Tag Archives: food

Cooks, Illustrated: Why So Many Chefs Have Tattoos

by HWWSabinardfi Posted on December 16, 2016

Mother Jones

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When it was time for sailor and cook Mandy Lamb to get a tattoo, she decided on two arrows arranged in an “X” on her forearm. They remind her, she says, of a painful lesson learned on her first boat: “Don’t fall in love with the captain.”

Fishing-boat cook Mandy Lamb

Lamb’s is one of more than 65 illustrated vignettes (and probably my favorite) on display in the artful book Knives and Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos, by BuzzFeed books editor Isaac Fitzgerald and prolific illustrator and graphic journalist Wendy MacNaughton, who appeared on our latest episode of Bite. The duo previously worked together on the 2014 book Pen and Ink, which was inspired by their popular Tumblr blog of the same name and portrayed tattooed people of all professions.

But for Knives and Ink, they zeroed in on cooks and chefs, a breed well known for sporting body art. Fitzgerald, who had a short stint as a sushi chef in San Francisco, says one reason for the propensity for tattoos is that chefs want a symbol for their “dedication to the craft.” Some chefs feel they’ve landed in a career perfectly suited to their talents—and that getting a tattoo is a way of publicly dedicating their lives to the craft. Fitzgerald explains:

For a very long time, being a chef is one of the very few industries where you could just be covered head to toe, tattoos on your face, it didn’t matter as long as what you were making is good. It’s this idea of, ‘If I tattoo my neck, if I tattoo my knuckles, I can’t just walk away from this and start selling cars or just go work in a business or put on a suit or sit in a cubicle. This is going to be my life.’

Personal Chef Roze Traore; Chef Timmy Malloy

MacNaughton, who learned to cook while working on a cookbook project a few years ago, points to another reason for kitchen tattoos: “Chefs are preparing food for a lot of people, but it is about their distinct dishes and their distinct flavors and they’re expressing themselves in everything they do,” she says. “I think that the marks on their body are also manifestations of the same thing, the stories and experiences that are meaningful to them.”

The tales in Knives and Ink range from sentimental to flippant, sometimes revealing deep truths about a chef’s past, sometimes simply revealing her favorite seasoning. When asked about the most popular tattoo inked by the cooks they interviewed, Fitzgerald and MacNaughton were unequivocal: the pig. “It seems to be the official or unofficial logo of professional chefs,” MacNaughton says. Sure, the quintessential butchering diagram showing a quartered hog is a favorite, but Fitzgerald found fascinating the extent to which some chefs had “tried to one-up this classic pig tattoo design” with neck tattoos of pig skulls or a gory image of a zombie ripping up a pig from the inside. If that isn’t a reason to check out this delightful book, you’re sure to enjoy the recipes or artistic renderings of favorite ingredients accompanying many of the portraits.

Sous Chef Catherine Doyle

Bite is Mother Jones‘ new food politics podcast, out every other Friday. Listen to all our episodes here, or by subscribing in iTunes or Stitcher or via RSS. Please rate us and write us a review—it helps get the word out!

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Cooks, Illustrated: Why So Many Chefs Have Tattoos

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Tom Vilsack Is a Little Worried That Trump Forgot the USDA Exists

by VirgiliCarpente Posted on December 14, 2016

Mother Jones

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While writing this post about the chaos surrounding the US Department of Agriculture transition, I was tempted to title it, “What the hell is Trump getting up to at the USDA?” Apparently, outgoing USDA chief Tom Vilsack has the same question.

In its emailed morning news roundup for December 14—you can listen to the audio version here, starting at the 32 second mark—the trade journal Agri-Pulse reported on its recent exit interview with Vilsack. In it, he took a poke at the Trump transition team. The USDA chief expressed disappointment that Trump has yet to appoint his successor and complained that “we haven’t had much activity from the transition team,” even as his own staff has been developing materials to prep the new team for taking over the agency.

“I think we’ve had one person here for a few hours and then that person was told he couldn’t do the job,” Vilsack said, an apparent reference to Michael Torrey, the food industry lobbyist Trump tapped to lead the USDA transition a month ago. Torrey abruptly quit a week later after Trump announced a ban on lobbyists working in the transition.

