Review: Tackle Box, With a Side of Overdue Research

The Wednesday before last I had dinner at the Tackle Box with a visiting Uncle.  Technically a first cousin once-removed by marriage, but let’s leave it at uncle.  He emailed a few days in advance requesting good seafood, and I found out about them through WaPo’s restaurant guide- best-reviewed not-gaspingly-expensive seafood restaurant in DC.

Perspective:  I don’t like fish.  Well, live ones that I have to look at or let be anywhere near me.  Fish are ugly and slimy and might bite me.  In theory, I’m ok with living fish far away from me.   I’m usually happy if they’re fried in chunks without visible fish-resembling portions.  And I just finished reading Taras Grescoe’s Bottomfeeder before I left for NZ, which describes plenty of the incredibly destructive and disgusting ways most seafood is raised and harvested around the world.  More on this later.  In conclusion, eating seafood was daunting before, and now I find it possibly revolting.

Still, I happen to like this Uncle, so seafood it was.  Luckily, the Tackle Box (a less ritzy version of it’s big-sister restaurant Hook) has a big old section of their website devoted to their sustainable fishing practices, with earnest promises that they source local and smaller fishing operations and change their menu based on availability, etc.

I don’t know of any way to make sure it’s true.  That’s one intimidating thing about seafood- oversight from the fisherman to the table is more often than not lax, and fish are often labelled incorrectly.  But their website does sound earnest, and a little googling doesn’t reveal any scandals.  So, tentative trust, Tackle Box?

I had the bluefish with the sweet potato fries and asparagus.  I enjoyed the asparagus- crisp enough, well flavored, and the sweet potato fries could have been less oily, but were pretty good anyway.  Bluefish tasted fine, had some pleasing darker portions of meat.  Again I have no real fish experience with anything but fried slabs of the stuff, so don’t rely on my palate.  Uncle seemed to like it.

Afterwards (tonight), I looked up the species to see about overfishing issues.  I started at Wikipedia, but that was silly of me:  if you want to know more about fish that are safe and sustainable for your eating pleasure, go straight to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch site.  They keep close tabs on this stuff, and they say Bluefish are a “Good Alternative” in their rating system- though they are overfished in the Atlantic and they contain lots of toxins, beign at the higher end of the food chain.  Whoops.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium rates fish choices as Best Choice, Good Alternative, or Avoid- and you can print out their pocket guides here or check out their website on your fancy internet phones.  A better choice at the Tackle Box would have been the tilapia- if it was farmed in the US.  Or the trout, if it were US-farmed Rainbow Trout and not so much the wild-caught lake trout.  The staff seemed very nice and informed- go ahead and ask them.

The more you know, hunh?  I’m printing out a guide for the next time Uncle comes into town.

Progress: Mmm-Hmmm, Now Changes

Hey there!  I’ve missed you guys!  I realize that that’s my fault for not posting, but be assured I missed you while I was avoiding you.  So after that vacation to New Zealand, I was useless with jet-lag for a few days, then the sniffle I brought back got worse for a few days (no, not swine flu, got it checked out, but I did get prescribed this amazing cough syrup for whatever it was), and then I got inspired for a few days, and now it’s now.  More on that later.  First my July goal.

In July, that sunny month of my birth, I had pledged to travel sustainably.  And I think I did a very good job.  Bought local, stayed local, ate local, considered the sources of things, etc.  Usual behaviour, only over there, not here.  And with souvenirs.  I will be posting on some the places I stayed- all of which have excellent green practices and were run by locals.  I’ll be posting on some of the environmental issues I noticed there- fishing (obliquely related, with a book review) and pest control (I think you’ll like that one!  It comes with taxidermy photos!).  And the food I can summarize here- I ate a) well, b) meat, and c) more vegetarian than I expected.

As you have gathered, my attempts at being vegetarian- even for a little- have been largely halfhearted and begrudging.  The first meat I had after the pre-trip veg was Air New Zealand plane food.  Not terrible, and if you forget how it looked, pretty good,  and served with free wine (refills available), so rock on, ANZ.  But ordering meat again in restaurants was strange.  It felt wrong.  Wrong and freeing, but still wrong.  One nice thing about meat in New Zealand is that it’s probably locally produced- a lot of cows and sheep and plenty of seas about, and your dinner doesn’t have far to travel.  They also have deer farms too- tried the venison a lovely terrine in a pub opposite Parliament.  It was very easy to stick to local restaurants.  But transportation isn’t the biggest sustainability issue with livestock, so that’s a small consolation.

