Louisiana Seafood: Is it Safe?

louisiana seafood safe to eat?“When you think of all the news you’ve seen about Louisiana, what images flash through your mind?” asked Mike Voisin, a seventh-generation Louisiana oysterman. Voisin, the CEO of Motivatit Oysters, paced around the air-conditioned conference room as he spoke to his visiting guests.

An assortment of bloggers and food writers from across the States–hand-picked to observe Louisiana’s seafood industries and partake in the state’s diverse food culture–sat around the conference room table conjuring up images: submerged homes, flood-stranded dogs, desperate men and women on rooftops waving white sheets for help, oil-slicked wildlife, and tar-soaked birds.

“We are not what the perception of what the media has made us,” Voisin said. Despite the fact that almost one hundred percent of the state’s fisheries are open and functioning and have passed national and state testing for health and safety, much of the seafood buying public fear the Gulf-state’s products aren’t safe to eat. According to Voisin, the unprecedented attention of the media has given Louisiana’s seafood industry a bad reputation.

“It’s kind of hard to get that image of an oil slicked pelican out of your mind when you’ve seen it a million times, isn’t it?” Voisin said. “Louisiana has a branding problem…We have shrimp, crabs, and oysters but what we don’t have are people willing to buy.”

The uniquely difficult challenge facing the Louisiana seafood industry is exactly why Louisiana Seafood Promotions and Marketing Board decided they needed to reach out to consumers in a revolutionary way–through food.

An Invitation to see the real Louisiana

When it comes to news headlines, a couple of things sell really well: natural disasters, tragic loss of life, celebrity gossip, hero stories, and adorable animals.  When one single news event touches all these aspects with one soaring narrative, it’s a media goldmine.

Blame it on the perfect storm of natural disasters that’s befallen Louisiana over the past seven years, but the state has certainly been the source of a lot of headline news. With Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and Deep Water Horizon’s oil spill in April of 2010, international media teams swooped into the coastal state to document the disasters. Stories of tragedy, redemption, faith, hope, celebrity interest, and distress were easy to find in this Creole/Cajun state.

Thanks to a huge influx of money to the state of Louisiana, much progress has been made in just one year since the oil spill. Houses and businesses have been rebuilt, fisheries and rice fields are producing again, and tourism is improving (According to the tourism board, the state earned 5.3 billion dollars in tourism last year). Yet despite the positive changes and commitment to becoming a strong and successful state, Louisiana’s seafood industry is struggling.

Seeing a problem, Louisiana’s Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board did some research and quickly realized the general public couldn’t get over the horrifying images of the past so easily. So, in order to change perceptions about the seafood and motivate people to start buying Louisiana seafood again, they began devising a different sort of plan to get the word out.

Rather than coming up with slick slogans, cunning advertising, or a give away contest, the Seafood Board decided to call upon a handful of trusted voices in the food world to come and experience Louisiana from a culinary and cultural point of view. Who better to get the word out about a food crisis than a bunch of hungry and inquisitive food bloggers?

food bloggers at Louisiana Seafood Board Blog Master's trip
Bloggers (Amateur Gourmet, Serious Eats, Family Fresh Cooking, and Three Many Cooks) observe the day’s blue crab catch.

Continue reading “Louisiana Seafood: Is it Safe?”

Service 101: Energy Crisis in America

Huckleberry Restaurant, a good place to work

“There’s an energy crisis occurring in America and it’s happening in the hearts and minds of its people,” said my friend Ari Weinzweig, in a recent conversation. He shared with me how clear he was that there’s an energy crisis going on–one that’s just as serious as the one centered around our planet’s resources– in our nation’s workforce. Working men and women are checked out, uninterested, frustrated, unfulfilled, and looking forward to going home and doing something else. Poll most people and they’ll tell you the only place they can find emotional rewards or intellectual stimulation it’s outside of the workplace. It seems that the happy and fulfilled worker is a lucky, rare bird with the good fortune to have stumbled across a very special job in a very place.

People who are truly happy in their work naturally give off a positive energy. Those that are happy in their work have a way of making the people around them happy. And unless you are a shut off individual with no ability to read energy, the good feeling coming off happy individuals is contagious.

