André Joseph Gallant

President's support for Senate Food, Farm and Jobs Act (Farm Bill)

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:27:51 -0400

The Administration supports Senate passage of S. 954, the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2013, and looks forward to working with the Congress to address the important concerns described below prior to final passage.

The Administration greatly appreciates the Senate’s bipartisan efforts to enact a food, farm and jobs bill. With authorization for farm and food related programs set to expire this year, it is critical that the Congress pass legislation that provides certainty for rural America and includes needed reforms and savings. The new farm bill should promote rural development, preserve a farm safety net, maintain strong nutrition programs, encourage the development of local and regional markets, enhance conservation, honor our international trade commitments, including under the World Trade Organization, and advance agricultural research. In light of the Nation’s long-term fiscal challenge, the legislation should also contribute significantly to deficit reduction.

The President’s Budget provides a strong safety net for farmers that protect agriculture from losses, while instituting needed risk-based reforms to reduce spending for some agricultural programs. The Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2013 makes meaningful progress toward supporting the Administration’s goals. Notable reforms include eliminating the direct payment system and tightening payment and eligibility requirements. The Administration supports the Senate’s efforts to consolidate and streamline conservation assistance, which will reduce administrative burdens on farmers and ranchers and improve environmental outcomes, and believes that crop insurance payments should be tied to the Nation’s soil conservation and wetland protection goals. The bill’s funding for bioenergy programs will enhance our energy security while supporting innovation and growth in rural economies.

Consistent with the President’s Budget, the Administration looks forward to working with the Congress to achieve crop insurance and commodity program savings that are not contained in S. 954, while at the same time strengthening the farm safety net in times of need and supporting the next generation of farmers. The Administration also strongly supports the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a cornerstone of our Nation’s food assistance safety net, which is why it was not subject to cuts in the President’s Budget. SNAP helps families put food on the table, while also benefitting farm and rural economies.

buzzfeedfood: “Cut Food” is the brainchild of photographer Beth...

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:31:09 -0400

buzzfeedfood:

“Cut Food” is the brainchild of photographer Beth Galton and food stylist Charlotte Omnès. All liquids are suspended with gelatin, making the most mundane snacks into works of art.

EATING BURMESE CUISINE IN MADISON COUNTY, GA. Easter doesn’t...

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:39:03 -0400

EATING BURMESE CUISINE IN MADISON COUNTY, GA.

Easter doesn’t always fall on March 31, but that date is always Cesar Chavez’s birthday.

I note this because I planned this week to write a column offering my dining recommendations for your next trip to the Boston area, based on my time at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last week.

But I woke last Sunday to read a bit of news online as my family slumbered and was reminded by the United Farm Workers, via their Facebook page, that March 31 is the farm labor activist’s birthday. While we should always remember the workers who sweat in the fields to fill our supermarkets with fresh green goods, that’s not the reason I mention Mr. Chavez.

I read a few of his popular quotes that morning and was struck by one in particular, specifically because of an experience I had planned for later that afternoon.

“If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him,” begins a quote on the UFW website. “The people who give you their food give you their heart.”

He was speaking, I’d guess, about his community building work, where he likely entered the home of many strangers, sat down to meals and talked about their lives. And perhaps it had a deeper message about the costs of food hidden by grocery stores: “The people who give you their food give you their heart.”

That afternoon, Easter Sunday, my family and I drove deep into Oglethorpe County to attend a jubilee celebration of Karen refugees from Myanmar. The Karen are a Christian people persecuted and driven from their native home, and you can therefore find pockets of Karen around the country.

Every Easter, the Karen celebrate Christian missionaries coming to Myanmar, which is predominantly Buddhist.

This year marked the 200th anniversary, and in a small rented church on a dirt road in a rural county, Karen from all over Georgia and the South gathered to remember their religious history. Six couples also took the occasion to have their marriages blessed by a national pastor of the Karen church.

And like any good religious celebration, the families prepared a vast buffet of Myanmarese cuisine.

