Earlier this month I was contacted by Mackensy Lunsford.  She wanted to pick my brain about “big ideas” in food trends.  Needless to say, Food constantly is on my mind.  I shared my thoughts in an article for Mountain Express (read the article here).

Her email came at the same moment that Green Opportunities (GO), Asheville City Schools, AB Technical Community College, MANNA Food Bank and Goodwill Industries of NW North Carolina had a meeting of the minds resulting in a training program, which was initiated by Michel Baudouin of Bouchon and supported by the Asheville Independent Restaurant association (AIR).  I have been working on the project for a year-and-a-half, resulting in the adoption of the proposal by GO on December 13.  Today, the project has been formally announced.  GO-Kitchen Ready Press Release

The AIR led initiative is a pivotal event.  In the time I have been working on this project I have learned much and have arrived at a new relationship with Food.  I  learned is that food based training for individuals at risk has been happening for more than 25 years.  Here in Buncombe County, ABCCM and AB Tech have been collaborating for over 5 years, training veterans at the Veterans Restoration Quarters in east Asheville, the project is led by Eric Cox and Rachael Wilson. Culinary training is ongoing at Craggy Prison, AB Tech supports that as well.

The first part of my food adventure was taken up with the creative and the particular.  The second, mature adventure will be about wholesome food for everyone.  It is no surprise that I will be training individuals at risk and working on  cooking based family training. Running a restaurant has many parrellels to both of these endeavors. It is a natural progression.

Wholesome food habits are the foundation of good health.  I mean this is the broadest sense possible – physical, mental, spiritual, and communal.  If I had been lucky enough to be one of the framers of the Constitution, the First Bill of Rights would be access to wholesome food.  Then, you would be free to talk about it (like the French who are either talking about what they are eating, what they ate or what they are going to eat). Culinary training, on many levels, is keystone.

Wholesome food cannot be an exclusive club.

As we are getting ready to launch the GO – Kitchen Ready Training program, I want to thank everyone who has pulled together to make the project happen.  The board of AIR had the vision to support the feasibility study and the formation of the steering committee.  The work of steering committee comprised of Michel, Rick Jackson, Tom Ruff, Sheila Tilman, Kitty Schaller and Jen Waite was awesome.  Allen Johnson, Fletcher Comer and Eric Howard at Asheville City Schools worked to make the William Randolph campus available for the training.  AB Tech is providing instruction and Josh Pierce at Goodwill has been nothing but supportive.  Two chefs – Eric Cox and Jeff Bacon have shared everything they have learned form their own training programs.Giant thanks to Dan Leroy and Dewayne Barton of GO for taking the project on.  There are many others who have stepped up.

As Allen Johnson, Superintendent of ACS said the other day, “it sure is nice to be working on a project that everyone is pulling together on.”  But, best and most humbling are the people I have met who are in training.

Thank you.

-Mark Rosenstein

Email from Bennie, Sunday October 29, 2011

celebrated my b-day with my friends last night and i had an absolute blast. we didn’t really do much of anything but eat greasy Chinese take out and drink lots of cream soda. what i’m discovering more and more is how much i enjoy sitting at a table with friends and eating ( even if i didn’t cook the meal) me and my friends sat there for a good 2 hours talking, laughing and making stupid jokes….it was an absolute blast that i wouldn’t trade for the world. there’s something very connecting for me to eat with people, eating by myself is so depressing and when i sit down and munch away with friends i feel so fucking good!!! we were all eating each others food and sharing egg roles and it was awesome. i plan to stay in touch with these people, they’re my Guilford family and i feel so good with them, they like me for me and that, let me tell ya, is a rare and beautiful thing. i can be 100% bennie around them and not feel stupid for being weird and corky…because they are too!

xoxo’s
#2#1
ps~ i know the storm clouds will clear, i know this, i do, i just wish it would happen faster is all.

#2#1,

Yeah, eating alone sucks sometimes.

I had dinner with friends last night as well.  A big topic of discussion was food, sitting at the table with family and the writing that you and I are sharing.  We also laughed a lot and finally decided to call it a night so we could rest our stomach muscles.

Having spent my adult life cooking professionally, running a restaurant, I came to realize what is important is not the food or my culinary skill as it was about bringing people together around the table.  The common lore is that the “hearth is the center of the home”, this is mostly true. It should be the “Table” is the center of home and community. (One of the reasons why I insisted on a “family meal” at work prior to our evening shift).

