Aswah's Universe

OCA: Take Action

2009-07-28T12:22:00.001-07:00

STOP OBAMA's HIRING of MONSATAN's LOBBYISTS to HEAD UP FOOD SAFETY

2009-07-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

GO TO the following site and sign the petition!!!

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27042

Don't Let Obama Put GMO Boosters in Charge of Food Safety!
By Alexis Baden-Mayer, Esq.
Organic Consumers Association, July 22, 2009
Straight to the Source

Genetically modified foods are not safe. The only reason they're in our food supply is because government bureaucrats with ties to industry suppressed or manipulated scientific research and deprived consumers of the information they need to make informed choices about whether or not to eat genetically modified foods.
Now, the Obama Administration is putting two notorious biotech bullies in charge of food safety! Former Monsanto lobbyist Michael Taylor has been appointed as a senior adviser to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner on food safety. And, rBGH-using dairy farmer and Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff is rumored to be President Obama's choice for Under-Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety. Wolfe spearheaded anti-consumer legislation in Pennsylvania that would have taken away the rights of consumers to know whether their milk and dairy products were contaminated with Monsanto's (now Eli Lilly's) genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).

Please click here to send a message to President Obama, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (oversees FDA) demanding Michael Taylor's resignation, and letting them know that you oppose Dennis Wolff's appointment.

About Michael Taylor

Michael Taylor is a lawyer who has spent the last few decades moving through the revolving door between the employ of GMO-seed giant Monsanto and the FDA and USDA. Taylor is widely credited with ushering Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) through the FDA regulatory process and into the milk supply -- unlabeled. A Government Accounting Office (GAO) investigated whether Taylor had a conflict of interest and or had engaged in ethical misconduct in the approval of rBGH. The report's conclusion that there was no wrongdoing conflicted with the 30 pages of evidence that Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) described as proof that "the FDA allowed corporate influence to run rampant in its approval" of the drug.

Taylor is also responsible for the FDA's decision to treat genetically modified organisms as "substantially equivalent" to natural foods and therefore not require any safety studies. The "substantially equivalent" rule allowed the FDA to ignore evidence that genetically engineered foods, including soy, are in fact very different from natural foods and pose specific health risks.

In November 2008, Tom Philpott reported that Taylor was among President-Elect Obama's "team members" looking at energy and natural resources agencies, including USDA. In March 2009, President Obama announced the creation of a White House Food Safety Working Group to improve and coordinate the government's approach to the nationwide food safety crisis. Agri-Pulse reported that Taylor was "the leading candidate to staff the White House [food safety] working group." While anti-GMO activists, including the Organic Consumers Association, protested -- OCA members sent 13,435 letters to USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack, who co-chairs the Food Safety Working Group with HHS Sec. Sebelius -- Taylor laid low. He was nowhere to be found at the White House Food Safety Working Group's May 13th Listening Session. But, the rumor proved true. On July 7, 2009, the FDA announced that Taylor had joined the agency as senior adviser to the commissioner.

As Philpott describes in a July 8th article, Taylor's food safety agenda is to "shift much more of the burden for funding food-safety operations to the state and local level" and to promote HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) systems where the points in a process that pose the most risk are identified and “fixed” with remedies like ammonia washes and irradiation. Taylor's approach -- putting a few bandaids on an industrialized food system gone wrong -- is in direct conflict with organic practices and is likely to unduly burden small producers.

Taylor has long been hostile to real food safety. While working as a lobbyist, Taylor authored more than a dozen articles critical of the Delaney Clause, a 1958 federal law prohibiting the introduction of known carcinogens into processed foods, which had long been opposed by Monsanto and other chemical and pesticide companies. When Taylor rejoined the federal government, he continued advocating that Delaney should be overturned. This was finally done when President Clinton signed the so-called Food Quality Protection Act on the eve of the 1996 elections.

Taylor is featured in the documentary, The World According to Monsanto, which you can watch on OCA's Millions Against Monsanto page.

About Dennis Wolff

Dennis Wolff is the Secretary of Agriculture for the State of Pennsylvania. Wolff also is a dairy farmer and owns Pen-Col Farms, a 600-acre dairy cattle operation. Wolff has championed agribusiness interests as Pennsylvania's Secretary of Agriculture, including banning local dairies from marketing their products as free of Monsanto's rBGH. Wolff is a member of the Agriculture Technical Advisory Committee to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO has been largely credited with forcing so-called "free trade" on farmers and consumers around the globe, undermining national sovereignty and food safety. Finally, Wolff was a strong proponent of the "ACRE" initiative (Agriculture, Communities and Rural Environment), which gives the Pennsylvania state attorney general’s office the authority to sue municipalities over local farm ordinances deemed to exceed state law, depriving communities the right to ban toxic sewage sludge, factory farms, and GMOs.

Aside from having absolutely no experience in meat inspection, the chief food safety responsibility of the USDA, Dennis Wolff should be rejected for any post within the Obama Administration for the hostile position he has taken, as Pennsylvania's Agriculture Secretary, against consumers' right to know what is in our food. According to the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Wolff:

* Tried to ban all labeling of dairy products that didn't use genetically engineered growth hormone (rBGH or rBST). This was an outright violation of freedom of speech of the dairy processors and the farmers who supplied them.

* Said that consumers were "concerned or confused" about the labeling and said his department received "many calls" about it. Yet when a New York Times reporter asked him about this, Wolff couldn't provide any surveys showing consumers were confused and could not come up with the name of ONE CONSUMER who had complained.

* Held one meeting of the so-called Food Labeling Advisory Committee and said they recommended the labeling ban. Yet the committee never voted on anything and never made any recommendations specific to dairy. Moreover, the group most affected by the rules and most opposed to them, the PA Association of Milk Dealers, was never even invited to the meeting.

ONE LOVE

2009-07-23T15:51:00.000-07:00

My BROTHERS AND SISTERS!

Regardless of your sex, race, political views... whether you are straight or not... this issues effects all of us. please watch! ONE LOVE!

At a time where we seem hellbent on promoting WAR throughout the world here's a small ray of sunshine and hope that the average people of the world can bring PEACE to the PLANET! It's 6 minutes long... the WAR can stop for that long!!! Pass this around to any and everyone!!! STOP OBAMA's WAR ON HUMANITY! STOP ISRAEL"S WAR ON PALESTINE!

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=aEW0BtFuj5I&pop_ads=null

Bob Marley's "One Love" performed by Keb' Mo' and performers from India, Israel, Nepal, South Africa and Zimbabwe in the new PBS special PLAYING FOR CHANGE: PEACE THROUGH MUSIC.

Playing for Change is a multimedia effort to unite musicians and vocalists from diverse parts of the globe while seeking to immerse audiences in a movement to inspire, connect and bring peace to the world through music. Using mobile audio/video units, technicians traveled the world, recording local musicians outdoors in towns and cities worldwide. In addition, musicians from all over the world are now brought together to perform benefit concerts that build music and art schools in communities in need. The special premieres August 1 and airs throughout August 2009 on most PBS stations. Check local listings for dates and times in your area at pbs.org. You can help PBS continue to offer everyone — from every walk of life — the opportunity to experience amazing performances and explore new ideas through television and online content. To donate, please visit http://www.pbs.org/support

Judge: Case Against Gitmo Prisoner “an Outrage”

2009-07-23T15:13:00.001-07:00

from Democracy NOW!

The Obama administration meanwhile is facing a Friday deadline on whether to continue jailing Guantanamo Bay prisoner Mohamed Jawad. The American Civil Liberties Union has challenged Jawad’s indefinite imprisonment, saying he’s been abused, threatened, and deprived of sleep in US custody. The case has received further scrutiny because it’s believed Jawad was jailed when he was twelve years old. Federal District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle has given the Justice Department until tomorrow to explain why Jawad should still be jailed. Huvelle called the government’s current case “an outrage” and “riddled with holes.”

SINGLE PAYER

2009-07-22T16:09:00.001-07:00

I strongly suggest reading these two Amy Goodman pieces on SINGLE PAYER... the first is from Obama's own doctor and the second from an industry insider...

here's the links:

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/22/president_obamas_longtime_physician_opposes_white

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/16/former_insurance_exec_wendell_porter

President Obama’s Longtime Physician Opposes White House Health Plan, Advocates Single Payer

Dr. David Scheiner was President Obama’s doctor from 1987 until he entered the White House. Today Dr. Scheiner is publicly opposing Obama’s health plan and is calling for a single-payer system. [includes rush transcript]

Guest:

Dr. David Scheiner, internist based in the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park. He was Obama’s doctor for twenty-two years, from 1987 until he entered the White House.

Rush Transcript
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AMY GOODMAN: As the healthcare debate reaches a fever pitch, President Obama is holding a primetime news conference tonight in a bid to win wider support for healthcare reform. His remarks are expected to respond to skepticism fueled by the Congressional Budget Office’s scathing assessment of the expenses involved in the House legislation, concerns from conservative Blue Dog Democrats, and broad opposition from Republicans.

But will the President address concerns of single-payer advocates, who think his public plan will not go far enough?

I’m joined now from Chicago by Dr. David Scheiner. He was President Obama’s doctor from 1987 until he entered the White House. He treated Obama for twenty-two years but has publicly opposed Obama’s health plan, calling for single payer. Dr. Scheiner was disinvited from ABC’s recent healthcare forum, where he was planning to ask about single-payer healthcare.

Dr. Scheiner, welcome to Democracy Now! It’s good to have you with us.

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: Good morning. Thank you very much.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean you were disinvited by ABC? What happened?

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: Well, on the Friday before the Wednesday, I was notified by ABC that they thought it would be a great idea to have me come to the White House for that forum, that town hall, as a surprise visitor, that President Obama would not be informed, and I would ask a question from the audience. That Sunday, I received an email outlining the trip, and I canceled two days of the office to prepare for this. And then, Monday, another producer called me and said that they had too many people showing up and that they didn’t need me, and my trip was canceled.

AMY GOODMAN: What is it—

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: The question of who—yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: The question of who—the question of who was responsible, of course, is hard to know, whether it was ABC or whether it was somebody at the White House.

AMY GOODMAN: What would you have asked?

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: I would have asked about single payer, insofar as we already have one that works, and why we just couldn’t have universal Medicare and eliminate the insurance companies, which are causing incredible costs and havoc on the system.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about your relationship with President Obama? You were his doctor for more than two decades in Chicago?

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: Right, exactly. I didn’t talk politics with him, really, because—although I must say, the very first time I saw him, the very first time, he was a community organizer, and he walked into the office. One of the first questions I asked him is if he was going into politics, because he had a presence. He walks into a room, and there’s a presence about him which is extraordinary. And I think about ten or fifteen years ago, a friend of mine from Florida called me, told me I had said I had a patient that I thought could be president of the United States someday. And it was—there was something about him. And there still is. He’s an incredible man. And we had a very good relationship. It wasn’t a close relationship, personal relationship, but we saw each other often, and for minor problems. He’s in superb health.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you ever discuss the issue of healthcare with him?

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: The only thing that I ever discussed with him was the question of malpractice and tort reform. And the response was somewhat negative, as it was when he spoke to the AMA.

AMY GOODMAN: You were the partner of Quentin Young, well-known advocate of single payer. We’ve had him on the program a number of times.

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: He was the former head of the American Public Health Association.

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: Oh, yes, a close friend and, I have to say, my mentor, and influenced my life in innumerable ways. I owe a great deal to him.

AMY GOODMAN: So, can you look—tell us about the plan that is presented by the House and whether or not you support it?

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: The problem, overwhelmingly, is the issue, in my mind, of the private insurance companies being a part of the program. Their record has been so abominable that to have them in the program just doesn’t make sense. The cost—Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm’s brother, made a comment in the Journal of the AMA that just the administration costs of employers’ health is over $300 billion a year. And that money will still be wasted. There will probably be even more advertising. The huge CEO salaries will continue to be made. I think the head of Aetna makes $23 million a year.

Insurance companies repeatedly interfere with the care of patients. The opponents of health reform keep saying that if the government gets into medicine, you won’t have a choice of your doctor, you won’t have a choice of your hospital, your care will be restricted. I don’t know where they got that. Medicare, if anything, is too permissive. Medicare never gets in my way. But insurance companies—I have to use special labs. I have to—I can use certain hospitals for one person; I can’t use them for another. I’m repeatedly getting responses from the insurance company disallowing certain procedures, disallowing certain medications. The insurance company is in the room every time I see a patient. And somehow, the patients think they have free choice. Medicare gives them free choice. They will have their choice of doctor. They will have their choice of treatment. With private insurance, that will not be the case. It’s an extraordinary waste of money.

And the public—if I had a single point to make about what is going wrong with this health reform is that the public is so uniformed. They think somehow that they get the best care in the world. We know by health statistics we’re thirty-seventh. Even people with good health insurance don’t realize that the healthcare they get is often not appropriate. Sometimes they get unnecessary treatment. The whole issue, for example, of prostate cancer, which is an extraordinary industry today, and there’s no proof that doing anything is of any value. But, you know, if I have a patient with prostate cancer, there’s no way I would sit back, because I know the trial lawyer is also in the room watching me. That’s another issue, which—there’s no way you’re going to control costs, if you don’t get that under control also.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to David Scheiner, who was an internist in Chicago—continues to be—in Hyde Park, the personal doctor of President Obama for, oh, twenty-two years, from ’87 ’til he entered the White House. Your assessment of the Health and Human Services head, Kathleen Sebelius?

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: Well, my—you know, the greatest problem I had was that prior to becoming governor of Kansas, she was a lobbyist for the trial lawyers. And that, you know, certainly makes me a little bit nervous. I think President Obama, and I think much of the media, discount the significance of defensive medicine. The New York Times had a piece on this, I think two or three weeks ago, and they say it’s just a small part of healthcare. This is a major part of healthcare. We practice incredible amounts of defensive medicine. And I can tell you now that no matter what health program comes through, if they don’t reform that system—

AMY GOODMAN: “Defensive medicine” means?

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: —I’m going to be ordering tests—pardon me?

AMY GOODMAN: “Defensive medicine” means?

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: Practicing—doing things in medicine to prevent getting sued. We do this constantly. And we’re going to order more tests and more tests and more tests and do unnecessary care.

AMY GOODMAN: Gallup poll and others show the concern of people. For people who have healthcare, they like their healthcare, which is why those who support a public plan say you’ve got to ensure that people—you’re telling people they can keep the healthcare if they like it. How do you answer that, Dr. Scheiner?

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: Well, they’ll get more freedom under Medicare. The insurance companies—there’s no question—they restrict care. Under Medicare, people have incredible freedom. I can’t remember in the last forty years that I’ve been taking care of patients under Medicare that they have ever gotten in my way, but the insurance companies are constantly getting in my way.

There was this thing in the New York Times, the story of a man with a $150,000 health coverage. He had multiple procedures done. It turned out all they paid for was room and board. The insurance companies do incredible things to people, and the public doesn’t know it. They think because they’ve got health insurance, that everything is right with the world. But it isn’t. They don’t even know the quality of care they’re receiving. The public is incredibly naive. Patients go into the hospital. They’re not—most of the time they’re not even adequately examined. The history in physical examination is becoming old hat. It’s becoming like Star Trek with—when Bones would have a machine that he would scan you, so you don’t have to talk to the patient or examine them. And that’s extraordinarily costly. There is so much medicine that—practice that’s wasted.

AMY GOODMAN: And how would that change under a single-payer plan?

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: Well, there would be more—there have to be more controls. You know, effective medicine, what works. And some of the incentive for doing unnecessary procedures would be gone. There have to be—there have to be these kinds of controls. And under single payer, there will be much more—

Pharmaceuticals, we haven’t even addressed pharmaceuticals. The cost of pharmaceuticals is off the wall. Patients can’t afford it. I have a patient now who’s lost his insurance. He’s had coronary bypass. He needs—he’s a diabetic. I have to scout around for samples on my shelves to keep him going. This is unconscionable. Single payer would—there would be bulk purchasing. There would be negotiation over the price of medications.

But control—there have to be controls. There can’t be untrammeled care. There have to be restrictions. And the public should be informed of this. You can’t just go on willy-nilly. Women who have had hysterectomies get pap smears—no value, total waste of money. Patients who have cataract surgery have to have pre-op checks with lab—total waste of money. Nobody is looking.

Obama—President Obama believes that when we have electronic records, somehow night will change into day. That won’t happen. First of all, it’s extremely costly. It will become even easier to scam the health insurance companies and Medicare when you have a cursor that can go over all the things that you perhaps didn’t do, but look good on paper, and you can code much higher.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. David Scheiner, we have to go. I want to thank you for being with us. President Obama is coming for the weekend to Chicago, big Democratic fundraisers. Any chance you’ll see your former patient?

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: I think it’s unlikely.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for being with us, internist based in Chicago, was President Obama’s doctor for more than two decades, until he entered the White House.

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: You’re welcome.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, Stan Brock joins us, formerly of Wild Kingdom, now, well, head of Remote Area Medical, providing healthcare for people in the poorest areas of the world, now focusing on people right here in the United States. Stay with us.

and number two:

“They Dump the Sick to Satisfy Investors”: Insurance Exec Turned Whistleblower Wendell Potter Speaks Out Against Healthcare Industry
As the debate over healthcare reform intensifies on Capitol Hill, we spend the hour with a former top insurance executive who’s now exposing the industry’s dirty secrets. Wendell Potter once served as the head of corporate communications at CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies. We speak to Potter about his own transformation from industry mouthpiece to whistleblower, the healthcare industry’s extensive PR and lobbying machine, the campaign to discredit Michael Moore’s film Sicko, and the insurance industry’s most pressing task: the fight against a public option, let alone a single-payer system. [includes rush transcript]

Guest:

Wendell Potter, former head of corporate communications at insurance giant CIGNA. He is now a fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy.

Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, More...
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Related Links
•Center for Media & Democracy
•Wendell Potter: "The Ultimate Irony: Health Care Industry Adopts Big Tobacco's PR Tactics"
•Wendell Potter: "The Health Care Industry vs. Health Reform"
•Amy Goodman: "Health Insurance Whistle-Blower Knows Where the Bodies Are Buried"

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Related Democracy Now! Stories
•A Legal Aid Attorney Is Dying of Multiple Myeloma. Cigna Insurance Has Denied Him a Bone Marrow Transplant, Calling the Procedure Experimental (4/24/2002)
•A Massive Pressure Campaign Forces Cigna Health Insurance Company to Grant a Bone Marrow Transplant to a Legal Aid Attorney Whose Life Hangs in the Balance (4/26/2002)
•“They Dump the Sick to Satisfy Investors”: Insurance Exec Turned Whistleblower Wendell Potter Speaks Out Against Healthcare Industry (7/16/2009)
•

AMY GOODMAN: As the healthcare reform debate intensifies on Capitol Hill, we spend the hour today with a former top executive from one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies who has begun exposing some of the industry’s dirty secrets. This whistleblower testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation last month.

WENDELL POTTER: My name is Wendell Potter, and for twenty years I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies. And I saw how they confused their customers and dumped the sick, so all they—so also they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.

AMY GOODMAN: Wendell Potter joins us today for the hour.

Up until last year he was the head of corporate communications at CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest for-profit health insurance companies. He served as CIGNA’s chief corporate spokesperson. He also once headed communications at Humana, another large for-profit health insurer. In 2007, Wendell Potter helped spearhead the healthcare industry’s campaign against Michael Moore’s movie Sicko. Today he is a fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy and is becoming one of the most prominent industry whistleblowers.

I sat down with Wendell Potter earlier this week.

WENDELL POTTER: I worked for CIGNA for fifteen years, and I was a spokesman or spokesperson for CIGNA for all of that time, and probably the last four or five years I was the head of corporate communications and also the chief spokesman for the company.

AMY GOODMAN: So why have you decided to speak out?

WENDELL POTTER: You know, when I left, I left voluntarily. It was a little over a year ago. I just decided I didn’t want to keep doing that. I had no longer felt that what I was doing was the right thing. But I didn’t decide to start speaking out until just earlier this year, when I started seeing the evidence that the insurance industry’s PR and lobbying campaigns were apparently paying off, like they did in the early ’90s when they were leading the effort to kill the Clinton plan, and how they’ve killed every meaningful healthcare reform initiative since then.

AMY GOODMAN: But you were a critical part of that, being in communications and then head of communications at CIGNA.

WENDELL POTTER: I was. I was a person who was often speaking for not just the company, but sometimes the industry. I spent a lot of time working with my colleagues at other companies on task forces and trade association committees to help develop the strategy and the tactics. So, yes, I did a lot of that. So, as a consequence, I know pretty much the game plan that they have developed and used and the talking points that they use and send out to people who they think will say the things they want them to say.

AMY GOODMAN: And what are those talking points? What is the game plan of the health insurance industry?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, the game plan is based on scare tactics. And, of course, the thing they fear most is that the country will at some point gravitate toward a single-payer plan. That’s the ultimate fear that they have. But currently—and they know that right now that is not something that’s on the legislative table. And they’ve been very successful in making sure that it isn’t. They fear even the public insurance option that’s being proposed, that was part of President Obama’s campaign platform, his healthcare platform. And they’ll pull out all the stops they can to defeat that.

And they’ll be working with their ideological allies, with the business community, with conservative pundits and editorial writers, to try to scare people into thinking that embracing a public health insurance option would lead us down the slippery—excuse me, slippery slope toward socialism and that you will be, in essence, putting a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor. That is—you know, they’ve used those talking points for years, and in years past they’ve always worked.

AMY GOODMAN: What turned you? Why did you change?

WENDELL POTTER: I changed because over the last two or three years I began seeing more than I’d ever seen before and became more knowledgeable of how health insurance—how health insurance companies make money, how they maximize profits.

The companies that I worked for were two of the biggest for-profit health insurance companies. And over the past fifteen years, since the last time we had this debate, the health insurance industry has consolidated to the point that now there are about seven very large for-profit health insurance companies that dominate the market.

They have begun shifting their business model away from managed care, which, frankly, I used to think was a great model, a great concept, for the delivery of healthcare. But they’ve moved—they’re moving away from that to what they refer to as consumer-driven or consumer-directed care, and it really is just a euphemism for shifting the financial burden from insurers and employers onto the shoulders of working men and women. I saw that happening. But I also saw how—you know, the things that they do to maximize their profit, which really boils down to dumping the sick.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, “dumping the sick”?

WENDELL POTTER: Two different ways that they do this. In the individual insurance market, we’ve seen quite a bit of news coverage, especially in California. When insurance companies who are active in the individual market—and this means when you don’t get your insurance coverage through your workplace, about the only option you have is to buy it directly from an insurance company, and usually it’s much more costly than it is through—if you buy it or get it through your employer. Once you file a claim, if you are unfortunate enough to get very sick or have an accident and file a claim, you very often will find that your insurance company will go back and look at your application to see if there might be a chance that you either didn’t disclose something that you knew about in the past or inadvertently didn’t disclose something or might not have known about a pre-existing condition. They’ll use that as evidence that you were committing fraud, and they’ll revoke your policy, or they call it “rescinding” your policy, leaving you holding the bag, making you completely responsible for all the medical bills. That’s one way that they dump people who need insurance the most.

Another is, if you are employed, particularly with a small business, and your insurance—your employer gets his or her insurance through one of the large insurers, and if just one person in your company files a claim that the underwriters think is too high, if it skews what they think is the appropriate medical experience or claim experience, when that business comes up for renewal, they very likely will jack up the rates so much that your employer has no alternative but to leave and leave you and all of your coworkers without insurance. Either that or they may cut benefits or try to shop for coverage somewhere else. But the end result is, you may find yourself dumped into the rolls and the ranks of the uninsured.

AMY GOODMAN: Was there a seminal moment when you were head of communications at CIGNA that really made you start to look? And how were you isolated there from, well, most people in the country, you know, who were increasingly talking about the massive problems of healthcare and access to it and being cutting off, the dumping of the sick, as you put it?

WENDELL POTTER: I was very isolated, along with most insurance company executives who deal with numbers all the time—profit margins and medical loss ratios and earnings per share and how many millions of members you have, or things like that. It’s just—they’re just numbers. And I didn’t really associate that with real people as much as I should and as much as most insurance company executives should, until I went to visit my relatives in Tennessee.

And while I was there, I happened to learn about a healthcare expedition that was being held at a nearby town across the state line in Virginia. And I was intrigued, borrowed my dad’s car and drove up to Wise County to see what was going on there. And this expedition was being held at the Wise County fairgrounds, and it was being put on by this group called Remote Area Medical that got its start several years ago taking volunteer doctors from this country to remote villages in South America, where people really don’t have any access to medical care. The founder realized pretty soon, though, that the need in this country is very, very great, and he started holding similar expeditions in rural communities throughout the country. And this one was nearby. I decided to check it out.

I didn’t have any idea what to expect, but when I walked through the fairground gates, it was just absolutely overwhelming. What I saw were people who were lined up. It was raining that day. They were lined up in the rain by the hundreds, waiting to get care that was being donated by doctors and nurses and dentists and other caregivers, and they were being treated in animal stalls. Volunteers had come to disinfect the animal stalls. They also had set up tents. It looked like a MASH unit. It looked like this could have been something that was happening in a war-torn country, and war refugees were there to get their care. It was just unbelievable, and it just drove it home to me, maybe for the first time, that we were talking about real human beings and not just numbers.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, what did you do with that?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, it took me a while to just really process it. I came back to work. I knew at that time that I couldn’t continue doing what I was doing. It just didn’t seem like it was ethically the right thing for me to do. My first career, I was a journalist, and I had been in PR, though, for many years. And I came to realize that much of what I was doing now—or then—in my PR career was just the opposite of what I was trying to do as a journalist. But still, you know, I had mortgage payments. I had other bills to pay. And it was just—it was difficult to work through this and figure out what do I do and how do I—what do I do next?

