Exciting news here: I'm now a contributing writer at the Nourish Network site recently launched by my friend Lia Huber. I'm thrilled to be in such good company (just look at the contributor bios!) and my first article is on Demystifying Umami.

Along with the article, I contribute a recipe for Umami Stuffed Mushrooms -Here are a few shots taken during preparation.

Parmigiano-Reggiano is one of the most umami-dense foods there is!

After researching the article, I decided to do a pictoral essay of Umami anyone might have in their pantry or refridgerator. Picture This: Umami is Everywhere also launches a new feature. From time to time you'll see a picture-by-picture food story.

Hope you enjoy these posts and look for my next post on Nourish Network on my Thanksgiving traditions. The site is full of great content about how to have more mindful meals, how to nourish yourselves while eating in eco-friendly ways. It's a great group and the conversation is growing. Join in now (before Dec. 31) and you'll automatically be entered into a contest for a trip to wine country!

Comment (1)

In planning the recent Chicago Teach a Chef to Fish workshop (see Radhika-ly Good Meal of Sustainable Barramundi), I was reminiscing with Mary Smith of Plitt Seafood about Alaska and our fond memories of the Reluctant Fisherman's deck and the town of Cordova. Imagine my delight when she extended an invitation to the James Foundation dinner taking place the night before our workshop.

As much as I love the James Beard Foundation and the work they do, as an independent writer the ticket for these dinners is still out of reach. Now I was being invited to share a meal with a new friend - Score! And what a meal it would turn out to be. The Publican (not "Republican" as my hotel staff insisted, "there's no Republican restaurants around here.") is one of the hot tables in Chicago. Blackbird, avec, and The Violet Hour are all part of the same restaurant family, all noted in their own right.

The Publican, Photo credit: Bob Briskey, Publican Website.

Amidst delightful company, we swooned and squealed over course after course, pairing after pairing. Classical guitar, travels in Greece, lamb, goat, pigs and fish, of course...conversation ranged far and wide. We sat in one of the booths with doors like old Puritan church pews. Note the pig artwork. Was I in the right place, or what?

Bob Briskey Photographer, courtesy Publican website

James Beard Foundation Dinner

Executive Chef Paul Kahan - formerly of Blackbird and avec, and now The Publican, Kahan has been honored by selection as a James Beard nominee for Outstanding Chef in 2007 and winner of James Beard Best Chef of the Midwest in 2004.

Each of the courses were outstanding. And each gave us a new talking point, an interesting pairing, a new ingredient, a favorite item.


Sweet Delicata Squash - Koren Grievson
heirloom apples, sicilian pistachios, fiore sardo*, baby chard
2008 Blackbird Vineyards “Arriviste” Napa Valley (deep rose)

*Fiore Sardo is a cheese from Sardinia that predates Pecorino Romano.

Turbot & crispy sweetbreads - Paul Kahan
golden turnips, orange & lucques olives
Sophie, Goose Island Brewery, Chicago, IL

*Goose Island Brewery was new to me, this Sophie had complex citrusy notes and a clean crisp taste that was perfect with the richness of the sweetbreads and the turbot.

Slow roasted goat and crispy goat prosciutto - Mike Sheerin
Crab apples, dates and hazlenut oil
2006 Blackbird Vineyards “Arise” Napa Valley

*Goat was rich and prosciutto was like chips.

Suckling pig - Brian Huston
canadice grapes, matsutake mushrooms, cavolo nero & verjus
2006 Blackbird Vineyards “Illustrator” Napa Valley

*Not surprising that this dish was a standout. The Publican has a reputation for good porcine treats.

"Coldbox" Photo Credit: Sam Rosen, The Publican website.

Sweet potato panna cotta - Becky Broeske
Smoke cider, milk chocolate & bourbon ice cream
Conquistador de la meurte, Three Floyds Brewery, Munster IN

*This dessert and dark beer pairing was really tremendous. A dark cookie shortbread underneath a light but richly flavored panna cotta little cocoa nibs and the cider and ice cream all complemented the chocolately, smokey notes of the brew. Really a surprising and delicious pairing. Our server asked another server how many Floyds were at the Three Floyds Brewery: answer: three.

The atmosphere is bustling and congenial, warm saffron walls and shared tables encourage the friendly atmosphere. Servers were knowledgeable and attentive. I would highly recommend this delicious and funky spot for your next trip to Chicago.

The Publican

837 West Fulton Market
Chicago IL

312-733-9555

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Where can Chicago-area culinary professionals go to spend a couple of hours over lunch with colleagues interested in sourcing sustainable seafood?

Please join us at the beautiful Fisher & Paykel Appliances/ DCS Appliances showroom in Elk Grove Village for a workshop on sustainable seafood:

• Almost 90% of diners say they want restaurants to serve only sustainable seafood, but nearly 75% are unaware which fish are close to extinction.
• Teach a Chef to Fish Roundtable on Monday October 19, 2009 from 1130 - 130 PM will help you meet this demand.

