Specialty of the House

It's Monday evening and there is little on TV we want to see at our house. So, one thing that helps us when we want to ignore media on a chilly, damp night is lighting every candle in the house, and, well, if it's Monday, watching House. On Fox. One of the only two Fox shows we ever watch. Just House walking gimpily around the hospital, the playground, the pre-school, or the parking lot.

The curmudgeonly Dr. House, played hunkily by Hugh Laurie, is about as far removed from Laurie's former BBC roles in such Jane Austen productions as Pride and Prejudice as Michael Keaton's Batman role was from Mr. Mom. But TV is what plays in the living room while the dishes are being washed and the leftovers are put away.

There are houses in which life may be more sublime, but not houses where we can be more at home.

I am grateful for those moments in our home in which the Specialty of the House includes dinner on Dan's Aunt Laura's embroidered placemats, Dori's Mema's antique plates, Dan's Grandpa's silver, and Dori's Grandma Marshall's crystal. Add to that the fact that we have fresh food to eat and a solid roof over our heads, our Specialty of the House seems to be:. blessing

You Say Po-TAY-to, I Say Po-TAH-to

When I paint food still life, I like to include a lot of appealing colors, just as I would in any painting. A recent venture that illustrates this tendency is my sunflower painting, "There is Room for All in the Garden". I used a saturated palette inspired by Kandinsky which gave the painting verve and great warmth. During my 30-day self-imposed Lenten discipline of painting my dinners every night, I tried to make sure there was enough color to keep the eye and this artist interested. I don't like brown paintings, and I don't much like brown food, either.

You see before you the one exception: The humble potato. This one is a great big Idaho baker, brown as dirt. Others are red, yellow, gold, pink, and even purple. Most of us, though, if we're being honest, have grown up with one that looks like this.

Now, when Vincent VanGogh wanted to use the potato in his art, in his famous rendering of "The Potato Eaters", he used almost a monochromatic brown palette which evoked the humble status and uninteresting lives of the peasants. Look closely and you realize that he's gone even further, and the people themselves sort of look brown and uninteresting, like the potatoes.

So potatoes have gotten a rather sad reputation. It's no wonder our culture has tried to make them more interesting by deep-frying them, saucing them, drowning them in chili, and otherwise adding unwanted saturated fats and calories. It's too bad, because a whole potato, baked or roasted with its skin on, is a beautiful food. A medium-size 5-ouncer comes equipped with 110 calories, -0- grams of fat, and 26 grams of carbohydrate. It contains 4 grams of dietary fiber, and is a good source of vitamin C. (Source: www.CalorieKing.com)

On the other hand, Frito Lay peels them, slices them thin, and processes them in hot oil (sunflower, canola, or corn according to the package ingredients). By the time you eat 15 of the chips, so much of the surface area of your serving has been exposed to the deep-fryer that you're loading up 160 calories, 90 of which are from fat. You can say po-tay-to or you can say po-tah-to, whichever you prefer, but you can't say that they're beautiful food any longer. In fact, it's somewhat of a question whether they're still even vegetables by this point.

Anyway, I suppose since one point of this series is to wonder aloud about what our food is doing to sustain us and enrich our lives, I feel thankful for the humble brown potato and its hidden inner beauty. It certainly has a place in a healthy diet! But it's worth remembering that we pay a price every time we drive through and super-size our fries or eat half the bag of chips. I bet you really can't eat just one! Of course, there's this piece of logic from my husband Dan: A serving of potato chips once a week isn't going to kill you...

...today.

MUFA's

Monounsaturated fatty acids, or MUFA's for short, sound like they belong in a chemistry class, not on a blog about art and food. Yet it makes perfect sense to include consideration of fats in any discussion of food, and it makes even more sense to include MUFA's in the discussion of beautiful food.

For quite some time now, we have been aware of the dangers to our hearts of saturated fats. These are the kind of fats that come primarily from animal sources. (Think bacon, butter, lard, and cream) They are generally solid at room temperature. The problem with including too much of them in the diet is that they contribute to health issues such as high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, risk of stroke, and hypertension.

MUFA's on the other hand, while still fats and still high in calories, show evidence of having a beneficial effect on health provided we don't overindulge and remember that we shouldn't have more than about 20-35 percent of our daily calories from ANY kind of fat.

Here's what the Mayo Clinic has recently said about these friendly fats:
"Consuming monounsaturated fatty acids may help lower your risk of heart disease by improving associated risk factors. For instance, MUFAs may lower your total blood cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels. MUFAs may also help normalize blood clotting. And some research shows that MUFAs may also benefit insulin levels and blood sugar control, which can be especially helpful if you have type 2 diabetes."

