Podchef's Gastrocast Podcast

Welcome to the Podchef's Gastrocast!
The podcast about cooking, food, and the politics of what we eat.

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Gastrocast Cookbook

Million Podcast Pixel Coverage

I am uber flattered that The Gastrocast was a featured clip in a tech program covering the Million Podcast Pixel site. You can view the clip here.  If you have a podcast you want to promote, or want to check out cool podcasts, bop on over to the site and have  a view.

by: ChefNeal at 01/30/06 19:37 | link | comments |
podchef, gastrocast, podvertising

IACP or Not

I'm sat here, forms and syllibus in hand trying to decide if a professional conference is really worth $660 for 4 days, not including accomodations.
On the one hand it is an International Conference, and it is happening in my own back yard. I have the chance to stay with friends or up the freeway in some cheap dive. It is also a great chance to rub elbows with those in the food industry who know WAY more than I do, and could actually teach me something through the seminars and sessions. I would also, of course, podcast from the event, and hopefully--to what end I don't know--tout my cookbook and business.
On the other hand, I don't have the cash and there are no jobs on the books any time soon. I'd be gambling on getting something back from my taxes before I know, and quite honestly I can think of a ton of things I'd rather do with the cash in a business way. I mean the cash is about the same as 30 new laying hens and 30 meat chickens, twice (which I'd get anyway) and a years worth of feed and supplies, or three piglets, fencing and feed, or two months insurance, or food and equipment for at least 10 Gastrocasts. The Animals return the investment in spades even though they're a bit of a gamble. Podcasting will be done anyway. Sooner or later I will leave this economically baren place, sell my home and move somewhere I can drive to and from without an overnight stay and begin to take more and more jobs.
Perhaps something will come to me to help me decide before I have to post the form. I have to have it in by Friday to save $65 dollars. I can't believe it is the end of January and I have nothing lined up for the summer--no weddings, no BBQ and the phone hasn't rung once about springtime work. Perhaps, in this slow, dead-of-winter time, a Conference is just the thing to perk up my attitude and come up with a new business plan. The old one is certainly in tatters.

On a brighter note--stay tuned for this week's show. February looks to be busy and exciting Gastrocast wise!

by: ChefNeal at 01/30/06 16:00 | link | comments (2)|
iacp, conferences

Would you eat a Canned Chicken?

How about if it came from China? How about if it were American Chickens processed in China for export back to the US? Thanks to NoNais for bringing this article to our attention. At a time when Avian Flu is wrecking havoc in Asia and the USDA is proposing a nation wide tracking system "to help control Avian Flu" among other things, is there anything more STUPID than this???

Several things are at issue here beyond the stupidity of moronic, useless, bloated Governmental Departments. A) Does the world need any more canned chicken? B)Does the US have such an abundance of chicken that it needs to be processed overseas because American canneries are too busy?  C)At what cost to our economy, food safety, and farm system does such a proposal come? Surely Exporting live chickens, or recently slaughtered, and then Importing them back after processing will alter the price of chicken meat across the board. Think of the cost in Fuel as well. And then there is the risk of contamination--think how many food products are recalled in a month due to some problem at the factory--either mechanical or bacterialogical. D) Do we, consumers, need or want to support industries which attempt to hold a knife to our backs while they increase their strangle hold on the Government?

Since I learned that Cargill is one of the sponsors of the NAIS I have made sure that they and their partners don't recieve any of my money. Not easy because of their infiltration into every aspect of food and animal products. I am now checking where my animal feed comes from and switching all feeds to a local supplier who sells local, organic feeds. This is going to double my costs, but there is no hidden agenda behind the feed producers--they just want to make a living. I am no longer buying commercially raised meats grown outside the boundried of my own state, and I soon hope to stop buying commercially raised meat altogether. Cost is no longer an issue, although it will crimp an already stretched budget, Conscience and Quality are my new guides, and I hope they will be yours too. My stance and contribution is small, but perhaps if enough of us band together a larger impact can be made.

by: ChefNeal at 01/29/06 15:30 | link | comments |
chickens, usdassholes, avian flu, bird flu

Multi-eyed Big Brother?

According to Hometown Conservative, the USDA is going to back off its plan for a centralized database for its NAIS plan. Instead it will rely, quite smartly perhaps, on databases already established for tracking animals. The USDA is also weakening its stance on mandatory compliance for the NAIS, hoping for voluntary compliance through "market incentives". This is great news, but I don't imagine that the threat will go away.