It's a roll up your sleeves and learn session. Attendees will hear brief introductions to the new resources including a brand new sourcing service, and a self-study course perfect for anyone who wants to learn more. October is National Seafood month, come get inspired and create a new menu item celebrating sustainable seafood.

• Top Chef Season 5 Contestant Radhika Desai will talk about her connection to the issue of sustainable seafood while we chat with her about the dish she'll demo on state of the art equipment.
• Kassia Perpich will share highlights of Shedd Aquarium's Right Bite program.
• Dirk's Seafood - Dirk Fucik, owner of Chicago’s premier retail fish shop will be on hand to share inside info on how to source sustainable seafood
• Plitt Company’s Mary Smith and Supreme Lobster’s Carl Galvan will represent the wholesale distributors’ take on sustainable procurement and how it is passed on to local chefs.
• We’ll hear about the sustainable aquaculture Australis Barramundi, The Better Fish. . Learn what makes some aquaculture sustainable from this leader.
• We’ll introduce new tools like the Blue Ocean Institute and the Chefs Collaborative program, Green Chefs, Blue Ocean. We’ll review their seven part online tutorial.
• We’ll walk through the new, free sourcing service,FishChoice.com which gives culinary professionals real-time information to source sustainable seafood from a large database of purveyors, many of them already familiar names.
  
  

Join colleagues who share your interest in sustainable seafood. We'll have sponsors information, barramundi to take home, and materials in a USB flash drive to take away. Take the first steps toward a more sustainable menu, or deepen your commitment using self-study and sourcing tools.

Join colleagues who share your interest in sustainable seafood. We'll have sponsor materials, Chefs Collaborative Seafood Solutions report, and more in a USB flash drive to take away. Seating is limited. Please contact me by Friday end of business to register so we have a headcount for lunch LDGourmet. If you would like to make a donation on the day of the event, the proceeds will go to the Shedd Aquarium.

We had a wonderful inaugural event in Boston and are preparing to take Chicago by storm - come join us!

* This event is not a sales pitch, just a lunch and learn designed to broaden the discussion of sustainable seafood. I thank the sponsors who have helped cover costs: Fisher & Paykel Appliances, FishChoice.com, Australis Barramundi, Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.

Comment (2)

To be asked "when the next workshop would be taking place" and "could it be after the holidays, please?" was simply music to my ears. 

Monday the 28th of September, I gathered two dozen chefs at the gorgeous Fairmont Battery Wharf in my first live event on the topic of sustainable seafood. Among the participants were Executive Chefs and Line Cooks, single proprietors and employees of large properties. Veteran sustainability advocates and folks taking their first steps on the path to more sustainable menus. Most everyone indicated they'd learned something new.

This was due to the excellent panel of presenters who generously donated their time delivering up-to-the-minute information and cutting-edge resources designed specifically to meet the needs of culinary professionals.

Executive Chef Brendon Bashford, Fairmont Battery Wharf: Shared what the Fairmont Battery Wharf has been willing to do, such as eliminating endangered species like bluefin tuna and Chilean Sea Bass from the menu. For those starting out on the path to sustainability, it was good to hear the encouragement. And for those already engaged in sourcing sustainable seafood, reinforcing that "small steps toward sustainability" as both necessary and possible, was an equally welcome message.

Lydia Bergen, Assoc. Dir. for Strategy and Outreach Sustainable Fisheries Initiative, New England Aquarium: Described the work of the New England Aquarium from penguins and public awareness to research, advocacy and conservation. She highlighted the steps that chefs could take to move toward more sustainable menus and invited active participation in the work of the Aquarium. At least two in the audience (Andy Husbands and Jose Duart) are already doing so with the celebrate seafood dinner series.

Carol Devine of Australis Barramundi, The Better Fish: Reviewed both the problems and the promise of aquaculture, taking us through the features of sustainable aquaculture as practiced by The Better Fish. As the Boston Globe noted Monday morning the world's appetite for fish will cease to be met by wild caught fish. The question becomes how will aquaculture be managed. 

Leigh Belanger, Program Director for the Chefs Collaborative: Provided the Seafood Solutions report to all participants and presented the brand new on-line sustainable seafood educational tool called Green Chefs/Blue Ocean, developed in partnership with Blue Ocean Institute. Some of the participants are thinking of using it as a staff training tool which would be a fantastic outcome for the day.

Jason Clermont, also of the Conservation Department of the New England Aquarium: Walked us through the new sourcing service FishChoice.com. Several chefs were eager to give it a test drive and were able to do so on laptops in the room. I was delighted to have these new hands-on tools presented to chefs, many of whom were unaware of them prior to the day.

As we wrapped the afternoon, I tried to chat with as many of the participants as I could before they left. Several asked what our next topic would be. Noodling over Community Supported Fisheries which some chefs have been trying out. Other ideas?

