Planting Pumpkins

Frances is the librarian at Scott Montgomery Elementary. We met with her last week to discuss planting an educational edible garden. When we met Frances it was one of those hot summer days that shot us back to childhood­–particularly because if it was this hot it had to be summer–no school. We are walking through a schoolyard where construction crews are digging up the black top to replace and implant a new playground. Frances had met the mayor at a CCCA meeting a few weeks prior and walked right up to him, after some encouragement, and unselfishly asked for a playground.

The feeling of potential of something about to happen seems to be Frances' constant state. When you meet her you imagine the feeling of beginning school again, that first day when anything can happen. The librarian telling you that you can take any book out you want. The child sees the book and the librarian sees the child with the excitement of a new read/reader both a story to unfold.

We are standing in the middle of the library. Tables and chairs are stacked about. Nothing is in its place–everything is in its place. It is the summer it’s smoking hot outside. We are in an elementary school library with no children, except for Frances’ eight-year boy who is not feeling well and is glued to Henson’s Labyrinth playing on a screen. The librarian’s son silences us as we excitedly make plans for gardens, compost and food–this all makes sense. We plan a garden in hushed tones–a conspiracy to plant a pumpkin patch begins.

This garden had been in the works for weeks now. We planted pumpkin seedlings a few weeks ago, before we had a plan–hoping to find a home for them. At the time of planting we knew we had a short window, in that the seeds have 75 days to germination and cannot wait to be planted in the ground if we want pumpkins by October 31st.

Frances wrote a couple days ago that she contacted the Mayor’s Conservation Corps and they are scheduled to dig with us on Tuesday. Francine also has Home Depot dropping Bags of humus and topsoil over the fence on Monday.

If Frances gets stuff done, its because you don’t have to cross a threshold to volunteer; nothing is complicated or heavy. It's very simple, these kids need to develop relationship skills and Frances realizes that this happens through interaction outside of the system. She sets up readings for boys, readings for girls and reading groups for adults.

A garden is like a book in that after turning over the soil and adding dark rich nutrients there is this wonderful place of potential, a something about to unfold that can only be uncertainty unless planted or read.

We are standing in front of the school measuring where the pumpkins will go. We ask one final time “are you sure this is ok” as if to say, “this is exactly what we have been looking to do” Frances' response is “my principal says just as long as we don’t create any extra work”. There will be work but the beautiful thing about Frances is nothing is extraneous; everything makes sense. Its all a matter of perspective and that perspective is pragmatic optimism.

Living Food

Visiting Eco-Friendly Foods earlier this week will probably result in several blog posts..here is another.

After visiting Eco-Friendly Foods and speaking at length with Bev Eggleston, we began to talk about what exactly a food movement means. When pressed on the question of whether corporations could reproduce what he is doing and thereby co-opt certain practices, similar to the way ‘Organic’ has been rendered a useless tag; Bev makes it very clear that his practice is so singular, so particular to the area, time, animal, and farms serviced (even the weather of a particular day), that it would be impossible for corporations to co-opt. Even if ‘Acme Meat Processing’ were to try to emulate Bev, they would immediately find it cost prohibitive. The reason why is: Eco-Friendly Foods is a hands on approach, malleable in its ability to adapt to the instantaneous swerves that are inherent in running small organizations. Eco-Friendly Foods is a Living self-organizing organism, and we mean literally Living. The value of Living that Bev, and others like him, put on their practice, their entire eco-system for that matter, is what puts these practices at odds with big business. The Living of food and the Living of the eater do not need to succumb to the collateral damage of bottom lines.

What is at stake are ‘practices’ and to allow these practices to exist for reasons other than, but not in opposition to money. Bev, or any other Artist concerned with the practice of Living organisms, are not interested in bending concerning factors to their will but act in concert with the understanding that every organism has a self-organizing tendency. Bev’s job is to bring about the best possible outcomes while trying to stay in business. To privilege vivacity should not oppose a practice of supplying food. Life is the open and unexpected demands and desires of organisms not straddled or bent to rigid concepts transcending from higher forces.

Living practices may be opposed to setting hard and fast goals that refuse singular practices. For example when asked if all the farms that Bev services are permaculture, Bev says, “I have old timers who have no idea what that means. But we KNOW these animals we pick up are as healthy and far better than most out there.” In other words small farmers who have passed along practices for generations are acting in a symbiotic relationship with their micro eco systems and to demand they practice a form of permaculture would be ridiculous. To send down regulated guidelines may leave behind practices that have helped us think action up to this point. Standardization would be counter effective within the growth of a food movement.

What we can learn from Bev, is a diagnostic approach that deals in differentials, analysis and sense particular in an operation. To copy his operation would be to lose the very concept on which this immanent, grassroots organization sprung. That is to say, to take the practices and impose them elsewhere would be quixotic. However this is not to say that Bev’s perspective, his overarching philosophy of particular singularities leading us, should not be explored and developed everywhere there are discussions of food practices. What is at stake is that the perspective of evolution allows room for growth, adaptation and to impose a revolution is a violent action that inherently leads to the question of: what next?

