Rebel Rose

Random googling produces: PCB's in Farmed Salmon [Environmental Working Group] New Studies Show PCB Levels in Farmed Salmon Comparable to Wild [sOTA, an organization representing farmed salmon producers] Percentage of Omega-3 acid to total fat in farmed vs. wild salmon

I have no idea where you're coming from on this. Sixteen hour work days are expected on these boats, and while the hours are brutal, the pay is incredible. My son applied for work on the Alaska, but was not accepted (deemed too young). It would have been a great way to finance his desire to attend culinary school. He is now working as a head line cook, which pays the bills, but it's nothing close to what he can earn during 3 months on a processor. Injuries are frequent in a cold environment, working with a slippery product and machinery and exhaustive hours. However, at the tender age of 21 my son is already a trained arborist, topping and felling 150 ft. trees in suburban environments, and clinging to said trees with a whirring chainsaw dangling from his waist below him while the top snaps free above him. I think I prefer the processor. Also, I have visited canneries. I am from the PNW, and my father, a retired bank president and third generation agricultural entrepreneur (as I prefer to call us farmers), has financed them. I also know my way around a commercial fishing vessel (as a visitor, not staff). My boyfriend in the '70s owned a fleet of seven boats out of Blaine, Washington, and I traveled out with friends based in Anacortes several times during the years I lived in the San Juan Islands. I also had friends in the Lummi Indian tribe and reservation and between my boyfriend and Indian friends in the '70s I was all too aware of the gunfights at sea, and tricks like throwing boulders in each others' nets or slashing nets that had been hung to dry. Fishermen, loggers, Indians, and cowboys were part of my childhood, adolescence, and first love. Although my mother wanted me to become a teacher, nurse or airline attendant, my female role models included widows and abandoned mothers who single-handedly ran logging and fishing operations, and I still value those models as a woman in an intensively male agricultural industry. I have great respect for the men and women who get our fresh and frozen salmon quickly to our markets. At this time I believe detailed labeling for salmon, other than country of origin, is not mandatory, but many companies voluntarily provide it, using the same sort of software labeling required for shellfish. If you ask your market to look up the "country of origin" label (which they are supposed to provide if you ask for it) it may also state "ocean caught," "farm raised," etc., date caught, and may even provide more geographical information. My sister writes, sells, and provides training on that software from Olympia, Washington.

Link: The links mention pollock processing because those stories occurred during pollock season. However, I chose those links because I felt they most clearly demonstrate how fish are processed at sea, and link #2 colorfully describes the working conditions. I feel it is pertinent to a discussion of wild vs. domestically raised fish to have some insight into how the product is procured, and more information on its seasonal nature. Our local grocer has wild, FAS salmon for only 21-23 days out of the year. The Alaska, home port Seattle, does indeed process salmon at sea, as does the Independence, owned by Trident Seafoods, and also based in Seattle. It is true that salmon canneries are abundant in Alaska, and most canning is done onshore. The canneries are equipped to produce a much higher volume of quality product than floating processors. The floating processors will often anchor at sea during pollock and groundfish seasons, then anchor in port to act as receivers/freezers for less than a month during salmon season. However, Trident's Arctic 5, a floating processor, produces high protein salmon meal as a world market commodity. Salmon is not processed (procedures other than freezing) as much as pollock because only a few hundred thousand pounds of salmon are delivered each day during an extremely short season, versus several million pounds of pollock a day during a much, much longer season. The processing platforms for pollock are geared for large volumes, and no waste. Pollock pieces are even centrifuged for surimi and fish meal product. Trying to process salmon at sea is like dumping a half of a ton of grapes into a twenty ton press--you need more volume or it's a waste of time. There are, however, floating processors that do work with end product from salmon.

