American Girl Eats London: Chinese Chicken and Cartier Polo

I realize the two are a very odd juxtaposition, but one inspired the other. I visited the Cartier polo with a pal and we joined in what must be one of the biggest picnic ocassions on the British social calendar. Fortunately we did not cook our own picnic as someone in the upscale crowd managed to steal our picnic and the book I have been reading- In Defense of Food.

Sidenote: In Defense of Food will permanently change how you look at nutritionism. The basic argument is that reducing food to its vitamin/nutrient content oversimplifies the complex interactions of these nutrients within food and our bodies' ways of processing different foods. It also calls into question the science behind those health recommendations we pay so much attention to in the news and grocery store aisles. His point: eat foods known to be healthy, not nutrient-enriched processed food or foods not known to be healthy but dense in the particular vitamin fad of the moment. Sadly, this may mean acai, pomegranate, and your favorite-long-list-of-vitamins-on-the-side-of-the box cereal are not the tasty saviors we thought them to be. Indeed, were we crazy to think kellog's crunch and cheerios would help us live longer? Maybe now you don't even have to read the book, since you know the endgame! Nonetheless the evidence Michael Pollan offers is both convincing and entertaining. He overturns basic assumptions like the link between dietary fat and heart disease. I hope whomever found it at Cartier devotes as much time to reading it as they did to watching polo.

Back to the point: while we brought a ready-made picnic, many of those around brought their own British food. A good time to test my hypothesis- that British food doesn't taste or even look good. I failed. All those picnics looked tasty.

However, it must be noted that there were a lot of que tal's and magnifiques tossed around at the polo amidst the British hats.

My review of the Forman and Field Picnic classic British selections on offer:
Olive & Artichokes Salad- Ew
Lavender Roast Chicken with Honey & Mustard- Yum
Thai Crab Cakes with Wasabi Mayonnaise- British take credit for foreigners' cuisines, typical
Curious Brew Brut Beer- there is no such thing as 'brut' beer
Fish Pie- nasty
Smoked salmon terrine- ugh
Horseradish and chive mash- don't even know what a mash is. i thought it meant juice!
Salmon and cucumber sandwiches- yum
Scones- my favorite part of British cuisine, with some clotted cream and jam

Victoria sandwiches with blueberry compote- even better

Scotch eggs- gross

Tell me what you think!

Towards the end I proposed my friend suggest a dinner. She's taken up Chinese cooking and recommended it to solve the age-old connundrum of how to feed a man who really likes 1) spice and 2) chicken. So what's on the menu for tonight? Annie's Eats' Orange Chicken.

http://annies-eats.com/2008/10/11/orange-chicken/ (yes, a little blog stealing, but someone needs to verify that those yummy looking recipes actually work! and I am sure I will figure out some presentational solution)

This recipe is cheap- besides basic kitchen ingredients (think brown sugar, vinegar, pepper) it only requires oranges, cornstarch, ginger, eggs, and chicken. My boy loves oj, so here's crossing my fingers her suggestion is the best idea ever!

PS Photos from my vegetarian dinner last time, no time for presentational panache as the bf arrived early: