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pjoshea13

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  1. It's a little irrational. Seemingly, corn is evil but soy merely bad. With corn, we cannot avoid its influence. Easy to forgo softdrinks with HFCS, but our favorite meats are likely to be marbled with fat from corn-fattening. The beef feedlots produce a nice product, but the effect is to raise levels of omega-6 fatty acids & reduce omega-3. This contributes to the many inflammatory diseases that are so common these days. Wouldn't be a problem if we died young. Grass-fed beef is a different animal. For those making the transition, the subject becomes a little emotional. Paranoia can easily set in. Even in Argentina, where one's steak was supposed to be grazing on lush pasture two days earlier, the feed lots are taking hold. Why is corn evil? It started a half-century ago when corn oil replaced saturated fats. For most, there was already precious little omega-3 in the diet, but omega-6 and omega-3 are competitive. Raise one & you edge out the other. Some say that we should have the same ratio as in a hunter-gatherer diet - game tends to have a 1:1 ratio. We tend to get 16:1. With cheap corn-fed beef, the problem snowballed. It's an attractive product. When I came to the U.S. in 1974, who ate fish? A steak restaurant might offer flounder for the ladies. Good luck finding omega-3 in that. Soy is as big a problem, but only for those who think that it is heathy to eat soy. Traditional soy products are fermented. Soy has anti-nutritional qualities that must be countered. Genistein (from soy) is a phytoestrogen. Traditional soy-eating cultures do not eat a ton of soy. We don't know how kids raised on soyburgers will be affected by its estrogenic properties. Genistein is also goitrogenic. Our iodine status needs to be in good shape to withstand a high intake. Thyroid problems can really mess you up. With corn. we see the effect of the past 50 years. With soy, we are still on the learning curve. Soy is creeping in everywhere. The next generation will learn whether this has been a mistake. Don's question needs an answer. Soy is the new corn. IMO. Where is the outrage? Enough about corn! -Patrick
  2. Here in the mountains of western NC, just north of Asheville, we have had access to excellent "local", i.e. NC, soft-shells. Cape Fear Coast Seafood is a small family business that fishes off the NC coast & sells at two locations, at the weekend. They don't catch everything that they sell, but they have access to everything caught where they operate. There is often an immense & varied choice. Very fresh. For the past 5 weeks, I have bought 4 largish softshell crabs on the Friday. Two for dinner & two for breakfast the next day. My wife will not eat them. I have tried the traditional po boy recipe, but I recently, for health reasons, decided to adopt a modified paleolithic diet - no grains, no dairy & no starchy vegetables. Not as boring as it might sound. So, for the past few weekends, I have simply been sauteing them in butter - belly side down for 4 minutes & turned for a further 3 minutes. This has been a revelation to me. A light batter dulls the taste too much. The butter-crab flavor is bright in the mouth. Perhaps if the crabs were not already dressed - a simple process - I might shave a minute or two off the cooking time. My breakfasts have followed the same pattern: two crabs, sliced shitake mushrooms very lightly sauteed in butter, a good dollop of guacamole & a roasted red pepper. Simple & immensely satisfying. Alas, there are no NC crabs this weekend. I have also eaten crabs this year at Table, in Asheville. They get them delivered while alive, which is clearly preferable. I was told that, although the season extends into summer, the source moves south (does that make sense?) & the quality declines, and so the crabs disappear from the menu. It seems that I must now wait another year. But this is how food used to be. As a kid growing up in England, local strawberries (the only kind) were a 7-day phenomena. Expensive on the first day; inedible on the seventh. We gorged on the third & made jam on the fifth. More or less. On our last trip to England, we stopped by a roadside stand & bought some strawberries. They were horrible. Came from Spain (should surely have been better?). We were told that, owing to the uncertainty of the weather, strawberries were no longer grown in England on any scale. There is a Thai restaurant in Asheville where softshells are always on the menu. I generally pass. I haven't asked where they come from, but suspect the worse. Pleasant enough, but a 3 - not a 9-10. I owe Cape Fear Coast Seafood a huge debt in another regard. I had never tasted NC redfish until I bought from them. It is a lovely versatile fish. If I get a craving for home-made fish & chips, I wait until redfish is available. It is the perfect fish for the dish. No other fish will do. Recipe: Use bigger fillets of redfish. Take the thick end (4-6 oz based on appetite; two 4 oz fillets each is also good). Scaled; skin on; pin bones removed. Mix salt & pepper to taste into 1 cup flour. I like to taste the pepper in the crunchy batter. Some people use salt alone, & sprinkle on the cooked batter. I prefer the batter to be seasoned. Combine with one cup of good beer. Asheville is "Beer City", so naturally, a local brew. Fold in two egg whites that have been beaten to soft peaks. Halve the mix if cooking for two. Heat cooking fat to 350 degrees. Dip the fillets into into the batter & drop into the hot fat. Fry until the batter is golden brown. No precise timing here. Trial & error, depending on pan size, the amount of fat, the fillet size, & the heat source. But not many minutes at all. This is where I'll lose people. I do no not use omega-6-rich vegetable oils & I will not use canola oil. Hard to find these days, but I fall back on lard. Lard is 45% monounsaturated fatty acid - oleic acid - as in olive oil (73%). Almost a health food [LOL] - & certainly not deserving of demonization. And the batter simply does not absorb much fat. At 350 degrees, it is a light dish. Not cloying in any way. You will eat it all. Thanks to Jaimie Oliver for the egg white tip. -Patrick
