Spring Parsnips

Even though we are in the early spring "food purgatory" where we can only dream of what is soon to come, the ramps and morels, the greens and fiddleheads, there is a special treat that is available now.  The candy of the root vegetables, spring dug parsnips.  If you have never had a spring dug parsnip you are missing out on quite a treat.  Parsnips are already fairly sweet but this time of year, once the ground thaws just enough to pluck them from the earth, the deep freeze of winter breaks down the starches into sugar and they become even sweeter with a new unique and complex flavor.  While still tasting of parsnip they now have notes of banana and even marshmallow.  We have them spotted all over our menu right now and highlight them in a soup with wild shrimp and pickled greens.  Hopefully they stick around long enough to finish the April menu.  Hopefully, because I can't stop eating them...

April Menu

Tonight was a tough night in the restaurant.  We had a very large party and I decided to do the menu change from March to April tonight.  Probably not one of my best decisions.  I can very bluntly say that April's menu is in need of some revising.  Early to bed is early to rise and the early chef catches the worm, and by catches the worm I mean starts from scratch on creating an April menu for the masses to enjoy.  Tomorrow the menu will be were it should be...

Inspiration

Everyone has someone in their profession that they idolize.  My profession is no different and if I had to pick one at this point in my career it would be Chef Alain Ducasse.  Not only is he one of the most accomplished and awarded chefs of our time, his attitude is always positive and his commitment to improving and continually learning is second to none.  In the end it all boils down to the food and that is where he is genius.  He can somehow make the most complex dish seem extremely simple.  He loves fresh and simple produce.  He never interferes with the way something tastes.  A carrot will always come through tasting like a carrot, he may treat that carrot with spices and herbs and stocks but the carrot's unique flavor will never be masked only complimented.  My favorite thing about Ducasse is his unpretentious view of food.  Example?  In his cookbook Flavors of France, one of the recipes is for "fork -mashed potatoes with olive oil and parsley."  Simple and in need of nothing else to be perfect.  All it calls for is good olive oil, fresh potatoes and fine salt.  Name one chef (especially of his caliber) who would put such a simple recipe in his cookbook.  I live by the idea that quality ingredients make quality food and who portrays that better than Alain Ducasse.  I am in need of inspiration as I am in the middle of a menu change, guess whose book I am reading...again...

Oysters

Oysters are definitely not everyone's favorite food, or I should say RAW oysters are not everyone's favorite.  Personally, I love them.  If you mention cold martinis and platters of raw oysters my ears will perk up, my mouth will water and my mood will immediately get better.

A while back I saw an interesting post on Ideas in Food.  They cooked oysters sous-vide at 118F for 20 minutes resulting in a firm meat without losing any of the wonderfully briny and fresh taste that raw oysters have.  The texture of a raw oyster is the hardest part of consuming the shellfish and that is where the oyster loses some people.  If you can take that "slimyness" away it becomes a little more accessible.  After trying the sous-vide method I can honestly say the squishy texture is gone and the oysters almost become sweeter with little to no loss of that delicious fresh ocean flavor.  The only thing you lose is the shucking and eating experience.  I may be able to live without that, at least once in while.

 I am conducting an experiment with this month's menu.  We are serving Blue Points over a ginger and cayenne spiced carrot gelee and topping them with a classic mignonette and fresh chives.  We are cooking them sous-vide and serving them chilled.  We will see how they go over with both the raw aficionados and those willing to try raw again "for the first time."  My money is on it being a crowd pleaser, only time (and customers) will tell...

Sugar Shacking It

 I have never been to a sugar shack before.  Today we went to Steve's Sugar Shack in Westhampton.  It was picturesque to say the least, exactly what I had imagined it to look like.  It was roughly 9:15 am, about the earliest I could get my wife out of bed and into the world and the place was already packed.  Thankfully, the line moved along rather quickly.  Ffirst we placed our order of pancakes and french toast, a much needed coffee and some OJ.  Then we waited for a spot to open as we got to see the evaporator and watch as young children enamored at the steam billowing up from the trough.  Finally we were sat at a communal picnic table.  I personally love communal seating.  (I think it creates an intimate experience, a shared experience, rather than just a meal.  I think the next place we open will probably have communal seating.)  We sat and laughed along with many generations of locals and visitors, played with the kids and talked about syrup.  You could see the family who owned the shack, including Steve himself, working the brisk Sunday morning away.  It was a community experience.  It was nice to see and satisfying to take part in.  After a long wait without a dull moment, the food arrived.  I realized in a situation like this it is not about the food or even the syrup, it is about the experience.  I guess I am officially a New Englander now.  I thought I was going to the sugar shack to have breakfast.  It turns out I went to the sugar shack to be a part of the community.  I can't say I will be back this season, but I know I will be excited when the weather turns again.  I'm sure by then it will be time to get my dose of  friendly community and to again bridge the gap between a layers of generations, all over some fresh maple syrup.

