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Monday, August 13, 2007 No articles today - Staff Vacation <<<•>>>Tuesday, August 14, 2007News: Eco-group Blacklists Chilean Seabass MONTEREY, Calif. – The U.S.-based Seafood Watch Program (SWP) has blacklisted Chilean seabass, advising U.S. consumers that the fish species is commonly exposed to mercury contamination. To prevent possible health risks, SWP suggests a significant decrease in Chilean seabass consumption, especially for children, who should be restricted to a maximum of one serving per month.Funded by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation and partnered with environmental defense NGO Oceans Alive, SWP’s mission is to inform consumers about health and environmental concerns in order to promote safe and ocean-friendly choices. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation, scientists estimate that over half of Chilean seabass sold in the U.S. market are caught illegally in remote Antarctic waters. Chilean officials, however, vehemently deny the health concerns expressed by SWP. Héctor Bacigalupo of Chile’s National Fish Society (Sonapesca) assured that mercury levels in seabass exported from Chile are low and that the fish’s extraction complies completely with all international fishing regulations. Álvaro Contreras, trade manager at fish export firm Pesca Chile, insisted the Chilean fish catches are “100 percent legal.” Still, SWP insisted that the methods of fishing Chilean seabass are not environmentally sound and are illegal. Most Chilean seabass is caught using longlines, essentially comprised of many small lines of baited hooks hanging on a central line, which can stretch anywhere from one to 80 km behind the fishing vessel. Longlines are known to produce significant bycatch, meaning other types of fish or animals are often caught accidentally in the process. In the case of the Chilean seabass, longlines are a particular threat for the endangered albatross. These seabirds dive for the bait as the longlines are cast into the ocean, where they catch on the hooks and drown. Chilean seabass are vulnerable to over fishing because the species is slow to grow, and breeds late in life. This makes regeneration difficult when there is continued heavy fishing. The SWP guide listed alternative purchases for Chilean Sea Bass. These include Striped bass, Pacific halibut, and white seabass, mahi mahi and sablefish (black cod). Other seafood that SWP said consumers should avoid include shark and farmed salmon. - Santiago (Chile) Times Seafood City: Las Vegas?
LAS VEGAS – As soon as you walk through the door at Seafood City MarketPlace on South Maryland Parkway, you know it's not a typical grocery store.
Yes, there are the shelves filled with everything from soup to nuts and there's even a fast food restaurant at the front entrance. Many of the products on the shelves have unfamiliar names, such as "lug lug" (cornstarch noodles) and the restaurant name does not begin with "Mc" or "Burger." At Seafood City, a Los Angeles-based franchise, the restaurant in the front of the store, like the supermarket itself, caters to the Filipino community. "We are set on creating a one stop shopping and dining destination together, with major brands from the Philippines," Catheringe Quien, head of marketing for the company, said in a statement. Jolibee, the No. 1 one fast-food chain in the Philippines, is an American style fast-food restaurant with Filipino-influenced dishes. The marketplace also has a Chowking Restaurant, another popular franchise in the Philippines, as well as two bakeshops, a pharmacy and other services, including a tourism and travel agency, in a 60,000 square foot complex. The anchor store is the Seafood City Supermarket, which closely resembles a typical American grocery in many ways, including displays at the end of aisles featuring popular products. A huge beer display at the end of one aisle offers San Miguel Beer, a popular brand in the Southeast Asian nation. As the store name suggests, there is also plenty of seafood, display case after display case filled with fresh seafood packed in. And in this case, fresh means whole — heads, eyes and tails, wrapped and unwrapped. Everything from striped bass and catfish to tilapia and belt fish, which one only needs to look at to see where it gets its name. If you don't want to eat it, you can always use it to hold up your pants. There are also crabs, lobsters, shrimp and other seagoing creatures, common and not-so-common, in a plethora of sizes and colors. The store, which opened earlier this year, already appears to be a big hit with customers. Yalung, 52, a native of the Philippines who has lived in Las Vegas for 13 years, said it's nice to finally have a store that focuses on her native culture. "They have everything I need here" she says. Joe Willis, who is from Africa, said the store has been a real find. "I love everything they have, the fresh fish, everything," Willis said. "They have things here you just don't find anywhere else." – In Business Las Vegas News: Frozen Seafood Sales Boom in UK
LONDON – The growth in UK frozen food sales is starting to accelerate rapidly - and once again fish and seafood is leading the charge.
