IFBC

IFBC New Orleans is coming!

There once was a woman with a food blog. She blogged and blogged and blogged, and then a week went by when she didn’t blog. And then a month. And then she started to wonder, “Am I still a blogger?”

I think I am. If you’ve been exclusively waiting for me to post here, I’m going to gently guide you by the hand over to my Instagram, so you can get caught up. Someone called it “micro-blogging,” and for some reason that has sounded a lot more manageable than blogging here. There’s a lot going on in my world these days. Three jobs, volunteer committments, all that jazz. Long-form blogging has sort of floated to the bottom of the pile for now. I’m also trying to figure out exactly what I want this blog to be. I think I’m close to figuring it out, but one step at a time.

The International Food Blogger Conference starts in just a few days, and I’ll be headed off to New Orleans for a little learning, a little eating, and hopefully, a chance to just walk around and see the city. I’ll circle back here to do a wrap-up post when I get home, but again, I’ll tenderly push you from behind to go follow me on Instagram to see the food and fun as it happens.  Of course, I’m 100% on board to learn, and this year’s conference is jam packed with expert speakers and fun activities, but as with past years, there are definitely things that have really peaked my anticipation.

This year, IFBC is celebrating its 10th birthday, and to be doing it in such an iconic food city like New Orleans means the traditional “Taste of…” event on Friday night will boast some tasty bites from some of the Crescent City’s hundreds of restaurants and food producers, including Arnaud’s, Emeril’s, and Salt & Light Pastry Co. I’m SO ready to get my grub on, and maybe snag a few recipes from the local chefs.

On Saturday night, we’ll get to have some fun in what IFBC is calling a “Live Food & Drink Social.” Over 20 local food producers will each have five minutes to “pitch” their product while we, the intrepid food bloggers, try to share as much as we can in real time on our chosen blog/social media platforms. We did this last year and it was super hectic, but we all had a blast. It’s also a great exercise in how to prioritize. Do I spend my five minutes trying to get a great picture and letting my fellow bloggers ask all the questions, or do I put the presenter through their paces and just pray I get the shot?

One of the highlights of this year’s IFBC will be, for me, hearing from our Keynote speaker, African American-Jewish culinary historian and James Beard Award winning author Michael Twitty.  Go check out his blog, Afroculinaria, and get totally sucked into his unique style of storytelling.

Obviously, there’s a whole list of places I want to visit, and restaurants I’d like to try, but, I’m a girl on a budget. August just happens to be “COOLinary” month in New Orleans. If you’re familiar with the concept of Restaurant Week, it’s like that, only all month long. Perfect timing to get to try one of the city’s upscale restaurants for a fraction of the cost. I haven’t decided where I’m headed yet, but of course, there will be pictures and a full recap when I finally sit down to stuff my face eat a beautiful dinner like the classy lady that I am. I’ll also be utilizing a few other tried and true tips to get a taste of what the city has to offer without burning a hole in my wallet:

* Check out the bar menu. Small plates and bar snacks are a great way to try a little of what a restaurant has to offer without all the fuss of a full, sit down dinner. If you can catch a happy hour,  even better, because you might find one of the restaurant’s signature cocktails on the menu for a discount.

* Ask a concierge. IFBC is being held at the Royal Sonesta on Bourbon Street. You best believe I’ll be quizzing their concierge staff about where to get some great, local eats that won’t break the bank. A knowledgable concierge will know their city’s restaurant scene like the back of their hand– not just the fine dining places, but also the hidden gems you might miss if you’re relying on your average travel guide.

* Ask a local. If you’re looking to step out of the tourist stream and experience the city like you live there, be brave and ask a local. For every IFBC I’ve attended, I’ve utilized the Couchsurfing app to find a local host, rather than staying in a pricey hotel. One of the most obvious benefits is all the great advice you can get from your host on where to eat, which attractions are worth the cost of admission, and the activities that really should not be missed. I’ve not been steered wrong, yet.

