Clean and Real Food
So about this Clean Food movement...
I googled Clean Food to ensure I understand this concept. Lo and behold, I do. Clean Food is what my grandmothers and aunts and great aunts cooked. Fresh meat and produce, often purchased the day of the meal, served as the backbone of our meals. As kids, we preferred canned vegetables over fresh--what was wrong with us?--and a small box of frozen veggies provided a special treat.
Once my grandmother sent me back to the store with a head of broccoli because she thought it looked terrible. Freshness was paramount to her. She also knew how various foods were good for you. Onions contributed to shiny hair. Carrots kept your eyesight sharp. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Red meat put protein to build muscles and iron for red blood cells. I'm sure there were more and I wish I remembered them.
The Panera commercials touting their clean and real food caught my attention because frankly, they annoyed me. First, if you're familiar with these ads, you have to admit the voice over is grating, at best. It requires dedication or laziness to stay tuned to the channel or not hit mute while the commercial is playing. But then clean food? As opposed to what, dirty food? And real food, as opposed to what, fake food? Frankly, this saddens me because every once in a while, I love me a Panera salad and their chicken noodle soup is pretty darned close to homemade, in my opinion. Their clean and real campaign has ruined it for me. That and, if you've been in a Panera lately, the fact that you don't have to interact with the person behind the counter to place your order. You can do it on a computer screen positioned right in the ordering area instead. Really?
Regular readers will recognize that I am, whether I want to admit it or not, a member of the Clean Food movement. I cook from scratch, i.e. clean and real, most days. I don't want to be a member of the movement, however, so I am disavowing any association. My preference is that I am paying homage to my grandmothers and aunts and great aunts who knew how to stretch their tight dollars and cook fabulous meals from scratch. So there.
Let's take this to another level. The Clean Food movement in, of all things, DOG FOOD.
I'm not sure of the brand, but I have heard dog food commercials touting clean food for dogs. Dogs. Scavengers. Animals who will eat their own poop or the poop of another dog, if provided the opportunity, and if not provided the opportunity, will rip your arm out of its socket while you are walking said dog to get to the poop it smells up to a mile away. Animals who will roll in their own poop or the poop or carcass of any other animal. Canines are not particularly discerning critters when it comes to eating. My sister's Bichon once jumped onto the counter and consumed an entire stick of butter. Our previous beagle, Emmit, chowed down on 3 raw bacon wrapped filets that were held together with metal skewers and did not pause to spit out the skewers. (We watched his poop for days afterward to see if he discarded the skewers. Never found them. We think they're in his box of ashes.) This summer, Hank's favorite activity has been to steal my daily brunch of an open faced ham sandwich on rye bread with mayo, fresh garden tomatoes and romaine, cut into fourths. And do you know what that dog does? He stealthily approaches the plate, then before I can holler, "NO! YOU BASTARD!" he grabs one fourth, gobbles the ham (the processed portion of the meal), and leaves the bread, tomato and romaine (the clean and real section).
Of course I know that these products and ads are marketed to the dog owners, not the dogs themselves. To that I say, "NAY NAY" (from John Pinette, RIP). Yet another reason to disassociate yourself from the Clean Food movement. In our house, when I was growing up, I don't even remember if we bought specifically labeled and packaged dog food for our toy fox terrier, Gus. I'm pretty sure he just got table scraps and he lived a log and basically healthy life. He once peed on my friend's junior prom dress but I'm not blaming that on diet.
COOKING:
My garden is still producing tomatoes and my son-in-law Pete's garden is just finishing its eggplant, so I looked through the NYTimes Cooking section for recipes with both vegetables. Maggie and I cooked a ribollita to which we added the eggplant and actually used a recipe I had in my recipe box (yes, I still keep the old fashioned recipe box and recipe cards). Instead of simply cooking the eggplant down in the soup/stew, Maggie did the following:
1. Turn on oven broiler.
2. Cut eggplant into small chunks. Put into a bowl, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper.
3. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread out the chunks on the baking sheet.
4. Put under the broiler for approximately 4 minutes or until first side is browned. Turn chunks over and repeat.
5. Put browned chunks on microwave proof plate and put into microwave for 3 minutes. Then add to ribollita.
Doing all these might seem kind of time consuming, but it really did bring out the nuttiness in the eggplant.
BACK TO WORK:
You may not have checked out my web site, The Road Next Taken, so you could take a second to do so before continuing. Late last spring I submitted these classes to various Community Education departments and now am hoping that they garner enough interest so I can teach them! So far the cancellations are outweighing the classes that run. I'm just slightly frustrated because most people I talk to indicate that the topics are relevant--obviously I think so, too. I appreciate that these are "softer" topics, not the nuts and bolts related to retirement (i.e. the financial aspects of retirement planning). So if any of you marketing geniuses out there have some suggestions on how I can reach this pre-retirement/early retirement/retired population, please weigh in.