I did my time on the North Island (Auckland, Napier, and Wellington) traveling alone and thus entirely according to my own whims, but in the South Island I was hosted by the dashing D, who has vegetarian proclivities of his own.  His excellent cooking and general good behaviour about picking restaurants with tofu on our road trip inspired me to try harder myself- buddy system.  We still ate meat (oh dear I do love lamb) on several occasions.

Coming home, though, I haven’t had meat since the last ANZ meal- lamb and oh that wine- and I feel good about that. I noticed my digestive system is happier without all the meat, too, especially the red stuff.  In-teresting.  But whether it’s just too hot out to eat anything ‘real’ or I’ve actually unfurled a new petal, I’m getting my kicks from lots of fruit and vegetables (and cornbread) these days.  Even making plans to get a blender and crock pot (craigslist!) to aid me in my attempts to prepare fruits and vegetables in new and exciting ways.  This is an unexpected and pleasing development.

Alright, that’s the goal summary, now the changes:  I’m not making new resolutions for August.  Or probably for a while after August.  I’m going to keep on posting about all the other things I’m trying (there will be compost changes shortly, for instance) but I won’t add things.  I am beginning the process of applying to graduate schools of urban or city planning for next fall, starting last weekend- and with that on top of the real job, studying for an exam that’s real job related, and architecture classes beginning in three weeks, I should not have the time to make any big new changes around here.  If I do, someone please tell me to get back to my homework.  I am very excited about all of this (ok not the job exam, but I am excited about passing that as a revenge for all the boring stuff I have to learn for it), and I’ll keep you updated on how it’s going.  So far I’ve got specialties of interest identified, a list of schools to apply to, a list of deal-breakers, and I’m starting the asking-other-people-who-actually-know-planning about it.  Not bad for three days, think I’ll take a month off.  Ha ha!  Ha.

Busy fall.  I planned it that way.  But I’ll be back, and soon, and you will see some opossum taxidermy the likes of which you have probably not imagined.  At least I hope so.

Recipe: Apple and Onion Pierogies

I used frozen pierogies, but if you know how to make your own, please do!  Then tell me how.  They’re pasta shells stuffed with potatoes and sometimes onions or cheese- tasty eastern european ravioli, basically.

Ingredients:

Pierogies

An onion

1.5 or 2 apples

If your pierogies are frozen, boil them until they float then transfer them to a big frying pan.  If they’re fresh, congratulations, now cook them until they’re almost done, then stick them in the frying pan.  Chop up the apples and onions to roughly similar size.  Dump them in the frying pan with the pierogies, add a little olive oil (or your favorite cooking oil) to the pan to lubricate things, then turn it on medium heat, toss the ingredients so the oil distributes evenly, and let it fry a bit. toss every 30s or so again, to let the pierogies brown, but not too much.  You’re done when the peirogies are looking pretty good to you.

Eyeball the amounts of onions and apples you put in with the pierogies.  I used big thin slices of both, which I think added a lot to the flavor and texture.

Enjoy!

Progress: It’s Been A While

Hey there!  I moved.  It took a while, because there was also a wedding and a class project in there too.  But the composter is humming away on my new balcony, my herbs are sitting in the window of my new kitchen, and I’ve got my very own separate gas and electricity bills are coming in, so pretty soon I can follow EcoCheap’s excellent example, and switch to wind power!

So, good start- I’ll post photos of the seedlings, which I expect any minute now.  I have checked three times in the past day- nothing yet.

Oh, also!  Biking to work?  I can, as soon as I mentally prepare myself to carry the bike down two flights every morning, then up the same stairs each night.  I’ll be in the weight room tomorrow morning, working on that part.  I imagine this will build me more character than muscle, really.

