Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 29

a weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

• A tradition that's seen better days, the NewYork City seltzer man. Walter Backerman, third generation in the trade, tells us how it is. Vintage seltzer bottles (right) are still in use and get filled at the Gomberg Seltzer Works in Canarsie, the last seltzer factory in the city. Take a video peak into a forgotten world. "I offer people an option. It's called stability. Sometimes old is better. There are things that were meant to last."

• The latest, and super-flashy, urban garden accessory — a roof-top geodesic dome with aquaponics system.

• Wasting food does more than just waste money. A new study from Edinburgh University says: Wasted Milk Pollutes As Much As 20,000 Cars.

• An old-time brew is making a comeback in Vermont — maple sap beer.

• What customers are wondering when they book hotels — how close is the nearest specialty grocery store? Opportunity alert for hotels — healthy take away options.

• Pork Fairy Quiz: Test your sausage knowledge. And you can expand your charcuterie knowledge with a photo gallery of sausage of the world and a loving tribute to the one of the world's favorite comfort food.

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 26

a weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

 

• Rock your dinner with Bitchin'Kitchen and Nadia G. (above), and her new comedy cooking show, books and more.

• The latest entry in the "pornification" of stuff that everybody likes: grilled cheese porn. It's a whole gallery you can view at work.

• NPR confirms this week that trying to buy sustainable seafood as a home cook is still totally messed up and confusing.

• Pop-ups go super-glam as Chef René Redzepi sets up in the Claridges hotel in London during the Olympics.

• For a look into shifting climate, food and survival, watch the trailer for a new documentary film, People of a Feather: Life on thin ice, about the eider ducks of Nunavut. The Inuit rely on them for meat and their incredibly warm down, but like everything in the Arctic, it all depends on ice.

• Farmer/thought leader Joel Salatin wrote a response to The Myth of Sustainable Meat OpEd run by the New York Times April 12 which had many of us scratching our heads wondering how in the world the author came up with fantastic "facts" like pastured chickens have a bigger impact on global warming. Aside form debunking some of the nonsense, Salatin continued: "If you want to demonize something, always pick the lowest performers. But if you compare the best the industry has to offer with the best the pasture-based systems have to offer, the factory farms don’t have a prayer."

• Another topic that got a lot of chatter — dietary tribalism. "The back-and-forth mud-slinging between members of different "dietary tribes" troubles me most. I often imagine all the power that could be harnessed if we stopped and joined forces on some key issues: getting food dyes and trans fat out of our food supply, demanding that the presence of genetically modified organisms and artificial hormones be at the very least labeled on food items, reducing the presence of nutritionally empty foods in schools, facilitating access to healthy foods in "food deserts," constructing a healthier food system (from farmworker to field to table)."

• One Thing Missing from the Urban Farm Movement: Farmers. It turns out that growing food is really a lot of work. That's why it's a job worth paying for.

• Wander through the story of a lost food of New York City, Hungarian chestnut puree gesztenyepüré, and the immigrants who brought it.

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 11

a weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

 

• The perfect slice: Ohio artist, Dennis Wojtkiewicz explores the sensitive nature of time in his oversized oil paintings of fruit (above).

• Authenticity is the flavor of the new year, says NPR (and the rest of us): "What might be called urban neo-ruralism has apartment dwellers canning tomatoes, keeping bees and churning butter. The small farmer is the new gastronomic superhero, sourced on restaurant menus." Expect more craft butchers, more unusual meat (at least for Americans) like goat and rabbit, and more small batch distilling.

• All this artisan stuff is actually real business. Hyper-local markets provide big economic boost in San Francisco and across the country. "This is about jobs, the economy and community vitality....It's created a renaissance in agriculture and that's very exciting." Local Roots Market in Ohio got press as a smart new version of a farmers market. Said one participating farmer: “We won’t be slaves. We will be able to make a business.”

• Southern farmers profiled in the New York Times describe "a thriving movement of idealistic Southern food producers who have a grander plan than just farm-to-table cuisine. They want to reclaim the agrarian roots of Southern cooking, restore its lost traditions and dignity, and if all goes according to plan, completely redefine American cuisine for a global audience."

• Farmers forging partnerships is key to building regional food systems. "Food has really been the bridge that has healed the urban-rural divide."

• Looking across to Italy, we see farmers carving out new economic niches to flourish, with women-run farms ahead of the curve. Some farms are even offering day care centers as part of the mix. "The involvement of women in multifunctional agriculture has helped society in important ways 'like food security, rural development and the safeguarding of the natural landscape.'”