All You Can Eat

The Meal Ticket

GOOD — Mon, 3 Mar 2008 18:48:22 PST

Bonnie Belknap has as long a resume as anyone in Hollywood. She's worked on everything from Barton Fink and Max Headroom to The Sopranos and Wedding Crashers.

Bonnie is the entertainment industry's premiere food stylist. She creates edible props and makes food photogenic for print and film. She helped us shoot a T-bone steak for Issue 009: All You Can Eat. We caught up with her recently to learn more about her unusual line of work.

Given the number of images of food we see every day, we hadn't given much thought to the work that goes into making food look good in pictures and movies. Do you even use real food?

Bonnie Belknap: We always use real food. In the shot we did for GOOD with T-bone steaks, I grilled the steaks just enough to get perfect grill marks (it was supposed to be a bloody steak when cut into). I touched up the edges with a blow-torch, and then gave it a very light glaze of olive oil and a final spritz of edible glycerin. I did manufacture some extra blood just in case, and that was made out of beet juice, Augustina bitters and kitchen bouquet. We can also enhance the color of certain foods with particular cooking methods, like blanching the vegetables just until they reach their most vibrant color, then shocking them in ice water.

How did you first get into food styling?

BB: I was doing private catering at the time. I met someone who worked on The Love Boat. They said they had a little food scene and asked if I could help them out.

What did you do on that first gig?

BB: I created an enormous cruise ship buffet...probably 36 ft. long. I can't remember what country the ship was supposed to be in, but whichever one it was, I had to convey that culture in the food we made.

Edible LPs for Earth Girls Are Easy

You founded your company, Gourmet Proppers, in 1984. You were one of the first people to make prop food for Hollywood. Was business booming back then?

BB: I was truly instrumental in establishing and developing the niche of prop food in Hollywood, and my business grew very fast. No one else specialized in providing food that was eaten on camera, during a scene, and virtually every feature film and television production was calling...from Dynasty, Cheers, and Hotel to Witches of Eastwick, Dick Tracy, and Earth Girls are Easy. It was such a novelty that People magazine did an article on me.

Over time, there have been several people that have jumped on the bandwagon, and then, just as quickly, jumped back off. It is a lot more difficult than people imagine.

So you still have the market to yourself?

BB: No, not completely. There are a few good companies. But I am probably still considered the queen.

Over-sized cheerios for a Lebron James Nike advertisement

What food prop was most difficult to make?

BB: Hook always comes to mind. Trying to interpret what Steven Spielberg imagined, without him being specific, was very challenging. For one set, we created a huge fantasy scene for the Lost Boys, consisting of a ship carved out of chocolate that fired malt balls, three-dimensional faces coming out of blocks of cheese, and a completely edible rock quarry with trees, lizards, and snakes.

Making more than 3,000 over-sized cheerios for Lebron James in a Nike commercial was a test of my skills, and I'll never forget when I had to replicate disgusting animal body parts delivered to me from Fear Factor.

Most recently, I developed and then manufactured drinkable "blood," 50 lbs of fake raw hamburger, and a 4-foot swan made out of Rice Krispies for a webcast show with Jenny McCarthy called In the Motherhood.

Hook

That feast for Hook looks totally delicious. It looks like Spielberg and Smee are about to tuck in.

BB: There were several very extensive food scenes on Hook. I'm happy to say everyone loved them, and yes, there were plenty of props eaten!

Naked Gun 33 1/3

Did you use a real lobster for the Naked Gun 33 1/3 scene?

BB: We had fresh lobsters flown in from Boston for that scene. Most of the "guests" were actually eating lobster. Leslie Nielsen's lobster was fabricated to be enormous, and we placed fresh lobster meat in the claw for each take.

After working as a food stylist do you look at food you're served with a critic's eye?

BB: I do tend to notice presentation, but I'm really not critical of that because it is such a personal thing.

You've taken leftovers to Los Angeles charities. Are they ever surprised to get, say, giant cheerios or chocolate pirate ships?

BB: In the beginning, I took a lot of food to the L.A. Mission, but sadly in recent years they have been forced to decline food donations for liability reasons. They received many, many donations from the Hook shoot: cases and cases of exotic fruits that even I had not seen before, along with dozens and dozens of roasted turkeys. We made arrangements for them to come at the end of each day.

Various L.A. housing projects still accept anything I bring them. They know I won't bring anything that isn't perfectly safe to eat. And yes, they have received some very strange donations over the years. I take them anything edible that I think they can use, no matter the shape.

Anything else you'd like to tell mention?

BB: With all the excess and abundance in Hollywood, I would really like to help implement some changes. I'd like to facilitate daily food donations from the sets, and implement a standardized plastic bottle and aluminum can recycling program at the studios. An average film production can use over 1,000 cans and bottles a day.

I would also like to say how lucky I feel to be doing something I enjoy, surrounded by creative, talented, and generous people.

And lastly...I'm a great cook, own an adorable rescue dog, and am single! Hee-hee!

What We Eat

GOOD — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:33:30 PST

From the rations soldiers are eating in Iraq to the most expensive pizza we could find, GOOD looks at the meals of America.

School Lunch

1. CHICKEN and BROCCOLI

Pasadena High School

The healthiest school lunch we could find: chicken with broccoli, carrots, and white rice, with three pieces of fruit for dessert and a carton of 2-percent milk to wash it all down.

The Department of Agriculture has not changed rules about the nutritional content of federally subsidized school lunches in 30 years.

The National School Lunch Program served more than 5 billion lunches in 2007.

Fewer than one-third of public school lunches meet the USDA standards for total fat or saturated fat.

The average cost of a lunch for the last school year was $1.80.

Federal law prohibits the sale of soda in school cafeterias during the lunch period.

More than half the states have adopted new rules limiting what food and drinks kids have access to at schools.

The percentage of high schools with vending machines has doubled since the early 1990s.

Twenty states received failing grades for their school food policies.

Super-Gourmet

2. OSETRA PIZZA

Hidden

This pizza costs $250 at Hidden, in Santa Monica, California. Justifying the hefty price tag are the crème fraîche, marinated lobster carpaccio, and Beluga caviar that adorn the wafer-thin crust. Glass of Nero d'Avola not included.

Full-service restaurants are a $558-billion industry in the United States.

The restaurant business employs 13.1 million Americans-more people than any other industry in the country, except the government.

Eighty percent of Americans think going out to a restaurant is a better use of their leisure time than cooking and cleaning.

In 2005, the average American spent $1,054 on restaurant meals.The highest grossing independent restaurant in the country is Tao Las Vegas-which raked in $55.2 million during 2006, its first full year open.

Fast Food

3. CLASSIC CHICKEN DINNER

Popeyes

Behold a classic: a three-piece Popeyes meal complete with a biscuit and two rich sides-coleslaw made properly (with mayo) and mashed potatoes with gravy. To wash it down? Orange Crush.

