Produce: Is Organic Always Best?

Take an inventory of my shopping cart on any given Sunday and chances are you will see a good number of organic products in it. But I do not exclusively shop organic. For this post I’m just going to focus on produce. Fruits and vegetables. Yes, I buy the organic mac n’ cheese, organic juices, and some other items, but it is the produce where I find myself having a hard time committing. It’s not so much the higher prices that bother me, or the limited selection. For me it’s all about quality.

My number one consideration when choosing ingredients is TASTE. The fresher a piece of fruit or a vegetable is the better it is going to taste. Much of the organic produce in supermarkets just doesn’t have the same quality of their conventionally grown counterparts. From the organic domain I’ve had woody celery, pulpy apples and pears, oranges that taste like they’ve been refrigerated and thawed multiple times, and grapes that were dead before they hit my cart. I am seeing a lot of organic produce wrapped in plastic and Styrofoam so that its shelf life can be extended. Since not as many people buy organic produce it has a lower turnover. Supermarkets pay more for this organic produce and lose more money when the organic goods expire. So they try their best to keep it on the shelves as long as they can. In addition to this a lot of the organic produce is warehoused and trucked from far distances because of limited number or lack of local suppliers. The longer it takes fresh produce to reach the supermarket and your kitchen the less fresh it is going to be.

What about the environmental impact of organic produce? I never thought much about it before, I always assumed that going organic would always be the green way to go. But there have been some studies that argue organic goods have a worse impact on the environment compared to conventional produce, this article in the UK talks about it. I strongly disagree with these findings and I am suspicious of who and what groups are behind these studies (I’m thinking big-time corporate industrial farms). The transportation of organic produce is cited as a big carbon emitter, but if you look at all the conventional fruit in stores this time of year – much of it is from South America! What if I want to eat a low-emission peach or nectarine? Do I need to fly to Chile? Oh wait, no that would use gas.

Japanese Inspired Turkey Burgers

I have made burgers out of ground turkey before but never thought they were great. Usually tasteless, dry, and would often fall apart while cooking. Today I had some ground turkey in the fridge and some nice fresh hard rolls so I set out to invent my own creation - Japanese inspired turkey burgers with a wasabi mayo. The juices of the vegetables keep the burger moist, the egg holds it all together, and the mayo has a little kick to it. Makes four burgers.

Ingredients for the burger patties:
4 hard rolls
1 pound ground turkey meat
1 small yellow onion
1 scallion (green onion)
2 stalks of celery
1 carrot
1 clove of garlic
1 T. fresh chopped cilantro
1 T. soy sauce
1 T. olive oil
1 egg
2 T. unseasoned breadcrumbs
2 whole water chestnuts from can
1/4 t. kosher salt
1/4 t. black pepper
a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds

Ingredients for the wasabi mayo:
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1 T. fresh chopped cilantro
1 T. white horseradish (or the wasabi equivalent)
1 t. soy sauce
1 t. olive oil
1 pinch black pepper

Preparing the burgers:
Finely chop the onion, scallion, celery, carrot, water chestnuts, and garlic. Heat olive oil in a skillet. Add chopped items to skillet. Saute vegetables over med-high heat for about 5 minutes leaving them about 75% cooked still with a little crunch left. Remove from heat.

In a large mixing bowl add the ground turkey, egg, soy sauce, breadcrumbs, cilantro, black pepper, and sesame seeds. Add sauteed vegetables to bowl and combine all ingredients with your hands. Don't over mix. Shape the mixture into 4 burger patties, try to keep them rather flat and of bigger diameter than the hard rolls because they will get taller, yet horizontally smaller as they cook.

Place patties in a hot skillet after prepping with a coating of olive oil. Make sure bottom sides are seared and browned before turning over to finish. It should take about 12 - 14 minutes to cook the burgers. Burgers should be a little soft to the touch. If they are firm they are overcooked and dry.

Preparing the wasabi mayo:
Use a hand blender to combine all ingredients: mayo, cilantro, soy sauce, horseradish, olive oil, and black pepper. Mix until homogeneous.

Putting it all together:
Lightly toast the hard rolls. Spread wasabi mayo over both tops and bottoms. Place patties on buns and serve.

Alternate ideas:
Instead of using this turkey meat-mix for burgers this mix is a great filling for steamed or pan-fried dumplings. Also, instead of a wasabi mayo on the burgers try a puree of a light vegetable oil, fresh mint leaves, and sugar.

NY State Bigger Better Bottle Bill

Ever notice all the trash strewn along the roadside all over Orange County? Fast food wrappers, plastic bags, styrofoam containers, and empty plastic bottles. Drive down any high traffic road in our area particularly here in Middletown, NY and I guarantee you will see empty plastic bottles that have been tossed out the windows of cars. Now, of course if people didn't litter it wouldn't be a problem, but people do.

