Here is Yoko 2 for Brook!

Potluck and the Fates

The table was covered with potatoes. Steamy au gratin, funeral and mashed. Wrinkly baked and chive-covered twice-baked. Chunky salad, salty chips, cornflake-strewn scalloped and golden hashed. There were even tots. They were mostly good dishes, but one can only eat so many mouthfuls of potato at one sitting. Even the big eaters were giving up halfway through the food line, turning from the table holding both edges of their unwieldy paper plates to prevent a one-sided collapse. This potluck I attended recently wasn't so lucky.

Hosting a potluck dinner tempts the fates. You are counting on the random flow of the universe to provide karma enough for equal distributions of carrot sticks, frog-eye salad, brownies, and ham. Doesn't the universe have better things to worry about? It is just as likely to speak "chips and salsa" to 27 of the 30 attendees as to provide a random distribution of culinary chatter.

The great potlucks I've attended have relied less on luck, and more on sign up sheets. A sign-up sheet supersedes fate. It also keeps the pot-bearer anonymous. I like assignments. Tell me to bring a Jell-o salad, and I'll do it willingly. When I have to choose a dish, it reveals too much about who I am.

You can't bring anything too fancy. People will think you have too much time on your hands, and that you need more to do. Or too expensive for the same reason. No French cheeses or seafood. You can't bring anything exotic or, lacking explanation, no one will know how to eat it. It has to be a good color, because even if it smells and tastes great, the hue can put people off pre-scoop. It has to be able to sit on a table for an hour without significant damage and still look appetizing.

If you are going to make one of the Three Pillars of the potluck dinner (potato, sweet salad, and cake), you'd better make it good. Potlucks are the Miss America of inexpensive food pageantry. Your pan will be competing against offerings from experienced cooks, mothers of six who can feed the whole family a full-course meal on two dollars or former military chefs who prepared 60 pounds of potatoes au gratin a day for 22 years.

It isn't a competition, you say? It isn't if you run short on food, and every pan is emptied in the end. But I've never seen that happen. Every pot-bearer is keeping on eye on his or her dish to see who scoops from it and how much is taken. If the first few people in line don't scoop, the dish may be doomed. Everyone wonders why no one has scooped it, and so no one dares to take the plunge. A few even nudge their faithful spouses to go back and dutifully take the maiden dip out of their own pan, just to keep up appearances.

I've attended my fair share of potlucks. There are a few constants. Bright orange punch is inevitably spilled onto paper tablecloths. The first ten people in line are always boys between the ages of 8 and 13. There is always the person who finds a "friend" at the front she needs to reacquaint herself with, and just seems to melt right in as the food line moves along.

There is also always the feeling of being in 30 warm kitchens with 30 fussy mothers serving the best of what they make for dinner. It is a comforting, filling, delicious place to fill your plate.

Grow and Know the Foods You Eat

I always get a little nervous attending meetings like the open house I went to on Monday. I know those food purists mean well, but I really don't need another food philosophy designed to make me feel guilty. Yes, that cantaloupe I had for dinner probably came from a chemical-laden clear-cut field in Brazil harvested by underage workers getting little pay that was shipped under-ripe across thousands of miles of highway in a truck spewing carbon to a mega-corporation grocery store that doesn't provide worker health benefits. But I can't do much about it. I gotta eat.

So I was really quite surprised to leave this particular open house a little excited ... and hungry. Peppery chives, juicy tomatoes, dark purple berries straight from a bush scant miles from my house, scarlet beets grown in Cache Valley soil and savory farm chickens that died happy were all offered to me by the actual farmers who raised them. These were CSA farms.

Community-Supported Agriculture is a brilliant idea. A CSA farm is a way for food-eating people like me to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer near their community. This is how it works: A farmer offers a certain number of "shares" for sale to the public at the beginning of the growing season. Typically the share consists of vegetables for a family of four based on what is currently in season, but other farm products may be included. In return you receive a box of seasonal produce (usually at a central pickup location) each week throughout the farming season.