Modern fast food originated in 1912, with the opening of the world's first Automat in where else?-New York.

Forty-five percent of British citizens-the most of any country in the world-agree with the statement "I like the taste of fast food too much to give it up." Forty-four percent of Americans agreed.

Every month, more than 90 percent of children in the United States eat at McDonald's.Soda has by far the highest profit margin at fast-food restaurants. A medium Coke that sells for $1.29 only contains about 9 cents' worth of Coke syrup.

The fast-food restaurants with the greatest increase in the number of stores in 2007 were Quiznos and Panera Bread Company.McDonald's is the largest purchaser of beef in the country. KFC buys the most chicken.

Rations

4. BEEF STEW Meal Ready To Eat

U.S Military

This single-portion military ration includes beef stew, mini chocolate-chip cookies, and powdered milk, as well as Tabasco sauce and apple jelly. Also included: the smallest packet of Taster's Choice we've ever seen.

All MREs (meals ready to eat) must contain at least 1,200 calories, and can last up to three years.

MREs have been nicknamed "meals rejected by everyone" by soldiers.

Soldiers should not eat MREs more than 21 days in a row.

Menu options include: spicy penne pasta, beef enchilada, chicken fajita, and sloppy joe filling. All MREs come with Tabasco sauce.

In 1941, ready-to-eat Army meals came in three options: meat and beans, meat and vegetable hash, and meat and vegetable stew.All military MREs come packaged with a flameless heater, which uses a simple chemical reaction to provide sufficient heat to warm the food.

Raw

5. MOCK TUNA SALAD

Leaf Cuisine

Mock tuna sits over cabbage, mung bean sprouts, sunflower sprouts, and carrots in this all-raw salad. To drink? A shot of wheatgrass and algae, and a serving of coconut juice-from the husk, naturally.

Adherents to the raw-food doctrine won't eat anything that's been cooked above 118 degrees Fahrenheit.

Hardcore raw foodists won't drink tea or, more obviously, coffee. Instead they'll stew sun-dried herbs in warm, not boiling, water.

The eating of live insects-a source of Vitamin B12 for some primates-is a point of contention between vegan and nonvegan raw foodists.Some foods can be poisonous when eaten raw, including buckwheat, kidney beans, and potatoes.

A 1999 study of German raw foodists found that 25 percent of women and nearly 15 percent of men were underweight.

The body more easily absorbs iron from most vegetables when those vegetables have been boiled, stir-fried, steamed, or grilled.

Photographs by Vanessa Stump

Buying Organic

Phil Howard — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:39:24 PST

GOOD and Phil Howard show you who really owns the family companies that make your smoothies and cracked wheat.

BUYING ORGANIC CHART

The Deer Hunter

Zachary Slobig — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:58:43 PST

"You put a rifle in just about anybody's hands and they could have a deer their first day out," says Caleb Siemon, dressed head to toe in fatigues. It's four thirty in the morning, the quarter moon is low in the sky, and we are in his Toyota pickup heading for Angeles National Forest, an hour northeast of Los Angeles. As we pass a Denny's and a Hollywood Video, Siemon and his buddy Brian McMahon tick off tips like a couple of Boy Scouts. Stay downwind: human odor must be masked at all costs. Scent neutralizers should be applied liberally-Siemon's favorite is Ted Nugent's signature Wang Dang Sweet Doe Tang. Leave behind the antler rattle, which can mimic the sound of bucks sparring over a doe but wouldn't be any help this late in the season. Finally, there's the "gumoflauge." It tastes like a mouthful of pine needles and dirt, but masks human breath, which, for archery hunters like Siemon and McMahon, is crucial. "My comfort range is 30 yards," says Siemon.

An hour later I am crouched under a manzanita bush, breathing through a camouflage mask, ear cocked to the wind for any snap of a twig. "Look for ears or antlers," whispers Siemon. "And keep quiet." He has given me his Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum. "Strictly for emergency situations," he said earlier. Siemon, when he isn't hunting, is a glassblower of increasing renown, and a family man. "I've got nothing to prove," he added. "There are mountain lions and bears out here, and my only goal is to come back with meat and come back alive."

Sounds simple enough, but I don't come from hunting stock. Growing up, the closest I came to killing an animal was chucking rocks at pigeons under the elevated subway on my way to school. Unlike Siemon and McMahon, who are in their second season of L.A. County deer hunting, I do not instinctively scan the landscape and think of the potential protein count. So, before I headed to the hills, I practiced stalking a flock of wild turkeys that were strutting down the tree-lined streets of my Berkeley, California, neighborhood. I fired away with my camera phone, but they quickly disappeared down a Prius-occupied driveway and I went home to sweet basil turkey sausage from Trader Joe's.

Quote:

When you're quiet and calm enough that they'll take a shit right in front of you, then you're making progress.

Los Angeles is a mountain town. That's easy to forget with the bustling throngs and the cell-phone towers disguised as palm trees, but it's the only major American city bisected by an actual mountain range. And on rare days in the early winter, after the wind has swept the smog and wildfire haze away, those snow-capped peaks suddenly appear in all their unlikely prominence. As Angelenos head out with mountain bikes, some urban woodsmen prowl the trails searching for man's most primitive preoccupation-fresh meat. So here I am, shivering in the chaparral, strapped like Dirty Harry next to a compound bow–wielding glassblower, watching the morning glow spread over the city.

The sun is rising, and my legs are already asleep. The furious squeal of tires slices through the quiet-the echo of Tokyo Drift–style racers who like to use the roads for training, explains Siemon. "These are urban deer," he says. "They don't seem to get spooked by that." Three hours later, with not a buck in sight, we decide to get moving, following a fire road down into a nearby canyon fragrant with sagebrush.

We run into another archer, an old-timer with bushy gray sideburns, pushing a shiny blue mountain bike. "I bought this for fifty bucks at Toys R Us and it gets me down into those out-of-the-way spots," he says. "Sometimes I just leave it up here stashed in the brush." An antler-handle knife is sticking out of the top of his pack. I can imagine him as a younger, slimmer man, triumphantly claiming his trophy. He tell us spotted a nice buck that very morning, but way out of range, and advises us to try another canyon farther down the road. "Back in the day we used to count 250 deer a day around here," he says wistfully.

"Tall tales," harrumphs McMahon as we continue down the trail.

"These days I find myself checking out every type of terrain and thinking about the deer that could be there," Siemon says. "I can't stop thinking about it. They just taste so good." He recently spotted a buck on a golf course not far from his house and fantasized about sneaking around with his bow and taking it out. "I already bought the golf bag," he says with a sly grin. Often, on his drives through Laguna Canyon, where he lives, he'll pull over when he spots deer. He follows as close as he can and quietly observes. Bow hunters must be more in tune with their prey, says Siemon. "When you're quiet and calm enough that they'll take a shit right in front of you, then you're making progress."

