I stopped by Mozza 2 Go–the latest addition to the LA eatery/pizzeria/pizza school co-owned by Nancy Silverton, Mario Batali, and Joe Bastianich–to pick up a mushroom pizza to go. While waiting for my pie, I couldn’t help picking up a few other goodies, including Silverton’s heavenly butterscotch budino and a sack of fregola (the toasted, pebble-shaped Sardinian pasta that’s making its way onto American menus). A couple days later, Gina DePalma, the pastry chef at Batali’s Babbo in New York, posted a tempting recipe for Saffron Fregola with Potatoes and Peas on Serious Eats. I tried it this weekend, and, yum. It does the pricey pasta justice.

Lean cuisine

Fresh may be best, but for cheap eats, shopping the day-old shelf can save a lot of cash.–Recessionwire

Eating better for better health

Good-for-you foods are expected to burgeon over the next decade, according to an NPD Group survey. That includes organic fare, low-cal foods, and shifting habits like enjoying petite appetizers as entrees. NPD experts chalk this up to an aging population that wants to take better care of itself. Expected to drop: quick-assembly lunch and dinner foods.

I suspect our ailing health-care system may be contributing to this trend, as aging boomers realize a healthy diet may prevent–or at least minimize–costly ailments in their golden years. And there’s mounting evidence that lifestyle measures, such as diet and exercise, do indeed work. A 20-year study of nurses found those who maintained a healthy body weight, exercised at least 30 minutes a day, and ate a DASH-like diet were less likely to have hypertension than nurses who didn’t.

Shameless self-promotion

Looking for ideas to use up the last of summer’s strawberries? Check out my story on LifeScript.com.

Oy vey ich schmear

Can a doll’s lunch stir up controversy? It can if it’s the bagel toted by Rebecca Rubin, American Girl’s new doll whose story is rooted in the early-19th-century  Jewish tenements of New York’s Lower East Side. The orange substance on the bagel in Rebecca’s school lunch looks suspiciously like…Kraft American Cheese Singles. The Food Section‘s Josh Friedlander is following the case. Too bad my own grandma, who would have been Rebecca’s contemporary, isn’t around to clear up the question, what would be appropriate on a circa-1914 bagel? Come to think of it, she probably spent her school lunch breaks making deliveries of the family’s bathtub hooch during Prohibition.

The whole hog

Like many people, I’ve long been in the habit of purchasing parts–skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, pork chops, fish filets, and the like–at the meat counter. Many shoppers are willing to pay a premium for the convenience of prepped meat, poultry, and seafood. Also, we may not know how to break down a whole chicken or clean and filet a fish. Your grandmother probably could do it with her eyes closed, but could you?

Old-school butchery is making a comeback, and butchers are the newest stars on the culinary scene.

I certainly couldn’t–at least, not very well–until I took the Meat Identification and Fabrication class at culinary school. The three-week class was a crash course in understanding different cuts of beef, lamb, veal, and pork, as well as gaining loads of practice cutting up whole chickens and ducks, and filleting all kinds of fish.

Of course, despite that, I’m no expert. Butchery is an art and skill that can’t be mastered in three weeks. But I did enjoy the satisfaction of cooking fish that I’d cleaned and filleted myself, and sauteing the breast of a chicken I’d just broken down.

The class was also particularly well timed, since a do-it-yourself approach to meat, poultry, and fish is making a strong comeback, along with other budget-friendly, old-timey, back-to-basics kitchen skills like canning. Part of it is a desire to save some coin–whole or large cuts are cheaper than parts–but it’s also an extension of the local, know-your-food movement. In other words, pork chops come from an actual pig, not a tightly sealed Styrofoam tray. People are doing this in all kinds of ways, from purchasing meat and poultry from local producers at the neighborhood farmers’ market to raising their own livestock. In one elaborate experiment, an Alabama-based magazine editor raised and slaughtered a pig–and documented it in the fascinating blog Killing Dinner. Top-drawer chefs, like Blue Hill’s Dan Barber, are bringing butchering back to restaurant kitchens in order to take advantage of high-end animal products, like hazenut-fed pigs and grass-fed beef. The newest culinary stars are butchers, according to The New York Times.

Home cooks are jumping on the bandwagon, for quality and cost-savings. If you know how to clean and filet a fish, you can inspect the whole fish before you buy to ensure it’s truly fresh–i.,e, with bright eyes, intact scales, pinky-red gills, and a fresh scent (or no scent). Buying a whole chicken is cheaper than parts, and you can get a lot of mileage out of it. A pound of organic skinless boneless chicken breasts is $9 at my local supermarket; a 4-pound whole organic chicken is less than $8 (and that’s for a premium bird from Whole Foods). I roasted one on Sunday night. Two of us ate the breast halves on Sunday; I cut the meat off the thighs and drumsticks for tacos on Tuesday; and I’ll use the carcass to make stock this weekend.

And, of course, there’s the emerging trend of bringing locally raised/caught meat, poultry, and seafood directly from producers to consumers. NPR just reported on CSFs (community-supported fisheries) in New England, which will may help small-scale fishermen and whole fishing communities survive while bringing high-quality, local seafood to Boston-area residents. CSFs work just like CSAs. Can dedicated CSRs (community-supported ranching) or CSPs (community-supported poultry) be far off? In fact, many CSAs already include delivery options for local meat, poultry, and dairy products.

Of course, the trick for many of the Boston CSF’s new customers is what to do with the whole fish they get each week. And to help with that, organizers offer classes in the fine–and nearly lost–art of cleaning and filleting a fish.

A box of See's under the tree--yum!

Serious Eats peeps love See’s candy–OK, well, really all candy–and so do I.

 Share the love: Food banks need help now more than  ever, and you can  make a difference–Feeding America

Wine writer Gretchen Roberts predicts sippers from Mexico, Colorado, Hungary, and, Brazil will emerge in 2009–Slashfood

But The New York Times says Chinese wine is headed for our shores.

 Food for beauty, foraging, and “bistronomics” are among  the emerging food trends for 2009–thefoodpeople

Try flanken instead of brisket in your next pot roast–The New York Times

 How a proposed tax aimed at reducing methane could drive up food  costs and put sustainable farmers out of business-  -Epicurious