Normally, I would not simply repost, but this important piece of information deserves to be published, especially in the wake of people saying the government is doing nothing..
-----------
HHS News Release, for immediate
Obama Administration Details Healthy Food Financing Initiative
Philadelphia -- The Obama Administration today released details of an over $400 million Healthy Food Financing Initiative, which will bring grocery stores and other healthy food retailers to underserved urban and rural communities across America. The initiative was announced today in Philadelphia by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The two cabinet members appeared with First Lady Michelle Obama, who recently launched the Let's Move! campaign to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation. The initiative is a partnership between the Departments of Treasury, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services.
The Healthy Food Financing Initiative will promote a range of interventions that expand access to nutritious foods, including developing and equipping grocery stores and other small businesses and retailers selling healthy food in communities that currently lack these options. Residents of these communities, which are sometimes called "food deserts" and are often found in economically distressed areas, are typically served by fast food restaurants and convenience stores that offer little or no fresh produce. Lack of healthy, affordable food options can lead to higher levels of obesity and other diet-related diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
Through this new multi-year Healthy Food Financing Initiative and by engaging with the private sector, the Obama Administration will work to eliminate food deserts across the country within seven years. With the first year of funding, the Administration's initiative will leverage enough investments to begin expanding healthy foods options into as many as one-fifth of the nation's food deserts and create thousands of jobs in urban and rural communities across the nation.
To help community leaders identify the food deserts in their area, USDA recently launched a Food Environment Atlas (www.ers.usda.gov/FoodAtlas/). This new online tool allows for the identification of counties where, for example, more than 40 percent of the residents have low incomes and live more than one mile from a grocery store. Nationwide, USDA estimates that 23.5 million people, including 6.5 million children, live in low-income areas that are more than a mile from a supermarket. Of the 23.5 million, 11.5 million are low-income individuals in households with incomes at or below 200 percent of the poverty line. Of the 2.3 million people living in low-income rural areas that are more than 10 miles from a supermarket, 1.1 million are low-income.
"Our effort to improve access to healthy and affordable food is a critically important step toward First Lady Michelle Obama's goal to solve the challenge of childhood obesity within a generation, said Agriculture Secretary Vilsack. "The Healthy Food Financing Initiative will enhance access to healthy and affordable choices in struggling urban and rural communities, create jobs and economic development, and establish market opportunities for farmers and ranchers."
Effective local programs, such as those in Pennsylvania, have shown that well-targeted financial and technical assistance can create viable businesses that provide healthier options in communities that lack access to healthy foods. These investments not only improve food options, but also create jobs, help revitalize distressed communities, and, importantly, open up new markets for farmers to sell their products, which can provide an economic boost to rural America. By better connecting producers and consumers, we can build a stronger connection between cities and rural parts of the country and help create new opportunities for farmers and ranchers. This initiative is part of a broader Obama Administration commitment to promoting economic recovery, including support for small businesses and job creation. It is also part of the Administration's efforts to revitalize neighborhoods and communities by employing place-based approaches--strategies that target the prosperity, equity, sustainability and livability of places.
"It's been a tough year for America, but for our middle class and distressed communities it's been a tough decade," said Secretary Geithner. "We're here to make sure that in America, where a child grows up doesn't determine whether they have access to a better--healthier--future. By introducing powerful incentives for private investors to take a chance on projects – like a new, healthier grocery store – we can make that difference for America's children, while creating new jobs and services in their communities."
Through the joint initiative, which was included in the President's Budget for 2011, Treasury, USDA, and HHS would make available more than $400 million in financial and technical assistance to community development financial institutions, other nonprofits, and businesses with sound strategies for addressing the healthy food needs of communities. The initiative will make available a mix of federal tax credits, below-market rate loans, loan guarantees, and grants to attract private sector capital that will more than double the total investment. Federal funds will support projects ranging from the construction or expansion of a grocery store to smaller-scale interventions such as placing refrigerated units stocked with fresh produce in convenience stores.
"Encouraging people to choose fresh, nutritious food is important," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "But to achieve that goal that kind of food must be available, and in far too many parts of our country -- both urban and rural communities -- that's not the case. This collaborative initiative is a creative way to help solve that problem, while at the same time working to strengthen the economy of low-income communities through business development and job creation."
Each of the three agencies brings a particular expertise and set of resources to the Healthy Food Financing Initiative. Specifically:
* The Treasury Department will support private sector financing of healthy foods options in distressed urban and rural communities. Through the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) and financial assistance to Treasury-certified community development financial institutions (CDFIs), Treasury has a proven track record in expanding access to nutritious foods by catalyzing private sector investment. The Healthy Foods Financing Initiative builds on that track record, with $250 million in authority for the NMTC and $25 million for financial assistance to CDFIs devoted to helping finance healthy food options. Treasury's CDFI Fund has a long history of supporting these kinds of investments, including: providing funding for the landmark Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative that has brought 68 grocery stores to underserved communities; the Roberts Fresh Market, a full-service supermarket in an underserved area of New Orleans that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina; and a new Super Giant in Washington, D.C., the only grocery store in the Anacostia neighborhood and now one of Giant's most successful stores.
*
* The Department of Agriculture specializes in improving access to healthy foods through nutrition assistance programs, creating business opportunities for America's farmers, and promoting economic development in rural areas. USDA's proposed funding level of $50 million will support more than $150 million in public and private investments in the form of loans, grants, promotion, and other programs that can provide financial and technical assistance to enhance access to healthy foods in under-served communities, expand demand and retail outlets for farm products, and increase the availability of locally and regionally produced foods. USDA has a solid track record of supporting successful farmers markets, and has also invested in grocery stores and creating agricultural supply chains for them, such as in the People's Grocery project in Oakland, CA.
*
* The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) specializes in community-based efforts to improve the economic and physical health of people in distressed areas. HHS will dedicate up to $20 million in Community Economic Development program funds to the Healthy Food Financing Initiative. Through the CED program, HHS will award competitive grants to Community Development Corporations to support projects that finance grocery stores, farmers markets, and other sources of fresh nutritious food. These projects will serve the dual purposes of facilitating access to healthy food options while creating job and business development opportunities in low-income communities, particularly since grocery stores often serve as anchor institutions in commercial centers. HHS has supported fresh food projects in the past, such as the Plaza del Valle in Panorama City, CA.
###
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
The One Kitchen Revolution
Which came first the seed or the fruit? In any case, this circular movement of reproduction and continuance has fostered the planet we see today. Circular orbits, circular patterns of seasons, circular concepts of DNA to seed to parent to seed and so forth. This is the revolution, true revolution. It is a complete circle.
Of course, revolution itself conjurs up many images of past events: American revolution, French Revolution, the cultural revolution in China. Each of these had a similar feature: each movement cast off the previous regime, and installed a new one, from one to the next.
Our modern 'revolutionaries', like Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann, have very little in common with this type of revolution. There is nothing to follow up their dissatisfaction with 'the way things are.' There is no answer to what we ought to do once we have revolted, as like always, life must go on. People still need to eat. People must mate and have babies in safe and secure places or the revolution is devolution, and ends in death, with no reproduction or continuance.
It is, in fact, Will Allen, leading voice of the food revolution that we should be watching instead (http://www.growingpower.org/). So what is the food revolution? First off, the food revolution asks a very important question: "Where does your food come from?" Let's try that one again:
"WHERE DOES YOUR FOOD COME FROM?!?!?"
That question, in and of itself is revolutionary, though our great grandparents would be shocked to see how quickly our connection to our food roots has been severed, or at least severely sprained. Where does your food come from? It used to come from the backyard or the neighborhood farmer. In Portland, Oregon, where I am lucky to be alive, the food is often local. We are a few steps ahead in the march toward food safety and awareness here in our little corner of the NW USA, but we still have many miles to go yet.
And that is the crux of this writing. Revolution is circular. Where does your food come from denotes a single direction. At this juncture I must ask:
"Where is your food going?"
Americans throw away 40% of the food they purchase (http://uspoverty.change.org/blog/view/americans_waste_40_of_their_food). If this seems like a lot, it is. Think about it. We are pissed off because we pay 30% of our wages to taxes. That means you are working for the government for 1/3 of your working year. Outlandish, indeed. But throwing away 40% of our food? First of all the waste must end. But second of all, we have to stop looking at our by-products as waste at all.
In the city of Portland, residents are allowed up to three hens for egg production. Kitchen scraps make great chicken scraps, leftover vegetable bits (yes, even the melon rind) make excellent stocks. Why use water when you can use a more flavorful liquid? Not only does this process capture any remaining nutrients from otherwise wasted items, it helps to break the vegetable matter down in advance of the compost, making an easier time for the worms and mycelium.
Scraps of meat leftover, which cannot be composted, can certainly be turned into soup and canned. I used to be so intimidated by the process of canning, but it is really quite simple and can be done for any amount of food, from one quart of leftover soup to 40 quarts of marinara sauce to last two years.
"Where is your food going?" This is the One Kitchen Revolution. No matter how much green local sustainable organic, bio-dynamic, no spray, non-GMO food you buy, what you do with it matters. We have to complete the cycle of knowing to complete our revolution. Start today, start at home. It is the only logical place on which to stand our ground and start the battle of a lifetime.
Of course, revolution itself conjurs up many images of past events: American revolution, French Revolution, the cultural revolution in China. Each of these had a similar feature: each movement cast off the previous regime, and installed a new one, from one to the next.
Our modern 'revolutionaries', like Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann, have very little in common with this type of revolution. There is nothing to follow up their dissatisfaction with 'the way things are.' There is no answer to what we ought to do once we have revolted, as like always, life must go on. People still need to eat. People must mate and have babies in safe and secure places or the revolution is devolution, and ends in death, with no reproduction or continuance.
It is, in fact, Will Allen, leading voice of the food revolution that we should be watching instead (http://www.growingpower.org/). So what is the food revolution? First off, the food revolution asks a very important question: "Where does your food come from?" Let's try that one again:
"WHERE DOES YOUR FOOD COME FROM?!?!?"
That question, in and of itself is revolutionary, though our great grandparents would be shocked to see how quickly our connection to our food roots has been severed, or at least severely sprained. Where does your food come from? It used to come from the backyard or the neighborhood farmer. In Portland, Oregon, where I am lucky to be alive, the food is often local. We are a few steps ahead in the march toward food safety and awareness here in our little corner of the NW USA, but we still have many miles to go yet.
