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And the Farm Animals Rejoiced! |
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How Proposition 2 will affect your favorite restaurants
I don’t know how the Obama presidency will affect me or the restaurant business, but I do know that Proposition 2 will change the way we as restaurateurs operate. I love animals and I love meat and game, so giving our dinner the opportunity to move around for the short time they are on this planet is the least we can do. I’m not exactly sure how much room the baby cow or the cooped-up chicken will get, but we’ve all seen those awful pictures with animals piled on top of each other, eating their own feces without enough strength to stand. Something needed to be done and the voters of California showed enough compassion to get something started.
Now, my good friends, be prepared to have the cost of these new and improved cages and corals passed directly on to you. Farmer Fred is going to have to cut down on his inventory of livestock until he can afford to build bigger facilities, driving the prices through the hog shed roof. The good part is that the animals will have a little bit better of an existence until they are marinated and roasted; the bad is the ranchers and farmers of California will not be able to compete with the prices of their competitors in other states that do not have these laws.
A lot of restaurateurs and chefs shop by looking to see what’s the cheapest, not what’s the best quality. You can find “free range and organic” descriptions on a lot of menus in San Diego County. These are the chefs who are ahead of the curve, the group that buys locally and cares what you as customers are consuming. Now that you have voted to let Animal Farm have its voice, you have to take it a step further and be conscious of where and what you are eating. To care today in California is going to cost you some money.
What’s Up?
I did a demo at Malibu Food and Wine Festival last weekend and had the opportunity to meet some of LA’s top chefs: Kerry Simon, Nancy Silverton, Neal Fraser, the tattooed Food Dudes of the restaurant Animal and one Makoto Okuwa, a protégé of Masaharu Morimoto, who was in San Diego for a few short months last year until his restaurant, Pearl, in Del Mar, mysteriously got torched. I’ve always heard “if it doesn’t work, burn it down.” I didn’t think anyone really did it though.
Here comes the San Diego Food & Wine Festival, with all kinds of events starting next Thursday and ending with the grand tasting on Saturday, November 15, where they will name the “Chef of the Fest.” Last year my team went all out and dressed up like gangsters and flappers, had our own deejay and served 2,000-plus tasting portions of my “Chino Latino” seafood sausage (truly amazing). The Oceanaire team finished second last year, with Viejas Casino pulling down the victory. One more congratulation to Viejas, and thank you for being the largest sponsor of the event. It’s time to battle again, my friends. I hope to see you all down at the festival this year…
Don’t forget to tune into the new season of Top Chef, coming to us from NYC. San Diego’s own Richard Sweeney (featured on the front page of Wednesday food section in the Union-Tribune) will be having his coming-out party, for the second time. Go Richard — make us proud, and congratulations on being named executive chef of the Gaslamp’s Confidential.
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