This all came about because the representatives of the Humane Society of the United States came to the Ohio Legislature and stated their intention to put up a ballot initiative that would allow the state’s voters to decide on issues such as the size of battery cages for hens in large egg-laying operations and the use of small, confining gestation crates for pregnant sows in large pig farms.

So, in an attempt to forestall the possibility of a ballot initiative being placed before Ohio voters to change agricultural law by the HSUS, a proposal was made and passed by both the Ohio House and Senate and was supported by Governor Strickland, to create a board of 13 unelected bureaucrats who would wield a great deal of power in creating agriculture policy, but which would have seemingly very little legislative or executive branch oversight.

Here is the exact wording of Issue 2 as it will appear on the Ohio ballot on November 3, 2009:

This proposed amendment would:

1. Require the state to create the Livestock Care Standards Board to prescribe standards for
animal care and well-being that endeavor to maintain food safety, encourage locally
grown and raised food, and protect Ohio farms and families.

2. Authorize this bipartisan board of thirteen members to consider factors that include, but
are not limited to, agricultural best management practices for such care and well-being,
biosecurity, disease prevention, animal morbidity and mortality data, food safety
practices, and the protection of local, affordable food supplies for consumers when
establishing and implementing standards.

3. Provide that the board shall be comprised of thirteen Ohio residents including
representatives of Ohio family farms, farming organizations, food safety experts,
veterinarians, consumers, the dean of the agriculture department at an Ohio college or
university and a county humane society representative.

4. Authorize the Ohio department that regulates agriculture to administer and enforce the
standards established by the board, subject to the authority of the General Assembly.

This proposed amendment has been the subject of vigorous debate in both urban and rural communities throughout Ohio–which is a good thing. I believe that voters should -never- consider amending their state’s constitution without a lot of rigorous thought and healthy debate, because amending the constitution is NO SMALL MATTER. The Constitution is -the- guiding legal document for either a country or state, and changes to it should never, ever be taken lightly. Change should come only after thorough investigation of the matter at hand, because once a document such as a state constitution is amended, it is very difficult to change back.

If my Ohio readers don’t want to take my word for it, how about listening to one of our Ohio State Supreme Court Justices on the issue. Ohio Supreme Court Justice Maureen O’Connor went on the record to say that Issue 2 is an “inappropriate use” of the Ohio Constitution, and then went on to clarify her position by stating that “the state constitution is a ‘much bigger document’ that should not be amended to include policy decisions, such as livestock care, that are best left to lawmakers.”

The League of Women Voters of Ohio agrees with Justice O’Connor; they voted to not support the passage of Issue 2 on the following grounds: “Passage of Issue 2 would amend the Ohio Constitution to create the Ohio Livestock Standards Board and set forth its composition and duties. The LWV-Ohio board voted to OPPOSE passage of this issue because the amendment contains too much specificity to be in the Ohio Constitution. The League’s opposition is based on its state position that the Ohio Constitution should be a clearly stated body of fundamental principles.”

The Ohio Farmers Union also opposes passage of Issue 2 for similar reasons:

The “Livestock Care Standards Board” would set a dangerous precedent by creating a permanent place for special interests in the constitution. This Board would have unchecked power over all Ohio policies related to animals in agriculture, and could radically shift livestock standards in any direction. Agricultural policy should be determined through an open, democratic process, vested in the state-run department of agriculture, not through a politically appointed board heavily influenced by big industry. Ohioans should reject this proposal to keep integrity in Ohio’s constitution and to keep corporate agribusiness accountable.

The Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association also urges voting against Issue 2 on these grounds:

Issue 2 would create a Livestock Care Standards Board, stacked with Big Ag and factory farm supporters, which would have sweeping authority to make decisions related to farms and food in Ohio that would have the force of law. The Board would have largely unchecked power to override any act by the Ohio Department of Agriculture and the Ohio Assembly.

Issue 2 will create a Livestock Care Standards Board with no accountability to voters. Their decisions will be final. There is no further review or evaluation of the standard, no established forum for public comment, and no ability to appeal their decisions.

So, let me tell you what I think.

I agree with Ohio Supreme Court Justice Maureen O’Connor, the League of Women Voters, The Ohio Farmers Union and the Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association: farm policy, especially vaguely worded farm policy, should not be written into the Ohio State Constitution.