The British Frozen Food Federation has just released encouraging new statistics which show that the public is once again in love with frozen food. Some of this could be due to major companies like Birds Eye promoting their health conscious "Simply Fish" and "Simply Food" image with no additives, colorings or e-numbers. Young's has also been promoting frozen fish as a healthy, low fat food. But whatever the reason - and there are probably several - frozen food is firmly back on the menu of the British consumer. According to the latest TNS Worldpanel Data figures, overall growth is now up in value by 2.8 per cent year on year for the 52-week period to June 17 2007. The business is also witnessing less discounting along with increased innovation and greater availability. The BFFF says: "Having turned the corner and moved into growth, the retail frozen food market is stepping on the accelerator. Impressive growth is being achieved across seven of the nine product categories with the market benefiting from the renaissance of the Iceland (freezer store) chain." The BFFF said some of the revenue growth was probably due to inflation, but also to a number of attractive premium brand offerings. The fish sector continues to move rapidly up the ladder, with a growth rate of 3.7 per cent in quarter one, 4.4 per cent in quarter two, 5.3 per cent in quarter three and now an impressive seven per cent year on year. But the biggest growth of all was in the potato and vegetable sector which was up 7.3 per cent year on year. And meat and poultry is doing well. By contrast sales of frozen ready meals fell by five per cent in the period, but this is an area increasingly dominated by chilled producers and the sector is still suffering from heavy discounting. However, Birds Eye has recently been hitting back with some impressive new offerings and it will be interesting to see how they affect the figures in a few months time. Last year, the BFFF signaled that the industry was on the up when he said Britain's frozen food and fish producers were successfully winning the war against a number of ill-conceived myths, which had managed to creep into the public domain. – FishUpdate.com News: Alaska Natives Market Yukon Kings
This article also appeared in our Fish Wrap service.
FAIRBANKS, Alaska – This week’s New York Times Sunday Magazine features an article spotlighting efforts by a handful of Native communities along the mouth of the Yukon River to market their king salmon catches in the Lower 48. Jon Rowley, the Seattle-based food consultant and writer who helped popularize Copper River salmon, has been working with Yup’ik fishermen from Emmonak and nearby villages to make their Chinook catch the next big thing at high-end restaurants and markets Outside. No easy task considering Emmonak is 600 miles northwest of Anchorage. So far though, king salmon from Kwikpak Fisheries — a nonprofit formed in 2002 by Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association — has caught on in Seattle and other big West Coast cities and is slowly making its way eastward. Rowley, who talks up the lower Yukon salmon as the “King of Kings,” says it will take a few more years before the East Coast’s top restaurants gain an appreciation of the Yukon king’s superior quality. While not much to look at by the time they reach Fairbanks, the Yukon king’s high oil content — as much as double that of Copper River kings — make them highly prized when caught near the start of their 2,000-mile river journey. The king’s high oil content, which can affect its appearance and quality after being caught, is also part of the problem. An ice plant built last year in Emmonak and strict rules on icing down the salmon as soon as they’re caught has greatly improved the condition of the fish, Rowley said. “The Yukon king, if it gets the right handling, is in a league by itself,” Rowley said. “It literally melts on the palate.” The short commercial fishing season on the lower Yukon presents another challenge. The king run begins in mid-July and lasts just two weeks. Restaurants that want to feature Yukon kings only have a small window of time to work it onto their menu. Despite the challenges, Rowley says the response from food critics and top chefs has been overwhelmingly positive. Kwikpak, which buys about 60 percent of the commercial king catch on the lower Yukon, is the only seafood company in the world certified by the Fair Trade Commission for its commitment to providing fair wages to the local fishermen. This year’s commercial harvest of king salmon on the lower Yukon was slightly more than 32,000 fish, down from 44,000 in 2006, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Local fishermen were paid $4.30 a pound for whole salmon this year. Meanwhile, the fish pick up value as they travel east. Alaskan reds can sell for $15 a pound at Whole Foods Market in Washington, D.C., while (non-Yukon) kings fetch as much as $27 a pound. Kwikpak isn’t alone in trying to create a retail market for Yukon kings. Other companies promoting Yukon salmon include Boreal Fisheries and Bering Sea Fisheries. Yukon kings have traditionally been sold in Japan, but that market has started to slip in recent years. – Fairbanks News-Miner Decline of Bluefin Tuna = Decline of Fishermen? BOSTON – Even in the good years, Jeff Tutein's job as a harpooner has never been easy. Perched above the ocean on the bow of a 31-foot lobster boat, Tutein aims at Atlantic bluefin tuna in the waters off Cape Cod, then heaves a 12-foot-long spear at a giant fish swimming as far as 25 feet away. He describes a typical voyage as 12 hours of boredom punctuated by moments of utter chaos.Tutein used to catch 25 fish per year. But now the giant bluefin tuna are few and far between, and sometimes he scans the water from his boat, the Jeanne Maria, for hours on a perfect fishing day and returns to his home in Rockport without a single fish. Commercial fishermen across New England who have hunted the once-plentiful and long-desired bluefin tuna for years echo Tutein's frustration. They