"The Donald" Trump Diet: Garbage in Garbage Out

By Eric Van Vleet

Donald J. Trump, the “real” Donald Trump of Twitter fame, who regularly speaks of himself in the third person, who (for now) is the President of the United States of America, who won the electoral college vote with no small help from Russian hackers, who lost the popular vote and who had a decidedly smaller inauguration crowd than President Obama. Trump has recently accused Obama and “his people” of orchestrating protests and “leaks of classified information”. This is the same “birther” who maintained racist accusations that Obama was not a ‘real’ American citizen, and then tried to blame Hillary Clinton for this lie.

If all of this is not offensive enough, he once owned a steak company whose products were inexplicably sold in freezer cases at the Sharper Image. This, our dear readers, is only the beginning of his bad culinary judgement. (If you want to check any of the claims or information his essay has been intensively hyperlinked. Follow as many as you can for an informative, though dark foray through the state of the nation past and present. As best as I can tell, they are all “facts” and not the most Orwellian coinage imaginable, (“alternative facts”). But back to food.

As we do not separate what you are from what you eat on this blog, the diet that he adheres to explains the confabulations that spew from “the Donald’s” maw. We would like to propose that our “president” has consciously or unconsciously invented a new fad diet: Garbage In, Garbage Out. This diet including consuming garbage food and then spouting trashy and offensive falsehoods. Fueled by Doritos or a Big Mac your greasy fingers can then launch another offensive tweet against adversaries real and imagined.

People are saying it’s the best diet. No one has a better diet than the Donald. No one cares about food more than me. While his doctor said “the Donald”, himself a rotund fat-shamer, was bordering on obese (a border I would say this wannabe wall-builder has crossed), his physician supposedly said he would make the healthiest person ever to serve as a president. Such a claim almost itself writes the next Bill and Ted movie, Bill and Ted Complete Physicals of all Past U.S. Presidents.

Ever the billionaire populist, “The Donald” reflects the weight of his constituency even if they may pay more taxes. Despite the freedom his hands have had for other illegal activities, those tiny, tiny hands love fast food. They trust fast food. He is partial to fast food because he has a Nixonian paranoia about cleanliness, though, of course, he does not want government agencies to help ensure this food safety. He believes fast food just to be “safer”. Why have trained chefs cook your food, when you can have a teenager who is counting down the minutes until he can smoke a spliff behind the dumpster make it?

When he dines upscale “the Donald” orders a steak extremely well done, (not a Trump steak), and then slathers it in ketchup. He will go off menu to demand the ketchup. There might be microbes living in a properly cooked medium rare steak, so he demands that it is cooked to hell. Soon enough, when his paranoia heightens, he assuredly will hire a team of taste testers.

After calling Mexicans “rapists”, “drug dealers”, “bad hombres” and even to show just how little he thinks about the contradictions of what he says, “and some of them are good people.” He had his assuredly capable chefs at one of his garish properties rip off Taco Bell’s Taco Bowl. He tweeted the photo (surprise, surprise) of this “taco bowl” as his olive branch to the Mexican people on Cinco de Mayo. The ‘proper’ way of celebrating the holiday for entitled rich white American bros like himself is to get trashed and commit the kind of crimes that of which many women have accused him. Yet, what is still more terrifying is that Trump doesn’t drink, so even that thin excuse for his behavior is nonexistent. Being a preternaturally vengeful human, so much so that the New York Times created a Trump insult dictionary, it is so ingrained in him that even a seemingly friendly gesture like presenting his Taco Bowl to “hispanics” comes off as an elaborate slam.

His deranged fear of microbes in food is not unlike his manic delusions of supposedly hired protesters, fake news and terrorists. Everyone is out to get him.  Haters are lurking everywhere. Just because he cannot see or taste them, doesn’t mean they are not there for President Drumpf. Just like the Birchers who saw “Reds” in their cereal bowls, Trump sees his enemies everywhere, even in his food. Better “safe” than sorry for "the Donald”, no matter how enriching an actual unpredictable experience could be of eating real food, even "ethnic" food. His beloved fast food joints churn out an industrial product devoid of any connection with the environment and people who produced it. For “the Donald”, the environment is nothing but an impediment to illusory coal jobs and people are only there to stoke his ego, including still campaigning as a sitting president. Homogeneity is the goal of fast food. It scorns any real and meaningful difference, not unlike our 45th president.

