Help for Localvores

We received this kind and generous email today and are anxious to share it. We checked out the link and found some great sources that we didn't know about. We wish them the very best. Pass the word.

"We are Kristi and Darry: chances are you spoke with one of us earlier this year about a book we were working on, The Localvore's Guide to Boston.

Sadly, it will not appear in print this spring as we hoped. But all of our research IS available online as a fairly comprehensive resource for people who want to eat local in the Bostonish area.

We wanted all of you to know about it and feel free to pass the link on.

Happy spring, and thank you very much!
Kristi and Darry
www.bostonlocalvores.org
eat well+subvert the corporate industrial food complex"

Oil Before Food? How to Support Local Food from Local Farms:

Our friend and loyal patron, Judy Samelson, asked us to announce:

A Talk on Sustainable Agriculture and Eating LocallyMonday, May 19th, 2008

The Earthwatch Institute, Massachusetts Audubon Society and Debra's Natural Gourmet invite you to join John E Carroll, Professor of Environmental Conservation at the Unversity of New Hampshire, to discuss the use of oil for food production.More than 98% of the energy in our food system comes from oil and natural gas. Without oil to transport and produce our food, we can not eat. Join us for an enlightening discussion about the ways in which we rely on oil and ways we can live more sustainably.In recent years, Dr. Carroll's research has focused on sustainable agriculture, as well as agricultural ethics and values. His most recent works include "The Wisdom of Small Farms and Local Food: Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic and Sustainable Agriculture" and "Sustainability and Spirituality."Dr Carroll will be speaking on Monday May 19th at the following times and locations:Noon in the Olsen Auditorium at Earthwatch Institute3:00 PM at the Moosehill Sanctuary in Sharon, MA7:00 PM at Drumlin Farm in Lincoln.http://www.earthwatch2.org/sustainability/________________

A Newer, Bigger Craigie Street Bistrot

Yes, the rumors you may have heard are true. We are hoping for a September opening so there is still time to visit us in our cozy Craigie Street basement. I'll keep you posted on details as we move toward opening day. Here is the official announcement we just made:

Craigie Street Bistrot Signs Agreement with La Groceria Restaurant, Cambridge

Cambridge, MA April 28, 2008….Tony Maws, chef/proprietor, Craigie Street Bistrot announces his agreement to purchase La Groceria Restaurant, Cambridge. Pending City and State approval of the Liquor License transfer, Maws will relocate his nationally-recognized Craigie Street Bistrot to the larger 853 Main Street, Cambridge location.

“It has been a labor of love to create Craigie Street in our present location, and we hope that by moving to a larger space we preserve the same cozy atmosphere while doing even more to satisfy our guests” explains Maws. “We have been working hard on plans and are thrilled to be moving forward on this project.” The new location will have a full bar with a bar menu; it will accommodate lunch, dinner, Sunday brunch and private dining. The larger kitchen, which will be the focus of the restaurant, will enable Chef Maws to present more selections on his menu. There is ample nearby parking.

Craigie Street Bistrot opened to rave reviews over Labor Day Weekend, 2002. The tiny family-owned bistrot captured the hearts and attention of consumers and critics alike, bringing people from all over the world to this cozy basement bistrot on the edge of Harvard Square. Chef/proprietor Tony Maws has earned national honors, including Food & Wine Magazine’s Best New Chefs/2005 award. Most recently Craigie Street was recognized as one of the “Top Ten Restaurants in the World For Carnivores” – the only restaurant in the U.S. on the list compiled by Food & Wine Magazine. Boston Magazine has honored Tony Maws as “Best of Boston – Best Chef” and his restaurant as “Best of Boston – Best Restaurant, General Excellence” in addition to “Best French Restaurant.” Maws is known for his intense dedication to sourcing local product from small, regional farms, and to being an earnest proponent of sustainability.

“We are delighted and honored to carry on the tradition of a family owned and operated restaurant at this location on Main Street” said Maws. La Groceria has carved out a niche in Cambridge and is supported and loved by residents and visitors alike. Craigie Street looks to continue that tradition of neighborly hospitality with a bistrot setting that is all about the food, wine and exceptional service.
##

Breaking Out of Winter

April – 2008

Wendell Berry wrote rather famously, that "eating is an agricultural act". Anyone paying attention to food these days must also acknowledge that it is a political one. The genesis of my own political eating came in an unlikely spot, with food the last thing on my mind. It was a late summer evening in a meadow in Yellowstone National Park. I was there 11 years ago to do a field study on the reintroduction of gray wolves to the region – a highly controversial program that began in 1995. Having lived in the hinterlands of Northwest Montana 3 years prior, I knew this issue to be an ideological tinderbox. I returned to the region to explore the cultural dimensions of the reintroduction program.

Little did I know this adventure would lead to my very last hamburger.

I spent several weeks learning about the greater Yellowstone ecosystem – an area which extends far beyond the boundaries of the park itself – and the many species who make it home. The most vocal objection to the reintroduction of wolves came from ranchers, who argued that the presence of this "vicious" species would decimate their herds and flocks. Needless to say, I came away from the experience convinced that ranching posed the greater risk to a healthy and viable West.

That summer, there were approximately 90 wolves in the park, including the spring litters of pups. The greater ecosystem is approximately the same size as the state of Maine, so my chances of seeing one were impossibly small and I tramped around for days, practicing wolf calls, seeing nothing canine. But on that hazy summer evening, I happened upon an adult wolf and two pups on the other side of the clearing– the adult teaching her wards the basics of hunting field mice. Feeling fundamentally that eating beef was incompatible to the future of these creatures, I promised them then and there that the burger I had had just days before was the last of its kind. From this moment on, I became more aware of the foods I chose and the impact they had on a healthy world.

Fast forward 11 years: Late last month, as they often do annually, buffalo from the park attempted to cross out of it and north into Montana. The impetus for this migration is that the snows in Yellowstone are incredibly deep, and any grazing to be had lies buried under feet of snow and ice. Breaking through such piles for a buffalo is an act of enormous caloric waste, especially for ones on the brink of starvation. Just north of the park are plains that the wind has swept bare and precious nutrition remains exposed. Access to this grazing is literally the difference between life and death for herds that have made it through a fierce Wyoming winter.