And here's why they have a place in any discussion of beautiful food: Not only do they help do good things for our health and energy when added to the diet in place of saturated fats or trans-fats, they're beautiful to look at, to cook with, to taste, to crunch, and they improve the "satisfaction" quality of even the most calorie-conscious meal. That's because they are found in:

• Avocadoes


• Canola oil


• Nuts (Almonds, cashews, pecans, macadamias)


• Nut butters


• Olive oil


• Olives


• Peanut oil


• Sesame seeds


• Dark chocolate

Now if you have always thought these products were on the taboo list for dieters, let me assure you, your diet just got more beautiful. Here are some ideas:

Chop up 4 pecan halves and sprinkle on top of a salad instead of cheese or crumbled bacon.
Dress up a grilled filet of chicken or white fish (snapper, cod, halibut, tilapia, etc.) with a spoonful of olive tapenade during the last minute or so of grilling.
Experiment with different dark chocolates and find one that you really enjoy. When a sweet tooth attack strikes, have an ounce and really enjoy it.
Stir fry using only MUFA oils like canola or peanut. They're stable at high heat, and you can add a tablespoon of sesame oil to the pan. Then sprinkle sesame seeds on top before serving.
Substitute olive oil for butter when making a sautee. Keep a few different kinds of oils on hand and get to know their flavors.
Cut an avocado into chunks and add a couple of tablespoons to a fruit smoothie or mix them into a fruit salad. They add beautiful color to a salad and velvety "mouth-feel" to smoothies.
Dip fresh, washed, and dried strawberries into melted dark chocolate and let cool. Great dessert!
And, lastly, a tip from my friend Gary, who suggests making guacamole (good use of avocados) with part mashed peas, to raise the amount of fiber and reduce the calorie count!

So, before plopping that spoonful of butter into a hot saute pan, think about how MUFA's beautify us froom the inside out, and reach for the olive oil instead! (Or the peanut, or the canola....)

Susan's Beautiful Breakfast

The above pic was taken by my husband's cousin, Susan Evans, while she was in Barbados. That's right, Barbados! She is an amazing woman, a bicyclist, entrepreneur, professional tennis instructor, and, now, a surfer. While teaching tennis at a Caribbean resort, she found time to spend considerable time surfing. She also takes folks on breathtaking bike adventures. Dan and I have had an inordinate amount of vicarious fun enjoying her Facebook pictures and imagining ourselves off to the islands instead of slogging to work every day.

I wanted to publish this picture and Susan gave me permission to boost it from her site. Now, imagine a breakfast like this looking up at you some morning when you can barely open your eyes and you think you need a short stack and some bacon to fortify you for the day ahead. Look at the sweet green of the honeydew, the warm gold of the pineapple, the mellow peachy tones of canteloupe. Notice how they contrast with the deep ruddy blush of the grapes-don't the colors just make it pop right off the picture plane?

That's good color design, and even better plate design. A little lean protein, some interesting tea or coffee, and wherever it is you find yourself awakening, you could be having this breakfast from the islands, stoking up pure energy for a day of surfing or bicycling or tennis...and this kind of presentation isn't complicated or difficult!

Try doing this kind of delicate arrangement to feast your eyes and lift your spirits for yourself. To combat these last few gray days of dreary weather, this will perk you up better than the heavy carbs we crave. But wait, you say-I only have time for a bagel and cream cheese! No, coax yourself clean, I say! Cut the fruit the night before, and when serving use a beautiful or unique dish that you usually only pull out for company. Add a scoop of low fat vanilla yogurt or a slice of diet toast with a little almond butter, and voila! You're ready to hit the surf.

Cowabunga!

So Much Easier Than the Food Pyramid

What a thrilling day for artists! What a thrilling day for foodies! Today, the famous Food Pyramid has been replaced with the MyPlate!

What a thrilling day for clean eating! We have finally pried Wonder Bread and other pseudo-foods posing as the cornerstone of dietary health out from under the foundation of the Most Stable (and boring) of all artistic compositions: the Pyramid. So long, farewell, auf weidersoehn, good-bye! Those of us who have struggled long and hard against the domination of refined wheat-based food producers in the interest of clean eating are happier tonight.

Something to consider: What ancient structure has endured longer than any other human-built piece of architecture? The PYRAMIDS. What compositional shape forms the most visually static framework for a picture (and we see it in even some of the most famous paintings of history like the Mona Lisa) What also happens to be the most boring form in which to organize a painting? A PYRAMID. And how unhelpful and unhealthy we now know it to be as a model for eating today.

