Craigie Street Bistrot

Craigie has moved

2008-11-11T15:01:00.003-05:00

Craigie Street Bistrot is now Craigie On Main. Please update your bookmark to our site.

The Craigie Street Bistrot RSS feed has also changed. Please update your newsfeed reader address for our blog to http://www.craigieonmain.com/?feed=rss2.

Irradiated Spinach - What's the Problem?

2008-09-30T20:58:00.002-05:00

Late last month, the FDA approved a new regulation that allows for the irradiation of fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce. This measure follows in the wake of the e-coli outbreaks traced to contaminated spinach, which killed three people and sickened 205 more in 2006. For big food industry supporters, it’s seen as a new tool in the arsenal to keep the nation’s food supply safe. For others the words “irradiation” and “food” should never be in the same sentence and stir up disturbing images of radioactive salads and a food system run seriously off the rails.

So which side is right? Irradiation like this is both new and not new. Not new because a few foods have been treated with radiation since the early sixties. The effort began with dried herbs and spices, in order to kill bacteria and keep them shelf-stable for longer. More recently, following e-coli outbreaks in hamburger in the 1990’s, meat has been irradiated too. But this measure represents a new era in the practice, because it is a further expansion into domestically-grown fresh, perishable vegetables, the foods we most often eat raw

How can you know if your food has been irradiated? For the time being, all treated food must bear the logo you see at the top of this post. (Doesn’t it look benignly progressive?) The package must also state clearly that the product has been irradiated or “treated with radiation”. So far, not a whole lot of our food supply has been irradiated or borne these labels. The public’s response has been tepid at best. But food industry lobbyists are pressing to have the labels removed – so the consumer wouldn’t know what kind of treatment her food had been subject to before she drops it in her grocery cart.

Attempting again, not to be too much of an alarmist, it is important to note that the new regulation allows these foods to be irradiated, it doesn’t require that they be. So, for the time being, the spinach and lettuce you buy in a grocery store, unless it bears the irradiation logo, is probably not treated. But what is this process all about? Will your spinach glow in the dark, or, worse yet, cause cancer? From the website of Food & Water Watch, a consumer advocacy group keeping an eye on our food system:

"Irradiation exposes food to a high dose of ionizing radiation, which comes from one of three sources: electron beam (electricity), cobalt 60 (nuclear waste byproduct), or cesium 137 (also a nuclear waste byproduct). It is intended to kill bacteria such as E.coli or Salmonella. It also extends shelf-life. However, studies have shown it depletes the nutritional content of food as well as leaving behind chemical byproducts in the food

Irradiation facilities use gamma rays, x-rays, or electron beams to irradiate food."

It must be noted that irradiation does not leave food radioactive. But should this really be our best standard of excellence? Nutritionally depleted, chemically altered, but not radioactive?

The flavor and texture can be altered by radiation, and some of foods’ essential nutrients destroyed. For instance, the kind of dose that would knock the bacteria out of eggs or orange juice reduces vitamin A and beta carotene by 80%, respectively.

Perhaps this is a price we’re willing to pay for food safety and a cessation of deadly outbreaks. Unfortunately, treating foods with radiation in order to eradicate deadly bacteria is, on the whole, ineffective. Irradiation of food kills a majority of the bacteria, but not nearly all – and it really only takes one tiny bacterium to cause illness.

But here’s the biggest problem with irradiation as a measure to combat food-borne illness. Right now, there are only two facilities in the country that do it. One is in Iowa, and the other is in Florida. Anyone can see that this creates a tremendous bottleneck. And anyone who cares a fig about the food miles that went into their dinner can see that this would add enormously to the carbon footprint of fresh produce. What is the sense in buying spinach that was grown a county or two away, if it is going to be shipped to Florida and back before it reaches your plate? To make irradiation as widespread as necessary to fix this bottleneck, would simply be to build yet another massive industry to fix one that is already broken, and whose problems are not being addressed.

Essentially this is a downstream “solution” to a massive upstream problem. The spinach that was recalled last year was grown using water contaminated by cow feces. This is a crisis of our production methods. Our food system, as it currently operates, is a beastly mess. Part of the reason it was so difficult to pinpoint the source of tainted spinach is because it came into a processing facility, was mixed with greens from countless other sources, and went into air-locked bags, bound for markets all over the country.

Irradiating food at the end of the production line means that growing, cleaning, shipping, and packaging methods will have less oversight and be more prone to lax and dirty practices. Abandoning our responsibility to scrutinize the sources of our food is unbelievably foolish. And it does nothing to encourage the kind of changes in growing practice that would ensure a sustainable, healthy foodstream.

So if the red herring of “radioactive” spinach doesn’t strike fear into your heart, be assured that a food system that allows and encourages a bacterial mess, only to ineffectively and inefficiently clean it up later on, should.

New News

2008-09-25T17:30:00.002-05:00

Welcome to something new. We are in the middle of a large transformation over here at Craigie Street. We're changing or name and location: I hate to be presumptuous but I believe most people know we're moving to 853 Main Street in Central Square. We will become Craigie on Main and you will be able to visit us there in mid-November. We will have a greater stage to perform on, all the while offering you, our guests, a few more options within our restaurant. We will have a full bar with a full liquor license for some unbelievable cocktails along with our take on a bar menu for food. Once we get our wheels spinning we plan on opening for lunch and brunch in the early winter. We will have one of the most bad-ass kitchens around (in both equipment and personnel) and you will be able to see all of it. We will have a few more tables that will allow for more prime time reservations, along with more flexibility for larger tables. We're going to have some ring side seats overlooking the kitchen itself -- our own kitchen stadium where you can see first hand the grace and finesse the hardworking cooks use to prepare your meal.

Change can be both scary and exciting. We have been so fortunate to have a bit of success in our current cozy basement. Our last day will, indeed, be a very bittersweet day when we do finally make our move. But change can also create new opportunities. In our case we're looking forward to saying "yes" more often than we already do at Craigie Street. It has been my personal mission to hold fast to our current mission, to not stray from our cooking and service philosophy one iota. Instead, we're looking to improve upon everything we already do. Craigie Street Bistrot has it's own charms, most of which we could never recreate anywhere else under any circumstances. I will miss most of these qualities terribly ("most" because some charms are management/ownership nightmares -- someday I'll start telling some stories...). But rest assured: we are not creating a cookie-cutter, ubiquitous, over styled, cold, too ambitious, forgetting our past, ignoring what got us here, all flash and no substance restaurant. Craigie on Main will have it's own charms (and I'm sure a few headaches as well, but they'll be NEW headaches!!!) and I can't wait to discover them with you joining me, as our guest, for some great food and fun times.

We will, in turn, be metamorphosing the blog. I have pledged to be the primary contributor. I will have monthly videos -- some instructional, some documentary. I will wax on occasionally in a self-important, listen to me talk about the way food should be (those of you who know me will be relieved to hear that I will have a new venue for these rants). We will hope to shed some light on the way we approach all things culinary, offering tips, trucs, and training along the way.

I can't wait to tell you more about it.
Talk soon,
Tony Maws
Chef/Proprietor
Craigie Street Bistrot

Craigie On Main - Under Construction!

2008-09-07T06:22:00.003-05:00

Thanks to all of you who offered well-wishes about the move to Main Street in Central Square. The Bistrot team now has the keys to the new site (what used to be La Groceria) -- and the renovations are underway.

"Team Tony" -- famed for their barn-raising spirit in helping to get Craigie Street Bistrot ready for its (not so) grand opening six years ago -- were once again out in force to get the job started.

Thanks to Peter Leis for these photos. The site may not look like much now, but we needed some "before" shots so you'll be duly impressed by the "after!"

BTW: The Craigie On Main website is also under construction. Be sure to check it periodically for updates.

"V" is for "Victory"

2008-08-28T13:44:00.002-05:00

August 2008

During World War II, the governments of Britain and the US urged their citizens to begin growing their own food in every available corner of land they could find. The results of this campaign were “Victory Gardens”. The admonitions were both jingoistic and practical. With more food grown at home, a more self-reliant populace could send resources overseas to the troops fighting in Europe. Nearly twenty million Americans participated and grew almost 40 percent of all of the fruit and vegetable produce consumed nationally. When food rationing was the order of the day, this sudden ability to sustain the citizenry was miraculous indeed. Backyards, rooftops, and vacant lots were all commandeered for the war effort. Public spaces were converted to the cause as well, including parts of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and the Fenway Victory Gardens in Back Bay. The Fens still stand as a vestige from this era.

