They Like Their Spinach

Eleanor Roosevelt, Michelle Obama, and Me!

NYT article about the Obamas' vegetable garden. Also Michael Pollan's letter to the President-to-be from last year.

It's nice being part of a movement.

Seed Freak

I ordered way too many seeds the other day. It was so easy. I was on the phone with the representative from Peaceful Valley, rattling off the item numbers, one after another. Before I knew it, I had ordered 14 seed packets. Whoops. And this is in addition to the 3 types of hierloom tomatoes (Brandywine, Green Zebra, Marvel Stripe) that I started indoors last weekend.

Here are the 14 that are on their way:

Beets - Bulls Blood
Brocolli - Di Ciccio
Pak Choi
Lettuce - Gourmet Mix, Little Gem
Tomatoes (yes, more tomatoes) - Beefsteak, Black From Tula, Old German Heirloom, Black Krim
Mint - Korean
Basil - Thai Queenette
Cilantro- Slow Bolt
Lavender - Spanish
Onion, Scallion - Bunching Ishikura

Well, I'm new to all this, so I guess more is better since many of the seeds won't take. I'm going to start sowing seeds indoors in the next couple weeks while Mr. Octopus and I figure out how to order cedar planks for my raised veggie beds.

Food = Family

Thanksgiving is guava time in the Octopus household. And right now I have over a 100 guavas sitting on my kitchen counter. My mom and I harvested them from her tree this weekend. These tropical fruits have overtaken the kitchen counter, looking like a bunch of weebles that have multiplied out of control.

Every Thanksgiving I give a box of guavas to the Octopus in-laws and they go nuts. They love guavas. I smile and feel like Santa as I watch them gather around, dipping the fruit in salt and chili powder, lips smacking, telling me how they can't get good guavas in Connecticut. I am starting to like guavas myself, and look forward to guava season every year.

My Smokin' Hot Vegetarian Chili Recipe

My recipe didn't win the chili cookoff at my work, but it'll always be a winner to me.

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled, thinly sliced
4 celery stalks, chopped
1 green or yellow or orange bell pepper, seeded, chopped
2 jalapeño peppers, seeded, minced
1 habanero pepper, seeded, minced
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
3 cups water
2 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed, drained
2 15-ounce cans kidney beans, rinsed, drained
1/2 cup bulgur (aka cracked wheat) – available at Whole Foods and health food stores
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup of grated cheddar cheese

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, celery, bell pepper and jalapeño and habanero peppers and sauté until onion lightly browns and carrots and celery soften a little (usually 5-10 minutes). Add tomatoes, beans, water, bulgur (this ingredient is key-- it gives this vegetarian recipe a thicker, 'meatier' texture), white wine vinegar, garlic and spices. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook, uncovered, until bulgur is tender and chili thickens, stirring often to make sure the bottom doesn't burn (about 30 minutes). If you’re hungry, then ladle into a bowl, sprinkle grated cheddar on top and eat. If you can wait, turn off the heat and let the chili thicken even more, and then ladle and sprinkle cheddar when ready. In my experience, this chili tastes even better the day after, so look forward to leftovers. This recipe makes enough for 6 adults.

Corn is Everywhere

I'm about 1/3 of the way through Michael Pollan's The Ominivore's Dilemma. Pollan is a journalism professor at Cal and writes on food and the food industry.

You may have seen his cover article Unhappy Meals in the NYT magazine a couple months ago in which he argued that America's obsession with nutrition and convenience foods has made us fatter and more unhealthy, and that we should return to eating traditional food-- fruits, veggies, meats. No more vitamin water, power bars or other highly processed foods that are fortified with vitamins and nutrients. In short, he advocates for eating stuff our great, great grandparents would recognize.

I liked the article, so Mr. Octopus picked up The Ominivore's Dilemma for me. I've been reading it most nights before I go to bed. The first part of the book focuses on corn. Apparently corn is in everything. This I did not know. Here's what I learned (and can remember offhand).

Prior to WWII, farmers used to grow corn the way they grew everything else-- they would rotate it with other crops so as not to deplete the soil. So we had corn, but not tons of it. After WWII, we had a surplus of ammonium nitrate from munitions and had to find something to do with it. Scientists found a way to use ammonium nitrate/nitrogen to make chemical fertilizer and the industrialization of corn was born. As a result, farmers were able to grow corn year after year without ruining the soil. Suddenly we had more corn than we knew what to do with.

