Something I Learned Today

Bet you didn't know Oliverdailynews.com and the New York Times had something in common. Don't worry, they don't have that much in common, but they both have been running stories about local farmers taking local shit kickings in their local region by the locals.

Let's start with the New York Times, shall we? The headline is

Local, Organic Milk: Nice Idea, but Try Making a Profit

Did you get that? If you didn't, the article goes on to say

“Our boat is made of duct tape and we’ve almost sunk a few times, but we’re paddling along,” said Mr. Bell, 33.

MOO Milk’s journey is a cautionary tale: true grit, a laudable philosophy and a hot trend aren’t enough to create a viable business.

“There are folks who support what we do, but there’s not enough of them up here,” said David Bright, a former newspaper reporter and the organization’s treasurer. “So far, I haven’t been able to find 6,000 people who will buy a gallon of our milk each week.”

Now lets just pause for a moment and think about dairies. Yes, dairies produce milk, and in the case of MOO Milk, they provide the most exciting milk imaginable--the very frightening "whole milk" which despite having nourished people all over the globe for thousands of years and despite being the ingredient for serious cheese makers making serious cheese, we are blessed with a government (of the people, by the people for the people) gracious enough to step in and protect us from the dangers of this scary, scary product.

Dairies also produce something else. Can you guess what? Think chocolate milk...have you figured it out yet? YES! Manure! Thousands of metric tons of manure!

Now, imagine you live in an agricultural region with lots of land--land enough for several dairies. Imagine there are vineyards and orchards all around--plants that contribute substantially to the economy of this hypothetical agricultural region.

If it were up to you and you could choose one and only one, would you choose a dairy that makes manure to nourish all the plants (and the occasional bit of milk for those brave enough to drink it) or would you chose...a prison? (Don't get me wrong, prisons are hot right now--especially those fine fine Canadian built ones.)

Speaking of prisons, Oliverdailynews.com has also been writing about agriculture, particularly the joys of growing the beloved apple.

It's hard to say which article was more the rib tickler. Here are your choices:

1. Apple Prices

Prices are starting to come in for the 2010 apple crop and growers are appalled. For the third year in a row, prices have hit rock bottom. Growers say it is a crisis that could lead to the end of the Okanagan apple industry and could force growers to abandon their orchards altogether.

or is it

2. Apple Month Comes to a Close

“A year ago at this time, Okanagan orchardists were bleeding red ink because the cost of production outstripped the price of apples. Government was urged to help, but nothing of substance ever materialized.



Now, the situation is even more critical as the cost of growing apples is almost double what farmers pocket (22 cents compared to 12.6 cents a pound).

With little capital readily at hand, it may be difficult for some growers to prepare this year’s crop. Some may just pull out their trees and walk away.

Vote for your favourite in the comments section!!!

Makes me want to demand Okanagan apple pie and home made Okanagan apple cider vinegar every time I visit a restaurant in the Okanagan that builds their marketing identity around their "support of local growers" and "use of locally grown product."

Home made vinegar as value add from a local product that no one wants to buy? Crazy, I know...

Lastly, to make the voyage complete, we return to the New York Times with their coverage of "young" people getting into farming, be they underemployed "spikey haired" Japanese janitors, be they Uncle Sam's Misguided Children back from their peace keeping missions in other lands where the people can't manage to govern themselves to Western standards or Corporate Soldiers tired of slogging through the financial killing fields where the real wars are waged.

Farming. Who knew?

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING LOCAL AGRICULTURE

Gate and Plate

This is interesting...from the blog Honest Meat:

Likewise, another key issue in why restaurants aren't supporting their local meat producers more significantly is the disconnect between what they are looking for and what producers want. I can't sell a 50lb box of fresh pork tenderloin every week, but I can sell them a couple whole hogs each month. But restaurants often don't have the space to break down whole animals, the skills, or they don't know how to properly menu all the different cuts of the animal.

