c/o santa claus, if i've been good

because a kid can dream, my christmas list:

last christmas it was the french laundry cookbook, so it makes sense to dumb it down a bit and tackle thomas keller's newest book, since anytime i open the french laundry i feel like a parapelegic who doesn't know a potato from a loaf of bread. from his napa valley restaurant, where printed above the door are the words "for temporary relief from hunger," i've flipped through this book a few times now and can't wait to get my hands on it again. check out the wsj's write-up of it for more.

and then there's this:

printed two and a half years ago, i first read frank bruni's "fat, glorious fat, moves to the center of the plate" when i picked up last year's best food writing. that's also when i started paying attention to the name david chang. his restaurant's are now impossible to get into, which it goes without saying implies their infamy, due in part to this article, which frank bruni begins with carnivorous detail of the seven-pound pork butt he and his friends took to town one night at momofuku ssäm bar in the east village.

this is a type of cuisine that's new to me, yet the more chefs i meet, the more i find this is what they want to eat when they're not feeding us. when i asked one of my chef friends to run off three places i had to eat in chicago, the one he was most emphatic about was a spot in chinatown, and he insisted he'd have to come with me when i ate there. that's why i want this book. i feel like there's some secret withheld from me that people are slowly being let in on, and dammit, i want in on it, too.

when i booked our tickets to the east coast a couple months ago, i started looking into how in the world to grab a seat at momofuku ssäm, but saw how hopeless the task would be. there was no way. i guess hope is something you shouldn't give up though, because last night i was asked by a certain boss of mine if alicia and i wanted to join her and some of the crew for dinner there in a few days. talk about a twist of fate, huh?

and that, dear santa, is what's on my list this time 'round.

a win for the gipper

(via garyprescott186, a teacher who has shared his
students' artwork for london's olympic games)

it's friday, so rather than dabble in the negative, i thought it'd be nice to change it up and share in something i felt great about finding on my morning news search: "olympics commits to sustainable seafood."

that's a big one, guys.

now if only i knew where alicia hid those chocolate peanut butter candies from the other night...

beef recall? here we go again

i talked yesterday about mainstream media and it's inability to divulge the entire picture when it comes to our foods, and the incredible strain the industry's practices place not only on our health, but the global environment. well, here's an example of a deterrent. i have to thank an independent media source based out of madison, wisconsin for this video—she's provided the start to several stories i've covered—kathleen slattery-moschkau, host of the kathleen show.

but picking up on this, buried in the headlines just a few days ago was the story of a beef recall on the west coast. the company, beef packers inc., recalled 22,723 pounds of beef. this after two cases of salmonella poisoning in arizona and new mexico were traced back to the fresno processing plant. what's sad is that 23,000 pounds of beef may sound like a lot, but it's just a fraction of the output these guys pump through their systems everyday.

now what if i told you this same meat packer recalled 800,000 pounds of beef just four months ago, again amid fears of salmonella poisoning? well, that's exactly what happened.

the worst part about this is beef packers inc. is only the beginning. remember that story i wrote a couple months back? about a packing giant in the midwest called cargill? i was inspired by the nytimes article chronicling a healthy, twenty-something new york girl who's now paralyzed after eating cargill's beef at a family gathering, remember? cargill. cargill. cargill. can't forget a name like that, right? well, beef packers inc. is a subsidiary to cargill, the parent company to a sputtering empire of half-assed meat processors, catered to feeding the masses an embarrassing quality of beef product at jacked prices.

(photo via fedepo18 of cargill's rosario, argentina plant)

(via the progressive magazine of government closure

of their brazilian soy plant, amid criminal destruction

of rainforest, sold to european markets as chicken feed)

why is this not a major issue in washington? why does the media just glaze over what's slowly and gradually becoming more and more apparent about our foodstuff? that these two most recent cases of salmonella poisoning happened in arizona and new mexico, hundreds and hundreds of miles from fresno, a small city in northern california, a state larger than most of the world's countries, is wrong, is it not? how is that not self-evident? and who knows how far that beef traveled, and through how many other plants, before it made its way to fresno. remember, in that october story some of cargill's beef was coming from as far away as south america.

so slowly but surely, the truth is finding its way to the surface. but even in the cnn clip above, in no way does the interviewer press the representative from the national pork producer's council when she blatantly exposes, though unknowingly, how pathetic the inspection methods are when animals go to slaughter. a usda inspector is on the line, that's mandatory she says, her intent to strengthen the case of regulatory practices for the conglomerate pork industry, but then she says the inspector gives "basically a quick physical exam. is the pig healthy, is it not, in [the inspector's] professional judgment."

look. there it is right there. when you go to the doctor for a physical exam, would a quick up and down inspection make you feel at home with the doctor's diagnosis? so then why in the world would you eat something that goes through this very thing before it's slaughtered, processed, packaged, and shipped to your local supermarket and applebee's?

and what does this say about the usda's authority? its ability to be a force in the face of the lobbyists of these giant corporations?

i hate to draw the comparison, but how disturbing was the inspection scene in schindler's list when the men were forced to de-robe, then inspected in this very same manner by nazi physicians, which essentially decided whether or not they'd die immediately or be forced into labor until they were rendered physically unable to work any longer, and thus killed anyway. is there any difference at all?

i'm asking for someone to argue against me, because i really want to know how in the world we've allowed something like this to happen in our country. who said this was okay? and who the heck decided we were better off left in the dark?

cargill. cargill. cargill.

