A little background: What we (I received considerable support from the Iowa Restaurant Association and fellow restaurant and bar owners statewide) were trying to do was make it legal for bartenders to do what you are perfectly allowed to do at home — infuse flavors like vanilla or raspberry into spirits like vodka or whiskey. Perfectly legal in dozens of other states. There is no fermentation or distillation of any sort involved in the process; it is merely a way for creative bartenders to bring you some interesting new flavors in your libations. The laws preventing it not only ban “adulteration” of liquor but also their storage in any container besides the original bottle. This all dates back to pre-prohibition laws that were aimed at the less-than-scrupulous tavern owners of the day who would drink the good stuff and replace it with rotgut or homemade bathtub gin.

That was 100 years ago. Carrie Nation is dead. And if you can trust me, as your chef, to put raspberries in your vinaigrette, you can trust me to put raspberries in your vodka. But some Iowa House members don’t see it that way, and we’ll never get to know which ones.

Only one group formally opposed the bill: the beer distributors’ lobby. They contended that it amounted to a “crack” in Iowa’s sacred “Three Tier System,” which governs all alcohol sales, distribution and production in the state. The supposition being that the proposal would make bars — who are part of the retail tier in this system — into producers like breweries and distilleries (a separate tier). Not so, since as I said there would be no distillation or fermentation, nor any off-premise sales of the concoctions, but that’s what they thought.

To her credit, Rep. Vicki Lensing had crafted an amendment to allay those concerns and some others, but she was never granted to the opportunity to introduce the language, and not even she knows exactly why. The committee was convened by Rep. Stewart Iverson, R-Clarion, who promptly dismissed all observers. An hour later, when observers were allowed back in, the infusion bill had been removed from the agenda, effectively killing it for the year.

They say there are two things you don’t want people to know how you make ’em: laws and sausages. Despite their loud advocacy for lifting restrictions on small businesses, too many representatives are protecting the status quo. I would name them but no one knows who they are.

This is not the end, mind you. We will bring the issue back up in the next session, and Iverson is not running for re-election this year, so there is hope that we may be able to at least get it out of committee. The only item to get out of that committee, by the way? A proposal to increase transparency government (but only local and county, not state). You can’t make this stuff up.

SO! You’re interested in becoming a vendor at the NewBo City Market.  I have a LOT to report to you as we have many new and exciting developments.  Most importantly though is the announcement of two informational meetings for potential vendors (like you!).  More on that below, but first…

We are BREAKING GROUND!  The date is chosen and the ducks are in a row, so we hope if you are free you’ll join us for the festivities and see the “before” image as the old Iowa Steel warehouse begins is metamorphosis.  Come to 1100 3rd Ave. SE on Monday, April 16th at 10:00AM to see the ceremonial shovel placed to earth.

Tour the Site!  All are welcome for our last public tour of the space before it becomes a construction site, this Sunday, March 18^th at 3pm.  Still not sure where the market is located?  That’s OK, there’s a map right here.

We have a STAFF!  You may have noticed that it’s Kurt Friese who is writing this.  That’s because I have taken a position with NewBo City Market as “Director of Healthy Foods and Advocacy.”  What this means to you is that I am your point of contact for getting signed up and set up to be a vendor at NewBo.  When we finish that process, I’ll turn you over to Julie Palmer, who is our Director of Operations.  Think of it as though I’m your real estate guy and she’ll be the landlord (of course it’s more complicated than that, but that’s the simplified version).

Also on board now is our new Executive Director, Ann Poe, who some of you will know as a member of the Cedar Rapids City Council.  She was also community liaison to Cedar Rapids from Rebuild Iowa during flood recovery.   Ann was development director of The Czech and Slovak Museum and instrumental in bringing President Clinton and Czech President Vaclav Havel to the dedication of the museum in 1995.

The MEETING!  The first informational meetings will take place in April in both Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.  The purpose of the meetings is to review the newly-minted vendor criteria and guidelines, various costs, dates, and FAQs.

We only need you to attend in one place or the other, but we do want to get as many people as possible into a meeting, and so to that end we’ve set up something called a “Doodle.”  For the uninitiated, this is a very simple web-based tool for determining optimal meeting times.  So just go to the link below, write in your business name and check off all the times that would be best for you.  We’ll choose the ones that have the most people available.  As I said, you only need attend one, but you may choose to do the Doodle for both locations, on order to have more options.  No obligations here, no required attendance (though you really should come), and attending will not commit you to becoming a NewBo vendor (that comes later).

