Homegrown Foods: Local, organic food in Hong Kong

Posted on November 29, 2012 by hautepasture

I’m in Hong Kong, on the last leg of my Asia trip. At dinner at Linguini Fini last night, a dear friend told me the last time she had been at the restaurant was for a harvest dinner put on by Homegrown Foods. Linguini Fini partners with Homegrown Foods for locally sourced organic and natural food, including hormone-free meats and eggs.

Homegrown Foods provides natural, seasonal, local food to businesses and individuals in the Hong Kong area, from family farms in the New Territories region of Hong Kong, and neighbor China. The farms are inspected periodically to ensure quality of food and sustainability of farming practices. Homegrown Foods offers a CSA-type subscription delivery service, and also a la carte groceries.

Homegrown Foods is an asset to the citizens of Hong Kong, but also to the entire region, as they teach the value of sustainable farming to the Chinese farmers they’re partnering with. If you live in Hong Kong, check them out!

Thinking HP thoughts on vacation

Posted on November 28, 2012 by hautepasture

In Cambodia, we saw a man bind a pig’s legs and tie him, on his back, to a small trailer behind his motorbike. Presumably, if you need to take your pig to market, and your vehicle is a motorbike, this is how you do it; but the pig was terrified and his shrieks haunted us. Two days later, when visiting a floating village, we saw a floating pig pen. The pigs lived crammed together on a wooden raft. Again, what are the villagers’ options? If you live on a boat, and need meat, what else can you do but build a crate that floats and fill it with meat animals?

In Laos, later in the trip, we were reflecting on the pig experiences, and the sights of all the other barnyard animals running around willy-nilly in both countries, and food animal welfare in the third world in general. Mr. HP observed:

Only rich societies can afford to care about this shit.

Agree? Disagree? Please debate.

More vacation posts to come. So much food for thought. <groan>

Oh Deer.

Posted on November 19, 2012 by hautepasture

Folks, it does not get much more fresh, local, or sustainable than this. Here’s how to have your own venison adventure and take a share of the title Best Dog Owner Ever:

Find a friend who hunts. (For those of you scratching your heads: no, I don’t eat mammals; no, I don’t like the idea of shooting Bambi; yes, I support hunting for food.)
When said friend offers non-human worthy deer pieces for your dog, happily accept.
Take delivery of scrap meat pieces and assorted organs.
Empty bag one into a baking dish. Put bag two into the refrigerator. Admire pretty color to distract self from reality.

Bake long enough to make them seem less gross. Remove from oven, cut into big oozing pieces, get grossed out again, return to oven long enough to make them seem less gross. Let dog lick fork.
Remove from oven once more, hack into small pieces, place into storage container and pour cooking juices over meat. Give dog a sample chunk or five.
Since that actually wasn’t so horrible, two days later, fetch bag 2 from fridge to repeat the process. Notice that bag 2 has a leak. Notice that blood has seeped out of the bag, run along the shelf, dripped into the produce drawers, and pooled on the bottom of the fridge. Mop up blood. Reflect on your love for your dog.
Cook random parts. Try to guess what they are.

One was easy to guess…

Chop meat, store pieces, feed dog.

Mr. HP consolidates steps by cutting the raw meat into chunks. That seemed messier to me, and I was avoiding contact with raw substances. He also cooks the pieces in a skillet, but again, the baking seemed more hands-off for this squeamish sissy. I will say, though, cutting up the heart was pretty neat, from a science-experiment point of view.

HPDog gives this recipe 4 paws up.

Week 3 in Halifax

Posted on November 1, 2012 by hautepasture

Day 8, Tuesday

Dreary morning at Paper Chase working, staring out the window, working, and anticipating a lunch meeting at Wooden Monkey. In case you forgot, it is “…where the menu is based on organic, macrobiotic, and locally grown fresh ingredients,” and it’s delicious. Just around the corner from the Monkey is a new patisserie, Le French Fix. The buttery aroma that hits you when you walk in is overpowering, and coerced us to order a [tiny] pastry we weren’t planning on.

Delicious. Not really a sit-down-and-hang-out kinda place, though.

Day 9, Wednesday, Halloween

Branching out! Tried Second Cup on Spring Garden for morning coffee. I’d been admiring its window seats as people-watching perches, and the coffee and internet were perfectly adequate. My view (yes, that’s a Starbucks in the background):

I was nervous after reading a review about the questionable bathroom odors, but fortunately did not have the same experience as that poor soul. It poured all morning with no signs of stopping, so I postponed plans for a food adventure, and instead got a salad and some groceries from Pete’s and trekked home in the rain.

I had two Halloween goals: 1) go out after dinner and do some people-watching; and 2) drink a Propeller Pumpkin Ale. Pumpkin beers are hit or miss for me, and more often miss than hit, but tis the season–and the Propeller brewery is just down the street in Halifax. It took 3 stops to find the elusive ale, and was it worth the anticipation and happy-discovery dance? ……….eh. Didn’t really dig it. It tasted like a hoppy-ish ale with some pumpkin pie spice mixed in. No real pumpkin flavor, just the spices to represent the pumpkin.

Day 10, Thursday

What did you do this morning before breakfast? Oh, yeah, well I just went surfing. No big deal. !!! Before coming here, I would not have guessed Halifax had a surf culture, but then I saw the surf shops, and heard tales of year-round surfing made possible by thick neoprene. This morning I had the opportunity to check out the blue crush at the point break at Cow Bay, a popular spot a short drive from Halifax. It was a great time, and thanks to the hooded wetsuit, gloves, and boots, I wasn’t cold at all.

Coffee time at Just Us! on Spring Garden. Much cooler setting than Barrington, in a historic house with lots of small tables scattered around. I had another Bliss Ball for a snack. This one was more honey-y than the last, less bitter. Yum.

Fancy dinner at Chives! So, so good, but kinda heavy food, and lots of it = we were hurting after. Starting with those amazing biscuits, we ate our way through all sorts of local, seasonal vegetables, meat, and seafood. My top two favorite bites were actually 1) sauteed local greens, and 2) a local pickled yellow beet. Chives has won many awards for its creative, responsible cuisine, and glowing reviews are all over the internets.

Day 11, Friday

Heading home to Charlottesville! Can’t wait to get home.

Haute Pasture

raising awareness of farm animal welfare

Monthly Archives: November 2012