The Whole Hog

We haven't worked with very many whole animals lately, I kind of miss it.  New England winters slow down the process a bit.  Alas, spring is here and the snow is gone (almost).  I stopped by the farmer's market this morning and Pete, my pig and chicken guy, told me he should have some more pigs ready on the 11th of April.  Might be time to get back to the whole hog butchering...

Iron Chef BLG

Tonight we had a slow start to the evening but, as usually the case is, the kitchen was lively with conversation about food.  We were talking about local farms, cookbooks, prominent chefs of today and yesterday, and about Iron Chef.  Not the Iron Chef America where the chefs are basically told ahead of time what the secret ingredient "could" be, the old one where chefs were actually put to the test.  We talked about how hard and fun it would be and all the hypothetical "what ifs" of the game.

I am a very competitive person, so naturally I wondered who would "reign supreme" in our kitchen.  Even though I run the kitchen and have more experience doesn't mean I am a sure thing.  I have some extremely creative and very capable cooks in my kitchen, a large reason we put out such consistently great food (in my biased opinion of course). A light bulb went off in my head.

In the spring we are turning our "cheese shop" section of the restaurant into a french tapas bar.  To celebrate the occasion (and our three year anniversary) we were thinking of having some sort of event.  I think we found our event.  Maybe bring in some regular customers as judges, maybe a local radio host, a little Iron Chef Tapas competition between some friendly staff members....

Comradery

Last night a couple came in to eat who work for another restaurant.  Anytime I hear there is someone dinning in my restaurant who works in the food industry, be it a farmer, a cook or whomever, I go out of my way to ensure they have a remarkable evening...or as close as we can come to it.  As we were sending out some "compliments" of our house-cured meats and other charcuterie, one of my cooks said to me "aren't they our competition?"  I assured him that they are indeed, but they are also our colleagues.

There are a couple of reasons like I go out of my way to ensure my colleagues have the best experience they can.  The first is to show off.  Not what you are thinking.  I am not showing off to prove anything, these are people that truly understand the amount of thought, emotion and work that goes into everything on their plate.  You could say I am showing how much we care.  A sort of recognition from people who can surely do so, recognition of who we are and what we do.

Another reason I want to take such extraordinary care for those who share my profession, well,  they share my profession.  I know what they go through.  I can relate to the fact that their job is customer service, their profession is to constantly and consistently make other people happy.  They work long, odd hours including nights, weekends and holidays.  I know that these people love to be wine and dined because that is how they believe a meal should be.  That is the reason they are in this hectic trade (whether they admit it or not).

I have worked all over the country and I seen how comradery between restaurants can vary as much as the landscape.  In my humble opinion, the places that show the strongest comradery, an almost "us against them" mentality, are the cities and communities that have the best restaurants.  It makes perfect sense.  Friends make better competition.  Being in competition with a friend makes you strive to do the best you can where as competition between strangers just makes you want to do better than the other.  This valley has it's share of comradery, but hopefully we can see more soon.  I think that is what I miss the most about the city, the comradery, the friendship between those who understand what we do on a daily basis and push us to do better. 

Illusion of Spring

One of the most deflated feelings you get as chef, and we let it happen to us every year, is the illusion of spring.  It reminds me of being at the airport.  You have already made it to the airport, been searched by security, waited for zone four to finally be seated and now you are on the plane.  All you have to do is take off.  Wait.  The pilot has just informed you that you are in a holding pattern and will be sitting on the runway for "just a few minutes."  That sums up the anticipation of spring.  All it takes is one really beautiful weekend in March and we stat dreaming about morels and ramps, dandelions and fiddleheads.  Then (especially in New England) it snows on our parade.   It was all just a tease.  How much longer until the scenery and the bounty is green again?  Soon.  Soon we will be eating fresh greens and the rest of the bounties of spring.  Soon we will be enjoying honeycomb shaped morels, curly fiddlehead ferns, crisp asparagus, fresh garlic and some much more.  Anticipation is part of the excitement, right?  Anticipation is just a part of excitement...

