The Gastrocast

I am uber flattered that The Gastrocast was a featured clip in a tech program covering the Million Podcast Pixel site. You can view the clip here.  If you have a podcast you want to promote, or want to check out cool podcasts, bop on over to the site and have  a view.

Popularity: 6% [?]

I’m sat here, forms and syllibus in hand trying to decide if a professional conference is really worth $660 for 4 days, not including accomodations.
On the one hand it is an International Conference, and it is happening in my own back yard. I have the chance to stay with friends or up the freeway in some cheap dive. It is also a great chance to rub elbows with those in the food industry who know WAY more than I do, and could actually teach me something through the seminars and sessions. I would also, of course, podcast from the event, and hopefully–to what end I don’t know–tout my cookbook and business.
On the other hand, I don’t have the cash and there are no jobs on the books any time soon. I’d be gambling on getting something back from my taxes before I know, and quite honestly I can think of a ton of things I’d rather do with the cash in a business way. I mean the cash is about the same as 30 new laying hens and 30 meat chickens, twice (which I’d get anyway) and a years worth of feed and supplies, or three piglets, fencing and feed, or two months insurance, or food and equipment for at least 10 Gastrocasts. The Animals return the investment in spades even though they’re a bit of a gamble. Podcasting will be done anyway. Sooner or later I will leave this economically baren place, sell my home and move somewhere I can drive to and from without an overnight stay and begin to take more and more jobs.
Perhaps something will come to me to help me decide before I have to post the form. I have to have it in by Friday to save $65 dollars. I can’t believe it is the end of January and I have nothing lined up for the summer–no weddings, no BBQ and the phone hasn’t rung once about springtime work. Perhaps, in this slow, dead-of-winter time, a Conference is just the thing to perk up my attitude and come up with a new business plan. The old one is certainly in tatters.

On a brighter note–stay tuned for this week’s show. February looks to be busy and exciting Gastrocast wise!

Popularity: 7% [?]

How about if it came from China? How about if it were American Chickens processed in China for export back to the US? Thanks to NoNais for bringing this article to our attention. At a time when Avian Flu is wrecking havoc in Asia and the USDA is proposing a nation wide tracking system "to help control Avian Flu" among other things, is there anything more STUPID than this???

Several things are at issue here beyond the stupidity of moronic, useless, bloated Governmental Departments. A) Does the world need any more canned chicken? B)Does the US have such an abundance of chicken that it needs to be processed overseas because American canneries are too busy?  C)At what cost to our economy, food safety, and farm system does such a proposal come? Surely Exporting live chickens, or recently slaughtered, and then Importing them back after processing will alter the price of chicken meat across the board. Think of the cost in Fuel as well. And then there is the risk of contamination–think how many food products are recalled in a month due to some problem at the factory–either mechanical or bacterialogical. D) Do we, consumers, need or want to support industries which attempt to hold a knife to our backs while they increase their strangle hold on the Government?

Since I learned that Cargill is one of the sponsors of the NAIS I have made sure that they and their partners don’t recieve any of my money. Not easy because of their infiltration into every aspect of food and animal products. I am now checking where my animal feed comes from and switching all feeds to a local supplier who sells local, organic feeds. This is going to double my costs, but there is no hidden agenda behind the feed producers–they just want to make a living. I am no longer buying commercially raised meats grown outside the boundried of my own state, and I soon hope to stop buying commercially raised meat altogether. Cost is no longer an issue, although it will crimp an already stretched budget, Conscience and Quality are my new guides, and I hope they will be yours too. My stance and contribution is small, but perhaps if enough of us band together a larger impact can be made.

Popularity: 6% [?]

According to Hometown Conservative, the USDA is going to back off its plan for a centralized database for its NAIS plan. Instead it will rely, quite smartly perhaps, on databases already established for tracking animals. The USDA is also weakening its stance on mandatory compliance for the NAIS, hoping for voluntary compliance through "market incentives". This is great news, but I don’t imagine that the threat will go away.