Just to further our insight into how the wild salmon industry works: mega-ton fish processors on the Pacific Coast travel waters from Oregon to northern Alaska, depending on the season and catch. The processors are marine-based factories that receive catch from "tenders," or commercial fishing boats. The processors are gone for months at a time, they process hundreds of tons of fish, and their crews work 16 hour days in rotating shifts. There are over 200 crew and staff on each ship, which also has its own medical staff. Crew members are told not to bring clothes they want to keep, and are required to attend land-based seminars on safety and other issues before hiring. As fish are caught and delivered, there is a hierarchy in the processing, with the best whole fish frozen at sea, some whole fish filleted and frozen, and the rest processed into canned fish, pastes, etc. The worst job on the ship is to work "bottom" processing. Fish gunk all over you, no sunlight or fresh air for 16 hours at a time (and then you're too tired to care). An Overview of the Alaskan Fishing Industry Mutiny at Sea Over 16 1/2 Hour Days (as opposed to 16 hours) Aquatic Invaders (Requires registration). Even the wild salmon industry introduces its share of environmental problems. And just because I think it's funny . . . Ya sure, yew betcha, by golly You can order fresh lutefisk and "Lutefisk TV Dinners" right off the fish processor, delivered to your door via UPS.

Thanks, everyone. The technological aspects are taken care of. We're farming that out to a professional online development firm as a project. However, I can still have input into the design and functionality to a certain extent. The wines will be provided directly by the wineries. There will also be large gift baskets and food lots from Lea & Perrins, A.G. Ferrari, and others, and lifestyle lots from local hotels, golf courses and spas, as well as lots from the LA and Phoenix Culinary Institutes. (Also I think dinner for 10 at the Playboy Mansion.) So my responsibility is for overseeing the overall quality of the project. Mostly my questions are: * Did you receive your auction lot in a timely manner? * Were you charged for handling and shipping, and if so, were those charges clearly marked at the time of bidding? * Did you find the website easy to navigate and understand? * Was it easy to search the auction site and move from lot to lot? * Was there anything about the auction site itself that you found annoying or confusing?

As the fishermen here can tell you, the difference in taste and texture is due to the fact that wild salmon experience a range of water temperatures and diet, and most importantly, the strenuous exercise that makes the meat leaner, firmer, brighter and tastier. (I grew up on a salmon/steelhead river in Washington State, and wrote a cover article on salmon fishing for Washington magazine.)

Congratulations, Toasted! Plenty of excellent advice here. I just want to add (as a stepmother to 7 and mom to 1) that part of the difficulty is that while during the day the kids may clamor for attention or have complaints, it is only at mealtime that you feel slammed by all of them at once, and once one kid gets away with complaining and attention-getting, then they all follow suit! I suggest giving each kid an assigned day of the week to help with dinner menu planning and preparation. If one chooses not to participate, no big deal (it can be a lot harder to cook dinner while supervising little helpers anyway). But whenever a child chooses to help in the kitchen, then that child becomes your co-host for the evening and will take pride in what's being served. And of course, you can use that as leverage to discourage insults. Oh yes, and if you have a chronic dropout, serve a really uninteresting dinner, then shrug and say, "Gee, I didn't have any help tonight. It was Little Joe's night . . ." If they persist in being gross, you might want to calmly demonstrate that you are the alpha gross in the household, and that nothing they can say will faze you. "Tonight we are having bloody scabs, boiled paper and raw weeds, (lasagna, potatoes and salad)."

I am involved in planning a charity event for next March that will involve an online wine auction, but I have no experience with this sort of thing. The auction lots will be great . . . that I can do. But I have never bid online and I am total novice at this sort of thing. I'm toying with the idea of participating in some bidding to see how it works and check out the software features. Has anyone here participated in online bidding? What sites are best? Did you get some good finds? Was it worthwhile? Could this become another online time sink for wine geeks?

I can't add much to the incredibly good advice so far. Staff, glasses, quality wines, location, financial planning . . . Our favorite local wine bar, Vinoteca, also offers a wine club which has been a big hit with out of town visitors, and weekly winemaker appearances on Wednesday night. The bar is nicely appointed, with a small, elegant conference room in the back, the actual bar in the middle of the building, and the front is devoted to couches, easy chairs with elegant tables, a grand piano, and space for a guitarist. The glasses are large yet light (Spiegalau I think). They have wine-by-the-glass offerings for $9, and generous flights of three wines for $10. Everything about the place oozes comfort, from the brick walls, lighting and friendly staff to the good food. It's a great place to meet before dinner, or to just stay and chat.

How true, jrt!

