Prather Ranch Meat Co.'s American Eatery

Prather Ranch Meat Co., well known in the Bay Area for their quality meats humanely-raised on small ranches, has opened their first takeout eatery in the Ferry Building. Located right next to the Prather Ranch Meat Co. retail store, American Eatery features meaty American comfort classics like dry-aged burgers, sausages, chili, ribs, grilled steak sandwiches, even pork scrapple.

The Stonebreaker

The first thing to catch my eye on the menu was The Stonebreaker. Named after PRMC founder, Doug Stonebreaker, this ten napkin burger is essentially a poutine burger, loaded with fries, melted cheese curds, and gravy. When I asked chef Erica Holland-Toll the inspiration behind the burger, she said:

"When I was hired to open The American Eatery, I knew I wanted to use Doug's last name on a burger or sandwich, but it had to be a big bold sandwich to stand up to a name like Stonebreaker. Doug always says he's a meat and potatoes kind of guy and it was an easy jump from that comment to a burger with french fries on it...the cheese curds and gravy came about as the next logical step, and suddenly The Stonebreaker came to life."

Well this burger was definitely big and bold. The flavor of the dry-aged beef lived up to Prather Ranch's reputation, although it could have used a heavier hand with the salt. The cheese curds were an interesting touch, lending a mild tang and creamy melt to the burger. The meat gravy made everything deliciously messy. And the pile of fries on top just pushed this burger over the edge into gluttonous beauty.

Chuck Wagon Chili Cheese Fries

The Chuck Wagon Chili Cheese Fries also required another ten napkins or so. Smothered in sweet and smoky chili made with hearty Prather Ranch chuck and creamy Rancho Gordo heirloom pinquito beans, the handcut fries sported all the fixings -- sharp cheddar, scallions, and sour cream.

Hot Dogs

The Chuck Wagon Chili is also available on its own, or as a burger topping. I'm sure once the American Eatery gets its organic hot dogs going too, you'll see a Chili Cheese Dog on the menu.

Steak & Egg Sandwich

I spied the Steak & Egg Sandwich on the rotating weekend brunch menu and had to try it. Grilled skirt steak on an Acme torpedo roll served with an organic fried egg from third generation family-owned and operated Glaum Ranch, swiss cheese, roasted Far West Fungi mushrooms, and mushroom mayo…this upscale breakfast sandwich was full of gooey, saucy, meaty, hearty lovin'. I thought the steak could have used a bit more salt, but all in all this was a great sandwich full of savory juiciness. American Eatery makes great use of all the fresh produce and quality products from their neighbors, and this sandwich is a shining example.

Braised Pumpkin & Leeks

While this menu is obviously geared towards meat lovers, don't count out the seasonal veggie offerings. The Braised Pumpkin & Leeks were perfect – buttery, creamy, and sweet, complemented with toppings of sage, pine nuts, dried currants.

The Meat Shop

Prather Ranch's new set up in the Ferry Building has made it infinitely easy to get some good meat into your life. At the meat shop, pick up your raw meat goodies. Around the corner, pick up your cooked meat goodies to eat on the spot, or prepared meals to take home (like a container of meatballs, or pulled pork, or marrow butter pats).

For design geeks, you may be interested in learn that most of the wood used in building the new storefront comes from an 1880's barn on Prather's Bella Vista ranch. If you look closely, you can still see holes bored by bullets and woodpeckers from days of the Wild West. Also, the lights fixed above the service counter are clad in genuine, hand-forged "diamond point" barbed wire, which was also reclaimed from the ranch.

A different breed

Prather Ranch Meat Co. has long operated on the philosophy of supporting a whole animal sales model. With the opening of American Eatery, it seems they've completed the circle, allowing them to serve their customers along the entire journey from raw ingredient to ready-to-eat home-style meals. While there are a few touches to be ironed out (heavier seasoning of meat, crispier fries), I'm looking forward to seeing the new eatery hit its stride. With its focus on high quality ingredients raised with care, it fits seamlessly into the Ferry Building. The American Eatery represents the final expression of gratitude for all the hard work of the small, sustainable farmers and ranchers who make it all possible.

We stand for the whole hog – and the entire chicken, the complete steer, and the total lamb. Our goal is to offer high quality, sustainable, humanely raised meats in support of a whole animal sales model. This approach allows us to support small ranches while offering all our customers the peace of mind from knowing where their meat comes from.
-- Prather Ranch Meat Co., "A Different Breed of Meat Shop"

ADDRESS
American Eatery
1 Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 391-0420

There's a new family member in 4505 Meats' "Swine So Fine Product Line" making its debut this month. Aside from their transcendental chicharrones (pillowy clouds of fried pork skin that melts in your mouth), turduckens, spiritual t-shirts, letterpress posters, and the masterminds behind the best burger in the Bay Area (if not the country, aside from Peter Luger's in Brooklyn), they're releasing their visually stunning, prodigious tome of meat wisdom: Whole Beast Butchery: The Complete Visual Guide to Beef, Lamb and Pork.

