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.
There Is No “i” On This Apple
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Apples have been around for a long time. People eating apples goes back to the Iron Age. They grew them in Ancient Egypt, the Romans loved them, and there is the obvious connection to us in the story of Eve and that darned snake.
We’re pretty sure they got their start in lower Europe and Asia, and the Pilgrims brought some seedlings and fruit with them in 1620. Thomas Jefferson was a prodigious apple connoisseur and John Adams proclaimed a good apple cider a fine drink for breakfast and throughout the day. Known for his crankiness, Adams wrote in his diary that his morning cider settled his stomach and alleviated gas.
But the apple has changed a bit since then.
If you go to the grocery store how many varieties of apples do you think that you’ll find? For that matter, how many varieties of apples can you name?
The majority of the apples that we see today are modifications of older varieties that have be crossed and grafted into something that T.J. and Cranky Johnny would wrinkle their noses at. Fuji, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, and your average ShopMart apples have been developed over the years for one thing and one thing only: shopping with one’s eyes. A smooth, even skin, no bruising or blemishes, and clean, white flesh are the hallmarks of today’s boring apples.
There are some apple fans (and not the iPhone 5 kind) out there that are trying to bring some life back into our apples. Many of these fans are turning their apples into tasty ciders.
Virginia is a great climate for growing apples, from the rocky slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the sandy flats of the Eastern Shore. Jefferson, quite the horticulturist, saw this and had extensive orchards at Monticello. Over the years, most of the trees had died out, and Jefferson’s apples had fallen from the tree, so to speak.
Peter Hatch, Monticello’s Director of Gardens and Grounds, was working with some archeologists and they found “tree stains” in the earth that seemed to indicate an orchard and also matched some of Jefferson’s extensive records of his estate. They set out to recreate the orchard of Jefferson’s days but were stymied by the dearth of apple varieties that had lasted as long as America.
In stepped Tom Burford, A.K.A. “Professor Apple.” There is a really neat article here that tells the story of Hatch meeting Burford and tells Burford’s story. He sounds like a true Virginia Gentleman and a real Virginia Treasure. A visit to any grower or cider maker here in Virginia will sing a sweet song of his influence.
While Virginia has a site devoted to apples, many of the individual farms and orchards have great sites with lists of the heirloom varieties that they grow and many offer tours and opportunities to pick your own.
Urban Homestead (catchy, isn’t it?) specializes in apple trees. Most of their orders call for the usual Virginia apples but they have a great stock of heirloom varieties and have a very comprehensive list of apples that will grow in our climate with some great descriptions. Benham or Black Limbertwig, Ozark Pippin or Pink Pearl, it’s on the list.
Albemarle CiderWorks offers 4 ciders for sale: Jupiter’s Legacy (named for Jefferson’s slave and chief cider-maker), Old Virginia Winesap, Royal Pippin, and Ragged Mountain. They use a Harrison apple for one of their ciders. The Harrison was a favorite of T.J. and thought to be extinct until “Professor Apple” found one hanging out in New Jersey and brought it home.
Foggy Ridge Cider in Dugspur, Virginia (yup…Dugspur. Way out by Fancy Gap and Meadows of Dan) makes its libations with Graniwinkle, Dabinet, Harrison, PommeGris (looks like a potato and tastes like ginger), and other classic apples.
Castle Hill Cider in Keswick uses Winesaps, Albemarle Pippins, Ellis Bitters, and others to make delicious wine-like ciders that are truly done the old-fashioned way. They have some German made vats for fermentation but are also using a kvevri. A kvevri is a terra cotta jug invented 6,000 years ago. The directions are simple: fill with apple juice, bury, wait. You plant the apples, then you plant the cider. Pretty cool.
So Ashmead’s Kernal, Buford’s Redflesh or Chisel Jersey. Haralson or Harrison. Virginia Hewe’s Crab or Yellow Bellflower. Farming isn’t always pretty and apples aren’t either. It doesn’t have to be shiny and perfect to taste good. 
When Jupiter grew old and died at Monticello Jefferson wrote to a friend. His death “…leaves a void in my domestic arrangements which cannot be filled.”
Go find some good, heirloom, Virginia apples and fill your void.
Food With the Farmer’s Face On It
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“Teikei.” It’s a Japanese word that means “cooperation” or “joint business”. When it comes to agriculture or sustainability it translates as “food with the farmer’s face on it.”
