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The Fat Fallacy Applying the French Diet to the American Lifestyle |
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FOOD FACTS & FINDS To join our mailing list and receive Food Facts and & Finds free via e-mail, click here, or go to the Contact section of our website. CLICK HERE to see back issues of FOOD FACTS & FINDS! June, The Sun, and One More Reason To Love Olive Oil:
GO TO Recipes: Pizza Night:
NEW RECIPE FOR SUMMER Summer. It tastes like .... Tomatoes Basil & Garlic
GO TO June Puzzler:
GO TO The June Article: Olive Oil Loves Your Skin. It Always Has.
June brings the long slow evenings with little to do but relax and enjoy the warm weather on the porch. The thing I like best about these nights is how, just taking in the air with family and friends, the soft evening creeps up on you before you know it.
Somehow, with the variety of hectic schedules that come and go with camps and vacations, summer can be a difficult time to have regular meal times. And, sometimes you want a relaxed dinner. What's the answer?
Pizza!
The pizza recipe here is simply outstanding. It blows the fast food driver's pizza out of the water -- and don't even talk about the frozen discus pizza! I would be so pleased if Julia Child recommended my Crème Brulee or Baguette but, for pizza, it’s wonderful that my children clamor for this staple of the movie night!
Begin with an herbed foccacia crust, which is so simple to throw together. Then add in the sauce, slowly simmered and enriched with a touch of wine. By the way, you'll want to make extra sauce for dipping. Recipes
Makes 3 Fat Fallacy-Sized Bowls You’ll
Need: 2 cups hearty chicken stock 3 medium, well-ripened, tomatoes 5 cloves rock hard garlic 1 tsp salt About 10 fresh basil leaves 3 tbsp of your best olive oil, divided 1 diminutive dollop sour cream To
Start Heat chicken stock in a sauce pan on medium high. Meanwhile, throw tomatoes, garlic, and stock into mixer or food processor to puree. Let these get nice and smooth. Next Just add puree to stock, bring to a good respectable boil, and then simmer (covered) for 15 minutes. Chop the basil into petite strips. Add to broth for 5 more minutes and you're ready. How
to Eat This soup is perfect on its own, or as a starter to a lovely summer luncheon. Add 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil over the top, and I like to sneak in a small dollop of sour cream when no one's looking. Lightly toast some good bread with a thin smear of butter or olive oil. Then take cut garlic and rub over the surface a couple of times. It is delightful. Now all you need is white wine, nicely chilled. You get the picture.
Focaccia
Pizza Dough
Makes
1 medium pizza
1
1/2 cups AP flour 1/2
tsp instant yeast 3
Tbsp olive oil, divided 1/2
cup water 1/2
tsp oregano 1
tsp salt To
Start In
a food processor, pulse flour, yeast, oregano, and salt together. Add
water and 2 Tbsp of the oil. Pulse these together until smooth. Do not
over-mix. Form into a dough ball. Next Kneed
on a floured board for 5 minutes, and set the dough ball in a large
olive-oiled mixing bowl. See to it that the dough ball has a bit of olive
oil over it, cover the bowl with a towel, and let it rest in a draft-free
place for 1 hour. Pull
out the dough and place on a floured surface. Kneed a few times and roll
into a large round disc of the thinness that you want for your pizza. Rub
over with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and place on a baking stone or
other large aluminum sheet for baking. Prick holes into the dough with a
fork for venting. Pre-Bake
for 10 minutes at 425 before adding the sauce. Pizza
Sauce: 1
15 ½ oz can tomato sauce 1/3
cup wine 1-2
Tbsp olive oil 3
cloves garlic, minced 1
tsp each of oregano, basil ¼
- ½ tsp cayenne, your judgment Salt/pepper
to taste
To
Begin: Sauté
garlic over medium flame until just brown. (Another wonderful addition
here is to throw in just enough sage sausage for flavor.) Add
tomato sauce, wine, oregano, basil, and cayenne. Stir this wine-darkened
broth until smooth. Bring to a brief bubble and turn down the heat to
medium low. Taste for salt, pepper, and spices, and touch them up as your
flavor preferences move you. Allow
your sauce to think about itself in a bare simmer for at least 30 minutes.
The flavors will mature over time, deepening into a richer, philosophical
brew as you go. Taste again, judge, taste, and correct the seasonings.
Loading
the Pizza: After
the focaccia has been pre-baked, pull it out and spoon the sauce over the
top, spreading it to the edges of the pizza. Don’t worry about having
leftover sauce. It won’t last long. Top-load
your pizza with whatever you love: a good shredded mozzarella, thinly
sliced sweet onions, etc., and bake for 10 – 15 more minutes until the
cheese is suntanned and the crusty edges are good and crispy. Remove pizza
from oven to a wire rack to briefly cool before eating.
June PuzzlerThe Founding Father of Ice Cream?Our fascination with ice cream is only matched by the number of legends it brings in tow. One tells how Marco Polo carried the treasured secrets of ice cream from the Orient. The Chinese invented spaghetti, did they also invent ice cream? Maybe. Some evidence shows that they enjoyed iced drinks and desserts. And in the 7th century A.D., King Tang of Shang, China created flavored ice/milk combinations.
