Civil Eats

Gramercy Tavern is voted the “most popular” restaurant in New York all the time. It’s a restaurant with regulars like most don’t have anymore. People go there to eat in an unfazed New York, where restaurant eating remains a polished, “Now I shall dine,” sort of affair. Popularity is an unfortunate thing to vote on, but in a city that’s brutal whenever it’s not convinced, it seems people like reminding themselves that they like this restaurant.

Like other cities’ favorite restaurants, Gramercy Tavern has a quality that can only be gotten from being liked. It’s warmth a place can’t try for because it’s a side effect of confidence. Whatever the restaurant does well, it knows it owes a good deal to how attached its city is to it: Gramercy exists in two places at once, in a gray, stone building on 20th street, and in its patrons’ memories, in versions each of them owns and tends.

How bound those two Gramercy Taverns are to each other makes changing the restaurant’s buying priorities difficult. Its executive chef, Michael Anthony, who took the kitchen over from Tom Colicchio in 2006, is trying to. He’s committed to a local food economy in the quietest, simplest way a chef ever is. Read More

In Sunday’s New York Times, Damon Darlin has now weighed into a debate which I am suddenly making a career of noticing, that of publicly lambasting locavores. Normally a tech writer (and perhaps better suited to it), Darlin has wheeled out some of the same tired points that others have recently, making them officially clichéd.

It takes only 12 words before he drops Michael Pollan’s name, whose best-selling books argue eloquently for a better food system, and in the next paragraph he mentions Michelle Obama’s organic garden at the White House, though he makes no mention of her new “Let’s Move!” campaign against childhood obesity, for which this garden is a tool.

I was going to dismiss Mr. Darlin’s piece as not worthy of notice despite its prominent placement in the Paper of Record and thus avoid writing my third column lamenting this misplaced disrespect for eaters who care what they eat (I swear I do have better, more enjoyable things to write about), but then he said this: Read More

Causing no end of difficulties in our national discourse is the steadfast belief held by both the right and the left that everything is either right or left: bad or good, strong or weak, despotic or patriotic.  You’re either with us or you’re against us.  President Obama addressed this very effectively before both House Republicans and Senate Democrats in recent days.  It is media driven to a large extent because the media need controversy to sell papers, or bytes or views or whatever it is they’re selling these days.

The most common form this takes is the old build’em-up-then-tear’em-down routine.  Perhaps the only thing many Americans enjoy more than the uplifting emotion of a success story is the schadenfreude of watching that success come tumbling down.  So when an idea comes to the fore, the critics ooze from the woodwork and their primary tactic is divide and conquer.  Label it, frame the debate, and the fight is won or lost before the story is even told.

For a long time in the circles I travel in this was not a problem because the ideas embodied in what some have come to call SOLE food (Sustainable, Organic, Local, & Ethical) were not perceived as a threat to the established paradigm.  Recent successes such as Michael Pollan’s work have, however, shined a very bright spotlight on advocates of real food.  As a result, people who have been toiling at these ideas for decades are becoming targets of powerful interests in the Big Food lobby.  Such is the case this week at WeeklyStandard.com, where Missouri Farm Bureau vice president Blake Hurst has found his most recent audience. Read More

Kitchen Table Talks is excited to announce its new partnership with the Center for Urban Education About Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA). We’ll be co-hosting some events together and starting off with a great panel on Tuesday, March 2, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. to discuss, “Produce to the People: New Ideas for Local Distribution.” The conversation will focus on alternative models for local produce distribution and will be held in the Port Commission Hearing Room on the second floor of the Ferry Building. The event is free and open to the public. No RSVP is required.

The Bay Area is fortunate to have abundant local produce available at multiple farmers’ markets and stores. But not everyone has access to, or can afford, farm fresh produce. Many restaurants and businesses also want to buy local, but don’t have the time or staff to shop locally. The conversation will tap into best practices and lessons learned from three of the Bay Area’s most interesting initiatives and address the creative ways these organizations are getting local produce to more people, including those in underserved and neglected communities. Read More

The dead of winter may seem to be an odd time to declare to be in full flush, but here we are sitting pretty with more eggs than a household of three can handle. After a harrowing seven months in which we lost the majority of our chickens, we have recovered in aces. Quiche anyone?

