Dija Know… Joe’s Restaurant Newsletter -119 October 2015
– Sheila
Our new family member, Chuckie.
Thanksgiving ushers in the holiday season. For the 14th year, we offer the easiest most delicious way for you to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner at home – for one or up to 50 people. Essentially just heat and serve! Couldn’t be easier. Ask for the detailed menu and order form. Or get it on the website. The turkey is Heidi’s organic and there are many scrumptious side dishes to choose from. Order the complete dinner or à la carte. Please do not leave it ‘til the last few days as we do always sell out and hate to disappoint anyone. Most important – our thanks to you our dear customers, our thanks for all our blessings and gratitude to God who provides all for all.
Thank you all who dined here Tuesday evening Oct 27. Joe’s was pleased to donate 20% of those sales to Santa Fe Watershed Association. And upcoming on Tues Nov 17 is one of our favorite fund-raisers the Listening Horse Therapeutic Riding from 7:30am to closing. Remember none of these fund-raisers cost you a penny. But the more you eat and spend on almost anything we sell (meals, truffles, latte mugs, tee shirts, greeting cards and even Nancy Kreger’s and Mary Olivea’s art works) 20% will be donated to that wonderful program. You’ll get to meet Gus and Laurie and Kathy, 3 people truly devoted to a calling. The Listening Horse Therapeutic Riding offers recreational therapy with horses for people facing challenges such as PTSD, Physical, Brain & Spinal Cord Injury, Visual & Auditory Impairment, Autism, Down Syndrome, Grief and more. Horses are incredibly sensitive – feeling and reacting to everything. Plus they are capable of knowing when their human needs support and confidence building. Not every horse is adapted to this job, but the horses chosen for The Listening Horse understand their job. Wonderful changes can and do occur in the presence of horses or while riding. It’s beautiful to see.
Friday Nov 6 from 7:30 – 11am, Richard Eeds returns to Joe’s broadcasting the Morning Show live on 101.5. During the broadcast you can watch Richard at work and benefit from a surprise discount on your breakfast! Just ask.
u Most of you know of our interest in industrial hemp. On Nov 13 & 14 the expert Doug Fine returns to SFCC sponsored by Carbon Economy Series. The Second Annual HEMP NOW FOR NEW MEXICO Event: A Game Plan For Bringing Hemp Back to New Mexico Soil. Doug is author of Hemp Bound and First Legal Harvest. This expert will share his wealth of knowledge on commercial hemp. The more you know about it the more you’ll see the potential here for a sustainable and profitable NM crop. carboneconomyseries.com Call Iginia at 505-819- 3828. For info about hemp pick up the information flyer near the glass brick window.
DiJa Know? The official word now is that eggs meat, dairy and cheese, aka cholesterol, is good for us. Cholesterol has been a nasty word in the U.S. since at least 1961 when it was targeted in guidelines of the American Heart Association. The FDA adopted these guidelines changing American’s eating habits radically. One consequence was a 30% decline in egg consumption. Egg farmers were harmed (and then subsidized for non-production! – crazy system huh?) It also harmed ranchers of course. And in my opinion this cascading impact on the American diet was, in no small way, responsible for mounting ill health in our population as a result of essential nutrient deprivation and imbalance resting on very thin research. Now comes the shift on cholesterol. In 2013, a task force from the American College of Cardiology and the AHA looked at the cholesterol studies and concluded, “that cholesterol in the diet need no longer be considered a nutrient of concern.” “Looking back at the literature, we just couldn’t see the kind of science that would support dietary restrictions,” said Robert Eckel, the co-chair of the task force and medical professor at the U of CO. The U.S. guidelines called for restricting cholesterol intake to 300-340 milligrams daily. Eckel said, “That recommendation is just one of those things that gets carried forward and carried forward even though the evidence is minimal.” The science of cholesterol and heart disease can be quite complex: the body creates cholesterol in amounts much larger than diet provides; it also regulates how much is in the blood, there is both “good” and “bad” cholesterol, and the fact that each of us processes cholesterol differently. So what to do? Personally, I never ventured down that low-fat-no-fat road, in spite of maintaining a career that required weight management. We now know that consuming fat (cholesterol) does not make one fat. Yes indeed that’s a fact! But for all those who did follow that advice and are perhaps now confounded by the new recommendations, I would suggest this – follow a balanced diet, enjoy good fats in your meals, take time to enjoy good food. A good dose of common sense goes a long way to keeping us on a heart healthy path.
