Chipotle, FarmAid, and FoodRoutes

Honey and I went to Chipotle for lunch today. I've liked Chipotle since I first read in a trade magazine that, though owned by McDonald's Chipotle uses humanely raised meats, supports worthy causes, and is all-around a responsible corporate citizen. After reading the article, which took the view that fast food was about to become more healthy for people, communities, and the economies in which they and their workers operated--a bit optimistic, in hindsight--I went to Chipotle and was appropriately blown away. I go about once a month now, and the barbacoa and carnitas are my favorites.

August, however, will be a two-burrito month, because I saw a sign in our local Chipotle that all proceeds from meat-burrito sales THIS WEDNESDAY will go to FarmAid, an organization that seeks to preserve family farming in America. For the unfamiliar, the alternative is industrialized farming, which has given us such greatest hits as E. Coli in our spinach, "Blue Baby" alerts¹ in those unfortunate towns downstream of major corn farming centers in the Midwest, and the pink baseballs masquerading as tomatoes in January².
FarmAid also maintains FoodRoutes, an incredibly helpful tool for finding local food without spending more time than most PhD candidates do on their dissertations. I had a conversation with my Chef the other night about the possibility of finding local food for a large party in February and was assured that although farmers' markets are shut down in the winter and CSAs don't usually start till March or April, there is plenty of bounty here in the exceedingly warm South. So now that I can't go to the East Atlanta Farmer's market, and never seem to make it out of bed for the Saturday markets, I'm getting ready to look into local food sources that are more flexible. I even found an apiary (bee farm) nearby. How cool is that?

I know that most people won't donate directly, so I'll reiterate: GET THEE TO CHIPOTLE WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29TH, and order a meat burrito. Then go to the websites below, and find a nearby farm, farmer's market or apiary to patronize. The food you eat will be far more unique and flavorful than what you'll get at your local supermarket, and you won't have to deal with long lines after work, surly or incompetent cashiers, or the vague sense that you're just one more cog in the machine. You may lose track of which celebrities are having plastic surgery, babies, or breakdowns, so look up a good gossip site while you're at it.

GO HERE:

FarmAid

FoodRoutes

What in the heck is:

1."Blue Baby" alerts: As explained in The Omnivore's Dilemna by Michael Pollan, Blue Baby Alerts are issued in the spring in corn farming states. Every spring farmers who farm monocultures like commodity corn fertilize their fields, and in many cases, desperate for even the chance of a productivity boost, overfertilize. When the spring rains come, they wash the fertilizers, composed of synthetic nitrogen into drainage ditches, and then into the rivers. The nitrates in the water bind to hemoglobin and prevent the blood from delivering oxygen to the brain, an effect that can be fatal for small creatures, like infants.

2. January tomatoes: Honey has informed me that not everyone is aware of the phenomena represented by the January tomato, so a quick explanation: I use January tomatoes as an example of food that is available to use wildly out of season. Usually the quality of the food is compromised; tomatoes aren't meant to grow in January, so in order to make them grow in January, you have to breed them for traits other than flavor, or ship them from far away, and tomatoes are not a food that, at their best, ship well. They're fragile, prone to over-ripening and fermenting at room temperature, and cease ripening altogether the moment they're refrigerated. When you see tomatoes in winter, fragile greens like arugula in the heat of summer, cherries in November, etc. you can rest assured that whatever you're being sold, it doesn't taste like the real thing, and probably traveled far, burning fossil fuels all the way, to get to you.

"What's 'Hell' in Spanish?"

I didn't have Hot Appetizer. For 3 days, Hot App showed me around the cold station. He'd taught me how to read the menu to find my mise en place¹ for the day. He'd given me a good idea of what quantities I'd need for a shift, and what I needed to do around the kitchen to close down for the night and get the restaurant set up for the next day. He'd worked cold station-salads and desserts, including a cheese plate-for three months and was moving over to Hot Appetizers, the station with the fryers and cold meat dishes. Most importantly, he followed me those three days, cleaning up when I got messy, and finding everything I forgot--and I forgot everything at least once--before an absence became a crisis.

I showed up early for my first solo day, forgetting that Hot App and I prepped so much the night before that there was very little to do. I putzed around, taking my time in an attempt to remember everything I needed. About an hour after I got there, the saute and fry cooks walked in and turned on the hood. Nothing. They flicked the switches a couple of times, and stood with the sous chef under the hood, listening for some sign of life. They checked the breakers. Nothing there. They called the hood guy, who flicked the switches, checked the breakers, and got up on a ladder for a better view of the hoods not working. He informed the fry cook and me-the people who matter, you know-that he couldn't fix the hoods until the next morning, because it was "burn-your-hands hot" on the roof. We decided not to tell him that at 92° F before turning on the equipment, it was "lose-a-cook-to-heatstroke hot" in the kitchen. Not that it would have mattered.