I recently had an epiphany about the power of good energy the other day while spending some time at Huckleberry, a neighborhood bakery and gourmet café in Santa Monica, California.

Happiness is a transferable energy source

Huckleberry was packed the moment I arrived. Despite having secured a table off to the side of the small eating area, I was stepped on, brushed against, and more than occasionally jostled by the long line of customers waiting to be served. I didn’t really care about the unconscious manhandling of the hungry guests, however. I had a bowl of silky and dense yogurt covered in a blanket of golden granola to savor.

But it was more than the power of oven-toasted oats that made me feel so content. It seemed that my good mood was a direct result of the energy of the place. The positive energy was so abundant I could tap into it—like my laptop plugged into the wall jack–and fill up for later.

Continue reading “Service 101: Energy Crisis in America”

Service 101: When Gratuity is Included

Service includedIf a diner is unhappy with service at a restaurant they can voice their concern to the management or leave less tip for their waiter. As I mentioned recently about a recent poll on CNN’s food blog, Eatocracy.com, 49 percent of the people polled said they have left nothing for waiters, while another 34 percent said they have left a very low tip–as little as just a penny–to show their dissatisfaction with service. The amount of a tip, many respondents explained, gives financial reward to waiters for good work and punishes the bad ones.

But what happens when a restaurant eliminates the tipping structure out of their business model entirely? Does service improve or get worse?

Jay Porter, the owner of The Linkery in San Diego, says that his front of house staff and kitchen workers’ performance improved once his restaurant stopped accepting tips. The small neighborhood restaurant began its “no tipping” system in 2004 when they instituted a flat 18 percent “table service fee” on the final check for diners who eat at the restaurant.

“No other profession has the customer adjusting your pay scale according to performance,” says Porter. “That’s just not a circumstance when people do their best work.” Porter says this unique payment model brings his restaurant in line with other American industries. “It’s good for our staff to be seen as professionals, just like every other profession in America. No other profession other than the restaurant industry has people evaluating your work and basing payment on that.”

Continue Reading When Service IS Included »

National Food Blogger Bake Sale

On Saturday, April 17th, hundreds of food bloggers from across our country will combine baking talents for the first annual National Food Bloggers Bake Sale. This first annual fundraiser–part of the Great American Bake Sale–will give food lovers from Massachusetts to California the chance to buy treats from their favorite blogs and rais money to support of Share Our Strength’s efforts to end childhood hunger in America.

The event is the result of private chef and food blogger, Gaby Dalkin of WhatsGabyCooking.com.  Thanks to her organizational skills and clever ideas, this year’s nation wide food blogging bake sale promises to raise thousands of dollars to feed our country’s hungry children. Nearly 17 million—almost one in four—children in America face hunger. Despite the good efforts of governments, private-sector institutions and everyday Americans, millions of our children still don’t have daily access to the nutritious meals they need to live active, healthy lives.

Here in Los Angeles, some 50 food bloggers will team up to put together a notable collection of sweets for the bake sale. Hosted by the generous people at Morel’s French Bistro (a former employer) at The Grove, my friends and fellow bloggers like Gaby, Matt from Matt Bites, Erika from In Erika’s Kitchen, Rachel La Fuji Mama, and Esi from Dishing Up Delights will be on hand to talk about their baked sweets and their love of food.

If you live in LA, I look forward to seeing you there! I’ll be bringing the spiced caramel corn. Recipe to come soon!

A Healthy Granola Recipe = A Virtual Hug

I’ve been thinking a lot about a very special person in my life that’s about three thousands miles away from a great big hug I desperately need to give her. Bleak hours are the time for embraces, warm cups of tea, soft blankets, silly smiles, and gentle kisses. But my beloved friend is back home on the east coast, in a difficult bog that is so deep and wide I can feel its ripples hit the Pacific.

Since my life is built around food and its comforting pleasures, the one thing I long to do is cook a warm and satisfying meal for her. No shipping container can hold the moment of making a meal together. But a well-made care package that’s filled with healthy and tasty treats may be just the thing that I can do to offer some much-needed sustenance. Perhaps just a handful of happiness.