This is different than the food co-ops (like Bountiful Baskets and Field to Families) that have recently become deliriously popular in Cache Valley. Food co-ops are grocery store foods offered at discount prices straight off the back of the semi-truck, which is cool. But CSAs are more cool.

When you buy a share in a CSA farm, you are creating a relationship with the farmer who is producing your food. You invest in his or her success, you see how your food is produced (often following organic principles), and you participate in the ups and downs of farm life (based on weather, temperature, rainfall and other things happening outside your window). Cucumbers might grow great, and you get lots of cucumbers in your weekly basket; winter squash might not do so great, but you will know why when you talk to the farmer. In short, you get to connect in a very real way with your food.

This arrangement creates rewards for both the farmer and you. The farmer spends time marketing the food early in the year, before their 16-hour days in the field begin. They receive payment early in the season, which helps with the farm's cash flow. They have an opportunity to get to know the people who eat the food they grow.

And what about benefits for the people who buy shares in the farm? Imagine a fragrant baked eggplant parmigiano on your table. Now imagine that two short days earlier that eggplant was hanging on a vine a few miles from your house, at the peak of purple ripeness, chock-full of flavor and vitamins. That eggplant has your name on it.

The initial payment is significant, but if you calculate it by the week and factor in the good you are doing for your community, for your health and for the planet, you are getting a deal. Even if you don't factor those last three in, it isn't a bad price. But you should, as those who watched the queasy documentary "Food, Inc." on PBS recently already know.

The farmers I met at the open house encouraged people to visit the farm where they've invested, to see how their food is produced and to talk to the farmer. (I plan on visiting my plants too, you know, just to give them some moral support.) Some farms even offer member social events to help develop relationships and to learn more about how food is grown.

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CSA farms located in/near Cache Valley:

Sun River Farms

★ Location: Elwood, Utah (near Tremonton)

★ Product: Variety of fresh vegetables and herbs grown on organic principles

★ Price: Full share, $550; half share, $300

★ Production: 17-week season

★ Delivery: 4 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays at 120 Water St. (downtown Logan)

★ The farmer says: "Garlic freaks will love our variety."

★ Contact: 757-7507 or sunriverfarm@yahoo.com

The Bryan Palmer Farm

★ Location: Wellsville, Utah

★ Product: Variety of fresh vegetables, herbs, honey and flowers grown on organic principles

★ Price: Full share, $320-$380 depending on package

★ Production: 28-week season

★ Delivery: At the farm or at the Cache Valley Gardeners' Market

★ The farmer says: "We make beautiful bouquets available each week."

★ Contact: 245-4579 or csautah1@gmail.com

Heritage Valley Organics

★ Location: Tremonton, Utah

★ Product: Chicken, duck, turkey and goose, managed under organic principles

★ Price: $360

★ Production: 20 weeks

★ Delivery: To be decided

★ The farmer says: "The birds are not caged, and small grains to feed them are raised at the farm."

★ Contact: 770-2365 or mbanca@nebonet.com

The USU Student Organic Farm

★ Location: 800 E. 1750 North, Logan

★ Product: Variety of fresh vegetables, occasional berries

★ Price: Full share, $528; half share, $308

★ Production: 22-week season

★ Delivery: Pick up at the farm

★ The farmer says: "CSA fees go to paying student wages at the farm."

★ Contact: E-mail jennifer.reeve@usu.edu for a sign-up sheet

Corbridge Country

★ Location: Malad, Idaho

★ Product: Berries and beef (all-natural grain and all-natural grass fed)

★ Price: Varies by weight; deposit requested

★ Production: At request, depending on cattle weight

★ Delivery: Price includes cutting, packaging and delivery

★ The farmer says: "A day at the ranch (hayride, horseback riding, BBQ) is included with meat purchase."

★ Contact: 208-766-2644 or corbridgecountry@gmail.com

Other farmers that didn't present at the open house, but still seem cool:

★ Tagge's Famous Fruit: 801-755-8031

★ Tveit Gardens: Nibley, Utah, 770-8714

Go to CSAUtah.org for more information on these farms.

