Interesting Thanksgiving Food Ingredient Blog

Following this link to an interesting blog entry by Lexington based sustainability consultant Tom Kimmerer . He detailed all plant inputs to his Thanksgiving Day dinner .

http://www.kimmerer.com/a-botanical-guide-to-thanksgiving-dinner/

Natasha's Grand Bar Opening Today

Natasha's Bistro After 9112 Esplanade, Lexington, KY (859)259-2754
You Are Invited!
I would like to extend you a personal invitation to our Grand Bar Opening this Friday Nov 28th at 5pm.
The Grand Opening marks the unveiling of 3Form's Ecoresin translucent color infused recycled (milk jugs) polyethylene bar top and the presentation of Winekeeper's preservation system, both of which are making a Lexington First. The "ribbon cutting" is planned for 6 PM, but there is lots going on all night.
Order of Events
5:00pm
Happy Hour – All well drinks 50% off
6:00pm
Presentation of 3Form EcoResin Bar Top
8:00pm
Surprise Theater: Of Pies and Men
10:00pm
Nick Stump Trio – Blues and Jazz
Hope to see you there.
Natasha, Gene, Art, and Bruce

Kentucky Bingo Broker

The Sievers Company LLC has listings on two very profitable bingo hall operations and include the concessions part of the enterprise . This is what can be considered a recession proof business and simple . For more information please contact me .

Mark Sievers

859 576 2257

Slow Food Bluegrass

This is an interesting and important Kentucky food organization :


Slow Food Bluegrass is a Kentucky convivium of Slow Food International. We are a food education group dedicated to promoting growers and producers of good, clean and fair food products throughout the Bluegrass region. In partnership with related nonprofit organizations, state govenment agencies, colleges and universities in our state, we raise awareness of food related issues that present challenges to the quality of life of the people in our state. Through our group's activities we intend to make positive contributions that will lead to the availabilty of healthier food and a cleaner environment for this and future generations of Kentuckians.

Check out their website at http://www.slowfoodbluegrass.org/

Euro - Wine and Tapas in Nicholasville , KY

One of the best kept secrets in the area is the Euro Bar in Nicholasville on Main Street acrosse from the Main and Maple Coffee House. They are open Weds-Sat from 5:30 to 11:00 pm and serve great cocktails, wines and tapas . Here is a link to a recent article .


http://www.kentucky.com/698/story/482863.html

Louisville Originals

Check out this website about a group of original and established Louisville restaurants .


http://louisvilleoriginals.com/

New Crop Opportunities Center

The University of Kentucky College of Agriculture has a New Crop Opportunities Center that provides farmers with production and marketing information on new crops . The Center, established in July of 2008 , is funded by a Special Research Grant from the USDA .

Here is a link to the site http://www.uky.edu/Ag/NewCrops/

Foodservice Street Fight Article

Here is link to an article I recently wrote for Business Lexington on local restaurant businesses are coping with the struggling economy


http://www.bizlex.com/Articles-c-2008-11-12-82523.113117_Foodservice_street_fight.html

Is Cod coming back some day?

High-Tech Fish Farms Angle to Make Hard-to-Rear Cod the Next Salmon
By JOHN W. MILLER

BODØ, Norway -- A millionaire dot-com executive turned fishing entrepreneur is pursuing the holy grail of industrial aquaculture -- the Atlantic cod. Harald Dahl, founder of Norway's Codfarmers ASA, wants to infuse ancient Viking fishing grounds with high-tech equipment and modern management techniques, returning the Atlantic cod to the commercial prominence it once held.

Norwegian Fish Farmers Try to Revive Atlantic Cod
1:52
Watch how Norwegian fish farmers are leading a movement to revive the Atlantic cod -- the fish that launched Viking expeditions and perhaps the discovery of America. WSJ's John Miller reports. (Oct. 26)
His dream comes as aquaculture, more craft than science until recently, appears ready to come into its own. This year, for the first time, humans will eat more farmed fish than wild fish, according to a report being prepared by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Big-name investors, including J.P. Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley & Co., are backing Mr. Dahl's vision of high-tech cod farms.
The 42-year-old grew up on the Lofoten Islands off the northern coast of Norway and remembers a time when "cod fishing boats crowded harbors so you could walk across them." Today, he and a handful of entrepreneurs are betting they can conquer aquaculture's twin Achilles' heels: catastrophic outbreaks of disease and the heavy reliance on salmon, for decades the only mass-produced salt water fish offering.
A dozen Norwegian companies, including Marine Farms ASA and Salmar ASA, are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into exotic equipment and new technologies to raise cod and other salt water species, long avoided because they are so much harder to breed and feed than the omnivorous salmon.
View Slideshow

