Handy dandy

The thing that helps

"There comes a time in every woman's life when the only thing that helps is a glass a champagne."

Bette Davis

Lunch time

"Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch."

Orson Welles, quoted in Albert Jack's "What Caesar Did for My Salad: The Curious Stories Behind Our Favorite Foods"

Still life with pears

Squash squashed

Or squashed squash. Same difference.

The hot chocolate life

"When I've reached the bottom of my cup, fully sated, I head toward the door without any feeling of overindulgence, but fortified enough to handle the fiercest of Parisian winter weather. With a warm glow, I slip on my jacket, re-macrame my scarf around my neck, drop a few coins in the dish by the register, and leave. As I exit, I'm always careful to make a sharp ninety-degree turn just after I'm out the door so I don't inadvertently meet my maker. (Or my hot chocolate maker, although I'd sure like to meet him to pick his brain.)"

David Lebovitz in "The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City"

Hot Chocolate
from David Lebovitz's "The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City"

2 cups whole or low-fat milk
5 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
pinch of coarse salt

In a medium saucepan, warm the milk, chocolate and salt. Heat until it begins to boil. (It will probably boil up quite a bit at first, so keep an eye on it.)

Lower the heat to the barest simmer and cook the mixture, whisking frequently, for 3 minutes. If you want a thicker consistency, cook it another 1 to 2 minutes.

Serve naturel, or with a giant mound of slightly sweetened whipped cream. Sugar can be added, to taste. Makes 4 to 6 cups.

The glazed jelly donut

"He knew when to leave the boy's mother alone and how best to ask her for ice cream. Don't ask her too often and when you do, don't let her know how much you really want it. Don't beg. Don't whine.

"He knew which restaurants would serve them lunch and which would not. He knew which barbers would cut their kind of hair. The best ones, of course.

"The thing that he loved most about America, he once confided to the boy, was the glazed jelly donut. Can't be beat."

Julie Otsuka, in the novel "When the Emperor Was Divine"

Boo

Because it is Halloween.

Them apples

Because it is apple season.

The English breakfast

"To eat well in England, you should have breakfast three times a day."

W. Somerset Maugham, quoted in Albert Jack's "What Caesar Did for My Salad: The Curious Stories Behind Our Favorite Foods"

An apple (cake) a day

An apple (cake) a day. 'Tis not an altogether bad thought.

Craving curry

A Ferris wheel set up for the Treasure Island Music Festival reminds me in some way of the London Eye, you know, if the Ferris wheel had been many times larger, if the bay had been the Thames, the Bay Bridge the Westminster Bridge, and the San Francisco skyline Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Yes, I am crazy.

But I think of London. I do. All the time. When the sky is overcast, I think of London. When it threatens to rain in Northern California, I welcome the wet weather. Bring it. When I hear an accent, from an actor or writer or broadcaster, I think of London. I am here, but I suspect I should be there.

I think of London and begin to crave curry. Any kind. When a head of cauliflower costs less than a dollar at the market, I grab one to make curry, using a straightforward recipe from Bon Appetit. I combine cauliflower with chickpeas, tomatoes and coconut milk, and cook it down. I eat curry with rice, basmati if I have some, medium grain white rice if I don't. At the table, I think of London.

Curried Cauliflower and Chickpea Stew

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 1/2 cups chopped onions
5 tsp. curry powder
6 cups small cauliflower florets (from 1 medium head)
2 15 1/2-ounce cans garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
2 10-ounce cans diced tomatoes
1 14-ounce can unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Heat oil in large skillet over high heat.

Add onions and saute until golden brown, about 8 minutes. Add curry powder and stir 20 seconds.

Add cauliflower and garbanzo beans. Stir 1 minute. Add diced tomatoes, then coconut milk. Bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and boil gently until cauliflower is tender and liquid thickens slightly, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in cilantro. Serve over rice. Makes 4 servings.

Watching waste lines

I toss out fistfuls of feta, disappointed with myself for not having used it all quickly enough, before it got moldy. I throw out cooked green beans left over from the weekend's stir-fry after catching a nasty whiff of them in the Rubbermaid container.

That 10-pound bag of potatoes worries me, too. I had plans - big plans - when I bought it initially at the grocery store. Life unfortunately got in the way of those plans. Truth be told, I have yet to peel even a pound of potatoes.

And though I know the amount of food I put into the compost bin at the side of the house every week pales in comparison to the great amount people everywhere must just pitch carelessly and casually into landfills and Dumpsters every day, I still feel bad. We all need to watch our waste lines.

In "American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It)," Jonathan Bloom looks at food waste in this country. With a journalist's attention to research and observation, and a do-gooder's sense of urgency, he tackles the issue from different perspectives.

He examines links along our national food chain, including farms, supermarkets, restaurants and individual kitchens. He shows us how and why most of our waste gets generated, and suggests ways in which we can bring about relevant change.