But then, you know, just two or three weeks later, I was having to fly to a meeting, and I often would fly on one of the corporate jets. And while I was doing that, I was served my lunch on a gold-rimmed plate, was given gold-plated flatware to eat my lunch. I was sitting in a very spacious and luxurious leather chair. And it just dawned on me for the first time. I had done this many times. But because of the Wise County experience, I just realized for the first time that someone’s premiums were helping me to travel that way and were paying for my lunch on gold-trimmed china. And then I thought about those men and women that I had seen in Wise County, undoubtedly not having any idea that this is the way that insurance executives lived and how premium dollars were being spent. And that got me closer to making an ultimate decision that I had to leave.

AMY GOODMAN: Wendell Potter, the former chief spokesperson for the health insurance giant CIGNA. We’ll come back to this wide-ranging conversation in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We return to my conversation with the former health insurance executive Wendell Potter. He was the former head of corporate communications at the insurance giant CIGNA, now a fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy. I asked him whether he felt many of the journalists covering the health insurance industry are acting as PR agents for the industry.

WENDELL POTTER: I do think so, maybe unwittingly in many cases, and probably mostly unwittingly. But also, just the way the mainstream media’s influence has changed and the—excuse me, the decline in newspaper circulation and just the way that people get their information, that has changed, and that has worked to the favor of people like I used to be—PR professionals and corporate executives. There aren’t as many reporters as there used to be. The so-called news hole isn’t as big as it used to be to have investigative pieces.

Reporters who are still there are much busier, I think, than reporters were when I was there, and I was very busy. I think that they too often, or more often than they should, will just accept a statement that’s given to them from a corporate PR guy, like I used to be, and run with it and think their obligation is done, or just don’t have the time to explore it or do any in-depth stories. So, in that regard, I think they really are unwittingly helping the insurance industry.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you think of an example of when you told a reporter something that you felt was not true, and that reporter did not investigate further?

WENDELL POTTER: Two or three things. I think insurance companies and, well, anyone can—one of my favorite textbooks when I was in college was How to Lie with Statistics, and I think that we in PR often will throw statistics out that are true to a certain extent but are also misleading and don’t disclose the full story. That is what, more often than not, was what I was doing. I don’t recall intentionally or knowingly lying to a reporter; I wouldn’t have done that. But I think there are times when by withholding all the information or providing selective information or data, you definitely are misleading. And that’s what I did more often than not.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you give us an example?

WENDELL POTTER: One of the things you’ll see that insurance companies are doing these days, they do their own surveys of members. And one of the objectives they have right now is to try to persuade people that these consumer-directed plans are really popular with their customers and with the membership that they have. And the other data that we see that’s done by non-affiliated organizations show that people really don’t like these consumer-directed plans and are concerned about the cost shifting that is going on. But the insurance companies do their own surveying of their members, and they will—they’ll send out news releases with selective data about certain responses to certain questions, without disclosing the questions they ask or much of the methodology that they use. And as a consequence, they’re painting a picture that really is not necessarily the full picture. And I think that that’s an example. That’s one of the things I think people need to be very aware of and that journalists need to be very aware of, of the techniques that corporate PR people use to influence public opinion.

AMY GOODMAN: In 2007, CIGNA denied a California teenager, Nataline Sarkisyan, coverage for a liver transplant. Her family went to the media. This is her mother.

HILDA SARKISYAN: The insurance company can’t decide who’s going to live and who’s going to die. Only doctors and nurses. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: The California Nurses Association joined in. Geri Jenkins is head of the CNA.

GERI JENKINS: It’s just really atrocious that we let decisions be made based on money and not on human life and what’s necessary to keep people alive. The Sarkisyans had insurance. And that’s the telling thing here. They had insurance. They had done everything that was expected of them. They worked hard. They provided insurance. And yet, when they needed it, it wasn’t there for them.

AMY GOODMAN: Under mounting pressure, CIGNA finally granted coverage for the liver transplant. But it was too late. Two hours later, Nataline died.

AMY GOODMAN: Wendell Potter, can you talk about—well, I’m sure this was a challenge for CIGNA—and how you dealt with this story?

WENDELL POTTER: It was a challenge. And frankly, it was probably within a month or so after I first learned of Nataline Sarkisyan that I told the company that I worked for—pardon me—that I had come to the end of my career and had a long run at CIGNA, but it was time for me to go.

Nataline Sarkisyan, as you know, was a seventeen-year-old girl in California when her doctors at UCLA suggested—or requested coverage for a liver transplant that was denied. That request was denied by CIGNA. And it was one of those things that became what we called a high-profile case. The Sarkisyan family reached out to the media, to the California Nurses Associations and others to help them put pressure on CIGNA to try to get the company to reverse its decision. Ultimately, the company did.

It was a very, very difficult time for—I can’t imagine what it was like for the family. I don’t want to suggest that the difficulty that I had was anything close to what the family was going through. My heart went out to them and still does. But it was difficult to serve as a spokesman for the company during that time. And as you know, the company did make a decision to cover the procedure, but regrettably that decision came too late, because Nataline died just hours after that decision was communicated to the family.

AMY GOODMAN: And how were you feeling at the time?

WENDELL POTTER: Oh, just devastated. I have a daughter myself. And I—even though I was having to represent the company, and again was being as truthful as I could, I all the time was just thinking about the family and the grief that they were going through and the way their—you know, they were briefly optimistic that the decision to cover the procedure might save her life, and then so quickly for that hope to be dashed was just devastating for them, I know, and it was just crushing for me and a lot of people that I worked with at CIGNA, too. I want to make sure that that’s understood, that it, you know—I was so disappointed, and I was hopeful, too, that this might be something that actually would save her life. It was just a dreadful, dreadful experience for everyone concerned; there were no winners in that at all.

And certainly, from a public relations point of view, CIGNA really suffered a black eye. And I, as the spokesman for the company—there were two people who really spoke for the company during this time. It was me and the chief medical officer. And I was—my name was on the website, and my contact information was on the website, CIGNA’s website, and so people were venting their frustration. I received—I can’t tell you how many emails, how many voicemail messages and calls from people who were just outraged. And it was a very difficult—very, very difficult thing to go through.

AMY GOODMAN: Wendell Potter was the former head of corporate communications at the insurance giant CIGNA.

I also asked him about the case of Thomas Concannon, the former head of the Federal Defenders of the Eastern District of the Legal Aid Society here in Manhattan. In 2002, Concannon was suffering from multiple myeloma, a rare form of cancer. His doctors planned to perform a bone marrow transplant, but as Concannon lay on the operating table, his insurance company, CIGNA, announced it would not cover the operation. Days later, Concannon came on Democracy Now! This is part of our interview seven years ago, on April 24th, 2002, with Thomas Concannon and Elisabeth Benjamin, supervising attorney in the Health Law Unit of the Legal Aid Society. This is Tom Concannon.

THOMAS CONCANNON: On April 9th, they actually put me in the surgical—put me in an operating room, and through general anesthesia, put a tube in my chest that was—it’s called a catheter, a three-lumen catheter that’s meant to be the vehicle through which they extract for blood tests and where they put chemo, different forms, chemical cocktails in. And so, that was put in. And we thought, after a day of rest, that I’d get—begin two other days of certain kinds of photopheresis, other blood-cleansing processes and other things that would prevent grant-versus-host disease. And then, the following week, to get—I expected to get radiation and my sister’s transplant. In fact, last Friday, on my enchantress’s birthday here, that was the day that [inaudible]—

AMY GOODMAN: That’s your wife?

THOMAS CONCANNON: Yes, that’s my sweetie here. She—it was to be put in on that day. And that was the day we got the notice from—we got the letter from CIGNA saying we’re not—from Dr. Janet Maurer, saying we’re not going to—they were not going to approve that.

AMY GOODMAN: What can people do, Elisabeth Benjamin, in a case like this?

ELISABETH BENJAMIN: Well, if you want to help Tom, I think a good thing to do would be to call CIGNA’s vice president and corporate spokesman and express your utter dismay at their conduct in this case. His name is Wendell Potter, P-O-T-T-E-R. His telephone number is (215) 761-4450.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Elisabeth Benjamin. At the time, she was with the Legal Aid Society, giving out Wendell Potter’s office number on Democracy Now! It was seven years ago, on April 24th, 2002. At the time, Wendell Potter was the top spokesperson for CIGNA. As a result of our coverage, the company reversed its decision and paid for the surgery.

I asked Wendell Potter if he remembered the case of Thomas Concannon.

WENDELL POTTER: Oh, I absolutely do. I mean, that case, the Nataline Sarkisyan case are two that I will never forget. I absolutely do.

And it does speak to the influence that you have at Democracy Now! I came into work the next morning, and my inbox, my email inbox, was—I’d never seen anything quite like it, before or since. It was just phenomenal. I was just being inundated with emails and phone calls and faxes. It was just extraordinary. And I knew that the influence of the media was important in situations like this. And it just—I guess it just proves what I said before: it makes a big difference when someone can get the media or someone on their side to bring this—to make it a high-profile case. It was unforgettable.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to stick with the media and the power of the media. You were the point person on Michael Moore’s film Sicko.

WENDELL POTTER: I was.

AMY GOODMAN: On refuting it.

WENDELL POTTER: I was.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about what happened and how you organized against his film, and then how you feel about that today, or even how you felt about it at the time.

WENDELL POTTER: Well, frankly, I was very conflicted, because when I saw the movie for the first time, I really felt that—well, I knew it was an honest film. The information that was contained in the film, it truly was a documentary, and certainly a documentary with a point of view, but that’s understandable.

But the industry knew, from the moment that we heard that Michael Moore was going to be doing a film, a documentary, on the health insurance industry, that—or not just the health insurance industry, but the whole American healthcare system, that undoubtedly the American insurance system would not fare too well. And so, over the course of many months leading up to the premier of the movie, the industry was very active in trying to figure out how to blunt the impact of the movie when it did premier and was very careful to avoid any memos being written that had Michael Moore’s name or Sicko in the subject line, because there was this great fear that it would be leaked to Michael Moore, and he would use it as part of his publicity campaign. Apparently, such a memo was leaked from one of the pharmaceutical companies, and he used it to great advantage. So all of the memos would have the subject line “Hollywood,” and all the conversations would be on very secretive conference calls.

And then, when the movie was about to premier, the industry—it was premiered, as you may remember, in Cannes at the film festival in 2007, and the industry, through some connections that it had in the entertainment business, was able to fly someone to France to get a ticket and to sit in the theater during the first screening of the movie. And then, after that, this person got on the phone for a much-anticipated conference call. I’m sure there were dozens of us who were on the conference call waiting to hear the first reports about Sicko. And that was when we all knew which companies were mentioned in the movie and then what cases were being mentioned. And that gave the companies some time to prepare, to develop talking points to counteract the ultimate questions, the inevitable questions that would be asked when the movie was beginning to premier in the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: And what were the buzzwords, the talking points, that you developed that you felt were most important to refute what he did? And then, your thoughts as the media repeated them?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, two things. One is very consistent with what they’re doing now, the industry is doing now, to try to defeat or shape healthcare reform legislation to its benefit, and also consistent with what it did in ’93 and ’94 to kill the Clinton plan. Number one, with regards to Michael Moore himself, they knew that he could be a polarizing figure and that conservatives don’t like him, so they—the industry—part of the industry strategy was to recruit conservative pundits and editorial writers and members of Congress who were conservative and aligned with the industry’s agenda and point of view. And we would do media training with all of our executives, because there was the expectation that Moore would do ambush interviews, as he has done in some of his previous films. That didn’t happen, but if they had, we had our executives well trained with how to handle such an interview. We referred to him—we were prepared to refer to him in any interviews we did have as Michael Moore the movie maker, the entertainer, in an effort to diminish his importance as a documentary maker, to try to cast him as part of the Hollywood establishment and someone who was really making a fantasy, rather than a documentary. So that was part of the strategy.

The other was to use the subject of what he was doing, which was—you know, as you may recall, he went to many different countries that have universal care, including Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and even Cuba, and some other places, to show how people can get care and have much better access to care than in the United States. The industry saw this certainly as a threat. They didn’t like seeing those countries’ healthcare systems depicted in a positive light, because they’d been fighting that kind of a system for many years. So the talking points were to demean a single-payer system or a government-run system. Government-run—whenever you hear someone who’s allied with the industry talk about a government-run system, they’ll use the term pejoratively, and they’ll say that it will put us on the slippery slope toward socialism, or it will put a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor. And you’re seeing that now in some of the ads that are running by—I think Conservatives for Patients’ Rights is one group that’s got ads running like that right now. So it was an effort to take advantage, actually, of the movie and to start the campaign against government-run healthcare once again.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Wendell Potter. He is the former healthcare industry spokesperson—health insurance industry spokesperson for CIGNA. We’ll have more of his interview after break.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Tomorrow on Democracy Now!, on Friday, we’ll be spending the hour with Howard Dean. Yes, the doctor, the former Vermont governor, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, and the former presidential candidate. He has a new book out. It’s called Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform. And if you have questions for him, you can send them to us at mail(at)democracynow.org or stories(at)democracynow.org.

Well, we’re going to return now to the end of our conversation with the former health insurance spokesperson Wendell Potter. Yes, he’s formerly head of corporate communications at the insurance giant CIGNA, now a fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the way the Senate now is dealing with healthcare, and Congress overall, and the power that the health insurance industry has over these politicians? I mean, you have people like Senator Max Baucus, who gets more money perhaps than anyone in the Senate from the health insurance, hospital, healthcare industry, and he’s head of the Senate Finance Committee.

WENDELL POTTER: That’s right.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about that strategy the insurance industry has in dealing with politicians and your thoughts on this.

WENDELL POTTER: Well, one thing to remember is that the health insurance industry has been anticipating this debate on healthcare reform for many years. They knew it was inevitable that it would come back. And they knew that if a Democrat were elected president, undoubtedly it would be on the top of the political agenda. So they’ve been positioning themselves to get very close to influential members of Congress in both parties, and Max Baucus is certainly someone they knew, a long time ago, was going to be critical for their interests. So, yes, they—the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and others in healthcare—have spent, have donated lots and lots, millions of dollars, to his campaigns over the past few years.

But aside from money, it’s relationships that count. And that’s why the insurance industry has hired scores and scores of lobbyists, many of whom have worked for members of Congress and some who are former members of Congress, to lobby on their behalf. Some of Max Baucus’s former staff members work for—in the health insurance industry as lobbyists these days. That is very important. It helps to open the door, and it enables people who are aligned with the industry, who have good associations or close associations with members of Congress, to pass along the talking points or to express the industry’s points of view.

For example, one of the companies hired a very influential lobbyist who has connections on the Democratic side. And one of the things that the industry has been doing is engaging in what’s referred to as "grasstops lobbying.” And that means the top executives go to Washington and meet with members of Congress and try to persuade them, or at least make them see, that they don’t have two heads and that they’re reasonable people, and you should listen to us. One of the companies that I used to work for was able to get my former CEO in an audience with Hillary Clinton. And Hillary Clinton certainly—this was when she was still senator and was running for president, and her platform was very similar to Barack Obama’s platform on healthcare reform. And she, undoubtedly more than almost anybody else in the Senate, knew the power and influence of the insurance industry, but she was willing to meet with the executives. So that just gives you an example of how doors can be opened for some of the most influential people on Capitol Hill. And most people can’t imagine having that kind of access or that kind of entree to the power and leadership on Capitol Hill.

AMY GOODMAN: Was that when you were working for CIGNA?

WENDELL POTTER: It was, it was. And one of the industry’s lobbyists is Heather Podesta. Heather has her own company now. She used to be with another big firm called Blank Rome, which also is doing a significant amount of lobbying. But her husband is Tony Podesta. They are a power couple in Washington, if there ever was one. Tony is John Podesta’s brother. And they, themselves, have contributed thousands and thousands of dollars to candidates over the past several years. So, having someone like that on your team makes a huge difference in being able to get the foot in the door and to present your points of view.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, what about that, Tony’s brother being John Podesta, who is seminal for the shaping of Obama policy, and the people who are—most significantly, the people who are put into the Obama administration? What is your understanding of how much influence he has on his brother?

WENDELL POTTER: You know, I don’t know, and I think that would be something that would be very interesting for some reporters to ask, to call up both Podestas and just explore that and find out if they have conversations. And I would—I don’t know. I would be speculating, and I haven’t been a part of any conversations that would suggest that there is anything untoward there. But I think it would be—it’s something that I think would be appropriate for the media to take a look at it and just to do stories about the connections in Washington and how the insurance industry and others who have gained so much power and influence shape legislation, as it very likely will be shaping healthcare reform legislation this time.

AMY GOODMAN: The Washington Post recently had a piece about the nation’s healthcare industry hiring more than 350 former government officials and members of Congress to sway healthcare reform on Capitol Hill. According to lobbying records, three out of every four major healthcare companies have at least one former government insider on the payroll. Nearly half held positions under key committees and lawmakers, including Senators Max Baucus, as you mentioned, and Charles Grassley. Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, of course, which is largely steering healthcare reform. Baucus’s aides, as you mentioned, recently held a meeting with a group of lobbyists that included two of his former chiefs of staff. The Washington Post says the healthcare industry is now spending $1.4 million a day on lobbying, totaling $126 million in the first fiscal quarter, I guess spending the money of the premiums of people. Perhaps a number have been denied. Wendell?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, there’s no doubt that the money that insurance companies have to do their lobbying comes from premium income. One thing that people, I think, need to understand, that I’ve been talking about as part of my testimony, was how less and less of a person’s premium dollar is being spent actually to cover claims these days. Back when Bill Clinton was president and he and Hillary Clinton were trying to reform the healthcare system, back in 1993, 95—on the average, 95 cents of every premium dollar was being spent to pay claims. Last year, it was down to just around 80 cents. So we’ve seen that much of a change in fifteen years. And that coincides with the consolidation of the insurance industry and the industry becoming much more dominated by for-profit insurance companies.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of single payer? And first, explain it, as you understand it. I think that’s critical, because most people don’t even understand the idea of government-paid-for healthcare. And compare it to a public plan. And then, where do you see us going now, and where do you think we have to go?

WENDELL POTTER: Yeah, I think one of the ways for people to understand how a single-payer system works is to look at our Medicare program, which is a single-payer program. The government runs the program. So we have a very popular government-run program in this country, and have since the 1960s. And it has been—it has made enormous difference in the lives of people who are elderly and disabled. And, in fact, the satisfaction ratings of people who are enrolled in Medicare—and these are people who are elderly and disabled, who have a much greater chance of needing care than people who are younger and who are enrolled in private plans—the satisfaction ratings of people in Medicare is higher than it is for people who are in private plans.

In Canada, their system there is called Medicare, and it is a system that essentially has taken our Medicare program and expanded it to include or be available to all their citizens. And in Canada—it’s probably the ultimate single-payer system—there are no private insurance companies that compete for business. In the UK and some other countries in Europe, there are government-run programs, but some allow insurance companies to operate. So there are different kinds of government-run programs or programs that are essentially financed largely by the government.

But even in a single-payer system like in Canada and our own Medicare system, the care is delivered by the private sector, by doctors and nurses who are in private practice and by private hospitals. So it is not a government takeover, as some in the industry and its allies would like us to believe. It is not a government takeover of the healthcare system, by any means. In a single-payer system, doctors and nurses and hospitals deliver the care. And people have a broad choice; they’re not restricted to certain doctors and nurses and hospitals.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you for single-payer healthcare in this country?

WENDELL POTTER: It works in Canada. There are people in Canada—I think the satisfaction ratings in Canada, people are much happier with their system there than Americans are here. In fact, more people in this country are uninsured than the entire population of Canada. And if you take into consideration the people who—the number of people who are underinsured now—and that is a number that is growing because of the new health plans that are being sold, these so-called consumer-directed plans that are really high-deductible plans—when you add those people in, there are more people who are either uninsured or underinsured than the entire population of the United Kingdom. So, you know, we are at a point where some fundamental reform is absolutely necessary. We can’t let another opportunity go. We can’t go another fifteen years before we have some meaningful reform.

AMY GOODMAN: Should there be for-profit health insurance companies in this country?

WENDELL POTTER: You know, interesting. One of the big champions of the so-called consumer-directed plans is a woman named Regina Herzlinger. She’s a professor at Harvard and is kind of considered the guru of consumer-directed plans. She often talks about the Swiss system as something that the US might look at as a model, because they presumably have something like a consumer-directed care there. They do have private insurance companies that operate there. The interesting thing is that she doesn’t mention too much, or at all, for that matter, is that while there are insurance companies that operate there, for-profit insurance companies are illegal in Switzerland, and they are very highly regulated. And they all have to offer standard benefit plans. And so, there’s nothing like the kind of system that we have here.

I think, in many ways, it might not be a bad model to look at, because there are no for-profit companies that operate there. Some of the companies even in this country do sell supplemental products in Asia and Europe. But I kind of think the Swiss are onto something. If they don’t allow for-profit insurance companies to operate, there must be some good reasons why they think that should be the way it is.

AMY GOODMAN: Wendell Potter, as you look back on your life and look forward about what your plans are now—you voluntarily left as the chief of corporate communications at CIGNA—would you do things any differently?

WENDELL POTTER: You know, I’ve said that in the twenty years I’ve spent in the health insurance industry, looking back at it now, I feel like I was a journalist undercover for twenty years. And that helps me sleep at night to look at it that way. Yeah, I think there are some things I would do differently. But on the other hand, if I hadn’t done what I did, I wouldn’t know what I know now, and I wouldn’t be in a position to be able to speak out and to disclose and describe what really goes on. So, you know, you can’t really look back and say, “I wish I’d done this,” because it doesn’t do a bit of good. I think you just have to do what you can do in the present moment, and hopefully that it will make a positive difference. And that’s what I hope to do, going forward.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, as the push for healthcare reform continues, it looks like President Obama is having a mutiny within his own party. What they call the conservative Democrats, or the Blue Dog Democrats, look like they might even be backing away from a public plan. In fact, Rahm Emanuel, President Obama himself seems to have backed off somewhat, saying that may not be the first step in healthcare reform. Does this concern you? And what advice would you give to them right now, when you have a population that’s overwhelmingly for a public plan, if not single payer, and a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate?

WENDELL POTTER: I think it would be absolutely disastrous for the administration to even consider signing legislation that doesn’t include a strong public plan. You’re exactly right. And I think many, many people voted for Barack Obama because of his healthcare platform and the things that he said he felt were vital in terms of reform. The inclusion of a public insurance plan is paramount, it is absolutely necessary, and I would hope that people who voted for him and people who are uninsured, who are underinsured, will make sure that he understands that.

I think what Rahm Emanuel said, let’s hope it was a trial balloon to see just what kind of reaction it might get. And I think it was swift. People who are supporters of the President, from what I understand, were very, very quick to say, you know, “That dog won’t hunt. You’ve got to—a public plan is important, it is something that we expect. And we expect that you will get behind it in a strong way.”

I think that the President’s influence may be seen more toward the end of this process. There will be a House bill that’s hopefully passed, a Senate bill that will be passed. They will be different, because they always are, and there will be a conference committee that will need to be held to iron out the differences. And I think that will be a time when the President’s influence will be especially needed to make sure that a public plan, and a strong one, is included in the final legislation that reaches his desk.

AMY GOODMAN: Wendell Potter, the former chief spokesperson at CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest for-profit health insurance companies.

It's in YOUR HEART!

2009-07-07T09:12:00.000-07:00

It’s in Your Heart by Paul Hawken

You are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on Earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the Earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive and in case you didn’t bring your lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is hiring. The Earth couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine and the unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint!
And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on Earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this Earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.
The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in school rooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refugee camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. It works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “one day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us it is cheaper to destroy Earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other is called exploitation. And whenever we exploit the Earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the Earth is not a way to get rich; it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Theresa and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. And dreams come true. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes then there are stars in the universe.

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it. You can feel it. It’s called life. This is who you are. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of god. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television.

Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss.
The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

051009... The Dead return to the SHORELINE AMPITHEATRE

2009-05-12T08:32:00.001-07:00

What a great day we had! Dancing in the sunshine, soulshine! They played two sets:

Set 1: Help is on the way>Slipknot>Franklin's Tower, Good Lovin', Cassidy, Bird Song, Uncle John's Band

Set 2: Unbroken Chain>The Other One>Drums>Space>Sugaree>Gimme Shelter>Sugar Magnolia

Encore: St. Stephen>The Eleven> Touch of Grey

LOVE is WHAT I GOT...

2009-05-08T08:43:00.000-07:00

After so many distressing posts about fucked up mega Corporations ruling America I feel as though I need to post some positivity from the gulch of American Imperialism!

Last night I slept up in a grove of super huge and beautiful REDWOODS... in an area called the Avenue of the Giants... wowsa are they beautiful. I cooked a big fat rib eye steak just the way I like... crispy on the outside, cold on the inside... seasoned with Espelette peppers,sea salt and fresh ground black pepper... I ate it with a pint of Hop Stoopid IPA from Laguinitas Brewery and a big salad of local greens and radishes in my mother's infamous vinaigrette... Life is good!

All these pictures were taken with thirty second or longer exposures at near dark... I slept with towering redwoods watching over me...

LOVE IS WHAT I GOT!

ASWAH

TORTURE

2009-05-05T17:32:00.001-07:00

In a recent column, Eric Margolis labeled the Republicans as "America’s champion of war and torture." Those are some harsh words – harsh but true.

The recent release of the Bush torture memos and the revelation that the CIA waterboarded Abu Zubaydah 83 times and Khalid Sheik Mohammed 183 times before Bush claimed that we don’t torture has elicited a predictable response from conservative Christians who think the Republican Party is the party of God: silence.

It is also no surprise that a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows that of four major religious traditions in the United States (white evangelical Protestant, white non-Hispanic Catholic, white mainline Protestant, and unaffiliated), white evangelical Protestants are more likely to believe that the use of torture against suspected terrorists can often or sometimes be justified. In fact, the more often people attended church, the more likely they were to justify torture.

A similar poll commissioned last year by Faith in Public Life and Mercer University reported that almost 60 percent of Southern evangelicals believed that torture was often or sometimes justified.