“And then we had a second person and we’ve seen him like once, and that’s it,” Vilsack added. That would appear to be a reference to Joel Leftwich, who took over the role of USDA transition a few days after Torrey’s exit. In addition to his transition duties, Leftwich now works for the Senate Agriculture Committee, but he served as Pepsi’s top DC lobbyist from 2013 to 2015.

“It’s a little puzzling why, given the magnitude and the reach of this department, that people haven’t been more engaged, given the opportunity to learn,” Vilsack said.

Meanwhile, Trump isn’t close to deciding on who he’ll tap to take over from Vilsack, reports the trade journal Southeast Ag Net. Mounting speculation recently settled on Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) as the likely pick, but that crumbled Monday, with reports of dissension among Trump’s ag advisers and whispers that Heitkamp would decline the job anyway.

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Tom Vilsack Is a Little Worried That Trump Forgot the USDA Exists

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A Guy Who Exists Purely to Troll the Humane Society Was Just Hired by Donald Trump

by LouisBerrios Posted on December 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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Update (12/13/2016): The buzz around Heidi Heitkamp as USDA chief continues to dissipate—Politico reports that “Donald Trump’s closest rural advisers are trying to torpedo” the push to choose her; and speculation that she would turn down the offer anyway is mounting. Meanwhile, Breitbart News, a far-right online journal whose former executive chair is a top Trump adviser, is pushing Rep. Timothy A. Huelskamp (R-Kansas), who lost his primary race this year and will soon be available for a new job. Huelskamp, a Tea Party stalwart, would represent quite a departure from Heitkamp.

Like a calf lurching about a rodeo field to evade a rope, President-elect Donald Trump transition has taken a chaotic course. And nowhere is that truer than at the US Department of Agriculture, the sprawling agency that oversees everything from food-aid programs to farm policy to food safety at meat inspection plants.

On Saturday, Politico reiterated a rumor that’s been circulating for weeks that Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) is Trump’s likely pick to take the USDA helm. Wait, a Democrat? She was a big supporter of the 2014 reauthorization of the farm bill, the twice-a-decade legislation that shapes US food and ag policy. While like all farm bill since the 1980s, this one was generally Big Ag friendly, Heitkamp supported some measures that contradict meat-industry interests, which seem to hold plenty of sway at Trump Tower. She took credit for “beating back efforts to repeal Country of Origin Labeling,” which tells consumers where their meat is raised and is hated by big meat-packing companies. She also helped fend off an effort to kill the farm bill’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards (GIPSA) Act rules, which charge the USDA with curbing the market power big meat packers can deploy against farmers. Nor has Heitkamp particularly been a magnet for ag-industry cash, though she has only run one campaign for federal office. But she’s a conventional Democratic farm-state senator, not an ag radical.

Choosing a centrist Democrat like Heitkamp would be quite a departure from earlier versions of Trump’s USDA short list, which included wild cards like Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who unapologetically shares fake news stories on his office’s Facebook page and once tried to bill taxpayers for a trip to take medical procedure called a Jesus shot. Charles Herbster has also appeared as a prime candidate for USDA chief— a man who currently runs a a multilevel marketing operation (a highly controversial business model that relies on a network of individual “distributors” to sell products) and who finances and helps lead a Big Ag federal super PAC also funded by Monsanto, DuPont, Archer Daniels Midland, and other agribusiness giants.

Indeed, a day before the Politico piece hailing Heitkamp as the likely pick, Trump had veered in a quite different direction, announcing a new member of the team overseeing the transition of the USDA: Brian Klippenstein, executive director of a group called Protect the Harvest. The brainchild of Forest Lucas—a right-wing oil magnate and cattle rancher who has himself emerged as a contender to serve as Trump’s secretary of the interior—Protect the Harvest seems to exist mainly to troll the Humane Society of the United States.

On its website, Protect the Harvest warns that HSUS seeks to “put an end to animal ownership.” This is nonsense—the Humane Society is by no means coming for your furry friend. Its website features “tools you need to help the pets in your home and beyond.” I asked Paul Shapiro, vice president for farm-animal protection at HSUS, whether his group opposes the keeping of pets. “That would certainly be news to the vast numbers of our staff who bring their dogs to work here,” he replied.

