After a painfully long wait, my book, A Cook’s Journey: Slow Food in the Heartland is now available for sale. For the first week or two, it will be available exclusively at Devotay, and then it will be at bookstores nationwide. Stop in today for your very own signed copy.
*****UPDATE*****
We’ve just added another date:
9/5 - Fairfield Artwalk, Fairfield, IA
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We have some firm and some not-so-firm dates for my book tour. You can catch me at the following (details to be amended as they become available):
8/29-9/1/2008 - Slow Food Nation, San Francisco, CA
9/10/2008 - St. Louis, MO
9/14/2008 - Field to Family, Iowa City, IA
9/20/2008 - Food for Thought, Madison, WI
9/25-27/2008 - Midwest Booksellers Association Convention, St. Paul. MN
9/26/2008 - Lucia’s, Minneapolis, MN
10/2-5/2008 - The American Royal BBQ Competition, Kansas City, MO
10/10/2008 - Know the Score, Iowa Public Radio, Iowa City, IA
10/17/2008 - Kitchen Collage, 11:30a-1p, Des Moines, IA
11/14/2008 - Live From Prairie Lights, 7-8p, Prairie Lights Books, Iowa City, IA
11/25/2008 - Dragonfly Neo-V, Columbus, Ohio
Check back in regularly for updates!
Slow Food USA, in conjunction with the local chapters throughout the Heartland, has designated the Terra Madre Relief Fund as the movement’s official response to the devastation caused by the strong storms and flooding of the past few weeks. A portion of the sales of A Cook’s Journey will go to support these efforts.
Iowa, and the rest of the Upper Mississippi, experienced the flood of the century 15 years ago. That, of course, was a different century.
Over the last week Iowans have seen floods unlike any in living memory. 1400 city blocks in Cedar Rapids were inundated with water up to 11 feet deep. 20 University of Iowa buildings were flooded. Interstates 80 and 380 were closed by water flowing 2 feet over their bridges. Levees have given way from Des Moines to Columbus Junction. 36,000 Iowans are newly homeless.
Now, that water moves south, breeching levees in Missouri and Illinois, infecting groundwater, ruining lives.
All this will have lasting impact on our state and its neighbors, but the larger impact may be felt across the country and around the world. An estimated 2 million acres of freshly planted farmland is under water. Statewide, about 20 percent of soybeans and 10 percent of all corn grown is either lost or at risk of being lost, according to the Iowa Department of Agriculture. The smaller sustainable family farms of the region are hit particularly hard because they lack many of the federal protections afforded the large commodity growers, but those big corporate farms grow roughly a third of the corn and soy in this country and the ripple effects on our already weakened economy will spread just like the floodwaters. Even the stockpiles left from last season’s bumper-buster harvest (those that were not themselves ruined by floodwaters), cannot be shipped to market because railroad bridges are closed or washed out completely and the Mississippi River is closed to barge traffic along Iowa’s entire eastern border.
Closer to home, my dear friend Susan Jutz, director of the area’s largest CSA, lost her 102-year-old barn to the storms. Restaurant owner Jim Mondanaro’s flagship restaurant is underwater, with all its equipment, furniture, and a $12,000 inventory of food. Scott McWane’s Dairy Queen, in the family since 1951, survived a Packard through it’s front window in 1958, 6 feet of water in the basement in 1993, and a tornado that opened it up like a pizza box in 2006. When the Iowa River crested on Sunday there were 8 feet in that same basement.
[Read more →]
Many of you may know that I have been working on my first book for quite some time. Well, I’m very pleased to announce I have a galley of it right here in my hot little hands, and the real deal just went to the printer. We’ll be releasing it in August.
A Cook’s Journey: Slow Food in the Heartland, is being published by a small local house called Ice Cube Press. The book is a collection of essays, 34 in all, about people who are “walking the walk” as it were, when it omes to the principles of Slow Food. Some are dues paying members of the organization, some are not, but all are working in their own ways to help reshape the food system into one that is Good, Clean, and Fair.
I’ll be shouting from the rooftops when the real deal hits the streets, and you can look forward to a launch party at Devotay and a reading this fall at Prairie Lights. Meanwhile, here’s what a few very nice people said about the book:
“Chef Kurt Michael Friese has written a terrific introduction to the theory and practice of slow food.” —Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food
“Artisanal techniques, sustainable practices—Slow Food in the Heartland offers delicious proof that these are not fancy new terms or culinary trends, but old-fashioned, Midwestern values. Through his honest and personal accounts, Chef Kurt Michael Friese introduces us to growers and artisans, chefs and advocates who not only put the heart in Heartland, but are also a driving force in the global Slow Food movement.” —Sherri Brooks Vinton, author, The Real Food Revival
“Move over foodies from the West and East coasts! Chef Kurt Friese has found in the honey-colored Heartland of America some of the richest, most delicious and sustaining farming and food initiatives anywhere on the continent. With a chef’s discernment of terroir, a photographer’s eye for memorable images, and a storyteller’s ear for a good tale, Friese takes us with him on an odyssey to discover what is truly nourishing the lands and peoples of the Midwest. Join him in this culinary journey.” —Gary Paul Nabhan, author, Renewing America’s Food Traditions
“Kurt Friese’s lovely, compelling and “slow” journey through the rich culinary heritage of our nation’s Heartland is one not to be missed. Whether you live in the Heartland yourself, or simply have a fascination with the surging local foods movement, you’ll enjoy this look into the food culture that is alive and well in the Heartland today.” —Tracey Ryder, President & CEO, Edible Communities, Inc.
