No, not fish tacos with roasted marshmallows, though I have a feeling that wouldn’t be too hard a sell on the kids. But before I even get to this simple, fresh, crowd-pleaser, I want to say something about the corn in these tacos, or more generally, about cooking with local, seasonal ingredients.
My good friend and neighbor (and fabulous home cook) logged on to my website last Friday. The photo, which of course you all remember, showed a few ears of corn on the grill. This was his comment:
Corn? In May?
And here is the second-by-second playback of the ruminating that took place in my brain over the course of the next minute. Why am I even bothering to do this website? I am a complete fraud. What kind of food expert would eat corn in May? What kind of food person would have that corn-filled May photo be the one to announce grilling season for all her readers? [Pause. Lightbulb flickers somewhere in darkness of cerebrum.] I know what kind of food person. The kind of food person who has children. A mom food person who knows that a kernel of corn on her six-year-old’s plate is culinary gold. The kind of mom food person who knows what a difference it makes to always have something on the plate that her children feel comfortable with.
But I didn’t tell him all that. Because he certainly wasn’t saying it to make me feel bad. (He had apparently mistaken me for an emotionally secure person.) This is what I replied:
If my kids eat it, it’s always in season!
OK listen, you won’t find anyone happier than me when farmer’s market season rolls around. Our local market opens June 5, and that day that has been marked on my mental calendar (real estate that not many events are capable of securing these days) for months now because it means a guaranteed 1-mile family walk (including the dog) to the market every Saturday. It means reconnecting with people in the community I haven’t seen all winter. It means five straight months of fresh, local, seasonal, delicious meals.
And so what about the seven months when I don’t have a farmer’s market that offers local, seasonal, organic food that is this walkably convenient? Well, you know I have my beloved Trader Joe’s with its awesomely affordably organic (but not local) selection. And when I’m in the city if I happen to be near the Green Market, I always try to stop by. And there are those lucky days when my friend shows up at my door with ramps picked from her backyard, of course. I suppose I could join the CSA again – but the pile-up of un-used vegetables weighed on me like all those un-read New Yorkers on my nightstand.
So realistically? I admit that I am incapable of cooking seasonally and ethically every single night. I also admit that I will occasionally enjoy airplane food and that we always stop at McDonalds when we go on our annual 800-mile drive to South Carolina.
What I do seem to be capable of at this point in my life is this: Making a dinner for the family that everyone likes. Sitting down and using the meal we’re eating as a springboard to discuss bigger issues about food with my children – how it affects our health, where it comes from, what it is doing to our planet. And if there is a thawed frozen corn kernel tucked into the fish taco? I’m not going to let it stop what I’ve got going, and I’m certainly not going to let it bother me. For any longer than 60 seconds.
Related: Six Rules for Family Dinner
Prepare Your Grill. Marinate a 1-pound piece of firm white fish (such as swordfish or mahi mahi) in a little olive oil, salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lime. (Add the lime only about five minutes before you grill.)
Prepare the toppings. The salad above is a small container of grape tomatoes (halved), corn (fresh or thawed frozen!!!!), cilantro, lime, about 2 teaspoons finely minced red onion, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I was going to add chunked avocado into the mix, but my avocado was so ripe that i just mashed it with some more cilantro, salt, and lime.
Once grill is hot, grill filet about 4-5 minutes a side depending on thickness. (Fish should be firm to the touch with out being rock hard.) Remove from grill and break apart into chunks.
Meanwhile, place as many tortillas (corn or flour, whatever you prefer) as can fit on the grill. Flip over after 30 seconds, grill a little loner, then transfer to platter.
Assemble tacos.
19 responses so far ↓
1 Amanda // May 25, 2010 at 11:37 am
Here, here! My son views corn on the cob like most kids view a candy store and when I saw corn on the cob at the grocery store here in California, you can bet I bought four ears and displayed them at dinner like they were Faberge eggs. Don’t let those haters bring you down!
Psst… guess what? I also have been known to eat strawberries in March and even worse, I wear white after Labor Day.
On a side note, the Rainbow Salad you wrote about awhile ago has become the #1 requested salad in my house. What a great idea, it makes me feel so high and mighty eating such a beautiful salad and watching my 5 year old gobble it down makes it taste even better!
2 jenny // May 25, 2010 at 11:47 am
That is so great!! Meanwhile, my friend Rory pointed out that to complete the rainbow you can add a blue potato to the salad. (That put an end to a six-month headscratcher!) For those of you who missed the recipe — I wrote about it for babble:
http://blogs.babble.com/family-kitchen/2010/03/31/rainbow-corn-salad/
3 Emily // May 25, 2010 at 2:01 pm
I’m a bit new to your blog, but I love it – I’m even going back to read all of the old posts. Thanks for sharing your wonderful ideas.
I have an almost 2 year old who is entering an annoying picky-eating phase. At least I hope it’s just a phase. But he loves all fruit. And every week I suck it up and buy $4 out-of-season cantaloupes because he devours them. It’s hard to say no to that.
4 Crystal // May 25, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Well spoken! I heard this saying once: “the perfect can be the enemy of the good.” So true… We can get so worried that every item isn’t organic/local/humane/seasonal/gourmet/otherwise perfect that we forget how wonderful it is that we are putting homemade food on the table in the first place.
5 Jan (Family Bites) // May 25, 2010 at 3:31 pm
I couldn’t agree more. We had corn this past weekend too, and (don’t tell anyone) I made a strawberry shortcake dessert last weekend that we all gobbled up because it was so, so yummy to taste non-frozen berries again.