And that is the crux of this writing. Revolution is circular. Where does your food come from denotes a single direction. At this juncture I must ask:
"Where is your food going?"
Americans throw away 40% of the food they purchase (http://uspoverty.change.org/blog/view/americans_waste_40_of_their_food). If this seems like a lot, it is. Think about it. We are pissed off because we pay 30% of our wages to taxes. That means you are working for the government for 1/3 of your working year. Outlandish, indeed. But throwing away 40% of our food? First of all the waste must end. But second of all, we have to stop looking at our by-products as waste at all.
In the city of Portland, residents are allowed up to three hens for egg production. Kitchen scraps make great chicken scraps, leftover vegetable bits (yes, even the melon rind) make excellent stocks. Why use water when you can use a more flavorful liquid? Not only does this process capture any remaining nutrients from otherwise wasted items, it helps to break the vegetable matter down in advance of the compost, making an easier time for the worms and mycelium.
Scraps of meat leftover, which cannot be composted, can certainly be turned into soup and canned. I used to be so intimidated by the process of canning, but it is really quite simple and can be done for any amount of food, from one quart of leftover soup to 40 quarts of marinara sauce to last two years.
"Where is your food going?" This is the One Kitchen Revolution. No matter how much green local sustainable organic, bio-dynamic, no spray, non-GMO food you buy, what you do with it matters. We have to complete the cycle of knowing to complete our revolution. Start today, start at home. It is the only logical place on which to stand our ground and start the battle of a lifetime.
Monday, February 8, 2010
The One Kitchen Revolution
I am happy to announce that I will be advertising in Portland's 2010 ReDirect guide. To team with the group responsible for this amazing publication, as well as the elite list of folks who have chosen to be sustainable and green in their approach to business is an honor that I, as an Oregonian, am proud to have. I have been shown nothing but absolute sincerity, honesty and integrity from this company, and have gained many contacts throughout the Portland small business community by being involved, and look forward to another year of working with them and meeting new folks. Look for my advertsisement for
"The One Kitchen Revolution"
and get ready for an informative and educational year for food!
"The One Kitchen Revolution"
and get ready for an informative and educational year for food!
Friday, February 5, 2010
A recipe for the day...
In the absence of having naything of real substance to share, I would like to share a recipe and quick story regarding the idea of using what you have:
I was gifted, some time ago, actually, a large amount of Baking Cocoa. Now, I have worked as a baker, when Kenny and Zukes Jewish Deli was in its toddler stage, I cut my teeth as a production baker for this amazing Jewish Deli, producing up to 100lbs of Rye bread a day, amoung other things that I will spare you right now. But that being my only experience, when it comes to baking, I get the idea, but the execution can be porrer than my expectation. That being said, I stumbled across a recipe for flourless chocolate cake that was finally in weight measurment, instead of volume. I at least learned that much, if your baking recipe is in volumes, it was put together by an amateur. Not wanting to identify with the amateurs, I decided to give it a try:
200g Butter
220g Semi-sweet Chocolate
200g graulated Sugar
4 ea Eggs, separated.
Simple. However, not having chocolate to melt, but only the cocoa powder, I made the follwoing changes:
340g Butter
200g Baking Cocoa
200g Organic Granulated Sugar
4 ea Eggs, separated
2 ea Egg whites.
Melt the butter and cocoa together. The mixture will be somewhat dryer than the recipe above at this stage, but do not worry...
Whisk in the sugar, and when cool enough, mix in the egg yolks and the 2 extra whites. Whipe the rest of thw whites and carefully fold these into the mix until you have a uniform batter. This batter will fit perfectly into a 10 inch torte pan, and has the wonderful quality of not needing a pre-greased pan. I have, as of yet, had zero issues getting this cake out of any shape of pan, whether fluted edges or not, and the shelf-life of this has been hard to grasp, as the roommates have been eating it very quickly. I recently made my own version of orange curd, and serve this amazingly dark and rich cake with my orange curb for a familiar but nicely sophisticated flavor combination. The bitters work very well together.
Enjoy!
I was gifted, some time ago, actually, a large amount of Baking Cocoa. Now, I have worked as a baker, when Kenny and Zukes Jewish Deli was in its toddler stage, I cut my teeth as a production baker for this amazing Jewish Deli, producing up to 100lbs of Rye bread a day, amoung other things that I will spare you right now. But that being my only experience, when it comes to baking, I get the idea, but the execution can be porrer than my expectation. That being said, I stumbled across a recipe for flourless chocolate cake that was finally in weight measurment, instead of volume. I at least learned that much, if your baking recipe is in volumes, it was put together by an amateur. Not wanting to identify with the amateurs, I decided to give it a try:
200g Butter
220g Semi-sweet Chocolate
200g graulated Sugar
4 ea Eggs, separated.
Simple. However, not having chocolate to melt, but only the cocoa powder, I made the follwoing changes:
340g Butter
200g Baking Cocoa
200g Organic Granulated Sugar
4 ea Eggs, separated
2 ea Egg whites.
Melt the butter and cocoa together. The mixture will be somewhat dryer than the recipe above at this stage, but do not worry...
Whisk in the sugar, and when cool enough, mix in the egg yolks and the 2 extra whites. Whipe the rest of thw whites and carefully fold these into the mix until you have a uniform batter. This batter will fit perfectly into a 10 inch torte pan, and has the wonderful quality of not needing a pre-greased pan. I have, as of yet, had zero issues getting this cake out of any shape of pan, whether fluted edges or not, and the shelf-life of this has been hard to grasp, as the roommates have been eating it very quickly. I recently made my own version of orange curd, and serve this amazingly dark and rich cake with my orange curb for a familiar but nicely sophisticated flavor combination. The bitters work very well together.
Enjoy!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Schooled by a Frenchman...(figures)
I once asked a catering boss of mine, when I was still entertaining the idea that catering would be the best career choice for me, how he attracted his clientele and how it was that he was so busy. His statement, albeit sarcastic, was all too true, I have come realize: Lots of Free Food. How can anyone know what it is you have to offer, especially in the case of the sensory* heavy food. (*meaning that you can sit in a chair and decide not to buy it, but once you put my food in your mouth, please don't give it back to me, even if you don't like it; it takes a more defined sensory experience to check your taste in food, no pun intended).
So now, years later as a Private Chef and part-time caterer I find myself giving away a lot of free food, or free cooking lessons as the case may be. Last night, February 2nd, I was the 'sponsor' of the Portland February Green Drinks networking meet-up. By this, I was featured to speak for a short time and introduce my business, and also give a little background of myself and how ended up doing what I am doing. One of the first things that I tend to encounter when meeting new clientele, especially on the younger side, is a lack of fine restaurant experience. In this regard, I have been very lucky, but I do not take it for granted.
As I explained last night, I named my company A Muse Bouche for several reason. First, i explained, amuse-bouche is a French term for 'amuse the mouth,' and is a reference to the small bites, smaller even than appetizers, unordered and usually termed a 'gift of the chef,' this dish brought once the drink orders are in and the table is into the evening's experience. This was what I was taught in school (WCI in Portland) this is the title of one of my favorite cookbooks by Rick Trumonto: Amuse-bouche. Now, once may immediately see the difference in spelling, which of course is an aberation to any language, but expecially French. Now, the split between the A and M of muse allows me to gloriously indulge (and give reference to) my other oral passion with is poetry and performance poetry (see my other blog for poetry posts of no particular order: http://sayv1.blogspot.com/). A Muse Bouche, in my humble translation, now means A Mouth Muse, refering to my fixation, and to the greek goddesses of the arts, from which amuse is taken, of course.
Imagine my surprise when after my talk I was approached by a young woman in the guise of a private chef (and amuse-bouche caterer) and a Frenchman, who was quick to ask me why I was using amuse-bouche, instead of amuse-gueule?
Huh?
Now, until last night, I had never even heard this term. But it goes something like this:
Taken from http://everything2.com/title/amuse+gueule
"In the most literal sense, amuse gueule translates from the French as an amusement for the mouth - but not a mouth in the human sense - amuse bouche would be used in that case (which indeed it sometimes is). It seems that gueule means a non-human mouth, either that of an animal or more intriguingly, a gun. When used in reference to humans, gueule is a slang term, roughly translating as gob. It gives you an idea of the playfulness of the dish.
In a culinary sense amuse gueule refer to tiny, mouth size morsels of intricately designed food that is presented to the diner before a meal.
Picture this scene; somehow you have gathered the folding to dine at a 3 star Michelin restaurant in France. You are seated, presented with menus, provided with the best mineral water to slake your thirst, and the sommelier is on his way to discuss a deceptively perfect Sancerre to accompany your starters. This does not happen quickly, you are in for a full on, 5-hour gastronomic tour-de-force. Amid all this pleasant cacophony, an uninvited plate arrives - somewhat to your surprise. Perhaps it is a single oyster, garnished with the finest unpasteurized osetra caviar, or it may be a demi-tasse filled with an enchantingly green fresh pea soup - topped with a single sea scallop. The idea behind amuse gueule is not only to "amuse the mouth", but as a display of hospitality as well.
To the chef, amuse-gueule provides a breaking of shackles. No longer is the emphasis placed on carefully balanced flavors, which must harmonize with the rest of the menu. An amuse gueule brings a sense of playfulness and decadence to an occasion - one that lets all hell break loose in a single, blissful mouthful. "
And I thought I was playing with words! How beautiful an irony that in fact the roughness of the word gueule, as an animal mouth, gives the lascidasical attitude some justification in its simply throwing a mouthful of wonder together.
Given this new light on the definition of what it is I am most passionate about, I must beg this explantion: As amuse-gueule is rough in its translation and asks for animal mouth to be supplanted for the human, giving an almost barbaric tint to an otherwise perfect piece of art, so too let my butchering of the language be the roughshod animal mouth blundering of this American, giving an almost ironic mouthful of hilarity to my philosophy on food and the life therein!
So now, years later as a Private Chef and part-time caterer I find myself giving away a lot of free food, or free cooking lessons as the case may be. Last night, February 2nd, I was the 'sponsor' of the Portland February Green Drinks networking meet-up. By this, I was featured to speak for a short time and introduce my business, and also give a little background of myself and how ended up doing what I am doing. One of the first things that I tend to encounter when meeting new clientele, especially on the younger side, is a lack of fine restaurant experience. In this regard, I have been very lucky, but I do not take it for granted.