Protect the Harvest’s real beef with HSUS appears to be that the group promotes legislation that curtails some of the harsher aspects of factory-scale animal farming. The two groups recently clashed over a Massachusetts ballot measure this fall to ban tight cages in egg and pork production. Lucas personally donated nearly $200,0000 to defeat the measure, and Klippenstein actively campaigned against it. The measure passed with overwhelming support on Nov. 8.

Protect the Harvest’s zeal to fight regulation of animal farming extends even to “puppy mills“—large facilities that churn out dogs like factory farms churn out pigs. Back in 2010, the year Protect the Harvest was founded, it vigorously opposed a Missouri ballot measure to “require large-scale dog breeding operations to provide each dog under their care with sufficient food, clean water, housing and space; necessary veterinary care; regular exercise and adequate rest between breeding cycles”; and “prohibit any breeder from having more than 50 breeding dogs for the purpose of selling their puppies as pets.”

Klippenstein isn’t the only member of Trump’s USDA transition team. Recall that back in November, Trump picked a lobbyist whose client’s include Little Ceasar’s Pizza, the soda and smack industries, and the Illinois Soybean Association to lead the agency’s transition. He soon abruptly quit after Trump announced a ban on registered lobbyists serving in the transition.

But then, a few days later, Trump tapped Joel Leftwich, Republican staff director for the Senate Agriculture Committee, to help lead the USDA transition. Leftwich took the Senate job in 2015—after having spent the previous three years as the director government affairs for Pepsi. In 2010—just before another stint on the Senate ag committee staff—Leftwich had worked as a lobbyist for seed/chemical giant DuPont. In other words, Team Trump pushed out a current lobbyist for Big Soda and Big Ag—only to replace him with a guy who basically lives in the revolving door between government and agribusiness, and whose latest turn as a lobbyist ended way back in 2015.

So basically, we’ve got a two-time industry lobbyist and an anti-animal-welfare zealot teaming up to choose the next USDA chief.

What that means for the prospect of Heitkamp taking the USDA reins is unclear. She narrowly won her North Dakota Senate seat in 2012, and Trump won the state in 2016 with 63 percent of the vote. As a Democrat, she faces a hard fight for re-election in 2018, which may be why she agreed to meet with Trump on Dec. 2, in what was widely read a job interview. If she exits the Senate now, North Dakota would have to hold a special election to replace her, and the winner would almost certainly be a Republican. On Monday, Sen. Harry Reid (D.-Nevada), the soon-to-retire former Democratic leader of the Senate, sought to throw water on the Heitkamp-to-USDA rumor, telling CNN that “I would doubt very seriously” that she’d agree to join the Trump administration. Whether he has knowledge of Heitkamp’s intentions, or is just hoping to keep a Senate seat in the party fold, is unclear.

But as a centrist Dem, she seems like a bit of vanilla pick, given the characters who are running Trump’s USDA transition.

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A Guy Who Exists Purely to Troll the Humane Society Was Just Hired by Donald Trump

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The muck beneath our feet could be our destruction, or our salvation.

by Jeanett21S Posted on December 5, 2016

Grist sent former fellow Melissa Cronin aboard a four-seat prop plane to the tiny village of Tyonek, Alaska, this summer. Her on-the-ground investigation helped expose a Texas energy company’s plans to develop a coal mine across wetlands and forest that are extremely valuable to the local indigenous people.

Through her dogged reporting, Melissa published Coal’s Last Gamble — the type of fearless journalism we are proud to produce. If you missed the story, check it out here.

As part of our annual winter fund drive, we’re highlighting the stories of 2016 that defined our year. Why? Now more than ever, the world desperately needs independent nonprofit journalism. With the media landscape rife with antagonism, spectacle, and fake news, Grist dives deep and brings important stories you just can’t find elsewhere.

Donate Now

Grist’s journalism is powered by readers like you. So, if you learned something valuable from Coal’s Last Gamble or any of the great work the team brought you this year, please consider making a gift!

As an added bonus, all new monthly donors will receive a limited-edition Grist steel pint glass to drink your political sorrows away toast to the progress we make toward a more sustainable, just future. Supplies are limited — get yours now.

