menus, food ponderings and possible heresy

I imagine this will be a sort of journal of my cooking so I can look back and see what worked and what didn't with different culinary endeavors, and also to record and remember recipes that I've used and foods that I've prepared and I could talk incessantly about foods and diet...and I think I will.

I put some huesillos (dehydrated peaches) in a bowl and mote (a grain commonly eaten in Chile) in another bowl to soak for the evening, planning on making mote con huesillos (a Chilean food) tomorrow to have for breakfasts and desserts and snacks. The chancaca's been sitting in my cupboard for awhile now.. I´m planning on making stirfry for lunch tomorrow -- red pepper, carrots, celery, dientes de dragón (soybean sprouts), chicken and cashews. With rice to accompany.

For Wednesday am thinking of preparing a vegetable broth to cook the quinoa in and make a little soup. We eat a lot of quinoa. According to Wikipedia it was the most important food for the Incans. And maybe chop up some vegetables to stirfry to eat with the quinoa...The main dish is often a bit complicated for me. I have vegan tendencies though I don't know that I will ever become vegan, I'm sort of a vegan/vegetarian eater for most of my quotidian foods, especially breakfast. haha.

And I like the idea of being a locavore. There's supposed to be an organic restaurant near the U de Chile, the humanities building, that I would like to check out some day. Too bad I haven't had to go to the U de Chile humanities in months : (

Anyway, it's sort of a problem having vegan/vegetarian tendencies when my boyfriend loves meat, fish, poultry, etc. One way I've negotiated our dietary preferences so far is I buy canned tuna and some days I make him a tuna salad as the first plate and then it doesn't matter as much if the main entree contains no animal. I like meat too sometimes. Lately I´ve really enjoyed pork chops and pork ribs -- prepared with olive oil and lemon. yummy. In Chile the most typical get together that a person is invited to (be it a family or friend affair) is the barbecue -- asado. And I love the choripanes...It's one of my favorite foods. They are little fat sausages put in a little fat bunlike piece of bread. Bread is made fresh here daily. I suppose that's the other gliche in a possible plan of becoming a vegan.. I like barbecues. Especially in Chile. In the States I didn't have quite the passion for them that I do here.

So why would I want to be a vegan? My 1st reason is because I can't stand what I've heard about the food industry. I mostly avoid thinking about it when eating chicken (that are supposedly injected with sodium so they'll absorb more water and thus be larger and heavier and sell for more money), meat, salmon (antibiotic-injected), any of it really, even Chilean vegetables are likely to have of pesticides and other chemicals. Today on the cover of La Tercera, The headline was "USA: third chain of supermarkets suspends buying Chilean Salmon". (Safeway) Though I'd already read about this deal in c.hileno's website. Anyway, this is after a report is published in the New York Times about the elevated amount of antibiotics used in the Chilean Salmon Industry based on a report written by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development back in 2005. Capitalism can be so insidious. (I don't have anything against capitalism per se; its actually the business people and consumers that screw it all up.)

The soy industry is totally consciousless, conscienceless, rather. I've read they are clearcutting in Brazil and Argentina to plant more soy. Needless to say I mostly avoid soy. So anyway, I´m looking forward to having a garden again someday and being a member of a Community Supported Agriculture farm to perhaps transport me out of this downward spiral. In downtown Santiago I can't even grow spices on my balcony because the smog fallout coats my plants like chocolate coats strawberries.

... Oh, and as a side note, I read an article in El Mercurio a few months back saying how Coca-Cola Zero doesn't meet FDA standards to be sold in the US. It's sold here in Chile. I used to prefer it to diet coke even, until I read this article. I think it has more sodium which makes it a bit tastier. Regular coke is probably the way to go anyway...

Back to menu-planning... I haven't cooked in like a month and am excited to be back at it. Thursday and Friday I'm thinking of salads, mostly quinoa salad -- my typical one with chopped scallions, peppers, soy sauce, fresh grated ginger, fresh grated garlic, olive oil and possible other ingredients that may be laying around. And a perhaps a lettuce salad with olives, goat cheese with merken, and a little bowl of mixed nuts. That sounds quite good really. I should make a greek salad some day. Those are tasty. I got some good feta cheese at the market last year.

This has given me an idea for a character in a book or a short story... When I did the cruce de lagos from Bariloche, Argentina to Puerto Varas, Chile, there was a tour guide in the bus of the last leg of the trip and she explained the that Salmon industry had salmon growing in All Saints Lake, (Lago Todos los Santos) while the salmon is young, and then it is transported to the ocean to continue growing there. But say the tour guide gets sick of her job one day, maybe she experiences an existential crises, well this time as she talks to all the tourists on the bus about the salmon industry she could go into how very blessed these All Saint's salmon are..unfortunately they ruin the lake's ecosystem and are later injected with antibiotics because they get a contagious harmful fungus from having their cages too close together and she could go on and on.... Imagine being on that bus. I´m sure there are many things I'd rather not know about the industry since I eat salmon once or twice a month in the form of sushi. But since its the antibiotics I´m worried about, maybe it makes no difference whether the fish is cooked or raw.

The other thing I read was that now some scientists are saying that overuse of antibiotics may be a factor in developing asthma and peanut allergy.

I'm just going to stop eating.