* Hit the grocery store before you leave. I know, it’s tempting, especially in a city known for its food culture, to want to eat out for ALL the things. There are so many places to try! But, you’ll find yourself blowing through your food budget pretty quickly that way. Obviously, I’ll be hitting Cafe du Monde for those iconic beignets and chicory coffee at least one morning, but I’ll also bring some snacks and breakfasty stuff with me from home, to fill in the meal gaps. When your dining dollar has to really stretch, let the grocery store do some pinch hitting.

I am, not surprisingly, not packed, or even close to packed yet, but my excitement for this little working getaway is set to 11. See you in New Orleans!

Live Blogging: Product Tasting

Hi folks! I’m at IFBC, the International Food Bloggers Conference, in Sacramento. We’re closing out the conference with something really new for me, a Live Blogging Session. Feel free to follow along as I try to describe each product in 5 minutes.

Product 1 is from Fish People Seafood, @fishpeople on social media. They’re a sustainable seafood company based in Oregon. All the fish is caught in the left coast of the U.S., and it stays in the country. They are passionate about keeping those jobs in the American coastal towns that do the fishing. They buy their fish from independent fisheries, which are paid a fair wage. We could go to Tracethisfish.com, type in the code, PWS101 and learn more about the fisherman who caught the fish we ate today.

https://fishpeopleseafood.com/pages/track-your-pouch-PWS101

Fish People’s fish meal kits provide you with everything you need to produce a beautiful, chef quality meal.

Product 2 is a two-fer, olive oil and balsamic vinegar from Capay Valley Ranches, @cvranches.

Their Arbosana EV Olive Oil won silver at the New York International Olive Oil Competition this year. We also sampled the cranberry white balsamic vinegar.

Product 3 is Classy Hippie Tea Company, @ClassyHippieTea. We tried a tea called Beautiful People, which is a green sencha with strawberry and orange, blended with a little bit of champagne. It’s light, fruity, and refreshing. The second tea we tried was a Puerh Chai, which is a tea that is naturally fermented. There’s more spice on the nose than in the taste, but it really does smell lovely and spicy.

Product 4 is a 2016 3 Graces Blanc from Bella Grace Vineyards. It’s a blend of Grenache Blanc, Vermentino and Roussanne. It’s a very light straw color. It has pear and kiwi on the nose, with more pear at first taste. It’s a little tart on the back-end. I’m not a wine expert, but I’d definitely drink this as a summer wine.

Product 5 is Naples Drizzle, “The Italian Hot Sauce that Goes with Everything.” It’s all natural, with no sugar and no vinegar. It’s made with 100% EV olive oil. We tried it on a Margherita pizza, and it’s got the kind of kick you want from that little shaker of pepper flakes that sits on the table at every pizza spot, but as a drizzle. I think it would be a great addition to Asian inspired sauces, as well.  It can be purchased on Amazon.com.

Product  6 is kind of a surprise… Almond Butter from Lindsay Olives. This new product comes in Classic Creamy, Classic Crunchy, and a Honey Cinnamon. All three spread well, and that Honey Cinnamon flavor was so yummy on apple slices! There’s no added sugar, just the honey to add a touch of sweetness.

Product 7 is another wine, Obsession Symphony from Ironstone Vineyards. It’s a blend of Muscat of Alexandria and Grenache grapes. It’s super floral on the nose, with some fruit and a little grass (I think, because I don’t know much) on first sip. It goes really nicely with spicy food, and meatier dishes, like the pork with jalapeno we tried.

Product 8 is a beautiful citrus drink, a Chilean Clementine Cooler, from @FruitsfromChile. Chilean Clementine, Lime Juice, Club Soda, and a little simple syrup make up this yummy mocktail, but they recommend vodka or gin if you want to spike it. It’s Citrus season right now, so take advantage of the lingering warm weather before the fall chill takes over and we all start switching to ciders and hot cocoa.

Product 9 is a flash brewed coffee on nitro from Chocolate Fish Coffee Roasters. They heat the water, and a concentrate is brewed over ice, which melts the ice, which Chocolate Fish says brings out more of the natural sweetness in the coffee. They just won 2nd overall in the largest coffee competition in North America, competing against over 800 other coffees.

