Update on the Lindner’s situation as we head into the weekend:

The flood of calls and emails last week generated a phone meeting with a representative from Environmental Health, as well as a solid lead to a certified kitchen that may be able to rent the Lindners the space they need to plug in their freezers.

(You just wouldn’t think it would be that hard, would you?) A reasonably productive conversation took place, to the effect that as long as the kitchen was willing to store the bison, and the county was willing to approve the kitchen, everything would be solved and everyone would be happy.

With the inevitable back-and-forthing that seems to accompany getting anything signed off by a regulatory agency, the kitchen gave the Lindners permission to bring two freezers in on Monday. But this only comes with a 3-month lease, so we are all hoping – and I’m sure you are, too, if you’re reading this – that the relationship will work out perfectly and that the Lindners will have a home for their bison for some time to come.

But don’t stop making calls and sending emails till everything is signed, sealed, and Continue reading →

I love cheese! There are so many wonderful ones to choose from, too, from Parmagiano-Reggiano to Manchego to Emmenthal to Pt. Reyes Blue to Camembert to…well, you get the idea. Raw milk cheeses are especially wonderful.

But this stuff can be really expensive too, so once I’ve invested in some yummy dairy goodness, I want to make sure to protect it. Continue reading →

So there I was this morning, mixing up a smoothie for breakfast. (Homemade kefir from Organic Pastures raw milk, nutritional yeast, a couple of egg yolks from pastured chickens, maca, fair-trade organic cocoa powder, and coconut oil. My husband walked into the kitchen, having finished his breakfast (steel-cut oats, butter, and crispy walnuts), and handed me the Health section from the Los Angeles Times. The featured article was titled “What’s Good for You,” and it’s all about the proposed changes to the nutrition information that’s thoughtfully been provided on every single food package since 1994.

The timing couldn’t have been better. I just finished listening to an excellent lecture about sugar by Robert Lustig, M.D., professor of pediatric endocrinology at UCSF.

And while the primary topic was sugar, he also discusses that ubiquitous nutritional panel – and the ways it obscures the actual nutritional content in various ways. Not to mention the politics that influenced the way the panel was created, leading to a significant amount of, well, let’s be nice and call it obfuscation.
Continue reading →

There’s an apocryphal story about Clarence Darrow’s early career that goes something like this:

A man was on trial for biting another man’s ear off in a fight. Darrow was interviewing a witness to the incident, and asked, “Did you see the defendant bite off the plaintiff’s ear?”

“No, I didn’t,” was the reply. Darrow, a young lawyer at the time, didn’t know when to leave well enough alone – after all, he’d made the point – and went on for the dramatic finish.

“Well, then, sir, how did you draw the conclusion that the defendant committed the crime of biting off the plaintiff’s ear?”

“I saw him spit it out,” came the laconic answer, turning a slam-dunk to a rim shot.

What does this have to do with food safety? By example, rather a lot. Continue reading →