As both a mother and a foodie, it is important to me to buy the best food possible for my family. This means foods in their most delicious, nutritious, and safe states, all while sticking to an ever-decreasing food budget. I don’t live within a reasonable distance to any great farmer’s markets so I have to rely on what I can get at our local grocery store. It’s easy to be drawn in to the “Nature’s Market” aisle-full of organic juice boxes, cereal, and bananas-and feel like your doing something good for yourself and your family. But if you’re breaking the budget to do it, you aren’t doing anybody any good. So when should you buy organic? Here’s a little primer on which organic foods you should work into your budget and which ones you can pass up.

Fruits and Vegetables. The general rule with fruits and vegetables is if you’re going to eat the whole thing, buy organic. If on the other hand, you have to peel it or you don’t eat the skin, don’t bother since that’s where most of the pesticide residue remains. So for strawberries, lettuce, grapes, potatoes, spinach, etc… splurge on organic. You’ll be wasting your money buying organic bananas, corn, mangoes, or onions. There are some exceptions so check out this great article for the complete list (scroll to the bottom if you don’t feel like reading, although it really is a great article). Also, never fear, there are now tons of frozen organic fruits and veggies in the freezer aisle.

Meats, Dairy, Eggs. Here you always buy organic, free-range, grain-fed, hormone-free or whatever combination is available to you for both health and taste. I know there are only “trace amounts” of leftover hormones and antibiotics passed into milk and milk products, but we drink 2 gallons of milk a week, not to mention about a gallon of yogurt, various amounts of cheese, cream, and butter. That adds up over time. In addition, allowing animals better living conditions, even if only slightly, is good karma and leads to tastier end products.

Fish and Seafood. Guess what. There’s no such thing as “organic” fish or seafood. Companies are lying to you so you will spend more money on the same fish. The only thing that matters here is farm raised vs. wild-caught, but that’s another article. Also, unless you live on the beach, all fish and seafood gets frozen at some point. So stop wasting your money on the “fresh” stuff that’s already been thawed out in the case. Just buy frozen and thaw it yourself.

Crackers, cereal, bread, cookies, boxed and canned foods of all types. These are all of your shelf-stable, pantry items. Don’t bother buying organic. Yeah, you heard me. Think about it. Processed organic food? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Just look at the ingredients and pick the ones with the fewest and most recognizable.

Baby Food. OK, this one could go either way. Baby food is a highly regulated industry with strict standards which most baby food companies claim to beat.  The produce and soil is already under the highest scrutiny.  However, the vegetables in baby food are also highly concentrated, so again, even the tracest amounts of pesticides eventually add up.  My opinion initially was to forgo organic, however, Consumer Reports says to go organic just in case (of course they were right about the whole BPA in plastic baby bottles thing for years).  So it’s really up to your budget and conscience.  Frankly, at forty cents a jar versus $1.25 my conscience says “you still have to buy food for the other kids, too.”  Of course, making your own baby food from organic fruits and veggies is a great choice (hahahaha, phew, sorry), however never make your own baby carrots, spinach, greens, turnips, or beets unless you know whether they were grown in nitrate-free soil.

What are your thoughts on organic food?  Which items do you buy organic no matter what and which have you never considered? Was any of this information helpful or just crazy talk?

Beyond Merlot: Wine Reviews for Newbies

Sauvignon Blancs can come from many areas, however, those from New Zealand (called Marlboroughs) are especially crisp, acidic and citrusy. In fact, they often smell and taste like a fresh cut lawn, but in a good way. The Kim Crawford Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is just that: acidic, crisp and tart. It is not “thin” or “watery” as I often find white wines can be, it has a nice body.

I am not a huge white wine fan and this bottle is somewhat expensive-running about $16-$19. However, what makes it to die for is pairing it with White Stilton with Lemon, as recommended by my wine guy. Man, oh man, is it an awesome pairing: the white Stilton is slightly sweet and creamy and tempers the crisp acidity of the wine, yet the lemon peel enhances the citrus punch. If you like white wine, definitely give it a try. If you are considering a wine and cheese party or just like a great wine and cheese pairing try it with the Stilton, you won’t regret it!

I have a new wine review and pairing for tomorrow, but first I wanted to talk to you about your best resource for finding good wines: the wine guy.

For those of you would-be wine enthusiasts, I highly recommend finding a respectable “wine guy” (or girl, whatever) and forming a relationship with them. It may mean venturing out to an actual wine retail establishment, but it is worth it. As expensive as wine is, you really don’t want to waste your money. Believe me, there are some really good wines that cost about what some really bad wines cost. Also-since the relationship between wine and food is magical-you really want the advice of someone who knows which wines are going to compliment your dish and which will really clash with it. Talk to different people and make an effort to find the one who makes you feel comfortable.

Some thing I have liked about wine guys we’ve dealt with:

1. I love it when they describe my palate as “delicate” when what they really mean is nonexistent and/or immature. Frankly, I love it when any part of me is described as delicate.
2. I appreciate it when they don’t correct my use of words like “watery” or “rich” even when it becomes obvious we aren’t talking about the same thing.
3. I like it when they don’t waste my time on wines that won’t do. When I stop and say, “what about this-?” they just say “No.” and keep walking toward the specific bottle they have in mind based on the criteria I gave them.
4. Good wine guys/girls don’t judge my wine choices or my budget. If I tell them how much I can spend they should be able to find me a delicious wine in that price range. Even when its $6.
5. A good wine guy should be able to find the perfect wines for you based on the preferences you give them, not just the wines they like.
6. Try to find liquor/wine groceries that also specialize in exotic fruits, cheeses, chocolate, etc… These people will be able to come up with some amazing pairings that should give you the confidence to try things you’ve never had, or never enjoyed, before.
7. Most important: the person you are entrusting this decision to should be enthusiastic. When you are with someone who is as excited about wine as you are, their eyes will light up when they think of the perfect wine for you. Their excitement and enthusiasm should be infectious.

I also require wine guys with the knowledge and patience to translate my gibberish into proper tasting notes. Do you have any good tips for talking to someone about wine?

If you are a follower of this particular blog you probably think we had steak for dinner on Father’s Day. I totally intended to make the steak but when Daddy Chaos got to pick dinner on his special day he decided he wanted spaghetti and meatballs. Not just any spaghetti and meatballs-he wanted to make a spaghetti and meatballs recipe that was just ours, not my mother’s and not his mother’s. So I picked this recipe posted by Elise at Simply Recipes. Let me tell you, these really are the best meatballs. The step of de-glazing the pan with wine as we were finishing off the meatballs gives them a delicious syrupy red wine glaze. The fresh herbs and mushrooms combined with the sausage was amazing. I used spicy Italian sausage because that’s all the grocery had, and we might consider adding a little more beef next time because the sausage flavor was very pronounced (but only in the best way). We didn’t have a Chianti (our first choice for spaghetti sauce) on hand so we picked another Italian wine: Layer Cake Primitivo. It went perfectly. The recipe itself requires quite a bit of prep work and after chopping and dicing onions, garlic, basil, parsley, and mushrooms, for the sauce and then again for the actual meatballs, I still needed:

1 cup very finely chopped carrots.

At this point I was starting to get a lot of “when’s dinner?” “can I have noodles with no sauce?” “can I have fruit snacks?” So you know what I did? Trust me when I say it’s not only ingenuity but laziness, I just used this:

This is what happens to fancy recipes when I get a hold of them.