Potato Chips

I grew up hearing about the evils of potato chips. My father and some in the media vilified this uniquely American snack food for all of its empty calories. The exercise revolution was just under way and an obesity problem was not yet even on the horizon. It is unclear to me what, exactly, triggered all this invective towards potato chips and not, for instance, Oreos or Tang. Years have passed and literally hundreds of new products compete with potato chips. Gone are the days when potato chips were so ubiquitous that one company, Charles Chips of Eastern Pennsylvania, used to deliver them to your home in nifty metal cans!

Now I have two daughters who are impulsive about their demand for snack foods, but don´t actually like them that much. The other day I bought them 1 small bag each of Lays Classic Potato Chips here in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. They can´t eat plaintains all the time, after all. (We are spending 7 weeks here learning the language and culture of Mom´s homeland.)

As a matter of course these days, I absentmindedly read the nutritional information on the empty bag as well as the ingredient list. I was shocked! Did you know that potato chips only contain potatoes, oil and salt? Lays apparently ignores consumers´ demand for hydrogenated oils, monosodium glutamate, dextrose, artificial color, sodium acetate and numerous other delicious ingredients that are apparently required to make just about every other snack cracker or chip on the market. Do you realize what this all means? As far as snack foods go, the All-American Potato Chip is the most wholesome product out there.

How did this happen? I thought potato chips made you fat, gave you zits, caused indigestion and eventually killed all those who ate them on any regular basis. Perhaps in the past potato chips were fried in hydrogenated vegetable oil, ie: dreaded trans-fats, but then again every refridgerator in America contained at least a pound of neon yellow margarine, ie: dreaded trans-fats.

We are a health obsessed nation that doesn´t eat very well. We always look for a demon in our foods to exorcise and then we rely on nutritionists and free-lance journalists to play the role of Father Damien, shouting "The Power of Our Collective Spirit Compels You,", "The Power of Our Collective Spirit Compels You,", "The Power of Our Collective Spirit Compels You,". Then the demon sets up shop in the marketing departments of the big food companies and tells them to brag about his demise. And exactly what have they bragged about over the past 25 years! Their food has no fat, no sugar, no carbohydrate or 25 grams of protein! You would think that all we humans have any right to consume are glass after glass of Shaklee´s protein shakes.

Yes, we finally identified what I do believe is a bad product, trans-fats, but the 40+ yr path we took to eliminating hydrogenated vegetable oils from our diet laid to waste just about every natural ingredient we had consumed since the beginning of time; protein, carbohydrates and most importantly to this discussion, animal fat.

Most people I speak to still assume that animal fats are by definition trans-fats. They were so indoctrinated into the notion that margarine was the perfect substitute for butter and crisco for lard that when the margarine and crisco were vilified for containing trans-fats people assumed this vilification applied to the animal fats they replaced 40 years ago. Animal fats just can´t get a break except from the late Dr. Atkins.

Go ahead and eat your potato chips and enjoy them. However, also take the advice of Michael Pollan, the great food writer and educator, who recommends that we shop only on the perimeter of supermarkets where all the whole foods are sold. In those middle aisles is where one will find all those packaged products with bright shiny labels laying claim to our nation´s recent dietary conquests. These same products in very small print on the back of the package will have ingredient lists full of formerly, currently and eventually vilified products. No one really knows if these ingredients could kill you or rats in concentrations one million times that of normal consumption. If you´re worried, ignore those products and snack on the only whole food available in the snack aisle, potato chips.

Simple Thanksgiving Day Dinner

Simple Thanksgiving Day Dinner

Follow my simple rules and Thanksgiving won’t be the stressful mess it always seems to be. First of all, the actual dishes prepared for Turkey Day are about the simplest we make throughout the year. The key is to focus on a few that you as the host want to make and have others bring the remaining dishes. This has to be done with a little forethought, though. When guests ask what they can bring, tell them what to bring. “Could you bring a pumpkin pie?” Or, “Since you make that yummy cole slaw, could you bring that for the dinner?” And don’t accept no for an answer. I recommend you have guests bring cold dishes or those that don’t need to be refridgerated. Avoid having guests bring dishes that have to be re-heated. The oven is already occupied! By the turkey, no less. You as the host should prepare the following dishes:

Roasted Garlic Turkey, Gravy and Cornbread Stuffing adapted from Jacques Pepin

Cranberry relish/chutney adapted from the recipe of the back of the Ocean Spray brand cranberry package

Mashed regular or sweet potatoes

These recipes are simple and allow you to impress your guests and have fun at your own party, too!

