Food Labels and Salad Lyonnaise
Share this Post
Tweet this PostThe Giveway
Have you entered your name for the $100 gift certificate and the cookbook giveaway? If not, what are you waiting for? Check this post out to see how to enter.
Fair Trade, Certified Humane, Organic, Homegrown, Sustainable, Local -Are you as confused by these labels as I am? You want to eat right, but how do you define what is right anymore? I know it is an age old debate - the merits of local vs organic, but even that is not the end of the problem. Every new article I read, someone is preaching a new buzzword! How do you keep up?
I would like to do my part for the environment, try to stop the increasing food costs, but it is not an easy task! We do most of our shopping from Uwajimaya and Whole Foods. Uwajimaya for seafood and a lot of Asian produce and Whole Foods for meat, cheese, bread, fruits and the rest of the veggies. The amount of money we spend in Uwajimaya for a whole week is actually less than a day’s shopping from Whole Foods. We still shop at WH, because frankly the quality of the meat there is simply superb, and the cheese selection, where else can you find such wide variety? Also, we thought we were doing the right thing by eating organic. Recently I read that we shouldn’t be shopping from Whole Foods, it is after all a nationwide chain and spends tons in transporting food, we should support the local farmers instead. I want to, it is probably cheaper, but Pike Place Market closes by 6 pm, we never make it back home by that time. I love going to the summer farmer’s markets, but again it is a pain to do this every weekend, I know I won’t be able to stick to it. You’d say we can sign up for the weekly deliveries of organic farm grown veggies and fruits, but we don’t cook that regularly. Some weeks it is tough to cook even one day, so a regular home delivery of veggies is not practical for us.
So what do we do? We buy organic whenever we can. We even try to buy local if it is an option. But sometimes we get cravings for oranges in December, and most of the times we can’t resist a clean cut Australian lamb chops. We still stay away from the 10 lb bag of apples from Costco, which can last for months at room temperature, even though the 1 lb apples from Whole Foods which cost about the same price will go bad if not consumed within a week. This is mainly because the Costco apples are just scary, what could they be putting in them to last that long! We buy food primarily for the taste, then health, finally cost concerns. In a perfect world, we’d like to buy only Fair Trade, Certified Humane, Homegrown, Sustainable and Local, but we live in a practical world.
So dear reader, what is your definition of eating right? Do you always go out of your way to eat right, or do you just think most of it is a fad?
Well, now that it is off my chest, here is one of my favorite salads that I messed up a bit by just altering a small tiny detail. Salad Lyonnaise is a classic French Bistro fare, and is made of frisee and thick chunks of bacon, topped with a poached egg. I have never made one myself, but it is one of those salads I always order from restaurants if it is on the menu. I picked up some frisee last weekend from Pike Place Market (Yes, I did manage to go last weekend, we had a beautiful Sunday), so I had everything handy for the salad. But lazy me decided to take one shortcut, instead of poaching an egg – a skill I never mastered – I went with a fried egg. It is the poached egg that really makes this salad, so my first attempt at Salad Lyonnaise was not a huge success. It still was eatable, I had the fried egg first, and then the rest of the salad. One can never go wrong with bacon chunks, right?
The original recipe is from Elise’s beautiful blog Simply Recipes. She has such a wide array of recipes, I don’t know if I should even call that site a blog. But I will, since I am sending this one over to my favorite singing chef Raaga who is hosting Monthly Blog Patrol this month. Her chosen theme is Salads and Soups.
Here is my version with minor changes. Do NOT omit the poached egg.
Ingredients
(serves 1 person)
- 1 small bunch frisee torn
- 2 strips of thick bacon
- 1 slice wheat bread (a few store-bought croutons)
- 1 poached egg
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tsp white whine vinegar
- 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
- Salt and pepper to taste
Method
Cook the bacon in a frying pan till crispy, remove from the pan and drain on paper towels. Chop into pieces.
Cut the bread into cubes, and add to the melted bacon fat in the frying pan. Fry till both sides are toasted crisp, remove and keep aside.
Whisk the olive oil, vinegar and mustard in a bowl to make the dressing. Season with salt and pepper.
Arrange the frisee, croutons, and bacon in a salad bowl, and pour the dressing over. Serve topped with a poached egg
Thank you Elise for the wonderful recipe, next time I will follow the instructions to make the poached egg.
More like this..
