisp on a pan as huge “croutons.” I almost gasped when a piece of the hanger steak fell off the butcher block of a kitchen island, but the brothers, assured by the quality of the meat, brushed it off and smeared it with a garlicky lemon marinade with a shrug. I pitched in by making dressing for a salad with warm chicken and shiitakes that were leftover, slicing a shallot thinly and whisking it with homemade mayonnaise, red wine vinegar and oil. With a tray of roasted carrots and parsnips warmed up, and a couple bottles of red wine uncorked, we all sat at the table to dig in. Halfway through the meal, their sister, her husband and their baby appeared, as they happened to be driving by, and made good use of the extra food at the table. It was a packed table, what with the three siblings, their partners and children gathered ’round, a friend of the family’s, Stina, sitting in, and me, and it was a comforting meal far beyond the great food.

Bradbury’s/Glass House Supper Club cook John serving the steamed buns

Ben Hunter, plating extraordinnaire

lamb, mint and cilantro potstickers for a pre-dinner friends and family meal

The next day, and the last day of the Week of Eating In, was spent cooking virtually all day, making dumplings and noodles all morning with members of the Glass House Supper Club. By the time five o’clock had rolled around, we were serving a special friends-and-family meal at Bradbury’s, to friends and family of the cafe and UFC who didn’t get a seat to dinner (it had sold out weeks ago). By seven, we dropped the first dumplings into the steamer, and with all the hands we had helping in the kitchen, continued to serve the six-course, collaborative dinner without much delay between any one of them. It was the most streamlined supper club event I’ve ever helped pull off, and it’s all thanks to the great folks at Bradbury’s, Glass House and UFC — as well as the kindly guests, who were more than eager to eat things they had never seen before nor really knew what they were. Explaining the tea leaf eggs, and how they were so common in Taipei that every 7-Eleven sold them as snacks, the guests nodded appreciatively and clapped after we spoke.

Though my time here in Madison is not yet over — there’s going to be a dinner for 150 at Slow Food UW tonight, apparently a record attendance number for the Monday night feasts — the Week of Eating In is. It’s funny that I seem to be leaving this eating in-only period with much the same feelings as I did back in 2008: some things, like cooking with and for the community, and supporting small farms going against the industrial agricultural grain, are just more important than choosing sides, eating out, or in.