In the 1960’s a group of Japanese mothers grew concerned about “fukugouosen” or “complex pollution.” “Fukugouosen” was also the title of a book by Sawako Ariyoshi about the dangers of pesticides and chemicals in agricultural products. Kind of a Japanese version of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”. But we wander.
These Japanese moms banded together and began meeting with local farmers, talking to them about what they were putting into the ground, how crops and livestock were raised, and offered a partnership. “If you grow it this way we’ll buy it from you. Let us know what you plan to harvest and we’ll plan our meals accordingly. No costly shipping, no middleman, just keep it clean and fresh and you’ll have a market.”
Maybe we’re speaking Japanese or perhaps it’s the work of our Austrian friend Rudolf Steiner (who pretty much invented biodynamic agriculture), but “teikei” is now much more global and here in the U.S. of A. it’s known as “Community Supported Agriculture.”
The best way to get in touch with one of these farmers is though a local Farmers Market. The American Farmland Trust (Love their web site. One of the tabs is “No Farms No Food”) recently had a poll of what people thought were the best in the country and Virginia fared pretty well! The Old Beach Farmers Market in Virginia Beach was on the list, as was Stuart Farmers Market out past Martinsville and the King George Farmers Market up by Dahlgren.
Folks in Virginia, however, voted the Lakeside Farmers Market their favorite in the state! Lakeside Farmers Market is right around the corner and they have a great variety of vendors offering fresh, local, seasonal produce, meats, cheeses, baked goods, and more. One of their partners is Rural Virginia Market who brings in a group of farmers under one umbrella. Kruize Farms has a fine list of produce, herbs, and flowers, and apparently someone at the farm is quite the baker! The Clark family runs Greenway Beef in Nottoway County and their grass fed cows lead the antibiotic and hormone free happy life. Michael and Diane Taylor went back to their roots and started Empress Farm where they raise chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and rabbits and fill in some spare time with some awesome jams and jellies.
You know how we feel about local honey and Lakeside has that covered. Bee-Haven offers honey, honeycombs, jams and jellies, and has a peep of chickens (Flock? Brood? Chattering of chicks?) that have free run of the place and lay some tasty brown eggs.
When you come to see us at The Urban Farmhouse you’ll see the gang (Team? Brigade? Club?) behind the counter putting your grub together. We try to say hello and know many of you by name. It feels good, doesn’t it? Take it to the next level the next time that you head to the fridge. Say hello to the Clarks, the Taylors, the girls at Bee-Haven, and the baker at Kruize. Make sure that your food has a Farmer’s Face on it.
Are You Wandering the Desert?
By · Commentsfood: n. Material, usually of plant or animal origin, that contains essential body nutrients.
desert: n. A barren or desolate area.
food desert: n. A district with little or no access to foods needed to maintain a healthy diet.
There are many great places to eat in Richmond, and we’d like to think that we’re among your favorites. But did you know that Richmond has “food deserts”? If you just look at the Richmond-Metro area Fulton Hill, Montrose Heights, Blackwell, and Church Hill qualify as food deserts. Many of these neighborhoods do not have a local grocery and residents cannot access a bus to get them to and from a grocery store. This issue is compounded if they’re on a fixed income. Round trip bus fare for some of them may be $10.
There is a great cry of “foul” about a proposal to allow needy people to use their “SNAP” (“Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program”, or what used to be known as Food Stamps) at fast food restaurants. Four states already allow people to use a SNAP card in a restaurant and the National Restaurant Association is all for it. The argument is from nutrition advocates who say that the program was not designed to give people easy access to McFood. It was designed to provide healthy, nutritious food to people who could not afford to purchase it.
Virginia says that with your SNAP card you can buy: food meant to be eaten by people, seeds and food producing plants, baby formula, edible items for preparation, water and ice for human consumption, snack foods, and meals delivered to the elderly or disabled. SNAP will not pay for: prepared hot foods in grocery stores, alcohol, vitamins, and any prepared food sold and meant to be eaten in the store. That would seem to cover the fast food aspect.
The problem is that many people do not have easy access to a grocery store and the corner market or KFC is their best option for edible food. We have our obvious opinion of fast food, and the corner market is usually an island of sugary snacks and energy drinks.
There are those, however, who are trying to be a beacon of hope for those roaming the food desert in search of a meal.
