For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

I found a stellar collection of thought provoking stories this week. Did you know that the HDL story is more complicated than we originally speculated, even Paleo advocates can acknowledge that how you eat is important and that drinking more can be good for you? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

I read many more wonderful articles than I post here each week. If you’d like to see more or just don’t want to wait until Friday, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@summertomato) or the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. For a complete list of my favorite stories check out my links on Digg. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• High Level of ‘Good’ Cholesterol Alone May Not Protect Heart <<Once again science shows that the story is more complicated than we originally suspected. Good cholesterol has a function, and if it doesn’t work having more around doesn’t help much. (Medline)
• The Perfect Posterior: Kettlebell Swings and Cheap Alternatives <<Awesome tutorial and videos on creating sexy booties with kettlebell swings. (Tim Ferriss)
• UK Scientist Suggests Rebranding GM Crops As “Vaccinated” To Win Over Consumers <<BS of the week. Does this even make sense? Would anyone be more excited to eat “vaccinated” food? Nasty. (Treehugger)
• You Are How You Eat <<Props to Mark Sisson for acknowledging that there’s more to healthy eating than choosing the right foods. (Mark’s Daily Apple)
• Book review: Gary Taubes’ Why We Get Fat <<I haven’t read Taubes‘ new book yet, but I really respect Yoni Freedhoff and he had harsh things to say, though strangely agrees with Taubes’ ultimate conclusions. In a word: oversimplification. (Weighty Matters)
• Heart disease risk rises with time spent sitting <<Does TV play a major role in your life? You might be setting yourself up for heart disease. (Los Angeles Times)
• What Do You Want To Be Made Of? <<Lovely and thoughtful piece by Nick at Macheesmo about what and why we eat.
• Men who drink moderately may be at lower risk for Type 2 diabetes <<What I like about this study is they looked at people who increased their drinking as opposed to maintained light drinking, suggesting that changing your behavior may actually help. (Los Angeles Times)
• Have a Food Allergy? It’s Time to Recheck <<More evidence that your food allergies are probably imaginary. (New York Times)
• Winter Quinoa Salad with Mixed Beans and Tahini-Chili Dressing <<I adore tahini, and this recipe looks delicious. (Former Chef)

What inspired you this week?

Blood Oranges

This week was my first farmers market trip of 2011, and it’s great to be back. I’m happy to see that in the few weeks I was away the full array of winter citrus fruits has now become available, from brilliantly colored blood oranges to giant pomelos.

Blood oranges with their deep red flesh have a much richer juice than their navel counterparts, and are a fantastic addition to winter cocktails and elixers.

Pomelo

Navel Oranges

Here in San Francisco you can also find several varietals of mandarins, the satsuma being the most prevalent. These are great easy snacks because they are small in size and their skin is particularly easy to peel. You can also find grapefruit, lemon, lime and citron, and we’ll be exploring these more in the coming weeks.

Besides citrus, you can also find pears, persimmons, pomegranates and kiwi this time of year. The persimmon I tasted this week might have been the best I’ve ever tried (at Kashiwase Farm), and I recommend getting them while you can since they will only be around a few more weeks. Same for the pears and pomegranates.

Persimmon

Shun Li Asian Pears

I also really love winter vegetables. This season my attention usually turns to hearty greens like kale and chard, as well as winter squash (delicata are my favorite, followed by kambocha–neither of which require peeling).

Delicata Squash

Swiss Chard

I’ve also really been enjoying cabbage lately, playing around with recipes for coleslaw, sauerkraut and kimchi.

Organic Cilantro

Winter Produce

And though I tend to forget about them (but totally shouldn’t), now is the time for root vegetables like radishes, potatoes, sunchokes and fennel. I made an effort this week to bring some home with me.

Fennel

Sunchokes

I can’t get over how pretty these watermelon radishes are.