I like the way you think! I've just started a 45 min. per day regimen, but at my current lethargic rate, I'm not burning 500 calories yet. Thinking about that goal as "a bottle of wine" will definitely keep me stepping!

From Science Daily . . . Whoopee! Drinking red wine may help me lose weight. Unfortunately, I also learned that it takes two hours for a woman to metabolize 5 oz. of wine. Here's a link to a previous discussion on the health benefits (or not) of wine . . . Is moderate drinking a myth? Health benefits of wine I want to fit into my size 6 dresses again, but I'm surrounded by barrels and barrels of fine wine! I drink far more than 5 oz. of wine a night. And when I'm stressed, nothing soothes me more completely than a 16 oz. glass of red wine. Any tips for boosting my self-control, kickstarting my metabolism (which I suspect has become sluggish due to enthusiastic and regular consumption), and losing weight, while continuing to enjoy wine?

Oh, baby. You are hereby forever dubbed a Geek, in spite of your politically Dork leanings.

I just found this old thread, and I'm wonderin' why it's so old! For those of you looking for Steven (Fat Guy's) article, it's still online at Bottoms Up! Salon.com My Danny has a long-overdue poker night tonight with some local winemakers, and I will be on pickup duty until 1 am, at which time he must officially sleep over, 'cause I'm not driving anywhere in my 'jammies after that. Bacon is very good for hangovers, I think. Why does wine give me a meaner hangover than Tequila shots? I don't have much experience with this, as I have never tried Tequila before this year.

Ah hah! Definitely not your typical wedding reception. Excellent. Now that you've got the basic figure of 5 to 6 cases down, you should let your distributor guide you, if you've decided to work with them. And/or call your favorite wineries and ask if they'll give you a discount for a multiple case order. Can't hurt to do a little research.

We find it's important to place the glasses over two prongs in the dishwasher. May seem obvious to us, uh, regular wine consumers, but for those of us who don't go through dozens of glasses a week, it can be a revelation. It keeps the glasses from spinning around like tops. A cup of white vinegar in the rinse cycle eliminates hard water deposits and gets everything crystal clear, assuming you have no other plumbing challenges. If you're handwashing, keep a small spray bottle of 50:50 white vinegar and water handy--spritz the glasses and dry them with a lint-free towel. The glasses will look spotless. I keep a gallon of white vinegar on hand all the time--it's great for soaking the char off burnt pots, cleaning grill accessories, wiping debris off kitchen windows, and soaking blood stains out of our white tile counters and grout. (Kidney, fava and Chianti, anyone?)