To choose times for the Cedar Rapids Meeting, click here

To choose times for the Iowa City meeting, click here.

I look forward to seeing all of you at one (or both!) of the meetings.  Until then, the best way to reach me is via email, at Kurt@NewBoCityMarket.com

Peace,

kmf

When I read Stephen Bloom’s screed against our mutually-adopted home state I was, like many Iowans (including his boss at the University of Iowa), insulted. I could not figure out which aspect bothered me more. My world revolves around food, and Bloom seems to have gleaned his information about what we eat in Iowa from a high school production of The Music Man.

Comfort food reigns supreme. Meatloaf and pork chops are king. Casseroles (canned tuna or Tatertots) and Jell-O molds (cottage cheese with canned pears or pineapple) are what to bring to wedding receptions and funerals. Everyone loves Red Waldorf cake. Deer (killed with a rifle is good, with bow-and-arrow better) and handpicked morels are delicacies families cherish.

I do not mean to claim that these dishes cannot be found in Lutheran church basements in all 99 counties, even if he is wrong about cottage cheese being in Jell-O molds (the cottage cheese is served on the canned pears, or more often on cling peaches), and even if, as a restaurant professional for 32 years, I’ve never heard of “Red Waldorf cake” nor has my fifth-generation Iowan wife. We think he must mean red velvet cake, which is common, though not nearly as common as the magnificent pies that are baked here. All this food can indeed be “comforting,” but as in so many other parts of his diatribe, Bloom chooses a couple small examples of something he’s seen here and concludes that it must be so for everyone across state.

Read the rest in The Atlantic

Texas is one of the national leaders in this regard.  It is illegal in Texas to consume more than 3 sips of beer while standing.  But even if you sit down, you can be arrested for public intoxication while still in the bar.  And if you’re under 21?  Not a problem as long as you are with your parents – or spouse.  The age of consent in Texas is 17.

Pennsylvania has a whole slew of arcane laws (they still have the state stores that Iowa got away from during the 1^st Branstad administration), but my favorite is that they apportion liquor licenses based on population. Philadelphia has more restaurants than their allotment permits, so restaurants are forced to go “BYOB,” or to buy licenses from closing restaurants on the open market, often for as much as $250,000.  Cushions the blow of losing your restaurant I suppose if you can get a quarter of a million dollars for a piece of paper.

In Connecticut, pharmacists must have a $400 liquor license to use alcohol in compounding prescriptions. Indiana liquor stores can’t sell cold soft drinks, though unrefrigerated is OK.  Kansas liquor stores can’t sell anything else at all.  I went into one once to buy a bottle of wine, only to find that they couldn’t sell me a corkscrew.

Alabama bans any beer bottle over 16 ounces, so yes, growlers are illegal.  Alaska bans liquor sales from 5am to 8am (still gives you an hour before you get to work though).  Arizona, New Mexico, and Rhode Island have drive-thru liquor stores, and New Hampshire goes one better, putting their state-run liquor stores in interstate rest areas (in part to take advantage of Massachusetts’ own crazy laws that make people drive to NH to buy).

Colorado has RWI: Riding while intoxicated – not as a passenger in a car, but on a horse.  Understandable there in cowboy country I suppose.  In neighboring Oklahoma, all packaged alcohol must be sold at room temperature (sorry, purists).  In South Carolina you can’t buy a drink on Election Day, but with a little planning you can still be drunk when you vote.

My favorite?  In Maryland wine writers like myself must be certified as an “expert” by the state in order to be allowed to receive the samples that wine and liquor companies regularly send us.

Iowa has a few crazy laws of its own, and some are not very strictly enforced.  For example it is technically illegal to run a tab in a bar, though I’ve never seen a bar (or a cop) here try to enforce that rule.  And we used to have even stricter rules.  As late as the 1970s not only did Iowa still have state-run stores, but each store kept a book on each customer detailing their purchases, and it was not uncommon for fathers to request to see the books of their daughters’ suitors to ascertain their sobriety.

Today in Iowa if you own a bar, restaurant or retail store and want to sell beer, wine, and liquor, you must pay C.O.D. for beer and liquor, but wine you can buy on credit.  And the beer and wine can come from one or many wholesalers, but restaurants and bars must buy liquor from the retail stores, who must in turn by it directly from the state.  If the state does not see fit to carry a certain liquor, or allocates it all to Des Moines and you’re in Iowa City, then, well, tough.