 L to R: Jason Clermont, Carol Devine, Lydia Bergen, Brendon Bashford, me, Leigh Belanger, Elyse Antrim. Thanks to Suzanne Wenz, our able photographer!

Just in time for the workshop, I was able to get these nifty USB flashdrives created and loaded with materials from our sponsors and presenters. Included on the reusable flash drives were the following items:

• Chefs Collaborative Seafood Solutions report (also available here at their website)
• Alaska Seafood Spice Pantry Chart & Brochure (co produced with the CIA), Seafood Sustainability Brochure
• Blue Ocean Institute Overview of Green Chefs/Blue Ocean
• FishChoice.com Online Sourcing Guide and Screenshot
• MSC Foodservice Quick Guide
• Australis Barramundi presentation on aquaculture
• Overview of Teach a Man to Fish

 I'm so grateful for the support of our sponsors, our hosts, and our chefs for their enthusiasm. And now, Chicago - Lookout here we come!

•  Submit your sustainable seafood recipe to the blog event: Teach a Man to Fish - going on now!

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This post by Kim O'Donnel which ran in the Huffington Post, The United States of Canning, explains the genesis of an event coming soon to Boston/Somerville!

For me, a canning novice with a too-tiny kitchen, I want to go and learn from others what I can. But, given the circumstances I don't expect I'll be doing a whole lot of canning myself. I promise to bring you an overview of the day, however and it looks to be a great one at that.

Just check out Linsey Herman's Cake and Commerce blog here, Join the Canvolution.

→ Note: this event is sold out. If you want to get on a waitlist or let Linsey know we should have a second event, please go to her blog via one of these links and do so!

# # #

For me, the idea of self-sufficiency is so appealing. Confidence in the kitchen, access to wholesome food year-round, and saving money; these are all bonuses. Right now I have homemade yogurt, mayonnaise, sourdough bread in my kitchen as well as jams/preserves from three friends. A friend was ribbing me about becoming a hippie housewife and then I pointed out that I can bake bread for pennies, make mayo with good eggs and quality oils, and my yogurt is made from Richardson's 2% and costs pennies. It also all tastes wonderful. 

If you're interested and intrigued - stay tuned, I'll be posting after the event, too. 

Other links:

 includes recipes and posts by the likes of John-be-still-my-heart-Besh and lots of great resources

Comment (2)

It seems I'm having the same conversation a lot these days, which is a good thing. Even I get tired of talking to myself sometimes.

People discover my blog, my writing, my values, and they often pepper me with questions:

• "Which is better organic or local?"
• "Is organic really better for you?"
  
• "Why should I support local fishermen if they're not fishing sustainably?"
• "Is it okay to buy ____ (fill in the blank with any fish)?" 
  
• "Which is worse threat of mercury and PCBs or not getting enough omega-3s in fatty fish?"
• "Why is heritage breed better than conventional?"
• "Should I feel bad if I can't afford organic, local, sustainable, food? Or heritage meats?"

Russ Parsons of the LA Times writes about this desire for simplicity in his provocative piece entitled Organic Label Doesn't Guarantee Quality or Taste.

While I like and respect Russ, and am grateful he opened this discussion, I think the article suffers from the same quest for simplicity that he skewers. He doesn't quite go far enough into the murky waters that surround all the questions consumers have. It's not enough to scold us for wanting simple litmus tests without giving us tools or advice for making better decision. Therein lies the rub.

Quite likely he is aware of this and simply could not do it in the space of one column. But this IS the dialog we must be having. If we have reached a moment in time which is unique or a "tipping point" where consumers want to make changes to their food buying habits in alignment with their values, then we have to be prepared to open up a Pandora's Box of complex issues.

Are we up for it? Where is the guidance to help us separate the wheat from chaff? Some would like a single source expert to make it easy for them. "If I buy what Michael Pollan says is okay then I'm golden." I'm not sure Pollan would agree and I'm pretty sure that would be insufficient.

With respect to seafood - we have wallet cards. We have iPhone Apps. We have Mark Bittman telling us it's too complicated for him. He winds up giving us very Pollanesque advice, eat less fish, only what's sustainable and only where you can trace its sourcing. I paraphrase here but you get my point.

Simplicity Loves a Villain

In the quest to "win" rather than to "inform" or to "understand" we often want simple black and white arguments. What would a Western be if no one wore the black hat?  We need to acknowledge that if a huge industrial producer goes organic, that will have a net effect of reducing the negative environmental impacts downstream. It doesn't mean we stop supporting local farms or we only buy organics at Wal-Mart. Neither does it mean there is no good to come of that producer going organic.

I've been bashed by locavores for not giving up rice. Well, I ask them, what wine did you drink with your local meal last night? And where did the pepper in your mill come from? You know it can get silly. And no one "wins" in these score-keeping arguments. In fact, my rice is not locally grown. I am responsible for some carbon impacts because my rice comes from Koda Farms in California. They are a true family farm, farming in responsible, organic ways, and keeping an heirloom varietal rice in the marketplace. It's fantastic rice I really enjoy and wholeheartedly support. 