This evolution needs to take place in the financial markets first. Michael Pollan encourages us to vote with our forks. But as we have seen with the botched economy and stimulus this may not be enough. What is needed is investment in singular practices not in opposition to technology (for Bev’s plant is technologically advanced), but in concert with best practices. Eco-Friendly Foods has everything in place except the infrastructure and the human power to expand to where they need to be. Bev has established a market for what he does, he needs investors. Investors that privilege the pioneer aspects of what Bev has established.

Living is a process of the now, acknowledging a past that can never be present and speculating a future that will never exist. Living helps us think necessity, how to avoid avarice and the ability to handle the turbulence that make up a Life. Financial markets are controlled; corporations are mandated to follow bottom lines. Freeing Financial Markets may be our most important challenge within a so-called food movement. In the meantime Bev will be at the Dupont Farmers Market this Sunday.

Fig Chutney

Today was busy after being out of town for the day yesterday. In addition to a few wedding meetings, a garden that we worked on and lots of back and forth phone calls and emails about a variety of projects there were two days worth of figs to pick. Today that meant lots of figs, John, Martin-Lane and I were all on ladders collecting the ripe fruit. We have been eating figs, made a large batch of fig compote, sharing figs and this evening we all made a batch of fig chutney.
We are enjoying this years large harvest more than ever.

Todays Fig Chutney

Brown Turkey and Celeste Figs, stems cut off and cut in half
Onions sliced
Fresh Ginger grated (lots of it)
Red wine vinegar
Cinnamon
Pinch of Clove
Pinch of Cayenne Pepper
Salt

Slowly cook over a low heat stirring regularly until the mixture is thick. Adjust the seasonings. Serve hot or cold as a condiment to vegetables, bread, cheese, meat, poultry...

I just put nearly 8 quarts on fig chutney away!

Transparent Food

photo by John Cochran

Bev Eggleston of Eco Friendly Foods is all about Transparency. How many owners of a Beef, Pork AND Chicken processing plant will invite a couple of eco-minded (one of us vegan) chefs and a professional photographer to witness the harvesting of beef, to witness the “Humane Killing” of six cows?

Agriculture and the notion of harvesting food are all about us as we drive through the southwestern part of Virginia. We drive three and a half hours to Eco-Friendly. We drive past pastures of grazing Cows. We drive past large signs that invite us to pick our own blackberries. The anxious anticipation of not knowing how I will react to watching an animal be killed bouncing off the knowledge of harvesting food. I want to experience, as best as possible, the in between spaces of where food comes from. As Bev says, “from the farm gate to the plate”…I have no idea what to expect…

Our friend and outstanding photographer, Abby Greenawalt drove up the night before to get accustomed to the facilities, meet the animals and have dinner with Bev in his environment. Abby’s portraits are amazing. Her ability to capture an instant of another human being while bringing out their personality is acute. She always seems open, with out an ounce of cynicism–obviously the key to her portraits. I don’t think she–or us, are prepared for what we are about to witness.

We enter the plant while Abby and Bev are closing a 30-foot tall sliding door behind them. We get a glimpse of two large white and red carcasses stripped naked and hanging from the ceiling. Bev greets us with hugs. There is a serene, earnest feeling–very sincere from both of them. They do not take lightly, what they have just witnessed.

Bev is adamant about the need for transparency and what drives him as much as anything is a ‘clean food movement’? In fact, the movement hinges on getting the word out. What Bev has created is an independently owned, marketed, non-subsidized, multi-species processing plant that services a consortium of farmers within a four or five-hour drive. Bev services Washington DC as well as New York City. Chefs and restaurateurs like Dan Barber and Danny Meyers all deal with Bev. We know the product is good! What most don’t know is, Bev was a vegetarian before he decided to venture into farming as well as producing meat and poultry.

We are standing in the future retail space of the Eco Friendly operation as Bev explains that he wants to walk us backward through the process. That is to say from the vacuum packed meat to the live animal in the yard. There is kitchen equipment around, a six burner Vulcan, a double stack Blodgett convection oven, a couple of steam kettles…The kitchen is unfinished, as is the retail space, however the familiarity of equipment we know and have used sets us at ease. Bev feels us out, as I said before he takes none of this lightly–there is an ultimate respect for life and in that he has no use for shock or gratuitous gestures of provocation. We feel we are in good hands, in the hands of a professor–a teacher who is about to share a truth–a fact with us that we already know but have never really experienced.

We walk into a cold room the size of the first floor of an average home. Here we meet Adam, a bearded twenty–something intern from Louisiana, who works at a nearby chicken farm. He is here to experience the other side of farming–the processing. Adam along with at least six other workers is vigilantly boning chickens and vacuum sealing them. Everyone including us is wearing white lab coats and hairnets. The coats have an Eco-Friendly patch on them and everyone is required to wear one along with a hairnet. There is a full time USDA inspector on premise and NO regulation is taken flippantly.