We were invited to witness this celebration by Eh Kaw Htoo, whose family I wrote about here in the Banner-Herald back in October and November in a three-part series. He lives in Comer, and many of his direct relative live in Oglethorpe County. Refugees who settle in rural areas without much government assistance are a rare occurrence, and their presence in the area interests me. But I also cherish the friendships I’ve built from the experience of reporting the story. Every time I met with Eh Kaw, he has made attempts to further welcome me into his community. And this jubilee was no different.

Eh Kaw’s relatives had placed bowl after bowl of food out on a wide wooden table amid tall pine trees. Everyone filled their plates with goat soup, daikon radishes, vegetables so spicy as to draw tears from my wife and what seemed like every part of a goat and pig barbecued to crispy, smoky satisfaction. When the rains came, we all grabbed a bowl and rushed inside, where we finished our meal sitting on the floor and talking.

Eh Kaw is so proud of the community he and his family have built in Oglethorpe, and he’s also proud to show it off to me. While I’m always pleased to be offered Myanmarese food, especially the delicacies prepared by Eh Kaw’s wife, Pa Saw, I’m forever grateful to be offered the opportunity to participate in a life that is, well, quite foreign to me, an office-working urbanite. Like many refugees in Oglethorpe, Eh Kaw works hard, much harder than I ever have, at a chicken processing plant and grows his own food and raises his own chickens. Yet he wants nothing more than to share his and his community’s bounty with whomever is willing to kneel down at their table.

After supping at fancy restaurants around Cambridge and Boston, this meal reminded me about why I fell in love with food and farming so long ago: the relationships that meals build. If a person who gives you their food gives you their heart, the sentiment is absolutely reciprocated. Thanks, Eh Kaw.

To read the three stories I wrote about Eh Kaw, click on the following links: part one: http://bit.ly/Ulbux6; part two: http://bit.ly/XC4Mm1; and part three:http://bit.ly/SjRiXk.

"I’ve been studying the diner burger lately, and there’s something so reassuring about the formula of..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:58:02 -0400

“I’ve been studying the diner burger lately, and there’s something so reassuring about the formula of burger, bun, garnishes, fries, and small cup of slaw—if you want to go wild, you can simply dump the slaw on the burger. This is food at its simplest and most elegant, food that doesn’t want to slap your face. This is food that is simply good, and defines a sort of normalcy in eating that no longer exists. Nowadays, every meal is a challenge and a problem. Have you eaten well enough? Have you eaten innovatively, locavorically, and seasonally enough?”

- That’s the elegant level-headedness of Robert Sietsema, the longtime Village Voice food critic who was fired today, per a Gawker report. He’s the guy who writes about restaurants you’ve never heard of, because they don’t have publicists and they’re not listed on UrbanDaddy. Sietsema goes reviewing in parts of the city where yellow cabs don’t fill the streets, where subways aren’t always close by, in neighborhoods you didn’t know existed, and where English isn’t the first language of either the clientele, the waiters or the owners. He was, and still is, one of our most essential critics.

“His relationships with small restaurant owners not only led directly to the creation of the paper’s annual, sold-out “Choice Eats” event, but his written reviews literally changed the economic fortunes of several hundred small business owners throughout the five boroughs over the past two decades and left an indelible mark on the city’s food culture,” Hugh Merwin eloquently writes for New York Magazine’s Grub Street.

It’s important for us food writers and critics to cover the highly-touted new restaurants in Manhattan and cool parts of Brooklyn, because, well, that’s where people are spending their money, and it’s our job to follow and critique that money trail. Of course, every now and then, with re-reviews, we try to lead our readers off the trail by turning a spotlight on a more forgotton venue, or a venue that’s imporoved over the years.

And while Sietsema covered the big important new joints like the rest of us, his dedication to leading us WAY off the beaten path, outside of our Manhattan-Williamsburg-Carroll Gardens comfort zone, is why he’s so necessary. And with our city’s hospitality industry still getting back on its feet in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, it’s ever more vital that these small “Sietsema restaurants” (if I can call them that) be given their proper due.

I hope we find him writing again soon. New York City needs Sietsema.

