Yesterday, I woke up in New York to a beautiful blue sky and a day filled with fabulous adventure … and sandwiches.

Do you like sandwiches? I do. But not plain, slapped together ones. They need to be built with precision and care. They need to be well-thought out and considered.

So, when the PR team for Hellman’s contacted me about being one of the Club Sandwich bloggers for their new Build the Perfect Sandwich program, I was happy to say yes. Hellman’s is the only mayo I buy, and it’s what I grew up on. That said, I am a little funny about mayonnaise. I don’t like it smeared on a sandwich. But if you mix it up with other ingredients to make an awesome spread, I am all about it.

Yesterday was the big ol’ kick off for Build a Better Sandwich in New York. The Club Sandwich bloggers spent two fabulous days in New York, eating well and picking up some great tips on sandwiches.

The ultimate highlight of the whole thing? Meeting and interviewing Bobby Flay. Oh, yes I did!

In person, Bobby Flay was a lot like the affable man you see on his many shows – funny, charming and filled with fabulous culinary knowledge.

He did a quick sandwich making demonstration, showing us three sandwiches — including a panini where he spread mayo on the outside of the bread (instead of oil or butter … super interesting). He also shared a tidbit on how to make your sandwiches look amazing when you cut them. Instead of just cutting diagonally, cut them diagonally on a bias (meaning at an angle), so that you can really see exactly what’s inside. Pretty cool idea, right? Read the rest of this entry…

Last week, Rivki encouraged me to be adventurous with veggies in the winter, since it’s better to enjoy what you are eating then to stick to what’s inexpensive. It makes a lot of sense. I rarely eat beef, instead opting for chicken or turkey or fish, so I spend less on proteins these days. So, why not channel the savings into veggies I really want? In the summer, I am in my glory with all sorts of fabulous fresh veggies hitting the table. But in the winter, it gets flat out boring. So I listened.

We don’t often eat baby bok choy, but it looked so inviting at the grocery store, that I bought it. Paige helped me transform it into a fabulous sweet and sour version, with a sprinkling of crispy bacon. Just a little — moderation is key.

In making this, I had a lot of help. At 3, Paige is amazing with a whisk. She’s come a long way from the little girl who’d spill all the contents of a bowl onto the counter. These days, she is a fabulous helper in the kitchen, always eager to lend a hand or help in some small way. And when whatever I am cooking is too much for her, she is content to just watch.

I love cooking with my children. They continually surprise me with what they remember and can do. So, when I was recently asked to co-host a virtual cooking school about cooking with loved ones, I was fast to say yes. Here are the details. I hope you’ll join us! Read the rest of this entry…

Today brought a new winter woe: an ice storm. The results are breathtaking to look at, but scary too.

Before the storm really got going, and the ice built up, I raked most of our roof — well, a 2-foot swath around the edge of it, at least. It was grueling work that tested my resolve. Basically, raking the roof involves hoisting a long roof rake up in the air and dragging down any snow or ice or whatever is up there. Although not a usual need for people in my Connecticut town, this year’s incessant snow (and ice!) has made it necessary to prevent the roof from leaking … or worse.

It would have been overwhelming if it weren’t for little bits of encouragement. Will watched from the window while I worked, yelling encouragements and supports. It’s amazing what a little “Just a little bit more, Mommy!” or “Just try your hardest!” from a sweet boy can do. He’s the reason I got three-quarters of the edge of the roof done. (I would have done it more, but I couldn’t reach the rest.)

Anyone else dealing with roof raking?

Switching gears a bit, I want to tell you about a new food resource that I have been working with behind the scenes for the past month or two. I think you’ll like it (I do!). Read the rest of this entry…

Sometimes, it feels like I blink and a whole month has spun by. That’s what October felt like. It was a whirlwind of trips to New Hampshire and the Cape, along with birthdays, work projects and Halloween. I fear that I might blink again soon and have November speed past me too.

Before it does though, I wanted to tell you about a great organization that brings a little something extra to the lives of people who are down on their luck. While it might not fill a clear-cut need, I think something that brings a smile to faces fills an absolute need of delivering a little happiness … a little feeling of being special … to people who really need it.

Last year, I had the pleasure of meeting Lydia Walshin of The Perfect Pantry at the BlogHer Boston conference. She is a food writer and founder of Drop In & Decorate, a Rhode Island-based, tax-exempt nonprofit organization. This organization provides support for cooking decorating events held around the country and abroad, with the cookies produced being donated. This year, the nonprofit has support from some major companies who are making it easier than ever to just drop in.

What’s it all about? Here’s the basics, direct from Lydia:

The idea behind Drop In & Decorate is simple: bake some cookies; gather a group of family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, your worship group or book group to decorate the cookies together; donate the cookies to a nonprofit agency serving basic human needs in your own community. It’s a simple idea in a complicated world, and  something anyone can do.

If you’d like to host your own Drop In & Decorate® event, Pillsbury and Wilton would like to help. Pillsbury has donated 50 VIP coupons, worth $3.00 each, off any Pillsbury product — including sugar cookie mix, icing and flour — to be distributed, first come, first served, while supply lasts, to anyone who plans to host a Drop In & Decorate event (max. 5 coupons per person). And we’ll include a Comfort Grip cookie cutter, donated by Wilton, while our supply lasts.