If the stories are true, it may have crept into the Western palate
though the Arab traders, who were shown the Oriental trick of making a
kind of sherbet combination of syrup and snow. This intellectual
pollination spread to the Venetians, After the Middle Ages became the Renaissance, the French and Italian royals courts quickly made it a fashionable staple of their luxurious meals. The earliest American records show that the Governor of Maryland, as early as 1700, served it to his guests. As the Revolutionary War approached, you could buy it through a caterer by 1774, and the first ice cream parlor showed up in 1776. Who
ate ice cream? Everyone, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson,
and Dolly Madison are all on record as aficionados. But
the early "ice creams" were not like the recipes we have today,
because they didn't stem from a custard base. That innovation didn't occur
until about 1775 in, of course, France. This brilliant twist traveled to
the U.S., carried by one of the early Francophiles and food connoisseurs
of fine food, Thomas Jefferson. Like Nero, our third president had a cold room for snow and ice so he could make his ice cream. In fact, America’s first written recipe for ice cream is IN THE HAND of Thomas Jefferson (left). He borrowed it, with many other recipes from the French.
While Jefferson made this ice cream himself, it was no less popular from the store. There are records indicating that President Washington cooled off the summer of 1790 with around $200 worth of ice cream (quite a lot in 1790!).
And the famous Dolly Madison adorned her husband's second inaugural banquet with strawberry ice cream at the White House.
Technology caught up to demand in about 1800 when insulated icehouses turned a one-gallon dessert into an industry. Other mechanical refrigeration techniques soon showed up by mid-century, and before you knew it Americans were enjoying ice cream in record numbers.
Today, the U.S. produces a whopping 1.6 billion gallons of ice cream every single year.
Olive
Oil and Skin Cancer
Extra
virgin olive oil is good for your heart, great for your food, and now
wonderful data show the importance of olive oil for your skin. A
couple of recent studies highlight extra virgin olive oil's role in
preventing skin cancer. Researchers at the Kobe University of Japan
reported in the Journal of Dermatological Science that exposure to
UV radiation produced all the markers that lead to abnormal skin cells –
and that may also result in malignant tumors. However,
when extra virgin olive oil was applied to the skin after UV
exposure, the number of tumors that developed was reduced. Furthermore,
the tumors that did develop were smaller! The molecular markers that
indicate the potential development of tumors were also reduced. It
is thought that this happens because of the wonderful polyphenols and
natural antioxidants that olive oil is loaded with. These can help prevent
the DNA mutations that can lead to cancer. Although
the same result was later reported in the journal Carcinogenisis,
the response to these studies has been typical. Our medical establishment
worries out loud that we cannot restrain ourselves, and so they fear the
implications of good basic science. One doctor from the Cancer Research
Campaign responded, “To
suggest you can go out in the sun and frazzle, and then undo some of the
damage using olive oil does not seem terribly scientific to me.” Many
cardiac physicians fear that people will over-consume wine, and so never
recommend wine consumption (although an aspirin pill is just fine).
However, the original research states the limitations of the findings very
clearly. 1.
It’s
not a sunscreen.
It only works AFTER sun exposure, and does not block UV radiation at all. 2.
Sun
damages olive oil. In
fact, oil put on the skin before UV exposure makes it ineffective! 3.
It’s
not the skin cancer equivalent of a morning after pill.
Putting on olive oil after being out in the sun decreases sun damage, but
UV radiation effects can build up over time. Thus, it must be used in
combination with adequate sunscreen. ATTENTION
PARENTS:
Another
great resource is the American Cancer Society’s “Slip, Slap, Slop”
program (www.cancer.org),
which is a great way to remind kids about protective habits. Slip
on a shirt, slop on sunscreen, and slap on a hat to protect sensitive skin
from the sun’s UV light. Even if you are going out for brief durations,
just put it on. Another
strategy for you and your children is to put on a thin layer of olive oil
after a shower. It not only protects your skin, but makes it feel soft and
healthy as well. It
always has.
Putting
olive oil on your skin provides incredible moisturizing effects. It has
been used for all of recorded history, and this practice has even been
attributed to the gods of Olympus! The
Iliad
describes how Hera applied her olive oil. "The
ambrosia first. Hera cleansed her enticing body of any blemish, then she
applied a deep olive rub, the breath-taking, redolent oil she kept beside
her... one stir of the scent in the bronze-floored halls of Zeus and a
perfumed cloud would drift from heaven down to earth. Kneading her skin
with this to a soft glow and combing her hair...." (Book
14, lines 209-214) And
why not? Olives and olive oil are not only at the heart of the
Mediterranean cuisine, but even rest at the root of their beliefs. The
olive tree itself was created, legend informs us, as a contest between
Poseidon, god of the seas and Athena, goddess of wisdom. They were
competing to be the one who would ultimately protect a newly built city.
The god who could give the greatest gift to the people would be the
winner. The
Greeks followed the habits of their gods (or vice versa?) and applied
olive oil all over their bodies to make their skin supple. The bounty of
micronutrients, Vitamin E, and antioxidants found in olive oil lend modern
support to this tradition of the ages. By the way, even the consumption of olive oil may help your skin. A recent study in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition showed that certain foods helped to prevent the wrinkling that results from sun-damaged skin. Vegetables, legumes, and olive oil all protective against cutaneous damage from the sun. Prunes, apples and tea were also effective. In you or on you, extra virgin olive oil can be as wonderful for Hera and the early Greeks as it can be for us. |
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