Cork Dorks vs. Wine Geeks If you have recently seen the movie Sideways, then perhaps you aspire to be a true wine geek, like the movie’s curmudgeonly and insecure character Miles. However, to become a true wine geek, one must first grasp the difference between a wine geek—a person of questionable character and background with a lot of disposable income, lingering insecurities, and a hole in his mental bucket, but nevertheless someone who is passionately, absolutely in love with and consumed by wine—and a cork dork. A cork dork is, well, not a wine geek. Recently, at a dinner with friends, one man's date turned to me and complained, "He's so boring. All he ever talks about is wine. All day long he talks about wine." Maybe I looked hurt, because I was just as engrossed in our discussion of Syrah as he was. Lorraine Alban (Alban Vineyards) leaned toward me and whispered, "She's right, you know. We're all hopeless wine geeks. Look at us from an outsider's point of view." But the deeper I get into the world of wine, the harder that is to do. I think moving our discussion from Merlot to Syrah is a total change in conversation. Annie, an artist, compares it to a typesetters' convention. "We spend all day talking about serifs and points, and whether a particular "e" is the right shape for its font," she says, patting me on the shoulder. "We find it endlessly fascinating." Have I lost touch with reality, drifting more and more into a fascination with varietal differences and degrees of oak, malolactic overindulgence and the varying theories on wild yeasts? Obviously I have. I am becoming a wine geek. There is, however, a vast difference between a wine geek and a cork dork. In my lexicon, a wine geek, like a computer geek, is consumed by his field. He likes dry and sweet wines, white and red wines, French and American wines. He is an experience junkie, always looking for a new and vinous adventure. A wine geek will look at an untried varietal like a biologist discovering a new phylum. "What's this? A pinot verde? Get out the Riedel, we must examine this!" A cork dork, on the other hand, will hold his glass by the base. He'll swirl a wine until it's exhausted, and after a long speech on the supposed characteristics of a wine he has yet to taste, will finally sniff it and announce his disappointment in its aroma. A cork dork will aspire to all things French, and the barrels must be new, the women young, and the wines very old---although any one with any experience knows that these choices are not necessarily the best. If you try to pour him some dessert wine, he'll snatch his glass away in horror, leaving you in the foolish position of pouring wine on the table. When visiting wine country, you will inevitably encounter both wine geeks and cork dorks. Therefore, I suggest these ten guidelines for differentiating between poseurs (dorks) and real geeks (us). 1. A dork will make you feel uncomfortable. They are supercilious, punctilious, and from my point of view, just plain supersillious. A geek, however, will make you feel comfortable, and value your opinion of his wines. 2. A dork holds his glass by the base, or with his fingers curled sensuously around the body of the glass. A geek grabs his glass by the stem and just sticks his nose in. All business. 3. Geeks love sweet wine and the women who drink them. Always keep a bottle on hand for the sensual possibilities. A dork does not keep sweet wine or palate deadening spices in his kitchen. 4. Dorks love to mention Bordeaux and Burgundy. Geeks speak and kiss French. 5. Dorks spend as much as possible for large bottles at auction, hoping for the ultimate photo opp. Geeks barter, trade and wheedle for wine, but always seem to have plenty on hand. 6. Dorks will ask, "How long will this wine cellar?" Geeks will age a wine only as long as necessary to make it drinkable. They have been known to pick up old bottles and hold them up to the light, shaking the sediment around, and saying, "Do you think I can drink this now?" 7. In a restaurant, dorks will swizzle wine loudly through their teeth before taking the first swallow. Geeks never do this on a first date, because they know if you laugh, the wine will come out your nose. 8. Dorks will order food, then a wine to match. Geeks order wine, and a totally unrelated food. They're always surprised by how well food and wine go together. 9. Dorks follow numerical wine ratings and place their bets accordingly. Geeks are the hecklers of the wine world, and can often be overheard saying, "That wine got an 87? Geesh, I woulda given it a 91. 92?!? How did that wine rate? Are we sure that's not the judge's age??" 10. Dorks have a proper cellar for their wine collection, with adequate temperature controls, and chairs. Geeks and winemakers use their cellars for "important stuff," and store their personal selections in the garage, between the kayak and the workbench.

Cap's right--estimate five glasses to a bottle. If you have 150 guests, and they average 2 glasses of wine each (some won't drink, some will have one, others more than two) you will need 150 x 2 / 5 = 60 bottles = 5 cases. At a wedding party, I'm guessing most of the guests will lean toward champagne and white wine. Depending on what you're serving, I'd suggest 3 cases of champagne, 2 cases of white wine, and 1 case of red. That's an extra case, but you can always take the remainder home, or use the leftover wine to thank your caterer and servers.

I have always really enjoyed the Cain Five, although I haven't had the pleasure of trying recent vintages. Several years in a row I was invited to participate in blind tastings of ten top-notch California Bordeaux blends, and Cain Five was always #1 to #3 on my list. (Opus was always #8 to #10.)

It happened to me in a restaurant, too. I was having dinner with Dan Panico, Mat Garretson, and Lorraine Alban (McKillen then) back when we were all single-somethings gainfully employed at grown up wineries, before we all became debt-qualified winery owners. Mat's date, a pretty brunette from Atlanta, complained, "He's so boring. All he ever talks about is wine." Lorrainne and I looked at each other in shock and started laughing. (Obviously that relationship was doomed.) Lorraine leaned toward me and whispered, "She's right, you know. We're all hopeless wine geeks. Look at us from an outsider's point of view." I thought moving our discussion from Merlot to Syrah was a total change in conversation. Annie, an artist, compares it to a typesetters' convention. "We spend all day talking about serifs and points, and whether a particular "e" is the right shape for its font," she says, patting me on the shoulder. "We find it endlessly fascinating."