Write to lydia AT ninecooks DOT com for more info on how to get your free coupons and cookie cutters.

It’s such a simple thing: to bake and decorate cookies. But it can mean so much. If you are looking for something charitable to do as a family, group or school this holiday season, check into Drop In & Decorate.

The other morning, my dear friend Angel directed me to a story on Yahoo! News about a town in Italy that is banning any foreign flavors from emerging in their walled Tuscan center. The new rule doesn’t impact the restaurants that are already there, but it prevents new, foreign restaurants from opening in their city limits …

Lucca, the aforementioned town, is a Tuscan town that is obviously becoming (or maybe just is?) as walled in their perceptions as they are with the actual walls around their town.

Preserving classical dishes, preparations and cuisines is a noble cause to pursue. It’s important that we hang on to these things since it’s through them that chefs learn distinction in flavors, techniques, preparations and, most importantly, traditions. But time presents an opportunity for food to grow, develop and change — for the better, and closing off from such change is madness.

Read the rest of this entry…

Well, if that title doesn’t say it all, I don’t know what does.

Let’s get something established off the bat: I consider myself a fairly liberal person – few things offend me. Few things make me blush. And I rarely see something and wonder how that ended up in a magazine or on television or wherever. I believe in an open and honest relationship with kids and don’t shy away from difficult topics. But I also don’t invite uber-sexuality into my home either. I don’t subscribe to magazines that are inappropriate for my children to flip through and I don’t frequent late night pay per view (in fact, I never order pay per view anything – waste of money IMHO).

One of the magazines that arrives weekly in my little black mailbox is New York Magazine. My husband and I both read it. I typically check out the restaurant reviews and “In Season” column first, and then flip through the interesting articles. I have clippings of “In Season,” in a file in my office. I’ve learned about so many interesting foods from there that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

So, after several years of subscribing, I have a reasonable expectation that the magazine won’t run anything that my young children shouldn’t see. I expect to be able to read a reasonably interesting food section. Read the rest of this entry…

It’s hard to forget the tainted spinach ordeal of last year. Truth is, I have barely touched spinach since then. While I love a good baby spinach salad with strawberries, a bit of feta and a light vinaigrette, something in the back of my head has been apprehensive about eating spinach again. If I could find it locally, I would buy it up . . . but I haven’t yet.

In any case, the whole tainted spinach scandal topped the news almost exactly one year ago. That being so, you can imagine my surprise when I read that there are concerns over salmonella tainted spinach again. Talk about deju vu. Apparently a different California farm had some spinach test positive for the bacteria . . . fortunately, thanks to increased safety measures, it was caught almost immediately and that day’s batch has been pulled from shelves and stockrooms.

But really. Really. It’s time for the farming industry to look beyond safety control and instead work on rectifying the situations lead to tainting. And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to start focusing more on small time farming and less on corporation farming. I buy almost all of my veggies at local farms . . . in fact, most of our produce comes from my cousin’s farm. I know our growers. And I trust them.

When you are getting your produce from unnamed farms in far off states, how can you garner that same level of comfort and trust? Simply put: you can’t.

McDonald’s Corp. is taking a new tactic to try and make people feel okay about eating their food and feeding it to their children. They are letting six women — all mothers — visit restaurants, processing plants, test kitchens and orchards. Then the women are going to journal, not blog because there will be no opportunity for public comment on the forum, about it. I think USA Today’s headline, “McDonald’s lets 6 moms tell it like it is,” just about says it all.

Except, I wasn’t born yesterday and claims by the company that they won’t be having any input on the journal entries, that the women are getting full access, that the food is actually okay for you . . . well, that just sounds like McDonald’s is trying to pull a thick curtain of wool over our eyes.

Seriously folks, why wouldn’t comments be allowed? That is one of the things that has allowed the blogosphere to flourish – the public dialogue. And who are these women exactly? What about when should instill confidence? Check out this bit about one of the panelists from the USA Today article cited above:

Joanna Canizares, a Miami postal worker, is one of the panelists. She takes her boys to McDonald’s about twice a week, but she worries about trans fats, she says, because her 8-year-old son is “addicted” to Chicken McNuggets.

Canizares says she knows nuggets may not be the ideal food, but “it’s the lesser of two evils” because her son sometimes refuses to eat anything else.

“It’s better than eating nothing — and at least it has some protein.”

Let’s boil this down a bit: if you fed the kids real food at home, they wouldn’t have a taste for the processed and pressed chicken-like substance that has been deep fried to oblivion.

According to McDonald’s website, the four chicken nuggets have 10 grams of protein (assuming the child is eating the regular Happy Meal and not getting a more gargantuan proportion). Meanwhile it’s also got 10 grams of fat and 250 milligrams of sodium. So that “protein” she’s touting as the saving grace to the meal really shies in comparison to all the heart-stopping bad things that are in those nuggets. And that doesn’t even consider the side dish and drink he’s eating too.