Octopus

I am thinking of putting octopus on the menu this summer.  Most people are up in the air about octopus and my wife is no exception.  It's not that she doesn't like it, it is just not something she thinks is worth being sought after.  All it takes is one so-so sushi restaurant to ruin it for someone.  My goal is to change her mind, if I can you will see it on the menu.

Personally, I love octopus...when it is properly prepared.  It is briny and meaty without being overly rich.  Since my wife has been craving Asian food I am going to go East with this big mollusk.  A long, slow braise with onions, garlic, sesame seeds, lemons, fish sauce, black vinegar, soy sauce and hot black bean paste should do the trick.  Adding the extra umami should make it extremely savory and the long cooking time will ensure the meat is tender and succulent.  Serving it along side some brown rice and some quickly sauteed cabbage is sure to do the trick...

Gelatin/Gelee

I taught a class about roast chicken today and as I was cleaning up I saw a bit of cooled, gelatinious juice so I quickly grabbed a piece of bread and gobbled it up.  I love this stuff, gelatin is delicious.  It made me think, why is Jello so acceptable but if you serve cooled chicken stock (real chicken stock, not the box in the grocery isle) it receives looks of disgust.  Where do people think gelatin comes from and why is it only "good" as a dessert? 

Balance

In today's world it is far too easy to be perpetually working, especially residing in the United States (not to mention the East Coast).  I love to think my wife and I live a very European lifestyle, but come Sunday, perspective rears it's ugly head.  In Europe, at least the places I have been fortunate enough to visit, Sunday is day of rest.  It is a day to spend with your family, laughing and eating your weekly stress away.  It is understood that it is ok to work a lot as long as there is balance.  Every month about this time I realize I have lost my balance.  I have a great staff and they can handle things without me so I am going to ignore that stack of papers on my desk and forget about all my prep work for tomorrow.  I am going to ignore any housework that needs to be done and not worry about the cooking class I have to teach tomorrow.  I am going to beg my wife to close the restaurant a touch early so one night this week we can enjoy dinner before midnight.  I am going to go home early to play with my dogs, have dinner with my wife and relax in front of a fire.  If you are not doing the same today, well, I hope that you are...

Offal Menu

We are hosting an Offal Wine Dinner on April 10th and I just finished working out the menu.  While there is a tangible shock value to offal, it is not our style to show it that way.  We love to use the odd bits at the BLG.  It is our style to show that the whole animal can be used and the whole animal can be absolutely delicious.  Here is the menu:

Tartare of lamb heart with a nicoise olive emulsion, toasted pine nuts and miner’s lettuce

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Fresh tagliatelle with sous vide rabbit kidneys, heart, liver and spring garlic

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Duo of sweetbreads, braised in a rich veal stock with roasted artichokes

and sautéed with popcorn shoots and browned butter

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Pig tongue confit with braised lentils, hedgehog mushrooms and arugula

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Milk poached calf liver with caramelized onion puree, truffles and dandelion greens
 

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"Blood Pudding" with almond ice cream and saffron creme anglaise

This is the first draft of the menu but we are still working on the wines, so something is sure to change.  I get a lot of intern requests for these types of dinners and I think I might take one on for this feast.  I am only going to accept one.  If you are interested please write me at daniel@bistrolesgras.com and tell me why you would like to take part.

Food as Art

I gave a lecture and demonstration at a local high school today about my journey into the making of Bistro Les Gras.  I must say I was very surprised at how progressive vocational programs have become.  This high school even had a restaurant on property, granted it was for faculty and students, but still a restaurant run by people that cannot drive yet.  It makes me think of what the industry will be like in a few years.  Exciting to think about.

I think the most interesting part of my lecture, at least for the high school students, was my demonstration about plating.  It was pretty basic stuff but I hope it was nice for them.  I attempted to show a progression of of the same dish through different styles of restaurants.  I showed how a simple and basic steak dish could be plated at a diner, a gastropub and at a place like ours.  All the same ingredients yet a drastically different feel to the finished dish.