(and for more on healthy living, check out this awesome idea.)

when the sky fell on the dinner table

(sketch from the economist, "let's agree to agree")

i'd be curious, if polled, how many high school students would be able to point to where copenhagen is in on a world map. would they even know what country it's in, or even what part of the globe to start with?

but i'm also curious about something else. how many of us know what began two days ago, half-way around the world, in copenhagen, denmark? and of those who at least have an idea of what's going on there, how many can dictate the event's importance? and let's take it even further—of those people who understand the importance of the event, how many are doing anything relevant that, to be blatantly honest, the event's importance requires of us?

i'm not trying to single anyone out here, because if these questions were posed to an auditorium full of people, i'd put money down that an overwhelming majority wouldn't have made it all the way to the last question. and you know what? that's okay. i'd be in that category, too. but what i'm attempting—and in turn investing hope that you'll mimic—is to change that.

on monday, a gathering of nearly 200 countries commenced in copenhagen for what's been dubbed the cop15, or the 15th united nations climate change conference. it's hard to believe that reports and outlooks grow more and more bleak for the world's climatic future, and yet an official u.n. gathering has begun for the fifteenth time, isn't it? there's no doubt though that people are listening, and the "green" movement is obviously catching on. just think about the commercials that air when you're watching tv. advertising and marketing has put a hefty leap of faith on this green movement, which is ironic considering, yes, it's selling their product, but it's also selling confidence in the movement. the more mainstream the green movement becomes, the more it settles into our consciousness as a necessity—and, hopefully soon, will no longer be a movement at all.

but what place does the cop15 have on a food blog? shits and giggles?

well, here's where your eyes open.

i've already written about how eating animals affected my thoughts on the thanksgiving turkey—i did indeed pass on the bird at the carving station—but that was just the beginning, especially when i came across this:

"animal agriculture makes a 40% greater contribution to global warming than all transportation in the world combined; it is the number one cause of climate change."

to be honest, i had no idea. when i thought of global warming—what the media portrayed, and still does, and the propoganda that flashed in my mind—i'd instintively blame industry for the the world's climatic erosion. factories and automobiles, that kind of thing. wouldn't you do the same?

now, i'm gonna have to ask you to bare with me here. i'm gonna throw some numbers out, and it might be a little much and the message might be lost somewhere in the numeric translation, but let's give it a shot.

"according to the u.n., the livestock sector is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, around 40 percent more than the entire transport sector—cars, trucks, planes, and ships—combined. animal agriculture is responsible for 37 percent of anthropogenic methane, which offers twenty-three times the global warming potential (gwp) of co₂, as well as 65 percent of anthropogenic nitrous oxide, which provides a staggering 296 times the gwp of co₂."

first off, what's anthropogenic? to put it simply, it's a word the didn't exist fifty years ago, and was created by those studying the effects of human beings on the environment. it spawned a language to expolore the frontier of the direct correlation of human industry and global pollution. nothing complicated there, right? this is something we live and breath daily—like putting a face to a name for the first time.

but then, these numbers. they're staggering. but what the hell do they mean?

greenhouse gas is a familiar enough term, right? if you think back to middle or high school science class, you should be able to tap into what a greenhouse gas might be.

far, far above our tallest buildings there are gasses that absorb and emit radiation in relation to the sun (this is where i hear mr. overholt, my seventh grade science teacher, and his walrusy bravado). water vapor is a greenhouse gas, and so too is ozone—which yeah, is that thing we always say is getting a hole burnt through it. the ozone layer. but then there are three others: carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. looking back at those numbers, carbon dioxide is the least harmful gas in terms of its warming potential—and when i say warming potential, i'm relating this directly to global warming. the term literally means what it sounds like. again, easy enough, right?

it breaks down like this. we're being lied to. the media, and even our own politicians, are failing to divulge the entire story here. and worse yet, what is being divulged by the media, and lobbied for by washington, isn't even our greatest threat and concern when it comes to climate change. can you imagine turning in a paper to a college professor and only doing a third of the research? a student wouldn't even have the balls to show up to class ever again, let alone even hand the thing over. and yet this is exactly what's happening in our country, at an increasing rate, day after day. there is absolutely zero accountability.

look at the numbers. the warming potential of methane is up to twenty-three times more harmful than carbon dioxide, and animal agriculture is responsible for over a third of its production. are you absorbing those numbers? the warming potential of nitrous oxide is 296 times more harmful than carbon dioxide, and animal agriculture is responsible for two-thirds of its production. 296! and 65 percent contribution! not even a president of the united states has been elected to office with a majority of the popular vote as large as that two-thirds contribution of animal agriculture nitrous oxide production. and again, we're looking at a gas almost 300 times more harmful than carbon dioxide.

the bbc published a story with similar data, backed by the man responsible for one of the most influential reports on climate change, lord stern. to help break down the numbers, here's a chart they used to truly display the disparaging gap between animal agriculture's production of methane gas and that of humans.

one western cattle, a staple of the american diet, is responsible for a thousand times more methane production annually than you or me. if that's not mind blowing to you, then what is?

maybe this from eating animals:

"the most current data even quantifies the role of diet: omnivores contribute seven times the volume of greenhouse gases than vegans do."

people take a lot of crap for choosing the vegan lifestyle, and i can tell you there's not much most restaurant staffers despise more than a vegan in the dining room, but while line cooks and waiters might think a vegan makes everything more complicated, maybe it's in fact we who aren't bothering to simplify things.

back to greenhouse gases.

i wasn't even planning on writing about this, but i couldn't ignore a story that aired earlier today on npr. it's title? "new mexico dairy pollution sparks 'manure war.'" take a listen:

david kirby writes for the huffington post, and on the site he published a two-part feature from his upcoming book animal factory. it's from his feature that i crossed paths with the socially responsible agriculture project. here are some photos linked from their site of these manure lagoons, similar to what's wreaking havoc in new mexico.

just look at the size of these things. try to imagine that whatever flushed from your toilet didn't pipe its way to a treatment plant miles and miles away, but instead just dumped a few feet through your backyard pavement and into your swimming pool? that's exactly the purpose these things serve. they hold millions and millions of gallons of piss and shit. in his report john burnett paints a ghastly picture when he says a factory farm of 2,000 cows produces as much as sewage as a small city. the thing is, small cities have treatment plants. and everyday, a cow produces three times as much manure as it does milk. with 300,000 cows in new mexico alone, there's 5.4 million gallons of waste getting dumped each day.

we have to ask ourselves, how is this socially responsible? john burnett's report exposes the fallout on neighboring residences, specifically on the local watershed, which i just don't understand. how are these factory farms getting away with this? i've said it before, how is this not anything other than blatantly criminal?

here's a clip from this year's buzz-stirring documentary food, inc., that sraproject has on the media portion of their site. if you've stuck with me for this long, i guarantee you can stick with me for the three and a half-minute lead-in to the movie—and do so to the end. there's a sweeping aeriel shot of a factory cattle farm that, in light of everything i've written in this post, is just gut-wrenching.

