The Gastrocast

Over at The Kitchen Garden Company the Polytunnel Project is taking on more shape.

Popularity: 8% [?]

In their annual Christmas caper, The Wife & Daughter appear in Kitchen Studio to whip up some mayhem and a Buche de Noel.

Technorati Tags: dessert, baking, cooking, buche de noel, yule log, holiday, christmas

Popularity: 6% [?]

Here’s a short film to cheer the mid-winter soul. I meant this as a Christmas greeting of sorts, but it’s a bit late, as usual. The sentiment remains the same though!

Technorati Tags: winter, snow, smallholding, farming, agriculture, gardening, podchef, gastrocast, cooking, pigs, slaughter, smoking meat, smokehouse, food preservation, madness

Popularity: 7% [?]

Just in time for Christmas, a totally non-Christmasy show!  This time we re-visit corning beef with Brisket of Torino, and we talk about news and weather.

You can listen to, or download the show here:

Or consider subscribing to the podcast for free.

Links for this week’s episode:

• The Gastrocast Blog
• Gastrocast Forum
• The Kitchen Garden Network
• Our Service Provider: 1&1 Internet Hosting
• R-Calf USA
• Facebook Profile
• Photos
• News:
  • Thawing Turkeys on the Counter Oh My!
    • Is it Best to Ignore Government Advice (hint: yes & always)
  • New Old Use for Wool
  • Venison Pizza Anyone?
  • Beware, the Pot Pie is Deadly
  • EPA: What Cow Fart Tax?
  • The Irish & Their Toxic Cows & Pigs
    • Oil to blame?

Technorati Tags: podchef, gastrocast, food, cooking, cooking show, culinary podcast, agriculture, farming, gardening, beef, brisket, steer, grassfed, corned beef, food preservation

Popularity: 14% [?]

This week’s show is a few days later than I wanted. Lot’s going on. I hope you will enjoy it. In #160 we talk about Guerrilla Gardening, ordering seeds, the hot food-news topics and I give you my mother’s Fruit Cake Recipe.

You can listen to, or download the show here:

Or consider subscribing to the podcast for free.

Links for this week’s episode:

• The Gastrocast Blog
• Gastrocast Forum
• The Kitchen Garden Network
• Our Service Provider: 1&1 Internet Hosting
• R-Calf USA
• Facebook Profile
• Photos
• News:
  • Deer Attacks Hunter
  • China’s Milk Industry Goes Sour
    • Uncounted Deaths From Milk Scandal
  • Pilgrim’s Pride Poultry Profits Plummet
  • Chicken Shit Fouls MD Waters
  • FrankenFoods Pushed on Poor & Hungry

Technorati Tags: china, tainted milk, frankenfoods, bioengineered crops, gm foods, pilgrim’s pride, gastrocast, podchef, food, farming, cooking show, culinary podcast, cooking school, agriculture, gardening, vegetable seeds, guerrilla gardening, allotments, fruitcake

Popularity: 21% [?]

This week’s show is here. The Zoom h4 is working great, but I’m still working on getting the right sound in Kitchen Studio. This week there’s news, life on Podchef Island, The Demise of Pinkie Winkie, and a Swiss Chard, Bacon & Kale mega-quiche.

You can listen to, or download the show here:

Or consider subscribing to the podcast for free.

Links for this week’s episode:

• The Gastrocast Blog
• Gastrocast Forum
• The Kitchen Garden Network
• Our Service Provider: 1&1 Internet Hosting
• R-Calf USA
• Facebook Profile
• Photos
• News:
  • CT Olive Oil Standards
  • Tax on Cow Farts
  • Your Baby, Melimine, & The FDA

Technorati Tags: slaughter, butchering, pigs, pork, podchef, gastrocast, Cow Tax, quiche, food, cooking, baking, swiss chard, kale

Popularity: 27% [?]

Will this decade see the end of Agrarian Farming? Certainly I am not the only writer, farmer, eater-of-things-grown to pose this question in the past 20, 30, or 40 years, but for some reason this year, at this time, it seems like the cards are stacked against the small farmer and market gardener in a way like never before.