In his version of an America “made great again” a steak produced by a farmer and prepared by a chef is seared until all that was once “great” about it is gone. America is a place where evidently even a raving billionaire cannot eat well for fear of floral and faunal bogeyman. For the rest, the message is eat your big buckets of KFC and taco bowls and love him unconditionally. Love him even if he would murder random bystanders on the street. He has already called on his followers to commit violent acts to anyone who opposes him. His message about food to America is this: feel free to thoughtlessly take in the same fast food garbage and regurgitate the same hateful garbage just like “the Donald”. Garbage in, garbage out, America.

Don’t be a Punter: How to Navigate a Farmer’s Market with Grace and Aplomb.

By Liliana Valderrama

All of us have suffered through different salesmanship styles, from the hard sell to the cell phone obsessed inattentive seller. But what happens when you are on the other side of the counter? I had to the chance to live this experience for 31 straight days, so I formed many opinions. While my training for being a salesperson primarily included repeated viewing of Alec Baldwin’s epic speech from Glengarry Glen Ross, I too, found the leads often to be weak. Being a saleswoman is indeed a tough racket, especially when dealing with post-Brexit Brits. Maybe it was the month straight of selling cheese and spirits, but a number of their behaviors led me to drink the artisanal organic gin I was flogging. You indeed do need brass balls to sell whisky.

Listed here are the behaviors you should avoid when shopping at your local farmer's market. This is not Saturday morning at Costco. This is not a free brunch. Samples are not an excuse to eat for free. They are sampling the very product they would like to sell, the product their living depends on. If you are not going to buy, do not try it. Don't waste everyone's time. Don’t walk onto the farmers market parking lot if you are not willing to buy.

The approach: when interested in a product engage the seller with smile and a question ask about the samples: What are they? Where do they come from? Do you make this? How? These questions allow for a phenomena that would not take place at your local supermarket, so why not take advantage of the living breathing knowledge base in front of you. You may get a recipe or just a kind human interaction.

Next, remain at the stall while enjoying the sample, give positive or constructive feedback after finishing said sample (not the time to behave like a twitter troll) and slam the product.

Finally, you by now have decided whether to make a purchase or not. The more samples you try the farther you are going down the road to agreeing to buy something from them, no matter how small. There should be a wide price range of products. You can still support this person without emptying your wallet. If you are not going to buy, do not be like the Brits and say “I will have a think.” Instead just say, “thank you, not for me” and walk away with a smile. If you find certain products you appreciate and choose to buy, continue to support the people who make it, eventually they may give you discounts for your loyalty. Being a loyal customer is about building local relationships.

Visiting a farmers market should not be a trip to the Soup Nazi’s restaurant in Seinfeld, yet it is heartbreaking to sell a product you believe in and have people grab a handful of it and walk away silently, or demean you and your product in front of a group of customers. A farmers market is an amazing chance to build relationships with people who are just as passionate about food or more so than you. They will help you learn about local products and their relation to political issues and farming policy. Farmers are genuinely fascinating people. Get to know some at your local market. Just make sure to follow the above recommendations so you don't behave like a hopeless punter.

In Search of the Perfect Full English Breakfast (We Found it in Scotland)

By Eric Van Vleet

Somerset Maugham, the author of The Razor’s Edge and many other classic works not adapted for film with Bill Murray as the lead, said of the English breakfast: “To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.” In our three months there, Lili and I found a special love, almost an obsession for finding the perfect full English (British) breakfast. In every town where we spent any time in England, Scotland and Wales we would search one out. There is something magical about the combination of bacon (though it is not like American bacon and instead is a thick cut country ham or “Canadian” bacon), black pudding (blood sausage), thick pork sausages, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, baked beans, bread and an optional hash brown. Even in its more mediocre renditions, we would leave satisfied. The whole is more than sum of its parts somehow. In order to wash it all down, you usually get either a coffee or English breakfast tea, which are often included in the price. As you can imagine, these breakfast behemoths will power a full day of sightseeing. As it costs only five to ten quid, it is the best food bargain available in Britain.

