Hey, That’s Not Fair
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In September of 2001, the Harkin-Engel Protocol was signed.
Pretty heady stuff, isn’t it?
The Harkin-Engel is also known as the Cocoa Protocol, and it was enacted to protect the rights of children working in the cocoa fields of Africa and Central America.
The United States will spend about $14 billion on chocolate this year. All of this chocolate is produced overseas, and it’s about 7 billion pounds of the sweet stuff. We’re going to consume about 4 billion pounds of that, or a little over half.
The problem is that most of this cocoa is grown in West Africa, in countries like Ivory Coast. Ivory Coast, like much of Africa, is not known as a hotbed of human rights and is more often than not embroiled in civil war. Ivory Coast is also the world’s largest producer of cocoa.
The problem is that it takes a pretty heavy labor force to get to the little cocoas, and with farmers only getting about 5 cents of every dollar spent on it, that labor needs to be cheap. That’s where the children come in.
The cheapest and hardest working laborers in choco-land are kids. According to UNICEF, about 200,000 are working in Ivory Coast alone. Most of them are slaves, and many were smuggled from Mali and Burkina Faso to supplement the labor force. They get caught in a Catch-22 whereby they aren’t really paid for their work, so they can’t improve their lives, which they only have because they are harvesting cocoa. It is estimated that up to 40% of the cocoa sold in the world market is harvested this way.
Harkin-Engel was supposed to prevent this. They got plenty of grief from the chocolate industry, which was keen to police themselves. Since this cheap labor kept cocoa prices low, they were probably a bad choice to keep an eye on things (the ultimate ‘fox guards henhouse’ scenario). The protocol reached an agreement with the chocolate industry in 2001. This bill gave them four years to certify that their sweets were produced by free men, and not kidnapped children.
Seems easy enough, doesn’t it?
The chocolate industry asked for an extension. A guy was concerned about child slavery and wrote letters to over a hundred chocolate companies asking them about their practices, and the one from Hershey was pretty typical of the bunch. In a letter received in June of 2001, a representative of the company told him, “…the recent unrest in the Ivory Coast has made a thorough, in-country investigation impossible, we have been in contact with representatives of the World Bank as well as with other chocolate manufacturers and cocoa buyers, all of whom have decades of experience in West Africa. To the best of their knowledge, this remains an isolated problem…”
An “isolated problem”? To say that 200,000 children in serfdom is an isolated problem is like saying the reactor in Fukushima experienced a “glitch”.
After a pass in 2005, a new deadline came and went in 2007. In an “Okay, we really, really mean it this time” moment, 2010 went out with the bathwater.
One of the leading voices in the movement to end this practice is the 10 Campaign. They were involved in a recent piece on CNN that addressed child slavery and cocoa. They invited a representative from the Global Issues Group of the chocolate industry to make a comment. Joanna Scott said, “The progress isn’t enough. We have to do more.”
Holy Cow. Like a politician shrugging his shoulders and saying, “Yup. Lied to you.”
(ed. note: Very analogy heavy today.)
So how can you know that your little morsel is free from the stink of slavery?
The first step is to certify that your sweet is Fair Trade. A good tool to use is this app from Fair Trade USA. Fair trade means that a company like Hershey’s is going to look out for the welfare of the farmer and his workers. There are some unscrupulous characters out there, withholding payment, undercutting prices, and making it hard for growers to earn an honest living. Fair trade does not mean “slave-free”, but it’s pretty darn close. A business that is transparent enough to go after that label is probably going to allow for a pretty thorough review of their labor practices.
Another good idea, and we always like this one, is to go organic. A grower has to submit to some pretty good scrutiny to get that badge, and it’s hard to hide your slaves when you’ve got organic inspectors snooping around.
Lastly, think about what you buy. Hershey’s and Mars are in control of 2/3 of the U.S. chocolate market, and for that matter, most of the world’s. Do you really think that they know the provenance of every cocoa bean that they use? Read the label.
Chocolate is sweet, but slavery ain’t cool.
Another Nag on Big Ag
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We saw some interesting news this week that made us get right back on the Urban Farmhouse Big Agriculture soapbox. A farmer in California celebrated the birth of cow quadruplets.
At face value, not a big deal, right? Curious, interesting, heartwarming, maybe, but worrisome? It happens. We came across an article from a few years ago that talked up an Iowa farmer who had a cow deliver quads. His made sense, too, as his farm was in “Fertile, Iowa.” Must’ve been something in the water.
There were a few things that made us wrinkle our nose, though: this is becoming more frequent, some cows have delivered multiples more than once, and the odds of it happening at all are ONE IN 179.2 MILLION!
As exciting as it may be for Farmer Brown to have celebrity cowlets, let’s look at the facts:
- A cow is typically of breeding age at about 15 months.
- A cow generally has its first calf at about 24 months.
- Farmers like to give momma cow about a year or so between births.
- Cows quit getting the urge to listen to Barry White and get frisky at about 5 years.
- The average cow has 2 or 3 calves. At a time.