At the end of the lecture, an instructor gave a closing thank you and during his closing he mentioned the art that exists in plating food.  Oddly, it really took me by surprise.  I was like a deer caught in the headlights.  I completely lost track of what I was doing and stumbled through my goodbyes.  Why did this catch me so off guard?  A while back, well before I was a decision maker in the kitchen I remember adamantly arguing that cooking is a craft in the "craft versus art" issue.  If you aren't familiar, there is (or was) an ongoing debate of sorts between chefs and other culinary professionals who believe that our job is solely a craft, a service if you will, and then there are those who believe that it is art.  I stood firm that we were craftsmen providing a service to our customers, nothing less and nothing more.  It has probably been five or six years since the "great debate" has even danced in my mind.

Things have changed.  Now that I am the one designing the dishes my perspective is different.  Seeing the path that my industry is heading has been influential.  Customers are no longer just customers, but a critics of sort and these critics demand beauty.  I now believe that food is art, absolutely.  My food as I cook it and as I plate it represents me.  It represents my thoughts, my emotion and my life at that moment.  If you look back at all the menus I have designed you can see my evolution from simply putting things on a plate to using the plate as a canvas, a carefully thought out arrangement of food.    That is my art, it may only be visible  through my eyes but it is there...

Pulao

Pulao.  That's right Pulao.  A south Asian, or in the case of my dinner tonight, Indian dish.  A quintessential rice dish with as many variations as there are pronunciations (Pulao...Polao...Pilav...Pilaf, yes pilaf).

My wife is not only beautiful, but an amazing cook.  In all too many senses of the word she is my muse.  Tonight she made me a wonderful dinner of saag paneer and pulao.  While the saag paneer was delicious, it is the pulao that I am now obsessed with.

Rice is such a simple dish with so many complex variations.  Variations that are adapted from region to region, culture to culture, and family to family.  Almost every great dish has roots that can be traced back to a meal that peasants treated as a celebration food.  Pulao I'm sure is no different.  I have half a mind to research this right now, but I just finished a fabulous meal along side perfect company, my wife.  It is my company that my other half of mind, the smarter half, is interested in.

I am missing an entree for next month's menu...ah, let me sleep on it, I'll let you know...

Creating A New Menu

At the restaurant we change the restaurant every month.  We love that we do this, and sometimes we hate it.  The initial reason we decided to rotate so often was to keep up with the changing of the seasons.  Even though a vegetable may be a spring, summer or fall product, there still lies a time period during that season where that vegetable peaks.  Think of a tomato.  It makes you think of summer right?  While summer is definitely "tomato season," tomatoes peak in late August and early September.  So, August is when we put tomatoes all over the menu in fresh preparations and by September you start seeing them cooked. 

Another benefit to a monthly revolving menu is that we can use an array small farms during the year and not put a supply "stress" on them.  This wasn't something we thought of when initially laying out our menu concept, but to say it has been a benefit would be an understatement.

Back to the love-hate relationship I have with creating a new menu:

LOVE:  There are some months that anything can inspire a new dish.  Nothing feels better than to put together a menu and be utterly excited about each and every dish.

HATE:  Especially in months like this, you find yourself working with the same five ingredients you used last month...the month before that.  There are only so many ways to cook a parsnip and trust me I know all of them.  There is always one dish I just can't seem to conceptualize.  Sometimes I would do anything for the tiniest bit of inspiration.  Seriously, anything.

LOVE:  Working in a professional kitchen means you have to not only be cooking with finesse and precision, but also with speed and efficiency.  This means lots of "assembly line" prep.  Say we have to make 40 stuffed cabbages for the night, if we rolled them one at a time it would take forever.  In an effort to expedite the process we roll 10-15 at a time.  Any time we can save is invaluable.  Keep in mind that this is only one item of a dish and there are usually three or four more processes just like this one to complete the dish.  A day of food preparation can be quite monotonous but it does have it's pay off, the time when it all comes together, the evening service.  Now imagine if we had to make that same item every day for months.  A monthly changing menu keeps life interesting, especially for my young staff...they are like sponges soaking up new information every month.

HATE:  Remember those 40 cabbages, and the three or four other items on the plate?  These have to be learned by an entire kitchen staff.  Then we have to iron out any kinks we feel the dishes have.  Now we have to do that with fifteen other dishes.  Every month the same process.  It's like opening a new restaurant every month.  Don't forget the front of house also has to go through their training, learning every dish inside and out AND learn about any new wines we have added to the menu and their pairing options.

LOVE:  I love the process of perfecting the dish as the month goes on.  Almost no dish is exactly how it was in the beginning.  Sometimes it is as simple as a little more sauce or adding some vinegar to the puree, but it can also mean a complete overhaul.  We have 30 days to perfect a dish, name one chef who doesn't love that challenge.

