Banana bread will cheer you up...

I’m a notorious procrastinator. It’s true. I’m trying to get better but sometimes I “fall off the wagon,” if you will. There are some days (seems like most days lately…) when the sun refuses to smile and the clouds slowly creep lower and lower until I feel like the sky will slowly crush me into a vitamin D deficient blob of gray goop. In college I learned that on days like this I have to accept that I won’t put checks next to everything on my to-do list, it’s better to just go out and do something constructive, something maybe not “productive” but at least satisfying. In the most gender roll-perfect sense, I find that baking is the perfect activity…I may not be solving the world’s problems, but at least I’m making something tasty that will spread a little joy to others.

Today, I made banana bread. Not just any old banana bread, this is a chock-full, pantry-cleaning, hearty, fattening, warm, soul-filling sort of banana bread…as rule 60 in Michael Pollan’s Food Rules states: “Treat treats as treats.” To me, that means fill them full of sugar and butter and really enjoy, there’s no shame in a treat. I modified this recipe from Bon Appetite…I’ll explain my modifications after the recipe because I have a tendency to add without measuring so there’s no way to give you the exact recipe I used.

Banana Bread with Cinnamon Crumble Topping

INGREDIENTS1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, divided

1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 to 3 medium)

2 large eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup water

2 1/2 tablespoons (packed) golden brown sugar

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour 9x5x3-inch metal baking pan. Whisk 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl. Whisk next 5 ingredients in large bowl until smooth. Add dry ingredients; stir to blend. Transfer batter to pan. Mix 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and brown sugar; sprinkle over batter.

Bake bread until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool bread in pan 30 minutes. Turn pan on its side; slide out bread, being careful not to dislodge topping. Turn bread right side up and cool completely.

So, I added much more cinnamon and honey, because really, that stuff is GREAT. Next, I added about ¾ of an apple because I noticed a delightful looking loaf of banana apple bread on the Bella Eats blog. Plus, I could probably eat apples with every meal for the rest of my life and be totally content. I also made a middle “layer” of cranberries, pecans and cinnamon sugar.

I made up my own crumble. If you’ve never made up a crumble, you should. They are so wonderful and pretty close to impossible to mess up, plus, every time you make one it has a slightly different character than the one before. Beautiful. My crumbles generally involve oats, brown sugar, honey, and a generous amount of butter mixed up by hand (nothing will make you feel better than getting your hands dirty in a nice, oaty crumble). I sprinkled it on top with more cranberries and pecans pieces to give the final loaf a little more color.

My confession: the pan was too small and the edges/top are a little overdone while the inside is a little gooey…the slices don’t come out so beautifully…but the whole thing is delicious enough that you can just spoon it out—no one seems to be complaining about appearances over here...

Why buy local?

What better way to start a dreary Monday than a cute video about buying local? Thank you Brad Aldridge for supporting local stores and putting this animation together.

FAT!

Last night I went to the in-store talk at Rebecca’s by Susan Dunlap: Butter is Better! (learning about healthy fats). If you’ve ever been into Rebecca’s you’ve probably seen Susan’s smiling face, she’s been there doling out healthy advice for 20 years and has over 30 years of natural food and nutrition experience! She’s a really wonderful speaker who is clearly full of tips that would make us all a little healthier.

The basic premise of her talk, as I understood it, is that we should be eating the “foods that have sustained people over long periods of time” which means that we need a balance between saturated and unsaturated fats. Saturated fats (butter, cream, whole milk, even lard) are NOT the evil, body destroying creatures that our society generally considers them to be.

I can’t even really begin to go over her whole talk because I’m sure I could never do it justice, but I’d like to give a few interesting bullet points, facts and definitions that I learned.

-Crisco was invented in 1911 and marks the beginning of processed fats in our society.