In order to have nutritious, wholesome foods with a low carbon imprint, from as close to their source as possible for both freshness, and flavor we must see a resurgence of a local, agrarianism which has long been under the heel of the Agri-Industrial complex. At a time when “local”, “Seasonal”, and “Sustainable” are the current buzz words there seems to be a tide of opposition to these movements both in the industrial food sector, and by very partnership, the government.

Two things came to me this week, and I am still reeling in trying to grasp their meaning. The first is a completely non-sensical plan by the EPA to tax Cow Farts.  Yes, in an overzealous attempt at seeming to do something rather than nothing in the face of Global Climate Change, a government agency has written yet another blanket, one-size-fits-all mandate. This very plan will only serve to benefit the Industrial-Agricultural complex in squashing their minor, but annoying counterpart–the organic and sustainable small farmer. It will do this for two reasons. Firstly I am sure there will be exemptions for Big-Ag, carbon-offsets and the like, and secondly, the fines and fees for this carbon tax seem to be orchestrated to penalize the very people who are trying to make a difference.  By making no distinction between grass-fed cattle, which do not create nearly the toxic gas problem, and Feed-lot cattle, which cause numerous biological and environmental problems, an unfair playing field is struck. Most organic, grass-fed, carbon sensitive farmers do not receive government subsidies to do their honorable work. They would pay the tax wholly out of pocket and totally unfairly as they are a major part of the solution and not the problem. Meanwhile, one might suppose that there will be hand-outs, exemptions and the like for the subsidy driven Industrial Agriculture model so that the taxes won’t seem to cut into the marginal operations that feed-lots have become. No thanks. It won’t solve the problem and it will make the growing food crisis in this country far worse before it becomes better. But then, perhaps the EPA has been talking to my local county Health Department. . . .

I am still verifying the facts, but as they have come to me, certain members of our local government are recommending that citizens and business NOT buy local! They are on a campaign against local farmers and local foods, not because of any outbreak, or seeming disaster–there have been none. But purely for the inane reasons that “local” isn’t regulated and Industrial is. If it comes from a far and is wrapped in plastic and passed through all the right channels, then it seems it is Okay to be served in restaurants. This is putting a crimp in a local foods campaign whereby restaurants commit to using a certain percentage of local produce and meats in their cooking in order to participate in a Certified Local scheme. I just cannot fathom the sort of persons who think that industrial is better than local, or home grown when they are exposed to the quality we have here locally. It is beyond reason and unacceptable. These things must change if we are to survive into the future with safe, bio-secure, wholesome, edible foods.

Technorati Tags: agrarianism, local foods, sustainability, peak oil, epa, cow tax, global warming, climate change

Popularity: 31% [?]

Here’s a little film which has been in the works for a short while. A day in the baking life of our wood fired, masonry oven. Enjoy!
Note: The sound actually matches the video on this one. Sorry for any confusion earlier!

Technorati Tags: podchef, gastrocast, wood oven, wood-fired oven, masonry oven, baking, bread, dough, cooking, self-sufficiency, sustainability

Popularity: 32% [?]

This week’s episode is here!  The new Zoom H4 gets its test drive in this slightly longer show. In addition, a new oven has arrived in Kitchen Studio. I managed to score a new but never installed oven off of Craig’s List for a fraction of the cost and it works brilliantly.  We use it to make Profiteroles filled with Quince.

You can listen to, or download the show here:

Or consider subscribing to the podcast for free.

Links for this week’s episode:

• The Gastrocast Blog
• Gastrocast Forum
• The Kitchen Garden Network
• Our Service Provider: 1&1 Internet Hosting
• R-Calf USA
• Facebook Profile
• News:
  • To follow

Technorati Tags: Podchef, Gastrocast, cooking, food, farming, agriculture, baking, profiteroles, dessert, quince,   pastry cream, cream puffs, zoom h4

Popularity: 34% [?]

This show began way back in October. I had some technical difficulties, which are now solved. So here then are a couple of fragments joined together to create something I hope you’ll enjoy. First I gather Rose Hips to make syrup and then I cook a Green Tomao Curry.

You can listen to, or download the show here:

Or consider subscribing to the podcast for free.