HATE:  The stress of knowing that a dish is just not right.  Having to watch it go out and then watching some of it come back uneaten.  I am an extreme perfectionist but I also understand that taste is objective.  I can tell you at the beginning of the month objectivity goes out the door.  I am far too insecure about the dishes, the just aren't quite right but they have to go out.  If you come into the restaurant at the beginning of a new menu, you are guaranteed to see me standing in the kitchen doorway watching the dinning room like a hawk in constant banter with my staff.  "How are they liking it?"  "Did they not like the potato?"  "Why didn't they finish that last bite?"  Why do the critics always come in the first two days of the menu?

LOVE:  I love that with all the excitement that each new menu brings, be it love or hate, I can honestly say that the grass is never greener...

A Pasta Maker

A simple tool I feel no kitchen should be without.  Making your own pasta is a very simple process (especially if you invest in an electric pasta machine).  Fresh pasta is very easy to make, quick to cook and extremely versatile in shape, size and flavor.  The biggest benefit for a home cook is that pasta dough works well out of the freezer, thus convenience.  This enables you to make in large batches, portion, and freeze...just make sure you completely thaw the dough before rolling it out.  To further the accessibility of a quick but comforting meal on a "short" night you could streamline the process even more.  On a boring and rainy March weekend afternoon make your large batch of dough and instead of portioning it, go ahead and roll it out, shape the dough THEN freeze.  Now when one of those late nights happen, all you have to do is boil some salted water and drop the frozen pasta in.  It still only takes minutes to become al dente.

Don't know how to "dress" your pasta?  Well, inn my humble opinion, fresh pasta should be enjoyed with a simple sauce.  Fresh noodles are too delicate to stand up to hearty sauces, that's what dried pasta is for.  There is one exception, a fresh papardalle is perfect with a rich ragu (of shredded meat not ground) as long as you go easy on the sauce.  Fresh pasta has such a wonderful taste and texture that sometimes all you need is a good olive oil and some fresh herbs to make a surprisingly satisfying and nearly perfect dish.

Peanut-sesame noodles

People often ask "what do restaurant owners have for dinner?"  Anything we want...just kidding, honestly whatever is not on our menu at the time.  We spend countless hours a day tasting and tasting and tasting the same things over and over again that by the end of the shift our excitement has simply faded.  The food we have been slaving over tastes magnificent,  we just need to taste something different.  So we often head home to ravage our empty cupboards and refrigerator (we work too much to get any proper shopping done) and attempt to "iron chef" something from nothing. 

That is why this is one of my favorites.  It's quick, it has loads of umami and we usually have all the ingredients around the house.  We normally don't eat out of season but need for something green besides winter greens overcame us, so we treated ourselves to some broccoli.  We also stumbled across some local pea shoots and decided to stir them in while the noodles were still hot, delicious.  We are pickle fiends so we topped noodles with some sechzuan chili-carrot pickles.   Here is the recipe:

2 portions of spaghetti or udon
1/2 C peanut butter, smooth is better but not necessary
1/4 C soy sauce
pinch sugar
1T sesame oil
1/4 C  Rice wine vinegar
A few spoon fulls of the pasta water

-Boil pasta as you do, but take it just past al dente
-While pasta is cooking, heat all other ingredients together, add a few tablespoons of pasta water
-Strain pasta and add to sauce

That is all you really need.  If you happen to have some chili flakes, or some sesame seeds, or even some scallions you are in for a treat.  If you are in a carnivorous mood, I can't think of many meats that this wouldn't be good with so go crazy.  If you don't want the meat but still think it needs something, just press some tofu, marinate it in lime and fish sauce then grill it...another perfect addition (even if you don't like tofu).

Daylight Savings Time

Daylight savings time is here, time to "spring forward".  This probably isn't much of an issue for most people, but to those of us who work long weekends a lost hour is bitter.  And who do we owe the blame?  According to Sieze the Daylight, Benjamin Franklin is at fault.  Good old Ben awoke one morning in Paris to what he thought was the morning candles entering his room.  Much to his sleepy surprise it was just the morning sun.  A light bulb (or should we say candle) went off in his head and he conjured up a plan save money on candles by adjusting the clocks to save the precious daylight.

