The Gastrocast

As a Mac user, fan of iTunes–as it used to be–and a podcaster (yeah, okay only for 14 weeks and a few experiments before that. . . ) I have been, like most, curious to see what effect Apple’s podcasting client would have. Apple announced today that 1 million podcasts have been subscribed to in the last two days. So I tootled over to the iTunes Store Podcast Department to A) see if I have been listed yet–No. Still seems weird when there are so many other minor players included. . . . B) Just who’s shows are being subscribed to.



Imagine my surprise to see the top podcasts subscribed to via iTunes for the most part aren’t even podcasts at all! Unless, of course, you believe a re-released radio show or other commercial broadcast programming entity served by RSS to be a podcast.  What’s more, with the exception of the Adam Curry Podcasting Empire, very little original content is being served. Disney, ABC. . . .glad to see they’re there to spread the word about individualism, free expression and taking control away from the corrupt mainstream media.



Podcasting ain’t Radio folks–some might try to morph it. Wannabe’s and out of work Shock Jocks. But if Podcasting becomes the new Radio, then we have lost and failed ourselves. Radio is radio and it has been killing itself for the last 20 years. Thank God Apple hasn’t yet realised how much Anti-Apple/iTunes material is being served over it’s confused and mis-categorised podcasting client. The revolution which had already begun has restarted, and we’re beginning to see the appoligists, retractors and backsliders already.

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Firstly, Lloyd Davis has written in two posts a great manifesto of sorts about blogging and why he blogs. It is well worth the read. The fact that Lloyd’s blogging philosohy extends over to podcasting and other new media is great. This opening of conversations between unknown peoples is great. It is really brilliant stuff so I won’t try to elaborate on it more here. It’s good to see someone else using a white board for something other than equations and marketing strategy. . . .



Secondly, I am beginning to regret my decision to opt in to the iTunes podcasting phenomenon. Between the stripping of links, the bizzare new RSS tags I can’t include yet, and other oddities I think that there are problems which will need to be met and soon. I keep finding errors in the way podcasts are listed, and how they are served. I reluctantly subscribed to Adam Curry’s Podfinder show to find out what it was about only to find out when I went to play it I did not have permission to play it on my computer. Permission from whom? Is this the way other podcasts are going to be treated? No thanks.



So this morning I did a search to see if I’ve been included in the list–not yet. But it seems everybody else has. Even people who’d probably rather not be included or don’t care one way–Lloyd’s Perfect Path Audio blogs have a category but no shows. Bicyclemark’s Audiocommunique is there. Did anyone get notification whether they wanted to be included or not? Usually it is a struggle to get a podcast recognised in the directories of your choice. Apple made it unforgivingly easy–just take a lucky dip in the 5000 podcasts out there. And no this isn’t resentment because I was not chosen. I’d love the chance at recognition and audience Apple may bring, but not on thier terms. Podcasting is about individualism and freedom of expression. It is about small and new challenging large and staid. Yet in the hands of big corporations it is more of the same–Apple giving Disney the lion’s share of the top podcasts in the opening page of the directory. How does this represent podcasting to a new audience? They’ll find out eventually what it’s been all about from the beginning. What was that, a fluke? Once it’s white-washed by the corporate machine and made more respectible will it be any better? Podcasting, like blogging is here to stay–and its more about the empowerment of the little individual than it will ever be about the corporate, capitalist machine, despite how said machine manipulates it.

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Planet Raw Milk has a great article on PETA’s move to eliminate dairy from our diets based on the belief that the cows which produce are milk are cruelly treated and live in squalid conditions. This seems to be a case of cutting off your hand to remove a wart. It’s akin to the rants of Vegans against the meat industry. Classically this is a case of the activists missing the mark. Rather than point to specific remedies, PETA obfuscates the issue. Suggesting that we free the cows from thier bondage is great, but how do we solve the problem that creates? However you feel about it our rights are being diminished here–look at the issue of Fois Gras.