Regrettably, while there is no visible border for the buffalo to acknowledge, no fence to keep them in, their journey takes them across the state line and into Montana, where they are distinctly not wanted. Imagine a bunch of armed vigilantes waiting for you on the other side of the divide between winter and spring, armed with shotguns, ready to mow you down or herd you off to slaughter. This is essentially the fate that meets the buffalo.

The threat, according to cattle ranchers across the border, is that buffalo carry a disease that is transmissible to cattle, called brucellosis. What they, and major media outlets covering the story won't share with you, is that it is extremely difficult to transmit this disease from buffalo to cow. And the effects of infection, while ominously made out to sound like the bovine AIDS, are that a cow may miscarry her first pregnancy, but not subsequent ones. In order to contract the disease, a cow must amble upon a fresh, spontaneously aborted buffalo fetus, and lick it. I assure you that the chances of this occurring are extremely small. The issue at hand boils down to the fact that if your state doesn't have any buffalo in it you can declare it brucellosis free, which is a boon to interstate cattle trade. And protecting the cattle trade is the economic and cultural heritage of many Western plains states.

One of the very first laws enacted in the newly formed Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early 1600's was to put a price on the head of wolves. Through this bounty program, the species was shot out of the northeast. Vehemence against wolves eradicated them from every part of the lower 48. In the 19th century, enormous herds of buffalo were shot en masse from passing trains – a form of colonialist sport. (The second photo above depicts the aftermath of such a slaughter) The eradication of the species was also designed to impose cultural, spiritual, and economic genocide on Plains Indians who depended on them utterly.

What is it about us that we seek not to live in balance with the wilder creatures who share our Earth? It seems instead that we choose utter antagonism. I'm interested in the cultural mythologies that contribute to how we choose to feed ourselves and our families. In this light, please let it be time for a new myth, one where there is more room for the buffalo to roam.

Since my moment with the wolf pups and my education on the struggle of the buffalo, I have reneged on my promise in word, but not in spirit. I have had a taste or two of beef, and I regularly eat lamb. But I look for the most sustainably raised meat I can possibly find. And if the price is a barrier, well then it is for special occasions only, and there are plenty of other choices to be had. The point of politically conscious eating is not to excise specific foods, but to have as holistic an understanding of the source of my food as is manageable. It is quite possible to be an environmentally squandrous vegetarian. Simply eliminating red meat didn't make me the most responsible eater on the block. But having the good sense to investigate the origins of my meals has brought me a lot closer to my promise.

It shatters my heart to think of a mighty buffalo – and if you have seen one up close you can confirm that they are truly mighty – struggling her way through chest deep snow in search of the calories to sustain her and her kind for another season of this life, only to face the unrepentant sights of a shotgun.

Please. Eat responsibly.

Want to learn more about the struggle for Yellowstone’s bison herds? Click

here.

Feeling the Love at Craigie Street This Week

We don't want to break any arms patting ourselves on the back but this can only be called a very good week for Craigie Street Bistrot.

First, we opened our new issue of Food & Wine Magazine to learn that we topped their annual 2oo8 "Go List", their definitive guide for food-obsessed travelers. We beamed.

Next, we learned that Food & Wine also named "10 Best Restaurants in the World for Carnivores." There was only one US restaurant on the list and it was us, Craigie Street Bistrot. NPR broadcast the story too. We high-fived.

(Non-carnivores, please note - we are especially proud that this joins previous awards for "Best Vegetarian Dining", and "Best Fish of the Day." )

http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/10-best-restaurants-for-carnivores-go-list-2008

In case you think any of this is easy, you'll want to read another writeup: this one in the Phoenix by Kenji Alt, about the hours and days that Chef Tony Maws puts into making our Venison Sausage. It captured our chef's hard work and perfectionism so beautifully that at least one of us (his Mom) cried. http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid59552.aspx

Haute Cuisine, Head to Tail

Have a look at this good article from MSN about head-to-tail cooking featuring our very own Chef Tony Maws.

Andrea Pyenson, its author, is a journalist who seems to "get it" -- which is refreshing. Too often people write about obscure cuts of meat as though it is just a fun novelty.

Interestingly, MSN seems to have categorized the article in its "Green" section. I'm not sure what to make of that. The billions of people throughout human history who have been cooking the whole hog (or chicken, or cow, or whatever) simply because... well... why wouldn't you... would probably find it amusing that this approach is now touted as environmentally responsible. Too bad there weren't more articles over the past 50 years about the more noteworthy point: how environmentally destructive the late-20th century approach to food has been.

Consistency vs. Standardization - Consider the Tradeoffs

Fortunately we don't get too many negative letters at Craigie Street Bistrot, but every once in a while we get one that is excruciatingly painful. I received one recently from a patron who felt that our quality had become uneven. After dining with us over 30 times, she was having second thoughts.

This is the letter every chef dreads—calmly written, from an articulate and loyal customer. Though I know that I/we pour our heart and soul into every plate that leaves our kitchen, our staff had to talk me down from the ledge. After all, consistency is key for a chef and restaurant. Just because I follow my principles and work with small growers, a guest's meal should not be affected. It is my job to make sure the food on the plate is as intended -- no excuses. Period.

However, some of our ingredients are different from conventional ones, and while we absolutely are open to feedback, I can't change my deeply felt philosophy. At the risk of sounding self-serving, I do have a hunch as to why this concerned guest may have come to her conclusion: In the past few years, with endless hours of research and tasting, we have broadened our list of suppliers so that now virtually every drop of food we serve is organic, sustainably-raised, locally-grown and/or seasonal. As I said, this is what I believe in and it won't change. But I know there are some tradeoffs.


1. By definition, variability is the very nature of organic and locally grown food. All cows, lambs, pigs, and heads of lettuce are not the same. Having different parents, surroundings and diets, some have more/less flavor, chew, fat, and volume than others. Of course, there's a way to guarantee more standardization: it's called non-organic, industrial-scale farming. That's a tradeoff I'm personally not willing to make. I am gratified that our society is definitely becoming more aware, and opting for the sustainable choices.

2. Organic food is more expensive and, yes, our prices have increased to take this into account.

3. The letter-writing patron came into CSB in March. I am a passionate believer in locavorism but have to admit that March taxes every New England chef's ability to dazzle. I myself am getting pretty sick of frisee and root vegetables, and am yearning for a nice tomato or asparagus. There's a solution to that too: it's called importing from Chile in a container. This is another tradeoff I'm personally not willing to make. This is a seasonal struggle I address every day.