-Trans fatty acids “are a type of fat molecule produced by a process called “partial hydrogenation,” which rearranges the hydrogen atoms in an unsaturated fatty acid to produce a fat that is solid at room temperature.” (definition from The Weston A. Price Foundation)

-Our brain is mostly fat! Saturated fats help solidify cells, especially brain cells! BUT, hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated saturated fats don’t fit into our receptors in the same way as natural saturated fats because the molecules themselves have been modified and transformed by human interference…they have been literally blasted full of hydrogen (yikes).

-Two grams of trans fat is the maximum that the body can handle and get rid of. By law, products can be labeled as “0 Trans Fat” if they have .5g or less…that means if you have 4 Oreos which each contain .5g of trans fat, you’ve already hit your max! Many McDonald’s meals contain 30 or more grams of trans fat!

-Butter is anti-microbial, anti-fungal, anti-carcinogenic and contains CLAs.

-CLAs (Conjugated Lineolic Acids) help with weight loss, build muscle mass and help fight off cancer. They are found in high concentrations in grass-fed beef (all ruminants really-think Wolf Creek beef or Wild Oats lamb/pork) as well as free-range eggs/chickens (Davis Creek, Polyface, Meadow Run).

-Fats coat the lining of your intestines, which helps your body absorb vitamins and minerals. This is why humans traditionally put salad dressing (a fat) on salad (high in vitamins/minerals) or bacon grease in collards. For the same reason, French fries are MUCH better for you (still only as a treat) when cooked in beef fat (YUM)! Along the same lines, vitamins A and D are actually in the fats of milk…which means whole milk (especially when it comes from grass-fed cows full of CLAs) is actually better for you than skim!

-Good fats (like chicken skin) actually make you feel more satiated as well so you eat less!

SO! That was just a small selection of the facts I found interesting, but if you’d like to know more, stop by Rebecca’s and talk to Susan…I think I’m going home to cook some beef fat French fries now.

Sesame Noodles from Mary Ann Valente!

Whenever the sky turns this quiet gray I feel like a cloud drifts into my head creeping itself slowly around my brain until all of my thoughts become insulated in a fuzzy haze that makes all tasks take a good 30 minutes longer than they should...Lucky for me, one of my favorite members of the Relay retailer family, Mary Ann Valente, sent me a guest blog for the day!

Mary Ann and her mother have been making handmade (deliciousss) pasta in Charlottesville since 1982...maybe you've seen Pasta Valente packages around town. Her mother actually started selling at the Charlottesville City Market before Mary Ann joined her in 1987. The pasta making process is fascinating and definitely something I'll be explaining (with pictures) another day, but today, I'll pass it on to Mary Ann!

I am honored to be the first guest blogger at Retail Relay. I hope you enjoy it.

Recently, I saw the movie about Julia Child and then read her book, “My Life in France”. Though I share some of her food passions, after a while I became exhausted by her energy. Like Julia Child I studied French Cuisine in Paris and worked for a very precise and talented French chef. I was passionate about doing it the correct way.

Now I don’t have that kind of time and I just don’t have the energy either. Isn’t that what restaurants are for?

So what I love is to get dinner on the table in 30 minutes or less. Our pasta cooks in 3-4 minutes. And when I am in mood for fresh vegetables I make my sesame noodles. I can add anything that is in season or on sale. If I want to buy local vegetables or add a canned assortment the recipe is flexible enough. In the time it takes the water to boil I can cut the vegetables, mix the oils, and grate the ginger.

Lately I find myself entertaining vegans. Chilled Sesame noodles is one of my easiest menu ideas to meet their food requirements: I add peanut butter (about 2 Tbsp) and crushed pepper to give it a Thai noodle taste. This is also one of my favorite dishes to potluck too. It can be prepared ahead of time and the oil tossed with it just before serving.

For Valentine’s Day we are having the old standby of chilled sesame noodles with tuna steaks. The secret is the fresh clean, crisp taste of al dente noodles, good sesame oil and grated fresh ginger.