(via baddeal)

Foodingly Slanted: Vermont House Approves GMO Labeling Law

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:15:54 -0400

Foodingly Slanted: Vermont House Approves GMO Labeling Law:

foodinglyslanted:

Last week the Vermont House voted (107-37) in favor of passing a law to force food manufacturers to label products containing genetically modified ingredients. Having lived right next to Vermont for four years, I simply refused to use the word “unprecedented” in the previous sentence because…

A Healthy Food Initiative to Battle Food Deserts

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:19:45 -0400

Watching the U.S House agriculture committee markup the 2013 Farm Bill this week, one amendment caught my eye. Submitted by Rep. Fudge of Cleveland, Ohio, the Healthy Food Initiative would create public/private partnerships to encourage retailers in food deserts to expand the sale of fresh food, and encourage new groceries to open in these areas.

I asked Fudge’s office to provide some more information, and here’s a summary I received (which is a longer version of what I just wrote):

The amendment, to Title IV of the bill, would authorize the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, which is a public-private partnership that uses public dollars to attract private investment in communities by providing critical loans, grants, and financing opportunities for food retailers, farmers markets, cooperatives and others who face barriers to carrying and selling healthy foods. The amendment also supports expansion of existing stores so they can provide the healthier foods that consumers demand.

I’ll list some of the public health and economic reasoning behind Rep. Fudge’s thinking on this amendment in another post. But here’s her statement presented to the committee. You’ll notice that the Senate bill includes similar language in its base Farm Bill text. The House adopted this amendment in committee. Let’s see if it makes it into the final bill:

“There are too many communities in our country that lack adequate access to fresh, healthy, affordable food choices. According to USDA, 29.7 million people live in low-income areas more than a mile from a supermarket. It comes as no surprise that these same people are less likely to have a healthy diet than those with better access. Barriers to healthy food have worsened the growing epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related health problems in these communities.

The amendment I am offering today, seeks to combat the lack of healthy food retail through a public private initiative that would allow for the leveraging of millions in private capital at the national level. HFFI provides one-time loan and grant financing to attract grocery stores and other fresh food retail to renovate and expand existing stores so they can provide the healthy foods that communities want and need. This financing will help local businesses through loans and tailored financing packages that is not readily available.

To know that this works, we just need to look to our neighbors in Pennsylvania. A similar program that began in 2004 resulted in 88 projects being built or renovated in underserved urban and rural communities across the state. Fast forward to today and more than 5,000 jobs have been created or retained, and 400,000 people now have increased access to healthy food. Thirty million invested state dollars has resulted in projects totaling more than $190 million. The Pennsylvania’s program’s success rate has been better than the grocery industry overall.

The Senate has recognized the case for HFFI and included this text in their base bill. I hope that we too can recognize that the farm bill is the appropriate vehicle to fully invest in a national effort to bring healthy food access to every city and small town that needs it. Food access is a critical problem. The good news is that we know what to do and can do it.”

This isn’t very interesting or enticing at all. Please...

Thu, 16 May 2013 22:24:54 -0400

This isn’t very interesting or enticing at all. Please don’t watch.

Video

Tue, 14 May 2013 22:18:52 -0400

This trailer's feverishness reminds me of the cray back-to-the-landers I looked up to. A more comfortable, more knowing face for small, young farmers for me.

onmilwaukee: Food stamp ban on junk food seems like bad...

Tue, 14 May 2013 14:44:39 -0400

onmilwaukee:

Food stamp ban on junk food seems like bad politics

…The anecdotal nature of the alleged abuses remind me of the Ronald Reagan era view of food stamp recipients who made exorbitant food purchases. President Reagan himself referenced the infamous “welfare queen” who bought lobster and steak when he was president, even though a subsequent investigation never found the woman.

These days, Kaufert and others talk incessantly about rumors they hear about large amounts of junk food being purchased with food stamps and apparently decided that it had reached a critical mass in need of a solution.

The nutritional aspect of the bill can’t be disputed; it’s better to encourage low-income families to eat healthier. But the reality is a poor family in Milwaukee doesn’t have that many healthy food choices due to the segregated nature of a city where fresh food markets and stores that aren’t located in the central city…

Continue reading “Food stamp ban on junk food seems like bad politics” on OnMilwaukee.

klaineandbiscuits: “The red soil that makes Prince Edward...

