StanSherman

I'd have it work the way I was used to. The kids don't know any better so they can learn that everything you see is not correct. In this world, learning that noting is that reliable may become an important lesson.

At the same time in Mexico Carlos and (name any name) were expanding American/Mexican food with huge bars and dance floors. My basic point is that drink revenues have played a bigger part in the view of Mexican food than what has been put before the public. I find the term Mexican food as offensive as American food. They both accent mediocrity.

I grew up in LA and never saw one of those signs. Sure there was prejudice but I never saw signs like that. Eddie Cano had relatives across the street from us and near his second El Torito. Since he had a business degree from USC, I'll bet El Chollo had a much bigger influence in his style than any food or culture. He was in the business of selling drinks. Toluca Lake was a gold mine then. He had waitresses/actresses in short skirts serving drinks from 5pm (when the studios let out) until late at night. He was a man with lots of charm and charisma. When I was about 10 or 12 he gave me a ride to his Encino restaurant in his new XKE Jaguar. The East section of the Ventura Freeway had just opened and I got my first chance to feel a car at over 125mph.

A grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Recently, Bill Marler has been talking about how jacking muscle meat may take the bugs further into meat. Somehow this information was out before this study. Here is a link to the study: http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/04/14/cid.cir181.full.pdf

This week was our official opening of our garden. It's still going to snow later, but we have the equipment ready, appropriate seeds started. The official rulz in these parts have spuds going in the ground on Good Friday. I'm not a very good Christian, actually I'm a pretty poor Jew, so they went in today under the cover of darkness.

Hopefully, this will be a good year. We moved from CA a few years ago and after 20+ years of growing tomatoes in vastly different conditions we may have some tricks down. We have added huge amounts of custom compost from the dairy down the road to already beautiful Iowa soil. We tilled it yesterday and it is by far the finest soil I've ever had. (In Santa Monica I brought in two truckloads of potting soil for my raised beds.) I've got several Amish friends that don't put up as much out of the garden as we do. (they buy from WalMart) We do plain, sauce, soup, marmalade, salsa, BBQ sauces, chutneys, Bloody Mary mix & V8. Our garden is pretty much open to our neighbors so they stop by and pick what they need. My favorite is the perfect BLT. We are trying to get the local circle down to less than a mile. I may put in a 1/4 acre of wheat in the next few years to accomplish that goal. Some of the best tomatoes we grew last year, for slicing onto BLTs, were Polish, Soldacki, and Aussie. You want the really big 1-2 lb beefsteaks for that.

Tomatoes 2011 Only two plants of each this year. We cut back. Black elephant Wagonwheel Cow’s tit Carbon Black crimson Belgian heart Japanese black trifele Zorica’s Croatian bull’s eye Japanese oxheart Crnkovic Yugoslavian Wisconsin 55 gold Cour de bue Black star Crimson cushion beefsteak Stupice ipb Cuore de toro Giant oxheart Italian giant beefsteak Pineapple Black plum Purple Russian Power’s heirloom Omar’s Lebanese Watermelon beefsteak Martino’s roma Rose Bulgarian triumph Porter Caspian pink German red strawberry Kelogg’s breakfast Giant Belgium Orange strawberry Orange oxheart Early girl Mt. Hood cherry Sheboygan

They won't give the Lord a liquor license in Iowa so if you want an alcoholic beverage with your fish fry your choices are limited to every: tavern, pub, diner, restaurant, gas station and lodge hall. In a nearby town of 160 there are three choices tonight.

Replanting tobacco farms has it's own problems. It could be years before you could grow most vegetables. Most food enthusiasts seem to hate corn, but they have no idea what those farms would do to stay alive with other crops. I should state that I abhor our food system, but the logistic and economic hoops for change are great and we have no idea where we are going.

For someone who wants to leave the argument to Michael Pollen you may wish to listen closer to what he is saying. The farmers are not the cause of our country being obese and unhealthy. They are in business to make a living. Remarks that all these farms are "factory farms" is simply inflammatory. We live right smack in the middle of the most productive corn fields in the world and the only irrigation that is being done around here is our vegetables. The busiest people around here are the tiling contractors who install the drainage to help dry out the fields and prevent flooding. I agree that the world has a water problem, but non-irrigated corn is not the problem. I can't think of a single farmer who would change what they farm if the farm subsidies were changed. Many of the subsidies around here include conservation payments, not just crop supplements. (the payments are close to 1% of gross revenue currently)What do you suppose these farmers would grow on their land if not corn, soy and alfalfa?

A few years back my doctor gave me a several page handout on a diet he'd like me to go on. His nurse told me, "I'll save you some reading. If it tastes good, spit it out!"

The further away from a city you get the more polite people generally become, plus the wages they earn at a fast food place are closer to a living wage. Oh course, I'd rather have rude and great street food than the most polite Subway foot-long.

I miss the Good Trader Vics. I also miss Swedish smorgasbords.