When the Spanish did it, it was torture. When the Japanese did it, it was torture. When the Germans did it, it was torture. When the Khmer Rouge did it, it was torture. But when waterboarding was done by Americans under a Republican administration, it suddenly became an "enhanced interrogation technique."

Such has not always been the case. Waterboarding-like techniques used by American soldiers during the Philippine Insurrection and the Vietnam War were condemned. But that was before the "war on terror" where anything goes in the name of "national security."

"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was not waterboarded 183 times," says a Republican hack at Fox News. That number is "highly misleading" and a "vast inflation" because "the much-cited figure represents the number of times water was poured onto Mohammed’s face – not the number of times the CIA applied the simulated-drowning technique on the terror suspect."

Okay, so how many "pours" does take to be waterboarded? If a prisoner is removed from his cell, taken to an interrogation room, forced to endure one "pour," and then taken back to his cell – can we not say he was waterboarded because he only suffered one "pour"?

And what about Abu Zubaydah? In addition to being waterboarded, he had a collar wrapped around his neck, was smashed against a wall, was forced to stay in a pitch-dark box for hours, was stripped naked, was suspended from hooks in the ceiling, and was deprived of sleep. Is it not torture if these things only happened one time?

The strict constitutionalist at Fox, Judge Andrew Napolitano, who actually read the 175 pages of torture memos, sees things differently from the defenders of the Bush regime at his network: "This is not rocket science and it is not art. Everyone knows torture when they see it; and no amount of twisted logic can detract from its illegal horror, its moral antipathy, and its attack at core American values."

Who are these CIA operatives that engage in waterboarding and other forms of torture? What kind of a man does such a thing? The FBI does profiles of serial killers. How about a profile of a CIA agent who tortures prisoners, in the interest of national security, of course?

Are these men Christians? I suppose they are. The majority of Americans claim to be a Christian of some sort. Can a Christian waterboard an A-rab for Jesus?

For the Christian, there is no other way to do it. The Bible says: "And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him" (Colossians 3:17). It also says that whatsoever we do, we should "do it heartily, as to the Lord" (Colossians 3:23). We should do everything "to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Can a Christian smash someone against a wall in the name of the Lord Jesus? Can a Christian heartily lock someone in a dark box for hours at a time? Can a Christian deprive someone of sleep to the glory of God? Can a Christian give thanks to God while he hangs someone from the ceiling?

Sure he can, but not without violating the whole tenor of the New Testament.

Christians are told to put off anger, wrath, and malice (Colossians 3:, to not render evil for evil (1 Thessalonians 5:15), to not give offense (1 Corinthians 10:30), to abstain from all appearance of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22), to not be a brawler (Titus 3:2), and to abhor that which is evil (Romans 12:9). I think this rules out waterboarding.

Okay, but suppose the perpetrators of torture in the CIA do not claim to be Christians and don’t care what the New Testament says? Well, does that mean it is okay if Christians cheer them on? If not, then what should Christians do? Should they just be indifferent?

John the Baptist told Herod "It is not lawful for thee to have her" when he married his brother’s wife (Matthew 14:4). He also told Roman soldiers to "Do violence to no man" (Luke 3:14). Why aren’t Christians doing likewise?

Why aren’t Christians letting the CIA and the military know that waterboarding is torture and that torture is wrong? Could it be that these institutions are filled with Christians? Could it be that Christians respect these institutions? Could it be that Christians trust these institutions? I think all of the above are true.

Where is the outrage from the evangelical community over these torture memos? I’ll tell you where. It is in the same place as the outrage over the invasion of Iraq, the thousands upon thousands of dead Iraqis, the over four thousand American soldiers who died for a lie, the bloodbath that Iraq has become, the Guantanamo prison camp, the CIA secret prisons, the destruction of liberty in America due to the war on terror, and America’s evil foreign policy.

Christians should be leaving the Republican Party in droves. Christians should be crawling on broken glass as penance for blindly supporting the Republican Party. Christians should be repenting in sackcloth and ashes for thinking the Republican Party was the party of God.

Instead, even as more and more crimes of the Bush administration come to light, I fear that Christians who are outraged, and rightly so, at the crimes of the Obama administration and the Democrats will look in the next election to the Republicans as their savior instead of the champions of war and torture.

America needs more Christians like John the Baptist instead of John Hagee.

Will Obama think my bankruptcy is good?

2009-05-01T09:43:00.001-07:00

Dear Mister White House!

Why do you never respond? I am beginning to think you only listen to lobbyists and big corporations...

I also find it troubling that Obama says it is good when a mega corporation files for bankruptcy and fires employees but when an individual files for bankruptcy it is evil and horrible. So we bailed out the banks with our money; then the banks raise credit card rates and punish us and they do not give loans out... does this logic seem strange to anyone else?

Well, I have credit card debt. Following Obama's logic, filling for bankruptcy would ensure my continued success, allow me to restructure and I wonder will I be able to get loans for a house or even keep my job? Will the banks view my situation in the same light as Chrysler?

Chrysler Files for Bankruptcy Protection
The auto giant Chrysler has filed for federal bankruptcy protection under a government-brokered deal. Chrysler hopes to form a new company that would be owned by the US government, the Italian auto giant Fiat, and the company’s workers. On Thursday, President Obama said the bankruptcy filing would ensure Chrysler’s continued operation.

President Obama: “No one should be confused about what a bankruptcy process means. This is not a sign of weakness, but rather one more step on a clearly charted path to Chrysler’s revival. Because of the fact that the UAW and many of the banks, the biggest stakeholders in this whole process, have already aligned, have already agreed, this process will be quick.”

Smithfield Swine Flu

2009-04-29T10:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, organic food can be more expensive than mass produced chemicalized food found so in major grocery store chains across America. But what comes with that lower price? Lower quality food, risks to your health and exporting your dollars from your community to corporate bank accounts. Is cheaper food really cheaper? I guess if you do not consider the environmental aspect, your personal health or raping the local economy to be factors in your life than I guess it is cheaper. Support local organic family farmers...

The swine flu, now being renamed Mexican Flu because we don't want to offend Jews and Muslims alike. Why aren't we calling it Smithfield Pork flu? It has been traced to a plant in Vera Cruz run by pork giant and global mass polluter Smithfield Foods. You may remember Smithfield Foods from that great article in Rolling Stone Magazine called "Boss Hog". Here is a taste:

"Boss Hog America's top pork producer churns out a sea of waste that has destroyed rivers, killed millions of fish and generated one of the largest fines in EPA history. Welcome to the dark side of the other white meat." by Jeff Tietz

Here's the whole article... you probably won't eat pork tonight or maybe even tomorrow after reading it:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters

Leave it to Amy Goodman and independant bloggers to report what the corporate run media does not want to say:

"Is Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork packer and hog producer, linked to the outbreak? Smithfield operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated. The operations, grouped under a Smithfield subsidiary called Granjas Carroll, raise 950,000 hogs per year, according to the company Web site.

On Friday, the U.S. disease-tracking blog Biosurveillance published a timeline of the outbreak containing this nugget, dated April 6 (major tip of the hat to Paula Hay, who alerted me to the Smithfield link on the Comfood listserv and has written about it on her blog, Peak Oil Entrepreneur):

Residents [of Perote] believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to "flu." However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this outbreak."

to read the full story: http://www.truthout.org/042809K

OBAMETER

2009-04-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

I heard someone on KZYX and Z say that someone needs to start a website to track the lies Obama has stated in his campaign... so instead I am starting a post.

From the onset let me state that Obama is far better than Bush(it)... at least when I am getting screwed by the government it isn't as bad as it was... or maybe just the packaging changed a bit.

I went and saw Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! - probably the only true independent journalistic voice keeping it real. She helped me put a different perspective on my growing mis-feelings about Obama. It truly was historic moment in history when two candidates running for President were a bi racial man and a woman. We have the 60's to thank for that moment. It was historic moment and one that caused more than one of us to shed a tear when Obama was elected... I know I did. It was another proud moment in the psyche of the nation when Obama walked into the White House... the world's most famous house that was built by slaves. A circle has been completed... and for that I am thankful. I am not living in fantasy that racism is gone... just one bridge has been crossed and there are many more on the road ahead. Amy brought up the story of Frederick Douglas, probably the greatest abolitionist that ever existed. How he was a troublesome slave that was sent to Mount Misery, the most evil place where torture and killing of troublesome slaves happened... incidentally now Donald Rumsfeld's house... yeah, no kidding! http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/84D88ECE-CC26-4455-B422-ADB418751941/ I suppose that closes the circle on another more sinister loop in life.

So at some moments I am proud and happy at how far we have come. I am also so sad because Obama really had a rare moment in history when he could have made the biggest shift in the world... he could of stood up and did what was right for the average Joe and Jane... instead he is taking the road that others have built and Bush certainly walked.

Our prison in Cuba is actually ramping up torture and beatings of the untried Muslims held hostage there. Obama has NOT allowed the basic rights to those held captive that we cherish so dearly... the foundations of our society... the right to a speedy and fair trial. Allegations have just started coming out about the worsening of conditions there. Please do not let the economic blanket of despair make you forget all the injustices going on in the world... I still am camping on a hillside in Mendocino County and woke up to freezing temperatures... though I did recently find part time work.

The WAR is still raging and being furthered by Obama... Since when did violence ever bring peace? Violence only begets violence. Look at the struggle of Palestinians... The constant Israeli attacks on innocent people has accomplished nothing but the furthering of resolve to fight the injustice. Obama has increased shipments of military weaponry to the Israeli government... many were used in the recent crackdowns on innocent people in the Palestinian State. OUR weapons are killing mothers, daughters, sons, fathers, grandmothers, aunts. Can you sleep at night? Over ONE MILLION Iraqis have paid for OUR actions. ONE MILLION! That is an insane number! As Franti has said: YOU can bomb the world but you cannot bomb it to PEACE! Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity. A failed action. So many of us believe in the words of Michael and the rest of the members of Spearhead. Why we are not outraged at this? Why aren’t our voices of dissent being shouted and heard? Many of us on this site and who attend his shows and enjoy his music have been inspired and deeply touched by the message... We all need to YELL for PEACE!
So Obama has strayed far from his promises... we are cutting the amount of teachers on the payrolls but we are expanding the war efforts in two countries. In Iraq Obama is simply renaming the troops and claiming to cut combat troops. He also is hiring mercenaries from a company he has a vested interest in... 120,000 mercenaries. Troop reduction my ASS. Afghanistan is a losing cause. What do we really gain by fighting people who dress a little different, talk a little different... I don't need a passport to walk on this Earth. I am of this EARTH. Why are we killing people who think a little different? By us NOT taking action we are the passive side of the war effort. By us not fighting injustice we become accomplices in the actions of our representatives...

Citibank has increased the salaries and bonuses of its top people in the last few months. INCREASED! Where is the opposition to that? All the failed banks who got TARP money have hired scores of lobbyists... lobbyist who worked for the government (both parties) and are making their will the way. All the failed banks and companies like AIG are increasing pay. That came out this morning in Amy's show. Why isn't that National NEWS? Why aren’t journalists actually fighting for the rights of the masses?

Today it came out that big oil is happy that global warming is happening because now it is easier to get at oil in the Arctic Circle. Happy at the destruction of our fair MOTHER, EARTH. HAPPY? Shell wants to further develop sea leases they acquired and are ready to start drilling for oil in one of the most fragile ecologic sites left on the planet. A BIG OIL spokesmen said you know only 1% of oil drilled is spilled. ONE PERCENT! That is too much. CAN anyone say EXXON VALDEZ? That only wiped out the fishing industry in parts of Alaska and caused ungodly amounts of economic hardship to the people of Alaska. Oh, didn't EXXON settle and give millions of dollars? HELL NO! The fishermen and women have not seen a penny of that money. The herring fisheries that existed in Cordova are now just ghosts... I know I lived 60 nautical miles away from the spill. ONE PERCENT IS TWO PERCENT TOO MUCH. YELLFIRE!

We won't delve into insurance and the documented radical change of position that Obama took there. Single Payer... We are the only civilized country that does not give health care as a right to the masses... In polls, the masses say they want it. BIG AUTO actually is now on the side of it. We are the only civilized country in the world that if you lose your job you lose your healthcare. I guess corporate profits are worth more than you and me. Obama says "I never said we should go and try to get single payer" - and a speech Obama gave to the AFL-CIO in 2003 - in which he says, "I happen to be a proponent of single-payer health care coverage." POLITRICKS AS USUAL!

Obama has put together an economic team of the worst abusers of Wall Street to combat the damage they instituted. Larry Summers who got paid five million dollars last year for working one day a week representing DE Shaw, one of the largest hedge funds in the world. The same Larry Summers, the one who was outraged two weeks ago about some AIG executives who earned $1 million in bonuses, himself earned $8 million in bonuses from the same hedge funds and financial institutions that Larry was appointed to oversee and regulate.

YELLFIRE! Here is an excerpt from "SOLD OUT":

Here are the “highlights” of our Economic downfall:

• Beginning in 1983 with the Reagan Administration, the U.S. government acquiesced in accounting rules adopted by the financial industry that allowed banks and other corporations to take money-losing assets off their balance sheets in order to hide them from investors and the public.

• Between 1998 and 2000, Congress and the Clinton Administration repeatedly blocked efforts to regulate “financial derivatives” — including the mortgage-related credit default swaps that became the basis of trillions of dollars in speculation.

• In 1999, Congress repealed the Depression- era law that barred banks from offering investment and insurance services, and vice versa, enabling these firms to engage in speculation by investing money from checking and savings accounts into financial “derivatives” and other schemes understood by only a handful of individuals.

• Taking advantage of historically low interest rates in the early part of this decade, shady mortgage brokers and bankers began offering mortgages on egregious terms to purchasers who were not qualified. When these predatory lending practices were brought to the attention of federal agencies, they refused to take serious action. Worse, when states stepped into the vacuum by passing laws requiring protections against dirty loans, the Bush Administration went to court to invalidate those reforms, on the ground that the inaction of federal agencies superseded state laws.

• The financial industry’s friends in Congress made sure that those who speculate in mortgages would not be legally liable for fraud or other illegalities that occurred when the mortgage was made.
• Egged on by Wall Street, two government- sponsored corporations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, started buying large numbers of subprime loans from private banks as well as packages of mortgages known as “mortgage-backed securities.”

• In 2004, the top cop on the Wall Street beat in Washington — the Securities and Exchange Commission — now operating under the radical deregulatory ideology of the Bush Administration, authorized investment banks to decide for themselves how much money they were required to set aside as rainy day reserves. Some firms then entered into $40 worth of speculative trading for every $1 they held.

• With the compensation of CEOs increasingly tied to the value of the firm’s total assets, a tidal wave of mergers and acquisitions in the financial world — 11,500 between 1980 and 2005 — led to the predominance of just a relative handful banks in the U.S. financial system. Successive administrations failed to enforce antitrust laws to block these mergers. The result: less competition, higher fees and charges for consumers, and a financial system vulnerable to collapse if any single one of the banks ran into trouble.

• Investors and even government authorities relied on private “credit rating” firms to review corporate balance sheets and proposed investments and report to potential investors about their quality and safety. But the credit rating companies had a grave conflict of interest: they are paid by the financial firms to issue the ratings. Not surprisingly, they gave the highest ratings to the investments issued by the firms that paid them, even as it became clear that the ratings were inflated and the companies were in precarious condition The financial lobby made sure that regulation of the credit ratings firms would not solve these problems.
It is time that our voices be heard! Demand PEACE! Demand that WALL STREET stays out of our pockets… Demand that everyone is afforded the same rights that we cherish.

ASWAH

more bail out blues

2009-03-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

First, I really want to believe that Obama will be the answer so many of us had prayed for. Perhaps many of my statements are interpreted as being anti Obama... I am happy Bush(its) term is over! But I am an individual and make my mind up on that basis rather than being a cheerleader for one party or the next!

With all that being said a few facts that have come out recently have driven me nuts:

Obama was the largest recipient of "donations" from guess which company:

a) AIG
b) AIG
c) AIG

That's right he got over 104,000 dollars from them. They donated a total of 600,000. Guess who was number two, just a few dollars less than Obama... the answer Dodd from Connecticut. Very interesting considering recent mainstream news stories...

Out of the 600,000 given out by AIG, most were given after they got the initial TARP funds... meaning that even Obama got a bonus. Guess which party did put a clause in stimulus monies that did NOT want to stop multi million dollar bonuses? If you said the Democrats than you are correct. Guess which party knew two months ago about the bonuses and tried to cover up that fact... if you said Democrats again than you won. Why should millionaire executives get shielding from our Government when everyday laborers have to get their contracts revised to cut their pay?

I am not a fan of autoworkers and their contracts but this is crap. The allegations that are coming out by the minute are unbelievable. I am trying to keep up to date on the interrelatedness of all these current scandals... from Madoff to AIG. They are so connected. The winners.. the rich and elite... the losers - poor indebt folks like me.

I truly wish and hope that someday in my lifetime that we as a people will retake control of OUR government. Obama is doing many wonderful things and I support and encourage him in that. But we need to write letters and protest the inequities that govern most of our lives... let's all unite as humans, Americans and demand equal rights and justice for all!!!

Holbrooke Served on AIG Board

Meanwhile, a top Obama administration official is coming under scrutiny for his ties to AIG. Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, served on AIG’s board from 2001 until early last year. Holbrooke is believed to have collected up to $800,000 during his AIG stint.

and...

AIG Sues for Return of $300M in Taxes

As AIG faces the loss of its bonuses, it’s quietly filed a lawsuit to recoup more than $300 million in what it says are overpaid taxes. The company says it overpaid the government in charges for using offshore tax havens. The suit effectively means AIG is using US taxpayer money to sue its majority owner, the US taxpayer. The government owns an 80 percent stake in AIG following its $170 billion bailout.

and...

Probe: Bailout Firms Owe $220M in Taxes

In other bailout news, a congressional probe has found the top thirteen firms to receive bailout money owe more than $220 million in unpaid federal taxes. Congress member John Lewis of Georgia, the chair of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight, says two of the companies owe more than $100 million apiece. The review only looked at the top twenty-three bailout recipients, leaving open the possibility of further owed taxes from nearly 450 remaining companies. The inspector general overseeing the federal bailout says he will investigate whether recipient companies misled Congress on their tax obligations.

Citigroup to Spend $10M on Exec Offices

The bailed-out financial giant Citigroup, meanwhile, is coming under scrutiny for a $10 million plan to build new offices for top executives. Citigroup has received $45 billion under the taxpayer-funded bailout.

WE NEED PEACE, NOW!!!

2009-03-20T12:41:00.000-07:00

Peace, not War

I was so saddened to hear the news reports this morning talking about the continued atrocities committed by the Israeli government against innocents during their brief but deadly war in Gaza. The subject of the story was an Arab doctor who practiced in Israel whose house was viciously attacked by the Israeli Defense Force. A group of tanks surrounded his house and commenced firing upon it. Dr. Abu al-Aish, a noted gynecologist and peace advocate, had never engaged in any attacks on Israelis, housed or supported militants or even questioned their right to a homeland. The first rounds of tank shells destroyed his house and killed his daughters’ twenty-one-year-old Bessan, fifteen-year-old Mayar, and thirteen-year-old Aya—as well as his niece Nour, who was age fourteen. Another daughter Shada, who was wounded, was crying for her father having her eyes blown out of their sockets. The second round of tank shells decapitated his children showering the house in pools of blood and brain matter. We will never achieve peace thru violence! Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity. It simply is a failed policy.

The mainstream news in America does not fairly publish the stories of war. We seem to be so scared to confront our Israeli friends about the daily atrocities they inflict. Instead of calling for worldwide peace and being outraged at acts of aggression we condoned their actions demonizing average Arab citizens in our daily biased spoon fed news reports. Two days ago, in the first pages of the San Francisco Chronicle published a story of an Israeli soldier who had been captured by militants and has been held for nearly three years. They gave wonderful background information about his family and his story. When America’s mainstream press talks about Arab casualties, either in Iraq, Palestine or anywhere else we never get the same in depth stories behind their lives or even their names. We simply get body counts.

The same day the paper ran coverage of the captured Israeli soldier, American citizen and noted Peace activist Tristan Anderson was brutally shot point blank in the head by an extended range tear gas canister while peacefully demonstrating with Palestinians against the great barrier wall Israel has illegally built on Palestinian lands. Even George Bush in perhaps his only moment of clarity described the Apartheid Wall as a problem and a major interference in further peace talks.

The fact of the matter is that every American ought to start reading books, newspapers, and blogs and begin educating themselves on our policies and their effects worldwide. If we ever want to find true peace we need to step forward as the citizenry of the dominant world power and demand that our elected officials practice peace and equal rights for all people. We could all take a lesson from DR. Abu al-Aish. Even after the devastating and brutal killing of his entire family terrifyingly recorded on live TV in Israel, he stated publicly and loudly that “Military ways proved its failure. We should look for other ways to give each other its rights. We don’t want to speak about peace. Peace is—you know, this word lost its meaning. We should find something else: respect, equality, justice and partnership. That’s what we should look for.”

“Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace”

- John Lennon

for more information on this story please go to: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/20/palestinian_doctor_peace_advocate_recounts_israeli

For more information on the Wall please find the film called “The Iron Wall” produced by the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees at www.theironwall.ps\

For a fantastic book providing fair and equal coverage of the conflicts in Mideast please read Jimmy Carter’s amazing book entitled Palestine Peace not Apartheid.

For horrific coverage of Tristan’s attack please go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE--quy2N9s

note: before someone calls me an anti semite let’s please get a correct definition. A Semite is “A member of a group of Semitic-speaking peoples of the Near East and northern Africa, including the Arabs, Arameans, Babylonians, Carthaginians, Ethiopians, Hebrews, and Phoenicians.”

I suggest writing President Obama at the White House and voice your desire for PEACE... despite Hillary's statements concerning Palestine since joining Obama's team we need to reopen the dialogue, enforce UN resolutions already in place and follow the roadmap to peace!!!

Letter to the Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle

2009-03-18T13:54:00.000-07:00

François de Mélogue
Rancho Navarro, CA

To whom it may concern:

I am writing in response to your recent article entitled “Why bailout funds go to banks, not us” by Carolyn Lochhead. As an ordinary person I am outraged in her defending the corporations that got us into this mess and not sticking up for plain folks that make up the country. What we need is voice questioning the apparent corporate takeover of our government and our daily lives not another voice in the choir justifying the further pilfering of the average Joe.

Mrs. Lochhead constantly hides behind quotes from official sources and offers only lame commentary proclaiming giving average people money probably wouldn’t prevent a major financial meltdown. President Obama held a pathetic press conference announcing that the mission was accomplished touting the fact that his policy saved 25 police officers from losing their jobs in Ohio. 25 jobs saved for one year while hundreds of thousands are losing jobs. Well, so far giving money to the large corporations has accomplished zero. Instead of average people being able to buy food, pay bills, fend off creditors, fight credit card companies that constantly boost percentages higher and higher and generally survive she seemingly advocates giving multimillionaires even more money in the form of bonuses, office redecorations and other elaborate spending.

The Wall Street Journal reported that executives at Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are trying to figure out how to keep bonuses and not tell us. Wells Fargo, recipient of 25 billion dollars of OUR money simply increased base salaries as to avoid the issue completely and continue rewarding it’s executives with the fleecing of the American public. The Treasury Department has released a report stating that banks are actually lending less and less. The 21 top banks in the country, all of whom received OUR money, have drastically lowered the amount they loan for first mortgages. In December, they loaned out 162 billion and in January they lent out less than half of that.

She defends her flawed stance with would the average person want a loan from the government that they would have to repay. The answer is hell yes! I am currently jobless, homeless and camping on a friend’s property because I do not qualify for any of the government’s bailouts, unemployment or other programs because I am not a home owner and I worked seasonal. My credit card masters did not get the memo that we the people are now partners in their failed institutions and should work hard to keep America solvent and prosperous by offering lower credit card rates and actually lending money to people in need. At some point soon I will have to file for bankruptcy to protect myself and meager possessions from my employees, the overpaid executives in the failed banking and insurance corporations. That $10,714 per person she calculated would save me from financial ruin and offer me a chance to recoup and get back on my feet.

I believe we ought to live in a world where failure is rewarded with losing your job not million dollar bonuses. I think Timothy Geithner ought to be fired and replaced with someone who isn’t a Wall Street insider. Obama ought to think deep and hard about actually returning to the principle that our government was founded by the people and for the people. This should be a clear message to the powers that be that we the people are NOT going to take this abuse of power anymore… that revolution in the streets could happen, even in America.

I AM MAD AS HELL AND NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!

François de Mélogue

Are YOU MAD YET?

2009-01-28T07:55:00.000-08:00

Here's a question for everyone... obviously I am stupid...

I was driving and listening to NPR's All Things Considered and a story about John Thain came up. For those who do not read or listen to news here is a short background on him from Wikipedia:

John Alexander Thain (born May 26, 1955) was the last chairman and chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch before its merger with Bank of America. Thain was designated to become president of global banking, securities, and wealth management at the newly combined company, but he resigned on January 22, 2009. He is considered a hero to Merrill stockholders for his timely sale of the company. Bank of America lost confidence in Thain after he failed to tell the bank about mounting losses at Merrill in late 2008. The Associated Press identified him as the best paid among the executives of the S&P 500 companies in 2007. On December 8, 2008, Thain gave up on pursuing a controversial bonus of $10 million from the compensation committee at Merrill. The NPR story eventually came to this part: Thain also decided to accelerate payments of bonus to employees at Merrill, giving out between $3 billion and $4 billion using money that appeared to come directly from the $15 billion Bank of America and Merrill Lynch had received from US government taxpayers (via the Troubled Assets Relief Program). Thain has additionally become infamous for spending $1.22 million in corporate funds to decorate his office, even as he was asking the government for a bailout of his troubled company

He used taxpayer's money... your money, my money, our money to give out fucking bonuses and redecorate his office? Does this ever bother anyone anymore? Or are we so numbed by our TV's, Cell phones and all the other pacifers modern corporate society gives us that we have forgotten that this is our country, our money and our elected officials.

