3 September 2010 Food TV is dangerous

Quite dangerous, in fact.

I’m sufficiently adept in the kitchen to be able to replicate a lot of the items featured on the various programs. That is, of course, if I can find all the ingredients, want to spend the time doing prep, cooking, and cleanup.

The network makes it hard to avoid the danger. They know right where we live, we foodies, and how to trigger the salivary glands that send us running to gourmet food stores. In our location, make that the gourmet food shelf.

I’ve been looking for green peppercorns in brine for over a month now. I have a recipe for steak au poivre with green peppercorn cream sauce that sounds like a crowd pleaser. I have everything I need except the green peppercorns in brine. We shop at four different grocery stores, including an organic food store. None of them carry the item.

We went grocery shopping today. We bought no protein other than a half-gallon of soy milk for Gloria. We bought 3 cans of soup, two jars of jam, a small amount of produce, a bag of dog food, and two bags of charcoal. We didn’t quite spend $150.00. But we came close.

Granted, we buy more expensive items than some. We use whole grain breads rather than generic white bread. When we buy pasta we buy a brand low in gluten and starch compared to most brands. Gloria has diabetes. White bread and cheap pasta are not good for her. What we would save in grocery dollars would be paid in medical dollars. But the toll on her is not acceptable.

We don’t shop with a lot of coupons. Most coupons we see are for junk food, for heavily salted and sugared box dinners, for soft drinks, and other things that account for a lot of other people’s grocery expenses.

We don’t buy meat that isn’t on sale. We don’t buy sea food that has been caught, processed, shipped, or touched in any form by China. As much as I enjoy good sea food, I don’t trust the Chinese food chain anymore than I trust China to produce anything else safely. Along that line, I don’t buy protein from Wal-Mart. Speaking of lack of trust, they engender it.

Tonight, we are having pulled pork sandwiches with a mustard based Cole-slaw. Unfortunately, there is a great barbeque restaurant in Greeneville, where we shopped today. And unfortunately, there was a program on Food TV the other night that featured such a sandwich; showed it being built, being served, being enjoyed as if it was a last meal item of choice.

I like pulled pork a lot. Maybe it is not my pick for the last thing I’d care to taste; not even close actually. But it sure sounded good today. So we bought Kaiser rolls along with our other groceries, and then bought a pound of pulled pork with the house 12 pepper sauce and some Cole-slaw on the way home. We have mustard on hand, several types, always. We went carefully away from evil food groups. We didn’t buy fries, baked beans, home-made chips (OK, only because they were out of them) or desserts. The Kaiser rolls we bought are whole grain. Sometimes a sandwich just calls too loudly to ignore. After all, this is Tennessee; the best place in the nation to find pulled pork and ribs is Memphis. Of course, the best brisket comes from Kansas City but that’s too long a drive for a sandwich.

Now where’s that new gourmet spice catalog?

Shabbat Shalom!