If you look closer at this trash you will notice that the large majority of the bottles will be empty water bottles. You will hardly ever see a soda bottle or can and if you do I bet it will be gone in a day or two. That's because there are people who walk the roads and pickup the bottles and cans for the 5 cent refund. But they don't pickup the water bottles because under current NY State law non-carbonated beverage containers have no deposit and therefore no refund. Look at a water bottle and you will probably see that it only has a redeemable value in the state of Maine. Since a lot more people are drinking bottled water these days, which itself some argue is questionable behavior, this garbage has become a big problem.

This past year a bill got introduced to the NY State Legislature called the Bigger Better Bottle Bill. It adds non-carbonated containers (water, juice, etc...) to the list of containers to be required to have a deposit and redeemable value. The good news is it passed in the House. But it never got voted on in the Senate. So I encourage you if you are in NY, or do the same in your state, to contact your local State Senator and ask him/her to support this bill when the Senate session resumes. Don't know who your local NY State Senator is? Find them here.

If it helps, here's the Email I wrote my local Senators. Feel free to copy it and fill in the blanks:

Dear Senator [Your Senator's Name Here],

I am disappointed that the NY State Bigger Better Bottle Bill (A8055A, S5850A) did not get the chance to come up for a vote in the NY Senate before the 2008 session ended. I am not sure what you position on this bill is, but I encourage you and others in power to support it.

I live in [Your Town/City Here], NY where the rural roadsides are littered with trash from drivers. But if you look at the trash closely you will hardly ever find a soda bottle or can. You will mostly find water bottles making up most of the beverage container trash. Part of this may be the bottled water industry taking a bigger share of the beverage market. But I also suspect that the folks who walk the roads, collecting bottles for refund money just let those water bottles lay there because they under current NY State law they can't be redeemed like soda bottles can.

I think adding a five cent deposit to water bottles will help clean up the environment as well as provide the state with potential revenue (from the bottles that end up not getting returned). Those funds could be invested in other areas where we need help with in our state. This bill will help clean up the environment and lessen the eyesore of trash that really takes away from the natural beauty of our area.

Thank you,

[Put your Name and FULL ADDRESS here]

You can learn more about this issue at BottleBill.org

Fish Tacos Done Proper

You just can't beat the SoCal fish taco. The Southern California fish taco is New York pizza. It is the Chicago hot dog. It is the Philly cheesesteak. And just like the other three, authentic fish tacos are hard to find outside of their SoCal home. Here on the East coast you can find them on the menus of some chains like Houlihan's and once in a while as specials in local restaurants. But they are never done right. Usually it's the equivalent of a Taco Bell soft taco with a Fillet-O-Fish substituted for the beef. Total crap. So what makes a good fish taco? Let me break it down.

The Tortilla - First, it's gotta be a white corn tortilla. Heated in a skillet until soft. Save the flour tortillas for your bean burritos. And I'm not talking the corn tortillas that are pre-taco shaped rigid yellow cardboard in a box. Get the fresh flat round ones. If they are flimsy, use two tortillas per taco right on top of each other treating the two as if they were one to help keep it all together. Corn tortillas are the perfect small size for fish tacos and have the right texture and flavor. Most outsiders stumble on this first step.

Green Cabbage - Required, not optional. Lettuce? I don't think so. Julienne the green cabbage into super-thin long strips.

The Fish - Any mild white flaky fish will do. I prefer tilapia because it is easily found in the super market and less expensive than cod. Most of the fish taco I have had in Southern California had battered and fried fish. While I love them this way, I don't go through that trouble at home. What I do is dredge them in flour spiced up with salt, pepper, and cumin. Then I use a cast iron skillet with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and throw in a whole clove of garlic leaving the skin on that just sits in the pan while cooking the fish. Pan frying them this way gives them some of the crunch of deep fry without the mess and I think they come out more flavorful this way.

Jalepenos - They have to be fresh, not canned. Cut the tops off, cut in half length-wise and then slice across into semi-circles. I take out most of the seeds before slicing, but leave some for a little heat.

Cilantro - Also has to be fresh. Don't confuse parsley for cilantro, they look very similar. Pick off a leaf and taste it in the store until you know how to spot it by sight. After rinsing pick a handful of leaves from the bunch (no stems) and coarse chop.

The Sauce - I mix a little mayo and sour cream and add water to thin it out. You don't want it to be thick. I add to this some fresh jalepeno, cilantro, salt & pepper and mix with a hand blender. It's best to let the sauce sit for a while to let the liquid absorb the flavors.

Lime - Enough said.

Raw Onion - Red onion is best. A little goes a long way. Slice don't chop.

Tomato - Completely optional, but I like it. One thin half-moon slice per taco.

In addition to the above mentioned lettuce and flour tortillas some other items to avoid are black olives, shredded cheese and scallions. If you want nachos make nachos, these are fish tacos. Some like hot sauce but if you use the jalepenos right you'll get all the heat you need without destroying the flavor of everything else.