Ginger Lemonade

Are you suffering from late winter creeping crud? Here's an easy recipe that will sooth a scratchy throat.

Ginger Lemonade

6. cups water

1 cup sugar

1 cup bottled lemon juice

ginger 

Combine all ingredients in a pot, simmer and steep. Simple!

I use a variety of ginger. You can buy crystallized ginger in little bags (shown above). If you feel ambitious, you can buy fresh ginger root and grate it yourself. We buy grated ginger in small jars, found in the ethnic section of the grocery store. We also just discovered a jar of dried ginger slices from Penzeys in the back of our cabinet. I suppose you could even use dried ginger powder.

Any unused portions can be stored in the refrigerator and reheated later. Try it!

Who Cooks for You?

In many parts of the world, family units have one person whose full-time job is to prepare food for the family. This person rises early in the morning to make breakfast. After cleaning up, they head to the market to purchase food ingredients for the rest of the day's meals. It's not always a woman who does this work. We knew an exchange student from China who revealed that her retired grandfather did all the kitchen work.

By stark contrast, Americans have made an entire industry out of convenience foods. We've also seen an abrupt increase in obesity, diabetes, cancer, autism, allergies and more. Coincidence?

America's dependence on convenience food goes way beyond an occasional visit to a fast food restaurant. Food celebrities have published dozens of 30-minute meal cookbooks and they all include canned, packaged and pre-cooked items. How many of us make our own stock or boil our own legumes?  How easy is it to make salad dressing or popcorn? Yet even a 30-minute homemade meal is better than a frozen box of chicken pot pie or a can of soup.

So who cooks for you? Kraft? Pillsbury? Annie's Organics? And why does America no longer value the home cook?