Providence Catering

Lessons learned? July 2009

2009-07-13T13:45:00.005-06:00

Things Learned During the First Growing Season

1. Label the Seeds in the Seed Tray
The dark green bushy plants with the bean poles are actually flowers - maybe nasturtiums?

2. Be Careful When Watering
Don't splash the leaves with water or they will get scorched (especially beans, squash and tomato plants)

Seed & Seedling Planning: Log 2009

2009-04-07T19:33:00.003-06:00

Crops to Plant Directly in the Ground by 4/25

greens (chard, spinach and kale)
carrots
beets
radishes
lettuce
celeriac

Crops to Plant Directly in the Ground after Memorial Day

beans
squash
cucumbers

Seeds to Start Indoors: Started 4/11/2009
Plant Seeds:
Soil: Used pellets, germinated in the dark
Length of Germination: ?

Tips:
- keep moist (not soggy), if they dry they die - soggy fungal nightmare
- when all seedlings show remove plastic cover (some say remove at sign of first sprout -test)
- seedlings must receive 14-16 hours of light per day

heirloom tomatoes
chili peppers
perenials: 3 types of marigolds & nasturtiums
eggplant (none)
onions (none)

Options to consider: landscape fabric vs heavy mulch, where to get seeds from, composting solution, fluorescent bulbs (4-tube ballast, 1"-2" above seedlings)

Moving to Larger Containers
Soil: Organic ?
Length of Time:
Tips: replant when roots of seedling hit the sides, spread apart the roots, use a container twice the size of the previous, water to settle the soil around the roots

Plant late May

Preparing the Planting Beds

2009-03-26T20:26:00.008-06:00

Location, Location, Location

This might sound like the name of a tacky travel show but it took a year to work out where to position our garden.

After monitoring the 2 acres around our house we identified an area which got at least half a days sunshine. You'd think a full day would be better but after watching herbs and greens shrivel under the glare of strong sunshine at 5,800 ft we decided half a day would do it.

This are didn't have enough light.

Clearing the Garden

The garden space was full of over grown trees, paving slabs and medium sized boulders. It took 2-3 weeks to dig out the rocks and pull out the trees and shrubs. The next phase will be building the raised beds.

The reasoning behind the raised beds is that their height makes daily weeding and watering less of a back breaking task and that we can add in better soil. We're going to use a combination of nutirient rich mountain soil which is being excavated from the path behind our house, compost and top soil.

We're picking up the wood for the beds at the end of the month so will be sharing the next step in a couple of weeks. The adventure continues...

The Professional Kitchen Project : Electricians

2008-04-24T21:48:00.002-06:00

The Power of Post-its

The US Department of Labor states:
"Electricians usually start their work by reading blueprints. Blueprints are technical diagrams that show the locations of circuits, outlets, load centers, panel boards, and other equipment."

If you don't have any blueprints handy we've found that post-it notes with the explicit wording such as "Light Switch" work well.

And there was light...which made the whole kitchen seem bigger, brighter & cleaner!

The Professional Kitchen Project: Sinks

2008-04-15T21:46:00.013-06:00

How Many Sinks??

A lesson to learn when building your own Professional Kitchen is that there is no such thing as too many sinks....

The mandatory stainless steel 3 section sink is a must for every certified kitchen. You'd think with three sinks you'd be able to wash your hands...

or what about the one back there on the left - um no that's the prep sink for washing ingredients,

here you go - this is the hand washing sink & to prevent any hand washing confusion there has to be a big bold sticker to clarify the issue.

"wash your hands"

<- (what a cutie-pie)

There's nothing quite like the quiet hum of Victory - this is our four door pass through - it's named after the fact that it has two doors on each side.

NOTE: A four door pass through is very, very, heavy and all of the weight is at the top!

The Professional Kitchen Project: Building Walls

2008-04-14T22:07:00.010-06:00

Wall Frame & Plaster Board

The trick with building walls seems to be from the bottom up.

We used water-proof plaster board which could be tiled.
It's slightly larger & heavier but well worth it - who wants
soggy walls further down the road?

