Scott's July Post - Food for Thought

[Scott Nesler]

I hope comes out of it is a few interesting food suggestions with this
post.

Over the years I've noticed the food choice at family occasion are
somewhat static. The food is good, but the introduction of new
cuisine is rare. Change does happen. Usually when a female inlaw
is introduced to the group. Short term relationships can bring in
one time delicacies, but these delights are gone with their
departure. I hope my family does not read this, but I would
suggest there is little mixing with other cultures. I suspect this
is normal.

There is a plethora of unexplored taste out there that I've missed out
on and am eager to try. Friends of my wife introduced me to pesto
several years ago. Thanks to the local supermarket, I can cook up my
favorite dish in little over fifteen minutes. I cook about 3/4 box
of bowie tie, radiator, or fussilli pasta between twelve and fifteen
minutes then drain and rinse. I add about a half a tub of pesto
sauce, additional olive oil, and more parmesan cheese. (Pesto is
ground up basil, pine nuts, olive oil, garlic, parmesan cheese for
those who want to make it from scratch). To make the dish
better, I add sun dried tomatoes soaked in olive oil. If I have
left over chicken, I slice and add a cooked chicken breast. I salt
to taste. The serving size for this meal is four.

A camping favorite is a very simple salsa. Walmart sales a
vegetable chopper which makes this possible:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10097012

In the height of tomato season this chopper gets a work out. Roma
tomatoes are best, because they have more meat and less juice. I
can make a large batch of salsa with about twelve roma tomatoes, three
green peppers, and a purple onion. I season with garlic salt and
regular salt. That's it. When making it for myself, I
add fresh cilantro and two of my home grown cyan peppers. The salsa
is great with scoop tortilla chips.

[Jake Patterson]

Scott...are you asking for recipes? lol...

You make a fantastic point about exposure to culture bringing in
diversity in food. My wife (hi Isabel!) is Hispanic and dating her
introduced me to both Dominican and Nicaraguan food. Before that, I
thought all Latin food was Mexican. Yes, Izzy, I was an idiot.

But beyond that, if I sit down with a good book and begin to read, she
sits down next to me with a COOKBOOK and reads it. Cover to cover.
She puts little sticky notes on recipes she likes so they're easy to
find. If we go into a big store like Walmart, I go for the Lego
aisle, she goes for cookbooks. We have a whole shelf dedicated to
them.

So you're right that cultural diversity leads to diversity in food.
But if you're passionate about food you can find new things.

And pesto, just discovered it myself. Well, Isabel just introduced it
to me. I make homemade pizza with it instead of tomato sauce because
we get heartburn. Great stuff.