Watermelon Radish Slice

This time of year I also cook a lot of beans and lentils. The heirloom beans at Rancho Gordo have received national attention for their amazing flavors and textures. I have an impressive collection of them in my pantry.

Scream Sorbet

Rancho Gordo Beans

Finally, though I’m not a sweets person these days (I have completely given up sugar in January) I was happy to see Scream Sorbet has now set up a booth at the Saturday farmers market (previously they only sold on Thursdays). Scream is amazing because they create local, seasonal sorbet flavors that will blow you away. It’s pretty common when inquiring about an ingredient in one of their sorbets to have them point at a nearby produce stand and say, “we’re using those grapes right there.” How awesome is that?

As always I had a wonderful time and it was totally worth dragging myself out of bed, even on a Saturday.

If you’d like to share your farmers market experience at Summer Tomato, please read this.

Today’s purchases*:

• Sunchokes (Chue’s Farm)
• Sweet yams (Chue’s Farm)
• Fennel (Chue’s Farm)
• Persimmons (Kashiwase Farm)
• Mandarins (Olsen Organic Farm)
• Pomegranate juice (Twin Girls Farm)

*I overslept a bit and the market was pretty picked over. My bad.

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Before we get started, I want to send you over to Quirky to help a little more with our farmers market bag design. We’ve already picked a winner, but now we’re looking to add features that will take it from awesome to super duper awesome. I know some of you are brilliant, so please come by and submit your ideas and modifications. Even if you don’t have anything to add, please vote on your favorite features.

After a lot of time off, we have some wonderful and inspiring stories this week. 3 simple recipes could set you up for life in the kitchen, more farmers markets are staying through the winter, and the “all carbs are better than all fat” dogma is finally being kicked to the curb.

I read many more wonderful articles than I post here each week. If you’d like to see more or just don’t want to wait until Friday, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@summertomato) or the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. For a complete list of my favorite stories check out my links on Digg. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• 3 Recipes to change your life and the world <<Just getting started cooking and eating healthy? It’s much easier than you think. All it takes is 3 basic recipes to get started, according to Mark Bittman. (New York Times)
• More Farmers’ Markets Expand To Year-Round <<How awesome is this?! Seems voting with your fork (and dollar) is actually working. Don’t worry America, better food and markets are heading your way–all year! (Huffington Post)
• A reversal on carbs <<Hopefully this is not news to anyone here, but it’s good to see that science is finally overtaking decades of nutrition dogma. Truth FTW! (Los Angeles Times)
• Americans Falsely Believe Their Diet Is Healthy <<Possibly related to the above stated dogma, 90% of the population of the most unhealthy country ever thinks they’re doing a darn good job in the nutrition department. Yikes. (Discovery News)
• Bread at top of UK sodium-rich food purchases <<BS of the week. The BS here is not the finding (it’s hard to argue with), it’s the conclusions drawn by the scientists and, therefore, the journalist. Data says a bunch of crappy processed food is filled with sodium–bread being highest on the list–and the conclusion is not that we should eat less crap, but that we should ask food manufacturers to add less salt. Somehow I doubt everyone would become magically healthier. (Medline)
• Year In Dieting: Distraction, Noise Cause Overeating <<More evidence that being present and eating mindfully can help curb overeating. (NPR)
• Phys Ed: Does Exercising Make You Drink More Alcohol? <<Cause and effect still isn’t sorted out, but isn’t this interesting? I know for sure it applies to me and most of my friends. (New York Times)
• Fishy diet comes with lower risk of stroke <<Good news for fish eaters, bad news for vegetarians. It’s still not clear what exactly in fish makes it so healthy, but isolating omega-3s hasn’t helped much. (Medline)
• The Five Obstacles to Eating Right <<This looks like it might prove to be an interesting series on the obstacles to healthy eating. Probably worth following along. (Slate)
• Stovetop “Sous Vide” Episode 1: The Best Duck Breast Ever <<Sous vide without spending $450? Yes please. (Food Wishes)