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Last week I attended a screening for the documentary The End of the Line, a film to be released later this year that details how overfishing is essentially eradicating every single species of fish from the ocean.
Held at the W Hotel in downtown Seattle, it included seafood hors d’oeurves (all sustainable, of course) like smoked salmon, oysters and geoduck ceviche. The food was fine, but the movie was what left an impact.
If fishing continues at the same pace, scientists predict there will be basically no fish left in the sea by 2048.
2048. That’s well within my lifetime and that of almost everyone I know.
We’ve blogged before about the film Food, Inc. and how jarring that was. But this film was even more upsetting. Maybe it was because it taught me so much I didn’t know. Like that bluefin tuna are being overfished so far beyond the suggested quota that they are on the verge of extinction — yet restaurants like Nobu continue to serve it on their menus, the equivalent of selling orangutang or white rhino. Or that unagi, or eel, one of my favorite dishes to order at sushi restaurants, is 95 percent extinct.
It was shocking, and it made me wonder what I can do to avoid being part of the problem. Like in Food, Inc., the film recommends letting money talk – buying sustainable seafood and asking your fish provider where the fish came from and how it was caught. I also picked up a fish guide that lists what the best, okay, and worst options are for buying and eating seafood. Sustainable Sushi is another great resource. And it turns out that local organic grocery chain PCC is one of the best places in the country to buy fish you know is sustainable.
It’s a good thing we like anchovies, because along with sardines and mackerel, those are some of the best fish you can eat: low on the food chain, full of Omega-3s, and abundant. They’re also cheap, which shows that eating sustainable seafood doesn’t have to be prohibitively expensive at all.
So the good news is that there’s reason to be optimistic, if people are aware about the issues of eating a lot of seafood out there. I would like to still be eating salmon 40 years from now. Wouldn’t you?
Berry Buttermilk Cake
A quick post from me so we don’t have too much of a dry stretch — been busy with a 4th of July trip to Portland and a bout with the (swine?) flu that K.O.’d Jeremy for most of last week.
I did find some time last week to finally make a cake I kept seeing on a few food blogs I follow, State of Gracie and Cucina Nicolina. It’s a berry buttermilk cake, originally from a Gourmet recipe, that can be made with whatever’s fresh — blueberries or raspberries work best.
Shamefully I did not make this with fresh berries, because I was looking for a way to use up the bag of frozen mini blueberries in the freezer that just won’t go away (even after this recipe it’s still not empty!). If I were to make this again I would use fresh berries that are juicier and bigger, and maybe even a combo of blueberries and raspberries. Either way, it’s fruity, not too sweet, not too heavy, and good for breakfast or dessert.
Berry Buttermilk Cake
(adapted from Gourmet)
- 1 cup flour
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
- 2/3 cup white sugar
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
- 1 cup fresh berries, like blueberries or raspberries
- 2 Tb. brown sugar or sugar in the raw
Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan, or you can use a springform pan like I did. Works fine.
Mix or sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
In a separate bowl, beat butter and white sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and then the egg, beating well after each addition.
Blend in the flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.
Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing the top. It will be thick and cover the pan in a thin layer. Scatter berries evenly over top and sprinkle with the brown or raw sugar.
Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. You can serve it either berries up or berries down — I thought it looked nicer berries up, but it’s up to you. I liked mine topped with extra blueberry compote, as our oven is a little hot and I thought the cake needed to be more moist.
It looks like meat, doesn't it?
At the moment, we’re eating vegetarian (for reasons to be explained at a later date). We’re four days in to the two-week experiment, and so far it hasn’t been too difficult; lots of beans, nuts and vegetables have filled in the gaps in our diet where meat used to reign supreme. Talk to me on Day 10, though, and I might be ready to sell my soul for some sirloin.
As the 4th of July weekend approaches, we’ve made plans to go to Portland for the long weekend (details on that trip to come after). To me, as to many of you I’m sure, the 4th of July necessitates some kind of outdoor barbecue experience. If you’re not eating meat, as we’re rapidly learning, your barbecue and “burger” options are pretty limited. Personally I think Gardenburgers are about as tasty as water-logged cardboard, and Boca burgers have too spongy a texture.
But we had a can of black beans lying around the apartment, so black bean burgers seemed a logical outcome before packing up for the long weekend.
A quick Google turned up a recipe from The Washington Post food blog, A Mighty Appetite, authored by Kim O’Donnel. The post is from last year, but since I already read Kim’s blog and follow her on Twitter, all I needed was her stamp of approval on a black bean burger recipe to forge ahead.
The trouble with making a burger without ground beef is that it’s more inclined to fall apart. I solved this with a healthy dose of my beloved panko, and chilling the burgers for about an hour before putting them on a hot griddle. They ended up being savory, spicy, almost, dare I say, meaty. And hey, look at that picture. If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was a REAL burger, right?
Black bean goodness
Spicy Black Bean Burgers
Adapted from A Mighty Appetite (in turn adapted from “Recipe of the Week: Burgers” by Sally Sampson)
- 1 can black beans, drained, rinsed, and drained again
- 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup Japanese-style panko breadcrumbs
- 1 egg
- 2 scallions, both white and green parts, minced
- small handful chopped cilantro, to your preference
- 1 garlic clove, pressed
- 1 tsp. ground cumin
- 3/4 tsp. dried oregano
- 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
- liberal salt and pepper to taste
Serves 2, but really hefty burgers, so probably really makes 3 normal burgers
Put about 1 cup of the black beans in a food processor (or alternatively, mash with a potato masher). Put beans in a bowl and mix in all the other ingredients. If it seems a little too oozy, add more panko.
Shape into patties about 1 inch thick and put on a plate covered with wax paper or foil. Chill for at least 15 minutes.
Heat a cast-iron skillet or griddle to high heat. You can put a little olive oil on the hot surface if you want, but it works fine without. When hot, put the burgers on and cook for 4-5 minutes, until seared. Flip (careful, they are a bit flimsy), turn the heat to medium, and cook another 5 minutes.
We served these with Tillamook cheddar, lettuce, tomato, and some cilantro-lime mayo.
Lisa
Jeremy