In hopes of finding a healthy recipe for a mail-friendly package, I turned to one of my new favorite cookbooks: Lucid Food. The author, Louisa Shafia, is a chef and caterer based in New York City; her cookbook is filled with recipes that celebrate the seasons and the idea that food should be sustainable for the planet and our bodies.

Continue for The Best Granola Recipe Ever »

Food Blog Ethics in Columbia Journalism Review

It’s been nine months since my writing partner, Leah Greenstein, and I created Food Ethics and our controversial Food Blog Code of Ethics. In those months, much has happened here in the world of online food writing and criticism. The Federal Trade Commission has made it punishable by law for big (and little) companies to give money and gifts to bloggers without being transparent about it. One blog offers badges to denote a commitment to honesty and integrity. Blogs that once skirted the issue of freebies and comps, now openly state their affiliations, biases, and disclose freebies.

But when Leah and I first decided to write our statement of purpose nine months ago—for the sake of being clear on what we stood for in online writing—the topic of ethics in the blogosphere was something that was whispered between online writers. Many had opinions, but few were willing to publish their thoughts on the matter. So, when Leah and I decided it was time we write out our five-point manifesto on food blog ethics, our words and point of view caused a lot of controversy. We were shocked at how many people got engaged (and enraged) and suddenly everyone was talking about ethics. In a time when most people were interested in new iPhone apps and the birth of Twitter, we were ecstatic that we were surrounded by people arguing about philosophy. Getting people to think about the effect of their words before they hit PUBLISH was our goal.

So it was with great pleasure that Leah and I discovered Food Ethics was mentioned by Robert Seitsema, the author and food critic for the Village Voice in his comprehensive Columbia Journalism Review article, “Everyone Eats…But that doesn’t make you a restaurant critic”. In it, he masterfully charts the history of restaurant reviewing in the United States since the 1970’s and the effect of a handful of people on food writing.

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Menu for Hope 6: Wire Sculpture from Food Woolf

Menu For Hope Charity Chez Pim Food Woolf

As we wade deeper into the holiday season, the more many of us think of ways to give back. Donating to a local charity, helping out a friend in need, and giving handmade gifts are wonderful ways to contribute to those that are in need.

This year, I am proud to say I am participating Menu for Hope, an annual campaign–started by food blogger and writer Chez Pim–to raise funds in benefit of the United Nations World Food Programme and its Purchase for Progress initiative. Not only will I be eagerly bidding on other great food blogger’s donated items (like MattBite‘s Food Photography Class or Jen Yu of Use Real Butter’s beautiful photography) I will be donating a wire sculpture to the event.

bistecca wire sculpture by Food Woolf Brooke Burton

Menu For Hope Bid Item: UW35

The sculpture I’m donating is called “Bistecca,” an ode to the great animal that has inspired many a great recipe.

Continue to Read More about Menu For Hope »

Growing Risk: Sebastopol Apple Farmers Face Hard Times

Michigan Apple Orchard

It’s 4:17 a.m. and fog drapes over the apple orchards of Devoto Gardens like misty gauze. While most of Sebastopol sleeps, apple grower Stan Devoto is in his kitchen boiling water. “It’s too early to brew coffee,” he says, grabbing a bag of green tea. He drops the tea bag into his favorite mug and reaches for the door.

There’s still 60 miles to drive, a truck to unload, apples to organize, signs to put up, and flowers to arrange, before his day of selling apples at the Ferry Plaza farmers’ market in San Francisco even begins. Behind the wheel of his Toyota Previa, Stan blasts oldies on the radio to keep awake.

Read More About the Growing Risk of Apple Farming »

How to help your local dairy farmer


There’s a crisis happening in the food world and few have any idea that one of our country’s most beloved food industries is on the verge of collapse.

Your local dairy farmer is on the brink of disaster.

Milk does a body good, but not the dairy farmer

As things stand, current milk prices equal half of what it takes for dairy farmers to feed and milk their cows. If milk prices don’t stabilize soon, independent dairy farmers across our country will fold. Some warn that beyond the loss of local dairy farms, many of these farmers are losing the will to go on.

In just six months, two dairy farmers have committed suicide.