My local farmers who grow in a "everything but organic" way - meaning they do it but haven't paid for the increasingly questionable label, also are not themselves locavores. 

So does that mean we through locavore out the door? Sensible sustainability says we keep it as a principle and make decisions to buy locally grown, harvested food when we can.

Forget the Studies, Embrace Incompetence

I embrace my incompetence. I don't know everything and can't know everything. I want to give you tools, not be your expert. Maybe your goals are different from mine anyway. But even if I thought I had all the answers today, it'll change tomorrow. 

Rather than get distracted by whose studies prove or disprove the relative nutritional merits of organics, I'd like us to put that decision in the context of our larger goals and values. I actually don't care what those studies say. What I care about is the reduction in the use of pesticides, and in supporting local farmers that I think also share that value and who produce good food. I don't care how "perfect" a food is (and I have had many discussions with folks from all sides on these); if it's not delicious, I don't want to eat it. There I agree wholeheartedly with Russ.

The challenge is that once we've opened our minds to the issues, we are quickly sucked into much larger debates than we might have thought we were signing on for. And, we can't know what the right things are with any finality, because things change and we have to be prepared for living with some incompetence. Nowhere is this more true than with seafood. Even if one could absolutely nail every bit of data today enabling you to make a perfectly sustainable choice, it will change tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll have new data that will tell us something about the health of a fishery, the destruction of a method or the heinous practices of a fish farm that we thought was sustainable. Does that mean we give up, and just eat whatever we are served or whatever is in the fishmonger's case?

No one who is generally interested in making better choices is really going to be comfortable reverting to a head-in-the-sand approach. 

Sensible Sustainability

I like to encourage is what I call Sensible Sustainability. Here are some core concepts and examples:

• We must accept that we are engaging in a way of eating that will include a certain amount of uncertainty. Are local hothouse tomatoes better than those shipped from FL? Is it better still to wait until local tomatoes grown without the impacts of a hothouse are naturally ready? 
• We can, and should, make incrementally better choices every day. Is it true that Frozen Alaska Halibut is better than local endangered Cod? That depends, what is "better" to you? Frozen Alaska Halibut is better than Halibut from other non sustainable fisheries. If you prefer local over wild with carbon footprint, Haddock is a better choice than Cod. 
• Guilt does not make good gravy. Dogmatism is not a good dinner companion. Rather than strive for perfection, or judge those who "fail" we should engage in Sensible Sustainability. I'm not interested in a lecture by a cigarette smoking, leather-wearing vegetarian about the ills of meat.
• We can choose sustainable, organic, local, ethical foods - even if they sometimes represent competing goods. Competing goods pose harder choices than those between good and evil. Sometimes sustainable trumps organic, sometimes local trumps organic, sometimes organic trumps both.
• Sustainability can be economic, environmental, or social. Decisions can, and should, be made with all of these in mind. I am not interested in shrimp that is cheap if it's destroying both the environment and the social structures in Thailand. Serial pollution and job creation followed by contraction is the cost of your cheap shrimp.
• We live in a culture that encourages either/or thinking but both/and is much more instructive. It's not either organic or local but both organic and local that would be ideal. I'd rather see organizations like CleanFish support domestic producers who reduce by catch than an international aquaculture firm I do not know and cannot meet. Transparency and traceability both are key.
• Some of these new food principles matter more to some people than other principles. Each of us needs to decide what is more important for us. Waste contributes more to greenhouse gas emissions than many other choices people urge us to make. How can you reduce food waste? Eating a meat-free meal once a week can have a bigger impact environmentally than other choices. Do you have to go completely vegetarian? No. Do you have to compost all food waste? No. But you can be conscious about reducing your waste.
• Sharing is good. We will enable better decisions for our health, our families, our values and our environment if we help each other sort through the good info and bad, and if we are open to discussing how and why we are making the choices we are making.
• Ask questions. Of your butcher, of your fishmonger, of your server. I asked what the server could tell me about the beef in a recent steak frites meal. That his butcher's name was Kevin is not the answer I was looking for. But if more people ask and more people make better choices (like avoiding the skate wing on the menu) they'll stop buying it. 

Sensible Sustainability Steps you can Take

1. Start with baby steps. I call it the What About Bob approach. Go for low-hanging fruit like no more Bluefin Tuna. It's nearly extinct, no one disagrees. 

2. Begin a dialog with your butcher, your fishmonger. Tell them what you prefer and why. Ask them how they can improve traceability of their meat or fish. 

3. Tell your grocery store managers, owners that you want them to provide more sustainable, organic, local options. 

4. Reduce waste. People want to focus on Recycling, but there would be less garbage to recycle if we bought less and consumed less. Everyone's heard of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle." Those three Rs were meant to be addressed in order of importance. People who want to sell you stuff to be green are trying to sell you stuff. Do you need more stuff? 