I've been an ardent fan of chef Ryan Farr since my fellow KQED colleague and I attended a panel discussion UC Berkeley titled, "The Art of the Butcher." We watched in awe as he proceeded to expertly break down an entire side of a pig in front of the audience. (And later on, when hunting for a caterer to roast a whole pig at my wedding, I knew who to call. Ryan and his talented crew prepared this amazing porchetta for our picnic reception several years ago.) Since then, I've also seen him work his magic at various street food festivals and his weekly lunch gig at the Ferry Building.

Ryan Farr holding his book "Whole Beast Butchery" at Eat Real Fest 2011. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

With the release of "Whole Beast Butchery," he's adding author to his list of talents. Ryan teaches butcher and sausage-making classes, but as they're sold out for the rest of the year -- this is the next best thing. This hefty book is beautifully illustrated with color photographs by Ed Anderson that comprehensively depicts the labor-intensive process of cutting up whole slabs of beef, lamb and pork. This short video from Chronicle Books gives a great overview of what you'll find inside.

Whole Beast Butchery starts off with an introduction that outlines why there's an increased interest in taking this ambitious culinary step.

"Home butchering is the next logical step for those who raise their own vegetables and chickens, preserve the bounty of the land and field of off-season meals, and care deeply about what they feed themselves and their families. When you decide to butcher a whole animal or a part of one by yourself, as I hope you will, you are almost always going to be buying that animal locally. By doing so, you are supporting a local business as well as your community."

Ryan then outlines the basic tools you'll need to get started: a hatchet, an array of knives, bone saw, hooks and other accoutrements to break down an animal. But the best advice he gives is to plan ahead -- partner with other families to share the labor and costs of a whole animal, and decide ahead of time how you want to butcher the meat.

"You will need to understand all the different options in order to make the best decision based on your needs. Not every cut of meat with which you are familiar can physically come from the same animal...If you want tenderloin medallions or filet mignon, you won't be able to cut porterhouse or T-bones from the same side of the animal."

Ryan also advises to follow "whole-animal utilization," which is "not just about using all the parts of the animal -- including the offal, the lesser-known cuts and organs -- it's also about making sure there are no scraps left behind, which is also a great way to get the most value from your whole animals. Use the best scraps to make sausage and other scraps to make stock. Then poach your sausage in the stock. Then reduce the stock and make a sauce."

There's loads of recipes in the book how to prepare your cuts of meat once you're done butchering (or if you're just interested in cooking), from spice-cured beef brisket with curry to crispy pork shoulder with shank. Here's one for smoked pork sirloin if you want to prepare yourself a decadent breakfast.

Smoked Pork Sirloin
Serves 4

Master Brine, completely cold - 8.5 cups (67 oz, 1900 g, 28.7%)

Boneless pork sirloin or cowboy "ham" steak - 1 whole (27 oz, 766 g, 71.3%)

Rendered pork fat for cooking (optional) as needed

1. In a nonreactive container, brine the sirloin, fully submerged, in your refrigerator for 24 hours. Rinse well under cold water.

2. Prepare a smoker with about 2 cups / 8 ounces of apple or hickory wood chips. Insert a probe thermometer into the center of the sirloin and smoke the meat, ideally at about 230°F / 110°C, until the internal temperature at the center reaches 150°F / 65°C. (The smoke will peter out after a while; don't add more chips, or the meat will be too smoky.

3. Let the meat cool, the refrigerate until ready to serve. Cut into thick slices and fry until crispy and golden, adding a little rendered pork fat to the pan, if you like. Enjoy for breakfast (or anytime of day).

Master Brine

Yield: 4.73 liters / 1 gallon and 1 quart

This recipe is a starting point, but there are many possible variations. If you're not a fan of hot flavors, go ahead and omit the chiles. Always use a tall, narrow nonreactive container only just large enough to hold the protein, so the brine will go up as far up as possible. The brine must cover the protein completely, so scale the quantities here up or down as necessary.

Granulated sugar - 2 cups (13.6 oz/385 g / 6.5%)

Kosher salt - 2.5 cups (20.4 oz / 578 g / 12.7%)

Whole black peppercorns - 1/4 c (1.2 oz / 34 g / 0.7%)

Whole coriander seeds - 6 tbsp (0.8 oz / 24 g / 5%)

Dried bird's-eye chile or Thai chile - 3 small ( 6 oz / 17 g / 0.4%)

Water - 16 cups (123 oz / 3500 g / 77.1%)

Combine everything in a large pot and bring to a boil. Once the sugar and salt have dissolved, remove form the heat. Transfer to a tall nonreactive container that will fit in your refrigerator and let it sit uncovered to cool. When the brine is at room temperature, refrigerate until it is completely cold. Add the meat, and brine as directed.

