A potluck in the south: TexMexxing, y'all

I eat more than I write, and that's why I am finally blogging about the TexMex potluck at Emily's house long after other, more diligent bloggers have done so. You can check out Kristy, Pip , Cindy and Michael (note there's two different links there to two different posts), and Lisa's posts too for more time-appropriate writing! Also, have a look at Lisa's chihuahua companion Kimba in her tequila-chihuahua outfit at Pip's blog. I will preface this post by saying that awesome as the food was, it takes second place to the adorableness of Kim's outfit (Sam wasn't having a bar of it).

The emergence of themed potlucks is, in my splendid opinion, a top hole idea. It gives structure and purpose, and allows us to really concentrate on finding something new and appropriate to cook. For pretendy-chefs like me who are always tempted to crawl back into the hole of easiness and comfort and prepare a boring variation on boring theme - and for me it's pasta five thousand ways - it's a real challenge and one that has the added benefit of expanding my personal repertoire as well letting everyone share in a special event.

Also, Emily bought a new tortilla skillet that she wanted to try out.

Pregan, my sister had made me some quesadillas which I devoured in cheesy gooeyness. I was eager to recreate them as non-quesadillas, and was happy to find that there are more than a few vegan versions floating around the interwebs. Some use soy cheese and some smashed red kidney beans to stick it all together, so I decided to take a bit of an experimental approach (and use up the one lonely can of kiddly beans I had a-mouldering in the cupboard ... no! it wasn't actually mouldy! I did not attempt to poison my friends!) and combine a bit of everything. I didn't take pictures of the preparation though as I was also cooking some food for my friend who recently had a gorgeous little girl (hello Minnie!) so my cookering that day was timed to the nanosecond.

I bought two rolls of Cheezly, the highly flavoured and highly orange nacho and the more neutral mozzarella, and grated the lot. Yep, the lot. I chopped some spring onions finely, diced some orange capsicum, used some sliced black olives form the fridge, sliced some spicy jalapenos, defrosted some corn (it's cheap and it lasts!), and smashed me up some o' them red kiddlies. I mixed it all together, and heated up Magic Pan.

I had a packet of El Paso Light Flour Tortillas - why get the full fat when I was just gonna sizzle it anyhows? - and I spooned the mixture into half the tortilla until it was about 1.5 centimetres high, folded it over into a moon shape, and then whacked it on to a pre-oiled Magic Pan.

Each non-quesadilla required a couple of minutes on each side, and there was a bit of trial and error in working out the boundary between nicely toasted and a bit too sizzled. However, none of them came out in such bad shape that I wasn't happy to present them to the potluck, so they're not really that hard to mess up. After they cooled I garnished them with some coriander.

Pip was kind enough to say she really liked them, and I think they came out ok. The kidney beans were very effective and coalescing all the ingredients, but who can seriously resist a great big handful of melted Cheezly?


I also made gazpacho, something I experimented with over the heatwave in February, and I can never get over how easy it is (and also I think of Red Dwarf so it makes me giggle).


Here's the recipe I tend to use to make a truckload, although there are some faaa-aaaancy variations out there that use black beans or watermelon too:

• 8 - 10 ripe tomatoes. It's better, although messier, to peel them.
  
• 1 orange or yellow capsicum
• 1 cucumber, sliced any way that your food processor will get at it
  
• a couple of stalks of spring onion
• a few cloves of garlic - I always like more
• a big slosh of lemon juice
• a slightly smaller slosh of olive oil if you want it a little less fattofied, but if you like it then feel free to splash it about some more (and use the good stuff; you'll taste it)
• parsely, coriander or other fresh herbs to taste
• red wine vingear to taste

Method: in the food processor until you think it looks good. You might like it more chunky and salsa-like than others, or you might prefer it baby-style pureed. Whatevs - you just can't mess this one up folks!

Back on the ranch, there were some truly stupendous TexMex offerings. I loved Lidia's Cowboy Beans which were beans with lots of mock meat including sausages and bacon, and which were accompanied by authentic (I think) cornbread, and Craig's chilli was hot hot hot!


Tim's chilli with corn, mushroom and chickpea was a good contrast in restraint, and the black beans, made by someone who's name I rudely forgot, were fascinating.



Vanessa made a fantastic paella with lemon wedges and artichokes, which I went back for long after I was full to have a little pick at, and a sangria that was, unlike festy sangrias I've had in Barcelona, not at all over spirited and very, very drinkable.


Tara made some unbelievably delicious salsa which I also got stuck into for thirds, and Lisa also made a fabulous dip - the creamiest, smoothest guacamole I've ever had. I didn't get a chance to try Cindy and Michael's green pumpkin seed mole from Veganomicon and I sorely regretted it.


And what would a potluck be without dessert? Kristy and Toby outdid themselves with two types of cupcake - tequila and chilli chocolate. I downed a tequila one and the icing was incredible - not enough to get you pished but definitely adults only!


There were two kinds of Mexican Wedding Biscuits, chocolate ones made by Cindy and some plain from Jo. They were both perfectly crumbly, and were complemented by some raw oatmeal cacao nib cookies which were fantastically sweet and sweetly accessorised with an ingredients list.


Finally, Pip and Tim made some churros. Yep, real, live, fried churros with melted chocolate. And cinnamon sugar. And lots of fatty sugariness - mmm-mmm-mmmm. They were fried and sweet and delish, and, like the sangria, better than what I've actually had in Spain. So there, Iberian Peninsula!


I didn't hang around much long after the obligatory tequila; Sam had had a bit of a testing night after not wanting to play with the other puppies and was clearly rejecting this attempt to introduce he and Kimba to their culture-of-origin.