6 jo // May 25, 2010 at 3:44 pm
yes! thank you! that is why i love this blog! it is so nice to hear from someone who is organic/locally-minded but isn’t a tyrant about it. some of us are still trying to bridge the gap between the food we want to serve our kids and the food that is cheap/likeable/easy. thanks for not making us feel bad about it.
7 Dolly // May 25, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Amen! This is my official de-lurking comment. I have SO enjoyed your blog the past couple of weeks. Trying out the peanut sauce tonight. *crosses fingers*
8 Vicki // May 25, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Amen! We had our first, not so great corn on the cob last week. From Florida I suppose. Not the greatest, but the kids ate it like crazy. What beats a 6 yr old trying to get her stubborn front tooth out with every bite.
I look forward to local produce in June/July and August, but for now will settle on mediocre corn. Until then, we will use what we can get to fill our bellies and provide us with free dental work!!!!
Keep up the great job!
9 Kate // May 25, 2010 at 4:51 pm
What Crystal said! Amen to that.
10 jenny // May 25, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Crystal – “perfect is the enemy of good” is my new favorite expression! But to everyone who weighed in today, just want to make myself clear: You will be getting some PERFECT menu ideas this summer. I promise!
11 Cindy // May 25, 2010 at 7:34 pm
I just finished reading Dinner Diaries by Betsy Block. She lives in Boston and has a chapter about trying to eat locally in a way that will work for her schedule and family. In Feburary. Needless to say, it’s nearly impossible unless you take it on as a full time job. And she really gave it a good try. So that makes me feel better. Part of me wishes I had never read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle…or that we got to live in California.
12 Tina // May 25, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Well said…amen…hallelujah. The farmer’s market opened here a couple of weeks ago and we go just about every Saturday. I am not able to meet my expectations for eating every night. I’m not going to feel guilty about it either because my tot is a darn good eater.
Thanks for a fish recipe. I will give this a try!
Best,
Tina
13 rose // May 25, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Seconding the comments that all we can do is try and that, especially with kids, it’s really really hard to be as uncompromising as some people suggest. I sure don’t know anyone who does.
I’ll confess that I did recently join a CSA to try to push myself to use a broader range of veggies this year but am a little afraid that I’m going to regret the decision… (except for the fruit, which I think we can manage, since my 2 year old, like the above poster’s child, would eat nothing but fruit if left to his own devices). And thinking about it more, I probably should know by now that guilt (from stuff going to waste) is a terrible motivator. I’ll try to change my thinking to a more positive framing. (How exciting! Kale! and more Kale… we’ll see how this goes…)
14 jenny // May 25, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Rose — NO! Don’t regret that CSA decision! That is an amazing thing to do! Just because I had a hard time managing the bounty doesn’t mean you will. Maybe you will be amazing at salvaging all those last-legs lettuces! And that will be the thing YOU are proud of. But I think that’s the point — we all have our own strengths and weaknesses (and so do our kids) so these blanket prescriptions for how to cook can just ring false. With this website, I’m just trying to present what works for me — and I love nothing more than when you and my other readers tell me that what works for me works for you, too — but I harbor no illusion about knowing the Answers. We all just have to fight our best fight. (This portion of Dinner: A Love Story brought to you by Oprah.)
15 philippat // May 26, 2010 at 4:31 am
You know frozen is perfectly justifiable to eat out of season – it’s just our age old way of coping with seasonal produce gluts but using newer technology. OK there’s an energy cost but by the time you factor in glut wastage if we didn’t have freezing it’s quite low down the guilt level.
But regardless you’re absolutely right – life’s not all black and white, it’s got an awful lot of shades of grey.
PS my daughter won’t touch corn!
16 Kristina P-M // May 26, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Well, I hate to be a voice of dissent here but here I go…
I am a huge advocate of seasonal eating -with that said we are members of a CSA here in the Hudson Valley and freeze the bulk of what we get weekly. That way we have good veggies for winter time sauted and ready to go. I am certainly not judgmental of how or what other people eat but for our small three person family we try to eat local as much as possible.
As said earlier there are shades of gray in every decision about what to feed our families -from the carbon footprint of bananas to eating chicken produced on a factory farm. Eventually you will drive yourself crazy with what is “right”! I do like Micheal Pollan’s “Food Rules” “Eat your colors… but not anything that changes the color of your milk” to “You can eat all the junk food you want if you cook it yourself.”
I use your website for ideas and am very lucky to have a 5 yo who has a very experienced palate -lucky us since we both are chefs! Keep up the great work and discussion about food -also loved your post about Micheal Ruhlman and some of the comments generated out of that discussion.
17 Amanda // Jun 3, 2010 at 11:30 am
“You can eat all the junk food you want if you cook it yourself.”
Is that really one of his rules? Oh heavens, but I must never adopt that rule. I loooove sweets and I loooove to bake. That’s a recipe for disaster for me!
18 Deirdre // Aug 20, 2010 at 2:34 am
Perfection is the enemy of the good, right. I think so many mothers don’t even try, because they feel like they’ve been set up to fail, and after working hard to make a good meal, someone is going to look at it and say “Corn, in May?”
BTW…I had the same exact comment once, from a good friend, when we met with kids and picnics in the park. Oh the *shame* of out of season corn.
19 Kerri Anne // Aug 20, 2010 at 10:26 am
I love the line, perfection is the enemy of the good. I often get caught up in trying to do everything perfectly that I end up not finishing something I start! I came across this interesting op-ed about eating locally in the NY Times this morning. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/opinion/20budiansky.html?ref=opinion
I love your blog and have been going through the archives, getting so many new ideas!
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