Mon, 13 May 2013 19:49:38 -0400

klaineandbiscuits:

“The red soil that makes Prince Edward Island’s potatoes so famous is visible from space.” - Colonel Chris Hadfield

overspray: Shurgain production, October 2011Summerside, PEI,...

Mon, 13 May 2013 19:46:57 -0400

overspray:

Shurgain production, October 2011
Summerside, PEI, Canada

This was a great production, in which I had the honor of taking part. Sadly the building was torn down at the end of 2012.

In order of appearance (from left to right, top to bottom):
Pic 1: CN train by Akoz — Itsme — Loser (all IWA)
Pic 2: Akoze IWA — Store HCV — Sone IWA
Pic 3: Skur HCV — Wase IWA — Dazer IWA — Ezar IWA
Pic 4: Ghost-train robber & top piece by Aurnj IWA — Trea (IWA?) — Nova HF (me)
Pic 5: Nova HF — Meak IWA — CN Summerside Station by Akoz

Spray in my tiny hometown of Summerside, P.E.I.

reckon: If grandmothers around the world had a rallying cry,...

Sat, 11 May 2013 14:42:29 -0400

reckon:

If grandmothers around the world had a rallying cry, it would probably sound something like “You need to eat!”

Photographer Gabriele Galimberti’s grandmother said something similar to him before one of his many globetrotting work trips. To ensure he had at least one good meal, she prepared for him a dish of ravioli before he departed on one of his adventures.

His project, “Delicatessen With Love”, took Galimberti to 58 countries where he photographed grandmothers with both the ingredients and finished signature dishes.

From top to bottom:

Inara Runtule, 68, Kekava, Latvia. Silke €(herring with potatoes and cottage cheese).
Grace Estibero, 82, Mumbai, India. Chicken vindaloo.
Susann Soresen, 81, Homer, Alaska. Moose steak.
Serette Charles, 63, Saint-Jean du Sud, Haiti. Lambi in creole sauce.
The photographer’s grandmother Marisa Batini, 80, Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy. Swiss chard and ricotta Ravioli with meat sauce.
Normita Sambu Arap, 65, Oltepessi (Masaai Mara), Kenya. Mboga and orgali (white corn polenta with vegetables and goat).
Julia Enaigua, 71, La Paz, Bolivia. Queso Humacha (vegetables and fresh cheese soup).
Fifi Makhmer, 62, Cairo, Egypt. Kuoshry (pasta, rice and legumes pie).
Isolina Perez De Vargas, 83, Mendoza, Argentina. Asado criollo (mixed meats barbecue).
Bisrat Melake, 60, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Enjera with curry and vegetables.

Photo

Fri, 10 May 2013 00:46:27 -0400

off-beat: Urban Farms Sprout in Baltimore’s Wastelands A pilot...

Fri, 10 May 2013 00:43:32 -0400

off-beat:

Urban Farms Sprout in Baltimore’s Wastelands

A pilot project in Baltimore has turned one of the city’s 17,000 vacant lots into a city farm producing piles of ultra-fresh vegetables for local restaurants. The city plans a big expansion of urban farming to reduce blight and provide much-needed jobs.

An Ode to Pork Belly

Thu, 09 May 2013 23:50:24 -0400

In the age of the celebrity chef, the foodie and the grass-fed golden calf, this fatty cut of belly meat is everywhere – untethered from economics, vaulted from immigrant kitchens and free to populate American menus. Or, more simply, pork belly is Heirloom Cafe’s chef de cuisine Chris Rountree’s favorite ingredient in the locally-focused plates he cooks up at the Chase Street restaurant. “It’s what food is all about to me,” Rountree said of this guilty pleasure. “It draws you in. You smell it, and it’s everything you want.”

Read more about Chris’ love of pork belly and nab a recipe here.

Eating on the roof: The Branded Butcher elevates

Thu, 09 May 2013 22:59:23 -0400

Pickled onion.

Four weeks after eating pork tacos on the rooftop of the Georgia Theatre, where The Branded Butcher just last month opened a quicker-serve restaurant in the former domain of White Tiger Gourmet, pickled onion is the ingredient lingering on my tongue.

