Pollanation (n); Pollanate (v): The process by which products Michael Pollan would consider "edible food-like substances" are deliberately marketed as what Michael Pollan would call "food", so as to avoid increasingly negative reaction to fast and processed foods as a result of health concerns, the slow food movement, the organic movement, the locavore movement, and Michael Pollan's own work. 

I did make a new year's resolution this year. Sort of. I don't really do the resolution thing, but I did make a resolutionesque decision, and I did it around the end of the year, so it pretty much qualifies.

And this resolution is a simple one. I will no longer purchase or consume ANY buffalo-chicken-wing-flavored product that is not in fact a buffalo wing. The years of disappointment and irritation end now.

I probably shouldn't be so hard on myself. They came out OK. I am assured by the other people that ate them that they were fine, and tasted like falafel. And except for the first couple of burned ones, they all got ate.

But it wasn't what I wanted, dammit. And so, falafail. Or failafel. It didn't quite measure up to the level of a failafail, at least.

So last weekend, I went to Pei Wei Asian Diner with my parents. If you don't know Pei Wei, it's a counter-service Asian restaurant run by the PF Chang people, and while I would never, ever set foot in a PF Chang, I'm fine with Pei Wei. I should do a post on it at some point, in fact.

Anyway, we're standing there, perusing the sideways flat screens displaying the menus, chock full of noodle dishes and pan-Asian stir-fries, when a manager-looking dude comes up to us and asks how many of us there are, and if we've been there before.

It has been, in the vernacular, that kind of week. A combination of my Old Man Back and Cathy's cold has made this one of those weeks where cooking has had to happen, but where the actual act of cooking, and correspondingly, the act of writing about that cooking, has been a fucking chore.

Our last CSA box was handed to us on October 2, and now that most of the produce is gone, I thought it'd be a good time to reflect on how things went.

USAGE: B.

I hate the phrase "intuitive cook".

I hate it because it gets used to describe someone who cooks the way I do - without recipes, frequently without measuring. Winging it. Eyeballing. Throwing a bunch of stuff together and seeing what happens. And magically, thanks to my "intuition" it works. Bullshit.

I have a love-hate relationship with leftovers. I love them because I can bring them to work for lunch, which accomplishes multiple goals. I generally eat better, I save time, I save money, and I earn secret bragging points whenever I'm warming up something I made in one microwave, and someone else at work is cooking up a Lean Cuisine in the other.

This is a little bit late to be preemptive, but that's OK. We are on the cusp of a bacon backlash. A couple of years ago, bacon began climbing the ladder of popular and trendy ingredients. Smoked, cured pork belly, already toppying many a sandwich and served alongside many an eg, began being used in new ways, incorporated into more dishes, even embedded into chocolate bars. Bacon is as trendy as trendy can be.

I'll be making a new batch of guacamole in the next day or so, and you can expect a proper recipe post when that happens, but right now, I want to wax philosophical.

I am not one of those people who believes that the only good food is food that is made from scratch in one's own kitchen. Sometimes it is. And sometimes, there's a product out there on the shelves that's cheaper, easier, and almost as good as if you'd made it yourself. I take it like I take everything - on a case by case basis.