say they are ready to give up after a four-year plunge in the population of bluefin tuna longer than 6 feet, the minimum size fishermen are allowed to sell. Between 1995 and 2003, they brought in around 5,000 bluefin a year in the waters between Maine and Rhode Island. But since then, fishermen have observed far fewer of the giant fish, and the catch has declined as well. New England fishermen landed just 565 bluefin tuna in 2006. Michael Genovese, 53, of Cape May, N.J., is a third generation fisherman and Gloucester native. For years, he sailed New England waters in a purse seine boat, a vessel designed to catch hundreds of the giant fish in its 4,000-foot-long net. This method was once so effective that only five of the boats are allowed to operate in the Atlantic in a season. As recently as 2001, Genovese would leave New Jersey in July and would not return until November, scooping up hundreds of fish throughout the voyage. Last season, his boat, the White Dove Too, was the only one to catch any tuna, taking in just 10 bluefin the entire season. This year, he has put the vessel up for sale. "My partners decided they don't want to put any more money in the fishery," he said. "Traditions are going by the wayside. Life is changing." The demand for bluefin, a renowned Japanese delicacy, grows each year, especially in the United States, where sushi has become mainstream fare. Scientists do not have all the answers, but some have come up with theories for the declining population here: overfishing in the Mediterranean Sea, changing water temperatures that have caused the herring that form the staple of the bluefin's diet to migrate out of the region, or the bluefin's migration to Canada. Tuna make up less than 10 percent of marine life caught worldwide but has the highest value, especially in Japan, according to the Bluefin Tuna Program at UNH. The meat can sell for as much as $50 dollars per pound. Atlantic bluefin tuna caught in New England waters totaled 88 percent of the US catch in 2002 and was worth $14.3 million, according to the program. The commercial bluefin industry is regulated by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. Founded in 1969, the commission researches and monitors tuna stock and sets quotas for each participating nation. For 25 years, the catch limit in the United States and Canada has been much stricter than in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Scientists on both sides of the ocean are beginning to question the restrictions in place and whether overfishing, which they conclude is occurring in the Mediterranean, is depleting the tuna source here. Scientists hope they can figure out what has driven the giants away, but the issue is complex because the fish have varied migratory patterns, she said. Researchers are currently monitoring them with pop-up satellite tags but have relocated their studies to Canada, where a larger population of bluefin tuna now lives. But New England fishermen are not allowed to fish there. – Boston Globe <<<•>>> Wednesday, August 15, 2007News: Group Takes Seal-hunting Fight to U.S. Restaurants This also appeared in our Fish Wrap service.CHICAGO – The restaurant you choose to dine in this weekend could affect the welfare of seals thousands of miles away. At least that's the assertion of the Humane Society of the United States, which has convinced more than 50 Chicago-area restaurants to boycott Canadian seafood to protest the country's hunting of seals for meat and pelts. The boycott, begun two years ago but reaching the Chicago area only recently, is based on the assertion that seal hunting is inhumane and most of its participants also profit from the larger Canadian fishing industry. But both industry and government say the boycott is having little or no impact on seal hunting, which they see as a perfectly legitimate trade that's responsibly sustained generations. Still, Michael Sullivan, service manager at Parker's Ocean Grill in Downers Grove, said executive chef Patrick McLaughlin, made a big push to join the boycott. "Being primarily a seafood restaurant, he felt the benefits outweighed the costs," Sullivan said. Marie Weir, general manager of Cy's Crab House in Buffalo Grove, which has also joined the boycott, said costs may be slightly higher to buy fish from elsewhere in the world, but the options are out there. Even the famous Canadian snow crabs can be replaced with those from Russia and Alaska, she said. Ending the hunt Pat Ragan is director of the Humane Society's ProtectSeals campaign. She said more than 215,000 young seals were clubbed and shot to death for their fur in eastern Canada this year alone. The society's research found that while seal hunting brings in $16 million a year for Canadian fishermen, fish and seafood bring in $3 billion annually, Ragan said. She said the boycott's rationale is that fishermen can't afford to lose so much fish and seafood business just to keep the seal trade going. Started in 2005, the boycott's support expanded to restaurants in major cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Miami and now Chicago, Ragan claims. "We may be able to end the hunt this year," Ragan said. "This is just such an important moral issue." The Canadian government and fishing and seal hunting industries scoff at that. They say the boycott isn't even close to finishing off a way of life for many in areas of eastern Canada where other work is scarce. "It's not having much of an impact on the Canadian seafood industry," said Jennifer Kelly, spokeswoman for Canada's Department of Oceans and Fisheries. 