i've only just begun my research of factory farms and our food systems, but already i'm completely taken aback at how i'm continually shocked, and embarrassed, at what's been kept secret from me for so many years, so many meals, and so much money spent on my parents' behalf, and my own in my still young adulthood. everyday, often several times a day, i learn something new that's affected me ever since i started eating food. i love food, but when i began this blog i had no clue that i'd have learned what i have, nor ventured down this path, about this stuff it was i thought i loved. i do still love food, but the line of what food is and what it isn't is so unclear, that something else is happening here. the actions of the meat packing and dairy farmer lobbyists are blasphemous. food is something that defines community, is so much of what unites a family, especially through times of grief and mourning. do you want big corporate money capitalizing on your grief when you gather with family at the dinner table?

i realize there's no physical way to impact what's happening in copenhagen right now, but there are so many ways to at least get involved. first off, continue following these issues. find people in the media who are putting in that extra two-thirds research and divulging a better portrayal of what's really happening, and then figure out what you can do about how it makes you feel. talk about it. write your congressman. donate. or maybe take that risky step, take the gamble this country hasn't seen in quite sometime that resulted in a unification of so many of its people against a far more powerful entity and join a local group that's contributing to the movement. eventually, whether we've failed to be heard enough and it's too late or we've done something right and spawned change, the government will listen, and it will act.

it's easy to paint the picture, but we get nowhere without taking that first small step.

grilled cheese and a red onion jam thing

i set out this afternoon to finish a post on the crucial gathering of the world's leaders and leading environmentalists taking place in copenhagen these next couple weeks, but figured it just might be of slight importance to eat first. with that, my first kitchen post in quite a while.

all we have in the house is salted focccia bread and cheese, so making a grilled cheese was obvious. but since the bread was already salted, and we only have an aged white cheddar and fresh mozz in the fridge, i wanted something sweet on the sandwich. enter the bag of red onions on our butcher block.

i used half an onion and sliced half-moons, then cooked them in butter and chili flake until they caramelized. that's when i added red wine vinegar, honey, and sugar, and after a minute, red wine. the end result wasn't technically a jam, but my goal was to make something like a jam, and as you can see in the picture, it's pretty close to what i wound up with.

with the cheddar and a little bit of the mozz, i let the thing go on low heat—this melted the cheese nice and slow and crusted the bread without burning it. while the top side cooked i tossed my go-to salad—which is a couple handfuls of fresh arugula, olive oil, and balsamic (the point is to use an acid, which i usually use fresh squeezed lemon for with a dash of vinegar, but in this case stuck solely with the balsamic)—which is such a fast, and healthy, salad to whip together.

i seasoned the onion, the raw cheese before i covered it with the jam, and the arugula with salt and pepper. that's three different times i seasoned, and all for such a simple lunch. but for me, seasoning is crucial. literally, i season any time i introduce something raw or new to my cooking, pretty much no matter what point i'm at, even if it's cheese. what about you? is seasoning something you avoid for health reasons? is it something you've just never cared about? or maybe do you taste the difference, and so you season frequently too?

if you're not sure about tasting the difference, next time you're cooking with tomatoes, try slicing a raw sliver and take a bite without any seasoning, then take a bite after you've dressed it with a pinch of crushed black pepper and kosher or sea salt. i promise, you're understanding of seasoning will completely change, and you'll be sure then.

before you give your thanks, read on

i told you i'd be writing about eating animals soon enough, and here it starts—and not at a more opportune time.

first off, check out the book's site. for those with time to kill, especially those of you at work, the site's a good way to kill it. it's interactive, smart, and honestly, kind of fun. obviously though, i'm encouraging you to read more about this book.

but while you're there click on the graphic that says "talk turkey." and if you don't, well, you're gonna get it here, cuz this is what you'd find:

this year as you plan your holiday meal, consider the animal that is so often at the center of the table. what do we know about it? how was it raised? what was it fed? how was it killed?  is it even possible to find these things out?

are the answers to these questions in line with your values, your family's values and the values we are celebrating during the holiday season?

if our holiday meals are supposed to serve as a reflection of our gratefulness, can a turkey that spends its life crammed by the tens of thousands into giant warehouses, on antibiotics, that has been bred to suffer—as is true for more than 99% of turkeys sold in america—be the choice we feel best about?

this holiday season, consider the turkey. take this conversation in any direction you'd like. the most important thing is that our choices be deliberate.

there's nothing more powerful than an informed conversation.

that's when a list of links will follow.

do me a favor—give me just one more thing to be thankful for this thursday. click on them.

      resources:
    * what is a turkey?
    * what is factory farming?
    * find a locally raised turkey
    * meat-free holiday meal recipes

i'd love to hear how many have ever given thought to how our farmers are able to make so many turkeys available for a day when so much of the country will be cooking and eating them. think about that. how do they do it? as the book exposes, they've got it down to a science, which really takes any semblance of the word farm out of the picture. the turkeys come from what are called factory farms, but it's hardly fair to leave the word farm in there—because as you'll learn, the turkeys we eat today are so far removed from the turkeys of a hundred years ago, that something else all together is going on with this foodstuff, so much so that i really think it is fair to question if these producers and suppliers continue to mislead the public into thinking their birds are coming from farms, how it's anything other than downright criminal?

or maybe you don't want to know or even think about where your food is coming from? that's fair, right? if the farmers are giving us product that is affordable and fresh, who cares how they do it. it's feeding our families, right? i completely empathize with that perspective—and when i'm with my family this thursday, it's probably why i won't be able to pass on the carved bird from the resort buffet we feast on annually in channel islands. but then again, maybe i will. in that moment, it's my choice, isn't it?

but if you have thought about it, and i'd shared this information with you sooner, would this have changed things? there's a link above to localharvest.org, which is a site that specializes in locating organic and nearby farmers for the everyday jane doe. from that link, you could find a turkey farmer that raises birds humanely, and i'd hope find one who isn't raising these genetically modified birds humanely, but rather offspring of the birds we'd farmed before factory farms ever existed. would you have put in the extra work, and most likely the extra cash, to feed your family one of these birds?