Rather than jump on the ban-everything bandwagon we need to come up with rational solutions. Rather than move to ban all dairy let’s find a solution that works for everyone (except the Big Dairy Concearns). Granted, there are huge problems with our Food Sources. Factory farming is a disaster. Our Dairy and Beef industry are guilty of attrocities beyond belief. Does that make eating milk or beef morally wrong? No. What is wrong is attacking all dairies, all cattle ranches. Consumer’s need to make a statement that they aren’t going to put up with the abuse of thier food sources. Dairies need to evolve to the next level–small format, fresh, local, healthy animals. Same with beef. We need to get away from resource wasteful grain fed animals and start back to grassfed beef, and dairy cattle which graze on real grass. Surely we haven’t paved over every last bit of farmland, have we?

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This is Part B of Gastrocast #14–the cooking part.

I talk about grilling (as opposed to Barbecuing) and we cook a Grilled Peach, Chicken and Sausage Salad.

Flickr Photoset

Your kind use of these commercial links helps to support the Gastrocast:

Technorati Tags: cooking, grilling, peaches, culinary podcast, podchef, gastrocast

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Here is Part A of a two part Gastrocast.

I review Hell’s Kitchen week 5. Then talk about my idea for a restaurant: Leftovers. I discuss Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck–just voted the Best Restaurant in the World. And we talk about Cooking vegetables in Unsalted Water.

Discovery Science–Kitchen Chemistry

Comments can be left here or at podchef AT gmail DOT com

A few of the things I mentioned in this segment:

Technorati Tags: heston blumenthal, fat duck, hells kitchen, podchef, gastrocast, culinary podcast

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I’ve just come from updating iTunes to the new Podcasting version and have been playing around with some of the features. Interesting to note that Adam Curry’s Podfinder podcast is not available yet, but several other shows download and subscribe just fine. I was amazed to see how many Food Related podcasts had already been added. I bit the bullet and submitted The Podchef Show, but it seems like it will take some time to work out the kinks. Firstly, I will have to wait for Feedburner to catch up and allow the new iTunes Tags in the RSS Feed. My Motime RSS is un-alterable, so Feedburner is my only hope.



I was originally going to hold off on the iTunes thing. I am not sure where it will go and if I even support it. However, given the small niche of Food Related podcasts I figured I had to bolster the genre. I am going to make a prediction though, that the number of hits that the iTunes interface will generate could just pull down quite a few servers. . . .Hopefully the new iTunes model will negate the sort of information I posted below on how to subscribe to podcasts.  However you subscribe to the Gastrocasts, keep an ear open for one later in the week.



Lastly, I would ask your kindness in nominating me over at the Podcast Awards in the Food and Drink category. This People’s Choice forum seems to be quite fairly run, so a little show like the Gastrocast might have a chance. I don’t pretend that I will win anything, however your kindness might put the Show in front of unknowing ears, and that can’t be that bad. So act Now, please! You can also nominate any of your other favorite podcasts while you’re there.

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I’ve added an "How to subscribe to the Gastrocast" Button in the Right Hand Column, and a resulting Post–the one below–to aid those who are stumped at how to easily subscribe to the Show. I am remiss in not doing this sooner. The Blog template I have chosen is one of the nicer ones for the purpose, but is a bit difficult to work with and hence read/ navigate.

Thanks to Hugh at Dose Magazine for pointing this out. With such a small niche to fill I hate to over complicate and turn away or put off anyone. Any other comments or suggestions are welcome; either here or at podchef AT gmail DOT com.

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Welcome, and Thank you for your desire to Subscribe to the Gastrocast!



There is a lot of information on the Web about subscribing to Podcasts, but I will try to briefly supply you with the necessary information to make Subscribing to the Gastrocast painless.



I am assuming you are here and that you already have an podcast aggregator like ipodder. The examples are using ipodder and NetNewsWire–although any podcast accepting RSS aggregator should work about the same.



First, let me direct your attention to the Feedburner links on the blog page:

 



Any of these links will work to subscribe you to both automatic podcast downloads and the RSS feed for this blog. (I personally subscribe both in my ipodder, and my news reader when I subscribe to a podcast so that I not only get the podcasts, but also the most current blog posts and any Flickr images.)



When you click on one of these links (they’re all the same) they take you to the Feedburner feed for the Gastrocast. You can then cut and paste, drag and drop, or enter the resulting URL–feeds.feedburner.com/podchef–into the aggregator of your choice.

UPDATE: if you just want a podcast feed–use feeds.feedburner.com/podchefalt

This will not be washed out by blog posts.