Davide stands no more than five foot tall; he pokes his head through the large doors where we first caught a glimpse of the naked carcasses. He motions to Bev and shouts a few words in Spanish. Bev motions to us and we are moving through what seems to be the chicken processing room into what we are assuming is the harvesting room.

One of the reasons Bev is a pioneer in his field is his ability to process multi-species. He runs a small operation where pipes, tables, meat hooks are all portable, changeable and easy to sanitize. His staff is beyond reproach, as they are able to move from cleaning chicken in the morning while cows are being killed to butchering pork in the afternoon. No large processing plant can be this versatile. The factories that turn over large quantities are highly mechanized and leave behind Bev’s greatest maxim: plain old’ sense will out perform standard conventional thinking almost all the time.

We enter the harvesting room and immediately feel a temperature change, from cold to warm. My camera lens fogs over as we huddle in a far corner. Davide points a stun gun down into a chute. We hear no sound. We barely made it in to the room to see the animal standing and now he is laying on the floor convulsing. Bev checks his eyes. If his eyes do not react, the animal is out. As calm as the animal stood in the pen is as wild as his body kicks without consciousness.

Bev’s story is one of a vegetarian who thought there had to be a way to kill with dignity, a way of allowing animals into the food chain with the same dignity and respect that goes into the preparing of meals. Bev operates similar to a chef that does everything by hand. It is in this way that the killing is done, is done with care for the life given. His respect for the animal begins in his own farmyard and carries all the through to the final product.

The animal is hung through the Achilles heels, on meat hooks that are on a rolling pulley like system. Blood pours out of the neck. The gorgeous brown fur of the cow glistens in the fluorescent lighting of a room with ceilings high enough to hang a two thousand pound animal. Davide and his partner meticulously begin to skin the carcass. Brown turns to bright red and white as the skin comes off in what seems like the ease of peeling an orange. I see the muscles still twitching. The head comes off and the inspector checks the lymph nodes. The inspector declares the animal healthy and it is at this point that I realize that at no time during this process have I thought about death or illness.

‘Clean Food’ is a political issue for Bev as much as anything. Our food supply is at stake. It is an issue of Health Care, National Security, Energy, Environment , Economy… all of which have been deeply impacted by not respecting life cycles and not allowing the natural ebbs and flows that contribute, strengthen us both figuratively and literally…

We strip off the lab coats to go outside. We wait as Bev heads into the yard to retrieve a cow. We watch as Bev holds his hands up to the animal and does reiki on the cow. Bev puts the animal at ease, it is important to Bev. The animal walks up the chute seemingly anxiousless, without excitement...

Bev is at the Dupont Farmers Market every Sunday.

Home, No Place (utopia)

We are announcing three Home Restaurant dates in September. When we started doing these Home Restaurants we had no idea what to expect. John and I met catering so we knew we could actually cook out of a home kitchen. What has been unexpected is how we regard our home now. We have always thought this nineteenth century Victorian magical (forgiven it for lack of closets). Before we moved in eleven years ago our dear friend David Knight designed and laid out our home–we could not be happier.

The interesting thing is, and I want to preface this with the fact that since we closed the restaurant I have always worked out of my home, To turn your home into a restaurant on what ever scale is a completely different beast. One begins to view 'home' with an intense aesthetic as well as ergonomic necessity while at the same time making it 'home'. That is to say home is always a 'becoming' what it is and we enjoy sharing.

The intensity in which we ran Rupperts is a bit ridiculous when we look back. I mean to schedule the birth of your only child by inducing labor during your spring vacation may have been too much. But we loved what we did and it brought us as many challenges and joy as anything else I have ever done. To turn that same discerning energy on our home is both exhilarating and confusing on some level. To know when to turn off or to know when you have sacrificed Home for Work is not always apparent.

The best thing is we are living the life style we have always wanted. That is to say without hard boundaries. Martin Lane, John and I pick up just about anywhere and move in and out of work and play to the point where the distinction is erased…

So what IS interesting is we find our selves reorganizing everything, thinking how to make everything work better, from cleaning the basement to hanging hooks in the bathroom for wet towels, to thinking of how to start a roof garden with a bee hive. Efficiency and necessity collide with a everyday life–That includes Dinner Parties.

Many of the projects that we have only talked about are now coming to fruition, I feel in part because our home seems as much a place of potential as anything else, but also because there is access to so much information and we are coming across so many people who are making and doing things they are willing to share.

Home Restaurant
1508 6th street, NW,
Washington DC 20001

We are announcing three dates in September
Friday, September 11 at 8pm
Thursday, September 17 at 7pm
Saturday, September 26 at 8pm

The menu may include: Late tomatoes, eggplant, okra from Path Valley, Bev’s beef, chicken or rabbits, Jim’s wild fish, Kenan’s wild mushrooms, FIGS from 1508…

The wine is chosen by Tom…

The service is provided by Derrick (Who we have known for more than half his life!) and Martin Lane (Who we have known her whole life!)