Like many who did not live through it, I always assumed that folks back then had some sort of innate knowledge about how to churn out proliferative tomato, bean, and squash crops. As it happens, however, a concerted public education campaign was critical in teaching citizens what crops to grow, when to plant, how to weed, how to select and start seeds, how much to water. The educational materials used assumed the audience knew nothing about growing food and were written accordingly. And the results were astounding. In these days of a globalized food system, subsidies and shortages, the concept of a populace skilled enough to grow a significant portion of their own food is not only admirable – it should be repeated.

Immediately following the war, victory gardens dried up and weeded over – eventually given to other purposes. In fact, in the first full summer after the war there were shortages of fresh vegetables because a country which had grown so much for itself, suddenly turned over the reins to the burgeoning industrial agriculture, which had yet to catch up.

In the decades that followed, cultural shifts changed our food supply more rapidly than any other time in history. Surplus from petrochemically fed fields was processed and stocked the bursting grocery store shelves. Convenience, efficiency, and technology were the driving forces, and much of our food ended up in a can or the freezer, but not put there by our own hands.

My mother, who has never done a trendy thing in her life, always had a garden. Living on the sand-spit that is Cape Cod, she managed to pump out year after year of lettuce, radishes, carrots, beans, peas, tomatoes, squash and corn. Some things thrived and some fizzled. A friend smuggled her currant seeds from France. More recently she has grown the best tasting potatoes on earth, fennel, and arugula. Seed catalogs and nurseries have improved their choices and her garden has benefitted. During my recent visit East, it was her obsession with berries that benefitted me most. I had been dreaming of red, golden, and black raspberries for weeks, and was pleasantly surprised by red and white currants as well.

I was not always as enthusiastic about her garden as I am today. My older brother and I committed grave sins against produce as we trudged through our finicky years with vegetables. The annual glut of tomatoes led to us flinging them across the yard using a home-built catapult. Only recently were we brave enough to admit that we had poisoned a few zucchini starts by pouring our mother’s famously tart vinaigrette on the young plants. Terrible, I know! But so were the games of backyard baseball with a summer squash that had grown to bat-size overnight and the ubiquitous cherry tomatoes. Despite our wasteful ways, our mom did manage to put up the most amazing pickled green beans and concord grape jelly, and freeze vats of sauce.

The Victory Garden is making a big comeback. Those Americans planting their yards with fruits and veggies are self-consciously using this term. Of course, we are again at war. And once again, this endeavor taxes our resources both human and natural. Ordinary citizens are taking a hard look at our rapacious thirst for oil and attacking the problem by turning over the dark dirt in their yards. The green beans picked from just outside your door are the most local food of all. The deep sense of self care is inescapable. There are backyard beekeepers doing their part, tomatoes in pots, herbs growing between the cracks, community gardens springing up in urban centers.

But the new victory garden can look quite different from its 1940’s counterpart. On the heels of their exodus from Southeast Asia, Hmong immigrants began growing urban gardens in cities like Sacramento. The food production provides an invaluable boost of nutrition and thrift to households struggling with the transition to a new culture, as well as a continuity of traditional agrarian ways. The biodiversity of these gardens is pumping oxygen into the air and new flavors into our culinary understanding.

Yet, many of us feel we don’t have the time to spare to plant and tend a plot of vegetables. Entrepreneurs have found a solution to this problem. MyFarm, a new business in the Bay Area, promises to build, plant, and harvest beds of vegetables in your yard for you. And in an area of microclimates, if your neighborhood gets full sun best for tomatoes, but lacks the cool temperatures suited to growing greens, you still receive multiple kinds of produce. The founder of this business refers to it as “a de-centralized urban farm”. Basically, it’s a home-grown CSA with families and communities benefitting.

This Labor Day weekend an extraordinary series of events are being hosted in San Francisco and dubbed “Slow Food Nation”. It has been called the Woodstock of Food (and I encourage you to check it our virtually, if you can’t be there in person). The three day festival is meant to call attention to the disastrous problems of our current food system and the delicious solutions that are possible. The crown jewel of this event is the Victory Garden that has been planted at the SF Civic Center. I submit the two pictures here; one from the past and one from the present, as a beautiful testament to what is possible, and how good it is to see the green things growing again.

Recent data show that the city of San Francisco is meeting its goal to reduce its carbon footprint. It’s not only delicious, it’s working.

“Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes

What'd life be without home grown tomatoes

There's only two things that money can't buy

That's true love and home grown tomatoes”

-Guy Clark

U.S. Corn

2008-07-14T11:50:00.002-05:00

July 2008
I don't know where the expression "Knee high by the 4th of July" came from, but it refers to the height the corn crop should be by the time our most patriotic of summer holidays arrives. That Independence Day and this crop are linked in verse is no accident. It has been the case now for several decades, but at no time is it more apparent than now, how deeply invested the federal government is in the "health" of the nation's corn harvest.

I recently watched the documentary film "King Corn" wherein two idealistic, college graduates, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, decide to investigate the journey of corn from field to mouth in a style that can only be referred to now as "Pollan-esque". They've taken their inspiration from Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma. In it, the author buys a steer so he can follow it from range to feedlot, and eventually to burger. The creators behind "King Corn" rent a precisely measured acre in an Iowa field, marked out from the larger holdings of a local farmer.

The film's major premise is to highlight how much this wildly successful and rangy grass has found its way into our food supply, and how it impacts our health, both bodily and environmental. By considering that corn is the primary ingredient in feed for animals raised for meat, the most prevalent and cheapest of sweeteners, a source of cooking oil, and an ingredient in hydrogenated fats and countless food additives, we start to get a sense of how deeply the typical American diet is based on corn. Any reader of Pollan's book will have taken this point easily from the 120+ pages he devotes to the topic. What Cheney and Ellis do is bring in a visual element, which can't be duplicated in print or in the imagination, and a cute narrative. It is essentially a buddy flick, but with a mission.

When the film was made, only a few short years ago, corn prices remained low. In the wake of escalating fuel pressures and boosted ethanol production, the price of corn has surged dramatically. But when our heroes are doing their "farming" it quickly becomes clear that the price farmers are getting for their crop hardly covers the expense of raising it. What tips them over the edge in terms of profits, is the government subsidies paid out to farmers. In the last decade alone, $50 billion has gone to corn producers. The subsidy program has encouraged them to focus on increasing output. The result is a town literally drowning in corn (dramatic footage of overflowing silos and great pyramids of corn kernels make the point) but barely eking out a living. As fuel resource pressures have grown, the federal interest in the corn crop has grown with it.

Spiking oil prices and diverting crops from stomachs to cars, are major contributing factors to what is being termed the global food crisis. My mother perhaps put it best when she asked plainly: Where is the wisdom in putting our food into our gas tanks?

The impacts of corn production go beyond food and fuel of course, and are ultimately absorbed by our environment. Monocropping this commodity is squandering one of the nation's most valuable resources – Iowa's topsoil – a rich, black bed as deep as three feet in some areas, capable of packing tremendous nutrition into whatever grows from it. Unfortunately, we insist on growing empty calories. In the recent and calamitous floods, this wealth has been washing away, and spreading the nitrogen fertilizers and waste from industrial hog operations around with it. As if this toxic stew were not enough bad news, there is yet another detriment to monocropping. It may indeed be changing our weather, and could have played a role in t he "500 year storms" that flooded the Midwest.

The word on the fields, from an Iowan agronomist is that the shift to monocropped corn has radically changed the hydrologic cycle in the state. Historically, the region was planted in seasonal grasses and other plants which took up water and gave it off at different rates and at different times of year. The result was that evapotranspiration rates for the region as a whole were fairly stable throughout the year, except for a drop during the dormant winter, so storm cycles were steady and the intensity of storms was moderated. But when you rip all of that up and plant the whole region in corn, you've got a whole state's-worth of plant life taking a big gulp of water at the same time during the planting season and then letting it out all together in one giant collective plant-sigh. Now you've got a huge amount of water vapor entering the atmosphere at the same time. The result is much more extreme seasonal storm patterns at two times during the year when the transpired water vapor starts raining down (late spring/early summer and late fall) and drought at other times of the year when corn is sucking up all the water (late summer).[1] When one considers that it is not just Iowa that is planted nearly exclusively with this crop, but great swaths of the broad middle of our country, the idea that this could influence our climate patterns seems probable.