I don’t necessarily disagree with the concept of animal tracking or identification. I do, however, have grave reservations of linking animals, private residences or farms and the US government. I also disagree with manditory anything, and threats for non-compliance. And satellite or radio tracking seemed a bit excessive. Just another plan for the government to spy and control? Perhaps.  Traceability is a good thing. But the NAIS using it as a buzz word to ramrod a slapdash plan forward which would have ruined small farmers was crazy. That this plan has already cost over $19 million is inexcusable.

Centralization of farm records, livestock locations, or our food sources is the last thing we need. Haven’t the bioterrorism scenario gurus taught us anything. We need to foster the small, local and very traceable farms. If I know the farms with in 250 miles of where I live produce for for my area and I can check those farms out, that can’t be a bad thing. That I can choose which of those farms to buy from creates a demand for all the farms to excell to offer consumers the best. If there is a problem with Farm X, it become far more noticeable and quickly identified at the local level than in any national scheme.

We need to get away from the concept that our food should be as cheap as possible. That’s what’s led to Mad Cow, E. Coli, and crappy tasting chicken. It’s also led to dangerous green onions, cantaloupe you can’t eat without bleaching, and flavorless lettuce which will shoot through you like your some kind of flume. If produce and animals are grown and handled in a limited, local area then transportation costs are reduced and disease transmission is limited. As it is now, the average ingredient in your kitchen travels around 1500 miles to get to you. You’re lucky if that is less. Hauling animals from factory farms to feed lots for "finishing"–like 3 weeks on a muck filled concrete eating GMO corn and slipping in excrement is improving the flavor–and then to slaughter houses hundreds of miles away only causes disease to spread and traceability to diminish. What we need it true farm to table, local production centers. Farmer Y raises animals and they travel no more than 250 to 500 miles and they go from his yard straight to the back of a butcher shop, all supervised and vet inspected, and then to you the consumer. Same with produce. From farm to local distribution center to markets or tables. Sure all this won’t transplant the Mega Mart Food Center, but a little bit more of this and less of Styrofoam packaged mystery meat from halfway across the country and we’d all be better off–no need to spend the rest of the budgeted $33 million on Animal Tracking and Privacy Invasion.

Popularity: 6% [?]

What a thing to come home and find! The Gastrocast is #8 on the MIllion Podcast Pixel Site. Thanks to whomever is responsable for this. Drop by and I’ll cook you dinner. This is way cool. It’s an honor to be up there with the likes of Ricky Gervais, The Croncast, Slashdot Review among many others. I hope this works out to get podcasting into the mainstream.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Another week, another show. In this week’s Gastrocast we talk about wooden cutting boards, Irish blue cheese, Blood Oranges, and we make a Chicken Thigh Salad with Blood Orange Vinaigrette, which I mistakenly kept calling a Composed Salad–Salade Compose–but I meant a Salade Tiedes, basically a warm salad. Sorry.

Mentioned on the Show:
Wiggly Wigglers
Snoqualmie Joe

My posts and show about the National Animal Identification System (NAIS)

For Wooden Cutting Boards and Here. Against.

Flickr Photos

Music:
Intro and Outro: Orange Streaks by Reid Holmes
In Betweens: Half-Time Orange by Steve Robinson

Hope you Enjoy the Show.

Neal

Technorati Tags: gastrocast, podchef, cooking, food, culinary podcast, blood oranges, nais, national animal id, cheese, wiggly wigglers, wooden cutting boards

Popularity: 6% [?]

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

Popularity: 6% [?]

The NAIS seems to be a hot topic today. The Hometown Conservative has some great comments about it. Well worth reading. And it does matter that you read this stuff. Even if you don’t think so at the moment. . . .Freedom might be on the march, but it’s heading in the wrong direction being carried off by the wrong people.

Popularity: 6% [?]

The Great Corned Beef Experiment begins. This week’s Gastrocast is all about Corned Beef–or the making of it. We also make Sauerbraten–a similar preserved meat dish from Germany. It’s all Celtic on this show. Both these dishes are answers to historical storage and preservation problems. Both are long term projects: The Corned Beef should be ready towards the end of February and We’ll eat the Sauerbraten this weekend. Subscribe to the podcast only feed, or to the podcast/blog feed and stay tuned to the show to find out more! Enjoy.