Folks who follow big, commercial farms are asking 2 questions: what are we feeding the cows and what are we shooting them up with?
Cows are ruminants, which mean that they like to forage for grass. Remember our friend Joel Salatin at Polyface Farms? Cows have this very highly developed stomach that allows them to process these grasses. Their stomachs are basically big fermenters. Maybe that’s why they look like they’re smiling. They’re full of pasture beer.
Grass-fed beef is usually pretty lean, and that’s bad for cattlemen. The USDA grades beef by the amount of “marbling”, or fat. The more marbling, the higher the grade. Did you ever wonder what the big deal was about Kobe Beef? Lots of fat.
The other thing that cattlemen want is a big cow, with lots of beef to take to market. A factory farm feeds cattle lots of grains and proteins that help to build big, fatty cows real quick. Most of this is in the form of grain, namely corn. And it’s not the good kind of fat, either. It’s the kind that stomps on your ticker and hangs over your belt. To make things easier, cattle guys search for cheap stuff that bulks up the animals quicker, like starch and sugar. They began feeding them rotten potatoes, and in one experiment candy. Yup, candy. They got candy that couldn’t be sold because the wrapper was jacked up, because it was out of date, or because the recipe was wrong, bought it for pennies, and fed it to the cows. In a study at the University of Illinois, they found that not only did it add quick weight to the cows; if you fed it to them in the wrapper it provided roughage that the cows were missing because the animals no longer had access to grasses and hay.
The Journal of Animal Science published a report on an experiment to mimic the effect of grass in cow stomachs. They surgically implanted plastic scrubbers. The animals with the scrubbers were healthier and showed more weight gain. Pot-scrubbers for cows. Healthier and cleaner? Who knew?
So, fatter cows, but is that bad? Depends on how you like your beef, but bad for the cow. A lack of grasses causes cows to have acidosis, or cow gas. The fermenter won’t work without some good forage, so cows swell up, get ulcers, and have liver problems. Sometimes commercial cows get so bloated that they can’t breathe, and they have to be put down. The liver thing isn’t a concern to Big Ag because there isn’t that big of a market for liver these days. So cows get medicine, and lots of it.
The medicine starts when the cow is a little heifer. It gets antibiotics to get things rolling, and hormones to give it a growth spurt. When it starts getting bigger it gets drugs to combat bloat, more drugs to combat ulcers, and more drugs to combat diarrhea, and more drugs to combat pneumonia.
Did we forget to mention pneumonia? A Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, or CAFO, feeds thousands of animals in a very small space. About 25 years ago it was thought that the tipping point for a herd was about 25,000 animals. Polyface has a small herd on 400 or so acres, while new efficiencies at CAFO’s allow for as many as 100,000 animals in a couple of hundred acres. The tipping point is now tipping cows. This leads to a ton of dirt, a ton of waste, and in the dry heat of summer it gets airborne and the cows stand around all day breathing it.
So animals in a feedlot are pretty much sick all the time. It’s to be expected.
Cows are also bred to get big quickly. This builds big cows, but this straight-line breeding causes genetic issues. Have you ever seen an American Bulldog? They huff and snore and are prone to all sorts of respiratory issues. They are like this because they’ve been so selectively bred that nature has washed its hands of them. “Ask Darwin, we’re done.” They don’t look at all like their English Cousins. Big Ag has done this with our chickens, too. If you buy a white egg in a grocery store in the United States, there is a 99% chance that it came from a very carefully genetically modified Frankenchicken known as a White Leghorn. The same holds true for cattle. Frankenmoo.
Big Ag has its hands in this from start to finish. The USDA used anti-trust laws to break up the monopoly of the 4 or 5 companies that controlled 50% of our beef supply. That was in the 1920’s. Today it’s 3 companies controlling over 80%. The former Secretary of Agriculture points out the similarity to the automobile and banking industries, but says that as long as people get their hot dogs, who cares? So today, companies like Cargill, Tyson, and National Beef control all of our steaks, while Monsanto (remember them?) controls 80% of all of the genetically modified crops in America, which is pretty much all our cows eat. Most of the corn and grain that our big farms are producing goes to animal feed, then ethanol, and then for us. Not to start an “Occupy the Barnyard”, but 2% of our livestock farms raise 40% of our chickens, pigs, cows, and even goats, rabbits, and other feed-animals.
So if this concentrated push for more efficient beef production is leading to weird births and sick cows, what could it be doing to us? Back in the 50’s if someone ate something and got sick you could generally trace it directly to an event like a picnic or church social because all of your friends were sick too. These days you get sick and don’t even think about it. What made you sick was raised, processed, shipped, distributed, and marketed all over the world. By the time you connect the dots and say, “Oh yeah, the hamburger!” it’s made hundreds or thousands of people sick all over the place, but you don’t know them. It also impacts the cattle, because like an elementary school, what infects one infects many, really quickly. You also have to consider the fact that as many as 1,000 animals may have fallen into the meat grinder that spit out your burger.
Yum.
