FoodCorps' Nora Saks (courtesy of The Washington Post)

I’ve been ignoring my blog lately — in part because I’ve been reporting and preparing for my new column in The Washington Post, Smarter Food. The new monthly feature will highlight innovative people and programs on the front lines of the effort to change how food is produced and consumed in America.

I’m thrilled about the column. It’s nice to be “home” at the Post but more important I think it’s important to not only highlight the problems in the food industry but the solutions that are being put into place. In particular, I’ll be featuring people and businesses that are scaling sustainability, producing good food at a big enough scale to feed consumers at prices they can afford. My goal is to report from across the country, especially the vast middle, which, not surprisingly, we don’t hear about quite as often as Brooklyn, Berkeley or Vermont.

My maiden column features FoodCorps, a terrific organization that I’ve been watching with interest since it was founded two years ago. The goal is to put boots on the ground to develop the nutrition and gardening education programs and healthy cafeteria food that many educators believe are important but, in an era of drastic budget cuts, don’t have the resources to fund.

Please post  your comments on this story — and any suggestions for future columns.

On the menu: Extraordinary quantities of pasta with Bolognese ragu, rabbit, and donkey, which is popular in the Veneto. Pizza. Pastries, like the famous Mantuan sbrisolana, a crumbly, buttery tart that resembles shortbread. And, where we could scavenge them, vegetables.

Our best meal of the trip — and there was competition — was at Hosteria Giusti, a deservedly famous restaurant in Modena. It’s a simple room: white walls, old beams and just four tables. (We booked months in advance to be sure to get a spot.) The only real decor was a corner bookshelf with an odd collection of mostly American cookbooks (gifts from celebrity visitors?) and a vase of pink peonies.

But Giusti is not about the decor. It’s about the food, which is — and I don’t use this word lightly — perfect. While other restaurants we visited tried to show off their culinary talents by gussying up traditional dishes with unnecessary flourishes or long, pretentious explanations of provenance, Giusti serves the classic dishes of Emilia Romagna as they were meant to be eaten.

Like much of the food of Italy, the traditional dishes of Modena inspired by cucina povera or peasant food. Those dishes were on display in the antipasti. We started baccala, a velvety puree of salt cod and not a little cream drizzled with fresh, fruity olive oil. We also ordered the frittelle, deep fried pasta scraps and beans, dotted with stravecchio (25-year-old) balsamic vinegar. This is a dish created to use up leftovers. But the crunchy, greaseless fritters were here were on par with many of the great dishes I’ve been lucky enough to eat.

Next came the pastas: The linguini di tonno estivo, or summer tuna pasta, was bathed in a luxurious sauce of olive oil, raw red onion, carrot, capers and tuna. (Note to self: Next time I make this at home, splurge on the expensive canned tuna.) The pasta was the definition of al dente, soft but toothy. The ragu was intensely meaty but, somehow, not too heavy for a warm summer day.

To finish, we shared the maialino, or suckling pig. It was, perhaps, the simplest plate to arrive. A pile of pulled pork atop a bay leaf with sweet onion jam on the side. The pork, the server explained, is cooked in wine with vegetables, then pulled off the bone and allowed to cool. It is then kept in olive oil, perfumed  with bay leaves, for about 10 days. The result is silky meat that sparkles, especially when you find a crunchy flake of sea salt. This is the kind of dish pork lovers pray to eat once in their lives. For those who don’t like pork — do those people really exist? — it is the path to conversion.

I’ll be writing more (hopefully for newspapers and magazines) about some of the other gastronomic discoveries of our trip. And I’ll be back to blogging and my podcast Smart Food more regularly. Upcoming shows on Edible Radio include great chats with Oran Hesterman, CEO of the Fair Food Network, Barry Estabrook, whose new book Tomatoland is destined to become a classic, and Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams and the creator of my all-time favorite flavor, strawberry buttermilk.

May will be a busy month. On May 3, I am moderating a panel at the Washington Post’s “Future of Food” conference in which I have one hour and five experts to tease out the future of agriculture. (No problem. Right?) Next, we head off on a “real” honeymoon in Tuscany, Bologna and Verona where I plan to religiously follow Fred Plotkin’s advice on where to eat. Then, we’re back in Huntington to visit farmers, who — poor dears — are much delayed getting things in the ground due to the impossibly rainy weather. We’ll be settled back home in June.

Updates to come. Stay in touch!

Better, the fellowship makes me part of a community of inspired advocates. This year’s class includes Brahm Ahmadi of the People’s Grocery in Oakland and author Raj Patel. Past  fellows include some of my heroes: Debra Eschmeyer of Food Corps, Paul Greenberg, author of “Four Fish” and filmmaker Curt Ellis, who co-directed “King Corn.”

The fellowship officially begins in May and our first meeting is in Minneapolis in June. Anyone know anywhere great to eat out there?

Courtesy of Tom Hindman, The Daily Mail

We’ve steered clear of talking to journalists, who have been surprisingly interested in the fact that we came here to do our book. We feel it’s our job to listen, not talk.