A few years back when your sister was just joining Teach For America, I had a young waiter, Justin, planning on a teaching career.  He was at UNC-A in his senior year. The topic of discussion at family meal one evening was the importance of teaching and teachers.  I know I have told you this story before, as well as similar “table stories“, but it is worth repeating.

Justin recounted what he had just learned in class that day.  “At the end of third grade, the state of North Carolina conducts end-of-year testing.  The results of that testing are used to plan how many jail cells to build in 12 years, as they are able to predict future outcomes for these children, based on their test results.”  This was disturbing news.  He continued; “in addition to that, there are two main factors that predict success on the test, first; the socioeconomic status of the child and second; what they eat!”  I was floored.  It was hard to believe, it still drops my jaw.

I asked Brenna about this and she confirmed this to be a “fact” that TFA bandied about in their message.

Over the next few months, I searched the internet for the exact citation of this finding, even contacting TFA.  I have never been able to verify that particular fact.

A few months ago, I was contacted to submit a proposal for a TED talk here in Asheville.  Of course I thought about our own experience of “recreating the home cooked meal in the 21^st century” – Bennie and Boomer’s story as a topic.  The importance of food, what we cook and how we cook it is always present in my thinking.  I needed to sharpen this thought and find the essential truth.

So back to my research about the influence of food on children’s lives.

This time, I was far more successful in finding quantitative research that confirmed what I have known intuitively for a long time.

Here’s what I found.  There were five major studies published around the end of the 20^th century, big stuff: Council of Economic Advisors, Harvard Medical School, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, and Columbia University.  From there, I dove into the local reports about food issues in Buncombe County.

None of them said exactly what Justin and Brenna said.  They said more, tons more.  And they all said the same thing, “More mealtime at home is the single strongest factor in better achievement scores and fewer behavioral problems in children of all ages.”

The findings reported that children who spent five dinners at the table with at least one parent had greater academic success, better psychological adjustment, lower rates of alcoholism, drug use, early sexual behavior and suicidal risk.  Levels of obesity were also reduced and a healthier diet was followed. This was the golden nugget of truth.  I titled my TED talk “ONE SIMPLE TRUTH”.

A fact of life is that our eating habits reflect the dysfunctional nature of our culture.  According to a study published this August, in Western North Carolina 29% of school age children go hungry.  Additionally, in Bunbcombe County grades K – 5, 30% are overweight or obese.  Looking only at fifth grade that number jumps to 39%!  This is bizarre.  60% of school age children suffer from a debilitating diet.  Even more bizarre, if we could help parents and children sit down and dine together 30 minutes a day 5 days a week, we would be well on our way to solving so many other problems.

Frank Zappa was right – kill your TV set, or in this case your gameboy, xbox, smartphone and all the other distractions that impose on mealtime.  Instead, we have killed the family table, we have destroyed the ritual of the shared meal.

I am convinced that this simple truth has an even broader affect.  I believe that sitting down to dine – meaning taking the time to be present at the meal with no distractions, benefits anyone who joins the Table.  I have even come to believe that while it is important WHAT we eat, it is even more vital HOW we eat, which is to say, take our time and share.

We have work to do.

I apologize for telling this story again.  You email and your messages of sharing food with your friends bring real joy to me.  To quote you “there’s something very connecting for me to eat with people.”

I didn’t get selected for TED this year, something about they only had room for a science talk.

-Boomer

Here’s the research:

Changes in American Children’s Time 1981 – 1997, Sandra L. Hofferth & John F. Sandberg, University of Michigan 1999

Teens and Their Parents in the 21^st Century: An Examination in Teen Behavior and The Role of Parental Involvement, Council of Economic Advisors, Federal Government 2000

Family Dinner and Diet Among Older Children and Adolescents, Matthew W. Gillman, M.D., et al, Harvard University 2000

The Importance of Family Dinner, Colombia University, The National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse 203-2011 (on going research)

Correlations Between Family Meals and Psychosocial Well-Being Among Adolescents, Marla E. Eisenberg, ScD, et al, University of Minnesota 2004

And here’s a simple soup.

