#125 | 🐷 Supreme Court Backs Pastured Pork!
Pigs Take Off In Flight!
Hello!
I Remember the Carrots
I haven’t given up on trying to live a good life, a really good one even, sitting in the kitchen in Kentucky, imagining how agreeable I’ll be— the advance of fulfillment, and of desire— all these needs met, then unmet again. When I was a kid, I was excited about carrots, their spidery neon tops in the garden’s plot. And so I ripped them all out. I broke the new roots and carried them, like a prize, to my father who scolded me, rightly, for killing his whole crop. I loved them: my own bright dead things. I’m thirty-five and remember all that I’ve done wrong. Yesterday I was nice, but in truth I resented the contentment of the field. Why must we practice this surrender? What I mean is: there are days I still want to kill the carrots because I can.
—Ada Limon, from From Bright Dead Things
Hey there - I'm Bruce Cole, Publisher of Edible San Francisco. If you’re new here, welcome to Eat.Drink.Think., a newsletter spotlighting seasonal recipes, the latest SF Bay Area food news, poetry, and more!
👉 ICYMI: The most-clicked link from our last newsletter was the Washington Post’s how to recycle quiz.
Just Another Italian Guy in Paris Rating Croissants While the French Protest:
Do You Dream Of Writing A Best-Selling Cookbook? Here’s a simple tool designed to calculate how many copies you must sell to earn out your advance. Hana Lee (이하나)
Recipe Writing #Protips: From Alicia Kennedy’s newsletter and her talk at the Stealing Recipes Symposium at Indiana University. Writing recipes means rarely knowing whether you’re stealing or not.
Related: How a Pastry Chef Thinks About Cookbook Recipes. Stained Page News
🔥 File Under We Put Chili Crisp On Everything: Ruby Tandoh’s Gnocchi with Chili Crisp Sauce, Capers and Parmesan. The Washington Post (gift article)
Steamed Eggs Two Ways: We’ve been riffing on Lucas Sin’s recipes for these steamed eggs with his secret ingredient (homemade seasoned soy sauce) for the past couple of weeks. Makes for quick two-minute meals. Food52 / YouTube
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Located in the Mission District of San Francisco, 18 Reasons plays nightly host to hands-on cooking classes, baking workshops, and food-focused events. Our diverse roster of chefs are the heart of our kitchen, infusing each class with their passion for home cooking.
Join us for Community Dinner:
On the last Wednesday of each month, friends new and old gather to share a meal around communal tables. Each month features a different chef and cuisine, for just $18 a plate! On May 31st, Salvadoran Chef Violeta Sandoval will prepare a special meal of her grandmother’s beef salpicón and broth. There are two seatings - the first at 6:00pm and the second at 7:30pm.
Join us for an upcoming class:
Short and Sweet: Fish & Chips (5/15)
Beginning Cheesemaking (6/3)
Lentils & Beans in the Indian Kitchen (6/6)
Basic Knife Skills (6/13)
Croissants Two Day Workshop (6/16 & 6/17)
Cake Decorating Essentials (6/22)
Cooking With Cast Iron (6/23)
Flavors of the French Mediterranean (6/25)
See our full class calendar and sign-up today!
In this episode of Eat. Drink. Think., host Amy O’Neill Houck (Edible Alaska) speaks with Tamar Haspel, Washington Post columnist, author, and co-host of the Climavores podcast. Haspel weighs in on the best way to get healthy food on tables (spoiler alert, it is not just access) and how policy is just one way. Individual, daily choices can make an impact on our climate. 🎧 Listen here. Edible Communities
Is It Still Safe To Eat That Year-Old Chicken In Your Freezer? The FDA’s Cold Food Storage Chart.
Do You Really Need a Home Composting Machine? Helen Rosner gives the FoodCycler ($399.95), the Lomi ($449), and the Mill ($396 billed annually) test drives. Do these devices actually make a difference in the scheme of things? The New Yorker.
Paper or Porcelain? San Francisco’s commercial reuse program has distributed $24,500 in grants (up to $500 per business) to cover the costs of buying reusable food ware (ceramic plates, bowls, etc.) and related equipment to reduce single-use waste coming from restaurants and divert thousands of pounds of waste from landfills. SF Chronicle (gift article)
🐷 Animal Rights Shocker: The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the Farm Animal Confinement Proposition (Prop 12) from the National Pork Producers Council that would ban the sale of pork derived from breeding pigs housed in confined spaces.
“Californians approved Proposition 12 in 2018 with nearly 63% of the vote, a margin of over 3 million votes. The measure requires that sows have at least 24 square feet of space in their enclosures, allowing them to turn around. Voters were told the measure would most likely increase the price of pork but provide for more humane living conditions for pigs and potentially reduce the risk of foodborne illnesses.” NBC News
How many feet of space do sows have under the current confinement system? They can stand up but can’t even turn around.
In an email yesterday, Paul Willis, founding hog farmer for Niman Ranch noted:
I started the Niman Ranch hog program in response to the rise of factory farming in the U.S. I always considered gestation crates, farrowing crates and intense confinement cruel to highly intelligent animals like pigs. That’s why from day one, Niman Ranch has required pigs to be raised outdoors or in deeply bedded pens—without crates or cages—where they can root, roam, socialize and play.
I am proud of Niman Ranch’s network of over 500 family hog farmers for proving every day that it is possible to raise pigs humanely and without crates. I am also proud of Niman Ranch for boldly taking a stand on this issue and being the only pork company to submit an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of this law.
What the Supreme Court Said: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. noted:
“Because of the size of the California market, pork producers will have little choice but to abide by California’s rules, which in Gorsuch’s words forbid confining breeding pigs in “stalls so small they cannot lie down, stand up or turn around.” The rules could increase costs by more than 9 percent, Roberts wrote, for what is described as a $20-billion industry.” The Washington Post (gift article)
Everything But the Squeal: Most of the pork consumed in the state of California is raised and processed out of state, including foods like the sliced ham served in delicatessens, bacon served in fast food restaurants, ready-to-eat sausages sold in grocery, and most if not all, of the pork in butcher cases. All of those products could potentially disappear (boom!) when Prop 12 goes into effect, an obvious boon to small farmers everywhere and larger producers like Niman Ranch and White Oak Pastures that raise pigs on pastures at scale, all the while forcing out-of-state pork producers to abandon their current confinement facilities.
Michelle Obama’s Healthier America? The former first lady launches PLEZi Nutrition, “a new Public Benefit Company on a mission to create higher standards for how the U.S. makes and markets food and beverages for kids, leading with nutrition, taste, and truth.” Here’s the breakdown via FoodFix.
Meanwhile, public health advocate Marion Nestle is dismayed, to say the least: “These drinks do not meet my idea of a “higher standard,” alas.”
Why would anyone think kids need another drink like this?
Why didn’t someone identify PLEZi drinks as ultra-processed?
Why didn’t someone intervene to protect Mrs. Obama from getting involved in this dubious enterprise?
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Grew up hearing this song on the radio, still gives us chills. RIP Gordon Lightfoot (November 17, 1938 – May 1, 2023).
How ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ Defied Top 40 Logic. NY Times (gift article)
Thanks for reading EAT. DRINK. THINK. from Edible San Francisco!
That’s all for this week.
We’re outta here. Be well and take care,
—Bruce
“There are those who love to get dirty and fix things. They drink coffee at dawn, beer after work. And those who stay clean, just appreciate things. At breakfast they have milk and juice at night. There are those who do both, they drink tea.”
—Gary Snyder
Love the Ada Limon intro!
Let's hope other states follow California's lead!