This is the main room - down at the bottom the room opens up to the left. The plaster board doesn't reflect the light so the room looks smaller that it does in reality.

NOTE: Plaster board is made of plaster at the end of the day so try and avoid jamming it into an enclosed vehicle as the corners can crumble.

The Professional Kitchen Project : Bringing Down the Walls

2008-03-24T20:25:00.010-06:00

Little did the Laundry Room know....
that it was destined to become a Professional Kitchen (a culinary swan)

So after a great deal of planning, the blue tape was laid to mark out the sections of the room and the demolition started! The walls were removed to make room for the kitchen space. This involved the removal of a cloak room and sliding doors, floor tiles, unwanted shelving and doors.

Before....

Two men and a sledge hammer...

" Laundry walls Are falling down,
Falling down, Falling down.
Laundry walls Are falling down,
My fair kitchen."

Note: a shop vac is a wonderful thing - the walls crumble into plaster & dust....

The Professional Kitchen Project : The Move

2008-03-24T20:10:00.005-06:00

So buying a house isn't stressful enough...

go on, let's build a Professional Kitchen!

The boxes and belongings from our two bedroom apartment only had a short journey to make to our new home on the west side of Boulder. It was a 20 minute drive which was made in 15 car/truck loads. Our place must have been like the Tardis!

Our household goods reminded me of those shrink wrapped t-shirts you could buy in the 80's. Simply add water and a 2 inch cubic square became an size XXL!

This is first in a series of "how to build your own professional kitchen".

The search for good meat in America. Part II. Some solutions.

2008-02-09T22:14:00.000-07:00

Like I said… cheap beef kills people.

Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Sometimes not at all. Sometimes it’ll just make you wish you were dead.

But it doesn’t have to be like that.

No it really doesn’t. Like many intelligent people I’m sure that from time to time you take a look at the world and really want to change some things. Maybe things concern you like Global Warming, dependence on foreign oil and the environment. Maybe it really bothers you. Keeps you awake even.

But then you think about it a bit and changing things seems really hard.

Or impossible.

Well if you think of it in a certain way it is impossible.

You can’t single-handedly make the United States sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Maybe you don’t even know what that is.

You can’t make people give up their SUVs for Hybrids.

You can’t build a wind-farm. No-one has voted for you and probably won’t.

But you can make a difference in lots of ways.

Now I’m not about to tell you to be a vegan or weave your own moccasins from your own hair. I am not a hippy and you probably shouldn’t be one either.

But there are some practical solutions. Here are some you can try at home.

Three words. Stop buying garbage. Simple as that. No more factory-produced meat. No more eggs that are not from free-range birds. And definitely no more fast junk food. In fact try to forego anything that has been processed at all.

Buy raw ingredients. Buy whole cuts of meat from reputable sources.

Buy fresh fruit and veggies. Don’t buy food that requires scientists to create it.

Try making your own bread. You know what bread is… flour, water, yeast.

A little salt. That’s it. Stop reading this for a minute and go get a loaf of commercially produced bread from your kitchen. Look at the list of ingredients. Do you know what more than half of them are? Why are they there? Is that for your benefit or for the guys who sell the bread?

Bread-making is easy. Also it’s not time-consuming. No really. It isn’t.

Let me explain. Bread-making is all about very simple recipes and a little technique. Overall it does take some time to produce a loaf but your presence is only required in short energetic bursts interspersed by natural things happening on their own. Imagine the time you spend on any given evening watching some fine American television programming. All the time of yours it takes is the bits when the adverts are on. Not really precious time. In fact it’s time you would prefer not to have. Convert it into something really precious.

Google bread recipes. Bake a little bread. Make your life a little better.

Re-examine your relationship with the food you eat. Like any worthwhile relationship it takes a little effort to really feel the benefit, but to labor the analogy, a little effort is well worth it. So try and get closer.

Get closer to what your food is. Chickens don’t naturally come in nugget-form.