To return for a moment to the film, I'd like to share two images, which have stuck with me in particular. The first was gruesome. The filmmakers visit a veterinary research facility studying the effect of a grain diet on cattle. With her head locked carefully into a device that resembles nothing more than a modern day stocks, the cow in question has been fed a mixture of corn silage and kernels. From the side of the immobile beast, a channel has been cut so that scientists can reach into one of her stomachs and assess the impact the feed has had on her. One does so, right on camera, and pulls out a handful of corn and fodder, barely broken down. Cattle are ruminants, and their series of stomachs is evolved to break down grasses into caloric energy. A grain rich diet causes innumerable health problems for them. The scene captures with exquisite sorrow the unhealthy mess we are making of these animals lives, and by extension, our own.

The second scene I haven't been able to put out of my mind is when Cheney and Ellis visit a well-appointed nursing home, where Earl Butz was living out his days. I am ashamed to say that I didn't know Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture was still living at the time (He died on February 2nd of this year). But there he was in faded, regal glory. His famous message to farmers in the 1970's was "Get big, or get out!" urging them to grow commodity crops from "fencerow to fencerow" and contributing mightily to the exponential rise of agribusiness and the demise of small, biologically diverse family farms. There is no doubt that Butz' policies ushered in the era of high fructose corn syrup and cheap food. And it is with fondness that he reflects on his actions, declaring that these changes created a system where feeding oneself became a minimal part of any household budget – freeing up volumes of capital for so many other things. As the price of food was driven down, and the quality with it, we were gifted the ability to shop.

From today's vantage point, flooding and poisoned fertile plains, one nation, mono-cropped, skyrocketing fuel and food prices, this victory churns in my belly like a heavy wad of indigestible corn…

[1] With special thanks to Elanor Starmer, Food Policy expert for Food and Water Watch, for sharing this fascinating tidbit and breaking it down so eloquently.

State of the Plate Address

2008-07-11T08:01:00.004-05:00

The state government is promoting "eating local" -- how cool is that?

Check out the Mass Grown website. It's actually got some pretty good resources to help us all enjoy some great local produce and reduce those food miles!

How to Butcher a Bluefish

2008-07-05T18:15:00.005-05:00

Our first foray into the world of video blogging! Here in episode 1, Chef Tony Maws demonstrates how to fillet a bluefish. This same technique can be adapted to other types of fish as well.

Let us know if you like this video thing, as it will inspire us to do more...

PART 1

PART 2

Food & Wine Magazine Hall of Fame

2008-06-26T14:31:00.003-05:00

We are grateful to Food & Wine Magazine for naming us to their "Best New Chefs Hall of Fame". We were listed in the "Monogamists" (?) category. Reading on, we learned that this (also) means "concentrating their efforts at a single restaurant—at least for now—these chefs are dedicated to making their places as perfect as they can be."

http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/fifty-best-new-chefs-monogamists

Thanks to Food & Wine for the shout out. Perfectionism is our middle name.

2008-05-31T12:22:00.003-05:00

May 2008

I fully intended to write about what is being termed THE GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS this month, but I just couldn’t. While it is a topic that deserves a lot of digital ink, and I’m sure I’ll contribute my own soon enough, the sheer energetic exuberance that is Spring won me over. I simply am not able to spell out more gloom and doom. The gloom, frankly, has lifted, and I’d rather have my face buried in flowers. These days my thoughts are turning to the re-emergence of all of my old friends.

Growing up in New England, I had a difficult time cherishing winter. Many years later, my California-born partner reflected on it during his years in Boston by saying gently, “Don’t people know this is optional?” Well, many may, but they stick with it anyways. And like me, they welcome with gladness the melt of ice and thaw of ground.

Spring’s progression is like a promising march of the inevitable. First arrive the brave snowdrops. My mother and I would gather a few tender stems and set them in the tiniest of vases on the table. The declaration of their arrival was a shared family event, made plain as we sat down to dinner. Soon I would start peering in last Fall’s dead clumps of leaves for the purple heads of crocus, then baby iris and the ever-optimistic forsythia, early mini daffodils, tiny, gentle blue scilla, and then the big, yellow trumpets in full blast. At this point, a person could really start to believe that winter was behind her and frothier, better smelling days ahead. Grape hyacinths would emerge, real hyacinths, tulips. And then at last, the lilacs burst, the azaleas get on board, the rhododendrons and roses are soon to follow. Relief.

Since many of these bulbs and plants were lodged carefully in the earth by my grandparents’ hands, seeing them today really is like a lovely reunion. Though I live miles from New England now, I found myself longing for this beautiful progress from the cacophony of a California Spring. Quite simply, I want the reprieve without having done the penance.

Emergence of each of these plants, and the greening of the landscape, is like greeting old friends, one at a time. We don’t realize just how much we missed them, how deeply our shared roots plunge, how well we know them, their scent and character. And we are oftentimes caught up in the reverie of enjoying one returnee when another busts in on the party.

In recent years, I have experienced the same reunion phenomenon with Spring foods. It begins with greener greens, then there is the celebration of asparagus – the bellwether of a true shift in season. As the days lengthen the spinach abandons its coldframes, the thyme that wintered over sends out new shoots and branches. And at last, at last cheerful baskets of plump strawberries sit in orderly contrast on the market table, to the frenzy of customer enthusiasm that greets them. As I have delved more deeply into my commitment to local eating, I have learned more intimately the variety and progression of Spring foods – as intimately as I once knew the clumps and clusters of flowers in our yard.

Each new gift I shepherd carefully home – locally raised spring lamb, early onions – pleased as I would be with an old friend, to have them sitting in my kitchen yet again. We’ll share an evening and a creative moment. Or I’ll be surprised to see the upstart on a menu, gracing a plate in an innovative way. The reunion is fleeting, but deeply felt. And I am happy at the lengthening of days, which brings still more sweetness ahead.

Help for Localvores

2008-05-12T16:27:00.002-05:00

We received this kind and generous email today and are anxious to share it. We checked out the link and found some great sources that we didn't know about. We wish them the very best. Pass the word.

"We are Kristi and Darry: chances are you spoke with one of us earlier this year about a book we were working on, The Localvore's Guide to Boston.

Sadly, it will not appear in print this spring as we hoped. But all of our research IS available online as a fairly comprehensive resource for people who want to eat local in the Bostonish area.

We wanted all of you to know about it and feel free to pass the link on.

Happy spring, and thank you very much!
Kristi and Darry
www.bostonlocalvores.org
eat well+subvert the corporate industrial food complex"

Oil Before Food? How to Support Local Food from Local Farms:

2008-05-01T03:34:00.000-05:00

Our friend and loyal patron, Judy Samelson, asked us to announce:

A Talk on Sustainable Agriculture and Eating LocallyMonday, May 19th, 2008

The Earthwatch Institute, Massachusetts Audubon Society and Debra's Natural Gourmet invite you to join John E Carroll, Professor of Environmental Conservation at the Unversity of New Hampshire, to discuss the use of oil for food production.More than 98% of the energy in our food system comes from oil and natural gas. Without oil to transport and produce our food, we can not eat. Join us for an enlightening discussion about the ways in which we rely on oil and ways we can live more sustainably.In recent years, Dr. Carroll's research has focused on sustainable agriculture, as well as agricultural ethics and values. His most recent works include "The Wisdom of Small Farms and Local Food: Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic and Sustainable Agriculture" and "Sustainability and Spirituality."Dr Carroll will be speaking on Monday May 19th at the following times and locations:Noon in the Olsen Auditorium at Earthwatch Institute3:00 PM at the Moosehill Sanctuary in Sharon, MA7:00 PM at Drumlin Farm in Lincoln.http://www.earthwatch2.org/sustainability/________________

A Newer, Bigger Craigie Street Bistrot

2008-04-29T05:04:00.006-05:00

Yes, the rumors you may have heard are true. We are hoping for a late October opening so there is still time to visit us in our cozy Craigie Street basement. I'll keep you posted on details as we move toward opening day. Here is the official announcement we just made:

Craigie Street Bistrot Signs Agreement with La Groceria Restaurant, Cambridge

Cambridge, MA April 28, 2008….Tony Maws, chef/proprietor, Craigie Street Bistrot announces his agreement to purchase La Groceria Restaurant, Cambridge. Pending City and State approval of the Liquor License transfer, Maws will relocate his nationally-recognized Craigie Street Bistrot to the larger 853 Main Street, Cambridge location.