Thanks to the recent recession and pressure from large dairy corporations like Hood and Horizon, individual farmers are struggling to keep from losing everything. Every carton of milk sold at the grocery store represents a loss of funds at a local dairy farm.

According to Amanda St. Pierre of Dairy Farmers Working Together, many farmers are so depressed by their increasing debts they refuse to put time towards bringing public awareness to their cause–for fear of missing valuable hours of work.

A lose/lose situation

According to a recent Los Angeles Times story, California dairy farmers have been hit especially hard. As the number one dairy state, California farms produce one-fifth of the nation’s supply of milk—that’s $7 billion worth of milk annually. LA Times writer, Jerry Hirsch reports that farmers are staying afloat by getting loans on their property and selling off their cows for slaughter. If milk prices don’t go up soon, he wrote, farmers will spend the loaned funds in short time and quickly go out of business.

As an increasing number of dairy farms face bankruptcy, the future for our nation’s milk farmers looks increasingly dim. Even the organic dairy farmers—once the most profitable sector of the dairy business—have seen any profit disappear as health-conscientious customers skip the higher-priced organic milk for lower priced options from large conglomerations. Now, many farmers are wishing they hadn’t made the investment to go organic.

Respect the Cow

After seventeen years as a beans and rice vegetarian—I avoided meat and poultry for political and ethical reasons–I started eating red meat after becoming increasingly desperate for a change of diet and a source of real iron. I forsook food politics for the health benefits of–and pure enjoyment from–unabashed eating. A thorough read of Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma changed all that, however, as his words reminded me of the need for political and ethical eating–even as an omnivore.

I quickly adapted my post-Pollan diet to create ways for my buying dollars to show respect for the animals’ lives, the planet’s needs, the farmers’ work and the talents of dedicated artisans–while still enjoying my foodie cravings.

When I read this week’s shocking story in the LA Times about California dairy farmers, I began wondering what I could do as a consumer to help put a stop to this mounting crisis.

HOW CAN WE HELP?

Request local dairy farmers’ participation at your local farmers’ market: According to a recent New York Times article, some New England farmers are considering selling their milk directly to the public. Research dairy farms in your area and ask the farmers to participate in your local farmers’ market.

Local dairy farmers could take advantage of the recent popularity of local farmers’ and begin to offer their products directly to the consumer. With this sort of presence, consumers will have access to information about where their milk comes from, how the cows are raised, and will have a direct relationship with the farmer that will result in dedicated buying dollars. In addition, the Vermont House of Representatives recently passed a bill month to increase the amount of raw milk a farmer can at farmers’ markets.

When possible, pay extra to buy local.

Boycott bad brands
According to the Organic Consumers Association, brands like Horizon not only manipulate local farmers to lower their milk prices, but as a corporation they use loopholes in national organic standards to sell a milk produced from factory farm feedlots where the animals have been brought in from conventional farms and are kept in intensive confinement, with little or no access to pasture.

Get political

–Sign the Holstein Association’s petition for the USA Dairy Price Stabilization Program.
–Sign a letter from Farm Aid to Secretary Vilsack asking for his support in setting fair prices for milk for our nation’s Dairy Farmers.
–Donate to Dairy Farmers Working Together or email them here to join their newsletter to find out about the upcoming Dairy Farmers Working Together conference call, slated to happen on June 30th. On this call you will be able to hear about issues facing dairy farmers and what concerned consumers can do to support dairy farmers.
— Send a letter to HP Hood to stop requiring Organic farms to reduce production.

What ideas do you have for lending support to your local dairy farmer?

Artisan beef tasting with Oliver Ranch

Oliver Ranch Artisan Beef Tasting
Thanks to America’s thriving love affair with food, many eaters today are keenly aware of what’s on their plate. Though yesterday’s diners were content with the simplicity of chicken with mixed vegetables, today’s food lovers desire something more specific—say, a dish that features local organic produce, butter from a family farm, imported sea salt and a flame-grilled free-range, organic Jidori chicken breast.

