Things I hate: Microwaveable 'convenience' foods

(Photo: Gawker)

As a reminder, Things I Hate generally:

- are made of plastic
- are meant to be used once and tossed away
- are not in any way recyclable
- appeal to people's vanity and desire for instant gratification
- strive to create a need where there was none before
- are recently created streams of pure waste

Microwaveable convenience foods skeeve me out, and not just because they never, ever look like the picture on the box when prepared. First, there's the waste issue. By the time you are done there's practically more packaging waste than food, and most of it is plastic.

For another thing, there's the act of microwaving food in plastic. Knowing what we know now about plastic and heat, it boggles my mind that there are hugely profitable companies designing entire lines of food that are heated in their own 'disposable' plastic containers. (I haven't looked at any of these things in the store lately- what kind of plastic do they use for the dishes? Is it BPA free? Recyclable? Has any consumer group even asked about this??) Here, have some toxic chemicals with your mass produced, highly processed meal! Yech. How much longer before the thought of heating food in plastic becomes anathema? That day will come, I'm pretty sure of it.

I also object to the whole aesthetic. Who wants to eat or even serve food out of a dish that looks like it should contain dog food? (And that is what the food more or less looks like in reality anyway...)

Then there is the whole mass production issue. Mass production enables millions of people to be fed for relatively little money- a plus. But it comes with risks- like the mass distribution of yummy, yummy salmonella.

Microwaveable convenience foods: how convenient are they, really?

Tomorrow is No Plastic Day. Who Knew?

I only just found out that tomorrow, June 8, is "No Plastic Day". No worries here- where every day is No Plastic Day! Or at least As-little-plastic-as-I-can-get-away-with Day...

If you would like to participate, here are details from No Plastic Day's web page-- and they're pretty simple, so why just make it a one day thing?

Participate in No Plastic Day

No Plastic Day is a world wide event intended to bring awareness of the over consumption of disposable plastic goods such as plastic bags and bottles. It is well known that there are floating islands of trash in most of the world's oceans. The huge amounts of plastic trash we all discard daily doesn't decompose, doesn't break down, and most of it is toxic to the animals that accidentally consume it. The current rate of plastic consumption is not sustainable and is starting to create a huge problem for marine life particularly. Fish eat toxic plastic bits. We catch the fish and eat the fish. Its only a matter of time before we've polluted our own food supplies with plastic trash.

What you can do on No Plastic Day - June 8, 2010

* No plastic bags - If you buy something from a store on No Plastic Day, bring your own bags. If you don't have any cloth or paper bags, just reuse the plastic bags you already have. They'll never biodegrade so you might as well reuse them if you already have them.

* No plastic bottles - Drink water from the tap or buy drinks in aluminum cans or glass bottles if you must.

* Limit your garbage - Almost everything you throw away is made of plastic. By limiting the garbage you create, you will reduce your plastic waste as well.

* Be creative - Everyone's situation is different and you will need to customize your own situation for No Plastic Day. Be creative. Reuse, recycle, and reduce your waste. Consider it a personal experiment to find ways you can create less garbage and try to use no disposable plastics.

Pic of the Day

(Picture via Huffington Post)

Petroleum marine pollution on the beach, coated in its own layer of petroleum marine pollution.

More (or less) plastic free cooking, and musings on solo living

(Photo: Smitten Kitchen)

This weekend I'm sticking close to home, doing a couple of things: finishing 'moving in' to my apartment and making pizzas.

I've been in my apartment since March, with a roommate. One of the two rooms does not have a closet, so the place can function as a 2 bedroom with one person using a hall closet for storage, or a lovely and roomy 1 bedroom with a living room/office. My roommate (we originally met two apartments ago) invited me to move in to take over his lease when he relocated. He moved this weekend and I've decided to keep the place to myself, at least for a while. It is the first time in my life that I've had my own place where everything is mine (including the messes! and the plastic!), and I have full control over my home environment.

Though I haven't finished unpacking the last of my boxes, I have to say it feels really nice. All my years in NYC have been spent in shared apartments, with most of my worldly possessions piled in my bedroom. You can understand an obsession with storage solutions and fascination with de-cluttering, even while feeling a complete failure at it. Now, with my things spread out over a 2 room apartment, I see that I really don't have so much stuff. There is room to breathe, and it feels lovely. The downside to having my own place is that I've met some amazingly wonderful people in my roommates, and having never lived alone wonder how I'll like it after a while. We shall see!