Reservations: sidraforman@gmail.com
I will email you back to confirm availability and with information about suggested donation-
Please share this email with any potentially interested diners.

If you would like to plan a private date of ten or more other than the scheduled open dates send an email…

Please advise if you have any food restrictions, vegetarians are more than welcome!

Human All Too Human

We went to see "The Cove” last night. The Cove is a movie about Taiji, Japan and dolphin fishing. In Taiji, dolphins are corralled in a lagoon by a method of Drive Hunting. There, the beautiful, athletic animals are auctioned off to Sea World-like shows (evidently a multi-billion dollar business). The dolphins that are NOT chosen to perform are led into a “killing cove”. Thousands of dolphins will be killed this year in Taiji for what is said to be their meat. The movie is based on activists, involved in an under cover operation to film the killing in spite of the hunter’s and local government’s attempt to keep the killing undocumented. The activists as well as the hunters are aware of the impact images of bottle nosed dolphins being slaughtered for food will have on a world obsessed with this mammal. Everyone is aware of the killings and openly addresses the issue; the fight is over documentation.

Ric O’Barry, the former trainer of the five dolphins that played Flipper on television in the 1960’s, drives this movie. Kathy was one of the ‘Flipper’ dolphins and her death had a deep impact on Ric. Openly remorseful about his part in advancing an oedipalization of Dolphins, he has taken an activist role in rectifying his mistakes. He sees no reason to ever keep a Dolphin in captivity.

The movie makes very clear that the problem is an anthropomorphic view of dolphins. And, this anthropomorphic view paradoxically leads us to capturing and captivating animals in a forced relationship. To the extent that an acoustic marine biologist asks the question of why dolphin trainers use hand signals–Dolphins have no hands, thus setting up a system of one-way communication. The point being: Why do we travel to outer space in search of life–to communicate with life yet unknown, when we have this amazing acoustic species here? Instead of trying to communicate with these mammals, we teach them to break-dance and play with beach balls or worse train to kill as weapons of destruction.

If the problem is one of transferring human qualities onto dolphins and turning these animals into adorable property for our entertainment, then why should we have a problem with fishermen killing these animals for food? Food is the opposite of anthropomorphic and to kill a Human is forbidden. Why should this animal be treated different than a cow? Why should a dolphin or any animal enjoy a human-like status similar to the ones reserved for dogs, cats and horses in the US? And if one animal enjoys a certain status, why not all? If the answer is: all animals are equal in a systematic categorization or separation of human and animal then why should we impose a moratorium on the harvesting in Taiji?

Well it turns out that Dolphin meat is a toxic substance and to eat this mercury laden mammal would be similar to smoking packs of filter less Camel cigarettes, every day! Dolphins are a horrible source of sustenance. Which in many senses renders the killing senseless or even worse a proud gesture that is similar to cutting one’s nose off to spite one’s face. The hunters make it known that the issue is not one of money and when offered subsidies to stay home they invoke Nationalism and Culture as their right to continue the tradition of Drive Hunting Dolphins. These Japanese Fishermen make it clear that they resent the West interfering with the long standing cultures of whaling and dolphining industries. Similarly, the Activist seem to reserve a beyond human status for the dolphins.

So the film presents an interesting paradox, one of which the Dolphin Hunters and the Dolphin Advocates both advance a perspective, that to view these animals through an anthropomorphic lens is to deny facts. For the Hunters the dolphins have always been food and for the Advocates the dolphins have always been wild. But it is the myth of the dolphin that both aids and hinders their causes.

The Hunters use the anthropomorphic view in order to finance the killing. That is to say that the money they make auctioning off performing dolphins far out weighs any money made selling dolphin meat, $150,000 for a Sea World dolphin and $600 for a meat dolphin. Advancing a view of dolphins that would be horrified at their killing and eating is the backlash of the financial strategy.

The Advocates use the anthropomorphic view in order to stop the killing. That is to say that their goal of showing pictures or video to the world of dolphins being slaughtered is premised on the notion that there is an economy of intolerance when it comes to watching dolphins being slaughtered. And dolphins being captured and forced to perform have set up that intolerance. Dolphins are animals that we are horrified to see being eaten because of the Sea World shows.

Ric O’Barry adopts Dolphin meat as a health issue to combat the killing almost as a secondary strategy. In the Advocate’s attempt to throw every thing at this senselessness they maybe missing their most important weapon, human’s anthropocentricism. That is to say Man’s inability to understand anything apart from how man will be affected by it.

The film points out that Japan has a history of Mercury poisoning and its cover up. Minamata is a City in Japan where the Chisson Corporation allowed the dumping of Mercury into its waters thereby poisoning people as well as wombs and fetuses. (This has been amazingly documented by the photographer W. Eugene Smith.) Ric O’Barry uses this history to connect with many in Japanese cities like Tokyo, who have no cultural connection with the harvesting of dolphins, to create outrage that children are being poisoned.