Taking the old-timer's advice, we follow a new trail down into a different canyon. We pick our way through the brush, slipping a bit in the washed-out sections. Just as the trail flattens out at a ridge, where the scrub is low and soft, our headlamps light up two sets of eyeballs. Before Siemon can even think of notching an arrow, the deer bound off deeper into the ravine. The thump of hooves quickens my pulse. I'm beginning to see why hunters often call black-tailed deer the ghost of the Pacific. These are the only deer I've spotted all day, and they never reappear.

Later that night, at Siemon's father's house, we feast on venison filet mignon. Siemon marinates our filets in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, thyme, rosemary, and cracked pepper, then salts it while it grills. His father slices it as his grandfather pulls himself away from the football game to join us at the table as Siemon's daughter, just shy of her first birthday, crawls the kitchen floor. Four generations of the family gather around for a Sunday supper. We didn't catch this meat in Angeles National Park, though; it's from the freezer, and before that, from West Virginia, where Siemon bagged it on his wife's family's farm. I'm told, the success rate for the bow hunter is less than 10 percent. Most days of archery hunting are just quiet, optimistic walks in the woods. "That's why it's called deer hunting," says Siemon. "Not deer killing."

Photographs by Brian Paumier

Everyone’s a (Food) Critic

GOOD — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:23:57 PST

Nothing ruins a cop show quicker than a hackneyed doughnut joke. Still, we wondered if-as with most clichés-there might be something to it after all. We appointed our own panel of experts to dig into the foods most associated with their jobs. Move over, Jeffrey Steingarten.

	a TEACHER on apples: I absolutely love apples, and believe it or not, several times a year, a student actually does give me one. However, they usually hand it to me immediately after lunch, so I suspect it's simply leftovers. At lunch I'm usually too busy to eat- making copies, calling parents, and conferencing with students-so free food is always welcome. Usually it's a Red Delicious. Braeburns are my favorite, but Granny Smiths in an apple cobbler come in a close second. I've been given other food, too. You name it: carrot sticks ... really any fruit or vegetable you'd find in a child's lunch sack. With all the junk food our children are eating these days, students still give away apples quite often. If I had my pick, though, instead of apples, I'd love to be getting Starbucks gift cards. Andrea Peterson is the recipient of the 2007 National Teacher of the Year award.
	a PILOT on airplane food: The first time I was ever on an airplane was an American Airlines 727 that flew from Boston to Washington, D.C. They served, in economy class, sandwiches with cheesecake for dessert, and I remember they actually offered me a second helping of cheesecake. Today, you do that flight in a 50-seat regional jet and you're lucky to get a Diet Coke. I never thought airplane food was particularly bad, I just think it misses the point. People don't want a fancy French restaurant at 30,000 feet; they just want something to eat, and a distraction on a long flight. What are you supposed to think when you're handed a menu promising "authentic Italian minestrone with garlic and herb croutons"? You're not going to get a fancy meal. You're going to get a half-assed meal pretending to be fancy, served on a crowded tray filled with plastic wrap and cups. Economy travelers don't want to live out some bourgeois fantasy of the 1940s. Give me a damn sandwich or some pasta. Patrick Smith is the author of Ask the Pilot and writes a column of the same name for Salon.com.
	a COP on doughnuts: I think the cop/doughnut thing came around because cops, working late at night, need coffee to stay awake, and the only way to get coffee in the wee morning hours is at the all-night doughnut places. So the doughnut thing may not be accurate. In fact, my buddy Stan has been a cop for 33 years and has never eaten one because the association bothers him. But me, I love doughnuts: old-fashioneds, apple fritters, buttermilk bars, cake, maple bars, twists ... all of them! Once I not only had a warm Krispy Kreme, I ate six of them at one time, and I'm willing to bet I could eat a dozen if I had a Diet Coke to wash it down. I like the independent places best. Each has a specialty that they make, and the staff likes to see cops come by. The only thing I would say cops like more are sunflower seeds, based on all the damn seeds I find on the floor of my police car. Andrew Smith is a Los Angeles Police Department Commander.
	a ROCK STAR on whiskey: We tend to drink whiskey onstage, though every now and again we drink tequila, which is probably not a good idea. And one night in New York, we were forced to drink vodka onstage, which was a really bad idea. You're not supposed to give people from Alabama vodka-there's like a rule about that or something. But a little nip of whiskey from time to time onstage kind of makes your throat feel good and opens it up and gives us the illusion that it's good for singing. I also like the communal spirit of passing the bottle around. To me, it's more about that than about the drinking itself. We mostly drink Jack Daniel's because it's always there. You can go anywhere in the world, it's always the same. A McDonald's hamburger may be different in Amsterdam, but the bottle of Jack Daniel's is exactly the same as the bottle of Jack Daniel's in Nashville or Singapore. Patterson Hood is the lead singer of the Drive-By Truckers. Their new album, Brighter Than Creation's Dark, is out now.

The Next Sushi

Adam Leith Gollner — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:45:18 PST

Twenty years ago, a business lunch of raw fish and rice was unthinkable. Now you can stock up on maki at the 7-Eleven. Similarly, calamari went from scary, tentacled oddity to ubiquitous bar food, and balsamic vinegar-once considered an odiferous foreign sap-is a standard flavor in designer chocolates. So what's next? We'll tell you. Grab your bib.