With so many components you can see how difficult it is to construct the perfect full English/Welsh/Scottish/Irish breakfast. While inexpensive places seemed to all used the same sausage, whose casing was an unappealing cigar color, others realized the importance of the sausage and worked with local butchers to provide incredible ingredients. The British skill with sausage is something to behold, even for a Francophile. Often the less ambitious places would pay scant attention to the black pudding and bacon, with the latter sometimes being too chewy and unappealing. The meat then, was mainly a question of quality. Either the breakfast spot really cared or seemed to order it from the same generic English breakfast factory.

While the mushrooms were never forest mushrooms and the tomatoes were the supermarket variety, the eggs, bread and beans offer many choices. You can choose usually between scrambled, poached or fried eggs depending on your preferences. The fried egg though, seemed to be the safest bet, as the blood pudding could be dry and a person could have a kind of sauce for it from the yolk. They would usually have the standard white or wheat toast, or a magical idea, fried bread, which is bread fried in butter or pork fat. Just in case the full English breakfast is not substantial enough, the fried bread will get you there. Finally there are the baked beans. While it seemed like few places made them in house, they were either served in a little lake on the plate or in a small ramekin. The beans too can provide an important source of moisture if any of the other components are dry. That being said, the restaurant will provide ketchup, seemingly without any noticeable judgement, which I took them up on all the time without fear of being called a crass American. Don’t worry we will show that the English at times have no shortage of crassness either.

During our first full English, we found a relaxed cafe in London that was run by Italians. Lili was amazed by the coffee so we stayed for the breakfast. Even in posh London, though, we could not fully escape America. There on the plate was an entire all beef Costco hot dog-- the same one you get for $1.50 with a soda. The lady assured us that it was voted best sausage in the world. Though they are great for a hot dog, I wondered in what world that was the best sausage. Another memorable full English was in the gorgeous university town of Norwich. We had just finished our first week of WWOOF-ing, the hardest week we would have as it was fueled by small portions of vegan food. It was a cool rainy morning and we ducked into the first place we could find. It was like reassurance on a plate. Every component was good but nothing was a standout, but it was true comfort food. All was not vegan and we would be powered for the next days of farm work with that breakfast.

The best breakfast of all was not the full English, but the full Scottish at the Edinburgh Larder. No Costco sausage, no Heinz baked beans. They put care into the selection of all the products. They had a small selection of some good Scottish craft beer as well. So why not enjoy a Scotch ale with the full Scottish breakfast? I did. Their brownies were heavenly as well. Having a hearty breakfast in Edinburgh is all the more important considering the sheer number of amazing places to taste Scotch whisky. It is a city made for walking as it has some of the most beautiful architecture on the island in one of its most beautiful backdrops.

While we survived on tea and muesli most days on the farms, any time we left the farms we would head almost immediately to a breakfast spot for the full English treatment. While I doubt anyone eats it everyday, had we had access to them, it would have been hard to pass up. Even more, I would like to take on the Somerset Maugham challenge and have three a day.

Barleycup: A Deliciously Ethical (and Sometimes Boozy) Coffee-Substitute

By Liliana Valderrama

I love coffee and do not feel the need to substitute it for a non-caffeinated liquid. However,  I have had the pleasure of drinking Organic Barleycup, a delicious coffee substitute. It was introduced to me on my three month Wwoofing stint in the UK. For those of you not familiar with woofing or worldwide organic farming, it is a network of small or hobby farmers who provide you with food and shelter in exchange for your work. It usually entails mucking, cleaning, or hedge trimming.

