Kim, Bill, I had a meeting scheduled for this time but I will join ASAP.

Matthew, this is helpful, for some reason I’m terrible at cooking fish. What kind of oil do you think works best? ps I like Molly’s suggestions for a season crust!

Does raw honey contain any potential food safety concerns? How does one go about finding it (I’m nowhere near a farmers’ market). Thanks!

As for imports, I was befuddled to have recently brought home an organic honey only to discover it was from Australia. Surely there are people in Ontario and upstate NY who make honey. ps It wasn’t cheap by any stretch.

Oregon is certainly a blessed place to raise pastured, grass-fed lamb! With regard to our expectation (if not sense of entitlement) to cheap food and in particular cheap meat, I find this baffling and frankly upsetting. There’s that old engineering project triangle: fast, good (quality), cheap, choose two. The retailers and processors have trained us to opt for fast and cheap. Charlotte has chosen good and cheap by buying by “the case.” Arguably, she’s also succeeded in grabbing fast, too. After all, she doesn’t have to go further than her freezer when she wants to serve lamb.

What a great and thoughtful post, thank you. Noting some of the comments above, I had no idea that people were so out of touch with food that they’d freak at a bone-in chicken thigh!

While it may not yet be a national trend, I have found an increasing number of people very willing to engage in a conversation about the source of their meat and how it made it to their plates. Due to the nature of my job, I talk openly with people about the slaughter and butchering process on a daily basis. In general, what seems to be of greatest interest is learning that best practices (low stress) lead to better taste and texture (i.e. it’s not just a feel good thing). Also, showing pictures such, as the ones you included above, are an important part of the dialog. Yes, people may wince at first but it makes us more human, I think, to understand and respect the fact that our food - whether flora or fauna - was once alive.