How about the Okanagan? Well, here's a random list of some of the restaurants in the Okanagan. It is by no means a complete list, but it is a list--a starting point:

Bouchons Bistro
Cabana
RauDZ
Black Iron Grill and Steakhouse
Passatempo
19 Steakhouse and Lounge
Bonfire
Hooded Merganser
Sals Prime Steakhouse
Theos
Grapevines (Gray Monk)
The Vanilla Pod
Hanna's Lounge & Grill
Minstrel Cafe
Old Vines (Quails Gate)
Manteo
Local
Barrell Room Bistro (Hillside)
Sonora Room (Burrowing Owl)

One afternoon, I went to each restaurant's web site, opened their PDF menu and looked at which cuts of beef were on the menu. PDF 4th quarter 2010 beef menu items of the Okanagan in descending order:

Rib Eye
Short Rib
Strip Loin
Sirloin
Chuck
Tenderloin
Shank
Brisket
Flat Iron
Cheek

And here are some cuts of beef that are not on any PDF menu in the Okanagan

Shoulder
Inside Top Round
Sirloin Tip
Flank Steak
Tri Tip
Eye of Round
Outside Round

Someone has to buy and do with these if there is going to be local beef. C'mon...flank steak special...how hard is that? Tri Tips? What's wrong with those? Grind some burger with Outside Round and some fat of your choosing? Staff lunch?

Speaking of local beef, I had the occasion to go to a cattle sale in Kamloops today. If you've never gone to one, you really should--especially if you live in the Okanagan. There's one in OK Falls if you don't want to schlep all the way to Kamloops. I also prefer the hamburgers at the OK Falls sale over the Beef-On-A-Bun. But that's just me.

I didn't watch ever single second of the auction...just a few hours worth. Listening to the auctioneer's "chant" got psychedelic after a while. I was told that some calves in the 600-700 pound range were getting about $1.30 a pound. That's beween $780 and $910 a calf.

I don't remember a single bred heifer or steer that fetched over $1.00 a pound. Most of them hovered around $0.75 and $0.60. It also seemed like the heavier (and often the older) the animal, the less it was worth per pound. 1200lbs of cattle at $0.75 = $900.

So...buy a 700 pound calf at $1.30 a pound, feed it for two or three years and say you sell it at 1200 pounds at $0.75 a pound for $900. That's a whopping -$10.00 in profit (provided you don't count the cost of feed, or labor caring for the animal). Do I have that right?

Restaurants: How would you feel if a customer came in, stayed there for 3 years, gained 500 lbs and during that time, that three year period, went to the bathroom randomly throughout the restaurant (again, for three years) and left -$10.00 to cover the bill?

Farmers deserve better!

Your Ideas Are Not Your Ideas

Taken from Paul Arden's book It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be

Hey Okanagan food, how good do you want to be?

Pedal or coast? Mike Love or Brian Wilson?

Now that "the season" is ending, what's up for your down time?

A Big Day

I'm not sure if any of you look at the tracking counter on the lower right hand side of the site. If you do, you will have noticed that the first number in the tracking went from a 1 to a 2 in the space of a day.

Thanks to the magic of MetaFilter and the kind interest of username Fizz who wrote a post for said MetaFilter on Sezmu Beef, Okanagan Daily Special recieved 1198 page loads and 1089 unique visitors. In one day.

Fizz also has a wonderful blog of his own called Whitesnails. Do visit, if for no other reason than the skinwich.

Now, what does this all mean? Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I think it means that there is interest in wine fed beef--which is grown in Oliver, which is in the Okanagan (here.)

My sadness, however, is that there is no nearby processing plant. Before the cows become beef, they must take a fairly long drive in a truck. No drinking and driving permitted! A local processing plant would mean a truly local diet for the Okanagan. 100 mile diet? Pfft! Who needs to go 100 miles when you live in a future version of the Okanagan where there is a local processing plant that served the agricultural community (citizenry) of the region.

Now if only someone would finally start making some Okanagan grape seed oil...but that's another post for another time.

The Red Wine Beef Debate: Resolution...YES!!!