It would be easy to solely blame Bush but that would be unrealistic. Perhaps we should drop our party blindness and start believing in the people for a change! I say it is more that our system is flawed but several of you, especially family will disagree and really I do not want to divert from Thain. Several people in my immediate family are: jobless, losing houses, losing jobs, didn't get huge amounts of money that was owed to them... where is my bail out? where is yours?

John Thain made 84 million dollars a year giving out loans that they knew could not be backed... collapsed an already stressed system... then took 3 to 4 BILLION dollars given to him by US, the average working joes of the world and gave out bonuses. He took 25% of what the government gave him to sure up his bank (Bank of America and Merrill Lynch) and gave out bonuses. Does that bother anyone else?

To quote a responder on NPR's website about the same article: "I think it was Genghis Kahn who got rid of the rich as soon as he conquered a region because they hoarded all the resources and provided nothing of value."

One of my favorite songs right now is by the band UB40... read the lyrics... "HERE WE GO AGAIN" (featuring Astro) 3:34 ORIGINAL
(Writen by: ? and composed by: Ali Campbell)

LISTEN

We’ve lost our way and don’t know which way to turn
Here we go again
We put trust in great man and still we get burnt
Here we go again
Why do we fall for the same old lines?
Why do we fall for it time after time?
We’ve lost our way inadvertently
Get in the dark
So dark that we can’t see
Get in the dark
I’m talking you and me
You’ve lost your pride and don’t know when it began
Here we go again
You sit in judgement over your fellow men
Here we go again
Why do you fall for the same old lines?
Why do you fall for it time after time?
You’ve lost your pride inadvertently
To scared to talk
Too scared to look and see
Too scared to walk
Too scared to run to me
To scared to talk
Too scared to look and see
Too scared to walk
Too scared to run to me
We’ve gone too far and don’t know where it will end
Here we go again
We’ve eaten up nature
And were gonna get burned
Here we go again
Why do we choose to leave no warning signs?
Why do we do it time after time?
We’ve gone to too far inadvertently
No where to run as far as I can see
Nowhere to run
No end for you and me
Too scared to talk
Too scared to look and see
Too scared to walk
To scared to run to me
To scared to to scared to to scared to talk
To scared to to scared to to scared to talk

here's a link to the NPR story http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99919369

Micheal Franti - BE USEFUL!

2009-01-06T21:41:00.000-08:00

Portland, Oregon
1.4.9

“We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can't bomb it into peace.”

~ Michael Franti

BE USEFUL!

So the trip has ended and Kaya has landed in the Portland area. Along our journey we have met and been supported by so many unbelievable people. We wish to thank all three of you actually reading this post/blog. We wish to thank the kind souls that sent beer money, offered spaces in their homes/yards to park our weary bones, family, friends and any else we forgot to thank. Our lives wouldn’t be possible without YOU!

So we last left most of you in somewhere in the Redwoods. We headed to Eli at German Auto in Arcata, California. A Great mechanic who has been working on Kaya since the time we were stoned and pulled out of a Northern California camp ground with the top still up. Eli kindly replaced the top with a hemp top. This trip Eli just performed some basic routine keep Kaya running maintenance.

Nothing memorable about the day other than we traveled between Arcata and Eureka narrowly missing a Buskateer in Eureka. A Buskateer is someone who purchases a Volkswagen Bus and becomes addicted to them. That encompasses every single owner I have met so far.

Fast Forward… passed up two mountain passes in a blazing snowstorm on Christmas EVE. A strange orange air-cooled bus followed behind us. The BF Goodrich over sized tires held the snow and ice – maybe not as good as my old Nokians but damned close – and certainly not anywhere near as bad as Nokians perform on mud. Suicide.

Had the most fantastic three days hanging out with Lisa’s parents. I cooked a turkey dinner to which I will – I swear – post the details of how to make the juiciest turkey you ever sunk your teeth in. Dance to the bassline all night long.

We drove through yet another snow storm to get up to first Poulsbo, Washington… to see Lisa’s amazing Aunt and Uncle… then eventually Vancouver, British Columbia. BC for two FUCKING AMAZING Michael Franti and Spearhead shows. He is by and far the most influential musician alive today. No one even comes close to him and his message. Perhaps I sound like a deranged fan. I challenge you. Go see Spearhead in the front row and tell me you do not feel it. The experience is nothing short of seeing a cross between a Bob Marley show and a Grateful Dead show. Both had/have legendary qualities about them.

You tell me lies, lies, lies
Sweet little lies
When I cannot bear the truth
You tell me lies, lies, lies
Sweet little lies
Help me make them all come true

Tell me that the rain won't fall today
Tell me that the tax man lost his way (oh, oh)
Tell me that the hurtin aint gonna hurt no more
Tell me that somebody stopped the war (please tell me)

Tell me lies, lies, lies
Sweet little lies
When I cannot bear the truth
You tell me lies, lies, lies
Sweet little lies
Help me make them all come true

I said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
I said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Tell me that the whole world's wonderful (yes it is)
Tell me that the bank account's too full
Tell me that we all got plenty of time, time, time (tell me somethin)
Tell me that I ain't gonna lose my mind

Tell me lies, lies, lies
Sweet little lies
When I cannot bear the truth
Tell me lies, lies, lies
Sweet little lies
Help me make them all come true

And you know I'm just a man
With my heart in my hand
You tell me things at home
And go once more and leave me alone
And even though I got no place
For I'm on the run from the man
Just hold on to me
Just hold on to me

Everytime I need a prayer
Everytime I need to share
Everytime I need someone to hold on to me

Tell me lies, lies, lies
Sweet little lies
When I cannot bear the truth
Tell me lies, lies, lies
Sweet little lies
Help me make them all come true

Help me make them all come true
Help me make them all come true
Help me make them all come true
Help me make them all come true
Help me make them all come true
Tell me that the whole world's wonderful

Look, I really do not want to sound like a rabid fan. Michael has an amazing message set to Carl’s throbbing bass…. stay for tomorrow! So many have waxed on about Spearhead more eloquently than ever could. Let me say he makes me and Lisa want to be more responsible and better people. Two amazing show later… I am hooked. I want to follow them and see every show. I could be the first Spear-it with a dancing bear bus trailing behind… Michael I can cook VEGAN food well!

Starvation is the creation of the devil, a rebel
I'm bringin' food to the people like a widow
bringin' flowers to a grave in the middle
of the city isolation is a riddle
to be surrounded by a million other people
but to feel alone like a tree in a desert
dried up like the skin of a lizard
but full of colour like the spots of a leopard
drum and bass pull me in like a shepherd
scratch my itch like a needle on a record
full of life like a man gone to Mecca
sky high like an eagle up soaring
I speak low but I'm like a lion roaring
baritone like a Robeson recordin'
I'm givin' thanks for bein' human every morning

(chorus)
Because the streets are alive with the sound of Boom Bap
can I hear it once again
Boom Bap tell your neighbour tell afriend
every box gotta right to be bomin'
because the streets are alive with the sound of Boom Bap
can I hear it once again
Boom Bap tell your neighbour tell a friend
Every flower got a right to be boomin'

Be resistant
the negativity we keep it at a distance
call for backup and I'll give you some assistance
like a lifesaver deep in the ocean
stay afloat here upon the funky motion
rock and roll upon the waves of the season
hold your breath and your underwater breathin'

To be rhymin' without a real reason
is to claim but not to practice a religon
if television is the drug of the nation
satellite is immaculate reception
beaming in they can look and they can listen
so you see don't believe in the system
to legalize you or give you your freedom
you want rights ask em', they'll read em'
but every flower got a right to be bloomin'
stay human
(chorus)

All the freaky people make the beauty of the world

You see Y2K ya know is a moment
in time we find that we can open
up a heart that's locked or been broken
by the pain of words not spoken
or shot by guns a still smokin'
Cartwrights out on the Ponderosa
or drive by bang in Testarossa
we need to heed the words of Dalai Lama
or at least the words of yo mama
take a mental trip to the Bahamas
steam your body in a stereo sauna, sauna, comma

Now Lisa and I are figuring our next steps carefully. So many things to decide – where to live, what to do for a living. Oh the smell of Pancetta and Garlic is enveloping our interiors. Briny olives and cheap merlot fill our souls!

o.k fast forward yet even a few more days by. Lisa and I had the most wonderful experience of meeting several the Samba-ites… 1621, Climber John, GWTWTLW (WHEW – hard to remember that one) Carterzest and many others. No disrespect to the unnamed. I did just return from Rogue Brewery in Newport after drinking XS Imperial IPA, XS Old Crustacean Barley Wine and XS Double Dead Guy and taste of the XS Porter and Charlie the Beer – an unoffered beer named after a favorite bartender who left. Charlie was the shit. Yeah. Buzzed in the bus at a campground.

ASWAH LISA and LUCY still trying to figure out life!

p.s. several portions of the story were left out and will be snuck in sometime soon…

I AM A HUMAN BEING!

MENDOCINO CALIFORNIA

2008-12-21T18:24:00.001-08:00

Mendocino, California
12.18.8

“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally
unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.”
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Gina’s Bodacious Prosciutto and Fig Pasta

Gina and Randy’s “off the grid” house nestled high atop the ridge overlooking California’s Anderson Valley is an amazing respite from the cold and bitter world. After two weeks on the road it was going to be nice to have dinner seated at a table with great friends and good wine. Gina was making her famous bodacious pasta with prosciutto and figs and cracking a few bottles of Pinot Noir from Goldeneye, the vineyard where Lisa and Gina worked together.

After five miles of bouncing down dark, rutted dirt roads it was great to see Randy with flashlight in hand laughing in his contagious way guiding us onto the property. Randy is the go to man for Handley Vineyards by day, and gardener, home adder-on, solar technician by night. He has one of the driest senses of humor that always keeps me in tears whenever I am near him.

Their house sits at the very top of the ridge surrounded by Persimmons, Figs, Lemon and other citrus trees. Hummingbirds and flowers abound in their paradise.

a hummingbird hums...

The three monstrous solar panels produce so much power that if they were attached to the grid they could sell back the excess. The house is heated by a large Kodiak woodstove fueled by wood Randy cuts himself. Water comes from a hillside spring. A self sufficient respite from the corporate world.

“For true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have.
And if you go to draw at the true fountainhead,
the more water you draw, the more abundant is its flow.”

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

We spent a fantastic night reconnecting with old friends, drinking numerous vintages of Goldeneye and eating Gina’s pasta. The house was slightly quieter than normal as two of their young boys were visiting their grandma.

Gina’s Tagliatelli with Prosciutto, Figs and Caramelized Shallots

½ c. Olive Oil
10 each Shallots, peel, slice
1 # Prosciutto, sliced, chopped
12 each fresh Figs, cut into large chunks
4 slices Bread, brushed with olive oil, toasted, crushed
enough Tagliatelli, or egg noodle like pasta
1 c. grated Parmesan

Directions:

Caramelize shallots in olive oil, turning often to cook evenly till golden brown. Add prosciutto and continue cooking. Add figs and crushed bread crumbs. Cook pasta, toss in a little butter and olive oil. Season with sea salt and fresh ground pepper and arrange in serving platter. Cover with prosciutto and shallot mixture and top with cheese. The only way to make this closer to Gina’s version would be to grow the figs and shallots yourself.

Lisa picking citrus fruits in Gina's Grove

There is an element in cooking that you can never replicate in recipes, well maybe two elements. The first being if you grow your own food than use it in cooking you have brought the level up so far that most corporate farming can never touch. Gina’s pasta taste so good because of the love she puts into it. She loves the figs she grows. She loves the shallots she grows. It’s the terroir of the dish. Gina’s pasta taste better because she used her ingredients from her homestead to create wonderful food here. That my friend’s is the secret to why food tastes better in Italy or France. You cannot replicate terroir by shipping ingredients across the universe. Live locally!

The other element that restaurateurs can never duplicate is the ambience of the moment. The mindset of restaurateurs is financial. They open a business to make money and that becomes the motivation for everything. Of course money matter when you open a business. My comment would be that it shouldn’t be everything. One needs to make to make the restaurant the place that restores our soul. The place we become refreshed after battling the world. The place we are made whole again.

12.20.08 Avenue of the Giants

Friends and other Truths of Life

"I've always divided human beings into two categories:those who resemble a courtyard and suffocate you between their walls-Then there are those who resemble a garden,
where you can walk and be silent, and breathe."
- Antoine de St. Exupery

Rita and Captain Kirk are two very special and amazing people. For the last two thousand one hundred and thirty seven moons Lisa, Lucy and I have been squatting on a small patch of Earth in their yard. Busted. You caught me. We were plugged in with our three batteries being charged on the grid. Damn. Hippies in Mendocino who have solar panels really ought to use them! Yeah.

Rita and Kirk are two amazing and special friends (special education maybe) of ours. For three or four days we have invaded their lives and squatted on their lands. For three or four days we have made them eat and drink copious quantities of wine with us.

The first night I cooked Caramelized Scallops on Forbidden Black Rice. A yummy dish I came up with when cooking for Flex Mussels in New York City.

Caramelized Scallops
Forbidden Black Rice and Vegetable Box
Ginger and Green Onion Sauce

Ingredients for four people:

16 big fat Sea Scallops, under U10’s
enough Forbidden Black Rice, cooked and hot
2 each organic Carrots, peeled
1 each Onion, peeled
¼ # Sno Peas, picked
1 bunch Green Onions, chopped
½ c. Teriyaki Sauce

Directions:

Heat a small amount of oil in a heavy gauge pan. Season the scallops very liberally with sea salt and pepper. Caramelize in hot pan. Add green onions and cook till green onions are soft. Add sauce and reserve.

Julienne carrots, onions and sno peas then sauté in olive oil. Spoon forbidden black rice onto plate in a rectangle mold, then vegetables. Top with scallops.

Chef’s Note:

Sometimes it’s real easy to just go and buy a small jar of premade sauce at a store when camping. You could also make this sauce at home before a camping trip and carry it into the woods and use on almost anything you can imagine from Tofu to broccoli to salmon to pork! It keeps forever.

Aswah’s Asian Sauce

Ingredients:

1 c. Mirin
1 c. Water
1 c. Soy Sauce
½ c. Sugar
¼ c. Rice Wine Vinegar
1 head Garlic, chopped coarsely
10 each Bird’s Eye Peppers
1 each Ginger Root, chopped

Directions:

Mix everything and bring to a boil. Simmer for ten minutes then thicken with a mixture of cornstarch and water. Cook five minutes than strain.

Chef’s Note:

When thickening something with a “slurry” be careful, do it slow. A slurry can be made from any liquid and usually cornstarch or arrowroot. Each has their own properties. I prefer arrowroot as it is a little cleaner BUT it is easy to add too much and have the finished product look like dog drool.

I would start by mixing a ¼ cup of each cornstarch and cool water together than slowly stirring in just enough to thicken the sauce. The sauce will continue to thicken a bit so be mellow in your usage.

The next two nights both of these amazing people entertained, fed and drank us silly. One night, Rita whipped out her extra special and yummy veggie and tuna rolls, cucumber salad and miso soup. She makes me think she is Japanese with the skill she twists rolls. The best sushi in Albion by far!
The following night we had a potluck where everyone cooked something. I made a Provencal Fish Soup with TONS of local Dungeness Crab, Scallops, Prawns, Red Snapper and WEST COAST Mussels.

Provencal Sunshine

Ingredients for a great and satisfying pot full:

1 each Onion, peeled, julienned
1 each Fennel Bulb, sliced thin as possible than julienned
2 each Carrots, peeled and julienned the size of matchsticks
¼ c. Olive Oil
1 pinch Saffron
1 quart Fish Stock
1 quart Orange Juice
1 quart White Wine
2 each Tomatoes, peeled dice
¼ c. mashed Garlic
28 ounce can San Marzano Tomatoes, mashed with hands
1 each Dungeness Crab cut into quarters
1 pound Red Snapper diced
1 pound Scallops
1 pound Mussels
1 pound Shrimp

Directions:

Sauté julienned vegetables in olive oil. Add saffron and stir thoroughly. Add fish stock, orange juice, white wine, tomatoes, garlic and hand mashed San Marzano tomatoes. Simmer for twenty minutes.

Add all your fish and cook till they are done. Take one ladle full of broth and stir in one cup of Rouille. Whisk together than add to the big pot.

Rouille is a spicy mayonnaise with plenty of hot peppers, garlic and saffron. If you are adventurous make you own by pureeing egg yolks, garlic, hot peppers, saffron, espelette peppers and adding vinegar, paprika and seasonings than slowly adding vegetable oil till its thick and flavorful.

Chef’s Note:

Provencal Sunshine is one of those dishes that is so satisfying yet easy to make. I have never met someone who wasn’t smitten with it’s soul satisfying warmth… I do make it with lots of love and abundance. The base is almost impossible to mess up. Even if the flavors are not exactly there it is the seafood that connects it all, makes it whole.

12.21.08 The first day of WINTER!
Avenue of the Giants! The GREAT redwoods of northern California!

“I’ve often thought of the forest as a living cathedral, but this might diminish what it truly is. If I have understood Koyukon teachings, the forest is not merely an expression or representation of sacredness, nor a place to invoke the sacred; the forest is sacredness itself. Nature is not merely created by God; nature is God. Whoever moves within the forest can partake directly of sacredness, experience sacredness with his entire body, breathe sacredness and contain it within himself, drink the sacred water as a living communion, bury his feet in sacredness, open his eyes and witness the burning beauty of sacredness.”

~ Richard Nelson

Lisa, Lucy and I departed in Kaya and headed northbound for the continuation of our trip northwards. We stopped at Harvest to buy local and organic products for the next few meals. IF you are ever in Fort Bragg, stop on by – they are a full service grocery store and more.

We stopped at a few small beaches on the way up the coast. At mile point 90.91 is Usal Road – gateway to the Lost Coast and our favorite beach and camp area. We didn’t go there this time as we were pushing for the Avenue of the Giants and Burlington Campground.

“I have come to terms with the future. From this day onward I will walk easy on the earth. Plant trees. Kill no living things. Live in harmony with all creatures. I will restore the earth where I am. Use no more of its resources than I need.
And listen, listen to what it is telling me.”

~ M.J. Slim Hooey

If you have never been to the Avenue of the Giants which parallels highway 101 for twenty or so miles, it’s an avenue of giant redwoods lining the roadside. There are many, many short walks and picnic spots to be had throughout the drive. Redwoods are the largest living organism on Earth. They are simply amazing to just watch! I love looking straight up from the base. It reminds me of how small we are as humans. Typical trees span several generations of human existence. By the visitor center they have a cross section of a fallen redwood with arrows pointing to rings. They mark the great moments of not only American History but also European man’s history. The rocks and crags have seen more.

“Earth knows no desolation. She smells regeneration in the moist breath of decay.”

~ George Meredith

We camped in the loving embrace of the dank forest. Life grows out of decay. Every fallen redwoods is the basis for hundreds and thousands of other life forms. Even where man has cut a tree down does the redwoods regenerate with multiple shoots each desperately reaching for the blue sky way above.

Kaya at Greenwood Ridge

Tonight we opened two bottles of Greenwood Ridge 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon. One was corked and the other still lingering on it’s last legs. Allan Green planted cabernet grapes high above the Anderson Valley in a small wine designation called “Mendocino Ridge”. It is the only AVA (appellation) that has an elevation requirement – grapes grown over 1600 feet. The cabernet is very different than others. I won’t say better, just different. Greenwood Ridge was Lisa’s first wine job so Allan’s wines always warm our hearts and thoughts.

I cooked a hangar steak cut from a naturally raised free ranging cow with cute little Russian fingerling potatoes and caramelized carrots. The steak was seasoned with Espelette peppers, Olive flor de sal and truffle salt. This may sound crazy but I like my steaks a little on the salty side. Carnivores wet dream. Crispy rare little bites of juicy, meaty goodness. We finished the evening with a salad of local greens mixed with pea shoots and cucumbers. Long ago my mom taught me the absolutely best dressing for a salad.

Maman’s Kick ASS Salad Dressing

ingredients:

1 clove Garlic, peeled
2 t. Red Wine Vinegar
2 t. Dijon Mustard
2 T. Olive Oil

Directions:

Pound the garlic clove in a wooden bowl and rub all over the interior. If you don’t have wood then feel free to use whatever you do have. The wood helps absorb the oil in the garlic. Nonetheless, remove the crushed garlic, season with sea salt (which helps draw out the oil), add vinegar and mustard then slowly add olive oil.

Chef’s Note:

Our dear friends Jude and Glenn Lutge gave us a great bottle of olive oil. Be flexible. Make a salad from whatever is your Westy. I usually carry about three or four different oils.

“Everything passes away—suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes toward the stars? Why?”

~ Mikhail Bulgakov

Hello Fellow BUSKATEERS!

2008-12-13T17:05:00.000-08:00

Safe travels from Zion National Park!

More of a real communication coming shortly...

have to upload photos from the Granddaddy of Canyons...

and drink some beer/wine

ASWAH

Monument Valley – Navajo Lands…

Put on Bob Marley’s Time will Tell and drive into the park. Somehow it really fit the mood as we drove through some the most amazing scenery on planet earth. Since it’s Navajo lands our Eagle Park Pass didn’t work, but the five dollar per person charge was fair. In this day and age we pay eight or ten dollars to see some [BLEEP!] Hollywood dramatization of a story they somehow messed up anyways. Five dollars to see what Heaven surely looks like.

Honestly at first I thought we had been given a wooden nickel. The road sucks. The first views are slightly better than what you see driving past anyways.

The wild dogs followed our van like they knew that we had some serious good food inside. Cute little dogs though. I should probably preface this entry into our journey with “damn am I buzzed… a few bottles of wine with fellow buskateers and oh yeah, it’s four frigging twenty”. Forgive me, shoot me.

Then Monument Valley opens up like a flower in full bloom. Damn, she just smacks you in the face and asks you questions to which there really are no good or valid answers. Eyes dripping with tears, happiness. Nature replenishes my soul and makes my heart just smile with love. I wanna scream. JOY! HAPPINESS! LOVE! think the rocks and cliffs understand me even if you don’t.

Ending up driving down to the Grand Daddy of ALL Canyons in Arizona… got there after dark and somehow only paid a pittance of the nocturnal camping charge… Nice, small camping area.I made a great Pork and Broccoli stir fry over Orzo…

ASWAH

Zion National Park

12.13.8

Woke up to sun shining on a distant rock face. Slowly sipping coffee with Lucy laying next to me. She is so super sweet. Seems like a paradox to be online and in nature.Two days ago I awoke in the Grand Canyon. The mixed aromas of frying bacon and coffee is very intoxicating. I found a jar of unpasteurized honey from a beekeeper friend in Prince Edward Island deep down in the cupboards of Kaya. Lisa wanted buttermilk biscuits to eat the honey with. I rigged an oven out of a sauté pan and a pot and started slowly cooking the biscuits. As soon as the biscuits were done I fried some bacon then a few eggs in the resulting fat. Even Lucy rejoiced in breakfast as an egg and some bacon found its way into her bowl.

We drove around the Canyon stopping here and there for short walks and great views. Somewhere real close to Grand View is a sign for the Arizona Trail. If you head down that road far enough you come to a fire tower and many a stealth spot to camp. Lisa and I made a mental note to return later in the evening and avoid a charge in the pay-per-view spot. I always sleep better in nature rather than the asphalt pull offs.Dinner was a stir fry of Pork Loin, Broccoli and some green onions I had been squirreling away for a while. We had a bottle of Golden Eye Pinot Noir from 2003 that went well with it.

The next morning we had the same breakfast as we still had four uncooked biscuits and half a jar of honey. We returned to the camper service area with it’s two dollar hot showers and laundry and cleaned up, loaded up on water, dumped our grey water and headed out of the park listening to New Minglewood Blues.

Met two folks on almost the same journey as us except their bus was air cooled. Saw two Park Rangers ripping apart some older women’s car searching for god knows what. Thank God it wasn’t us.We decided to head towards Zion and eventually Reno. The drive between parks is simply amazing. You drive through the Painted Desert, Vermillion Cliffs, Marble Canyon and then into Utah.

We stopped in Kanab at a great Bookstore, Espresso Bar and Outfitter store called Willow Canyon. Made it to Zion just as an amazing sunset brightened the sky in a blaze of orange, then red, then deep purples…

For dinner we ate some pork chops that I seasoned with olive flor de sal (a sea salt hand harvested on the coast of Spain and mixed with black olives), Espelette peppers (a paprika like pepper from the small town of Espelette in France) and pancake batter powder. I slow, slow cooked them so they retained their juicy selves. We complimented the pork chops with a mixture of new potatoes, red onions, whole garlic cloves and baby carrots.

The buskateers we met at the Grand Canyon joined us for some cheese and wine and merriment… cool folks… sleepy time…

Chaco Canyon 12.8.8

2008-12-13T16:56:00.000-08:00

On our way out of Durango, we stopped at an espresso kiosk near the Alpine Inn Motel then the local grocery store. We were surprised by the diverse selection of organics. We drove south along 550 into New Mexico to visit Chaco Canyon. Chaco is one of those special places on planet earth that has very strong spiritual vibes. The 13 miles of water board dirt roads shook Kaya as we travelled back into another time. Once in the canyon, there were many buildings, kivas, lunar/solar daggers and other remnants of a great civilization to visit. One of the most interesting facts is that Chaco was built not only along solar lines but lunar as well. According to a PBS special we downloaded called The Mystery of Chaco Canyon and narrated by Robert Redford, Chaco is the first known to align along lunar lines.

A scientist stumbled upon this as she climbed a nearby Butte and found a spiral illuminated by a solar dagger across the center at precisely noon on the solstice. We toured Tse biyah nii’a’ah, Pueblo Bonito and were awestruck by the impressive ruins. Unlike other cultural sites this one allowed you to travel into some of the rooms on the site. The size and magnitude of the structure made it all the more impressive.