jonathan safran foer is a vegetarian. for him, writing the book was illuminating, but illuminating to a way of eating that he has given up. if nothing else, what he discovered further solidified his eating stance. for me, a downright meat-lover, reading those same discoveries has majorly shifted my views on the food i eat. people say the body is a temple, and though it's cliché, isn't there something to the saying? shouldn't i have to work hard to find foods that are worthy of feeding me, if my body is indeed a temple?

the sad thing is, in essence, i'm working hard to reverse and deter all of the opposite hard work that's produced a multi-billion dollar industry of genetically modified and scientifically controlled food production.

and i'll simply ask this, how in the world does a brief—and i promise dead-on accurate—description of our food systems like the one i just made make eating poultry appetizing?

i'm aware my writing comes across as preachy, almost rant-like. that's because it's spontaneous, which in turn captures whatever emotions i might be feeling in the moment. usually, with something like this, i'd imagine the writing reflects something like anger, which i realize isn't always affective. i apologize for this, but it's the nature of the format i'm writing within.

as a side note, the picture i pulled from thewe.cc at the top is a modest snapshot of factory farming, a visual that doesn't represent anything close to what the industry actually gets away with, largely because i didn't want to subject anyone involuntarily to something i'd imagine a lot of people never want to see.

but again, please, if you've read this far, read further on about this book. and for those that do, i'd love to hear further thoughts on this mess...

that's what a hamburger's, all about

 i leave for california tomorrow night, and the first thing i'm gonna wanna do is hit up in-n-out burger at some point before i turn in. i left california more than four years ago and the more that number goes up, the more i miss certain things about the place—or i guess another way of looking at it is, it's become pretty clear what i need to squeeze in while i'm home. in-n-out is the obvious destination, but then i have other spots like adagio, which is a small italian restaurant my parents have been going to for years, and yogurt delite, which outside of dole whip floats at disneyland, serves the best soft-serve i've ever had (banana cream pie). the point is, in so many ways, food really defines the places we've been, doesn't it?

home to me is a double-double animal style with a chocolate shake for a nightcap and the seafood tacos at howdy's in malibu for lunch the next day.

fair haven, ny, which is where i've spent summers for almost twenty years, is rudy's, a burger-flippin'-fish-fry on the shore of lake ontario.

boston is oysters from neptune or b&g or legal, the prosciutto and pesto sandwich on baguette from darwin's in harvard square, and the keith lockhart from mr. bartley's.

for my friend erika, summer after summer—and weekend getaways, too—is washing down new england seafood on the screen porch with pbr (nothing better for a byob) at moby dick's to the backdrop of a cape cod sunset and an ice cold goombay smash from the beachcomber in wellfleet after a day in the sand.

and the list goes on and on. i've been in chicago for five months and already birchwood kitchen is my go-to when i'm too lazy to make a sandwich, and though it opened a couple weeks ago, know that big star is gonna trump bluebird for the local watering hole (the pork belly tacos kinda give it the obvious leg up). and the longer i'm here, the more the food i eat will define the place i am.

but what do you think? am i just some food obsessed nut attaching everything important thing in life to what he eats? or, do you do the same? even though they've never left, i know everybody back home holds in-n-out in the same esteem i do—it's sacreligious not to. but what else? think of the places you've been. it's obvious that different foods define different regions of this country, and i can't forget the world kinda-sorta-maybe-definitely fits that mold too, but when it comes down to it, doesn't the food you eat, decided by the places you've chosen to go, define where it is your shoes have tred?

i hope so, because for me there's nothing more comforting than that first bite of something nearly forgotten after it's been left behind.

dishing it out for food and wine

i've been busy working on a few things, and the posting has taken a hit because of it. so, for the sake of something, here's something:

monday night i worked with steph and the crew at the food and wine entertaining showcase. grant achatz from alinea was there, art smith and graham elliot bowles also were there (both on top chef masters this past summer), and more than fifteen other chefs joined in, inlcuding paul virant who came within a point of knocking off chef morimoto on iron chef a couple weeks ago. it's fair to say this thing was packed with star power. and the best part? we were the only table serving their dish up in the patron lounge, which was literally pouring free patron cocktails the entire night (even before the doors opened in our case...)

on the plate: pan seared nantucket bay scallops (so awesome to see a new england product make its way to the midwest), pancetta, braised pistachios, a sunchoke puree, preserved lemon, and pomegrante seeds. with all the p's, we had a few laughs over how hard the dish was to describe throughout the night when the rush hit. not so easy a thing to say ten times fast...

here's steph's write-up on the night, too.

aside from this, news broke early in the week on the state of the bluefin tuna, and i wanted to post on it first thing. npr and other news outlets have already broken stories on it, but here's hoping i can get something up tomorrow. things are very, very bad on that front.

(photos thanks to steph and tommy blue)

guy walks into a bookstore

i haven't finished a moveable feast, and now i can't find it. this is a bad habit of mine, starting a book and setting it aside to finish later. i'm still just a couple hundred pages from finishing up tree of smoke, which i started two years ago. but over the last week or so i've been thinking about this blog and whether or not it's a bunch of babble and kicking around the usual prodding of self-doubt, as writers tend to often do. just like his work, the writer never seizes to be a work in progress. so i took a page from hemingway and made a trip to the bookstore.

hemingway wrote that rather than purge his writing and carry on and on, as soon as he stopped writing, he also stopped his thoughts on his work, which i think any writer will tell you is practically impossible. but he had a remedy to help achieve this, and that remedy was to read. to read and read and read.

a few days ago the la times published a q&a with johnathon safron foer, whose everything is illuminated achieved someting of a cult following amongst my peers when i was an undergrad at usc. i read his second novel (extremely loud and incredibly close) in my first weeks as a grad student in boston, so when i found out his new book was in fact non-fiction, taking aim at factory farming and so many of the issues i've tried to bring to light in this blog, bringing the book home was a no brainer. i started it today and have already found thoughts and facts within its first pages that i'll more than likely reflect on here. the book is called eating animals.

i also came home with this year's edition of one of my favorite books from the past year: the 2009 edition of best food writing.  for fiction writers, this series is known as best american, or in long form, the best american short stories. i first read a best american collection as an undergrad, which for any writer is a goldmine of proof for what editors are buying in the small and grossly competetive short fiction market. the best food writing series is no different. represented this year are publications like gourmet and saveur and various city papers, but so too are small press pubs like gastronomica and even trend-driven sites like chow.com. point being, the book is a serious effort to find the best on food that writers had to offer from the past year. these aren't restaurant reviews and apple pie recipes, but rather the true grit of what's going on with our foodstuff. these are stories that would grab anybody's attention.