This past May, we began our urban chicken experiment with three birds purchased from a lady near Petaluma, the egg capital of the world. She had the best variety of rare, heritage breeds around and I wanted “pretty” chickens, not those run-of-the-mill feed store varieties. Hey, don’t judge! I live in a tragically hip city and need to keep up appearances. But seriously, once I was made aware of the splendid array of chicken breeds–the beautiful colors, the crazy assortment of combs, the mohawks, the feathery hats, ones with five toes, ones that laid green eggs, ones with feathers on their feet–I knew I had to get myself some of that backyard eye candy. Read More

Happy New Year and welcome back for more Kitchen Table Talks, the monthly conversation series about the American food system. Many thanks to all of you who participated in our discussions in 2009 and we look forward to a fruitful and inspiring year of exchanging knowledge and ideas and building community with you. We’re excited to kick off 2010 with a conversation on Urban Homesteading on Tuesday, January 19 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at our new location in San Francisco’s Mission district at Viracocha, 998 Valencia St. at 21st St.

As the good food movement grows and urban farming heroes like Growing Power’s Will Allen and Oakland’s own Novella Carpenter pave the way, we will explore the surge towards City self-sufficiency, including growing and preserving your own food; raising chickens and goats; keeping bees and worms; composting, installing greywater and rainwater catchment systems; and a whole host of other DIY activities. Read More

On a recent Sunday evening, nearly a hundred and fifty people decided to drive out to Brentwood, Ca to have dinner and enjoy the harvest hospitality at the Brookside Farm.  Farmer Welling Tom was busy running about – harvesting fruit for the small vegetable stand set up on the edge of the orchard where his mom Anne would sell some pears before being called over to help serve the grilled fish and meats that accompanied their local bounty. Read More

When I first moved to Auburn, Alabama from Los Angeles almost a year ago, I immediately set out to find healthy, humane, local, and sustainably grown food sources. My quest was not easy. In a state where the obesity and heart disease rates are the second highest in the nation, I wasn’t sure what kind of healthy food might available, much less easily accessible. As it turns out, there is a growing local and sustainable food movement that, if nurtured, may turn into a revitalizing force for the environment, rural communities, and citizen health in Alabama.
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Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan just sent out a really exciting memo [pdf]: “Harnessing USDA rural development programs to support local and regional food systems,” which goes far beyond fantasies of how a new food system might look, and straight into how this gets both funded and created. Merrigan’s new memo details how to use USDA funding for the kind of projects that are being developed by First Lady Michelle Obama and her food policy team, such as school lunch infrastructure, farmers markets, farm to school programs, cooking classes. Read More

A few days ago, I listened to a story on NPR about how lobstermen in the Northeast have come up with a business strategy, selling directly to the consumers, cutting out the middlemen. Of course these “middlemen,” the folks that are distributors, that find buyers, or ship to restaurants and supermarkets, are now upset at the loss of business. In their defense, the lobstermen say that unless they can sell directly to the consumer—at real world prices—they cannot make any money and will have to go out of business. Furthermore, the consumers are happier as they like to know whom they’re purchasing from. Read More

I’m an American with Midwestern roots raised on French fries, potato chips, and meat and potato dinners. I’ve been known to order mashed potatoes for dessert (I’m not joking), lived on baked potatoes and salsa in college, and generally think scalloped potatoes are manna from heaven (on par with a classic, homemade extra cheesy mac n’ cheese.) However, I didn’t’ truly appreciate the sheer joy of the potato until I had an opportunity to harvest rows and rows of them on a New Zealand family farm. I didn’t know that this ubiquitous part of my existence, this foodstuff I took for granted for so long, was such a treasure. Read More

In Oakland, California last week, the political momentum seemed to clearly and perhaps irrevocably shift to formation of a sustainable food system for the nation. Hailing from three western states and Washington DC, 120 leading activists (from farms, ranches, philanthropy, businesses and NGOs), 15 USDA officials, and two important northern California mayors focused on the issues of food security, foodsheds, and public-private partnerships to accelerate change. The take home message from this groundbreaking summit is that an essential set of sustainable food concepts has pierced the intellectual membrane that shapes the American political scene. Perhaps it is only a matter of time until this welcome and healthy infection takes over the body politic. Read More