  3. HFCS isn't intrinsically evil, but there is reason to suspect that the companies that put it into soft drinks have chosen profits over the well-being of their customers, in much the same way as the tobacco companies have historically done. Those companies should have to compensate health insurers - federal, state or private - burdened by excess charges directly related to HFCS consumption. This is not simply a case of people making poor dietary choices; this is about manufacturers taking advantage of biochemistry to sell more product. The consumer is actually a real victim. On the face of it, HFCS isn't much different from sucrose: a fructose:glucose ratio of 55:45 versus 50:50. But the free fructose in HFCS has no effect on leptin secretion. Adipose tissue, remarkably, acts as though it is a gland in the endocrine system. It secretes the hormones leptin & adiponectin in an inverse fashion, so as to control appetite. The leptin target is receptors in the hypothalamus. What if one could create junk food that didn't turn off the appetite? If it tasted good, people would consume more than they should. Would that be unethical? I think so, but the urgent issue is the economic burden on society. HFCS is cheaper than sucrose - a health tax on HFCS would go a long way towards rectifying the problem. I'm always puzzled by people who insist that there are healthy & unhealthy sugars. The villain in HFCS is fructose - the fruit sugar. The free fructose:glucose ratio in a pear is~2:1. A pear is almost 10% sugar. It has a benign role in our diet because we don't consume the equivalent of a couple of six-packs in a day. What about honey? Fructose & glucose in pretty much the same ratio as sucrose. The issue with HFCS is not fructose itself (although it is dangerous to the liver in quantity), but that companies have cynically used that form of fructose to get users to overdose. We need them to take responsibility for the wreckage. -Patrick
  4. Deangold, Apologies if I seemed to be flippant. I have no answer when it comes to invasive species. The Normans invaded England in 1066 & I wasn't happy about that when finally informed as a 10-year old. Working on the family tree recently, I found that some ancestor of my wife married a direct descendant of William the Conqueror. The Battle of Hastings suddenly didn't seem quite so bad. I'm not saying that change is good, but it is the nature of life. I do have strong views on skate. A lovely fish, 'skate & chips' was often eaten in our house in England. Prepared in much the same way as Le Bernardin when I first ate it there. My wife likes it simply done in browned butter with a splash of malt vinegar. I prefer lemon juice; basically the same dish I experienced at Le Bernardin. In all the years I have been in the U.S., I have never seen skate on sale in supermarkets. A garbage fish I was told. And yet, when I first went to Le Bernardin it seemed to have star billing. I discovered later that huge numbers are caught, but thrown overboard, dying or dead. Skate wings may have become too popular & now off the menu, but it wasn't demand that caused its demise, but rather fishing practices. How many thousands of tons were thrown overboard? I applaud your efforts to help the local watershed. I hope that it does make a difference. The snakehead is quite formidable though. -Patrick
  5. My Chinese mercury/snakehead reference (apologies for not providing a link) should be viewed in the spirit in which I wrote it. e.g. does anyone eat unagi in a Japanese restaurant without knowing that the eel wasn't raised in a highly polluted Chinese pond. The last time I checked the unagi in a local top-notch supermarket, China was the source: http://www.nytimes.c...?pagewanted=all "“Our waters here are filthy,” said Ye Chao, an eel and shrimp farmer who has 20 giant ponds in western Fuqing. " Less of a problem in the U.S. for future snakehead farmers perhaps. Antibiotic use in aquaculture being the bigger issue. In terms of the question I hear everyone asking: "Where can I find wildcrafted snakehead?" Well, why is it that I can self-cater in England & buy all manner of local game from the village butcher, but am reduced to ordering farmed game from a foreign country if I am in the mood for it in the U.S.? Supermarket snakehead, should it happen, is going to be nutritionally disappointing: low in omega-3 & high in omega-6 perhaps, & bad in unexpected ways. It will no doubt be a very pleasing product, & might take off - perhaps ending up on the next version of the food pyramid & served in schools. -Patrick
