Romesco del Pliny

And now for something completely different... Atheist, deist, scientist, layman, agmystic, whatever - we all gotta eat sometime. Some people pass the olive branch- me I reach for the olive oil... I love to cook and my wife and I both take turns and experiment together trying out new recipes or refining the old staples. This is one is a very reliable fall back for when you just get home from work and don't feel like cooking. No store bought sauce for us! Working together we can churn it out in about 7 minutes. It's extremely simple but very flavorful. Hope you enjoy it.

Romesco del Pliny

10-20 minutes prep time total. A great last minute meal that is always a big hit around our house. Excellent when you are tired and don't want to cook. Much better than standard red sauces. Fairly zippy and can easily be dialed up in heat with more pepper flakes without losing its complex flavor. Serves 3-4 generously and it's pretty healthy as well.

Ingredients
Peppers and tomatoes

• 1.5 or 2 roasted red peppers, drained
• Fire roasted diced tomatoes, can
• Sun dried roma tomatoes (tablespoon or 2)
• Tomato paste 1-1.5 tbls ( a bit more if you want it really 'tomatoee')

The rest

• 1 slice firm white sandwich bread, toasted
• 1/4 cup roasted salted almonds (not smoked)
• 1 large garlic clove
• 1/2 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon Sherry vinegar, or more to taste
• 3/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste (don't skimp)
• 1/4 teaspoon dried hot red-pepper flakes, or more to taste
• 1/4 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano plus additional for serving
• 1 lb corkscrew pasta such as rotini

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Preparation

Begin to cook pasta in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water .

Blend the vinegar, almonds, broth and oil for about a minute (I like the almond texture to be a little less apparent in the final mixture but if you prefer the sause to have even more texture, then do all the ingredients together at one time) then add the torn toast and blend with peppers, tomatoes, salt, and red-pepper flakes in a blender until smooth (1-2 minutes), but not too smooth (the texture is part of the appeal). Transfer to a 12-inch heavy skillet and bring to a simmer.

Add pasta to sauce along with cheese (1/4 cup) and toss to combine. Add additional chicken broth to thin the mixture as you are simming it to thin if necessary. Serve immediately.

You carnivores out there - throw in the sausage, meatballs whatever. Works well with all of it.

The Great Depression of 2011

In my neck of the woods every day brings news of new layoffs, plant shut downs, scaled back operations, and going out of business sales. We recently downsized our own offices and were unable to even donate un-needed furnishings to charity because of the volume of material already donated by other businesses either doing the same or closing up shop.

The winter weather gutted holiday retail and we are seeing a lot of mom and pop stores failing. The cascade of bankruptcies after the poor Christmas sales season hasn't reached its full intensity yet. Boeing announced a reduction in 1700 jobs and Intel is looking at similar numbers in light of the economic downturn. A regional producer of plywood panels (making enough per year to supply 21,000 homes) is closing operations. Once these wage earners are out of the equation how long will it be before trickle down economics results in even more losses to stores, restaurants, you name it.

I fear that we aren't anywhere near the bottom of this pit yet. Anyone else as scared as I am?

You Are What You Eat: Researching the impact of animal treatment on the ultimate health of the consumer

You are what you eat, so it is said. In that light I would like to propose a series of studies that might be of interest. For the majority of Americans who eat meat, said meat is usually the product of American agra-business conglomerates who generally treat the food animals with the same disregard that they show the consumer. The animals are often piled into cramped and minimally sanitary conditions and slaughtered with little regard to the suffering of the animals. Now I'm not going to argue the merits, morality or limitations of eating meat. What I am going to propose is that if meat is going to be consumed, that we should study the potential human health affects of inhuman treatment of food animals. If not for purely humane reasons might there not be practical reasons for treating the animals well. Ok Pliny, what they heck are you driving at? Simply this; is it possible that animals that are poorly treated produce meat that contains higher than normal concentrations of stress hormones? If that is true, is the consumption of those hormones a potential health risk?

The background:

Ok, we know that animals produce stress hormones when stressed (duh). Cortisol is one such hormone. Excessive cortisol is harmful to humans. It leads to central obesity, hypertension, poor wound healing and a myriad of other problems with prolonged exposure. We have seen a change in the pattern of obesity in the US. This could be from a number of factors. Could one such factor be exogenous cortisol present in food? (answer: unknown).

One might argue that such hormones would be digested. But keep in mind that oral administration is a common route for steroid therapies. Plus in many cases it is the break down products derived from metabolism of a substance that may be harmful.

The study:

I suspect that this might be studied in stages. Stage one: compare assays of tissue hormone levels from two animal cohorts. One might be a selection of range feed animals vs the typical agra-business processing. If tissue levels were similar, then the experiment might be over. But if not, then additional studies might be indicated. The first might be too study the bioavailability of the hormones when subjected to digestive enzymes say. Later studies might examine matched populations who consume range feed animals vs more factory processed meats.

I'm not saying that this would show any health risks but it seems like it might be time to consider the impact of the food animal's health and treatment to the ultimate health of the consumer.