'Not pretty' Seal products remain popular in several countries, chiefly Russia and China. "Sure, there are some animal lovers who don't understand who'll want to join (the boycott)," said Mark Small, a 67-year-old seal hunter from Newfoundland whose father and grandfather were seal hunters before him. "Scientists from not only Canada but internationally have come out and said the seals are not in danger (of extinction), and it's not a conservation issue," he said. Contrary to popular opinion, the government monitors seal hunts and outlaws the killing of seal pups that are still nursing, Small said. He believes that if seal hunting were conducted in the U.S. or other parts of Canada, it would result in herds being wiped out forever. But the practice in eastern Canada has always been done in the most responsible way, Small added. He questioned the criticisms of seal hunting being a particularly cruel or inhumane form of hunting. "Ninety percent of our seals are shot with high-powered rifles," Small said. "Very little is the club used anymore." Boycott for real? A 2006 report by the Center for Consumer Freedom - a nonprofit coalition of restaurants, food companies and consumers - claimed 78 percent of restaurants and seafood companies on the Humane Society's boycott list weren't actively participating. The center's director of research, David Martosko said, the Humane Society's goal is to end all hunting and fishing and even prohibit the use of elephants in circuses. The society "is misleading the public on what it all means," he said. "They just want to make money because it builds political power." The Humane Society's Ragan counters that the Center for the Consumer Freedom is a front for the restaurant industry and not about consumer interests at all. She said there's no evidence the center talked to the people at the boycotting restaurants who actually make the supply decisions. Since the center's report came out, however, the Humane Society has asked all participating restaurants to put their pledge in writing. The politics of food From grape boycotts to foie gras bans, other memorable food movements:
After the closure of two facilities in Texas earlier in the year, Illinois was the last state with an operating slaughterhouse. – The Daily Herald, Chicago Feature: New Orleans Seafood Airborne Again
NEW ORLEANS – Too few flights from New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina forced seafood wholesalers to use other means, mainly trucking, to transport goods out of state. But shipping by air is making a comeback.
Airlines that increased air service out of Louis Armstrong New Orleans Airport report a resurgence of cargo shipping. But Harlon Pearce, owner of Harlon’s LA Fish and chairman of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, said the slow return of flights forced the seafood and industry, the No. 1 cargo leaving New Orleans, to find new routes. “The airlines were too slow to come back after the storm so they created other avenues for (wholesale) shipping,” Pearce said. “I think they’ve hurt themselves.” Armstrong cargo shipments for the first six months of 2007 are down 14 percent from 52.8 million pounds in 2006 to 45.6 million. The drop is attributed to the freight slump and the loss of mail and packages shipped through Federal Express and UPS. Dallas-based Southwest Airlines Co., the leading Armstrong carrier, reports cargo operations are up since adding flights. Pre-Katrina, Southwest provided 56 daily flights. Now it offers 28 and will add three daily nonstop flights to Birmingham, Ala., in November, said Dave Hinderland, cargo marketing and business development director. “Roughly 75 percent of our cargo business is seafood related — crawfish, blue crabs, tuna, grouper, speckled trout — you name it,” said Steve Massa, New Orleans-area cargo sales manager for Southwest. From May 2006 to June, Southwest shipped 28.2 million pounds of seafood, with 5.2 million pounds coming from New Orleans. Southwest carried 8 percent more cargo at Armstrong during the first six months of 2007, up from 3.9 million pounds in 2006 to 4.2 million pounds. The reason is twofold, Massa said. “There is more availability for shippers to ship via air and there is more demand for Louisiana seafood products,” he said. For Nick Piazza, owner of the 50-year-old Harahan-based seafood distributor Vincent Piazza Jr. & Sons Seafood Inc., shipping by air is a necessity. Piazza said 30 percent of his business comes from outside the state. Sales slumped immediately after Katrina, he said, because of shaken confidence in the Louisiana seafood industry. “People’s faith in New Orleans was down,” Piazza said. “Many were wondering if New Orleans was still capable of producing a good product, capable of doing good business.” As Piazza’s sales slowly grew during 2006 and 2007, his need to fly product out of New Orleans grew. “I’m shipping more out by air. All the fish and crabmeat (is shipped) by air because of perishability,” he said. The rebounding seafood distribution faces a significant bump in the road, Pearce said. According to the LSPMB, 35 percent of the nation’s seafood comes from Louisiana even though the number of fishermen and vessels is down significantly. John Roussel, deputy assistant secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said from September 2005 to September 2006, the number of crab fishery vessels dropped 59 percent to 1,533 vessels from the pre-Katrina, five-year average of 3,733. Shrimp boats dropped 58 percent from 7,800 to 3,300. Oyster vessels decreased 38 percent from 900 to 558. On the license sales side, which Roussel said most accurately represents the number of fishermen because they must be renewed annually, the number of crab licensees dropped 3 percent to 3,344; shrimp licenses are down 31 percent to 19,400; and oyster licenses are down 13 percent to 1,000. Although there are fewer fishermen post-Katrina, demand for Louisiana’s seafood is still strong, said Lenny Minutillo of Louisiana Seafood Exchange. He expects 2007 wholesale sales to equal 2005. “The supply’s not there but the demand is.” – City Business, New Orleans Restaurants: Seafood Eateries Should Think Local
CAPE COD, Mass. – Local bounty is increasingly the attraction in the world's best eating places. And although the waters off Cape Cod have seen a terrible decline in fish (if it were discovered today, it would be named Cape Clam Shack, or Cape Summer House) there are still enough commercial fishermen to supply local restaurants.
