The Art of Eating In

by Cathy Erway

  But the use of polystyrene foam packaging is not just an environmental concern; it’s a major public health concern. Polystyrene foam can leach the chemical styrene, a known carcinogen, into the food it touches, and with enough exposure it can cause damage to the human reproductive system. Researchers estimate that a polystyrene foam cup can leach up to 0.025 percent of styrene into the beverage it is holding in a single use, and the amount that it leaches increases when the food or beverage in question is hot or high in fat. It’s debatable whether eating or drinking out of polystyrene foam containers can add up to enough styrene exposure to cause significant damage. But the long-term effects of styrene exposure, observed mainly through workers exposed to it in plants, have been undesirable.

  The toxicity of polystyrene foam underscores a much bigger, developing problem in today’s world—of untested and potentially hazardous chemicals lurking in nearly every manufactured product we touch. There has been a lot of hubbub over the dangers of the common plastic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and phthalates, the family of chemicals often used to soften it. PVC may be used to make everything from plastic cling wrap to refrigerators, disposable drinking cups to reusable water bottles. But recently, the issue gained attention when it was discovered in baby toys such as teething rings. Like polystyrene foam, the amount of toxic chemicals these plastics can leach increases with heat. Everyday inks and dyes are under scrutiny as well: In one Italian study, researchers discovered that inks containing toxic chemicals were being printed on common cardboard pizza boxes, and they concluded that with the high heat levels inside the boxes, these chemicals could migrate into the food, although it is unclear what, if any, effect this could have on humans.

  One of the most frustrating parts of this problem might just be that as consumers, we simply don’t know what chemicals are in the products we’re using. Unless we take it upon ourselves to do some investigative research and send plastic toys or food containers to a lab for inspection, there’s no way to discern between a plastic fork laden with PVC and one that’s not. There are sixty thousand chemical compounds on the market that have never been tested for safety that could be making it into our everyday products, according to Mark Schapiro in his book Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power. In contrast, ceramics, glass, and many types of metals have been used since the beginning of time to serve food. So with that in mind, I much prefer to eat my soup out of some type of ceramic dish when I can.

  Leaving aside the unwanted sauce packets, extra paper menu, and napkins from my weigh-in for the moment, we get to the aluminum soda can. The government has tried to take measures to encourage aluminum recycling, offering a five-cent deposit in the states of New York, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Iowa, and Connecticut (as my Chinese takeout can of Diet Pepsi had clearly engraved on its top). But collecting cans for their deposit value may soon be a thing of the past. According to the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), aluminum recycling rose significantly in the 1970s and 1980s, due in large part to the mandatory deposit legislature in nine states. Since 1992, however, when recycling reached a peak of 68 percent, the rate has been dropping steadily. Today, 50 percent of aluminum beverage cans in the United States are never recycled. And of course, we’re producing more of them than ever.

  Recycled aluminum cans have been demonstrated to be just as strong and durable as cans made from virgin materials, and they require one-twentieth of the energy to manufacture. The states with the highest deposit refunds, ranging from 2.5 to 10 cents a can, have the highest recycling rates. Michigan currently has the nation’s highest rate, recycling more than 95 percent of aluminum because each can’s redemption value is 10 cents.

  In New York, the 5-cent refund has remained stagnant since the bottle bill that ensured a recycling redemption was first passed in 1983. Just imagine if a slice of pizza cost the same today as it did in 1983! Clearly, this incentive to recycle has not kept in line with inflation. Furthermore, New York doesn’t reward the return of the empty containers of noncarbonated beverages such as bottled water, sports drinks, teas, and juices, as states like California, Maine, and Hawaii do.

  Finally, on to the disposable chopsticks: Nearly every Chinese restaurant in America (and around the globe) has them, and they all get thrown out after one use. China produces 45 billion pairs of chopsticks each year, which accounts for an annual loss of roughly 25 million trees and a deforestation crisis that in 2006 prompted the Chinese government to place a 5 percent tax on disposable chopsticks, in the hopes that businesses would begin using and reusing washable chopsticks instead. And yet, most still haven’t.

