Dija Know… Joe’s Restaurant Newsletter -71 May 2012

Special Edition Chamber Business After Hours

Joe’s Dining and Santa Fe Soul host this month’s Business After Hours

Business After Hours (through the SF Chamber of Commerce) this month is held on Thursday May 17 at 5:30PM.  Santa Fe Soul is hosting the event, Santa Fe Brewing Co. will donate the beer and food will be donated by Joe’s Dining.  Don’t miss this opportunity to move your business forward by networking with other local business owners.  2905 Rodeo Park Dr. East, Bldg #3

 

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.  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 defense from biotech bully lawsuits.

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 Right To Know 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.

 

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 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, Folks, This Ain’t Normal.  He is very humorous. www.caminodepaz.net/

 

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 on the vilification of dietary fats, some people 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, 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 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 standard 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.
What we are doing here at Joe’s,what drives and inspires us?  Roland and Sheila established Joe’s in 2002 as neighborhood restaurant – our intent being to offer an unpretentious comfortable atmosphere for locals who demand high quality local food and uncompromising quality of ingredients offered at a fair price.  To that end for many years we have been utilizing Farmers Market products (the farmers say we are Santa Fe’s leading restaurant purchaser and our expenditures prove it).  In 2008 we spent over $30,000 on locally produced foods.  In 2009, despite decreased revenues, we increased our local purchases to $60,000.  2011 our local purchases were over $80,000.  And for 2012, we project they will rise to over $100,000. What you our guests, are demanding is clearly in line with our passion for a local healthy sustainable food supply.  Your demands have enabled and fueled us to keep expanding our Farmers Market purchases. Here is a partial list of local ingredients we use: grass finished ground beef, lamb and bison, chicken livers, chile, eggs, NM organic flour, feta, house made mozzarella, fruits, veggies, sprouts, coffee, cheese, milk, wines, beers and breads.

A few items from our Breakfast, Lunch, Sunday Brunch, Specials and Dinner menus: mesquite grilled meats and seafood, burgers (local beef, buffalo and lamb) sumptuous salads, roast duck, award-winning Thai Shrimp Bisque, Black Bean soup, fish and chips, crab cakes, Agapao coffee and espresso, Eggs Benedict, Eggs Imperial, Potato Latkes, award-winning gourmet pizza, lemon meringue pie, chocolate mousse cake, rack of lamb, sweet potato chips, chicken liver pate, seafood quesadilla, fresh mozzarella (fiore di latte) made in-house daily, avocado Blue crab-shrimp salad, delicate house-smoked salmon, calamari, tender beef brisket,  gluten free food desserts, pasta and bread, Reuben sandwich, turkey club classic, burritos, blue corn pinon pancakes, local beers, great wine list, margaritas, champagne mimosas, etc, etc…
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.

If you’ve read this far, you deserve a REWARD!  Bring this newsletter in and take 15% off any meal (wine and beer included) eaten in house.  Not good with any other offer.  Not good for Take Out.   Valid until June 30,2012.

 

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