Duck, Duck, Lamb?

The duck breast was a gift. In fact, it was my favorite kind of gift, both absurd and thoroughly appreciated. It was absurd, because raw meat is rarely given to unrelated adults. It was thoroughly appreciated, because it was a gorgeous Liberty Farms breast. I cross-hatched the skin to help render the fat and put it on a cast iron pan over the lowest flame. As you can see on the left, the duck is generously releasing some extra fat while the meat is completely raw. This really helps to get the skin crisper.

Salade verte avec magret de canard

And then there was lamb... I came across an extra leg at Prather. It had been my plan to see what was left and grab it. With luck, it worked to perfection. The fates decided for me. 

I decided to debone it and we will have it tonight along with some braised shanks and a red wine reduction.

This was one of my favorite gifts this year. A client gave me the chocolates I love most. I tore open the box vaguely concerned that it might be See's, only to reveal that familiar brown of the Gandolf's box.

A Man With No Country On Christmas

The Nicaragua Microlot is roasted to 401 degrees and is done, just at the start of the second crack. (This means something to coffee roasters.) I have the light smell of roasting on me, which is a bit like cigarette smoke only much fresher and singular in its clarity. I picked the Nicaragua, because it is Christmas. My other options were Kenya and Guatemala. Nicaragua seems like a pretty Catholic place, a place where Christmas might be a pretty big deal. Of course, in reflection, this is an absurd thought. But I am aware from traveling that there are some pretty religious places around the world, which can be hard for me to fathom.

I grew up to parents of mixed heritage. My mother is a "refugee" from England and raised with the CoE (Church of England), though she never found her place amongst the New World Anglican brethren sects. My father was raised in a culturally Jewish, first generation household (more concerned with making it here than in the afterlife), bar mitzvahed at thirteen, and said goodbye to religion in the formal sense. So my brother and I were raised effectively without any formal religious education. Christmas was a tradition in our household much more clearly observed than our infrequent menorah lighting, but a cultural tradition, which made it seem like we were not all that different from most other families.

So over the years as I uncovered devoutness in those around me, it was often was a mix on incredulity and wonder. As I mentioned obliquely in a previous post (my period of Jesus identification), I yearned to know that secret, that key to belonging, to being in Grace. But observing the disparities between devoutness and behavior, between belief and action, I also became disillusioned with the notion of religion in a formal sense. I know this has been all the rage, just before the Tibetian Buddism and Kabbalah trends. But this was often from lapsed Catholics or secular Jews, people who actually had something from which to lapse. And yet, some very sincere and beautiful devoutness exists. Some truly loving, gentle hearted people who may believe this dogma, but can do so with a pureness of intent and spirit.

On Christmas, the spirit is not always so bright. The fatigue of cooking, which delightfully absent this year, was replaced with a space to relax and contemplate the fragile and sublime nature of being alive and maybe to perceive it as well.

Merry Christmas!

Mash-up

I found several old drafts of posts and thought I would finish them. They are not really timely per se. These were written in the Summer and Fall of 2007 responding to some specific events at that time.

I.
Part of my brain is trying to digest all this new information about the markets and about food, which may be why I have had a hiatus in my letters to you. First, I lost a letter due to technical issues - very frustrating. Then two things happened. I spent about four hours helping out Scott at the PRMC stand selling meat and answering questions the other weekend. Also, we had this spinach debacle (and a unrelated, but similar milk debacle).

You see when I go to the farmers' market my experience is that I am generally talking with individuals who have, at the very least, a high level of expertise about what they are selling. (It turns out that these people are just generally pretty bright. Annabelle of Star Route, a polyglot, shared that the etymology of 'amok' is Indonesian.). So the market is a wealth of wonderful food and its associated knowledge. I am not an expert on broccoli raabe. I could not tell you why a given variety of apples can display such a variation in skin color. But today I got a great tip on handling broccoli raabe from Ute at Capay and Dave Hale schooled me on skin coloration, light, and fruit position in the tree regarding his lovely apples. Dave also explained that skin color is not a completely reliable indication of the apple's taste.

It turns out that giving out this information and education to the poor, uninformed masses (like me) is a challenge. Thanks to Doug's (of PRMC) patience I know enough information to explain the basics of a humane, pasture-raised, mostly organic beef operation. I owe similar thanks to most of the other vendors I frequent for their patience in answering my various and insidious questions. Now I deeply appreciate this information. I would go so far as to say I love learning about all this. I feel more connected to the people who provide my family with sustanance. I feel more tied to the food that sustains me and the land upon which it is raised. This is an important part of my life.

But as a vendor, whose business is selling meat, produce, fish, or other food related items, customer education is not one's primary mission. The challenge is, especially for specific items like humane meat and speciality produce, without education consumers may not be able to appreciate the difference between a $1.50 per pound conventional Fuji apple and a $3.00 per pound organic, heirloom Spitzenburgh apple.