So I wish the reigning philosophy would be more as it is in coastal communities elsewhere: “Here's what we've got, and we hope you like it.” Sadly, I see little evidence of this. Even good cooking all too often focuses on an audience, real or imagined, that doesn't care where it is. This mythical clientele wants meat, chicken, shrimp and salmon (oh, and tuna tartar) no matter where they find themselves. So though I found little uncommon or adventuresome — none of the shark, monkfish or other above-mentioned fish, all plentiful in the waters there, were on any menus I saw — what I did find in a tour of Outer Cape restaurants was more attention paid to common local seafood (like cod, clams and oysters) and other local ingredients than 10 years ago, and an effort to offer the kind of quality cooking that nowadays everyone can find in their hometowns. Abba is a good example, a big-town restaurant in a little house just outside the heart of Orleans (Old Colony Way and West Road, Orleans; 508-255-8144). Along with the Wicked Oyster, which I'll discuss next, it's the most promising development in food on the Cape since they began selling scallops with roe at Hatch's Fish Market (310 Main Street, Wellfleet, for those of you cooking). The house is an old wooden Cape, with wide-board floors and a semi-formal, modern look. It feels geared toward an older, moneyed crowd, but it isn't overpriced: an average meal for two, with tip and a $40 bottle of wine (the wine list is appealing), runs about $150. For the quality of the food, and especially the efficient service, this isn't bad. (Because Abba is open year-round, everything seems more professional than in places that rely on seasonal help.) I wish there were more local fish, but as you've gathered, that's a recurring theme; otherwise the food is mostly interesting and well-prepared. The chef is Israeli (abba means father in Hebrew), but the menu is ostensibly pan-Mediterranean (I'd call it neo-Californian), with a little Thai thrown in. In principle I'd rather ditch the Thai food, but in reality the grilled squid on watercress and tomato, laced with lime and chili and nam pla, is probably the most unusual salad you'll find east of Providence. Steamed mussels in coconut milk is another winner, as was pad Thai. Thai seafood stew, however, made with a variety of fish, did not sing, and when I thought of what you could do with a few local clams, mussels, squid and finfish, I felt a little sad. The non-Thai cooking was more consistent, especially creamy, subtle artichoke soup; crisp hot falafel with cool tahini sauce; rack of lamb with North African spices; and perfectly cooked king salmon with sweet chili jam. I'm equally fond of the Wicked Oyster, which is just off Route 6 on the way into Wellfleet Center (50 Main Street, Wellfleet; 508-349-3455). The setup is similar, but less design-y: an old house, replete with foot-wide floorboards but without the sophisticated trappings. The light fixtures might be from Ikea, there's a lively bar scene with the Red Sox game on television, and the mostly hard surfaces seem to amplify noise. Although the Wicked Oyster is also open year-round (and for breakfast and lunch), the staffing is a bit more Cape-like, which is to say amateurish. On one visit, my server — to her credit — actually apologized for being so far behind. But the food there is honest, and someone is alive and awake and paying attention in this kitchen — you'd be as happy to eat their food on the Upper West Side as you will be in Wellfleet. (Actually, the Upper West Side would benefit from the presence of a place like this.) Prices are fair, but without exerting ourselves my companion and I spent $200 on dinner; you could keep it lower, but, again, this is a real restaurant and priced accordingly. (The wine list is another good one.) The most expensive entrée was my $33 lobster stew with fresh corn, peas and pea shoots, and it was sensational, as good a dish as I've had in months, one in which everything worked. Nearly as satisfying was striped bass in a stew with potatoes, arugula, leeks, cream, clams and bacon. Two dishes, and as much local fish and even vegetables as you see on entire menus in other restaurants. Also notable was seared yellowfin tuna with three sauces (a hot chili sauce, which should be sampled last — wish I'd had warning — a mellow herb sauce and a mustard mayo); oyster stew had too much thyme for my taste, but was otherwise credible. Most of the other offerings are what you might call classic contemporary: seared foie gras, fried calamari, walnut and gorgonzola salad, rack of lamb, grilled salmon, a pork chop from Niman Ranch in California. I stuck with what appeared to be the local fish and was happy I did. But beyond that, the food, while in general well prepared, is aimed at people who visit the Cape to eat the same food they do at their local restaurants at home. A gargantuan serving of lamb chops with mashed potatoes in red wine demi-glace; yellowfin tuna over Provençal-style beans; Kobe beef mini-burgers. The great thing is that there are a lot of local fin- and shellfish: bluefish, cod, swordfish, striped bass, haddock, scallops, clams and oysters. The not-so-great thing is that like the servers, the kitchen staff seems inexperienced: swordfish and scallops were overcooked, striped bass was undercooked, and cod was right on the money. One out of four isn't exactly a sweep. I'd like to see this place with better focus, and perhaps a bit less of a mob, so the quality of the fish can shine through. Still, more restaurants like Mac's — ambitious, but with an eye toward using Cape seafood — would go a long way. Restaurants: Selling Fish? Think Booze
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - In a highly competitive restaurant market such as Providence, finding ways to stand out from the crowd and keep business alive can be the difference between sinking or swimming – and many eateries are using cocktail hour to stay afloat.