We saw this article in “Good” about Rick Schnieders. He worked in a grocery store and then worked for years for Sysco, America’s largest food distributor. When he retired he bought an old beer delivery truck and created Mogro. It’s a grocery store on wheels that’s full of fruits, vegetables, and 200 other typical grocery items. No chips, soda, or candy. Just good, wholesome food. His website says that the truck is on hiatus. We don’t know if it’s a financing issue or a product issue but we wish him luck.
A group in Seattle created Stockbox Grocers. A very simple concept: One empty shipping container+one employee+one empty parking lot=one 160 square foot grocery store. They started one as an experiment and are trying to combat the myth that people of low income don’t want to eat healthy foods. Maybe it’s just an access thing.
Richmond already has its own version of this. Richmond has the Farm 2 Family Farm Bus. You may have seen it parked at Stuart and Robinson in the Fan. They also have a store in Mechanicsville. They do, however, travel. You can check them out on Facebook and Twitter to find out where they may be. You can also arrange for home deliveries! Imagine that! Fresh, local, and on your doorstep!
Have you seen the van with the cow on the side? That’s Relay Foods. They gather up foods from groceries, farms, and restaurants, and deliver. Their biodiesel truck will bring fresh foods to various locations around Richmond, and you can also schedule a home delivery. Just go to their website, shop, and when you’re ready, check out and schedule your delivery or pick-up.
We hope that you still come to see us here at The Urban Farmhouse, but if you get lost out there, please don’t wander the desert!
No Brown M & M’s!
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image from Flickr by Tenacious D Fans
We like having local musicians come and join us here at The Urban Farmhouse. We love the sounds of Paul Norfleet, Suenos Guitanos, Justin Smith, Strummer, and all of the folks who come to entertain us. As a perk we often offer them a bit of grub for their efforts. We haven’t been turned down yet and haven’t met a prima donna in the bunch. We can’t say that about every performing artist, though.
Van Halen famously had a rider in their tour contract in the 80’s that required all brown M & M’s be removed from their backstage catering. We can imagine the carnage unleashed by Eddie and Diamond Dave if they found one.
The Foo Fighters are currently rocking arenas nationwide and they sent out a contract to venues and promoters that is epic in its creativity. The Foos are notoriously tongue-in-cheek (as evidenced by their videos) and their contract is a 52-page whale. Before you assume them to be living like rock stars know that in keeping with their sense of humor they’ve included a section for coloring and an activity book with mazes and word searches.
The contract is amazingly common sense in addressing their needs and seems to have been born from their life on the road. “We will have approx 20 vegetarians for lunch.” Good for a caterer to know. They then offer some education. “Chicken is not a vegetarian food. Neither is fish.” And then some Foo-style humor. “In fact, if you even considered fish or chicken vegetarian, please fire yourself. UPS is usually hiring so either way, you are covered.”
They like a good salad and are equally as demanding in their fruit and vegetable requirements. “Like Sean Penn in a great 80’s movie, we’re talking about colors. Not grey, black, or yellow. Let’s get green, orange and red.”
Being a rock star is a thirsty business and the Foos have addressed that in a similar fashion. Water “is NOT TO BE DASANI, AQUAFINA OR EVIAN. If it is expect the worst display of hatred and dispassionate agony since Rodney King got his Hyundai up to 115 miles an hour.” And staying true to their roots they require an ample supply of “Portland Champagne”, otherwise known as Diet Coke.
The Foo Fighters are not alone in dietary needs while on the road.
Cheap Trick road drummer Daxx Nielson (son of rock god Rick Nielson) likes to stay healthy with one small bag of organic baby carrots.
Blondie is after our hearts by urging chefs “to be creative and come up with something that is not run-of-the-mill. Local specialties are also strongly encouraged.”
Boys II Men seem to be picky. They like seafood but please, no “Fish With Whiskers.”
Boy Toy Justin Bieber has apparently had a run-in with food borne illness. “Please exercise caution with easily spoiled items such as mayonnaise.” Sorry, Bieb. Commercial mayo uses pasteurized eggs and is so loaded with acids and salt that it can actually extend the life of some foods by killing harmful bacteria.
The Beach Boys stay true to their roots as surfer boys. “Please note that The Beach Boys are environmentally conscious.” Recycling bins are a must, and “we do not want any Styrofoam cups or plates. THE BEACH BOYS AND THE PLANET THANK YOU.”
The Who in the 80’s had calmed a bit from their Keith Moon days but John needed a bottle of Remy Martin, Roger liked Belvedere Vodka, Pete enjoyed fine wines, and true to the Union Jack, plenty of coffee, tea, and “milk, not half & half.”
