Sum It Up Sunday-Moving Day!

WE HAVE A NEW HOME!

We have moved the Something About Food? Blog to a new website!

All of our new posts will be here (and an archive of our old ones too):

https://www.somethingaboutfood.com/something-about-food-blog/

You will also be able to find episodes of the podcast, information about our guests, restaurants we love, and everything else Something About Food? related at:

https://www.somethingaboutfood.com/

Come join us at the table and dig in!

Good Food News-Shabu Shabu Anyone?

The New Yorker magazine has a review of  Chef Mako Okano’s new place in the lower east side of Manhattan.  The review of Shabu Shabu Macoron is glowing, and what really interested me is that the eight-seat place has a small staff made up of only women.

And that’s not even the most unusual thing about it: according to Okano, it’s the world’s only restaurant to serve an omakase, or tasting menu, that centers on shabu-shabu, or Japanese hotpot. The restaurant accommodates just eight people at a time at an L-shaped counter and offers two seatings each night. A little Shabu Shabu, anyone?

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Always Choose Cake!

I was waiting for Huffman! Typical of Dave Huffman, we started our interview a few minutes late as he was pulling vegan cupcakes out of the oven. Nothing wrong with that AT ALL!

He may go by the alias Bitchy Vegan Homo on his YouTube channel, but he is pure fun to chat with. We talked pastries, traveling while vegan and getting everyone to the table on “Always Choose Cake”, Episode 36 of the Something About Food? podcast. And by the way: yes, yes you should.



Dave Huffman (aka Bitchy Vegan Homo) is the host of the Cleveland, OH-based YouTube cooking show "Bitchy Vegan Homo". He lives with 4 cats, 1 giant dog, and his handsome fiancé. He would eat cake for every meal if it wouldn’t immediately lead to diabetes. Find him on Twitter  @bitchyveganhomo and on Instagram @bitchyveganhomo

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Here is a pic of the wonderful cupcakes Dave was making before we chatted. They look good enough to eat, don't they?!

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Sum It Up Sunday-Too Hot To Eat

"Too hot to eat!" is not something I say very often. My stomach has ruled my world ever since I can remember. I don't usually miss meals because my stomach will have none of that nonsense.

But right now the record hot temperatures here in Colorado (and all across the country) are stifling. It is affecting our forests, our food supply and us. So what is there to eat when it gets so hot?









Fruity beverages, like watermelon agua frescas, are a staple. Sometimes I'll use coconut water in them for added nutrients without being too heavy                   

I'll grill up some vegan dogs for a quick meal. The ones from Field Roast are a favorite of mine as they replicate the meat filled frankfurters quite nicely. I will often throw some kimchi on as a condiment to shake things up.

Salads are ok but can be boring if you don't keep changing up the flavors. I'll never tire of a 3 Bean Salad, especially when you keep adding in more beans! Perhaps the vinegar pickley flavor helps to cool me off? Don't know, don't care. It just tastes right to me.

Cold soba noodles are a favorite of mine. The Japanese were onto something when they created this simple dish. The word "refreshing" doesn't do this dish justice; "invigorating" is more like it.














It is very hard when it's so hot you don't want to even move to even think about food. The one thing I will always move for is ice cream. Almost every shop now has a vegan flavor or two, going beyond the usual boring fruit sorbets. In Albany, CA, just outside of Berkley, Mr. Dewie's Cashew Creamery is all vegan all the time. Every single flavor. Thank you Mr. Dewie, thank you so very much.

Stay cool out there!







PS. Public pools are amazing too. Be a kid again, jump off the diving board or go down the slide! Got refreshed at the Eldorado Springs Pool today. Lovely!

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Good Food News-The Bautista Family Date Ranch

I love this sticky sweet Civil Eats story. The Bautista Family Date Ranch is in the desert town of Mecca at the edge of the Salton Sea, in the middle of Southern California’s desert. This organic, family-run operation relies on numerous by-hand processes and 100+ free-ranging animals to produce seven varieties of the sweet fruit for their mail-order operation, 7HotDates, that has developed a fanatical following of date-lovers from around the country.

