by Cooking Up a Story

Food.Farmer.Earth Newsletter: Pacific Northwest Oysters

Sign up for the Food.Farmer.Earth Weekly Newsletter: Don’t miss our journeys of discovery connecting the dots between the earth, the farmers, and the food we eat by subscribing to this newsletter.  Join us throughout the week as we travel in the Kitchen, to the Field, and deep into Food Wisdoms on the “road to find out’ more about the food, and the people behind our food. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for meaningful curated content.

in the Kitchen: How to Make Oysters Rockefeller

Chef Ethan A. Powell, of EaT: An Oyster Bar, and The Parish, his new Portland, Oregon restaurant, shows us how to make Oysters Rockefeller. Here’s the link to the original post that includes the Oyster Rockefeller recipe.

to the Field: A Fourth Generation Oyster Fisherman, and Family Ties to Oyster Industry

In this episode from on the YouTube Food.Farmer.Earth, Bill Taylor, a fourth generation oyster farmer and president of Taylor Shellfish Farms, shares his family’s century-old connection to the shellfish industry his great-grandfather helped develop, and to the South Puget Sound where they continue to successfully farm a variety of oysters (Olympia, Pacific, Kumamoto, and Virginica oysters) and other shellfish.

Food Wisdom: The Skilled Craft of Professional Oyster Shucking

Felipe Sandoval, a veteran oyster shucker, shares some of the ins and outs of his craft after 30 years on the job in this video from Food.Farmer.Earth.

Next week on Food.Farmer.Earth: Urban Farms

• Tuesday – in the Kitchen with Aaron Woo of Natural Selection, who shows us how to make a Parisian herbed gnocchi served over a bed of English peas and basil pesto.
• Wednesday – to the Field at The North Portland Farm, an urban farm project whose stated goals are to “grow fantastic food” and to provide an educational, hands-on experience for people with disabilities. In this episode, we talk with the farm manager, and meet some of the people working on the farm to learn more about what they grow and market to their local CSA members.
• Thursday- Food Wisdoms: Can urban agriculture feed an entire city? What is a realistic goal for a city the size and makeup of Portland to grow its own food? Tune in, and find out in this next Food Wisdom on Food.Farmer.Earth.

The Weekly Roundup

• Plant Tomatoes, Reduce Crime Rates (Mother Jones) Urban gardens give people more than food.
• How to Slap Big Ag Apologists in the Face With the Truth (EcoCentric) “Industrial agriculture can produce cheaper foods (at artificially low prices) because the industry enjoys financial support from taxpayers and because producers don’t have to pay for the costs of the damages they create.”
• New Data on Calories As Consumed (Marion Nestle/Food Politics) People say about a quarter of their calories come from snacks. Of course, as Nestle points out, people’s reporting on their own calorie intake is notoriously inaccurate.
• How to Barbecue Championship Ribs (Cooking Up a Story)
• Portion Size Drives Consumption (Mayor Mike Bloomberg) Infographic shows that if you’re served more, you’ll eat more.
• Farmer Feeds Thousands of Pounds of Chocolate to Cows (KWCH) Why, you ask? Because the drought has corn prices soaring, and chocolate is actually cheaper.
• Planting Seed Trays for Your Winter Garden (Cooking Up a Story) Start planning now.
• Washington State Chickpea Growers Seeing Bean Bonanza (Tri-City Herald) Half of all the chickpeas grown in the United States are grown in Washington.
• The Sustainable Table: Local Eating’s Local Benefits (KEZI) If people spent just $30 of their weekly food budgets locally, the local economy would grow by 20 percent.
• Aquaponics in the Spotlight at the California State Fair (Sacramento Bee)