But the eating-my vegetables thing has been going really well.  I cooked a big vegetarian meal for the folks who came by to help me move- cheaper than pizza.  After the move, I’ve been living off of, well, cheese and crackers, but I’ve cooked two or three other big meals too.  I’ll post the recipe for my most recent tomorrow- pierogies with onions and apples.  Actually, that pretty much is the recipe, but I’ll flesh it out a bit for you, I guess.

The most important thing is, I haven’t purchased meat in a couple weeks.  And I still eat it when I eat out, and when other people cook, but I’m not missing it in my own food prep.  You can thank me later, environment!  Just make my plants grow.

New goals:  definitely gardening, this month.  I might also start harassing my apartment complex to working on the truly pitiful recycling options here.  They have three normal garbage bins for the hundreds of people who live in this complex, and they’re hidden in the back.  Now, I’d like them to fix a few things in my apartment before I get annoying, but maybe I can convince them to at least get recycling depositories in each building, or maybe even bins in each apartment!

Gonna dream big.

Organic Wine and Chocolate Tasting

These notes are compiled over several evenings of eating.  V and a great friend (she comments as “hater”, because she is very sweet) helped me out with the tastings- no, mom, I did not drink four bottles of wine myself this week, it’s cool.  Here is:

Wines

Red Truck Petite Syrah, 2006 (CA, $10.99) at Whole Foods)- Spicy and fruity, nicely drinkable on it’s own.

Yellow and Blue Malbec Mendoza, 2007 (Argentina, 11.99 for a liter at Whole Foods, as opposed to normal 750ml bottle)- Fairly typical red wine. Clean berryish flavor, but nothing too exciting.  Better with food. Comes in a Tetra Pack.

Natura Carmenere, 2007 (Chile, $10ish at Shoppers in Potomac Yard)- Dark and deep and Plummy, and spicy at the end.  “Unassuming”, according to my second tasting partner- it’s not overtly fancy, but it is quality.  “Would probably go well with chocolate…oh wait…” she continued.

Orleans Hill Cote Zero, 2007 (CA, $10ish at Shopper in Potomac Yard)- Blegh.  Unsatisfying mouthful, sharp aftertaste.  Perhaps this bottle has been skunked already?  But it doesn’t taste musty or completely wrong, just sour.  Suitable for mulling, perhaps.

Of those, the Natura Carmenere is the classiest, and the Red Truck was the spiciest.  Off the top of my head, the Vida Organica Malbec at Whole Foods is pretty good, and the Rabbit something Cabernet Sauvignon in a Tetra Pack at MOM’s on Mt. Vernon is quite solid.

Chocolate

Divine 70% Dark (Fair Trade): Very creamy with a slightly chocolate powder finish.  Brings out the cherry flavor in the Natura Camenere.  Definitely our favorite.

Green and Black’s 70% Dark (organic) : Slightly oily, bitter.  It’s not bad, per say.  Maybe we shouldn’t have had the one we really liked first.

Equal Exchange 71% Dark (Fair Trade and Organic AND Kosher)- Unannounced raspberryesque taste.  I would have appreciated it if I had been expecting it.  Without a warning, it was disturbing.  Slightly oily, powdery finish.

Whole Food 365 Brand Organic- Tasted a lot like the Equal Exchange, but creamier and sweet, with a little, entirely pleasing raspberry at the end, wand less oil in the finish.  So, like the EE, but a lot better.  Top 3, depending on how you like surprise raspberry.

Vivani 72% Dark (Organic)-  Good.  Very balanced.  Not exquisite.  Top 3, though.

If you’d like some other V-day advice, try the post I wrote last year- I re-read it, and I still heartily agree with it.

Much Love, call your grandma, and have a great weekend!

Weekend Travels: NYC

I spent a couple days this weekend in New York City, which ended up being a very mixed bag of a time, both in events and greenity.  I took a Chinatown bus up with the Gentleman Friend, with plans to eat sushi and see penguins in Central Park.  Unfortunately, he arrived with some sort of food poisoning, and wasn’t able to eat or move far for most of the weekend.  Best laid plans and such.

According to Canadians, bus travel produces the smallest amount of greenhouse gases in getting from city to city- and fortunately for people who want to travel frequently, buses are the cheapest way, as well.  Me, I go to New York to relax.  Relaxing is more effective when you have so many busy people rushing around to watch.  Nice to realize my chosen method of transport there is earth-friendly.