Whole Beast Butchery: The Complete Visual Guide to Beef, Lamb, and Pork by chef Ryan Farr and Birgit Binns. Photographs by Ed Anderson. Published by Chronicle Books.

4505 Meats
San Francisco Ferry Building
Saturday market: 8AM - 2PM
Thursday market: 10AM - 2PM

Facebook: Facebook
Twitter: @4505_Meats

Chef John Fink at Heritage Fire. Photo: Laiko Bahrs

• Juicy Loins, Tender Rumps
• Bacon, the Gateway Meat
• Needs Salt
• Smells Good in Here
• Ms. Delicious
• Pigs are Magic

And let's not forget my very favorite bit of meat geekery, Bacon Gives Me a Lardon.

What is it about studly-butcher culture that loves a pun? (The fondness for bacon needs no explanation.) Whatever it is about long days spent with a knife and cleaver, or all-nighters tending the smoky maw of the barbecue pit, the t-shirt slogans that result are always worth wearing. Especially if you've stained it, proudly, with the ducky goodness dripping off something as mind-bendingly awesome as a handmade duck hot dog piled high with duck confit, chicharrones, diced duck egg and duck foie gras.

Sausages from Smoakville. Photo: Laiko Bahrs

But even if, like me, you arrived just a little too late to snatch up one of those already legendary duck dogs, there was plenty of meat for the munching on offer at last Saturday's Cochon Heritage Fire in St. Helena. Cochon 555, the parent organization, is known for its celebrity chef spectacles celebrating the pig across the country ("cochon" is French for "pig"). But once a year, in Napa, the all-pig menu is diversified to celebrate heritage breeds of beef, lamb, goat, and poultry, many of which are staked whole and slow-cooked outdoors over a wood fire.

Perhaps the setting--the shady emerald lawn, complete with fountain, fairy lights and gazebo, of the very posh Charles Krug winery--inspired a little more decorum in this year's organizers and chefs. Participants couldn't really wander from roasting goat to spitted feet-dangling chickens as they could at last year's slightly more rustic event (then called Primal Napa). Whole beasts were definitely being cooked, but their funkier bits weren’t so much in evidence. No pumpkins filled with pork liver, no skewers of heart, no smoky lamb jawbones (tongues included) for Neanderthal gnawing. The offerings were a little more restaurant-refined, the gluttony a little less greasy. The butchering demos, by Dave the Butcher (Marina Meats, the pork happy hour at Fatted Calf) and Joshua Applestone (Fleisher’s), were held upstairs at the tasting room, not with the meaty carcasses strung up on a rock-star stage in the middle of the feast.

Whole animals cooking at Heritage Fire. Photo: Laiko Bahrs

That said, the meats on offer were absolutely delicious. What did I love best, the pink, tender slices of lamb cupped in Boston lettuce leaves with fresh mint and pickled red onion, or the succulent Indian-spiced lamb masala patties? The crackling skin sliced off the enormous chanterelle-stuffed porchetta, as good as any I’ve had at farmers' markets in Italy? The moist chunks of fennel-rubbed rabbit? John Fink of the Whole Beast's treyf special, roasted tandoori-spiced goat with goat yogurt? The snappy, ruddy Italian sausages from Smoakville BBQ in Napa? The long, slow chew of Woodlands Pork's country Mountain Ham, made from forest-reared, terroir-expressing pigs rooting through the hollers of West Virginia? According to Woodlands' Irish-born president and ham obsessive Nicholas Heckett, this is no dainty appetizer ham. Said Heckett, "I like it after dinner, with whiskey and a fine cigar." The finish is so long, and the taste so concentrated and intense, he explains, that it would knock out any less robust entrée to follow. Like the famous French chef Joel Robuchon, who frequently included a plate of utterly unadorned jamon iberico as part of his tasting menus, Heckett staunchly believes that high-quality ham needs no adornments. (Then again, Robuchon, sad man, has probably never had a warm Southern-made buttermilk biscuit, split and stuffed with slivers of country ham and a dab of homemade peach chutney.)

Rabbit menu from Heritage Fire. Photo: Laiko Bahrs

We end up, as one does at these events, lying under the trees, drinking wine out of GoVino’s reusable plastic cups (picture a Riedel stemless wine glass, reimagined for picnicking), conjuring up the outrageousness of meats past. "Remember those bacon eclairs?" says one friend, dreamily. They were thumb-sized, she said, filled with something bacon-fatty, with a crunchy slice of bacon on top, where the chocolate glaze would otherwise go. Another friend toyed with recipe ideas for the twine-wrapped package of lamb liver that he’d begged off the crew doing the lamb butchering demonstration, using a whole lamb from local Stemple Creek. (The various cuts of meat from each demo were raffled off at the end of the evening.)