Bloom differentiates between food loss and food waste. It is a necessary, albeit slim, distinction.

"Certainly, some food loss is unavoidable," he says. "For example, there are many potential pitfalls, such as harsh weather, disease and insects invading the farmer's fields, that are outside of our control. And then there's storage loss, spoilage and mechanical malfunctions."

On the other hand, food is "wasted when an edible item goes unconsumed as a result of human action or inaction." I think of my feta cheese and green beans.

"There is culpability in waste. Whether it's from an individual's choice, a business mistake or a government policy, most food waste stems from decisions made somewhere from farm to fork. A grower doesn't harvest a field in response to a crop's lowered price. Grocers throw away imperfect produce to satisfy their (and, as consumers, our) obsession with freshness. We allow groceries to rot in our refrigerators while we eat out..."

In other words, there are factors beyond much of our control. But there are also plenty of factors we can control.

The author takes us to Salinas, Calif., for instance, where the majority of America's lettuce is grown, packed and shipped. Dubbed the "Salad Bowl to the World," the agricultural town along Highway 101 in Monterey County is home to large-scale producers such as Taylor Farms, Fresh Express and River Ranch Fresh Foods.

He brings us to nearby Crazy Horse Canyon Landfill, too. There, Bloom sees lettuce that was "still perfectly good - crispy, even - (thrown) away for various reasons. It may have been damaged in the warehouse or maybe it sat for too long to withstand shipping." It is an eye-popping fieldtrip.

Until it closed in 2009, Crazy Horse handled 200 tons of excess, rejected or misbagged produce every day. It closed because it was full, "an outcome hastened by that ceaseless supply of green waste."

When we throw away food in such high volume, we also throw away the natural resources that go into growing, harvesting, processing, transporting and cooking that food. "Wasting that food squanders our supply of water, depletes nutrients in the soil and wastes the fossil fuels that are used throughout the food chain." The choices we make matter.

Supermarkets present a similar set of challenges. Hoping for further behind-the-scenes glimpses at waste in this country, beyond what executives told him their companies did, Bloom applied for a position in the produce department of a regional grocery chain and worked there for three months.

Ten minutes into his first day on the job, he says, he was discarding decent food. Instructed by his supervisor to cull out-of-code products, Bloom picked through shelves of pre-washed, pre-cut packages of fruits and vegetables, and removed anything with an imminent expiration date.

"I collected sliced mushrooms, cut peppers and diced onions. I pulled seven varieties of bagged salads and veggie trays of crudités with dip included... I tossed 24 pounds of packaged watermelon, pineapple and cantaloupe chunks that first morning." All of it had still been edible. All of it went out back to the Dumpster.

It is a situation with which Tristram Stuart is familiar. In "Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal," the British author talks at length about purchasing dates and deadlines. He clears up some of the confusion on the other side of the Atlantic regarding labeling laws and food-safety policies.

In the European Union, for example, pre-packed products are required to carry either a "use-by" date or a "best-before" date, he explains. Grocery stores and manufacturers, however, often also stamp merchandise with "sell-by" or "display-until" dates. These primarily "help shop staff manage stock and should be completely ignored by consumers."

Like Bloom, who touches on the topic in the United States, Stuart discusses recovery efforts in the United Kingdom as well. Or, sometimes, the lack thereof.

He commends Fareshare. The charity contracts with supermarkets such as Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer and Waitrose to deliver pallets of excess food - everything from apples and broccoli to boxes of cereal and loaves of bread - to community centers and homeless shelters across Great Britain.

"In 2008, it redistributed 3,000 tons of food to 25,000 people in 500 different community centers and other organizations, with a further 5,000 tons that either ended up being diverted into animal feed, anaerobic-digestion plants, composting or other waste-recycling routes."

That said, "the amount the supermarkets donate still represents only a tiny fraction of their overall waste; the trend is promising but movement is still far too slow."

Manufacturers like Kraft in the United States and Kellogg's in the United Kingdom also cooperate with Feeding America and Fareshare, respectively, providing them truckloads of surplus on a regular basis. "These companies are beginning to do what all of them ought to do," Stuart says.

Unlike Bloom, who focuses primarily on waste in this country, Stuart takes a geographically broader approach. He expands his narrative beyond North America and Europe to include Asian countries such as Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.

He describes a brief, serendipitous visit with a traditional family, the Kawasakis, in Hakata in southwest Japan. Over dinner one night, they talked about growing food for sustenance - the father, Jingo Kawasaki, farmed the same fields his father and grandfather did before him - and the concept of mottainai.

It "cannot be translated, but it indicates a condemnation of wastefulness and squandering, and implies an endorsement of thrift and frugality. The word is used for anything from darning socks to scraping the last grains of rice from the bottom of a bowl."

Given its prosperity in recent decades, however, Japan in general has not been immune to the problem of waste. In fact, Stuart says, "the Japanese predilection for high-quality, extremely fresh food results in enormous levels of waste," approximately 19 million tons a year.