This relatively new found appreciation for food politics and understanding an ingredient’s history and origin may be due in part to the influence of the culinary media, innovative restaurants like Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse and best-selling books like Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma. Perhaps due in part to the booming wine industry, the US is populated with people that have made words like organic, varietal, terroir, and mouth-feel common in the national argot. In less than fifty years we’ve gone from a country of iceberg lettuce-eating jug wine-drinkers to a nation of arugula-nibbling wine aficionados. And despite the lagging economy, the market is full of flavor-seeking, politically minded, socially conscious consumers that are attentive to the ingredients they buy.

Whole Foods Market Value Tour

So it shouldn’t have come as a monumental surprise to a big city butcher when, in 2005, Carrie Oliver—a 40-something home cook and brand-marketing specialist—asked where the NY strip steak she bought came from. The butcher knew only the basics: the beef was hormone free, raised locally and considered USDA Prime meat. But, Oliver asked, after buying the same cut of meat week after week, why did the steaks taste so different if she was cooking them all the same way? The butcher shrugged. Could the steaks be from different kinds of cows? What were the cows fed? How was the cow raised? Why did identical cuts of meat sometimes have such a variety of flavor and texture?

Oliver was hungry for more information. Without a widely recognized book like Omnivore’s Dilemma to fuel her research in the practices of beef producers (the non-fiction tome would hit the best seller list one year later, in 2006), Oliver decided to start her own grass-roots study.

The quest to find the perfect steak

Whole Foods Market Value Tour

Armed with a handful of identical cuts of steaks purchased from local butchers and city grocers, Oliver and friends set out to taste through the grilled steaks to uncover what made each one different.

Oliver Ranch Artisan Beef Tasting

As the group tasted through the steaks they took notes. Some steaks tasted gamy—like blue cheese or liver–while others tasted of sawdust, or buttered popcorn. Textures varied as well. Some steaks were mushy while others were firm or chewy. Though all the meat was cooked to the same temperature, Oliver and her group realized that every steak offered different textures, mouth-feel, flavors and balance–factors that seemed undeniably similar to wine tasting.

The parallels with wine making peaked Oliver’s interest. The more Oliver researched, the more she began to understand that the way the cows were raised—on the land vs. in a pen–had a very direct correlation to how they tasted. Beef’s taste and mouth-feel is the result of terroir (where the cattle is raised), technique (how they are fed and treated), varietal (the animal’s breed), and—in a way—vintage (what sort of stresses that year’s environment presented). It became clear to Oliver that artisanal practices of ranchers, beef brokers and processors were undeniably similar in results to those of thoughtful wine makers.

So why couldn’t great ranching practices be rewarded with market dollars, just as attentive wine making techniques have been? Beyond the political and ethical issues of grain fed cows (cows are ruminants and can not properly digest corn), Oliver hypothesized that thoughtful ranching and ethical husbandry were undeniably linked to taste.

A brief glance at Harold McGee’s book On Food and Cooking, tells us she’s onto something.

“Despite the prestige of Prime beef, the current consensus among meat scientists is that fat marbling accounts for no more than a third of the variation of the overall tenderness, juiciness, and flavor of cooked beef. The other important factors include breed, exercise and feed, animal age, conditions during slaughter, extent of post slaughter aging, and storage conditions before sale. Most of these are impossible for the consumer to evaluate, though there is a movement toward store and producer “brands” that may provide greater information about and consistency of production.”–Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking

If marbling accounts for no more than one third of flavor, Oliver wondered why more people aren’t spending more time thinking about the other two thirds.

A revolutionary is born

Looking at the relatively recent success of artisan wine making in the United States, Oliver realized that the beef industry lacked a market that focused specifically on beef that was raised, processed, and butchered using only artisan techniques. Granted, books like Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma has had an effect; Whole Foods market offers only hormone free beef and has grass fed and grain fed meat available at most stores. But national support for ethical practices in the 74 billion dollar beef industry has been minimal at best.

“Where there was once only Sanka or Juan Valdez for the American coffee drinker, ” the bright-eyed Oliver recounts at a recent beef tasting, “We now have a market saturated with coffee options—Ethiopian, Kenyan, Guatemalan. You name it.” But with beef? Oliver crosses her arms and gives her most enthusiastic grin. “Black Angus is today’s Juan Valdez.”