  Suffice it to say, what began as a weigh-in of a takeout meal versus a home-cooked meal gave me a lot to weigh over. To be sure, I may have made the waste materials involved in wrapping a takeout meal sound frightening, destructive, and deadly. In truth, most of the exact same materials found in my batch of Chinese takeout garbage are found in grocery store and not-eating-out purchases, too. Many households purchase cans of soda, and microwaveable meals might come in PVC plastic trays. Eggs come in polystyrene foam containers sometimes, as well. And if you don’t bring a reusable tote to the grocery store, you’ll end up with a lot of double-bagged-plastic waste. These materials are all used in daily life for many purposes. But back to the argument about eating more whole foods rather than processed, or buying in bulk, or making more foods from scratch: The little differences in the amount of these materials that are wasted can really add up.

  Many people have brought up the argument that eating at restaurants at least in theory is more efficient than cooking at home, conserving more resources and energy since restaurants cook larger quantities all at once. I’ve heard it complained more than a few times that people purchase groceries for one meal, and then end up with a lot of leftover ingredients that they don’t know what to do with and eventually throw out, too. It’s understandable, but the solution might just be to get more experienced at cooking and at grocery shopping. The argument has also been made that it takes more energy and resources if you’re cooking for a single household—or person—at a time than for a restaurant full of people. It’s also more cost-effective to purchase food in bulk, as restaurants do, which is part of why they make a profit from serving you.

  These ideas are completely valid, and they might lead one to suggest that eating in sit-down restaurants only is the earth-friendly alternative to buying individually wrapped takeout from a restaurant. But I for one can’t afford to do this (nor is this the most realistic option for most people).

  Now that I’ve probably made all takeout restaurants on the planet look like accomplices to pure evil, I’ll admit, I had plenty of cravings for all my old standby orders, especially throughout that first fall and chilly winter of not eating out. Sitting in front of the TV with takeout meals had been a rare indulgence for Ben and me when he lived at his old apartment (for some reason, we always sat on the floor with our takeout boxes spread out before us, as if they couldn’t all fit on his dining table). If there wasn’t enough in my cupboards, or if it was raining or freezing out, it was all too tempting to pick up the takeout menus to choose something to have delivered to my old apartment door, too.

  Once in our new apartment, every time Ben came through the door with takeout, bathing the apartment in the scents of chicken shawarma or enchiladas, my mouth would water uncontrollably. It was also becoming increasingly dangerous to go out with friends and stay out late because there was always that point in the night when somebody wanted to get food. I learned to settle for a bodega snack if I was also hungry at times like those. I’d get chips or over-salted nuts, maybe an ice cream bar. But the allure of a late-night slice of hot pizza still remained, untouchable.

  So to satisfy my cravings, I set out to re-create a few of my favorite takeout restaurant foods. I missed sushi, so I tried making my own seaweed-wrapped maki rolls. It seemed daunting at first: The rice needed to be carefully mixed with vinegar and t
hen kept damp. The nori wrappers were unfamiliar to the touch and easy to tear. I scoured the Internet for tips on this technique, and for Christmas, I hinted to Ben that I might want to own a sushi cookbook, a hint he took. I also got myself a simple straw mat, sold at most Asian markets, that was used for making maki. After trying it out once, I realized that it was really easy to get the hang of. And almost any vegetable I had on hand tasted good in a maki roll. The nori is first placed on the straw mat, then covered with an even layer of sticky rice. From there you could place any slivered vegetables at the bottom. At first I had put mostly fresh vegetables, such as julienned cucumbers and carrots. Then I began experimenting with more cooked ingredients instead, or in addition. For rolls, I fried long slices of Japanese eggplant that had been dipped in a flour batter and a sprinkle of salt and cayenne pepper. I placed fresh spinach leaves on top of the rice that had been stuck to the nori seaweed, piled on the fried eggplant pieces in a neat bundle at the bottom edge of the square, and spread mayonnaise on top before rolling the rice and seaweed into a neat, tight log. It turned out that I didn’t need the raw fish after all to sate my craving for sushi—the sushi rice and seaweed took care of that for the most part. All I needed were the rice, vinegar, nori, and a few vegetables, and I was set. I began making fresh cucumber rolls and, a couple of times, lightly steamed asparagus or roasted okra pod rolls to bring with me to lunch. I found that a package of nori seaweed wrappers goes a long way—there were usually between thirty and fifty sheets in each. Also, that maki rolls were a great food to transport wherever you needed to go, like work.