“Slow Food in the Heartland will give great encouragement to the reader who cares about good food and enjoys sitting down to a convivial table. Kurt Friese has drawn a new portrait of the Heartland, these states are teaming with good cooks, fine producers and appreciative eaters who are turning their abilities and senses towards delicious foods and worthy traditions.”—Deborah Madison, Author of Local Flavors, Cooking and Eating From America’s Farmers Markets
“A Cook’s Journey is enthusiastic and appetizing proof positive that the food of the Midwest is much more than acres of corn and covered dish. How many people know that some of America’s most beloved food traditions were born in and continue to thrive in the Heartland? Friese’s charming portraits shine a light on these traditions and give insight into the many farmers, artisans, cooks, purveyors and activists who are slowly but steadily making our food system more sustainable and delicious. Here’s a voice that reminds us of the simple and deeply satisfying pleasures of the table, community, and pride of place.”—Erika Lesser, Executive Director, Slow Food USA
Stay tuned for more news, same Slow time, same Slow channel.
Last month I wrote a piece for the Iowa Source that was pretty well received, so here ’tis:
Gazing over the muddy brown expanse that the abating snows finally revealed in mid-March, it has been hard for me to imagine the lush greenery and flavorful bounty that our gardens will yield in just a few short months. But even by the time you read these words, radishes and spinach will have sprouted again. The curly tendrils of spring’s first sweet peas will be stretching, aching for a grip on a trellis and an arc of precious sunlight. The warmth will return, as it always does, and with it the promise of a table full of delicious food surrounded by the people we love.
It is an old word: convivial. It comes from Latin and refers literally to “living together.” We are drawn to conviviality by our very human nature, our need for companionship and warmth. Yet in today’s fast-paced, technology-driven, I-get-mine-first world, we regularly sacrifice that which made us human in the first place, that which built our society—our fundamental need for food and the camaraderie that was born of that need.
The latest Table Wine in the ICPC
Although Lady Spring held off as long as she could, bud break has finally arrived at Wallace Winery, the small vineyard owned by Dr. Ed Wallace on Herbert Hoover Highway just west of West Branch. Overall it’s been a good spring for Wallace, with no major late freezes and only a little damage from the rabbits this past winter. Seems hungry rabbits will chew the bark off the slumbering vines to get at the sap within when long-lasting snow cover hides their normal diet.
Bud break, the moment when vines seem to make their leap from potential to kinetic energy, is the point when the buds on the vines, which have been sitting teasingly for weeks, suddenly open up to reveal the first bright leaves of spring. It is a time of hope and expectation in any vineyard, and often the cause for great celebration in some of the world’s older, more traditional regions such as Bordeaux or Napa. The parties often are the first opportunity to taste the latest vintages.
Around this time of year, all the foodies in my neck of the woods are, well, in the woods. Spring and fall are the best wild food foraging times around here, and as if ol’ Mother Nature knew our food prices were going through the roof and transportation costs skyrocketing, she’s brought us a cornucopia of wild edibles out there, free for the taking.
Besides the morels I spoke of recently (did I mention my son found some 10 feet from our back door?), we find oyster and velvet foot and puffball mushrooms around here, and soon the goat’s beard and hen o’ the woods will be popping out. There are ramps and fiddleheads to be had in the forest as well, but the two wild foods of the week are a weed and an invader — stinging nettles and garlic mustard.
Now anyone who’s done any camping has probably developed a special kind of hatred for nettles, a plant with a natural defense so nasty that many
folks recoil from eating them. When they come into contact — even slightly — with the skin, these otherwise pretty little plants release the tips of their tiny
spines, and with them a wicked cocktail of acetylcholine, histamine, formic acid, and 5-hydroxytryptamine (which, curiously, is serotonin). The result is a crazy burning itch that lasts about 10 minutes. Surprisingly, though, they are quite edible — and delicious, as long as you know how to handle them. (Short version: Use gloves or tongs.) Harvested and cooked correctly, nettles deliver a burst of nutrition and flavor, and can be substituted for cooked spinach. The real sting comes when you run out.