As I explained last night, I named my company A Muse Bouche for several reason. First, i explained, amuse-bouche is a French term for 'amuse the mouth,' and is a reference to the small bites, smaller even than appetizers, unordered and usually termed a 'gift of the chef,' this dish brought once the drink orders are in and the table is into the evening's experience. This was what I was taught in school (WCI in Portland) this is the title of one of my favorite cookbooks by Rick Trumonto: Amuse-bouche. Now, once may immediately see the difference in spelling, which of course is an aberation to any language, but expecially French. Now, the split between the A and M of muse allows me to gloriously indulge (and give reference to) my other oral passion with is poetry and performance poetry (see my other blog for poetry posts of no particular order: http://sayv1.blogspot.com/). A Muse Bouche, in my humble translation, now means A Mouth Muse, refering to my fixation, and to the greek goddesses of the arts, from which amuse is taken, of course.
Imagine my surprise when after my talk I was approached by a young woman in the guise of a private chef (and amuse-bouche caterer) and a Frenchman, who was quick to ask me why I was using amuse-bouche, instead of amuse-gueule?
Huh?
Now, until last night, I had never even heard this term. But it goes something like this:
Taken from http://everything2.com/title/amuse+gueule
"In the most literal sense, amuse gueule translates from the French as an amusement for the mouth - but not a mouth in the human sense - amuse bouche would be used in that case (which indeed it sometimes is). It seems that gueule means a non-human mouth, either that of an animal or more intriguingly, a gun. When used in reference to humans, gueule is a slang term, roughly translating as gob. It gives you an idea of the playfulness of the dish.
In a culinary sense amuse gueule refer to tiny, mouth size morsels of intricately designed food that is presented to the diner before a meal.
Picture this scene; somehow you have gathered the folding to dine at a 3 star Michelin restaurant in France. You are seated, presented with menus, provided with the best mineral water to slake your thirst, and the sommelier is on his way to discuss a deceptively perfect Sancerre to accompany your starters. This does not happen quickly, you are in for a full on, 5-hour gastronomic tour-de-force. Amid all this pleasant cacophony, an uninvited plate arrives - somewhat to your surprise. Perhaps it is a single oyster, garnished with the finest unpasteurized osetra caviar, or it may be a demi-tasse filled with an enchantingly green fresh pea soup - topped with a single sea scallop. The idea behind amuse gueule is not only to "amuse the mouth", but as a display of hospitality as well.
To the chef, amuse-gueule provides a breaking of shackles. No longer is the emphasis placed on carefully balanced flavors, which must harmonize with the rest of the menu. An amuse gueule brings a sense of playfulness and decadence to an occasion - one that lets all hell break loose in a single, blissful mouthful. "
And I thought I was playing with words! How beautiful an irony that in fact the roughness of the word gueule, as an animal mouth, gives the lascidasical attitude some justification in its simply throwing a mouthful of wonder together.
Given this new light on the definition of what it is I am most passionate about, I must beg this explantion: As amuse-gueule is rough in its translation and asks for animal mouth to be supplanted for the human, giving an almost barbaric tint to an otherwise perfect piece of art, so too let my butchering of the language be the roughshod animal mouth blundering of this American, giving an almost ironic mouthful of hilarity to my philosophy on food and the life therein!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Canning as you go
Man...I guess this is the speed of life, but things are progressing int he kitchen quite rapidly. Exciting recipes, ides, thoughts and journalling...so far all scrawl. I will keep the followers of this blog up to date as soon as I tackle the monster of a task of disciple in the home kitchen (see my lecture series). A blow by blow account of actually living in my own kitchen, rather than in the idea of it.
Starting about two weeks into the New Year, my lover and I decided to set forth on a task of regularizing our schedule, purchasing and preparing food weekly, to make sure we were set up for the week to come: chopping all the necessary ingredients for a whimsical salad, cooking off a chicken and making stock, canning extras, taking the leftovers and creating sides out of them. At first, the idea of canning leftover seemed pretty foreign, as far as it seemed like every time I have set up for canning, there has been a process and a whole day. But when it comes to acidic foods, simply cooking these sealed jars in Boiling water for 15 minutes post canning ought to do the trick. Lo and behold, after dinner, you have dinner for some unknown time in the future. If you have space in the freezer, being prepared at the end of each meal to freeze the leftovers will also save space in the fridge, prevent the moldy science experiment in the back of the fridge, and give a delicious meal later on. (we no longer have space in the freezer, and will glad take the donation of a drop freezer at the drop of hat. If you have an extra one.
At any rate, this practice is one that I have been regularly tending to now for the last three weeks, and while we have certainly spent more money on food than in previous weeks, we have a stock of food canned now, in the freezer, have items cut up, and I have about 18 new entries for the kitchen cookbook, waiting to be tested and perfected and printed for your enjoyment. The updates will keep coming.
Much love and happiness in your kitchen,
Your Culinary Coach
Zachary
Starting about two weeks into the New Year, my lover and I decided to set forth on a task of regularizing our schedule, purchasing and preparing food weekly, to make sure we were set up for the week to come: chopping all the necessary ingredients for a whimsical salad, cooking off a chicken and making stock, canning extras, taking the leftovers and creating sides out of them. At first, the idea of canning leftover seemed pretty foreign, as far as it seemed like every time I have set up for canning, there has been a process and a whole day. But when it comes to acidic foods, simply cooking these sealed jars in Boiling water for 15 minutes post canning ought to do the trick. Lo and behold, after dinner, you have dinner for some unknown time in the future. If you have space in the freezer, being prepared at the end of each meal to freeze the leftovers will also save space in the fridge, prevent the moldy science experiment in the back of the fridge, and give a delicious meal later on. (we no longer have space in the freezer, and will glad take the donation of a drop freezer at the drop of hat. If you have an extra one.
At any rate, this practice is one that I have been regularly tending to now for the last three weeks, and while we have certainly spent more money on food than in previous weeks, we have a stock of food canned now, in the freezer, have items cut up, and I have about 18 new entries for the kitchen cookbook, waiting to be tested and perfected and printed for your enjoyment. The updates will keep coming.
Much love and happiness in your kitchen,
Your Culinary Coach
Zachary
Friday, January 22, 2010
Risking Attention
As far as I know, I am talking to myself. And my friend Kim. So with that said, I must say the echo in here is drowned out pretty well by the vacuous space surrounding it. So if you are out there, foodie peoples follow me and see where this leads. I cannot tell a lie. I am totally inspired by Julie Powell in Julie and Julia, though at the same time I have to agree with Julia Child's reaction: Julie is using Julia Child's hours of hard work to capitalize on her own narcissism...though it is clear it didn't start like that. What a funny world that people can easily access your work and assess your character based on what you choose to put into the world.
With that said, I would like to invite readers to comment on something of which I have just become aware, and that is a (fairly) new product call Xocai (Show-Sie). This is raw chocolate at its finest it seems. Someone decided to capitalize on the the raw cacao tip, and has patented a cold-press process that keeps the cacao berry under 110°F at all times, making sure the bio-flavinols and the anti-oxidants are not destroyed n the process. The result? A piece of chocolate, sweetened with stevia, acai and blueberry powder, that has higher antioxidant ratings than anything else. Pomegranate doesn't even come close. Oh and it helps you lose weight by curbing your appetite, helps diabetics lowers cholesterol, tastes good and its chocolate.
So, if anyone has any good reason as to why this isn't a good product, please let me know.... because otherwise, you ought to talk to me and see how you too can get a hold of something that for now seems almost too good to be true.
With that said, I would like to invite readers to comment on something of which I have just become aware, and that is a (fairly) new product call Xocai (Show-Sie). This is raw chocolate at its finest it seems. Someone decided to capitalize on the the raw cacao tip, and has patented a cold-press process that keeps the cacao berry under 110°F at all times, making sure the bio-flavinols and the anti-oxidants are not destroyed n the process. The result? A piece of chocolate, sweetened with stevia, acai and blueberry powder, that has higher antioxidant ratings than anything else. Pomegranate doesn't even come close. Oh and it helps you lose weight by curbing your appetite, helps diabetics lowers cholesterol, tastes good and its chocolate.
So, if anyone has any good reason as to why this isn't a good product, please let me know.... because otherwise, you ought to talk to me and see how you too can get a hold of something that for now seems almost too good to be true.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Broast Lamb
Well hello there. I want to start todays segment by saying that I do not support endorse, or otherwise even understand what the term Broasting means, but I felt compelled to use it in the title, just so I could have this rant. That and I think I broasted my leg of lamb, and it was delicious. To me, to braise something, you steam/boil, read: Braise it is a liquid, covered or not, until the meat is tender and well done. Roasting on the other hand, is a dry heat, in an oven, done until the internal temperature of the roast is roughly 15°F cooler than you want the final temperature to reach (this is called carry-over cooking). The significant difference, of course, is the total disolution of the cartilage tissue during braising, extracting gelatin from the meat and bones. This dissolving of the tissue holding the meat together is reason is falls apart to the touch, and the reason the resulting sauce congeals. J-E-L-L-O! or something like that. I never saw Cosby advertise lamb jello...
So I had this Leg of lamb, boned, and ready to roast, or whatever. I opened it up, spread copious salt and a little less copious amounts of ground black pepper, rolled it back up and seared the sides to get the browning of the sides and develop a fond (this is important for brasing and for gravies made after roasting). While the pan was still searing hot, I added 1# of large dice mirepoix and got some more brown, using some masa at the very end to make a rudimentary roux. I placed the lamb on top, and covered with 2 cups of eggplant marinara from end of the season, and two.5 cups of chicken stock. This I covered, and put into the oven.
Naturally, this is braising. However, when the lamb was finished, lo, the top with plenty marinara still attached and nicely browned, had much more of a roast fell than the submerged meat (though due to the high steam content, the difference was really very minimal). I removed the lamb, carefully due to its FTWD status (Fork Tender Well Done), defatted the remaining liquid, and using my hand held Cuisinart, blended the mixture to a smooth rust-orange luster. What a sauce!
The lamb disappeared much faster than the sauce, which has subsequently been used to rehydrate and thus perfect some older chicken breats from the fridge. This is Chef Zack, signing off for the first report of week one: culinary adventures of the extremely busy.