 

and then i saw this:

since the eighties, charlie trotter has been one of the world's best chefs. his restaurant is in nearby lincoln park and dinner there will set most people back a week's income. i haven't yet met the man and at this point in my life, he's one of two chefs who, having managed to stay safely away from the public eye, i view as something of an immortal—a status achieved solely through professionalism and reflected reputation (the other is thomas keller, who i was bummed to see will be on a certain bravo tv show next wednesday night). the book pictured above is his first cookbook, its influence stemming from his restaurant up to the early nineties, which is when the book was published. what i walked out with was one of three autographed first-edition copies of the book that were just hanging out on the bottom of a promotional cookbook endcap, the covers on the books with enough wear and tear that they easily could've been sitting unsold in that store for several years (as it was, they'd been published  fifteen years ago).

alicia thought buying that book was a pretty stupid thing to do, and maybe it was, but i drove home with a big ol' grin slapped across my face.

i definitely think there's redemption to be found when reading a book. whether it's to deter the mind from a fight with a friend or to keep busy on a snowed-in saturday in the middle of winter or, in my case, to find that spark a writer needs to keep on going, it's there in so many ways. this is a different kind of redemption, though. one that doesn't blow holes in the ground nor draw blood from the wounds of war. at least for me, when i read, i'm finding a way to redeem those demons inside of me that keep me from getting where i want to go.

perk those ears: a conversation with wendell berry

in the grassroots shakeup of our agricultural systems that's slowly creeping up on this country, michael pollan receives a mainstream sense of praise, or to say, is a household name, at this point of the movement. undoubtedly, he is its poster boy. but even pollan looks up to another man. wendell berry.

in yesterday's post i linked to an interview hosted by kqed public radio with mr. berry, but that wasn't enough for me. i wanted to bring this man directly to you as best i could.

i promise you, at one point or another, you've read this man's words.

he is a celebrated and decorated poet; he is, like pollan, an essayist of extreme wisdom and insight on the socioeconimic and cultural doings of our country; and, as goes in hand with his writings, from poetry to prose, a man who is in the business of agricultre, if not the business of improving of such.

for more than forty years mr. berry and his wife have tended to their kentucky farm, backing by practice what the words he writes implicitly preach.

i was first touched by this man's words in an undergraduate poetry workshop a few years back. several months ago, i was inspired again when i went at his groundbreaking book, now over thirty years since first printing, the unsettling of america.

play this while cooking dinner or folding laudry or sitting in traffic because now, it's your turn.

what's beneath the whispers

the sole reason i have content to post on this blog is because our food systems are in bad, bad shape. over the past months i've hit on everything from the disappearance of aquatic species and the fall of the fisherman to the criminal practices of the major meat processors to the need for cooks to reemerge within the home kitchen. well, the thing of it is, there's more and more to go off on every day.

take a look at these stories in major, national publications over the past few days:

ny times, november 3: fighting child obesity and nutrition
- a white house chef who wears two hats

ny times, november 3: the push for local and organic, even in our schools
- someone's in the kitchen with michelle: the secret ingredient is politics

la times, november 4: challenging the home cook
- chefs thomas keller and mark peel take on home cooking

boston globe, november4: again, more on child nutrition
- kids' menus should grow up to be as interesting as their parents'

food on the food, october 29: sustainable seafood (from a blogger who gets it)
- something's fishy around here

the atlantic, november 4: more on seafood and the sputtering way of life of the fisherman
- saving seafood from extinction

slow food los angeles, november 3: the man who reopened our eyes to agriculture
- wendell berry on kqed

and i could go on and on. the thing of it is, that's sad, don't you think? the slant of the hill for this battle is so steep, the issues so many, that it seems impossible to actually win. we have to worry about eating beef that's been to pasture, eating seafood that's on the current sustainability card, figuring how to feed our children the right foods, eating local, cooking more in our kitchens, and on and on and on... how does one do it all? even one who cares and wants to do it all, is it possible?

it sure makes the task of reform, of convincing the rest of the country to follow suit, a complete joke, right? but then again, who would've thunk a thrown together band of farmers and masons and skilled craftsmen would've ever defeated the army of the farthest reaching empire the world has ever known... these are the united states after all, aren't they?

with enough conviction, and the smallest of possible steps, taken slow bit by slow bit, i think we might just get there.

but you have to put in the effort. it starts with that, with clicking on just one of those stories above. with absorbing what people are trying to say. and call me crazy, but my gut's saying you just might end up reading more and more.

the thing of it is, don't stop there. spread it. talk about it. challenge your friends. ask if they know where that cheeseburger they're eating came from; how that fish they're eating is helping kill off a species, and a way of life; and why shopping at the major grocery chains is only further fueling the danger we face in climate change.

the ball's in your court, now.

the autumn tuna

i wanted to make tuna last week, and alicia thought i was crazy.

"yeah right," she says.

"why not?"

"because it's not summer."

and that was it. she was right. tuna is that light dish that evokes warmer months and delicate flavoring. it's center is cool and seared exterior an earthy white. there's nothing there that screams out cold-comfort nor the essence of autumnal cooking.

so i cooked it anyway.

here's how:


pictured above is a raw salad of parsnip, honeycrisp apple, cucumber, anaheim chile, shallots, and lemon juice. it's fall ingredients, but taken with an approach that i hoped would match the tuna, which i marinated in apple cider and soy sauce.

but apples and tuna? don't seem to go hand in hand so much. gag me kind of, yeah?

or not. i reduced the cider and soy mixture and when it was done dressed it over the tuna, which sat side by side with the salad. somehow, the sauce, and the cold apple in the salad, worked really, really well together. this was something i think alicia was terrified to try, and for both of us, flavors we'd never had together before. and when it came down to it, we just had a simple piece of seared tuna with a raw, cold salad for dinner. light and healthy.

and a few days later, when i was hungry and alicia was out teaching, it made for good left overs with a kicked up grilled cheese to boot...