This being a chef event, the eating and drinking had to continue at an after-party held down the street at Farmstead. And naturally, there had to be a fire, in this case a roaring bonfire built in the sand pit out back by Heather Shouse, a red-headed, Southern-twanged food writer on hand from Chicago. Shouse, the author of Food Trucks: Dispatches and Recipes from the Best Kitchens on Wheels, is criss-crossing the country as a Cochon camp follower as she works on an upcoming Cochon cookbook. Before becoming a writer, "I worked in restaurants all my life," she said, and she has the tattoo sleeves to prove it. One chef brought out a plate of salmon he'd smoked the day before; another crew arrived bearing a deep hotel pan filled with bite-sized chunks of pork, juicy and sweet, carved off the last animal left over the coals. A bright full moon shone down. There was meat, beer, cigars, and a ring of sweaty, smoky men and women kicking back after doing what they do best: taking care of the people who love to eat.

Jessica and Joshua Applestone's story is, by now, a familiar one. Vegetarian/vegan couple gets interested in sustainability, organics, and the implications of ethical eating. They start reading and going to farms and farmers' markets, realize that the staff (and signage) at most big food retailers--even the ones that tout their eco-friendliness--are uninformed and unreliable. Who to believe? How to make a difference? What to make for dinner?

This is where the Applestones' story veers off from the typical hipster vegan-turned-ethical omnivore trajectory. They didn't just find a meat CSA and fill their freezer with grass-fed hangar steak and pork belly destined for homemade ramen or home-cured bacon. That's what might happen now, in 2011, here in San Francisco. But this was 2004, only a couple of years after Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation had been published. Michael Pollan's New York Times Magazine article, Power Steer, which followed the short, unhappy life of one young, burger-destined steer in a Kansas feedlot, had just made millions of beef-eating Americans realize that most of the corn- and soy-stuffed animals they were buying had never come near a blade of grass. Grass-fed meat, what little there was of it, was hard to find, and usually available only shipped frozen from the Midwest. So what did they do? They started a butcher shop in New York's Hudson Valley selling only pasture-raised meats, a butcher shop that bought only whole animals from small farmers and ranchers they knew. Joshua, still vegan at the time they started the business, learned the butchery side, a trade plied by both his grandfather and great-grandfather. They called the shop Fleisher's Grass-Fed Organic Meats, from Joshua's family name. They got advice from dozens of retired butchers, almost all of whom told them that they were crazy, that they'd be out of business and worse, divorced, in a matter of months.

Now, some 7 years later, their business (and their marriage) is not just intact, but thriving. This fall, they're opening their second shop, in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood, with a third one planned for the Upper West Side. (Take that, Zabar's!) The food culture has caught up with them, and "grass-fed" and "pasture-raised" have entered the common dialogue of more than just a few provenance-obsessed food folks. This week, Joshua and Jessica made the trek West for a series of events promoting their new book, The Butcher's Guide to Well-Raised Meat: How to Buy, Cut, and Cook Great Beef, Lamb, Pork, Poultry, and More. I caught up with them at an after-party at Bernal Heights butcher shop Avedano's, following their book-signing at nearby Omnivore Books and their on-air appearance on KQED's Forum with Avedano's butcher and co-owner Tia Harrison. (Harrison is also the chef at Sociale and a co-founder of the Butchers' Guild.)

Like a lot of New Yorkers, Jessica has a San Francisco connection; while she was raised in Long Island, her father grew up here, and she lived in the city from 1989-1991, working at the San Francisco Bay Guardian and Mercury Press before moving to Tokyo and New York City. "I miss the real foodie culture here, the diversity of ethnicities. And the Mexican food!" she said as we stood near a candlelit platter of ham. She and her husband have dubbed Kingston, NY, where they have their shop, "Park Slope North" for the number of Brooklynites from that Berkeley-ish neighborhood who spend their weekends up in their locale. Woodstock (yes, that Woodstock) is close by, as is New Paltz, a busy college town whose young mayor made headlines in 2004 for issuing marriage licenses and performing civic weddings for 25 same-sex couples, six years before gay marriage was legalized in New York. Without customers from these bourgeois-bohemian enclaves, she admits, much of their painstakingly sourced, meticulously cut meat wouldn't get bought, week after week. Although their learning curve was steep (says Jessica, "We didn't have a learning curve; it just went straight up from the minute we started"), their butcher shop has become, amazingly, something almost exactly what they envisioned: a source not just of meat but of community, a place where the butchers know their customers by name, and where people chat and ask questions, take classes, share recipes and swap neighborhood gossip, and in the process, use their food dollars to support a whole network of local farmers, ranchers, slaughterhouses, and more.

Their book is an unintimidating, user-friendly guide for the home cook, one who's curious about this whole whole-beast thing but doesn't yet have the chops, or the knowledge, to get busy with a boning knife. It's a primer on primals, the "big cuts" that well-trained butchers break down into the more familiar chops, ribs, sirloins and roasts. This is no encyclopedia of meats; the type is big, there are lots of chatty sidebars and plenty of weekday-dinner recipes. Even if you never follow their instructions for butterflying a leg of lamb or frenching a crown roast, you can still learn a lot of useful basics to make you feel much more at home in front of a meat case. Particularly useful are the pages championing their favorite lesser-known butcher's cuts, like lamb sirloin (one of my favorites, and frequently on hand at Avedano's), the cuts that a butcher knows but rarely sells.