We had high hopes for a tour following the Led Zeppelin reunion in London in 2007. Sadly, it was not to be. Maybe it was the backstage. “Coffee and plentiful Herbal Teas.” And an ironing board.
Time does age.
Tasty, yes. But What Is It?
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For years environmental groups have been urging chefs to “pass on bass”. This was referring to Chilean Sea Bass.
Would you eat it if you knew what it really was? Dissostichus eleinoides is the binominal name for the rather homely looking Patagonian toothfish, or what highbrow diners like to call the Chilean Sea Bass.
The “pass on bass” movement began when environmentalists noticed an alarming decrease in the numbers of Patagonian toothfish in the wild. The ugly little buggers can live for up to 50 years and while the average weight of a commercially caught fish is about 20 pounds they can grow up to 7 feet in length and tip the scales at over 400 pounds. In a classic example of big fish eat little fish they live on squid, little fish and shrimp and are a favorite meal for sperm whales.
A biologist went to about a dozen supermarkets and bought samples of “Chilean Sea Bass” and took them back to a lab to look at their DNA. He used a DNA bar-coding chart to match them up to samples of existing fish. What did he find? 13% actually came from a non-sustainable population that was supposed to be protected and almost 10% weren’t even Chilean Sea Bass.
Other studies have shown retailers selling catfish as grouper, farmed tilapia for red snapper, and in one case Acadian Redfish, an endangered species, as Caribbean Red Snapper.
This has been a practice for a long time. We love the allure of catching and eating a big apex fish. That’s hard work, though. It’s easier and cheaper to throw in some other filet and call it something exotic. As people have become more environmentally conscious we have turned to fish farming as a way to protect wild populations. Fish farming, however, is kind of a dirty business.
Fish farms require fish to crowd together and the resulting waste and unconsumed feed leads to a need for tons of chemicals and antibiotics to keep them alive long enough for us to kill and eat them. Not every country has the same list of bad chemicals that we do and much of our seafood is imported. Farmers use hormones and steroids to speed up the growth of fish. A company called Aqua Bounty genetically engineered a salmon that reached maturity in about 15 months as opposed to the 30 months it usually takes. Sound fishy?
Consider this: about 2 million fish escape from commercial farms in Europe each year and head out to meet their wild cousins. As they interbreed scientists have discovered weaker wild stocks, decreases in numbers, and fish that were much more susceptible to disease.
As long as we’re beating up salmon, some food for thought: a big, healthy salmon likes to eat little fish. Lots of it. It takes as much as 5 pounds of little fish to raise a pound of edible farmed salmon. That don’t add up!
There are some tools for determining if what you’re eating is a good choice and is what it’s billed to be. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a Seafood Watch that gives you a pretty comprehensive list of fish and what to avoid. They even have an app for your phone. It will look at a species from sustainability, health, and environmental aspects. Atlantic wild-caught Flounder? Avoid. Been overfished and the best method for catching them is a bottom trawl that catches other fishes and destroys the ecosystem.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has FishWatch. It will tell you everything from health of the population to sustainability to the ecosystem of the species. Fish from the Gulf? Check the site.
The Blue Ocean Institute has a cool app called FishPhone. You can hook it for your iPhone or text a fish to a number and they’ll buzz you back with an assessment and alternatives for your choice.
Long a fan of sushi, we cut back when we discovered that our California Roll didn’t have crab but minced whitefish like Pollock. We haven’t had a scallop since we saw a chef punch them out of skate wings with a cookie cutter.
We’re not suggesting that you give up on seafood. Like everything else that you eat, read the darned label!
If Our Walls Could Talk
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We are lucky to be in such a historic area and love coming to work in such a lovely building. Our grand old place withstood last week’s earthquake and while we spent some time without power following Irene we made it through the hurricane also. We thought we’d take some time today and look back at where our neighborhood came from.
The city of Richmond has had a long and colorful history. It was founded in 1737 and was once the most heavily populated city in the south. It is kind of like New York with very distinct neighborhoods or ‘boroughs’. Church Hill, The Fan, Jackson Ward, Oregon Hill, and our home, Shockoe Slip. Shockoe Slip gets it’s name from two sources. The “Shockoe” refers to Shockoe Creek which loosely defined the border of Richmond in its early days. The local population called the large flat stones in the creek “Shacquohocan” and one can assume we found “Shockoe” easier to pronounce. In the 1850’s work began to direct the creek through a series of arches towards the James River. Much of downtown and our neighborhood was built on top of these arches. It was a failure of the channels under these arches that led to the flooding of 2004 from Hurricane Gaston. The reservoir at the end of Shockoe Creek that was supposed to pump water into the James during Gaston was built in 1927 and is still in use today. The “slip” part of our name refers to the boat slips that ran along the canals.