Product 10 is California Strawberries. They recommend that strawberries be stored in the fridge, but should be served at room temperature for maximum sweetness and flavor. Eight strawberries make a perfect snack, weighing in at just 45 calories, packed with vitamins and antioxidants.

That’s the end of our live blogging. That was a wild ride, you guys! Thanks for tagging along.

Demystifying Lamb: Advice Straight from the Rancher

This post is one of a series of posts I’m sharing about Sacramento IFBC 2016. In exchange for a discounted ticket, I agreed to share my own personal experience about IFBC on my blog.

“Agriculture was not always a source of pride for Sacramento.” Mary Kimball, Executive Director of Winter, California’s Center for Land-Based Learning shared that sentiment with an audience of food bloggers during an IFBC Panel on what it really means to be America’s Farm-to-Fork Capital.

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That lack of pride changed when perspectives started to shift, thanks to a full on Farm-to-Fork campaign launched by the Sacramento Convention & Visitors Bureau. As consumers, farmers, and retailers started to feel more connected, and the story of Sacramento’s agricultural bounty was told, it became a shared experience for everyone involved in the local food cycle, from start to finish. These days, it’s a story most Sacramento residents will gladly share.

Pride in his product came through loud and clear as lamb rancher Ryan Mahoney showed us around Brown Road Ranch in Rio Vista. While the bloggers on the tour peppered him with questions about everything from the stock, to feeding cycles, to how the lamb gets to market, it was easy to see his sincere interest in making sure we all “got it,” and came away with a real education. Of course, because we’re food bloggers, we quickly started digging around about flavor and recipes we could share to help home cooks get the very best from the lamb they buy, regardless of the cut. A quick peek at Ryan’s Instagram account (@californiasheeprancher) shows he eats plenty of his own product, and from chops to meatloaf, he knows what he’s doing.

The first thing we all wanted to know—what’s the difference between American lamb and the product from New Zealand and Australia? American lamb is bred for flavor, as opposed to the Merino stock the imported product comes from, which was primarily bred for wool.  That means American lambs go to market about 30 pounds bigger than the imports, on average, with more even fat distribution and better platability, which refers to the tenderness, juiciness, and flavor of the cooked product.

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I’ve heard people say they’re a little intimidated by the idea of cooking lamb at home. But I say, don’t be scared! While the flavor is different, the same basic cooking rules as the ones we follow for beef still apply.   Among the more tender cuts, Ryan says the easiest cut to cook is the center loin chop, seasoned with garlic salt, pepper and rosemary then grilled just like a steak.

Harder working, tougher muscles get lower heat with longer cooking time– think braising or stewing. He shared his family recipe for a leg of lamb.. Marinate the leg overnight in a mixture of brown sugar, Dijon mustard, lemon pepper and soy sauce. Braise it in low, moist heat in the oven, then reduce the marinade down in a pot on the stove to use as a sauce. Lamb shanks are even easier, and slow cooker friendly. His advice? “Throw ‘em in a Crock Pot with a bunch of stuff and they come out real tender and good.”

Just before sitting down to write this post, I noticed a picture of a lamb meatloaf Ryan posted to his Instagram account. I immediately asked for the recipe. He wasn’t very specific about some of the seasoning amounts, so I had to play around a little to find the right ratios. But, I think I figured out a version that worked well. We ended up with moist, juicy meatloaf that was packed with deep, complex flavor, and will make some excellent meatloaf sandwiches later in the week.  Give it a shot, and tell me what you think.

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Equipment:
Knife and cutting board
Measuring cups and spoons
Mixing bowl
Rubber spatula, or maybe just a pair of disposable gloves if you’re mixing by hand
Loaf pan

Ingredients:
1 lb ground American lamb
1 lb ground beef chuck
1 C milk
1 egg
1 T Kosher salt
½ T lemon pepper
½ tsp smoked paprika
1 T garlic, finely chopped
½ medium white onion, small dice
1 T fresh ginger, or ¼ tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground sage
¼ tsp mustard powder
1 T Worcestershire sauce
3-4 shakes of your favorite hot sauce (I used Cholula)
Pan spray

Preheat your oven to 350°. Spray the loaf pan generously with pan spray and set aside. Combine all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl until just evenly combined. Don’t overmix.