Jessica and Joshua Applestone. Photo by Jennifer May

While Joshua cuts the meat, Jessica talks to the customers, explaining everything from how grass-fed meat is a seasonal product to the best way to cook bacon (the details are in the book, but suffice it to say that you're probably doing it wrong. Low and slow, that's the ticket). You've probably seen the dotted-line cow or pig in a dozen cookbooks, segmented and labeled to show where the shank, loin, chuck roast or top round come from. Jessica discovered a faster way to teach customers why some cuts are tender, others tough: the dotted-line human. Just imagine yourself down on all fours, and you can feel where your tougher, working muscles are (like the shoulders, neck, and legs) and what's placid and fatty, like the belly, the back and the meat around the ribs. "I fought hard to get the human in the book!" she laughs, and while it's off-putting at first sight, it does the job. You're not likely to forget where a tenderloin comes from once you've seen it labeled right over a navel like your own.

Hard-core wanna-be butchers may find the book a little too basic for their cleaver-and-chain-mail tastes. For them, there's Ryan Farr's Whole Beast Butchery slated for publication later this fall. Farr, a butcher's butcher who started 4505 Meats, the man who made putting (artisanal) chicharrones on a (handmade) hot dog seem like the ultimate in porky deliciousness, will be offering more step-by-step photographs and specialized instruction, with no stinting on the tongues, ears, and brains. But as an introduction to being a thoughtful carnivore in the kitchen, The Butcher's Guide to Well-Raised Meat makes a fine argument for knowing your meats and knowing your butcher.

Joshua and Jessica Applestone will be participating in the Cochon 555's Heritage Fire event at Charles Krug Winery in Napa on Saturday, Aug 13. Tickets $100-$200.

Sustainable Meat and the Art of Butchery
In recent years, more chefs and consumers are demanding local, sustainable meats, driving some to raise and butcher their own livestock. KQED's Forum gets into the gristle with three butchers and talk all about meat, from what consumers should be asking at the counter to how to cook a whole pig in the backyard.

Original Broadcast: Wed, Aug 10, 2011 -- 10:00 AM

Host: Sydnie Kohara

Guests:
• Jessica Applestone, co-author of "The Butcher's Guide to Well-Raised Meat" and co-owner of Fleisher's Grass-fed & Organic Meats in New York
• Joshua Applestone, co-author of "The Butcher's Guide to Well-Raised Meat" and co-owner of Fleisher's Grass-fed & Organic Meats in New York
• Tia Harrison, co-owner of Avendano's Holly Park Market, executive chef and co-owner of Sociale restaurant and co-founder of The Butcher's Guild

Related Articles:
• A Tell-All Guide to Artisanal Butchery By Adriana Velez (Civil Eats)
• Events: Former Vegan and Vegetarian Write the Book on Sustainable Meat By Mollie McWilliams (SFoodie)

It's 4th of July weekend, and for a lot of Bay Area cooks that means heading outdoors and firing up the grill. Forum talks BBQ and grilling techniques, and compare notes on favorite foods prepared by fire.

Host: Dave Iverson

Guests:
• Amanda Gold, food writer for the San Francisco Chronicle
• Chris Ying, editor in chief for Lucky Peach Quarterly, a new journal of food writing published by McSweeney's
• Eric Markoff, chef at Anchor and Hope in San Francisco and developer of the BBQ program at Town Hall Restaurant
• Ryan Farr, owner, chef and butcher for 4505 Meats

Original Broadcast: Fri, Jul 1, 2011 -- 10:00 AM

Related Posts:
Grilled Pizza

A Greek meal worthy of the gods.

This weekend, Oakland's Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension is hosting their annual Oakland Greek Festival. Besides being a gathering of some of the East Bay's most colorful and enthusiastic Greek residents, the festival is home to some of the best Greek food the Bay Area has to offer.

Yesterday I hit up the festival's opening day, and was completely bowled over by the amount of food available. Every possible Greek delight you can imagine was being prepared by local cooks, from whole lamb on a spit to flaming cheese (seriously -- stand back when they set it on fire!). Saturday and Sunday are filled with Greek cooking demonstrations. If you've got some free time this weekend, can you think of a better way to spend a few hours?

Fresh calamari and French fries

Breading the calamari by hand.

John Constantine, calamari Superman

Flaming cheese -- this you really have to try.

Lamb goddess Karen Kolokithas

Fresh baklava, ready for a new home.

What kind of Greek festival would it be without the requisite feta and olives?

Loukoumades, or honey-dipped pastry puffs. There are not words.