We got to the $10 a night campsite after exploring several sites along the nine mile drive through the canyon. We settled in early and enjoyed an afternoon and evening of yahtzee, wine and a new flavor combination: corn tortillas, dried Italian sausage and fresh goat cheese. A white Westy pulled into the campsite while we were napping. The evening was spent with Lisa knitting a scarf as I processed the day’s pictures.

For dinner we cracked yet another bottle of wine and had Choucroute. For those keeping score we drank a 2004 Dolcetto by Clerico and for dinner had a 2002 Domaine Drouhin Pinot Noir. I made a huge pot of Choucroute in Chicago before we left… basically it’s the French version of Sauerkraut. We made ours with sauerkraut, sausages, smoked pork loin and double smoked bacon made by Paulina Butcher Shop in Chicago. You start by sautéing a chopped onion in a big spoonful of duck fat or bacon fat. Add some grated apple, crushed juniper berries, bay leaf and drained sauerkraut. Add pork rind and large pieces of double smoked bacon. Add your favorite flavorful beer or a good Alsatian white wine and simmer for hours at a very low temperature. I generally do mine for about six hours. The next day when the flavors have married and you are dying to eat some add your smoked pork loin and sausages and heat slowly. Towards the end add a few boiled peeled potatoes, crack a beer and rejoice!

Bellies full, van toasty from the Propex, we laid down and watched the movie Grand Canyon…

our campsite at Chaco Canyon

The Valley of the Gods – NO SHIT!!!
12.9.8

We woke up early with Kaya covered in ice and snow. I realize I say this often but damn is it nice to be able to flip a switch and have heat from the Propex. Everyone go call Karl Mullendore and order one today. I promise you will sing and dance! With Kaya toasty warm, I set about preparing a breakfast of scrambled eggs mixed with Hungarian smoked bacon, bulbous green onions, spinach and goat cheese. Lisa sipped her chai and I enjoyed coffee as the sun peeked out and revealed deep blue skies. We drove over to the visitor center to view artifacts saved from looters and fill Kaya’s water tank. The center was dark from a black out but the ranger inside kindly enough gave us her flashlight so we could gaze at beautiful pottery pieces, tools fashioned from animal bones and other exhibits. The whole tour was surreal as we walked through illuminating history with the flashlight.

Sometimes I wonder whether we have advanced or regressed as a society. Are we more or less advanced than earlier people?

We left the park in the late morning and headed onward to Farmington, New Mexico. In Farmington we found a great microbrewery called Three Rivers Brewery and enjoyed a few pints of IPA, root beer, a Reuben and some nachos. I highly recommend stopping here if you are in the neighborhood. The brewery offers 12 beers at a time including a double brown called, you guessed it, Leroy Brown. Start singing… I did.

I needed a cup of Joe to continue driving so we stopped at a local bookstore/café. While Lisa was in getting me a cappuccino, a guy wandered over and stood near Kaya smiling. He was friendly so I continued sitting there listening to Michael Franti. Another guy walked up and started taking pictures. He followed the Dead for a while and lived in the area. He actually worked at the mattress shop across from the bookstore, saw Kaya and came over. The smiling guy finally walked up and showed my two tattoos of dancing bears on his wrists and smiled as he walked away.

Our game plan was to hit Monument Valley on the way to the Grand Canyon. So into Arizona then Utah we travelled. A few miles after the Utah border on 191 and immediately before 163 you cross a river. Great stealth spots abound on the banks hidden by Pinion Pines. Low on fuel we decided to roll the dice and keep on going keeping an eye open for stealth spots. We stopped in Bluff then headed south towards Monument Valley. The terrain quickly got extremely picturesque as valleys appeared and disappeared in the late afternoon sunshine. Lisa saw a small road leading off to the left with a small brown sign that said Valley of the Gods. Feeling Godlike, we headed down the road seeking shelter for the night. We headed down a rough road, across a dried wash and into paradise. We popped the top with the solar panel facing the setting sun, pinched ourselves and watched the sun set.

Dinner was a spinach salad with goat cheese and pine nuts dressed in a quick vinaigrette made from some apple balsamic I forgot I had in Kaya and some extra virgin olive oil mixed with sea salt, pepper and Dijon mustard then a bowl of Rotini tossed in a sun dried tomato and San Marzano tomato sauce was crispy garlic slivers and hot peppers sprinkled with Pecorino Romano cheese. For dessert, I made an extremely rich hot chocolate with hazelnuts.

We watched the near full moon and too nocturnal long exposure pictures of Kaya. I did one with Lisa walking through the shot. It looks like a ghost is standing and looking in the side of the van. Freaky!

Blessings! I hope this post finds everyone in the same good spaces and vibe that Lisa and I find ourselves in. Jah Blessings! ASWAH!

Grand Canyon via Monument Valley
12.10.8

It feels rather appropriate to begin and end our Utah adventure with a quote from Edward Abbey: “Wilderness begins in the human mind.” AMEN!

Lisa and I awoke to the beauty magnificent beauty of the Valley of the Gods. The sun kissed the surrounding peaks in an explosion of red pitted against the deep blue skies.

“The industrial corporation is the natural enemy of nature.” I even venture to add that the enemy of man for now we are enslaved by the beast that we designed to relieve us.

The ice melted on the back windows to reveal the jagged edges of sandstone 100 feet out back. “It is not enough to understand the natural world; the point is to defend and preserve it.”

One last quote and then I venture outside to play with Lucy in the cold Utah morning: “New Yorkers like to boast that if you can survive in New York, you can survive anywhere. But if you can survive anywhere, why live in New York?” AMEN.

Lisa and I just had English muffins for breakfast and headed further into the Valley of the Gods. Though the road had some serious ruts here and there the road was very passable and it ventured deeper into the Valley. We came to the highlight of the road: a twisty section surrounded by amazing spires of rock. We came so close to camping another night here.

If anyone is actually reading this trash please mark this down… load Vanagon, buy Propex heater from Karl, get extra water and head to the Valley of the Gods… wait, better yet, do not do any of that. The scenery sucks. Stay wherever you live.

We continued out of the park and passed the Valley of the Gods B and B and thought for those less adventurous this would be a great spot to see everything. We headed first into the town of Mexican Hat and then continued south to Monument Valley. At the entrance of the parl there is a great grocery store, motel, RV park, laundry, gas station, propane and general resupply point. A number of cool locals came up and were intrigued by Kaya’s paint job… damn hippies.

Monument Valley – Navajo Lands… put on Bob Marley’s Time will Tell and drive into the park. Since it’s Navajo lands our Eagle Park Pass didn’t work.

story will continue...

Col-oh-my-god-rah-rah-DOE!

2008-12-08T06:03:00.000-08:00

12.7.8 somewhere in Durango, Colorado eating BBQ and drinking beer!

What an incredibly gorgeous state Colorado is! The day started early in the rest area of Georgetown, Co. The very first thing I noticed was the beautiful red-orange glare of the early morning sun rays kissing the distant mountain peaks. Lisa and I were in the mountains at last! I stepped out of Kaya trying to beat Mother Nature to the restroom and saw a two-tone brown Westy parked not too far away. Colorado was alright! An older gentleman walked up and asked if he could take a picture of Kaya. He said the world wasn’t the same since Jerry passed. I had to agree.After coffee, chai and some coconut water we were on our way. We saw about thirty bighorn sheep loitering on the ramp. We continued west on 70 towards the Leadville cut-off on 91. Kaya labored over the first mountain pass. Poor thing is over-loaded. It almost felt like the old days of having old men in walkers pass us. Tons of folks heading towards the ski areas waved as they shot past us with a few taking pictures of Ken’s mural. Magnificent views abounded! It is hard to feel anything but blessed bliss!Our first stop was Leadville, home of our crazy friend Ken though I don’t think he currently lives there.

Leadville is a cute old mining town at just over 10,000 feet. The town has a great coffee shop with kind folks called the Bean, a microbrew that we actually passed up on and a great vibe! I think it wouldn’t be too hard to call Leadville my home, the only thing lacking for was a natural foods store. On the way out of town we passed a local garage full of Vanagons called RPM. A guy standing out front waved.We continued down the mountain on 91 towards 50. We pulled off onto an old stagecoach road to test our new clearance and BF Goodrich tires. Man – LIFE IS TOO SWEET!

Kaya handled sweetly as we drove as far as we could before being stopped by erosion. Lisa, Lucy and I headed down towards a river and had a nice walk in the 50 degree sunshine!

We got to Gunnison around lunchtime and decided to get a sandwich at Provin’ Grounds coffee shop. The entire staff was really nice to us as they made our vegetable wrap and veggie bagel. The dreadie girl who took care of us loved Kaya’s paint job. Ken was right. People just constantly wave, take pictures and comment on the paint job. We got to Montrose in the late afternoon and decided to keep on keeping on towards Ouray and the San Juan Mountains. Ouray is probably one of my favorite towns ever. The drive to town is just incredible with amazing views, houses and porches barely clinging to the mountainside. Ouray has it host of coffee shops and even a microbrew. But having no chains and a storm approaching we shot through town and into the mountains. I adore the climb out of town… twisty mountain road with big drops if you miss a turn. I can only imagine how beautiful it would be in the summer months.

We took a short walk at Molas Pass, 10,900 feet up, where a guy returning from skiing said this about owning Kaya “cool. that would be bomber!”. Lisa and I laughed. We seriously thought about camping at the trailhead at Molas Pass. We had the van pulled up to the edge with a view that promised an amazing sunrise. Do propex’s work this high? We ended up heading into Durango, staying at a motel to wash up, and eating Texas BBQ and downing a bottle of Rogue Yellow Snow IPA. PEACE.

take these broken wings and learn to fly...

2008-12-08T05:58:00.000-08:00

Dateline 12/6/8. Georgetown, Col-OH-RAH-RAH-Do

“I’m sure I can see too much pollution… I would like to see a brown shady tree so I can rest my head, my head underneath… oh gosh…”

sorry listening to a little too much Burning Spear and other music…

Man, is life magnificent or what! Lisa and I just finished an absolutely fantastic day of travel! So many seek without seeing the beauty that surrounds each and every one of us on a constant basis. We are a part of everything. Open up your eyes. Look around. So, Friday we pulled away from the loving cocoon of my mother’s embrace. I never realized how much I am my mother’s son. In this case, the apple fell directly straight beneath the freaking apple tree. I finally feel as though I found some higher enlightenment about my family and family relations in general. My mother’s short term memory is not as good as it used to be in her 78th year. But with amazing clarity she can teach Lisa how to knit which she hasn’t done since she was a little girl in wartime France. That was an amazing revelation! I really saw my mother with new eyes. I gained another plateau and understood humanity just one inch better.

We climbed in Kaya and pointed WEST towards our future. We had three car loads of folks pull alongside and take pictures. We crossed the Mississippi River at exactly 4:20. Strange how that number comes up often. We saw absolutely zero VDUBS in Illinois and Iowa. We kept pushing with the goal of sleeping somewhere past Lincoln, Nebraska. Ended the night in transit at a rest area on the western side of Lincoln.

We ate a wonderful Winter Vegetable and Cabbage Soup with a 2004 Esterlina Pinot Noir. The following morning we washed up in the rest areas bathroom and headed towards COL-OH-RAH-RAH-DOE! The day was largely uneventful except we finally saw our first VDUB Vanagon since the East Coast parked in a farmer’s field. We got a few sneers and puzzled looks from our highly camouflaged bus from hunter’s and various other folks we passed or got passed by.

We stopped in the early evening in Keeneville, Colorado at a gas station and saw a sign for Espressos and antiques… intrigued we followed the gas station attendants directions passed a bonfire and a small country band playing in the snow and ice to the fabled java lands. Spoke with two cops for a while about dogs (i.e. Lucy and their snarling German shepherds) and escaped back into hippie life and vdubs and headed to Georgetown, Colorado where we are holed up for the night downing a bottle of Domaine Serene Evenstad Reserve 2003 Pinot Noir fortified with Rib Eye steaks, carrots and potatoes… Saw absolutely no buses, had no pictures taken but had numerous smiles, peace signs flashed and waves. Glad to be here! Tomorrow we pass through some of our favorite spots ever!One sad note… we did not get to meet Todd from the Samba… he had to work late and we had to push onward… someday… someday… mister sandman has filled my eyes… peace and love from the road to uncertainty and bliss. Aswah

The Master Plan

2008-12-04T05:40:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow morning, Kaya will cast off her landlines and motor towards the Western Shores... The game plan is to leave Plainfield and head the 986 miles down interstate 80 and then 76 towards Denver. We will probably break the trip up into two days as I hate pushing Kaya too hard. From Denver, we are shootly down 70 into Utah where we will spend a little time either at Bryce Canyon and/or Monument Valley before heading down to the Grand Canyon. From the Grand Canyon we are heading over to Death Valley and up to Sacremento. From Sacremento we will head towards Napa where I hopefully may have an interview for corporate Chef of a winery Lisa used to work for. From Napa we will head over to the Anderson Valley, Mendocino then the Lost Coast. Then up thru Arcata where hopefully Eli can fit us in for oil changes, an alignment and hopefully installing the pop top shocks then up to Gold Beach, Oregon... Newport, Oregon to see a friend, shop at Lisa's favorite hippie shop and a few pints at Rogue. Then up to PTOWN with possible side trips up to Sisters where we used to live then up to the Seattle area where I may also have interviews. That's the crazy ass schedule! We are hoping to meet other VDUBBERS along the route. You all know your areas better than us! If we are in your neck of the woods and you see a brightly colored bus shooting past - HONK! Remember we love microbrews and good times and good friends... CIAO fer NOW! aswah

Across America in Kaya, a 1989 VDUB Westfalia

2008-12-02T06:18:00.000-08:00

This story really begins last Tuesday, November 25th 2008 at 1:14 p.m. Lisa and I had returned from Vermont to New York City after our first days off in five weeks. We had helped a New York couple open a fish shack themed restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. In Vermont, we realized that we were absolutely miserable and couldn't take the filth, grime and crime of the Big Apple. That sort of desperate living in the cement beehive wasn't for us. We needed to remedy the situation and get ourselves as far away as possible.

We parked our trusty Subaru on 83rd and walked solemnly to the restaurant trying to figure out exactly what to say to be released from our prison sentence. The owners were sitting in the front room of the restaurant sensing the impending conversation. We all concluded that this wasn't a good fit for any of us and said our goodbyes in a typical New York fashion. Gleefully, Lisa and I danced back to the Subaru and raced towards adventure.

Within one hour, our Subaru was loaded and we headed down to Maryland to pick up our beloved Volkswagen Westfalia named Kaya from master Volkswagen whisperer Karl Mullendore. The drive was great and freeing except for the massive traffic jams that clogged New York’s asphalt arteries. By the time we reached New Jersey the previous week’s negativity and despair washed away in the glow of the setting sun’s vibrant colors.

We arrived at Karl’s shop early in the afternoon after an overnight stop at Stoudt’s Microbrew in Adamsville, Pennsylvania. Kaya simply glowed in the sunshine and greenery of western Maryland’s hills brightly colored with her hippie era mural by artist extraordinaire Ken Mitchell. Maybe part of it was due to a mild hangover and the fact that we had left the drabby, grey world of the rotted Apple behind.

Karl had added the third stage of four major upgrades we were planning for this year. The fourth has been put on hold as finances once again tightened. Karl outfitted her with bigger brakes, springs, big truck tires, solar panels, secret locking compartments and a host of other much appreciated improvements. The stage was set, the characters dressed and the show begins.

First stop was in Hopewell Junction, New York, just north of the city to visit Peter and Christina Zitz and their two adorable kids. Peter is a salesman for Michael Skurnik Wines and has a deep, deep cellar that would keep a 100 people dead drunk for weeks on end before ever dwindling the flow. What started as a bowl of Duck Ragout over pasta with a vintage bottle of kick ass burgundy quickly escalated into more wine and a promise to hang out one more day for Thanksgiving with his family. I think Peter needed the hippie component at his Thanksgiving table to join the Germans, neighbors and family he had already invited.

Thanksgiving was amazing! The table Peter and Christina set was festooned with a wonderful roast turkey, cranberries, dressing, sweet potatoes, pureed butternut squash and all the other holiday classics that dot most tables this time of year. The party started with 1996 Pierre Gimonnet Gastronome Champagne, fantastic cheeses and Framani salamis. Peter opened two fantastic 1996 Burgundies to accompany the turkey. The night ended with sleepy eyes, unbuckled pants and an apple pie cook-off. One of the German guests had recently learned how to make an apple pie from an instructor at the Culinary Institute of America. Christina has been making a “healthful” version of the seminal American dessert out of spelt flour and organic sugars for a while. Both were delicious in their own right and most felt no need to crown one the king.

After a few days in Vermont we hit the road westward and onto our dreams. The drive was largely uneventful despite strong winds and blowing snow thru Indiana. I will make one observation though, it simply amazes me to see people drive insanely fast on black ice in a white out. I took morbid pleasure in seeing a gentleman cursing safely after his spinout which landed him in a ditch shortly after he went flying past me in his luxury sports car. We arrived safely at my mother’s house in Plainfield, Illinois.

Why I think Karl Mullendore deserves his ANGEL WINGS NOW!

2008-11-27T19:22:00.001-08:00

I am laying in my toasty warm Westy just north of New York City thanks to both Karl and my Propex heater… life is good! Oh yes, obviously I am typing so that means our wireless router is also working.

For the few remaining souls still bravely paying attention to my soap box rants and diatribes posted on my blog you may have noticed that Lisa and I have been on an upgrade Kaya mode as of late. First we had artist Ken Mitchell paint an amazing mural that keeps both of us and even Lucy smiling… not to mention almost everyone we pass. We even had a lady stop us in Pennsylvania to say that the world needs more vehicles like ours. Thanks KEN!

Then it was off to Mechanical Advantage in Connecticut and the wizardry of Fred Newmann to install the first set of upgrades and general maintenance. Fred is also an amazing VDUB mechanic and I mean absolutely no slight to him or his shop by this post. In fact, I wholeheartedly recommend him for every VDUB need.

Then it was off to Maryland and the land of mechanic Karl Mullendore. To simply imply that Karl is just a mechanic isn’t right. Maybe the prefix god-like or extra extraordinary should be added, or better yet perhaps the word mechanic itself is wrong. Perhaps describing Karl as a VDUB whisperer is better. A VDUB WHISPERER.

I have met many a mechanic since owning Kaya. Cut me some slack, I do not have the time in my life nor the inclination to grab a wrench in one hand and the Bentley manual in the other and attempt repair. I actually bought the Bentley with that intention. A real live do it yourselfer like the kind folks on the Samba. When the Bentley arrived I actually tried to read it – not once but twice. It was as undecipherable as ancient Egyptian hierogliphics to me. Perhaps it is better suited to those who are mechaincally minded. I can, however, translate 18th century French cookbooks and produce the ancient dishes in amazing clarity. Go ahead gearheads and try that!

So the Bentley sits in some cubby hole gathering dust under a stack of tools that have never seen combat. But Karl, on the other hand, actually committed 99% of the Bentley to memory. He once told me he only keeps a few pages in his glove compartment… you know the few that he didn’t yet memorize. I hope that fact astounds you as much as me.

Back to Karl. I saw vdub whisperer because the guy seems to understand vdubs like no one else. We brought him Kaya a few weeks ago with a laundry list of upgrades and then after seeing his synchro added the oh-my-gawd-I-need-that-too list. The oh-by-the-way-can-you-list was quickly dispensed by Karl as c’mon dude about ten thousand other dudes want work as well. Karl added a third battery and fixed the layout and wiring of the second battery installed by a popular VDUB company not based in Maryland. I could name them but most will know of whom I speak. I am not trying to bash them as I still occassionally buy parts and may even get service from them from time to time.

He also added a battery charger that charges both the second and third battery as well as a solar panel that also charges the aforementioned batteries.

He put in one the electric fridges,

a few secret compartments, big brakes, taller springs, bigger tires

and a new faucet my wife is absolutely in love with.

Not to mention the million other little things he fixed along the way. If I had a million dollars I would push the pile towards Karl and just say make Kaya betterer. Betterer? Sorry I started this post last night drunk on Burgundy wine on a remote mountain top in New York and am currently seated in MacNeill’s microbrew in Brattleboro, Vermont knocking back IPAs and hoping some fool is still reading.

Karl is an amazing fellow. I shouldn’t slight him by suggesting that his only skill is fixing old buses. Everytime we talk he says he wants to venture off into other indevers… Lisa and I are still hoping that one day he will convert Kaya to a synchro and a bio-diesel… But really whatever Karl does in life we just wish him the best and send him the most positive vibrations that we are capable of.

I hope all of you have had as great a Thanksgiving as us… and we wish Karl a long and fulfilling life!

PEACE to the PEACEFUL!

ASWAH

THE ROTTED APPLE

2008-11-26T09:37:00.001-08:00

just a super short post... we left the BIG APPLE for GOOD yesterday! Thank GOD! What a awful and dingy place that is. I will, in the next couple of weeks, post about the seperation from there... For lovers of big cities god bless... we prefer green spaces.

Lisa and I laughed all the way out of the c(sh)ity yesterday! Had a great call from PEI last night saying the electric company yanked the power lines attached to Dayboat Restaurant yesterday... what does that mean?

ASWAH

p.s. POWER TO THE PEACEFUL - YEAH BABY!

Aswah's Travel Tips

2008-10-13T15:00:00.000-07:00

ASWAH's Travel Hints

For those of us Volkswagen owners that enjoy life slightly off the beaten path there are no great guides printed, no great listing of microbrews, food co-ops, natural attractions, coffee shops, mechanics or restaurants featuring great local cuisine. Lisa, Lucy and I have done a lot of rubber tramping across the States and now Canada. We are always in search of the next great stealth campsite or restaurant, whether it be a roadside clam shack, pit bbq or upscale restaurant. This list is by no means exhaustive… it needs community input. Speak up and be counted. Please feel free to add your words and experiences. This after all should be by us for us.

VERMONT: The Green Mountains

For me, Vermont has always been a perfect state, a blend of the hippie mindset with strong sense of community and being green as a way of life intermingled with unbelievable scenery, great brewpubs and fantastic camping opportunities.

Vermont has picturesque small towns, big cities with a small town feel and beautiful mountains and lakes to visit. In most towns, people are very supportive of their local economies; restaurants take huge pride in supporting their local farmers and food artisans take the Farmer’s Diner in Quechee, Hen of the Woods Restaurant or even Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory both in Waterbury. It seems as though almost every little town has a great food co-op stocked with local beers, cheeses, breads, pies, vegetables, meats, fruits and poultry. It makes for a great place to stock up for the next stretch of road or the next bout of camping. All make for a great way to taste the local flavor.

Southern Vermont

Paradise Farms, West Brattleboro

A great to place to stop on the way out of town if you are travelling down route 9 towards Wilmington. They have fantastic pies, our favorites being the Apple Crumb and the Blueberry. The real show stopper for Lisa and I are the cider donuts made on premises...

Brattleboro Food Co-op

The Brattleboro co-op is a Gilligan's Island of modern culture with all kinds of people happily shopping, working and interacting there. It has a feel of a community center to it. We were there on a recent Friday night enjoying a mixed salad and chicken quesadilla before camping on the outskirts of town. The store was packed with families, friends and groups of teens dining. Next to us was a group of young teenagers discussing why they shouldn't rent dvds from Netflix. One young man reasoned that renting from Netflix put small business owners out of work because they couldn’t keep up with the inventory or pricing. Sure you could support a mass big box corporation like Wal-Mart and get stuff cheaper. But by making that decision you knock another average citizen out of having a good livelihood. Folks it's time to UNFUCK the world. Start thinking about your brother and your sister and stop thinking just about yourself. Crap, got to get off that electronic soapbox. I am so prone to that! Lisa and I love the great selection of local microbrews, hard ciders and great wines. A great place to pick up a salad, bagel or healthy lunch/dinner option. The store has many great cheeses, meats, etc.

For shopping for your grocery needs stop at any food co-op in the state. There are a million and everyone I stopped in was amazing. Support the local economy and buy from a local farmer. The best co-ops I have been in are the ones in Brattleboro and Burlington. The one in Burlington is downright amazing. The selection of goods is wide standing and outstanding. For more info:

Brattleboro Food Co-op2 Main Street / Brookside PlazaBrattleboro, Vermont, 05301 Phone: (802) 257-0236FAX: (802) 254-5360

bfc@sover.nethttp://www.brattleborofoodcoop.com/

City Market - Onion River Co-op82 S. Winooski Avenue Suite 2Burlington, Vermont, 05401Phone: (802) 863-3659FAX: (802) 863-0227 info@citymarket.coophttp://www.citymarket.coop

Microbreweries:

McNeill's Brewery, located at 10090 Elliot Street in downtown Brattleboro, is probably Lisa and my favorite microbrewery. They have great beers with an awesome atmosphere. I would suggest bringing your own food or buying something from a restaurant on the street. Great selection of beers. I last enjoyed a great IPA. Great cask conditioned offerings! Actually just was there one hour ago and enjoyed three different IPAs... Imperial IPA a big bad ass full strength offering, Hip Hops IPA full of hoppy love and a hand pull Dark Horse... kind of a starter IPA... A little low in hops and bitterness for me. I am the guy that loves huge, hoppy beers...

Maple Leaf Malt and Brewing, located at 1003 North Main Street in Wilmington, is an okay choice. Lisa and I have been there about four times and almost each time they are out of their own beers and have a limited selection of guest brews. The food is good. Last time there I had a great Torpedo Ale from Sierra Nevada Brewing in Chico, California.

Madison Brewing Company, located at 428 Main Street in Bennington, is another okay choice. Lisa and I enjoy their homemade root beer, Reuben’s and great French dips. As for beer, I would say they are more beers for people who like generic beers. None of their beers have great character and I do not believe they are trying to shake the tree.