Links for this week’s episode:

• The Gastrocast Blog
• Gastrocast Forum
• The Kitchen Garden Network
• Our Service Provider: 1&1 Internet Hosting
• R-Calf USA
• Facebook Profile
• News:

Technorati Tags: gastrocast, podchef, rose hips, green tomatoes, curry, cooking, food, farming, foraging, wild harvest, hedgerow foods

Popularity: 41% [?]

Recently, we fired up the Wood Oven to bake bread. In order to achieve the maximum bake we preheat the oven the night before and usually bake pizza while we do. Here then is a short film about that activity. A fuller feature is coming about baking bread in the oven. Kudos to Big Ed to getting me out there to film the process!

Technorati Tags: wood oven, wood fired pizza, pizza, baking, sustainability, cooking, food, self-sufficiency, podchef, gastrocast, masonry oven, wood heat

Popularity: 42% [?]

Somehow I forgot to post this here. So, for those of you who missed it, the first time around–here it is! And just what is this gem? It is a short–very short–clip on how to open an Opinel.  As many of you know, my favorite “pocket” knife is an Opinel No. 8. I carry one with me all the time, but when I am traveling or dressed up somewhere you may see me reaching for my Opinel for something and then patting all my pockets thinking I’ve lost it instead of left it behind.

I have several Opinels, but the current No. 8 is the one I use the most, and have had in my pocket for the past 8 years at least. It takes a while to get into the condition necessary for opening as shown in the video, but as something you should have by your side every waking minute, it will soon become worn enough to perform this trick. The Opinel is an heirloom tool. I have lost my No.8 on several occasions, and each time it is like loosing a friend. An all out search is launched and the hunt continues with me in a cloudy, dark mood until it is found. Two of my daughters earned their first pocket knives–Opinels of course–for finding my No.8. Once on a vast sandy beach, and another time in the Rhubarb patch where I had been cutting leaves from stems.

So for cutting bailing twine, scraping battery terminals, gutting that deer which just bounced off your fender, checking apple seeds to see if the fruit is ripe in the orchard, or cutting  piece of cheese to take with you to the orchard to test the apples–I give you “How to Open an Opinel.”

Technorati Tags: opinel, wiggly wigglers, french knives, pocket knife, how to, podchef, cooking, gardening, farming, tools we use, sustainability

Popularity: 55% [?]

Finally, after a long pause–a new episode! I’m sorry it has taken so long to post this. My life is not my own these days, as you will here. Hopefully, though, things will even out and I can continue to bring you a weekly show and more videos soon. Meanwhile, enjoy what you can.

You can listen to, or download the show here:

Or consider subscribing to the podcast for free.

Links for this week’s episode:

• The Gastrocast Blog
• Gastrocast Forum
• The Kitchen Garden Network
• Our Service Provider: 1&1 Internet Hosting
• R-Calf USA
• Facebook Profile
• News:

Technorati Tags: return of podchef, podchef, gastrocast, update, back again, kitchen garden network, food, cooking, farming, agriculture, gardening

Popularity: 58% [?]

Here’s a short film about what I got up to in the Month of August. From teaching an on-farm workshop, to harvesting barley, traveling across the country to cook and back to give a cooking demonstration at the county fair, it was a busy month. Enjoy.

[tags]podchef, gastrocast, cooking, food, farming, agriculture, barley harvest, scythes, csa, local food, farmers’ market, county fair, san juan county, farm workshop, cooking school, culinary podcast, cookery school[/tag]

Popularity: 83% [?]

Here’s a short film about my recent trip to the East Coast and the local meal I cooked there for some listeners to the show. After touring around the region where I grew up, I selected some cheese from Cato Corner Farmstead Cheese, some produce from Woodbridge Farm CSA, some excellent lamb from Sankow’s Beaver Brook Farm, and some interesting wines from Priam Vineyards. Along the way my host and I stopped at many farm stands to get additional items for our meal and at Jon’s Fish Market to get some amazingly local, fresh fish. Within a 20 mile radius of our base, Colchester, we found everything we needed to eat well, and that was all within 35 miles of where I grew up. Not bad for local dining with local food.

Technorati Tags: podchef, gastrocast, local foods, glastonbury, colchester, priam, woodbridge farm, cato corner, sankow’s, beaver brook farm, cooking, fish, chowder, slow food, farmers’ markets

Popularity: 92% [?]