After reading much on the debate of the new Semznu Meats "red wine beef" topic, I felt it was time to get to the bottom of this once and for all.

On the food inc. website there was a heated debate going on about the ethics of the red wine beef product being offered up here in our backyard, Oliver B.C. Although I could not help but get caught up in the online debate, that is not what today was about. I wanted to do a side by side comparison of the Sezmu Beef to the AAA Alberta Beef that I currently have on the menu. Now I picked the Flat Iron Steak for no other reason than that is what I alredy use on a daily basis. For those not in the know, the flat iron is a cut from under the shoulder blade of the cow, it is a muscle that gets a fair bit of exercise and therefore develops a good amount of flavor. The flat iron still maintains an acceptable tenderness to be a good grilling steak.

As you can see there is already a distinct difference. The Sezmu Beef flat iron is on the left and the AAA Alberta Beef flat iron on the right. The flesh of the Sezmu beef is much darker and deeper in the Sezmu and there is a remarkable difference in the fat marbling. To be fair I will let you know that the Alberta beef was from cryovac and the Sezmu came in wrapped as if by a supermarket meat department. The cryovac may have affected the AAA beef somewhat, but by looking at this photo I think we can all agree there is a big difference between the two meats regardless.

I did try to keep the variables the same in cooking the meats to see how the two products would react to the exact same circumstances. Both steaks are cut to 170g portion size, and were cooked side by side in the same pan for the same length of time.

Once again, there were some signifigant differences with the two products. At first glance you can see that the yield and juice retention of the Sezmu Beef is much greater than the AAA. As the two meats rested, the AAA Beef bled almost a tablespoon of juice and the Sezmu a fraction of that. As before the Sezmu Meat is on the left.

Okay, so I had already made up my mind by this point...I was really hoping that the local red wine beef would be a superior product to my AAA standby, but I was really not prepared for this much of a difference. When it comes to beef the Alberta AAA is no slouch. A picture is worth a thousand words.

This photo gives a much better visual of the yield and juice retention of the superior Sezmu product. In a blind tasting six of six employees in the kitchen preferred the Sezmu meat.

As for the flavor, the Sezmu meat had a richness that encompassed the palate so much that the AAA beef could not compare. the Sezmu had a buttered corn on the cob flavor to the meat...noo...if you had slathered some rendered beef fat onto some fresh corn with a mouthful of beef. Hmmm...maybe still not quite right. Anyway it was very enjoyable and made the AAA pale in comparison to my tastebuds.

Now there is obviously no wine flavoring to the meat, and it is a tough call to decide whether it is the wine or the extra attention these cattle receive that makes the difference. I do recommend that you try this test for yourself if you are still not convinced. Heck try a different cut and let me know how it works out. I know that I will be changing my beef supplier tomorrow to the local artisanal option.

Oh, I almost forgot...the price is almost the same!

Happy Eating...

R.

Of Farms and The Lesson Of PIGFOOT

Hot on the heels (trotters?) of Sean's success linked to innovation, everyone's friends at the New York Times posted this article about the close knit relationship between farms and restaurants.

From the article:

And increasingly, small-farm success is linked to innovation. “The fun is trying something new — when a chef says to me, can you grow it?” said Richard Ball, the owner of Schoharie Valley Farms in Schoharie, N.Y., for the last 17 years. “I try six new things every year. To grow higher-end and many different crops — well, it’s survival for us. That is how we stay alive.”

I won't harp too long on this one, but I'm having a harder and harder time coming to grips with the fact that there is a feed lot right here in the South Okanagan and yet there is no local beef in the restaurants of the South Okanagan.

Not to disparage 6 new and different types of onions or rutabagas or whatever, but what if farmers regularly brought out a new breed of pig or cow for our consideration? Would that stunt the restaurant industry? Would that cripple our local agriculture/hospitality economy or would the synergistic relationship between the two sectors benefit everyone?