I googled Clean Food to ensure I understand this concept. Lo and behold, I do. Clean Food is what my grandmothers and aunts and great aunts cooked. Fresh meat and produce, often purchased the day of the meal, served as the backbone of our meals. As kids, we preferred canned vegetables over fresh--what was wrong with us?--and a small box of frozen veggies provided a special treat.
Once my grandmother sent me back to the store with a head of broccoli because she thought it looked terrible. Freshness was paramount to her. She also knew how various foods were good for you. Onions contributed to shiny hair. Carrots kept your eyesight sharp. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Red meat put protein to build muscles and iron for red blood cells. I'm sure there were more and I wish I remembered them.
The Panera commercials touting their clean and real food caught my attention because frankly, they annoyed me. First, if you're familiar with these ads, you have to admit the voice over is grating, at best. It requires dedication or laziness to stay tuned to the channel or not hit mute while the commercial is playing. But then clean food? As opposed to what, dirty food? And real food, as opposed to what, fake food? Frankly, this saddens me because every once in a while, I love me a Panera salad and their chicken noodle soup is pretty darned close to homemade, in my opinion. Their clean and real campaign has ruined it for me. That and, if you've been in a Panera lately, the fact that you don't have to interact with the person behind the counter to place your order. You can do it on a computer screen positioned right in the ordering area instead. Really?
Regular readers will recognize that I am, whether I want to admit it or not, a member of the Clean Food movement. I cook from scratch, i.e. clean and real, most days. I don't want to be a member of the movement, however, so I am disavowing any association. My preference is that I am paying homage to my grandmothers and aunts and great aunts who knew how to stretch their tight dollars and cook fabulous meals from scratch. So there.
Let's take this to another level. The Clean Food movement in, of all things, DOG FOOD.
I'm not sure of the brand, but I have heard dog food commercials touting clean food for dogs. Dogs. Scavengers. Animals who will eat their own poop or the poop of another dog, if provided the opportunity, and if not provided the opportunity, will rip your arm out of its socket while you are walking said dog to get to the poop it smells up to a mile away. Animals who will roll in their own poop or the poop or carcass of any other animal. Canines are not particularly discerning critters when it comes to eating. My sister's Bichon once jumped onto the counter and consumed an entire stick of butter. Our previous beagle, Emmit, chowed down on 3 raw bacon wrapped filets that were held together with metal skewers and did not pause to spit out the skewers. (We watched his poop for days afterward to see if he discarded the skewers. Never found them. We think they're in his box of ashes.) This summer, Hank's favorite activity has been to steal my daily brunch of an open faced ham sandwich on rye bread with mayo, fresh garden tomatoes and romaine, cut into fourths. And do you know what that dog does? He stealthily approaches the plate, then before I can holler, "NO! YOU BASTARD!" he grabs one fourth, gobbles the ham (the processed portion of the meal), and leaves the bread, tomato and romaine (the clean and real section).
A sated Hank after eating my ham sandwich
Of course I know that these products and ads are marketed to the dog owners, not the dogs themselves. To that I say, "NAY NAY" (from John Pinette, RIP). Yet another reason to disassociate yourself from the Clean Food movement. In our house, when I was growing up, I don't even remember if we bought specifically labeled and packaged dog food for our toy fox terrier, Gus. I'm pretty sure he just got table scraps and he lived a log and basically healthy life. He once peed on my friend's junior prom dress but I'm not blaming that on diet.
COOKING:
My garden is still producing tomatoes and my son-in-law Pete's garden is just finishing its eggplant, so I looked through the NYTimes Cooking section for recipes with both vegetables. Maggie and I cooked a ribollita to which we added the eggplant and actually used a recipe I had in my recipe box (yes, I still keep the old fashioned recipe box and recipe cards). Instead of simply cooking the eggplant down in the soup/stew, Maggie did the following:
1. Turn on oven broiler.
2. Cut eggplant into small chunks. Put into a bowl, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper.
3. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread out the chunks on the baking sheet.
4. Put under the broiler for approximately 4 minutes or until first side is browned. Turn chunks over and repeat.
5. Put browned chunks on microwave proof plate and put into microwave for 3 minutes. Then add to ribollita.
Doing all these might seem kind of time consuming, but it really did bring out the nuttiness in the eggplant.
BACK TO WORK:
You may not have checked out my web site, The Road Next Taken, so you could take a second to do so before continuing. Late last spring I submitted these classes to various Community Education departments and now am hoping that they garner enough interest so I can teach them! So far the cancellations are outweighing the classes that run. I'm just slightly frustrated because most people I talk to indicate that the topics are relevant--obviously I think so, too. I appreciate that these are "softer" topics, not the nuts and bolts related to retirement (i.e. the financial aspects of retirement planning). So if any of you marketing geniuses out there have some suggestions on how I can reach this pre-retirement/early retirement/retired population, please weigh in.
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