For many twenty-somethings like myself, issues like school lunch can be murky and distant. I’m not eating school lunch; nor do I have children who are eating school lunch (nor will I in the foreseeable future). When I think of school lunch, I mostly envision a Wonder Years-style cafeteria line, complete with mystery meat (or is it called Salisbury steak?) and a scoop of mashed potatoes. Not so bad, not so good, but unchanging and unchangeable. Right? Wrong. Read More

In recent years, farmers’ markets have flourished as consumers look outside the corporate, industrial food system to feed their families. We have an organic garden on the White House lawn, and in backyards everywhere, small gardens are nearly ready to bear Mother Nature’s summer fruit. The warm weather is finally here, and around the country farmers’ markets are in full swing. Strawberries, corn, pole beans and apricots have arrived in most places, and soon, tomatoes and figs will also find their place on the dinner table. This summer, two different organizations are celebrating the American farmers’ market tradition and raising awareness through summer-long contests. Read More

The Eat Real Festival is just two months away (August 28 – 30: mark your calendar!), and months of hard work chasing down taco trucks and street food vendors, listening to bands, and tasting local ice creams is drawing to a close. As we get ready to put on the event, we’re looking for some real-world ways to eat great homemade “fast foods” everywhere. We want your very favorite homemade taco recipes to be able to share with participants in Eat Real who want to replicate the great fresh street foods they taste at our event at their own homes. Tell us how you mix your masa, spin stories about your spices, and if you have a radical reinterpretation you’d like to share, please do. We have an expert team of tasters and testers assembled, and the winner of the taco taste test (good stories help, too) will be featured in our Eat Real taco box, on our website, and in our newsletter. Read More

As a U.S. historian, I can provide examples of the many ways – both positive and negative – that patriotism has been expressed at different times in our nation’s history.  There are many ways that individuals and communities can express their patriotism today. Eating local foods can be one of them.

Local foods are patriotic, whether you’re buying them directly from producers in your area or growing your own. They’re good for our local farmers, our economies, our health, and the health of our planet.  Local foods give us pause to (re)consider our connection with the land and those who produce our food.  And they taste great because they’re fresh from the soil.  (Who says that what is good for you can’t taste good, too?)

This Fourth of July, please consider celebrating your independence by including locally sourced foods in your menu.  Roger Doiron of Kitchen Gardeners International – who earlier this year petitioned the Obama administration to plant a Victory Garden on the White House lawn – recently launched Food Independence Day to encourage local eating on the Fourth.  Part of this effort was to gain the commitment of individuals to include local foods in their menu.  Another goal?  To petition our nation’s 50 governors to consume local foods and publish their menus for the day. Read More

The second installment of Kitchen Table Talks was held last Tuesday in San Francisco. The evening featured Jessica Prentice, a professional chef, local foods activist and author and a clip of Edible City, a forthcoming documentary which follows the lives of Bay Area residents who are creating a local food system in their neighborhoods and communities.

Slated for distribution in early 2010, Edible City is a project of East Bay Pictures, a film company committed to making motion pictures that inspire reflection, compassion and imagination. The film, which uses character vignettes, showed Joy Moore, a longtime activist and teacher, discussing gardening and nutrition with the students at Berkeley Technology Academy. To help bring this inspiring film about growing local food systems to a larger audience, East Bay Pictures is seeking funds to finish the film. Read More

Thomas Keller is one the world’s most celebrated chefs with his fleet of restaurants in Yountville, Los Vegas, and New York. At the same time, he is a vocal “thorn in the side” of local food advocates, with his direct dismissals of the locavore movement.

His message was much the same this year when he spoke at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sustainable Foods Institute a few weeks ago.  Speaking on a panel called “The Future of Food: Scaling Down,” Chef Keller made the distinction between geographically local and temporally local food.

That is, he personally considers local food to be anything that he can get at his doorstep within one day of harvest – even if that means flying that product overnight from across the country.