The CEO of National Beef says that he thinks that his cows have it pretty good. Plenty of food, water, and medicines when they’re sick. “All of their wants and needs are really taken care of in a very pampered sort of way…”
If I were a cow, I’d pierce my nose, paint a sign, grab a djembe, and get all activist on a rancher.
A Little AlliterUrbanAtion
By · CommentsNothing preachy this week, but instead, some Urban Farmhouse wordplay:
On the eve of the holiday way down in the Slip
the Farmhouse was quiet. Not a squeak or a drip.
The shelves and the counters were scattered with goods
from farms and from gardens; some things from the woods.
Some natural fragrance (with local beeswax),
to keep your kiss moist: some lip smack from Mac’s.
Some bottles of wine labeled biodynamic,
and delicate spices from Simply Organic.
But The Urban was quiet as friends spread good cheer
with balsamic salads and Virginia craft beer.
Perhaps they are snacking on Chappaqua Crunch?
No artificial flavors to be found in the bunch.
We hope that they’re noshing on food with a face.
The face of a farmer we caution in case…
And spending their holiday with friends warm and dear
as twenty and twelve draws ever near.
The Urban will be here with music and art,
and savory vittles we’d like to impart.
So stay nice and cozy and share Christmas cheer
with hormone-free chicken and gluten-free beer!
Happy Holidays from The Urban Farmhouse!
Aloha from the Shenandoah Valley
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When you drive across the Blue Ridge Mountains, start down 81, whistle past Staunton, you’ll eventually see some signs for “Raphine”, Virginia. Get off of the highway, get lost, turn around, and start following the shadows surrounded by bricks that constitute some of the old homesteads of the Shenandoah Valley. If you’ve given up, you may have located Polyface Farm, in Swope, Virginia.
Polyface Farm is the domain of Joel Salatin, a self-professed “Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-lunatic-farmer”. And his farm is unlike any that you’ve ever seen.
He has a list of ten things that drive the ethos of his piece of agrarian heaven: No sales targets, no trademarks or patents, a clearly defined market boundary, incentivized work force, no initial public offerings, no advertising, stay within the ecological carrying capacity, people answer the phone, and quality must always go up. Off the grid. True to the land.
So what’s so darned different and radical about what Salatin is doing?
Grass-based livestock and poultry, mimicking natural patterns.
Have you ever seen those documentary shows where you see the water buffalo moseying along with the egret on his back? As it is in nature, so shall it be on the farm. Starting with the cows, the animals at Polyface follow a cycle and a structure that allows them a healthy diet and allows the earth to heal. Cows are herbivores. Commercial cattle are cannibals. Commercial cattle feed contains ground up cow. Cows are also like water buffalo and elephants, which group together for society and protection from predators, and they migrate to find fresh eats. Polyface has a mobile fence that allows them to move the cattle to a fresh “salad bar” each day.
Once the cows are done “mowing the field”, Polyface moves the chickens in. They eat the tender shoots left by the cattle and dig through the cow dung for bugs and larvae. Because that’s what birds do. The chickens then add more natural fertilizer to a field that will rest until the next go-round.
They use this same idea with egg layers, with a mobile Eggmobile, turkeys in a Gobbledygo, rabbits, and pigaerators.
Yes, pigaerators. Like any farm in this climate, there are certain times of the year that it is hard to pasture cattle, and you have to feed them hay. Polyfarm has a large shed for this, and they line it with a bed of wood chips, sawdust, and old hay. The cows walk on it and crush all of the air out of it. Polyfarm adds corn, which ferments. Pigs come in and dig through the bedding to get the fermented corn, and the whole shed is them aerated. It becomes a big compost pile that Salatin can use all over the farm, hence: pigaerator.
Once the pigs get to a certain size, they graze in a “savannah” (pasture), and then head to the woods for acorns and shoots off of the forest floor. Just like in nature.
Now, Joel Salatin and the team have been somewhat successful. He gives interviews and writes books, and as part of his transparency you can visit his farm any time you’d like. For a nominal fee you can arrange a guided tour. His 400 or so acres bring in a little over $2 million per year. But he’s fighting the “commercial” farm moniker.
If you want to buy some of the good fruits of Polyface labors, don’t go to the grocery store. Ethos ticker #3: a clearly defined market boundary. If you can’t get down to Swope, you can’t have it. No big trailers, no shipping overseas. A writer for Mother Jones got curious and asked to have some chicken shipped to him. Nope. Mother Jones offered an overnight courier. Nope. Salatin feels that if you’re not within his “foodshed” then you shouldn’t eat it. The average meal in the U.S. travels about 1500 miles before you tuck in.
Consider this: There is a sugar cane field in Hawaii. There is a processing plant across from the field. The local workers go to a small café near the plant for lunch and a quick coffee. The little packet of sugar that they use comes from…New York. They cut the cane, clean it next door, and then ship it to California where it is refined into a pure, crystalline white. It is then shipped to a plant in New York that puts it into little paper packets stamped with the creative wording, “Pure Local Cane Sugar.” It then makes the trek back to Hawaii for the dining pleasure of the locals who got it out of the ground in the first place. Aloha.
