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I spent today out and about in St. Louis enjoying the incredibly beautiful day. First brunch at Merriweather’s, a restaurant inside of the Missouri History Museum. Then shooting photos around Forest Park. Then wine at Duff’s on the patio. I cannot imagine a more perfect way to spend a Sunday in St. Louis.

A couple of weeks ago Seth and I had our first cooking adventure together.  It was an adventure, because, well, I don’t cook.

It isn’t that I can’t cook.  A third grader can follow a recipe.  I simply do not have the patience for tedious activities like dicing, slicing, and sautéing or for waiting on timers or thawing.  It is of no interest to me to cook for one as it often is, either.

I quite enjoyed cooking with Seth, though.  He and I selected two healthy and relatively simple recipes found online then improvised Sunday breakfast.

First we did the shopping together, purchasing the spices, the produce, the pasta, and the poultry.  Next we boiled, grilled, sliced, diced, and cooked.

One meal we made consisted of grilled chicken with spices and pasta with broccoli, feta, and kalamata olives.  It was a delicious meal.

(photo taken by Seth)

For another meal we made stuffed zucchini – stuffed with quinoa, pine nuts, garlic, mushrooms, shallots, and ricotta cheese.  This was a more detailed recipe, with various parts of the recipe; but also nutritious and tasty.

For breakfast the next day, we took a walk down to the Highland (IL) grocery store and bought ingredients for breakfast.  We had our own form of huevos rancheros and black beans, with fruit on the side.  It was absolutely scrumptious!

Seth is quite the skilled chef and did well with teaching me what to do, when to do it, and how.  My favorite part of cooking the meals was food arrangement.  I love to put items together on a plate so as to create an attractive presentation.

Sometime back I finally finished the eye-opening book entitled Fat Land, by Greg Critser (2003).  The book seeks to explain why the United States is one of the most obese nations on earth (at time of publication, the most obese nation, now second only to Great Britain) and to do so gives a history of eating habits, nutritional devolution, and government interference.

It is absolutely disturbing what impact the lobbyists, corporations, and our government together have had upon the nation’s health and well-being.  The introduction of high fructose corn syrup, developed by Japanese scientists in 1971, was the start of our descent into obesity.

High fructose corn syrup, it seems, costs tremendously less to utilize than pure cane sugar, six times sweeter than cane sugar, and could be used for everything  sweetener to preservative to coloration.  The problem, it was discovered, is that high fructose corn syrup is not digestible by the human liver:

“Fructose, unlike sucrose or dextrose, took a decidedly different route into the human metabolism.  Where the latter would go through a complex breakdown process before arriving at the human liver, the former, for some reason, bypassed that breakdown and arrived almost completely intact in the liver… This unique feature of fructose, which was intensified by the high concentration of it in high fructose corn syrup, would come to be called ‘metabolic shunting’”

The 1970s brought more families with not one but two working parents.  Convenience food and TV dinners became in high demand as a result. Consumers began to demand lower prices for these convenience foods, with no concern for how the government and food producers would lower the prices, but simply insistent that they did it.

One solution was palm oil, whose prices were consistently very good.  Unfortunately for the country’s nutritional health, while palm oil was cheaper to produce and use, it was also very high in saturated fat – its “proponents secretly touted it as ‘cow fat disguised as vegetable oil.”  So the U.S. had another nail in the obesity coffin, as it were.

Soon we had cheaply produced food, with very little nutritional value, and the public didn’t care:  the public had cheaper, delicious, more convenient food, what else mattered?  Then the public began to insist upon more for their dollar and the supersizing concept was born.

With marketing magic, soon people didn’t feel bad about eating in supersized portions and with the help of marketing mavericks the public were made to believe that their supersized portions were “value meals.” The country was at an economic plateau and was desperate to save a buck, however they could do it.  The people were well on their way to the obesity epidemic of the 21st century.

Fat Land goes on from there to explain the overload of calorie content in the average person, and the slow and subtle withdrawal of exercise standardization by the government officials.  For those with inquiring minds, a full appendix is available at the back of the book.  I highly suggest you read this book.  You will never look at the food you eat the same again.

I have visited The Gelateria three times now. Every time is a great experience there. A variety of flavors of gelato are always available, samples are free and plentiful. This past Saturday I went and got a large waffle cone with two different flavors. Tasty!

Sandwiches are available too and they are delicious. The service staff are always nice and quick to help customers out. Smoothies and specialty drinks are available as well.

If you live in St. Louis or visit St. Louis, take the time to visit The Gelateria and have a scoop or two of the gelato. You will not regret it.