Not so my meals- poor, brave Gentleman Friend declared himself feeling well enough to watch me eat sushi after a long day of recovery, and I love him for that.  With plenty of restaurants up there, I like to do a little research or ask for recommendations to sort out good ones, and it never once occurred to me to check the sourcing of our food while I was at it.  And even though overfishing of lots of sushi-species is a huge problem, my main concern during that meal was just that the sushi wasn’t that exciting and could have been tastier.  (Overall it was a happy experience, with plenty of help from the staff on picks and my Gentleman Friend gallantly picking at a bowl of plain white rice while I tasted.)  Now that I review my decisions, I find three guides available from different organizations on the best and worst fish to order, based on fishing practices.  Just last night, I had two of the worst- eel and octopus (eel was ok, octopus was rubbery).  Awesome.  And apparently monkfish are a no-no, which makes me regret the cheeks at Restaurant Eve.  Drat!

Fine.  I make mistakes.  There’s an idea in the back of my mind that when one travels, the rules don’t apply, and that’s just a wishful folly.  Now, when you’re in a strange city and have less flexibility or information on sustainable choices, it’s one thing.  With the GF sick, I wouldn’t have dragged him across town for eco-fish even if I’d thought to do it.  But I should have thought.  Therefore, I’ll get a seafood guide from Monteray Bay Aquarium, and try to ingest wisdom for next time.  Maybe the GF will be able to get down more than rice then, too.

So my first travels of the year end in a draw.  The next installments will include turning in my passport application and some hippie fretting over whether I can be green and even contemplate boarding an airplane.

PS:  I saw penguins in real life for the first time yesterday.

Review: Restaurant Eve is a Classy Mouth Party

In conclusion, it was a tasty, exciting, and relaxing experience.  It is worth every penny of somebody else’s money.

See, I began with my conclusion because I wanted people actually interested in food to understand that this is not that kind of review.  I will not be waxing eloquent about the freshness of the shallots or the balance of the sauces.  This is partly because I can’t remember the names of the sauces, or if shallots were involved in any dish, but really mostly because I do not have a developed palate.  Also because we got seven courses, chef’s choice, and we got the wine pairing with each of the seven courses, so my memory of the last two or three is a bit dim.

What I will say is that the service was attentive but not annoying, languid so that we could properly enjoy each course and pairing, and I ate sweetbreads (brains!?) and monkfish cheeks.  Monkfish cheeks!  Beats the heck out of my boxed organic macaroni.  The wines were paired thoughtfully, and each selection brought out something new in the food.  None of the combinations of fancy bits we were given seemed too bizarre- though I never even knew monkfish cheeks were a thing one might reasonably eat, so I don’t have the best concept of what’s reasonable.

Also, everything tasted good!  Like, eating each bite was lovely and interesting, and the portions weren’t huge or ludicrously tiny, so you could enjoy all seven courses without bloating, and not tire of each one before you finished.  And brains are chewy.

As to the local, sustainable aspects, you’ve read the news articles.  They do it.  They also had real towels in the restrooms for drying your hands, so no paper waste.  Otherwise they’re not overt about it.

I’d definitely go back to the tasting room, if somebody else was paying.  You’ll enjoy it even if you’re not really into fancy food.  If you go, make sure you go with people you like, since the tastings can last four hours.  I’d like to hit the less-expensive Bistro for dinner and the lunch menu is downright reasonable.

Food Over Farming

A link for you: NYT’s op-ed guy Kristof’s article suggesting changing the name, and the emphasis, of the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Food.  Briefly, his arguement is, agriculture is not about small farmers but a subsidizing a farm lobby today, and because the food products produced by that farm lobby aren’t real food.

Discuss.

Progress: Volunteerism and Giving

I did ok this month.  I did start volunteering, a little- I showed up in person, for sure, but I haven’t done anything big.  Working on it, getting better, and the GF is my volunteering buddy- we’re interested in volunteering at the same place, so we can push each other to actually show up.  Also, I gave, and planned how to give more (sustainable christmas lists!).  Baby steps.