4. Our menu changes almost daily so we can select and serve what's best in the market that very day. By definition, it might not be the same as something you had on a previous visit that you loved. It really does change every day. At the risk of repetition, this is the third tradeoff I'm not willing to make.

The variations brought on by Mother Nature definitely make things interesting. Does this mean that I think we serve food that tastes different from day to day? Yes, it can happen. Sometimes that’s a joy, and sometimes it’s not. Of course I want to stand by my dishes even in the dark days of March. And, if food from one organic supplier isn't as consistent as that from some others, it's completely my responsibility to find the best one. But one person's definition of "non-identical" is sometimes my definition of "interesting". This is the exact reason we serve old-world wines - they are full of terroir, character, and variety and that doesn't appeal to everyone either.

I will do everything I can to learn from what is obviously a sincere letter from a long standing patron. I am open to the possibility that I might learn something that is completely unrelated to the issues I have outlined above. And if I do, you can bet that we'll do everything in our power to correct it. I may learn something that will lead me to think I have to go back to the drawing boards on some suppliers. But if it relates to our commitment to locally grown, organic food, I'm going to stick to my principles and hope most of our patrons agree I've made the right tradeoff. If not, I know I'll hear from you.

Confessions from the Dark Side

I find the opinions on this blog to be really interesting but I have a confession to make: I often put my own personal convenience and needs ahead of such planetary concerns as sustainability, local farming, organic and biodynamic agriculture, and carbon footprint reduction. But, in my opinion, you don't need to be uber committed to these principles to rail out - for a completely different reason - against a lot of the stuff now being sold/served in expensive restaurants and supermarkets. The reason NOT too eat some of these foods is a simple, non-ideological one - THEY HAVE NO TASTE! And the reason that they have no taste is even simpler - THEY ARE OUT OF SEASON.

Their tastelessness is all the more painful because they tease you by looking like their spring/summer cousins. My personal list of biggest teasers/offenders includes asparagus , tomatoes, and green beans - all widely available right now at supermarkets and on restaurant menus and, with apologies to Chilean agribusiness, all utterly tasteless. Yes, I, too, am getting pretty sick of beets and root vegetables and can't wait for spring, but I'm not going to jump the gun for look-alike-but-no-taste-alike-vegis that have ripened in a container.

What else is particularly awful this time of year? Help me (and others) avoid it and save me some money that I will gladly donate to worthy causes like sustainability and locavorism.

Culinary-Literary Solutions

February 2008

Elegant phrases from the culinary writer MFK Fisher often open the pages of cookbooks. This is the only place I had encountered her writing until a few short weeks ago, when my mother-in-law passed me a copy of The Gastronomical Me. Immediately, I was transported. Perhaps regrettably, Fischer’s lyricism had me considering giving up all efforts made with a pen (or keyboard) as her way with language seemed so effortless and perfect. When you stumble on a writer who seems to say everything you wish you had, it is both exhilarating and grossly disheartening.

MFK Fisher was raised in southern California, but her culinary awakening came when she accompanied her first husband to Dijon in 1929. There she discovered the cuisine of Lyon, and in it her muse. But plenty of people can write about a particularly splendid meal or two in an evocative way. What Fisher brought to the page was a lovely certainty that when you were talking about food, you were speaking of so much more. Indeed, the most important matters of life were at hand at the table. She wrote an answer to the question “Why do you write about food?” in the foreword of Gastronomical Me: “when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it… and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied… and it is all one.”

Fisher remained in France and later Switzerland during the interwar period, right up until 1939, when she and her second husband had to pack up their home and flee the coming catastrophe. She injects into these tightly historic years a sense of quiet grandeur. And she also takes the time to describe her gustatory adventures: the slight curl of a fresher than fresh filet of sole, cooked in hot brown butter, cuts of meat infused in herbs and napped by cream, round buttery cakes and an accompanying glass of sherry. It’s the kind of writing that makes you hungry for food as well as new horizons. I found I digested the book a bit better, a bit more sympathetically, if I had a piece of good bread, a smear of goat cheese and a glass of red wine by my side.

All of this sensual rememberance aside, as MFK packed up and fled Europe, a food revolution was brewing in the chemistry labs of the West. Part of what won the war for the Allies was a great leap forward in petrochemical technologies. The laboratory synthesis that made destruction on a mass scale possible for the first time in history also gave us manufactured “nutrients” to boost the growth and production of plants. Previously the nitrogen and potassium inputs employed by farmers in the US came from mined potash, or guano imported from Chile. The ability to produce these substances as a byproduct of petroleum reduced their cost enormously, and created a revolution for intensified inputs for farms. In short, the agro-industrial era was born. The argument of “green revolution” supporters was that with chemical enhancements we were suddenly supposed to be able to produce enough food to nourish the world. Hunger and famine would be eradicated and plenty would abound. Even the most distracted observer of the last 60 years of history can see that this did not transpire. While currently one fifth of the world’s population is chronically undernourished, another fifth is chronically overnourished. Disparities are still the order of the day. And in the meantime, the byproduct of our nitrogen fueled system of food production is a dangerously compromised earth and deeply toxified streams of health.

There is a lot of bleak news coming out about how we are not addressing our current food crisis. We’ve recently had a farm bill that isn’t full of reform, a massive recall of meat from downer cows (much of which went to school lunch programs) and recalls of alfalfa sprouts infected with e-coli. These and other concerns are starting to feel routine rather than calamitous. So perhaps, by reading MFK, I sought to return to the halcyon days when producing food could be revered and certainly less fraught. But is this sort of culinary-literary escapism really so unwarranted or unrealistic? Whenever I feel fed up with my observations of our current system, I remind myself that agriculture has been a human practice for ten thousand years. And industrial agriculture has been the order of the day for only about sixty. See? Isn’t that refreshing? So perhaps a deep, spiritual reinvestment in the way things used to be done is not so radical, but rather is the ultimate conservatism.