Dinner with my family has always been nutritious and delicious. My mother always insisted that every meal had a meat, a vegetable, and a starch. My mother was infatuated with casseroles, so we had tater tot casserole, tuna casserole, broccoli and cheese casserole, and green bean casserole. She worked a lot, which meant many meals cooked in the Crockpot too – potato soup, porcupine meatballs, and roast beef with potatoes and carrots. When in doubt, we would eat something that came out of a box or can: macaroni and cheese, fish sticks, soup, Chef Boyardee, Hamburger Helper, or Tuna Helper. My favorite family meals were BLT sandwiches, tacos, tater tot casserole, and tuna casserole. I look forward to returning home to Minnesota (someday) to one of my mother’s delicious meals.

The St. Louis Wine Festival in Forest Park included the opportunity to sample from 150 wines and purchase food from Fleming’s and other local eateries. Wineries including St. James Winery, Fetzer Vineyards, Montelle Winery, Barefoot Cellars, Ste. Michele Wine Estates and Napa Ridge Winery are among the 25 featured this year. I am generally terrible at remembering the names of specific wines I like, but I do recall enjoying the Sebeka Sauvignon Blanc, Polka Dot Pink Dot Riesling, Carmel Road Pinot Noir (Kendall Jackson), and a few of the Barefoot Cellars wines. A fantastic all-girl band “Girls’ Night Out” played all Saturday afternoon. Pictures of the day are found here.

This weekend Amy V. and I went to Taste of St. Louis downtown. Taste of St. Louis had booths for numerous local restaurants, some random vendor booths (including a Crocs booth – GAG), three stages featuring musicians of different genres, and a smallish art fair set up as well. Truth be told, I was unimpressed. The entire event took a half an hour to walk through, take pictures, and grab food and drinks. The featured national musicians were the band “Bowling for Soup.” The front man was obnoxious, juvenile, and talked way too much. A quite talented female duo played on another, smaller stage but I cannot remember the duo’s name. What made the event worthwhile is the time spent with Amy V. Conversation feeds the soul…

Thursday evening, I got together with my friends for Grey’s Anatomy and we made homemade sushi. It was far easier than I thought it would be and I cannot wait for another chance to make more.

Join me?

This past week, I visited 1111 Mississippi for the first time.  My party was seated quickly, even as we explained to the hostess that we did not have reservations.  The restaurant is located in the loft district of the Lafayette Square neighborhood, inside of a rehabbed warehouse, converted into three levels – one with a glass-enclosed wine room available for private parties, the others featuring wood-burning fireplaces.  You should be comfortable in jeans and a nice shirt or a dress or suit.  The waiter was quick to help us, fast with our drink order, and served us with a smile and great suggestions.  Though the restaurant was full, we were served our appetizer, entrees, and dessert in a timely manner.

I was impressed that the menu had a variety of tasty vegetarian options, which is not terribly common in the Midwest.  Our food was exceptionally presented and absolutely melt-in-your-mouth delicious.  For our appetizer we had the grilled bruschetta with sun-dried tomato pesto, portobello, roasted peppers, arugula & fontina.  It was like no bruschetta I have ever eaten.  It was almost like two small gourmet pizzas on an appetizer plate. For an entrée I had the mushroom risotto, which doesn’t appear on the online menu via their website at present.  It was some of the best risotto I have ever eaten.  My date had spinach & ricotta gnocchi with white truffle oil, basil, and parmigiano-reggiano.  He thought it good, but not as good as the gnocchi he had at Niche.  For dessert we shared the crème custard napoleon w/ carameled bananas & chocolate shavings – the 1111 Mississippi version of Crème Brule and it was amazing.  I would highly recommend it to anyone enjoying dessert at 1111 Mississippi.

1111 Mississippi is a fantastic dining experience worth having.  If you live in St. Louis or are visiting St. Louis, please visit 1111 Mississippi for lunch, dinner, or dessert and drinks.  I promise you, you’ll thank me.

Yesterday, Justin and I visited Everest Café for lunch.  Everest Café serves Nepalese food – primarily vegetarian food.  The chef and owner is personally vegetarian, but serves meat because it is “good business,” as many people are meat eaters.  At lunch, a buffet is provided with a nice spread of vegetarian items and a few meat items.  The food was absolutely delicious.  It was a bit spicy, but not so brutal as Indian food is for me. Enough vegan food was present that I was entirely full when we left.  I highly suggest visiting Everest Café whether a meat eater or vegetarian.  I will definitely be back – for lunch and for dinner.