One thing all the farms had in common was John Seymour’s work “The Complete Book of Self Sufficiency” and Barleycup. I was skeptical at first being a staunch lover of coffee. My husband, having a sensitive stomach, made me try it. It was ok, not real coffee, but it did have a nice smokey taste. Barelycup is a gluten-free product made from roasted grains (rye and barley) and the chicory root. It was found on all these farm because it is an Organic product. Being organic farmers themselves they were supportive of ethically produced products. Many conversations were had about how far coffee has to travel and how coffee farmers are taken advantage off even in so-called “Fair-Trade” schemes.

When we left the UK we shoved two jars of Barleycup into our luggage. I started to prepare it for him in the mornings very decandanly. Here is how to make my “decadent” version of barley cup: First add 2 tbsp of barley cup, 1.5 tbsp of vanilla sugar, cinnamon, freshly grated nutmeg, and two table spoons of raw whole milk or cream. Second mix these ingredients vigorously in your coffee mug until they form a thick paste, and third add boiled water. All of these ingredients can be altered to taste. You may like a sweeter, darker, or creamier version of Barleycup. This will be so delicious, you will not miss your regular coffee. If you need to use a coffee substitute, I suggest you start with decadence. It will be easier at first because what you make will be creamy, sweet, and delicious. You can scale back eventually when you have conquered you caffeine addiction.

A boozy Barelycup is of course a better Barleycup. I have experimented with a cheap V.S.O.P Armagnac and all types of orange liqueurs. My favorite orange liquor is Da Mhile’s Orange 33, which is an Organic 25% spirit distilled with real oranges and coffee beans and aged in oak casks. This ethical boozy beverage will be a hit at your next Sunday Brunch. You may need quite a few if your discussion turns to Brexit or the Trump administration..

A Beegrimage to the 2017 Bruges Beer Festival

By Eric Van Vleet

While it is nearly impossible to overestimate the greatness of French wine, aperitifs, digestifs and drink in general, good beer, inventive craft beer is hard to come by, at least in southwest France. Many ‘craft’ breweries each trot out a line that consists of a white beer, a blond and brown beer. The most daring local beer is a shandy. While Cahors wine is a many splendored thing, after months in the UK, the land of delicious low gravity cask ales from traditional brewers and cutting edge craft beers, made us accustomed to great beer. While at some point we will write about those experiences in different posts on this blog, we were getting thirsty in the beer desert of southwest France. Instead of relying on a limited selection of some of Belgium’s most common beers to quench this thirst, we decided just to travel to Belgium instead. Ryan Air had $11 Euro flights. Trains to Toulouse are more expensive. So, we decided to go on a beer pilgrimage, nay a beergrimage that would have us attending the 2017 Bruges Beer Festival. Lili and I had been to Bruges a year and a half earlier and found it to be, as they say over and over in the film In Bruges, “a fairytale” city. Bruges unquestionably deserves a visit, beer festival or not. World class beer is flowing nonstop. Le Trappiste is a beautiful cellar bar with a selection that usually includes some of Belgium’s heavy hitters, international selections and some less known Belgian craft breweries. Another great bar is 't Brugs Beertje, which has an amazing beer list that breaks Belgium down into many regions. It’s a geography and beer lesson all at once. De Garre is a hidden gem. You’ll be lucky without Google Maps to find it straight away, but it is worth the seeking out because their house beer is one of the world’s best triples. You can also tour and sample beer from the only brewery in old town Bruges, the De Halve Maan Brewery. Nothing they brew is amazing, but it’s a pleasant spot to drink outside if the weather permits. All of these places are within walking distance of the Market Plaza and so there is no good reason to practice moderation. I known Lili and I have not in our time in Bruges!While all the aforementioned places were open, the Bruges Beer Festival brought in an amazing number of craft brewers that deserve global renown. The festival was not as geared up to debauchery as some beer festivals that offer unlimited beer tastings for a set price. At the Bruges beer festival you would buy your official glass, which came with a certain number of tokens, with each beer costing a token. Once you had the glass, the tokens were only 1.80 Euros a piece. Such prices were shockingly cheap as decent beer in a bar in Bruges is usually around four Euros or so.
They had a separate section for Trappist beers, which included the white whale Westvleteren 12, which is usually ranked and one of the best beers in the world, a beer one should try once but not surprisingly is bit overhyped. They had beers from all the other Belgian Trappist monk breweries, like Achel, Chimay, Westmalle, Orval and Rochefort, all which any decent bottle shop should stock. Whether you love these beers or not, the fact that they are widely available means that one should not bother with them at a beer festival. You’ll eventually become too drunk or too full to consume more beer, so one must choose wisely.Another beautiful space at the festival was dedicated to our favorite beer styles like lambic, geuze, oud bruin, kriek, flanders red ales and other amazing “sour” beer styles that Belgium has gifted to the world. While possibly the world’s greatest brewery, Cantillon, had some of its standard line available at the festival, we had tried those already, so sampled Oude Gueuze Tilquin à L'Ancienne and the same recipe but with quetsche (plums) from Gueuzerie Tilquin. Each are amazing. A “sour” beer is more than just sour, it is a galaxy of fermented fun. Another standout there was Hanssens Artisanaal’s Oude Kriek. It looked like a glass of red wine and had a kind of complexity in its sour cherry flavor that is unlike any other. In the hall dedicated non-classic style “sour” or Trappist beers, we found countless gems as well. White Pony, an Italo-Belgian brewery only operating since 2013, was a standout. One of their amazing beers, the Crow, is a 14% Russian Imperial Stout that is not as hoppy as the style can be, but balances out the kind of syrupy sweetness that can come with such high ABV beers. The Oracle is an English barleywine brewed with Belgian yeasts and another big beer at 10.7%. Yet it was immensely dangerously drinkable. While some brewers merely offer their standard flagship beers at festivals, it seemed that White Pony was there to impress and impress they did. They had an IPA, but having already tried to many California hop bombs, we demurred.We tried almost everything we could from Brouwerij 't Verzet as they did unique “sours” that were not quite in the classic modes as some of the older brewers. Their Oud Bruin Raspberry Harvest 2016 was the combination of their amazingly well balance Oud Bruin with the most realistic raspberry flavor we have ever tasted in beer. They had the most unique beer of the festival as well with their Kameradski Balsamico, which at 13.5% blended an Oud Bruin with a Russian Imperial Stout in a way that tasted like a glorious balsamic vinegar reduction. That one would ever conceive of such a beer is one thing, that they had the titanic skill to actually brew it and pull it off is another. Definitely a brewery to watch in the future.As much as we wanted to keep going, after about 30 beers shared over the course of two