Assorted Greek goodies for sale.

Alyssa Landis dishes out some of the most incredible lamb I've ever tasted.

Happy Greek chefs!

More luscious lamby bits...

Harry Greer unwrapping his lamb on a spit.

The [rather large] lamb, in all its glory.

Anna Wade grills meat for gyros.

Brittany Wade shows off her winning gyro-making skills.

---

2011 Oakland Greek Orthodox Festival: May 13, 14, 15
Oakland's Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension
4700 Lincoln Ave
Oakland, CA 94602

Admission: $6 for adults, children under 12 free. With a coupon, you can receive $1 off adult admission.

Where's the beef? These days, as numerous workshops at the recent EcoFarm Conference revealed, it's on the farm—right alongside the sheep, the chickens, the ducks, and the goats.

From a farming perspective, biodiversity used to mean replacing typical fenceline-to-fenceline monocropping (which you can still still see down in the Central Valley: huge tracts of dirt planted with nothing but straight lines of strawberries or lettuce) with a more photogenic mix of pollinator-feeding flowers, orchards, hedgerows, and assorted vegetables in colorful profusion, all working in sync to make the farm a happier habitat for beneficial bugs, predators, and people.

Now, however, more and more small farms (and vineyards) are getting livestock into the mix. Whether they're providing milk, eggs, meat, or labor, animals and poultry are taking their place again alongside the tractor and the compost pile as integral parts of the contemporary, sustainable organic farm.

The 2011 conference had a much more concentrated interest in horns and hoofs than in years past. At least half a dozen workshops focused on animal issues, ranging from "Ecosystem Services in Livestock Production" and "Cattle and Carbon: Rangeland Conservation & Climate Protection" to "Healthy Herds, Healthy Markets: Raising Heritage Breed Livestock and Poultry" and "Building a Local Meat Supply Chain."

Putting the proof onto the plate was Marin Sun Farms, our own local grass-fed meat company, whose in-kind sponsorship of the conference put excellent local chicken, bacon, and lamb onto the menu of Asilomar's dining room throughout the conference (which made, for the omnivores among us, a welcome alternative to the usual beans, kale, and quinoa).

Why have animals on a farm? Well, as one of the owners of Full Belly Farm pointed out, a productive, diversely-planted organic farm produces a lot of surplus food. Restaurants, retailers, CSA and farmers' market customers all want the good stuff. They'll pay for it, but it has to look and taste the best. And if you're not bathing your produce in pesticides to keep it the boring, munching, scarring bugs at bay, well, you're going to end up culling a whole lot of not-so-pretty, overripe or undersized stuff along the way.

Some of it feeds your family and your workers. Some of it can feed your compost. But if you want to turn oversize zucchini and beat-up tomatoes into usable, high-quality protein (not to mention plenty of fertilizer), well, nothing beats feeding it to pigs, goats, or chickens.

Backyard goats and chickens enjoying some sweet and crunchy discards from Star Route Farm

It's all part of the closed-loop system advocated by Rudolf Steiner, the Austrian polymath who mixed biology and soil science with folk wisdom and time-tested peasant farming practices, codifying it into what we now call biodynamics. Stripped of its more arcane spiritual elements, it's more or less the same down-to-earth, interconnected system advocated by Joel Salatin, the nattily dressed farmer/author of Virginia's Polyface Farm, who gave an impassioned speech last month in Point Reyes Station. Drawing from his latest book, The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer, Salatin turned the hay-lined Toby's Feed Barn into a tent revival for smart pasturing practices and mixed-use farms. Real pork, he insisted, wasn't a "white meat;" instead, if the pig's been raised right, rooting around, living out its full pig-attude, its meat should be iron-rich and consequently rosy pink.

Joel Salatin. Photo by Stephane von Stephane

Even wineries are getting in on the act: at Robert Sinskey, in Napa, part of the vineyards' biodynamic practice involves grazing down the weeds with sweet-faced Romney sheep, whose wool is sold alongside the wine in the tasting room.

But, as much as we might hope to be going back to a more natural practice with grass-fed meat and pastured eggs, few consumers are ready to think of steak and omelets as exclusively seasonal products, dictated by water, daylight, and temperatures just as much as asparagus or raspberries. If you have backyard chickens, you know that laying slows down dramatically as the days get shorter. Grass-fed cows have to be managed according to the ecosystems of their particular pastures.

Rearing animals on grass takes time, and as talk with numerous small farmers and ranchers at the conference proved, no one small farm or ranch can provide a year-round supply of freshly slaughtered meat. The answer? Co-ops and partnerships. As the workshop "Are CSAs Sustainable?" proved, a single farm limited by acreage, climate, and resources can't always produce enough variety to keep customers coming back for a box year-round. Your cool, moist, ocean-fogged farm might produce spectacular greens and kales—but what happens in July, when "greens fatigue" sets in and your members are longing for peaches and tomatoes? You can preach the virtues of chard; scrape up another loan, lease another parcel of land and increase your payroll; or partner with an inland neighbor already dripping in stone fruit and create a box that shares the wealth.