Richmond kind of is where it is because of the Hollywood Rapids (the best urban whitewater in North America!). Back in the days before the interstate highway the river was the main source of commercial travel. Boats traveling up from the Chesapeake would stop at Richmond, transfer their cargo (sometimes human) and switch to canals until they again found flat water northwest of town. The Slip actually predates Richmond to some extent. It was the first commercial center in the city. William Byrd (yes, that William Byrd) initially had a small trading post in our neighborhood during the 1600’s. He liked the proximity to the river and the higher elevation which protected it from flooding, unlike our neighbor Shockoe Bottom. Our building and those of our neighbors were once warehouses for storing tobacco, cotton and other goods to be auctioned off for transport to other parts of our growing country.
We almost lost Shockoe Slip during the Civil War when Union troops tried to burn Richmond down. We came back with a vengeance from that one. Gaston left us plenty wet but we dried off a lot quicker than our friends further down Cary Street. The earthquake shook us up (no pun intended). Irene left us in the dark for a few days but some candles and some organic goodies kept our spirits up (some biodynamic spirits helped!).
Our Grand Old Gal at 1217 East Cary Street has seen a whole lot in her day. She’s put up with a whole lot of abuse, too!
We don’t offer ourselves history experts but we enjoy taking a look back. Take a look around the next time you visit us. If our walls could talk….
Why do they call it a Doggy Bag?
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My human is napping so I’m going to make this short.
Maya Bee here. First time blogger. My human just got an iPad so now I can kind of type. Claws on a keyboard: not so much.
My human just took me on a really big car ride all the way from Richmond, Virginia to Portland, Oregon. While I got to smell some really cool places I’ve got to tell you the food was awful. Many of the places that we stopped we bought gas. Many of the places that we stopped gave us gas. When we were in Richmond my human used to bring me snacks from The Urban Farmhouse and I sure do miss them.
She’s usually really good about feeding me good stuff so I wanted to share some four-legged insight into what she looks for.
Have you looked at what goes into dog food? I don’t read so fast but I know that glyceryl monostearate does NOT taste like rabbit. There are a lot of other fancy sounding chemicals that go into dog foods. They also fill it full of different grains and meals that are supposed to give me energy but most of the ones that they use have had all of the good stuff sucked out. I’ve been known to graze on some lawn from time to time. Don’t know why. Kind of like I don’t know why I sometimes need to roll around in stinky stuff. But anyhow, most grains are just fillers and don’t do me a whole lot of good. Brewer’s Rice? A byproduct with no nutritional value. Soy Flour? That just sounds gross.
Back in the day my ancestors ate whole animals and many of the labels will tell you that………
Sorry. Squirrel.
…Oh, yeah…meats. Fat is not a protein. Fat is just fat and makes me burp. Vegetable oil is for cooking French fries and I like those about as much as I like eating shoes.
Ok, bad analogy. I am partial to a nice leather brogan.
If it says that it has meat make sure it’s meat and not some ground up bone meal or poultry by-product. If it’s not specific I don’t know where it came from or what animal I’m munching on. I like to know these things.
My human is kind of a tree hugger. I think trees are good for 2 things. Hiding squirrels and peeing. She does, however, eat great stuff. I was looking over her shoulder a while back and the folks here at The Urban Farmhouse had some stuff about buying organic. Well, bless her heart: the human started buying me some chow with the same USDA Organic tag as her grub. We tried a couple of different brands before we found one that I liked. By Nature Organics was pretty good. That Paul Newman guy has some too. His popcorn always got stuck in my teeth, though, so I let that one go. 
We finally decided on Natura Pet. Organic brown rice, organic sunflower seeds, red beets, whole wheat, a little garlic and free-range chicken. When I chow down I can almost imagine chasing the feathery little buggers.
My human is starting to come around so I’m going to sign off for now. I’m around from time to time and you can find me on that Facebook thing. (Interesting thing, that Facebook. Don’t get the Farmville thing. When I lick the chickens they just taste like glass.)
Just remember: Organic and local foods aren’t just for you guys. Buy your furry friend some good eats too! It might save you a carpet steamer rental.