Here are some excerpts from Keller’s comments on the panel: Read More

On May 9, New York City hosted an international dialogue about healthy food, sustainable agriculture, and community engagement — but it wasn’t held at a university or sponsored by a borough president. Three grassroots community groups in Brooklyn’s most underserved neighborhoods welcomed a group of 45 UN delegates from almost 20 countries for a day of conversation and exchange showcasing examples of New York City’s innovative urban agriculture. Read More

Every year, Americans find a new diet or pill to help them lose weight. Popular examples abound. There’s the low-fat diet, the Atkins Diet, the South Beach Diet, the list continues. Fast food and quick service restaurants rush around to change their menus to offer low-fat dishes, more bread, less bread, 24 oz. burgers loaded with bacon, piles of cheese. And after a few months or years, the “it” diet fades from people’s minds until another one comes long and sweeps the country. These fad diets rarely lead to reducing obesity or making Americans healthier. Rather most lead to the over consumption of factory-farmed meat, cheese and “low-fat” or “low sugar” processed foods filled with high fructose corn syrup, fake sweeteners and partially hydrogenated oils. Well, I think its time we try another kind of diet: the low carbon diet. Except rather than getting you into that teeny, tiny yellow polka dot bikini, this diet helps reduce carbon emissions, fatten the slim wallet of small farmers and cut inches from big agriculture.  Read More

Around the state of Montana, people are taking action to make a sustainable, local food system a reality. From the legislative level to the grassroots level, volunteers and institutions are demanding Montana-produced food. Montana’s food system, like many others, is largely resource and energy dependent. However, the vision for a community-based food system, one where affordable and consistent access to local, nutritious food is available is coming into clearer focus. Read More

Growing up in Kansas, I was surrounded by wheat and corn fields. Driving from my hometown of Wichita to visit my grandmother in Kansas City, I waved and shouted hello to the cows along the freeway. I never gave much thought to where my food came from because when I looked around, all I saw were farms. No one talked about food miles or supporting local farmers. I had a romanticized notion of big red barns, farmers getting up at five a.m. to plow the fields with their dog by their side and sitting down to dinner each night with food from their garden. I had no idea that most of the farms in my home state grew rows and rows of genetically modified wheat, corn and soy. It saddens me when I think about all the times I drove past, waving to the cows because I now realize that those were confined feeding animal operations (CAFOs). Ironically, it took my move to the San Francisco Bay Area to develop an interest and passion for sustainable agriculture. When I was asked to write about the local food scene in Kansas, I wondered if anything had changed. In a state were Monsanto reigns, does anyone care about local food? Read More

I’ve always possessed a secret desire to be placed in a situation where I would have to rely merely upon my wits, resourcefulness and surroundings to survive. So sometimes I pretend that Armageddon has come along, just to prepare for the unexpected. It’s not uncommon for friends to tell me I would be one of their top picks if faced with the infamous “who would you want if you were trapped on a deserted island” question, primarily due to my foraging skills. Although flattered, I have to admit that it’s really not as hard as one might imagine to fend or oneself in an urban landscape, even a desert urban landscape! Read More

Just as we were comfortably settling in with the knowledge that local is in–and Monsanto, out—a flock of tenacious academics taunt us to move past such simplistic thinking. Read More

The idea of community looms large in the current environmental debate. It offers a locus of action that complements both the national and international protocols and the individual behavioral changes that have, until recently, dominated the environmental agenda. Read More

Five years ago when I first told my friends in D.C. that I was moving to Minnesota, they were aghast. “But it’s so cold there, what kind of farmers’ market will they have?” I calmly reminded them that not only was there a whole other country to the north of Minnesota but that before modern appliances people all over the Upper Midwest grew their own food and survived just fine. But my confidence belied a secret fear that the shorter growing season would seriously limit offerings at a Minnesota Farmers’ Market. Read More

Growing up in suburban Oklahoma in the 1980s, I was three generations away from my farming ancestors but ate more prepackaged food than greens. Having spent the last decade improving my diet, I can now say I am ready to try my hand at growing some of my own food – on my rooftop in Manhattan. Read More

Seventeen years ago, I left a great job teaching at a prestigious northeast culinary school to move back to Iowa and be an executive chef at a Holiday Inn. It was difficult to find people, in Vermont or Iowa, who did not think I was certifiably insane. Those who thought they knew Iowa claimed, “There’s no there, there!” And those who did not asked, “Iowa? Isn’t that where they grow potatoes?” Read More

Chef Tory Miller of Madison, Wisconsin’s L’Etoile Restaurant told me “people [should] understand how important food systems are to our communities. Many restaurants in Madison are using the local farmers market. The more we champion it, the bigger and stronger it gets which is especially important in this economy. We’re keeping each other in business.” Read More

To many of us in the food and wellness communities, having a food supply based on local, sustainably-raised and organic foods should be nothing less than mandatory – it should be our right. But for many Americans, these terms remain elusive and even far-flung. Read More