The film seems to rush by the Activists greatest success: the two Taiji city council members who put an end to the dolphin meat for school lunch program.

Ultimately the film at certain points seems mired in myth and the kind of thought that perpetuates looking into the eyes of something and deciding we know what it is thinking… This is NOT to say that the animals are not thinking and the senseless slaughter should continue, it is only to say that on some level, it is Necessity that should lead us and in That Necessity is where we find our truest pleasures emptied of resentment and nostalgia… senseless killing is senseless killing and ultimately does have a profound affect on our environment, what we are forced to eat and the perspective we take through media.

Martin Lane was inspired to write this letter as soon as she walked in the house after watching The Cove:

Dear President of the United States,

Hello my name is Martin-Lane Cochran. I am 10 years old.I am a vegan and have been one since I was born. You’ll probably never read this but I feel like it can make a difference.Now getting to the point please read the rest of the letter.

My Mom, Sidra Dad, John and I went to see the independent film, The Cove. It is about the slaughtering of dolphins, the process is about the same as whales. Yet it is mostly happening in Japan, I understand that this is half the way around the world from us (or so they say) but could you donate or something to the OPS. This company or organization that is saving many species including us humans. What I mean is fish is killing us humans and soon our food chain will be a mess. You’ll understand more when you watch the movie. I do not really have a question or am asking you to do anything but I just wanted you to know about the subject.

Sincerely,

Martin-Lane Cochran

P.S. I know you are busy so you do not have to write me back just please watch the movie with your daughters.

Garlic

When John worked in the UK, he worked with the generation of British chefs that were all coming up and around the same time as Marco Pierre White (Gordon Ramsey, actually worked for Marco Pierre White). John says, “Marco was a an unobtainable goal, he was obsessed and an awesome chef. Just to watch him move through the kitchen only he was not a chef yet, so even as a sous chef he was a legend to us commis.” The stories passed around about MPW grabbing colleagues by the neck because they botched something or got in his way. He was totally punk rock with long hair and chiseled facial figures. John says they were all frightened and drawn to him at the same time. He spoke fluent French and would answer the phone with an accent convincing guests he was the French reservationist–in a Peter Sellars/Iggy Pop like performance that backed it up with serious vittles. John says the most important dish he ever ate was a pig trotter stuffed with foie gras that White prepared when he established his first restaurant Harveys…

John’s experience in Michelin Starred restaurants in the 80's, has informed many of our food practices. Which brings me to Garlic! One of the chefs John worked for in the UK many years ago, Shaun Hill still influences our use of garlic today. Martin Lane calls it the angel in the devil. Probably because although she loves Garlic, one of her jobs in the kitchen has become peeling it. Peeling maybe an understatement because we peel the paper skin and then split the clove in half to expose the ingrown tail like vein. The tail/vein is indigestible and by removing we enjoy our garlic so much more.

This time of year if you are not growing garlic, buy from the farmers market. Fresh garlic is an entirely different beast than the grocery/super market product (I remember garlic coming in boxes at the Giant in Montgomery County, stale, hard and weak). Fresh garlic is bright in color, firm in texture and juicy (if you have sensitive skin beware of break outs, don’t be afraid to use gloves when peeling a lot or raw garlic).

We also will Roast a dozen bulbs at a time. Break the bulbs down into cloves leaving the paper like skin on. Coat the cloves in grape seed oil and roast in a medium heat oven–around 300. The skin will protect the oil coated clove while it slowly roasts to soft. Pull from oven and let cool. Then Peel paper outer layer. One all your garlic is peeled then split each clove in half to remove tail/vein thing…

We use roasted garlic like butter to flavor anything from a salad to roasted greens. You can also eat just the way it is pureed with olive oil salt and pepper on bread… Makes a great soup if mixed with veggie or chicken stock…

Doing Nothing

We have decided this year to refrain from going anywhere for the summer. We did not think much about it–it may have been an economic decision of energy more than anything. Except for a week where John and Martin Lane hung out in Brooklyn (rode the cyclone roller coaster at Coney Island), we have stayed here, in DC all summer. We have enjoyed the many museums along with a few summer camps for ML…

The great thing about staying home during vacation time is doing "nothing". Actually having time to enjoy the present. That is to say falling into routines that have more to do with enjoying each other than anything else.