“It has been a labor of love to create Craigie Street in our present location, and we hope that by moving to a larger space we preserve the same cozy atmosphere while doing even more to satisfy our guests” explains Maws. “We have been working hard on plans and are thrilled to be moving forward on this project.” The new location will have a full bar with a bar menu; it will accommodate lunch, dinner, Sunday brunch and private dining. The larger kitchen, which will be the focus of the restaurant, will enable Chef Maws to present more selections on his menu. There is ample nearby parking.

Craigie Street Bistrot opened to rave reviews over Labor Day Weekend, 2002. The tiny family-owned bistrot captured the hearts and attention of consumers and critics alike, bringing people from all over the world to this cozy basement bistrot on the edge of Harvard Square. Chef/proprietor Tony Maws has earned national honors, including Food & Wine Magazine’s Best New Chefs/2005 award. Most recently Craigie Street was recognized as one of the “Top Ten Restaurants in the World For Carnivores” – the only restaurant in the U.S. on the list compiled by Food & Wine Magazine. Boston Magazine has honored Tony Maws as “Best of Boston – Best Chef” and his restaurant as “Best of Boston – Best Restaurant, General Excellence” in addition to “Best French Restaurant.” Maws is known for his intense dedication to sourcing local product from small, regional farms, and to being an earnest proponent of sustainability.

“We are delighted and honored to carry on the tradition of a family owned and operated restaurant at this location on Main Street” said Maws. La Groceria has carved out a niche in Cambridge and is supported and loved by residents and visitors alike. Craigie Street looks to continue that tradition of neighborly hospitality with a bistrot setting that is all about the food, wine and exceptional service.
##

Breaking Out of Winter

2008-04-18T11:34:00.003-05:00

April – 2008

Wendell Berry wrote rather famously, that "eating is an agricultural act". Anyone paying attention to food these days must also acknowledge that it is a political one. The genesis of my own political eating came in an unlikely spot, with food the last thing on my mind. It was a late summer evening in a meadow in Yellowstone National Park. I was there 11 years ago to do a field study on the reintroduction of gray wolves to the region – a highly controversial program that began in 1995. Having lived in the hinterlands of Northwest Montana 3 years prior, I knew this issue to be an ideological tinderbox. I returned to the region to explore the cultural dimensions of the reintroduction program.

Little did I know this adventure would lead to my very last hamburger.

I spent several weeks learning about the greater Yellowstone ecosystem – an area which extends far beyond the boundaries of the park itself – and the many species who make it home. The most vocal objection to the reintroduction of wolves came from ranchers, who argued that the presence of this "vicious" species would decimate their herds and flocks. Needless to say, I came away from the experience convinced that ranching posed the greater risk to a healthy and viable West.

That summer, there were approximately 90 wolves in the park, including the spring litters of pups. The greater ecosystem is approximately the same size as the state of Maine, so my chances of seeing one were impossibly small and I tramped around for days, practicing wolf calls, seeing nothing canine. But on that hazy summer evening, I happened upon an adult wolf and two pups on the other side of the clearing– the adult teaching her wards the basics of hunting field mice. Feeling fundamentally that eating beef was incompatible to the future of these creatures, I promised them then and there that the burger I had had just days before was the last of its kind. From this moment on, I became more aware of the foods I chose and the impact they had on a healthy world.

Fast forward 11 years: Late last month, as they often do annually, buffalo from the park attempted to cross out of it and north into Montana. The impetus for this migration is that the snows in Yellowstone are incredibly deep, and any grazing to be had lies buried under feet of snow and ice. Breaking through such piles for a buffalo is an act of enormous caloric waste, especially for ones on the brink of starvation. Just north of the park are plains that the wind has swept bare and precious nutrition remains exposed. Access to this grazing is literally the difference between life and death for herds that have made it through a fierce Wyoming winter.

Regrettably, while there is no visible border for the buffalo to acknowledge, no fence to keep them in, their journey takes them across the state line and into Montana, where they are distinctly not wanted. Imagine a bunch of armed vigilantes waiting for you on the other side of the divide between winter and spring, armed with shotguns, ready to mow you down or herd you off to slaughter. This is essentially the fate that meets the buffalo.

The threat, according to cattle ranchers across the border, is that buffalo carry a disease that is transmissible to cattle, called brucellosis. What they, and major media outlets covering the story won't share with you, is that it is extremely difficult to transmit this disease from buffalo to cow. And the effects of infection, while ominously made out to sound like the bovine AIDS, are that a cow may miscarry her first pregnancy, but not subsequent ones. In order to contract the disease, a cow must amble upon a fresh, spontaneously aborted buffalo fetus, and lick it. I assure you that the chances of this occurring are extremely small. The issue at hand boils down to the fact that if your state doesn't have any buffalo in it you can declare it brucellosis free, which is a boon to interstate cattle trade. And protecting the cattle trade is the economic and cultural heritage of many Western plains states.

One of the very first laws enacted in the newly formed Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early 1600's was to put a price on the head of wolves. Through this bounty program, the species was shot out of the northeast. Vehemence against wolves eradicated them from every part of the lower 48. In the 19th century, enormous herds of buffalo were shot en masse from passing trains – a form of colonialist sport. (The second photo above depicts the aftermath of such a slaughter) The eradication of the species was also designed to impose cultural, spiritual, and economic genocide on Plains Indians who depended on them utterly.

What is it about us that we seek not to live in balance with the wilder creatures who share our Earth? It seems instead that we choose utter antagonism. I'm interested in the cultural mythologies that contribute to how we choose to feed ourselves and our families. In this light, please let it be time for a new myth, one where there is more room for the buffalo to roam.

Since my moment with the wolf pups and my education on the struggle of the buffalo, I have reneged on my promise in word, but not in spirit. I have had a taste or two of beef, and I regularly eat lamb. But I look for the most sustainably raised meat I can possibly find. And if the price is a barrier, well then it is for special occasions only, and there are plenty of other choices to be had. The point of politically conscious eating is not to excise specific foods, but to have as holistic an understanding of the source of my food as is manageable. It is quite possible to be an environmentally squandrous vegetarian. Simply eliminating red meat didn't make me the most responsible eater on the block. But having the good sense to investigate the origins of my meals has brought me a lot closer to my promise.

It shatters my heart to think of a mighty buffalo – and if you have seen one up close you can confirm that they are truly mighty – struggling her way through chest deep snow in search of the calories to sustain her and her kind for another season of this life, only to face the unrepentant sights of a shotgun.

Please. Eat responsibly.

Want to learn more about the struggle for Yellowstone’s bison herds? Click

here.

Feeling the Love at Craigie Street This Week

2008-04-12T12:05:00.002-05:00

We don't want to break any arms patting ourselves on the back but this can only be called a very good week for Craigie Street Bistrot.

First, we opened our new issue of Food & Wine Magazine to learn that we topped their annual 2oo8 "Go List", their definitive guide for food-obsessed travelers. We beamed.

Next, we learned that Food & Wine also named "10 Best Restaurants in the World for Carnivores." There was only one US restaurant on the list and it was us, Craigie Street Bistrot. NPR broadcast the story too. We high-fived.

(Non-carnivores, please note - we are especially proud that this joins previous awards for "Best Vegetarian Dining", and "Best Fish of the Day." )

http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/10-best-restaurants-for-carnivores-go-list-2008

In case you think any of this is easy, you'll want to read another writeup: this one in the Phoenix by Kenji Alt, about the hours and days that Chef Tony Maws puts into making our Venison Sausage. It captured our chef's hard work and perfectionism so beautifully that at least one of us (his Mom) cried. http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid59552.aspx

Haute Cuisine, Head to Tail

2008-04-03T10:01:00.004-05:00

Have a look at this good article from MSN about head-to-tail cooking featuring our very own Chef Tony Maws.

