Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 53

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

This week we're waxing 70's and 80's nostalgic with Time for Timer, the cartoon champion of healthy eating.

The PSA classic, You Are What You Eat

And our personal favorite, Hanker for a Hunk of Cheese (which we pretty much do all the time)

 

 

 

Sing Along Snacks: Fish in the Jailhouse Tonight

It's never too early or too late for a snack, so crank up that volume on your computer.

Tom Waits sings about serving Fish in the Jailhouse Tonight.

"corvina opal eye hammerhead shark
steelhead salmon or a mud bank carp
sand me one side dull
whittle the other side sharp
by Saturday night I'll be in central park

they're serving fish in the jailhouse tonight, oh boy
They're serving fish in the jailhouse tonight"

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 52

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

 

  • Do we really even need to explain what's wrong with the packaging above? Let's just say that a trip to the store this week pushed us a purse too far, and pulling together these examples was way too easy.
  • Whisky makers are taking notice of their largest untapped market, even in Scotland: women. Glasgow women say whisky is no drink for old men. "Long typecast as the definitive male tipple, whisky has a growing appeal for women enthusiasts and in Glasgow a new women's whisky club has been set up, to the delight of distillers." A message to distillers from a couple of whisky-loving women: don't get cute with us. Shoes and purses are lovely, but they do not belong in packaging for grownups. (For what not to do, see above.)

 

 

 

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 51

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

 

  • Truffle sex: "The black truffle has always been assumed to be a self-fertilizing fungus, but it's not..."

  • One of the biggest obstacles to restaurants going green is food waste — hard to track and hard to fix. LeanPath software is trying to help. "When cooks put food waste on the LeanPath scale, they identify it and why they're throwing it away — like overcooked meat or spoiled fish. The software then calculates what that food waste is worth. With that information, a kitchen can figure out how it needs to change, Shakman says. (Watch a demo of how it works here.)"
  • One way to combat food waste is the latest condiment trend: crumbs! Eleven Madison Park in New York City has elevated all the leftover seeds and salt that we all stick our finger into the bag to get into "everything bagel dust."

 

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 50

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

 

  • We found ourselves on a bit of a theme this week with stories from Scotland, and this little gem of a video sealed the deal. Above is a fine example of what the internet was really meant for — a goofy song featured animated Scotch Eggs.
  • It's a little geeky but a cool development for fisheries: the James Dyson Award goes to a new kind of net called a SafetyNet (link to a video that explains it all to you). "The goal of the SafetyNet system is to make commercial fishing more sustainable by significantly decreasing the numbers of non-target and juvenile fish caught during the trawling process."
  • And now to mix it up, an only-in-New York story of the The Lox Sherpa of Russ & Daughters, famous smoked fish emporium of the Lower East Side. "After growing up on a diet of flour paste, cheese soup and butter tea, Mr. Sherpa now subsists on caviar and pickled herring and wild Baltic salmon. Instead of trekking in flip-flops, he hops the F train to work (when it’s running), and he prefers coffee to butter tea. “Forget about it,” he said. “You have to start your day with coffee in this city.”'

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 49

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

 

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, our hearts go out to our friends and fellow travelers in food in the Northeast.

We send our best to the farmers who have seen the last of their harvest and their infrastructure destroyed.

To the chefs who will find themselves without a stove once the power comes back and the bills get paid (or not paid).

To the line cooks and dishwashers who can't get to work from the outer boroughs without the subway.

And to everybody who has gone without power, or water or a hot meal.

On a related note, maybe there's hope in one of our favorite foods — oysters. One source for help for increasing storms: plant more oysters argues Paul Greenberg in a New York Times OpEd. "But what is fairly certain is that storms like Sandy are going to grow stronger and more frequent, and our shorelines will become more vulnerable. For the present storm, all we could do was stock up on canned goods and fill up our bathtubs. But for the storms to come, we’d better start planting a lot more oysters."

Sing Along Snacks: Tacos, Enchiladas & beans

It's never too early or too late for a snack, so crank up that volume on your computer.

Doris Day sings of her true loves in Tacos, Enchiladas and Beans.

"From the snow-capped mountains to the coral shores
You're the only one my heart adores
You've only got three competitors
Tacos, enchiladas and beans"

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 48

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

 

  • The year — now-ish. Humans have overfished the oceans, taking too much and decadently hurling bycatch overboard. Now, the giant sea creatures of the deep are taking matters into their own "hands" — and they want their fish back... The New short film Monster Roll (above) is the most crazy-awesome thing you've seen this week. Seriously.
  • Geek out with a radio segment from On Point on everything you ever wanted to know about lobster (and more), from biology to art, to Greek Mythology.
  • Cooking made us smarter, or so the research indicates. And sitting around eating all that food was probably pretty good for making culture. "So raise a glass of good wine (fermentation being the other calling card of a higher order brain) and praise the cooks. You'd be stupid without them.

Sing Along Snacks: Saturday Night Fish Fry

It's never too early or too late for a snack, so crank up that volume on your computer.

Louis Jordan sings Saturday Night Fish Fry.

"So if you ever want to get a fist in your eye
just mention a saturday night fish fry
I don't care how many fish in the sea
but don't ever mention fish to me!"


Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 47

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

  • Wine in a box, wine in fake designer handbags, now wine in a can. Hmmm.
  • Campus Farms are springing up all over and now will have help from a new resource called Campus Farmers. '“There’s a great new trend of students growing their own food on college campuses. They’re very excited, but they often have no idea where to begin,” Nicole Tocco, East Coast fellow for the Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation, tells TakePart. “This will be a place where they can post questions, blog posts, status updates and more. There will be a resource section to show them how to get started.”'