Niman Ranch does this on a large scale; Marin Sun Farms, Straus Family Creamery, and North Coast Meats on a smaller one. Partnering with other ranches helps produce a steady supply, while selling meat through a CSA, like the one described by Tyler Dawley of Barbarosa Ranchers in Red Bluff, insures not only a pre-sold market for the animals, but a chance to familiarize customers with cuts beyond the usual chops and tenderloins.

Cooperatives can also help with the biggest snag in the local-meat supply chain: getting access to a small-scale slaughterhouse, then finding a way through governmental wrapping and packing regulations scaled for the likes of Tyson Foods.

As State Director Dr. Glenda Humiston of USDA Rural Development pointed out, one of the top requests her office gets from rural communities (right after broadband) is access to small-scale slaughterhouses, particularly mobile ones that can move from community to community. Throughout the workshops, farmers with pigs, goats, sheep, and cattle on their land got up to beg for solutions, giving details of sudden shut-downs at nearby slaughterhouses (some affiliated with local ag-training universities) or wrapping/packing facilities.

No one, even the most carnivorous among us, likes to think too hard about how their main course went from animal to ingredient. But with meat moving out of the supermarket and into the farmers' market, thoughtful consumers have more and more chances to find out how their dinner lived, and to put their food dollars towards supporting land-healthy, humane practices.

For more background on the challenges of creating a local meat supply chain, read the report Where's the Local Beef? by Food and Water Watch.

"Have you tried the lamb brains?"

Well, it was just that sort of party. The lamb brains, so I was told, were simply smashing--like meaty custard, in the best possible way.

But the lamb brains weren't the half of it. The outdoor tables at last weekend's first Primal Napa event were a head-to-tail, guts-and-all celebration of going deep with meat. There were the strips of grilled beef heart, for starters, and a whole roasted Musquee de Provence squash stuffed with chunks of pork liver. Then slim slices of headcheese, unctuous slathers of nduja, much salume, even entire smoke-blackened lambs' heads, complete with jutting teeth and curled, fibrous tongues. "Yeah, just gnaw right on the jawbone," advised one chef-jacketed guy behind the table.

The setting was appropriately rustic, outside on a beautiful autumn afternoon, under the trees and up against the vines at the Chase Cellars' Hayne vineyard in Napa, with hay bales scattered and, for Napa, quite a young and stylish crowd. There was definitely money here, cool money with BMWs parked in the grass, strolling over for scoops of lamb brains and chunks of rare goat right off the bone.

Back in the hot zone, surrounded by smoking coals, piles of logs and a whole Mediterranean coastline of fresh rosemary branches was Mr. Meat himself, Incanto and Boccalone's Chris Cosentino, jogging from fire to fire in his flaming orange t-shirt emblazoned "USDA Choice," his voice worn to a rasp. In fact, all the cooks seemed to be having a swell time, getting sweaty and grimy surrounded by fire and meat.

Mopping harissa marinade over a long spitted row of feet-on chickens, nuzzling a flat of eggs into a pillow of hot ash, angling an entire spread-eagled goat (furry hooves intact) over a pile of flaming coals: the concept may have been based in subsistence cooking, but the style was deep in the smoky flair that only flambeing can bring.

The mood was definitely gleeful--meat does that to people--and in a funny way, honest. There was no getting away from the fact that eating here meant eating something that once had a face, because that face, or at least the edible bits of it--the tongue, the cheeks, even the eyeballs--were probably right there on the table next to the legs or ribs or tenderloin. And the animals had a pedigree: ask any cook, and they could tell you where the meat they were roasting came from, who raised it and how.

Elbowing up to the platter of slow-cooked pork Hudson Ranch pork belly (divine), one could eavesdrop on any number of serious discussions about heritage pig breeding. Get distracted for a few moments by the leather-and-chocolate Pinots from Hirsch Vineyards, and the roasted goat legs would be all but picked clean, although a few succulent morsels could always be chiseled off and shared by the kind woman wielding a chef's knife on the other side of the table. This wasn't down-home (the highlights and sunglasses on display were much too expensive for that) but there weren't any waiters or coddling, either. In fact, you had to do a little begging just to score a little paper plate and skimpy napkin. Some of the meat was in bite-sized slices; some was simply hacked up and plattered, letting the hungry pull through the shreds and fat with eager hands and plastic forks. We cooked it, the attitude seemed to be. You figure it out.

Up front were hands-on displays of rock-star butchering (a cross-coast trend recently chronicled in the New York Times under the headline Slaughterhouse Live) with Fatted Calf founder Taylor Boetticher whipping through a beef forequarter with deft strokes and cool aplomb. Neatly wiggling out the ball of a shoulder, he pointed out that this particular breakdown didn't require too much finesse, since all the meat was destined for sliders, a rough grind of aged meat and creamy fat made into mini-burgers for the hungry hordes. (Too true: with all the variety meats on display, the table handing out hot dogs and burgers was the one with the surging six-deep, hands-out crowd, right from the moment the patties hit the grill.)