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The muck beneath our feet could be our destruction, or our salvation.

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A bundle of food-related measures passed last night.

by BennettPnb Posted on November 9, 2016

It’s no surprise, really, as passing such a policy was always going to be an uphill climb, and in this case even climate activists were not unified behind it. Big business was against it too, of course.

I-732 was designed to be revenue-neutral: It would have taxed fossil fuels consumed in the state and returned the revenue to people and businesses by cutting Washington’s regressive sales tax, giving tax rebates to low-income working households, and cutting a tax for manufacturers. A grassroots group of volunteers got it onto the ballot and earned support from big names like climate scientist James Hansen and actor/activist Leonardo DiCaprio.

But other environmentalists and social justice activists in the state didn’t like this approach, and they got backing from their own big names: Naomi Klein and Van Jones. They want revenue from any carbon fee to be invested in clean energy, green jobs, and disadvantaged communities.

“There is great enthusiasm for climate action that invests in communities on the frontlines of climate change, but I-732 did not offer what’s really needed,” said Rich Stolz of OneAmerica, a civil rights group in the state. “This election made it clear that engaging voters of color is a necessity to win both nationally and here in Washington state.”

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A bundle of food-related measures passed last night.

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A bundle of food-related measures passed on Tuesday.

by MadgeEltham Posted on November 9, 2016

Protestors with forest advocacy group Stand erected a giant, cardinal-red coffee cup in Seattle’s Westlake Center on Thursday, pressuring Starbucks to make its holiday cups recyclable.

Starbucks has struggled with reinventing its disposable products for years. It aimed to make all of its cups reusable or recyclable by 2015, but that hasn’t happened yet.

The night before, Westlake Center had been the site of a large protest against Donald Trump, who promises to gut existing measures to fight climate change.

So why focus on cups? Stand’s U.S. Campaign Director Ross Hammond told us: “Where we can make change is forcing companies to do things they should be doing but don’t want to do.”

Patrons of the original Starbucks store in Pike Place Market — a few blocks from the protest — had a different take:

“I don’t know how we can go from the [Trump] protests last night … to protesting red cups,” said Steph K., 28, of Los Angeles. We have a national identity crisis, she said, and “this is what we’re talking about?”

Starbucks told Grist that it is “committed to reducing the impact of waste generated in our stores,” and that its cups are recyclable in some places, like Seattle, already.

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A bundle of food-related measures passed on Tuesday.

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That fish might be lying about its identity, but it also might be more sustainable.

by Trey06490677002 Posted on November 8, 2016

It’s no surprise, really, as passing such a policy was always going to be an uphill climb, and in this case even climate activists were not unified behind it. Big business was against it too, of course.

I-732 was designed to be revenue-neutral: It would have taxed fossil fuels consumed in the state and returned the revenue to people and businesses by cutting Washington’s regressive sales tax, giving tax rebates to low-income working households, and cutting a tax for manufacturers. A grassroots group of volunteers got it onto the ballot and earned support from big names like climate scientist James Hansen and actor/activist Leonardo DiCaprio.

But other environmentalists and social justice activists in the state didn’t like this approach, and they got backing from their own big names: Naomi Klein and Van Jones. They want revenue from any carbon fee to be invested in clean energy, green jobs, and disadvantaged communities.

“There is great enthusiasm for climate action that invests in communities on the frontlines of climate change, but I-732 did not offer what’s really needed,” said Rich Stolz of OneAmerica, a civil rights group in the state. “This election made it clear that engaging voters of color is a necessity to win both nationally and here in Washington state.”

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That fish might be lying about its identity, but it also might be more sustainable.

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Remembering Candy Cigarettes, Big Tobacco’s Most Evil Way to Turn Children Into Smokers

by Tanya9640569088 Posted on October 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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Encouraging children to smoke? No, sir! Courtesy Robert Proctor

There was a time you’d think nothing of seeing young kids puffing on candy cigarettes. Parents would even hand them out on Halloween. Smoking was KOOL. “Just Like Daddy!” one candy ad promised. Hershey Corporation started the trend a century ago when it began hawking chocolate smokes, and by the 1920s, companies such as World Candies and Necco were selling a chalky white version. You could also get skinny bubble gum cigs in white paper tubes. Bonus: Blowing on them produced a little puff of gum-dust smoke.