Fast Food Fare

A recent bite of fast-food hamburger gave me pause. I was pondering utilitarianism, the idea that the right thing to do is what brings the greatest good to the greatest number of people. It is a fairly straightforward way to make decisions in life. Free speech? Good. Telemarketing? Bad. Libraries? Good. Looting? Bad. Monster truck rallies? Well ...

Monster truck rallies make people happy, but the pleasure experienced attending a monster truck rally does not equal the pleasure of say ... going to Utah Festival Opera. "Greater moral pursuits are those which engage our higher human faculties," wrote John Stuart Mill, political philosopher and advocate of utilitarianism.

"Higher human faculties," I thought, as I gorged the burger and washed it down with carbonated corn syrup. Why do I choose to eat this stuff, the culinary equivalent of a monster truck rally, when there is greater culinary "good" out there? I enjoy roasted garlic artisan bread, ripe tart cherries and prosciutto-stuffed baguettes, but sometimes I eat hamburgers. Not the made-at-home-on-the-grill kind, but the kind that come wrapped in wax paper accompanied by skinny limp fries. The kind that carry little nutritional value, too much salt and make you fat.

I'm not alone. If you count the number of prosciutto-stuffed baguettes available for purchase in Cache Valley compared to the number of fast-food hamburgers, the hamburgers win. We line up in our cars with fistfuls of bills to buy hamburgers, not prosciutto-stuffed baguettes. People choose them, so a utilitarian would say hamburgers must serve the greater good. I would argue that prosciutto-stuffed baguettes are the higher culinary experience, but the masses choose processed meat on deflated white bread.

Food that is "good" could be defined in many ways. It could be broccoli because it is nutritionally good for our bodies. It could be steak because it tastes good (but in another country, that same category might include goat intestines). It might be what lifts our souls in a culinary sense, like key-lime pie, or it might be tofu - food that allows humans to continue living (and consuming) the earth on a large scale. It could be rice and beans, food that is fair to eat ... for us and for the people in Namibia, Uruguay and China. From a utilitarian standpoint, whatever "good" we value most will be the one we choose.

You already know the detriments of fast food. Fast food holds partial blame for the obesity epidemic in the United States. It fills our bellies with fat and chemicals, but doesn't provide vitamins and nutrients necessary to stay healthy. Fast food doesn't do great good for a great number of people, and yet we still choose that burger.

A utilitarian would argue that we all benefit from cheap consumer goods, said Christy Glass, assistant professor of sociology at Utah State University. As Americans we value plentiful, cheap stuff. You could say fast food is the most democratic industry in the country because everyone can afford it. In every class, people defend what is accessible, she said.

Americans also value convenience over quality. People work more jobs and longer hours. More households are becoming dual income, and yet wages are declining. People have less time to cook, and families feel cash-strapped. The cheapest food is the worst food, but it is easy to get your hands on, Glass said.

So the reason we eat fast food is probably the same reason we watch "The Simpsons" rather than read "Hamlet" on Friday night. Although we know Shakespeare is a higher experience, "The Simpsons" is funny. We don't have to tax our brain with vocabulary, understand historical context or challenge our moral system. Maybe we understand that Shakespeare could lift our souls and intellects, but we value saving time over investing our time in the higher experience.

But it isn't satisfying. I watch "The Simpsons" and forget the plot as soon as the credits roll. I eat three fast-food hamburgers and still feel like I need more. I crave the higher experience, even though my current values allow me to choose the lower.

"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied," wrote Mill. "Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool or the pig are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their side of the question."

I don't think there is anything wrong with eating a fast-food burger, watching "The Simpsons" or attending a monster truck rally on occasion, as long as we understand the hunger we feel after these experiences is really a dissatisfaction, a signal to reach higher and invest ourselves in something greater, not to reach for the Pepto-Bismol.

Food of the Prophets

March 30 in the General Conference insert. This topic was an assignment, but it was fun to write.

