June Dinner on 12th Ave.

Well this is a little embarrassing...Is it actually possible that our last post was in October of last year?!? I know we haven't quite kept to the once a month intention when it comes to our dinner gatherings, but we certainly have had more than one or two since last October! I guess after an evening of food, wine, and friends the idea of writing a post about the evening just escapes me.

But after another lovey evening with friends, I'm recommitted to sharing our adventures. And what a wonderful evening it was! We feel very fortunate to have such a great diverse community of friends around us that will take time out of their very busy schedules to share a meal together.

And on the menu tonight we had a simple meal (that's what happens when I'm working until 6:00 and people are coming for dinner at 7:00!) that consisted of:

Aperitif of Prosecco with fresh raspberries (from Mary and Wally's garden-- thank you!)
Spring snap peas (from Stephanie's garden-- thank you!)
Trusty, crusty bread with olive oil and balsamic
Spring salad of edible flowers, strawberries, blue cheese, and candied pecans
Orecchiette with farro, favas, english peas, and pecorino
Lemon curd (ala Julia Child) filled tart with fresh strawberries and cream

Thank you everyone for such a lovely evening.

Michael Pollan Video

If you don't know of Michael Pollan, you should. He's probably the best current writer about the politics and production of the food we eat. When I read his book The Omnivore's Dilemma, I thought "This book should be required reading for all high school students in this country."

I ran across this video today, which I like in two ways. One, it concisely outlines the points that Michael Pollan makes in his book and, second, it illustrates fantastic presentation technique with beautiful slides. Take a look.

Sustainable fish farming: A love story

Check out this fantastic TED talk by Dan Barber, foodie, scholar, and 2009 recipient of the James Beard Award for Outstanding chef.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with_a_fish.html


As many of you know, we consider ourselves pescatarians-- we generally stick to a vegetarian diet but also will eat certain seafood, trying to ensure, though, that it is as sustainably harvested as possible. That last part, the finding "sustainably harvested" fish is becoming more and more of a challenge. As society's demand for fish has increased, we have depleted 90% of many of those great fish species we love to eat, tuna, salmon, etc. We have begun to do to oceans what we have done to forests; as Dan Barber points out in this talk, we're essentially clear-cutting our oceans. But in this TED talk, he shows one example of how one fish "farm"/bird sanctuary/water purification system has, not through amazing new technology, but rather by going back to eons old ecological principles, might be giving us some hope, not just for those of us who love our wild salmon, but also for all types of agriculture. It's a fantastic biology lesson wrapped up in a love story. I think you'll enjoy checking it out.

March Dinner on 12th Ave.

Yes, I'm a bit behind on my posts. I'm a bit behind on everything right now. But despite this busy time, we still slowed down enough to enjoy another lovely evening of food and conversation with friends. Here is what was on the menu...

Spring Asparagus Risotto
Wild greens, strawberries, pecan, and smoked blue cheese salad
Trusty, crusty bread with olive oil and balsamic
Individual flourless chocolate tarts with hazelnut mousse.

Spring is here and the garden is starting to show signs of life. The asparagus are creeping their heads out of the ground, the favas and peas are starting to stretch upwards, and our garlic patch is starting to look like a field of young corn stalks. All this means that our Dinner on 12th Ave gatherings will soon benefit from the bounties of our local spring fare. We were able to go about 9 months this past year on serving mainly things either from our garden or from other local small farms. February and March were a bit more of a challenge but things are looking up. So please do consider joining us in the coming months. It's usually pretty darn good food and always fantastic conversation.

Slug sex

Invariably, we have interesting conversations at our these dinners. One topic at our most recent meal was that Richard told us how interesting slug sex was. Fortunately, it was after we had already eaten and so there was no appetite to lose!

As a follow up to that, he sent along some photos for us to appreciate. I've pasted those below. Enjoy.

February Dinner-- Friends, food, and slug sex

What a lovely evening last night at our most recent Dinner on 12th. We know the most interesting people and it's such a privilege to spend time with them. To share a meal with a group of 8 people, many of whom had never met each other, and have a lively conversation ranging from racism to philosophy to slug sex...what a wonderful thing!

In keeping with the simplier theme of the dinners this year, here's what was on the menu for last night's dinner...

Smoked salmon chowder
Valerie's fantastic wheat-free cornbread with honey butter
Crusty french bread with olive oil from a Palestinian Coop brought by Wendy
Wild greens salad with pears, shallots, and hazelnut-crusted goat cheese
Meyer lemon pot de creme with raspberry sauce

Thanks all who joined us and we hope to see many of you next month.

On Gratitude

One of my current personal goals is to express more gratitude and appreciation to those around me. I feel a great deal of gratitude for those who are in my life, but unfortunately, I'm often a bit stingier in my expression of it to others.

While learning to express more appreciation and be more positively reinforcing is a personal goal that's about making my life better and living closer to my values, its also about improving others' lives. I had a recent experience that brought this home to me. As an ACT trainer, I often feel unsure about whether my work makes a difference in the lives of those with whom I work. Totally out of the blue, one of my trainees sent me a me a Native American fetish, which was described on the materials as:

A fetish is an animal carving (usually from Zuni Pueblo and a tradition of all Pueblo People) that reminds us of specific qualities of a particular animal. By respecting that individual animal's "medicine" we may honor that quality in ourselves.

This little rabbit now sits on my desk in my home office and is a reminder that what I do makes a difference during those times that my mind says otherwise.

If you've been invited to come our dinners, its because either Jenna or I (or both) appreciate you and want to deepen our relationship. Are there people in your life you'd want to express appreciation to? What's stopping you from doing it today?

Peace,
Jason