But Monica Orosz, who Brent worked with at the Mail in a past life, persuaded us to tell the story about how we met, fell in love and decided to co-write a book for our first year of marriage. It’s a cute story, if I do say so myself. Check it out.

Me and my grandma, Thelma Bromberg, who taught me to love cooking

On February 9, my grandma, Thelma Bromberg, fell, bumped her head and was taken to the ICU. By Saturday, the whole family had gathered together in Bethesda, taking turns on the night shift at Suburban Hospital. On Monday, Valentine’s Day, I gave in. I left the hospital around 7 and went home to dig out Grammy’s recipe for rollups. There it was in Mom’s recipe box, written in Grandma’s neat, first-grade teacher’s handwriting: “Half a pound of cream cheese, half a pound of butter, two-and-a-half cups flour. Mix together and divide into four or five balls. Refrigerate over night or put in the freezer for a while.” It’s just the kind of recipe I love – without endless measurements or specific times. A recipe written by a cook for cooks.

The last time I made rollups was years ago with Grammy at her home in Florida. She showed me how to roll out the dough, spread it with enough jam (apricot), raisins (golden) and nuts (walnuts), then roll them up and sprinkle the logs with cinnamon and sugar. The ones I made last week weren’t as good as Grammy’s. (How could they be?) But they were all eaten anyway.

Lots of Jewish grandmas feed you. But Grammy loved to cook. And you could taste her love of it in everything she put in front of you. On regular visits, she made rollups, of course, mandel bread, pot roast, matzoh brei, Chinese stir fry, hot dogs and hamburgers. At Thanksgiving, it was her zucchini casserole, cranberry-apple crisp, turkey, basted with orange juice, Jell-o mold and, for dessert, more rollups and mandel bread.

2006 was the first year I cooked Thanksgiving and I was desperate to put my own stamp on the menu. Zucchini casserole got 86ed in favor of some fancy Brussels sprouts with candied pecans. But it was back in 2007 and will stay there where it belongs. Next on my list of Grammy’s recipes to try: Salmon mold, sour cream coffee cake and something she called “Thelma’s Dip,” a mixture of blue cheese and cream cheese, that I have absolutely no recollection of her making but I am sure will be delicious.

Grammy died on February 19th.  There are a million wonderful things I could say about her: How she made beautiful clothes for me and my sisters when we were kids. How she let us sit in her sewing room and make hideous pin cushions, all of which she treasured. I treasure all of those memories. But what she passed down to me – and only me, it turns out – was a love of cooking and a joy in feeding people. And every time that I do it, three times a day, she will be with me. And I will think of her and be grateful that I was lucky enough to have her as my grandmother.

Grandma’s Rollups

1/2 pound cream cheese

1/2 pound unsalted butter

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

jam

toasted walnuts

golden raisins

cinnamon and sugar for dusting

Blend cream cheese and butter in a mixer. Add the flour gradually. Divide the dough into four or five balls and wrap each in plastic wrap. Chill over night or in the freezer for a while.

Roll out the dough and spread with jam, raisins and walnuts. Roll it up like a jelly roll. Slice each log into pieces, being careful not to cut all the way through. Sprinkle with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes.

Note: Grandma’s recipe didn’t include yields and specific amounts. It’s a real cook’s recipe, which is why I love it. But for sticklers, here are some hints. It yields about 30 to 36 pieces. You’ll need about 6 ounces of jam (Our family likes apricot but these would be just as good with raspberry or any other kind.) and about 1 cup each of walnuts and raisins. But it really depends on your taste. The dough should be rolled into sheets approximately 12 inches by 5 inches. Each rollup is cut into 6 or so pieces.

OK, I’m bragging. (And, perhaps, laying a not-so-subtle guilt trip on all those who made grand promises to us.) But seriously, this citrus, organically grown at Churchill Orchard in Ojai, is a revelation. About the size of a ping-pong ball, the mandarins seedless, sweet-as-candy, orgasmically good orbs of California sunshine. Better, they are a cinch to peel. I have eaten at least seven since they arrived. I’m torn between an intense urge to inhale the whole box and to ration them for another cold, gray week of snow.

I had never heard of kishus. According to the Interwebs, they are a Japanese variety that first came to the United States in the 1980s but have never taken off commercially. (They must be tricky to grow because they are certainly better than the clementines that are ubiquitous at grocery stores at this time of year.)

The good news is that you don’t need Alice or anyone else to send you a package. Churchill Orchard ships kishus from now through about the middle of February  They are $45 for a 10-pound box and $90 for a 25-pound box.

The bad news: Not much time for blogging.

My new year’s resolution, however, is to get back in gear. So over the next few weeks, I hope to give more regular  updates on the book, as well as on our travel adventures.

For the week between Christmas and New Year we’ll be in New York loading up on ethnic food that we can’t get in West Virginia. (On our list: Hung Ry, Xi’an Famous Foods and Kajitsu.) In mid-January, Brent and I are heading off to Louisville to sample the city’s culinary delights. So send along any recommendations for food — or bourbon. And at the end of January, I’m flying out to Santa Barbara to moderate a panel at the second annual Edible Institute. It’s going to be incredible group including Molly O’Neill, Russ Parsons, Joan Gussow, Tom Philpott, Dan Imhoff and other food luminaries. If you are anywhere nearby, try to make it.