Maybe Mangalista tastes no different than your average Jimmy Dean (tm) oinker and Wagyu is tastes no different than your average Ray A. Kroc satan burger made of dethkulture ground. Maybe people aren't interested, and can't tell the difference. Maybe people, when told of a special featuring a braised, breaded, fried pigs foot stuffed with pig cheek they actually heard "chicken sandwich" and didn't notice when PIGFOOT arrived at the table, 13 times, in the space of an hour.

In the off chance if there is a difference, and everyone who comes to dine in the Okanagan isn't an uncultured rube idiot, and "we" are predisposed to celebrate heirloom varieties of plants, why not heirloom animals?

Oh, and don't forget innovation. Apparently success is linked to it.

Okanagan Daily Special Stock Exchange

Good morning Okanagan!

Just the other day, my neighbor came by and mentioned she had 20 pounds of beautiful cherries from her friend's farm and was wondering if any of the local restaurants where I sell my labor would be interested in some local cherries.

I was sceptical, and furthermore, I don't much relish the job of middleman.But I asked at the Tuesday through Thursday restaurant, and much to my surprise, the chef there wanted cherries.

Typical typical typical!

This got me to thinking about how our beloved internets could be of service, which let me to create

THE OKANAGAN DAILY SPECIAL STOCK EXCHANGE.

Go ahead, click on it.

The (my) idea is that people like my neighbor (and other producers) can post messages like:

For Sale: 20 lbs Cherries

with all the salient details, while buyers can post messages like

Wanted: 20 lbs Cherries

These messages will, through the magical powers of the interwebs, be sent to all subscribers to the newsgroup. Visualise an in box filled with opportunities.

My hope is that larders shall always be stocked and that precious Okanagan produce (and the labor invested therein) shall never be wasted.

Would you like to be a part of? Then JOIN! It's as easy as reading and sending e-mail!

Naturally this is a work in progress, and as always, I look forward to your comments, suggestions (and most of all) participation!

This is a free service from your friends at Okanagan Daily Special.

Pig Fistfight!

Not only that, a Portland Pig Fistfight!

That New York Times and its Portland perv...when will it end?

Never, so long as Portland is on the vanguard of acting out in the name of cred.

And Goddess bless Portland and Eric Bechard for keeping it real. (Better pictures, worse article here)

Local is local, after all. Does terrior matter or doesn't it?

It would appear that Chef Bechard is involved in another venture, Thistle. Looks like he's trying to make it happen all within McMinville.

From the article

A year ago he opened a restaurant called Thistle, 40 miles southwest,in the rich agricultural and winemaking region surrounding McMinnville.

Mr. Bechard says his goal is to eventually run the restaurant solely with food from surrounding Yamhill County. Every local connection he makes and every local dollar he spends, he believes, strengthens his ties to the economic and political future of the place he lives. He says that kind of a commitment makes a place, any place, better.

McMinnville...sleepy little agricultural town energized by the wine economy...chef trying to source from local growers...Sound familiar?

In other news, the sleepy little agricultural town of Healdsberg has been energized by the food economy, and is now on equal footing with Napa and Sonoma as a destination. That's because food drives development. True or false?

"Then the food revolution came to town." It says so right there in the article.

Rich people will go into a bad neighbourhood for a good meal, again and again and again. Then, before you know it, that neighbourhood isn't "bad" any more. I saw it happen in North/North East Portland. I saw it happen in the East Village as well.

Crazy that...

In The Weeds

"When a cook is said to be in the weeds..."

Thus begins the article on René Redzepi and his restaurant Noma in The New York Times. It actually was put on the "cover" of said news paper's web site.

(It kind of makes you wonder what The New York Times is not reporting on. Makes me wonder that, anyway.)

You've got to admire Redzepi's dedication to local indigenous plants. The article mentions such delicacies as Scurvy Grass and Sorrel. And yet, once those happy feelings have abated, you're left with what's the big whup?--at least regarding use of local and wild plants (his plates look quite exciting.)