You (or your kids) want nuggets? Buy a decent chicken. Take the breasts off and pop them in a bowl. Next take the legs off, pop them in a bag, put the bag in the freezer. Put the resulting carcass in a pot with some chopped up carrots and onions, cover with water and boil. Take the wings off those breasts. Toss them in a little flour and throw in a hot oven for 15 minutes.

Those are yours. As a treat. Shake a little Hot Sauce over them and crack open a Beer. You see… you are already being rewarded!

Cut the breast meat into nuggety pieces. Toss in the flour you had left over and then into a little beaten egg. Then into some breadcrumbs. Then bake off in that oven of yours that is still hot. 15 minutes later you’ll have your nuggets.

While the nuggets are in the oven, peel and boil some potatoes, make some mash. And the boiling bones? Reduce them, thicken with a little cornstarch and you have some gravy. All from scratch, all pretty tasty home-cooking and all without having to deal with fake colonels with dodgy beards. And best of all, you aren’t buying garbage.

Get closer to where your food is from…

Shop local. Reward the producers near to you who take pride in the goods they sell. It also cuts down on road-trips to the mega-mart. If you have a good local butcher, for the sake of all that is holy please use them. They’ll get to know you and reward you. They may occasionally give you some free meat, but they’ll always give you meat free from fecal coliform.

Walk around a Farmer’s Market. You’ll see fantastic produce that will inspire you. You’ll see vegetables fresh from the field with no more packaging than a little of the earth they grew in. You’ll probably meet the very people who grew or raised the food you’re going to buy and eat. You’ll start to actually enjoy your food shopping.

Buy local. (There is a difference) Think about what it takes in order for your food to get to the point of sale. There’s little credit to your vegetarianism if all your veggies are being flown halfway round the world to you. I believe the moral high-ground is mine if I buy a Lamb Chop from a farm a mile down the road while your guacamole is made from avocados who clock up more air-miles than Richard Branson. If you make the decision to buy local you can enjoy the changing seasons and you’ll end up with a much more varied diet instead of just eating stir-fried Chilean mange-tout all the time. Which is boring.

And while you are at it, stop creating so much garbage too. Of course you should re-cycle but go a step further. Or rather go a step smarter. Think about the amount of trash you are creating. Buy products that have minimal packaging or none at all. Re-use shopping bags. Stores will actually give you money for doing this!

Oh and while you enjoy your tasty burger, made by you from steak you ground in your own kitchen from beef reared by a committed artisan farmer on a low-intensity farm, give yourself a pat on the back with the other hand.

Allow yourself few pats. A well-deserved pat for your humane attitude toward animal husbandry, another for not contributing to the rampant obesity clogging America and yet another for not poisoning yourself nor helping fund the poisoning of others. And perhaps a final one for not destroying all life on planet Earth. A nice bonus (and a tasty burger).

The search for good meat in America

2008-01-22T18:13:00.000-07:00

Americans love meat.

Actually I would go so far as to suggest that even more American than the proverbial Apple Pie would be a nice thick juicy steak.

However, I have to go one further and suggest that sadly it isn’t a lovely, marbled piece of well-aged Beef that most defines America…

It’s a Burger.

And what a burger it is. What a piece of work.

A huge amount of money, time and energy have gone into the business of producing burgers. The business of transforming a noble protein into garbage. The business of taking a simple, classic and satisfying dish and turning it into what amounts to a weapon of mass-destruction. Now this may sound like alarmist nonsense to some of you. However, consider some of the facts.

Whether you know it or not factory farming produces nearly all of the animal products (I hesitate to call a lot of it food) in the United States. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, puts it thus, "Americans have to pretend factory farms don't exist. They turn their eyes away, because there's no alternative, there's no choice". These methods of intensive meat production cause harm on many levels. Even if one discounts any considerations regarding animal welfare, the processes and products have serious consequences and the results are harmful to humans.

Fact. It can be proved and it has been. It could even destroy the planet.