Polyface doesn’t claim to be organic. That would bring the scrutiny of the USDA. Joel Salatin’s latest book is called “Everything I want to do is Illegal” and it documents his struggles to sell his products (he is a commercial enterprise so he needs a store, certain paving and parking, restrooms, yada yada yada), to live on his land (local zoning says that you can’t build a house under 900 square feet), to eco-friendly waste (he could not use a composting toilet, but had to have a septic system, and the only area approved for a septic field leeched into his streams and creeks. Really?).
The Salatin farm is also in the business of growing meat, for eating, which is not for everyone. Cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys, and little fluffy bunnies are all grown and loved and cared for so that they’ll brown slowly in a delightful beurre blanc.
One thing is for sure: In a very Hunter S. Thompson sort of way, Joel Salatin and his crew at Polyface Farms is working the land the right way.
A Taste of Honey
By · CommentsThere was no Boogie Oogie Oogie about this news:
A test at Texas A & M revealed that 76% of the honey purchased for sample at major grocery stores contained no pollen. It gets worse. They picked up samples at big drug stores and found that none of the honey purchased contained any pollen. If you grab a pack of honey on those frequent trips to Mickey D’s or the breakfast chain, you might as well eat the napkin. No pollen.
Part of the test was a lark. Vaughn Bryant is an anthropologist, a palynologist (he studies pollen and spores in fossils), and a melissopalynologist. That last one means that he looks at pollen in honey and determines where it came from. Now THAT’S a specialty. He wanted to find out where the stuff was coming from and the existing tests were very expensive took months to see results.
We told you before about the benefits of local honey. Good, local honey contains pollen from the very flowers that make you sneeze during allergy seasons. Eating the honey helps you to build a resistance to those pollens. And it tastes good.
So why would your store-bought bear contain no honey?
Many manufacturers put their honey through extensive filtering processes. They say that U.S. consumers want crystal clear honey. OK. They also say that they want to remove bee parts, wax, and debris from the hives. Fair enough.
Removing the pollen also makes it impossible to determine where the honey came from.
Much of the commercial honey purchased in the United States comes from India, Vietnam, and China. The Chinese honey, in particular, is of questionable quality.
In 2001 the Federal Trade Commission lobbed heavy taxes at the Chinese because they were flooding the market with cheap honey. In addition to putting the squeeze on American beekeepers, their honey contained chemicals, antibiotics, and even high fructose corn syrup (isn’t honey supposed to be sweet?). They’ve gotten around these tariffs with a two-fold scheme: Ship the honey to another country where it can be relabeled and sold, and filter the bejesus out of it.
Most honey producers filter their product. It is only natural that you would not want a little bee leg in your tea. What is rendering your honey pollen-free is ultra-filtration. Ultra-filtration uses immense pressure to force a liquid through a membrane. If you make the membrane tight enough, you can filter out just about anything, down to the macromolecular size. Sneaky.
Honey comes in a wide variety of looks, consistencies, and flavors. This variety comes from the plants that the bees have been visiting. If the bees were close to fields of clover, then you should taste the clover. If they were partying by the orange grove then you should get some citrus. Beekeepers can control where the bees go about as well as they can hold back the tide. It is the guys putting it into the little plastic bears that are to blame.
Most of the honey that you see in the grocery stores and Walmarts of the world are processed by a few big companies. The biggest is Sue Bee. They’re actually the Sioux Honey Association. The Association combines the fruits of bee labor from over 300 members, but they declined to tell Dr. Bryant who or where the members were. They label about 60 million pounds of honey each year, half under their own Sue Bee, Clover Maid, Aunt Sue and Natural Pure brands and about half under store labels like Safeway, Kroger, and Super-Valu. Their web site says that they have a “long history of providing one of the world’s purest foods to customers around the world”. Pretty pure: Sue Bee, Natural Pure, Safeway, and Kroger were on the list of brands that contained no pollen.
This is why we like our stuff from Bearer Farms. They’re right out the road in Louisa, they don’t do anything fancy to their honey, and they love their bees. Unlike a lot of our stuff, it’s not labeled “organic”. They understand that bees like to roam and the folks at Bearer Farms can’t vouch for the practices of their neighbors. They do know, however, that the placement of their hives determines the flavor of their honey. Bees down by the river fly one way; bees up on the hill fly another. How do they know? They taste it.
Urban Artwork
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There are a couple of really cool things about working here:
- We have good food with a good conscience.
- We work in a very cool building with an interesting history and an eclectic neighborhood.
- We get to work to some great, home-grown, organic, live music.
- We get to look at some really great local art. It’s kind of Urban Artwork. We’ve become a market, cafe, and gallery!