Not surprisingly, the list of participants read like a who's who of current carnivorishness: Fatted Calf, 4505 Meats, Boccalone, Avedano's, Perbacco, Star Meats...and Ubuntu? Wait, that Ubuntu, Napa's famous yoga-studio/vegetarian restaurant, the place my vegan cousin and his new bride had a nearly religious experience over the cauliflower three ways? Thankfully, Ubuntu chef Jeremy Fox (not himself a vegetarian) joined the party to show that open fire-cooking can do wonderful things to vegetables, too. There were terra cotta pots brimming with Rancho Gordo beans in spicy broth, slippery whole roasted torpedo onions, and more.

As the sun slipped away and the strings of white lights lit up across the wine-pouring booths, the heavy hitters came out, finally ready after their hours in the hot zone, staked and salted, roasted and smoky. It was primal, and it was delicious.

Sorry, Mr. Foer. You may not eat it any more, but you know how good it can be.

Photos by Stacy Cahill

Last month, Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez, an outspoken leader on food safety and animal rights, hosted a special screening of the documentary, FOOD, INC. for a roomful of legislators in Sacramento. Thanks to a friend who works at the capitol, I was able to sneak in. It'd been a very long time since I've been surrounded by that many people wearing suits, and discussing public policy is not one of my favorite ways to make small talk (SBX2 3 or SB 135, anyone?). But seeing this important film with a roomful of legislators who were excited about sustainable food and who could actually institute change was one of the most powerful experiences I've had in a movie theatre.

You will soon be hearing a lot about FOOD, INC., a documentary directed by Robert Kenner, winner of both a Peabody and an Emmy for his previous film, Two Days in October. Opening in San Francisco on June 12, this latest release by Magnolia Pictures tackles the unenviable job of educating consumers about the agricultural industry. It's being called the Inconvenient Truth of the food world, and the quality of its production certainly compares well. Super-saturated colors, animation, engaging graphics, a sprinkling of humor to lighten its distillation of immense amounts of information, and a line-up of articulate, passionate speakers all meld into a highly viewable documentary.

Eric Schlosser, co-producer, and Michael Pollan, both ground the film with their journalistic approach. The soundtrack, with its ominous rumbling beneath mass production and the folksy guitar accompanying underdogs, manages to reveal the film's underlying stance, but FOOD, INC. strives admirably to present multiple views. Of course, that's a challenge when corporations refuse to take part in the conversation. (Monsanto, Tyson and many others declined to appear in the film.) The film offers a surprisingly evenhanded treatment of Walmart executives accompanied by Gary Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield Farm. Even more, rock stars of the sustainable food world, such as self-proclaimed grass farmer, Joel Salatin, inadvertently reveal the gray areas of their own much praised business models. After all, how sustainable are loyal customers who drive 400 miles to buy happy, healthy meat?

As someone who has visited feeding lots and blood-slicked slaughterhouses, once worked a very long day in a chicken processing facility, and still wrestles with her decision to continue eating meat, I attended the screening expecting another sermon for the converted. When one of the press contacts reminded me to use all caps whenever I referred to the title of film, I concentrated very hard not to roll my eyes. Yet I there I sat later, stunned by what I was learning.

There's Barbara Kowalcyk, a lifelong Republican who dedicated her life to changing food safety standards after her son died from eating a hamburger contaminated with E. coli and who now refuses to reveal what she eats for fear of being sued by the meat industry. (She doesn't have as much money for a legal team as Oprah does.) There's the fleet of Monsanto "private investigators" who knock on uncooperative farmers' doors to threaten, ever so politely and quietly, to put them out of business forever. There's the seed cleaner ruined for providing non-GMO seeds to his neighbors...and the deals struck by employers of undocumented workers with the border police…and the $18,000 that an average chicken farmer makes for a year of hard work...

But there's also the woman willing to lose her contract with Tyson in order to shed light on an oppressive industry, the farmers banding together, and the scores of other individuals in the film who are working to make a difference in ways both huge and small. It'd be an overstatement to say FOOD, INC. is optimistic, but it does end with some modest suggestions for what each viewer can do to help move us toward a safe, sustainable system. More importantly, its wider release will, like the Obamas' garden, help push the topic to center stage for the public and policymakers alike.

Anyone who needs a good, clear primer on the food industry and the state of agriculture in the U.S should see this documentary. If you're already well versed or long converted, it's an important film to see and discuss with others -- your mom who is addicted to the big box stores, your friends who aren’t convinced that local or organic is worth the extra effort, or your children who have a full life of choices ahead.

For as the film reminds us repeatedly, we cast our vote every time we eat.