Ten American Cities With the Worst Drinking Water

Yes, Jacksonville is #10...

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/01/31/ten-american-cities-with-worst-drinking-water/

2013 Food Challenge: Sweet Potatoes, with due credit to Tomatoes.

I was going to write a post on cherry and grape tomatoes, but that would be too easy. All I have to do with those babies is open the box and eat. No-brainer there. True, they are from Florida... and they did fill the quota, along with carrots and arugula, of my vegetable intake for the 9 days I spent in the car last month crisscrossing the continent. Thank you tomatoes. I love your sweetness, plumpness, and cheerful sunny colors.

But I will write about sweet potatoes instead. Yes, the one that looks like a potato and, once you buy it, have no idea what to do with it.

Sweet potatoes are an incredible vegetable. Traditionally, they are considered to be good for the blood. In Western lingo, sweet potatoes contain iron, which is an important nutrient for women like me that do not eat a whole lot of meat. Those sweeties will also give you vitamins B6, C and D, carotenoids, magnesium and potassium. Yes potatoes do pale in comparison: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/9-reasons-to-love-sweet-potatoes.html?page=1.

Why sweet potatoes? Because I happen to be cooking them tonight, plain and simple. Cut them up to look like potato fries. Toss them, with your hands, in a generous amount of olive oil and sea salt... and feel the softness that the oil gives your hands afterwards- added bonus. Then place them in a glass ware or cast iron pan to roast. I like to bake them in Florence, my cast iron pan, because it is easier to clean Florence than to scrub away crusty glass pans. I also use, when Florence is not available, a stainless steel frying pan. Never use Teflon!!!!! Never. Throw that junk, along with anything Calphalon, away. How many times have I written this, along with info to back it up? Not enough. So here it is: http://www.freshfoodunderground.com/2010/02/on-quest-to-get-rid-of-teflon.html, and http://www.freshfoodunderground.com/2010/12/what-are-you-cooking-your-food-in.html.

Now that your hands are nice, salty and oily, you can lick them, or you can just proceed to step 2- wash them. Step 3, place the potatoes in the oven preheated to 400ºF. If you are like me, and don't want to deal with waiting, put them to bake as the oven preheats to the right temp. Those babies are so hardy, they come out tasting great no matter what. Bake/roast for about 15 minutes, toss them around, put them back and bake/roast for another 15, or until they are as blackened as you wish them to be. I love mine like this. Take them out, and they are ready to eat alone with a nice beer, or with a salad and quinoa as I am about to enjoy mine. They are also yummy with chicken, kibbies, for school lunches, snacks, rice and beans... you name it, and they will follow your orders. Enjoy!

2013 Food Challenge: Arugula

I have been doing a lot of traveling these past few weeks, and have been experiencing, first hand, a true, real... Food Challenge. How???

It really is a challenge to eat well when on the road for hours, and hours, and days at a time. Snacks, fatty foods, sweets, candy, ice cream, coke... it all becomes so tempting when tired and sleepy... NO!!!!!!!!!

I have learned to get on the ground and do a set of push ups or burpees every time I stop for gas and/or bathroom in order to wake up, and have managed this way to avoid any and all junk and crappy food and drinks. Yes it is embarrassing- at first. But what the hell. After giving birth twice, not much gets even slightly close in the embarrassment scale. And who cares anyway if someone I don't even know or will ever see again sees me doing burpees on the side of the building or by the pump? Fuck embarrassment, do the burpees.

So back to food. And traveling. Arugula is everything I would want of a great travel companion. Packs well, doesn't go sour, doesn't mind the music I listen to... low maintenance.

I can just eat it. All of it. No fork, no knife, no sliding fingers through the stem, no nothing. Just take a leaf... and eat it. It really does not get much simpler than that.

Munch it straight out of the bag, or box... or use it in sandwiches, as I did today. I had run out of the good hardy, whole-wheat crusty bread that Alex's Russian Bakery makes... so I had to use sandwich bread- please forgive me, Alex. But still, I spread butter on it, placed pieces of thinly cut salami, and threw arugula from Down to Earth Farm on top. Done.

At home, many times I find myself short on time to wash and chop vegetables. So I put fresh arugula on/in (still can't get my prepositions right to this day... so will use both from now on, just in case) barley or chicken noodle soup as I serve it. It goes great on top of pizzas, with burgers, cheddar cheese sandwiches... and salads of course.

Arugula to me is the equivalent of a ready-made meal for the microwave, except only easier. Take it out of the fridge, open and eat. No need to wash, chop, cook or even microwave. Imagine that!

Cooking with Z!

First five for free!

So you...

• know how to shop...
• know your bulk items...
• know how to select...
• know how to cut... 
• know where to start... 
• know what to make...
• know what is healthy...
• want to cook alone...

If your reaction to any one of those subliminal messages is ''no...''

...and you are as happy as I am for getting four ''f'' words together in a title...

... then you are the perfect candidate for a cooking lesson! If you are one of the first five to respond, your first lesson is free!

Contact me through Facebook, @Sofia Zappi.

2013 Food Challenge: Carrots

I keep on delaying a post, because I tell myself "tomorrow I will have the time to write a more thorough, better post than today.'' But that tomorrow never comes.

Because there is never a ''right time'' to write. The only time I have is right now. So, as I make a lovely carrot soup from a whole bag of carrots a friend gave me in order to keep me awake driving cross country, I will write about carrots.

The soup I am making is, in fact, to nourish myself and my daughter tomorrow, when we will be staying in a hotel for the night. All I will have to do for dinner is... heat up the soup in a hotel microwave. And we will have a great meal. If I have the time, I will stop by a store and purchase a bit of heavy cream, make beautiful swirls in the soup, and eat it with Russian bread that I will bring as well. Done!

Why carrots? First of all, it is yet another vegetable that requires no knife or chopping board in order to be consumed. Take a carrot out of the bag, and eat it. Spit out the ends, or chop off the ends with teeth, pre-consumption. Done. No lame excuses about how hard it is to eat vegetables.

Carrots were one of the first vegetables to show up in supermarkets in the ''organic'' version. They are so popular, that I can be driving in the most remote part of Wyoming somewhere in the middle of the night, and still find fucking organic carrots in a 24hour Walmart, along with windshield wiper fluid. Not joking. In other words, take advantage of this modern American phenomenon that is organic carrots.

But please, buy and eat the real thing. Don't settle for ''baby carrots''. They are merely old carrots cut up in the shape of little, ''baby'' carrots. Ever wonder why those damn things go bad the minute they leave the supermarket shelf? Now you know.... buy real carrots, which are hard, hardy, and last. A long time.

Eat them as they come. As a snack on their own, or as a meal, dipped in hummus. Grate them into salads, cut them into salads, cut them in chunks to put in soups, or make a soup out of them, with potatoes, onions, butter, olive oil and salt.