Flickr photos

The Biodiesel article
Article on Antimicrobial effect of herbs and spices

Music: I’ll Tell Me Ma Set by Aff The Cuff

Technorati Tags: gastrocast, podchef, cooking, food, culinary podcast, corned beef, st. patricks day, biodiesel, spices

Popularity: 7% [?]

Only one month after Japan lifted the ban on importing American Beef, they have again closed down imports. Why? A shipment of beef which contained "carcass parts" which were suspected possibly posing a risk for BSE–mad cow disease.  Why can’t the USDA get it right? They lie to the Americans about Mad Cow, they lie to get meat exported. Why aren’t they dealing with the problem? Instead of refusing to test cattle upons slaughter, they should embrace it and make sure meat is safe again. Instead of allowing rendered by-products of the slaughter industry to still be allowed in cattle feed they should step up to the plate and stop the practice!

It’s time for the American people to stop being complaicent. To wake up and either stop eating beef altogether in protest, or to demand that factory farmed meat is made safe and that safe, sustainable practices are employed. The USDA appears to have gotten lazy and bureaucratically bloated. Instead of protecting the Consumer they are all about protecting the profits of the large Agri-business corporations. This is utter crap. Chefs and Consumers need to demand better products, not cheaper prices.

If you want to keep eating meat in America, my advise is to adopt a local farmer. Make them part of your family and support them. Let them know what you want to eat and help them provide it for you. If the government can’t make our meat safe for us–we can make sure it is safe for ourselves!

And all this before my Great Corned Beef Experiment. Now I wish I had tried much, much harder to source local beef. I hang my head. . . .

Popularity: 6% [?]

Warning, you, your neighbor or someone you may know could be feeding their dog a Raw Meat diet and causing a potential health risk–you should turn them in. . .report them so the FDA will be vindicated in considering new laws to prevent people from feeding their animals anything other than mass-marketed, chemically enhanced, corporate sponsored  Road Kill. 

To quote an article in Boing Boing: The FDA has taken note of the health risks posed for people who feed their pets raw meat, fearing they could contact salmonella and e-coli. With the practice growing in popularity, the agency has issued guidelines for companies marketing raw meat to pets: "FDA does not believe raw meat foods for animals are consistent with the goal of protecting the public from significant risks, particularly when such products are brought into the home and/or used to feed domestic pets.

Raw meat foods. . .not consistant. . protecting public health–WTF??? Despite the articles ridiculous bent against wealthy people feeding their pets better than they themselves might eat, and the fact that there are bunny ranches out there specifically for providing free-range, organic, non-modified pet food, these words stand out to me.  What does the FDA have to do with what I feed my pet if I don’t want to feed them crappy kibble? If I want to spend $15 a pound on naturally raised chickens pampered by virgins and fed on asses milk then that’s my right as a citizen of a free country and Democracy. If I happen to be STUPID enough to not take precautions and give myself or my family E.Coli or Salmonella, then perhaps our genes shouldn’t be in the breeding pool anyway.

This is exactly what happens when some pencil pushing asshole decides to take an interest in something which can move his sorry ass up the butt-kissing ladder.  "Oh, I got a law passed which keeps people from feeding anything to their pets, except XYZ brand dog food. My boss is very pleased as they sponsored his campaign. . . ." I mean really.
Instead of regulating and limiting, our government should be educating and instructing people. Raw meat IS dangerous. But only if you leave it out to fester and smear it all over your door handles and then chuck a carcass in the public swimming pool. Ban raw foods??? Sure. Great. Smart. Oooh. Why not ban disposing of raw meat contaminated products in the GARBAGE, and pets too. A friend of ours was inspecting a public waste facility and trod in a rotten St. Bernard carcass. He was traumatised, and his suit was ruined–I certainly wouldn’t want to wear the shoes again. . . .We should have a law to prevent this sort of thing. . . .Right?

I don’t think so. Laws, regulations and rules over this sort of thing don’t make sense.