  Because I was cooking so much, I was also producing a lot of organic waste—onion and garlic peels, husks and stems of vegetables, and so on. I began storing these in a sealed plastic container, and on Saturdays I would take them to the composting center I was fortunate to live a short walk from. I would try to use every part of a plant—or an animal, for that matter—as much as possible. I’d do different things with broccoli stems once in a while and even learned to make orange-peel candy once. I had no delusions of low-impact grandeur with these experiments. It was more of a way of fooling around with whatever stuff I had on hand, making the most of it. But I liked that they didn’t end up going to waste.

  By early spring, there was one staple of cheap, greasy, takeout food fun that I was still struggling to get right: pizza—perhaps the most iconic takeout food of them all. But I was determined. I wanted to eat pizza. The more I tried and failed at making a decent crust, the more I yearned to run to the pie shop down the street and just gobble up a thick, oil-slicked slice. It didn’t matter how good the rest of the ingredients on it were. I wanted to bite into a slice that tasted and felt like a poofy, chewy, crispy-on-the-outside and maybe slightly charred-on-the-bottom actual pizza crust.

  As I discovered in my early forays with bread baking, it is all about science. And I am just not a very precise-minded cook. The fun shuts off in my system after approximately four and a half minutes of repetitive kneading. I still wanted to make a good crust for my pizza. But I didn’t want to spend an eternity getting to that point.

  I’d heard of people buying dough on its own from pizza shops before but had never done it myself. So on my first visit, ever, to the nearest pizza shop in my new neighborhood, I walked in with trepidation. I waited while someone ahead paid for her order and walked out with a large cardboard box smelling like just what my appetite was asking for. Then I asked the man at the counter if he sold uncooked dough.

  Expecting at least a quizzical stare, I was surprised when he immediately responded, “How many? One?”

  I guessed that he meant enough dough for one large pie, so I nodded yes. He turned around and took a metal plate with a round pat of dough out from a shelf in the kitchen. Then he asked if I was going to use it that night, to which I nodded again.

  “If not, then you should put it in the refrigerator,” he instructed casually. He slipped the dough onto a paper plate and tucked it inside a white paper bag.

  “Two dollars,” he said.

  I handed him two bills and took my purchase, silently cursing myself for the takeout bag and paper plate.

  Once I got home, the pizza making got under way. Since this dough had already been kneaded and allowed to rise for however long the pizza shop preferred to do things, it needed only to be stretched out on a pan, topped, and baked in a hot oven. Ben helped me forge the dough into a floppy rectangle of somewhat uniform thickness, even taking a few attempts at tossing it in the air first. Luckily, the dough didn’t fall on the floor. Next we placed it onto a rectangular cookie sheet, for lack of a round one or some other pizza-specific baking pan. I spread on some simple tomato sauce I had simmered earlier that week from a can of plum tomatoes, and spiced it up with a little more crushed red pepper. On top of that I layered on shredded mozzarella. Ben and I arranged some jarred jalapeños and slices of lightly browned Italian sausage on top—this was Ben’s favorite pizza-topping combo.

  The result of this pizza night was even more satisfying than I would have liked. I just wanted to keep eating, no matter how full I was. The pizza so nearly resembled the actual takeout experience, only it was better tasting, with all the toppings we’d added. I ate half the cookie sheet-sized pie in one night. Between the two of us, we finished it off.

