Food Security Carnival Discussion Post.

[commodorified]

Solicit or offer ideas, cheer each other on, ask for or offer data or resources, team up and do a group-authored post or a mini-carnival cluster of posts, find a beta, be a beta ...

I would like to say: I am not at all worried about avoiding duplication, and suggest that nobody else be either.

If eight people do posts on How To Cook Eggs, they will all be different, they will all be right and useful, and each of them will be somebody's absolute most useful and favourite post of the whole carnival.

Carry on!

Comments

Re: Content warning: poss eating disorder triggers

[tei]

This describes me exactly, I would definitely be interested in reading it.

[tei]

HEEEE Your icon is the best idea ever.

[amazon_syren]

Given the date, I am going to talk about Imbolg and "in the belly", possibly also the idea of "hungry month", and - more to the point - how to do Local Food in Deep Winter.

This may include instructions for properly storing long-keeping veggies in a one-bedroom apartment,
and/or
Recipes for bringing out the deliciousness in Hardy Veggies ("Cabbage and potatoes again? YAY!"), ideally on the cheap,
and/or
How to incorporate Preserves into regular meals.


There may or may not also be a post about the kind of preserves you can do in a boiling water bath plus why you might want to do this (since, so far, it hasn't actually saved me any money, but has contributed to my locavore experiments).

Or a post on What To Do When the Milk is Going Off (because that stuff is expensive and it sucks rocks to be pouring it down the drain if you don't know that - up to a point, at least - you can still use it in cooking even if you can just go around drinking the stuff anymore).


Heck, I might do all of the above, just because I like writing on these subjects. :-D

[cleverthylacine]

Cup4Cup, which you can get at williams-sonoma and is expensive, and Better Batter, which you can get on line, can be used exactly like white all-purpose flour. But neither is cheap.

[cpolk]

I live alone and cook alone. i've done a post or two about this, and I was planning on writing from an "eat alone" viewpoint.

I cook things from scratch and rarely buy processed foods because of a diet restriction, but that's my personal thing because of celiac. as for managing fresh produce, i always buy fresh produce and cook with it. Do you think that will help?

[jenna_thorn]

my apologies

[jenna_thorn]

my apologies

[jenna_thorn]

my apologies

[stultiloquentia]

Yes, please.

[stultiloquentia]

Something I'd love to read about: how to choose and cook cheap cuts of meat. Give me a pretty roast or a pork chop or a pile of ground beef and I know just what to do, but anything with a lot of bone or fat or gristle attached (whole chickens excepted) and I start to flail.

[jesse_the_k]

Very yes, very please!

Re: Flour

[alexbayleaf]

I really like http://foodsubs.com/ for this sort of information.

[alexbayleaf]

I have a whole bunch of things I'd like to do, and might do them as individual short posts.

- buying and cooking dried beans
- how to make your own salad dressing
- simple urban foraging (Mediterranean climate edition, with some applicability elsewhere)
- making vegetable stock from scraps and leftovers
- making a very small amount of meat go a long way / meat as a flavouring

[alexbayleaf]

I'd love to read the "how to incorporate preserves" one.

[synecdochic]

I ... am tempted to do something about "what to do when you like food, you really do, it's just that you literally grew up in food service from before the time you were born and therefore have SOME ISSUES AROUND FOOD SAFETY, not to mention you spent five years on a pain medication that totally and completely destroyed not only your appetite but your ability to actually put the food in your mouth and chew without gagging", except it might be a little specific. *G*

(Seriously, though. Growing up in a restaurant gives you weird issues. I can't eat leftovers at all -- if something has been out of the fridge/off the heat for more than about half an hour, I cannot make myself eat it -- and I absolutely have to overcook the fuck out of some foods in order to be willing to eat them (while not caring, oddly, about others). My sister -- who spent less time working in the restaurant before we sold it, but still did somewhat -- doesn't mind leftovers, but she won't eat any food that's touching or mixed with another food. And let's not talk about my issues regarding food transportation and storage before something's cooked. It's my experience that those of us who were restaurant kids either grow up to be completely unconcerned about food safety and will eat anything, anywhere, at any time, or grow up to be hyper-paranoid about food safety. I got the hyper-paranoia; my sister got "slight quirks", thankfully for her...)