Finding good pulled pork tacos in Athens isn’t hard, but making great pork tacos is. Without pickled onions draped over a mound of pig flesh, I don’t believe these handheld delicacies whipped up by the Butcher’s head chef Matt Palmerlee and his staff would be anymore memorable than those on offer at Mi Tierra at the flea market or Tienda Los Amigos on Rowe Road.

They’re good because Palmerlee is a good cook. He can slow-cook pig as efficiently as the unfortunately nameless craftspeople at Mi Tierra. But Palmerlee’s tacos are memorable because of these tangy pink pickled onions. And at $5, it’s a deal. Not as cheap as Los Amigos, but worth the extra expense.

There’s more, of course, to the Rooftop by Branded Butcher menu than tacos. Pulled pork makes another appearance on a more Southern-style sandwich ($6). There’s a simple burger that my friend devoured in moments ($7), and a reuben I didn’t get to try ($6.50).

Then there are my favorites: a vegetarian bahn mi ($5) and a house-made bratwurst ($6).

A mini baguette can’t contain all the thinly sliced radishes and carrots and boiled egg and cilantro and spicy mayonnaise the Butcher stuffs into it. You can’t eat it from point A to B without an eruption of cooked yolk and sauce. I suggest attacking the beast from the middle; whittle down its fillings until you’ve weakened it and can consume it like a civilized person.

The Butcher’s bratwurst is already a popular item in the formal dining room downstairs, but on the rooftop it shines in a more ballpark-like setting. It’s thick, well-seasoned and crammed into a crusty bun. A heavy layer of sauerkraut shrouds a devilish mustard that will jazz up your nose wasabi-style. That is to say it’s very good and my favorite item on the menu.

Make sure you order cheese fries ($4), which are plentiful and filling. Get the chicken skins ($4) if you’re in a large group — you don’t need to eat that much extra fried food, but they’re much better than any pork rind you’ve ever tasted and must be sampled if for no other reason than to piss off your doctor. So share.

Other sides include a local lettuce salad, pimento goat cheese, deviled eggs with interesting toppings and fries topped with chili.

As someone who eats most meals as a vegetarian, I was disappointed in the tofu options — a barbecue sandwich and as taco filling. There’s a chance, of course, that I was served a bad batch, but the sauce was too sticky and the tofu way overcooked.

On a beautiful day, the rooftop alone makes this spot a go-to lunch option. There’s a wide, retractable canopy available on rainy and especially hot days.

But what’s most notable is the price point. This is craft food — good food made with many local ingredients that’s affordable. All the main proteins are $7 or less. I don’t believe that Palmerlee is some kind of local food warrior on a mission to convert. If anything, the menu shows he cares very little about our heart health. But he is a well-made, well-sourced food warrior. This isn’t unpacked Sysco boxes fried up and covered in fat. He’s taken what his main restaurant does and made it accessible to a bar crowd and cheap lunch hunters. And covered it in fat.

The wondrous moment when friends, art, food and magazines...

Thu, 09 May 2013 22:50:50 -0400

The wondrous moment when friends, art, food and magazines connect. Eleanor Davis scored in these Lucky Peach drawings.

luckypeach:

Eleanor Davis has the distinction (or something) of being the only Lucky Peach illustrator that’s gotten to decide which sketches should be turned into finals for the magazine.

After she sent in a bunch of equally exciting sketches to accompany poems by Bei Dao in issue 5, I narrowed down my a couple favorites and asked her to just go with the ones that she’d feel most excited about doing. This might speak to my incompetence, but MOST LIKELY it speaks to Eleanor’s talent + smartz.

Above, you can see some of the sketches she turned in, alongside the finals. You can see more of her work here, and AS NOTED IN THE PREVIOUS BLOG ABOUT HER WORK, you can buy some of the originals she made for us here. -Walter Green

Photo

Wed, 08 May 2013 09:26:24 -0400

Modern Farmer | This Will Be the World’s First Global Goat Database

Tue, 07 May 2013 15:24:31 -0400

Modern Farmer | This Will Be the World’s First Global Goat Database

These guys look so bored.

Tue, 07 May 2013 15:18:12 -0400

These guys look so bored.