So as these questions of food safety are raised into the public consciousness and concerns about the safety and quality of our food supply transiently  rise in importance, I am left thinking that we do not even have a context for the debate. The issues are very complex. This is not to say I am unsympathetic to the families of the people who became sick eating E. Coli-infected spinach or I do not care that three kids got ill allegdely related to raw milk, but these relatively minor issues (though not for the families involved) underscore how little attention is paid to the safety of our food supply. Additionally, we must understand that our individual health determines whether we can suitably and safely risk consuming products that may naturally contain healthy and potentially unhealthy bacteria. As an analogy, immunocompromised individuals should not regularly hang out with groups of pre-schoolers (noted germ carriers). It is also not recommended that raw honey be fed to small children, who have not fully developed their immune systems.

One set of solutions that the industrial food industy, especially the meat industry, wants to increase the use of is the sanitizing of food by technological means. These types of procedures, including pasteurization, irridation, chemical preservation and others, typically diminish the underlying value of the food product. In some cases, while it reduces the presence of microorganisms, the process may expose consumers to insidious long-term risks. The irradition of meat is insufficiently studied to understand if it creates any long-term risks for humans. The conventional dairy industry proposes that bovine growth hormone is completely safe, yet it is understood that bovine growth homone increases a hormone in milk called insulin-like growth factor I (IGF I). IGF I is raised in human milk drinkers versus non-milk drinkers, lending support to the notion that milk influences IGF I levels in milk stimulates IGF I levels in humans. Of course, increased levels of IGF I are linked to an increase incidence of various cancers. The conventional milk industry wants to remove the requirements on the labeling of milk (heard on radio show) because the studies show it is safe. Consumers are choosing milk from cows not treated with hormones over cows that have been treated. Safety is not a simple issue.

II.
Food is inherently political. Some have argued that farming was the beginning of (or end of) human civilization. With farming, people became fixed to the land and the right to property became the essence of the agarian society and ultimately of modern culture.

In the contemporary era, modern agricultural practices are, in part, dictated by the laws governing agricultural practices. I once asked the Three Twins ice cream guy if he ever made raw milk ice cream. He told me he was not willing to commit a felony and go to jail for ten years. Yes, making ice cream with raw milk is a felony. So these amazing diarymen out in the Fresno area are making raw milk and their Organic Pastures milk is amazing. It tastes like the essence of milk. But it is just barely legal for them to make milk this way.

In light of all the recent attention to Michael Pollen's new book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and this spinach debacle, I have had enough with the food politics. From the couple of hours I have spent helping Doug and Scott at PRMC, I have learned that many of the consumers at the Sunday Marin market are wholely unaware of the key issues related to the husbandry of flora and fauna. With these people, you cannot even begin to have a discussion. It must all start with a long winded explanation of all the issues involved. Like many things religious and political, some people want the information to make a decision and some (whether they realize it or not) want the information that supports the decision they already made. Food is inherently political. If you forget the farmer and her land, you are buying a commodified food delivery system where food is widgets, where the environment is a factory, and you, the eater in your living room, are awfully like the animal in the feedlot (how can they get us fastest quickest).

III.
In the aftermath of the big dinner, I sit by the kitchen and survey the detritus. Actually, it isn't so bad and it really was worth it. I am hope you had a great meal, too.

We did a heritage turkey this year, which is an old breed of bird before they bred them for massive breasts and fast growth. It did have a different shaped breast and the meat was not as white. There was less breast meat than a standard turkey. With all the hype, I was skeptical and, with the price, was hesitant to get one as I expected to be disappointed as I have been before by the various free-range, organic, or natural birds I have had. But it was delicious. The meat had more flavor and the texture of the white meat was more like a pork loin. It was not just juicy, it had some fat in it. I realized that so much of the accompaniments of the Thanksgiving table are to cover the inherent blandness of turkey (gravy, cranberry sauce, etc.) that I had become accustomed to loading up on them to deal with the turkey. Yesterday, I reflexively put too much cranberry on my plate. In the past, typically my turkeys have been very good by most people's standards, but it was just blah to me. I think we have a new tradition...

We also tried Robert Lambert's spiced crab apples, which were excellent. He told me that this was a common old American tradition - to serve lightly sweetened/pickled crab apples with holiday roasts. The crab apples are delicious. Frankly, I am planning on saying the leftover apples for some pork as I think it will be an even better accompaniment for pork than for turkey. Enjoy your leftovers!

Coffee Talk

In the beginning...

Los Manantiales farm at sunset, where the Genesis lot is milled.