So I had this Leg of lamb, boned, and ready to roast, or whatever. I opened it up, spread copious salt and a little less copious amounts of ground black pepper, rolled it back up and seared the sides to get the browning of the sides and develop a fond (this is important for brasing and for gravies made after roasting). While the pan was still searing hot, I added 1# of large dice mirepoix and got some more brown, using some masa at the very end to make a rudimentary roux. I placed the lamb on top, and covered with 2 cups of eggplant marinara from end of the season, and two.5 cups of chicken stock. This I covered, and put into the oven.
Naturally, this is braising. However, when the lamb was finished, lo, the top with plenty marinara still attached and nicely browned, had much more of a roast fell than the submerged meat (though due to the high steam content, the difference was really very minimal). I removed the lamb, carefully due to its FTWD status (Fork Tender Well Done), defatted the remaining liquid, and using my hand held Cuisinart, blended the mixture to a smooth rust-orange luster. What a sauce!
The lamb disappeared much faster than the sauce, which has subsequently been used to rehydrate and thus perfect some older chicken breats from the fridge. This is Chef Zack, signing off for the first report of week one: culinary adventures of the extremely busy.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
2010
I recently was able to view the What's Hot for Food Service in 2010
( http://www.restaurant.org/pdfs/research/whats_hot_2010.pdf ). This .pdf document is the culmination of a large abd broad based survey among culinary professionals, speculating and creating the trends for this our new year. No surprisingly, the top of almost every list is sustainable, local foods. Local vegetables have been a hot for some time, and granted, here in Portland, where Chef resides, we are quite spoiled when it comes to the freshness of our ingredients.
But local meats? Is there enough production locally to supply the growing demand of artisan, local meats and animal products? Again, I am aware of my own spoiled nature. I grew up getting milk from our local Dari-mart, family run now for over 45 years (http://www.darimart.com/), and surrounded by farmland. Much of that land now, outside of Eugene, is being quickly developed as the allure of the Willamette valley grows, but what of the new demand for locally produced proteins. It doesn't take a genius to recognize the absolute fallacy presented in the mass slaughterhouses (killfloors) or the 100,000 head of cattle bumping and pushing up against one another in a frenzied attempt to find some kind of nutrition is the corn they are being fed (cows eat grass, by the way).
I could talk ad nauseum with reagrd to the proper handling of all of your food. The energy given to something along every part of its path is transferred, in some small way into your sells as you integrate the food and energy. Fear, antibiotics, adreniline, poison, E. coli and other bacteria, ammonia, chemicals, cow manure, etc. are all common in these feed lots. Personally, I don't have any recipes for how to make E. coli more pallatable, nor can I find an amuse bouche to make rBGH cute and attractive. The food movement is more than a movement, this is a call to return to the self-sufficiency of our great-grandparents (if you are in you 30s-ish, that is).
My partner's mother and I were discussing what we call the "great forgetting." She remembers fondly getting the bag of margarine home and how it was the kid's job to squeeze and squish the annatto coloring into the white Crisco to make the new-fangled spreadable fat look more like butter. The concept was so hi-tech, so new, that it was preferred simply due to its novelty! I grew up eating I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Butter, I can't believe its not food! Actually, I have no problem believing that it is not food. We have been duped into buying our energy from a system so sick that it requires more energy to grow corn (our mainstay crop in America) than the energy gotten out of it (see Michale Pollen: The Omnivores Dilemma). This is absurd. The whole point of food is to convert the hard to access energy of the sun into Carbohydrates that we animals can harvest and use to build our bodies and keep our hearts ticking. Is is really so difficult to envision a wolrd in which this is actaully what we are doing?
I imagine often a time-trveler from the America past coming to the future and seeing what we have made of a dream that, while perhaps misguided, was at the very least noble in it cause for growth of the humans spirit. They arrive, see the corn belt, read the financial aspects of the modern farm industry, and go home to their time, and call off the whole American revolution and go home, deflated and depressed that we could flounder in such a cesspool of ignorance and stupidity.
Of course Local is the answer: and this is no trend. Any person posed the question "Where does your food come from?" Will probably give the same disconcerted answer....slight pause, and then: "...I don't know...."
Lets change this. What the chefs see as trends for the New Year, Chef Zack sees as the inevitable movement back toward self-sustainability...
( http://www.restaurant.org/
But local meats? Is there enough production locally to supply the growing demand of artisan, local meats and animal products? Again, I am aware of my own spoiled nature. I grew up getting milk from our local Dari-mart, family run now for over 45 years (http://www.darimart.com/), and surrounded by farmland. Much of that land now, outside of Eugene, is being quickly developed as the allure of the Willamette valley grows, but what of the new demand for locally produced proteins. It doesn't take a genius to recognize the absolute fallacy presented in the mass slaughterhouses (killfloors) or the 100,000 head of cattle bumping and pushing up against one another in a frenzied attempt to find some kind of nutrition is the corn they are being fed (cows eat grass, by the way).
I could talk ad nauseum with reagrd to the proper handling of all of your food. The energy given to something along every part of its path is transferred, in some small way into your sells as you integrate the food and energy. Fear, antibiotics, adreniline, poison, E. coli and other bacteria, ammonia, chemicals, cow manure, etc. are all common in these feed lots. Personally, I don't have any recipes for how to make E. coli more pallatable, nor can I find an amuse bouche to make rBGH cute and attractive. The food movement is more than a movement, this is a call to return to the self-sufficiency of our great-grandparents (if you are in you 30s-ish, that is).
My partner's mother and I were discussing what we call the "great forgetting." She remembers fondly getting the bag of margarine home and how it was the kid's job to squeeze and squish the annatto coloring into the white Crisco to make the new-fangled spreadable fat look more like butter. The concept was so hi-tech, so new, that it was preferred simply due to its novelty! I grew up eating I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Butter, I can't believe its not food! Actually, I have no problem believing that it is not food. We have been duped into buying our energy from a system so sick that it requires more energy to grow corn (our mainstay crop in America) than the energy gotten out of it (see Michale Pollen: The Omnivores Dilemma). This is absurd. The whole point of food is to convert the hard to access energy of the sun into Carbohydrates that we animals can harvest and use to build our bodies and keep our hearts ticking. Is is really so difficult to envision a wolrd in which this is actaully what we are doing?
I imagine often a time-trveler from the America past coming to the future and seeing what we have made of a dream that, while perhaps misguided, was at the very least noble in it cause for growth of the humans spirit. They arrive, see the corn belt, read the financial aspects of the modern farm industry, and go home to their time, and call off the whole American revolution and go home, deflated and depressed that we could flounder in such a cesspool of ignorance and stupidity.
Of course Local is the answer: and this is no trend. Any person posed the question "Where does your food come from?" Will probably give the same disconcerted answer....slight pause, and then: "...I don't know...."
Lets change this. What the chefs see as trends for the New Year, Chef Zack sees as the inevitable movement back toward self-sustainability...
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
So you have a Farmer's market....now what?
I was recently attending a decompress for a very intense Food Policy conference held way back in August of this year. The attendees, even of our sparcely populated decompress were still coming from a wide variety of food policy backgrounds, from the Oregon Hunger Initiative, to the Sydney Lezak Project, a social justice non-profit, members of a subsidized housing community in North Portland called New Columbia, and from within that the community garden project managers, local attorneys whose interest is in protecting the public from harmful and untested pharmeceuticals. Despite the common thread of a fairly liberal mindstate there was another considerable similarity: each expressed some kind of dismay with what do with their wide variety of beautifully grown local vegatables. Most were simply at a loss when it came to cooking a meal at home. As one attendee said as she laughed, cook a vegetable? Just add cheese!
Which brings us to a big problem. We need more than just growing lessons. We need more than just local food awareness and nuttritional awareness. We need more that just people growing as much of their own food as their portion of Earth allows them. We need to learn how to cook (again)! Somewhere during the explosive glut of soft drinks and fast food, bad information (coconut oil is bad for you: see http://www.udoerasmus.com/fatsmain.htm), and simply inedible food products that cost more at the end product: poor health, diabetes, etc, than at the beginning (Family Farms in North Dakota spent more on Health Care than on food, for example, 18% of their household budget, versus 14% for food).
Learning to cook food correctly could save a lot of money on Health care, as the midwest version of boiled dinner all but assures that most if not all of the essential nutrients are destroyed in the process. Correct preparation and storage of foods (some foods, spinach for example, lose 50% of Vitamin C within 24 hours of picking, others, like potatoes, develop toxins if store improperly). But nature, humans are creatures of habit. In 2008 we voted for change. While that may be a buzzword in the political arena, I have witnessed incredible movement in the local scene as well as the national food security movement to make sure that we are in fact secure. Change is coming, and if what I read on a daily basis from the COMFOOD network, change is already here if you are paying attention.
But the root of this change is personal change, and if we are the sum of what we consume, then we need to change the way we approach feeding ourselves. Movements like SlowFood USA provide excellent information on how to approach our personal responsibilty, and are organizing local movement. and those local movements need to be supplemented by a series of simple local cooking classes that are far -reaching in scope, nor complicated in process, teaching skills like how to sharpen and keep knives, how to use them to achieve knife cuts for even cooking, aesthetics of fresh vs. dried ingredients, time-saving (and herb saving) devices such as compound butters, advanced preparation, canning and frezzing techniques for storing seasonal items, wild-crafting techniques to ecourage a visceral connection with our immediate surrounds, and to return a sense of ownership to this thing we call our own lives.
At the center of a country routed in food security, is a populace rooted in self-security: one who knows how to prepare their meals, find variety in the woods and at the market, and keep a record of what they are doing, to help bring about a better learning curve: because if we ever stop learning and moving forward with our understanding of personal well-being, then we have stopped striving to be the dream that Americans seem born to strive for: to be the best. In this case, 'best' is a measurable success, showing itself in the quality of nutrition and food we put into our bodies; best is falsifiable, and requires little more evidence of this than a quick look at Super-Size Me; and 'best' is repeatable: throughout history, a well nourished populace is capable of anything, and this axiom cannot and will not be altered. Total cerealr may have 100% of every isolated, removed, extracted and re-added nutrient and vitamin, but somehow, somewhere, there is something missing, I think I know what that is...