Norway Turns to Farmed Cod
Norwegian companies are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in codfish farms to plug an economic hole left by the collapse of wild cod stocks.
The biggest prize is the Atlantic cod, a fish that gave Cape Cod its name and triggered fishing wars between nations. Today, the Atlantic cod is a $1 billion annual market, after a long, steep decline in catches. Over-fishing has slashed the annual Atlantic catch to 137,000 tons last year, from 1.8 million tons in 1968, according to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, a fishery research institute based in Denmark.
Norway is the epicenter of aquaculture's transformation into big business. With 1,000 miles of coastline and deep, protected inlets or fjords, it offers an ideal laboratory for farming salt water fish. This year it overtook China as the world's biggest exporter of seafood by revenue, even though China produces around two-thirds of the world's farmed fish. Fish farms account for 47% of Norway's seafood exports, up from 30% a decade ago.
The biggest producer of farmed cod so far, accounting for 25% of sales worldwide, is Mr. Dahl's Codfarmers. He started production in 2005 and hopes to sell 30,000 tons of farmed cod annually by 2012, not far off Norway's total 35,000 ton wild catch today.
The company is backed by $100 million raised from investors including J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and the Hearst family. Executives worry the banking crisis could hurt future financing rounds, "but there's nothing to do except cut some costs and hope this sorts itself out," says CEO Oystein Steiro.
Mr. Dahl aims to make cod a mainstay in grocers' fish counters. "Salmon used to be the party fish. Now it's become an everyday fish. We want to make cod the party fish."
His grand ambition has strong economics behind it. Farmers can charge about 20% more for farmed fish than for cod caught in the wild, because it is fresher. Wild cod has to spend several days in the belly of a boat returning from the middle of the Atlantic before it hits shore. Farmed cod doesn't have to make that trip, making it fresher. Farmed salmon, by contrast, sells at a steep discount to wild salmon.
But cod are difficult creatures. Previous efforts to farm the fish, in Norway in the 1990s and Canada and Scotland earlier in this decade, ran aground due to fickle breeding conditions, a restrictive diet and a stubborn drive to escape nets.
Industrial fish farming faces plenty of skeptics. A female cod, roughly the size of large household cat, lays two million eggs at a time. But in nature only one or two of this vast brood survive. To make steady production viable, a cod farm has to improve that ratio by a factor of thousands, says Daniel Pauly, a fish scientist at the University of British Columbia.
Farmed fish "pollute, they're always prone to disease and they can escape and harm wild fish populations," says Lisa Langard, fish farming analyst at World Wildlife Fund's Oslo office.
Mr. Dahl thinks he can address such qualms with technology and Norway's deep fjords. At a Codfarmers hatchery in Bodø, Thor Magne Jonassen supervises three green fiberglass tanks filled each with 400 cod. The fish will spawn in shifts, once every two months. Dim tank lights that mimic winter will control breeding and produce healthier, fatter fish.
"We're learning from other people's mistakes," says Mr. Jonassen. He predicts his 1,200 fish will generate five to 10 million cod a year. After the fish reach 3.5 ounces in weight, they are transferred to net cages in fjords 1,000 feet deep. The depth helps to recycle the fish water and prevent waste from accumulating. Divers keep the nets repaired to thwart escapees.
On filleting day, a plastic pipe the width of a basketball whisks a cod from the holding pen every two seconds and onto a conveyor belt. Workers cut off heads for fish meal and livers for oil, drugs, cosmetics and food, before packing the cod in ice for delivery to supermarkets in Europe. Soon, Mr. Dahl hopes, they will be whisked to the U.S.
Write to John W. Miller at john.miller@dowjones.com

Eat Wild

This is a great site

Eatwild.com is your source for safe, healthy, natural and nutritious grass-fed beef, lamb, goats, bison, poultry, pork, dairy and other wild edibles. This website provides:
Comprehensive, accurate information about the benefits of raising animals on pasture.
A direct link to local farms that supply all-natural, delicious, grass-fed products.
A marketplace for farmers who raise their livestock on pasture from birth to market and who actively promote the welfare of their animals and the health of the land.

2008 Kentucky Direct Marketing Conference

The week the Kentucky Department of Agriculture's Office of Agricultural Marketing & Product Promotion will hold the 2008 Kentucky Direct Marketing Conference on November 13 and 14 in Lexington . Follow this link for details http://www.kyagr.com/marketing/dmc/ .

Lexington's Best Italian - Giuseppe's ristorante italiano

One of Lexington's best restaurants is somewhat overlooked but in my opinion is a culinary gem . It is Giusseppe's http://www.giuseppeslexington.com/index.html on Nicholasville Road . They also have live jaz in the bar Wednesday through Saturday evenings .

Winchells Restaurant and Bar - Lexington

One of the best kept secrets in Lexington is Winchell's Restaurant and Bar locacted on Southland Drive in Lexington , KY . They have a great following and great food .

Their website is http://www.winchellsrestaurant.com/

Recently they were the site of a meet and greet mixer for local Plenty O Fish singles members .

Pig Out BBQ near Cave Run Lake

Today I took a small detour from a business trip and visited the Cave Run Lake area near Morehead and Owingsville , KY . This lake is a gem of a destination and I found two interesting local businesses :

1. I had lunch at Pig Out BBQ at 110 KY HWY 801 - nice lunch and I overhead conversation at
they may be expanding .

2. I also stopped by the Cave Run Bicycle Outdoor Center - There are many biking trails in
the area .