The family lives and works on the 14-acre property of 1,000 date palms, each of which produces 200 pounds of fruit every year. Their dates are a staple at farmers’ markets from Santa Monica to Palm Springs, and their online store regularly sells out for four months out of the year. The Bautistas begin climbing their trees in August to hand-pick individual fruits at peak ripeness.

This attention to variance in flavor and texture has earned them a cult following. As a certified organic operation, the Bautistas use free-ranging goats, cows, sheep, chickens, and even peacocks—known for killing snakes—to manage the property. “We have a zoo,” says Bautista patriarch Enrique, of the more than 100 animals that do their part to eat pests, trim weeds, graze on the cowpeas cover crop, and fertilize the soil with organic matter. The animals’ manure alone accomplishes 80 percent of the soil building.“[When] everything you do is for the trees, they’ll produce more,” says Enrique. “The more you invest, the more they give."

Who is ready for a sweet date?

A Feast for the Eyes

Tom di Maria is a world traveler and an art and food lover. He is also an advocate for artists with disabilities as director of Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, CA.

We talked about Buffalo, Sunday Sauce being started on Saturday, and how art can give the artist more than a voice. And as always, pastries came up in the conversation (why is that?). Enjoy "A Feast for the Eyes", Episode 35 of the Something About Food? Podcast.



Tom di Maria has served as director of Creative Growth Art Center since 2000. He has developed partnerships with museums, galleries, and international design companies to help bring Creative Growth's artists with disabilities fully into the contemporary art world. He speaks around the world about the Center’s major artists and their relationship to both Outsider Art and contemporary culture. Prior to his current position, he served as Assistant Director of the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive at UC Berkeley. He received his MFA from the Maryland Institute, College of Art, in Baltimore, and a BFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

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Sunday supper anyone? Pull up a chair, eat and get ready for some lively conversation.

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Sum It Up Sunday-Burn or Ignite

It's hot, like hellaciously hot. It was 100 F yesterday here in Boulder. It's too damn hot. The climate is telling us something.

The political climate has risen to unbearable temperatures as well. Again, we are being told something.

This blog and podcast are meant to be a positive, welcoming place where all of us can find our connections through food. I hope you find them to be so, even when the world around us feels as if it is literally burning to the ground. Igniting relationships through what we eat is a tasty way to discover what binds us to humanity.

Share with me, if you will, the latest thing you had to eat that made you smile and feel connected to family, friends, or even just those who were around you at that moment. It doesn't matter how simple or complex it was, I want to know.

For me, it was this tiny plate of Italian cookies. What I had set out for, as I wandered through Chinatown in San Francisco, was some pastries in the most highly rated bakery in the city. There was a line- no problem. Then I found out the line was only for preorders. So I wandered some more and found this place, Stella Pastry not far from City Lights Bookstore.

Two day's later I heard that the matriarch of the family of the first restaurant I worked at had passed away. She and my late mother probably did and would have loved to share this little plate of deliciousness. As a matter of fact, the pine nut encrusted beauty was one of my mom's favorites.

These bits of pastry reminded me of a sweeter time when those two strong women would have cackled over this plate as they commiserated about how weird and wonderful their families were and are.

Connect with me, fill me in on what filled you up.

If you send pics I'll add it and your notes to the blog here, so others can share and connect.

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Good Food News-Farming Hope

Fast Company reports on a non-profit, Farming Hope, that is hosting pop-up dinners in San Francisco where guests pay $55 for a multi-course gourmet meal. Other guests are homeless. The diners all sat together and talked, eating food prepared by people who are also homeless. The employees were hired as they were identified as individuals who wanted to find jobs and begin to move out of homelessness.

“We want an environment where it’s not just a restaurant where no one who’s very poor is coming to eat, and it’s not just a soup kitchen, where it’s only homeless people eating donated food as quickly as possible,” says Jamie Stark, one of the co-founders of Farming Hope. “It’s a nice environment where people want to be, where there’s a unique mix of people, and where some of that empathy and understanding and human-centered thinking can spread.”

A true example of our belief that there is room for everyone at the table.

