Real Food All Year

We’re popping champagne at my house in celebrating turning in the completed manuscript of my book Real Food All Year: Eating Seasonal Whole Foods for Optimal Health and All-Day Energy. It’ll be released in April 2012 by New Harbinger Press. The past two months have been a flurry of writing and cooking. Somehow it ended up that I was finishing up both the winter and summer chapters this spring. It worked in some ways, as spring in the Bay Area is a kind of vacillation between winter and summer.

The irony of writing a book on seasonal eating at a time in history when the weather and even the seasons are becoming unstable did not escape me. Climate scientists report that most parts of the world are experiencing warmer winters and earlier springs. According to Stanford professor David Lobell, there has been about a 5% decline in production of corn and wheat worldwide, (except in North America), along with a 6% rise in prices of these crucial foodstuffs over the past 30 years, due to the changing climate (Lobell, Schlenker et al. 2011).  Other research reported in a The New York Times article a couple of days ago showed that declining global harvests have been affected by adverse weather events, such as floods and hurricanes, linked to climate change.  Of course, industrial agriculture is a huge culprit in driving these changes, as it is responsible for up to 37% of greenhouse gas emissions globally according to Michael Pollan.  More reasons to escape and transform the industrial food system. 

Writing a cookbook sure gets you to eat well.  We sat down to a lovely meal of 5 Spice Braised Lamb Shank and Kale Caesar the other night, testing a winter and a spring recipe, which warmed us well on one of those chilly spring nights. 




Five Spice Lamb Shank

Braising on the bone with warming spices epitomizes winter meat preparation. You can use lamb or beef shank, oxtail, short ribs, or similar on-the-bone meat cuts with this recipe to delicious effect. Most commercially available lamb is pasture-raised, but check with your butcher to be sure. Have it cut into a few pieces to expose the nourishing marrow. Go ahead and use water if you don’t have any broth or stock on hand, but be sure to stash the leftover bones in your freezer for a future batch of bone broth. Makes 3-4 servings
1 tablespoon pastured lard, bacon grease, ghee or olive oil
1 1/2-2 pounds lamb shank
1 onion or 1 large leek, diced
2 stalks celery, diced, or ¾ cup diced celery root
2 carrots or parsnips, diced
3 cloves garlic, crushed, or 2 stalks green garlic, sliced
5 quarter sized slices fresh ginger
½ teaspoon Chinese five spice powder
2 cups Bone Broth , Savory Vegetable Broth or water
3 tablespoons tamari, fish sauce or a combination
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
Zest and juice of 1 orange

In a large, heavy pot such as a Dutch oven, heat the fat, and brown the shank on all sides; this will take at least 10-15 minutes. Add the onions, lower the heat to medium, and continue to cook and stir until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Stir in the celery, carrots, and garlic and ginger and continue to sauté for 2 minutes. Add all the remaining ingredients, and bring to a boil. Cover the pot and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook on low for 1-2 hours until the meat is very tender and beginning to fall off of the bone.

Remove the shank to a plate, add the orange zest and juice to the sauce, and turn up the heat again to high to reduce the liquid, stirring occasionally, until it begins to thicken and turn glossy, about 10-15 minutes. Add the shank back to the pot and heat thoroughly, and then serve with the sauce.

Kale Caesar Salad
I make this salad when I tire of the my usual boil and saute kale preparations.  Using kale instead of Romaine gives the old standby salad a nutritional and flavor boost. I've seen this dish popping up on a few restaurant menus recently. The easy to grow Lacinato variety, also known as dinosaur kale because of its hide-like texture, gives a tender bite in this dish. Unlike lettuce salads, this one keeps well for a day or two.
Serves 4-6
1 bunch kale
1/2 cup Caesar salad dressing (see NOTE)
¼ cup Parmesan cheese, shaved with a vegetable peeler into strips or grated
Freshly ground black pepper
Wash the kale, and strip the leaves off of their tough stems. Arrange the leaves in a pile on a cutting board, and chop into 1/4” strips. Place in a large salad bowl, and add the dressing. Combine thoroughly, and let sit for an hour or more to soften the kale. Just before serving, toss in the Parmesan cheese and top with freshly ground pepper.

NOTE: For the dressing, combine 1 teaspoon prepared mustard, 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil,1 raw pastured or organic egg yolk, the juice of 1 lemon, 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan and 2 anchovy fillets and blend with an immersion blender or food processor until smooth.