Category: Eggs, Soups and Salads
Organic, Local, and non-organic (if it cannot be avoided at all) is my order of preference. After consuming organic foods, there is no looking back. As you had mentioned, the quality is faaaar superior.
Thanks a ton sweetheart!
Coming to labels, in India I am quite wary of labels. The deal being that you may mark something organic but there is no way for me to really know… given the way things are here. So I may be spending my hard earned money to buy “organic” stuff which may contain just about everything that the usual ones do.
We buy local produce, we go to the supermarket, sometimes we allow ourselves to be fleeced by the shop outside our apartment complex because we pay for the convenience.
I do buy organic tho’ I know I may be paying double for just a label – rice, gingelly oil, turmeric, chilli powder has been organic for a while. Dals, to some extent. Where I live, not too many organic stores, v far from home, and very few categories. If I have the car to dump the bags in, I buy a lot, if not, just however much I can carry by myself.
I rarely buy imported fruit, unless it’s totally new and the foodie in me can’t resist the novelty.
Hey the salad looks good with the fried egg! Here we get very limited organic produce and everything else is imported from places far and wide. The only healthy option I have is to cook wisely.
As Raaga said, I have a strong suspicion Indians put labels on just for “the look” and I have no idea of knowing if it is true.
)
I put cost first because I buy only local produce, so if I’m buying carrots, then they are pretty much the same from one corner grocery cart to the other. I try and buy from the vendors rather than from supermarkets – they are usually fresher and less expensive.
But I realize that this limits me only to Indian vegetables and I’m completely dependent on the weather – so can’t have mangoes in December! I don’t buy tinned or frozen at all – they just look plain scary to me in the stores. Let me tell you I miss miss miss fresh berries, asparagus, artichokes – the list goes on. I’m happy I’m supporting local produce but the variety is so limited. There’s no one answer I suppose. I better end this long rant!!
Sig, absolutely true, there is no easy way to do always organic, always local something in between is what works best. I buy milk and eggs organic for sure, the rest varies week by week. But I have started paying more attention to where the food comes from. Do I act on it. sometimes.
I think being able to eat what we like, when we like, as much as we like- that is a fad! That is what is unsustainable and something that we won’t be able to continue for long.
I do not buy organic for 3 reasons:
1) Medically, it has not been proven yet to be better for consumption.
2)The organic industry is not regulated by the government where I live (Canada).
3) MOST IMPORTANT – As a population, the human race cannot sustain if it lives off organic food – there is not enough space – rain forests are been wiped off the face of the earth to make space for organic farms. We have used medicine to lengthen our life spans and so must use medicine to alter our food, we cannot expect to live longer and have the planet Earth sustain us with organic farming. I believe if one refuses to eat food that uses chemicals to sustain its growth, then one must refuse chemicals to cure ilnesses.
HOWEVER, i do agree use of pesticides etc, should be strongly monitored and governed by law.
yeah…coming to the US, has made me so confused with all the labels and variety and how do i pick the right product……I try to go organic and if its practical… i try to go organic in the following order…. milk, dairy products (i cannot imagine taking in extra bovine hormones), fruits (coz most of the time, we consume them pretty raw), veggies, dals and dray grains.. (the last three are at the bottom of the list, coz i wash them thoroughly and soak them and boil them)… but then again….i try to be pratical too….but see what the anonymous commenter said about organic…. thats a point too….
love your salad with poached egg
i can’t imagine shopping in costco and sam’s club..esp. when i don’t have kids..what will i do with 15 cans of diced tomato and a massive jar of ketchup..seriously!! i like to shop variety and that place is a kill-joy!
I agree totally with you, I only buy the cheap branded foods anyway, the ones with the stores own label on them as these are just as good anyway.
talk to me about it !!! I am running to 4 different shops for groceries – TJs, raleys/safeway and ofcourse Namaste plaza for indian groceries. There is no WH in Fremont yet
Tjs dont carry good selection of organic veggies, Raleys and Safeway does but again it takes a lot of courage to carry a bag of potatoes which has already started sprouting – Now do I buy that or picture perfect non-organic variety. I skip potatoes if the organic counterpart looks pathetic.
And when its summer I stock up on farmers market. But last time i got broccoli from there, it had tiny worms around the florets and yet to get the courage to hit the FM !!
Thats a smallll rant talking about Organic food !!!
What u said here is so true about these labels.
I do love my organic food and definitely go everyweekend but sticking to it all the time is real pain as sometimes u may have time, sometimes u don’t so I mostly rely on supermarkets and local farmers shops
:drool: I am a salad fiend! great recipe.
