I started this blog to chronicle my cross-country bike ride with Roger Schwed, but I named it Bob’s Arc because I intended to keep going into new territory even after my bike journey was done. It has taken me quite awhile to circle back around to the blog because I still identify it so much with the bike trip and the trip still stands so apart from “normal” life that it seems odd to use the blog to write about other subjects.
But our decision (Rachael’s and mine) to embark on Frugal February again – no meat and no alcohol for the month – has given me the impetus to take the blog in a new direction. Faced with the (self-imposed) necessity of making vegetarian meals for a month, I have decided to take this opportunity to concentrate on eating more “super foods” (though it is unlikely that anyone reading this does not already know this about me, I do all the cooking for Rachael and myself). While this seems like an interesting idea – and a healthy one – there is very little that is simple about food any more.
The advent of cooking shows and the rise of the foodie (a subcategory that arguably should occupy a rung of hell even lower than that of hipster [what does it say about us that we create and self identify with subcategories that so quickly become obnoxious – yuppie, foodie, hipster?]) have helped to add status anxiety to our typically neurotic American preoccupations with food, diet and health. Increasing concerns about factory farming and climate change and the trend to locavorism further complicate the once simple question about what to have for dinner.
I don’t know where this experiment of blogging about eating super foods for this month will lead, but it should be interesting and fun. I intend to post pictures and recipes of what I’m making along with a lot of commentary about what we could call the practical ethics of the sensory and social activity of keeping oneself fed.
For the record, the super foods I’ll be using (I think) are avocados, bananas, beans, beets, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, dark chocolate, eggs, grapefruit, green tea (?), honey, kale, lentils, mushrooms. oats, pomegranate (seems random), quinoa (inevitably), spinach, sweet potatoes, tofu, turmeric (guess curries are on the menu), walnuts and yogurt. Some of this might change, but I figure I have to start somewhere.
To show that eating super foods doesn’t mean that you have to subjugate pleasure to nutrition, here is a picture of some dark chocolate-tofu pudding:
Born in Baltimore and raised in Cincinnati, I have lived on both coasts and driven back and forth across the country a number of times. I now have the "midlife opportunity" to do so on two wheels.
Great to see you back on the Blog my friend !
But… Umm… What’s a super food?
Hoping you do a bean comparison. So many different types, but does one bean really have superior flavor? Is black bean hummus really any different than standard chickpea hummus? Et cetera. Curious minds need to know….
You raise a good question, but I think to get some really interesting answers it would be necessary to shell out (so to speak) some serious money for really good beans. I’ve been fairly disappointed in the past with the quality of the beans I’ve gotten at the supermarket and even at some upscale NY stores (cough, Kalustyan’s, cough).
It’s probably inconsistent with the overall ethos of Frugal February to pay steak prices for heirloom beans, but I’ve been meaning to go online and order fancy beans from Rancho Gordo out in California. If I do that this month, I’ll be sure to let you know the results.
The term evidently comes from the health food industry (rather than the medical community) and is used to describe foods that are naturally rich in nutrients, anti-oxidants, fiber, etc. There are various lists of such foods, but I chose a simple array of things that are readily available (I left off blueberries because they are not in season here).
I figured since we had made the decision to rely on only plant and dairy sources of protein that we might as well jump on the whole super foods trend and see what we thought of it.