Pour the mixture into the loaf pan, evening out the top with the spatula. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches 160° on your meat thermometer. Allow to rest for 15 minutes, then slice and serve. Should make eight slices.

If you’re a beer fan, like me, pair it with a rich, malty Porter. Yum! Looking for other pairings? Check out this cool chart on the American Lamb Board website.

Wait, what? You don’t have a meat thermometer, you say? You don’t have a cutting board? You don’t really understand all those cuts I mentioned? Don’t fret, my pet! I just might be able to help. Thanks to the folks at the American Lamb Board, I’m going to hook up one of you with a fun little goody bag full of everything you need to get started exploring the wonderful world of American lamb.

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Inside the reuseable lunch bag, you’ll find a meat thermometer, a flexible cutting board, a cute little tin of a wonderful seasoning blend you can use on just about any cut of lamb, a great collection of lamb recipes as well as a little “Curriculamb” education on lamb cuts, and a few other goodies.

All you need to do to win is leave a comment below telling me your favorite way to eat lamb. If you’ve never tried it, let me know that, too. The winner will be drawn randomly at 7pm MST on Saturday, August 13th and announced on my Facebook page, so be sure to go over there and hit that “Like” button to be sure you stay in the loop.

“…anyway, that’s my goat story.”

This post is one of a series of posts I’m sharing about Sacramento IFBC 2016. In exchange for a discounted ticket, I agreed to share my own personal experience about IFBC on my blog. This post, and the next one to follow, are about an excursion trip to a sheep farm just outside of Sacramento prior to the conference opening.

As many of us do in life, Ryan Mahoney plays a lot of roles. He’s a loving and attentive father, as evidenced by the concern he shows every time his seven year old daughter starts wandering around our moving tour bus as it bumps along the rocky, rural, Solano County, California farm roads. He’s a 5th generation lamb rancher, which is why he’s the guy leading a bunch of food bloggers around his family’s Brown Road Ranch in Rio Vista. Because his animals are grass fed, he’s a grass farmer, too.  And, at least today, it would seem the roles he was born to play are those of advocate and story teller.

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Each year, along with three days of tech, writing, and discovery sessions, the International Food Bloggers Conference provides its attendees the opportunity to attend additional excursions prior to the conference open. These trips could be anything from a visit to a flagship cooking equipment store, as in years past, to, as it was this year, a tour of one of the Sacramento area’s many farms and ranches that help make it America’s Farm to Fork Capital. Our tour, offered by the American Lamb Board, would take us through Solano and Yolo counties. First stop, Ryan’s family ranch.

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Almost as soon as we get off the bus, after a few brief introductions, Mahoney dives right into some deep waters. Perhaps recognizing that right now he’s not just representing the California lamb industry but rather all California farmers and ranchers, he explains just one of the reasons why small farms across his state are operating at a perpetual disadvantage–Federal farming regulations aren’t scaled to the size of the farm. Big, industrial operations and smaller, family owned ones like the Mahoney’s are obligated to follow the same rules.

“Smaller farms get hurt the worst…because they’re not equipped to just go hire out some person to do all their compliance work and their paperwork, whereas, the bigger guys, they’re able to. And so, you actually have a weird scenario where the economic pressures and the social pressures are forcing the smaller farms to go out of business.”

It’s not just paperwork and regulations that make running sheep a tough business. Wildly fluctuating market prices, an ever-shrinking talent pool of help qualified to work with sheep, and the animals themselves make this the kind of work not everyone is cut out for, or even wants to do. Mahoney himself didn’t start out life planning to be a rancher.