We really started to think about this when we came across a post on Facebook from some friends at Rocket Pop Media about a mural that got painted on their building. Richmond artist (and Richmond Punk Rocker!) Ed Trask got them to allow the side of their building at Robinson and Main in the Fan to be his canvas. Here’s how it went down:
“Average day. Ed walks in. We know Ed from being around town and some connections in the local music scene. Ed says that he has this idea for a piece. He had a spot that he’d chosen but he thinks that this big, white wall would be better. He then goes on to explain that the piece is kind of commissioned by Converse, they want to film him painting it, and they want to put it on their website.”
“No problem, Ed, but we don’t own the building. You know that we’ve been trying to get a Trask for years. We would have to call the owner and get him on board. When would you need to start?”
“Now,” says Ed. “The Converse guy is outside with his cameras and my paint is in the truck.”
“Quick call to the landlord, some creative shuffling, and Ed is painting.”
If you’ve not seen the piece, take a quick run up Main Street. It is on the side of Rocket Pop Media facing Starlite. You can see the Converse video here.
It was great that Ed Trask got some international exposure and it was nice to see the Richmond art scene get noticed by a company as big as Converse, (and we’re a little jealous of the gang at Rocket Pop) but we get to see that stuff every day!
Lately we’ve seen our “Urban Gallery” graced by the likes of Laura Bell, Nicole Gomez, and Kris Krull.
Laura Bell, while still a student at the University of Virginia, has a very mature style. We read her bio, and it said, “I want to present the idea of the biological body as a playful orchestra of movement, sound, and color.”
Her work certainly does that! Colors leap from the canvas, and motion is implied throughout the works. We looked at her pieces when it was quiet, and they seemed to pulse with our own heartbeats, and when we were busy they seemed to move along with the sounds of the music, the coffee machine, or the bustle of our dining room. Like a moving scrim behind a static band, her works were a static scrim buzzing to the energy of their surroundings.
Nicole Gomez is a Texas native who now resides here in Richmond. The first piece of hers that we ever saw was a portrait of the Dos XX man (Stay Thirsty, my friends). It was a fairly straightforward image, surrounded by text. The more we got into it the more we felt a sort of Howard Finster reference. After seeing many of her works, we realized that they are certainly not derivative of Finster’s, but they do have a modern folk-art aesthetic that appeals to us. She has some wonderful watercolor works, but is equally adept at working with more vibrant mediums. She also has an affinity for Roosters, which made her a natural fit for us!
We don’t know how to describe Kris Krull. Artist? Furniture Designer? ReImagineer? They all seem to fit.
A friend of ours turned us on to a table that Krull had made out of found objects, but we’re really turned on by his latest works. They incorporate light, image, and structure in a very unique way. We’re sometimes reminded of a disco ball, sometimes a nightlight, sometimes we just don’t know. We do know that it creates amazing patterns across the walls, and they seem to glow with a stunning energy.
We’re looking forward to continuing our role as a gallery. You can just come for our food, just come to hear some music, or just come because it’s a neat area of town. Just do us a favor: the next time you stop by, look at the walls.
The Urban Farmhouse Market
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Strap in: this might get confusing.
We’ve told you about the Urban Farmhouse. We’ve told you about Urban Farming. We’ve told you about Farmer’s Markets. We’ve shouted out to Farmers until we’re hoarse. Well, in case you haven’t noticed, we have a nice little Market here at the Urban Farmhouse!
You know our commitment to all things Organic, Biodynamic, Local, Sustainable, Natural, and Tasty, and our inventory of products certainly reflects that ethos. We offer foods, ingredients, snacks, beverages, and personal products that we love and are part of our larger ideal of things that are good for you and our planet.
Do you need some shopping ideas? Well here are some highlights:
To get you started, we offer some tasty marinades and sauces from Gunther’s Gourmet. Gunther’s is the product of Richmond-based brothers Nick and Mike Lampros. Mike is a certified chef and wanted to create products that were all natural. Preservative and chemical free, they are crafted in small batches and are from Mike’s original recipes. And who is “Gunther”? Mike’s Boxer. A portion of Gunther’s Gourmet’s profits go towards the SPCA. Woof. 
Making a good soup or sauce calls for a good base, and we have some good starters from Pacific Natural Foods. Their view is that “food should taste like food” and they are members of a group committed to CFS (Certified to the Source) buying. Remember our talk about “food with the farmer’s face on it”? They, too, are organic, and into recycling. They use a process called “aseptic packaging” that keeps stuff fresher, longer, and helps “eliminate the concept of waste”.
As you begin to spice things up, choose from a variety of spices from Simply Organic. Most commercial spices (think big-box salt and pepper) come from a variety of sources and often contain unsavory things unrelated to food. A breakdown of one popular brand found twigs, insect parts, animal parts, and unsavory chemicals. Simply Organic is 100% organic, hand picked, and they give 1% of their profits to people who do their type of farming: organic agriculture initiatives and fair trade.
While you’re waiting for things to simmer, would you care for a little snack? We get the munchies, just like you, and one of our Fave’s is Chappaqua Crunch. Chappaqua Crunch makes a couple of flavors of delicious granola and snacks that are simple, but darned good! The “simple” part may come from their promise: “NO trans fats, NO preservatives, NO artificial flavors, NO dairy, and NO cholesterol”. They say YES to all natural, organic goodness. “Food should be made by hand, good for you, and absolutely delicious.” Don’t take it from them or from us: pick up a bag.