We have long been interested in what comes out of the mouths of the prophets, but what about what goes into them? It is intriguing to consider the lives of the Latter-day Saint prophets outside of the words they shared … their daily toil, the people and the places they loved, and their food.

It is no stretch to imagine David O. McKay loving a fresh-baked apple topped with brown sugar and cinnamon, shiny with basted caramel syrup and fragrant from the oven, as reported by Holly Farnsworth in the Worldwide Ward Cookbook. It also easy to believe that Ezra Taft Benson appreciated the bright-yellow of a tart lemon meringue pie or a heaping cup of plump fresh red raspberries. Lorenzo Snow loved Yorkshire pudding. Howard W. Hunter liked Alaskan Crab.

Spencer W. Kimball, on the other hand, filled a tall glass with milk, crumbled date-nut bread into it until it was thick, and ate it with a spoon, recalled President Thomas S. Monson. And as for the favorite food of Joseph Fielding Smith, “I observed him at our luncheon table in the temple on Thursdays, and he seemed to love sweet pickles. I hate them! I would see to it that he got the sweet pickles, and I'd take the dill pickles,” said Monson.

The favorite recipes of some of the Latter-day Saint prophets were compiled by Farnsworth in a chapter of a book called the Worldwide Ward Cookbook. Farnsworth collected most of the recipes from an old Salt Lake City 10th ward cookbook. Favorite foods are not a static decision, and the collected recipes are more speculation than fact. But the recipes do reflect the times and places in which the men lived.

Joseph Smith had Johnny Cakes. Harold B Lee had boiled raisin cake. Joseph F. Smith had custard pie. Their recipes were simple, and required mostly locally available ingredients … apples, sugar, cornmeal, and eggs, for example. As printed, none of the recipes really expound on the actual labor that probably accompanied each dish. None of the directions contain “milk the cow, separate the cream, and churn it into butter,” steps that were likely necessary for a meal during the days when each of these men lived and ate.

Monson's remarks about the prophets' favorite foods came from direct observation while serving with these men in Salt Lake City. He related brief personal glimpses as part of a September 2009 BYU devotional that bespoke his appreciation for the leaders he had known, and favorite foods were a part of who these men were. David O. McKay embodied consideration, and ate Cummings chocolates, said Monson. Gordon B. Hinckley lived the guiding principle “do your best,” and loved pie and ice cream, he said.

Perhaps it is a desire to know these men better, or to know that they had personality quirks like we do. Maybe it is an effort to be closer to them. Or maybe it is a hope that we have something in common. Whatever the reason, it is interesting to think about what the prophets chose to eat.

Which brings me to Brigham Young's Buttermilk Donuts, a recipe found in the Worldwide Ward Cookbook. The recipe was first made by Emily Partridge Young, and was a favorite with Brigham Young, according to the book. The donuts became so popular that they were sold at the ZCMI department store in Salt Lake City.

I was intrigued. Interesting enough that they were a prophet's preferred food, but the fact that they were approved (and purchased) by thousands of mercantile-seeking individuals indicated that they must have been good. And they were. The recipe certainly wasn't strictly authentic (Young didn't have paper towels or paper bags, I'm sure). But my family didn't care. Served warm from the oil, and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, we ate enough soft, bready donuts to cross the planes … well, Kansas, at least.

But really these foods tell us less about the prophets than they do about the people who loved and served them. Most of these recipes were probably prepared for the prophets by wives, mothers, friends, people who loved them and knew them well enough to make the foods they liked. After all, how much time did the prophets have for cooking? President Kimball used the refrigerator in his office to store piles of notes, said Monson.

Latter-day Saints love their prophets. Maybe that is why we are interested in their foods, because we have at least that in common with the people who prepared these dishes.

Spice on Ice

April 2 in the Herald Journal:

When Cache Valley chefs flaunt their culinary stuff, everyone wins. There certainly weren't any losers at Spice on Ice, the food competition at the George S. Eccles Ice Center on March 25. Some of the best professional chefs of Cache Valley pitted their talents during the annual cook-off and fundraiser for the ice arena.