This is a great discussion. Thank you to Charles for the call to arms. It sounds as though it would be a welcome idea to open the WOW threads to wines based more on a regional varietal choice, with an occasional vintage challenge thrown in. I'm very excited that more people would like to participate, as the whole idea of WOW is to give us more opportunities to sit down at our virtual table and share experiences. It will certainly make for richer tasting discussions as we move forward. So, let's do it! I'd like to share my vision of what the wine forum can be, because you all have the ability to add to it, refine it, and improve it. When I first started dropping in here as a new member, less than a year ago, the forum was highly informative but very single-offering specific, and populated almost entirely by extremely knowledgeable consumers. I have focused my initial efforts (I've only been a forum host for about six months) on increasing novice-friendly threads, fun threads, and more information about wine production. Ideally, I'd like to see threads covering three levels of experience: the Wine 101 and eGCI threads to welcome wine novitiates, expanding coverage of reviews and posts on specific wines and industry topics for the more experienced wine consumers, and a wide open "table" where sophisticates, intermediates (such as myself) and novices alike can meet to share opinions and ask questions. Florida Jim, I still remember your post last fall about the light filtering through the trees, and Diane's incredible fall menu paired with the wines. These are the kind of posts that may not generate a lot of participation but are precious and valuable to us because they give us all a glimpse into a perfect moment, and a sometimes a perfect wine. Some threads are meant to be enjoyed, like poetry, and others are meant to start discussions, like this one. If you have ideas for anything else you'd like to see developed in the forum, I hope you'll post it here or send me a PM. Over the next few months you'll also notice that we're merging threads on common topics into single, ongoing threads, for example "Oregon Pinot Noir" and "Glassware." And finally, I see some concerns about a lull in recent wine forum activity, but I'm quite sure it's just that. The forum is busiest Monday through Thursday, very quiet on weekends, and participation drops significantly when the weather is generally nice. (Don't think I'm not watching you! )

Regarding sterile filtration, I can't say that I objectively know or can prove that it affects flavor, but I have been taught by a number of winemakers that it does. I can tell you for a fact that sterile filtration sometimes strips significant amounts of pigment out of a wine. I've seen it happen. In fact, on one of our zins (which we were filtering due to its high alcohol content), the filters kept plugging with pigment and had to be removed and cleaned frequently (and that means the whole bottling process has to stopped and restarted, which means priming the lines again . . .it was a real headache.) If flavor components are tightly tied to pigments, then they would also be stripped out. Unfiltered wines are almost always darker than they would be after filtration. In addition, a wine that is going to be sterile filtered during bottling is almost always pre-filtered. Modern cross-flow filters are gentler but prohibitively expensive and generally leased for one-time use. Many wineries use a diatomaceous earth filter. In addition, wines that are filtered are often fined as well, and most fining agents, egg white, bentonite, powdered sturgeon bladder or ox blood, will strip out color and flavor as they remove particulate matter.

The Bush Administration has moved the "alcohol" portion of firearms, explosives and drugs to the Trade and Tax Bureau. It makes more sense financially, but it means we don't get any more heart-thumping visits from menacing men in flak vests or tough-looking well dressed women who flap their badges open with a snap. The TTB guys wear earrings and want to leave LA for Paso Robles. Wussies.

We won't all be able, or expected, to participate every time. And actually, the Wine of the Week exercise grew out of the East Coast vs. West Coast Palate thread, and is designed more to be a comparative discussion of our personal tastes than a collective review. Also, if you come across a previous wine of the week, that thread can always be accessed from the WOW Index, and you can add a review at any time.

The BATF-TTB regulations require that for an appellation to be named on the label, 75% of the fruit in the wine must come from that appellation. So the issue is really about usurping an appellation or sub-appellation for organizational names, which the TTB does not control. Napa Ridge is the forefront example, primarily because of Fred Franzia's aggressive and questionable use of it. Wall Street Journal articleActually, the 1993 misadventure is a lot more shocking than this article indicates. The TTB tracks every ounce of wine produced, from the minute grapes are weighed in and their varietal declared on the weight tag. Franzia covered cheap quality grapes of indeterminate type with a layer of zinfandel before the trucks pulled into the weigh station, and he declared the tonnages as zinfandel. So he was planning this chicanery long before the wine was in the bottle. I think it's a clarification that's long overdue, actually. Additional thread on the TTB, or Men in Black.