The craziest law of them all though is that bars and restaurants are barred from infusing their own alcohol (so we can’t make, for example, our own flavored vodkas – have to buy them from the state).  We can’t make our own bitters, despite them being classified as “non-potable liquor” because they are undrinkable on their own and are only ever used a couple of drops at a time.  We also can’t barrel-age cocktails, which can lead to some truly amazing libations, nor can we pour alcohol from anything but its original container.  This presumably goes back to a day when unscrupulous mixologists would substitute rotgut for the good stuff to turn a quick buck.

I have begun an effort to change the law, to make it legal for bars and restaurants to employ their skills to make cocktails better and more enjoyable, and return to a time when the cocktail was considered a high art, not a bunch of “shooters” in plastic cups in a crowded sports bar.  I’d like bars to be able to create libations of true character, unencumbered by arcane laws from a bygone era, to make flavors to savor.  HD Thoreau said, “He who distinguishes the true savor of his food cannot be a glutton.  He who does not, cannot be otherwise.”

If you’d like to join in the effort to “raise the bar,” Check out our Facebook page, and sign the petition.

Needless to say, it makes them look bad, which of course they don’t like.  Now let me state right from the start here that I and the organization I represent, Slow Food USA, are not at all anti-farmer, and firmly believe that a vast majority of America’s farmers are honest, hardworking, industrious and well-meaning keepers of their land and heritage.  That said, there are exceptions, and like in any industry, a few bad apples can make the whole bunch look bad.

But instead of working hard to stop those few bad actors, Big Ag’s response is to try to criminalize the whistleblowers.  And their first attempts, in four states (Florida, Minnesota, Iowa and most recently New York) are so far reaching as to beg obvious 1^st amendment questions to say the least.

Take for example Iowa’s proposed bill, which as I type has passed the Republican controlled House and is pending in the Democratic-controlled Senate.  Formally titled “SF431: An Act relating to offenses involving agricultural operations, and providing penalties and remedies,” it makes it a criminal offense to photograph, video-or-audio-record any farm without the owners consent.  It goes well beyond making it illegal for you to stop by the side of the road and take a snap of those cute sheep or that gorgeous old barn (though it does do that).  It also makes it illegal to possess and/or distribute such images, putting them on par with child pornography.

Not only would it mean that, for example, the producers of the Oscar-nominated documentary Food, Inc. would face penalties, but also that yours truly could be fined or jailed simply for the hyperlinks I referred you to in the second paragraph, above.  Imagine what our food system might look like today if some similar disruption of free speech had stopped Upton Sinclair from publishing The Jungle.

Slow Food has a petition circulating against the bills, which I urge you to sign (over 33K have already).  I will hand deliver this petition to the Iowa Senate.  We also have a beautiful and fun campaign going on our Facebook page called “Farmarazzi,” requesting that people send in photos of farms near them to demonstrate that a well-run farm has nothing to hide.

Now some of the farmers I have spoken with tell me that it is a matter of privacy, and that they all suffer when videos surface that make them all look bad or that somehow portray them in a false light.  Doubtless some commenters below will take that tack.  But to them I say this: In cases of trespassing, breaking and entering, or slander and liable, we already have laws in place for all of those offenses. But the bill in question does not protect animals, does not protect farmers, does not protect eaters, does not protect the environment, (does not create jobs by the way), and does not pass the constitutional laugh test.

There is nothing more flavorful and succulent than a spit-roasted lamb

About 2 months ago Kim and I set out to accomplish a long-held goal: to build a roasting spit in our backyard and spend no money doing it.  The inauguration of our successful endeavor occurred Memorial Day weekend.  Here’s how we did it.

Building the spit:

A spit is little more than a stone-lined hole in the ground.  Some dig straight down (as for a Luau or a New England Clambake, some are dug into the hillside.  We chose the latter because our backyard is a long gentle slope.  If yours isn’t, you may have some extra digging to do and/or you may need to bring in some fill dirt.  In any case, what’s desired here is a strong earthen support for the bricks that make up the back of the spit.  This back wall helps direct the heat, making the roasting process more even and efficient.

Our goal was a 5-foot-wide spit, plenty big enough for a pig or a lamb (though not for a calf or a hog).  Kim did a quick search on Freecycle.com, and turns out bricks are a popular thing to give away in east-central Iowa.  Lucky us.  20 minutes of driving and an hour of loading and unloading (allowing us to skip our workout that day!) and we had us a brickload.

