June 13, 2014

Hop. Skip. Jump.

Get your sneakers on! We’ll hop around in Oakland to the City Slicker Farm tour and the opening of a brand new farmers’ market, then skip across the Carquinez Strait for a food and wine celebration in Suisun Valley. Meat lovers will jump up and down about the book reviews, recipe, and information on classes at The Local Butcher Shop and Café Rouge.

 

Summer Classes for Meat Lovers

Want to sharpen your skills for preparing poultry and sausage? Here are three chances to learn from the pros.

Poultry Butchery Class at The Local Butcher Shop
Sunday, June 22, 7–9pm
This hands-on class teaches the anatomy of birds. Each student gets the chance to butcher two chickens and take home all of the meat, bones, and skin. Learn different butchering techniques and cuts for different recipes.
Cost: $100.
Location: 1600 Shattuck Ave (entrance on Cedar), Berkeley
Info: here

Sausage Making at The Local Butcher Shop
Sunday July 20, 7–9 pm
Learn to make your own pork sausage, including grinding, mixing, recipes, proportions, and casings. Go home with your creations (approximately three pounds of pork sausage and two pounds of lamb sausage).
Cost: $125.
Location: 1600 Shattuck Ave (entrance on Cedar), Berkeley
Info: here

Sausage Making 101 at Café Rouge
Monday July 14, 6:30–8:30pm
Café Rouge head butcher Chuck Traugott shows you how easily a home cook can prepare pork, lamb, and chicken sausages. Cost: $80 includes class, small plates, and wine.
Location: 1782 Fourth Street, Berkeley
Info: here

 

Feel the Beet with Phat Beets Produce!

Feel the Beet! Farmers’ Market
Grand opening: Saturday June 14, 9:30am–2:30pm
New location: Grace Ave at Lowell St (close to Stanford Ave at Market St)

Phat Beets Produce connects the dots between food and social justice through its North Oakland farmers’ market and community programs. This month, the group’s Saturday market is about to get better and “phat-er” with the opening of Feel the Beet! Phat Beets is creating this market in North Oakland’s Golden Gate District in partnership with Destiny Arts Center, which serves local youth through dance, theater, and martial arts. Market vendors are local farmers of color, and organic fruits and veggies are kept affordable, with EBT and WIC dollars doubled for produce. Until June 17, you can support this new market and help them pay for street closure permits, a generator, and other essentials.
Details: here

 

Take a Tour with the City Slicker Farmers

Saturday June 14, 11am–noon
Union Plaza Park – 34th Street & Peralta, Oakland

Join City Slicker Farms for a Saturday morning tour of the largest community market farm in West Oakland. You’ll see how things are done on the farm and learn more about City Slicker, a group that empowers community members to create high-yield urban farms and backyard gardens. Light refreshments served. Suggested donation $10; no one turned away due to lack of funds.
Click here for info and to RSVP.

Both City Slicker Farms and Phat Beets are part of this excellent piece on gentrification and urban gardens in The New Yorker: here

 

Uncorked! Celebrates the
Food and Wine of Suisun Valley

Saturday June 21, 6–9pm
Il Fiorello Olive Oil Co.
2625 Mankas Corner Road, Fairfield

Join the Suisun Valley Vintners and Growers Association to celebrate and enjoy the region’s wine and culinary culture. Taste outstanding wines and a delicious assortment of foods prepared by local chefs. The event features live music and a silent auction with offerings from Suisun Valley vintners and growers.
Featured chefs:
Marvin Martin, executive chef, Il Fiorello
Peter Halikas, chef and owner, Mankas Steakhouse
Lindsey Gilpin, chef and owner, Backdoor Bistro
Salvio De Furia, chef, Salvio at the Rock

Tickets are $50 and must be purchased in advance: here

 

Book Reviews

Meat: Slaughtering, Butchering, Curing,
and Eating Like a Caveman

Reviews by Kristina Sepetys

Butchering Beef: The Comprehensive Photographic Guide to Humane Slaughtering and Butchering
by Adam Danforth with foreward by Temple Grandin

Butchering Poultry, Rabbit, Lamb, Goat, and Pork: The Comprehensive Photographic Guide to Humane Slaughtering and Butchering 
by Adam Danforth with foreward by Joel Salatin

(Storey, 2014, paperback) 

In these two instructive texts, Adam Danforth shows you how to humanely slaughter and butcher cattle, poultry, rabbits, sheep, pigs, and goats, from creating the right pre-slaughter conditions to killing, skinning, keeping the meat cold, breaking the meat down, and creating cuts of meat you’ll recognize from the market. He also covers food safety, freezing and packaging, and tools and equipment. This comprehensive reference is an excellent guide for those who want to successfully, safely, and humanely slaughter and butcher an animal.

 

 

Charcutería: The Soul of Spain 
by Jeffrey Weiss
(Agate Surrey, 2014)

If you love cured Spanish meats like chorizo, morcilla, and jamón, the acorn-scented centerpiece of Spain’s charcutería, this book will teach you how to prepare them. Weiss, a professional chef, introduces authentic Spanish butchering and meat-curing techniques, together with more than 100 traditional Spanish recipes and straightforward illustrations providing easy-to-follow steps for amateur and professional butchers, and lovely full-color photography of savory dishes, Iberian countryside, and centuries-old Spanish cityscapes.

 

 

The Paleo Kitchen: Finding Primal Joy in Modern Cooking
by Juli Bauer and George Bryant
(Victory Belt Publishing, 2014)

The Paleolithic or “paleo” diet consists of fish, grass-fed pasture-raised meats, eggs, vegetables, fruit, fungi, roots, and nuts, and excludes what are thought of as “agricultural products”: grains, legumes, dairy products, potatoes, refined salt, refined sugar, and processed oils. Given the ubiquity of starches, carbohydrates, and sugars, following a paleo diet can be challenging. Bauer and Bryant’s new cookbook includes more than 100 recipes, like Citrus Mint Sugar Salad, Blackberry Lavender Muffins, Banana Chip French Toast, and Spinach and Artichoke Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms.

 

 

Good Morning Paleo: More Than 150 Easy Favorites to Start Your Day, Gluten- and Grain-Free
by Jane Barthelemy
(De Capo Lifelong Books, 2014)

More than 150 recipes from non-dairy milks and nut butters to grain-free breads, cereals, and muffins; as well as smoothies and egg- and meat-based hearty breakfasts made with fresh vegetables, tart fruits, unprocessed meats, nuts, eggs, and refined oils.