Esqueixada de Bacalla'

We went to the Set Portes, an old portside restaurant in Barcelona which has opened in 1836. Experience and an old-world decor complete with dusty piano player didn't prevent the place from having awful paella and fideua' (and they were out of my favorite: the arros negre which is the squid's ink paella). But the chilled salad of bean kernels were exquisite and these esqueixada were the best I've ever had. Go there for the appetizers. The salted bacalao (cod) were fresh, fleshy and tangy, and the green pungence of the extra virgin olive oil and the bed of crispy onions were masterful, along with the rosy puree of tomato that topped the affair. Esqueixada (pronounced something like "as-ka-sha-da") is a typical cold tapas of the region which tickles my Japanese sensibility for the half-raw. The actual recipe is here but unfortunately only in Catalan.

Fair trade Coffee!

McDonald's is selling Fairtrade coffee! Monica finally convinced them! Comparatively, I was in a Starbuck's yesterday, and only one of their (many) roasts was Fairtrade. Monica, please keep us updated on how this changes the market!

http://www.just-food.com/news_detail.asp?art=62276&dm=yes

Fairtrade groups have welcomed the announcement by fastfood giant McDonald’s that it is partnering Green Mountain Coffee Roasters to sell Newman's Own Organics Blend coffee in more than 650 McDonald's restaurants in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Albany, NY.

Created exclusively for McDonald's, Newman's Own Organics Blend, made from Fair Trade Certified and organic specialty coffees, will be available as both regular and decaffeinated.

Fairtrade product certifier TransFair said it joined Oxfam America in welcoming the move with the hope that McDonald’s extends the launch to its restaurants across the US.

"This is a great moment for the Fair Trade movement – one that will have an immensely positive impact on Fair Trade farmers and serve as an example for other companies that are still considering whether to respond to consumer demand for Fair Trade products," said Paul Rice, president and CEO of TransFair USA.

"Our hope is that McDonald's will embrace Fair Trade across its entire system and convert all of its US restaurants to Fair Trade in the next year or two."

Rice added: "Companies such as Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Costco and Sam's Club, as well as thousands of smaller independent companies, are selling Fair Trade Certified coffee and McDonald's will help to accelerate the trend."

Huckleberry Trout

This week Patrick and I had the opportunity to fish on Little River in the Smoky Mountains after work, and it was beautiful. We picked a promising stretch of river, and fished together, him on the holes to the right side, I to the left. We caught bunches of fish. I was lucky enough to look up just as he set the hook into a fish upstream of me that turned out to be glorious. I watched him play the fish, and was at his side shortly after he landed it. More than a foot long and stunning, this rainbow trout was a true Smoky Mountain trophy. Unfortunately, the hook had been set deep in the mouth of the fish, and it was bleeding, so Patrick, still a bit traumatized, worked on releasing the hook, as I proceeded to fantasize about how it would end up in my belly. We have caught a couple of hundred trout in the Smokies this year between us, and we have released them all. I even got two whoppers in the hole beneath Patrick's earlier this spring, it could have been one of those fish. This one did not have a very good chance of surviving after a tough hooking, and I do not regret killing this beautiful fish.
A salt and pepper coat later, the fish was grilled until the skin was crispy and the flesh still wet but falling off the bone. I am a sucker for skin, as most of you know from some lechon/salmon "only the skin is important" experiences with me, but the flesh once the skin was pulled away was also divine. Beautiful at every point: alive, dead, gutted, powdered in Korean black pepper and Utah salt (pink and glistening), and presented whole on the plate. What a glorious night.
Note: Those are wild muscadine grapes surrounding the fish. They lined nearly the entire stretch of river and were small tough skinned and heavily seeded, but they had a delicious sweet burst of juice at each pop. Patrick, ceaselessly teasing, called me Huckleberry as I popped grapes while walking streamside with my fishing pole, and found the name for this memorable stretch of river.

the Future of Food

Amazing documentary that wasn't goofy like Michael Moore nor preachy like Catholic homilies. Instead, this movie I brave on a heavily raining school night for a 9:55pm(!) showing at the IFC was brilliant. Director Deborah Garcia, sister of Jerry Garcia (yes, from the Grateful Dead), educated me on GMOs aka Genetically Modified Organisms. The silent havoc on Nature from the likes of agribusinesses likeMonsanto makes one wonder about the state of affairs on our global food system. Gene splitting, patenting of seeds, suicide seeds, and the death of family farms.
http://www.thefutureoffood.com

Da Dinners

One thing I'm always impressed by with my colleagues leaving in the countryside chateaux / farmhouses is somehow their ability to conjure themselves from the dark abyss of the perennial MBA hangover and get their act together enough to organize weekly dinners. And when they get their proverbial ass in gear, it's not like we boil up some pasta to some canned ragu for several unexpectant friends. It's a serious affair involving aperitifs and cocktails and little Japanese-style fingerfoods. The fact that some houses get this catered in not withstanding, it's quite and impressive feat to have something like 30 people over for any sort of collective feeding.
Many of the houses do this out of their sheer surplus energy and volition, which I find incredibly admirable. One of the first of these little soiree affairs that I was invited to happened at Le Vivier, a connivingly far-off farmhouse in the netherlands of between Fontainebleau and Paris. Some of the most witty, friendly, and engaging people live in this languid villa, along with what appeared to be a half-dozen chicken. I was fortunate enough to be invited before they got a clue and started getting their dinners catered. We were treated to a full-course with drinks at the bar, dinner, and dessert and digestifs in the smoking room. Whatever a smoking room is. Jessica's albondigas were to die for-- real homemade cooking, the succlent tomato sauce complementing the soft little meat balls. And Veronica brought out the best of her Fordism by a serious mass-production of bright fusilli salad to the tune of being able to save all of Uganda from hunger and starvation-- I mean I wouldn't be surprised if she literally filled the bathtub with hot water and poured the pasta right in to make it. It was a serious amount. I believe that with our collective appetite (of like a dozen people), we managed to consume about a hundredth of the entire amount manufactured-- somehow the demand curve and supply curve were taking a trip to the fifth dimension. This may have caused the abrupt switch to catering, though it's not a bullet-proof theory.
In any case, the company was excellent. I wasn't driving. The food was beautifully if voluminously prepared. It was a wonderful night, and cheers to the entire Le Vivier team for this excellent production.

Amy - Artist

In komida's first post I wrote:
"Whereas we did not always understand how much our taste buds could guide our lifestyles, we have become aggressive eaters who proactively expand and refine our experience. This is a medium where we can contribute to each other's goals, and together we can progress towards living beautifully."
What I did not appreciate was that it is not the food that guides us, but the people we share our lives with. This past Sunday Amy created an event that did not give people the choice as to whether they would or could live beautifully. She brought an idea into art, and shared it with us. It was not until I was intoxicated with her performance that I realized that it had nothing to do with the table cloths, the fancy clothes, the wine, the startling succession of divine dishes, but instead everything to do with her, with my friends who had come to share this celebration of my birth, and me. Thank you Amy for clarifying the power of people, and the beauty that we can create when we commune.