Andrea Pyenson, its author, is a journalist who seems to "get it" -- which is refreshing. Too often people write about obscure cuts of meat as though it is just a fun novelty.

Interestingly, MSN seems to have categorized the article in its "Green" section. I'm not sure what to make of that. The billions of people throughout human history who have been cooking the whole hog (or chicken, or cow, or whatever) simply because... well... why wouldn't you... would probably find it amusing that this approach is now touted as environmentally responsible. Too bad there weren't more articles over the past 50 years about the more noteworthy point: how environmentally destructive the late-20th century approach to food has been.

Consistency vs. Standardization - Consider the Tradeoffs

2008-03-20T19:04:00.001-05:00

Fortunately we don't get too many negative letters at Craigie Street Bistrot, but every once in a while we get one that is excruciatingly painful. I received one recently from a patron who felt that our quality had become uneven. After dining with us over 30 times, she was having second thoughts.

This is the letter every chef dreads—calmly written, from an articulate and loyal customer. Though I know that I/we pour our heart and soul into every plate that leaves our kitchen, our staff had to talk me down from the ledge. After all, consistency is key for a chef and restaurant. Just because I follow my principles and work with small growers, a guest's meal should not be affected. It is my job to make sure the food on the plate is as intended -- no excuses. Period.

However, some of our ingredients are different from conventional ones, and while we absolutely are open to feedback, I can't change my deeply felt philosophy. At the risk of sounding self-serving, I do have a hunch as to why this concerned guest may have come to her conclusion: In the past few years, with endless hours of research and tasting, we have broadened our list of suppliers so that now virtually every drop of food we serve is organic, sustainably-raised, locally-grown and/or seasonal. As I said, this is what I believe in and it won't change. But I know there are some tradeoffs.

1. By definition, variability is the very nature of organic and locally grown food. All cows, lambs, pigs, and heads of lettuce are not the same. Having different parents, surroundings and diets, some have more/less flavor, chew, fat, and volume than others. Of course, there's a way to guarantee more standardization: it's called non-organic, industrial-scale farming. That's a tradeoff I'm personally not willing to make. I am gratified that our society is definitely becoming more aware, and opting for the sustainable choices.

2. Organic food is more expensive and, yes, our prices have increased to take this into account.

3. The letter-writing patron came into CSB in March. I am a passionate believer in locavorism but have to admit that March taxes every New England chef's ability to dazzle. I myself am getting pretty sick of frisee and root vegetables, and am yearning for a nice tomato or asparagus. There's a solution to that too: it's called importing from Chile in a container. This is another tradeoff I'm personally not willing to make. This is a seasonal struggle I address every day.

4. Our menu changes almost daily so we can select and serve what's best in the market that very day. By definition, it might not be the same as something you had on a previous visit that you loved. It really does change every day. At the risk of repetition, this is the third tradeoff I'm not willing to make.

The variations brought on by Mother Nature definitely make things interesting. Does this mean that I think we serve food that tastes different from day to day? Yes, it can happen. Sometimes that’s a joy, and sometimes it’s not. Of course I want to stand by my dishes even in the dark days of March. And, if food from one organic supplier isn't as consistent as that from some others, it's completely my responsibility to find the best one. But one person's definition of "non-identical" is sometimes my definition of "interesting". This is the exact reason we serve old-world wines - they are full of terroir, character, and variety and that doesn't appeal to everyone either.

I will do everything I can to learn from what is obviously a sincere letter from a long standing patron. I am open to the possibility that I might learn something that is completely unrelated to the issues I have outlined above. And if I do, you can bet that we'll do everything in our power to correct it. I may learn something that will lead me to think I have to go back to the drawing boards on some suppliers. But if it relates to our commitment to locally grown, organic food, I'm going to stick to my principles and hope most of our patrons agree I've made the right tradeoff. If not, I know I'll hear from you.

Confessions from the Dark Side

2008-03-10T17:53:00.003-05:00

I find the opinions on this blog to be really interesting but I have a confession to make: I often put my own personal convenience and needs ahead of such planetary concerns as sustainability, local farming, organic and biodynamic agriculture, and carbon footprint reduction. But, in my opinion, you don't need to be uber committed to these principles to rail out - for a completely different reason - against a lot of the stuff now being sold/served in expensive restaurants and supermarkets. The reason NOT too eat some of these foods is a simple, non-ideological one - THEY HAVE NO TASTE! And the reason that they have no taste is even simpler - THEY ARE OUT OF SEASON.

Their tastelessness is all the more painful because they tease you by looking like their spring/summer cousins. My personal list of biggest teasers/offenders includes asparagus , tomatoes, and green beans - all widely available right now at supermarkets and on restaurant menus and, with apologies to Chilean agribusiness, all utterly tasteless. Yes, I, too, am getting pretty sick of beets and root vegetables and can't wait for spring, but I'm not going to jump the gun for look-alike-but-no-taste-alike-vegis that have ripened in a container.

What else is particularly awful this time of year? Help me (and others) avoid it and save me some money that I will gladly donate to worthy causes like sustainability and locavorism.

Culinary-Literary Solutions

2008-03-08T14:27:00.002-05:00

February 2008

Elegant phrases from the culinary writer MFK Fisher often open the pages of cookbooks. This is the only place I had encountered her writing until a few short weeks ago, when my mother-in-law passed me a copy of The Gastronomical Me. Immediately, I was transported. Perhaps regrettably, Fischer’s lyricism had me considering giving up all efforts made with a pen (or keyboard) as her way with language seemed so effortless and perfect. When you stumble on a writer who seems to say everything you wish you had, it is both exhilarating and grossly disheartening.

MFK Fisher was raised in southern California, but her culinary awakening came when she accompanied her first husband to Dijon in 1929. There she discovered the cuisine of Lyon, and in it her muse. But plenty of people can write about a particularly splendid meal or two in an evocative way. What Fisher brought to the page was a lovely certainty that when you were talking about food, you were speaking of so much more. Indeed, the most important matters of life were at hand at the table. She wrote an answer to the question “Why do you write about food?” in the foreword of Gastronomical Me: “when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it… and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied… and it is all one.”

Fisher remained in France and later Switzerland during the interwar period, right up until 1939, when she and her second husband had to pack up their home and flee the coming catastrophe. She injects into these tightly historic years a sense of quiet grandeur. And she also takes the time to describe her gustatory adventures: the slight curl of a fresher than fresh filet of sole, cooked in hot brown butter, cuts of meat infused in herbs and napped by cream, round buttery cakes and an accompanying glass of sherry. It’s the kind of writing that makes you hungry for food as well as new horizons. I found I digested the book a bit better, a bit more sympathetically, if I had a piece of good bread, a smear of goat cheese and a glass of red wine by my side.

All of this sensual rememberance aside, as MFK packed up and fled Europe, a food revolution was brewing in the chemistry labs of the West. Part of what won the war for the Allies was a great leap forward in petrochemical technologies. The laboratory synthesis that made destruction on a mass scale possible for the first time in history also gave us manufactured “nutrients” to boost the growth and production of plants. Previously the nitrogen and potassium inputs employed by farmers in the US came from mined potash, or guano imported from Chile. The ability to produce these substances as a byproduct of petroleum reduced their cost enormously, and created a revolution for intensified inputs for farms. In short, the agro-industrial era was born. The argument of “green revolution” supporters was that with chemical enhancements we were suddenly supposed to be able to produce enough food to nourish the world. Hunger and famine would be eradicated and plenty would abound. Even the most distracted observer of the last 60 years of history can see that this did not transpire. While currently one fifth of the world’s population is chronically undernourished, another fifth is chronically overnourished. Disparities are still the order of the day. And in the meantime, the byproduct of our nitrogen fueled system of food production is a dangerously compromised earth and deeply toxified streams of health.

There is a lot of bleak news coming out about how we are not addressing our current food crisis. We’ve recently had a farm bill that isn’t full of reform, a massive recall of meat from downer cows (much of which went to school lunch programs) and recalls of alfalfa sprouts infected with e-coli. These and other concerns are starting to feel routine rather than calamitous. So perhaps, by reading MFK, I sought to return to the halcyon days when producing food could be revered and certainly less fraught. But is this sort of culinary-literary escapism really so unwarranted or unrealistic? Whenever I feel fed up with my observations of our current system, I remind myself that agriculture has been a human practice for ten thousand years. And industrial agriculture has been the order of the day for only about sixty. See? Isn’t that refreshing? So perhaps a deep, spiritual reinvestment in the way things used to be done is not so radical, but rather is the ultimate conservatism.