Given that I can neither travel through time nor space to the France where Fischer really learned to eat anytime soon, I would like to remind readers that experiences like hers can be had at Craigie Street Bistrot. Chef Tony Maws brings the intensity and craft of bistrot moderne to the American palate. In Amanda Dates’ Thanksgiving post about the kitchens in which he tested his mettle, we are reminded of this tremendously rich tradition. Lovelier still then, that it is on offer both in spirit and in presentation, on a plate in Cambridge.

Dollars and Sense

January 2008

It’s tax time!

A colleague recently asked why organic food costs so much. She griped about the price ($4) of a pint of strawberries at the farmers’ market, pointing out that she can buy them at a conventional grocery store for a cool buck fifty-nine. Most feel that buying exclusively sustainably raised food is beyond their means. While I argued on the expensive berries’ behalf – citing a taste that wouldn’t be believed – it’s little use. Organic still smacks of elitism.

Since it is January, and the IRS is busy sending its missives around the country, I thought now would be a good time to bring up the $725 grocery bill you don’t know about but you pay every year. Maybe part of the reason why we think we can’t afford high quality food is the tab we are already paying for the industrial food and agriculture model. Each American household is paying about $725 every year to prop up an unfailingly damaging system. This covers the cost of fuel subsidies to agribusiness, Farm Bill subsidies for commodity crops, and the degradation of our environment and public health. To get an idea of the scale of the problem, consider that the nutrients lost to erosion each year are valuated at $20 billion, while the damages caused by pesticides are estimated at $8 billion.[1] Without intervention at both a consumer and a policy level, many of these bills are going to keep going up.

Seven-hundred-and-twenty-five dollars is nothing to sniff at, and as I do my taxes this year, I know it’s a sum I would far rather see injected into my household grocery budget, than perpetuating a destructive model of food production. What would I do with that cash? While my grocery basket is already pretty “green”, I’m fairly sure I would spring for the $6 quarts of yogurt sold at my market. They come in a returnable, reusable mason jar, and the quality far surpasses anything on the grocery store shelves. I would also purchase really nicer meat. This past November, I shelled out for a locally raised heritage breed turkey, which utterly revolutionized that meal for me and may be part of the reason I never tired of the leftovers.

But all of this is just wistful financial fantasizing. In the meantime, my taxes go to the feds, whose support of a profoundly unsustainable system is creating still bigger bills to come.

The economists call them externalities – the unintended costs (or collateral damage) of big agriculture. Externalities resulting from agribusiness can be boiled down to three major categories. First there are costs to our natural resources – the air, soil, and water quality. Second is damage to wildlife and ecosystem biodiversity. And last is the price to our health – sometimes impacted negatively by the first two and sometimes destroyed just as a result of the poor quality food that spews forth. For instance,

▪ Cleaning the agricultural chemicals out of our environment costs $17 billion/year[2]

▪ The annual impact of pesticide use on a single key-pollinator species – the honeybee – is estimated at over $400 million in lost productivity[3]

▪ Seventy percent of antibiotics administered in the US go to livestock through their feed, a practice which contributes to the emergence of drug resistant strains of disease[4]

For these and other reasons, the heretofore unassuming Farm Bill unexpectedly became a rallying point for activists and foodies alike. Real reform remained elusive in last year’s bill. But for the first time, politicians are listening to dissenting voices. For the first time, there is a strong chorus of dissenting voices.

So now you are stuck in the unfortunate position of paying over $700 for cheap food you do your best to avoid and you still have to pay a premium for organic. It seems like the only thing this little revelation has brought forth is the knowledge that you are getting socked twice. But here are the other things you’re paying for with organic, especially local, food.

You’re ensuring that there are bills for the environment and your health that won’t come due. You’re not only boosting the biodiversity of the planet, but of what you eat – before organic came along we were all eating iceberg lettuce all the time. No one had heard of a Satsuma mandarin or kabocha squash – superfoods with incredible flavor that make you healthier in the long run. The sustainably spent dollar supports independent, viable farms and farmers. And lastly, recent studies show organic fruits and vegetables have greater nutritional value than their conventional counterparts – that’s in addition to the absence of chemical residues from spraying.

The best choice you currently have, unless you want the IRS banging down your door, is to pay your tab to big farming, and foot a heftier grocery bill. The sad state of affairs is that the primary reason we say we cannot afford organic is that cheap food is a luxury we have grown awfully accustomed to. Like a slow morphine drip, we hardly even know it’s there anymore. But it is a luxury we can no longer afford. Cheap food is propped up by a system that is merciless when it comes to our environment and our health. Paying for the best food you can, will minimize the ugly costs that wait for us down the road and tastes better in the meantime.

---

[1] Steven L. Hopp Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

[2] Steven L. Hoppe Animal Vegetable, Mineral

[3] Erin M. Tegtmeier and Michael D. Duffy External Costs of Agricultural Production in the United States 2004

[4] San Francisco Chronicle 1/28/2008

Sleep… Like a Potato

December - 2007

“potatoes have a preprogrammed naptime which cannot for any reason be disturbed. Seed potatoes aren’t ready to plant until they’ve spent their allotted months in cool storage. (…) [they] have a built-in rest period” -from Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Every year I bristle at the fall time change. I treasure my outdoor hours and with work calling me indoors most of the week, the shift in time seems like an indecent robbery. It usually takes me weeks to reconcile myself to nothing but dark hours inside at the end of my weekdays. This tragic turn of events is of course aided and abetted by the fact that the days themselves are getting shorter and shorter, with moments shaved off as each passes, not to be returned to the bank of daylight until February or March. Or even later… Who can wait that long?

But this year I approached calendar changes both natural and contrived with a new weapon: the story of the humble potato. From Barbara Kingsolver’s book, I learned one of the many miracles of the potato plant. Coming to us originally from what are now the Peruvian Andes in South America, the potato is a nutrient rich food which these days takes a lot of (not wholly deserved) blame for our nation’s nutritional crisis. Bad rap aside, what I learned about the potato is encapsulated in the quote above. In order for this crop to flourish, it must sleep a deep, dark, restful winter sleep. It needs months in a cool, cozy bin with “eyes” shut up tight in order to eventually open them and send robust runners out into the world. So in the spirit of the potato, I am spending these winter months embracing the darkness for the sake of what it makes possible.