Is this true?  No.  The real culprit was a Brit named William Willet who put together the pamphlet The Waste of Daylight, a document that proposed changing time as a measure to increase daylight recreation and reduce the cost of lighting.  His proposal eventually made it to Parliament, more than once in fact, but failed the vote.  Finally, in 1916 during World War I, Daylight Savings Time was put into action to conserve coal, unfortunately one year too late for poor the William Willet (1857-1915).

As much as I dislike losing any sleep in my 80+ hour work week, the restaurant does spend a couple thousand dollars a year on candles..."A penny saved is a penny earned."

Mangalica

Yesterday someone gave me some Mangalica pancetta and I am pretty excited.  Mangalica pigs are a pretty unique in that they have curly, bristly hair and an obscene amount of extremely flavorful fat.  Originally from Hungary these pigs were almost extinct in 1991, but now they have stable population of 50,000 plus pigs.  It is an ideal breed for curing and charcuterie work because of it's high fat content.  The fat is wonderfully creamy and very intense.  While the fat is the main allure for many cooks, the meat takes a back seat to no other breed of pig.  Mangalica's easily have the most marbled pork I have ever seen and the red tinged meat could be easily mistaken for beef (to an untrained eye of course).

Back to the pancetta.  Pancetta is a cured belly, usually found rolled...a rolled bacon if you will.  You can see very clearly that this is a fatty pig by the dominance of the fat to meat in the layering of this belly.  This is my first time using the pork (I have eaten it quite a few times) and so far I am very pleased.  I am already working on getting a whole pig so I can go charcuterie crazy, even if it means raising my own.  If and when this happens I will be sure to document the whole process, from butchering to prosciutto.

Now I have to go talk my wife into letting me have a wooly pig.  Some would think this is an impossible task, but I know all of my wife's weaknesses and my charcuterie is one of them...

Locavore

Well, this is my first post.  I will post something everyday, be it photographic, memoir, instructional, my opinion, philosophy, relevant to culinary arts or not for one year.  All will be related to my job as a cook, a chef and a restaurant owner.

What's on my mind today?  Seasonality and sourcing local produce and meats.  Quite frankly it's on my mind everyday.  I think it is safe to say it should be on everyone's mind, especially those who share my profession.  At the restaurant we are truly committed to using local products, especially those from small producers and/or businesses.  It is something that is important to me and my wife and therefore our business.  We love knowing what we support, knowing the names of who we support and knowing the children and animals of who we support.  Why?  Well, I could go on and on about the economic importance.  I could ramble endlessly about the many virtues it carries to living a healthier lifestyle.  I could journey into the simplicity of it being piece of mind.  All of these factor into our ultimate reasoning, but to me the most important factor is flavor.  The utmost most important attribute food can have is flavor and the simple result from using local ingredients raised by small producers is produce and meats peaking with flavor and beauty.

Small producers care about their product, they have to otherwise you will move on to someone else.   We are fortunate enough to have a restaurant that is in an agricultural area that has a boasts core of small farmers just outside our city lines...in some cases inside the city lines.  They work extremely hard to produce delicious tasting foods that look as good as they taste and, I know it's a novel idea, they also stand by their product.  They are always pestering me about the quality and offering to replace anything that might not be up my standards...I have extremely high standards and in three years and I have yet to ask for a replacement.  Wonderful people, beautiful land and amazing meats and produce.

Using said producers is a choice we make and we understand that that choice has its ups and its downs.  One of the downs is price.  Understand that the producers we use are exactly like us.  They are doing what they can to make ends meet, to support a lifestyle that makes them happy and to possibly save something for the future...the American dream.  In some cases we pay only a few cents less than you if you are getting your goods from them.  This obviously affects our prices.  Our prices are now higher end of the spectrum not because we are necessarily offering something different than another restaurant but because we choose to know who we are supporting.  We can live with that.  Furthermore we are proud of it.  Are we the only restaurants doing this?  Of course not, and believe me that is a good thing.  Are there restaurants that do just enough to be able to claim that they are like us?  Of course, a few too many in fact.  It is upsetting that they are taking advantage of you and me.  It creates a white noise by making us look like we are playing on the same playing field when we are not.  Restaurants and businesses that are committed to the cause receive a lessened value because of it and just look like they are over-charging.  We are just over-supporting.

The so-called locavore movement is a good thing.  It was one of the few fads that hope has a long shelf life.  There are three things necessary for life: air, water and food, maybe it's time we start caring more about our food.

I have to place my orders for tomorrow...