The first image shows the feed as it appears in ipodder (via cut and paste):







You get to this point by clicking the Add Feed in the podcast-downloading application. Here is the image of NetNewsWire Lite:







In this case you can either drag and drop the URL into the lefthand pane, or add it via the "Subscribe +" Button.



Hopefully this overly complicated method of subscribing with RSS feeds will soon be a thing of the past with the advent of one-click subscription (Check out iTunes Podcasting Directory soon). But until then, I hope this will serve as a good primer.



UPDATE: Here is an image are two images of what to do to subscribe via iTunes 4.9:











Because I am not in the iTunes directory at the moment, if you click the "Advanced" label and then choose "Subscribe to Podcast" from the menu then the popup screen will appear. Paste in the feed and hey, presto you will be subscribed!



Thanks and and I hope you enjoy the Gastrocast!

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Thank you Mike Johanns for finally doing your job after denying there was a problem which really existed, and only taking action after you were caught in a lie. With a Secretary of Agriculture like you, who needs Bioterrorists. You’re doing a fine job on your own.

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Of course, I’ve known it exists for some time now. Perhaps I’ve tried to block it from my mind. I mean, I just can’t quite get my head around the idea of Milk which is unrefridgerated–something my children seem to believe in–and can last on a shelf for 6-8 months. I’ve seen it in Europe, but have always been too afraid to try. This holds true for Chicken and Beef Stock in those cardboard containers. . . .Today’s Interesting Thing of the Day is all about lauding this Miracle Milk.  The mere fact that it no longer tastes like milk should raise alarms. That we are a society driven for convenience is a rational for the continuation and improvements of the Aseptic milk pack. No thanks. That’s what Evaporated Milk and Condensed Milk are for. Yes they are milk based but thier nature has changed through processing and one can understand and  work with thier differences.  Claire’s point about some Commercial Milks being reconstituted from powder is enough to make me throw out the box of powdered milk I have on the shelf for baking with (it adds depth and richness without extra liquid).



The trouble is you just never know what your getting with these products. If the Uber-Milk in the the paper carton on the shelf is so convenient then there could be a day when it becomes the norm. I keep telling myself I can’t be that old. But, I can still remember growing up in a suburb of Hartford, CT and having milk delivered twice a week. Sure glass bottles had given way to waxed paper cartons by the time I was twelve, but the milk came cold–even partially frozen if we didn’t get to it when we first woke up in the winter–and was brought by 5:30 AM. And in England in the late 80’s–milk in bottles, delivered to our doorstep–unhomogenized. In fact, if the Milkman forgot to put a slate over the top of the 4 bottles, the birds would peck out the foil tops and drink the cream off the top. How can an industrial, factory produced abomination like super-sterilized, flavorless milk sitting on a supermarket shelf for 8 months be more convienient than the real thing delivered fresh, twice a week? At least in Seattle the Milkman is trying to hang on, but not for long–progress and convienience are on the march!



PS–Louis Pasteur for whom pasteurization is named was studying fermentation of beer and wine and how to stop it.  The man, the science, and how we have come to rely on it to protect us from bugs in milk should all be questioned.

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All that looks fresh, organic, and local may not be so. Or so it seems in London where the very term and meaning of "Farmer’s Market" is open for very broad interpretation. It is easy to see how it can happen. Without clear consumer knowledge and regulation, anyone wishing to cash in on the buzzword popularity of "Farmer’s Market" can easily set up a stall and begin selling whatever under the guise that it is from a farm, fresh, and somehow local. The unwary buyer can easily fall prey to the stall holders patter and unknowingly buy non-organic, out of season, imported goods all the while thinking they are purchasing from thier rural countryside.



This is as much the fault of the shysters trying to compete in a close market as it is too consumers who don’t pay attention to the message of the Pundits. As Farmer’s Markets gain popularity in the States we must be wary of these events as well. For a stall to be held at a so called Farmer’s Market then the goods for sale must be produced by the farmer selling it, must be organic, local and seasonal.  Does that me the farmer has to be present? No. And there can be cooperative stalls. But the tie from producer to consumer must be maintained. The stall holder should be able to answer all questions about the hows and whys of the goods sold. And above all the farmer, thier representative, or stall holder should be willing to invite you to the farm, be open to questions and suggestions, and provide you with the confidence to continue buying from them.