You’re going to need something to wash all of this down. We’ve got a great list of wines, beers, and other libations that can rinse your palate for you. We pick wines for a couple of reasons: Is it good for the earth, is it good for you, and does it taste good. We think that all of our labels reflect that. We like organic, sulfite-free, biodynamic, and local. Lost Vineyard’s Treehugger sources grapes from around the world, but is organic, the labels use reclaimed paper, and they’re printed with non-toxic inks. Joostenberg is from South Africa, but we like the family affair that they’ve got going on. The Myburgh family has been there since 1879 and is now on their 5th generation of organic wine-makers. We also have a box wine, but not just any box wine. Yellow+Blue chose their name for a great reason: mix the two colors and you get green. They’re organic, and they use a box to keep their footprint light. A traditional case of wine by weight gives you about 50% wine and 50% glass. Using the box eliminates glass, no need for a cork (Nemo says thanks) and works out to a 93% wine to 7% stuff ratio.
If you’re looking for something driver-friendly we’ve got you covered, too. Harvey & Sons started making really good teas a quarter of a century ago in upstate New York. We carry a bunch of their organic labels and they are the 1%…in a good way. They give 1% of all profits For the Planet. They partner with groups like the Nature Conservancy and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. And speaking of tea, our southern sweet tooth has a thing for Sweet Leaf Teas. These guys started out brewing big batches of tea in pillowcases and crab pots using natural, long-leaf teas and unbleached cane sugar, trying to get something that tasted like Grandma’s brew. They traded in the linens for some more modern equipment, but they still have an eye for good ingredients and a taste for Grandma’s good, old-fashioned sweet tea. We also like to tip back a Virgil’s Cola, by Reed’s. Microbrewed, like some of our beers, it’s all natural and has no caffeine or preservatives. 
You don’t want to leave the table without freshening up, so step right over to the shelf. For a little fresh breath, try some VerMints. Everything in them is grown in the good, old U.S. of A. and it’s organic, gluten free, and unlike many mints contains no animal products. You can wash up with some South of France Shea Butter Soaps. They won’t use any animals for testing and their soaps are 100% vegetable-based. In case you get a little dried out, we have a couple of options: Nature’s Gate for the hands, and Mac’s Smack for the lips. Nature’s Gate started out mixing their own herbs with rainwater and hasn’t strayed. They still make things with herbs and botanicals, don’t test on animals, and have partnered with WaterAid to promote fresh, clean water around the world. Mac’s Smack? All natural, made in lovely Hanover, Virginia, and she uses local beeswax to help keep your lips kissable.
So go ahead, go visit a Farmers Market. We encourage you to. If you’re pressed for time you can still come see us and we’ll whip something up for you! We, however, like to eventually go home, and you should, too. You can snuggle up on the couch in a nice Urban Farmhouse T-Shirt. Perhaps you’d like to take some good market stuff with you, too?
An Emotional Experience
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We hope that when you visit with us you enjoy the food, have a nice beverage, and relax in our historic building. We really like it when people come to see us on music nights and brunches when we feature live artists. Adds to the experience. That being said; we don’t usually go out of our way to hawk another restaurant, but this is an exception.
Over the summer we read Life: On the Line by Grant Achatz. It is the story of a true visionary in the food world and his struggle to re-invent food. If you’ve not heard of him, he is a chef who practices “molecular gastronomy”. Not yet 40, in 2003 he was awarded Rising Star Chef of the Year Award and in 2008 was named Best Chef in the United States. He worked for Thomas Keller at French Laundry in California, did a stage with Ferran Adria at elBulli, and currently owns 3 restaurants: Alinea, Aviary (which is kind of a bar), and Next, all in Chicago. The first year that it was open, Alinea earned 5 stars, in 2006 Gourmet named it the best restaurant in North America, and in 2010 it was listed as one of the top 10 restaurants in the world.
In 2007, Achatz was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth. He underwent aggressive chemotherapy and radiation treatments and was in danger of having part of his tongue removed. During his treatment he completely lost his appetite, and his sense of taste. And he continued to cook. But this is not a profile of a courageous cancer survivor.
At Alinea, Achatz tries to create an experience. His cooking, as weird as it may seem to some, is about using sight, flavors, and smells to evoke a sense or a memory. One of his early dishes was Pheasant. Pretty classic. Instead of a bird under glass with rice and herbs, his is a piece of boneless bird suspended in a nest of wires. A sprig of oak leaves is pressed into the meat as a garnish and a utensil. And the leaves are smoking. The smell of burning leaves mixed with the aroma of roast pheasant and spices takes him back and will hopefully transport the diner to the “quintessential Midwestern autumn”.
