WELCOME TO OUR KITCHEN: Where have we been? And a possible New Year's resolution!

I mean, she was 92, and she lived a long and happy life. Mark and I spent some time there, cleaning out her home and donating as much as we could to local charities, and we came home for New Year's, hoping for better things, and then Mark broke his leg. I wish I could say it was doing something sexy, like skiing in Samaritz, or Even skating in Central Park, but he was out walking the dog and went up a gravel hill, lost his footing, and snapped his fibula.

So, his leg is in a cast and he can't make it into the studio, but I'm going to do my best to create an episode without him. I've got a one minute cooking tip, I'm going to talk about processed and ultra processed foods, and I'm going to tell you what's making me happy in food this week. And, in a few weeks, he'll be in a walking boot and we can record our regular episodes as usual. So here's one on my own until Mark is back up on both feet.

But before I get to my one minute cooking tip, I'm going to take over Mark's job of thanking you for listening to the podcast and asking you to subscribe so you won't miss the next episode that Mark and I do together. And, we would love it if you could rate this podcast on whatever platform you get your podcast from. We're unsponsored and your ratings help us tremendously. So let's get to it.

My one minute cooking tip. If you're like me and you love to use your gas grill even in the dead of winter, you have to adjust your burners to accommodate the cold weather. In the summer, yeah, I could turn on two of my five burners and the grill will maintain 400 degrees no problem. I can even turn one on on one end and cook on low indirect heat and it's beautiful.

But in the winter, like today when we woke up and it was 10 degrees below Fahrenheit, I have to turn all five burners on and the grill can barely maintain that 400 degrees, but I want to do steaks. So directly under those burners it's hot enough to sear and char my steaks. But I can't think of indirect cooking in the winter. It's just not enough power.

So if you want to grill in the winter, think about just grilling a steak, grilling a pork chop, grilling some chicken and crank those burners up high.

Years ago, Mark and I wrote a book called Real Food Has Curves. It's a book that teaches you how to get rid of the processed food in your life and actually enjoy eating even more. But we live in a world now of Ultra processed foods. And they're linked to a bunch of serious health conditions. And knowing what's ultra processed in your grocery store, well, that could be tough. But to help, a research team at Mass General Brigham in Boston, they created a website called TrueFood. com.

And they break down the most and least processed foods in your grocery store. They focused on three superfood chains in the country. Whole Foods. Target and Walmart. And they have four different categories. They have unprocessed, foods that use a processed culinary ingredient, then processed, and then ultra processed. Now, while that does seem confusing, let's just focus on ultra processed for a minute.

Because some ultra processed foods, like protein powders, Can actually be part of a healthy diet. See, not all ultra processed foods are created equally. So let's keep that in mind as we talk about what's on their website. It's really nice because they take categories that we all look for, like soups and pastas and meats and popcorn and yogurt, they tell you which is the least processed and which is the most processed. So it's not surprising. If we look at something like pasta.

Going for a lentil rotini, Simply Legumes brand, organic green lentil rotini, is the least processed pasta in the store. But if you go for a macaroni and cheese dinner, with dried powdered cheese, even if it's organic, like Annie's, it's one of the most processed pastas you could buy. And then if you look at seafood, you know, you get a can of chunk white albacore tuna in water, not very processed.

But you get a spicy crab sushi roll, that is going to be seriously processed because even though it says crab, there's not really crab. You know that fake crab meat that you can get in Japanese restaurants that looks like a crab leg, but that is one of the most processed foods. If you go to YouTube, you can see videos where Of how they make that. And they grind up fish and let's say it's not the best fish they start with. And then they extrude it and they paint it red on one side.

So like, that's something I don't really want to be eating. And even surprisingly popcorn, you can get. Orville Redenbacher's gourmet yellow popcorn. Not processed whatsoever. Or you can get some Hawaiian style furikake popcorn puffs. Man, those are so processed, don't fool yourself into thinking that you're having a healthy popcorn snack when you wanted chips. Just go for the popcorn. And even in yogurt, typically you think yogurt's not that processed, right?

It's just milk that's been inoculated with some bacteria to make it actually healthier for you. And you can get organic, plain, low fat yogurt or kefir, and it's really good for you. You can go for the s'mores vanilla, low fat Greek yogurt made by a couple of brands. And let's face it, the yogurt part of it is not very processed. How are they getting that s'mores flavor in there? That's highly processed artificial flavors. But again, not all ultra processed foods are created equal.

So you don't necessarily need to avoid all of them to have a healthy diet, but you want to limit them. So when I go to the supermarket, I focus on produce, I focus on the meat department, the bakery, and I love the freezer section. Because the freezer section has a lot of great stuff, frozen vegetables, I'm not going to live without my occasional ice cream, and I'm not going to live without my occasional onion rings. I mean, I'm not crazy. But I read ingredient lists.

And if there are long words in the ingredient list that I can't identify or I can't pronounce, then the food is likely ultra processed and over processed. I'm going to look for something else.

What's making me happy in food this week? Well, it's gotta be smoked fish from Zabar's in New York City. If you don't know Zabar's, it's this amazing food store and kitchen supply store on New York's Upper West Side. It's an institution. It has been there for, Ever. And my aunt is one of the most thoughtful people and super generous with Mark and me. And when Mark's mother died and then he broke his leg, she sent us a huge care package from Zabar's.

And it had smoked salmon, it had white fish salad, two kinds of herring, smoked sable, bagels and cream cheese. And we've been eating that for days. It's just so comforting. It is the food of my childhood. Now, Not Mark's childhood, mind you, but he loves it. In fact, the first time he tried smoked sable on a salt bagel was at my grandmother's shiva when she died 28 years ago. And, yes, we have been together that long. And, yes, it was my aunt's mother who died.

And so it's kind of nice that she sent us the same thing right after Mark's mom died. And we still have a lot left, and I'm going to keep enjoying it for a few more days. Well, That is the first and only short episode of Cooking with Bruce and Mark that I've done without Mark, and we will be back together in a few weeks. And until then, please go to our Facebook group, Cooking with Bruce and Mark, and let us know what's making you happy in food this week.

And you can also see a picture of Mark in his gorgeous purple cast. So thanks for listening, and more episodes of Cooking with Bruce and Mark are coming soon.