“When I was 12 years old, my grandpa put me on a thousand acre ranch. He gave me a shovel and bottle of water and he told me to cut all the stickers. And, so, I started, and was excited when he showed up at noon. I was thinking I was gonna get a relief, and he gave me a hamburger from Food Farm and a soda pop and then he turned around and drove away. And so, it was me and a guy who didn’t speak any English named Pancho, and he taught me to ask ‘Que hora es,’ which is ‘What time is it?’ in Spanish. We cut almost all the stickers on the hill. After that, I decided I didn’t want to work in agriculture because why would you wanna work that hard?”

But, life has a funny way of pulling you right back to the place you started. After high school, he headed off to St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California, where he pursued a degree in Religious Studies. Then, he was presented with a choice.

“Between my junior and senior year, my grandpa and my mom sat me down and basically gave me a job offer, and I looked at it, and I pretended like I had a big stack full of job offers, because, you know, Religious Studies majors, we get job offers all the time. And so, I said ‘I’ll take this back and think about it,’ and I went home and thought about it and realized, ‘Well, I’m gonna compare this to nothing, so I better try it.'”

Today, Ryan, along with other members of the Mahoney tribe, run about 1,500 head of cows, which are bred with Japanese Wagyu to create American Kobe stock that will be sold to Snake River Farms in Idaho, and of course, the sheep–5000 mother ewes, most of which will give birth to twins. The sheep are sold through a variety of market channels, but they all require the same amount of work, and for not a lot of return. And then… there’s the water issue.

According to the California Water Science Center, California is now in its fifth year of what they define as “severe drought.” The state is still under water savings measures, and with yearly snowpack run off estimates coming in below average, some have questioned the amount of water being used by the state’s agriculture industry. While he recognizes the pressure California farming puts on the water system, from the farmer’s perspective, some of the information being given to the general public is a bit misleading.

“The first one, the easiest one, is whenever you read a newspaper report that talks about water and measures it in gallons is a really disingenuous report because water, as a whole, is measured in acre feet. One acre feet is 350,000 gallons. It takes four acre feet to keep the grass green. It takes five acre feet to grow a field of alfalfa for a year. It takes two acre feet to grow a crop of tomatoes, per acre. When you’re talking about using water to grow food, it’s not water that gets wasted.”

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that by the year 2050, world food production will need to increase by 70% to meet global food demand. With so much of California’s agricultural product leaving the state, farmers like Ryan definitely feel the weight of, literally, feeding the world.

“It’s really important that we don’t forget that food feeds the world and really California agriculture…there’s a large percentage that’s exported out, so California really does a lot to feed the world. To ignore that when you’re looking at a water budget, it really hurts a lot of people without intentionally hurting them.”

Our visit wasn’t all serious faces, though.

I know, I know. You’re wondering, “But what about the FOOD, Jordan?” Yes, of course we got some cooking tips from Ryan. Who better to ask than the guy who grows the sheep? We also visited a local brewery to hear about beer styles that pair well with lamb. We’ll dig into the “meat” (I’m so sorry, I couldn’t help that) of that particular matter in the next post.

Also, I mentioned the Mahoney family’s involvement in sheep and cattle ranching, but there used to be another animal in the mix–goats. I say “used to be” because Ryan refuses to run them anymore. Why? They are apparently troublemakers, or, in his words, “…just little boogers!” He shared the story of his brief brush with goat farming, which they tried because of a feeling they needed to diversify as much as possible. One year, he decided that if they were going to run goats, he was going to do everything possible to raise really great ones. He had an irrigated clover pasture set aside just for the goats, along with brand new fences, new gates, and good water. But unlike the cows and sheep, which pretty much stay exactly where you want them to, goats tend to have minds of their own. And, well, I’ll let Ryan tell you the rest…

#IFBC2016 Here I Come! (Also, a few tips from me to you…)

This post is one of (at least) three posts I’ll share about Sacramento IFBC 2016. In exchange for a discounted ticket, I agreed to share my own personal experience about IFBC on my blog.