In any case, I was in a world of stuffed-belly and the introduction of hard spirits might have seen me burst like Bec's awesome pinata after she and Toby had demonstrated their proficiency at various martial arts on it:



But seeing as there was an absolute mountain of lollies from Rishon's inside the pinata, I was glad I did. Ain't they purdy?

The Good Weekend Magazine - Extreme Eaters.

Miss T Junior rang me up last weekend to ask if I'd read an article in the The Age's Good Weekend Magazine which profiled 'extreme eaters'. You might note that this was last weekend and I'm only just getting around to writing about it, so a thousand apologies if you find yourself ferreting through the rubbish bin to retrieve it.

The article, by Fenella Souter and entitled "Guess who's coming to dinner", begins with 32 year old Scott Wheeler, a man who follows the Primal Diet. That's raw animal products. Exclusively. Meat, butter, eggs, bones - 100% raw and 100% of the time.

This is a vegan blog. I am vegan. It will come as no surprise that I find the idea of the Primal Diet 100% revolting. Ethically, environmentally and health-wise, I simply cannot accept that it's a good way to live.

However, in the interests of journalistic curiousity, I don't intend to run a "Vegans Rule!" line in writing about Mr Wheeler's dietary choices. Although I find the news that he eats about a kilo of raw beef a day deeply distressing and shocking, and can't help a little mental calculation going on about how many cows are killed for his diet a year, and how much water is used to produce it, what I really find most concerning about Mr Wheeler's diet is the way in which he approaches it.

Certainly, he puts more thought and planning into his diet than many people, and has done a significant amount of dietary and physiological research in coming to his conclusions. That's surely better than the oblivious and glazed-eyed habitual fried food eater. But he hasn't had his cholesterol checked, which seems reckless for a man with two small children, especially one who eats ten raw eggs a day and drinks a litre of raw milk in addition to the kilo of beef, and he goes on to make statements like:

"A ruminant, a cow say, with its four stomachs, does a great job of synthesising vegetation and converting it into flesh. Because I can't do that, it makes logical sense to me to eat the animal that does".

And does it make logical sense to eat the heart of your enemies to take on his powers? No. It doesn't work like that. And let me assure you that as a herbivore I have trouble converting vegetation into flesh, and you can just check how tight my favourite jeans are getting if you don't believe me.

Mr Wheeler's two children, six and four, and his wife also follow the Primal Diet (although unlike him they are "allowed" to mix foods - that means avocado with the raw meat). Now I can't say that I'm insensible to the issues surrounding vegan children here. A couple of high profile and very tragic cases where children have died from malnutrition have become characterised as death-by-veganism, rather than death-by-parents-who-didn't-feed-chid-enough-of-anything. The American Dietetic Association states that a vegan diet is appropriate for every stage of life, including infancy and lactation, which advice I am happy to accept. However, it seems to me that feeding very young children a pure raw animal product diet, with its risks not only only of direct health impacts as well as bacterial contamination, is not entirely responsible. Although again it seems that Mr Wheeler (and I presume the children's mother) put more thought and consideration into their children's diet than many Maccas-scoffing parents, I am still unnerved by the thought of small children eating this kind of diet. Mr Wheeler does make the sensible point that there are commercial concerns behind many 'official' decisions made relating to the sale of food and the benefits proclaimed about them, as anyone who has read Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation will know, but I still put quite a bit of faith in the ability of conventional science to detect salmonella.

Although I have to admire any person who actively thinks about and investigates food and its production, and alters their diet according to their knowledge, I just can't see on any level that the Primal Diet contributes to health, environmental sustainability, or any defendable ethical position.


The second person interviewed, 42 year old fruitarian Anne Osborne, has an ethical position more like one I can personally understand, but also makes a number of well-considered and self-aware statements that help assure readers that her ocassional stints of mono-diet are not quite as ... well, fruity ... as they may appear. I am well aware that my own prejudices are to regard fruitarians in much the same way as I expect that omnivores think of vegans, so I will try to refrain from dietary dismissiveness.

Fruitarians eat anything with seeds, and may extend to dried fruit and nuts or even green vegetables. Unlike raw vegans, they avoid other vegetables and grains. Ms Osborne chooses not to eat chocolate, tea, coffee and alcohol, and avoids greens for the most part. She also has frequent periods of mono-diet, where she will eat only one kind of fruit for a certain period of time. Apart from the brain-crushing, soul-disintegrating boredom of eating nothing but melon for six months, I have no qualms in saying that this seems almost as bizarre as eating nothing but raw meat to me.

However, Ms Osborne seems very self-aware and responsible in what is, by any standard, an extreme diet. She took precautionary B12 supplements during her pregnancies, although she never experienced any of the symptoms of B12 deficiency; had her older (fruitarian) son's B12 levels tested by a government nutritionist when he was six (he was compeletely fine but 30% down on recommended calcium intake; she notes that when calcium is consumed via dairy it is counter-productive so those levels might not be accurate for non-meat eaters. Incidentally both children have perfect teeth); and is fully aware that whilst sometimes low, her calorie intake is generally appropriate for someone of her height and weight.

It was in fact a pleasant surprise to read about Ms Osborne's food choices. I was initially dreading the presentation of another fruitloop (excuse the pun) vegan variant, chosen I thought to make us look as bizzarro as possible. It was a relief to read about a woman who seems very intersting indeed, who has approached her diet with intelligence and consideration, and who gives her teenage sons the respect of not questioning what they eat when they are out with friends. Perhaps her choices will still seem incomprehensible to many readers, but I think she did herself credit.

There are perhaps 200 people on frugivorous diets in Australia. I can't help but compare their net impact on the environment and the lives of animals to that of Mr Wheeler.