Super Mario

No not Mario Lemieux or Luigi's brother. Mario Batali was featured in this NY Times article. I found it interesting that the man owns his own pizza oven. Nice. That would be great. I must say to me the room that makes a house is its kitchen. The thing about food that can be deceiving is that its not always easy to tell how much time and effort went into making a dish. I think most people overestimate the time and effort it takes to make an appetizing meal. It doesn't have to be hard or complicated. This article talks about how Chicago Public Schools tried to introduce healthier foods into the school lunch menu, even going to the extent to try to add organic foods. I for one don't use organic foods much in my cooking. I've tried cage-free eggs a couple times and some vegetables. I don't really taste a difference, but feel the difference in the wallet.

As far as the kids and school lunch topic goes I feel like a health class should be part of the standard classes like math, history etc. This reminded me of when I volunteered at the Boys and Girls Club a few months ago. One of the activities for the kids was to get them to name and identify certain foods. So the instructor had a bunch of real fruits and vegetables in a basket and picked one out one at a time and asked the kids to shout out what the fruit/vegetable was. Well the kids did fine with standard things like apples, carrots, and potatoes. The funny part was when the instructor pulled out a sprig of parsley. The room went silent, and one kid shouts out: Its weed!

HA. I got a good laugh out of that one. But seriously, kids need to be taught early on the importance of exercise and nutrition. In addition, if there are nutritious options available then I would argue that the kids would eat them rather than going hungry. Makes sense. I can see how it is hard for parents to get a tasteful and healthy meal on the table everyday. Its hard. I don't cook everyday. There just isn't the time. What I do is when I do cook, make more than enough for multiple meals. There's of course a tradeoff here. If you are willing to eat the same thing for a couple days in a row then its fine. You also need to own a decent set of Tupperware containers and a reliable microwave.

Another thing that I like to do is to buy those pre-cooked rotisserie chickens at the supermarket. That is a good option I've found. It comes out to a max of $10 for one. If you look at the price of a package of chicken it is about equivalent except that you don't have to cook it and clean up afterwards. You can use it in pretty much any dish too.

The picture I've included in this post was a lunch I had at a French restaurant in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was duck con fit.