Organic Beef - Get your Grass on! Whole Foods sale on Firday

An opportunity is coming our way for those of you who want to try the most delicious beef from mother earth! Grass Fed beef is the most tasty beef on the planet.  This Friday you have a chance to try it cheap!  Whole Foods in La Jolla and Hillcrest (San Diego) are selling grass fed ground beef for $3.99 this Friday September 3rd.

Most farmed beef (my phrase for non-range cattle) is fed Soybeans,  corn and other proteins to fatten them up.This is like feeding them a vanilla protein shake all the time. The meat tastes like it too.  The answer - Grass fed.

Since the early 1900s all commercial beef has been "corn finished" beef. Meaning that for the last six months of the entree's life they are put on a corn diet that usually contains other hormones and fattening agents.  This means the corn needs to travel to the ranch and the ranch needs to send the corn now converted in to beef. to the store. So in a way we are paying for twice the mileage on the corn.  This does not make sense environmentally and it takes up corn that can be used for food for people or fuel.

Grass or wild fed beef tastes very different. I will warn you some folks may not like it.  Those of us that do love have been keeping a secret from you.

 All kinds of wonderful things can be said about natural feeding.  The meat is leaner, contains good ratios of Omega3 fats to saturated fat, plumps when cooked and cooks in less time by volume.  And then there is the taste.

Cooking Tips:
Grass fed beef is leaner.  Cooking must take this in to account. These tips can also be used on Bison and Ostrich. Searing fast and finishing slowly is a great way to treat this meat. Here is a recipe for Hamburgers for this weekend.

1 lb of Grass Fed Beef
1 1/2 cup rolled oat meal
1/2 cup a decent red wine.  I like Sirah or Zinfandel for this.  An Austrailian Shiraz would also be really good.

1 Tbls Ground Pepper (medium to fine)
A nice pinch of salt.  Suggest ground sea salt or Kosher. 
2 Tbls Fresh Sage Minced your favorite can be substituted but never more than 2 Tbs total.  You want to taste the meat.
1 large Egg (Locally grown of course)

Combine Oat meal, Egg and wine in a bowl and mix lightly, then add other dry ingredients and continue to work until it looks to be mostly all one color.
NOTE:  Over mixing can cause the meat top break down pre-cooking and cause a dense texture that does not have all the flavor. Do not use a food processor, your hands are the best tools for the mixing.

Divide in to 4 patties about 4-5 ounces each.

Cooking at home: Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.  Heat up your heaviest stainless or cast iron skillet to smoking hot.  Oil with Canola or Peanut oil (No Olive oil here please) Cook on first side for 1 minute flip and place the pan in the oven for about 10 more minutes.

If cooking on a BBQ: Heat up one side or stoke your coals all on one side to really hot. Drop the burger for a minute on each side. Move the burgers to the other side of the grill and close the lid.

Cook to Medium rare, temperature 130 degrees F or until juices seem to be clear not red or burger has just a little give when gently touched. 


What better way to savor an American Tradition then with good old American food.

Gregor - Sharing learning and loving.

Why Foodie is a bad word....

In these modern times words are more quickly brought to cultural acceptance at incredible rate.  I would like to blame Noah Webster.  The creator of the Webster Dictionary.  The original Webster American dictionary was in it's self a construct of Americanisms.  Americans use theater instead of theatre. It was proof that we no longer were British Subjects but wanted our own identifying culture. Empowered by the Internet, we now are trying to change American Culture at an alarming rate. But longstanding tradition makes or breaks a country as well as a person.

Foodie is derived from groupie.  Now the Marriam-Webster Dictionary on line has a specific definition:

foodie \food-eee\ -n: a person having an avid interest in the latest food fads (Mirriam-Webster dictionary online)

Notice the phrase "food fad".  A fad is a flash or a spark of interest.  The concept of that was so last week or last month comes to mind.  Where a true aficionado of art, culinary or otherwise uses the classics as bench mark for judgment. A Fadist (yes I am coining a new word) looks only at what is here and now.  Often times we look at Nouveau Cuisine  and so much is exotic to the extreme, or a look.  Not about what is truly important in food. Good food is texturally pleasing (ones personal definition), looks good (some standards, blue food is not good if not contrasted with other colors) and it tastes good (another personally subjective marker)

Now this does not sound so bad.  Some folks might even call it cool.  It's not synonymous to Gourmet, but some folks think it is! I'm sorry but calling people a foodie sounds too much like groupie and what is so good about that.  Groupies follow there artistic master to the ends of the earth, pay huge amounts of money to be in the same city as their obssessions and produce little benefit to themselves or to society as a whole.  I am not saying enjoying a good concert or poetry reading is not a cool thing, but if you are a groupie or a foodie it sounds like it is more about trends and social structure than what you as an individual really likes or wants.
A Foodie brings a picture to mind of somebody who will follow a chef or style to the ends of the earth, try to learn to cook just like said chef and feel complete only in that Chef's personal restaurant or domicile. This is not a healthy thing.  Variety is the spice of life.  Even vegans can't live on only one kind of vegetable.  It takes a variety of nutrients as well as a variety of textures to keep one mentally and physically healthy.  Could you imagine living on Hamburgers exclusively for the rest of your life? No french fries or onion rings or salads.Could you eat a Tofu, carrot and kale shake for the rest of your life?  sure those things can be formulated to have all the required nutrients, but what about the required interest in eating?
Because of my current ah... abundance ( yes I be fat) I will accept the term Gourmand at this point in time.  But eventually I will be a real Gourmet! and if at all possible earn the term Chef. A real gourmet enjoys the abundance of variety. A plate mixing a balance of flavors, textures and if possible memories stimulated not only the palate but one's very soul. the Movie "Ratatouille" the villain experiences just such a moment that can be life changing. I would hope every person reading this has a flavor or dish associated with a found memory, that for a moment at least makes the epicurean partaking in the dish happy and at peace for just a moment.  I have always been searching for the perfect meatloaf, the perfect egg or the perfect pasta dish.  Curried dishes brings me back to Lesotho Africa for a moment when one of my mission team members cooked her curry occasionally.  It was always an event and we all got to eat together.  Now Beth was not Hindi or "Indian" she is an American of Dutch/German/Amish decent from Ohio of all places.  But her curry was an act of  love.  And that is what a good curry dose to me.

Accepting divisive terms like "Foodie" as a title shows how little respect a person has for themselves.If you do nothing but follow the latest trends in eating, who are you deep inside? I am not saying trends should be ignored! but a trend or fad changes and comes eventually to an end.  One example is cooking methods.  In the early 1970s the trend was fast, microwave cooking.  But what did we come back too?  Grilling, derived form cooking over an open flame like Noah (The ark builder not linguist).

Fads are fun to watch, "Daisy Dukes" for example, I am such a guy yes. But wedding dresses are always long containing up to a nine yard train....  Why?  Tradition (que Topov)!

Tradition is what defines nations, cultures and even neighborhoods. It seems to me part of what is happening globally is that folks are fighting of a global common culture.  That weakens the individual because we as people can't identify with every sing group on the planet.  We should have tolerance of other cultures, but we need to be part of our own.

In our current modern times, food is one thing that can be shared across cultures to teach a little bit about each person or culture. If you want to understand the Chinese, eat Chinese food.  But not just eat, learn and understand the culture.  Why is most Chinese or Mongolian food always cut in small pieces?  Because there were no forks!  Why are there no forks, because the Chinese figured out thousands of years ago that for sharing and eating around a table, chopsticks were better. 

So foodie is an insult.  It is nothing more than a fad, the term Cook or Chef has a long history of over 500 years.

Don't call me a foodie!