Smoothie Saturation

Laci Jordan is a multi-disciplinary designer who employs saturated color, pop culture references, and representation of people of color in her art. I was drawn in by the impact and statement of her work.

She also understands the concept of balance, like if you’ve filled up on too much fried food when visiting with family, you balance that with an equal amount of smoothies once you’re back home. We chatted about art, food and shopping lists on “Smoothie Saturation”, Episode 34 of the "Something About Food?" podcast.


Laci Jordan is truly the embodiment of a renaissance woman.  The Huntsville, Alabama native turned LA-based artist focuses her work around color, pop culture, and representation of people of color. “If you try to put Laci in a box, you’ll have an incredibly difficult time” (Essence Magazine). Jordan works between illustration, traditional graphic design, product design, and photography. Laci is widely known for her illustrations. With a theme of “Everyday Life,” her subjects range from portraits of women of color to her favorite sneakers at the moment. Her work tends to have a “no filter” “authentic, unapologetic” tone.

Laci has worked with Disney Imagineering, ESPN, Hypebeast, Ava Duvernay, Jordan Brand, Hibbett Sports, Planned Parenthood, Saint Heron, Wildfang, and many more.

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Smoothies for balance!

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Good Food News-Get Even Stevens!

As reported by Forbes magazine, for every sandwich that Even Stevens sells, they donate the cost of the ingredients to local nonprofits' Sysco accounts. The nonprofits can then use the donated money to buy food. That turns out to be about $.54 per sandwich sold.

For example, the downtown Salt Lake City store sells 15,000 sandwiches every month. And, across the chain, the company is now producing 110,000 sandwiches every month. At that rate, the sandwich making firm is donating over $700,000 per year.

This is a great example of food for all, don’t you think?

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Better Than Blank

Full disclosure here folks: Let Thy Food, the vegan dip, and dressing company that Christina Bartel and her husband Jeremy founded, is one of the sponsors of our podcast. We are happy to have them around. Just as we are happy to have their queso on hand because nachos happen, people!

Christina chatted with me about their company, growing up in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico and we found a shared love for Russian Tea Cakes on “Better Than Blank”, Episode 33 of the Something About Food? podcast.



Christina Bartel is a person who can turn the subject of every conversation to food.  As CEO and co-founder of Let Thy Food and co-founder and Creative Director of the wandering restaurant food truck Wanderculinarilust, Christina passionately believes in the power of food as an essential component of health, politics, social justice, environment, labor, the world, and life.  Christina is a conscientious and heart-driven creative visionary in relentless pursuit of wisdom, peace, and collective well-being.

Christina has a degree in filmmaking and a background in journalism and photography. Never one to assume the path of the status quo, Christina is ever in a state of analysis about the pressing problems of our time, with a drive to fix those issues assiduously through the power of food and love.

A lover of precision, communication, design, travel, Hatch Valley Queso, all the vegetables, and cookies, Christina answers to the name of Cookie Monster and has been reading cookbooks and fearlessly creating recipes since the age of five.

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This beautiful mess came about thanks to their Hatch Valley Queso™. As I said, nachos happen!

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Good Food News- Syracuse Immigrant Cuisine

Here is a multicultural food story from Saveur Magazine. In the past ten years, Syracuse, NY has welcomed nearly 10,000 refugees from 52 countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Some of the Pakistani, Russian, Egyptian, Afghani, Burmese, and Vietnamese new-comers have opened restaurants, started small family-run markets which carry ingredients from many of these refugees’ home countries, and hosted pop-up dinner events.

Food has become the universal language in the Syracuse community in a city that was not traditionally known for having a diverse food scene. Some of the best meals from around the world can be now found in one place.

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Team Salt

Vilissa Thompson has a strong voice and she uses it to speak up for herself and others in the disabled community as an advocate and a social worker. I love to listen to her passion about her work, her adamant stance on grits, and her infectious laugh.

We found that we both hate squash and love Italian food and coconut pie. She gave me insight into accessibility and how to help get everyone to the table (more ramps, people!).

Listen to her on “Team Salt”, Episode 32 of the Something About Food? Podcast.