Some, such as McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant in the Providence Biltmore Hotel are offering bargain-priced food menus at their bars and novel drinks to go along with them. Creating a separate bar menu – and a bar that people want to go to aside from the rest of the restaurant – can boost revenue significantly, according to David Henkes, senior principal and executive director of Technomic, a Chicago-based company that provides data and consulting services to the food service industry. “It is difficult to generate revenue growth in a restaurant, so creating a separate bar area with a separate, smaller menu that appeals to a different crowd than the rest of the business works well,” said Henkes. A Technomic report based on 1,600 consumer responses in December showed increased across-the-board consumption of alcoholic beverages when dining out. Among those who do go out to eat, roughly two-thirds indicated that they are drinking more of their preferred alcoholic beverage simply because they enjoy it more than they used to. The report shows consumers under 40 years old are driving incremental growth in on-premise adult beverage sales, and these consumers are also open to trying new and unique adult beverages on the menus, such as the $8 Prickly Pear Mojito at Citron or the $8.50 Electric Eel drink at Big Fish. Riding the wave of this trend, Raphael’s Bar Risto at 1 Union Station in Providence has a separate bar area and menu with lower-priced, appetizer-type items including gourmet sandwiches, seafood and pizzas. Nearby Citron, at 5 Memorial Blvd., does the same thing, offering sandwiches, appetizers and desserts on a bar menu separate from the rest of the restaurant. Big Fish, at 370 Richmond St., also has a separate bar area and advertises it on its Web site as “the perfect spot to meet friends after work or watch the big game on the big-screen plasma TV.” McCormick & Schmick’s in Providence, a chain whose co-owner William McCormick grew up in Providence, runs $1.95 bar food specials throughout the entire chain that differ depending on the region. In Providence, Executive Chef Tony Hernandez has created bar menus that include a half-pound cheeseburger or Cajun burger, Baja fish tacos, spinach and artichoke dip, oyster shooters, steamed mussels, bruschetta and, of course, Buffalo wings. The special menu is available from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. daily and from 10:30 p.m. to midnight. There is a two-drink minimum for the bargain prices – but soft drinks qualify. – Providence (R.I.) Business News Food: The Next ‘Rock Star’ Fish—Cownose Rays NORFOLK, Va. – They descend upon us from late May to September. They come in droves. They make a real pain of themselves and snarf up a ton of good food from our stash. While this may sound like long-lost relatives looking for a cheap summer vacation, it also describes Chesapeake rays (AKA cownose rays).The uninvited guests eat oysters, clams, bay scallops and crabs, and destroy aquatic sea grasses. If Shirley Estes has her way, someday they’ll make themselves useful. Executive Director of the Virginia Marine Products Board, she’d like to see them become the next rock star on the surf-side of the menu, rivaling rockfish and salmon. Last year, her board launched a multi-year marketing plan that began by showing professional chefs how attractive rays are to eat. "So many seafood trends start with the food service industry," Estes explains the rationale of test marketing the fish in over 60 restaurants throughout the Commonwealth. Locally, Omar’s Carriage House, 99 Main, Lynnhaven Fish House and Mahi Mah’s participated. Some stuffed it with squid, others served it in soup or ground it for pasta filling. While popular for generations in foreign lands including Korea, ray meat is relatively unknown as a center of the plate item in the U.S. "It’s very tender, very much like veal," says Estes, who’s made ray Marsala and says it could work with most any other veal recipe. She describes the color before and after cooking as akin to tuna and finds the taste beefy. "We did very well with it," says prolific restaurateur Omar Boukhriss. "Although when they first heard about it, a lot of people were like, ‘Eeewww.’" To take the sting out of the unknown, he told his guests at Omar’s Carriage House that if they didn’t like it, they wouldn’t have to pay for it. They liked it. Carriage House chef Tony Drake found ray versatile, from plumping ravioli with it to marinating, grilling and serving it sliced on the bias in a red wine reduction. He plans to run it in specials again and even featured it at a recent wine dinner and a beer dinner. "You’d swear it’s beef," he says. While not yet available for home cooks, ray is harvested daily by Virginia watermen, and processors provide ray wings and fillets—fresh or frozen—for wholesale distributors and the food service industry. One day, with wise management to prevent overfishing (their numbers are "hyperabundant," but females mature slowly and produce only one offspring per year), rays just might be here to stay—in a good way. For more information, contact the Virginia Marine Products Board at 874-3474. – Port Folio Weekly, Norfolk <<<•>>> Thursday, August 16, 2007Food: A Sucker for Octopus Dave Pasternack knows everything about fish - from the hook to the fork.A fisherman since he was a child growing up on Long Island, he is