the journal of food and culture

with gourmet's final issue hitting newsstands now, i thought this a good time to expose another publication that i can't get enough of.

gastronomica calls itself "the journal of food and culture." it's published four times a year, and not by a major conglomerate like conde nast, but by the university of california press; its editor is the francis christoper oakley third century professor of russian at williams college in massachussets; and its yearly subscription price is fifty bucks, which after four issues, breaks down to more than twelve dollars per. pretty steep for a magazine.

but this isn't a magazine. it is, like its cover says, a journal. and is, as a result, a compilation of everything gourmet couldn't be.

poems are published in each issue and so too will fiction sometimes grace its pages; there's the work of academics and so too that of painters and sculptors and photogrpahers; chefs might write a word or two and so too might roy blount, jr., a frequent panelist on npr's wait, wait don't tell me, as he did last spring.

this is a journal for food lovers and intellectuals and artists. it's a chance to celebrate this thing called food that we all love in so many different ways, and so too to ask the moral and difficult questions that aren't being asked elsewhere. and just look at the cover art from the past two years. might just trump those famed gourmet covers, don't you think...

summer 2009, hongtu zhang, kimchi-chanel

spring 2009, tamara kostianovsky, motherland

winter 2009, hans gissinger, tartas

fall 2008, no author given, popcorn #11
(copyrights belong to susan eder and craig dennis)

summer 2008, emmanuel sougez, still life with lemons and siphon

spring 2008, francine zaslow, radishes

winter 2008, chema madoz, sin tìtulo

check it out at the bookstore. or better yet, gift it for the holidays, yeah?

the murderer aaron burr and a cold glass of milk

another food find in the la times. and this one, on the single beverage i've had more of than any other in my life.

yup. milk.

it's funny, because so many years later, when i think about the aggressive milk ad campaigns i grew up with, this is the one that i associate with best. and like the kid in the ad, i drank milk, and drank more and more of it, going through gallon after gallon every week, and by the time i was a sophomore in high school, was taller than my dad and all eight of my uncles. i think i drank the stuff because i thought it was cool, something that could make me bigger and stronger so easily, and like the ad says, "it does a body good." in retrospect, the ad had a long-term effect on me, though i doubt that was the primary goal of the ad campaign in the age of hi-c and kool-aid and yahoo and squeezits. you'd have to assume milk and dairy farmers just wanted to grab a foothold with young kids like me.

so here's to taking it to the next step with milk, thanks to the la times. my relationship with milk is always evolving. for a while i went on a skim binge, but then read michael pollan and was convinced there's just nothing natural about literally skimming the fat from a natural product. when that happens, it becomes something different than the milk it originally was. at the same time, i drink far too much milk in order to fall all the way back to whole milk, which if health didn't matter to me, is what i'd be drinking. but, it's fatty. no doubt. so we are buying 1%.

but then what about soy and almond milks? and so too goat's milk? there are so many different sources of milk available, and in the age of vegans and vegetarians, alternatives are easier and easier to find. so what's influenced your perspective on milk? is it even that big of a deal to you? or is it something you'd be willing to learn more about? the article really hits on things you'd never have known, and yet are undoubtedly worth knowing.

kind of frightening how much is being revealed about our foods that's been held from us, right?

milk cultivation is one of the oldest human practices that combines the domestication of animals, the cultivation of a product, and the human consumption of it, especially as a beverage, which then became so much more when it became the base for making cheese. the fact that we still drink it as much as we do, that's pretty cool, don't you think?

and here's raising a glass of the cold stuff, which we now buy exclusively organic, to my favorite milk ad of all time:

the one that started it all with two simple words: got milk?

the soup

with a sloppy garnish of parsley and dried cranberries.

feeding from the fall market

alicia was out of town this past weekend, so after waking to a cold and empty house, i worked my way over to the wicker park farmers' market for the first time in a long time. turned out to be a very, very good thing.

it was late summer when i was last at the market, and peaches and tomatoes and melons were still in peak season. this past weekend, it was all about the gourds and root vegetables.

i've been wanting to cook with celery root for a while now, and nichols farm was selling it at four bucks a pop. the vegetable is a variation of celery, with similar smell and taste, but is ugly and dirty and for someone who doesn't know the thing, easily intimidating.

i'd also nabbed some celery stocks from nichols, which like the root above, still had its greens attached—one major advantage of buying from the farmers. before starting on the soup, i tossed the greens from both vegetables in a pot of water with some fresh herbs and lemon and cooked it all down, creating a broth that i went on to use for the soup before i puréed it all together—something i'd never done before. i was skeptical, but in the end the soup was layered with the root itself and the dairy i'd used to smooth it out and there, beneath the punch of the lemon i'd added to brighten the flavors, was the earthy undertones of the broth, a complete book-end to the process of planting the seeds and pulling the root by hand, emanating with the smells and tastes of fresh turned soil.

and on monday night, i attempted another first. boeuf bourguignon.

as soon as i saw that the market's small beef purveyor, robinson beef, was selling chuck at five bucks a pound, i knew i was gonna do it. we bought our le creuset dutch oven months ago, and what better dish to break in the thing with than boeuf bourguignon, right? well, that never happened, and i've been itching to get at it still all this time. so in my bag went the beef, and so too some onions, mushrooms, and carrots, all from nichols.

the thing of it is, i'm a sucker for fruit. walking out of the market with my twenty pound bag of stuff, i was sucked in to the tasting table of seedling farm's fresh pressed ciders, especially when i saw the words "bosc pear cider" written on their board. i poured a taste and knew right there, my boeuf bourguignon was not gonna be so much of a bourguignon anymore.

so in the end i wound up braising the beef in a mix of both the bosc cider and red wine. since i was going cider, i cut up some apples and tossed them in with the veggies, and so too tossed in a few handfuls of pomegranate seeds. yeah. bad idea. with the pomegranate i was a) looking to keep with the season and b) wanting to extract the sweetness of the juice, while at the same time changing things up with the contrasting texture of the seed. here's the thing with seeds. they don't tenderize like, say, everything else in a boeuf bourguignon.

but those apples did tenderize. they really worked, bouncing the savory and sweet factor nicely in a dish so void of anything predominantly sweet. it was simple and rustic and yeah, damn good.