Pile the dirt to the uphill side, then use to backfill as you build

I dug into the hillside to create a flat space, 6 feet wide by 3 feet deep, creating a dirt pile on the uphill side, which I used to backfill behind the brick wall as each row was placed.  I used a basic carpenters level to make sure the base was truly flat.  Even a very slight angle could affect the lifespan of the structure gravity is very persistent.

Note how the back is stair-stepped and supported by the earth behind it

Mortar might have been a problem, I thought, since I’m no union bricklayer or anything, so I set each row of bricks a half-inch back of the previous row, creating a slant of about 10 degrees off vertical.  This way the heat would still be directed well, but the wall would be supported by the earth behind it.  This also helped facilitate the sides’ stairstep design which would further direct the heat while allowing easy access for the rotisserie and the animal on it.

As you can see it was a gradual but simple process, which would have been much faster if I didn’t have to remove old mortar from virtually every brick (that part was very tedious).  For the floor I simply lined them up and tapped them snuggly into place with a rubber mallet.  Step one complete.

A brief search of the internets revealed that buying a rotisserie was out of the que$tion, and along with not being a bricklayer I am also not a welder.  Fortunately some friends at the nearby Scattergood Friends School had built one, also out of found objects, and agreed to let us borrow it for the inaugural run.  The main rod is made from a piece of household water pipe; the racks are from an old weight bench; the legs are rebar from a fence one of their sows had knocked down; and the simple hand crank used to be part of a commercial kitchen can opener – the kind that mounts to the edge of a counter.

All found objects make up this spit

With the rotisserie in place it was time to turn our attention the piece of resistance – the lamb.

Finding and Preparing the Lamb

Our lamb was provided by Pavelka’s Point, a farm neat Mt. Vernon, Iowa that I would link you to but they don’t have so much as a Facebook account.  Blithely unencumbered by such things, they have more time to raise some truly tasty livestock.  Lois Pavelka and Bill Ellison also raise some cattle and hogs, but the lamb is their main focus.  We’d been buying it for Devotay for years, but this was the first time they had raised a whole animal just for us.

It was processed by one of Iowa’s best small lockers, Ruzicka’s in Solon (also sans website, but there’s a little info about them here), for about $55.00.  The dressed weight of the lamb was a hair over 60 pounds, and Lois charged us a discounted $5 per pound for it because she loves us.

If you aren’t lucky enough to live within an easy drive of the Solon-Mt.Vernon metropolis, and don’t already know a good lamb farmer in your area, then turn to LocalHarvest.org, where all you need to do is plug in your zip code and the word “lamb” to find the sustainably-raised livestock near you.

When I got it home I gave it a quick rinse and pat dry with paper towels, then rubbed it down thoroughly, inside and out, with generous amounts of kosher salt and cracked black pepper, and then refrigerated it.  A good point here: if you don’t have a spare fridge that will fit the lamb (I had to take all the shelves out of mine), then you’ll either need to pick it up and cook it the same day, or invest in a tub, lots of ice, and a way to keep your dog away from it.

It's a lot more appetizing when cooked, I promise.

The Day Arrives

Wanting to feed my guests by about 5pm, and figuring on needing at least 8 hours to cook, I arose at 6am to get the fire started.  A mostly-mild winter here this past year left me with more than enough split oak logs to do the trick – total amount by the end of the day was about ¼ cord. It might have been less though, if Mother Nature hadn’t decided to let loose a deluge about 8:30am, right when my fire was all-glowing-coals-perfect.  We made a makeshift attempt to shelter the fire, but to no avail.  Note to self: invest in a couple of sheets of corrugated tin.

The chest cavity was filled with mire poix, fennel, lemons and garlic, then trussed shut with cotton butchers twine

The newly rekindled fire was glowing just fine two hours later, which in the end was good because it took me a while to stuff and truss the lamb.  Using brackets and u-bolts, we attached the lamb to the middle of the 8-foot rod at the animal’s spine.  We then filled the cavity with a salt-and-peppered mix of mire poix, lemons, fennel and garlic, and trussed the cavity closed with a darning needle and cotton butcher’s twine.

However, no matter how much we tightened those u-bolts, it would not have been sufficient because the weigh of the lamb would have cause the rod to simply spin inside.  So in addition to the bolts, we attached fairly heavy (but bendable) wire through a hole in the rod and around the back ankles of the lamb, then around the whole animal to the foreshanks, though another drilled hole in that end and then back once more.  It worked nearly perfectly.