The great thing that has replaced it is the MyPlate. You will notice MyPlate's circular composition, the circle being synonomous with eternity. It is balanced; yet suggests an internal assymmetry. The colored divisions selected remind us of the basic building blocks of all the best paintings-namely, the color wheel. Even the little blue circle representing dairy off to the right reminds us of that lasting modern graphic icon, the mouse who lives in Orlando and Anaheim. (You know I'm right about this-so it's just one ear. No analogy is perfect.)

As much fun as I can find to poke at both of these models, I am grateful for the movement in our country to try to bring awareness to the state of the American diet. As we retire the pyramid, we admit the shortcomings of a diet based heavily on overprocessed grains and accept the salubrious effects of a diet rich in vegetables and fruits, as represented by the plate.

Eating clean fits smack into the MyPlate model-there is no "wiggle room" as there once was on the bottom tier of the pyramid to hide a Twinkie or a slice of cheesecake unnoticed amid 7 or 8 camouflaging "bread and cereal" products. So in keeping with the eating clean thread for the month, can we see the beauty in the bowl (er, plate) of the beholder? Can we get excited about lean and clean foods, foods that come more directly from field, stream, garden, or tree? Can we say we won't subsidize trash foods with tax exemptions?

I certainly hope we can. Our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren hang in the balance.

News Flash!

This is not today's installment of "The HeART of Food"! This is just because I'm bursting to tell how delighted and honored I am to have my painting, "There is Room for All in the Garden", awarded first prize in my category, Professional Artists, in the N.A.M.I. Sunflower Art Show!

This is a 16"x20" oil painting which shows an exuberant flower bed of diverse colors, forms, and lines, calling to mind the diversity of our community.

The Davis Art Center is host to this fantastic show, which supports mental illness awareness and advocacy. Please go and see the show which runs to June 23rd, and join us for the Artists' Reception on Friday, June 10th from 6:30 to 8:30.

This is Not a Bowl of Cherries

As a young adult I never had a weight problem. I could order a full meal of steak, baked potato, and a couple of cocktails and still want a piece of pie when the dessert trolley rolled up. Part of the reason was that I was young. I was also much more active - weekends at the park, the golf course, or the beach. Weeknights after work there were games of volleyball, softball, or a jog around the neighborhood. At 100 pounds, I could kill off a pitcher of beer and a medium pizza all by myself after a night of volleyball.

After my kids came along, I walked around the neighborhood with dog and stroller or took the little guys sledding in winter, swimming in summer, and playing at the park year-round. We knew all the best playgrounds in the county!

When I became a single mother, buying and preparing nutritious food that would both fit into my budget and that my kids would eat was a nightmare. I can still recall stocking the pantry with sale items only to have one or the other boy announce he was "off" that particular food. Cooking every night from scratch after a long day at work was out of the question, but convenience food meant overloading on ingredients that none of us should eat.

"Eating clean" is the term I learned from the book "The Writing Diet" by Julia Cameron, author of "The Artist's Way". She uses it to describe eating in such a way that one eats mindfully, eliminating those substances such as sugar and fat that weigh us down physically.

When I think of clean eating, for me it means taking charge of food, neither vilifying nor glorifying it, but appreciating its ability to provide nourishment, promote health, beautify my life, and sustain energy. It also means paring down my food just as I would a painting: in the composition of a painting, I consider line, shape, color, form. If something doesn't add to the overall quality of the painting, it needs to be eliminated in the interest of the whole.

In diet, what is truly beautiful can be conserved. The nutritional essence of whole vegetables, fruits, sustainably farmed poultry and meat, whole grain products, and dairy. Consider cherries, for instance. They are in season now, and pretty affordable. They are so stunning that I am reminded of Luke 12 wherein Jesus said:

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your
life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. [23]For life
is more than food, and the body more than clothing. [24]Consider the ravens:
they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God
feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!"

Just think how true this is-this gorgeous food is so plentiful it grows on trees! Right out there in the open where anyone can see it, the birds can eat their fill, and there is more than enough for me! We don't have to labor in cherry mines, we don't have to fish in the deep blue sea for it. It just grows, right there, on TREES.

When I took this picture, I thought for a moment that these were so amazing, how could I bear to consume them? And then I realized: How could I not?

Food this beautiful comes as a gift, whether we've purchased it with money or it's fallen over the neighbor's fence free into our back yard. And at only 30 little calories for a serving like this, I can say yes over and over and over again.