  I had aimed fairly low, hoping only to re-create an average slice of New York City pizza, more or less like the ones sold where I had purchased the dough. But what I came away with that night of our first pizza binge was something more than I’d bargained for. I always hated shops that used too little sauce, so I spread on a thick, oozing layer that seeped into the dough and made some parts a little sodden, though not in an unpleasant way.

  After this success, I made pizzas every now and then. I tried to make them healthier by adding less cheese and more vegetables—sliced bell peppers, broccoli, zucchini, or whatever I had in the fridge. I used pesto and tapenade instead of tomato sauce sometimes, and learned to fashion other flatbread-like foods from the pizza-shop dough, like an olive oil and herb-rubbed, feta-topped Middle Eastern-style za’atar bread. It took about twenty minutes to make, from raw dough to a fully cooked, takeout-like snack.

  Even though I had learned to cook weeknight meals pretty quickly, my nightly exploits in cooking were far from done by the time I put the last dish on the drying rack. I’d end up blogging about my recipes late into the night, which annoyed Ben, because I’d keep the lights on in our little apartment, and my tapping on the keyboard kept him up.

  By this point, my blog was no longer just about cooking homemade meals for fun or necessity. It had become an obsession, and it was taking over a good deal of my leisure time. I was posting recipes, tips, and reasons for not eating out on my blog that were intended to engage the practical-minded, busy, working foodie. I was no longer the model for that audience. I was still working nine to five, and I could have kept my little cooking adventures in line with the rest of my life. But instead I was using all my energy and free time to write, photograph food, and come up with new recipes. How could I stop? I was having more fun with this project than with anything I’d ever done in my life.

  I, for one, was perfectly happy.

  BLT Maki Rolls

  The procedure might sound complicated, but after a couple of tries it’s easy to turn out maki with any combination of fillings. This one rolls together the famous cold sandwich fillings, and a little bit of garlic mayonnaise really makes it sing.

  (MAKES 3 ROLLS)

  1 cup uncooked sushi rice

  ¼ cup sushi vinegar1

  ¼ cup mayonnaise

  1 teaspoon rice vinegar (or substitute white vinegar)

  1 teaspoon sugar

  1 garlic clove, minced

  3 square sheets of nori seaweed (can be found in packages at most Asian groceries)

  10-12 leaves of romaine lettuce, thick ribs removed

  6 strips bacon, cooked to crispy and drained on paper towels

  1 large,
firm tomato, cut into ½-inch strips

  Rinse and drain the rice, and cook in a rice steamer according to your machine’s regular instructions. In the meantime, spread about half of the sushi vinegar into the bottom of a large square or rectangular baking pan. Transfer the rice to the pan and gently mix with a soft rubber spatula, while you fold in the rest of the sushi vinegar. Do not overmix, as you don’t want to break any of the grains. Cover the pan with a wet towel and let cool to room temperature before using.

  In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, rice vinegar, sugar, and minced garlic into a smooth sauce.

  Place a square of nori on top of a sushi-rolling mat (these are ideal because their long slats of wood distribute pressure throughout the length of the roll). Wet your fingertips, and place little handfuls of rice evenly on top of the nori square. Spread until you have a reasonably even, light layer of rice. Arrange a few lettuce leaves in a single layer on top of the rice. Pile a neat, small line of bacon and tomato strips about ½-inch from the edge closest to you. Spread a neat, thin layer of the garlic mayonnaise across the fillings. Lift up the straw mat on that same side, and roll until the nori covers the fillings. Without pressing too hard, continue to roll, lifting the straw mat out of the way as you go along, until the entire nori sheet is rolled up. Press down a little bit on the finished roll to secure the ends. Using a very sharp knife, cut the roll into five or six pieces. Place the pieces cut-side-up or down on a plate. Serve with wasabi and soy sauce.