Dinner August 21, 2009

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's Physiology of Taste begins with twenty APHORISMS OF THE PROFESSOR... Pithy sayings like: "To invite a person to your house is to take charge of his happiness as long as he be beneath your roof." Martin Lane and I read them to each other as we bathed, relaxed and anticipated cooking for a group tonight in our home... Here are the first five and the menu from tonight below...more tomorrow–we have another party we are excited about!

I. The universe would be nothing were it not for life and all that lives must be fed.

II. Animals feed; man eats. The man of mind alone knows how to eat.

III. The destiny of nations depends on the manner in which they are fed.

IV. Tell me what kind of food you eat, and I will tell you what kind of man you are.

V. The Creator, when he obliges man to eat, invites him to do so by appetite, and rewards him by pleasure.

Dinner August 21, 2009

Passing
Lima Bean Puree on Spoon
Braised Cucumber
Salmon Cake on Beet Chip

Thyme Lemon Vodka Martini

Seated

Curried White Peach and Red Lentil Soup
Potato Bread

Chardonnay Borgogne Domaine de Montmeix 2006

Raw Mushroom Marinated in Lemon and Chive with Pursulane
Grilled Herb Bread

(Dom. des Roy) Touraine ROUGE "Les Linottes" 2008

Baby Chicken Gumbo, Calaloo, Okra, Tomato, Black Barley
Salty Baguette
Hot Sauce on the Side

(Puffeney) Arbois Rouge Vielles Vignes 2004

Panache D’Aramits, Cracker

Watermelon Pudding

Cremant de Loire

Honey Cake, with Frozen Honey and Vanilla with Raw Fig, Dried Fig and
Fig Compote

Fennel Seed Shortbread, Oatmeal Chocolate Cashew Drops, Mint Cake

Last Days of Summer

We are sitting around the kitchen table... some cooking for us tonight and prepping for two Home Restaurants... Tired from a week of planting... Excited about a weekend of cooking...Our banter is raw and silly...we have been punning "the Sunnyside of the Street" to privledge The Shady side... Trying to learn Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First"... chatting about Whole Foods–something just does not feel good about going there to me... John's Mom asks what took so long and dares us to try the WFM on River Road, "it's just hateful!"... Martin Lane expresses anxiety about the coming fifth grade... John exclaims this has been the best summer ever and I suggest moving some where and dropping out of society... Ultimately for many reasons we are sad that summer is ending... more photos from Jackie...

Scott Montgomery Elementary

Tuesday was the hottest day of the year...Which really was not so bad since we have had an amazing summer weather-wise... However we chose this day to dig up a patch of land at The Scott Montgomery Elementary School to plant PUMPKINS! The Mayor's Conservation Crew came and helped out. Jackie Maisonneuve is documenting us for her Senior Thesis and shared these images...

Planting Pumpkins, Picking Figs... Photos by Jacqueline Maisonneuve

Photos by Jacqueline Maisonneuve

Frozen Coconut Dessert

I am excited to see coconut, one of my favorite foods available these days. In the ice cream aisle at Whole Foods (which I am currently boycotting) there are now several frozen desserts that use coconut as a base. At one of our favorite (kinda) quick food stops, Java Green you can get a whole chilled young coconut, a young coconut meat salad or a raw "milk shake" that is primarily made of coconut.

Recently I have developed a new frozen dessert that seems to be great on its own or with other flavors incorporated. I enjoy it as much or more than any other ice cream that I have ever had. It is light and fresh but still creamy, it seems to not mute other flavors the way that ice cream sometimes can. The only problem is that I have no idea what to call it–coconut ice cream is already taken and coconut sorbet seems like an understatement! At the last home restaurant I made a ginger flavored frozen coconut dessert that I served with a fresh fig tart.

This is my basic recipe that I freeze in an ice cream maker. You can infuse any flavor by steeping it in some of the coconut milk or folding in a fresh fruit puree.

Frozen Coconut 1 cup young coconut water 1 cup young coconut meat 3 cups coconut milk 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons coconut butter 1/2 cup agave nectar 1 teaspoon himalyan salt

Combine all the ingredients in a high speed blender.  Adjust sweetness to your liking. Chill and freeze in an ice cream maker.

feeding through the foliage

When I go to the farmers market I always try to talk to the farmers. Often I ask questions about gardening/farming and am usually surprised by the answer. I always learn something new. The great thing about gardening/farming is that there are so many ways to go about a task. Problem solving would be to rigid a designation for farming. If Problem Solving is the constant state then we should try to look at things not in terms of problems and solutions but in terms of riding a wave of constant change. Problem solving evokes notions of something wrong that needs to be rectified. Growing live organisms should always result in multiple problematizations in which we are nudged into new places (evolution). That is to say problems are good if they are our constant state. We should acknowledge that we truly do not want to rid ourselves of the problem of lets say, pests. Solutions only disrupt our ecology. Solutions are for the twentieth century and non-organic, standardized, large-scale farming.

This last trip to the Bloomingdale Farmers Market I began talking about leeks and spacing with one of the farmers, the difference between mechanized farming and hand harvesting leeks. We began to talk about piling mounds to keep sunlight off the bottom of the leeks to a keep them away from the photosynthesis that turns them green. That turned to a conversation about misting leafs and feeding plants seaweed and kelp through foliage.

Although I have done this in the past it reminded me that this was just what was needed for a particular situation in our garden. Recently we planted seeds for about 80 pumpkin plants that we are planning to transplant to Scott Montgomery Middle School this week. Initially the plants popped out of the soil looking very strong. About a week ago we noticed they were looking a bit weak. The conversation with the farmer made me realize that the pumpkin seedlings had used up all of the nutrients in the tiny pots that we had planted them in to act as their temporary homes.

We went home and generously sprayed the foliage with a mixture of a seaweed and kelp concentrate and water. Within a couple of hours the plants were standing up straighter. Within 48 hours new growth appeared and it looks like they are back on track. While spraying the pumpkins we also sprayed the tomatoes, okra and other vegetable plants in our garden, everything looks significantly happier than it did a few days ago despite the heat of the last couple of days.

When the seaweed and kelp mixture is sprayed on the plant the minerals and nutrients are absorbed by the leaves and go into the plant directly. This is a much more immediate and direct method of feeding the leaves and plant than through the soil where only some of the nutrients are absorbed and it takes time to get to the whole plant. This is not to say that you should omit feeding the roots of the plant but, that a mixture of the two types of feeding is ideal. I have also read that seaweed and kelp helps plants resist disease and mildew.

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