Policies governing agricultural practices–practices which are changing and evolving over time–should be legislated through the normal, democratic process that includes voter input, debate in both houses of our legislature, and then should be put before the governor to be signed into law and vetoed. That way, the voters, which includes farmers and every Ohioan who cares about the food they eat, the water they drink and the air they breathe, can have a say in what kind of agricultural practices we all find acceptable and healthy.

Issue 2, as written, goes against the principles of democratic lawmaking procedure, as as such, is a bad legal precedent to set.

So, I will be voting against it on November 3, and I ask those of you who care about how laws and policies are made in our state and our country, to do the same.

A more accurate headline would be, “Why Does Lou Dobbs See a Conspiracy In The Lunch Trays of The Baltimore City School System?”

But it just isn’t as catchy, so I’ll stick with the original.

What the heck am I talking about here, I am sure some of you are wondering.

It’s like this: The Baltimore City School System has instituted a Meatless Mondays policy and, even though CNN could not find any parents in Baltimore who were against having their kids eat more vegetables and fruits during school, the whole thing is obviously a conspiracy to turn kids into socialist vegan heathens or something.

Never mind that the whole idea came about as a way to promote healthier eating habits among children. Never mind that having kids eat more vegetables might do something to curb the epidemic of childhood obesity that is supposedly running rampant in our country. Oh, and don’t notice that vegetarian chili and grilled cheese sandwiches are cheaper than even the crap-quality meat that is scraped off of the meatpacking companies floors and is sold to school systems. Yeah, and never mind that our country is deep in a recession and nearly every school system in the US is strapped for cash.

Dobbs ignores all of these inconvenient facts and decides that the school system is pushing a political agenda just because PETA gave them one of their Proggy Awards for being the most progressive school system in the country because of their Meatless Monday policy.

I don’t know if you know this, Mr. Dobbs, but blaming the recipient of an award for having a political agenda just because the organization giving the award does have an agenda, is pretty twisted and screwed up logic. Yes, PETA has an a very definite agenda, but just because they recognize the Baltimore school system for being progressive does not mean that the aforementioned school system has the same agenda.

Watch the clip and then tell me the reporting isn’t slanted and bizarre:

I love the little banner on the bottom that reads, “The Food Police?” while the Baltimore school officials are on the screen. That is so–slanted.

And who does CNN get to talk about how it is a bad idea for any school system to do this?

A spokesperson for the American Meat Institute, a trade organization of meat packers and processors. Is this an unbiased source? Um, no. And did you notice that the reporter also was careful to point out that the spokesperson was also is a mother of two children? Why is this mentioned? Does CNN regularly tell us how many kids every spokesperson they have on their shows is blessed with? No.

No, they mentioned that mother of two children bit so as to make the viewer think that this woman is speaking more as a concerned mother than as a paid shill for the meat packing industry, an industry, which, by the way, keeps selling meat tainted with E. coli to the public, including to schools. You know, the very same industry that lobbies against tighter food safety regulations and more mandated health inspections.

You know, those trustworthy creeps.

And what does this paragon of unbiased information have to tell us? What does she say?

She points out at the end of her statement that 75 percent of American schoolchildren are deficient in protein, and for many of them the only protein they eat is what is in their school lunches.

Um, yeah.

Has no one ever pointed out to this highly credible and well-paid spokesperson and concerned mother of two that beans, grains, nuts, and dairy products such as cheese and milk all contain protein? So, the truth is that the kids we see in this news segment who are eating the vegetarian chili with rice or the grilled cheese sandwiches are not being deprived of protein as the American Meat Institute would have you believe. They are actually eating plenty of protein.

It just happens to come from somewhere other than meat.

And then, Dobbs goes on to talk about how the Meatless Monday policy is a “political storm in the making” and insinuates that it is meant to indoctrinate kids into the shadowy world of progressive socialist vegetable-eating, tree-hugging evil-doers.

Look, Mr. Dobbs, it is like this.

Kids should eat more vegetables. You know this, and I know this. The mom interviewed in your news story whose kids actually go to school in Baltimore knows this, and frankly, the American Meat Institute mother of two knows it, too.

And I think, sir, that you know this isn’t some ploy to turn all of the children in America into vegetarians, one school lunch at a time.

But you have to get het up about something and get your viewers upset so they will keep watching you.

But really, the truth is, there are people of all political stripes all over the world who eat very little meat, or who are cutting down on meat, or who eat no meat at all.

And there are plenty of socialists who eat meat. Go to France if you don’t believe me and watch them chow down on some cassoulet, boeuf bourguignon, and foie gras, goodness sake.

