Galante Wine Dinner at Joe’s
There’s nothing like a great party! And by all reports, a great party was had at our annual wine dinner. Of course it helped that Jack Galante (owner of Galante Wines and our co-host) is a consummate party guy! The wine flowed, the jokes and laughter spilled over. Several Santa Fe restaurant industry heavyweights were there (no siree I’m not mentioning names!) and our waiters did a bang-up job keeping the guests fed and happy. The kitchen staff worked miracles and there was even support from staff members who were not scheduled to work that evening – Lourdes was kind enough to whisk home David’s wrinkled shirt at the last minute and bring it back impeccably pressed! Many thanks to all the staff, the guests and to Jack and Dawn Galante. Galante wines are now available here. The Cabernets are exceptional and should be allowed some breathing time.
Joe’s Meet Your Farmer program, started May 2011, continues. Here’s how it works. 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.
Dija Know — decomposition or more colorfully “rotting” is a pretty important property when it comes to selecting food to put into your body. If it won’t rot, you might give serious consideration to avoiding it. The story is told about a fellow who Joel Salatin* met at a food growers’ conference. This guy bought one hamburger per year for 20 years from one particular fast food chain and kept them all just to see what would happen to them. Nothing. Nothing happened to them – they did not decompose or even form mold. Freaky! Think of all the foods in a normal kitchen – fruit, vegetables, good quality bread, cakes, pies, meats and seafoods. All of this will, at different rates, decompose, form mold and start to break down if not consumed. What does not decompose? Junk food notoriously, will last a very long time. My secret weakness for potato chips can be supported from one bag hidden away in a dark cupboard for quite a long time.
Our bodies are adapted to breaking down foods and I daresay we did a better job of it years ago when every family had a garden. Don’t you remember going into the garden pulling up a carrot, wiping it off on your jeans and chomping into it? That carrot carried important soil microbes that our GI tracts need. Unless we are fortunate to eat from a garden, most of us receive food that has been cleaned and sterilized “to death”. Now I’m not advocating dirty food!! But just a simple awareness that there are many aspects and regulated protocols in our current food production that actually mitigate against our health. We have gone way overboard with preservatives and additives. I truly believe the ideal solution is KYG – Know Your Grower. The assurance of either growing it yourself or being acquainted with the farmers who do grow your food, is the best possible way to insure food quality, wholeness and safety.
One property of good natural food, the ability to decompose, represents the natural cycle of life and death and that property is one to be honored as belonging to the food that we put into our bodies.
* Joel Salatin is one of the locavore food movement’s rock star advocates.
This may be an odd subject for a food newsletter, but we maintain that good health is intimately connected to good food and by extension, to regular exercise. Don’t moan, wait to see where I’m going with this. I meet so many people who are unable to exercise for various reasons. Well, I believe I have found a solution and I am so enthused about it, I’m sharing it with anyone who will listen. As you may know I had a dance and choreographic career for 25 years. I had to keep myself thin and fit. When I “retired” from show biz I thought I could finally eat whatever I wanted and stop the endless exercising. Wrong. Duh. Anyway . . . for all those who think they cannot work out, I have found something well worth mentioning! Ready? The whole body vibration system. It is a machine (and there are many many brands out there) that you stand or sit on for about 15 minutes a day. It moves in an ideal 30 Hz range (whatever that means) and the benefits are extraordinary. It was developed in the Eastern block nations in the 60’s for their athletes and was integrated into their training programs and gave them enormous competitive edge. Significantly, it is also used by NASA as therapy for astronauts to rebuild the bone density they lose while in space. The benefit claims are broad-ranging: building muscle, increasing strength, increasing bone density, integrating R and L brain function, helping hormonal regulation, cardiac performance and on and on. Chiropractors are even documenting improvements in spinal scoliosis. Do your research if this is of interest. Again there are many brands, some far better than others. If mobility is a serious issue, you want one that you can perhaps simply sit on. I tried one machine at Santa Fe Soul. I was very impressed with the immediate effects! They charge $1 per minute to use it and I highly recommend it. If you are looking to have your own machine, one that is used by chiropractors is called the
Live Vibe machine. ridgeandcompany.com 832-294-5144.
It is sturdily made in the USA by Ron Ridge. We are not connected, nor do we benefit in any way by mentioning these references.
Here’s to your health! We provide good food, and now you have no excuse for not exercising!
Why is locally grown food so very important to Joe’s? Why do we keep hammering on this “buy local” theme? There are many factors that 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 influence reaches from designing the (often GMO) seeds to planting, harvesting, 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. Our mandate is 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. And dollars stay in the community. We are fortunate in Santa Fe to have a dedicated farm base producing a wonderful array of goods. Here at Joe’s we do our best to offer this bounty from our local farms to you.
Someone said to chef Roland recently – “Roland, you
are the poster child for the farm to table movement.” He would never say it, but it made him very proud.
We highly recommend you read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and Folks This Ain’t Normal by Joel Salatin. It will change forever how you view what you eat.
Joe’s signature latte cups, tee shirts, beer glasses and wine glasses are all for sale. Ask your waiter.
Tuesday is STILL Spaghetti and Chianti Night at Joe’s. $29.95 for two will get you Caesar Salad, Spaghetti Bolognese (made with our grass-finished local beef) and a great ½ liter of Chianti. A heads up – we can’t hold this price much longer. The beef is pricey (local, grass-finished) and getting pricier.
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 free food or drinks or merchandise. This is our “frequent diner” card.
Are you on Joe’s check list? Are you using your credit cards less frequently? I know we are and somehow it is liberating. 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 we 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.
How can you know that a restaurant truly is buying locally grown foods? Or are they merely riding the coattails of the now-chic “eat local” movement by purchasing a token bag or two at the Farmers Market? Well, understandably not every business will reveal its expenditures so it is difficult to know for certain. But some of the signs are – food that changes in size, shape, color, flavor with the seasons – veggies for sure. Also the absence of certain items when they are out of season – like heirloom tomatoes from October to July. At Joe’s we choose to be transparent about our expenditures on local foods. In 2008 we spent $30,000. In 2009, despite decreased revenues, we increased our local purchases to $60,000. And by 2012 we expect that to exceed $100,000 representing about 50% of our food budget.
Lost in translation:
A SIGN IN A HOTEL IN ZURICH:
Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.
Joe’s when it matters what you eat.