Of that, 6 million tons come from supermarkets and convenience stores, where lunch-box meals are easily and widely available. There are cooked noodles with vegetables, for example, trays of sushi, and meat-filled dumplings, all of which stay on the shelves for only a few days. What does not get sold gets thrown away.

Significant change can only come through concerted effort. The American government, Bloom says, should provide incentives to farmers to harvest all that they grow, leaving as little as possible in the fields. It should encourage donations and work more effectively with gleaning organizations to redistribute excess.

In an ideal world, Stuart says, we would learn to respect the food in our refrigerators, to buy what we eat and eat what we buy. "All unavoidable organic waste would go to feed either animals or the soil." These and other actions might not completely solve the current food waste situation. But they certainly would help.

(A version of this article appears in Gastronomica.)

Ready for their close-ups

Food on television seldom looks the same as food in real life. It looks better actually. For this, we have stylists, tabletop directors and special-effects riggers to thank.

The business section of The New York Times provides insight on people in the ad world "hired to turn the most mundane and fattening staples of the American diet into luscious objects of irresistible beauty."

From director Michael Somoroff, for instance:

"I make my living basically taking food and painting a reality with it... And if I succeed in a given moment, you're going to go buy that dish because you're going to identify with the experience we've created.

"To do that with something as banal as food is the challenge. I mean, it's easy to go out and shoot a beautiful sunset or a beautiful girl. They're beautiful, O.K.? I've got a noodle over here."

Making soup

The days get shorter and inevitably colder. I think to make soup, using Lisa Schroeder's recipe as a decent jumping-off point.

Manhattan Clam Chowder
from Lisa Schroeder's "Mother's Best: Comfort Food That Takes You Home Again"

2 strips bacon, finely diced
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 large yellow onion, finely diced
1 large carrot, peeled and finely diced
2 ribs celery, finely diced
1 leek, white part only, thinly sliced into half-moons and washed
1 medium green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and finely diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, with juice
1 10.75-ounce can tomato puree
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1 pound russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
3 1/2 cups fish stock or 2 14-ounce cans clam juice
1 10-ounce cans baby clams in juice
1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
5 dashes Tabasco sauce
3 dashes Worcestershire sauce

Place a heavy soup pot over medium-high heat. When hot, add the bacon. When it starts to brown in spots, lower the heat to medium. Continue to cook until most of the fat has been rendered and the bacon is almost crisp, about 4 minutes.

Add the vegetable oil, onions, carrots, celery, leeks and green bell peppers. Saute, stirring occasionally, until very soft, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for another 2 minutes.

Add the diced and pureed tomatoes, bay leaf, thyme and potatoes.

Add the stock or clam juice. Stir to mix well. Bring to a boil over high heat, and then lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the potatoes are fork tender.

Add the clams with their juice and season with salt and pepper. Add the Tabasco and Worcestershire. Bring back to a simmer for several minutes.

Ladle into bowls and serve with crusty bread or crackers. Makes 7 servings.

Food court fare

The dining options at Westfield Century City take food court fare to a whole other tastier level. There is sushi and ramen, Italian and Chinese, cupcake and yogurt. I could get used to this quite easily.

Sugar bomb

Would you like a cookie with that frosting?

What I like

What I like most about Korean restaurant meals: the variety that makes its way to the table.

Even exchange

"From the New World to the Old came amaranth grain, avocados, various beans, bell peppers, blueberries, cashews, chile peppers, cocoa, vanilla, corn, papayas, peanuts, pecans, pineapples, white and sweet potatoes, pumpkins, quinoa, and tomatoes.

"In turn, the Old World sent to the New apples, artichokes, asparagus, bananas, barley, black pepper, cabbage, carrots, coffee, lemons and limes, garlic, lettuce, oats, millet, olives, peaches, peas, rice, rye, soybeans, sugarcane, tea, and, perhaps most important, wheat."

John Mariani, in "How Italian Food Conquered the World"

Powdered donuts

"As the miles shifted into days and Texas ranches became Tennessee hills and Tennessee hills became historical Pennsylvania, I too began to shift. I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner. I ate snacks. I immersed myself in life's essentials: food, drink, shelter and warmth.

"I thought about miles and inclines, flat tires and rain. I thought about the strength of my body and the strength of my spirit. I pedaled, grinding my history, its lessons, and the countless times I'd willed it gone into my muscles and joints, until they became a part of my fiber.

And somewhere in New York state, about two to three cycling days west of Syracuse, I sat contentedly outside a convenience store eating mini-donuts. My back rested against the standard bland beige color of the cement wall and I felt the heat of the sun on my already toasted face.

"I popped a donut, the white-powdered kind that leaves white traces around your lips, into my mouth and washed it down with chocolate milk..."

Michelle Hamilton, in "The Long Road," from the anthology "Her Fork in the Road: Women Celebrate Food and Travel"