Nevertheless, I relish the tipping point of the winter solstice, as it contains the central message of one of our most ancient cultural traditions. It is no new news that this passage from darkness to light signals the promise of hope, of a better world, and even of better relations between humans. The metaphorical aspect of the Christmas story is the one to which I adhere most closely – that in the moment of our darkest hour there is a promise of new light for our world. We must only tend to our loved ones as best we can, get our good rest, and wait.

The potato has known this all along. It’s futile to think that the sleeping spud can open her eyes before she’s had a long winter’s nap. And it’s futile to cling to the idea of permanent spring and summer. The good stuff, the clear light, the pushing green, the running sap, come to those with patience.

Now is the time to eat the stored, caloric bounty of the year behind us – the hard squashes and hearty greens, the tubers and roots which guard us against chilling temperatures and all manner of winter storms. Having passed the hurdle of the very shortest day, we know we are on our way to greater light.

Which is why I think it important to point out the absurdity currently on display in mainstream grocery stores: In my own local outlets: Apricots! Nectarines! Plums! Cherries! All of these come my way courtesy of Chile, which is tipped precisely on the other hemisphere of the globe so as to have summer in our winter. It’s no secret than in an imaginary, seasonless parallel universe I would reach for a peach over any and all other foods and fruits. Storage apples could just slink back to the musty corner where they’ve been keeping time, when faced with a perfectly in season peach.

But not like this. I find the displays lurid – like I’m seeing flesh that is strictly forbidden. I feel a little embarrassed for the tarty blush on the fruit, the round, smooth nectarine skins. I sound like my mother admonishing me to dress for the season. Put on a wool sweater! Cover yourself, for god’s sake. IT’S STILL DECEMBER! That peach is going to taste so much better when it comes to you less jet-lagged, no spray-on tan, in August, as she always has.

Chef Tony Maws' Lyon Recommendations - No Harm, Lots of Fowl

As most of you know, Chef Tony Maws works passionately to create his own flavor of the the bistrot moderne food tradition, inspired by the expertise of his mentors; legendary chefs, vintners, and farmers from wildly different food family trees. Whenever solicited, Tony is happy to recommend visiting the people and places under whose tutelage, either through direct or indirect training and exposure, he has been influenced to do what he does so well.

On a recent trip to France, my husband, Greg, and I were keen to visit Lyon for the fabled Lyonnais bouchon experience. Neither of us had spent much time in Lyon and didn't know where to begin. (We only had 19 hours in Lyon and wanted to do it right.) Tony had offered high praise for Chez Brunet, the brainchild of chef Gilles Maysonnave, protege of Paul Bocuse. True to form, Tony steered us in the right direction.

Chez Brunet is a typical Lyonnais bouchon - which is essentially a small restaurant that specializes in house-made dishes; always meat, more meat, and meat "parts" like snout, tail, ear, tongue. In effect, you sit - and eat - cheek and jowl and the like for as long as you can continue to consume. As we learned, no bouchon experience lasts less than three hours

We arrived at 9:45, having pushed our reservation back because of our 10 hour drive from Normandy. We were the last to be seated, and were concerned about being rushed through our meal (which happened only at one moment). The place was covered in decorated mirrors, on which was written the menu and the specialties of the day, week, and season. Figure things like tripe stew, rabbit stew, blood sausage, head cheese, every type of paté imaginable, including house-made foie gras, pheasant, etc. Chez Brunet specializes in gibier, which is wild game and we discovered later in the evening that Chef Gilles has a deal with a hunter friend who hunts and traps all his game.



Now, it's important to note that neither of us are meat eaters. But we've made a pact that we'll treat ourselves to wild duck once/year if the time and circumstances are right, and in general, when traveling to France, all bets may be off. While I manage (mostly) to stay on the no mammal wagon while in France, Greg is likely to fall off all wagons completely, bounce a couple of times and land face first in a house-made terrine (a country pork paté) or plate of thinly sliced house-cured saucisson, which he did - happily and unrepentently - for his appetizer.

I started with a lentil soup with cream and scallops. We ordered a "pot" of chilled Beaujoulais (not Nouveau). Beaujoulais has become our wine of choice for Thanksgiving in general, and since we were just an hour south of Beaujolais country, this was an exquisite terroir treat.

Then on to the main course - which came out mistakenly while we were still eating the appetizer; a rush that is unusual in France. They realized their mistake quickly and disappeared back into the kitchen, which was not much bigger than a Smart car. About the same time, we saw who we presumed to be the chef wandering the room, and realized he probably quickly prepared the last dish to finish his evening. A friend of his showed up and sat near us. The chef joined him and a champagne cork popped.

Despite the timing mix-up, when the main course (re)arrived, it was delicious. I thoroughly enjoyed my once/year wild duck indulgence (i.e. hunted, not raised, colvert not canard) with three types of mushrooms, including cepes. Greg had a quenelle, which is a Lyonnais specialty - a dumpling in a rich sauce. He asked what was in it, and the server said nothing - the dumpling is enough. And it was, arriving in a cast iron pan, a puffed up dough loaf burnt to a light crisp at the top, swimming in a cream sauce. All the while we were savoring our meal, the chef was stealing glances of our faces and plates, I guess to measure our enjoyment.

For dessert Greg asked for the traditional cerval de canut, which he thought would be some sort of sweet cream dessert. No such luck. It's a savory fresh cream concoction that reminded us both too much of sour-cream/ green-onion potato chip dip to appreciate that it wasn't. (Cerval de canut literally means "brains of a silk-worker". Lyon was the home of the European silk trade. That's where the connection ends for me ;-) He inquired what kind of cake-like desserts they had, and the server was explaining one when the chef, smiling, leaned over and whispered in French (apparently to simplify the sell) "it's four-quarters - 1/4 kg butter, 1/4 kg sugar, 1/4 kg flour, 1/4 kg eggs". Sold.

And that's how it started. We mentioned to the chef and his friend that we had been recommended by Chef Tony Maws, who had spent time training in Lyon. Sure enough, Monsieur (Gilles) Maysonnave had heard of this "young American chef exposing American eaters to Lyonnais cuisine." He was delighted. The restaurant cleared out and it began to feel more like a family dining room than a public bistrot. We spent the next two hours sitting and talking about all things food and wine related with the chef, his friend, and two servers (one who was the chef's wife). They generously poured us some of their champagne. (Neither of us being champagne fans we were a bit skeptical, but their enthusiasm about the quality of this particular bubbly quieted our concerns). At one stage, we were talking about foie gras - and 5 minutes later, we had a slice of house-made foie gras each. It was too much food, after dessert even, but Greg tried his best to polish his off, while I discreetly had to pass. Chef Gilles eventually asked if we didn't like it "Too salty. It's too salty, isnt it?" and we had to graciously impress upon him that we were so full with gloriously rich food we just couldn't eat a another single bite.