After a procession with the lamb that was worthy of the soundtrack from a Charlton Heston movie, it was mounted on the rack about 20 inches from the coals, which were pushed back against the back wall of the spit (you don’t want them directly under the meat).  Cranking it for hours seemed like a daunting task at first, but the ability to move it slightly, lock it there, wait a couple minutes do it again, etc., coupled with working in shifts made it quite easy.  The key was to keep it even and only rotate in one direction, lest the aforementioned wires unwind.

As coals burned down more wood was added, and we put a small stainless steel bowl underneath it to catch the drippings.  We moved it a few times as drips came from other parts.  Toward the end of cooking, because the whole animal shrinks as it cooks, the trussed-up cavity came open a little bit and some of the veggies spilled out, but not enough to make much of a difference.

The lamb arrives at the spit for a 6.5-hours sit'n'spin

About halfway cooked, but lookin' good already

In only 6.5 hours a meat thermometer thrust into the legs and should showed a near perfect 130 degrees f., so we pulled it off the fire and laid it out to rest under foil for about 30 more minutes.  Dinner was served on time despite the rain, thanks to the lamb taking less time than I had thought I would.  Our 60-pound lamb was devoured by about 70 people in about 90 minutes, while circling buzzards wondered if we would leave it alone for them. (Hint: No.)

The carcass is now in my freezer, where it will remain until the weekend and then be used to make a big batch of lamb demi-glaze.

Come August we’re doing another one, this time with a pig.  Will post differences and similarities here as well.

Chiltepin, chile de árbol the one that scrambles up trees, Tabasco, serrano, pasilla, Chimayó. These are only a few of the pungent peppers that Mr. Nabhan and two other chili lovers — Kurt Michael Friese, a chef from Iowa City, and Kraig Kraft, an agro-ecologist studying the origin of hot peppers — collected on a journey that began two years ago, in northern Mexico, and took them across the hot spots of this country.

Read the article at  Hot on the Trail of Chili Peppers – In the Garden – NYTimes.com.

By MARK BITTMAN

Published: May 9, 2007

THE question I’m asked more often than any other is, “What kitchen equipment should I buy?”

Like cookbooks, kitchen equipment is a talisman; people believe that buying the right kind will make them good cooks. Yet some of the best cooks I’ve known worked with a battered batterie de cuisine: dented pots and pans scarred beyond recognition, an old steak knife turned into an all-purpose tool, a pot lid held just so to strain pasta when the colander was missing, a food processor with a busted switch. They didn’t complain and they didn’t apologize; they just cooked.

But famous TV chefs use gorgeous name-brand equipment, you might say. And you’d be right. But a.) they get much of that stuff free, the manufacturers hoping that placing it in the hands of a well-known chef will make you think it’s essential; b.) they want their equipment to be pretty, so you’ll think they’re important; and c.) see above: a costly knife is not a talisman and you are not a TV chef.

via The Minimalist – A No-Frills Kitchen Still Cooks – NYTimes.com.

See the link above for the whole essay (originally in the NYT), and follow Mr. Bittman around the store where he procured his gear in the video embedded there.

“Sustainability doesn’t mean a thing if we can’t get people to cook“Elissa Altman
“The more I work on these issues having to do with our whole food system, the more I realize that our problem is a cooking problem.” Michael Pollan

Of course addressing food security inequities has a critical public policy element as well.  On the local level for the Public Hearth Project it is important to make sure policies permit access to local food, to know the health regulations and state tax codes, etc., and to make sure all activities are in compliance.  Continuing the spread of markets into underserved areas is vital, as is a continued push to get SNAP accepted in those markets.  As an added benefit, the Public Hearth would serve as a clearinghouse for ideas and a source for information to engage more people in influencing public policy at both a local and a national level.

All this and more is necessary to address the issues of food justice and health in our country, not just for the economically disadvantaged, but for everyone.  Renowned cookbook author Marcella Hazan once said, “Saying you have no time to cook is like saying you have no time to bathe.”  Yet while statistics show Americans spending an average of 34 hours a week watching television (some of it watching other people cook!), people spend less and less time actually cooking real food for their families.  It need not remain so.  We need a priority and paradigm shift, and the Public Hearth program is designed to encourage exactly that: to revitalize the kitchen and table as centers of our everyday lives with real food for ALL.