Factory-reared livestock no longer stroll and graze on rolling green pastures. They are intensively raised in sheds, cages or pens and fed (mostly) GM grain and soy. Cattle alone account for 70% of annual US grain-production. Just to produce the fertilizer for that grain adds 40 million tons of CO2 to the US national carbon-footprint. Then all those tractors, combine harvesters and transport trucks etc add another 60 million tons. The basic tasks of animal-husbandry as well as milk production account for another 30 million tons. These figures don’t take into account the amount of CO2 that would have been absorbed by those rolling pastures and the effect of de-forestation for the purposes of cattle production. And then there’s methane.

Methane is another ‘greenhouse gas’, for those clueless throwbacks who don’t know (or Republicans in Congress, but I repeat myself) these are the emissions which hang around in the atmosphere soaking up the heat from the Sun and thereby causing Global Warming. CO2 is pretty bad for this but Methane is a monster! Methane is regarded as "20 to 30 times more effective at absorbing infrared radiation" than Carbon Dioxide. In total, an estimated 104 million tons of methane is released annually by cattle alone.

That could equate to the ecological nastiness of 24 YEARS of CO2 damage, caused in a single year, EVERY YEAR. For burgers. And not even tasty ones.

"The voluminous evidence now strongly suggests that unless we act boldly and quickly to deal with the underlying causes of global warming, our world will undergo a string of terrible catastrophes including more and stronger storms like Hurricane Katrina, in both the Atlantic and the Pacific."

(Al Gore – An inconvenient truth)

Wouldn’t a straightforward way to tackle one of the underlying sources be to reject factory-produced meat and meat products? This involves a simple decision to eat less meat, pay more for it, but to eat better as a result.

But these are long-term issues that might not kill anyone for ages…..

Forget the big, planet-size problems. What about the really tiny virus-sized ones?

In the scientific study, ‘The effect of commercial production and product formulation stresses on the heat resistance of Escherichia coli O157:H7 (NCTC 12900) in beef burgers’ the production method of processing, storing and cooking burgers was replicated under laboratory conditions.

This study found that commercial processing and product formulation have profound effects on the heat resistance of E. coli O157:H7 in beef burgers.

Put in simple terms it shows that the way burgers are made, stored and served commercially, actually makes this killer bug stronger.

So how bad can E. coli be? Well, in May 2000, 1,300 cases of gastroenteritis were reported and six people died as the result of E. coli contaminating drinking water in Walkerton, Ontario. So it can kill you. Oh and by the way health authorities investigating that very case determined that the most likely source was cattle manure runoff.

Manure from dairy cows is also thought to have contributed to the disastrous Cryptosporidium contamination of Milwaukee's drinking water in 1993, which killed more than 100 people, made 400,000 sick and resulted in $37 million in lost wages and productivity.

This should tell you something about commercial food processing. Not only are the products unpalatable, they are dangerous. The food that results from these processes is unappetizing, unhealthy and unnecessary. And as a completely unforeseen by-product they are ‘beefing-up’ E. coli (sorry, couldn’t resist)

So there you have it. Cheap beef kills people. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Sometimes not at all. Sometimes it’ll just make you wish you were dead. But it doesn’t have to be like that.

Spiders - the internet anthropod

2008-01-09T22:15:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation the other day about spiders..and I'm happy to say this had nothing to do with this little beauty on the left here - the brown recluse spider. A trisksy anthropod if ever there was one.

No, I was chatting with a mate of mine John, a web maestro - it turns out that an internet spider is a program that goes from site to site locating information on websites. It finds a series of keywords to classify a site and then follows any site links that point to other websites, hops across to it verifying keywords and so forth across the "interweb" (do you remember when people actually said that? Me and my IT buddies used to snigger).

Which is why I'm here.

For the small business these spiders are essential to generating internet ranking - which is a whole series of blog entries in its own right. For people to find your company's website you have to have ranking or else your site gets lost in the ether.

To cut a long story short you have a website for your business, that links to your Facebook page, your forum your youtube content and now your blog. I hope you find my insights into food and owning a small business interest if not, well there are always the spider!