Some of the dishes are silly and whimsical. He had plate that arrived at the table with a small square of paper on it, no bigger than a postage stamp. The server instructed diners to put the square on ones tongue, and allow it to dissolve, like taking a hit of acid. As the paper melted on the tongue, the diner began to taste olive oil, fennel, tomato, creaminess, and slowly realized that they’d experienced a greasy slice of pepperoni pizza.
At Aviary, there are no bartenders, no bar, and no wall of liquor bottles. The menu, however, is all about cocktails. A flight of drinks is served on a plate of sod. Ice for drinks is infused with cloves and lemons. They have over 20 varieties of ice for different cocktails. One of the drinks is served in a lightbulb that is cracked open to enjoy.
Next is as much about experience as it is about anticipation. Every 3 months he changes the menu, and you can’t get a reservation. You go online and buy tickets, like you would for a concert or a play. Each menu is designed to transport you to a time and a place. It could be Palermo, Italy in 1949. It could be Napa Valley in 1996 (when Achatz started at French Laundry). The most recent menu was spring in Thailand. It had roasted banana, salted duck egg, braised catfish, and other dishes transporting you away. His next Next menu is what got us typing.
Achatz just put tickets on sale (and promptly sold out) Childhood at Next. It started with a conversation about Where the Sidewalk Ends and ended up with some intense strategy sessions between Achatz and his two young sons. He talked to a foodie magazine in Chicago and spoke of growing up in the Midwest in the 80’s. He said, “every Friday night my mom used to make mashed potatoes and meatloaf and every time I have meatloaf, I think of her meatloaf.” There are dishes that look like the artwork that parents hang on the fridge. Chicken Noodle soup is made using noodles made from chicken. Dishes will be served in lunchboxes, a dessert course is to be licked from a dripping beater, and there will no doubt be references to S’mores and PB&J.
Maybe not PB&J. He does that at Alinea but you’d never know that from looking at the dish.
What is your connection to your food? Better yet, what are you using to connect your kids to food? When little Johnnie or Susie grows up to be an award-winning chef will they design menus around chicken nuggets or some Technicolor yogurt? We hope that their connection to food will be built around fresh, savory, delicious stuff. Like Virginia apples, and Hanover Tomatoes, and organic peppers, and artisanal cheeses.
You may not get to Chicago anytime soon. If you start trying now you might be able to score a seat at one of Chef Achatz’s joints in time for the 2016 election. In the meantime, start building your menu of experiences here and now.
Are You Up For A Road Trip?
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They just announced the lineup for this year’s Farm Aid. You have plenty of time to buy a ticket and plan your trip; it’s not until August. It’s got Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, and Dave Matthews. You’ll see some great country and folk acts plus an occasional rocker. It’s going to be a good time.
Here’s today’s question: Would you listen to or contribute to an artist if you knew a bit about their social conscience?
Farm Aid is a charity classic, is the longest running benefit concert in America, and is one of our favorites. It started with Live Aid. Bob Dylan was on stage singing classic songs of heartland heartache and struggle, and in an uncharacteristic chat between ditties said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we did something for our own farmers right here in America?” Mellencamp, an Indiana farm boy, had just released Scarecrow, with the hits “Small Town” and “Rain on the Scarecrow”, and looked at Willie Nelson and Neil Young and said, “Duh?”
The first concert was put together in a little over a month, featured Willie, Neil, John, Dylan, and Billy Joel, Tom Petty, B.B. King, Loretta Lynn, Roy Orbison, and some other regional acts. All of the artists played for free and the show raised over $9 million bucks.
Over the years the concert has seen The Beach Boys, Elton John, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Hootie, Wilco, Phish, The Dead, The Allman Brothers, Barenaked Ladies, Jewel, Sheryl Crow, Tegan and Sarah, Steve Earle, Supersuckers, The Pretenders, moe., Grace Potter, Gretchen Wilson, Jason Mraz, Band of Horses, Norah Jones, Matisyahu, and hundreds of other acts. Dave Matthews signed on to play in 1995, now plays every year either with the band, with his buddy Tim Reynolds, or solo, and seems to feel pretty strongly about the cause. It must be a nod to his love of the rolling hills of Charlottesville. Perhaps he just enjoys good food, or maybe it’s his winery, but either way he accepted an invitation to join their Board of Directors in 2001. I guess you just can’t say no to Willie, Neil, and John.
There are other good charities and causes that have hooked up with musicians and entertainers.
Music Aid International was launched with the help of Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones and works with the United Nations. They give away instruments to needy schools all over the world, help orphanages for HIV kids in Africa, and are a big partner with The EarthLab Foundation. EarthLab was a big beneficiary of the Live Earth Concerts with Al Gore, The Police, Genesis, Jack Johnson, and others. All about some Climate Change and Carbon Neutral!