	1. Mongolian Hot Pot With Asia taking over the world, Mongolian hot pot-a bubbling spiced broth in which diners cook their own food-is set to explode here. Not only is it a novel, exhilarating way to eat, the franchising infrastructure is already in place. Little Sheep, a hot-pot chain with more than 300 restaurants, is among China's fastest developing enterprises, and they're on their way here. It's the modern Mongolian invasion.
	2. Dosas Connoisseurs no longer go out for Indian; they eat Madrasi, Malabari, or Gujurati. A byproduct of this regionalization has been the discovery of Southern India's dosas: large, thin, crêpe-like disks that are folded over and filled with curried vegetables. The only risk with something this thrilling is its potential for bastardization. Texas ham-and-cheese dosas, anyone?
	3. Just Desserts Pinkberry is just the beginning. Get set for more restaurants catering to the sweet-toothed set. The trend is already blowing up, with Barcelona's Espai Sucre billing itself as the world's first dessert restaurant. Notable restaurants with multiple course dessert menus include New York's (temporarily defunct) Room 4 Dessert and the pudding-only ChikaLicious Puddin'.
	4. Pupusas The booming number of Salvadoran immigrants in America means increasing opportunities to sample these flat patties made from maize flour. Thicker than tortillas, they're stuffed with meat, beans, cheese, or loroco flower buds and served with curtido (brined cabbage) and tomato sauce. You heard it here first: Pupusas are the new taco.
	5. Small Plates Going small is about to get big: Izakayas are Japanese pubs serving diminutive, intensely flavored portions; pintxos, the new tapas, are bite-sized Basque flavor bombs; Ethiopian food is small bites served on communal injera bread and eaten by hand. It's hard to argue with restaurants that let you have everything you want on the menu, as opposed to one comically large-and potentially disappointing-entrée.
	6. Korean Bibimbap A tangled mélange of vegetables piled atop rice crisping inside a hot stone cauldron may not sound impressive, but one taste suffices to explain why the Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold predicts that bibimbap "may someday be as popular among Californians as the pizza or the teriyaki stick."
	7. Mangosteens The mangosteen, a Southeast Asian fruit often considered the most delicious in existence, was banned in America until last year. But with the advent of new X-ray irradiation technology, they are being imported-and Oprah's all over it. She's freaking over XanGo, an antioxidant-rich mangosteen juice, but skip it: The fresh fruit is much better. Its billiard ball-like exterior, topped with a woody flower cap, contains ivory-white segments that taste almost ethereally wonderful.
	8. Offal Due in large part to celebrity chef Fergus Henderson of London's St. John Restaurant, organs and offal are in. Done right, spare parts like kidneys, hearts, or sweetbreads can be delicious; done wrong, they're awful. This trend will mimic the rise of sushi: Once considered vile, offal is poised for mass popularity.
	9. Singapore Street Food The island nation no longer symbolizes a restrictive, bubblegum-banning dystopia; rather, it's a street-food paradise: real chili crab, laksa (a spicy coconut broth teeming with seafood, noodles, and vegetables), roti prata (fluffy pancake-bread dunked in curry), kaya (a coconutty breakfast custard spread) toast, a seared char kway teow (flat noodles and cockles) with licks of wok flame. Hot-dog stands will soon give way to clay-pot chicken-and-rice dealers, in what may become known as the Singaporization of American sidewalks. The best part? No more 23-hour flights.
	10. Little Fish As global fish stocks decline, little fish are moving up the food chain. Ethically preferable, smaller fish-think filets of sardine, fresh anchovies, and smoked sprats with horseradish-are sustainable, abundant, and flavorful. They're are also healthier than mercury-infused large fish.

America's Tastiest Streets

Adam Matthews — Tue, 5 Feb 2008 02:17:16 PST

Every year, city magazines publish their "cheap eats" guides, gushing over $35 Kobe beef burgers, and enotecas with $15 paninis that pair nicely with $60 bottles of Barolo.

At GOOD, we're a little more realistic (and a lot hungrier). So grab a twenty from the ATM and follow our road map to America's seven best streets for exquisite food you can actually afford.

Roosevelt Avenue, Queens

On Roosevelt Avenue between 62nd and 82nd Streets, rice is the common language, and its preparation varies as widely as the languages spoken on the 7 train, which rumbles above the adjacent neighborhoods of Jackson Heights and Woodside. From stores, supermarkets, carts, stands, and trucks, the cuisines and cultures of Latin America and Asia intersect. Treat Roosevelt Avenue as a 20-block destination; it requires several return visits to truly appreciate.

Hopping off the 7 train at 61st Street, your first treat is about 35 paces away. Grab a toothsome pollo verde tamale from the friendly Mexican man under the station stairs, and then hoof it seven blocks to El Sitio, the venerable Cuban lunch counter, for ropa vieja, delicious fork-tender skirt steak stewed in tomato sauce. Next, try Asian chicken three ways: Experience the global evolution of fried chicken and Korean fast food at Unidentified Flying Chicken, hit the Little Manila fave Krystals for chicken adobo, and then, last but not least, is the authentic pad kra prow-a traditional dish of sautéed ground meat with basil sauce (get it with chicken, naturally)-at the Northern Thai standout Zabb Queens.

It's worth returning for a nighttime pilgrimage to Little Colombia, which begins around 75th Street, to visit the Arepa Lady's small cart on Roosevelt Avenue. Her crispy, cheese-oozing Colombian corn cakes-only available after 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays-have inspired devotees to erect a MySpace page in her honor.

Don't Miss!

AREPA LADY Roosevelt Avenue between 78th and 79th

Try the: Cheese arepas

EL SITIO 68–28 Roosevelt Avenue

Try the: Ropa vieja

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING CHICKEN 71–22 Roosevelt Avenue

Try the: Chicken wings with soy garlic sauce

ZABB QUEENS 7128 Roosevelt Avenue

Try the: Pad kra prow

Travis Street, Houston

The expanse of Travis Street that runs through Houston's Midtown neighborhood allows adventurous eaters to dine and stroll-a rarity in the land of big oil and even bigger SUVs. Exiting the brand-new METRORail at the Ensemble/Houston Community College stop, walk to T'afia, local chef Monica Pope's Texas-sourced restaurant for the tasting menu, which changes nightly. On Saturdays, T'afia is transformed into a market, with vendors like the Houston Dairymaids, known as much for their cute aprons as their local cheeses. The same block also boasts the popular Breakfast Klub, which serves up chicken and waffles in stylish environs, and the kitschy, Austin-esque Tacos A Go-Go, which sits behind T'afia on Main Street.

If you're still hungry (or a repeat visitor), head eight blocks down Travis to the bargain Vietnamese mom-and-pop, Cali Sandwich & Fast Food, for its bun bo xao, grilled beef with vermicelli. For a taste of older, more established Houston, drive five minutes down Travis to Treebeards for its world-beating gumbo that saves you the five-hour drive to New Orleans.

Don't Miss!

BREAKFAST KLUB 3711 Travis Street

Try the: Chicken and waffles

CALI SANDWICH & FAST FOOD 3030 Travis Street

Try the: Bun bo xao

TACOS A GO-GO 3704 Main Street

Try the: Breakfast tacos

T'AFIA 3701 Travis Street

Try the: Daily tasting menu

TREEBEARDS 315 Travis Street

Try the: Gumbo with sausage and shrimp

Fremont Avenue North, Seattle

With a statue of Lenin, an 18-foot public-art sculpture of a troll crushing a Volkswagen Beetle, and its own citizens calling it "the center of the universe," the Fremont neighborhood's counterculture cred is solid. That individualism also infuses area restaurants, many of them concentrated near the massive Fremont flea market.

Just five blocks from the market, the 3400 block of Fremont Avenue offers encouraging culinary diversity. The micro chain Jai Thai's yellow curry is a local favorite, and down the block, the family-style Greek spot Costas Opa is a sure bet for the beef souvlaki. For diners who prefer visual appetite cues instead of menus, Blue C Sushi fits the bill. While living in Japan, the owner, James Allard, fell in love with kaiten-zushi, the affordable conveyor-belt sushi joints. Long-time sushi chef Shinichi Miura sends out creations that cost a measly $1.50 to $4.