5. If you're concerned about the environment, make a meat-free meal one day a week. Much of the world eats meat-free or nearly so every day of the year. You can do it one day a week. 

6. Involve the family in the growing if you have garden, the cooking, the shopping. The more people are involved, earlier on, the better it will go. Kids are often more open minded than we give them credit for.

7. Allow for imperfection, remember - embrace incompetence. So you try some new recipe for a meat-free meal and you don't like it. Doesn't mean you ditch the idea. 

8. If you have kids, help them devise a research project like tracing the ingredients in one of their favorite foods. They'll probably enjoy being like that toddler that won't stop asking why. 

9. Take the family to see Food Inc. or End of the Line or Fresh.

10. Talk to other people about what resources they've found, who they turn to for help and advice, what tools they use. 

I'm going to begin posting a Sensible Sustainability Tip frequently, maybe each day, if I'm good. Look for it up in that sidebar box "Featured".

How Lo(cal) can you go?

How about your own lettuce on your fire escape or window box?

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Hello my friends from the meat-free side of spectrum! Here is a long overdue installment in our non-wimpy meat-free series, S/O/L/E Food Tuesday.

As regular readers know, I've jumped into the Twitter pool. Deep end. Happy to report the water's fine. I've met so many great food writers, sustainable food activists, gourmet home cooks, chefs, photographers, wine writers, it's been so fun. Like being at an ongoing virtual cocktail party, but it's much easier on the waistline. Unless of course, you hook up with my wino friends on Twitter, then you get into those Twitter Taste Live events and ...well, I digress.

Let's talk about a new dish or two to put into the meat-free rotation, shall we?

Ramps just sing Spring time and I love nothing more than grilling some with a little citrusy olive oil and salt. We usually have plans to do something else with them but we just don't seem to have any will power. After the first one or two off the grill, all caramelized and unctous and crispy at the same time; those plans are gone.

This may be the recipe that changes all that.

Ramp Pesto Mac and Cheese

Recipe:  Ramp Pesto Mac and Cheese

8 oz. fontina cheese

8 oz. mascarpone cheese

8 oz. asiago, grated

1/4 cup ramp pesto

1 lb elbow pasta, cooked until al dente

1/4 cup reserved pasta water

kosher salt, to taste

fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to directions, drain and reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water.  Mix cheeses (reserve about 1/4 cup of asiago),  with the reserved pasta water, until creamy, season with salt and pepper.  Mix pasta with pesto and cheese mixture and mix until blended.  Add to a buttered baking dish and sprinkle remaining asiago cheese on top.    Bake at 350 for about 20 - 30 minutes, until golden brown and lightly crispy on top.  Serve.  Eat.

Sensible Sustainability

This meal is a perfect example of the concept I call "sensible sustainability." Some who like to be more dogmatic about these things will talk about a purely locavore diet. (I note for the record these types often live in the bull's eye surrounded by Pacific Ocean fish, Napa Valley Wines, and year-round stellar produce.) If we truly followed that, true Italian cheeses would be verboten. And pasta too, unless you grow within a 100 mile radius of wheat, which I don't. I've heard people exhorting us to buy only domestic wines. But a European wine might have a smaller carbon footprint than a domestic wine from the West Coast for me.

So let's be reasonable, shall we? One of the easiest ways to "Green" your diet is to eliminate or reduce food waste. Reducing waste is an unsung hero in the arsenal of tools to combat global warming. (How many metaphors can I mix here?) Read about the low carbon diet and food waste impacts at the great Bon Appetit Management Company site or read my summary of the Low Carbon Diet here (links to BAMCO are included). 

Make this meal S/O/L/E Food by buying local, organic ramps. If you're in SF like Denise is you can get excellent olive oils such as Pasolivo.They grow Tuscan varietal heirloom olives and press them with local citrus for outstanding, prize-winning oils. We love to brush their Meyer Lemon or Tangerine oil on ramps that we grill. Reduce the impact by making only what you'll eat. Tough outer leaves can be frozen for stock. If you're ambitious, make your own pasta. That reduces the packaging used in the making of the meal and the carbon impact of manufacturing the box, trucking the pasta.

And the simple act of eating a meal, try one meal a week, meat-free has significant positive benefits for your health, the environment. Not using animal protein gets you that second vowel - E for ethical. (See Kim O'Donnel's excellent A Mighty Appetite here, for the recent news on other meat-free initiatives.)

So relax, enjoy and go say hello to my friends at ChezUs!

Our Contributors this week - ChezUs

Check out the beautiful ChezUs website here, for great recipes and fun posts. 

Denise and Lenny cook and shoot, eat and critique out of a small San Francisco kitchen. Their site has video, podcasts and more. 

