Joe’s Newsletter #139, SUMMER 2017
Sheila (archives available at JoesDining.com)
Dog days of summer – Chuckie in cooling lizard pose.
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♦ Summer events: Fathers’ Day is June 18th. We’ll offer tender baby back ribs, our giant Kobe beef hot dog and other good eats. Dads, ask for your free glass of beer or mimosa! Independence Day falls on a Tuesday. Roland and Chef Eder will create some delicious summer dishes. Then Friday July 7th, Richard Eeds broadcasts his morning show live from Joe’s on 101.5 FM. Richard always hosts fascinating and relevant local guests. Early July brings the “changing of the guard” – as our super creative local artists shift showings. Three new (to Joe’s) artists are featured: Gail Larcom, Jay Fries and Jason Phillips. All works are for sale. As well, they have greeting cards for sale at the red counter.
Many of you have asked who does our beautiful and seasonal indoor flower arrangements. Mary Olivea!
♦ Maybe, just maybe, looking backward has some value going forward. I have recently begun to take my age (yes I am well into “senior” years) seriously. It’s easy to joke about aging or regret the swift passage of time. But from another perspective, don’t we (elders) have a responsibility to pass forward certain knowledge, experience, tradition, memories – about how things were done? Take the subject of sustainability for instance. Whenever I toss yet another bag of trash – even sorted and recycled – I think back, way back – how did we do it when I was a child? Why did we have so little trash? I do understand that now we are locked into a system that doesn’t even ALLOW us to engage former more sustainable practices, but simply for purposes of illustration, here are some of my memories of how things were managed in a city or farm home. Tin cans became organized storage in the machine shed for screws, nails and other hardware. Larger cans were perfect for hanging bridles and ropes and other horse and cattle tack in the barn. Glass jars – oh my, they held the colorful wonders of home sewing – beautiful buttons, hooks, thimbles and of course the magic of marbles. Toothpaste, rather than endless disposable plastic tubes, was simply a mixture of baking soda and finely crushed dried mint leaves. Wrapping paper was carefully folded and re-used for the next gift occasion. Ribbons ended up on girls’ French braids and pony tails. Paper sacks were similarly folded and stored then used for kids’ and Dads’ brown bag lunches then brought home to be used again! We didn’t have the now ubiquitous plastic, product of our oil industry, so kids were not at constant risk of swallowing small plastic parts. Marbles maybe, but they went right through! Toys were sturdy – often homemade and truly engaged the imagination. They lasted and were passed down age-appropriately. Baby dolls did not produce sounds or words or conversation – children supplied the words and sounds and produced from their imaginations all the scripts for the play of the day. Do you remember when there were public water fountains in every city and town? Now we have questionable plastic-bottled water! Thermos bottles carried coffee or hot soup to work. Clothing was not cheap. It was well-made and each purchase was carefully considered then cared-for. When of no further use, it became bedding – a quilt! Today we have a glut of cheap mostly synthetic, clothing, even too much for the donation centers who cannot process or sell all that they receive. We buy cheese in small plastic wrapped packages rather than cutting a portion from a vendor’s wheel. Catalogs and newspapers were used to start stoves and for insulation. My point is – until about the late 50’s or 60’s, most of the world lived in a sustainable fashion. Everything was used then re-used. There was little to no trash! The oceans now have large islands of trash – mostly non-biodegradable plastic. But, I admit, there is no simple answer. Our materials, habits and available goods have changed radically. I don’t offer any innovative solutions here. There are careers that engage people specifically to do that. But perhaps by looking back, we can be just a teeny bit more aware of our consumption habits with sustainability in mind.