Roasted Garlic Turkey

Ingredients

1 12 pound turkey (brined if possible. See my video on brining chicken)
2 cups chicken stock
1 head of garlic, cut in half horizontally
1 teaspoon salt (if you don’t brine turkey)
1 teaspoon black pepper
4 onions peeled and very coarsely chopped
4 carrots peeled and cut into bite-sized chunks
1 teaspoon starch dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon soy sauce

If you don’t brine turkey, rinse bird thoroughly under cool water and pat it dry with towels. Place turkey breast side up in roasting pan (on a v-rack if you have one) and roast at 425 degrees for 20 minutes or until nicely browned.

Remove pan from oven and flip turkey onto breast using silicon oven mitts or folded up kitchen towels, Strew vegetables around turkey and place both halves of garlic head inside turkey cavity. Reduce oven temp to 325 degrees and roast for 1 hour.

Add chicken stock to roasting pan and bake turkey for another 30 minutes. Turn off oven and let turkey rest for 30 minutes to an hour. This is when you would put in your cornbread stuffing.

Shortly before serving dinner, remove turkey from oven, place on serving platter and return to oven. Remove veggies with slotted spoon and place in bowl of food processor. Strain pan juices through a paper towel – lined funnel into a wide-mouthed mason jar or pyrex measuring cup. Let rest for 5 – 10 minutes and than ladle off as much fat that has floated to the top as possible.

Pour skimmed juices into processor and process with veggies until smooth. Transfer to small sauce pan and simmer for 10 minutes. Add starch/water mixture, stirring until thoroughly incorporated. Simmer for 1 more minute, cover and remove from heat.

You are now ready to serve your turkey!

Cornbread Stuffing

I prefer to make my own cornbread, but whichever bakery-bought cornbread you like will do. Try to avoid cornbreads that are too sweet or too greasy.

I like this recipe because it incorporates one of my ‘leftover makeover’ techniques. You can use fancy ham for this stuffing, but I prefer just to open up a pack of lunchmeat ham I have for my young daughter and slice that into ribbons for this dish.

4 T unsalted butter
1 onions, peeled and coarsely chopped. Use two if you don’t have scallions on hand.
2 ribs of celery, diced
5 scallions, washed and minced
12 oz of cornbread
1 cup frozen, canned or fresh corn kernels
2 t herbes de Provence
½ t freshly ground black pepper
3 oz ham, cut into ½ inch pieces
¼ cup chicken stock

Melt butter in skillet

When hot, add onions, celery and scallions and sauté over medium high heat for about 3 minutes.

Transfer veggies to bowl and add crumbled cornbread, corn kernels, herbes de Provence, pepper, ham and the chicken stock. Toss lightly to avoid further crumbling of cornbread and place in 6 – cup loaf pan.

Bake in a 350-degree oven for about 20 minutes or longer until browned on top and hot inside. Remove from oven and set aside until ready to re-heat in oven with turkey.

If making a day or more in advance, refrigerate until Thanksgiving Day and remove from fridge in the morning. Place in oven with turkey after oven has been turned off. (See turkey recipe above.)

Cranberry Relish

1 large orange, washed
1 bag of fresh cranberries, washed in cold water
¾ cup to 1 cup sugar

Quarter orange, skin and all, and then chop quarters into 4 or 5 pieces each.

Add to bowl of food processor with bag of cranberries and sugar. Process until desired consistency is reached. Can be made 5 days in advance.

Mashed Potatoes or Sweet Potatoes

1 5 lb bag of yellow potatoes or sweet potatoes
1 T salt
½ cup heavy cream (add more if you really like it decadent)
½ stick unsalted butter (ditto)
1 t black pepper

Peel potatoes and cut into 1 inch chunks, approximately.

Add to large pot with salt and cover with cold water.

Bring to boil and then reduce to a simmer.

Temper cream with a couple tablespoons of the boiling water to avoid curdling cream. To do this, simply stir the hot water into the cream. A little hot water hitting a lot of cold cream is a lot better than a little cream hitting a lot of boiling hot potatoes!

When potatoes are fork tender, remove from water with slotted spoon and place in metal bowl or double boiler. Add butter, cream and black pepper. With a heavy duty whisk or potato masher or, if necessary, a sturdy fork mix ingredients until smooth.

Place metal bowl or dbl boiler over another pot with simmering water 1 hour prior to serving potatoes. If you need to transfer the potatoes to another bowl for serving, make sure you heat up serving bowl by filling with boiling water and letting sit for 3 minutes.

If you are using sweet potatoes, sprinkle mashed sweet potatoes with brown sugar and a few pat of butter just before serving.