Undeterred by the powerful machine that is the beef industry, Oliver left behind her life in corporate America to start her own artisan beef business. With a mission statement, a website address, and an employee roster that included only herself, Oliver began the Oliver Ranch Company in February of 2006. Oliver’s goal was clear, she wanted to offer consumers beef that had a traceable history from farm to fork, had no added growth hormones or preventative antibiotics and consumed a100-percent vegetable based diet. What she created was an on-line, specialty food company that offers artisan steaks, sausage and beef jerky from a handful of handpicked beef ranchers, and is shipped directly to consumers.

Oliver’s biggest challenge is, like any new food-based businesses, is making that first contact with a group of consumers that do not yet realize the value of a specialty food. In today’s suffering economy it takes a very convincing argument to make someone want to buy meat on-line, rather than around the corner at the local butcher or grocery store.

There’s no denying the carbon footprint of shipping meat across the country. Oliver insists, however, that her business model for shipping artisan beef direct to consumers’ homes is a better choice for the consumer and the artisan beef producers in the long run. “If we properly reward those who are conscious stewards of the land and follow superior animal husbandry practices, we will be able to eat cleaner, more healthful, better tasting meat,” Oliver’s voice rises with a passionate staccato. “Most importantly, families can stay on their farms doing what they do best.”

Oliver admits her ace in the hole is flavor. “Once you taste the difference between one hundred percent grass fed or a grain finished meat,” Oliver explains to a recent tasting panel, “you’ll know exactly what it is you like.”

Oliver Ranch Artisan Beef Tasting

Oliver Ranch’s most popular product is the Taster Pack, a selection of four or eight different steaks (all the same cut, all from different ranchers and breeds), that allows people to blind taste test–in the style of a wine tasting–an array of steaks from different ranchers and different aging techniques. Since individual’s tastes differ, the winning steaks vary based on opinion.

Oliver Ranch Artisan Beef Tasting

At a recent beef tasting in the Costa Mesa home of Todd and Diane of White on Rice, Carrie Oliver led a small panel of food writers (Leah from Spicy Salty Sweet, Matt from Matt Bites, myself) and invited chef, Steve Sampson, Chef of a soon-to-open Orange County restaurant Osteria Ortica, to a blind taste test of six steaks. Each steak was grilled for the same amount of time and was seasoned lightly with salt in order for tasters to understand the true flavors of the meat.

Oliver Ranch Artisan Beef Tasting

Tasters’ palates vary greatly, leading to a handful of favorites. Despite the Costa Mesa tasters’ socio-political aversion to corn fed beef, the overall winner for taste, however, was a corn, hay and fermented grass fed dry-aged Charolais-Cross (the breed of the cow) from the Elliott & Ferris Family Ranch in Front Range Region, CO. The Charolais-Cross’s meat had a tight grain, with a juicy, complex flavor that lingered, a good texture, and excellent bite. Other taste winners included a wet-aged Holstein-Friesian (a cross breed from a familiar milking cow) from Bob Beechinor of 3 Brand Cattle Company in Imperial Valley, California. That steak was complex and surprisingly gamy with its iron rich meat and almost liver-like flavor.

Groundswell vs. the elite revolutionary

Starting a demand for responsibly raised beef isn’t easy. With much of the beef industry’s concern in maximizing profits, cost per pound of meat, increasing marbling, grabbing USDA prime labeling and reducing cattle loss by increased use of antibiotics and hormones—Oliver’s fight has a David vs. Goliath ring to it.

Some could argue that Oliver Ranch’s choice to offer a variety of grass fed and grain fed beef isn’t the best socio-political choice. But with many consumers driven by flavor first, the promise of humanely treated animals is enough. In hopes of elevating the cause of seeking out the best ranching practices, however, Oliver created the Artisan Beef Institute, an organization that supports the discussion of ethical treatment of animals—from the farm, to the abattoir, and the butcher’s board—and educates consumers about good ranching practices, breed variations, the affects of feed on different breeds.

“There’s a lot of misinformation in the category of beef. You want to do the right thing,” Oliver explains, “but how do you do it?”