It is best fresh. There is a nice picture tutorial on how to cut and pound the abalone http://localfoods.about.com/od/fishseafood/ss/SliceAbalone.htm Salt and pepper then pan fry in butter with garlic, 90 seconds a side.

Abalone, large sea bass, fresh grilled sand dabs Chicken with flavor Big Ol lamb chops Helms bakery trucks and most of all, Cougars. If I want one now, it's a trip to the nursing home.

I pitched her and the perky chef-nymph wearing short skirts with the spices on a very high shelf that required them to use a step ladder. For some reason they haven't responded to my letter.

It was/is quite common in Los Angeles where most aspiring actors work as waiters. They seem pretty good at remembering their lines. Le St. Germain used to be either in the same building as Providence or nearby. They had a complex menu that changed daily and it was recited from memory also.

There were several 8-11 yo girls. I put OJ, apple juice, pineapple juice, 7 up and a squirt of maple syrup in a blender. Poured it over ice with a splash of grenadine. They really didn't like them until they had a name. Sweet, colorful and sappy. "Hurricane Taylor" (one dad had told me he contributes about $50 a month to Taylor Swift's college fund)

We have a neighborhood holiday party tonight. It was supposed to be a typical pot luck. Now we have half the town (itty bitty town) and ice and snow on it’s way. The host has decided on Mai Tais because it’s an official night of adults behaving badly. The younger 4H kids will be putting together the fruit skewers. The older ones are putting chains on the big climate controlled tractors to shuttle folks home. What special drink can we make for the kids? Keep in mind we need to make it with stuff on hand because the road to town is a solid sheet of ice. (we can get around the farms just fine since gravel roads have better traction in the winter.) Thanks for your input.

There are several good places within walking distance. The majority are on Pico a few blocks east. There is Factor's Deli, a Chinese place, Sushi, casual places and a Kosher pizza place. There is a large grocery a couple blocks west on Pico, Ralph's. There are a couple of bakeries. It's a nice neighborhood. You won't go hungry and your kid could never out misbehave the locals ;-)

Thanks to everyone. As you can guess, this may be one of the meals I’d like to nail. They do have some similar habits so there is some material to work with. An easy to eat idea is good. One of her favorite meals in the past ten years was at Aquavit in Minneapolis a few months prior to their closing. I don’t remember any fish soups by Marcus Samuelsson, but a Bourride may be a great idea.

I need to make a special reunion dinner for my honey. She is to meet her birth-mother for the first time next February. They are brought together by a genetic study being conducted at Mayo. They both possess a very rare disease. The odds on them both being alive are astronomical. Mom has had a pretty tough life and her fondest food memory is a French seafood soup she had in Belgium in 1962. My first guess is Bouillabaisse. Can any of you think of any other possibilities?

Faith, Currently it's difficult to calculate what a fair profit on chickens is since there is currently almost no profit. Companies like Tyson are making their profit on the processed food products. A small chicken producer just can't keep their costs low enough to overcome the price spread. They pay an extra 50 cents or so for the baby chick, a little extra for processing extra for packaging etc. A friend with a specialty processing plant just shut it down. They hadn't made any profit in a few years. There are two almost brand new chicken houses nearby set-up for a Kosher plant. With just under a million per building in them they could be had for less than $200K. The recent Salmonella outbreaks crashed the egg market. That may be good for the specialty producers, but it is still a tough sell in this economy to pass up .69 per dozen eggs.

One of the big misunderstandings regarding poultry is the difference between egg and meat production. The link you show is happy free-range hens. They live much different lives than meat birds. The key word is "access". In New Zealand the definition of free-range is quite similar to the US. According to the Code of Welfare 2005: "A system providing birds with access to an extensive outdoor area and which typically includes housing (either fixed or moveable) similar to a barn, aviary, or perchery without cages." According to the Egg producers of NZ 88% of eggs are produced in cages. Egg laying hens will roam around, while meat birds will normally not. Hens will "work" for 2-3 years while 99% of the meat bird breeds will not live much more than 8 weeks. They get too fat to survive. With meat birds 90% of NZ is controlled by three companies. A small operation has a difficult time with the breeding and processing efficiencies, plus very little of the meat bird production is likely to change with current biosecurity concerns. Typically a grow house will have 60,000 birds hatched on the same day. They are also transported in that group and processed together. They are counted for security and traceable purposes as one lot. If you truly free-range meat birds every animal is a different lot, so bookkeeping is greatly increased. I'm not sure how much price difference the economy is willing to accept, but typically the "nice to the animal" versions are 3-4 times more expensive at retail with eggs and meat. That is the main reason for producers to try and trick consumers into thinking their products are being raised by sweet little old grandmothers on the small family farm. One of the large organic producers touts that they feed their birds a "vegetarian" diet. All commercial chicken is fed a similar mix of corn and soy. They all add some mineral supplements.