Pleasant House

baby lettuces on the balcony

Last Sunday’s “60 Minutes” broadcast featured Ben Bernanke and Alice Waters. Each had something to say about the broken state of their respective systems. Bernanke is trying to resuscitate the economy and Waters, our diet. I’m not here to argue which one is more important, but I will say that they both have an uphill battle.

After watching and digesting the Alice Waters segment, Chelsea thought about and dissected the dish that Waters prepared for the “60 Minutes” correspondent, Leslie Stahl. Setting the stage for their breakfast, Waters snipped some herbs and lettuces from her garden and did a little prep work with Stahl in her beautiful home kitchen befit with a massive brick hearth. Garden-fresh tomatoes and herbs were chopped, country bread was grilled, and a farm-fresh egg was roasted on a spoon over the open fire. The dish was then embellished with a drizzle of Tuscan (?) olive oil. Nothing wrong with Tuscan olive oil, I just don’t see the need when you’ve got an incredible olive industry in California and a never-ending supply of fresh-pressed Sciabica olive oil. I’m just nit-picking, though.

heirloom tomatoes and basil

Waters and Stahl dug into their three-star Chez Panisse-style breakfast, with Stahl christening it the perfect breakfast–or something to that degree. I would have to agree with her; as I type this I am making myself hungry just thinking about it. But Chel brought up the fact that even though this meal was assembled by the humanitarian proprietor of an expensive world-famous restaurant, it’s something that many regular people throughout middle America could put together–meaning, both grow and prepare–themselves, for a very reasonable price. (I wish Waters and/or Stahl had touched upon this during the report. -Chel) After all, with the exception of the expensive Tuscan olive oil, Waters is using humble ingredients and an open flame.

Chel grew up in the country, just outside a small-big town in the middle of Kansas. She has always loved food, and had dreams of becoming a chef. Good wholesome food was always a part of her life. There were always chickens running around and laying fresh eggs, bushels of garden-fresh tomatoes, herbs and vegetables, hand-raised livestock for meat, and a mom who could make a mean pot roast.

I remember going with Chel to Kansas for a summer wedding and preparing a fresh bean salad to take to a family barbecue. I headed out to the garden and picked some green beans, pole beans, wax beans, a couple different kinds of basil, and a little bit of red onion. After some simple blanching and shocking, a little chiffonading, and a simple vinaigrette, I had put together something that could have been worthy of serving alongside a crisp-roast guinea fowl at Chez Panisse (if I should say so myself), but instead served it on paper plates with some grilled burgers to be eaten by a less haute audience. Oh yeah, guinea fowl…something else Chel remembers seeing running around the yard when she was a little girl.

Winter wheat, which grows spectacularly in Kansas and the grain from which good flour is derived, combined with a little yeast, flour, and water is the basis of any good loaf of bread. So there we have it–all the raw materials for Waters’s fancy chef breakfast are not only a common sight in anytown USA, they are closer to free than three-star. Olive oil, you say? Well, Walmart probably has something suitable, and Tuscany and California are only a click away.

Chelsea baking quick bread

While Alice Waters would certainly not condone shopping at Walmart, she should be able to understand what people’s choices are in less cosmopolitan areas. I see Waters getting slammed a lot lately for her seemingly self-righteous attitude about organic and sustainable food. It’s true that people don’t like to be force fed ideology, and that’s okay. People don’t have to believe that organics are better than the alternative, or that the White House should have a vegetable garden. But people should at least know how to cook.

organic extra-virgin olive oil from Walmart

Waters’s efforts to teach children how to garden and how to cook should be commended and rewarded. So, too, should the efforts of any person, organization, or school for teaching young people about growing food and how to prepare it. It’s time we take control of the enlightening and enjoyable task of feeding ourselves and our families. I’ve written before that one of the enjoyable aspects of foraging for local ingredients is the excitement of finding something good and nutritious right under my nose. We have so many good foods right under our feet, but many of us are lost when it comes to identifiying or knowing how to prepare them. If people became knowledgable about cooking techniques and handling fresh ingredients, Waters’s dish that she prepared for “60 Minutes” would make practical sense and wouldn’t seem so out of reach.

Obviously, not everyone lives in the country and not everyone who lives in the country has a garden or chickens. But chances are their neighbors do. And in the city, farm-fresh choices are usually in the form of a farmer’s market or a good grocery store. In the city we also have other valuable resources right around the corner in ethnic markets, which are overflowing with fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, and meat. These markets are often in the poorer neighborhoods to cater to their respective immigrant populations. The fact that fresh markets in ethnic neighborhoods are a given is worthy of a post all of its own. Again, the raw materials are everywhere, but do we know enough to take advantage of them? I like to think that it’s never too late to learn.