i don't consider myself a hippie. i'm not a tree hugger. but i do care a hell of a lot about where my food is coming from, and think you should, too. so much time having passed since buying from a farmers' market, and having since eaten for three days what i brought home, i'm feeling damn good now. the difference can really be felt when eating stuff so fresh and local.

and i haven't even touched the bag of peppers sitting on the kitchen table.

the burger debate hits centerstage

so last week i brought attention to a soft spot of mine, which is my new fear of the hamburger. well, right at the top of this morning's headlines on cnn.com you'll find this: "should americans banish the burger?"

so. this is now a national issue. my question is, will it stop there? and how do you feel? sure, it's amusing if little ol' me in chicago writes about it, but when cnn and larry king bring it to the forefront of the national stage... becomes a bit more real, doesn't it?

but i can't say i'm a huge fan of how the cnn coverage is selling this story. should americans banish the burger? are you kidding me? why is it that we have to overdramatize everything in order for it to appeal to the general public?

no. there is absolutely no need to ban the burger. what we need, and insanely enough this wasn't discussed nearly to the point of necessity by cnn, is a complete overhaul of the ground beef industry. it's not the burger that's to fear, it's what's in the burgers we are eating and how it's getting there.

of all the energy that would go into a ban on the hamburger, how much more could be spent to finally straighten out the money-making meat packing giants that have corrputed not only the country's ground beef marketplace, but also shriveled the balls of those at the usda who have any power to rectify the matter.

because when you look at the solutions discussed by the guests, solutions that ranged from cutting ground beef entirely from the diet; cooking ground beef until it's completely cooked through; irradiating the beef; or for all of us to convert to a strictly vegetarian diet, each one overlooks the very problem that's at the heart of the matter: we're not holding our foodmakers responsible. and this coming from academics on the matter.

and despite tying these university professors and health professionals alike within the debate, it was anthony bourdain who actually got it right:

"'we have eyes in the front of our head. we have fingernails. we have... teeth and long legs. we were designed from the get-go... so that we could chase down smaller, stupider creatures, kill them and eat them. that said, we may be designed to eat meat. we are not designed to eat fecal choliform bacteria.' he went on to blast the practices of larger meat processor and grinders as 'unconscionable and border on the criminal.'"

exactly! listen to the man, for crying out loud!

the video is long, running at almost a half hour, but seriously, take the time to watch it. this is a much bigger issue than any of us might think. food reform is nothing to scoff at, because i promise you this, it's something that is not going to just disappear. things are undoubtedly going to change.

a chance to cook with steph

so the boss is at it again. her next wandering goat dinner will be in early november, but she threw everyone a curve ball this morning when she announced a virtual cook-off for a chance to cook in the kitchen with us at the next dinner. i've been with her for a couple months now, and the one thing that's certain through all of the emails and solicitations that have come my way is that people are crazy about her. she might've won top chef over a year ago, but people haven't forgotten that calm, drama-free demeanor that won over the hearts of the show's viewers, hand in hand with the knockout food that won over the judges' palettes.

it's a weird position for me, since i wouldn't have this job if i hadn't been a fan of the show. but at the same time, i'm not gonna disclose the nuances of working for a celebrity chef. i could easily use this blog as a way to do so, and probably tap into a pretty large fan base as a result, but the way i see it, i fell into a tremendous amount of luck when we moved to chicago. and i'm no fool. that luck was invaluable, yes, but you don't earn a place in the world through luck. so when it comes to steph, that luck only fuels my motivation to work harder, and hopefully, in the end, be worthy of where i find myself. that's why i'd rather have to bust my balls a bit. i wanna get knocked down. to be candid, i'm struggling to find readers for the site, and you know what, i'm glad for that. there's no better means of motivation. and in the end, i won't appreciate anything that comes my way if i haven't had to really work hard to get it.

and it just goes to show though, steph is a free spirited, open-minded chef. she's so different from that stock stereotype of the maniacal, ego driven nazi chef that most people envision when it comes to the typical kitchen persona. she's smart enough to know her strengths, which rest largely in the success of her win on top chef and her loyal fan base, but also in her warm personality. opening the kitchen doors to a fan, and providing that fan a chance to work side by side with her for a night, it's something that i can relate to all too well.

and click here more info on how to get that chance to join us in the kitchen.

as you can see, we just don't have any fun together at all...

digging in the grass, and finding friends

two weeks ago i wrote about the slow money alliance. what's interesting about the organization that i didn't hit on at the time is that though the cause is something i hope will truly take off, it's currently beating too small of a drum. it's demographic appeal is too restricted. did you read the piece? don't you agree? there's very little about their mission and overall vibe that will capture the younger generation, which as this past presidential election exposed repeatedly, is crucial to win over.

our generation doesn't have the resources to invest. to donate. to make that financial and political impact. so, there's a fairly significant flaw in this operation, isn't there?

and yet, something funny happened around the same time i was writing that piece...



a group of young people were so inspired by the slow money movement that they targeted their own initiative—a dead-on grassroots operation—squarely on their peers around the country. meet, friends of slow money.

the premise is simple: using time as both an ally and foe, start small, spread the word, and use affordability as a means to increase the sample pool and thus, donation amount.

starting yesterday, the clock began ticking, and for one week, the group's goal is to spread within the roots with just $5 donations, hoping to total a modest 5,000 donations by week's end. the thing is just one day in and already outside matching donors have jumped on board.

again, it's modest, but good for them. it's this kind of excitement and enthusiasm, the accessibility of it all, that will tip the scales of whatever success slow money alliance might attain.

but will that really happen? time will continue to tick—it's just nice to know somebody out there isn't willing to settle with just sitting around, waiting for it to run out.

mystery meat: meet the hamburger

anybody who knows me, knows my love of the hamburger. it's something of a tradition now that anyone who meets my family for the first time is told the story of my first words, peeped from the backseat of the car while zooming past the golden arches of mcdonald's, "shakes and fries, shakes and fries!"

in my senior year of high school, when my day ended at 12:30 and i was let out to the world, where i'd find an empty home and a freezer full of the frozen burger patties my brother brought home from the meat market he worked at, i ritually fired up the barbecue and grilled myself a cheeseburger for lunch. day in. day out.