Given that I can neither travel through time nor space to the France where Fischer really learned to eat anytime soon, I would like to remind readers that experiences like hers can be had at Craigie Street Bistrot. Chef Tony Maws brings the intensity and craft of bistrot moderne to the American palate. In Amanda Dates’ Thanksgiving post about the kitchens in which he tested his mettle, we are reminded of this tremendously rich tradition. Lovelier still then, that it is on offer both in spirit and in presentation, on a plate in Cambridge.

Dollars and Sense

2008-02-03T20:05:00.000-05:00

January 2008

It’s tax time!

A colleague recently asked why organic food costs so much. She griped about the price ($4) of a pint of strawberries at the farmers’ market, pointing out that she can buy them at a conventional grocery store for a cool buck fifty-nine. Most feel that buying exclusively sustainably raised food is beyond their means. While I argued on the expensive berries’ behalf – citing a taste that wouldn’t be believed – it’s little use. Organic still smacks of elitism.

Since it is January, and the IRS is busy sending its missives around the country, I thought now would be a good time to bring up the $725 grocery bill you don’t know about but you pay every year. Maybe part of the reason why we think we can’t afford high quality food is the tab we are already paying for the industrial food and agriculture model. Each American household is paying about $725 every year to prop up an unfailingly damaging system. This covers the cost of fuel subsidies to agribusiness, Farm Bill subsidies for commodity crops, and the degradation of our environment and public health. To get an idea of the scale of the problem, consider that the nutrients lost to erosion each year are valuated at $20 billion, while the damages caused by pesticides are estimated at $8 billion.[1] Without intervention at both a consumer and a policy level, many of these bills are going to keep going up.

Seven-hundred-and-twenty-five dollars is nothing to sniff at, and as I do my taxes this year, I know it’s a sum I would far rather see injected into my household grocery budget, than perpetuating a destructive model of food production. What would I do with that cash? While my grocery basket is already pretty “green”, I’m fairly sure I would spring for the $6 quarts of yogurt sold at my market. They come in a returnable, reusable mason jar, and the quality far surpasses anything on the grocery store shelves. I would also purchase really nicer meat. This past November, I shelled out for a locally raised heritage breed turkey, which utterly revolutionized that meal for me and may be part of the reason I never tired of the leftovers.

But all of this is just wistful financial fantasizing. In the meantime, my taxes go to the feds, whose support of a profoundly unsustainable system is creating still bigger bills to come.

The economists call them externalities – the unintended costs (or collateral damage) of big agriculture. Externalities resulting from agribusiness can be boiled down to three major categories. First there are costs to our natural resources – the air, soil, and water quality. Second is damage to wildlife and ecosystem biodiversity. And last is the price to our health – sometimes impacted negatively by the first two and sometimes destroyed just as a result of the poor quality food that spews forth. For instance,

▪ Cleaning the agricultural chemicals out of our environment costs $17 billion/year[2]

▪ The annual impact of pesticide use on a single key-pollinator species – the honeybee – is estimated at over $400 million in lost productivity[3]

▪ Seventy percent of antibiotics administered in the US go to livestock through their feed, a practice which contributes to the emergence of drug resistant strains of disease[4]

For these and other reasons, the heretofore unassuming Farm Bill unexpectedly became a rallying point for activists and foodies alike. Real reform remained elusive in last year’s bill. But for the first time, politicians are listening to dissenting voices. For the first time, there is a strong chorus of dissenting voices.

So now you are stuck in the unfortunate position of paying over $700 for cheap food you do your best to avoid and you still have to pay a premium for organic. It seems like the only thing this little revelation has brought forth is the knowledge that you are getting socked twice. But here are the other things you’re paying for with organic, especially local, food.

You’re ensuring that there are bills for the environment and your health that won’t come due. You’re not only boosting the biodiversity of the planet, but of what you eat – before organic came along we were all eating iceberg lettuce all the time. No one had heard of a Satsuma mandarin or kabocha squash – superfoods with incredible flavor that make you healthier in the long run. The sustainably spent dollar supports independent, viable farms and farmers. And lastly, recent studies show organic fruits and vegetables have greater nutritional value than their conventional counterparts – that’s in addition to the absence of chemical residues from spraying.

The best choice you currently have, unless you want the IRS banging down your door, is to pay your tab to big farming, and foot a heftier grocery bill. The sad state of affairs is that the primary reason we say we cannot afford organic is that cheap food is a luxury we have grown awfully accustomed to. Like a slow morphine drip, we hardly even know it’s there anymore. But it is a luxury we can no longer afford. Cheap food is propped up by a system that is merciless when it comes to our environment and our health. Paying for the best food you can, will minimize the ugly costs that wait for us down the road and tastes better in the meantime.

[1] Steven L. Hopp Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

[2] Steven L. Hoppe Animal Vegetable, Mineral

[3] Erin M. Tegtmeier and Michael D. Duffy External Costs of Agricultural Production in the United States 2004

[4] San Francisco Chronicle 1/28/2008

Sleep… Like a Potato

2008-01-04T16:40:00.000-05:00

December - 2007

“potatoes have a preprogrammed naptime which cannot for any reason be disturbed. Seed potatoes aren’t ready to plant until they’ve spent their allotted months in cool storage. (…) [they] have a built-in rest period” -from Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Every year I bristle at the fall time change. I treasure my outdoor hours and with work calling me indoors most of the week, the shift in time seems like an indecent robbery. It usually takes me weeks to reconcile myself to nothing but dark hours inside at the end of my weekdays. This tragic turn of events is of course aided and abetted by the fact that the days themselves are getting shorter and shorter, with moments shaved off as each passes, not to be returned to the bank of daylight until February or March. Or even later… Who can wait that long?

But this year I approached calendar changes both natural and contrived with a new weapon: the story of the humble potato. From Barbara Kingsolver’s book, I learned one of the many miracles of the potato plant. Coming to us originally from what are now the Peruvian Andes in South America, the potato is a nutrient rich food which these days takes a lot of (not wholly deserved) blame for our nation’s nutritional crisis. Bad rap aside, what I learned about the potato is encapsulated in the quote above. In order for this crop to flourish, it must sleep a deep, dark, restful winter sleep. It needs months in a cool, cozy bin with “eyes” shut up tight in order to eventually open them and send robust runners out into the world. So in the spirit of the potato, I am spending these winter months embracing the darkness for the sake of what it makes possible.

Nevertheless, I relish the tipping point of the winter solstice, as it contains the central message of one of our most ancient cultural traditions. It is no new news that this passage from darkness to light signals the promise of hope, of a better world, and even of better relations between humans. The metaphorical aspect of the Christmas story is the one to which I adhere most closely – that in the moment of our darkest hour there is a promise of new light for our world. We must only tend to our loved ones as best we can, get our good rest, and wait.

The potato has known this all along. It’s futile to think that the sleeping spud can open her eyes before she’s had a long winter’s nap. And it’s futile to cling to the idea of permanent spring and summer. The good stuff, the clear light, the pushing green, the running sap, come to those with patience.

Now is the time to eat the stored, caloric bounty of the year behind us – the hard squashes and hearty greens, the tubers and roots which guard us against chilling temperatures and all manner of winter storms. Having passed the hurdle of the very shortest day, we know we are on our way to greater light.

Which is why I think it important to point out the absurdity currently on display in mainstream grocery stores: In my own local outlets: Apricots! Nectarines! Plums! Cherries! All of these come my way courtesy of Chile, which is tipped precisely on the other hemisphere of the globe so as to have summer in our winter. It’s no secret than in an imaginary, seasonless parallel universe I would reach for a peach over any and all other foods and fruits. Storage apples could just slink back to the musty corner where they’ve been keeping time, when faced with a perfectly in season peach.

But not like this. I find the displays lurid – like I’m seeing flesh that is strictly forbidden. I feel a little embarrassed for the tarty blush on the fruit, the round, smooth nectarine skins. I sound like my mother admonishing me to dress for the season. Put on a wool sweater! Cover yourself, for god’s sake. IT’S STILL DECEMBER! That peach is going to taste so much better when it comes to you less jet-lagged, no spray-on tan, in August, as she always has.