And for that matter, plenty of us progressives eat meat, too–just not meat from confined animal feeding operations like the ones that the American Meat Institute favors.

Eating more vegetables is not going to hurt the kids, Lou. It isn’t a vast left-wing conspiracy that is out to turn the nation’s children into elitist arugula-loving activists.

It is really just what the principal and the nutritional director from the Baltimore school system say it is–a way to help kids eat healthier while saving the schools some cash.

Stop hating on the veggies, man and chill out.

Because, dude, just because some kids in Baltimore are eating no meat for lunch one day a week doesn’t mean that PETA is coming to pry your Big Mac out of your cold, dead hands.

This is not a usual pattern for me–I am not a regular reader of Gourmet, and never have been. But, over the years, I have plucked individual issues off the newsstand because I was intrigued by the stories advertised on the cover and when I read them, I was rarely disappointed. But, the general tone of the magazine, with its emphasis on travel stories and restaurant reviews, tended to be extremely unappealing to me. (I am one of the few people I know who loves great food, but could care less about most travel writing. I just don’t care about where people go on vacation. I’d rather read in-depth memoirs of places and people from the viewpoint of expatriates. My Life in France by Julia Child is a great example of the kind of travel writing I like. Short articles are just too short and too–uninspiring for me to grok.) And the aspirational ads for luxury items from cars that cost more than a small house to pearl and diamond-encrusted jewelry to wine glasses that cost more than most of the bottles of wine I have ever had the pleasure to drink in my life, I found to be preposterous. (I can’t help it. I grew up poor, dammit, and some of the stuff that people will spend huge amounts of money on boggles my mind. Hundreds of dollars for a place setting? Wha? Does it make the food taste better? For that price, it should go in the kitchen and cook the damned food.)

But, it seems that the lack of those annoying ads is why Gourmet is now going away–yes, Conde Nast has announced today that Gourmet will cease publication after their November 2009 issue.

And even though I am not a regular reader, I am very disappointed.

No, disappointed is not a strong enough word. I am, quite simply, sad.

See, here’s why–while I have never cooked a recipe from Gourmet, the writing in its articles–even if they were not something I, personally, was interested in reading, was top-notch. Great food writers from James Beard to MFK Fisher and on to the current editor, Ruth Reichl all have helped make Gourmet magazine the bastion of food journalism that it was until today. Serious in-depth articles on food, politics and the intersections between the two, were part of what made Gourmet unique and interesting, at least from this reader’s perspective.

And I find it really annoying that Bon Appetit, also a Conde Nast product, is going to continue onward, as I find it to be a very shallow, middle-brow mish-mash of aspirational articles showing upper-crust dinner parties, along with menus and recipes from celebrities and other well-heeled folk and entry-level trend-following “fine food” recipes. (I also know for a fact that some of those recipes do not work out too well–I learned that long ago, in fact, much to my beginning-cook’s chagrin.)

I say this as someone who once had a subscription, and kept it for years. Granted, I bought that subscription back when I was in high school and in early college, and I have to say that back then, Bon Appetit did often have technique-based articles that did indeed help me teach myself how to cook. It also helped give me a foundational knowledge of ingredients, the French vocabulary of cookery and second-hand experience with different cuisines than what was available in West Virginia at the time, and for that, I am grateful. But after a few years, I found that the emphasis on expensive tableware, wines I would probably never be able to afford and on those silly dinner party stories (as little as I care about where other people go on vacation, I care less about what the rich family of the month is serving at their latest “casual” dinner party) to be by turns boring and annoying.

Then, I discovered Fine Cooking Magazine, and later, Saveur, and have not looked back.

Still, I find the lack of Gourmet to be really, depressing. I mean, the magazine has been a part of American food culture since 1940–and having it disappear while a lower-quality publication continues on, essentially in its stead, is really a shame.

But it is all a numbers game. The ad revenues dropped more for Gourmet than they did for Bon Appetit.

And Conde Nast is just protecting their bottom line.

And that, my friends is how capitalism works. You have to go with what makes the most money, quality be damned.

I’m really sorry for the Gourmet staffers–the writers, editors and amazing food photographers. I hope that they can all find employment somewhere, because they are all really good at their craft, and I hate to see them join the vast ranks of the unemployed. (Truthfully, anyone who loses a job in this economy makes me both sad and angry. Sad for the ones without employment and angry at the robber barons and elected leaders who have contributed to the rapid decline and destruction of our economy.)