Today corn is in coke, ketchup, mustard, cereal and a gazillion other things-- thanks to high fructose corn syrup. It's in those strange ingredients on food labels-- fructose, dextrose, sucrose, xanthan gum. It's even used in the beef we eat. Cows have evolved to eat grass, but because corn is more plentiful we've started forcing it on cows, which in turn means we have to give cows antibiotics to process the corn. It just ain't natural.

According to Pollan, this surplus of corn has led to an overall increase in the amount of food available. And because corn is so cheap, consumers are able to get much more food for not much more money (this is why the supersize at McD's isn't much more expensive than regular). So we're taking in more calories without getting much more nutritional value. The result: a lot of overweight and obese people.

So that's corn, according to Michael Pollan. The second part of the book is about organic food, which (as far as I've read) is also a huge industry not without its faults. Supposedly he rips on Whole Foods. I'm curious about that.

Sidenote: Recently the CEO of Whole Foods came to Cal to speak with Pollan and defend his company's practices. I'm sure it was a lively discussion. It must be on the web somewhere. For a short article by Pollan, click here.

Lunchtime Dessert

I stopped at Yummy Cupcakes in Burbank on my lunch break today. I bought five cupcakes (not all for me!). I've had one (chocolate with vanilla frosting) and it was yummy, all right. They are $2.50 a pop, so a bit pricey. Cupcake inflation?

Thanks Mr. Cup O Noodles

The inventor of the instant noodles, Momofuku Ando, died recently. What would college have been like with cup o noodles? From the LA Times obituary:

Ando's entrepreneurial genius was to shuck off centuries of tradition and realize that noodles did not necessarily have to be cooked fresh and served only after being steeped in vats of boiling water. After tinkering for a year in his backyard shed, he discovered that noodles could be dried, packaged and rehydrated in a bowl of boiling water in just three minutes — and served almost anywhere.

His gamble with flour, palm oil and MSG created a new food that appealed to tastes across Asia and in the United States. He began exporting instant ramen to the U.S. in 1970 and a year later created Cup Noodle — noodles that could be sold and prepared in the same container — inspired by the way American consumers plopped their noodles into a cup and ate them with a fork.

Hot Hot Hot!

We finally turned out heat on last night. What a difference! HVAC man said we should replace our ducts, but that it was fine to run the heater in the meantime. Now I can look forward to going home again!

What a joy it was to see an article in the NYT travel section on the best Chinese food in LA. Mr. Octopus and I read it and made a beeline for Chung King, a dive in Monterey Park that the author says "puts just about every other Sichuan restaurant in the United States that I’m familiar with to shame." Lovers of spicy food unite!

We ordered our dishes "medium" spicy and it came out spicier than what other places would consider "very, very spicy." From the article:

You know how some Chinese restaurants have little chili symbols next to the hot dishes? Every dish in the entire first column of the menu here, with — literally — one exception, has a little chili symbol next to it. Fully half the dishes are blazingly hot — they must go through a coffee-sack of dried peppers daily — but tamed by the mouth-numbing sensation of floral-scented Sichuan peppercorns. This is a mind-body experience not to be missed: your body, abused with chilies, is crying “Please stop,” while your mind, entranced by the incredible flavors, keeps directing the chopsticks from plate or bowl to mouth and back again.

Hardly any of the staff speaks English, but that's ok. They're friendly (not the snarly sort, if you know what I mean). The resident English expert sized us up quickly and came by to point out the dishes that the article had recommended. We'll be back again...soon.

Chanchow Eats: Polka

Have I mentioned that some of the best things in LA are found in strip malls? No? Don't believe me? Check out Polka, a family-run Polish restaurant at the corner of Verdugo and York in Glassell Park.

Polka doesn't look like much from the parking lot. Every inch of the windows is covered with restaurant reviews and tinsel. We couldn't tell if it was crowded or empty. When we poked our head inside and saw that each table was taken. A five minute wait, the friendly owner said.

While we waited, an older couple opened the door and told us, unsolicited, that everything was wonderful and that the vegetables were delicious and fresh. They were right. I ordered the klopsy (meatballs with rice, potatoes and veggies) and Mr. Octopus had the vegetarian pierogi. Our meals came with mushroom soup, salad and dessert. All yummy.