Chef Tony Maws' Lyon Recommendations - No Harm, Lots of Fowl

2007-12-07T11:51:00.000-05:00

As most of you know, Chef Tony Maws works passionately to create his own flavor of the the bistrot moderne food tradition, inspired by the expertise of his mentors; legendary chefs, vintners, and farmers from wildly different food family trees. Whenever solicited, Tony is happy to recommend visiting the people and places under whose tutelage, either through direct or indirect training and exposure, he has been influenced to do what he does so well.

On a recent trip to France, my husband, Greg, and I were keen to visit Lyon for the fabled Lyonnais bouchon experience. Neither of us had spent much time in Lyon and didn't know where to begin. (We only had 19 hours in Lyon and wanted to do it right.) Tony had offered high praise for Chez Brunet, the brainchild of chef Gilles Maysonnave, protege of Paul Bocuse. True to form, Tony steered us in the right direction.

Chez Brunet is a typical Lyonnais bouchon - which is essentially a small restaurant that specializes in house-made dishes; always meat, more meat, and meat "parts" like snout, tail, ear, tongue. In effect, you sit - and eat - cheek and jowl and the like for as long as you can continue to consume. As we learned, no bouchon experience lasts less than three hours

We arrived at 9:45, having pushed our reservation back because of our 10 hour drive from Normandy. We were the last to be seated, and were concerned about being rushed through our meal (which happened only at one moment). The place was covered in decorated mirrors, on which was written the menu and the specialties of the day, week, and season. Figure things like tripe stew, rabbit stew, blood sausage, head cheese, every type of paté imaginable, including house-made foie gras, pheasant, etc. Chez Brunet specializes in gibier, which is wild game and we discovered later in the evening that Chef Gilles has a deal with a hunter friend who hunts and traps all his game.

Now, it's important to note that neither of us are meat eaters. But we've made a pact that we'll treat ourselves to wild duck once/year if the time and circumstances are right, and in general, when traveling to France, all bets may be off. While I manage (mostly) to stay on the no mammal wagon while in France, Greg is likely to fall off all wagons completely, bounce a couple of times and land face first in a house-made terrine (a country pork paté) or plate of thinly sliced house-cured saucisson, which he did - happily and unrepentently - for his appetizer.

I started with a lentil soup with cream and scallops. We ordered a "pot" of chilled Beaujoulais (not Nouveau). Beaujoulais has become our wine of choice for Thanksgiving in general, and since we were just an hour south of Beaujolais country, this was an exquisite terroir treat.

Then on to the main course - which came out mistakenly while we were still eating the appetizer; a rush that is unusual in France. They realized their mistake quickly and disappeared back into the kitchen, which was not much bigger than a Smart car. About the same time, we saw who we presumed to be the chef wandering the room, and realized he probably quickly prepared the last dish to finish his evening. A friend of his showed up and sat near us. The chef joined him and a champagne cork popped.

Despite the timing mix-up, when the main course (re)arrived, it was delicious. I thoroughly enjoyed my once/year wild duck indulgence (i.e. hunted, not raised, colvert not canard) with three types of mushrooms, including cepes. Greg had a quenelle, which is a Lyonnais specialty - a dumpling in a rich sauce. He asked what was in it, and the server said nothing - the dumpling is enough. And it was, arriving in a cast iron pan, a puffed up dough loaf burnt to a light crisp at the top, swimming in a cream sauce. All the while we were savoring our meal, the chef was stealing glances of our faces and plates, I guess to measure our enjoyment.

For dessert Greg asked for the traditional cerval de canut, which he thought would be some sort of sweet cream dessert. No such luck. It's a savory fresh cream concoction that reminded us both too much of sour-cream/ green-onion potato chip dip to appreciate that it wasn't. (Cerval de canut literally means "brains of a silk-worker". Lyon was the home of the European silk trade. That's where the connection ends for me ;-) He inquired what kind of cake-like desserts they had, and the server was explaining one when the chef, smiling, leaned over and whispered in French (apparently to simplify the sell) "it's four-quarters - 1/4 kg butter, 1/4 kg sugar, 1/4 kg flour, 1/4 kg eggs". Sold.

And that's how it started. We mentioned to the chef and his friend that we had been recommended by Chef Tony Maws, who had spent time training in Lyon. Sure enough, Monsieur (Gilles) Maysonnave had heard of this "young American chef exposing American eaters to Lyonnais cuisine." He was delighted. The restaurant cleared out and it began to feel more like a family dining room than a public bistrot. We spent the next two hours sitting and talking about all things food and wine related with the chef, his friend, and two servers (one who was the chef's wife). They generously poured us some of their champagne. (Neither of us being champagne fans we were a bit skeptical, but their enthusiasm about the quality of this particular bubbly quieted our concerns). At one stage, we were talking about foie gras - and 5 minutes later, we had a slice of house-made foie gras each. It was too much food, after dessert even, but Greg tried his best to polish his off, while I discreetly had to pass. Chef Gilles eventually asked if we didn't like it "Too salty. It's too salty, isnt it?" and we had to graciously impress upon him that we were so full with gloriously rich food we just couldn't eat a another single bite.

To acknowledge their generosity, we offered to get the next round of champagne. Chef Gilles went on to talk about the internationally famous Lyonnais chef - and his mentor - Paul Bocuse. At one stage he was rifling though his photos, proudly showing us shots of him with Paul. They told us to go to Les Halles Bocuse (an indoor market) for lunch - "Tell them Gilles Maysonnave sent you" - where we would find only the freshest fish, snails, frog's legs, oysters, etc.

When we finally took our leave at 1am, we were sated and floating. We noticed on the cab ride home that our champagne round was almost half the entire bill - and worth every centime. Being invited to the Chez Brunet family table was priceless.

On our travels we've learned that recommendations are the way to go and Chef Tony Maws' are well worth exploring. This three hour restaurant experience was truly a slice of Lyon. The conscious intention and attention that goes into food procurement, preparation, and enjoyment is directly related to what the Lyonnais hold dear; a distinct love of place. Fittingly, this experience happened to fall on American Thanksgiving. It was a complete terroir experience and this Thanksgiving we felt tremendous gratitude for the opportunity to get in touch with the people, food, and wine of a particularly special place.

- Amanda Dates and Greg Beuthin, November 2007

Chez Brunet
23, rue Claudia
69002 Lyon

Tél : 04 78 37 44 31
Fax : 04 78 42 45 74
Propriétaire : Gilles Maysonnave
www.achatlyon.com/brunet

Thankgiving - A Story We Tell Ourselves

2007-12-02T22:00:00.000-05:00

November - 2007

Having just finished my umpteenth bowl of turkey-barley soup, I am not yet sick of thinking about Thanksgiving – or its leftovers. For many food-lovers, this is a holiday utterly without angst or ambiguity. There is none of the subterranean clash of cultures of the religious holidays that surround the winter solstice and none of the hand-wringing over consumerism run amok. Pure and simple, it is about gathering around a table with folks whose company you can stand for at least a few warm, sated hours. And ultimately, it is about the food. I like to think too, that it is about an abundant reverence for what our earth produces, year after year.

Contemporary sources tell us that the story of the First Thanksgiving is a myth. The nation as a whole did not start celebrating the holiday until well after the Civil War and the origins of a first feast are murky, at best. Scholars of food and history exhort us to recall that “Thanksgiving … expresses and reaffirms values and assumptions about cultural and social unity, about identity and history, about inclusion and exclusion.”[1]

But I mean to use the term “myth” the way anthropologists would have us do: a myth is not necessarily an untruth or a fantasy, though in the case of this holiday it is quite fully fabricated, but it is a “story we tell ourselves about ourselves” – a way of explaining who we are and what is meaningful in the experience of being “us”.