Other S/O/L/E Food Recipes:

• Carrot Soup - Mom's recipe
• Goin' to a Gnudi Show Courtesy of Cake & Commerce
• Calas by Poppy Tooker
• Meyer Lemon Pasta courtesy of Haphazard Gourmet Girl

Comment (2)

Sad News for Salmon, Salmon Fisheries

People love salmon. Almost everyone does. The problem is that our reluctance to branch out and try other fish, like Arctic Char which is an excellent and sustainable substitute, has put such pressure on the salmon fisheries that we are eating them into extinction. Troublesome aquaculture of this species has not helped matters and there seems to be ample evidence that our dams may be damning the salmon for good, eliminating their spawning grounds. No spawning = no salmon. It's a pretty simple equation.

If you must eat salmon, please understand the choices you're making and the impact they have. Why not choose wild Alaskan Salmon? And, why not choose another delicious and sustainable fish?

The PBJ - Portland Business Journal reports that "For the third time in four years, the federal government has declared Oregon’s commercial salmon industry a disaster."

"Disaster relief money supports the fishing industry’s infrastructure — to pay boat payments, maintenance costs and moorage fees — while salmon fishing families collect no income. Fishery advocates say the disaster relief will buy time to restore damaged river systems."

Maybe someone who knows more than I can tell me about how this helps the salmon or the fishermen?

Photo courtesy of Matthew Demers. Wild Alaskan Salmon courtesy of: Gulkana Seafood Direct.

CONTEST - You Pick the Next Unagi Alternative!

Read all about Unagi and kabeyaki and this fun new contest on Casson Trenor's Sustainable Sushi blog. It's promoting alternative choices to this popular sushi selection. Enter and you may be the one to pick the next star on the Unagi alternative hit parade. Casson already used my favorite - sablefish - as an example so that's off limits. But enter now and you may win dinner for two and a signed copy of Casson's book. I wanted to drop a photo here but haven't gotten permission from the artist yet. Click here to see a Gayle Wheatley's rendering of Unagi...in danger.

On May 15th, Casson will take all the suggestions to Chef Kin Lui at Tataki Sushi Bar.  He will look at the list of suggestions, try them out as kabeyaki-style dishes, and choose a favorite.  Casson will post a picture of the winning dish on his excellent site: Sustainable Sushi. Read all about it here.

People often want me to tell them what's okay to eat and what's not. I try to decline. Each of us has to decide where we will draw our lines. I see my job (most of the time) as providing resources and information for you to make your own values-based decisions. Sometimes I make exceptions. Like tuna. These majestic fish are nearly gone. Only some species, harvested in some ways are acceptable. There are ample resources to check - see my resource guide here.

How about mackerel?

Mackerel is a sustainable choice and broils well due to its fat content. It holds up to saucing in this kabeyaki manner and is my vote for an Unagi alternative. Here is one recipe from last year's Teach a Man to Fish - the entry is from Stuart Brioza:

Photo courtesy of Carolyn Jung.

Links:

• Casson Trenor's contest and blog: here, Freshwater Eel Unagi Contest.
• Gayle Wheatley's blog and art.
• Teach a Man to Fish 2008 Round Up - full of great sustainable recipes. Try one today!

Comment (4)

If all the insects in the world disappeared, in 50 years life would perish. If all the people in the world disappeared, in 50 years life on earth would flourish.

Our oceans nourish the rest of the planet, we depend on their ability to do so. Yet, we're destroying the systems that support those processes. If our oceans' "protein soup" of phytoplankton and zooplankton disappears, and the oceans can no longer support the basic building blocks of the food chain - we will all suffer. Much larger issues than a preferred species' disappearance challenge us to take ocean conservation seriously.

We're still trying to make food grow in ways that defy nature and natural processes in pursuit of greater profits. Might there be something wrong with treating our food production and distribution by the "take more, sell more, waste more" rules of manufacturing? Depleted and eroded soil is the result of monocrop farms that give nothing back and later crops require propping up chemically because the soil is so depleted it cannot support healthy growth.

Animals that we confine, feed unnaturally, and fatten too quickly are sickening us who consume them, despite the prophylactic antibiotics given to try to prevent the inevitable.

We haven't yet learned the lessons we should have by now. 

Maybe it's not too late. As chefs, farmers, and culinarians came together in Denver these were some of the issues tackled under the banner of "Pioneering a Sustainable Future". This was the theme for the 31st convention of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. We convened for a week to discuss these weighty issues and our role in addressing them.

We also addressed issues facing writers, photographers, entrepreneurs: how to build economic sustainability? How to use a website to project our brand? How to pitch a magazine editor? How to work with an agent? How to Vodcast?

And, we had fun! Lest you think we were serious all the time, the week was balanced with some raucous laughter, some bawdy jokes and a fair amount of good food and liquor. After all doesn't that sustain us, too?

Seminars, panels, master classes and field trips the event offered adventures and learning. And lots of really good people offering advice and guidance to new members and old.

2009 IACP Cookbook Awards - Winners

One of my favorite winners was the Baking category winner. Caleb bought this book for me on our 4th Anniversary. He said my gift to him was whatever he picked out. Hence, the Fourth Anniversary Fougasse was born.