♦ In the food service industry there are certain products and procedures, generally accepted as normal that reduce costs. Joe’s however goes outside the box choosing products and protocols that align with and reflect our food and health philosophy. Here are a few examples. We have moved as far away from soy products as possible. They are first of all, GMO and second harmful to hormonal balance and optimal thyroid function. We use olive oil and ghee/clarified butter in sautéing. We have never bought into the vilification of saturated fat. Saturated fat is natural to the body, understood by the body and needed by the body. (I have written at length about this in the past). Our dressings are made with olive oil (not soy oil). And if coconut oil was available at a less-than-outrageous-price, we would use it for deep frying. We change our fry oil wayyy more frequently than required by the industry to prevent rancidity. We use locally grown, mostly organic, small-batch milled flour from Valencia and Sangre de Cristo mills for our bread and baking. No GMO here! Salt is an essential much-maligned nutrient. On your table is sea salt, not processed sodium chloride. There is no deadly NutraSweet, Splenda (aspartame) in the sugar bowl. We offer cane sugar, raw sugar and stevia. We cook with cane sugar, rather than GMO beet sugar. It is often organic, although not certified organic. We make our own fresh mozzarella, smoked salmon, desserts and most items in house. And of course we source more than any other restaurant in Santa Fe or New Mexico for that matter from our local farmers and ranchers. Many of these choices are not “show-cased” – it’s just how we do it. It’s considerably more costly but it is exactly why we get comments like this made to me the other day, “You’re the only restaurant I can eat in where I don’t feel sick or bloated afterward.” I would guess that is an exaggeration, but it is not the first time I’ve heard it! It’s comments like that that make it all worthwhile. Enjoy our food, we eat here too!
♦ Women have always known that chocolate is good for us…all of us. Now the studies are flooding in to confirm it. DiJa know…eating some chocolate at least once a week reduces the risk of heart flutter (atrial fibrillation). It reduces the risk by 23%, and that’s a breakthrough discovery because there’s not been an effective way to prevent or treat atrial fibrillation up to now. If you’ve ever needed an excuse to eat chocolate, here it is!
♦ Sunday morning – go ahead sleep in. Saturday night, pick up a New York Joe’s at Home – delicate house-smoked salmon, whipped cream cheese with capers, sliced red onion and thick chewy Wolf’s bagels – all packaged and ready for your lazy Sunday morning breakfast for two – $24. You go get the champagne.
♦ Some of the farmers & ranchers who supply Joe’s: They get their seeds from heirloom seed banks, family and friends, their fertilizer from animals and compost and their agronomic advice from tradition: Monte Vista Organics, Jacona Farms, Green Tractor, Camino de Paz, Synergia Ranch, Romero Farms, Shepherd’s Lamb, LaMont’s Buffalo, Sweetgrass Co-op
♦ ❤ Joe’s fresh dark French chocolate truffles are a perfect gift for any and all of your loved ones. Mocha or hazelnut? Ask your waiter.
♦ Joe’s Red Room is always perfect for your parties and meetings, seating 20-36 people comfortably. Call 471-3800 to reserve all or part of it
♦ If you’ve wondered what in heck Sheila’s wellness studio is all about, pick up a flyer at the door. DancingBones’ three technology program supports without drugs – maintaining and re-gaining bone density, strength, balance, joint stability as well as raising to elite levels, athletic performance. All in 20 minutes once a week. Yup! Info www.DancingBones.us
♦ Why are we at Joe’s so 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 (over 30% of our purchases).
Land, economy, health – inseparable.
♦ Joe’s will give you $10. What’s the catch? Well the way we figure it, if you cut out the middleman by NOT using a credit card, we can give that back to you and then some. Credit cards costs the retail merchant about 3-5% and extra time & paperwork. Now let’s be real – in today’s world you can’t function without them. But there are alternatives that reduce our dependency on the Big Banks and actually save all of us. 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 gift card – purchase $100 gift card with cash or check or silver or gold coin, get a $10 free bonus! Your $100 gift card will actually buy you $110 worth of meals at Joe’s.
Giggles – an Amish story
♦ An Amish girl and her mom were visiting a mall for the first time. They were amazed by everything but especially by 2 shiny silver walls that moved apart and back. Neither of them had a clue what it could be. Soon an old man in a wheelchair approached the moveable wall, pressed a button and rolled through the walls that opened into a small room and then closed behind him. Then they watched as lights above the silver wall lit up with ascending numbers and then reversed and lit up in descending numbers. The silver wall opened again and out stepped a very fit handsome young man. Without taking her eyes off the young hunk, mom nudged her daughter and said, “Go get your dad.”
Joe’s Dining
2801 Rodeo Rd (at Zia Rd) Santa Fe, NM 87507
505-471-3800 www.JoesDining.com
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