Kurt Michael Friese

Summer in Iowa always brings the same delightful dilemma – what to do with all that basil.

Few herbs are as surrounded by mythology and folklore as basil. Its origins are debated, but most seem to think it came from India where besides its innumerable culinary uses, a devout Hindu has a leaf of basil placed on his breast when he dies, as a passport to paradise. It is famous in Christian history as well as the herb Salome used to cover the smell of decay from John the Baptists head. In Haitian Voodoo practice the herb is a powerful protector, and a Romanian man is engaged when he accepts a sprig of basil from a woman.

All this trivia is of little use though, when faced with bushels of the stuff that we all pull out of our gardens the afternoon before we expect the first heavy frost of autumn. Get a jump on that by beginning your “puttin' up” now. You can blanch and freeze it all with a quick dip in boiling, salted water followed by an instantaneous plunge into ice water – then drain, pat dry and freeze in Ziplocs, but that only postpones the inevitable pesto, and pesto is best with fresh leaves. A voluptuous pesto is of course a good way to reduce the volume quickly and have something everyone loves to show for your efforts.

Read the rest at Huffington Post.

Tags: Huffington Post, Iowa, cooking, food, food history, gardening, recipe by Chef Kurt Michael Friese
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We shake our heads in astonishment at the level of the disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. We want to help, but don’t know how. Seems no one has the answers, least of all BP, who continues to whitewash the beaches in advance of the arrival of Anderson Cooper or President Obama.

Ironically the New Orleans Oyster Festival, postponed from its original 2006 premier by Katrina and Rita, had its inaugural – and likely final – run last week. No one has anything optimistic to tell us about the future of the Louisiana oyster beds. More bad news comes when you talk to shrimpers, longline fishers, trawlers, and on and on.

Soon-to-be-outgoing BP CEO Tony Hayward is saying that it will “pay all legitimate claims” made by the people whose lives their carelessness ruined, but looking at the Exxon Valdez spill for precedent, Exxon tied them up in court for 2 decades and eventually paid a mere 10% of the total claims. So no, I don’t think anyone believes Mr. Hayward.

And so it comes down, as it always does, to the strength, goodwill and generosity of the American people to try and help the victims of still more corporate carelessness.

The first of what I am sure will be many opportunities arrives this week. Jimmy Galle, owner of bay Area seafood supplier Gulfish, has organized Dineout for the Gulf Coast, a 3-day benefit at many of the best restaurants around the country. The short-term goal of The Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund, administered by the Greater New Orleans Foundation, is to make emergency grants to nonprofit organizations helping the victims of the oil spill. The long-term goal of the fund is to address the long-term economic, environmental, cultural effects of the disaster, and strengthen coastal communities against future environmental catastrophes by investing in solutions.

Maybe you can’t afford to send thousands of dollars. Maybe you can’t afford the time it would take to go down there and lend a hand. Most of us want to help in those ways, and most of us simply cannot. This is a small way you can help – go to dinner, eat some good food for a good cause.

Let the profiteers and politicians haggle over the blame game. We’ll keep taking small steps toward recovery. Only a fool fights in a burning house – it’s time to help the people.

via Kurt Friese: Dine Out for the Gulf Coast.

Tags: Animal Cruelty, Gulf Coast, Huffington Post, Oil Spill, Slow Food, capitalism, food, food cost, food history, food politics, food security, wild food by Chef Kurt Michael Friese
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