Which brings us to a big problem. We need more than just growing lessons. We need more than just local food awareness and nuttritional awareness. We need more that just people growing as much of their own food as their portion of Earth allows them. We need to learn how to cook (again)! Somewhere during the explosive glut of soft drinks and fast food, bad information (coconut oil is bad for you: see http://www.udoerasmus.com/fatsmain.htm), and simply inedible food products that cost more at the end product: poor health, diabetes, etc, than at the beginning (Family Farms in North Dakota spent more on Health Care than on food, for example, 18% of their household budget, versus 14% for food).
Learning to cook food correctly could save a lot of money on Health care, as the midwest version of boiled dinner all but assures that most if not all of the essential nutrients are destroyed in the process. Correct preparation and storage of foods (some foods, spinach for example, lose 50% of Vitamin C within 24 hours of picking, others, like potatoes, develop toxins if store improperly). But nature, humans are creatures of habit. In 2008 we voted for change. While that may be a buzzword in the political arena, I have witnessed incredible movement in the local scene as well as the national food security movement to make sure that we are in fact secure. Change is coming, and if what I read on a daily basis from the COMFOOD network, change is already here if you are paying attention.
But the root of this change is personal change, and if we are the sum of what we consume, then we need to change the way we approach feeding ourselves. Movements like SlowFood USA provide excellent information on how to approach our personal responsibilty, and are organizing local movement. and those local movements need to be supplemented by a series of simple local cooking classes that are far -reaching in scope, nor complicated in process, teaching skills like how to sharpen and keep knives, how to use them to achieve knife cuts for even cooking, aesthetics of fresh vs. dried ingredients, time-saving (and herb saving) devices such as compound butters, advanced preparation, canning and frezzing techniques for storing seasonal items, wild-crafting techniques to ecourage a visceral connection with our immediate surrounds, and to return a sense of ownership to this thing we call our own lives.
At the center of a country routed in food security, is a populace rooted in self-security: one who knows how to prepare their meals, find variety in the woods and at the market, and keep a record of what they are doing, to help bring about a better learning curve: because if we ever stop learning and moving forward with our understanding of personal well-being, then we have stopped striving to be the dream that Americans seem born to strive for: to be the best. In this case, 'best' is a measurable success, showing itself in the quality of nutrition and food we put into our bodies; best is falsifiable, and requires little more evidence of this than a quick look at Super-Size Me; and 'best' is repeatable: throughout history, a well nourished populace is capable of anything, and this axiom cannot and will not be altered. Total cerealr may have 100% of every isolated, removed, extracted and re-added nutrient and vitamin, but somehow, somewhere, there is something missing, I think I know what that is...
"Food, Anarchy and Agri-intellectuals" By Christopher Bedford
All,
Our nation’s industrial agricultural system is based on a series of false assumptions about our relationship to nature which require massive subsidies and purchased political support in Congress and state legislatures to maintain the illusion of stability and control.
These false assumptions include: (1) man has dominion over Nature (humankind is separate, in “control”, and above Nature), (2) technology applied to specific elements of agricultural production provides more long term certainty (risk management) in crop yields, feed to weight gain ratios, and financial returns, (3) the industrial system’s reliance on standardization is better than Nature’s out-of-control diversity and (4) efficiency in food production achieved through increasing technological and energy inputs is a sustainable approach to feeding a growing global population.
These false assumptions have a strong appeal to many who work in perhaps the riskiest business in our nation – farming. Anything that appears to offer farmers some sense of “risk management” and “certainty” as well as moral mission (feeding the world) has immediate purchase in their thinking and planning.
This appeal is greatly strengthened by the monopoly control a few corporations have over the food system and the corporate subsidized cheerleader role the Land Grant Universities play in promoting the application of bio-technology, chemical and industrial techniques to farming.
A lie. In spite of this preponderance of corporate and academic support, the industrial system in agriculture is still fundamentally a lie – an illusion that threatens not just human health and prosperity, but survival. If all the true costs of industrial agriculture were included in the cost of food today, virtually no one could afford to eat.
The lie of industrial agriculture is at the heart of the increasing vitriol in the public debate about food. The growing assault by the Farm Bureau, monopoly agribusiness corporations, and right wing commentators on the so-called agri-intellectuals - Michael Pollan, Christopher Cook, Eric Schloesser, Francis and Anna Lappe, and others (referred hereafter to as Michael et al) - reflects something more than class (working farmers vs. educated elites) and geographical (the farm heartland vs. the coasts) differences that now dominate the conversation.
Michael et al function today like that boy in the crowd who couldn’t see the new clothes worn by king and called out “he is naked”. They challenge the basic design assumptions of the entire industrial ag system and worse, much of the global economic system, as well.
In doing so they raise the emotionally laden spectre of our civilization and our nation being “out of control” as the majority of people understand “control” – a kind of predictability they can count on in making day-to-day decisions about their lives.
Feeling right, NOT. I believe ordinary people, in their guts, know, in the words of Fox Commentator Glenn Beck, “SOMETHING JUST DOESN’T FEEL RIGHT” (his emphasis). Now, I am definitely not a fan of Glenn Beck, who is a racist and a fear monger. But we can’t ignore that there is growing unease about the failure of our current systems, an unease Beck skillfully promotes and exploits.
I believe “what doesn’t feel right” is a growing sense of the failure of financial, industrial design paradigm that promotes a global, resource and energy intensive global economy (including food) for short term profit at the expense of long term carrying capacity, i.e. sustainability.
People, regardless of ideology or party, are increasingly confused about what is happening and, as a result, are increasingly anxious about the future.
Lynchings and the other. In the United States, history teaches us something about this anxiety and how it is expressed. Studies have documented a strong link between failures of cotton and peanut crops in the South and the incidence of lynchings of African-Americans. In the 19th Century, economic depressions were often accompanied with an increase in “nativist” sentiments; established immigrants attacking the most recent immigrants as “others” who must be suppressed.
When times get hard, some people look for a group to blame. Today, the Republican right wing, often shilling for corporate interests ala Rick Berman, offers up many groups for that role: immigrants, President Obama, his family and advisors, environmental wackos, trial lawyers, and, of course, Michael et al – the agri-intellectuals.
Silence is death in this situation. We must respond to these negative attacks no matter how absurd their representations because, like a water torture technique that uses a stream of single drops on the forehead to drive a person mad, they cumulatively represent a much bigger threat.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote, “If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken, and the sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the street on which it faces, sending a signal that anything goes.”
I believe Beck, the Farm Bureau and their like are sowing the seeds of anarchy, questioning Michael et al in an attempt to raise doubts in people’s minds already stressed by the challenges of these times.
In times of anarchy, people have turned to an ideology or a movement that promises order. A lot of people who hate authoritarian government also comment that “the trains ran on time” under totalitarian rule. Order in a time of disorder is very appealing.
Losing in Washington. Michael Pollan has observed that the Local Food Revolution is “winning the war in the media, but losing it in Congress.”
Power and money are at stake - trillions of dollars of corporate income and profit from the global food supply line and its subsidiaries. This is a dominion not given up lightly or easily.
Increasing industrial agriculture has turned to public policy to enforce its paradigm on American consumers and small to mid-size farmers growing for local consumption. Their strategy includes…
Create food safety laws that deal with the health dangers implicit in industrial food production and apply them to small and medium size non-industrial producers. NAIS, the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement, and the new Food Safety Certification Label by AMS all are elements in this public policy strategy.
Advocate for government support of more technology and energy intensive intervention in the food supply including nano-technology, cloning, irradiation, and even more genetic manipulation. Technology promises to give us dominion over Nature. In spite of growing evidence that this promise is false, we continue to see technology as the answer. If brute force isn’t working, you aren’t using enough of it.
Non-enforcement of anti-monopoly laws preserving and expanding the control over the seed supply and the food system by a handful of very large corporations. The current Supreme Court, under the leadership of very pro-corporate Chief Justice Roberts, is poised to expand corporate “rights” even further.
What is at stake in our current “food fight” with Michael et al on one side and the Farm Bureau corporate shills on the other side, is our democracy itself (such as it is). As Iowa State economist and lawyer Neil Harl predicted, the US food and farming system is becoming like the old Soviet command-and-control system.
Increasingly, our government’s power is being used not just to enforce monopoly corporate control of the farming and food system, but actually promotes specific proprietary technologies and processes to the private gain of those corporations.
What happens when this corporate/government effort to maintain control encounters the local food revolution – the grassroots movement of farmers and consumers (who believe eating is an agricultural act) working for a healthy, local food supply? The answer reads like headlines from a revolutionary struggle.
Farmers offering raw milk shares or engaging in some other form of direct food supply for local consumption get busted by SWAT teams of government enforcers.
Farmers attempting to grow without using patented seeds get suited for patent infringement when drift pollutes their fields.
Farmers raising animals on pasture without antibiotics or hormones receive more regulatory attention (NAIS) than industrial CAFO operators.
Counties and townships seeking to pass stronger seed and animal welfare laws are pre-empted by state and national legislation.
As the grassroots, local food movement grows larger (it is still pretty small in relation to the overall size of the food industry) the conflict between industrial food interests and the consumer driven local food revolution will only increase.
Will we win? The exists, among many local food and organic farming advocates, a strong belief that as the number of consumers join the food revolution increases, the old industrial ag order will either transform itself or disappear.
I am among those who believe consumers concerned about food, health, small farmers and the environment will ultimately triumph. But I am not so sanguine about the road to that change.
Ordinary people when confronted by corporate thuggery, distortions, and lies (ala Rick Berman, Glenn Beck, and others) do not immediately seek to stand up and fight. We have all been taught to be too polite. And the scale of the assault against Michael et al and the local food revolution dwarfs most people’s perception about what is at stake. Loud, sarcastic, angry voices spewing distortions and lies can overwhelm feelings about food and intimidate people struggling to find a different path.
We are in for hard times. Our political process is broken – dominated as it is by interests who deny the need for change and/or profit from growing anarchy in our economic and moral systems.
It is a time not just for good food and good community – but backbone and courage to confront interests who see our future in the spread of darkness.
Peace and good food,
Chris Bedford
Christopher Bedford
CENTER FOR ECONOMIC SECURITY
#6543 Hancock Road
Montague, MI 49437
231-893-3937 + 231-670-4817 (cell)
Monday, October 12, 2009
"Food, Anarchy and Agri-intellectuals" By Christopher Bedford
All,
Our nation’s industrial agricultural system is based on a series of false assumptions about our relationship to nature which require massive subsidies and purchased political support in Congress and state legislatures to maintain the illusion of stability and control.