It all started with the appetizers. Spicy fresh tuna and roasted red pepper sushi were served with chipotle sauce and knock-off-your-socks wasabi under a lighted ice sculpture at the table of chef John Simpson of Culinary Concepts. Pounders chef Kip Loy showed off his food prowess with a silky smooth Lomi Lomi salmon salsa with fresh Ogo seaweed with a crispy noodle-wrapped prawn smothered with guava ginger sauce and a single house-smoked spare rib with a sweet passion fruit glaze. There were a lot of happy sticky faces in the room.

Although the meal was actually served next to the ice rink, rather than on it (I had visions of ice skating waiters and wore my thickest socks), the food had plenty of spice. We passed around platters of pink pungently-smoked salmon with sweet coconut vanilla rice, complex and pleasantly spicy coconut curry chicken and dry-aged sirloin with earthy twice-baked blue cheese potatoes. The hardest part of the evening was taking only my share.

Infamous local talent like Frank Ford of Smokin' Blues Barbeque, Dustin McKay of the Elements, Greg Chambers from Firehouse Pizzeria, Ash Oberoi, from Indian Oven, Ted Mathesius from Hamiltons, Sham Singh of Tandoori Oven, and Jeff Woolley of USU Catering wowed the audience with their mouthwatering presentations. The chefs more or less donated the food and their efforts for the fundraiser, and for a chance to win coveted awards … People's Choice, Judge's Choice and Overall Chef of the Year.

Ultimately only one chef could win – well, actually two in the case of the People's Choice award. The votes for first place were miraculously tied between those who loved the peppery steak medallions topped with cherry sauce and blue cheese served by McKay of Elements, and those who preferred the piles of thick spiral pasta smothered in lemon cream sauce with tender citrus-infused white shrimp from Chambers at Firehouse Pizzeria.

If you didn't make it to the event, you may have a chance to taste one of the People's Choice award winners. In 2009 Chambers included the winning entree from the competition on the Firehouse Pizzeria menu. He is currently considering including the 2010 winner on his menu.

The Judge's Choice award went to Woolley and USU Catering's seared Kobe beef tenderloin cooked to a perfect medium rare. Broccoli greens and spicy tomato fennel sauce gave the ensemble a pleasantly bitter ying to the yang of the flavorful meat, sweet nutty butternut squash dumplings and Porcini mushroom ragu. The Judge's Choice award was based on points earned for presentation, texture, and flavor.

The Overall Chef of the Year award went to McKay of Elements. My thick piece of peppery steak was that melt-in-your-mouth variety of meat. I cut it with the side of my fork, and followed each bite with a creamy dollop of buttermilk whipped Yukon Gold potatoes. The peppery bite of the steak was cut by a sweet cherry-port reduction sauce and the sweet mustiness of blue cheese. It was perfectly balanced, good quality food, and basically heaven on a plate. In the words of my table mate, Dan White of Logan, you don't often get a steak that good. This award was based on an equally-weighted average of the Judge's Choice and the People's Choice scores.

I wondered at the absence of some of the other good restaurants and caterers in the valley. The awards are prominent enough to benefit them with publicity, and most chefs love a good food battle. But the event didn't suffer from their absence.

In the end we were left with very full stomachs, and with the good feeling around the table that only really great food can create. Although I knew that the well-organized event was held to raise money for a great local amenity, the only non-profit ice arena in the West, I could only think how lucky I had been to take part (and from some platters more than my part) of some of the best professional food in Cache Valley. I won't miss next year's event.

Central Milling Company

Nothing sets my heart a-pattering like the complex yeasty smell of fresh-baked bread. The multi-layered crackle of a well-made artisan loaf puts me at the gates of heaven. Baking bread is a magical combination of art, science and experience. It is the archetype of the expert homemaker, but it is not something at which I've ever truly succeeded. The first time I tried whole wheat bread (I kid you not) one bite of the wheat-based Masonite I had created caused my gums to bleed.