I Wanna Be a Cheesemonger

Maybe that's my calling. Screw the office job. Cheese might be my thing. I like food, but I really like cheese, especially the stinky stuff. I need to sign up for a cheese class. What could be more fun. Chanchow the cheesemonger. I think that's perfect.

Chanchow Eats: Korean BBQ

It takes a little longer for us to get to Koreatown now that we are in Eagle Rock, but not so long that we won't go. Over the weekend, we met up with some friends at ChoSun Galbee, near the intersection of Olympic and Western. The decor was pretty upscale and there was valet parking. We got to sit on the patio, beneath the undulating modern metal overhangs. The side dishes were plentiful, the BBQ was delish and the prices not so bad. A good place for a group of meateaters.

Viva Artesia

Ever since moving to LA last Fall, Mr. Octopus and I have been on a mission to find some decent Indian food. We had been spoiled by the good and plentiful Indian options in NYC and were growing impatient with the offerings in LA. Well, I'm happy to say that we have finally found a good place. It's called Udupi Palace and it's in the city of Artesia.

Artesia is home to "Little India," which is basically a few blocks of Pioneer Boulevard with Indian restaurants, sari palaces, music stores, Bollywood movie theaters and cricket fields. For those coming from NYC, Little India will look very little indeed, but here in LA, where there aren't nearly as many Indian people, this will do.


Mr. Octopus and I made our first visit to Little India last weekend. Hungry as ever, we made a beeline for the most crowded restaurant on the strip, Udupi Palace, which we figured had to be good. Udupi is a South Indian vegetarian restaurant specializing in dosa. Yummm. We sat down, ordered on the spot and waited with bated breath for our dosas to arrive. We were not disappointed. Not one bit. In fact, the dosa was even better than any we had had at Pongal (our favorite dosa place in NYC). It even prompted Mr. Octopus to say, "Okay, I can now say that LA has the best food in the world." Here is a picture of his dosa. Mine actually tasted better, but I'd eaten half of it by the time I remembered I had my camera.

Chanchow Shops: Trader Joe's

People in LA sure do love Trader Joe's. It's unlike any other grocery shopping experience. Imagine Whole Foods, but smaller, cheaper, less bourgeois. Trader Joe's carries a variety of organic and low processed foods, often under its own label. Noticeably absent are brands like Coca-Cola, Tropicana, Kraft.

Trader Joe's began as a convenience store in Pasadena called Pronto Market in 1958. It was a real mom and pop operation, run by Joe and Alice Coulombe. Joe had been a corporate cog until, he says, he realized that the "corporate world was poison to me." After a few years, Pronto was put out of business by the local 7-11. Undeterred, Joe and Alice revamped their store by giving it an island trading post flair and naming it "Trader Joe's." (Alice had suggested "Trader Mom's," but she lost.)

Trader Joe's has since grown to over 200 stores, most of them in California. Their target clientele is the "overeducated and underpaid." That description is spot on, as evidenced by the extraordinary concentration of hipsters I encountered at my local TJ's last week. The ratio of hipsters to normal people must've been 10:1, possibly even 25:1.

Shopping at Trader Joe's is great, as long as it isn't too crowded. The clerks are friendly (they are among the highest paid in retail) and the store is always well-stocked and clean. The beer and wine aisle is especially noteworthy, in part because Trader Joe's began as a wine and cheese store. Joe has since retired, but maintains his own wine blog called Wine Joe.

Chanchow Eats: Z is for Zankou

In an unassuming strip mall in Hollywood, at the corner of Sunset and Normandie, sits Zankou Chicken. The family-owned restaurant opened in LA in 1984, after the original Zankou location closed in Beirut after twenty some years of operation. Since 1984, Zankou Chicken has fed those newly initiated to LA like myself, as well as native and long time Angelenos.

I can't say if everything on the menu is great because I've only had one thing: the 1/4 roasted chicken, white meat, which comes with a small but potent cup of garlic sauce on the side. The chicken is just right, skin crispy and meat juicy. But the star attraction is the garlic sauce. As food critic Jonathan Gold writes, "Nothing on heaven or on Earth may be as severe as the Armenian garlic sauce served at Zankou Chicken, a fierce, blinding-white paste the texture of pureed horseradish that scents your car, sears the back of your throat, and whose powerful aroma can stay in your head- and you car-- for days... Go ahead, Ultra Brite; go ahead, Lavoris; go ahead, CarFreshener: My money's on the sauce. It's also good with chicken."