Forgive me, I ate chicken today.
Met my friend Christian at JiRaffe, a French-ish restaurant in Santa Monica that boasts, on its menu, that “all poultry products are antibiotic and hormone free.”
So I had chicken for the first time in years. Pas mal! The menu lists a lotta items with organic ingredients. Beautiful presentation, relaxing atmosphere. No one rushes you — although they did try to take away the bread when we finished our main course, much to Christian’s chagrin — He likes to nibble on bread well into dessert.
I know the picture looks v. sunny socal, but the dinner atmosphere’s dimmed and cozy.
Blood Orange Cosmopolitans are highly recommended. To the right’s an illustration of how I felt after drinking them :)
That pic, however, was taken in San Francisco a couple weeks ago. Isn’t it bittersweet, how cameras catch you in the oddest moments? We laugh and smile and the flash goes off. And no one remembers who was actually happy.
JiRaffe Restaurant. 502 Santa Monica Blvd. Santa Monica. 310.917.6671.
Hey Seil,
I thought you might be interested in this: http://barcamp.org/BarCampLosAngeles
I don’t know what I am going to present but i’ll definitely do it. You probably have tons to say about “green” stuff so check it out :)
Comment by ilan — February 8, 2006 @ 10:32 pm
Great pic. It’s always funny to look back at photos like that and have no idea what you were thinking or reacting to. It makes human emotion seem so disconnected and trite. Kind of like reading your journal from junior high - page after page of heartache for someone that you don’t even remember.
Sorry, that got a bit more depressing than I was planning. :)
Comment by BlondebutBright — February 9, 2006 @ 2:08 am
J’aime bien le photo de toi! Pur et simple…comme elle est mignone ;-) Le restaurant, yum…c’est delicieux. Vive le poulet bio…pas mal! :-)
Comment by Maya — February 9, 2006 @ 2:15 am
An interesting thing I learned last week… According to FDA regulations, hormones in poultry are illegal. Whether or not this is followed, or whether farmers illegally give hormones to poultry I don’t know, but I was suprised to find that out after always making sure that any chicken I bought was antibiotic and hormone free. Of course I’ll still look for the antibiotic free sticker… But the hormone thing surprised me, made me think of the “fat-free” stickers on salsa.
Comment by Russ — February 9, 2006 @ 1:35 pm
Supposedly North Easterners’ McDonalds will start serving organic coffee. Paul Newman organic at that. That’s great. One less reason to hate McDs. So the list is down to 12,874 now.
Comment by Josh — February 9, 2006 @ 3:16 pm
BbB — Agreed, except I always remember my heartaches :)
Merci, Maya! J’aime que vous avez repondu en francais :)
Russ — At the moment, I’m wondering a bit what hormones “in” poultry means. I mean, from reading Fast Food Nation, it seems clear that chickens are fed all sorts of crap — including cow — that’s right, cow — that’s been hormoned (new verb?). But perhaps it’s illegal to directly inject chickens with hormones? Not sure… Will have to pester some poultry peeps to find out –
ilan — barcamp sounds super cool! I’m going to the Fair Trade LA event on 3/5, but maybe I can participate on 3/4? Will email and try to find out more.
Josh — McDonald’s has indeed started serving Green Mountain Coffee! I’m hoping fair trade coffee will permeate all McD’s soon… But you’re right — Still got 12,874 reasons to go ;)
Comment by Siel — February 9, 2006 @ 10:23 pm
California’s food-safety standards, like its auto-emissions standards, are a bit stricter than the national ones. All chickens sold in the state are hormone and antibiotic-free, as far as I know, even if the factory-farm product from Foster Farms et al. doesn’t taste particularly good. (Zacky, the big brand that really was tasty, and the only brand to be e. coli-free in newspaper tests, seems to have been subsumed by the corporate octopus.)
I wouldn’t dream of buying beef or pork from the local supermarket - except, rarely, when it is sourced from Farmer John, whose stuff is on the low side of okay - but when I can’t make the trip across town to pick up an organic Shelton roaster, I’ll go with the stuff from Ralph’s. The truly egregious national chicken brands, Tyson and its ilk, don’t make their way into the state.
Comment by condiment — July 3, 2006 @ 10:22 am
Hmmm — Interesting! Lil did I know — I’ll have to do a lil more research on it for a Cali chicken post :)
Comment by Siel — July 6, 2006 @ 6:52 pm