My bread is better than it used to be. It rises. It smells right. It thumps a good hollow sound. It is good when it is hot. But it is kind of pasty, and there is an ethereal quality of bakery bread that has eluded me. I call it The Chew. A good chew is what you get when bite a slice of Crumb Brothers ciabatta drizzled with honey, or eat a good bagel or pizza. It is something I haven't been able to duplicate at home. The Chew is partially responsible for keeping bread appetizing when it is no longer hot, and I couldn't make it happen in my loaves. I was at a dead end, bread-wise. I adjusted lots of things, but I never thought about my flour. Little did I know that just four blocks away was the answer to The Chew.

My sister's neighbor is The Pie Lady of Kaysville. She sent my sister on a trek to stock up on her flour of choice, Central Mill's organic unbleached pastry flour. The Pie Lady insists on it, said my sister. It is the only flour she uses, nothing else makes the cut for her crusts. I looked up the address she gave at Center Street and 100 East in Logan. There had to be a mistake. I know that neighborhood. I walk that way weekly during gardeners' market season, and had never noticed a flour store.

But there it was, set in the middle of the block, an unobtrusive red-brick building fronting towering silos. I've lived in Cache Valley long enough to know the ins and outs of the local businesses. I'd never heard of the nationally-known Central Milling Company. One of the biggest producers of organic grain products in the West, their flour is sought after by foodies and bread artisans all over the U.S, especially California.

I visited the small brick building and picked up a 50 pound bag of bread flour (they don't come any smaller). Honestly, I was doubtful that flour could make that big of a difference for my bread. One wheat flour is as good as any other, right?

Wrong, said Zach Perry, quality technician, tour guide and unofficial flour educator at Central Milling Company. Flour isn't simple. When wheat is milled to make white flour, the germ and bran are removed from the kernel (even though they contain nearly all the fiber and B vitamins, they are removed because they also interfere with the elastic properties of the gluten, vital to the texture of the bread). Flour has starch (complex carbohydrates). It also has protein. Soft wheat produces low protein flour for cakes, biscuits and pie crusts. Hard wheat has enough gumption (and protein) to develop higher amounts of gluten … the elastic stuff that allows yeast breads to rise (and gives a good chew).

When you buy flour from the grocery store, there is no way to know what the properties of the flour in the bag are. Wheat crops vary from year to year. Protein and mineral levels change. Some flour makes good bread, some doesn't, said Perry.

Central Milling Company uses a cocktail of 3 to 6 different wheat grains to get high protein bread flour that meets their specifications. They work closely with farmers to help them select seeds that will grow well organically and still produce wheat with the kind of properties they are looking for. They have an on-site quality testing lab. They use old varieties and local varieties of grain.

They don't try and breed out the color. Wheat is generally bred to be as white as possible, said Perry. Organic wheat has more color and more flavor, he said. They don't add bleach, they don't use pesticides, herbicides, and you avoid the chemical sewage sludge produced by conventional farming when you choose organically grown products, he said.

Central Milling Company uses local wheat when they can, but can't fill the demand for their organic products with only Utah wheat, said Perry. About one-third of their wheat comes from Utah. The rest comes from the mid-western United States and Canada. And part of their wheat is ground indirectly by local river water. Since last year, a diversion from the canal turns a generator under the mill that fuels one-third of their energy needs. They are also the oldest continuously operated business in Utah, Perry said.

Which is all very cool, but what about my bread?

I cracked open the big bag as soon as I got home. The first difference I noticed was the texture of the dough. It was silky, much softer than what I was used to, but not gluey. It reminded me of play dough, in a good way. The dough was easier to knead, and still rose significantly higher than what I'd accomplished before.

And then there was The Chew. The finished product had good texture, and a nice springy bite. I was impressed. I'm currently cooking my fourth loaf with Central Milling Company's flour. I haven't yet been able to do the cold bread test, since the first three loaves were consumed too quickly. I have hopes for this one since everyone at my house is currently at work or school. Except me, I'm home. We'll see.