Take a small (coconut sized) squash, (I used a sunshine squash because I like the sweetness of that variety) and put it on a foil lined baking sheet.  Put it in the oven whole at 350° F for about 45 minutes.  You have to check it once in awhile.  Roast it until it is soft when you squeeze it.  It may even crack and begin to weep a little liquid, but no more.  Let it cool.  Cut it in half and scoop out the seeds, (you can wash the seeds and roast them if you like, sprinkled with a little salt or curry powder or ground ancho chili powder they make tasty snacks – cheap ones) then scoop out the flesh and mash it with a fork or potato masher.

Peel and cut two large potatoes into ½” cubes.  Cut two leeks into thin circles, washing out any dirt.  In a saucepan, heat some oil or butter, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan.  Add the leeks, cook over medium heat until they are soft, add the potatoes and the mashed squash.  Cover with chicken stock, vegetable stock or plain water.  Add one teaspoon of salt and ½ teaspoon of ground pepper.  Bring to a simmer, stir a few times and cook everything until it is quite soft and you can mash it up.  Taste it and add more salt and pepper if necessary.  Serve it with a salad, piece of good bread. You can add some ½ & ½ to it.  Yesterday at lunch, I chopped up some of the blanched greens that I cooked on Saturday and ate the remainder of the pumpkin brownie, sat it the sun.  It made eating alone not so bad and clean up was easy.

Last night I was visiting friends, Dory, John & Randall.  They hosted MOUNTAIN FIRE for Terra Madre last fall at Sunswept Farm.  They are big thinkers.  For me it was a retreat over the mountain, the Spring Creek area is another world, making Asheville seem a metropolis.  When the sun sets, there are no lights.

After we got done laughing about “getting an egg from a carrot”,  another story; a chicken story, the discussion stumbled down the mountain path to food.  The discussion reflected our shared view: we are in unsettled times and the ability to produce and prepare our own food puts us in a unique position.  Most cannot.  We fiddled around the topic.  John tossed out the idea “we are radicals.  Radical means “root”, a fundamental thing.”  Whoa, I had to remember that, I did not know that was the word’s definition and it sent me to the dictionary.

Radical; adjective: “of going to the root or origin; fundamental: a radical difference.  Forming a basis or foundation.”  As a noun: “a person who advocates fundamental reforms by uncompromising methods.”  The antonym is superficial.

Next, look up fundamental: “emphasizes the idea of going to the root of the matter, and this often seems immoderate in its thoroughness or completeness.”

The power in the precision of language amazes me.  Here in two words, radical and fundamental, are the basis of understanding the unsettled world surrounding me.  I am neither a radical or a fundamentalist.  I am not a radical, as I realize compromise is the way to move forward and I am not immoderate, as I can compromise.  It comes with a caveat.  I will not lose sight of the bigger goal; there is a moral, ethical, humane path and all our actions need to lead back to that.  Though I may compromise to get there.

There are two arguments as a society we have blindly come to accept as truth: convenience and bottom line, narrowly defined as corporate profit.  (We “buy into them”).  Both are the antonym of radical. Paul Roberts in his book, The End of Food makes the statement,” food itself is fundamentally not an economic phenomenon.”  Another “WHOA.”  Having operated a restaurant for 40 years, I have data to support that premise.  My radical idea is this: real food seems inconvenient, it takes many hands to produce good, healthy and just food.  Hands are not machines, hands are people, not subject to the efficiencies of industrial mechanization.  (If corporations are people, do they have hands?  Is handedness a requisite to be people?) Even in the 21st century we cannot escape this fact.

Food was the first source of acquired human wealth.  Today it is Big Business, global.  None of us can long exist without food.  In our rush to Somewhere, our relationship with food has become, well, weird.  It is a status symbol, a fashion statement, a means of control and in its absence; a cry to riot or war.  No matter what deception we wrap around our view of food, we are not far from the essential essence of food: it is what noursihes.  The biggest deception is its inconvenience.  This is the “tinny sound of the tiny drum” I beat.

The quest in the post-industrial revolution is expecting food to be cheap.  This system has brilliantly succeeded in just the opposite.  The real cost of food, if accounted for honestly, includes the health cost of obesity, diabetes and other disease, the social cost of families destroyed by convenience, the environmental cost of unsustainable energy and chemical inputs and the impact of bad food on our spirit; the brown and white meal most eat in the absence of a family table is astounding.  That real cost trivalizes any national debt.  The debt we are going to have to repay is the loss of the human connection to food.