now the acclaimed chef at Esca, a wildly popular seafood restaurant in New York City. And he recently released his first cookbook, The Young Man & the Sea (Artisan, 2007, $35), which celebrates the vast variety of food in the ocean, and Pasternack's simple way of preparing it. Pasternack started by catching bluefish, fluke and halibut native to the northeastern United States, but as his culinary career progressed, he traveled the world in search of different kinds of briny fresh fish and the indigenous methods of cooking them. Or not cooking them. Esca has become famous for crudo, Pasternack's raw-fish preparations. He describes in his book his first taste of crudo: He and his father would catch a fish, haul it in, cut some thin slices, sprinkle them with lemon juice and salt and enjoy. Later, he tasted the exquisite raw-fish dishes of Italy, called pesce crudo. "We were blown away," he says. Crudo depends on pristinely fresh fish, and Pasternack has become famous not only for how he cooks the fish but also how he acquires it. He has developed close relationships with fishermen all over the country to get the freshest seafood to his diners every night. He has his "crab guy" and his "cod guy." "You don't buy the fish, you buy the fisherman," he says. His trips to Italy also introduced him to new ways of preparing octopus and squid. His book includes recipes for a flavorful squid and scungilli salad as well as grilled octopus with beans, a classic Italian combination. "A little Neapolitan lady taught me that there have to be at least two rows of suction cups in the octopus or it's no good," he says. Why is that? "That's just what she told me. Three is even better. It makes for a better quality of octopus." Also from the Neapolitan lady: When simmering the octopus, put two corks from wine bottles into the water to tenderize the octopus. "It just works," Pasternack says. He admits many people are "weirded out" by preparing tentacle fish at home, even if they love to eat it in restaurants. "But you should challenge yourself. People have such closed minds when they're cooking at home. They have their five items, their cans and frozen stuff," says Pasternack, in Phoenix recently for a book signing. His cookbook includes a variety of seafood dishes, roughly divided by preparation method, such as grilled, panfried and roasted. He also includes crudo preparations, noting that the success of the dish depends on pristinely fresh fish - not always easy to get in Phoenix. Octopus, on the other hand, is usually available, inexpensive (about $7 a pound at Whole Foods) and actually tastes better if it has been frozen and thawed. "People need to try new things," Pasternack says. "There's a lot of fish out there." – The (Phoenix) Arizona Republic Food: Finding 100 Healthiest Recipes
Here's the hardest and easiest thing to do when it comes to food: Make a list of the healthiest foods and make a list of the healthiest processed foods.
The first (healthiest foods) is easy, as all you have to do is list vegetables, fruits, whole grains or other plant-based, whole foods. The second (processed foods) is toughest, as you have to choose from hundreds of thousands of foods with every conceivable source, which are usually loaded up with all the things that make food unhealthy - fat, cholesterol, sugar, salt, and questionable additives. I often write about the healthiest foods. For example, the Mayo Clinic lists 10 disease fighting foods, eight of which are whole foods and plant-based: whole grains, walnuts and almonds, legumes, soy, berries, broccoli and cauliflower, tomatoes, green tea and fish and fat-free dairy products. Dr. Dean Ornish, the man credited with a regimen that reverses heart disease, has a Guide to Food Nutrition that lists eight fruits and juices, 12 vegetables, two grains, walnuts, green and black tea, tumeric spice, two kinds of vegetable oil, three kinds of seafood and dark chocolate. Again, the list is almost all whole foods that are plant-based. Others, such as Jean Carper and Pratt and Matthews in their book SuperFoods, also point to the same whole foods, plant-based diet. Their "Fourteen Super Foods" are all plant-based except for three: wild salmon, skinless breast turkey and yogurt. Now comes the hard part. Women's Health (Sep. 2007) took on the task of identifying "The 100 Best Packaged Foods for Women." Here are some of their choices with some of my suggested additions or substitutions: Drinks: No Empty Calories Allowed. Dressing, Sauce and Condiments: Kick Up the Taste While Keeping It Light. Spices and Herbs: Dairy, Soy and Eggs: Calcium and Protein with Little Fat. Bread and Cereal: The More Fiber, The Better. Pasta and Rice: Snack Bars, Chips and Crackers: Low Cal, Low Fat, Low Maintenance. Frozen Food: Big on Taste, Short on Chemical Additives. Meat and Fish: Spreads: Wake Up the Whole-Wheat Bread with Healthy Toppers. I'd make one final recommendation. Consumers ought to be looking for markets that follow the lead of the Whole Foods supermarket chain. They make whole foods readily available, so you can avoid processed foods to the greatest extent possible. – Herb Denenberg for The Bulletin, Philadelphia News: New Lobster Plan Protects Females
Under a new lobster conservation plan for Long Island Sound, fishermen will be prohibited from harvesting certain female lobsters with notched shells. The notches mark females of breeding age.