I feed my dog a Bones and Raw Food diet–BARF. I have done for 7 years. He is the healthiest dog I know. He is old, yet has abundant energy. He has never choked on a bone–we feed whole chicken or turkey legs quite often. He has not ever been sick. I have not taken him to a Vet for the whole time. His yard is clean and doesn’t smell. His crap dries up and goes away. Anal glands? never a problem. In addition to raw meat and bones he gets all table scraps and a selection of veggies. I don’t go out of my way to feed him his own special, expensive diet. I feed him the same stuff we eat. If it’s good enough for us, it’s okay for him–although he does get some funky stuff I wouldn’t eat.  I mean dogs do eat their own feces, drink out of the toilet and regularly rummage through garbage cans–they can survive on stuff which would knock us down. They aren’t as suceptible as we are to salmonella and e.coli because their gut is different then ours–much more acidic. Their saliva is different. As long as the people feeding their pets a Raw Food diet do so with everyday common sense than there is no threat to public safety. What, after all, did people do before there was mass-marketed pet food? Commercial pet food has only really become popular since the 60’s. Before that–dog meat from the butcher. Uncooked. Yup.

This is such a non-issue it drives me crazy. Our society is changing in ways which are sooooo Big Brother and dictitorial. Live and let live. Oh–and if I had ever finished my degree in Veteranary Science I think I would still feel this way. I’m kind of glad, though, at the moment I never did. . . . .

Popularity: 7% [?]

Yesterday was like a breath of spring. No rain, very warm and deliciously sunny. Today we are back to winter.
Be that as it may, the weather yesterday drew me out of kitchen and hovel to begin work on the Polytunnel, aka hoophouse, aka greenhouse.
Read more about it and track the progress of my DIY project here.

The most obvious question is, however, why is a chef building a greenhouse–what has this construction project got to do with food? Leave that stuff to the gardeners. . . .
Well, true in one respect. However, this is more than weekend warrior machismo or being happily diverted in a project. This is about control. Control of what we eat and how it is produced, and when. I want garden greens now. I want my family, friends and clients to have the best. I also want to cut out the middle man, the expense of travel and the need to rely on others for basic things. Moreover, what I want to eat and play with isn’t always available to me in my area. Besides this, I’m a bit mad in case you haven’t figured that out yet.

The seed orders have arrived and as the shell of the polytunnel takes shape I am already seeing the potential chillies, eggplants, and tomatoes. Oh, I can buy these anywhere throughout the year. I can go to a Farmer’s Market in season and pick them up at their peak. But I can also grow and experiment with exactly what I want, how I want it and capture it at its best. The challenge of peak variety and peak flavor.  Besides I’m not just speaking about an isolated concept, I’m selling a lifestyle. One which more of us should aspire to. Perhaps not back to the land, but at least achieving a greater knowledge of where our food comes from, the things which can effect its flavor and the pride in ownership–"hey, I grew this" or "hey, I’ve never tasted something so fresh".

So I hope you’ll check out the project, subscribe to The Gastrocast Podcast, watch the blog via RSS and come with me as we take this journey in 2006.

Popularity: 6% [?]

So I was on the mainland yesterday all day. I went to pick up the–I almost wrote ingredients–supplies for the Polytunnel. But I also went to secure the Brisket for The Great Corned Beef Experiment, coming to a Gastrocast Episode soon. While I was heading to the butcher shop I thought I might as well get a piece of pig so I could take place in the great, world-wide, pig blogging event to what ever extent I could.

Easier said than done. I had, of course asked about pork belly while I was on the phone to the butcher to order the brisket. As I heard the reply to the affirmative and heard that they had large cuts like that on hand regularly, I felt confident all would be well. I had visions of halved pigs hanging in the cooler awaiting a butcher to carve off an 8 pound section of belly complete with skin, bones and covering membrane for me. However, the reality was not as good as the fiction.

My idea was to cure the pork belly–where bacon usually comes from–in the same manner as the Corned Beef Brisket. In fact, in the same cure plus Juniper Berries. The idea was for a sort of quasi bacon dish to come out in the end. Perhaps roasting the whole belly piece after a few days. I didn’t know what would exactly happen. The key, though, was to get hold of some pig.