All these ideas made their way around the fire circle. (If you want the smoke of the fire to blow the other way tell it: “I hate rabbit.”) My friends fly the banner “The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius” over their mountain enclaves.  They are optomistic. They ride in the Calvary of the Mountain Irregulars, independent of associations, fiercely loyal to kin and neighbors.   Mountain Irregulars subscribe to the Front Porch theory of society: come set awhile.  They wish to be free of the subjugation called government.  (In the War Between The States, they were neither Yankee or Rebel.)  They are not anarchist, they are locally ruled, their values rooted in tribal earth.  I was a senior officer, now an emissary.

Crossing back over  the mountain, food thoughts bumped side to side in my head, following the curves in the road.  I had to understand those two words.  In my research, I stumbled across another discussion of foods’ inconvenience, a New York Times piece: Could Farms Survive Without Illegal Labor? Now those bumpy thoughts became radical thoughts.  More hands.

The fundamentalism of food is there is no substitute for hands if the food is to be good.  Hands should not be cheapened.  Using our hands is not inconvenient, it is beautiful.

Good food is not really inconvenient, it is essential, it forms the basis of a healthy, vibrant and humane society.

-Mark Rosenstein, Calvary of the Mountain Irregulars, 1st Officer

t

succulent sweet acid fruit

of nightshade

winter season separation joyous reunion

of first blissful dripping red

sandwich

undorned in your hotness

nothing more than pepper and salt

ferment wheat fired to sun’s surface temperature

upon wood-fired hearth

your perfect mate

swooning

voraciously consuming

hunger’s

anticipation satisfied

momentarily until again

i taste you in your flaming red

dress

-mark rosenstein

In astronomy, when a new telescope is opened to the skies it is known as “First Light”.  This week we have “Tomato – First Light”  I wil be teaching this recipe in class this week.

This weekend at the tailgate the experience was eye-popping!  It was a carnival of color, textures, smells and flavors.  The nine month wait for the first real tomatoes of the season was over.  Before I arrived, I knew it was happening, as a matter of fact, I made a “tomato reservation”,  leaving Vanessa Campbell an email at mid-night on Thursday asking her to set aside some tomatoes for me.  I went to bed Friday in anticipation of going to market in the morning.  I was not disappointed.

I am going to skip over the details, with one exception – I worked in Lake Lure on Saturday night, heading directly there from market, taking with me my precious tomatoes.  Having ample supplies, I shared some of my bounty with a good friend there at the Lodge on Lake Lure – but I did not give him one of my tomatoes.  He’s a friend, but not that good of a friend.

I am on a roll.  I have been cooking everyday now for weeks.  Moving into new and simple teritorry, as I experiment and create recipes that in my head I call:  SIMPLY. GOOD.

While the dish I am about to describe has many layers, the central theme, and the only one I implore you to try is the CHAPA ROASTED TOMATO.  Inspired by Francis Mallman’s cooking over open fire and on super heated iron, I have taken his method of cooking on a “chapa” and adapted it to the home kitchen.  I have shared my passion for iron previously and the method of dry searing is an extension of cooking in iron.  A chapa is a large, flat iron plate heated over a large outdoor fire.  Your chapa is your large iron skillet.

The principle is simple.  Heat a dry, well seasoned iron skillet over medium heat and cook vegetables without oil until they have formed a charred crust, carefully release them from the skillet and turn them over, char them on the second side.  The results are AMAZING!

CHAPA ROASTED TOMATO “FIRST LIGHT” WITH ARUGULA PESTO, GOAT CHEESE AND PURPLE LEAF ROMAINE WITH ROASTED LEMON MAYONAISE.

Here’s how you do it.  Starting with the Roasted Lemon Mayonaise – take a lemon, rub it with olive oil and put it in a shallow ceramic roasting dish.  Place it in a 425° F oven.  Roast it until it has started to lose its juice and the juice is beoming caramelized.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool.  Cut the lemon in half, remove the seeds and then with a very sharp stainless knife, chop into small pieces.  Place all the lemon, roasted juices and pulf into a blend with 4 tablespoons of water, puree as smooth as possible and then pass the puree through a fine strainer to remove any unblended bits, resulting in a smooth puree.  Season with salt and pepper and whip in olive oil to form a “mayonaise”.  Set aside for later.

The tomato I started with was a monster, weighing close to two pounds!  I cut out the stem and then cut the tomato in half, cutting a little off the top and the bottom to make all sides flat.  Season with a little salt and pepper.  Heat an iron skillet as described above and sear it on both sides, cooking long enought to form a charred curst.  Turn over carefully and char the second side.   Loosen the tomato from the pan, turn off the heat and let it sit in the pan as you assemble the dish.