Routines like following the Tour of France on Television every morning in July. We decided to ride spin bikes while we watched Lance and the peloton roll through France. We actually got to see where so much of the wine we serve at our Home Restaurant comes from. OH and we enjoyed the race as well– got caught up in much of the drama as a teammate of Armstrong’s won the race (Not to worry Lance will be back next year). There was definitely a void when the race ended. Similar to finishing a good book that you were not ready to end…

More recently we have been harvesting figs. Every morning after a little breakfast and a few swigs of black coffee from a French press, John pulls out a 12 foot step ladder and he and ML battle the birds and squirrels for ripe figs. I hear Martin Lane gasp with excitement, “oh my gosh, LOOK at that one”…Hoping John does not react to quickly to our ten year old's joy of seeing dark purple figs bursting with juice on her trees. They are pretty high up hanging in these trees as ML tells me not to look…

We planted these trees as soon as we moved into this house in 1998. It seems everywhere we have lived we have left fig trees behind. The Trees at our home now are as high as our two-story house. We have two in Back that form a canopy and one in front that functions as a welcome awning. At least 30 feet high and bursting with fruit, this is the first year we will be home during the whole harvesting season (AND what a glorious summer it has been in DC!) The other animals in our micro-eco-system are not happy and part of Martin Lane’s job is to warn John when he is going to be buzzed by territorial bird. He tells her after a bird messes on him that it means good luck…

Figs grow great in the Mid-Atlantic States. George Washington grew figs at Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson wrote extensively about figs grown on his Monticello plantation. My dream is a public orchard in the Shaw neighborhood of DC.

We will make chutney, jam, sorbet and ice cream. But most importantly the figs offer us the opportunity to fall into a routine of ‘nothing’, hanging out and enjoying each other while we engage in a common chore–Whether rooting for Lance or picking figs… School will start soon and we won’t be allowed to do nothing anymore–at least not until next summer…

Tonight at 1508

Tonight we celebrated a Birthday at our Home Restaurant... We discovered friends of Rupperts Restaurant... We Grilled Bread, Experimented with Injera, Tasted a Fabulous Burgundy (Thanks Tom), Prepared Figs from our Trees, Roasted a Silver Salmon and listened to COLTRANE! .. All and All a Fabulous Night–Thank You to the wonderful Guests that have Found Us.... (the above photo was taken hours before the subject matter was turned into the below menu)
starters
eggplant spoon
spicy tomato on beet chip
grilled beef loin with figs
Chateau de Roquefort) Cotes de Provence ROSE 'Corail' 2008
seated
melon soup with green tomato herb jelly
(Chateau de Vaux) Moselle Blanc 'Les Gryphees' 2007
succotash with arugula and walnut puree, injera
(Colette Ferret) Pouilly Fuisse "Les Vernays" 2004
silver salmon with basil mashed potatoes, calaloo and almond vanilla sauce
(Regis Forey) Morey St. Denis 2006
Sally Jackson cow milk, Guernsey cheese with olive oil cracker
blackberry ice with fennel seed shortbread
fig tart with frozen ginger
(Domaine Chancelle) Cremant de Saumur NV
chocolate chocolate chip cookies
lemon cakes with mint icing
quinoa drops

Cutting Garden

The importance of fresh flowers in the home...

I am enjoying growing food in my garden, in clients gardens and all over my neighborhood but I also enjoy my flowers...all of which I cut and use. About half of my growing space is dedicated to cut flowers. It would be extreme to change over all flower beds into vegetable beds even if I was not using the flowers from my garden for work. A flower and food garden complement each other in so many ways.

I have been thinking a lot about this since visiting Hillwood Mansion yesterday. In many ways the house was not appealing. You can tell it was designed it to function as a museum, not a pleasant place to live. However to work there must have been a Joy. The Kitchen occupied more square footage than her bedrooms. the equipment and fixtures for the kitchen or Huge greenhouse for that matter were far more advanced than in Mrs. Post's Bathroom... All this brings me to the cutting garden which to this day thrives far better than any gardens we see at any museum in DC... This Garden ranks up there with Dumbarton if only because of its functionality. On our recent visit there were beautiful flowers clearly home grown and elegantly arranged throughout the house. The Greenhouse houses hundreds of orchids, other plants and many types of moss that are in constant rotation... A fabulous Place to work as a chef or a florist, not as fabulous to be a resident.

I have planted many edible gardens this year. I am thinking, that for anyone who has room, a flower cutting garden is the perfect companion to the vegeatable garden.

Non Cheese

The highlight of a long walk today was a large pizza that we got from VACE on Connecticut Ave in DC. When we had our restaurant, every New Years Eve we would order a stack of pies from VACE, just to get everyone working through a long grueling night. Today it was just the three of us and a tomato sauce, tomato, sun-dried tomato, artichoke and onion Pizza Pie. We had no cheese–We order non cheese pizzas all the time. Sometimes from places that offer specific non cheese "Marinara Pizzas" and other times we request a non cheese pizza and get varying reactions.

As it turns out the original Sicilian Pie was that of just tomatoes and crust. One of the best pizzas that follows this tradition is Totonno's originally in Coney Island. Unfortunately their Coney Island shop burned down, however they do have three other shops in Manhattan.

Totonno's calls their non cheese pizza a Neapolitan. Two Amy's here in DC calls theirs a Marinara (and is D.O.C.). Similar to heirloom tomatoes it is fascinating to see these pizzas turn up–not as dietary or faddish nutrition marketing techniques but a part of the mining of the history of tomato pies. They shouldn't be considered 'less' anything...