With politically-minded food lovers like Michael Pollan, Alice Waters, Barbara Kingsolver, and Carrie Oliver working hard to create a common language and understanding of the origins of the foods we eat, we may very well be on our way to having better ingredients on our plate.

Coffee-Braised Bison Shortribs: A Low Fat Indulgence

Braised bison short ribs

Have you ever noticed that soon after learning a new word, or becoming interested in the latest subject matter, you begin to see signs of that new thing everywhere? You overhear people talking about it. Read a headline focusing on it. See a photo of it on the side of a bus. You do a double take–did everyone know about this thing but me?

Sometimes finding a new ingredient is like that, too. You become excited about the item–feeling uniquely able to uncover the ingredient’s culinary possibilities–only to discover everyone around you talking about how they ate it, cooked it, or shopped for it. You realize you’re not alone in your discovery. Either everyone else has just learned about The New Great Ingredient, or your culinary discovery is more a coming-to-your-senses moment.

Bison is my New Great Ingredient. After a lifetime of never cooking, eating, or even seeing bison, I suddenly see signs of bison everywhere. There are bison burgers on the menus of burger joints all over Los Angeles. Iron Chef’s battle with bison as their secret ingredient. Bison vendors sell their vacuum packed meat to lines of dedicated farmers’ market customers. Magazine articles extol the virtues of bison’s low fat, high-protein nutrition profile. Though bison may be one of America’s original meat sources, the industry seems to be breaking through to a nation of meat eaters like me, that are interested in healthier and low-fat alternatives.

Suddenly, I’m very interested in bison. And to tell you the truth, I’m craving the stuff.

Continue for a Super Easy Coffee-Braised Shortrib Recipe »

What you think vs. What you do


To be twenty-something is to be an active dreamer. You think about bigger picture stuff (world politics, the state of the economy, the state of technology, the state of art and commerce, fame, fortune and all the organic bits in between) and try to figure out how you, the twenty-something, fit into this big, broad game of life. Some twenty-somethings are mover and shakers that seem to have already conquered the world, while others try on different personas and job opportunities like trendy outfits.

When I was twenty something, I was in the midst of trying on lots of different personas. I was a writer, a journalist, a comedian and a bartender living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I bartended at a tiny music club while struggling to figure out what to do with my life.

This was about when I first met Tony Maws. He was a sous chef at a fine dining restaurant and one of my late night regulars. He’d roll in at 1:30 in the morning with a bunch of rowdy kitchen guys and mouthy servers. They’d shout a flurry of desperate orders at me in hopes of beating the ticking clock of last call. Tony, with his long curly hair hidden behind a sweat-soaked bandanna, would shoot me an impish smile that could cut daggers through the dark and boisterous crowd of last-call ordering and put his request for a shot and a beer at the top of my priority list every time. After many visits to my bar (which always included a funny dance of gratuitous over-tipping and generous over-pouring), Tony and I became friends.

The thing about Tony that impressed me most was that despite all the whining and complaining of most of our twenty-something friends around us, he always knew exactly what it was he wanted to do. He’d tell me how he’d finish out “doing his time” cooking at the Blue Room in Cambridge, then work on the West coast, maybe spend some time in a kitchen in France and then, by the age of 30, he’d own and run his own restaurant. I remember the stunned feeling I had, that morning we shared a muffin and coffee at a local bakery, when he told me his plans for the future. His determination and drive made my head spin and made me wonder if maybe I should start thinking more about the direction of my life and less about “finding myself”.

Time passed and I started whittling down the many things I wanted to do and started focusing on one option: writing. In that time, Tony left town moved to Santa Fe and worked for Mark Miller at his highly celebrated Coyote Café in Santa Fe. Later, I heard through the restaurant grapevine that Tony went to France to work for Bernard Constantin at La Rivore in Lyon. I moved to Los Angeles to go to film school. Then, in 2002, I spotted Tony’s face on the cover of Food & Wine. I was happy to read that Tony had done just as he said he would. He was the chef owner of his own restaurant.

Craigie Street Bistrot

Living on the west coast as a film school student presented plenty of worthy distractions and even more financial obstacles to keep me from flying back east to try out the new restaurant of my long-ago friend. But then, after years of frustration over dead-end Hollywood jobs, I decided to move back home to Massachusetts for the summer to make some fast money bartending and waitressing at a busy sea-side restaurant and decide, once and for all, if I should give up on my dreams of being a screenwriter.