Further up Fremont, Paseo slings pressed sandwiches out of a blink-and-you-miss-it shack. Its gussied-up medianoche envelops succulent roast park in a French baguette for a sandwich that's about as unexpected as, well, a troll under a bridge crushing a punch-buggy.

Don't Miss!

BLUE C SUSHI 3411 Fremont Avenue

Try the: Scallop sushi

COSTAS OPA 3400 Fremont Avenue

Try the: Beef souvlaki

JAI THAI 3423 Fremont Avenue

Try the: Yellow curry chicken

PASEO 4225 Fremont Avenue

Try the: Media-noche sandwich

Broadway, Chicago

In this often self-segregated city, Chicago's Uptown neighborhood is anomalous, a genuine microcosm of Studs Terkel's home turf. It's 42 percent white, 21 percent black, 20 percent Hispanic, and 13 percent Asian-and the dining options reflect the mix. Since much of the area is still BYOB, bring your poison with you and save your money for dinner. Silver Seafood is a good place to start, since it allows you to select a victim from its tank. Have it steamed and served with a soy and aromatic herb garnish. If participatory dining isn't your thing, head to La Fonda Latino Grill up the block for some grilled beef loin with chimichurri sauce and sweet plantains. Save room for desert at Thai Pastry, where the pink-and-green vermicelli served with a sweet coconut-milk sauce more than makes up for the often spotty service. Head back down Broadway for a nightcap of rye on the rocks at the Green Mill, a haunt for old-school jazz where former co-owner Al Capone once held court.

Farther north on Broadway, in the area now defined as Edgewater, the cuisines of Africa and Latin America predominate. At Ethiopian Diamond, the classic chicken stew doro watt goes well with the live jazz on Fridays. Welcome to the Other Chicago. Say goodbye to the Loop and its soggy deep-dish pizza.

Don't Miss!

ETHIOPIAN DIAMOND 6120 N. Broadway Street

Try the: Doro watt

THE GREEN MILL 4802 N. Broadway Street

Try the: Rye whiskey

LA FONDA LATINO GRILL 5350 N. Broadway St.

Try the: Churrasco

SILVER SEAFOOD 4829 N. Broadway Street

Try the: Steamed red snapper

THAI PASTRY 4225 Fremont Avenue

Try the: Vermicelli and coconut-milk deserts

Southwest 8th Street

Miami

Little Havana's main drag, Southwest 8th Street-Calle Ocho to locals-is renowned for its authentic Cuban cuisine and its robust hatred of Fidel Castro. The boulevard's quaint and walkable blocks run from 14th Street to 18th Street. Disregard the "Viva Bush" stickers at Los Pinareños Frutería and focus on the guarapo (sugarcane juice), fresh-squeezed orange juice, and the recession-proof $3 lunch special. Also, if you time it right (the last Friday of every month), Calle Ocho between 14th and 17th becomes a street fair for Viernes Culturales. Go gallery hopping, catch a show and pause for tapas at Casa Panza, which also features Flamenco dancing three nights a week.

Immigration from Cuba and other Latin American countries has expanded Little Havana from downtown to the edge of the Everglades. As in most of Southern Florida, you'll need a car to get around. Grab a pair of 75-cent Colombian empanadas at San Pocho Restaurant and continue a few blocks down to Taqueria El Mexicano for bistec a la Mexicana-beef chunks simmered with tomatoes, onions, and jalapeños. For the authentic Miami Cuban experience, dine with the common folk and power brokers at Versailles. Just don't wear your Che shirt.

Don't Miss!

CASA PANZA 1620 SW 8th Street

Try the: Tapas

LOS PINAREÑOS FRUTERÍA 1334 SW 8th Street

Try the: Guarapa

SAN POCHO RESTAURANT 901 SW 8th Street

Try the: Cheese empanadas

TAQUERIA EL MEXICANO 521 SW 8th Street

Try the: Bistec a la Mexicano

VERSAILLES 3555 SW 8th Street

Try the: Cuban sandwich

Nolensville Road, Nashville

What Nolensville Road lacks in charm and walkability, it compensates for with a thorough culinary road map to the New South-count on Mexican, Middle Eastern, and African cuisines. You'll need a vehicle and a few visits to master the terrain, but it's worth it. Move beyond the Middle Eastern food of the Levant at the ornate Persian restaurant Parisa's, which specializes in khoresht, stews that pair meat with fruits. Of those, fessenjoon (chicken braised with crushed walnuts and pomegranate) is easily the best. For lighter fare, the nearby Istanbul Café's brick oven turns out admirable versions of the Turkish pizza called lahmacun: a thin disk of dough topped with minced beef or lamb and baked crisp in the oven.

About a dozen or so blocks down Nolensville, pop by La Hacienda Marisqueria and scarf down the superior fish tacos, underpinned by cooling cabbage and doused with crema. The nearby Abay Ethiopian offers spongy injera bread to sop up its combination platter, a wise choice for indecisive diners. Head several storefronts back up Nolensville to sample the indigenous cuisine. Norman Couser's Country Cooking's venerable meat-and-three has occupied three different locations since 1955. For the last two decades, it has sat across the street from the Nashville Zoo. Opt for fried chicken as a protein and choose three sides. Just don't feed the animals.

Don't Miss!

ABAY ETHIOPIAN RESTAURANT 3792 Nolensville Pike

Try the: Meat combo with seven items

NORMAN COUSER'S COUNTRY COOKING 3754 Nolensville Road

Try the: Fried chicken

ISTANBUL CAFÉ 2631 Nolensville Road

Try the: Lahmacun

LA HACIENDA MARISQUERIA 3744 Nolensville Road

Try the: Fish tacos

PARISA'S 2424 Nolensville Pike

Try the: Fessenjoon

W. Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles

The people who maintain that Los Angeles sucks never leave Hollywood. We know this to be true, because just east of Hollywood on Sunset, from Thai Town through Little Armenia and Silver Lake, there is some of the best Asian fare in the country. And it's cheap. In Silver Lake, start at the Anglo-Indian newbie Agra Café. Opt for the nuanced balti-a spicy curry cooked quickly over high heat, with origins in the Pakistani community of Birmingham, England-with mushrooms, lamb and chicken. Ask the waitstaff to make it hurt and bring your own beer-you'll need it. For neighborhood Mex, Alegria specializes in a complex mole that earned it a place on the "L.A. 99" list of Jonathan Gold, a Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic. Don't worry about the faux coolness of the stark white Vietnamese Pho Café. Instead, slurp its namesake dish and hipster watch.