To acknowledge their generosity, we offered to get the next round of champagne. Chef Gilles went on to talk about the internationally famous Lyonnais chef - and his mentor - Paul Bocuse. At one stage he was rifling though his photos, proudly showing us shots of him with Paul. They told us to go to Les Halles Bocuse (an indoor market) for lunch - "Tell them Gilles Maysonnave sent you" - where we would find only the freshest fish, snails, frog's legs, oysters, etc.

When we finally took our leave at 1am, we were sated and floating. We noticed on the cab ride home that our champagne round was almost half the entire bill - and worth every centime. Being invited to the Chez Brunet family table was priceless.

On our travels we've learned that recommendations are the way to go and Chef Tony Maws' are well worth exploring. This three hour restaurant experience was truly a slice of Lyon. The conscious intention and attention that goes into food procurement, preparation, and enjoyment is directly related to what the Lyonnais hold dear; a distinct love of place. Fittingly, this experience happened to fall on American Thanksgiving. It was a complete terroir experience and this Thanksgiving we felt tremendous gratitude for the opportunity to get in touch with the people, food, and wine of a particularly special place.

- Amanda Dates and Greg Beuthin, November 2007

Chez Brunet
23, rue Claudia
69002 Lyon

Tél : 04 78 37 44 31
Fax : 04 78 42 45 74
Propriétaire : Gilles Maysonnave
www.achatlyon.com/brunet

Thankgiving - A Story We Tell Ourselves

November - 2007

Having just finished my umpteenth bowl of turkey-barley soup, I am not yet sick of thinking about Thanksgiving – or its leftovers. For many food-lovers, this is a holiday utterly without angst or ambiguity. There is none of the subterranean clash of cultures of the religious holidays that surround the winter solstice and none of the hand-wringing over consumerism run amok. Pure and simple, it is about gathering around a table with folks whose company you can stand for at least a few warm, sated hours. And ultimately, it is about the food. I like to think too, that it is about an abundant reverence for what our earth produces, year after year.

Contemporary sources tell us that the story of the First Thanksgiving is a myth. The nation as a whole did not start celebrating the holiday until well after the Civil War and the origins of a first feast are murky, at best. Scholars of food and history exhort us to recall that “Thanksgiving … expresses and reaffirms values and assumptions about cultural and social unity, about identity and history, about inclusion and exclusion.”[1]

But I mean to use the term “myth” the way anthropologists would have us do: a myth is not necessarily an untruth or a fantasy, though in the case of this holiday it is quite fully fabricated, but it is a “story we tell ourselves about ourselves” – a way of explaining who we are and what is meaningful in the experience of being “us”.

In the spirit of that ongoing story, I’d like to share a thought that has struck me for the last several years. It is of the nearly holy serendipity of the Thanksgiving meal. I imagine 300 million Americans sitting down to almost identical dinners. Some of us make an effort to serve this meal to the least fortunate citizens of our society. And considerable resources go to providing that service personnel around the world can also eat the traditional menu. An effort is made, at least on this day, to ensure that people don’t go without. At millions of tables there is a turkey as the centerpiece, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie. Green beans, gravy, and mashed potatoes add heft and color to the meal. But here is where it begins to veer off into millions of tributaries. And this is my second favorite thought about Thanksgiving: that just as there is this almost zen-like moment of 300 million souls sitting down to the same meal – they are also sitting down to radically different ones. It is here, I think, that the modern myth arises. Into the treatment of the bird, the care that goes into its accompaniments, are so many diverse traditions. Chorizo stuffing, candied yams, braised pearl onions, or green bean casserole. In one instance, my cousins hosted a communal celebration to which an Afghan family was invited. They showed up with a magnificent platter of spiced rice with game hens plunged into its steaming, fragrant center. This too, is our uniquely American meal as it is practiced today.

Frankly, I think there is a kind of worship here – whether people agree they’re participating in it or not – one way or another we are breaking bread together as a whole society, with foods that connect us to the recent harvest of our homeland. And at the same time we are bringing our own strains and stories to the table, augmenting and enriching it.

A friend of mine refers to this phenomenon as dynamic tension – between our sameness and our diversity – our moment of communalism and our distinct individuality. Each year at my own table, I enjoy the dance along this line of tension – what elements of my meal will be traditional and what will be new? Who will sit and sup with us who has been here all along, and who will charm us with their new tales of discovery?

I’d like to relate one more myth of a dynamic Thanksgiving celebration – one that highlights so beautifully the unexpected joy that can come from fully embracing the local foodshed. In a small town in New Hampshire, my friend’s family got their turkey every year from a local producer. Because the town was one of those tiny little hamlets, so too, did most of the rest of the residents. Year after year, ordering a turkey from this farmer was just part of the holiday routine. Except that a few Thanksgivings ago (my friend reports that it may even have been a full moon, days before the holiday) the farmer’s exuberant pair of Jack Russell terriers got a wild hair and literally decimated the entire flock. The Jack Russells went on a murderous rampage and didn’t leave a bird fit for dressing.

My friend is a vegetarian and the absence of the turkey was no great culinary loss for her. But the cooks who were at the center of this drama were at a bit of a loss. The meal was to be held at another neighbor’s organic farm, where the table had been hewn out of a single tree. Salvation arrived in the form of a Greek grandmother, who showed up bearing a four foot long Spanikopita, which, combined with a vegetarian’s fantasy of side dishes, more than fed the assembled guests. But apparently theirs wasn’t the only turkey-less feast that year. Reliant on the local source, most of the families in town went without their birds – but returned to ordering again from the farmer the next year. So while recreating a highly structured and stylized ritual – a little local chaos shook things up and changed the feast. But the drive to gather and share was never interrupted.