Vermont Brewing Company located at 144 College Street in Burlington is great. They have a nice selection of beers, great food and a nice pub like atmosphere. I generally like hopier IPAs but there's was pleasant and worth the ride. Lisa enjoyed her stout! http://www.vermontbrewery.com/

Harpoon Brewery located at 336 Ruth Carney Drive in Windsor is a more mass produced microbrewery. It's the kind of place that is great for those just starting in the world of beer. Nothing to over the top or out there for the beginner. Lisa and I happened there once after a great drive thru New Hampshire's White Mountains. They have a great facility to drive your Westy up to, grab the dog and sit outside and be served. The food was great! http://www.harpoonbrewery.com/

Long Trail Brewing Company located at the junctions of route 4 and route 100A in Bridgewater Corners is awesome. Eco beer! Great selection! Cool Folks working there! They now have a pub as well. Haven't ever been so I couldn't tell you about it. http://www.longtrail.com/

There are many other microbrews including probably the most famous, Magic Hat and the most anticipated by myself, the Alchemist in Waterbury. I have heard rumors of their excellent brews and their commitment to serving nothing but great local fare in their pub. http://www.magichat.net/ and http://www.alchemistbeer.com/

Favorite Camping and Stealth Spots

Southern Vermont

Route 142, Vernon Street, just south of Brattleboro ***

Lisa and I tend to always camp at this great pull off (actually a small field by a river - yes mother I camp in a van down by the river). We always like to start our camping trips with a stop at the co-op to stock up on fresh vegetables, organic meats and dairy... It's also a great spot to use the restroom, order a bacon, egg and cheese bagel and grab a cup of fantastic chai!

Stratton - Arlington Road *****

Vermont has one of my all time favorite spots to camp offering a wide variety of spots in wide variety of sizes. Definitely some to fit all tastes. The area is located off of Stratton Arlington Road, a dirt road located north of Mount Snow up route 100 in West Wardsboro running to the town of Arlington. This dirt road offers great hiking opportunities, the Appalachian Trail crosses it, as well many other hikes and ponds to canoe in. It is a seasonal road and is pretty much off limits in the winter time. On several occasions I have seen moose. There is at least one pay per view camp site at Grout Pond and one million developed stealth spots to pop your top and enjoy Vermont’s beauty. Explore the labyrinth of Forest service roads that criss-cross the area. The roads venture as far south as route 9 near Bennington. There are more river spots in the southern section.

Molly Stark Campground ****

Molly Stark located just east of Wilmington on route 9 is a great fair priced campsite. Wonderful hot showers and fairly private sites make for a great pay per view spot. Enjoy the hike up to the fire tower.

Central Vermont

Central Vermont is blessed with some cool small towns and great tourist attractions. Lisa and I always indulge our inner child at Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory on route 100 in Waterbury. http://www.benjerry.com/ Coldhollow Cider Mill is another great nearby stop just a little further down the road from Ben and Jerry. www.coldhollow.com/aboutus.html

MORE TO COME SOON - A WORK IN PROGRESS!!! Go to: http://vdubguide.blogspot.com/

For the continuation of this idea

Weird Scenes from the Goldmine

2008-10-11T06:24:00.001-07:00

Hen of the Woods Restaurant in Waterbury, Vermont

2008-10-04T06:40:00.000-07:00

“Find the shortest, simplest way between Earth,

the hands and the mouth”
Dining at Hen of the Wood

at the Grist Mill in Waterbury, Vermont

Lisa had struck up a conversation with one of our customers at Dayboat this summer. During the course of conversation he had mentioned a restaurant tucked away in an old grist mill in Waterbury, VT that was conceptually very similar to what we were doing… an ever changing menu featuring mostly local food that was creatively prepared. We tucked this bit of info away into the memory banks and figured we would get there when we could.

Last night we had the opportunity to dine there. We first emailed the restaurant asking if they minded a brightly colored bus and two slightly gamey casually dressed customers in for dinner on Tuesday. No response. While doing laundry Lisa called and asked if they had any space that evening. The person replied that they were fully booked with no room whatsoever for stinking hippies. At that point I wondered if they had indeed gotten our email. Not deterred so easily Lisa and I decided the best plan of attack was just to come in at 5 when they opened and beg, bribe or whatever.

The gentleman at the door told us indeed they were fully booked but that we could sit in their bar like area known as the window box. We didn’t care… in fact I would have been perfectly content sitting on milk crates in their kitchen. As it turned out, the window box was actually the best seats in the house. We had views of their three outdoor seats, a river and trees. That’s not to say that folks sitting in the regular seats didn’t have comfortable seats or pleasant views, quite the contrary, we just prefer natural features. The dining room was mix of exposed wood beams and stone with an open kitchen.

Our waiter came and offered us a drink to start with. He then asked if the painted bus was ours. If we weren’t in Vermont I would have feared deportation. He then told us he had a 1980 bus sitting at his house that unfortunately was used more by mice than himself. I already liked this guy. He had me at bus.

We started our meal with a bottle of Vision Cellars Chileno Vineyards 2006 Pinot Noir and three appetizers. We had Wild Vermont Hen of the Woods mushrooms sautéed in a Vermont apple brandy and cider sauce served over Red Hen Bakery bread with a slice of Vermont bacon over. Excellent flavors, great simple presentation. Sometimes it is refreshing when talented Chefs do simple dishes unmolested. We also had an appetizer of Rhode Island Calamari with Pine Nuts, Hot Peppers and Basil and the show winner, Slow Roasted Niman Ranch Pork Cheeks on Mustard Crème Fraiche. The calamari was good but the cheeks were off the hook damn good. I suppose if you know me at all you would know that I gravitate towards cheeks… halibut cheeks, cod cheeks, beef cheeks, pork cheeks. I am a bonafide nose to tail eater.

Our waiter was wonderful, in fact all the waiters were wonderful. We wondered if this was in part due to the fact that we were eating in our normal Bacchus style or that other people seemed to get the concept less than we did. The table next to us had no concept of food and came in with many preconceived notions like big scallops were inferior because they were big. We spoke with several waiters throughout the course of the meal. All seemed to be knowledgeable and into working here.

The next round of food and wine started with an Owen Roe ‘Seven Hills and Saint Isidore Vineyards’ Walla Walla 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon, a big muscular wine with blackberry and leathery notes. Lisa had picked it to go with my Rib Eye. For main courses we had the rib eye steak with a Hen of the Woods compound butter, roasted potatoes and braised greens; smoked LaBelle Farms duck breast with buttered parsnip puree and braising greens and finally a dish of Sheep’s Milk gnocchi with local sweet corn, pine nuts and arugula. The rib eye was a tad overdone but still wonderful and extremely satisfying. The duck breast went well with both the pinot noir and the cabernet. The sheeps milk gnocchi were amazing with the corn and arugula. All in all a very satisfying meal.

We ended the meal with a few cheeses off their cheese tray. We tried the Jasper Hill Farm ‘Constant Bliss’ which is a raw ayrshire cow milk aged sixty days, Consider Bardwell Farm “Manchester” which is an aged, raw milk, goat cheese Tomme styled cheese and Champlain Creamery “Champlain Triple Crème” that is exactly what it sounds like it is. The cheeses were served with slightly salty crostini’s and toasted hazelnuts and apple butter.

Overall the meal was unbelieveable and great. The downside, if there is a downside, would be the selection of desserts. That night was the new Pastry Chef’s first night and there were only three offerings. I am cutting the new pastry chef a little slack and would hope that the choice of desserts would reflect the ever changing menu with the same enthusiasm as the Chef apparently has. I would highly recommend Hen of the Woods to anyone travelling through this part of the country. Their information can be found at: http://www.henofthewood.com/

PHASE TWO: FRED NEWMAN AND THE MECHANICAL ADVANTAGE

2008-10-01T20:33:00.001-07:00

PHASE TWO: THE MECHANICAL ADVANTAGE

Fred Newman is the owner of Mechanical Advantage. Lisa and I stumbled onto Fred when we first moved from Northern California to Connecticut. Buses being buses, we needed to find a good mechanic to regularly service Kaya to keep her running right. Most volks that own buses and do not work on them understand the widely varying quality of mechanics. I have had some very costly mistakes by well intended mechanics. We were overjoyed to have met Fred.

Lisa walking away from the mound of boxes holding vital Kaya improvements

More will be written about Fred... for now - and for now while Kaya sits in Freds shop - I will say this about that... Fred is one amazing mechanic... I wholeheartedly recommend Fred to anyone needing high quality service. Mechanical Advantage is the kind of shop that I picture existed in America in older times. The kind of place that backs it's fair pricing with quality service... a place that banks on it's high reputation rather than getting people in and getting people out...

Painted Buses and Painted Bugs... did Ken get here first?

Kaya's new rear hitch with double swing away carriers

Kaya's new black steel bumpers

Kaya is now internet ready... wireless router by Autonet

A BIG HUGE THANKS TO FRED

AND EVERYONE ELSE AT MECHANICAL ADVANTAGE

KEN MITCHELL is GOD, or at least an amazing artist!

2008-09-26T12:19:00.001-07:00

PHASE ONE: KEN MITCHELL ORIGINAL MURAL

and in the course of it all got one by Jessica as well... wahoo!

Several months ago, or maybe even years... could be days... I found a little happy community of VDUB owners on the internet named Full Moon Bus Club (http://www.fullmoonbusclub.com/)... The volks there are among the kindest and gentlest souls on the planet... I have actually met a few... they are as beautiful and warm in person as they are online... anyhoots... one young gentlemen by the name of Ken Mitchell posted there under the name of Painted BUS... he posted many a picture of his amazing painted buses... we wanted to hippie-fy our BUS... I love the Grateful Dead and figured might as well throw a few dancing Bears on there...

We got to chatting with Ken and found that he lived not far from where we were nesting in Connecticut. We ended up meeting him at a favorite brewpub called Eli Cannon's in Middleton along with a few other Moonies... Over a few pints I pondered how could I convince Ken to paint my bus as wonderfully as he did his...

fast forward a few months... Ken not only painted my bus but brought his wonderful fiancee and himself up to Prince Edward Island to do it! All I have to say is Ken is an amazing artist! Jessica is as well... They were the most wonderful guests one could ever have. Jessica even made us some beautimus batik napkins for our bus!

damn hippies! We are so in love with our Bus Kaya! We just drove over the border and back into the States... I had pre-lubbed my butt and even pre-inserted a large glove just in case border patrol wanted a deeper look. The border agent gave a casual glance over than stated that it wasn't the best camouflaged vehicle he had ever seen... a mild understatement.

Ken added a "little prince" in honor of my favorite author St. Exupery... what is truly important is invisible to the eye... only the heart can see clearly...

so to Ken and Jessica thanks so much...

ASWAH

Roy Vandermaar's Amazing Dancing PIGS!

2008-09-01T05:26:00.000-07:00

If you are offended by animals being consummed

STOP HERE!

This blog ain't for the weak or faint at heart...

"CRACK ON A STICK"

Some bbq pork I made from Roy's Pigs were wonderfully described by my 15 year old dishwasher as "crack on a stick". Crack on a stick? Animal (David Mottershall) my Sous Chef and I had taken upon ourselves to cure some hams for next season at "insane - boat" a.k.a. Dayboat next year. Yeah we made two Viginia style country salted Hams and two Prosciutto style hams.

So here's the scoop... A few months back Lisa, Lucy and myself ventured over to Pioneer Farm to check out the dilly going on over there. Part to see the farm and part to meet this Roy fellow we heard about. Yes, many songs have been sung over a pint or three of beer about Roy Vandermaar and his amazing dancing pigs... The pigs lived out doors in an electric fenced area with plenty of land to roam and forage in. The pigs looked so happy running around in the woods. Roy told me come back a little later and the pigs would be ready for the table.

A few months passed... Lisa, Lucy and I drove out to

Paul Bob's Meats in O'Leary to view the little piggies.

I had already picked out the one I knew I wanted...

We walked passed the small butcher counter in the front of the store and into the "meat cooler"

The Process

First we had to breakdown the two sides of the recently deceased pig. The hams cut off and saved for curing, The shoulders removed and boned then brined. Later this week I am going to stuff them with local apples and chestnuts and roast the pork slowly.

The loins were removed and served immediately on a bed of caramelized onions, pepper, zucchini and new crop potatoes in an olive, caper butter... a more modified version of a la Zingara (Gypsy Style)... That sold extremely well...

The belly area, normally used for bacon, pancetta and other fatty treats is being brined and stuffed with fennel and onions a la Porcetta... Big, fat, robust Italian peasant pork roast.

all the scrap meat ground and used for the stuffing... Like my first real mentor, Michel LeBorgne, once quipped "I lost my first million in the garbage can!" Restaurant profit margins are so low every piece of everything needs to be used. The heads deboned, brined and set up for torchons.

The Country Ham

I lived in Georgia, Virginia and Tennessee for a while some years ago. One of the big culinary traditions are their wonderful cured hams similar to Prosciutto, Serrano or any of the other great hams... I always wanted to try making one or two... I found the basic method and recipe from a University online and adapted it for our use.

The Basic Cure is a mixture of salt, sugar, saltpetre and spices applied at a rate of 1.25 ounces of cure per pound of ham. The hams are tied and hung for 2.5 days per pound. At the end of the cure time, mold is wiped off with a vinegared rag and the meat is aged for six months to one year or longer if you can wait.

Our cure ratio was: 2 pounds sea salt, 1 pound brown sugar, 1 ounce saltpeter with the addition of cumin, black pepper, chili powder and paprika.

Ham #1 weighed in at 17.20 pounds so it called for 21.5 ounces of cure.

Ham #2 weighed in at a hefty 19.55 pounds and called for a cure of 24.4 ounces.

The cure needs to be applied to the hock end and rubbed in deeply. This helps prevent the chance of bone sour and speed the cure reaching the center of the ham. Spread the remainder of the cure evenly all over the ham. Wrap in paper to prevent the cure being bumped off. Tie and let rest one day. At this point the cure will liquify and begin penetrating the meat. Remember moisture most be able to drip off the meat. Hang the meat in a well ventilated area that is cool. Allow the hams to cure 2.5 days per pound of meat.

CURE TIME

The curing started on September 1st, 2008

Ham #1 (17.20#) = 43 days = October 14th

Ham # 2 (19.55#) = 48 days = October 19th

So, to be safe on number two and definately cover number one we will proceed on the next step somewhere around the third week of October. Curing longer doesn't hurt. The cure times recommended represent the minimum time.

The AGING Process

Unwrap the hams, remove excess cure and any mold. Use vinegar and a cloth to remove any mold. Blot dry and dab with vegetable oil to retard mold. The hams now need to be hung shank end down and left to age for three to six months minimum. If you wanted to smoke your ham you should do it prior to the aging process.

notes of caution

Work clean, protect from any varments getting to your hams...

PROSCIUTTO

I looked all over online for guidance in this matter. Never had cured one before! The best recipe I found came from a winery in California. The recipe and process far less detailed than the country hams... Take two hams weighing in somewhere around 10 to 12 pounds each. Process garlic with black pepper into a paste. Mix with coarse sea salt and spread very generously over the hams. Put the hams on a rack in a bus tub and wrap in a garbage bag. Allow the hams to cure under refrigeration for one month.b Check and drain pan as necessary.

After the month ends press a heavy weight on top and allow moisture to drip off hams. At this point the pork should be cured and past the stage where bacteria finds meat a happy home. Wash the hams in several rinses of cold water. Pat dry and hang for five days. Then unwrap, cover again with a thick paste of garlic and peppercorns (no salt this time!) and wrap again n cheesecloth and hang for six to nine months - the longer the better.

p.s. Big thanks to Gordon Bailey, Dayboats' opening Chef, for letting us use his meat grinder. Even bigger thanks to David Mottershall, a.k.a. Animal, for both his passion, zeal for life and interest in all things INSANE! Animal is also the one who will be monitoring and providing pictures of the process as it progresses.

Just what the Doctor ordered!

2008-08-27T05:34:00.000-07:00

Whew!

What a long strange trip it is! Lunches are finally over at Dayboat! It left a smoking crater of my mind... Lisa and I were so tired from putting in mega hours. I felt as though I lived at Dayboat during July and August. Standing on the other side of madness life seems so tame. Damn does time fly! Last week when we had a day off, both of us were slumped over the keyboards of our laptops nodding, barely able to keep eyes open. Unable to move. In contrast, this week I actually felt rested.

The Wheel is turning and you can't slow down

You can't let go and you can't hold on

You can't go back and you can't stand still

If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will

Time still marches forward. No, time hurls forward. When I was a child I used to measure the passing of time by the dates on containers of cream. The date inveriably was always one month ahead of whatever time it was. Cream lasts forever and time passed slow that way. As I got older I realized that time moves even faster. I recently read something to the effect that time was like a roll of toilet paper, the closer to the end the faster it goes. I try to appreciate every moment - good and bad.

Won't you try just a little bit harder?

Couldn't you try just a little bit more?

Won't you try just a little bit harder?

Couldn't you try just a little bit more?

We wanted to just relax and visit farmer friends on our first real day off in months. To celebrate we decided we needed a little medication for the soul. We drove over to Paul and Jean Offers' Doctor's Inn (http://www.peisland.com/doctorsinn/) in the Tyne Valley and toured their wonderful organic farm and Inn.

Round round robin run around

Gotta get back where you belong

Little bit harder, just a little bit more

Little bit farther than you than you've gone before

Paul and Jean's Inn and farm is like a respite from the busy hustle and bustle of life. A place where time is better passed armed with a glass of red wine on the veranda or a beer on the porch. Paul and Jean were kind enough to share their story with us on how they started the Inn. We chatted on the porch nibbling on Jean's homemade pickles. When you stay at the Inn and have dinner they pick the vegetables for your meal in the late afternoon. The flour for your bread is milled in the kitchen by Jean. Life does not get finer than that!

So long the human race has strayed from the path. We lost good bread and got wonder bread... personally I find it a wonder that they can actually call it bread. It is refreshing to find good people like the Offer's living right. It's nice to see progress happen on an individual level all across the US of A and Canada and other parts of the world... The simple joys of life being celebrated!

Small wheel turn by the fire and rod

Big wheel turn by the grace of God

Everytime that wheel turn round

bound to cover just a little more ground

We walked thru row after row of beautiful vegetables and fruits... passed artichokes (they don't grow here - yeah, right), leeks, greens, the original tomatoes (original sin?).

They grow an incredible amount of vegetables in a small amount of land. It made Lisa and myself think about the benefits of settling somewhere in the not too far distant future. Growing our own food supply.

One LOVE, ASWAH...

p.s. the healthy RED BULL:

p.p.s.s. One happy HOUND! Loose Lucy running through the tallgrass...

The Kaya Beautification Project... the second post

2008-08-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

Not much time to describe all that has happened in my life during the last week. Seems Lisa and I will be at Dayboat and perhaps other projects for a while. We are becoming blood brothers with Mister Schwanz... long (short) story. We are excited at what it could be. WE are excited to make a mark on the Island (PEI) culinary scene. We are excited to get to know our farmer and fishermen friends better. We are excited to be here!

The VEEDUB, Kaya - herself, is beginning the first phase of her conversion... the make up. For so long Lisa and I have wanted some out there but still tame imagery on the bus. Ken Mitchell is helping us realize that dream... here is the preliminary shot of what will be painted in a few weeks. Kaya might get the major change next year - conversion to four wheel drive and some other features. WOWZERS! Boy that gets make excited!

Kaya Paint Job UPDATE:

Here's the color scheme and now the driver's side!

ASWAH

the Kaya Beautification Project

2008-08-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

The Overview:

Lisa and I bought an inexpensive 1989 VW from Pop Top Heaven in 2005. Perhaps we should have spent more money from the jump, perhaps not. I suspect we ended up with a Vee Dub from a guy in Texas who had passed away and it had sat in Texas for a few years before the heirs sold her. She had some dry rotted rubber and faded paint. Whatever... she's our addiction now. Like anything worth anything in life. Addictions progress from rather adolescent moves of not knowing the playing field to becoming an expert. It was the same when I embarked on collecting rare cook books. If I only knew then what I know now! I shoulda, woulda, coulda... well, truth be told... I DIDN'T! So shoot my white ass for not being a mechanical smart genius!

Over the few years that 'Kaya' has been ours we have had many a high and many a low. The highs include some of the most breathtaking scenery in our windows to wake up to... like the morning we woke up in a remote campsite with Lucy our wonderhound softly growling to three gigantic bull elk within ten feet of our Westy. For two hours, Lisa, Lucy and I laid in bed drinking Chai, Coffee and eating Blueberry Pancakes watching those enormous beasts nibble on greenery and rut. Or the time we camped on a cliff high above KeysCanyon in Alaska with the foot of a glacier on the otherside. Fellow vee-dubbers will agree in various ways about the joys of these vans.

I would like to note that I use the terms Vee Dub, V-Dub, VW, our bitch, Westy, the formal VW Westfalia and Kaya rather interchangeably. A lot really depends on the particular moment as to how I phrase my salutations. Kaya is the hippie/rasta name we gave to her... usually in the moments where we feel the most connected to her. The bliss moments of life.

The low moments occur when something, usually rather drastic occurs... transmission fluid draining all over the place, crankshaft breaking, O2 Sensor dying and the hundreds of mechanics that have done more damage then good. Strangely enough, at least in my crazy ass life, goodness always pervails... the low moments are never that low... the transmission died in the very town where the best VW transimission shop is located; the motor died but Lucas at GoWesty made good and we came to a fair conclusion... perhaps things in life happen for reasons... best friends never met, finally met. Maybe I lead a fortunate life? Maybe I did good and had a heart of gold in a former life and Jah the almighty is just paying me back.

I think only those smitten with Vee Dubs will sympathize with me here. I will have Kaya regardless of anything. I will own her till the day I die. We have been through too much in life together to stop being together. The guy I work for seemed rather shocked that we would want to keep Kaya rather than buy the latest greatest. Shit, even Lisa and I thought about buying a vehicle from Earthroamer. I even got as far as talking directly with Bill Swails about it. Let me say that Earthroamers are amazing vehicles. We could afford one. I covet one in a materialistic way. Fuck, who wouldn't? Go to http://www.earthroamer.com/ and check it out. God's gift to expedition travel. Maybe I would buy one. But there is something about Westy's, an underground brotherhood - a mystique. Pull into any town and count the buses. If there are a lot of buses, there are a lot of cool folks. Just about any town in Northern California, Oregon or Washington is chalked full of these aging machines. I know I could walk up to 99% of VDUB owners and have an instant friend who would help me. No buses, uptight fools. Case in point Essex, Connecticut - Those people are so tightly wound it is beyond belief. They wouldn't help anyone, even their own children.

So back to the buses. They are aging and mechanically challenged. But I make ok money and have no intentions to buy into the trapping of our modern need to buy everything culture. I will love her till the day I die. Yes, Lisa and I do not care about flat screen TVs, the latest phone, laptops, movies, hollywood actors and all the bullshit 95% of the world seems to care about. Throwbacks to another time? Maybe? Or actually progressive thinkers who live today. PROPHETS!

Enough ravings. Lisa and I have decided to start the Kaya Beautification Project. A sort of spa treatment for our 19 year old vanagon. This year is bringing many new and important upgrades and visits to at least four great vee dub related shops. Check back frequently starting next month to see the progress and how the road trip across America is progressing... Featured will be trips to Connecticut to one of the East Coast's best mechanics ever, Fred Newmann, owner of Mechanical Advantage in Barkhamstead, CT. Amazing, thorough mechanic and extremely trust worthy. Next stop will be Karl Mullendore in Gapland, Maryland. Karl is an underground legend in the world of Vanagon's. The kind of person people revere in hushed tones. The only time I met him I felt as though I was ontop on a mountain with the oracle. Afterwards we are shooting WEST for visit in the Chicago area then down to Amarillo, Texas to Sewfine so Kaya can have a new dress, ok - a new interior then off through the land of the ancients to California and GoWesty. GoWesty has to be one of the more controversal shops in the realm of VWs. Everyone wants a GW pimped ride with all the things they put in it. But no one wants to admit that that sort of craftsmenship costs a lot of money. They regularily get slammed on vw boards. I personally have been there a few times and have found both Chris and Lucas to be two cool cats. Yeah, they are pricey but they are great as well.

So follow us on our adventure. We will be posting quite regularily from the road. We are also searching for a hippie cabinet maker to redo our cabinets. We have some ideas but no definite leads. If you know someone please email me at: aswah1964@yahoo.com

The trip will also feature fantastic stealth spots that ony two fools and one wonderdog can get into in a Vanagon, reviews on BBQ pits, microbreweries and other unique features along the way... Join us... If you want to help finance the trip, renovation costs or tag a along for a leg of the trip please write your request on the back of a hundred dollar bill and mail it to us...

ONE LOVE, ASWAH, Lisa and Loose Lucy

Giant Halibuts and the Dark Life they LEAD!

2008-08-05T06:35:00.000-07:00

All goodness happens at the PEI Farmer's Market on Saturdays! I ran into Mickey Rose of MR Seafood while buying vegetables a few Saturdays ago. Mickey told me that he had a 168 pound halibut and it was looking for a good home. At first I thought "Damn, that's a big fish! Too much for me to use before it's freshness was a thing passe. Impossible! But I have to admit, that big ole halibut stayed in my mind.

By the time I got to work I started schemeing on how to fit it into our budget. I told my Sous Chefs David and Andrew about it. David was so beyond enthusiastic about it that I had to get it. I called Rodney and Mickey and asked how long before I got it. I love both of these guys. If you purchase fish wholesale or retail on the island you need to think about getting fish from these two folks. Super high quality fish at rock bottom prices! AND AMAZINGLY COOL GUYS to boot!