Chefs Collaborative Chef Summit- 2012 Seattle

My-o-my, how time flies.  It seems like yesterday that we were all in New Orleans eating and drinking our way though another delicous Chefs Collaborative Chef Summit.  Well, time waits for no one, so here we are back from another Summit.  

Seattle rolled out the red carpet, or rather an amazing blue sky, to host a wonderful conference.  I know everyone loved sampling the incredible bounty that chefs enjoy up in the Pacific Nowthwest.  Enjoy our little recap of the Chefs Collaborative Summit 2012- in Seattle.

 



Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 46

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

  • Have you visited us on Pinterest yet? A sample of some of our favorite images of the week, above.
  • As Supermarkets Spread in Africa, Some Farmers Find It Hard to Compete. "Supermarket chains are rapidly expanding all over Africa. And they're not just changing the way people shop -- they're transforming the way food is produced in a region where agriculture provides almost 60 percent of all jobs. 'The main problem of the small farmer is market access...How will they put (their goods) into the marketplace?' As supermarkets spread, they could lift millions of small farmers out of poverty by buying from them, or competition from big commercial farms could ruin them."
  • More college grads are heading to the farm."For decades, the number of farmers has been shrinking as a share of the population, and agriculture has often been seen as a backbreaking profession with little prestige. But the last Agricultural Census in 2007 showed a 4 percent increase in the number of farms, the first increase since 1920, and some college graduates are joining in the return to the land."

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 45

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

  • Shining light of the urban food movement Growing Power has announced a $5 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to fund “community food centers” aimed at relieving hunger in five of the nation’s poorest areas: Detroit; New Orleans; Forest City, Ark.; Shelby, Miss.; and Taos, N.M. As Grist reported: "Growing Power’s urban projects are frequently the subject of news reports, but the rural ones are rarely described. In the case of the Mississippi Delta, for instance, Allen says, 'Most of the land has gone over to industrial agriculture. It’s devastated those towns, because most of the people used to have their own farms.' Now, he says the area is plagued by drugs, much in the way many urban areas are. And that’s all the more reason why Growing Power’s model can make a difference."
  • Fishing in New England is declared a disaster: “Despite fishermen’s adherence to catch limits over the past few years, recent data shows that several key fish stocks are not rebuilding.... Low levels of these stocks are causing a significant loss of access to fishery ­resources with anticipated revenue declines that will greatly affect the commercial fishery.”


Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 44

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

  • As we have noted to ourselves many times while making our way through through a refrigerated warehouse in the early morning hours, fish and glamour rarely go together — until we saw the Fishwives Club range of wines from South African (right).
  • What do you give to the person who has everything? Sea cucumebers are the answer in China. "Much of the demand is driven by the gift trade. One of Bo’s customers, Lin Xiaojian, founder-owner of a welding company, explained he was buying two RMB 590 (US$93) 1-kilogram portions. 'People are spending a lot more on health these days,' explained Lin, before adding that the sea cucumbers were in fact gifts for local officials he’s hoping will give contracts to his firm. 'I used to buy expensive rice wine but these days the fashion is for sea cucumbers … few ordinary people buy them to eat, it’s for gifting to government and army officials to keep good relations with them.'”

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 43

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

  • A sense of whimsy decorates a bar called “Le Nid” (meaning the nest) in Nantes, France.
  • Food has always been part of diplomacy, but now American chefs are being tapped by the State Department as official culinary ambassadors. "The wide-ranging effort creates an American Chef Corps, a network of culinary leaders who could be deployed to promote U.S. cooking and agricultural products abroad."
  • Smithsonian magazine takes a visual tour through the history of the lunchbox, from 19th tins to mid-20th century classics, like the Partridge Family and Lost in Space.
  • There's nothing more mid-century than nuclear obsession. Cold War–Era Science Shows Beer Will Survive a Nuclear Apocalypse "In a world that had seen the potential of nuclear weaponry and that faced the threat of disaster as America and the U.S.S.R descended into the Cold War, a hierarchy developed around facts society might need to know about nuclear explosions. Number 32.2a on that list, apparently, was understanding 'The Effect of Nuclear Explosions on Commercially Packaged Beverages.' Specifically, beer. And soft drinks."
  • Urbanization Puts Farms In Africa's Cities At Risk "The survey — which is the first of its kind — looked at city farming in 31 countries, where more than half of Africa's urban population lives. The authors say that governments need to integrate urban farming into city planning, or else the cities may lose one of their best sources of food."

 

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 42

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

 

  • Noodle-bots, taking over a Chinese noodle stand near you. In the video, you can see them (looking very vintage Lost in Space) shaving noodles right into the pot. Prep cooks everywhere, beware.
  • For pointers, and experienced words of caution, listen to the dangerous art of ham-cutting in Spain that covers the how-to's of slicing Iberian ham, which can send some 60,000 Spaniards a year to the emergency room. Maybe a ham-bot is in order.

Sing Along Snacks: That Chick's Too Young To Fry

It's never too early or too late for a snack, so crank up that volume on your computer.

Louis Jordon sings his 1946 hit That Chick's Too Young To Fry.

"Hey boy don't you harm that bird, don't you dare to try
Start releasin' that chicken or you'll get a lickin'
That chick's too young to fry"

PayPal Badge_2.png
Food and Product Styling
Fishmonger Activity Book