I last attended IFBC (The International Food Bloggers Conference) two years ago, in Seattle. It was my first time going to any food blogger conference, and I was nervous as f*ckdge. I’d barely started writing, and was totally intimidated by all those other bloggers.

This year, the conference is in Sacramento. I’m still nervous, mostly because the last year of blogging hasn’t gone at all like I meant for it to, and because I am, once again, in a place where I’m looking for help in getting serious about doing this for real. Like, eventually, I’d like to pay the bills with it, for real.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, the scope of what I talk about here on “I’m Gonna Cook That!” is evolving.  I’ve done a lot of thinking about what I really want this blog to be about… and the voice I want to have in The World– the world of food blogs, the food world, and the world at large. I believe this blog can be fun, and full of recipes, and reviews, and goofy conversation… but as often as possible, still tie in the overarching themes of how we connect to our food; our local, state, and national food systems; the future of food; and food justice issues.  I don’t want to get preachy, but I do want to take a stand. Out loud. On purpose.

So, as you can see, a Farm to Table themed IFBC couldn’t be more relevant.  This year, IFBC will address everything from sustainability, to reducing food waste, to alternative food sources. (Prepare yourselves. There will be more mentions of bugs on this blog.)

And now… a little advice to those bloggers who are in the place I was two years ago– pretty new to food blogging, definitely new to blogger conferences, and a little worried and overwhelmed about how to get the most out of my experience.

You’ll get lots of advice from other bloggers, all good and valuable, about bringing business cards, maybe a media sheet if you feel like you’re ready for that, dressing comfortably, getting your “pitch” ready, and all that jazz. You should read their advice, too. It’s worthy. But, I’m also going to share what I did to help just feel a little more in control, and a little more mentally and emotionally prepared.

  1. It’s ok to be nervous about all those new people. I have pretty major social anxiety, and it definitely takes effort to put myself out there and talk to strangers. At my first IFBC, everyone seemed to already know someone and I’ll admit to feeling a little out of place. So, start small. Just say hi to the person standing next to you. Every single blogger, vendor, chef, and speaker I worked up the courage to speak to was friendly, warm, gracious, and genuine. I promise you’ll get more out of your IFBC experience if you make a connection or two, if for no other reason than it gives you a friendly face to find in the crowd in those moments when you start feeling a little shaky. On the flip side, don’t feel bad about stepping away from the crowd… Get a drink of water, take a few deep breaths, do some positive self talk, and remind yourself that you are here to learn and grow, just like everyone else. You deserve to be here.
  2. That making connections thing? There’s another reason to do that. You will, invariably, find yourself feeling like you’re making Sophie’s Choice at some point in the conference, trying to decide between two sessions you REALLY want to attend. If you make “notes buddies” with someone who is attending one of them, you can agree to swap notes afterwards so neither of you feels like you missed out on some great information.
  3. On that note, try to have a plan about which sessions you’d like to attend and what you’d like to write about when you get home, but prepare to change your mind. In Seattle, at least twice I felt 100% committed to a particular session, only to come out of the one before it feeling led toward something totally different. Again, you can always ask someone to send you their notes later. If you feel called to a certain session, listen to that call. I don’t regret switching it up either time.
  4. Even if you don’t feel ready to dive head first into the world of big time marketing and vendor sponsorships, still take time to introduce yourself to the vendors whose products interest you. You never know what they’re looking for, and maybe your voice will turn out to be one they find valuable. I recommend doing your research about any vendors that stand out to you ahead of time to learn a little more about them. That way, you can decide exactly how you want to connect before you ever walk up to their booth or table. Plus, having specific questions to ask or observations to share always makes me feel a little less awkward.
  5. Finally, and maybe I’m being Captain Obvious here, but remember to have fun! The organizers of IFBC do a great job of not only putting together an informative, varied program, with lots of great speakers and teachers, but they also manage to make it a really good time. Learn everything you can without wearing yourself out, but don’t forget to exhale. Relax. Enjoy the food, and the drinks, and the opportunity to hang out with people who are just as obsessed with food as you are.