  6. Regarding the texture of the flesh, it seems that cooking for only a few minutes results in a tender dish. There are probably the same cooking issues as with any low-fat muscular fish, & tricks that might be employed to ensure tenderness. With heat, whilst there is a softening of connective tissue, turning collagen to gelatin, myofibrillar proteins coagulate, causing protein fibers to toughen. So heat may be the enemy when cooking snakehead. The idea of eliminating this invasive species by creating a market for it is absurd. If a market were to develop, the fish would not be permitted to die out; & fish farms would be built, thus subverting the intent. Plus there are safety issues concerning the fresh water environments that they have already populated. The Inn at Little Washington will not be serving snakehead from the Potomac anytime soon. The critters are ravenous & where would their meals come from? Rendering plants? The taste of snakehead would have to be spectacular to justify the cost of high-end feed. They say it tastes like chicken, so perhaps we will see 'snakehead tenders' in McDonalds soon? In terms of mercury, or other pollutants, that depends on water quality & the age/size of the fish. A Chinese study found "acceptable" mercury accumulations, whatever that means, but noted that mercury was preferentially stored in muscle. At the moment, snakehead appears to be an over-priced novelty fish. With a name like snakehead, it has to be ... -Patrick
  7. I lived in northern New Jersey for 25 years. Worked in New York for some of those years. Consequently, I have strong views on how pizza should be. When I heard David Brenner say: "Sex is like pizza - when it's good, it's good - when it's bad, it's still good.", I smiled. How true it seemed. When I moved to northern Virginia, I realized that humor could be geographic. The joke no longer resonated. By Jersey standards, it seemed almost impossible to find barely acceptable pizza. Eventually, one gives up trying a new place on the off-chance that a fresh pie might be good. In some locations, for some cuisines, recommendations are a must. -Patrick
  8. Joe, Table is a particular favorite. Voting with my feet, I see that we have been to Table, Curate & Bouchon these past few weeks. Cucina 24 before that. No shortage of great restaurants, but always room for one more, it seems. When Katie Button opened Curate a year back, I wondered how it would fare in this economy - & I was uncertain about the location - but the place is usually packed, & it's pointless trying to get a reservation at short notice. I haven't seen any impact on Table or Bouchon. Katie got some mileage from her time at El Bulli, but her success is (I believe) due to the number of people here who appreciate fine food. I'm 64 now; 57 when we arrived. Best thing we ever did. Such a life-affirming place for all ages. Our son met his wife at the Inn at Little Washington. They later moved to San Francisco (Gary Danko's). Eventually visited us & decided to relocate. So we now have the pleasure of seeing our granddaughter grow - another foodie, I think. -Patrick
  9. Hi John, I don't know if you recall Patrick & Susan O'Shea who had a B&B in Flint Hill 10 years ago? We were living in NJ, & in 1996 or 1997 I had the bright idea of a weekend in VA doing as many vineyard tastings as could be fit in. I explained to Susan that it was a good way to see the state. We were staying in a B&B way to the southeast of Charlottesville. Our Sunday excursion found us at Naked Mountain as the light was failing. With a long trip back to the B&B, I asked if it was possible to get a good meal thereabouts on a Sunday night. And so, we were directed to the Public House. Not exactly next door. It was a cold early spring day & there was torrential rain falling as we drove through. One can easily miss Flint Hill on a sunny day, but thankfully, we spotted the Public House. An extraordinary meal. Flint Hill was now on our mental map, & we decided that we would come back soon. By the end of 2000, we were living in Flint Hill. We would eat at 4&20 too, & had fine meals there, but I was always more in tune with the thinking behind the menu - & the execution - at the Public House. I had retired early, & wondered if I should join the Lunch Bunch. Lisle Carter told me that I was "too young for that". I joined in twice, I think, but preferred to come with Susan & not solve the problems of the world. Sue & I remember that great Fat Tuesday dinner you & Denise gave. In 2005, Susan & I sold up & moved to Asheville NC. In the olds days when we first knew it, there were two good restaurants & downtown was a bit iffy after dark. We came here at the time that retirees had made it possible for restaurants to switch from seasonal tourism to year-round. Asheville is now a foodie (& much else) destination. All of our favorite restaurants of 7 years ago are still operating. New restaurants have opened during the economic downturn. Lesser restaurants have come & gone, but the trend has been positive. If the Public House were in Asheville, I'd find a way to be there each week. There is always room for a special restaurant here. Retirees flocking in; most with more money than we have. That money has raised the level of the food, I feel. Well, it was sad to hear that the Public House as we knew it is no more. But if you & Denise want to check out Asheville, we can put you up. It would be great to see you again. Best, -Patrick
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