The measure is intended to help rebuild depleted lobster populations in the Sound, which was once the state's top-earning commercial fishing sector but has been crushed by a lobster die-off in 1999. Fisheries managers hope to boost the population by leaving the females to reproduce undisturbed for about two years after the notch is first made. There are some benefits for New York fishermen under the notching program. The size limit for harvesting lobsters will remain the same instead of increasing 1/16 of an inch, as it was supposed to. While both New York and Connecticut will abide by the harvest restrictions, most of the lobsters being notched will come from Connecticut waters. This year Connecticut will begin a $1 million program where students will help notch the females in the fall, and lobstermen will be compensated for throwing back notched females that would otherwise be acceptable to take. - Newsday High Arctic Summer: Short and Fresh Char
Here is a message (translated from the traditional Inuit language) from Cambridge Bay, a tiny community far in Canada’s north.
You’ll see a seafood buyers’ guide to Arctic char in the next Wild Catch magazine. Welcome to Cambridge Bay, where the land is so green from all the rain we have been getting on our little island. It has been raining for the past few weeks now and it seems like the fall season has already arrived. So winds and rain make it chilly but refreshing being out on the land, where people are camping, fishing, hunting and boating. The shipping season is once again busy up here this year. Cambridge Bay is expecting four barges with supplies and equipment. The barges will begin to arrive the last week of August and continue till the third week of September for 2007. Campers out at the gravel pit are so busy at their cabins and tent frames, especially our elders, who are checking their fish nets and making piffi (dried fish) and stocking up for the winter. The Arctic char is plenty up here in the Cambridge Bay area. A lot of Inuit who do have daytime employment in town often take their holidays this time of the year to get as much time on the land as possible, hunting, fishing and camping. Those who cannot take their vacation time take off at 5 p.m. for the evenings to check their nets and camp out, having a good cup of tea and coffee and just relaxing at their peaceful camps. The rain has not stopped them from going out, but the winds have kept the boaters close by. Every year we have visitors from Kugluktuk coming in by boat, Allen & Lucy Kudlak. Welcome back again. We hope you enjoy your visit with us. Also family and relatives from Bay Chimo, Bathurst Inlet are in and out by boat, also visiting each other. The fishing lodge at High Arctic I see is busy with tourists, flying them in and out with the float planes. All our commercial fishermen are very busy also at the lakes and rivers fishing for the Kitikmeot Foods fish plant. The fish plant workers are busy processing all that Arctic char. I hear stories also of grizzly and brown bears on the island coming up to some of the camps very close by. Haven't heard any whaling stories yet, have you? Soon it will be school time again for our kids. This year Kullik elementary school students will start on Wednesday, Aug. 22 while Kiilinik high school will start Thursday morning, Aug. 23 from 8:45 a.m. till 3:30 p.m. I spoke to the new high school principal, who comes from Nova Scotia! Welcome to Mike Simms, who will be in the North for the very first time. He is looking forward to his first experience living in Nunavut. He enjoyed his leadership training in Rankin Inlet where he experienced being on the tundra and camping out. He says it was a real eye opener for him. This year the purple flowers were all over. We have never seen so many beautiful flowers, but now they are gone again till next year. The community and the land looked so beautiful and purple. Belated birthday greetings to KINAKTAK, OMINGMAK. Take care and keep warm and snug with all that rain. This is all for now from rainy and wet Cambridge Bay. Enjoy the rest of the summer. What summer? Oh well. Enjoy. - Cambridge Bay Tea Talk <<<•>>> Friday, August 17, 2007Restaurants: Forget Healthy Eating at a Clam Shack TIVERTON, R.I. — Americans may be cutting back on fried food, but you'd never know it by visiting Evelyn's Drive-In. At noon on a summer day, the crushed clamshell driveway is almost full, as are most of the restaurant's 20 tables. "If it's hot, it's mobbed," says Jane Bitto, the owner.The dining room is air-conditioned, while the outdoor patio on Nanaquaket Pond is a perfect place to enjoy summer's pleasures and devour a bowl of Rhode Island chowder, a couple of stuffies, and a platter of fried scallops or clams. Translation: Fried food police not welcome here. Clam shack aficionados, step right in. The little red building sits at the water's edge, framed out front by a take-out window and menu board. A line has formed and orders are being taken. The restaurant opened 40 years ago and is named for its founder, Evelyn Duponte. Bitto and her husband, Dominic, have owned it for 21 years, and two of their three children work here. One teenage daughter makes the clam cakes. A teenage son is the fry cook. "My husband and I are always in the kitchen," Jane says. Evelyn's is mostly a seafood res |