I am interested to see where these folks go, and what they do. I’d like to think that they might go and start up their own magazine, but I know that is nothing but wishful thinking at best, and a pipe dream at worst. The likelihood of a new food magazine starting up in this economy is minimal. Okay, it is vanishingly small.

All right, it is next to impossible.

But, a food blogger can dream, can’t she?

And when I drove up with my crew, which consisted of Morganna and Brittney, both well-trained (by me) line cooks who now have held jobs in various restaurants around Athens, we were all shocked at how BIG the crowd was. The parking lot was filled–I had to fight to find a place to park after I let the girls out with our huge stockpots filled with garlic mashed potatoes and the marsala-braised rabbit and wild mushrooms.

I finally had to park at the farthest end of the lot, and jog back to the tent where our tasting was to be held, while dressed in my all-black chef’s gear. (Chef’s jackets are not great workout gear. Just sayin’)

Once there, we waited while Chef Jana of Jana’s Soul Food Cafe wrapped up her tasting of potato leek soup with corn cakes, then with great alacrity and much help, we set up our gear, and within a handful of minutes, started passing out tastes of our food. The generous first tastes I nabbed and ran around to deliver to the farmers whose produce we used: rabbit from Rich at Harmony Hollow, mushrooms from Becky at Green Edge Gardens and garlic from Rich at Rich Organic Gardens. Once again, I must say, chef jackets and bistro aprons are crap workout gear, but I managed to deliver my plates without drowning in sweat, tripping over my clogs or running over anyone in the at times, shoulder-to-shoulder crowd.

When I got back, the girls were deep in plating and serving, so I slipped into the line and started garnishing and passing out plates. While I worked, I chatted up everyone, answered questions about the rabbit, told people that while I didn’t currently have a restaurant, I was planning on opening one in a couple of years after Kat goes to school, and made periodic announcements about the various farmers whose produce was used in my offerings.

Feedback was pretty instantaneous: folks asked for my card, demanded that I open a restaurant, and one self-proclaimed hillbilly scraped his plate clean and reached out and clapped a beefy hand on my shoulder declaring, “Darlin’ you did that rabbit proud.”

One could ask for no higher praise.

We ran out of food within forty-five minutes, and later, I found out that Rich’s rabbits and Becky’s mushrooms that I had used in my recipe were all sold out, and that they had both seen plenty of customers they had never seen before.

I consider that to be a very big success.

All of the chefs I spoke with, as well as the farmers, had a great time–it was fun, the farmers did very well that day and the crowd was filled with excitement to be tasting the creative offerings from the area’s restaurants. And, as one farmer said to me, “It is so fun and exciting to see all the chefs striding around the market in their uniforms, looking all official and wonderful!”

For those of you who were not there, my dear friends Dan Trout, Heather Irwin and I put together a video report of the event so that my readers could “get a taste” of the Farm to Table tour. The interviews you see here are unrehearsed and unplanned–Dan had been taping stuff while I was at work in the tent giving out food, and when I was done, he caught up with me and suggested that I do interviews for our video report. So, I doffed my hat (a black cowboy hat a la Lee Van Cleef because my black skullcap looked ratty and ugly), pulled my hair out of its ponytail and had at it. I used to be a journalist, so I am good at asking questions, although this was my first foray into video–I have always worked in print media before.

Expect to see more video reports in the future–Dan and I have big plans on the horizon for not only video blogging but also for another, more ambitious project.

And, look for a recipe for the Marsala Braised Rabbit with Wild Mushrooms later this week.

I’m thrilled to be a part of this event, but I am even more pleased that out of all of the farmer’s markets in the US, Toyota is choosing twelve to feature on this tour, and Athens is one of them. That just goes to show what I have been saying all along–that the local food scene here in this little corner of Appalachian Ohio really is something special that we should be proud of.

As for me, I will be spending lots of time this week preparing for the event; I am going to be partnered with Rich Blaizer of Harmony Hollow Farms and will be presenting his amazingly delicious rabbit and bacon in my dish: Marsala Braised Rabbit with Wild Mushrooms served over Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Caramelized Tomato Confit. This means that I may blog less this coming week, but for those of you who cannot come to the event, have no fear–I’ll be posting a short video featuring my dish as well as other exciting footage from the market.

And yeah, after the event, I will post the recipes!

For those who are interested in attending, I will be in Tent 4 from 11 am to noon.

Wish us all luck!