Vilissa Thompson is a macro-minded social worker from South Carolina.  Ramp Your Voice! is her organization where she discusses the issues that matter to her as a Black disabled woman, including intersectionality, racism, politics, and why she unapologetically makes good trouble. Follow her on Twitter @VilissaThompson for more!

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BTW, that cornbread would be something Vilissa and I would share, of that I am sure!

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Sum It Up Sunday-Be Kind

Shocked...

Flabbergasted...

Shook...

Many of us heard the news about Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain passing and felt these and other emotions in the past week.

Sadness...

Anger...

Disbelief...

I don't believe there is a magic pill, diet, food, or exercise that will make any of us perfect. We are flawed, as only humans can be. I do believe that every one of us can be better.

We are not alone. For us, here at Something About Food? Podcast, we believe that we are all connected through food. Sitting down at the table, sharing a meal, sharing a conversation, sharing a love of biscuits or chocolate, this connects us. Others may, through religion, video games, sports or even a belief in UFO's, find the people who have a fellow understanding of the world. Connections are there.

By reaching out to others, showing those we meet in the world that as flawed as life is, it can be better.

Be Kind

Show Respect

Show Empathy

We are all connected.

Join us.

There is always room at the table...

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Good Food News-Oglala Lakota Nation Bring Healthy Food Back to the Community and Land

I found this post on the Organic Valley Blog that gives me hope in the fight against food insecurity in native populations.

The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and a group from the Oglala Lakota Nation, The Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation, are building an innovative new net-zero, energy-regenerative community from the ground up. They are collaborating with the tribe to ensure cultural traditions and values are allowed to thrive.

There will be a high-performance water collection and reuse system as well as on-site solar, wind, and geothermal energy generators to establish an advanced sustainable infrastructure for the tribe’s food and housing needs. As phases of the development are completed, residents will have access to community gardens, a geothermal greenhouse, honeybee hives, and other sources.

There are grocery stores on the reservation, yet some Oglala Lakota people are driving more than 80 miles to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. After polling the tribe about what they envisioned a healthy community would look like, the consensus was that people wanted to see more local gardens and to be able to teach the next generation of local growers. Better gardens, better diet, better community and a better planet.

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Von Wong World

Ben Von Wong has my attention. I found his photo campaign for Second Harvest Food Bank which was designed to highlight childhood hunger and food insecurity. It features children going to extraordinary lengths in order to find food, from a "Mission: Impossible"-style bacon heist to an "Indiana Jones"-like discovery in the wild.

His passionate advocacy through art, his thoughts on yak cheese and more were a blast here in “Von Wong World”.



Benjamin Von Wong is a viral campaign creator focused on supporting social and environmental causes. He creates images so amazing that people think are photoshopped in order to educate and inspire. His work has been featured numerous times on Buzzfeed, Gizmodo, Mashable, Huffington Post, and more. His project that involved placing a Mermaid on 10,000 plastic bottles to raise awareness about plastic pollution has over 30 million views, and his most successful fundraising video to date has raised over 2 million dollars to help a child with Sanfilippo Syndrome.

He is currently looking to work with corporations that have a Triple Bottom Line.

Check out our chat here:

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Sum It Up Sunday-Back At It!

Here we go again!

The best part of doing this podcast is meeting and interviewing folks. I very much appreciate that they take the time to chat with me. On Tuesday Season 4 begins with photographer and visual artist Ben Von Wong who is, in his words "Transforming Intangible Values Into Emotional Experiences".

More and more I'm finding the connections I had hoped to highlight with these food conversations. Every one of us is connected, and what we eat is one of those links.

The episode, "From Improv to Idli" with Dr. Meenakshi Singh made several of our listeners learn to look out for Indian desserts after she regaled us with tales or their fabulousness.

Ballerina Aesah Ash and I found a connection in the episode "My Mouth is Lost!", from our both growing up in Upstate NY. I urge you to follow and support The Swan Dreams Project which she founded. She states "Through the use of imagery and my career as a ballet dancer, I want to help change the demoralized, objectified and caricatured images of African-American women by showing the world that beauty is not reserved for any particular race or socio-economic background."