All images courtesy of Robert Proctor

Big Tobacco often looked the other way as its names and logos popped up in candy aisles around the nation. “Not too bad an advertisement,” a lawyer for Brown & Williamson once conceded to a candymaker. Some tobacco execs even supplied art specs for use on candy packaging, notes Stanford historian Robert Proctor, who painstakingly details the industry’s evildoings in his 2012 book, Golden Holocaust.

Courtesy of Robert Proctor

It paid off, too: In a 2007 study that surveyed 25,000 people, researchers at the University of Rochester found that respondents who consumed candy cigarettes as kids were roughly twice as likely as those who hadn’t to report that they later became smokers. When tobacco companies eventually grew sensitive to negative PR and began policing their copyrights more aggressively, confectioners responded with a wink: “Marboro,” “Winstun,” “Kamel,” “Lucky Stripe.”

Courtesy of Robert Proctor

One state, North Dakota, actually outlawed candy cigarettes from 1953 to 1967, but federal lawmakers who tried the same were no match for Big Tobacco’s friends in Congress. In the end, didn’t matter. Following the massive tobacco settlements of the 1980s, which included restrictions on advertising and product placement, smoking became way less cool and candy cigs slowly disappeared from most stores on their own. You can still buy the fake cancer sticks online without the recognizable logos. Now they’re just “candy sticks.”

Courtesy of Robert Proctor

Courtesy of Robert Proctor

Courtesy of Robert Proctor

Courtesy of Robert Proctor

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Remembering Candy Cigarettes, Big Tobacco’s Most Evil Way to Turn Children Into Smokers

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Cow burps are a big problem for the climate, but a little change in diet could correct that.

by carlodame935 Posted on October 20, 2016

In a report out Thursday, the United Nations Environment Programme says pedestrians, motorcyclists, and cyclists make up nearly half of the 1.3 million people killed worldwide in traffic accidents each year. Even more alarming, it says that about “140 people will die in road accidents while you read this report.”

The fix? The UNEP calls for countries to use at least 20 percent of their transit budgets for bike lanes and safe sidewalks to encourage walking and biking over driving.

Life is especially dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists in countries with weaker economies. Governments in Malawi, Kenya, and South Africa (the most dangerous countries, according to the report) simply have less money to spend on the type of shiny, protected bike lanes you see popping up in Portland, Washington, D.C., and in bike-friendly cities across Europe.

All this suggests some topics for conversation at the upcoming COP22 in Morocco, such as adaptation and how to pay for it. While rich countries like the United States pull out the stops with flashy bike corrals, countries most at risk from climate change don’t necessarily have enough funds to adapt to a warming world.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s 2017 budget is $98.1 billion. Malawi’s total 2016/2017 budget? About $1.65 billion.

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Cow burps are a big problem for the climate, but a little change in diet could correct that.

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Hurricane Matthew swept away the bank accounts of 2.1 million Haitians.

by DuanePascal951 Posted on October 14, 2016

Ravaging crops, drowning goats, and wrecking fishing boats, the Category 4 storm devastated the financial mainstays of an already impoverished people, the Miami Herald reports.

While experts struggle to calculate Matthew’s long-term economic toll, Haitian farmers can see their losses in front of them, in fields littered with rotting fruit and fallen palms. Half the livestock and almost all crops in the nation’s fertile Grand-Anse region were destroyed. Although vegetables can be replanted, it will take years for new trees to bear fruit again. “This was our livelihood,” Marie-Lucienne Duvert told the Herald, of her coconut and breadfuit plantation. “Now it’s all gone, destroyed.”

The farmers, who have yet to receive any relief, are facing threats from famine and contaminated water. Matthew has already caused at least 200 cases of cholera, which could mark the beginning of an outbreak like the one following 2010’s crippling earthquake that claimed 316,000 lives and left 1.5 million homeless.

The death toll from the storm is over 1,000 in the Caribbean, a number that will likely continue to rise as Haitians struggle to find food.

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Hurricane Matthew swept away the bank accounts of 2.1 million Haitians.

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