days, we had no more in us. Yet, non-beer related Belgian glories are waiting for you around every corner. Right outside the festival there were fry stands housed in tiny cottages. With an endless supply off different condiments and little toothpicks that keep you from dirtying your hands, these twice-fried beauties are impossible to resist. Ordering a helping of fries without its accompanying stewed beef dish is a mistake. One can not ask for better street food or more reasonable prices in an expensive city like Bruges. 
To fit in all the food groups, we took a break from fries to visit the De Westhoek deli, which has an amazing selection of cheese, some of which are even made by the same Trappists who brew wonderful beer. A picnic lunch of this cheese and good sandwich bread offers a break from fries without breaking the bank.We made sure to hit all of Belgium’s other greatest hits in Bruges with multiple visits to both the Chocolate Line and Dumon , who produce the greatest chocolates we have ever tasted with heretofore unimaginable recipes. Check out the links and try to find a delicious ingredient that they don’t employ. The folks at Oyya will in fact sell you the greatest waffle, made in the Liège style, which has a thick yeasty dough that is far less runny than say an American chain hotel breakfast buffet waffle. They become perfection with a generous schmear of Speculoos. Many high gravity beers will not allow a person to have only one.
We came to Bruges to drink some of the greatest beer in the world, to drink beer that would change our ideas about what beer could be. White Pony and Verzet did just that. When we needed to sober up we would eat Belgian fries (they invented them and not the French!). We tried amazing raw milk cheeses and had the greatest chocolates and waffles of our lives. Such things happen when you let to gourmands loose on the streets of Bruges. Beer festival or not, amazing beer will be had by anyone who looks for it. It is indeed a “fairytale” city but one not just of canals and cathedrals, but of food and drink as well.