July 2016 - Local Mouthful

152: What’s NOT for dinner, Tiny Tools, Cooking for Love

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The tiny spatulas Joy didn't know she couldn't live without — The tiny spatulas Joy didn’t know she couldn’t live without

We are suckers for click bait slide shows, like this one from Good Housekeeping that listed the food fad of the year going all the way back to the 70s. We were especially interested in the foods that were faddish the years we were born.

Instead of our usual segment dedicated to what we’ve been cooking lately, we talked about this things we most cooking the most during the summer, when pots of soups are simply unthinkable.

Recently a pair of tiny spatulas changed Joy’s kitchen life quite unexpectedly. So we used it as an excuse to go over all our favorite small but mighty tools.

As recipe developers, we are often cooking for money. We explore how that differs from the reason we got into this line of work in the first place: Cooking for love.

In our At the Market segment, we talked about the good old Italian eggplant.

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151: DNC Dining, Going without the Grocery Store, Tomatoes

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Next week, the democratic national convention will descend on Philadelphia. And all the media outlets want to tell visitors where to eat. We talked over The Washington Post’s picks.

In our What’s for Dinner segment we talked about the merits of a classic Italian pairing, pasta and legumes. Joy is a fan of this recipe.

We went out of our usual subject area a bit to discuss the intersection of food and beauty. It isn’t a very far jump from scrutinizing food labels for artificial ingredients to looking at what’s in your shampoos and lotions, too. This discussion was inspired by one of Joy’s new favorite podcasts, Fat Mascara, which is all about beauty products and not about food at all.

We talk a lot about meal planning, but sometimes we don’t make it to the grocery store. What happens then? We share strategies for living off your pantry, fridge, and freezer supplies.

Tomatoes are starting to pop up at our farmers’ markets, and it’s one of the best things about this time of year.

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150: Google’s 2016 Trend Report

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Screen Shot 2016-07-12 at 10.13.36 AM — The Google Food Trend Report notes people like to “travel through taste”

Leave it to Google to create a comprehensive report on food trends. The tech leader pulled the top searches that have to do with food between January 2014 and February 2016 to get these results.

Joy and Marisa take a deep dive into this treasure trove of data and ponder what it all means for food lovers and trend setters.

Listen to the episode, check out the report, and then tell us what you think of these trends in comments here. We’d love your 2 cents.

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149: Plant-based Burgers, Meal Kits, and Hot Weather Cooking

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A plate of farro, kale, pork chop, and fig compote. — One of the Blue Apron meals that Marisa’s husband Scott made the week they tried it.

This week, we kick things off with a conversation about plant-based burgers that are designed and engineered to mimic meat. Joy had an opportunity to taste one of these burgers recently and didn’t find that it measured up.

Next, we chatted about the meal kit trend and our perspectives on them. Do you subscribe to one? What do you think?

Recommended recipe! In this new occasional segment, we tell you about a new-to-us recipe that we think is worth making. First one up is this marinated celery recipe that Joy has made several times lately.

After that, we shared our methods for keeping cool in the kitchen when the weather gets steamy. Suggestions include. cooking early in the day, heading outside, using your slow cooker, batch cooking, and relying more on ready-made proteins that you can buy at the grocery store and then assemble into a meal.

And finally, in our At The Market section, we dished on summer squash. Make sure to try Marisa’s zucchini butter and zucchini pickles!