While, I got to the butcher and secured my whole brisket–albeit a cryovaced one– and asked about the belly. The look of wonder was incredible. No they didn’t have any with skin on, and bones, etc. No they didn’t have any with skin on and no bones. They had some small pieces of skin off, trimmed belly ready to be sliced as green, uncured bacon. . . .While, where did the pork come from–"Oh we get it sent in, cryovaced,  by the case." Oh, commercial, quick-grown pork. No whole pig carcasses haning in the  cooler? What happened to the local stuff. . . ? Never get it in. Shit.
I pay for the brisket–reluctantly–and leave crest fallen. My newly found butcher wonder turns out to be only a slight improvement over buying the meat at Costco or the Grocery store. I drive off.

After some grocery shopping I have a brain flash. I know of another butcher–not nearly as far away as the first. Surely they’ll have some pig meat for me. I head for the hills. Way out on a country land, almost on their own farm, in the middle of nowhere is the butcher. I pull up and talk with the owner. He checks for pork belly. Nope–just some which isn’t his to sell from a farmer up the road. "Call him and tell him I’ll buy. . . ." my plea fell on deaf ears. He was too busy trying to sell me some revolting beer brat beef sausages. He too gets in the cryovaced pig meat when it’s needed. We talked bacon making and beef corning a few minutes before I ask him about what it takes for them to USDA approved Slaughter my own animals. He gladly tells me and gives me the prices–not so bad. As I drove off I had to restrain myself from heading further South to the pig farm where I know I can buy piglets. . . I want my dream of pork belly.

Unfortunately, where I live, that dream is not viable. Not until I raise my own pork or go in on a neighbors pigs. But at this point I am wanting too much control over the flavor of the meat. I know some of the pig farmers around here raise good meat, but they coop their pigs up in too small an area for my taste, and some feed them all kinds of cooked garbage–literally. The USDA’s recommendations from 50 years ago still echo in their heads every time their sow whelps. . . . .

Fear not though. Pig Blogging should not be without pig cookery. I got some pork loin from near the shoulder and have roasted it. I wish I had brined it before hand because this is commercial pork. . .but I didn’t. I give you–sorry no photos–Pork Roast with Sauerkraut.

In the bottom of a casserole spread a layer of sauerkraut–well drained. Slice an onion and scatter over the top. Cover this with a handful of barley and season well. Pour almost a whole pint of cider–the good, well flavored hard kind–over this. Add some crushed juniper berries if you wish and top with a seasoned pork loin. Some sage would not go amiss. Roast at 325 F for about 2 hours–depending on the size of the loin.  Serve it with some roasted spuds.

Not exactly the height of Gastronomy, but it was just the thing to come into after a day–the first non-rainy, warm and sunny one in months–of working on the poly tunnel.

Don’t forget to check out what the other pig bloggers are doing. And tune in for The Great Corned Beef Experiment later in the week.

Popularity: 6% [?]

I resubmitted the show to iTunes and it finally made its way there. This new link will connect you to a podcast-only feed which contains all the shows. I have also updated the link in the side-bar. The really interesting thing is, though, that I updated the text and the name of the show–to "The Gastrocast"–when I submitted everything to Apple, and in the feed, but that’s not what showed up on the page. Oh well.

If you have subscribed to the show via the old iTunes link–please, please, please resubscribe with this link! The old one, which never updates is going to go away.  Thanks.

Popularity: 6% [?]

It seems that the USDA is trying to reinvent the wheel with it’s NAIS plan. The animal identification and tracking plan as they outline it is a much more pale, and weak and EXPENSIVE version of something that ScoringAg is already doing. Of course, ScoringAgs options allow for real-time tracking and updating of information, a guaranteed secure database, and a variety of useful options such as use of a cell phone for mobile tracking. All, supposedly, at prices which would make a farmer want to act on their own to set their herds and livestock up in a database for added value to the consumer.  So just what is the point of the Government’s useless, burdened and expensive system? I can only think of one word–graft.

From PRWeb

Popularity: 6% [?]