The Confexecutioner does not fear food-borne pestilence. The Confexecutioner does not fear fat or cholesterol. The Confexecutioner does not count calories, though this might be a good idea considering the last recipe posted here. The Confexecutioner does not fear food.
Grocery stores, on the other hand, scare the compost out of me.
Ah, one is now expecting to read some rhapsody of a farm-raised childhood, chasing chickens in the dappled light and harvesting local organic everything from an impossibly pastoral backyard. Then we flash forward to the cold fluorescent lighting of a modern grocery store with horrors at every turn: the flavorless foreign tomatoes, white "bread", iceberg lettuce, endless configurations of industrial corn, perhaps with a side order of mercury. At some point comes the Revelation: a trip to Italy or Northern California, college politics, Michael Pollan. Then a happy ending back on a much hipper farm, funded in part by a coffee table book series about the hip farm.
Sadly, the only thing I grow with any consistency is hair. I grew up in the suburban Giants and Safeways eating the white bread despite exhortations to eat the brown-dyed white bread (because it must be healthier somehow). In my adult life I have never had a backyard. My kitchen is the size of a Food Network stove. I have never had limitless cash to spend on food, and have never had the patience to craft a Martha worthy feast complete with wildcrafted soy candles and hand woven raw fiber napkins.
I didn't really think about what what goes into the making of most "food" on offer in many grocery stores until I tried not to eat something. Once I became an ingredients reader, which often taxed my college science and pre-LASIK vision, I realized that most of the time I was either not eating what I thought I was eating, or eating a lot in addition to what I thought I was eating. In the end, I've stopped avoiding real food and started avoiding most grocery stores.
There are a million good reasons to eat organic (in spirit, if not USDA letter) sustainable local foods with minimal processing in moderate amounts, and as many websites and blogs devoted to the politics and fetishization of this pursuit. Read them, weep, then come back here and have some fun with the food. Good ingredients taste better and are easier to cook.
Now go make some Soapbox Pie:
Preheat oven to 400F.
Boil a tea kettle's worth of water, then set aside.
Butter a small casserole baking dish.
Steam a pound or so of chopped spinach, fresh or frozen. Drain really well.
While the spinach is cooking, grate some gruyere. Okay, grate a lot of gruyere. If you don't have gruyere use some other kind of cheese.
Put the spinach in the dish. If it is about an inch or so thick, you have the right sized dish.
You can shake some sea salt and black pepper on there if you want.
In a mixing bowl, beat four eggs. You can do this with a fork.
Heat about a half cup of milk up to but not boiling. I like to add a splash of cream after to cool it a bit and because I really like cream.
Add the milk to the eggs gradually and stir until mixed in.
Pour this over the spinach, and gently work the spinach into the mixture with a fork. If the mixture does not completely cover the spinach, add more eggs and milk.
Sprinkle the grated cheese over the top. I finished this off with a dash of nutmeg.
Put the casserole dish into a larger baking dish.
Pour the tea water into the larger dish around the smaller dish until it comes about halfway up the sides.
Put them in the oven, and bake for about 40 minutes or until the eggs are set. You can turn the heat up in the last few minutes if you want more brown on the top. If the top is browning too quickly, put some foil over the top until the last few minutes. I don't have to tell you to let it cool off when it is done or to be careful removing the pan that is now full of scalding water.
Enjoy in good health and even better moral superiority.
We now return to the debauched musings of someone who probably should not be allowed to have a knife.