In the spirit of that ongoing story, I’d like to share a thought that has struck me for the last several years. It is of the nearly holy serendipity of the Thanksgiving meal. I imagine 300 million Americans sitting down to almost identical dinners. Some of us make an effort to serve this meal to the least fortunate citizens of our society. And considerable resources go to providing that service personnel around the world can also eat the traditional menu. An effort is made, at least on this day, to ensure that people don’t go without. At millions of tables there is a turkey as the centerpiece, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie. Green beans, gravy, and mashed potatoes add heft and color to the meal. But here is where it begins to veer off into millions of tributaries. And this is my second favorite thought about Thanksgiving: that just as there is this almost zen-like moment of 300 million souls sitting down to the same meal – they are also sitting down to radically different ones. It is here, I think, that the modern myth arises. Into the treatment of the bird, the care that goes into its accompaniments, are so many diverse traditions. Chorizo stuffing, candied yams, braised pearl onions, or green bean casserole. In one instance, my cousins hosted a communal celebration to which an Afghan family was invited. They showed up with a magnificent platter of spiced rice with game hens plunged into its steaming, fragrant center. This too, is our uniquely American meal as it is practiced today.

Frankly, I think there is a kind of worship here – whether people agree they’re participating in it or not – one way or another we are breaking bread together as a whole society, with foods that connect us to the recent harvest of our homeland. And at the same time we are bringing our own strains and stories to the table, augmenting and enriching it.

A friend of mine refers to this phenomenon as dynamic tension – between our sameness and our diversity – our moment of communalism and our distinct individuality. Each year at my own table, I enjoy the dance along this line of tension – what elements of my meal will be traditional and what will be new? Who will sit and sup with us who has been here all along, and who will charm us with their new tales of discovery?

I’d like to relate one more myth of a dynamic Thanksgiving celebration – one that highlights so beautifully the unexpected joy that can come from fully embracing the local foodshed. In a small town in New Hampshire, my friend’s family got their turkey every year from a local producer. Because the town was one of those tiny little hamlets, so too, did most of the rest of the residents. Year after year, ordering a turkey from this farmer was just part of the holiday routine. Except that a few Thanksgivings ago (my friend reports that it may even have been a full moon, days before the holiday) the farmer’s exuberant pair of Jack Russell terriers got a wild hair and literally decimated the entire flock. The Jack Russells went on a murderous rampage and didn’t leave a bird fit for dressing.

My friend is a vegetarian and the absence of the turkey was no great culinary loss for her. But the cooks who were at the center of this drama were at a bit of a loss. The meal was to be held at another neighbor’s organic farm, where the table had been hewn out of a single tree. Salvation arrived in the form of a Greek grandmother, who showed up bearing a four foot long Spanikopita, which, combined with a vegetarian’s fantasy of side dishes, more than fed the assembled guests. But apparently theirs wasn’t the only turkey-less feast that year. Reliant on the local source, most of the families in town went without their birds – but returned to ordering again from the farmer the next year. So while recreating a highly structured and stylized ritual – a little local chaos shook things up and changed the feast. But the drive to gather and share was never interrupted.

Each Thanksgiving my own prayer of thanks is for the enormous job of work that brought the food to the table. The continuing mythology of my celebration is made possible and then made wondrous by all the hands, bodies, and backs set to the task. Truly, it is a meal of a thousand variations and a unifying thread, which can nourish our hopeful path forward.

[1] Janet Siskind The Invention of Thanksgiving: A Ritual of American Nationality

"Homey with a touch of mad science"

2007-11-10T09:50:00.000-05:00

... That's how Kenji Alt described Chef Tony Maws' style in a recent Boston Phoenix article highlighting the Bistrot's Spanish Octopus à la Poêle. The "mad scientist" thing is fair enough, but let's not get hung up on that. As the article points out, "attention to detail" is also about the sourcing of ingredients. To me, as someone who -- shall we say -- lacks precision when I'm cooking, this is the more compelling point. It is not necessarily scientific wizardry and obscure kitchen appliances that produce beautiful food -- although it is certainly fun to read about the levels of insanity that can go into one single dish when it is Tony doing the cooking.

The topic of sourcing ingredients also raises another interesting point for thought. Although Craigie Street Bistrot, as you probably know, is a strong proponent of buying local ingredients, this principle has to be balanced with generally making informed decisions about sourcing the best products. This article points out that the octopus comes from the Mediterranean -- hardly local, but Tony likes to think that this is an example where making an exception is worth it. If you are going to cook octopus, cook really good octopus. (This is in contrast to simply inexcusable uses of food miles like apples from New Zealand -- as Ariane points out in her post below on "Local-vorism").

Anyway, thanks to the Phoenix for the nice write-up. I think I've now written more about the octopus than they did.

What Makes a Good Egg?

2007-11-06T19:55:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid growing up in Massachusetts there was a little jingle on a TV ad that aired, theoretically, to educate consumers about where and how to buy the freshest eggs. It went like this:

“Brown eggs are local eggs/And local eggs are fresh!”

That was it. And somehow it’s managed to stick in my head for decades. It inspired decades of brown-egg buying – thinking that the brown color somehow denoted greater nutrition, authenticity, a more local provenance, and less tampering with what ought to be a pretty simple food.

Since that jingle, the question of how to buy a "good" fresh egg has gotten considerably more complicated. We can’t count on brown eggs to be local, and determining the origin of the eggs on offer in the supermarket is a challenge. In recent years, as concerns about our food supply have multiplied, egg cartons have become billboards offering complex information meant to guide the consumer. A box near you can read: “Cage free, Hormone free, Free-range, No antibiotics!” You can also find, “Organic”, or “Fed Organic Grains”. And then there are the latest ones on the block: “Omega-3 enhanced!”

Given that we are meant to match this level of complexity up with the cacophony of environmental and nutritional information we read, the decision about what carton of eggs to put in the cart can become taxing.

More recently, widely publicized reports about the welfare of laying hens in big, commercial operations have exposed fairly horrifying conditions in the chicken house: Cutting beaks, chicken cannibalism, antibiotics in the feed to combat the diseases that proliferate from overcrowded, unsanitary conditions… A growing demand for “cage-free” eggs has erupted since these reports, and currently (currently) the industry can’t keep pace with consumer’s enthusiasm for what is seen as an alternative.

Back at the grocery store, the same conscientious consumer can find that some of the free range, organic, omega three enriched eggs come enfolded in so much plastic that one expects the egg within to be Faberge… or maybe a hand grenade. It seems the picture of a chaotic and contradictory stab at sustainability.

Recently, I called chef Tony Maws at Craigie Street Bistrot to discuss all things egg. Right now, the restaurant is featuring lovely fall dishes that call on farm fresh eggs to make them sublime, including a slow-poached egg in smoked game broth with matsusake mushrooms. But these eggs, from Maple Meadow Farm in Vermont, aren’t reserved only for star billing in a fall soup. They can also be found on the vegetarian tasting menu, and folded into pastries. Tony describes them as “lovely to work with” with deep-colored yolks and says that his guiding principle for sourcing things for the restaurant – from produce to eggs to meat – is “would I serve it to my family?”

So if you employ the same question – what egg should you serve?

In Ideal Terms...

A couple of months back this blog featured the farmer Joel Salatin – an iconoclast in Virginia who is spreading the gospel of his pasture raised eggs. What makes an egg pasture raised? Salatin produces grass-fed beef, eggs, roasting and stewing hens, hogs, turkeys, and rabbits. The quality of each of these products depends on the health of his pasture, so all are put to work on it. Consider this cycle: after the cows cruise through, dropping dung and shortening the grass, he sets movable chicken coops down. The hens gobble up grubs that just love those cow pies, and scratch around in the undergrowth made accessible by the cow’s grazing. They leave their nitrogen rich droppings and eat up the pests. In their wake the pasture returns even healthier for the next round of cropping. The eggs are nutritionally rich – higher in those omega threes than conventional eggs because the hens ate what they’re supposed to eat, including bugs and grubs, grit and grass seed.

Tipping an Industry...

Many of us can’t easily find organic, pasture-raised eggs. When you spot them at your farmer’s market or a roadside stand, consider paying a dollar or two for what is really an ideal product. The benefits are multifold. But in the meanwhile, keep clamoring for humane standards of animal welfare, feed that’s good for the chicken and not just the bottom line, and producers who are local and relatively small in scale. Of course it wouldn't hurt if they were in a regular old, recyclable, biodegradable cardboard carton too. Interest in these eggs will tip and industry. And an industry tipped is a mighty revolution indeed.

*For more on what’s happening with the food you eat, don’t miss Michael Pollan’s op-ed in this week’s New York Times about the new Farm Bill. Anyone concerned about the health of the nation, its citizens, and its food supply will be interested in his thoughts.