Ready for my favorite food-related links o’ the week? Go grab your amber goggles and dig in!
Lego Kitchen
First things first: There is a kitchen made of Legos. Did you hear me? MADE OF LEGOS.
I suspect at least one of my children is already planning a kitchen remodel.
I Wear My Orange Glasses At Night
Who here saw last weekend’s Sunday Style section of The New York Times? It featured a surprisingly extensive article about the Paleo lifestyle, declaring that “the time has passed when it could be written off as a fringe movement.”
The newspaper of record has explored the Paleo lifestyle before, but the first time was almost five years ago. (Trivia: as longtime readers know, it’s how Henry and I originally learned about the “caveman diet.”) This time around, the Times contacted me out of the blue to interview me for the article. They even sent a photographer to get a shot of me in my goofy amber goggles, sitting on the kids’ messy bunk bed (because I refused to let the photographer into my even-messier bedroom).
So glamorous.
The article’s pretty fair, albeit a tad sensationalistic—especially when it refers to me as “something of a Martha Stewart of Paleo.” I’m fairly certain Martha would call that bit of hyperbole not “a good thing.”
(She wouldn’t be the only one. In fact, there are hundreds of Paleo-unfriendly comments on the online version of the article. I guess not everyone wants to be weirdos like us.)
Food Waste
On a less self-aggrandizing note, I came across an eye-opening report from Harvest Public Media about the excessive amount of food we waste in America. Get this: in 2012, we dumped 35 million tons of food in landfills—even though 1 in 6 Americans goes hungry. Yikes.
I go to great lengths to score the healthiest food available to my family—but I know I don’t always cook or eat it all. After checking out this report, I’m reminded of the importance of doing my part in reducing food waste.
My actionable takeaways:
- Buy what we need, and eat what we buy.
- Meal plan like a champ.
- Finish our leftovers.
It’s that simple.
Oh—one more thing: I’m putting a “bucket of judgment” on my kitchen counter to collect all the food I toss. Shame’s the best motivator, right? If you’re ready to get inspired, watch the 30-minute video here.
Tomato-gate
Serious Eats recently posted three articles about tomato storage that blew my mind. (You can read them here, here, and here. I suggest strapping on a helmet first, to keep your brains in.) I’d always been taught that one should always keep tomatoes at room temperature because refrigerating ’em dramatically diminishes the flavor and changes the texture. My childhood memories of bland, mealy, refrigerated tomatoes reinforced this belief. I never questioned it.
Well, until now.
After endless rounds of testing, the folks at Serious Eats concluded that you should refrigerate your ’maters after all—especially if you’ve got ripe, delicious ones fresh from your garden or farmers’ market. (Of course, refrigerating unripe, store-bought, conventional tomatoes will still yield mealy, tasteless results. But you’re not wasting your money on those yucky pink orbs, right?)
If I’ve learned anything over the past few years, it’s that one should never just blindly assume that conventional wisdom’s correct. Test it for yourself.
Lately, I’ve been storing my haul of heirloom tomatoes from the farmers’ market in the fridge, and they taste incredible when I make my Tomato and Basil Salad. Bonus: No more squishy, moldy, rotten tomatoes on the counter!
And THAT’S one to grow on.
I Know How This Feels
As the parent of a six-year-old who eats in frustratingly super-slow-motion, I have a feeling this upcoming book—the sequel to the potty-mouthed bestseller Go The F*** To Sleep—will echo the voices in my head:
(It goes without saying, but the language used in this book isn’t safe for work. Or kids. Unless your kids are salty sailors.)
I wonder if Samuel L. Jackson is going to do the audiobook version of this one, too. [Warning: linked video contains NSFW language]
So Fast I Want To Cry
Behold: the world’s fastest onion chopper!
The Most Interesting Chef in The World
According to this new article in Eater, Rick Bayless is the most interesting man in the world. After reading this profile, it’s almost impossible to disagree. He’s a world-class celebrity chef, restauranteur, author, actor, gardener, and award-winning ballroom dancer.
But I bet he doesn’t have a Lego kitchen.
Looking for recipes and resources? Head on over to my Recipe Index or my Resources page. You’ll also find exclusive recipes on my iPad® app, and in my cookbook, Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans (Andrews McMeel, December 2013).
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