Now, the pizzas. I was inspired by two things seen on the internet- Oliver Strand's article in the NY Times last week advocating aging the dough overnight for a better crust, and Smitten Kitchen's Shaved Asparagus Pizza (pictured above). Making pizza doesn't seem like the best thing to do on the first warm weekend of summer, but I'm having fun with it. It is a great way to use up leftovers and try new cooking techniques. The leftovers are mostly from The Art of Eating (related post below), and things my roommate left behind.

New techniques include aging pizza dough overnight- actually, I'm re-acquainting myself with pizza dough, period; I haven't made pizza since high school! And Smitten Kitchen's idea of shaving asparagus is sheer genius. The first pizza (made using Smitten Kitchen's dough recipe and not aging it) came out really well and used up all of the leftover asparagus. I still consider myself a fairly unwilling veggie eater, so having a half pound of asparagus go down in a flash on top of a pizza is pretty amazing. For cheese, I just used fresh grated Parmesan- which came wrapped in plastic. Cheese is an ongoing plastic issue. I'd like to learn to make it but don't see giving up fine cheeses such as aged Parmesan, not completely. The best I can do is to be choosy with it. For now I bring a one pound hunk of parm home, remove the plastic and store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator- which is made of re-usable #5 plastic- and it lasts me at least a couple months.

For today's pizza I'm trying the dough aging technique and using parm cheese as well as a hodgepodge of leftovers from the fridge: jarred pasta sauce, a bit of pesto, a tomato, oven roasted first to bring out flavor, and most of a shallot, caramelized. Roasting the tomato and caramelizing the shallot are also new techniques for me, and it is a good thing I do have the apartment to myself since I smoked up the place pretty good with the shallot. Roasting a shallot in a dry skillet for 20 minutes before adding oil? Really, Mark Bittman, really?? In the end the shallot came out OK, but that was a LOT of smoke.

The dough isn't right- I screwed up the flour measurement and had to add a lot more in the kneading process, which I know doesn't do good things- you aren't supposed to knead pizza dough much. And plastic avoidance played a part here. The recipes say to cover the dough with plastic wrap while it is rising. Instead, for the first pizza I coated the dough with a bit of olive oil (which the recipe calls for anyway), then flipped it over a couple times in the rising process to prevent a hard skin from forming on the exposed dough. For the second pizza dough, aged overnight, I covered the dough with a tea towel. That must be what cooks did before the invention of plastic wrap, right? It didn't work. Maybe I should have dampened the towel from the start (I dampened it half way through), or maybe there is a better plastic free technique out there-- anyone? The dough formed a skin, which sort of worked itself back in while forming the pizza, but not really.

But here's the thing- pizza is very forgiving. It might not be as gorgeous as the pictures from Smitten Kitchen and the NY Times, but it still tastes pretty darned good.

Do you like animals? Don't watch this.

Fair warning.

Cooking with less plastic-- for the stage!

This weekend, New York Metro Vocal Arts Ensemble (NYMVAE) will present "NYMVAE à la Carte", a food-themed double bill of J.S. Bach's Coffee Cantata and The Art of Eating, a new opera by Jeffrey Lependorf. I have been involved with the company for a few years and am not singing in this production, but am helping out on the 'back stage' side- specifically with rounding up props.

Both one acts involve food and drink that are consumed on stage, which can be tricky to get right. Further, The Art of Eating is based on an essay by M.F.K. Fisher, a prolific and well-respected food writer who was active from the 1930s until her death in 1992. I had never heard of M.F.K. Fisher until now, but my foodie friends tell me I must read at least a few of her essays. She was the Ur-female food writer: before Julia Child and Ruth Reichl, there was M.F.K. Fisher, blazing a trail. Food essays and recipes from a time before single-use-plastics existed? Yes I do think I should read her essays!

The Art of Eating takes place in a tiny French restaurant in 1950, and involves four food dishes that are served- and partially consumed- on stage. I'm responsible for two of those dishes. Gulp! My dishes are braised endive and asparagus with shallots and lentils. I am modifying the linked recipes a bit- for example, I'm not going to attempt a poached egg which is hard enough to get right at home, let alone getting it to the theater!