About a dozen blocks farther west, Sunset runs into Thai Town and Little Armenia. In 1984, a visionary named Vartkes Iskenderian brought his Lebanese rotisserie chicken chain, Zankou Chicken. Twenty-three years later, after a protracted family drama over the chain's ownership, Zankou Chicken has spread across the city. Visit the original at Sunset and Normandie; taste the garlic sauce, and become a believer. A few blocks west, at Jitlada Thai, take a deep breath and order the prohibitively spicy kua kling (curry seasoned with turmeric and lemongrass), then exhale. Now stop saying L.A. sucks.

Don't Miss!

AGRA CAFÉ 4325 W. Sunset Boulevard

Try the: Mixed balti

ALEGRIA 3510 W. Sunset Boulevard

Try the: Chicken mole

PHO CAFÉ 2841 W. Sunset Boulevard

Try the: Beef pho

JITLADA THAI 5233 1/2 W. Sunset Boulevard ·

Try the: Kua kling

ZANKOU CHICKEN 5065 W. Sunset Boulevard

Try the: Rotisserie chicken

Guess Who's Coming As Dinner?

Peter Rubin — Sun, 3 Feb 2008 22:34:38 PST

It's a windy afternoon in late December, yet the three little old ladies are braving the elements to gather near us, bobbing their heads and clucking to themselves. It's hard to tell if they're eavesdropping or not. Even if they are, Paul Alward and Stephanie Turco, the couple who let the trio live on their property, are talking about them as though they're not here. "They love people," Turco says. "But they have a six-inch barrier." She reaches her hand toward one of the little old ladies, who immediately shrinks back and gobbles.

In fact, the ladies aren't ladies at all. Nor little, nor old-Alward and Turco just call them that. They're not even female. They're male heritage-breed turkeys-Royal Palms, to be exact, prized less for their meat than for their foraging nature, which is ideal for keeping insects and pests away. They are three survivors of the year's 220-turkey Thanksgiving flock at Veritas Farms outside of New Paltz, New York, and while they might be meddlesome enough to earn their sobriquet, Alward and Turco keep them around as breeding toms to help sire next year's flock of holiday dinners. At $7 a pound, Veritas's turkeys are nearly six times more expensive than a supermarket turkey.

What justifies the cost? Well, for one thing, they can walk around (and kibitz) freely. They eat organic feed grown locally by a nearby farmer, not institutional meal that contains the bone and feathers of other dead turkeys. At night, they sleep on ever-refreshed hay, the lower layers of which compost to create warm sleeping berths even in the dead of winter. Oh, and they can mate. Turkey fun fact: Factory-farmed turkeys in the United States have been bred to have so much breast meat that they can't reproduce without artificial insemination. The process, to read the accounts of those who have worked "AI" at turkey farms, is Hobbesianly nasty, brutish, and short. But when Alward and Turc left Wall Street jobs four years ago to buy an abandoned farm, they did it because they wanted to raise little old ladies, not top-heavy butterballs. And on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving-the busiest traffic day of the year-seven people drove up from Brooklyn to buy Veritas Farms turkeys, then turned right around and drove the 100 miles home.

A cow and her calf graze freely.

We're a meat-eating country-kind of. What we're actually eating is probably best described as meat-ish. Exhaustive commercialization of the meat industry has resulted in innumerable, well-chronicled problems at large processors like ConAgra and Cargill: disease; cruelty; and insipid flavor that bears little resemblance to the poultry, beef, and pork of 50 years ago. But Veritas Farms and dozens of small producers around the country like it are presenting an alternative.

"Every time we sell a pig," Alward says, "I'm refreshed by the fact that I took one ham away from the Smithfield pork company."

The thing is, we're not talking about something merely "organic," and its attendant connotations of happy animals. As the organic-foods industry has exploded in recent years, some producers have resorted to streamlining methods that puncture the bucolic fantasy-organic dairy company Horizon, for example, had more than $300 million in sales last year, and is notorious for maintaining farms with thousands of cows that are confined to dry lots. More than organic, the small-farm movement is humane. It's animals are free-range, grass-fed, patiently raised; artisanal meats, resurrected from nearly extinct breeds. It can be expensive. And at farmer's markets, health-food stores, and restaurants everywhere, we're making the choice to spend a little more to eat-and feel-a lot better.

The instinct, perhaps, is to call these animals "pampered," or to equate the meat with those stories of (g)astronomically priced products: fifty-dollar hamburgers, say, or pork from the farmer in Spain who is finishing a two-year curing process on a small herd of free-range, acorn-fed pigs (his "2006 Alba Quercus Reserve," available at the end of the year, will cost $2,100 for a 13-pound leg). December marked the 50th anniversary of the Bresse chicken, a protected French breed that can go for more than $110 for a six-pound male. Of course, there's more to some of these stories than meets the plate: Bresse chickens are castrated without anesthetic, and spend the end of their lives in dark coops eating a dairy-fattened flour meant to get them to the correct weight.

Kobe beef is perhaps the best example of the broken link between "organic" and "humanely treated." The Kuroge Wagyu cow in Japan is extremely well marbled with fat, but those Wagyu cattle raised in the Kobe prefecture are famously tweaked to fatty tender perfection: fed beer, massaged with sake. The result is hundred-dollar steaks. Sounds like the epitome of bovine luxury, right? Not so much. A recent Gourmet investigation found that Kobe cattle are often caged in their own filth and fed beer as a means of jump-starting an appetite that has atrophied with lack of exercise. The breed may be protected, but the animal's life is far from what it might enjoy otherwise.

And that, more than anything, is the divide; the small farmers who are determining the future of meat in this country recognize the need to preserve the animal's way of life. Thus, farms like Veritas, which go to great lengths to give their animals the life they were born for. At times, the farms can seem like rescue operations.

Quote:

What do the animals want to do the most? What are their natural desires, and can I fulfill [their desires] and grow them for food at the same time?

Paul Alward grew up working on a variety of farms in eastern Massachusetts, and as a child was so disturbed by the veal industry that he stopped eating veal at age 10. Dairy farmers have no use for male calves, so they auction off 3-day-olds-for $3 to $6 dollars a head-to veal facilities that crate and force-feed the calves until slaughtering time. Today, he goes to auction every year and brings home five or 10 calves; he and Turco bottle-feed them twice a day, then raise them on grass for two years or more, until they're old enough to be sold to beef farmers. They're not heritage breeds, like the 35 Devon and Scottish Highland cows at Veritas; they're just regular Jerseys and Holsteines lucky enough to be rescued from a system that is in dire need of an overhaul.

Turco walks me through an open barn that is essentially a rec center for laying hens (Veritas only raises meat poultry seasonally), into a sheltered side area with open stalls for the calves, who wander in intermittently from outside. One walks over to us. "Hi, Bandi," Turco says. "This is Bandar, like Bandar bin Sultan"-the former Saudi ambassador to the United States. "Just look at him. Very princely." Bandi nuzzles her sleeve in response. "Those eyes," she murmurs. "It's like something out of Disney, right?"

