"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 19^th 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

chrisbedford@charter.net

231-893-3937 + 231-670-4817 (cell)

"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 19^th 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

chrisbedford@charter.net

231-893-3937 + 231-670-4817 (cell)

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/pltx.cgi?QUERY=soy

 

). 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

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)

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.

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!

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.