I don't necessarily disagree with the concept of animal tracking or identification. I do, however, have grave reservations of linking animals, private residences or farms and the US government. I also disagree with manditory anything, and threats for non-compliance. And satellite or radio tracking seemed a bit excessive. Just another plan for the government to spy and control? Perhaps.  Traceability is a good thing. But the NAIS using it as a buzz word to ramrod a slapdash plan forward which would have ruined small farmers was crazy. That this plan has already cost over $19 million is inexcusable.

Centralization of farm records, livestock locations, or our food sources is the last thing we need. Haven't the bioterrorism scenario gurus taught us anything. We need to foster the small, local and very traceable farms. If I know the farms with in 250 miles of where I live produce for for my area and I can check those farms out, that can't be a bad thing. That I can choose which of those farms to buy from creates a demand for all the farms to excell to offer consumers the best. If there is a problem with Farm X, it become far more noticeable and quickly identified at the local level than in any national scheme.

We need to get away from the concept that our food should be as cheap as possible. That's what's led to Mad Cow, E. Coli, and crappy tasting chicken. It's also led to dangerous green onions, cantaloupe you can't eat without bleaching, and flavorless lettuce which will shoot through you like your some kind of flume. If produce and animals are grown and handled in a limited, local area then transportation costs are reduced and disease transmission is limited. As it is now, the average ingredient in your kitchen travels around 1500 miles to get to you. You're lucky if that is less. Hauling animals from factory farms to feed lots for "finishing"--like 3 weeks on a muck filled concrete eating GMO corn and slipping in excrement is improving the flavor--and then to slaughter houses hundreds of miles away only causes disease to spread and traceability to diminish. What we need it true farm to table, local production centers. Farmer Y raises animals and they travel no more than 250 to 500 miles and they go from his yard straight to the back of a butcher shop, all supervised and vet inspected, and then to you the consumer. Same with produce. From farm to local distribution center to markets or tables. Sure all this won't transplant the Mega Mart Food Center, but a little bit more of this and less of Styrofoam packaged mystery meat from halfway across the country and we'd all be better off--no need to spend the rest of the budgeted $33 million on Animal Tracking and Privacy Invasion.

by: ChefNeal at 01/28/06 01:10 | link | comments (2)|
animals, usdassholes, nais, farming, national animal indentification

Pixel Me

What a thing to come home and find! The Gastrocast is #8 on the MIllion Podcast Pixel Site. Thanks to whomever is responsable for this. Drop by and I'll cook you dinner. This is way cool. It's an honor to be up there with the likes of Ricky Gervais, The Croncast, Slashdot Review among many others. I hope this works out to get podcasting into the mainstream.

by: ChefNeal at 01/27/06 04:29 | link | comments |
podchef, gastrocast, podvertising

Gastrocast #43

Another week, another show. In this week's Gastrocast we talk about wooden cutting boards, Irish blue cheese, Blood Oranges, and we make a Chicken Thigh Salad with Blood Orange Vinaigrette, which I mistakenly kept calling a Composed Salad--Salade Compose--but I meant a Salade Tiedes, basically a warm salad. Sorry.

Mentioned on the Show:
Wiggly Wigglers
Snoqualmie Joe

My posts and show about the National Animal Identification System (NAIS)

For Wooden Cutting Boards and Here.  Against.

Flickr Photos

Music:
Intro and Outro: Orange Streaks by Reid Holmes
In Betweens:  Half-Time Orange by Steve Robinson

Hope you Enjoy the Show.

Neal

by: ChefNeal at 01/25/06 21:52 | link | comments (2)|
food, cooking, podchef, gastrocast, blood oranges, salad

A few steps closer

Over at The Kitchen Garden Company the Polytunnel Project is taking on more shape.

by: ChefNeal at 01/23/06 02:20 | link | comments |
garden, the kitchen garden company, greenhouse, polytunnel, hoophouse

Track This

The NAIS seems to be a hot topic today. The Hometown Conservative has some great comments about it. Well worth reading. And it does matter that you read this stuff. Even if you don't think so at the moment. . . .Freedom might be on the march, but it's heading in the wrong direction being carried off by the wrong people.

by: ChefNeal at 01/20/06 19:44 | link | comments |
nais