TexaSweet Citrus Marketing

​The USDA has awarded the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) $1.7 million in federal funds for a Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBGP). Through February 23 of this year, the TDA is accepting proposals for the funding of projects designed to raise awareness and consumption of state specialty crops, including fruit, vegetables, dried fruits, tree nuts and nursery plants.

"These federal grants make it possible for consumers to have greater access to locally-grown Texas crops," state Ag Commissioner Todd Staples said in a statement. "These funds also help improve the quality and availability of these products to Texas' specialty crops industry remains competitive in the marketplace while bolstering the Texas economy."

More >>

Something like Denver's Izakaya Den would kill in Knox-Henderson.

​News broke last week that RedFork, the flailing gastro pub in Knox Henderson, has closed to undergo renovations. It will apparently re-open sometime early next year with a new menu and a new look -- "a neighborhood bar where you can watch the game and get a plate of food," manager Stephen Goniwiecha told Pegasus, which broke the story.

To which we said: Boring. Watch the game and get a plate of food? That sounds exactly like the old RedFork.

RedFork didn't work because the farm-to-table menu never came together and the concept didn't resonate with the dining space, which felt like a sports bar poorly disguised as something more elevated. But that doesn't mean a more refined dining experience would automatically fail.

For something more polished to work in the space, management would have to pull out all the stops. Everything that can be should be handcrafted. No shortcuts, no out of place menu items and no TVs.

Knox-Henderson already has neighborhood bars where you can watch the game and get a plate of food. So instead, I humbly offer these fantasy concepts for the space - dining options that are currently under-served in Dallas and would work on Henderson, provided the folks at RedFork go in whole hog.

More >>

Turkey Stuffing -- Vermont?

​Seven days. I've got seven days till the greatest holiday of all time commences, and I haven't done a thing to prepare.

Once an avid home cook, I've prepared, no exaggeration, one meal since I moved here in July. A bowl of steel cut oatmeal, laced with sweet Texas honey and seasoned with a touch of Kosher salt. If that even counts.

Before I started eating for a living, Thanksgiving was my biggest, most important meal of the year. I'd spend a month testing new side dishes, making sure they didn't suck. I'd pre-order a bird sometime in October and quiz a sommelier or two about (cheap) wine I could get away with serving. Now? I'm wondering if I'll have time to bake a turkey breast.

But there is one dish I hope I get the time to give significant attention: Stuffing. Or do y'all call it dressing down here? Whatever you call it, that mixture of breadcrumbs, sausage and aromatics hasn't changed over my 33 Thanksgiving holidays.

More >>

​A new website, Healthy Dining Finder, apparently aims to facilitate healthy choices for people who eat out. From the home page, a visitor can enter a ZIP code and get dining recommendations within a 20-mile radius. A test search using 75219 turns up 22 restaurants. Among them? McDonald's, Hooters, Jack in the Box, Panda Express and other chain restaurants.

I'm sure my vital organs are thrilled.

Digging deeper does reveal something close to healthy eating. Clicking on each restaurant takes to you a page that details healthy options for each: Twenty-two healthy dining options are listed for McDonald's, including a number of smoothies, a hamburger Happy Meal with Apple Dippers, and salads, among others. The worst item on the McDonald's list is the grilled chicken club sandwich, which clocks in at 460 calories, 16 g fat, 6 g saturated fat, 90 mg cholesterol and 1030 mg sodium.

Other restaurants are more difficult to navigate. Panda Express lists a two-entree plate of mushroom chicken and broccoli beef with mixed veggies at 400 calories, 17 g fat, 3.5 g saturated fat, 100 mg cholesterol and -- here's the kicker -- 1970 mg sodium. Guidelines from the Mayo Clinic, also listed in Healthy Dining's site, recommend limiting sodium to less than 2,300 mg a day. Hope you didn't already eat lunch.

The dishes, as listed, are not terrible for you -- some could even be considered genuinely healthy -- but the entire concept is more or less a disaster.

More >>

Deep Ellum Urban Garden Project

​Deep Ellum dabbles in variety of things. The familiar: bars, music venues, restaurants, tattoo parlors and stores filled with vintage tchotchkes. Then there are a few surprises, like a winery, a cheese shop and ninja parking lot attendants. Hopefully soon they'll add to the list of familiar a community garden.

A group of volunteers has created DUG, Deep Ellum Urban Gardens (a sub-committee of the Deep Ellum Community Association (DECA)), and they've got their green thumbs honed in on a patch of grass near the intersection of Canton and Good Latimer. The vision of the project is to develop a space for local residents and restaurants to grow produce, while also creating some neighborly time together.