The real question, though, is who is buying the meat? Four-star restaurants and foodies are one thing, but a sea change depends on rank-and-file consumers. Little by little, that's who's starting to come to farmer's markets. The market closest to my own house in Brooklyn is more culturally and economically diverse than one might expect. Karma Glos, who with her husband Michael runs Kingbird Farm in Ithaca, New York, says her clientele is solidly middle and lower income. And surprisingly, Alward and Turco claim that a full 10 percent of their clientele are converted vegetarians and vegans who figure that eating clean meat does more to change the factory-farming industry than eating imported tofu with a carbon footprint of who knows what. "They'll say, 'I haven't eaten meat since 1968,'" Alward says with a laugh. "I'm like, 'I hope it lives up to your expectations.'"

People are clearly attuned by now to the concepts of antibiotic-free meat, of organic feed, of the ecological benefits of eating locally grown products. But perhaps more than anything, it's the humane treatment and slaughter of the animals that brings people to these small producers. "My customers ask me all the time how the animals are handled," says Glos. "I don't see the point of treating an animal really well its whole life, only to be abusive at the end. Those are some of the most important moments of their life, and it should be as calm and humane and quick and as skillful as possible." Producers either handle processing on the farm, as with Kingbird chickens or Veritas turkeys, or they seek out butchers and slaughterhouses (beef and pork sold in cuts must be processed in a USDA-approved slaughterhouse) that place a premium on keeping the animals as stress-free as possible.

The idyllic farmlands of Veritas are home to well-nurtured animals.

D'Artagnan, a Newark, New Jersey-based company that is one of the pioneers of humanely raised meats, sends its pigs to a facility in Illinois that uses a low-stress system based on sequestering pre-slaughter pigs in a set of slowly revolving doors. "This is the first time ever I saw pigs being killed and not shrieking, because they didn't realize it," says Ariane Daguin, a co-founder and the president of D'Artagnan. "There is no reason you should be brutal to animals when you don't have to. It will bring bruises; it will bring adrenaline and bad hormones in the muscles." Stress can hasten the release of epinephrine and norepinephrine into the animal's bloodstream, which can result in a buildup of lactic acid, causing the meat to acidify too quickly after slaughter. It can result in meat that is pale and exudative.

When I was 18, at a freshman-orientation barbecue at college, I bit into a hamburger. Despite being the child of vegetarian parents, I had long before cultivated a healthy (and also very much the opposite) appetite for the drive-through section of the food pyramid. But when I looked at this burger, I saw nothing that made me want to take a second bite. It was monochromatically brown-gray and tasted exactly how it looked. It was the last red meat I would eat for 13 years.

Over the next couple of years, I phased out poultry and fish as well. As a college student eating in Sysco-supplied dining halls, this wasn't a tough thing to do. But my vegetarianism was never a stance borne of philosophy. It wasn't that I was opposed to people eating meat; it was more that I personally found it distasteful. After nearly a decade, though, I started eating fish again. Health, I told myself. Protein. It's good for you. Chicken came next. And then, a couple of summers ago, I reached across the table at a restaurant and speared a piece of steak off my wife's plate. It surprised me, but not nearly as much as it surprised my wife, whose eyes widened to the size of porterhouses. To be sure, it was the description of lush, pampas-grazing beef on the menu that helped sway me. I was one of many people horrified by Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser's bestselling 2001 book about the commercial meat industry. To hear Ariane Daguin tell it, though, my return to the fold was preordained. "That's why they are here on Earth," she says in a French accent that betrays her native Gascony. "If you believe there is a God, and you taste a very good meat, there is no way that this animal was made with that taste so that it could live without us tasting it." When she and her partner George Faison founded the company in 1985 (she has since bought out his share), it was to bring foie gras production to the United States, but they immediately branched into game and free-range chicken. "The only thing I knew from my region of France," she says, "was that to have something tasty on the plate, you need to raise the animals really well, with natural food, with plenty of space, with fresh air, with pure water." (D'Artagnan raises ducks for foie gras, a process whose humaneness is marred by two weeks of force-feeding, which put her at the center of a brouhaha in 2005 concerning the banning of foie gras in New York City.)

Their original plan was to open retail stores as well, to sell prepared foods made with game, but the restaurant industry came knocking. "We arrived exactly at the time when young chefs started to come out of the CIA and Johnson & Wales," she says, referring to two of the country's premier culinary schools. "They wanted to do things the way they learned it when they traveled in Europe, and they couldn't find the same ingredients here." Twenty-two years later, D'Artagnan's annual revenues have grown from $120,000 to $50 million, and it supplies many of New York's high-end restaurants.

The bigger one gets, of course, the more difficult it is to maintain the animals' standards (to wit: Horizon). And so providers like D'Artagnan and California's Niman Ranch, two of the larger natural-meats producers in the country, long ago adopted a cooperative system, in which a network of small farms is contracted to produce small batches of livestock for the larger company. Additionally, both created a loyal clientele based on traceability and transparency. The companies' websites include everything imaginable about their operations, from the living conditions of various stocks to biographical sketches of farmers. Niman goes as far as to publish its complete protocols for raising beef, lamb, and pork, which range from permitted feeds to requirements for cattle pens.

There are gradations, however, and the practices of a relative behemoth like Niman, which enjoyed revenues of $100 million in 206, are only the beginning. To many small farmers, Niman is little more than a good start; its list of permitted feeds, for example, includes corn, anathema in the old-world farming community ("grain is poison for cows," Turco maintains). Exclusively grass-fed cows produce meat that by all accounts tastes meatier: woodsier, more filling. Corn feeding naturally leads to fatter cows, which enables factory farms to bring them to market up to seven months earlier than grass-fed cows, but it also has public-health implications. Pasture feeding has been repeatedly linked with lower counts of the harmful E. coli strain O157:H7; in a 1998 study by Cornell University, cows fed hay for the five days before slaughter had 80-percent lower levels of the bacterium. A recent study at Kansas State University found that cows fed distillers grain-an ethanol byproduct-had twice as much O157:H7 in their hindgut as cows not fed the product.

For those small farms who choose to keep their cows totally grass-fed, it's as much an issue of zoological authenticity as taste. Glos speaks of "a natural lifestyle." "It's a funny way to put it," she allows, "but it's about making sure that they can perform the activities that they would naturally want to perform. What drives a pig is they want to root. That's a pig's favorite thing in the world. What drives a cow is to graze, so they should always be on grass. What drives a chicken is to scratch and peck, so they should be able to do that. So when I'm setting up housing, that's the question: What do they want to do the most? What are their natural desires, and can I fulfill [their desires] and grow them for food at the same time?"