Now, if Canizares was eating at home and served a grilled chicken breast (or roasted or whatever) – 4 oz, about half of a breast – to her child, he would consume 27.2 grams of protein – nearly three times the amount found in the nuggets – as well as only 1.5 grams of fat and 76.7 milligrams of sodium. That chicken could be dressed up with delicious and exciting flavors too without impacting the nutritional value.

Obviously, it’s Canizares’ choice what her children eat and don’t eat. And if McDonald’s is okay with her, that’s her prerogative. But McDonald’s chose only women who eat there at least on occasion to participate in this program. What is occasionally though? That’s such a subjective phrase. And if the other women have similar habits to Canizares, won’t they be just a bit more forgiving because they want to feel okay about what their kids are eating?

(Just as a side note, the company says that the women aren’t being paid but their travel is covered by McD’s and they receive a laptop to keep.)

Let’s talk about full access for a minute. Who’s choosing where these women go? The women or the company? Are they going to the source – the slaughterhouses where the animals are killed for their meat? Are they seeing a variety of processing plants, test kitchens and restaurants? To me, all access would mean that these women could choose their destinations. I doubt that will be the case. Chances are McDonald’s will show the women the best of the best to put their best big red shoe forward. And chances are that they will avoid anywhere that would bring negative commentary. And really, you don’t think McDonald’s isn’t going to, um, edit what these women say at all?

If this program is one thing, it’s a brilliant marketing scheme. After all, it’s got people talking. And these women will likely say lovely things about the company and leave feeling much better about their McDonald’s habits. But let’s be real. McDonald’s food is not healthy – it contains insulting amounts of fats (including trans fat) and sodium and lacks the good nutrients that real food has. Do I eat there? Sure, once in a blue moon. But I eat there out of convenience once every few months knowing that it isn’t good for me.

Me thinks the company doth protest too much. If McDonald’s was really serious about appealing to the health conscious consumer, they would clean up their act: eliminate the trans fats now; get their meat from humane slaughterhouses; quit over processing food; offer truly healthy alternatives instead of salads wrought with partially hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrups; and just be honest. And don’t tell me that publishing their nutritional content (required by law) and ingredients makes them honest. McDonald’s works overtime to fool consumers into believing their food isn’t that bad. Check out their recent ads in magazines like Parents!

Frankly, these women aren’t going to be telling it like it is. Let some real journalists in there to investigate the company’s processes and maybe I will consider believing the outcome. Anything else is just an insult to my intelligence.

This is a food blog. But every so often there is something so important it finds it way into these pages. This is one of those things.

It was 5 years ago today, and it still seems like just yesterday. It was everywhere on television, radio, newspapers and internet that day, and again today. You can’t ignore it. You cannot miss it. It’s reality. It is our reality. Five years ago today, terrorists hijacked four planes, crashing one into the Pentagon, two into the World Trade Centers and one in Pennsylvania, thanks to some very brave people.

It was 5 years ago today that the world came to a screeching halt around us.

Where were you when it happened? Where were you when you heard?

Me?

I was on a train, running very late for work. It was my last week working for a New York directory publisher and I had intended on heading down to the World Trade Center that morning to grab breakfast and eat on the plaza. But I had missed my alarm, then my train and was desperately late. I called my boss, but had the worst time getting through. Finally I reached her and told her I would be late. She said not to come. At the time, I thought she was angry at my lateness.

The MTA conductor told us there had been an accident, a plane had hit the World Trade Center. They didn’t know many details. It was only later through spurts of cell conversations that the other passengers and I discovered that it wasn’t one but two planes and we, as a country were under attack. It wasn’t a single engine Cessna. They were full sized airline planes, filled with innocent people and they smashed into buildings filled with innocent people. Do you see a theme here?

I made it into the city that morning, albeit for just a few moments. I left the train for seconds before deciding to head home and reentering. Shortly after, I stood with the conductor and other passengers in the last car of the train as it pulled out of the tunnel into daylight. We watched the plume of smoke rise up into the air, clouding the skyline we all loved yet took for granted. It grew smaller and smaller till it disappeared from the horizon.

Tears still spring to my eyes when I see the images and hear the sad stories of child who will never know their moms and dads. Five years later, I am still crying for all the souls lost that day.

But I made a decision that Sept. 11 will not be a stigma for me or for my family. We will not let the world stand still every year because of this. I think I said it best in a letter to the editor that was published in the New York Times in August 2004:

My fiancé and I chose to be married on Sept. 11, 2004, because we cannot live in
fear of what was. As a country, we must move ahead while never forgetting what
happened three years ago.

Some people are surprised by our choice.

I can say only this: my loved ones and I were personally touched by the terrorist
attacks, and we decided that it’s time. Sept. 11 is a day just like Feb. 26,
April 19, June 6 or Nov. 22.

Forgiving the date isn’t neglecting what happened or forgetting those who died; it’s letting the stigma pass and normalcy return.

It’s not letting terrorists sway our lives.

I stand by those words.

Do you see that? I mean can you really see that? It’s a watermelon – a square watermelon – decorated with ribbons.

Square watermelons?!?

It won’t roll around the fridge, it has a square rind that is easy to cut off….hmm, but a square watermelon?!?