Baking

The Art and Soul of Baking Author: Sur La Table Co-Author: Cindy Mushet
Editor: Jean Lucas
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing 

Another winner I was pleased about was the "General Category" winner.

A "Do It For Less! Weddings" book. Why? Because the acceptance speech made me feel like this is an organization to which I can really belong (she said her win proves you don't need push-up bras to win and promptly dropped the F bomb.) My kinda gal! Plus, Matt Armendariz was her photographer so you know it's beautiful, too.  

General

Do It For Less! Weddings: How to Create Your Dream Wedding Without Breaking the Bank Author: Denise Vivaldo
Editor: Megan Hiller
Publisher: Sellers Publishing 
 

A book I think helped to change the way we think about sustainable seafood also won. Yay for the Fishes!

Literary Food Writing The Cuisinart Award Author: Taras Grescoe
Editor: Jim Gifford
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.  

Talk about polarizing food issues. Fat is one of the most wrongly villified foods in recent times. Rather than understand what are good fats, bad fats, fats to enjoy in moderation we fed the neuroses of many who eschew this food category that our bodies need for healthy cellular function. Plus it just plain tastes good. 

Single Subject  Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient
Author: Jennifer McLagan
Editor: Clancy Drake
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
 

Other IACP related posts:

• Pigs and Fish in the News
• Beans and Bourbon at IACP
• 2009 IACP Cookbook Awards

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First, an amuse bouche for our Top Chef fans:

Hosea Rosenberg Top Chef and Denver resident. Me. He was gracious enough to hang out and chat, smile for probably a million pictures. I didn't even ask about Leah. Can you believe it? Or whether Stefan was as big a jerk... oh, I digress. Here's all you need to know. One, he was nice enough to do this photo op with me. Two, everyone who went to the dinner at Jax ($170 per person!) raved about it. Three, rumor has it he is interested in learning more about sustainable seafood. That makes this chef Tops in my book!

S/O/L/E Food Tuesday

Since this is S/O/L/E Food Tuesday (or at least it was when I began) I wanted to acknowledge that the beans here get a little mixed up with my friend, the lamb shank. Apologies to my veggie friends. But the beans are a find and you can easily skip the whole meat side of this menu to enjoy a meat-free meal.  And here's a general warning: I'm combining a lot in this post as I'm eager to incorporate good information and fun stuff from IACP where I was holed up with an amazing group of people in Denver last week. So, simply drop me a line if you want more info and ideas about using these beans. Better yet, check out the websites of the presenters below. Steve Sando, Judy Witts, and Ruth Alegria.

Now about those beautiful beans...

Starting out on the topic of Beans and Bourbon because I had some great beans tonight which reminded me of the great beans in the conference. And Bourbon - well I guess it's on my mind because it was one of the last sessions I attended and I had some lovely Eagle Rare at Cochon555 Sunday night.

But let's begin with those beans!

Steve Sando was a delight. The very model of self-effacing charm. To hear him tell it, we have saved all these marvelous heirloom beans from obscurity and extinction because he wasn't any good at growing tomatoes. Pshaw. He's as driven as any entrepreneur I've met. Just with more charm and a nice smile. Who wouldn't want to join his crusade? He's out there finding that one woman in the market who is selling her beans in near obscurity.

Economic and social sustainability are important to Steve so he is buying these beans, and paying the local farmers a living wage. He has to charge a bit more, maybe limit his sales to specialty shops to do so, but the Mexican markets are being flooded with Chinese products at such cheap prices the local farmers are unable to compete. When people are going hungry and the fields are lying fallow because it makes no economic sense to farm them and harvest the crops, something is seriously wrong.  (It reminds me very much of our Alaskan Fishermen who must calculate what the fuel costs are, the likely catch, and the price they'll get before deciding whether it makes sense to take their boat out. You know those prices we pay at the markets are not anywhere near what the fishermen get. Unless you buy direct.) 

Now, many foodies know of Rancho Gordo. If you read Saveur or Gourmet or pretty much any food magazine, you're bound to have heard of Rancho Gordo beans. They offer a stunning variety of beans from all over and they are preserving many breeds that were nearly forgotten. These two are the Christmas Lima bean (at left) and the Yellow Indian Lady bean (at right.) We got to sample each in the session and they were wonderful. The Christmas Lima holds its color through cooking (unlike our more familiar cranberry beans that lose their color once cooked.) They had a chestnut-chocolate flavor - very subtle and wonderful. The Yellow Indian Lady beans were quite different in texture, color and flavor from the Christmas Limas. Both were prepared simply so as to highlight their unique flavors. The Yellow Indian Lady beans were creamy and mildly flavored, faintly reminiscent of roasted corn.

Judy Witts (many of us follow her on Twitter DivinaCucina) shared the history and perspective of the  mangia-fagioli, or bean-eaters as Florentines are called. From Popes to Explorers to modern day Slow Food fans, beans have a rich and long history in Tuscany. The Ark of Taste will try to ensure their future as well.