Wish me luck. I'm an OK home cook but no gourmet, and I've never made prop food before. It is my first time preparing puy lentils and endive. This stuff has to look like it was made by a French chef and two sopranos (the show is double cast) have to eat a few bites of it on stage! And of course, I'm doing this while avoiding single use plastics. Here is how I did on that score:

- fresh produce (Belgian endive and asparagus) purchased using cloth bags. The asparagus had rubber bands and and a plastic tag.
- shallots and herbs purchased using cloth bags
- Puy lentils purchased from the bulk section using a cloth bag
- White wine vinegar came with a plastic cap and seal
- pepper corns came in a plastic tub (I've had the same huge tub for over a year)
- olive oil came in a metal gallon canister with a plastic spout and cap- I now know a couple places where I can get olive oil using my own glass bottle.
- salt, sugar and butter came in paper and cardboard

If you are in New York City, I hope you will attend a performance! We have amazing performers, a completely charming production, and you can see how my prop food came out. The shows are May 20-23 at Baruch College's Performing Arts Center Bernie West Theater. Tickets are available here

Brita filter and #5 recycling update, NYC edition

Fourteen months ago, Brita USA joined a program called Gimme 5 to recycle its filters, thanks in part to a grassroots campaign led by Beth Terry of Fake Plastic Fish. This is a take-back program for spent Brita filters as well as #5 plastics -such as yogurt cups and take-out containers- sponsored by Brita (naturally), Stoneyfield Organic and Tom's of Maine, in partnership with Preserve, the company that recycles the plastic and turns it into new products. One other company is a big partner: Whole Foods. You can either mail your used filters to Preserve, or drop them off at participating Whole Foods stores.

I am so glad the program was started. To me it is a sign companies are starting to take responsibility for the products they manufacture, instead of leaving it all to the consumer and local governments. I'm rooting for Gimme 5's success, and wish more people knew about it. I haven't purchased a Brita filter for a while (since I drink mostly tap)- is Gimme 5 featured prominently on the package? Have you seen posters or advertising for Gimme 5? I haven't- and that worries me.

Additionally, a friend contacted me a couple weeks ago and asked if the program was in trouble- she tried to drop off a filter at a New York City Whole Foods and was told by an employee that they 'don't take them anymore'. Alarming! Thankfully, this is not the case. I reached out to every Whole Foods store in NYC and heard back: Gimme 5 is still going. Going strong? That I don't know- I hope so! Here is what I got back from NYC Whole Foods store managers:

Columbus Circle: "We do participate in the Gimme 5 program, and also we recycle the Brita filters in the Gimme 5 bins. The bin is located by our Whole Body department. Any questions please ask."

Tribeca: "We are extremely happy to say we accept #5 plastics!!! We have TWO collection bins located in our wonderful Tribeca store, one by our Local registers on the far right and one in the café upstairs by the elevator. We love this program and we are very happy to promote it. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask. Thank you and have a wonderful day."

Bowery: "I'm happy to share with you that our store does in fact participate in this wonderful program. All you need to do is bring in your #5 plastics to the Customer Service booth and our Team Members will put the items in the Gimme 5 bin, which we keep behind the booth. We do this to avoid co mingling and to ensure that only #5 plastics are getting into this bin, so it can properly be sent out. And to further answer your question, you can bring in Brita filters as well. ANY #5 plastic!"

Union Square: "Thanks for your inquiry, we absolutely do recycle your spent filter just wrap it up in a plastic a plastic bag ( that Preserve will recycle). Thanks for the compliment we definitely do take pride in being the only Company that has this program."

Chelsea: "Our Gimme 5 recycling receptacle can be found at customer service. We accept anything that is #5 and Brita Filters in the Gimme 5 program."

I'm stoked that so many Whole Foods stores are taking part! Especially since right now, this is one of the only ways for New Yorkers to recycle #5 plastics, including Brita filters. I'll have a filter of my own to recycle in a month or so. I drink mostly tap, but a few weeks ago there was a water main break in my neighborhood resulting in rusty water coming out of our faucets for the better part of a day. I started using my roommate's Brita pitcher. The water is back to normal now, but still-- I'm glad we have the filter.

Have YOU recycled with Gimme 5? How was your experience?