Happy holidays!

And we’re eating well. Really well: homemade bread (toasted with homemade damson jam) for breakfast, “leftover” omelets with green chorizo, potato and onion, pasta with tuna, tomatoes and thyme, and local (!) buffalo braised in red wine with potatoes, carrots, and onions.

The two things I’m most proud of are the bread, which I would wax poetic about if I weren’t two years late to the no-knead bread party. The second was a homemade pad Thai, for which my sister gave me the recipe before we left New York.

For any of you who know my sister Hilary or have ever heard me talk about her cooking skills, this may come as a shock. Hilary not only doesn’t cook, but for much of her life she’s been one of the people in the world who actually did not know how to boil water.

(Update: After reading this post, Hilary  sent me a message: “I can sort of boil water now, but can never remember if I’m supposed to put the lid on the pot or not.”)

But her husband, Matthew, is an excellent — and patient — chef. This recipe is easy enough for Hilary to make, if supervised. It’s also easy to make without access to lots of exotic ingredients. And it’s better than most of the pad Thai you get in restaurants.

Sadly I didn’t take pictures of the final dish. But trust me, it’s worth trying. The original recipe called for shrimp, tofu and bean sprouts. But we adapted it for what we had on hand.

Almost Heaven Pad Thai

Adapted from Hilary Black

Serves 4 (maybe with some leftovers)

Ingredients:

1 14-oz package rice noodles

3 tbsp pad Thai paste (we used Maesri brand)

3 tbsp Sriracha sauce

1-1/2 tbsp tamarind paste

1-1/2 tbsp fish sauce

2 tbsp vegetable or canola oil

1 bell pepper (or ½ red and ½ orange for color), chopped into 2-inch dice

½ package extra firm tofu, chopped into 1-inch dice

2 eggs

3 scallions, chopped

3 tablespoons toasted peanuts or cashews

1 small bunch of cilantro, chopped (about 4 tablespoons)

Method:

1. Follow package directions to soak rice noodles. (Most call to soak them in warm water for 15 or 20 minutes until soft.)

2. Heat the oil in a large saucepan or wok over medium-high heat. Stir-fry the peppers, stirring often until just soft. Remove from the pan and set aside. Add a little more oil if required and add the tofu and the pad Thai paste. Cook about one minute, stirring constantly. Add the eggs and cook until they are just scrambled.

3. Add the sriracha, tamarind, and fish sauce. Stir well. Then add the rice noodles and toss until well combined.

4. Serve immediately with peanuts and cilantro as garnish.

Chuck Talbott with his pigs

Who said we’d go hungry in West Virginia?

It was our fourth night here. We drove out to the “holler” to see Chuck Talbott and Nadine Perry. I had written about Chuck and his efforts to launch an all-American charcuterie business, Woodlands Pork, three years ago for the Washington Post. This is harvest time for Chuck, always a mixture of excitement – the meat is just what they have been hoping for – and sadness as they say goodbye to the pigs they have come to love.

Chuck and Nadine knew we were coming to research our book on how and if Huntington can change its food culture. But we ran into them sooner than expected. Tuesday night was the third of three lectures on sustainable agriculture at the local university, Marshall. (Chuck was giving an overview of his work and we also heard from Dr. James Farmer – what a name! – about the relationship of income to local-food purchasing.)

Jay Denham carving the cured shoulder

The house has come a long way since I visited three years ago; it has insulation and more walls, for one thing. And it also has more residents. Along with Chuck and Nadine, two young interns, Chelsea and Kate, are living there. So is Jay Denham, a former chef and champion of Kentucky products, who is working with Chuck, and Nadine’s son, Ben. Also visiting were two chefs from the Cincinnati area, Justin and Kyle. The chefs did all the cooking. We drank vodka tonics and cider-bourbon cocktails out of mason jars and snacked on the cured shoulder, pork terrine and what Ben called “chicken butter,” a.k.a chicken liver pate made from Michel Richard’s “faux gras” recipe. Good deal.

Woodlands Pork loin

Smoking the pressa, a much beloved cut in Spain, took a few hours. So did roasting the loin which came with an eight-inch fat cap.

But the wait was worth it. The meal was like Thanksgiving, without all the traditional and often obligatory side dishes. And though this meat was made to cure, it makes mean fresh pork. The loin was tender and super porky. And Jay’s rice is a keeper. You melt pork fat in a sauce pan, then toast pecans in it and then the rice. After a few minutes, add fresh cider and cook until the rice is tender. Outrageously good.

We don’t expect to eat like this every night – though wouldn’t that be nice? But it’s really exciting to find such good food so fast. The chefs are going to hook us up with a local chicken and egg purveyor and some local beef. And, if we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get some Woodlands Pork for the winter.

And just for fun, here are some more pictures of Chuck’s great pigs.

That's some pig

Woodlands Pork pigs