Ruth Alegria (doesn't that mean happiness?) shared news from Mexico, another culture with a rich bean history. Again, varieties have been around for centuries and played an important role in the diet. To this day, it seems new beans, well ancient beans, new to us, are being discovered. 

Graciously, these presenters have gathered their slides for our viewing pleasure, here at HeirloomBeans.Blogspot.com. Their slides are gorgeous. Go ahead and have a look, I'll wait.

New Beige Beans

A handful of you are laughing now, the rest are scratching their heads. "New Beige" is not a new or an old variety of bean, it's the local vernacular for "New Bedford." Don't ask me why, you have to ask someone in New Beige. Anyway, there is a large Portuguese or Azorean population there (not really sure which) and a history of whaling. Today, you can get great beans like these in the supermarket. Rather than the $14.00/lb you might pay for beautiful beans in a certain precious South End shop, you can get a 1lb bag of Gouveia beans for $1.00 or $1.29.

We've tried their "white feijoada or white navy" beans, their pintos, and these beans are beautiful. They cook up much faster than the national brand supermarket beans. I'm sure they must be coming from some local farm.

Using the white beans, and lamb shanks, tonight we had this for dinner - see how the beans are still intact? Very few broken ones and they have a great texture. We added some lightly steamed asparagus to this "Hello Spring" meal. 

For my vegetarian readers, sorry about that big ol' shank on the lovely beans there...but well, you know how I am. 

These beans were cooked separately with no meat, they would have made a perfect vegetarian meal in and of themselves. Beans, as our Florentine and Mexican friends well know, are an inexpensive and long-lasting protein. They require less of the soil than other types of proteins, and actually enrich the soil by fixing nitrogen in it. Dan Barber of Stone Barns pointed out the methods used there are replicating the ancient "Three Sisters" symbiotic planting: Corn stalks support beans like a trellis. The beans give nitrogen to the corn and squash which is planted around the base. The large squash leaves protect the young bean vines as they emerge and get strong enough to climb the corn. I saw the modern version of this in Dan Barber's presentation and then ancient Mexican renderings of the same method in Ruth's!

From Beans to Bourbon

Now how to top that, other than with gremolata? How about Bourbon!

If you're talking about American heritage, you're going to bump up against a bottle of Bourbon sooner or later. Hopefully, it's sooner. Since I'm blogging Tales of the Cocktail this summer, I had a terrific "excuse" to choose the Bourbon session at the IACP conference. "Bourbon: America's Native Spirit" was led by a New Orleanian, Chef Adam Schmid, CCP, CSS and Adam Seger CCP and mixologist of Nacioanal 27 in Chicago. Along Joshua Hafer and Parker Beam, Master Distiller celebrating his 50th year with Heaven Hill distillery.

That's Parker on the right and Adam on the left between my fellow seminar attendees. Left to right were the following samples: "White Dog" is the distillate prior to barrel aging. “New Make” is another name for it. Next is Evan Williams, then Elijah Craig 12 yo small batch whiskey (70 Barrels or less). Parker says "Others are doing it now, but we were doing before others started calling it 'Small Batch.'" The third glass is Very Special Old Fitzgerald 12 yo Wheated (wheat is substituted for rye) small batch. Then, Elijah Craig 18 y.o. single barrel, and finally on the right that beautiful, Parkers Small Batch 27 year old.

 Chef Albert Schmid, Adam Seger, Parker Beam and Joshua Hafer

Parker Beam and me! He's the great nephew of Jim Beam. In my glass is the the 27 year old Bourbon named after him. I believe you could fairly say I am beaming!

It was a great seminar and really more information than I could take in. Possibly, even more Bourbon than I could take in. Possibly.

Some fun facts:

• A 57 gallon barrel might lose 2/3 vol by 27 years
• Other losses include the "angels' share" which is that lost to evaporation
• Perhaps the occasional missing barrel is the devil's?
• Different barrels will age differently based on its position in the warehouse. More heat, less humidity, the way an individual barrel interacts with the heat and humidity.
• New Charred White Oak is used and imparts a chemical similar to vanilla bean
• John Fitzgerald’s named after the warehouse security guard under whose watch certain barrels went missing.

These guys tell the best stories and an interesting number of them had pastors or ministers for fathers. Hm. 

Adam Seger recounted one of the first tastings where he'd met Parker. He was impressed and surprised that Parker showed up to his tastings with his own, as well as his competitors’ products. Now that is confidence.

It may have been at that tasting where Adam met the old bartender Max Allen. Apparently there was a local judge who would come into Max Allen's and have about 3 or 4 of Max's famously strong Manhattan's. After which the judge simply said "I'm ready for my car, Max." At which point, a tow truck would arrive, hitch up to the front of the judge's car, the judge would get into the passenger seat and get towed home.

Don't tell me these guys don't have the best stories.

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