Each Thanksgiving my own prayer of thanks is for the enormous job of work that brought the food to the table. The continuing mythology of my celebration is made possible and then made wondrous by all the hands, bodies, and backs set to the task. Truly, it is a meal of a thousand variations and a unifying thread, which can nourish our hopeful path forward.

---

[1] Janet Siskind The Invention of Thanksgiving: A Ritual of American Nationality

"Homey with a touch of mad science"

... That's how Kenji Alt described Chef Tony Maws' style in a recent Boston Phoenix article highlighting the Bistrot's Spanish Octopus à la Poêle. The "mad scientist" thing is fair enough, but let's not get hung up on that. As the article points out, "attention to detail" is also about the sourcing of ingredients. To me, as someone who -- shall we say -- lacks precision when I'm cooking, this is the more compelling point. It is not necessarily scientific wizardry and obscure kitchen appliances that produce beautiful food -- although it is certainly fun to read about the levels of insanity that can go into one single dish when it is Tony doing the cooking.

The topic of sourcing ingredients also raises another interesting point for thought. Although Craigie Street Bistrot, as you probably know, is a strong proponent of buying local ingredients, this principle has to be balanced with generally making informed decisions about sourcing the best products. This article points out that the octopus comes from the Mediterranean -- hardly local, but Tony likes to think that this is an example where making an exception is worth it. If you are going to cook octopus, cook really good octopus. (This is in contrast to simply inexcusable uses of food miles like apples from New Zealand -- as Ariane points out in her post below on "Local-vorism").

Anyway, thanks to the Phoenix for the nice write-up. I think I've now written more about the octopus than they did.

What Makes a Good Egg?

When I was a kid growing up in Massachusetts there was a little jingle on a TV ad that aired, theoretically, to educate consumers about where and how to buy the freshest eggs. It went like this:

“Brown eggs are local eggs/And local eggs are fresh!”

That was it. And somehow it’s managed to stick in my head for decades. It inspired decades of brown-egg buying – thinking that the brown color somehow denoted greater nutrition, authenticity, a more local provenance, and less tampering with what ought to be a pretty simple food.

Since that jingle, the question of how to buy a "good" fresh egg has gotten considerably more complicated. We can’t count on brown eggs to be local, and determining the origin of the eggs on offer in the supermarket is a challenge. In recent years, as concerns about our food supply have multiplied, egg cartons have become billboards offering complex information meant to guide the consumer. A box near you can read: “Cage free, Hormone free, Free-range, No antibiotics!” You can also find, “Organic”, or “Fed Organic Grains”. And then there are the latest ones on the block: “Omega-3 enhanced!”

Given that we are meant to match this level of complexity up with the cacophony of environmental and nutritional information we read, the decision about what carton of eggs to put in the cart can become taxing.

More recently, widely publicized reports about the welfare of laying hens in big, commercial operations have exposed fairly horrifying conditions in the chicken house: Cutting beaks, chicken cannibalism, antibiotics in the feed to combat the diseases that proliferate from overcrowded, unsanitary conditions… A growing demand for “cage-free” eggs has erupted since these reports, and currently (currently) the industry can’t keep pace with consumer’s enthusiasm for what is seen as an alternative.

Back at the grocery store, the same conscientious consumer can find that some of the free range, organic, omega three enriched eggs come enfolded in so much plastic that one expects the egg within to be Faberge… or maybe a hand grenade. It seems the picture of a chaotic and contradictory stab at sustainability.

Recently, I called chef Tony Maws at Craigie Street Bistrot to discuss all things egg. Right now, the restaurant is featuring lovely fall dishes that call on farm fresh eggs to make them sublime, including a slow-poached egg in smoked game broth with matsusake mushrooms. But these eggs, from Maple Meadow Farm in Vermont, aren’t reserved only for star billing in a fall soup. They can also be found on the vegetarian tasting menu, and folded into pastries. Tony describes them as “lovely to work with” with deep-colored yolks and says that his guiding principle for sourcing things for the restaurant – from produce to eggs to meat – is “would I serve it to my family?”

So if you employ the same question – what egg should you serve?

In Ideal Terms...

A couple of months back this blog featured the farmer Joel Salatin – an iconoclast in Virginia who is spreading the gospel of his pasture raised eggs. What makes an egg pasture raised? Salatin produces grass-fed beef, eggs, roasting and stewing hens, hogs, turkeys, and rabbits. The quality of each of these products depends on the health of his pasture, so all are put to work on it. Consider this cycle: after the cows cruise through, dropping dung and shortening the grass, he sets movable chicken coops down. The hens gobble up grubs that just love those cow pies, and scratch around in the undergrowth made accessible by the cow’s grazing. They leave their nitrogen rich droppings and eat up the pests. In their wake the pasture returns even healthier for the next round of cropping. The eggs are nutritionally rich – higher in those omega threes than conventional eggs because the hens ate what they’re supposed to eat, including bugs and grubs, grit and grass seed.

Tipping an Industry...

Many of us can’t easily find organic, pasture-raised eggs. When you spot them at your farmer’s market or a roadside stand, consider paying a dollar or two for what is really an ideal product. The benefits are multifold. But in the meanwhile, keep clamoring for humane standards of animal welfare, feed that’s good for the chicken and not just the bottom line, and producers who are local and relatively small in scale. Of course it wouldn't hurt if they were in a regular old, recyclable, biodegradable cardboard carton too. Interest in these eggs will tip and industry. And an industry tipped is a mighty revolution indeed.

*For more on what’s happening with the food you eat, don’t miss Michael Pollan’s op-ed in this week’s New York Times about the new Farm Bill. Anyone concerned about the health of the nation, its citizens, and its food supply will be interested in his thoughts.

"Local-vorism" Takes a Hit?

Recently, the concept of “food miles”, or the distance your dinner traveled from farm to plate, has taken a beating. Writing in the New York Times, James E. McWilliams put his finger on an increasingly spreading pulse, that more people are paying attention to where their food came from and how far it traveled as a simple, individual act to reduce their environmental impact.