These false assumptions include: (1) man has dominion over Nature (humankind is separate, in “control”, and above Nature), (2) technology applied to specific elements of agricultural production provides more long term certainty (risk management) in crop yields, feed to weight gain ratios, and financial returns, (3) the industrial system’s reliance on standardization is better than Nature’s out-of-control diversity and (4) efficiency in food production achieved through increasing technological and energy inputs is a sustainable approach to feeding a growing global population.
These false assumptions have a strong appeal to many who work in perhaps the riskiest business in our nation – farming. Anything that appears to offer farmers some sense of “risk management” and “certainty” as well as moral mission (feeding the world) has immediate purchase in their thinking and planning.
This appeal is greatly strengthened by the monopoly control a few corporations have over the food system and the corporate subsidized cheerleader role the Land Grant Universities play in promoting the application of bio-technology, chemical and industrial techniques to farming.
A lie. In spite of this preponderance of corporate and academic support, the industrial system in agriculture is still fundamentally a lie – an illusion that threatens not just human health and prosperity, but survival. If all the true costs of industrial agriculture were included in the cost of food today, virtually no one could afford to eat.
The lie of industrial agriculture is at the heart of the increasing vitriol in the public debate about food. The growing assault by the Farm Bureau, monopoly agribusiness corporations, and right wing commentators on the so-called agri-intellectuals - Michael Pollan, Christopher Cook, Eric Schloesser, Francis and Anna Lappe, and others (referred hereafter to as Michael et al) - reflects something more than class (working farmers vs. educated elites) and geographical (the farm heartland vs. the coasts) differences that now dominate the conversation.
Michael et al function today like that boy in the crowd who couldn’t see the new clothes worn by king and called out “he is naked”. They challenge the basic design assumptions of the entire industrial ag system and worse, much of the global economic system, as well.
In doing so they raise the emotionally laden spectre of our civilization and our nation being “out of control” as the majority of people understand “control” – a kind of predictability they can count on in making day-to-day decisions about their lives.
Feeling right, NOT. I believe ordinary people, in their guts, know, in the words of Fox Commentator Glenn Beck, “SOMETHING JUST DOESN’T FEEL RIGHT” (his emphasis). Now, I am definitely not a fan of Glenn Beck, who is a racist and a fear monger. But we can’t ignore that there is growing unease about the failure of our current systems, an unease Beck skillfully promotes and exploits.
I believe “what doesn’t feel right” is a growing sense of the failure of financial, industrial design paradigm that promotes a global, resource and energy intensive global economy (including food) for short term profit at the expense of long term carrying capacity, i.e. sustainability.
People, regardless of ideology or party, are increasingly confused about what is happening and, as a result, are increasingly anxious about the future.
Lynchings and the other. In the United States, history teaches us something about this anxiety and how it is expressed. Studies have documented a strong link between failures of cotton and peanut crops in the South and the incidence of lynchings of African-Americans. In the 19th Century, economic depressions were often accompanied with an increase in “nativist” sentiments; established immigrants attacking the most recent immigrants as “others” who must be suppressed.
When times get hard, some people look for a group to blame. Today, the Republican right wing, often shilling for corporate interests ala Rick Berman, offers up many groups for that role: immigrants, President Obama, his family and advisors, environmental wackos, trial lawyers, and, of course, Michael et al – the agri-intellectuals.
Silence is death in this situation. We must respond to these negative attacks no matter how absurd their representations because, like a water torture technique that uses a stream of single drops on the forehead to drive a person mad, they cumulatively represent a much bigger threat.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote, “If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken, and the sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the street on which it faces, sending a signal that anything goes.”
I believe Beck, the Farm Bureau and their like are sowing the seeds of anarchy, questioning Michael et al in an attempt to raise doubts in people’s minds already stressed by the challenges of these times.
In times of anarchy, people have turned to an ideology or a movement that promises order. A lot of people who hate authoritarian government also comment that “the trains ran on time” under totalitarian rule. Order in a time of disorder is very appealing.
Losing in Washington. Michael Pollan has observed that the Local Food Revolution is “winning the war in the media, but losing it in Congress.”
Power and money are at stake - trillions of dollars of corporate income and profit from the global food supply line and its subsidiaries. This is a dominion not given up lightly or easily.
Increasing industrial agriculture has turned to public policy to enforce its paradigm on American consumers and small to mid-size farmers growing for local consumption. Their strategy includes…
Create food safety laws that deal with the health dangers implicit in industrial food production and apply them to small and medium size non-industrial producers. NAIS, the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement, and the new Food Safety Certification Label by AMS all are elements in this public policy strategy.
Advocate for government support of more technology and energy intensive intervention in the food supply including nano-technology, cloning, irradiation, and even more genetic manipulation. Technology promises to give us dominion over Nature. In spite of growing evidence that this promise is false, we continue to see technology as the answer. If brute force isn’t working, you aren’t using enough of it.
Non-enforcement of anti-monopoly laws preserving and expanding the control over the seed supply and the food system by a handful of very large corporations. The current Supreme Court, under the leadership of very pro-corporate Chief Justice Roberts, is poised to expand corporate “rights” even further.
What is at stake in our current “food fight” with Michael et al on one side and the Farm Bureau corporate shills on the other side, is our democracy itself (such as it is). As Iowa State economist and lawyer Neil Harl predicted, the US food and farming system is becoming like the old Soviet command-and-control system.
Increasingly, our government’s power is being used not just to enforce monopoly corporate control of the farming and food system, but actually promotes specific proprietary technologies and processes to the private gain of those corporations.
What happens when this corporate/government effort to maintain control encounters the local food revolution – the grassroots movement of farmers and consumers (who believe eating is an agricultural act) working for a healthy, local food supply? The answer reads like headlines from a revolutionary struggle.
Farmers offering raw milk shares or engaging in some other form of direct food supply for local consumption get busted by SWAT teams of government enforcers.
Farmers attempting to grow without using patented seeds get suited for patent infringement when drift pollutes their fields.
Farmers raising animals on pasture without antibiotics or hormones receive more regulatory attention (NAIS) than industrial CAFO operators.
Counties and townships seeking to pass stronger seed and animal welfare laws are pre-empted by state and national legislation.
As the grassroots, local food movement grows larger (it is still pretty small in relation to the overall size of the food industry) the conflict between industrial food interests and the consumer driven local food revolution will only increase.
Will we win? The exists, among many local food and organic farming advocates, a strong belief that as the number of consumers join the food revolution increases, the old industrial ag order will either transform itself or disappear.
I am among those who believe consumers concerned about food, health, small farmers and the environment will ultimately triumph. But I am not so sanguine about the road to that change.
Ordinary people when confronted by corporate thuggery, distortions, and lies (ala Rick Berman, Glenn Beck, and others) do not immediately seek to stand up and fight. We have all been taught to be too polite. And the scale of the assault against Michael et al and the local food revolution dwarfs most people’s perception about what is at stake. Loud, sarcastic, angry voices spewing distortions and lies can overwhelm feelings about food and intimidate people struggling to find a different path.
We are in for hard times. Our political process is broken – dominated as it is by interests who deny the need for change and/or profit from growing anarchy in our economic and moral systems.
It is a time not just for good food and good community – but backbone and courage to confront interests who see our future in the spread of darkness.
Peace and good food,
Chris Bedford
Christopher Bedford
CENTER FOR ECONOMIC SECURITY
#6543 Hancock Road
Montague, MI 49437
231-893-3937 + 231-670-4817 (cell)
Monday, September 28, 2009
Illinois Pison System Punishes Inmates seeking Healthy Diet
I couldn't pass this story up. This is disgusting. The prisons are run by private companies, and people don't have control over their own blood stream or health? What the hell is this nonsense. Sorry excuse for a culinary blog, but important nonetheless.
Zachary
--------------------------------------------
Two "prisoner litigators" involved in a lawsuit to stop their high soy diet are experiencing life threatening retaliation from Illinois corrections personnel. Their role in helping other prisoners file grievances seems to be the impetus for their harsh treatment.
Kimberly Hartke, Publicist
LIFE THREATENING RETALIATION FOR PRISON ACTIVISTS
Segregation, starvation for plaintiffs in soy lawsuit
WASHINGTON, DC--September 28, 2009-- Illinois prison officials are targeting activists seeking an end to a toxic soy-laden diet with the practice of segregation, which is a denial of rights, and with other forms of cruel and unusual punishment.
The main recipients of retaliation are plaintiffs in Harris et al. v. Brown, et al., Case No. 3:07-cv-03225, which is currently pending before the Honorable Harold Baker in the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. The suit seeks an injunction putting a halt to the excessive use of soy in the prison diet.
One plaintiff was put in solitary confinement—referred to as “segregation”—specifically for exercising his right to file grievances about the soy diet. Segregation consists of confinement to a small cell with one other inmate (often with violent tendencies), without fans or air conditioning, allowed one shower per week and denied use of the commissary to purchase soy-free food. His stay in solitary confinement was prolonged due to trumped up charges by a prison guard. Although prescribed a soy-free diet because of a thyroid condition and a life-threatening reaction to soy products, many of the meals brought to him contained large amounts of soy. Thus, his four-month confinement became a period of forced starvation.
Another plaintiff has gone on a hunger strike after being placed in solitary confinement and denied the soy-free commissary food he needs to survive. After strenuous objection by his attorney, the fabricated charge against him was dropped and he was released from confinement; but prison authorities continue to deny him his soy-free food and are threatening a feeding tube. He has been denied access to his possessions and prevented from making court-ordered phone calls to his son.
A third inmate, a plaintiff in a separate lawsuit, has been subject to extreme punishment, including having a finger broken, for filing grievances.
“I understand from our attorney handling the case that filing grievances is the only means inmates have for redressing wrongs,” says Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation. “Punishment for filing grievances violates basic constitutional rights.”
The Weston A. Price Foundation began receiving letters from Illinois inmates in early 2008. The Foundation warns consumers about the dangers of large amounts of dietary soy on its website at westonaprice.org .
The soy-based prison diet began shortly after Rod Blagojevich was elected governor of Illinois in 2002. Beginning in January 2003, inmates began receiving a diet largely based on processed soy protein with very little meat. In most meals, small amounts of meat or meat by-products are mixed with 60-70 percent soy protein; fake soy cheese has replaced real cheese; and soy flour or soy protein is now added to most prison baked goods.
