Mothership Meals and Satellite Saucers: greek yogurt

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Maaa Yogurt, Please...

I've always had a complicated relationship with milk. Not that skinny is everything, but my skinniest time ever was when I went off all dairy. I put soy milk in my tea, Tofutti on my bagels and went cold-turkey off the grilled cheese. In addition to losing lots of weight, I felt energetic and un-congested. It felt so right -- until I got pregnant with my daughter, and the bacon quesadillas came calling.

I never went off dairy again. I still don't drink milk (haven't in decades) and neither do my kids or my husband, but we eat cheese and yogurt and use milk for cooking and in coffee. Did I mention that we eat cheese? I love cheese so much that it feels wrong. Especially when I remember how great I felt when I was off it. That's what I mean by complicated.

So I was interested to read this book, Milk, by Anne Mendelson, about the history of milk. She writes that humans in most of the world have been milking animals forever, but only drinking fresh milk for the last couple hundred years and only in one tiny corner of the world (northern europe) and how we have lost so much with the advent of the industrialized dairy. She rails against homogenized milk, and the loss of other kinds of milk, like from goats and sheep and water buffalo.

(She also says, as I've been carping about forever, that it is a weird and totally culturally-biased public policy to be pushing fresh milk on populations who lack the mutant gene that allows them to digest lactase. Most people in the world can digest soured or cultured milk, but not fresh milk. And that it's only been since the advent of refrigeration that even the mutant-gened northwestern Europeans have been able to drink fresh milk with any real commitment.)

It made me think, as I have been in general, that it is not any one food that is bad. It's not milk or meat or sweets or bad combos or gluten. It's industrialization. If you avoid industrialization, you automatically avoid other pitfalls. (ha, partly because you can't afford anything in excess, if it's locally grown and small-batch-prepared).

Anyway, the book led me to do things yesterday out of curiosity: 1. buy unhomogenized milk ($4.50 for 1/2 gallon, yikes) and 2. buy goats milk yogurt ($2.76 for 6 oz, YIKES).

Even though I've had maybe one glass of milk in the last couple decades, I couldn't resist trying a glass of this here new-fangled unhomogenized milk. Last summer I tried a glass of raw milk in New Hampshire, but didn't think too much of it. But this stuff was delicious. It totally took me back to the milk I used to drink growing up. It was creamy and delicious and lacking in the very slight bitter undertone that I have come to associate with drinking fresh milk.

Then the goat's milk yogurt, which I had for breakfast and loved. Thinner than the Brown Cow cream-on-top yogurt I usually eat, and tangy and bright. I love bright. I love tangy. Thin is okay. $2.76, I don't love. Oh well, you can't have everything.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Yog-o-Rama

It was a low moment for me when my daughter switched from whole plain yogurt to low-fat, high sugar, bright pink yogurt. Full-fat yogurt from grass-fed cows is a healthy wonderful food and she was eating it plain all the time, getting all those great fats and omega-3's. Then one day she happened to notice her brother eating something pink, and it was all over.

At this point I wish we'd invested in the Stonyfield Farms Strawberry Yogurt division.

Once I tried to make strawberry yogurt with whole yogurt, frozen strawberries and honey. I added an obscene amount of honey, and it still wasn't even half as sweet as my kids have come to expect.

But I still eat whole yogurt, and I still want my kids to eat it. Only now I frame it as a special, fun dessert. In Greece, thick creamy sheeps milk yogurt with honey and sliced almonds is a classic dessert. Since kids love putting stuff on their own food, I expanded on this idea, and turned it into a Mothership Meal.

I put out a bunch of things for them to choose from. They pour on some maple syrup or honey, and then add nuts, frozen blueberries, granola, coconut, dried fruit, even dark chocolate shavings. It's so good!

PS To get all the good stuff you can out of yogurt, whether's it's made from sheep's milk or cows' milk, make sure it's made from grass fed or pasture-raised milk.

The Mothership Method

(Or, how to sit down for dinner with your family without completely losing your mind)

It would be great if kids AND parents wanted boiled chicken and baby carrots every night for dinner. But, too bad, we picky parents want spicy, exotic, fun foods, and our kids want, well, sorta lame foods.
Here's the solution: break it down. Serve the dish deconstructed, and let everyone put their own dish together at the table. Sort of like tapas, or smorgasbord, or tacos. Or how in some parts of China you get a bowl of rice, and everything else is in the middle of the table and you take what you want for your own little bowl of rice. That way everyone gets to eat what they want, parents don't have to nag their kids, and kids get to feels some ownership over their meals. Plus, kids get exposed to the look and taste of the foods you hope they will one day love. But it's not just tacos. You'll be amazed at what can be served with the Mothership Method.

Ten Tips to Get Through Dinner Without Having A Nervous Breakdown

1. Accept That Kids Are Picky. No need to freak out on your cooking ability, or look at your kids like there is something wrong with them. It's called "neo-phobia", and it's just how they are, especially from ages 3-6.

2. Serve Meals Broken Down. Even grown-up meals like coconut curry or linguine with clams can be served in their elements, making them more appealing to kids. Grown ups can assemble their own jumble of deliciousness at their own plate while kids take on the pared-down elements.

3. Push if it Works, But Don't Nag If It Doesn't. Some kids are okay with being expected to taste everything on their plate. Others aren't. I think it's okay to push kids -- but not if you're turning dinner into a battlefield.

4. Suggest a Smell. Smelling a new food is easier than tasting it, and can sometimes provide a kid with the information needed to take that scary first bite. But don't confine smelling to new foods. Smell favorites, too, and help them develop their sense of smell by making a game out of it.

5. Don't Ask "Do You Like It?" Instead, try, "What does this remind you of?" or, "Would your cousins like this?" or, "Does this taste salty or sweet?". Asking if they like it or not gives kids too much power and ends the conversation. Besides, we don't care if they like it! We just want them to keep tasting it until it is familiar.

6. Don't Get Frustrated. Imagine being in Taiwan, or Nairobi, or Rome for the first time. Would you eat everything on the local menu? New foods are scary and gross. Our kids need time to learn about the foods that we eat.

7. No SubstitutionsThis is family dinner, not a diner. You, in all your wisdom, have provided foods that are healthy and delicious and appropriate for your children. There is something on the table for them to eat. Period.

8. No Snacks Before Dinner. This can be the hardest with our hectic schedules and hungry kids. But children who come to the table hungry are more likely to eat than cause trouble.

9. Put Peer Pressure To Your Advantage. School children are more likely to accept new foods if the alpha girls in their group accept them. Swap healthy food ideas on playdates.

10. Involve Your Kids In Cooking, Shopping, and Gardening. The more experience kids have handling and preparing a variety of foods, the more likely they are to eventually accept the foods. (But don't get upset if they help you make a complicated wonderful meal, and then refuse to eat it.)