This month is volunteerism still, of course, and Counting My Blessings.  Yes, one whole month out of life (not really, I’ve got exams) to reflect on how fortunate I am, hopefully posting one thing per day.  Ish.  For instance (to take care of Dec 1-3:  I have a job I like that allows me economic freedom.  I can afford classes for an exciting different job.  My commute to two of those classes is during rush hour- on the part of the beltway no one uses so it’s super-unbelieveably-fast!  Even though those two classes in particular make me want to poke out my eyeballs with a straight edge.  No matter, I’m the girl doing 70 on 495, and it’s 5:15 pm.

How is this sustainable?  I’m betting exercising my gratitudes will make me strong enough to tackle a new year of giving back and helping out and activism and difficult choices and such.  We’ll see.

First day of lucky-me:  The boss is taking us to Restaurant Eve tomorrow!  Salivate drool drool.

It Matters at Thanksgiving, Too

I haven’t linked a bunch of the “sustainable thanksgiving” and “eat local for thanksgiving” and “meatless thanksgiving” posts this year simply because they’re everywhere already- I’m sure if you’re inclined to read news, you’ve run across a few already.  Seen any you particularly liked?

I would like to highlight an anti-sustainable thanksgiving article, though, from one of the hopefully well-meaning people at the NRO.  Normally, I try not to get worked up about ludicrous opinion pieces at small ideologically-driven organizations.  But this column has an insidious message about the importance of personal decisions that I’ve heard echoed other places, plus it’s especially ludicrous, so I’d like to address it directly and completely.

The piece: James Robbins is doing his darnedest to convince us that worrying about sustainability and environmental impact at Thanksgiving is not the point of the holiday, and useless effort anyhow.  Thanksgiving is instead, for

gathering with family and friends, feasting, having fun, and not worrying about consequences.

Family! Friends! Feasting! Fun!  No consequences!  Wait a minute, why is the conservative advocating irresponsibility?  Also, I have no idea what he means by not worrying about consequences, unless he’s the guy who ends up watching football on the couch after the meal until the magic dishwashing fairies come.

Now, my Slavic Rituals and Demonology professor (less interesting than it sounds, the way she taught it) explained how organized societies have festival days where rules don’t apply and everybody wears their pants backwards or whatever so those all those anti-social tendencies we have get let loose in an “acceptable” manner.  This is a good idea, and also really fun.  I’m all for Mr. Robbins being as anti-social as he likes on Thanksgiving.  But I will not allow him to malign the efforts of good, thoughtful people who want to live good, thoughtful lives- and bust a gut on local squash while they’re at it.  Burp.

First, James equates a concern for the environment with a denial of real celebration.  Apparently, people who buy local food aren’t enjoying the holiday as much, since they don’t just buy whatever’s in the main aisle at the national grocery chain?  It’s nice of Mr. Robbins to be concerned for their total experience, but his premise is nonsense.  I invite him to wander the Whole Foods cheese department, then come back and explain to me again how organic types are bad at eating.

Mr. Robbins’ conclusion- that since it’s one day and the relative environmental impact of buying squash is small, there’s no point (and stop ruining his mindless overindulgent fun with your thoughts and calculations!)- is a petty and cynical one (n. b., this cynicism also undermines his own thesis of heart-and-not-head felt holidays).  Yes, if one person skips turkey or buys local side dishes, carbon emissions don’t go down very much.  But they will go down.  And a lot of one persons making these decisions?  I presume you can add.

Oh, also, he’s trying to downplay your individual impact.  He says human impact accounts for 10% or less of carbon emissions around the globe.  He does not cite this, he just says it.  But, in reality, Americans control (directly or indirectly) 65% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the US.  The rest of the world manages to influence 43% of the GHG emitted.  Remember this WSJ article?  Cited!  I know it pains Mr. Robbins to remember it, but our individual choices matter.

So, go ahead, please have your sustainable Thanksgiving.  Revel in it, and be thankful you have the wherewithal and time to enjoy it.  Rejoice in the choices we have to live more sustainably, and appreciate that more and more people want to know how they can live better and softer on this earth.  Call your distant relatives and say hi.  Then, don’t eat a turkey leg for Mr. Robbins.  Maybe he’ll thank you later.