Over the next three days we sold over fifty percent halibut to our guests. I had invited any guests who were in the restaurant when the fish was delivered to come and look at it. Almost every table came out to view the beast. The best three preparation had to be Grilled Halibut Louisbourg which was grilled halibut served over hand rolled Saffron pasta tossed with lobster, scallop and mussels in a white wine, mushroom and tomato confit sauce; Wild Halibut Szechuan - served on Bamboo Rice Risotto with Raymond Loo's Summer Cabbage and Broccoli in a Ginger, Shiitake and Green Onion Sauce or the grilled Halibut on Saffron Fettuccine with locally foraged Chanterelles, Pancetta and Soleil's Leeks... wowzers!

On a side note:

I say Halibut lead dark lives because that one came into the kitchen later that night and busted a cap in Duncan's Ass during service... sort of a swim by... YEAH DAYBOAT!

Attack of the Killer Mosquitos (subtitled watching the world go by, one periwinkle at a time)

2008-07-08T17:26:00.000-07:00

Here was the plan... I would finish up at work earlier than Lisa, jet home and pack the Westy, fill the water tanks, load the food, shower, Lisa would show up a little later then we would jet out to this nature preserve near our house and spend two nights and one day camping by the ocean... Everything was going smoothly when we arrived at the end of MacDonald Road right at 1:00 a.m. I hopped out the Westy and was amazed that there were no bugs whatsoever. A cool and mentally freeing wind blowing the sweet scent of the ocean over us. We laid in bed listening to the distant roar of the ocean contemplating our day off. The stars shining brilliantly as we fell into a deep sleep. Sweet dreams of butterflies and flowers... snore. snore.

Somewhere in the haze of lack of sleep and dawn when the sun was itself just thinking of rising there was a hum... the buzz of ten million female mosquitos hell bent on sucking our blood to help nourish their eggs.

I remember laying in bed smacking my legs but not yet having the mental awareness to realize that we were under attack. Lucy sought refuge deep under my sleeping bag. I was shaken out of slumber by Lisa smacking the hundred mosquitos that pentrated our VDUBS defenses. Lisa's headlamp shone on more mosquitos then I had ever seen on the other side of the glass.

At 4:42 a.m. we planned and executed a hastily planned escape. Driving back home we laughed. Sometimes plans are better dreamt about than realized. So much for the day of much needed rest and relaxation.

Later in the day we returned to the scene of battle. The corpses of thousands of dead mosquitos lay splattered in the window. Some of the smudges filled with our blood. This time we returned to another infestation: people. Whoever said unknown beaches on PEI were empty even in the summer time lied. With our tails between our legs we returned home and dropped dear Lucy off... no dogs allowed in the Prince Edward Island National Park which is located near us.

Luckily we did not have to pay an entrance fee. We passed the hordes of vactioners that seem to all want to pack onto one beach in the same fashion as they live their lives in civilization... packed like sardines. Never understood that philosophy. Personally Lisa and I go more for free open spaces with no humans in visible sight. We kept on driving till we could go no further. Solitude came way past Brackley Beach.

We spent the afternoon watching a periwinkle crawl towards a stranded jelly fish... now that is a day off.

Lunching Llamas and Soap Box Rants

2008-06-20T04:24:00.001-07:00

"Let every individual and institution now think and act as a responsible trustee of Earth, seeking choices in ecology, economics and ethics that will provide a sustainable future, eliminate pollution, poverty and violence, awaken the wonder of life and foster peaceful progress in the human adventure."

— John McConnell

I guess I'm a farmer groupie. I adore people who work the land, who fish the seas, who forage the forests in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way. They have chosen an ancient path to walk thru life. Their jobs are very real and very necessary. They are the superstars of the world. We can get by without having another lawyer or another computer programmer but try surviving without food. Farmers are the folks that I feel a connection with, a kinship if you will.

If the farmer is the producer, then the Chef is the co producer. A symbiotic relationship designed to help feed the world, though the farmer more then the Chef. Importance rests on the quality of ingredient. A Chef can never exceed the quality of their raw ingredients. The farmer supplies the palate to which the Chef paints with.

Food has seasons despite what Corporate Farming says. My menu changes so frequently to attempt to capture the flutters of the short seasons of ingredients. Asparagus is primarily a spring crop appearing on PEI in late May and lasting only till mid June. Tomatoes have no place on menus in February. They belong in the summertime when there flavor and taste is at its apex. Have you ever eaten a sun kissed tomato still warm from the sun? A far cry from the gas ripened crap passed off as tomatoes during the winter months. Basil is best in the heat of summer. It’s funny how Nature’s design is so perfect. Celebrate the seasons. Explore diversity on your plate!

"With the advent of industrial farming and the green revolution, organic farming was relegated to the status of "quaint" or "old-fashioned" - something practiced by hippies on communes, certainly not by serious farmers."

- David Suzuki

Starting the Slow Food chapter on the Island has been interesting. Ultimately it is the right thing to do at the right time. Mono culture has failed. Our environment is changing whether or not you believe that global warming is man made, a natural cycle or god’s way of punishing us for being heathens. The benefits of Slow Food are easy to grasp... for restaurants it means a constant supply of high quality organic heirloom ingredients that are vastly superior to commercial corporate farmed flavorless crap that has so infested our supermarkets, tables and stomachs. The ability to share the taste of a halibut just caught with our clientele. For the farmers, fishermen and foragers it means a market where their toils are rewarded. It cost more money to raise stuff correctly. For everyone else it is the antidote to the increasing corporate take over of our world. Do we really need another McDonald’s slinging unhealthy crap into our systems? A means to slow down the mono-cultured prefabricated corporate way of our current world. It is okay to have different heritages and different ways. It ok to maintain cultural traditions. I did not move to Prince Edward Island to have an American experience. I came here to enjoy the cultural ways of the Island as expressed on a plate. Yeah, sorry I am a Chef and I view the world thru food. The table is my expression of ancient songlines that Bruce Chatwin talks about...

“I have a vision of the Songlines stretching across the continents and the ages; that wherever men have trodden they have left a trail of song (of which we may, now and then, catch an echo); and that these trails must reach back, in time and space, to an isolated pocket in the African Savannah, where the First Man opening his mouth in defiance of the terrors that surrounded him, shouted the opening stanza of the World Song “I AM!”.

- Bruce Chatwin

We too must stop the corporate greed, our own greed, and learn to live in balance with both nature and our fellow man. We must preserve our traditions, ways and embrace the future not as citizens of individual corporate states but as citizens of the world. Yes, celebrate our diversity because that is what makes us rich. Man's true wealth. OK, off the soap box...

"Organic farming is rooted in ancient knowledge passed down through generations. Long before science could tell us why certain farming methods would produce greater crop yields, organic farmers were learning the hard way what worked and what didn't - and sharing their knowledge with others."

- David Suzuki

My days off have grown into a day of combining my favorite passions onto one plate if you will. I adore camping with my beautiful wife Lisa and my wonder dog Lucy. And I love meeting with folks who work the Earth and Seas. We decided to camp on Monday night behind the restaurant in Oyster Bed Bridge. Hell it's got a beautiful view, it's relatively quiet and we didn't have to drive anywhere to get there. We woke up early with an agenda full of potential visits... the two important ones were visiting farmer friend Raymond Loo's farm a second time and visiting an educational farm on the west side of the island called Pioneer Farms.

We had a little time to kill before getting to Raymond's farm so we stopped at Cheeselady’s Gouda Cheese, a local cheese maker’s operation to taste Goudas. Martina ter Beek came to PEI in 1985 and started a dairy business. Within a few years she joined in her families business and started producing wonderful Goudas hand crafted in the Dutch tradition using milk from her own cows. The ten month old Gouda was interesting and had great flavor. We both felt it would be wonderful if she aged cheese a little more and offered those wonderful crystalline three year old Gouda. Maybe someday I will approach her with a chance to have some custom aged stuff for us at the restaurant. You can visit her operation at 1423b Winsloe Road in Winsloe North or contact her by phone at 902.368.1506, email ryk.terbeek@pei.sympatico.ca.

"Many organic practices simply make sense, regardless of what overall agricultural system is used. Far from being a quaint throwback to an earlier time, organic agriculture is proving to be a serious contender in modern farming and a more environmentally sustainable system over the long term"

- David Suzuki

We stopped at the entrance of Raymond Loo's Springwillow Farm to photograph Lupines that grow wild alongside all the roads on PEI. Gorgeous little buggers! Raymond walked us around his farm. I always enjoy speaking with him. Having a 400 acre organic farm in a sea of chemicalized farmers certainly has challenges. Raymond told us a story about a government official who suggested one of the best things he could do to promote organic farming would be buy a bunch of 50,000 dollar trucks and give them to the organic farmers. That way the chemicalized farmer’s could see the benefits of organic farming.

“We are playing Russian roulette with features of the planet's atmosphere that will profoundly impact generations to come. How long are we willing to gamble?”

- David Suzuki

Have you ever wondered why food grown correctly is labeled as organic and food grown incorrectly is simply stated as vegetables? Language is a very important tool in the battle for our stomachs. I want to reverse this tide. Rather than lament about the high cost of properly grown ingredients let's lament about the even higher costs to both our health (increased rates of cancer and diseases from eating Monsanto pesticides genetically inserted in our stomachs thru bioengineering) and our planet (you need look no further than the declining salmon populations in the NW of America or mussel and oyster beds being adversely affected by chemical runoffs from farmers field in PEI). So when you go to your local grocery think twice about the perceived savings of a few dollars because you chose the chemicalized food option. Sorry about the rants today… it’s just where my head is this morning for some reason.

Next stop was Pioneer Farms (http://www.pioneerfarm.ca/) on the west side of the island. We almost didn’t drive out there. I started feeling lazy and was thinking more about the bottle of red wine we had stowed away and the prime rib and duck confit sitting pretty in our refrigerator. The thought of reclining and smelling the ocean was pretty captivating.

Lisa really wanted to see the off the grid farm. Thank god for Lisa. Pioneer Farms is something everybody ought to experience on so many levels: wonderful people (Roy, Jim and Judy are amazing people), crazy animals galore (spitting llamas, Moses the wonder donkey, Silky chickens, emus, dogs, rabbits, peacocks, sheep, goats) and best of all, people living in balance with the Earth… Solar and wind powered. It certainly doesn’t hurt that they also have a 150 acre tract of land that is amazing… among the most beautiful on the whole island.

The 90 minute drive from the restaurant to their farm was scenic and beautiful. Driving always has a calming effect on me. The well marked paved, gravel and dirt roads leading from the main road to the entrance of their property sets the tone for what is to come.

A sign tells you to park your car and walk into paradise. Lisa and I kept getting the feeling that we were walking into the past, an ancient time when we lived within the cycles of life. The short path shedding the modern world like skin off an onion.

We were greeted by Jim and Roy tending to an injured horse and a promise that stray children would be used as slaves.

Our eyes were alive with a sensory overload of more animals than poor old Noah’s ark carried. Llamas running around, goats laying on picnic tables, chickens cackling...

Roy gave us a tour of the property and showed off his “new” old saddles. He showed us the pigs he was raising for the table. I felt a connection with Roy as he was a Chef in a former life. Roy came to the farm as a Woofer. A woofer is basically someone who volunteers to work on a farm for a period of time in exchange for room, board and an education. That got Lisa and I pondering our next steps in life. We too someday want to milk goats and make cheese, raise chickens and live once again off the grid. To us it is a very intoxicating lifestyle.

"I've always divided human beings into two categories: those who resemble a courtyard and suffocate you between their walls- Then there are those who resemble a garden, where you can walk and be silent, and breathe."

- Antoine de St. Exupery

Roy cooked us a burger and Judy made a pot of coffee before going a horse driven carriage ride from the farm to the ocean and back again. He showed us his pigs that he is raising for the table. Jim and Judy very kindly offered to let us stay on their farm for the night.

Everyone pitched in bits and pieces to make a meal. Lisa and I threw in our Prime Rib, potatoes and duck confit. Roy, Judy and Jim threw in Flounder, Snow Crab, Broccoli and a salad. We enjoyed one of the best meals since coming to the Island. So much is the companionship of kindred souls.

“We forget there is no hope of joy except in human relations. If I summon up those memories that have left with me an enduring savor, if I draw up the balance sheet of the hours of my life that have truly counted, surely I find only those that no wealth could have procured me. True riches cannot be bought. One cannot buy the friendship of Mermoz, of a companion to whom one is bound forever by ordeals suffered in common”

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Anyhow, I could continue going on and on about this incredible day. If you want to satisfy your soul and meet some cool people and crazy animals then head over to Pioneer Farms (http://www.pioneerfarm.ca/)

In closing I want to thank Jim, Judy and Roy for their generousness.

Thanks for the GREAT DAY!

Waking up in the woods after having slept the deepest sleep with the soothing sounds of rain, thunder and the quiet stillness of the rich forest did my heart good. I almost cried as I drove home and back to the insanity of the restaurant business.

ASWAH

p.s. this is what an egg looks like... Tight white, vibrant yolk. Those things you buy in the store are simply imposters... threw them away. Make friends with a farmer and get some real eggs!

"who knows what form the forward momentum of life will take in the time ahead or what use it will make of our anguished searching. The most any one of us can seem to do is to fashion something-an object or ourselves- and drop it into the confusion, make an offering of it, so to speak, to the life force."

- Ernest Becker

My Salvation! The PEI Farmer's Market and why it Matters!

2008-06-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

Saturdays are my favorite days on the Island. Saturday is the Farmer's Market day... an oasis day in a desert full of long repetitious days slaving behind the range. A day to walk around and hold conversations with nature and life...

This particular day Lisa and I had been looking forward to. Not really sure why, we just were. Up at the butt crack of dawn. The sun's rays shining brilliantly thru our window. One potent cappucino to combat the lack of sleep... so strong it should be called Lazarath's Brew guarunteed to raise the dead! We drove Kaya into town jamming on Exene and William Burroughs renditions of Jim Morrison's poetry...

"wake up, you can't remember where it was, has the dream stopped?

Once I had a little game. I like to crawl back into my brain.

I think you know the game I mean. The game called go insane.

Now you should try this little game. Close your eyes, forget your name.

Forget the world, forget the people. We'll erect a different steeple.

Children of the night, who among you will run with the hunt?"

Saturdays have become a ritual. Stop at the bank, hit the parking lot of the indoor market. Run, don't walk. Eyes wide, drooling, cash in hand. Is it Christmas today? Time to open the presents and celebrate ourlives... communion with farmers... food from the plow to the table... This is where food is born.

We always start by getting a smoked salmon bagel from Kim Dormaar (http://smokedsalmon.isn.net/). Toasty bagel slathered in cream cheese with just a touch of capers, red onions and a sprinkling of lemon juice... covered in thinly sliced smoked salmon.

I truly think he has the best smoked Salmon on the planet. He sources the best salmon from the maritimes to cold smoke. There are smoked salmons and then there is Kim's stuff. He also has fantastic smoked Eel. Last week I made some tortellini's with the smoked eel.

Next to him is the guy who mills his own flour, bakes bread and sells Colville Oysters (http://www.colvillebayoysterco.ca/).

While I am talking to Kim, Lisa grabs oysters to eat. The Colvilles are great oysters with a complex mild briny flavor. Nothing beats an oyster hours from it's cold wet nutrient rich home. So, bagel in one hand, oysters in the other we continue touring the stalls.

The next stop is usually business related. I stop by the Doctor's Inn (http://www.peisland.com/doctorsinn/) Organic Vegetable stand.

The Doctor's Inn is located in the Tyne Valley. Jean and Paul Offer grow an amazing array of organic vegetables including leeks, Asian greens, herbs.

They carry button mushrooms grown near them that I use in my duck confit salad. I always feel like the opening scenes in Lord of the Rings when the Hobbits are going on about a farmer's mushrooms. Makes me smile every time.

Next stop is the Cheese counter for some of Canada's best cheeses. If you ever make it out here you need to try cloth bound Island Cheddar and aged Gouda from the Cheeselady (http://www.gov.pe.ca/business/ onebusiness.php3?number=21129). Lisa and I stock up on a few different cheeses for our day off.

We stop by Isabel's Flowers for a quick chat, a free tomato and some herbs. Our landscaping, flowers and herb garden are done by the two magic souls that run Isabel's flowers. Another moment of pure happiness!

Next to the flowers is the coffee stand. Another cappucino, a pound or two of dark roasted beans to last the upcoming week and oh, what's that in the distance... the mini donut cart.

Yes, while I am getting my java fix on the scent of just fried donuts wafts over and smacks you in the face.I am having a Homer moments... mmm, donuts. Is there anything better than a freshly made donut still glistening in fat and dusted with cinnamon sugar?

The crunchy exterior with the warm, soft center. Culinary pornography! So now I am glowing with happy joyous feelings... slightly twitchy from too much coffee and still on the sugar high. Life is sweet, literally!

A few more errands. I need something for a new duck preparation. Rather than decide ahead of time I will let the market dictate the dish. I stop by Cranbush Farms counter and find the last of the seasons fiddlehead ferns. Later in the night they get mixed with celery, jalapenos, double smoked bacon and sweet corn and become a succatash of sorts. I stop by Sunshine Farms and pick up some Elderberry juice to make the sauce.

It's nice to think that nature is the best artist and chef. The color combinations that Jah, God, Allah or whomever or whatever you believe in makes are perfect.

The same holds true for flavor combinations. If you leave your ego out and let the seasons tell you what belongs together you end up with a more natural and pure cuisine. I as a chef can never exceed the quality of my raw ingredients. In fact, it is better that I manipulate them as little as possible. Cuisine Actuelle. Let the flavors speak in their own tongues.

Other small errands, fresh natural beef from David and Edith Ling; cute tiny radishes from Hughes Hill Farms a 50 pound sack of Fabula potatoes and some of the Island's best eggs from Raymond Loo.

Life is good. Life is sweet!

“Even as an old peasant woman recognizes her god in a painted image, in a childish medal, in a chaplet, so life would speak to us in it’s humblest language in order we understand. The joy of living, I say, was summed up for me in the remembered sensation of that burning and aromatic swallow, that mixture of milk and coffee and bread by which men hold communion with tranquil pastures, exotic plantations, and golden harvests, communion with earth.”

Antoine de Saint Exupery

And so every Saturday Lisa and I hold communion with the Island's farmers and celebrate the beauty of our lives! This is living!

Peace and Love ASWAH

and no, they don't serve old Goat and Dog...

ASPARAGUS! An Ode to Martin and Christine Belanger's Farm

2008-06-09T04:02:00.001-07:00

"You needn't tell me that a man who doesn't love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul, or a stomach either. He simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed"

- Hector Hugh Munro

One of the best parts of moving to Prince Edward Island in late Spring was to experience fresh Asparagus twice. Spring comes late to the Island. Thank GOD! I drove over to Christine and Martin Belanger's Farm just outside of Hunter River, PEI on the way to work. I had to see the barren field where these amazing shoots are born. For those who have never seen asparagus grow it is interesting to note that asparagus takes three years and one day for a shoot to grow. Three years to get the crown into it's most productive state and one day for the shoot to, well, shoot out of the gound. Christine told me that in hot climates asparagus shoots grow one inch an hour. WOW!

In addition to some the Island's best asparagus, the Belanger's grow amazing berries, raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries and one called Saskatoons. Never tried a saskatoon? Neither have I. They have also planted Kiwis. You probably are thinking what I am thinking... Kiwis on PEI? This Island gets better by the second.

"Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts"

~ Charles Lamb

"If the divine creator has taken pains to give us delicious and exquisite things to eat, the least we can do is prepare them well and serve them with ceremony."

~ Fernand Point

Asparagus, in three parts

Crispy Crab and Lobster Cake
Asparagus, Lemon Vinaigrette and Snow Crab salad

Local Asparagus with Crunchy Farm Egg
Martin’s just cut Asparagus lightly grilled
Parmesan Fonduta, crispy Pancetta, poached Farm Egg

Pan Roasted Salmon with Salted and Aromatic Herbs

with Martin's Asparagus served with Smoked Eel Tortellinis

The Importance of Nature as experienced thru the windows of a VDUB

2008-05-31T04:14:00.000-07:00

I felt the need to detour away from the food world for a minute and post some pictures I have taken over the last few years... It's really hard to explain to someone an experience so close at heart if they've never experienced it. How do you describe the joy of walking with Spring for six months or what a mother feels when she has a baby? I love nature..I love experiencing it thru the windows of our VDUB Kaya. These are the things that are truly important... Throw your TV set out the window... go experience the magic of life.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel, What I can never express, yet cannot all conceal.

For true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have.

And if you go to draw at the true fountainhead, the more water you draw,

the more abundant is its flow.

Antoine de Saint Exupery

I heard a thousand blended notes,While in a grove I sat reclined,In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughtsBring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man Through primrose tuffs, in that sweet bower, The periwinkle tailed its wreaths' And tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes. The birds around me hopped and played Their thoughts I cannot measureBut the least motion which they made, It seemed a thrill of pleasure. The budding twigs spread out their fan, To catch the breezy air: And I must think, do all I can,That there was pleasure there. From heaven if this belief be sent, If such be nature's holy plan Have I not reason to lament What man has made of man?

- Woodsworth

Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy. We know the sap that courses through the trees as we know the blood that runs through our veins. We are part of the earth and the earth is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle; these are our brothers. the rocky crests, the berries in the meadow, the body heat of the pony and the people, all belong to the same family. The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. Each shimmering reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father. The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and give drink to our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother or sister. The air is precious to us. The air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. The earth is our mother. What befalls the earth befalls all the children of the earth. All things are connected like the blood that connects us all. We did not weave the web of life; we are mearly strands in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. This we know: that our god is also your god. The earth is precious to God and to harm the earth is to heap contempt upon its creator. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many people and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is it to say good-bye to the swift pony and the hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival. We love the earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. Preserve the land for all children and love it, as God loves us all. We Indians are part of this land. You too are part of this land. The earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you. None of us can be apart. We are all brothers and sisters, together woven in to this sacred earth.

~ Chief Seattle

"Nature is the great emptiness, the source out of which our culture and all its flowering comes, and in order not to lose sight of this, not to become orphans lost in the minutiae of our daily lives and, like the rich man’s son starving outside his father’s gate, to forget who we are, it is vital that wildness be preserved for its own sake, which is to say, for our sake."

–Dan Gerber

“I heard them talking to one another in murmurs and whispers. They talked about illness, money, shabby domestic cares. Their talk painted the walls of a dismal prison in which men had locked themselves up. And suddenly I had a vision of the face of destiny.”

- Antoine Saint Exupery

Each flower is a soul opening out to nature.

– Gérard de Nerval

Antoine Saint Exupery

“There is another call, the one that arrives the day when what once worked no longer does. Sometimes people need a shock; sometimes a tocsin call. It’s time for a wake up call. A man fired from a job; a child runs away from home; ulcers overtake a body. The ancients called this “soul loss”. Today, the equivalent is the loss of meaning or purpose in our lives. There is a void where there should be what Gerard Manley Hopkins calls “juice and joy.” The heart grows cold, life loses it’s vitality. Our accomplishments seem meaningless.”

- Phil Cousineau

“I have a vision of the Songlines stretching across the continents and the ages; that wherever men have trodden they have left a trail of song (of which we may, now and then, catch an echo); and that these trails must reach back, in time and space, to an isolated pocket in the African Savannah, where the First Man opening his mouth in defiance of the terrors that surrounded him, shouted the opening stanza of the World Song “I AM!”

~ Bruce Chatwin

“Gold & rose color of a dream I had,not too long ago Misty blue and lilac, too. There you were sleeping under a tree of songsleeping so peacefully. In your hand a flower played and you smiled my name...”

- Jimi Hendrix

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

– John Muir

"These city walls, are like a prison. We got keep on living with our backs against the wall. We are creatures of love; victims of hate...Start living on a higher vibration. Perfection of divinity is everyone's duty. Don't waste your time, living for the vanities. We are creatures of faith; victims of destiny...which we created. Now we are living on a higher vibration."

- Ziggy Marley

"whispering voices,whispering choices...some always lose their soul for silver and gold. Silver and gold have I none. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth Rise up and walk, Rise up and walk. Reaping time and creeping time...You reap what you sowreaping time, creeping time..."

- Lee Scratch Perry

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.

– John Muir

"Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher 'standard of living' is worth the cost in things natural, wild and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important tahn television, and the chance to find a pasque flower is a right as inalienable as free speech."
- Aldo Leopold

"In all my future lives May I never fall underthe influence of evil companions; May I never harmeven a single hair of any living being; May I never be deprived of the sublime light of Dharma"

This is one little episode in the funeral of the native flora, which in turn is one episode in the floras of the world. Mechanized man, oblivious of floras, is proud of his progress in cleaning up the landscape on which willy nilly he must live out his days. It might be wise to prohibit at once all teachings of real botany and real history, lest some future citizen suffer qualms about the floristic price of his good life.

- Aldo Leopold

I wonder whether the process ordinarily referred to as 'growing up' is not actually growing down; whether experience, so much touted among adults as the thing children lack, is not actually a progressive dilution of the essentials by the trivialities of living.

- Aldo Leopold

We spoke harshly of the Spaniards who, in their zeal for gold and converts, had needlessly extinguished the native indians. It did not occur to us that we, too, were the captains of an invasion too sure of it's own righteousness.

~ Aldo Leopold

Relegating grizzlies to ALASKA is about like relegating happiness to heaven;
one may never get there.

- Aldo Leopold

For seven years I dwelt in the loose palace of exile. Playing strange games with the girls of the Island. Now I have come again to the land of the fair and the strong and the wise. Brothers and Sisters of the pale forest. Children of the night. Who among you will run with the hunt? Now, night arrives with her purple legions. Retire now to your tents and to your dreams. Tomorrow we enter the town of my birth. I want to be ready.

- Jim Morrison

"I hate this age. When the war is over, nothing but emptiness will be left. For centuries, humanity has been descending an immense staircase whose top is hidden in the clouds and whose lowest steps are lost in a dark abyss. We could have ascended the staircase; instead we chose to descend it. Spiritual decay is terrible."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"if my words did glow, with the gold of sunshine.And my tunes were played on the heart unstrung. Would you hear my voicecome through the music? Would you hold it near as it were your own?"