Over the past year DUG has been busy organizing plans, obtaining permits and has also had the soil tested. With all of that taken care of, they are now working on funding.

More >>

navs-online.org

​ October is Vegetarian Awareness Month. It's true. Vegetarians do exist, even in Dallas. And not only that, they should be celebrated, if for nothing else than for eating all the world's tofu so you don't have to see it.

Here are a few ways to help make everyone aware of your support for the carnivorously challenged.

1. For the rest of month, try to limit by 14 percent the frequency with which you call vegetarians "damn hippies."

More >>

​Rumors of chivalry's death have been greatly exaggerated, but this much is true: Gentlemanly code has evolved over time into something much less suave, especially in bars and restaurants. But with a little creativity you can bring it back. Follow these steps and you'll be doing the jitterbug quicker than you can say "Carrie Nation hatchetation."

Make An Entrance
The ultimate suave move was epitomized in a classic scene from the movie Goodfellas. Ray Liotta escorts Lorraine Bracco to the back door of the Copacabana, with Liotta coolly slipping tips to the various doormen and hosts as they arrange an impromptu table right in front of the stage. While this may seem relatively simple, I cannot tell you how many times I've taken a girl down a back alley and pounded unsuccessfully on the rear door of a restaurant.

Tip: The key here is letting her know you're somebody. The easiest way to do that is calling somebody by their name. Or, just make up names. When you walk into a restaurant, say "Where's the P-Man? You guys finally give him a day off?"

More >>

Photo by foodbitch

Exhibit A: Presentation

​It's the little details, at least for me, that make a fine, and even an upper-casual dining experience just that: an experience rather than simply an amount of time and a spot to squat and eat stuff. So forget the food itself for a moment. This list is made up of some bottom-line expectations, some small niceties and even some things that surprise and delight, catapulting a restaurant into the "above and beyond" category.

Next time you dine out, pay attention because these things are part of the experience of dining, and they should be appreciated as such. Sometimes just a few of the following is enough, and sometimes it's safe to expect that most of these boxes be checked.

More >>

Flickr

​In the spirit of debate season, we're trying to settle our grievances civilly: with scathing innuendo and name calling. The topic this time: Cake.

Justin Bitner, City of Ate contributor: How did cake let things get so out of hand? It used to be so wonderfully two dimensional: cup or sheet. That was it. Now we've got cake pops, cake balls, Oreo Cakesters -- there's no end to the variations. Where does the madness end? The first two, pops and balls (which sounds like the name of a candy shop you would open, Alice) are the same thing, except one has a stick in it. If we don't end this baked schizophrenia, pretty soon we'll be seeing cake cubes, cake trapezoids and cake buckets.

Alice Laussade, City of Ate Cheap Bastard: Uh ... cake buckets sound amazing. Anybody making feed bag cakes yet? If so, sign my face up. Cake is good. Feed it to my face in any and every way you can think of (Except poop cakes. There. Line drawn.) I'll be the happiest Cakester ever. To quote Greg Behrendt, "I will go anywhere, if there might be cake." Cake can't get out of hand. Cake makes you happy always. Cake is the Betty White of the dessert world. Cakes are there for you in happiness to make you happier and in sadness to make you happier. Having a baby? Here's a cake. Getting divorced? There's a cake for that, too. Cakes are all happy all the time. Don't hate on cakes.

More >>

Lucky Layla Farms

​In 2004, third-generation Plano dairy farmer Todd Moore beginning crafting artisan dairy products. He called the company Lucky Layla Farms. Now Moore has just put the finishing touches on Springville Farm, a state-of-the-art diary farm, so that he can start offering his local Lucky Layla goodies across the Southwest.

Springville Farm is kind of a resort for those of the bovine persuasion. The cattle there freely roam 1,180 acres of grassland and have access to two, 3-acre cooling lakes. Moore's Guernsey and Jersey cows swim (or float) in the lakes to keep cool.

But it's not solely about the Guernsey and Jersey cows' comfort. Naturally cooling the cows causes them to eat more grass and thus produce more milk. And it's that milk that becomes the farm-fresh, all-natural Lucky Layla products, including their drinkable yogurt.

The drinkable yogurt is made with fruit pulp and active probiotics (LD. Bulgaricus and S.S. Thermophilus) and clocks in at 200 calories per serving. They make them in a heap of flavors: banana, blackberry, blueberry, custard apple, guava, mango, passion fruit, piña colada, strawberry, peach, plain and pure (no sugar). Locally, it can be found at Whole Foods, Central Markets, Sprouts and Lucky Layla Farms Store.

I caught up with Todd Moore to find out more about what he and his cattle were up to.

More >>