Clean some lettuce, in this case, I paired Full Sun Farms tomato with a purple tipped romaine lettuce from Jake’s Farm.  (both farms follow organic practices, Jake’s is certified).  Season the lettuce with a little salt and pepper.  Spoon a little Roasted Lemon Mayonaise onto the plate and place the cleaned lettuce on the mayonaise.  Spoon a little fresh goat cheese onto the plate, such as one from Spinning Spider Creamery or Three Graces.  Place the tomato on the plate and top with a little arugula pesto.  (You DO have some arugula pesto on hand, don’t you?  If not here is the link to making arugula pesto).  I also made some basil pesto today, but had he last of the arugula pesto on hand, so I used that.  Toss a few slices of a hearth baked levain from Wake Robin Farms Bakery or Farm & Sparrow.

Tomato First Light was beautiful, a beautiful mouthful of sun-heated reddness and green.

And the beauty of it all, tomorrow, I have another half to eat with that fresh basil pesto.

-Mark Rosenstein

SUNDAY, AUGUST 21 – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 – All classes 3 PM – 7 PM

Sunday, August 21 – END OF SUMMER, NO WAY ?! – Cook once, eat twice – Cook the “Grand Meal” using the wood-fired oven, all things from the end of Summer’s Garden Riot – tomatoes, corn, squashes and green things paired with the beauty of local pork, slow simmered and juicy, all mopped up with hearth baked bread.  Then eat it again for leftovers, planning for leftovers.  Learn to drink wine and cook at the same time.

Sunday, September 18 – “PRESSING MATTERS” – Time for apples!  Press apples in Wake Robin Farm’s 1878 vintage fruit mill, cook with cider, cook chicken with apples and cider, cook cider & apple dishes in the wood-fired oven and outdoor grill.  Learn to drink sparkling cider with two-hands.

The complete charge for each class, dinner and drinks is $75 per person.  Or, $200 for all three.  Space is strictly limited, so please reserve early.  Payment is required for registration/two weeks prior to the class.  Please register early, as all previous classes have sold out early.  For additional information send email to contact@thefrenchbroad.com or call Gail Lunsford/Steven Bardwell 828.683.2902

REGISTRATION: Use the form below to register.  You may register multiple people at one time, provided you list all the names in your group.  Registration subject to availability.

Please log in to PayPal to pay for the classes.  Thank you.

cforms contact form by delicious:days

WAKE ROBIN CLASSES

ONE $75.00 TWO – Same Date $150.00 ALL THREE $200.00 ALL THREE x2 $400.00 TWO – Different Dates $150.00 TWO x2 Different Dates $300.00

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness-
O, Wilderness were Paradise enow!…Omar Khayyam

I have been a chef for 38 years.  Nothing I have done is more difficult than making a great loaf of bread!

Such a simple food – bread.  Four ingredients, flour, water, salt and yeast.  Yet, the variations of these simple, ancient and essential ingredients produces endless results.  When handled with a masterly hand nothing is more satisfying.  Even though I made bread everyday for 38 years, I confess, it was never great.  Now, without other concerns, I can focus attention to perfecting that craft, it might take, perhaps, another 38 years to master.  Hopefully not.

My kitchen is a snow storm of flour dust, the birds in my yard waddle, as I have stuffed them full of stale failures and my neighbors are cringing when they see me walking up the street with a little brown paper bag.  I have wild yeast cultures clinging to cabinets, my drains are clogged with soggy dough.  Bread is becoming my steady diet – toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, parmesan crusted croutons floating in dinner’s soup.  I am determined to make great bread.

Bread making is a humbling craft.

The wisdom of bread making resides in the hands.  Learning the feel of bread, knowing how to shape, and understanding the proper “spring” of a fermented loaf can only be learned by touching.  Nothing is more satisfying than good bread, and nothing is better than good bread you have made yourself.

To that end, I continue my education of wheat – and I will share some of my discoveries for your own experiments.  Making bread is one of those transformational experiences – it connects you with all of history, to agriculture, to the craft guilds of old Europe, and the mysteries of yeast and fermentation.  Making bread by hand, above all, satisfies.

Today, having baked more loaves, it is time to relax – with some liquid bread…cheers

-Mark Rosenstein