In my backyard right now, a pernicious invader called Alliaria petiolata — more commonly called garlic mustard — thrives. It came to the New World from Europe in the 1800s as a culinary and medicinal herb. With no natural predators here, it soon grew out of control. Extremely prolific, a single garlic mustard plant can spread into a patch of 20 to 120 feet in just a year. Garlic mustard will shade or crowd out native species of flowers and mushrooms and cause massive disruption in a habitat if left unchecked.
In Hickory Hill Park near where I live in Iowa, garlic mustard’s invasion has reached such heights of success that local volunteers pull out nearly a ton of the stuff every year! As I recently preached on Gristmill, though, one way to turn an enemy into a friend is to dine with him — or in this case, on him. As mentioned, garlic mustard is a European culinary herb, and has a pleasant, bitter, somewhat spicy character. This week I’ve eaten it in salad, on a burger (good local grass-fed beef, of course), in soup, and as one of a mélange of braising greens.
An easy way to enjoy it is in a pesto. And you can make a lot because it freezes well. Here’s a variation on the classic Italian basil pesto recipe; tinker with it to suit your fancy.
Garlic Mustard Pesto
I recommend two high-end Italian cheeses here, but you could easily substitute the domestic varieties. Don’t use the powdery stuff in the green cylinder, though. It’s full of so much cellulose you’d be better off shredding the cardboard it comes in.
2 cloves of garlic
4 cups (packed) fresh garlic mustard leaves, washed
1 teaspoon of coarse sea salt
2 tablespoons of oven-toasted pine nuts (some contest this inclusion, but I like them)
3 tablespoons of grated Pecorino cheese
3 tablespoons of grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
1 cup of olive oil
Put the garlic, the washed garlic mustard leaves, the salt (which helps to preserve the green of the leaves), and the pine nuts into the mortar.
Slowly mix with the pestle and add the mixed cheeses a little at a time.
When the mixture is smooth and creamy, add olive oil to taste (to the texture you prefer) and stir to incorporate.
To dress your pasta with the pesto, always dilute the pesto with a little of the cooking water from the pasta.
As Earth Day approaches this year, it seems that people are thinking more about food’s price than its ecological footprint. A simple trip to the grocery store tells the same story we’ve been hearing on the news: it’s getting more and more expensive to feed ourselves.
I’ve been thinking a lot about food prices, too. After holding off for almost a year, I raised the prices at my restaurant. I was able to avoid it longer than some of my fellow restaurant owners, partly because I have relatively low overhead: a small space and a small staff. Also, we buy all our meat and dairy — and roughly 60 percent of everything else — from nearby sustainable farms and food artisans. By buying locally as much as possible, we staved off the effects of higher fuel costs on prices. But now our local suppliers have their own rising costs to contend with, so they pass their costs along to their customers (me), and I pass them along to mine (you). Round and round we go.
All this got me thinking about an essay I read a few years back by nutritionist Joan Dye Gussow called “The Incompatibility of Food and Capitalism” [PDF]. In a nutshell, she argued that while capitalism is a fine system for creating and distributing things like cars and computers, it isn’t well designed to handle the production and dispersal of food.
Marketers work their magic to make us need (or think we need) more and more TVs, computers, cars, and snowmobiles, but they can’t make us need more food. Even on the more-than-ample diet of the average American, we can still only eat about 1,500 pounds of food per year. The capitalist solution, Gussow said, was to put less food in our food, thus necessitating that we buy more of it. This leads to things like fruit juice cans on store shelves that proudly proclaim that they contain “10% real fruit juice!”
The March, 2008 issue of Metropolis focuses on the overarching idea of localism and its relationship to sustainability. It is, as always, a beautiful and well-written issue, but in it one particular columnist, Bruce Sterling, has taken Slow Food to task accusing us once again of that old canard, elitism.
Now while it is true that the movement is often accused of such things, it is not an accurate accusation, nor is it always such a bad thing anyway. Bear in mind that most of the great social movements throughout history were begun by the so-called “elite,” (witness abolition and suffrage - not to mention that Ghandi was a well-to-do attorney). But the places Mr. Sterling gets it wrong are so manifold it’s hard to know where to start.
Let’s try here:
The Cornish Pilchard. The Chilean Blue Egg Hen. The Cypriot Tsamarella and Bosnian Sack Cheese. You haven’t seen these foods at McDonald’s because they are strictly local rarities championed by Slow Food, the social movement founded to combat the proliferation of fast food. McDonald’s is a multinational corporation: it retails identical food products on the scale of billions, repeatedly, predictably, worldwide. Slow Food, the self-appointed anti-McDonald’s, is a “revolution” whose aim is a “new culture of food and life.”
Actually you haven’t seen these foods at McDonald’s because McDonald’s sells hamburgers. Here Mr. Sterling has blundered by believing that who/what Slow Food is is somehow stagnant and monolithic. If such things were true then the US would still be a few puritan slave owners dotted up and down the east coast. Or the Chicago Cubs would have been the National League power for the last century. He goes on… [Read more →]