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Barely weeks after trying to assure the the world that BSE, aka Mad Cow Disease, was not an issue in American Beef, the Agriculture Department has admitted there is a fresh case.

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The subject I wrote about on Bioterrorism has entered the news again. It seems that the Scientific Paper which suggests that Terrorists can strike at the heart of America by tainting our Milk Supply with Botulism has been labeled "a road map to Terrorism", and has been pulled from circulation–including the website where it was originally posted. This is "road map" was nothing new. Nothing the Terrorists couldn’t have dreamed up on their own. So why the Censorship? Why not let the Citizens of this Great Country know what dangers there are to a centralized food system? If we support our local economies–be it village, town, city or rural community–and we stop shipping our products to central points for processing (not only wasting fuel, but risking all sorts of disasters with the products) then the sort of calamnity outlined in this paper could be avoided. Like Planet Raw Milk said, "No terrorist would dare waste some good botulism to make just a handful of people sick." Small, local communities are not a target. Large corporate enterprises which affect hundreds of thousands are. Lets stop the cover ups and start providing our Citizens with the truth, and the ability to know and make decisions that will help us in the long run.

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Please let me know if this is too long. It seems that every time I try to cut down the length the Gastrocast just gets longer. I am tempted to break it into two shows. I would love input.

In this week’s Gastrocast from our low tide beach we talk of Hell’s Kitchen week 4, Grilling, the cookbook “Let the Flames Begin” and I get interupted by a dog and a mink. Then I stir-fry Beef with Snow Peas & Fresh Rice Noodles

Flickr photoset is here

Please leave comments here, or email me: podchef AT gmail DOT com

Products I think pertain to this Gastrocast:

Technorati Tags: cooking, food, Chinese cuisine, podchef, gastrocast, culinary podcast, hells kitchen, grilling

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A recent study suggests that sunlight can reduce a man’s risk of Prostate Cancer. Well, those of us who think the sun shines out of our behinds’ have no worries, then. But what this article really left me thinking is that if Vitamin D levels–which the body increases production of after exposure to sunshine–can reduce this type of cancer, how and when did this type of cancer begin to be such an epidemic problem?  Surely we men haven’t been getting less sun in the last 10 years? Then what has changed? Is it that we are living longer and the inevitable is happening? Maybe, but there have been 68 year olds in the past. . . . Was there a high incidence in the last generation or did WWII affect the outcome? These are possible, but I have another theory. One that is simple at heart, so could very well be probable.  Correlate the increase in Prostate Cancer with the decline in milk consumption by men–say from the 40’s on. My Father was born in 1929. Sometime in the 1930’s milk began to be pasturized wholescale. He moved off the farm and at sometime in his early adulthood stopped drinking milk–never touched a drop again. If he’s like me, and why not–I’m 1/2 him–he can’t digest milk: pasturized milk that is. Adult men do not drink milk–either because it doesn’t agree with them or they don’t care for it. Why doesn’t it agree with them? Don’t give me that bunk that people stop being able to digest milk at a certain age–have them try Raw Milk they’ll be fine.  It’s my belief that Pasturization strips milk of its digestability. Not only that, but the enzymes, vitamins, etc are destroyed–so much so the industry has to add Vitamin D back in to the processed milk. The naturally occuring Vitamin D and Calcium in Raw Milk are two things which may have helped to keep Prostate Cancer low in previous milk-drinking generations. Vitamin D is essential for the body’s absorption of Calcium. Both help fight Prostate Cancer. Naturally Occuring Vitamin D comes from the milk’s butterfat–1%, 2%  Skim and Low-fat milks don’t help; but they’re usually pasturized that way. Natural, un-homoginize milk if left sit will separate into milk and cream. The milk which remains is rich, whole milk high in butterfat and therefore Vitamin D.



Now there are certainly other places to get Vitamin D–as said before, sunshine–but also oily fish, for one. Calcium comes from dark green vegetables. All three things–Raw Milk, abundance of dark green vegetables, or oily fishes seem to be lacking in our Modern Diet. Is this why Prostate Cancer is on the rise? Were there many cases of Prostate Cancer 100 years ago, and if not what has changed? More and more, if you look carefully you can see–it is true: we are what we eat.

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