Nothing against a good slice of buffalo mozzarella but to add cheese to pizza CAN hide a multitude of sins. And lets face it the crust is what makes a pizza and a good crust does not need anything. So to offer a pizza without cheese takes a fair amount of confidence, And to let one leave your kitchen when someone orders no-cheese and you don't offer a no-cheese is even more gutsy (if you care about what you are doing...). Pizza is not an easy thing to do and hats off to anyone accommodating our special requests!

Pizza is also like religion for some–checkout this NY Times article on Difara's. John has eaten their pie many times and would not dare ask for a non cheese...

Today, VACE sent us an amazing pie that had just the right amount of snap in the crust. Just the right amount of yeasty beer flavor in the crust and a level of sauce that just moisten the top of the crust enough so that we never thought about cheese. It made us wonder why VACE didn't offer a Marinara or Straight Tomato pie...

Our Three favorite Pies that happen to not have cheese are Franny's in Brooklyn , Vace in Cleveland Park or Bethesda and Two Amy's in Cleveland Park...

Beware when ordering a pizza not intended to be without cheese that there will be less salt.... for a pie intended to have cheese will take into consideration the saltiness of cheese and will compensate–at VACE we buy pitted Kalamata olives and add ourselves...

Twenty First Century Neighborhood

We stumbled into the Building Museum today. We were on a neighborhood hike and couldn't resist the gigantic red brick warehouse/palace–a major landmark for us close to home. We have been thinking a lot about how many past perspectives have become useful to us and the idea of how contemporary life is finding relief by slowing down and returning to some 16th, 17th and 18th century perspectives.

Phillip Trager's show at the Building Museum seems to be built around Action shots of Twentieth Century dancers, New York City and Paris (capitals of the Industrial Revolution) and 16th century Italian Renaissance architecture. Photos of Modern Dancers in landscapes hung next to photos of Figures embedded in mostly late 19th century architecture, highlight a disruption–the human body represented as a movement as well as a statue. This juxtaposition creates a call and response where statue replaces body and body replaces statue and ultimately forms a question of What is contemporary human's place in the world, not as master? Form and Movement is the title of the show. Trager's work on Palladian architecture (symmetrical late 16th century villas) further develops this question–for Trager refrains from a human figure in his Palladian villa work and we are left to wonder how we fit into these gorgeous villas with our awkward 20th century minds and bodies...
"As the Industrial revolution replaces animal and human power with water, steam and fossil fuels" is how the Green Communities exhibition begins. We are now able to live further than a walk to work and our urban planning has followed suit. Green Communities reminds us that at one time the distance a human voice could travel helped us decide how we designed our living communities. The consequence of machine reliance on our bodies, minds and environment is made evident through this exhibition. Ebenezer Howard's Garden City Movement in London is pointed to as one of many examples throughout the exhibition–almost as a reminder that the current struggle for our ecology is not a new one but one that has been exacerbated by the twentieth century...
After we left the Building Museum we had lunch in the park across from the courthouse and then headed into I. M. Pei's East Wing of the National Gallery of Art.
Billed as the Greatest still life painter of eighteenth century Spain, Luis Meléndez's artichokes, pomegranates, melons, the greatest paintings of bread I have ever seen, cauliflower, honey jars, oranges, aubergines, tomatoes (definitely heirloom before heirloom was) and figs are anything but still. Commissioned by the prince and princess of Asturias to do an extensive series of still lifes for the New Cabinet of Natural History. The four seasons of food produced by Spanish climate were Meléndez's subjects. There are two paintings of a chocolate service with pots and whisks next to bread and silver dollar size chocolate discs. Next to these are crumpled paper and a copper pot for what seems like melting. These paintings vibrate with action, the potential of something about to happen. The chocolate paintings are displayed near actual tools that can be seen in the paintings and further the notion of a wanting to perform... This work makes me want to create, cook, paint... but mostly grow food that resembles these paintings–nothing like I see at the Super Market...

The paradox here is that Through technology the twenty first century has offered us the ability to hold multiple narratives in our head at the same time. This Paradox is a more open and hopeful perspective than the negation of past practices and perspectives that developed the twentieth century. We embrace Technology AND Past Practices with awareness to the ramifications of our actions both past and present...

Hans, Michael and Julia

Discussing Michael Pollan's Article this Sunday in the NYTimes Magazine, John referred me to the poet and media theorist, Hans Magnus Enzensberger 1970 essay called: Constituents of a Theory of the Media. In this essay Enzensberger lays out a radical call to decentralize media and resist central broadcasting. After reading Pollan's conclusion of encouraging us to 'cook it ourselves" I would take Enzensberger's concluding paragraph and replace the word 'artist' with 'chef' and develop a new call :

'For the old-fashioned “artist”(chef)—let us call him the author—it follows from these reflections that he must see it as his goal to make himself redundant as a specialist in much the same way as a teacher of literacy only fulfills his task when he is no longer necessary. Like every learning process, this process too is reciprocal. The specialist (chef) will learn as much or more from the nonspecialists as the other way round. Only then can he contrive to make himself dispensable.'