needless to say, i've come a long way, but my affliction for the ground beef patty has yet to vanquish. which is why alicia's heightened fear of my favorite food is so jarring.


the thing has spread fast, but still, like all corporation controlled markets of our food systems, the news of the october 3 ny times piece by michael moss hasn't rattled our country's infrastructure nearly as much as it should have.

in that story, michael draws attention to stephanie smith, a twenty-two year old woman who is paralyzed from the waist down, not from a car accident or birth defect or even physical injury, but from eating a hamburger.

the graphic above is linked to the ny times website, so if it's too small to read on my site, jump over to their's to check this whole thing out.

but don't you see, it's simple to think when you come home with ground beef from the market that the beef is simply what it says to be: beef. and yes, it is. but as the graphic details, the beef that composes the mass produced hamburger patties of wisconsin based cargill, just one example of the behemoth producers of our favorite grocery and fast-food grilling item, there's far more to this foodstuff than the simple grounding of a single cut of beef from a single cow.

because there is no single cow, nor single cut.

in fact, there's no way to know how many cows went into the e coli tainted, undercooked burger that stephanie smith ate at a family dinner two years ago at all. the process of cultivation for that burger is so complex, so deviated from the simple cultivation of small farms that sell directly to the consumer, not even the usda nor cargill's lawyers have traced a source of contamination of the beef strong enough to hold up in court.

for cargill's patties, the meat was sourced from as far away as uruguay and labeled from each source as things like, "fresh fat," "frozen lean," and "lean finely textured beef." cargill uses each different source to compose its patties, which shaves a hefty chunk of cost from its overhead in comparison to keeping everything in-house. and the danger, as moss notes, is that these sources are selling cargill scraps of beef that are mixed from various cows, which increases the risk of contamination, especially considering that some of the scraps are as cheap as they are because they come from parts of the cow that are more prone to come in contact with the cow's fecal matter.

so one would then think that these slaughterhouses and producers, like greater omaha packing in nebraska, which slaughters 2,600 cattle a day "in a plant the size of four football fields," would keep a tight watch for e coli with conastant testing and analysis, right? if i told you moss reports most of these guys test a sample only four times a year, would that make any sense to you? yeah, it sure as hell doesn't to me either. do you have any idea how much meat is produced from a plant that pumps out 2,600 cattle carcasses a day? think about that.

and consider this, pulled directly from the article:

"the food safety officer at american foodservice, which grinds 365 million pounds of hamburger a year, said it stopped testing trimmings a decade ago because of resistance from slaughterhouses. 'they would not sell to us,' said timothy p. biela, the officer. 'if i test and it’s positive, i put them in a regulatory situation. one, i have to tell the government, and two, the government will trace it back to them. so we don’t do that.'"

so here's a producer like cargill, who outsources their trimmings, who at one point seemingly did the right thing. they went above and beyond the regulatory guidelines of the usda, a government branch whose sole existence is to better monitor and control the food systems and cultivations of our country, but stopped because doing the right thing was simply, bad business. verbatim, we have a food safety officer at one of country's largest producers telling us that they're not going to test because if they do, they'll get the positive-test inducing slaughterhouse in trouble with the government. am i missing something here? am i just so dense and stupid that this makes no sense at all to me?

better yet, here's a quote of the article where moss draws from the usda itself:

"dr. kenneth petersen, an assistant administrator with the department’s food safety and inspection service, said that the department could mandate testing, but that it needed to consider the impact on companies as well as consumers. 'i have to look at the entire industry, not just what is best for public health,' dr. petersen said."

again, am i missing something? i understand the massive ramifications of government sanctions in a capitalistic economy, but this is a doctor declaring that public health is essentially not a strong enough factor to mandate necessary and life-saving reform. a doctor employed by the government. what in the world is going on here?

tomorrow is wednesday, and in los angeles there's a small group of people who will celebrate the day, as they do every week, as cheeseburger wednesday. a day, literally, more holy than even the highest of holy days of christianity and judaism. and if i were still there, i'd join them, as evidenced by this picture that was tagged of me on the internet, in which i blatantly appear.

there's a trust that currently exists between consumers and producers, including restaurants. when i go to in-n-out and order my double-double, i'm confident the two small patties on my burger are fresh and honest and made from high-quality, safely processed cows, right? think of all the burgers you've eaten in your lifetime. the same should be said for every single one of those greasy sandwiches, right? but a) i don't think that trust exists any longer (it hasn't for me for a while now) and b) that trust existed solely because we as consumers were never presented with the facts. in fact, those facts—industry practices and procedures that make the burgers we eat—aren't known because they're secrets—guarded secrets.

hence, exhibit a:

"the meat industry treats much of its practices and the ingredients in ground beef as trade secrets. while the department of agriculture has inspectors posted in plants and has access to production records, it also guards those secrets. federal records released by the department through the freedom of information act blacked out details of cargill’s grinding operation that could be learned only through copies of the documents obtained from other sources. those documents illustrate the restrained approach to enforcement by a department whose missions include ensuring meat safety and promoting agriculture markets."

to be honest, i intended this post to be light and quick and a highlight of moss' article, something that was interesting and disturbing that didn't require a lot of work, nor writing, on my part. obviously, that wasn't the end result.

what do you think? am i taking it too far, expanding too much energy on posts like this? is it verbal diarrhea? or is this worth the time. are you actually reading, and feeling at least a slight impact, by a post that runs on as long as this one has?

alicia wants me to stop eating burgers altogether. i assure you, that isn't happening. but knowing that very few restaurants—though more and more have begun to—are sourcing humanely raised, organic, local and small farm butchered beef, it's going to take a lot of convincing before i jump back on the burger bandwagon and order the things from greasy corner joints like i used to.

i work for a chef who has convinced me. several days a week i walk into the prep kitchen and see a cook pushing beef through a grinder, before it's hand packed into patties, which makes me feel damn good about where i work. and as for buying ground beef from the market, for a while now i've only bought organic ground beef, almost always from whole foods, which for now, is a market i hold that aforementioned trust with that i talked about above.

in the meantime, here's an upper for this downer of a raincloud on the beacon that is the burger:

my grilled peach and red onion bbq cheeseburgers.