Harvesting local, wild plants (including mushrooms)...yeah, uh...yes! Um, isn't that how it used to be all the time? Is this part of some kind of larger cultural trend...maybe a larger cultural trend against culture?

Not to make things harder on anyone, but if I were designing a culinary curriculum, one of the questions would be "name at least 5 perinneal and 10 annual herbs that can grow in your zone." Another would be "identify, harvest and prepare or incorporate 10 different 'wild' plants from your region."




What are the native, edible plants here in the Okanagan? Do Elderflowers count? How about Saskatoon berries? Wild rose hips? Help me out! Can't we make a big "cheat sheet" of all the edibles with pictures and everything? Flowers too: can't tell your calendula from your bergamot? Shouldn't there be a one stop web resource for Okanagan chef's for all that info?

Late breaking news: Noma cookbook available for pre order.

Happy Birthday Big Brother Satan!

Well, this is everything that is wrong with the world today. I know that I'm being a little over dramatic but really, with everything that is going wrong with food in the world today, why is it that the only celebration of food that I have seen televised in such a manner on this continent is in fact the celebration of not only personal but also national gluttony. Not to mention that the food being gorged upon is one of the most bastardized forms of food know to man.

I would wager anything I posses or will ever posses in the future, that most likely not even 1 in 10 North Americans know what the word charcuterie means. However, I could guarantee that 10 of 10 North Americans know what a hot dog is. Essentially the same thing are they not....I guess. To go even a step farther, I would also be willing to wager that more Americans know who Joey Chestnut is than know who James Kent is.

Anyhow...enjoy. You know that I did

Sesen Farms, Oliver BC

Hey y'all

I just came across this fun web site: Sesenfarm.com

They're a relatively new farm outfit in Oliver, making it happen on 8 acres.

Welcome Sesen Farm!

They also have a great blog, and Lord knows how we love us some blogs.

They're at the Oliver Farmers Market on Saturdays. You do patronise your local farmer's market, right?

Speaking of the market, and all the ultra high quality local produce grown right here in the Okanagan, it would appear that what we need in the Okangan is something like Food-hub.org. Some kind of web-based bulletin board where producers and buyers can get together. A dynamic site that can be "sorted" by farm location, product and price, date of harvest, etcetera. Something that can be accessed by anyone and updated at any time.

Certainly there must be a local Okanagan high school (or college) ready to donate a little intellectual capital towards such a project...couldn't some kind of meaningful curriculum evolve out of an analysis of the reasons for and the planning and creation of an open source Okanagan-centric knock off of Food-hub.org?

But I digress.

Get the to Sesen Farms at once!

Greening the Restaurant Industry: Water

The food thing was a little uneven on this trip to Vancouver.


There were high hopes and lots of good intentions--Lord knows those rarely amount to anything, and this trip proved no exception.

We drove out to Koon Bo based on a post in Chow Times. We got there at 9pm. It was packed, and the food on the tables looked great.

"I'm sorry we're not open"

"Huh?"

It was 9pm, the restaurant closed at 10.

"We can't serve you. Our chef went home early tonight."

Great.

The next failure was self-generated. It was a choice between arriving 2 hours early to see the Schlippenbach trio at the jazz festival, or going to Phnom Penh Restaurant and risk being one second late for the show--a risk I wasn't ready to take. So a salad bar in Yale Town it was. They did have a nice cheese spread back stage, though.

That said, there were some food joys. It would appear that they've upped the ante with shwarma and falafel on The Drive. Taste of Paradise at 1399 Commercial Drive, in what was well past the 11th hour, came through with attention, value and friendliness as well as an immaculately prepared meal.

The best meal of the entire trip? The water fountain at the lodge in Manning Park. Oh that Manning Park water is good. Every time we drive through, we fill bottles.

I love me some fancy water. I'm more of a bubbly water enthusiast, but there really is nothing like a good, still water. Water in the Okanagan is hard, and occasionally (depending upon where you live) needs boiling in order to be consumed safely. We all know that this will soon be the rule, rather than the exception, and so when there are those boil water advisories, or a thick layer of mineral build up inside the tea kettle, or a faint bleach smell, we don't really put up too much of a fuss. Yet when set against water from Manning Park, you can't help but pause and meditate upon water's fundamental role in life, let alone cooking.