- Grateful Dead

"The oldest religion discovered (it) long ago. It is the basis of all religious thought. It is the supreme "trick", which has been somewhat forgotten since the advent of material progress. That "trick" is sacrifice. And by sacrifice I mean neither renunciation of all good things of life, nor despair in repentance. By sacrifice, I mean a free gift, a gift that demands nothing in return. It is not what you receive that magnifies you, but what you give."

~ St. Exupery

"The opening of the Trunk Moment of Inner FreedomWhen the Mind is opened and the Infinite Universe revealed and the Soul is left to wander Dazed and Confused searching here and there for Teachers and Friends."

- Jim Morrison

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

~ Thoreau

"it was a childish ignorance, but now 'tis little joy to know I'm farther off from heaven than when I was a boy."

- Thomas Hood

"I remember the games of my childhood-the dark and golden park we peopled with gods; the limitless Kingdomwe made of this square mile never thoroughly explored, never thoroughly charted. We created a secret civilization where footfalls had meaning and things a savor known in no other world.And when we grow to be men and live under other laws, what remains of that park filled with the shadows of childhood, magical, freezing, burning? What do we learn when we return to it and stroll with a sort of dispair...marvelling that within a space so small we should have founded a Kingdom that had seemed to us infinite-what do we learn except that in this infinity we shall never again set foot, and that it is into the game and not the park that we have lost the power to enter?"

"you become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."

"it is only with the heart that one can see rightly;

What is essential is invisible to the eye"

"Don't you understand that somewhere along the way we have gone astray? The human anthill is richer than ever before. We have more wealth and more leisure, and yet we lack something essential, which we find difficult to describe. We feel less human; somewhere we have lost our mysterious prerogatives."

When I have Sacrificed My Angel Soul

I died a mineral, and became a plantI died a plant and rose an animal.I died an animal and I was a man.Why should I fear? When was I less by dying Yet once more I shall die as man, to soar With the blessed angels; but even from angelhood I must pass on. All except God perishes.When I have sacrificed my angel soul,I shall become that which no mind ever conceived.O, let me not exist for non-Existence proclaims,"To Him, we shall return."

- Jalal-Vddin Rumi

A Little French Food History

2008-05-30T04:51:00.000-07:00

“Gourmandise is an enormous book, always open to whoever knows how to read it, and whose pages offer a series of moving tableaux, whose horizon spreads as far as the eye can see.”

~ Grimod de la Reynière

I have enjoyed the debate on the supposed influence of Catherine de Médicis on French cuisine. People have suggested that French cuisine was unsophisticated prior to Catherine de Médicis. I suggest that there was a sophisticated national cuisine prior to Catherine that kept with the palate of the times and that while the Italian Renaissance did effect French cooking, it started with Platine in 1505, twenty-eight years prior to Catherine’s arrival in France. Catherine may have brought something with her but everything mentioned thus far in this friendly exchange has appeared in writing prior to her existence.

After I got back from a weekend of camping and decided to look through relevant books before embarking on another week of restaurant opening madness. I came across a book, which I rather enjoy, but somehow had forgotten. It is entitled “The Grand Masters of French Cuisine – from 1373 to 1873” written by Céline Vence and Robert Courtine, another excellent book that I forgot to mention in my list of important books on the subject.

The Grand Masters of French Cuisine starts with the oldest French cookbook written in 1290 entitled Traité où l’on enseigne à faire et appereiller tous boires commes vin, clairet, mouré et autres, ainsi qu’a appareiller et assaisoner toutes viands selon divers usages de divers pays or “Treatise where one is taught to make and dress all drinks such as wine, claret, Mouré and others, as well as how to dress and season all meats according to the diverse countries”. Although other books were probably written, the second oldest French book comes 100 years later, in 1380 entitled Le Grand Cuisinier de toute cuisine, “The Great Cookbook of All Kinds of Cooking”. This book has come to be known as Viandier written by Guillaume Tirel whose nickname was Taillevent. In this cookbook, Taillevent gives us wonderful recipes such as Civé de Veel (an early version of Blanquette de Veau), Poached Mullets with sauce Cameline (a sort of relish), Grilled Mullets, Hochepot de Poullaille (Chicken Casserole), Sutil Brouet d’Engleterre (Chestnut Purée from England), Oeufs rôtis à la broche (spit roast eggs), Pâté d’anguilles (eel pate), and Cretonnée de Pois Nouveaux (Green Pea Puree with Chicken) among others.

On first look the food appears to be ancient compared to what we eat now. As a student of gastronomy I can tell you that Blanquette de Veau is still being prepared, as are grilled Mullet, Chicken Casserole, Chestnut Puree, Eel Pate and pureed Green Peas. One could say that the generous uses of what I term medieval spices are no longer in use today. I agree, but that was the fashion of the time. Spices had a great value and only wealthy people could afford them. Spices did not have the luxury of modern vacuum packing and transportation. Therefore spices lost much of their potency through inefficient packing and lengthy travel times from point of origin to the kitchen in France and Italy. I will admit I am not a scholar on early Italian works; some could even argue I am not a scholar on early French works. Perhaps Riccardo, Rogov, or someone else could help us with what the Italians cooked in the mid to late 1300’s. I am certain the cuisine would be similar.

The next book of note to appear on the scene is Le Ménagier de Paris (The Goodman of Paris), written between June of 1392 and September of 1394. Among the recipes, suckling pig stuffed with egg yolks, sausage, chestnuts, cheese, saffron and ginger; Chicken liver and gizzard stew, and eel stew stand out. The middle-aged author wrote the book for the benefit of his 15 year old bride, whom he felt could only give him “petit et ignorant service” without it. Apparently she had begged him to forgive her for her youth and the slight and imperfect service she could render. He wrote the book to quickly educate her on domestic science. The recipes, for the large part, are borrowed from Viandier, but a few new ones did appear.

In 1420, Chiquart Amiczo a book entitled Du Fait de Cuisine (On the Matter of Cookery). He was the Chef to the Duke of Savoy. His book dealt with food preparation as well as planning and arranging enormous feasts that lasted for several days. To quote Early French Cookery, “…staggering logistics involved in preparing for such a feast, even only two days’ duration. In order to allow for something like 57 dishes to be served, the cook must ensure the availability of 100 heads of cattle- to be slaughtered on the spot – along with 130 sheep, 120 pigs, 200 piglets, 200 lambs, 100 calves, 2,000 hens and 12,000 eggs to say nothing of the incredible quantities of wild game and fish, spices, herbs, fruit, sugar, wines, candles, firewood, filter cloth and so forth.” Du Fait de Cuisine gives us valuable information on the royal cuisine of the time.

Maestro Martino whose recipes appeared in the mid 1400’s in “De honesta voluptate et valetudine” (Of Honest Indulgence and Good Health) by Baptiste Platine de Crémone, did have dishes that appear to be more familiar with what we would label as Italian cooking today. In his book he lists dishes like Riso con brood di carne (a forerunner to Risotto Milanese), Ravioli in tempo di carne (ravioli for meat days), and Zucche Fritte (zucchini salad). But upon inspection, I see that medieval spices such as saffron, cinnamon and ginger figure prominently in these preparations. It is interesting to note that Riso con brood di carne is of Arabic origins. But, unlike Risotto Milanese, this dish uses eggs instead of grated cheese. The use of rice is also mentioned in Taillevent’s book. Platine, as the work was commonly known as, first appeared in print in France in 1505 under the name Platine en françois très utile et necessaire pour le corps humain, que traicte de honest volupté et de toutes viands et choses que l’ome mange, quelles vertus ont, et en quoy nuysent ou proffitent au corps humain, et comment se doyvent apprester ou appreiller, et de fair à chascune dicelles viands soit chair ou poysson sa proper saulce et des propriétés et vertus que ont les dites viands. Et du lieu et place convenable à l’ome pour abiter et de plusieurs gentillesses par quoy l’ome se peut maintenir en prospérité et santé sans avoir grant indigence d’avoir aultre médecin sil est homme de rayson or Platine in French, Very useful and necessary for the human body, which treats of honest pleasures and of all meats and things that men eat, what their virtues are, and how they hurt or help the human body, and how they should be prepared and dressed, and how to make for each one of these meats, either flesh or fish, its own sauce, and the properties and virtues that which he can maintain his prosperity and health, with no need to have any doctor, if he be a man of reason. One hell of a title to retype! Platine became very popular in France was published repeatedly for 100 years. The book details all the things eaten in the sixteenth century. He mentions 15 different salad plants. He describes how whale blubber was the fat used by poor people; that porpoise was a noble fish and that one should let it age. That it is better roasted than boiled. And if you are to boil it, it is better in wine than water. He also describes Catalan cookery.

The Italian influence continued with Opera nuova intitolata Dificio de recette, printed in Venice in 1541. The book was translated into French the same year and appeared as Bastiment de recettes (Edifice of Recipes). In 1551, a Parisian bookseller published Manière de faire toutes confitures (Manner of Making all Sorts of Confectionery). There is dispute whether the author was French or an Italian living in Paris. In 1552, Nostradamus published a book, which is most likely the first French pastry book entitled Le Confiturier Français.

Olivier de Serres’s book “Théâtre de l’Agriculture et mesnage des Champs (Theater of Agriculture and Care of the Fields) was printed in 1600 and completely revolutionized agriculture in France. De Serres encouraged their use in cooking and experimented with varieties never grown in France before. He suggested planting rice in Camargue and was the first person to talk about the advantages of the potato as food. Yes, well before Antoine Augustin Parmentier promoted their use in the last quarter of the eighteenth century.

In 1604, Lancelot de Casteau’s Ouverture de cuisine appeared. Written in French outside of France by a non-Frenchman. It is one of the first books to an international collection of recipes for both savory and sweets. Lancelot de Casteau described himself as a native of Mons, near Liège. Lancelot describes the menu of a banquet in 1557 where he served turkey, multi colored gelatins, medieval favorites such as roast swan, peacock pies and bustards. Further in the book he describes Italian specialties: raviolis, Bologna sausage and Parmesan cheese.

The next major work was that of Joseph Du Chesne. Le Pourtraict de la Santé (Portrait of Good Health) was published in 1606. In it he advises that nothing will restore “beaten health” like a leg of lamb with fresh breadcrumbs and lemon juice. He continues by telling us that sardines are best fried in butter and served with lemon juice. My favorite advice has to be that after dinner “everyone should stay at the table, without moving, for a good half hour, chatting agreeably with each other.” AMEN.

In 1607, a book entitled “Thrésor de santé ou mesnage de la vie humaine” (Treasures of Good Health or the Care of Human Life) was published. It is the first book to discuss regional favorite such as Saucisson de Lyon and Andouillettes de Troyes.

And finally, this brings us to “Le Cuisinier François” written in 1651 by Pierre de la Varenne. La Varenne was the founder of classical French cuisine. Dishes like: pumpkin pie, Boeuf a la mode, Oeufs a la neige, omelettes, beignets appear. Dishes like stuffed mushrooms, Chicken casserole with green peas, eel pate en croute, asparagus in cream sauce, and Ragout of rabbit are also included. He went on to write a pastry book as well.

In conclusion, I would like to see specifically how Catherine de Médicis, herself, affected French cuisine. For every chronicle of her feasts I can provide chronicles of feasts with similar lavish presentations. There is no doubt of an Italian affect on French cuisine, but it started before her, in 1505. I haven’t been able to find a book with a reference to her exactly, other than ones written in very recent history. I haven’t seen a book written by her Chef. I have however, listed many notable books from the French and Italians alike who wrote the books that the influenced the cooks of the time. And no one has mentioned German or English books either.

“No rule exists for such compositions; they are at the mercy of the artist’s genius.”

Grimod de le Reynière

The Emperor's New Clothes... Why the Medicis had nothing to do with the development of French Food or Culture

2008-05-30T04:47:00.000-07:00

The True History of French Cooking
or The Italian Myth of Catherine de Médicis Debunked

Catherine de Médicis was born in 1519 to a French mother, Madeleine de la Tour d’Auvergne, and Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, in Florence, Italy. She was fourteen (1533) at the time she arrived in the French court of Francis I to marry Henry II, future King of France. Twelve ladies in waiting, also her age, numerous cooks, servants and the like accompanied her. The cooks and servants took care of the large group on the ship over to Marseilles and the overland trip to the Francis I court. As Esther B. Aresty states in her lovely book entitled The Exquisite Table – a History of French Cuisine, “But as far as installing cooks at the court of Francis I to serve her own needs – that would have been bringing coals to Newcastle, and unthinkable in any case with a monarch like Francis I. At that time his court was far more elegant than any court in Italy.” Historian Jean Heritier describes his court as “The foremost court in Europe.” There is no doubt that the Italian Renaissance had an effect on France. “… a French Renaissance had been in stride since the fifteenth century. True, the seeds had wafted over from Italy into France, as they had in other countries, but wherever the Renaissance took root, what matured from the semination emerged differently in each country – on canvases, in books, and in architecture.” Francis I brought great Italian artists like Da Vinci to work for him. “Francis adopted the pose of a chivalric King, the first gentleman of his kingdom, although his autocratic statecraft was imbued with a shrewd realism. His patronage of the arts was intended to augment the splendor of his court. He brought Leonardo da Vinci and other great Italian artists to France to design and ornament his châteaux. He employed Guillaume Budé in creating a royal library and in founding professorships of Greek, Latin and Hebrew, which formed the nucleus of the later Collège de France.” When Catherine arrived she was described as being unassuming and undemanding, even the Venetian ambassador labeled her as molto obediente.

From 1547 – 1559, Catherine reigned as Queen of France. To paraphrase “The Exquisite Table”, it is the misunderstanding of a quote attributed to Michel de Montaigne (1533-92), French essayist and philosopher, which has led some scholars astray. Montaigne was a prominent figure at the court late in Catherine’s reign as Queen. He is often quoted as praising Italian cooks at her court. “One encounter with such a cook, “late in the kitchen of Cardinal Caraffia,” and spoke of that cook’s “magisterial gravity” when discussing his art, “the weighty and important considerations… (in) lofty, magnificent words, the very same we use when we discourse upon the government of an Empire.” In fact he was joking and furthermore it didn’t take place at the court but actually when he was interviewing the cook as a perspective employee. To quote Mrs. Aresty “The conversation struck Montaigne as so hilarious that he was inspired to write an essay on “how to make little things appear big.” He called it On the Vanity of Words. In 1570, when Montaigne traveled to Italy he said, “Provisions are not half so plentiful… and not near so well (prepared).”

“French cuisine had been growing in its own national direction long before Catherine de Medici came to France, and was as fully formed by 1533 as cookery and dining then allowed. At best, all national cuisines were still medieval. Forks were not in general use. Spoon and finger foods were the rule: hashes, stews, potages and meats sliced thin enough to be speared on the point of a knife to be eaten by hand, or laid on a slice of bread and swallowed in a few gulps.” To understand the style of food in vogue in the Aristocratic courts one has to look back at how it came to be. For French references we need to look at the early works of Guillaume Tirel, a.k.a. Taillevent, master Chef to Charles V (1337 – 1380). The earliest known copies of Taillevent’s book date back to 1392. The recipes were organized by ingredients and methods. Le Viander is divided into sections on meat, entrements, fish, sauces, etc. His recipe for Civé de Veau could be considered a very early version of Blanquette de Veau. In the recipe he tells his audience to roast the veal on a spit or grill without overcooking. Then cut up the pieces and cook in fat with onions, mix with stale bread boiled in beef broth and wine, add the normal range of medieval spices that were infused in verjus. Also important to note are two other French books of the same period; Menagier de Paris written for the amateur cook and Chiquart’s masterwork, Du fait de Cuisine, which is considered by scholars as “Europe’s first true cookbook”. All three of these French books were written 100 years before Catherine’s birth. All three books had influences that directly led to the development of modern French cookery. Without trying to sound too corny I have always envisioned the progress of French cooking to be like a torch being passed from one kitchen to another, throughout the generations. Each Chef adding his or her particular spin and dimension to the culinary body. French food did not make gigantic leaps from Carême to Escoffier to Bocuse to today’s crop of great Chefs. There were many small steps in between that history has overlooked.

By the time of the 1600’s, the difference in the cuisine of Italy and France was very pronounced as evident by the two major works of that period, Le Vrai Cuisinier François by François Pierre La Varenne (1615 – 1678) and Opera di M. Bartolomeo Scappi, cuoco secreto di papa Pio Quinto by Bartolomeo Scappi (1540 - 1570) published I believe in 1570 but was still considered the benchmark of Italian cuisine. La Varenne warned his audience “to cook just long enough” while Scappi advocated overcooking. “Scappi presented the noble Maccaronis of Italian cooking in great variety; there were no macaronis in Le Vrai Cuisinier Francois, though present in fifteenth century English cookbooks. The Italian influence was in fact felt more strongly in England, where macaroni (macrow to the English) and spicy forcemeats called “Balles of Italy” appear…” In La Varenne’s works, he classifies preparations considered basic to French cuisine, bouillons, liaisons, roux, farces, etc.

In conclusion, I think it would be foolish to argue which cuisine is better than the other; first and foremost it is a matter of opinion and secondly they both are wonderful, vibrant and different. It is equally foolish to believe that two countries so close didn’t have culinary influences on each other. Both were conquered and occupied by similar peoples. Lastly, I think it is also foolish to believe that one single event defined a countries palate. A palate is a work in progress. Both nations had an established cuisine well before Catherine arrived on the scene.

Good Books for more information:

Early French Cooking by Scully
The Exquisite Table by Aresty
Les Fastes de Bacchus et de Comus by Gérard Oberlé
Haute Cuisine by Trubek
Acquired Tastes by Peterson
Cuisine Medievale Pour Tables d’aujourd’hui by Mathilde Brunel
The Medieval Kitchen Recipes from France and Italy by Redon, Sabban and Serventi
The Pantropheon by Alexis Soyer (not necessarily on this subject but what a wild book)
Great Cooks and Their Recipes from Taillevent to Escoffier by Willan
And obviously all the original books referenced in this post

Opening Menus and Blues

2008-05-29T04:23:00.000-07:00

WOW! Opening a restaurant is one crazy task! Most do not understand the insanity involved in the restaurant business. No other business resembles. Addictive as hell. It's the rush. The moment of opening. The feeling in your stomach somewhere between desperate anxiety and stifling nervousness. The one thousand checks on your list if you've done everything. So much to do so little time...

"Ninety miles an hour, girl, is the speed I drive

You tell me it's alright, you don't mind a little pain

You say you just want me to take you for a drive"

- Jimi Hendrix

I got a great crew in the kitchen to work with this summer... Andrew, Animal, Amanda, Andrea. Aswah and Duncan. Crap that's a lot of a's! Well, we are in Canada... oh you crazy Canadians and your ays. sorry about the poke! Without their help I would be in fetal position crying. It's fun getting to know everyone personalities. I am always amazed how it comes together and gels. Who hasn't opened a restaurant that knows that crazy and insane feeling you get at about 2:17 on the first day. The walls haven't been painted. tonight's special is stuck in Halifax, the lights don't work... A million unconcieved things happen... really.

Organizing a crew is a tricky thing to do. It's building the chemistry between five or so people that your only interaction is the frantic pace of the restaurant. From the time you enter the building you start prepping the days long mise en place list to when, after 250 dinners where you constantly crack on each other while plating up 18 ribs, 12 steak all different temperatures, three halibut and one codfish. Rushing to have people enjoy a leisurely paced dining experience. People never think past their plates. But then why should they? They are the ones paying for the experience.

I love Marco's saying that goes: "at the end of the day it's just food, just food." Orders need to be called in. The bad codfish has to be sent back. A million things zooming past in a hurried, organized way. Kitchen crews are the ninjas of the restaurant business. They are the ones who work in the dark, behind the walls, rarely getting credit for their efforts. Why do we do it? Sometimes I wonder about that... It is a love and hate relationship with food that I have. Impossible to have an in between. Somewhere behind the wall the kitchen crew lurks.

SMALL PLATES

Raw Oysters
½ dozen: $15; dozen: $28
Colville Bay, Raspberry Point, Pickle Point, Sand Dunes, Carr’s Malpeque
Ginger ~ Wasabi mignonette and cocktail sauce

Mussels $10
Island Blues steamed in White Wine, Garlic and Herbs

Provençal Sunshine $12
Island Blue Mussels steamed in Pernod,
Leeks, fire roasted Sweet Peppers and Cream

Potato, Leek and Oyster Soup $9
pureed Potato and Leek soup
garnished with Crème Fraîche, fried Oysters and Herbs

Island Chowder $8
an ever changing Seafood chowder
featuring the beautiful marriage of land and sea

Smoked Salmon and Lobster Carpaccio $14
luminescent Smoked Salmon drizzled with creamy Dijon vinaigretteMesclun, Apple, Celeriac and smoked Lobster salad, toasted Brioche

Ceviché of Scallops, Papaya and Cucumbers
marinated Scallops, Papayas and Cucumbers
Bulls Blood Micro Greens and Wasabi Caviar

Crispy Crab and Lobster Cake $12

Asparagus, Lemon vinaigrette and Snow Crab salad

Dayboat Green Salad
local grown organic Greens tossed in Maple – Dijon Vinaigrette

Warm Goat Cheese Salad
toasted Goat Cheese, roast Beets, candied Walnuts, Micro Greens, Shallot Vinaigrette

Local Asparagus with Crunchy Farm Egg
Parmesan Fonduta, crispy Pancetta, Frisée Salad

Steak Tartar $12
Hand cut aged Beef mixed with Capers, Shallots and Cornichon

Micro Green salad and Brioche toast points

LARGE PLATES

Arctic Char

seared Scallops, crushed White Beans,
Tomato Confit, shaved Fennel salad, Basil vinaigrette

Olive Oil Poached Codfish
Provençal Mussels and soft shell Clams, grilled Potatoes, Saffron jus

Wild Halibut
tournedo of Prosciutto wrapped Halibut, roasted Vegetables, creamy Polenta
Lemon Caper and Sage Butter

Cioppino
Seafood stew with Lobster, Codfish, Halibut, Mussels & Clams
simmered in Red Wine, Vegetables and Tomato broth

Lobster Sybil

Butter poached Claws, grilled Tail and sautéed Knuckles
Seasonal Vegetables, Ray’s Fabula Potatoes

35 Day Wet Aged Atlantic Steak
smoked Olive Oil, Espelette Peppers
Red Onion Cipollata, mashed Potatoes, grilled Asparagus

Island Back Ribs
dry rubbed, slow cooked, grilled Baby Back Pork Ribs
Dayboat Coleslaw and hand cut Fries

Duckling
roasted Duck breast, caramelized Apples, Shiitake Mushrooms
Celery Root Puree, Apple Sauce

Lacquered Black Pork³

Pork Shoulder Confit, salt cured Pork Belly and Pork Mignonette
Red Peppers and Green Beans ~ Ginger glaze

Desserts

Caramelized Apple Tart

caramelized Apples on Shortbread topped with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
Brown Sugar and Cider Sauce

Panna Cotta

a Menage a Trois of Italian Custards
Orange, Strawberry ~ Vanilla and Coffee ~ Caramel
served with a plate full of yummy little cookies

the Bombe

toasted Almond and bittersweet Chocolate mousse
toasted Almond Anglaise, Chocolate sauce

Chocolate Fondant

hot Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Sauce
Caramel Ice Cream

Pistachio – Olive Oil Cake

roasted Strawberries, Rhubarb Compote

Chef François de Mélogue

Dayboat proudly features food farmed, fished and foraged

from Prince Edward Island’s small producers

Springwillow Farm

2008-05-23T04:27:00.000-07:00

Raymond Loo runs Springwillow Farm in Springfield area of Prince Edward Island. Raymond is excellent farmer who is very passionate about the future of PEI, organics and his impact on the world. His father immigrated from the Netherlands in 1951 and bought the farm in 1952. The family has pioneered many different varieities of potatoes, including Island Sunshine, a bright yellow fleshed potato, with a high resistance to late blight. In addition to excellent potatoes, Raymond grows organic crops, raises beef and many other projects. He is currently growing dandelion root for the Japanese market and possibly offering the first organic Canola oil from the Maritimes. We at Dayboat Restaurant (http://www.dayboat.ca/) are looking forward to a long and happy partnership with Raymond

You can virtually visit their farm at:

http://www.springwillowfarms.com/

the green house

onions waiting to be planted

Roast Halibut with Raymond's Fabula Potato Scales

seared Scallops, crushed White Beans, Tomato Confit

Fennel - Orange Salad, roasted Garlic vinaigrette

Spring on PEI

2008-05-16T17:40:00.000-07:00

The more time I spend on Prince Edward Island, the more I fall in love with it. It doesn't have the raw beauty of coastal Northern California, Oregon or even Alaska but it has the charm and quaint appeal of a time removed. Almost small town America in it's most idealic sense. The island is dotted with small rural farmers, fishing villages and a lot of churches... I am watching with great anticipation the plowed fields slowly awaking from their winter slumber... Sprouts raising their leaves and tendrils towards the creator of all life! It is a joyous celebration - SPRING has SPRUNG!

Today, we are eating the product of living good on the island... I suppose yesterday was the seafood end of the stick. Colville Oysters so fresh they made the house smell like the sweet sea... Atlantic Salmon and local Scallops. Today we are celebrating the farmers of the island. For lunch we are having a crispy roasted Farmhouse Hen with small Carrots, Parsnips, Garlic, sweet Onions and Island Potatoes drizzled with Olive Oil and seasoned with Mediterranean Herbs and hand harvested Sea Salt... washed down with one, two maybe three bottles of red wine.

We were at Rossignol Winery and tasted many surprisingly good and interesting wines. I don't think Chateau Petrus is starting to worry but they were honest and good for what they were. I was surprised that Lisa enjoyed the Red Wine - Blueberry Wine. She wants to pair with Chocolate.

Scenes that Spring is on the way... Two shots from the forest only a few kilometers away... Viva Prince Edward Island! Boy are we happy!