I love this idea of literacy in that we can be media illiterate and food illiterate and yet still actively or passively consume. Pollan does a great job of pointing out this connection over and over again–between media and food consumption as well as production. Contemporary anxiety of fast pacedness encourages a false sophistication, that is to say we watch chefs cook in lieu of cooking ourselves and decide what is good without ever eating.

What Pollan's article misses is that originally Julia Child's work WAS an instruction book (without any photographs or pictures except for drawn diagrams). Child's two volume book has inspired many chefs and cooks, while food network television stars skip this step of intense instruction (proving that they do not want to make themselves redundant). The true literacy project that Julia Child bought to America (as did MFK Fischer and James Beard) was "Mastering The Art of French Cooking".

Pollan makes Julia out to be the epitome of Enzensberger's artist, with her goal to make herself redundant, as a specialist much the same way a teacher of literacy fulfills their task when they are no longer necessary. Like Enzensberger's artist, what Julia brought to life in a television show, more so than in the books, was that we were all in this together, this was a learning process and this process was reciprocal. That is to say that although we were watching television, Pollan points out the ways in which she was able to make it interactive.

Media now displays many of the attributes that Enzensberger called for, via youtube, twitter and blogs. We DO have the beginnings of constituents making their own narratives, writing their own histories separate from centralized media. However, this discussion began with a blockbuster theater release–So it is a combination of hierarchy and meshwork that develops our understanding of everything. The in between places of grand narratives and individual stories are where we can find clearer, more complex and richer pictures of how we function. And this food issue may be the most important function. Our goal now should be to understand how to use these tools to set up expansive food practice exchanges. And in this, render the so-called specialist (chef) redundant.

Best Life Diet

I spent lots of time this week working on Best Life projects. The Best Life Diabetes book that I wrote recipes and, with the help of several nutritionists, meal plans for is due back to the publisher tomorrow. This has been the second chance we have had to edit it since we turned it into the publisher in late April (book will be available in November). Over the last week I poured through my section of the book with a red pencil looking for any changes that needed to be made. Today I spent a good part of the day coming up with breakfasts that will be part of a diabetes meal planning tool that will be available on line in November of this year.

For the last couple of years I have been working for Bob Greene in conjunction with his Best Life Diet creating recipes for books, website and blog. When I was first contacted by Janis an old friend to do this work I immediately said I was the wrong person for the job. I knew nothing about diets and am not sure how I even feel about diet in the sense that the word is generally used. I was assured that the fact that I knew nothing about diet food was a plus. Janis explained that she had contacted me because she was looking for good food that fit into the Best Life Diet. Our cooking has always been clean and light not to fit into any parameters but in order to taste the actual flavors of the excellent quality foods that we gather. Also it is the food that makes us feel good and that we want to eat.

She passionately described the need for changes in the American Diet which will only come through a connection to food that starts with cooking. Her idea was that if people who did not have a healthy relationship to food could begin cooking this relationship could begin to repair. She believed that our recipes could help . After some back and forth I decided to give it a try. I immediately found that the two greatest obstacles were the need to use very little salt (essential for people that are extremely overweight) and only ingredients that are easily available throughout the country. I quickly learned a lot about cooking with little salt and ways around it such as lots of flavor through onions, garlic, fresh herbs, hot sauce...and adding salt at the last minute before serving. I am still frustrated by the lack of affordable raw ingredients in many parts of the country. My biggest surprise however was how easy it was to make recipes that fit into the Best Life parameters. This was no strange regime to follow just healthy well rounded meals. Portion size, calories, saturated fat...have been no problem at all.

I have learned lots through this process. I hope that sharing recipes and my love of cooking and eating with a larger audience has found its way into some peoples kitchens, dining tables and life.

Garden Encounter

Several weeks ago we planted 12 tomato plants and some arugula seeds in the neglected front yard of the house next door to us. The house has been abandoned for about 4 years and is in severe disrepair. The planting led to lots of tomatoes and beautiful arugula which we have enjoyed and shared with neighbors and passer byes, connecting with an elementary school and having a class of first graders visit our home garden, meeting a group of people working on a large teaching garden just out our back door and numerous other encounters.

Today I came home to find a man just finishing removing all of the food growing next door to us. After pausing I got out of the car and went to shake the mans hand who had just pulled all the plants out of the garden. He started apologizing. He explained that his boss who owned the property had demanded against his protest that he remove the food. As we talked he explained that he had carefully removed all of the tomato plants and put them in bags on our front stoop. The tomato plants are temporarily in pots safe and watered and waiting to be replanted.

Of course we knew that this was a possibility but the event has left me very confused. How is it that planting food and rehabilitating the tiny patch of soil in front of a crumbling house could be anything but positive? Tonight I pause, tomorrow I will try to contact the owner of the property, confer with neighbors and figure out the best way to proceed.