Speaking of water, what about grey water? You all know what grey water is right? In my "short-sleeved" capacity within the food economy, I spend a little more time working the hose (so to speak) than many of my "long-sleeved" colleagues. It's nothing less than shocking to think of all the water a restaurant uses in a day. And by "use" I mean send down the drain to where ever water goes when it is sent down a drain.

Certainly there's the technology to get more utility from the water used to, say, cool a Cambro filled with hot soup (or warm a frozen pork shoulder, or wash off the dishes before the dishes go into the machine that washes the dishes). Can't that all be diverted through some filters and into a tank?

From there, that water could be used for all kinds of things. I'm thinking irrigation, primarily, if not for our beloved grapes, than for other "cruder" plants and non agricultural landscapes, like those surrounding the restaurants where we work.

Speaking of the restaurants where we work, most of them have enough square footage on their roofs that collecting the rain water makes sense as well. Where as "grey water" is (for now) disqualified for consumption, people, plants and animals all over the world depend entirely on rain water. While the thought of drinking water that came from the sky rather than a plastic pipe might make the more genteel customer shudder in revulsion, plants of all kinds seem to do just fine with it.

If you think the war(s) over oil have been gruesome, the coming war(s) over water promise to be infinitely more so. And if you think the propane bill is a doozy, just wait until water is totally commodified to the same extent.

And on that happy note, stay tuned for the next instalment of Greening The Restaurant Industry here on Okanagan Daily Special!

Settle In, Because We're Going To Be Talking About This A Lot

First of all, everyone does realise there is a feed lot in the South Okanagan, right? You know, a place where they grow beef?

You also probably know that for a while, there was an abattoir in the South Okanagan as well...not to far from the feed lot. And by abattoir, I mean a place where people--anyone--who grew beef (or pork or lamb or hogget or mutton or chevon or cabrito) could have it processed and packaged.

Due to government regulations, about which much will be said in the coming posts, that slaughter facility no longer exists. The feed lot (the place where the beef is grown) is now without an abattoir (the place where the beef is harvested and packaged for consumption.) What should (and could) be an entirely functional system, providing economic opportunity to farmers and a competitive edge to the restaurant industry in the Okanagan, is now broken. I don't know for sure where the nearest slaughter facility is, but I'm pretty sure it isn't between Osoyoos and Vernon.

We'll get deeper into that as time goes on. For now, here's an article about a mobile slaughter facility.

Once you've read that, here's an article about the demand for local beef, to the tune of $8 a pound for brisket. While I think that's as much a reflection of the lunacy of what New Yorkers are willing to pay for things as it is a deep seated biological desire for artisan beef, it's probably safe to say that no matter what, the sale of local beef at the farmers market would generate a lot more income for the farmers growing it than, say, zucca melons or knitted polyester yarn pot holders. It's probably also safe to say that if the restaurant economy of the Okanagan became known for their local, sustainable, inventive beef (pork, lamb, hogget, mutton, chevon, cabrito) offerings, it might attract even more attention than it does now.

Everyone knows "in house" is the way to go. "Local" too. Besides, shouldn't we be rehearsing for when the trucks stop running?

Some questions:

1. Would you go to your local farmers market more or less often if you knew you could get artisan beef that was grown and processed in Oliver?

2. Why isn't there a co-op meat locker in the Okanagan, where meat can be hung for as long as desired?

3. Why isn't there a co-op slaughter facility in the Okanagan?

4. Would a co-op slaughter facility/meat locker be an asset or liability to the farmers and restaurant economy in the Okanagan?

5. Would a thriving artisan beef economy married to a thriving local, independent restaurant economy be an asset or liability to the economy of the greater Okanagan valley?

So many questions! And I really am asking. Let's tease this out and return functionality to the system!