I am drinking a Costa Rican coffee I roasted six days ago and, as it is called "Genesis", Biblical themes are on my mind. The coffee to be precise is Loudes de Naranjo - Genesis. I roasted it to City Plus and had an excellent cup Tuesday morning. I screwed it up Thursday morning by not dumping my pre-heat water from my thermos so it tasted good, but dilute. This morning I was thinking either it is mostly over (as in, no longer super fresh) the initial sweetness I found or, since I changed the grind a bit, I am getting less extraction of the "sweeter" compounds. But the mind boggling thing about taste is how complex it is and how difficult it is to put into words. Now living near wine country I have had plenty of exposure to the wine vernacular and many people now speak Wine. As a non-drinker, I have no pretensions to understanding Wine-speak, but Coffee is something I would like to speak. Though to let you in on the heart of my difficulty, let me share the tasting notes from Sweet Maria's (my green coffee purveyor) on this Genesis.

"The dry fragrance is intensely sweet, with malt syrup, praline, dark honey, and raisiny fruits. Adding the hot water, the wet aromatics have interesting savory sweet qualities, dark brown bread in the oven, cooked berry and more raisin fruits (think pie). It's a coffee I just want to sit and smell for as long as possible - these are highly attractive aromatics! The cup is vividly bright, with strong honey-lemonade flavors, red berry, toasted nut, and praline. It's quite sweet, but not in the typical wet-process Costa Rica way. The body is dense, thick. It definitely reveals itself as a true "honey coffee," a "miel" or pulp natural process. In that respect, the flavors are slightly more rustic, and the opaque body more pronounced, and a distinct "roundness" to the mouthfeel." (http://www.sweetmarias.com/printable_review.php?id=CostaRicaLourdesdeNaranjoGenesisJuly2009)

In a book about wine tasting by an industry outsider, I learned the word 'organoleptic', which is the naming of the sensory qualities of a particular substance. So correlating these organoleptic descriptors with what is actually in the cup becomes the challenge. Relating this to my coffee here, I got no "honey-lemonade", no "praline". I can make the leap to "red berry" as I taste a sort of sweet, astringency that I label "cough syrup" - the red kind. Was that cherry? But this process is like hallucinating. And then it is like sitting in your hallucinations long enough to describe them vividly. And then to "listen" to enough other hallucinations that you learn your "cough syrup" is everyone else's "vividly bright" "red berry". Is this healthy?

My tongue has a light buzz from the cup I finished fifteen minutes ago with a hazy sensation in the rest of my mouth. Haziness, to me, is a leftover sensation, like the sensation moments after fingers stoke the skin. The hazy sensation is full in the way that it encompasses the whole mouth and multiple sensory paths; it is not sweet or sour, or tart, though it might edge toward bitter - it is well rounded. One of the joys of coffee may be that the flavor stays with you so long. I have recalled a cup consumed first thing in the morning many hours later, thinking back to its loveliness, sweetness, or clarity.

But in Coffee, like in Wine, certain specific assignations are given to certain labels. And I am not sure how to figure these out. In the meantime, I will keep on tasting and see if my "cough syrups" and "good" can progress to "praline", "honey-lemonade" and maybe even "lead-pencil shavings" and "leather".

Orange You Glad I Didn't Say...

The pile grows taller. My fingers become stickier. The air smells distinctly of citrus. Two beautiful dry-farmed clementines sit staring at me next to the skins of their brethren. Their perfume is delicate, but clear. The orange peel of the clementine is so rich, deep. The bright skin looks like it smells. The ease with which they peel makes me feel vaguely more dexterous and potent than I am. They are gone, destroyed, vanquished.  The pile of carcasses on the table dwarfs the remote.

Just as the local, fresh apples disappear, the citrus surprisingly emerges. As a New Englander originally, the local citrus season is a pre-Christmas gift, a bonus. It is nature saying, "hey, since you made it through the mild, possibly wet, occasionally beautiful Northern California Fall, here is a most wondrous gift".

These little gems come from the Olsens, who dry farm this citrus and some avos in the Sierra Foothills. Now the Olsens have real farming cred. They are serious folks. I was not really on a personal level with the patriarch or his son. But my friend Thomas was referring to the son as a legit farmer, the real deal, and referred to him by the name, "Kenny". Now Thomas is Swiss and maybe something got lost in translation, but.. So I ask the son for five pounds of clementines and refer to him as "Kenny". He immediately corrects me. "Oh no", he says, "I am not Kenny." Without making me feel slightly awkward for calling him the wrong name, he says, "No. I'm Kevin. Kenny. He's dead."

Like the straight forward guys these are, the next Sunday, Kevin greeted me warmly and gladly sold me another bag of beautiful clementines. I have not started on the navel oranges yet, but thankfully it looks like I will get the chance.