In their letters, the prisoners have described deliberate indifference to a myriad of serious health problems caused by the large amounts of soy in the diet. Complaints include chronic and painful constipation alternating with debilitating diarrhea, vomiting after eating, sharp pains in the digestive tract after consuming soy, passing out after soy-based meals, heart palpitations, rashes, acne, insomnia, panic attacks, depression and symptoms of hypothyroidism, such as low body temperature (feeling cold all the time), brain fog, fatigue, weight gain, frequent infections and an enlarged thyroid gland.
Soy is touted as a way to save money and to provide a diet lower in calories and saturated fat. However, soybeans contain plant estrogens and other toxins and anti-nutrients that make soy products unacceptable as a source of nutrition except in very small amounts. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lists over 200 studies showing toxicity of soy in its Poisonous Plant Database (http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~djw/ ). Although the FDA allowed a soy-prevents-heart disease health claim in 1999, the agency is considering revoking that claim in the face of evidence that soy does not lower cholesterol and does not prevent heart disease.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit have requested a temporary restraining order against further retaliation. According to Fallon, “The tactics of Illinois prison personnel puts the lives of the plaintiffs in danger and increase liability issues for the state of Illinois.”
The Weston A. Price Foundation is a 501C3 nutrition education foundation with the mission of disseminating accurate, science-based information on diet and health. Named after nutrition pioneer Weston A. Price, DDS, author of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, the Washington, DC-based Foundation publishes a quarterly journal for its 11,000 members, supports 400 local chapters worldwide and hosts a yearly conference. The Foundation headquarters phone number is (202) 363-4394, www.westonaprice.org , info@westonaprice.org.
Media CONTACT:
Kimberly Hartke, Publicist 703-860-2711, cell 703-675-5557, kimberly@hartkeonline.com
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
In a word: Tropical
I recently underwent a transformative process of dreaming awake. Well, no, not really, but I spent back to back weeks in Las Vegas and Maui, and explored some of the more visceral culinary delights during both, mostly to save on cost (which doesn't work in either place), but also to reach into the lesser aspects of both popular vacation culture spots.
Las Vegas was a special sort of vacation, read: not a vacation at all. My sweetie runs an incredibly successful body jewelry business, which, still being a start up, is run by her and her alone, with help occassionally garnered from termpory hires: mostly me (I work for food) and apprentices. We were in Las Vegas for the 2009 APP--the Association of Professional Piercers Convention and Certification classses. The entire event is closed to the public, and provides a safe environment for anyone in the piercing industry to come to re-up on classes, or to vend. Glass Heart Studio (us) set a vending booth with Omega Red from Iowa, and rocked a show booth for four long days.
Yours truly played the gopher. I had the car, ran the errands, and found the food. While most of our sustanence came in the form of snacks and quick nibbles between work, I did get a chance to go off strip for two dining experiences: one landed me in Roberto's Mexican Cantina, a little hole in the wall mexican place with fairly plain food. It was fine for the price, $3.95 for a burrito. In Portland, this is standard, in Vegas, this is robbery. Seriously. In the land of $5.50 Coronas, charges for toilets, dings and whistles, and smoking in restaurants, a $4 burrito is like an oasis of pure spring water--which, in the dry, 104°F Las Vegas weather would also have been appreciated.
The creme de la creme of the Vegas trip was not as special as the previous year's special--which landed Annemarie and Me at both Bouchon (Thomas Keller's killer little French Bistro in Vegas) and also Woo, and tapas fusion Chinese restaurant--but needed so badly that the hole in wall Vietnamese Pho joint was perfect. Not only cheap, but easily the most extensive menu I have ever seen at a pho place; never mind the delicious fresh food served hot in a tinted-window, air-conditioned dining area. Avacado Shake anyone? With Tapioca pearls? Will the wonder never cease?
Now, for me, being picky, I was not impressed with the main dinner of our experience...at least, not culinarily impressed. However, given the experience, I will pass on the recommendation for an actual hole-in-the-wall. Actually the name of the place is Batista's Hole In The Wall (for real) and is a traditional Italian-American family eatery.
They easily seated the 12 of us that showed up (with reservations for 10). The menu was long and is available online (www.batistaslasvegas.com). It is wiuth wonder that I explain the perfection of the restuarant. The only thing ordered in the main course, all else, including wine, garlic bread, salad or soup, pasta and capaccino are included in the price. Entrees run between $21 and $36, but this is all inclusive. The food was mediocore, but the experience was sublime: interaction with the establishment was kep to a minimum, putting interaction tableside as the focal point. All 12 of us agreed that the restaurant is a awesome occurance, and as they proudly say at the Quickie Mart next door (amidst skyscraping casinos): "Our lease is up in 21 years...we are here to serve you!"
(to be continued)
Las Vegas was a special sort of vacation, read: not a vacation at all. My sweetie runs an incredibly successful body jewelry business, which, still being a start up, is run by her and her alone, with help occassionally garnered from termpory hires: mostly me (I work for food) and apprentices. We were in Las Vegas for the 2009 APP--the Association of Professional Piercers Convention and Certification classses. The entire event is closed to the public, and provides a safe environment for anyone in the piercing industry to come to re-up on classes, or to vend. Glass Heart Studio (us) set a vending booth with Omega Red from Iowa, and rocked a show booth for four long days.
Yours truly played the gopher. I had the car, ran the errands, and found the food. While most of our sustanence came in the form of snacks and quick nibbles between work, I did get a chance to go off strip for two dining experiences: one landed me in Roberto's Mexican Cantina, a little hole in the wall mexican place with fairly plain food. It was fine for the price, $3.95 for a burrito. In Portland, this is standard, in Vegas, this is robbery. Seriously. In the land of $5.50 Coronas, charges for toilets, dings and whistles, and smoking in restaurants, a $4 burrito is like an oasis of pure spring water--which, in the dry, 104°F Las Vegas weather would also have been appreciated.
The creme de la creme of the Vegas trip was not as special as the previous year's special--which landed Annemarie and Me at both Bouchon (Thomas Keller's killer little French Bistro in Vegas) and also Woo, and tapas fusion Chinese restaurant--but needed so badly that the hole in wall Vietnamese Pho joint was perfect. Not only cheap, but easily the most extensive menu I have ever seen at a pho place; never mind the delicious fresh food served hot in a tinted-window, air-conditioned dining area. Avacado Shake anyone? With Tapioca pearls? Will the wonder never cease?
Now, for me, being picky, I was not impressed with the main dinner of our experience...at least, not culinarily impressed. However, given the experience, I will pass on the recommendation for an actual hole-in-the-wall. Actually the name of the place is Batista's Hole In The Wall (for real) and is a traditional Italian-American family eatery.
They easily seated the 12 of us that showed up (with reservations for 10). The menu was long and is available online (www.batistaslasvegas.com). It is wiuth wonder that I explain the perfection of the restuarant. The only thing ordered in the main course, all else, including wine, garlic bread, salad or soup, pasta and capaccino are included in the price. Entrees run between $21 and $36, but this is all inclusive. The food was mediocore, but the experience was sublime: interaction with the establishment was kep to a minimum, putting interaction tableside as the focal point. All 12 of us agreed that the restaurant is a awesome occurance, and as they proudly say at the Quickie Mart next door (amidst skyscraping casinos): "Our lease is up in 21 years...we are here to serve you!"
(to be continued)
Monday, April 13, 2009
Books worth Checking Out
There are many books that I use on a regular basis, and I would like to highlight the few of them that are openned nearly everyday, in one form or another, if only for reference. My challange really comes in following a recipe directly, as most of my cooking is holistic and intuitive, so I often use my books for ideas and references. For this, the best book available is Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the the Kitchen." Hands down the most informative and easy to read tome on food science. Following closely in this regard is Cooking Illustrated and the America's Test Kitchen publications. They are very good at connecting the scientific know-how with the colloquial comprehension of the common American Cook.
When it comes to cookbooks, there are the staples, of course, such as Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." I consider the French Laundry Cookbook by Thoman Keller to be another of these staples, and cannot recommend it highly enough for ideas, recipes and pictures. In tandem I love to use Rick Tramonto's discourse on "Amuse Bouche" from the restaurant Tru in Chicago. This publication is a seasonal book of ideas for quick bites and stomach tantelizers. I recently found Rick Stein's "The Complete Seafood" and am completely engrossed. Step by step instructions for the how to, not to mention 7 chapters of amazing recipes.
Honestly, beyond these books and your basic refernce guides, like the "the Food Companion" and "Wine Companion" or for myself the edible foraging and mushroom guides refenced in the fall on this blog, there is so much information available online, that I often cross reference many sources before settling into the kitchen. Have fun reading and keep the ideas flowing. It is a good idea to write your own recipes down, and sooner than you imagine, you will have a book full of both your successes and your failures.
When it comes to cookbooks, there are the staples, of course, such as Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." I consider the French Laundry Cookbook by Thoman Keller to be another of these staples, and cannot recommend it highly enough for ideas, recipes and pictures. In tandem I love to use Rick Tramonto's discourse on "Amuse Bouche" from the restaurant Tru in Chicago. This publication is a seasonal book of ideas for quick bites and stomach tantelizers. I recently found Rick Stein's "The Complete Seafood" and am completely engrossed. Step by step instructions for the how to, not to mention 7 chapters of amazing recipes.
Honestly, beyond these books and your basic refernce guides, like the "the Food Companion" and "Wine Companion" or for myself the edible foraging and mushroom guides refenced in the fall on this blog, there is so much information available online, that I often cross reference many sources before settling into the kitchen. Have fun reading and keep the ideas flowing. It is a good idea to write your own recipes down, and sooner than you imagine, you will have a book full of both your successes and your failures.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Oh yes....Sweet Potato French Toast!
My sister and I used some amazing sweet potatoes picked up at last Saturday's (first day of Spring!!) Farmer's market. Needless to say, if you are a sweet potato fan, the simple preparation using duck fat as the oil, and organic brown sugar and agave nectar to sweeten, with a little quatre epices left over from duck confit some months ago, made the large dice roast potatoes delicious. We paired these with a black-eyed pea, kale, and rice dish with Southern American flavorings.