Strangely enough, one of the first things I did when I got back East was try to make a reservation at Craigie Street Bistrot. I was pleasantly disappointed when I heard a voice mail explain that the restaurant would be closed for the first few weeks of summer for “a well deserved vacation.” I smiled to myself as I hung up the phone. Without tasting a morsel of food or seeing his dining room, I already knew Tony’s restaurant would be unlike any other I had ever visited.

Booking a reservation

My east coast summer experiment offered many unexpected insights. I had changed. I didn’t fit into my small town. I thrived on the diversity of the city of Los Angeles. Most importantly, I realized that writing was in my blood—there was no avoiding it. So after a long and difficult summer in Newburyport Massachusetts, I was ready to move back to LA—for good. Just before packing my car up for the long ride west, I booked an early reservation at Tony’s restaurant for my sister and I.

Just blocks from Harvard University’s campus, Craigie Street Bistrot is a tiny place that requires patience in finding. Located on a side street in the basement of an unassuming brick building, the dining room of Craigie Street Bistrot is smaller than many of its well-heeled customers’ living rooms.

Chef Tony creates his menus daily, based on what is available from local purveyors and farmers. This is no little feat, considering the fickle New England weather and harsh winters Massachusetts suffers. Regardless of the season’s bounty or limited availability of anything beyond tubers and squash, Tony never fails to find inspiration for his ever-changing daily menu. Even when snowstorms strike and crops fail, his market fresh dishes are so delicious and thoughtful, diners often forget they’re in a small (albeit homey) and nearly windowless basement dining room.

His dishes engage the eater to try something new. House-Cured Greek sardines with
preserved lemons and pickled peppers challenge the typical fish and chips eaters while meat lovers are given a chance to experience a little snout to tail eating with the Organic Smoked Hangar Steak with
bone marrow, smoked beef tongue ragoût, shiitake mushrooms, foie gras onions, parsnip purée. To finish, there may be a mind bending Verbena Ice cream or bruleed Warm Sweet White Corn Grits with hazelnuts and dried fruit compote.

Beyond being delicious, Tony’s food is political. In the dead of winter he refuses to succumb to the urge for ripe tomatoes flown in from Chile and finds inspiration in what is available. Tony’s commitment to stay faithful to local farmers across Massachusetts and neighboring Vermont and New Hampshire not only supports local agriculture in the most difficult months, but also helps to quietly educate his customers about sustainable agriculture and cooking only with fresh and seasonal produce.

Intelligent Cooking

Beside the numerous awards Tony and his restaurant staff have won, one of the most inspiring thing about Tony and his staff at Craigie Street Bistrot is their unyielding commitment to responsible dining and intelligent consumerism. Tony not only cooks great food, but he’s actively engaged in a political and philosophical way of cooking that goes beyond just local eating. Tony creates his seasonally driven dishes from local ingredients that have been raised responsibly and with the greater good of the environment and the eater in mind. Tony may not be the first chef in America to think that local and seasonal cooking is the only responsible
way to run a restaurant (thanks Alice Waters), but he is a powerful spokesperson for responsible consumerism in agriculture.

If you don’t believe me, just read Tony’s thoughtful and intelligent response to a disgruntled customer here. Most chefs are passionate, but few are as thoughtful, political or philosophical about food. With so much about the global economy seeming to be beyond an individual’s control, it’s good to see someone take a stand for a local food economy.

Dream big and make a plan

Now that I’m in my thirties, where I stand in the world makes a whole lot more sense. I know who I am, what I want and what I care about. Despite the years and the thousands of miles, it’s amazing to realize Tony and I actually still share a lot in common. We are political eaters. We love food and are committed to creating great dishes that are not only flavorful but are socially respectful of local agriculture.

By deciding what we eat, or where we eat, we let our dollars do the talking. To quote my new favorite author Michael Pollan, political eating really can make a difference. “At least in this one corner of your life, you will have begun to heal the split between what you think and what you do, to commingle your identities as consumer and producer and citizen.”