Meatless March

In honor of Tina Turner, who sadly just died, let us consider the dystopian world of Mad Max for a moment. The plot of the films is fiction, obviously, but grim things can and do happen in real life when there are shortages of resources.  The American West is having a scary, long-term water crisis that could be apocalyptic down the line. As the New York Times noted in a terrific infographic , a huge portion of the dwindling available water from the Colorado River is used to grow feed for the livestock that give us meat and dairy. If people stopped farming animals--even if they used the same land to grow plants to feed humans--the need for water would be far less. Somehow the Times can do great reporting on things like the West's water shortage and yet still promote a ton of recipes with meat, an issue that I have raised with the food editor in the past . So I vegetarianize  bussin  recipes like " Crisp Gnocchi With Sausage and Peas " (NYT Cooking; you should be able to ac...

I went through a seaweed phase a few years ago and while I no longer add it to everything, I do still enjoy it as an Earth-friendly, tasty ingredient. So it was disappointing when " Creamy Asparagus Pasta " (NYT Cooking; subscription required) did not have a distinctly seaweed flavor, despite the claim in the recipe description that "umami-rich seaweed stars twice". The dish (which I made with gluten-free elbow pasta) tasted fine, but I don't really need to be consuming all that fattening cream from greenhouse-gas-producing cows, especially when I could add seaweed to a similar yet vegan recipe, as I suggested back in 2020 . And that vegan recipe requires no subscription, so check that out. Off you pop, as my fellow Brits might say. In cleaning up my email inbox recently, an exercise in futility that I do from time to time, I came across a 2022 edition of The Guardian's "Down To Earth" newsletter with some great and still-relevant stats about why ...

In 2009, I became a dual citizen, adding Britizenship to my US citizenship. It involved swearing my allegiance to the Queen of England and all her heirs and successors, so let's hope my two countries never go to war (again) and make me choose. Meanwhile, God save the King, who was coronated today. Taking my oath of UK citizenship In honor of the occasion, I made " Coronation Quiche ", using a recipe from the British Royal Family (yes, seriously). When I first read of the Coronation Quiche, I was not aware that it has been widely scorned and mocked . I find the criticism pretty unfair. If you don't want to make the quiche, then DON'T MAKE THE QUICHE, and stop whinging. As the New York Times' Melissa Clark pointed out, the quiche's flavor is a vegetarian* take on quiche Lorraine, and that is why it appealed to me. A plant-based diet contributes less to global warming than a diet heavy in animal products. I used, as always, my simple pastry recipe for the cr...