A huge festival every year is Glastonbury in England. It’s like a British Woodstock and every year the headliner puts on a remarkable show. If you’ve seen the footage it’s amazing. Some of the notable performances have been David Bowie, R.E.M., Coldplay, Oasis, Muse, Radiohead, U2, and Blur. Tony Bennet rocked out one year in a white suit. Only Tony could pull that off. The cool thing is that Michael Eavis, a farmer in Somerset, England, brought the whole shindig together. When he wasn’t chasing cows he was digging music. Glastonbury is a Music Festival first, but gives a ton of cash to organizations like OxFam, Greenpeace, and WaterAid. They have a policy, “Love the Farm, Leave No Trace” for festival goers, Michael and his family have been tooling around for years on Biodiesel tractors, and they usually recycle and compost around 500 metric tons of garbage.
And it’s not always about the music: Remember our friend Maya Bee and her blog about dog food? Newman’s Own Organics donates to a number of Humane Societies and Animal Shelters around the country. I guess Paul was a fan of more than popcorn and salad. And we enjoy an occasional Dogfish Head at the house. They give back in their hometown of Milton, Delaware. They organize events that benefit groups like The Nature Conservancy and The Surfrider Foundation. Their brewery and pubs are pretty eco-friendly and they make a mean brew.
We still go back to Willie, Neil, and the Boys. Farm Aid is a great cause, close to our hearts. They’ve raised millions to help family farms, with their outreach ranging from cash to keep the banks at bay, to connecting farmers to share resources in times of need, to just being a voice for people who work the land. And they put on a great show. Road Trip, anyone?
AAARGH! I’m a BioPirate!
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We spent some time last week telling you about delicious Virginia apples. Do you know how many of these apples came into being? Genetic engineering. Even in the good old days the farmer was a biologist. One of the most popular methods for “engineering” a plant is with a graft. The Chinese did it 4,000 years ago. You like the taste of this apple but this tree is stronger. Take a bud from tasty tree and splice it into macho tree.
Farmers also did this with the fruits of their labors. A perfect example is corn. You save some of your best stuff for seed and plant it next year.
So a corn farmer in Indiana gets some GMO seeds from Monsanto. They are modified to be strong and hearty, and most importantly, be resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. The farmer uses the seeds, and like most farmers, looks forward to his harvest.
Said farmer saves some seeds from his healthiest corn and next year he plants it in expectation of another hearty crop. This corn is pollinated with his regular corn and he gets another bumper crop. He again saves some of his best for planting next year.
Year 3, Monsanto comes by and sees his beautiful green fields and starts analyzing corn. They then sue the farmer for cross-breeding good Indiana corn with their Genetically Modified Super-Corn.
If this sounds far-fetched consider the case of Percy Schmeiser. He grows rapeseed for canola oil up in Canada. He’s been a-growin’ for over 40 years. He experimented, he grew, he got creative, he farmed. He saved seed from some of the good plants and planted.
Somebody from Monsanto got wind of it and they tested some of his plants. Turns out that it was Roundup-Ready Rapeseed. Monsanto tried to sue the overalls off of Percy. Only problem was, Percy used his own seeds. Heck, he had never even bought seeds from Monsanto! Percy figured that since everybody in his area grew rapeseed that some seeds had blown over, or bees had cross-pollinated, or maybe some stuff fell off of one of those darned Monsanto trucks that were always blowing by. Monsanto didn’t care how he got the seed, it was their stuff. The genetic testing proved it. They asked Percy to pay them $15 an acre plus damages, or about a half million dollars.
After almost 10 years and several hundred thousand dollars of his hard earned money, Percy won. Monsanto is going to pay to get rid of all of their crops in Percy’s fields and get him re-seeded. With plain old Percy Schmeiser seed.
Monsanto isn’t the only company playing God with our food supply. They do it pretty well, though. Some say that their genes are in 95% of all the soybeans grown in the U.S. and 80% of all of the corn. That’s a whole lot of tinkering. They go after farmers like Percy all of the time and usually win. They play dirty, too. They use this thing called “genetic use restriction technology”. An easier way to say it is “Terminator Technology.” What it means is that plants from Percy’s neighbors are engineered to self-destruct at the end of harvest time so Percy’s neighbors have no seeds for next year. It’s as if Apple put a Mission Impossible button in each iPhone. Got it for Christmas; gonna need a new one next Christmas.
Oh, wait. Apple already kind of does that. Did you order your iPhone 4S yet?
Some are like Percy and standing up to Monsanto. Across the oceans a whole country has taken up the call.
Monsanto has had a troubled relationship with India for a long time. Plants that were sold to Indian farmers as “pest-resistant” were anything but. Farmers weren’t told about planting requirements and entire crops failed because of crowding or improper insecticide use. Nobody told the Percy’s of India that these new “magic seeds” needed tons of water and then it stopped raining.
India found a way to fight back.
Farmers in India are really good at growing eggplant. They’ve been doing it for centuries. They have developed over 2,500 varieties. Who knew? Monsanto liked what it saw and started tinkering with some eggplants. India sued them for the “unlawful attempt to obtain and modify the indigenous crop” eggplant. Good for them!
There was a really cool infographic in Treehugger recently about Genetically Modified foods and how pervasive they are in our food chain. Monsanto is just about the biggest player in the field. You’ve got to hand it to the lab rats from Missouri, though; they DID, after all, invent Agent Orange and DDT.