)
I think shopping at whole foods is better than shopping at super markets. I do think eating organic food is a lil healthier….you are eating less hormone induced meats. So I am thinking that as long as you buy meat products at whole foods at local markets you are doing something for the environment. its tough to go all green. But I think you are taking the right steps in the green direction
true, lists and lists galore & then there is the dirty 12 list
i try to go organic for those, if possible! to me the taste is a pretty good indicator, if it tastes like cardboard, most likely it has been plucked under ripe & then preserved for a loooong time 
like the tomatoes i’ve hv had to do with !!!! it has been a trial n error process for me, now i try not to get too carried away with big announcements which come out every other day
salad looks so good!
Hi Sig,
When we lived in Seattle we shopped at PCC natural markets. You probably already know about it. They always had fresh delicious produce although their meat and cheese selection is not as expansive as WF. It’s a little less expensive too and the stores are not as big…makes for a quicker shopping trip
Hope this helps and sorry if this was information you already knew.
BTW, I don’t have a blog but am a loyal reader of your blog. Excellent work and pictures and besides, you make me all nostalgic about our time in Seattle.
Sarika
That’s true abt the labels…I like to have organic food….but as u said, it happens that have to shop in some grocerie stores…so love both… According to me eating right is eating healthy as much as possible….That was a nice salad… never tried it before…Looks YUM!..
love salads and poached egg is d icing here hmm.. even i use it as much as possibel.. salad looks appetizing….
To me, anything eaten in small portions will do the right thing. I am into Organic stuff, I grow some every Summer anyway!:D
Call your mom on Sunday, happy Mother’s day to her!:)
Salad looks absolutely gorgeous.Enjoy your weekend.
It seems Revathi panicking upon seeing worms squiggling in broccoli is totally unfounded for. It actually indicates no pesticides were used! I prefer veggies and meat from Sprout, a local food supplier.
Oh yes even organic food is getting very popular in India too..Fab India has been stocking some organic stuff since some years now..
A nice salad Sig!!
WholeFoods !! I love just roaming around the aisles in WH. TJ/WH/Rising Sun Farms (local) and TopFoods (they carry local stuff too) is the order. And oh oh .. sometimes Uwajimaya (for chestnuts). Groceries is a pain .. trying to juggle between so many stores. With me the problem is I dont know how to process information. We are an over-informed generation. Trying to make sense and sanity of the information garnered is beyond practicality. And the paranoid in me goes crazy whenever there is a new buzzword.
Organic stuff also has toxins.. there is no saying that it isn’t harmless. No stead-fast rule that it is the safest.
I am yet to see what Bee/Jai would say..
I love eggs in salads .. good one
Sig I think that we are still very fortunate here in the Caribbean not to be inundated with a lot of chemically modified foods, don’t get me wrong, you can find those particularly in the supermarkets but certainly not to the extent as in other places. While more than 80% of our food in Barbados is imported, there are still those of us that try to buy produce, fruits and certain meats that are locally produced. Sometimes it’s hard because there are so subsidies on the local stuff but because the importers get tax breaks, the imported food is often cheaper
i try to buy organic and locally produced veggies whenever i can…but like to follow my own rules
Yes):
the salad sounds really yummy!
It is so tough to figure out what to do abt issues like this. I do try to be conscious about buying organic and when possible, local. Looking forward to farmers’ markets opening soon! Wonderful salad, too.
Sig, I do agree with “Anonymous” comments especially my country like India is able to feed its huge population due to agriculture technology. The cost of exporting food to countries who are not self sufficient is very high so these countries are better off learning and practising new green technology. I only hope developed countries invest time and money in research to make this technology more eco friendly and less harmful to our bodies.
Having said this, we should all try and go green in every way we can. We can start by recycling, using cloth towels (wash cloth is great to wipe counter tops)instead of paper towels, use less saran wrap, sandwich bags,paper products, call companies and tell them not to send you their catalogues if you do not use them and try to eat organic food if you can!
Labelling produce is still at an early stage here in India and I am wary about using “organic produce” here in India. Mostly because I have to pay 2 to 3 times more for something I’m not sure was organiccally grown!
In some sense, I think we are more fortunate as we have lots of fresh and naturally grown produce in our markets. We now find a lot of imported fruits and other stuff on the shelves which I tend to avoid, by and large.