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Good Food News-Minimum and Menu's

The National Restaurant Association conducted a poll, reported here in this Eater article, asking respondents if they supported increasing the minimum wage as it would increase menu pricing.  A majority of Americans, 71 percent,  support raising the federal minimum wage to at least $10, “even if it also increases the cost of food and service to customers.”

I worked several restaurant jobs where I started out at minimum wage. When I worked front of the house as a server that, at the time, meant being paid $2.75 an hour. The rest of that "minimum wage" was to be made up through tips. If you worked a slow shift that did not happen and often making my rent was not just a concern but an outright panic.

I'm all for it not only because I remember all too well that financial hardship, but because I want to be a decent human being. How about you?

Past Guest Shout Out-James Johnson

What's the difference between a Hobnob and a Digestive? These are the kind of hard driving questions I send to my friend James Johnson. To his credit, he takes a moment to help me out and let me know that Hobnob's are great for dunking in tea.

He's crazy busy right now with his Freelance Writer's School, where he teaches regular people how to make money writing, even if they failed English at school and know nothing about business. 

He also took the time to fill me in on his latest happenings. He wrote "I'm currently planning my next bout of world travel (starting next year), and I'm about to launch an SEO course for freelance writers, teaching them how to perform SEO on their client's articles (Can sign up for updates on the Freelance Writers School homepage). I'm also exploring more and more German cuisine after being told off for saying it's not diverse!"

Within in minutes of James and I meeting in a hostel in Madrid Spain, we were heading out the door together in search of food. This is how friendships are made, and cheering one another on from afar since is how they are cemented.

We get real about travel, food and how you can’t outrun depression, even at the top of Machu Picchu in Episode 006 “Tall Tales”.

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Sum It Up Sunday-Feed Me! (And Other Vegans)

Tis Memorial Day weekend yet again. This is the beginning of the true cookout/bbq/picnic season. And that means you'll inevitably be asking yourself "What do I feed that vegan I invited to the cookout/bbq/picnic?"

Before you start thinking that you don't know any vegans, let me throw this at you. Six percent of all Americans now identify as vegan. And many meat-eating folks are choosing vegan options when dining out for health, wealth and even compassion.

That brings us back to the get-together you are getting together. I suggest serving up some veggie burgers. There are tons of option in the frozen aisle of almost every grocery, and if you really want to stun your veg-head friends look for some Beyond Burgers (pictured up top). Or try some Beyond Sausage (pictured below), whose Italian and Brat flavors are sooooo damn good.

As for sides, making an oil and vinegar based coleslaw or potato salad isn't the worst thing in the world, and many times folks are eager to try something familiar-yet-new.

Here's a recipe to show you how easy that is:

Sicilian Potato Salad

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

3 lbs.        Red Skinned Potatoes, cut into bite-sized chunks

1/2 each   Red onion, sliced thin

1/2 each   Fennel Bulb, sliced thin

1 lb.         Green Beans, trimmed and cut in half

1/2 cup    Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 TBS      Red Wine Vinegar

                Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

Boil the potatoes until soft. Pour the green beans into the bottom of a colander and drain the potatoes into it. This will cook the beans just enough that they are not raw.

Set aside to cool (they will dress better with the salad dressing if they are not all the way cool when you work with them.)

Mix the sliced onion, fennel, and cooked vegetables together. Pour over the olive oil and vinegar and season with the salt and pepper.

Cool before eating.

See that? Easy peasy. Also 3 Bean Salad (or, as I keep challenging my cousin's wife to add more beans to hers, 8 Bean Salad) is also vegan and really good.

Once you've provided at least one entree and a side or two, most vegans will be incredibly grateful. If you're not sure what to serve them for dessert, ask them to bring something. Often that will be a revelation for you! (Blueberry cobbler with coconut oil instead of butter, anyone? Delicious!) Plus Ben and Jerry's has dairy-free flavors now, so there is no excuse not to have something sweet for the veg-heads (Dagnabbit, now I've got the Coconut 7-Layer Bar on the brain!)

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