I think that might be a little bit too specific, though, and probably a little too likely to kick off food issues in others, so I may write it up and post it on my own. I don't think "how to live with your own (mostly irrational) paranoia about food safety" necessarily fits the "food security" topic *G*

[kake]

Rice with pesto (from a jar) and a bit of lemon juice (from a bottle or from a lemon) is quick, pleasant, and relatively cheap (though this partly depends on how much you have to pay for pesto).

[nancylebov]

Not wanting to eat food which has been touching other food is something that some picky eaters have-- your sister might have felt that way regardless of your family having a restaurant.

[nancylebov]

I could write a stir fry 101 article, but it occurs to me that stir fry isn't exactly 101-- it might need a separate article (possibly by someone better qualified) on how you tell when things are cooked.

Also, I don't cook from recipes much, but would people want to take a crack at how you tell whether a recipe is worth trying?

[(Anonymous)]

I have a folder of recipes titled "Stupidly Simple" (name came from a member of the late, lamented Gail's Recipe Swap) that might fit the bill. At least they're quick, simple techniques, you'll have to decide if they're tasty.

- Harimad

[synecdochic]

Oh, absolutely, but she's pretty confident about it stemming from early experience in food service (and later discovering her husband has an intolerance allergy to something that's in nearly every single bit of American food ever, but the habit was already long set). Restaurant brats have very bizarre relationships with food a lot, even if we follow our parents into the biz. (Which I did not, obviously. I love feeding people -- for years my annual vacation involved a week-long retreat in which I would regularly feed 25+ people with dueling food allergies and preferences for the whole week -- but I don't love it the way you need to love it in order to survive in a commercial kitchen. I can work a commercial kitchen if I need to, in terms of skill if not in terms of physical ability, but boy howdy do I not want to.) I know a lot of people who grew up in the biz and a lot of people who came to it as an adult, and it really is drastically different than liking to cook a lot as a child and going into commercial food prep as a young adult or adult.

I mean, my father stopped at the grocer's to pick up the morning produce order and the coffee filters my grandfather had run out of while in the middle of taking my mother to the hospital 'cause she was in labor with me, and I literally spent most of my time before I was in school either in a baby seat on the end of the counter or in a playpen in front of the deli case, and I started waiting tables when I was five or six years old. It was ... a very bizarre childhood in a lot of ways.

[(Anonymous)]

I *like* sticky rice, to go with Asian foods. Ideally use medium grain rice, but "regular" rice will do OK. 1c rice, 1.5 c. water, boil for 2 min, then reduce heat to lowest, cover, simmer 15 min, turn heat off but leave covered for 20 min.

We buy rice in bulk in my household. Up to 100 lbs when we're fully stocked in long grain, medium grain, brown, and the bits and pieces.

- Harimad

Re: Flour

[(Anonymous)]

In the US, cake flour has much less gluten then all purpose flour. It's used for baked goods that should be very tender, like cake or southern biscuits.

[(Anonymous)]

I imagine it would be helpful to have posts on the order of "if you chose/have to eat a specialized diet, then try these things."

- Harimad

[(Anonymous)]

Question for the crowd assembled: are we supposed to be focusing on how to get from Zero to Two, or on a wider array? Because I have this sinking feeling that once a week cooking and bulk meat purchase don't fall into the category. I'd consider both good subjects for the wider array.

- Harimad

[rydra_wong]

Ooh, how about "How To Be Hungry" -- something on managing eating when you have a hard time registering hunger signals (because of meds side-effects, sensory issues, or whatever other reason)?