Certainly the image of nectarines traveling via jet from Chile to Stop & Shop in January should strike us as wasteful, and downright seasonally inappropriate. Regrettably, McWilliams moved on to shred the good intentions of many of us who try to eat local, by pointing out that sometimes the carbon footprint of a local food is significantly weightier than the same substance shipped from thousands of miles away. By way of example he offered a recent study conducted in New Zealand on the commodity of lamb: either grown locally (in this case the UK) or shipped 11K miles from New Zealand. The simple arithmetic of his argument was that the UK lambs were raised on feed – a resource intensive practice. Meanwhile, the New Zealand lambs spent their young lives in the verdant and certainly never-irrigated hillsides of their country. Running the numbers, the study found that the UK lamb had racked up 6280 pounds of CO2 per ton, while the New Zealand lamb, traveling to the same plate, topped out at a mere 1520.

So what is an environmentally sensitive epicurean to do? Suddenly, one of our most beloved justifications for local, slow, organic etc. has been skewered. Mr. McWilliams cites the reasons for eating locally as being “freshness, purity, taste” and makes gestures to “community cohesion and preserving open space.” But here are some mathematical gymnastics he might have added to the equation:

Eating locally supports the diversity and vigor of your local economy. When city folk meet the folks who grow their food at markets and U-Pick spots all over New England, we are reminded that food comes from the attentive labor of actual people, not boxes stamped “Dole”, or plastic clamshells. The dollars that go from your wallet into the hands of local farmers go right back into local businesses, taxes, schools, roads – you name it. And more to the point – you live in it.

Eating from local farms promotes the biodiversity of your immediate ecosystem. Smaller farms have to diversify their offerings in order to stay in the game – to only produce a mono-crop (like corn) small and medium acreage producers would quickly be squeezed out. Smaller scale organic farms produce scores of different species and subspecies, which in turn support the biodiversity of the animal kingdom – especially our threatened and crucial pollinators and songbirds.

Similarly, eating from local farms improves air, soil, and water quality. When food travels just a short distance our air benefits. When crops are raised sustainably, both soil and water quality improve. And these affect everyone in the foodshed area – not just those buying the fantastic organic veggies, locally crafted cheeses, and heritage breeds of meat. Furthermore, how concerned is the typical grocery store shopper about the effect on the air, water, or soil of a peach grown on the other side of the world? But if pesticide use is affecting your air, or driving your childhood asthma rates through the roof, you are more likely to care, to do something about it, and to change your consumer habits to reflect your concerns.

The actions these circumstances inspire put a big, and undeniable, dent into our use of fossil fuel. Stephen L Hopp, writing with his wife Barbara Kingsolver in their collaboration Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, cites the impact that every family in America eating just one meal a week of local, organically raised produce and meats could have: reducing our fuel use by 1.1 million barrels of oil each week this delicious practice goes on...

In a final note on his fuzzy math skills, Mr. McWilliams chose as his example one of the most resource intensive foods we have on offer – meat. I wonder if his analysis would be quite so compelling when comparing an apple flown from New Zealand to the Honeycrisp apple that is on sale at your farmers’ market right now, this week. Go out and get a few. Your community, your air, your water table, the bees and birds and the earth will all thank you. So will your taste buds.

Radish tops and quail feet: sustainable cooking tips from Tony Maws

Click on the icons above to go to a cool video on the FairCompanies website featuring our very own Chef Tony Maws.

To so many people, the thought of making "sustainable" choices involves some sort of sacrifice -- not having the wasteful but cool things that other people have. One of the great things when it comes to food (and maybe the Toyota Prius as well) is that there is no sacrifice.

This video is basically food porn... and it's about sustainable agriculture and cooking!

Wine, love, terroir & skillets.

Have a peek at this video of Tony talking about random randomness.

Plenty Magazine

Thanks to the good folks at Plenty Magazine for featuring us (well, Tony anyway) in their article on eco-conscious chefs.

Click here for the link to that story. And while you are there, you might enjoy having a look around the rest of the site. I must admit, I hadn't ever read it before, but I've bookmarked it and am really starting to like their writing.

If you enjoy this Craigie Street Bistrot blog, you might also want to subscribe to Plenty's Eco-Eats blog, which can be found here.

Go List 2007

This may come across as a bit self-promotional (since Craigie Street Bistrot is listed), but Food & Wine Magazine's Go List 2007 is pretty cool. They call it the "definitive guide to 335 of the most outstanding restaurants in 40 cities around the world, from glamorous new spots to exceptional classics." OK, sure, anytime anything refers to itself as a "definitive guide", you can be fairly certain that it is not definitive, but this is a good starting point if you are traveling, or just looking to go out in your own city.

I was impressed that among the high-end restaurants, they also included places like the Djemma el Fna in Marrakech, where I recently visited. It is a massive outdoor square that springs to life (to put it mildly) with hundreds of food stalls at night.

The Cure for Misguided Food Laws

Thank you Peter Hoffman! Peter is the chef/owner of the Savoy in New York City, who has written an excellent op/ed in the New York Times about the silly laws that prevent restaurants and other establishments from curing their own meats without refrigeration.

The best home-cured meats have always been made at around room temperature. If you've traveled in Europe, then you will know what I am talking about. The reason French charcuterie is so delicious is because of the process by which it is made. Is there a safety risk? No more so than there is in serving cheese, for example. The risk is not that there might be bacteria, but that there might be the wrong kind of bacteria. Trained chefs certainly know the difference. And there is no way you can convince me that my home-made organic charcuterie is less healthy than the mass-produced supermarket stuff, which are loaded with nitrates to ensure that they pretty much never go bad.

A lot of food safety laws are meant to protect us from the legitimate dangers associated with mass-production. The problem is that food inspectors (like the ones Peter mentions in his piece) aren't trained to understand how artisinal curing actually works. But just because they don't know, doesn't mean they have to say "no." The impetus should be on them to learn about emerging (or should I say re-emerging) food trends. As our local/organic/slow food movement gains momentum, government agencies are going to need to re-think how they are applied to the more artisanal side of the food industry. Hopefully, Peter's op-ed in the newspaper of record will get the ball rolling on this issue.

Viva Oaxaca

It saddens me to hear about the violence in Oaxaca, Mexico. My visit to that city 10 years ago with my brother and our good friend Amanda Dates was unforgettable. Mostly, what struck me about it was how completely peaceful it was, so reading in the news about rioting – and now the death of a journalist – creates such a jarring image.

I won’t try to pretend that I understand the complexity of the issues at the heart of this tension. Many people are blaming the “leftist” protesters for destroying the beautiful city, cutting off its vi