Hoods, or exhaust hoods, are required in kitchens to ventilate "heat, smoke, and grease-laden vapors" produced by equipment. While working in my pampered, seated, air-conditioned office job I'd occasionally heard of hoods going down, and coordinated their repair. But like first-class passengers being loaded onto lifeboats while the Titanic sank, I didn't give much thought to what was happening to the poor schmucks down in steerage.

Here's what: we found fans-initially two, then four-and turned them on the cooks. At least the hot air would be moving. The servers came in to get their helpings of family meal and brought us each a pitcher of ice water. One of them asked the fry cook "What's 'Hell' in Spanish?" Once service started, the servers would dart in and out, get their food, and refill our pitchers, while we spent the slow night sweating, bitching, and chugging water, going back to the prep line where the hood worked when we had nothing to do. Our ice creams, normally soft, were a sick joke, and I considered scooping in the walk-in, till I remembered that the walk through the kitchen would undo any progress I made. Then about an hour and a half before close, the utterly predictable happened: a compressor on a cooler overheated and shut down. We turned fans on the machine, as though a blast of 100ºF air would revive the motor, and packed all of the meat in ice. By the time I got home, I smelled like something that had been dead for days, and my illusions of the glamorous restaurant life were effectively shattered.

What in the heck is:

1. mise en place: "setting in place" in French, or "Everything in place" at the CIA. Or "mess in place" in the American South. Includes all ingredients for assembling an item, plus supplies like portioning utensils, pans and other preparation utensils, and plates. Source

Epicure's Latest Homework Assignment:


I de-stemmed a box of Filet beans yesterday, and wanting to get more than a sore neck out of the deal, decided to find out exactly what filet beans were.

I couldn't find out what inspired the name, but filet beans are haricots vert, or French green beans. They're skinny, generally short (4" or less) have little seed or string development, and a sweet flavor. Every site that I went to revered them as the "best" green bean.

Good to know that I spent an hour with the best green beans.


My sources:

http://www.kitchengardenseeds.com/cgi-bin/catview.cgi?_fn=Product&_category=3

http://www.deliciousorganics.com/recipes/beans.htm

Pig Day!

This week I staged twice at a restaurant which specializes in local and organic product. The menu changes daily, the chef has cultivated impressive relationships with myriad local farmers, and the food is treated carefully, and from everything that I've tasted, thoughtfully; the dishes are simple and calculated to the ingredients. The night that I was introduced to the chef, I ordered a dish of fregola sarda¹ with shrimp, fresh garlic, basil, chili oil, and Sungold tomatoes². I ordered the dish for the tomatoes, which I'd been eating for two weeks straight, and which had spoiled me for all other cherry tomatoes. It was like a brothy rice dish with a savory, slightly winey sauce playing well with the other ingredients.


One notable part of my stage was brushing mushrooms, a task I'd never done before; it was slow, frustrating, and left my neck sore. But we suffer to learn, and I think that there's absolutely nothing wrong with forcing a novice to spend a some time handling an unfamiliar ingredient. I also got to make fresh pasta, and core and chop old tomatoes for stewing. That gave me a great appreciation for the restaurant; nothing was wasted.


When I was introduced to the chef, he mentioned that they'd broken down a whole pig earlier that week, another clue that I really wanted to work in this kitchen. Well, stage two happened to fall on pig day. I spent the morning doing the usual prep work, and only got to glance over my shoulder as Chef did the hard work. But later that night he gave me the bony carcass pieces and told me to clean the bones for stock, and save the meat for sausage. I learned the importance of glove-wearing, not to protect me from the pig, but from my boning knife, which slipped in my amateur's hands. Glove on, I managed to draw blood only once or twice more. My left hand now looks like I dueled with a woodchipper. But on the plus side, I got the job.


What in the heck is...

1. Fregola Sarda is made with a semolina-water dough that is rubbed through a sieve to make little nuggets of dough which are then toasted and cooked like rice. Info from here.

2. Sungolds are orange cherry tomatoes with a great flavor, which most guides say are sweet, but I personally think that they've got a great sweet-acid balance. Info from here.