We at Joe’s Dining feel the GMO issue is of critical global urgency. After all, if we can’t reproduce or grow food, nothing else matters. And yes genetic engineering of food does threaten our food supply and the human reproductive cycle. A few recent events here. The US food policy is at odds with most of the rest of the world. It was reported that even our “perceived” enemy, Putin, was incensed that our administration passed the commonly called Monsanto Protection Act (Bill BR 933) which strips “federal courts of the authority to halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns.” What! No recourse for our protection, no matter what! A related issue – bee killer pesticides (Syngenta Corp’s neonictinoids) is yet another wedge between the US and Russia. Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources stated about these pesticides, “…if left unchecked could destroy our world’s ability to grow enough food to feed its population.” The report calls this perfect storm “the greatest agricultural apocalypse in human history” referring to the fact that bee populations have been decimated by both GMO plant pollens and these powerful pesticides. Of course it’s not just Putin. While we are busy protecting the food and chemical mega-giants (notably Monsanto and Syngenta) countries in the EU and the rest of the world have taken a stand against GM seeds and most countries have instituted a ban on neonictinoid pesticides (the bee killers). In fact this year the BRICS nations are taking action against biotech. China is refusing US GM corn, Russia is levying fines on businesses that sell GM foods and Germany lobbied for a EU ban on planting GM seeds for 2015’s harvest. Unfortunately the new trade agreement would deregulate the EU’s current labeling of GMO products and further prohibit our GMO labeling efforts. Kraft and Nestle are big players in this resistance. So what the heck can one person do? Once again I say, yes we should call our representatives (sometimes futile in my experience). Also buy locally grown foods whose grower you know (KYG), grow your own garden, eat out at places that use local produce and read labels.
Local artists’ greeting cards are for sale at the red counter. There are some beautiful seasonal choices.
Tuesday night tradition at Joe’s –Spaghetti and Chianti Night. $29.95 for two will get you Caesar Salad, Spaghetti with homemade Bolognese and a great ½ ltr of Chianti. Wadda deal! The Bolognese sauce is made with our grass-fed-and-finished regional beef.
Why are we at Joe’s so annoyingly persistent about this “buy local” stuff? Many factors are out of our hands when it comes to our food supply. Most of what ends up on the American dinner table derives from a shockingly few giant agribusinesses. Their reach is long – from designing the (GMO) seeds to planting, fertilizing, processing and shipping. We as consumers cannot with confidence hand over the entire stewardship of our food to these few multinationals. Our passion here at Joe’s is for a local sustainable food supply – food produced by growers who are accountable for what they grow. KYG – Know Your Grower. We are able to look our local farmer in the eye and ask him about his growing practices or even visit his operation. This gives us the confidence that we are eating food that is healthy, wholesome, non-genetically engineered, often better than organic, humanely treated and minimally processed. It is grown with a smaller energy-use footprint and transported short distances. We cannot divorce human health, the economy, ecology, personal (perhaps spiritual) satisfaction or honorable work from food. Food is fundamental. What we eat, where it comes from, the stewardship of food animals, the nurturing and building of soils – all these factors affect us at a cellular and visceral level. Santa Fe is fortunate to have one of the very best Farmers Markets in the nation. Here at Joe’s we offer this bounty to you, keeping dollars in the community. In the interest of transparency, in 2008 Joe’s spent $30,000 on local foods. In 2009, $60,000. Each year since 2012 we have far exceeded $100,000 per annum. Land, economy, health–inseparable.
Banking forever changed in the 2008 financial meltdown. And subsequent Big Bank (BB) bailouts. And people real people are still paying for it. Countless numbers lost their way of life–their homes, jobs, businesses even families. Slap-on-the-wrist fines were paid–a pitiful token far from compensatory for the damage done. DiJa know…in 2011 a congressional audit of the Federal Reserve found that the Fed gave 16 trillion dollars from American taxpayers to bail out the “too big to jail (whoops) fail” banks with a hefty portion of it going to CEO’s obscene bonuses. Just imagine — had this staggering figure been re-directed to the people of the US, how different the picture could have looked today. Manufacturing starts, “shovel-ready jobs”, skills training, road and bridge repairs, national parks, education, etc. Had that been bailed out to the American people, each man woman and child would have received $50,000! Every time we use a credit card, part of that 3%-5% fee contributes to the BB’s. Now let’s be real – in today’s world one cannot function without a credit card, but there are still (legal) alternatives that reduce our dependency on the BB’s and actually save us money. We have a couple of suggestions: (1.) Joe’s Check List – If you are a “regular” and wish to pay by check, please ask your waiter to get you on the list. (2.) Joe’s own credit card/gift card – purchase a $100 gift card with cash or check or silver or gold coin, get a $10 free bonus!
Giggles:
The shinbone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room.
We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Joe’s Dining
2801 Rodeo Rd (at Zia Rd) Santa Fe, NM 87507
505-471-3800 www.JoesDining.com
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