Here’s the recipe:

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup sesame oil

1/3 cup soy sauce

2 Tbsp grated fresh ginger

1 English cucumber

1 large carrot

1 bunch green onions

2 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds

And of course 1 package of Pasta Valente Angel Hair pasta or Spinach Linguine ( for Vegans )

2-4 Tuna steaks, cooked on the grill or sautéed in oil

Cut the veggies, toast the sesame seeds until light brown, grate the ginger, and cook the pasta. Rinse the pasta in cold water. Toss everything together and serve. Serves 4

Well as Julia would say “Bon Appetit”.

Buzz This.

Did you notice a change on the Relay site this morning?! Just be honest…you didn’t. It’s fine, I’m sure you were too busy Buzzing up a storm to focus on our little changes (thank you Google, yet again, for overwhelming my life with more information than I can ever take in).

Let me give you something to really Buzz home about: we have another new vendor!! C’ville Oriental has officially joined our Relay family of local stores and we are oh so happy to have them. They have your rice sticks, your soy sauces, sesame oils, and rice vinegars, your Foojoy tea and even a few loquats here and there! With all of these little foreign delights I’m getting ready to embark upon a whirlwind adventure of Asian culinary experimentation… Perhaps you could join me?

Annick and Jason will be adding more and more Oriental goodies in the next couple days, so keep an eye out for your favorites and do please let me know if anyone out there has an Oriental-inspired recipe to try out!

Sweet Success

Woo! Superbowl!! As I sit at my brother’s Superbowl party reflecting upon this surprisingly beautiful, busy day, I’m thinking about community. I guess it takes a good snowstorm to get everyone to come together…instead of grumbling and moaning all day, my entire electricity-less neighborhood picked up shovels, released their well-behaved dogs and got to work on the whole road. Old ladies shoveled sidewalks, young men shoveled old ladies driveways and all the dogs played leash-free while their owners chatted, smiled and shoveled. Oh Charlottesville…could this place be anymore more wonderful?!

Speaking of wonderful community…everyone on the Relay team deserves a giant pat on the back (and maybe an extra large cookie) for sticking through the stickiest part of the storm to deliver groceries our snow-bound customers. The joy on our new friends faces when we told them that we did, indeed, trudge through the storm to deliver their bread, milk and pies, made the whole endeavor more than worthwhile. No injuries, no broken cars, not even a cracked egg…total success and total team bonding. Arnie actually had to yell at us to FORCE us to take a lunch break (complete with the most delicious Belle Haven soup bowls filled with Rev Soup and Fruit Harvest cookies from the lovely bakers at Foods).

I’d like to send out a giant thank you to all of our team members (Arnie, Ted, Tom, Jason, Lance, Dennis, Nancy, and Annick and Neal for their emotional support while they were snowed in), our retailers (especially Shelia from Belle Haven who made it all the way from Scottsville and Ronnie/Tim from Meadow Run Farm who trekked all the way over the mountain), and our customers for trusting us with their precious snowstorm vittles. THANK YOU ALL!

Happy Snowy Superbowl Sunday to you all!

AHH!

It’s comingggggg…Snowpocalypse P.2, Pandesnownium (my new fave from the Hook), Snoomsday, Snarmageddon, snnihilation, snowtastrophe…3 ft? 4 ft? I heard 10 feet! Really!! THIS IS GOING TO BE INSANEEE!

I’m feeling the snow day jitters. You know what I mean, they’re a vestige of your childhood that will NEVER ever leave. Yes, the adult in me is dreading all this snow, I’m already thinking about how long it’s going to take me to shovel out and how badly I just want to go to a nice restaurant tomorrow but I know it’s not going to happen. But, for some inexplicable reason, I’m excited. Really excited. Even though I know I’m not getting a snow day tomorrow and even though I know come day 2, day 3, day 8 (oh, I hope not…), I’m going to be miserable in my house, I just can’t wait.