"For hundreds of years," Paul Alward says, "there were certain breeds in certain areas that thrived under certain weather conditions or on certain food. Then in a matter of 40 or 50 years, confinement factory farming cloned most of those breeds out. They found a few breeds that can eat corn and stay in confinement and not fight and put on weight fastest, and that's all that mattered. So we tried to take breeds that fit in with this area we're in. Give them quality food, clean water, sunshine, grass, and let them take care of themselves."

Quote:

To have something tasty on the plate, you need to raise the animals really well, with natural food, with plenty of space, with fresh air, with pure water.

For cattle, that means Scottish Highlands and Devons, breeds accustomed to harsh winters who sleep under the stars year-round. It's not unusual to see them in the middle of a snowstorm, a foot of snow on their back, perfectly content. Pork comes from Gloucestershire Old Spot and Large Blacks, two breeds that the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy lists as "critical"-they each have an estimated global population of less than 500. The Large Blacks at one point were down to a single herd, maintained by a farmer in Mississippi, but online communication among like-minded farmers allowed the breed to be slowly expanded into 10 small herds around the country. "They're great mothers," Alward says. "They don't need to be crated in a farrowing crate, and chained in for six to eight weeks while they nurse so they don't roll onto their babies." The Old Spot was originally an orchard pig; for centuries in England it was raised to glean off the unharvested apples-so from September to February, the Veritas pigs stay on a diet of similar rich local produce: apples, pears, pumpkins, even cider pressings.

The end result of a happy life can be served very rare.

It can sound oxymoronic: raising animals with such care, only to dispatch them after a determined amount of time. And in Glos's case, it's doubly so. She was a vegan and PETA activist in her younger days, and didn't actually eat meat until she began farming it herself. "I made profound leaps in understanding," she writes on the farm's website, "when I stayed up all night to help a tired sow deliver piglets in to the world...and when I killed my first chicken, by my hand, for my food." To slaughter animals that you raised yourself, to send Bandi to a beef farmer, involves some serious self-evaluation and preparation. "You're on the floor," Stephanie Turco says of the days their rescued veal calves leave the farm. "It puts you in a very different place."

As we continue to walk around Veritas, Turco disappears momentarily into the barn. When she reappears, she places two warm objects in my hand: eggs. As if on cue, a rooster standing near us crows. As she describes the sight of a cow lying under a shade tree with three chickens on its back, eating flies, her earlier comment about Disney echoes in my head. When I was child, this was my impression of where animals came from: peacefully coexisting, calm, clean. Somewhere along the way, as I grew older, I dismissed that idea as a fantasy, as a...Disney ideal, I suppose. So to see it now, exactly as a child would describe it, is jarring. I mention as much to Turco. "That's not an accident," she says. "Why is it that we see photographs of all kinds of other things, but we never ever see how animals are raised? They don't want you to see. I'm not a crazy conspiracy theorist, but they really don't want you to see it. Nobody could eat it if they saw."

She's absolutely right. But after visiting Veritas, the opposite also holds true. That night, my wife and I eat an early dinner at the same restaurant where I'd taken a bite of her steak the year before. This time, I order one of my own. It's a locally grown flat iron. It's neither pale nor exudative. It's slightly gamey, my wife says, but it tastes clean to me. I've seen its life. I respect its death. And I feel okay.

Peter Rubin is an editor at Complex magazine. His writing has appeared in GQ, Details, The New York Times, and Vibe.

Photographs by Catherine Ledner

Farm photos courtesy of Veritas Farms

All You Can Eat

GOOD — Sun, 3 Feb 2008 22:08:57 PST

Ray Kroc opened the first of his McDonald's franchises in Des Plaines, Illinois, 53 years ago. Think of this as the most prominent in a series of postwar developments-like TV dinners and microwaves-that made our eating habits faster, easier, and far worse. You can draw a straight line from those heady early days of food debasement to modern feats of caloric engineering, and declare that mainstream American cuisine has been in continuous decline for much of the last half century.

To reverse the trend, growing numbers of farmers, chefs, and consumers have been waging a gastronomic revolt. It's easy to say that to join in, you should buy organic, or local, or from small farms, but that's not always possible and is often prohibitively expensive. It's a good start to simply make sure you think holistically about your food: where it's from, who made it, and what's in it. What we eat says everything about us, so don't think of your food as a commodity, think of it as a statement. Let's eat.

We'll be adding new food-related features to this list every week until we're sated.

All You Can Eat Features

What We Eat

From the rations soldiers are eating in Iraq to the most expensive pizza we could find, GOOD looks at the meals of America.

Everyone's a (Food) Critic

A teacher, a pilot, a cop, and a rock star offer their takes on the stereotypical foods of their trades.

Buying Organic

GOOD and Phil Howard show you who really owns the family companies that make your smoothies and cracked wheat.

America's Tastiest Streets

Adam Matthews maps out seven streets with exquisite eateries at pedestrian prices.

Guess Who's Coming As Dinner?

Peter Rubin investigates a post-organic ingredient for better dining: pampered animals.

The Next Sushi

A number of exotic, ethnic cuisines will fast become American mainstays. Adam Leith Gollner shows us 10 of the best.

The Deer Hunter

Bow Hunting in Los Angeles? Zachary Slobig tries to bag a buck in the hills overlooking the city.

All You Can Eat

The Meal Ticket

What We Eat

From the rations soldiers are eating in Iraq to the most expensive pizza we could find, GOOD looks at the meals of America.

School Lunch

1. CHICKEN and BROCCOLI

Super-Gourmet

2. OSETRA PIZZA

Fast Food

3. CLASSIC CHICKEN DINNER

Rations

4. BEEF STEW Meal Ready To Eat

Raw

5. MOCK TUNA SALAD

Buying Organic

The Deer Hunter

Everyone’s a (Food) Critic

Nothing ruins a cop show quicker than a hackneyed doughnut joke. Still, we wondered if-as with most clichés-there might be something to it after all. We appointed our own panel of experts to dig into the foods most associated with their jobs. Move over, Jeffrey Steingarten.

a TEACHER on apples:

a PILOT on airplane food:

a COP on doughnuts:

a ROCK STAR on whiskey:

The Next Sushi

1. Mongolian Hot Pot

2. Dosas

3. Just Desserts

4. Pupusas

5. Small Plates

6. Korean Bibimbap

7. Mangosteens

8. Offal

9. Singapore Street Food

10. Little Fish

America's Tastiest Streets

Roosevelt Avenue, Queens

Don't Miss!

Travis Street, Houston

Don't Miss!

Fremont Avenue North, Seattle

Don't Miss!

Broadway, Chicago

Don't Miss!

Southwest 8th Street

Don't Miss!

Nolensville Road, Nashville

Don't Miss!

W. Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles

Don't Miss!

Guess Who's Coming As Dinner?

All You Can Eat

All You Can Eat Features