Just two of these monstrous potatoes were enough to feed four, plus leave to much extra for the following day. This morning, finding them still in the fridge, despite the hungry roommates, a thought popped into mind: Use them in the food processor with some half-n-half and eggs to make a most delicious french toast batter. I used an organic French Baquette fromm New season, sliced on a long bias, and soaked the bread for about 20 minutes in the mixture while heating the oven to 450° F. I heated a half-sheet pan with about 2 oz of butter in the oven, and when the oven was hot (and the butter had achieved a wonderful nut-brown aroma) I pulled the pan out of the oven and packed tightly in a single layer of soaked bread onto the sizzling buttered surface. These I baked until the top had achieved a beautiful browned crust, and lo, when flipped, the butter browned bottoms had a color demanding of immediate edibility.
Served with Vermont maple syrup (acquired, of all places, from a buffet at a time-share on Maui...ha!), it was a delicous start to the day!
Just two of these monstrous potatoes were enough to feed four, plus leave to much extra for the following day. This morning, finding them still in the fridge, despite the hungry roommates, a thought popped into mind: Use them in the food processor with some half-n-half and eggs to make a most delicious french toast batter. I used an organic French Baquette fromm New season, sliced on a long bias, and soaked the bread for about 20 minutes in the mixture while heating the oven to 450° F. I heated a half-sheet pan with about 2 oz of butter in the oven, and when the oven was hot (and the butter had achieved a wonderful nut-brown aroma) I pulled the pan out of the oven and packed tightly in a single layer of soaked bread onto the sizzling buttered surface. These I baked until the top had achieved a beautiful browned crust, and lo, when flipped, the butter browned bottoms had a color demanding of immediate edibility.
Served with Vermont maple syrup (acquired, of all places, from a buffet at a time-share on Maui...ha!), it was a delicous start to the day!
Monday, March 23, 2009
Coffee Braised Lamb
I had to try it.
The orginal recipe was an obscure find online for something called Red-Eye Gravy. Traditionally, this is made with ham and coffee, pepper onions, carrots. I wanted lamb. So I had to try it. To say it was well received would be an understatement. Let me start by saying that I would make it again, but probably not very often.
I made my own brown stock, using oxtail (the meat from which went into the most amazing French Onion soup to which I have been party). Using homemade maple cured bacon, pre-cooked flageolet beans, a bouquet garni of rosemary, parsley and thyme, lamb arms that had been well seared, sherry to deglaze, large dice of onion, red peppr and carrot, and a sauce mix of 50/50 fresh brewed nicauraguan coffee and my beef stock to top. In this order, I layered a cast iron braising in pot, roughly 10 inches oval, and these ingredients filled the pan to the tip top. I finished the dish by reducing the braising liquid to a sauce with added truffle butter, and a garnish of parsley. A very peasant appearing meal, hearty and full of flavor. The bitter element of the coffee is well balanced with the meaty flavor developed by braising for 3 hours, and the collected fond. The vegetables, being on top of the whole dish, get a chance to roast against the lid of the pan, before succombing to the rising tide of released juices from the intermingling layers of savory ingredients. The lamb was, of course, fork tender; the vegetables were excellent with the sauce, and the beans were subtle, as flageolet are wont to be.
Critically, I have issue with the cross-smell of coffee and bell pepper, as the two together remind me of years of composting, and the trip from the kitchen to the outdoor drop-site. Not that this is unpleasant in its ideals, but somehow the mixture of coffee grinds and spent vegetable ends sets my olefactory cringing. A lesser balanced cook may have difficulty with this recipe, as it does, with said ingredients, require quite a balncing act of flavors to achieve its end. I might try to a different vegetable combination, though I have no doubt the recipe would work very well for the intended ham, sans the bacon.
The orginal recipe was an obscure find online for something called Red-Eye Gravy. Traditionally, this is made with ham and coffee, pepper onions, carrots. I wanted lamb. So I had to try it. To say it was well received would be an understatement. Let me start by saying that I would make it again, but probably not very often.
I made my own brown stock, using oxtail (the meat from which went into the most amazing French Onion soup to which I have been party). Using homemade maple cured bacon, pre-cooked flageolet beans, a bouquet garni of rosemary, parsley and thyme, lamb arms that had been well seared, sherry to deglaze, large dice of onion, red peppr and carrot, and a sauce mix of 50/50 fresh brewed nicauraguan coffee and my beef stock to top. In this order, I layered a cast iron braising in pot, roughly 10 inches oval, and these ingredients filled the pan to the tip top. I finished the dish by reducing the braising liquid to a sauce with added truffle butter, and a garnish of parsley. A very peasant appearing meal, hearty and full of flavor. The bitter element of the coffee is well balanced with the meaty flavor developed by braising for 3 hours, and the collected fond. The vegetables, being on top of the whole dish, get a chance to roast against the lid of the pan, before succombing to the rising tide of released juices from the intermingling layers of savory ingredients. The lamb was, of course, fork tender; the vegetables were excellent with the sauce, and the beans were subtle, as flageolet are wont to be.
Critically, I have issue with the cross-smell of coffee and bell pepper, as the two together remind me of years of composting, and the trip from the kitchen to the outdoor drop-site. Not that this is unpleasant in its ideals, but somehow the mixture of coffee grinds and spent vegetable ends sets my olefactory cringing. A lesser balanced cook may have difficulty with this recipe, as it does, with said ingredients, require quite a balncing act of flavors to achieve its end. I might try to a different vegetable combination, though I have no doubt the recipe would work very well for the intended ham, sans the bacon.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The Beauty of German Pancakes (Dutch Babies)
Who doesn't love breakfast. Okay, there are some people, but lets be serious, a good start to the day is a good thing everyday. So breakfast oftens plays that role. But the morning is a pinched time and requires a lot of daytime prep that can curtail the ease of producing amn enjoyable meal.
Enter the Dutch Baby: There isn't really a better breakfast food, in my opinion, than a good German Pancake. From the ease of preparation, to the versatility of the item, to the speed and WOW factor, the German Pancake is my favorite item to create for my sweet on cold mornings. Pancakes can be messy and time consuming, without a proper grill, the first is cold by the time the last is cooked; waffles are a pain, and require a tender touch for the most succulent feast. Muffins, scones and other baked goods require a time commitment, and do not always provide the feeling of a complete breakfast. Eggs are delicious, but unless prepared in a way that wows, with good sides or homebaked bread, nothing special.
So why a German Pancake? This food is even fun to watch in the oven, as it expands and rolls up the side of the pan. The recipe is as simple as it gets:
1/2 cup Milk or water
1/2 cup AP Flour
3 eggs
Pinch of salt
2 Tbsp Butter
Put butter in a baking dish (9 x 13 in glass is my favorite although a round dish or a cast iron pan are exellent tools as well).
Preheat the oven to 385°F, with the baking dish inside, this will brown the butter and heat the entire contraption to the necessary temperature for proper cooking.
Mix all other ingredients. The batter should be nearly as running as crepe batter.
When the oven is heated, pull out the baking dish, and swirl the butter to coat the inside of the pan well. Pour the batter into the pan and return to the oven.
The mixture should, within a few minutes, begin rising up the side of the pan and curling in on itself.
Pancake is done when completely cooked and slightly browned. (10 minutes)
Garnish immediately with lemon juice and powdered sugar, serve with Compote (apple) or jam, syrup or any other favorite condiment.
---------------------------------------
That is the simple version.
Having explored a wide range of possibilities, I would like to share with you a few of them:
Subbing Heavy Cream for Milk, the Pancake did not rise up the edges, but instead puffed up wonderfully in the bottom and became crispier, slightly more heavy, but still delicious.
Subbing the bacon fat for Butter yields a familiar flavor that aids in the breakfasting memory, and uses old bacon fat.
Subbing 1/2 n 1/2 for the milk makes a richer pancake
Subbing Stock for the Milk makes a more savory pancake for much wider applications than breakfast (there is no sugar in the batter).
This morning I added orange zest to the batter for a very pleasant surprise; feel free to add fruit, nuts, oatmeal, or anything as you see fit to expand and play with this miraculously easy investment of time.
This is a crowd pleaser, easy to prepare the batter well in advance, and extremely versatile. Make one tomorrow morning and see what I mean.
Enter the Dutch Baby: There isn't really a better breakfast food, in my opinion, than a good German Pancake. From the ease of preparation, to the versatility of the item, to the speed and WOW factor, the German Pancake is my favorite item to create for my sweet on cold mornings. Pancakes can be messy and time consuming, without a proper grill, the first is cold by the time the last is cooked; waffles are a pain, and require a tender touch for the most succulent feast. Muffins, scones and other baked goods require a time commitment, and do not always provide the feeling of a complete breakfast. Eggs are delicious, but unless prepared in a way that wows, with good sides or homebaked bread, nothing special.
So why a German Pancake? This food is even fun to watch in the oven, as it expands and rolls up the side of the pan. The recipe is as simple as it gets:
1/2 cup Milk or water
1/2 cup AP Flour
3 eggs
Pinch of salt
2 Tbsp Butter
Put butter in a baking dish (9 x 13 in glass is my favorite although a round dish or a cast iron pan are exellent tools as well).
Preheat the oven to 385°F, with the baking dish inside, this will brown the butter and heat the entire contraption to the necessary temperature for proper cooking.
Mix all other ingredients. The batter should be nearly as running as crepe batter.
When the oven is heated, pull out the baking dish, and swirl the butter to coat the inside of the pan well. Pour the batter into the pan and return to the oven.
The mixture should, within a few minutes, begin rising up the side of the pan and curling in on itself.
Pancake is done when completely cooked and slightly browned. (10 minutes)
Garnish immediately with lemon juice and powdered sugar, serve with Compote (apple) or jam, syrup or any other favorite condiment.
---------------------------------------
That is the simple version.
Having explored a wide range of possibilities, I would like to share with you a few of them:
Subbing Heavy Cream for Milk, the Pancake did not rise up the edges, but instead puffed up wonderfully in the bottom and became crispier, slightly more heavy, but still delicious.
Subbing the bacon fat for Butter yields a familiar flavor that aids in the breakfasting memory, and uses old bacon fat.
Subbing 1/2 n 1/2 for the milk makes a richer pancake
Subbing Stock for the Milk makes a more savory pancake for much wider applications than breakfast (there is no sugar in the batter).
This morning I added orange zest to the batter for a very pleasant surprise; feel free to add fruit, nuts, oatmeal, or anything as you see fit to expand and play with this miraculously easy investment of time.
This is a crowd pleaser, easy to prepare the batter well in advance, and extremely versatile. Make one tomorrow morning and see what I mean.
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