Mostly, I think I’m excited to see how tomorrow plays out. All of us over here at Relay are going to be troopers tomorrow, the team spirit is infectious (do you feel it-all the way over there, wherever you are in internet land?). We’re going to rush around to our retailers in the morning, who will, I’m sure, be equally rushed with the Pandesnownium of last minute shoppers. Then we’ll find a way to get the trucks from our warehouse on River Rd. out to their pick-up locations while the rest of the team heads out in pairs to deliver orders (for free!) to anyone who can’t make it through the snow. Slip-sliding around Charlottesville with a car full of groceries has to be team bonding at its best.

Some way, some how, we’ll get your groceries to you so you’re not stranded and hungry for the weekend! I’m getting my order in tonight, partially because I just remembered that Sunday is the Superbowl (yikes, can we reschedule…) which means I’m going to spend some serious time thinking of Superbowl Snackies that I can (finger’s crossed) walk over to a neighborhood Superbowl party because we all know the best part of the Superbowl is the snacking and commercial watching…right?

Stay snafe and stay off the snroads!

Where's the beef?

I’m going to pretend this snow is not happening AGAIN and talk about something completely unrelated to this cold, white, miserable (though admittedly beautiful!) stuff draining my vitamin D stores (ps-according to this NYTimes article, vitamin D might not be the cure-all I’d love to think it is…).

SO, I’ve been reading up on grass-fed beef today and feel almost overwhelmed with all the information I’ve taken in, specifically from the Wolf Creek farm website. In case you don’t know, Wolf Creek is a sustainable beef cattle farm in Madison, VA run by John and Miyhe Whiteside (they prefer to be called ‘grass farmers’ rather than cattle farmers…). According to their website, they set out with three main objectives related to environmental stewardship and community, principles that are close to our hearts here at Relay:

First, to operate a farm that is completely sustainable as defined by the rural community in which we live, the families that live, work, and play on the farm, the ecological environment we occupy, and the customers who make it economically possible…Second, to produce an environment capable of sustaining healthy animals, as well as farm workers, neighbors, and customers who consume the by-products from our efforts. Third, to ensure that what we are doing brings enjoyment to our customers and other members of our community through our natural beef and other services.

Their site expounds upon their methods of sustainable grass farming as well as the health benefits of grass-fed beef. You should check out their site for full information and useful links/resources, but there are a few points that I noted while reading through. First, the folks at Wolf Creek utilize an interesting practice called Management Intensive Rotational Grazing (MIG). Essentially, it is a farming practice that is what it sounds like- farmers move their cattle among small paddocks every few days taking into account various environmental factors including herd size, soil richness, rainfall, time of year and, obviously, amount of grass. Unlike feedlot industrial farms, MIG farms require constant attention and care- thus the “management intensive” part. The cattle benefit from fresh, healthy grass, the grasses themselves benefit from a more natural “rest” period between feedings as well as chemical-free soil, and we all benefit from healthy, delicious, sustainable meat.

Another (not so surprising) tidbit I learned: grass-fed, natural meat is more nutritious for you. According and an eatwild article cited on the Wolf Creek site, grass-fed beef is: 1- lower in fat and calories, 2- includes extra Omega-3’s, 3- one of the richest known sources of CLA, 4- grass-fed beef is 4 times higher in Vitamin E than feedlot beef.

The prices are a bit higher for grass-fed beef than its ugly industrial feedlot cousin, as expected for a practice that includes such intensive farming methods. That said, as the Wolf Creek site explains, the benefits outweigh the costs, though you can be more economical by picking up the less expensive cuts of beef and cooking them with a little patience and car. This delightful article in the C’ville Abode by local chef and food advocate/consultant (as well as blogger) Lisa Reeder taught me that the tougher, less expensive meat is actually more flavorful than the cheaper, tender parts, it just takes a little extra love.

Thank you to the Whitesides for their stewardship of our Virginia land and to Lisa Reeder for letting me know how to eat responsibly raised local meat without destroying my budget!

Stay safe out there tonight, friends!