One hot mama. Not exactly your typical mom,
but . . . did we get your attention? LOL
For Mothers Day – Roland’s special prix fixe
3-course menu will be offered from noon through to 9PM, or whenever we run out. $24.95 per person. It is also available a la carte. As well, our regular menus are in effect. Lots of choices! Please reserve as early as possible to avoid disappointment.
Joe’s Meet Your Farmer program. We introduced it last May and it was active during the summer, fall and early winter. Now with the onset of the growing season again, we want to re-invite our farmer, rancher and grower friends. So every Saturday after Market (sometime after 1:30) we invite any and all of our local growers to come by Joe’s to relax over a meal and a beer. (We bribe them with a “good deal”). You, our guests are invited to sit with them, chat with them, ask them questions about their growing practices. And just generally get up-close and personal with Who Grows Your Food. Please join us.
Forward movement on labeling GMO (genetically modified “foods”). You already know that here at Joe’s we believe the most effective action to taking back control of our food is by Knowing Your Grower (buying and eating locally). However, we cannot ignore the disproportionate influence on our food that is wielded by Monsanto. About twenty years ago, the FDA officially denied consumers the right to know whether their food was genetically altered or not. This disgraceful regulation was introduced by Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto lawyer who transferred into the offices of the FDA (that darned revolving door). Taylor and several other ex-Monsanto employees are in positions of power in the federal government and its regulatory agencies, and this is effectively why all efforts to get genetically engineered foods labeled have been blocked. Until now —
Volunteers and staff from the California Right to Know Campaign are submitting nearly 1 million signed petitions from registered CA voters, to place Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act on the Ballot for November 6.
Ballot Initiatives like the one in California is one way for citizens to take back control from compromised politicians and government officials. Here is the added deal sweetener that we can all play a role in. Starting May 1, and extending through May 26, a group of “Right to Know” public interest organizations and organic companies will match the first $1,000,000 raised in this “Drop the Money Bomb on Monsanto Campaign.” Donations can be made online, (organicconsumersfund.org/donate/moneybomb) All donations support state GMO-labeling campaigns and their defense from biotech bully lawsuits. (I have written previously about lawsuits against farmers, close to 100% successful, that easily wipe out any farmer who attempts to defend in court his land and crops against invasion by neighboring GMO plants.)
Why is this California initiative important nationally? Because when it goes through in CA, it will pave the way for GMO labeling regulation to be required in all states. Food companies will not want the added expense of two sets of labeling – one for the California buyer and one for the rest of the nation. This is truly a defining step in our “right to know what’s in our food” movement.
Milk – the best we can get in NM, is now what we use here at Joe’s. Our customers request that we try to get everything we possibly can from local growers. And we celebrate each new product we acquire. The latest two acquisitions are milk and from Ed and Michael at Old Windmill Dairy and Agapao organic fair trade coffee. We do realize NM does not grow coffee beans but Agapao is consciously sourced by a local entrepreneur. Both the milk and the coffee are the best you can get anywhere at any price.
The goat roasting, with Joel Salatin as guest speaker at the May 5th fund-raiser brunch for and at Camino de Paz Montessori School was a fun and successful day. Roland created Arroyo Coyote Mole (inspired by all the wild and cultivated ingredients that grow around Roland and Sheila’s home – almonds, pinones, apricots, apples and juniper berries). If you missed Joel this time, buy his book.
Joel’s Salatin’s latest book – Folks, This Ain’t Normal – is available for sale here at Joe’s. Joel will be back in Santa Fe in November as a guest of CES – Carbon Economy Series. His beautiful Polyface Farm is located in VA and is a near perfect template for sustainable food-production. He is a humorous and articulate voice for taking back control of our food and thereby our health and our economy.
Joe’s tee shirts are available for sale at $16. They are organic cotton and printed right here in Santa Fe. Also available are the latte cups, the beer pints and wine glasses – all inscribed.
Joe’s is now on Twitter. Go to twitter.com then @joesdining. You may find some $urprise$ tweeted there from time to time. Also, Debbie (our stellar office manager) is posting the daily lunch and dinner specials on our website – joesdining.com.
As a follow-up to last month’s article (more like a rant, really) on the vilification of dietary fats, some have asked what are the “good “ fats? Well a quick list – olive oil, butter and especially clarified butter (ghee), palm kernel oil (although there are some political considerations here), coconut oil, grape seed oil and believe it or not, lard. Let me elaborate here, the lard should be rendered from “clean” animals, that is organically fed, grass-fed-and-finished with no antibiotic or hormone or toxic residues. At Joe’s we sauté with clarified butter and/or olive oil. This makes it of course more expensive to produce healthy meals of quality and renders it impossible to compete with lower-priced food operations (which are mostly chains.) It just simply costs more to cook with real truly healthy ingredients.
I digress.
There is as yet no viable good choice for a truly healthy (??!!) deep-frying fat. No one is sadder about this than I am – I admit, I do like my French fries. Before coconut oil was black listed and run out of the US in the 60’s by subsidized soybean, canola and corn growers, coconut oil was the norm for deep frying. Coconut oil can take the high temperatures without molecular alteration, unlike canola, soy or corn oil. I hope soon that some entrepreneur will re-introduce it on a commercially viable level.
Free food! With a Joe’s gift card for $100 (when you pay with a check or cash) it is programmed to give you an additional $10 worth of food free. This is our “frequent diner” card.
Joe’s hand-made French chocolate truffles. Do you know anyone who wouldn’t love a little red bag of divine truffles? $1.99 @ or 6 for the price of 5 — $9.95
Are you on Joe’s check list? Are you using your credit cards less frequently? I know we are and somehow it is liberating. Far less paperwork and fees and more fees. Then there are the regulations – they change frequently and always in the BB’s (big banks) favor. We as taxpayers have contributed generously to the BB’s bailouts and their CEOs’ mega bonuses. Well, enough is enough. Here at Joe’s we are going retro and will do what we can to encourage guests to pay by personal check and of course time-honored cash and precious metals! So if you are a “regular” and wish to pay by check, please ask your waiter to get you on Joe’s check list. It’s a one-step process. Couldn’t be easier.
Lost in translation:
A sign written in English in a cocktail lounge in Norway:
LADIES ARE REQUESTED NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN IN THE BAR.
In a Nairobi restaurant:
CUSTOMERS WHO FIND OUR WAITRESSES RUDE OUGHT TO SEE THE MANAGER.
Joe’s
2801 Rodeo Rd (at Zia Rd) Santa Fe, NM 87507
505-471-3800 www.JoesDining.com