Food Guys

The Food Guys detail problems with antibiotic use at concentrated animal feed operations (CAFOs), discuss ethical concerns over treatment of animals, and question the claim that CAFOs are more efficient or cost effective than smaller operations.

Concentrated animal feed operations (CAFOs) are often credited with being an efficient and cost-effective way of raising animals. "The Food Guys" disagree, pointing to hidden costs such as heavy antibiotic use, a staggering amount of waste produced by CAFOs, and poor treatment of the animals. "The Food Guys" delve into these issues in the first of their two-part series on CAFOs.

About morel mushroom season, Food Guy Jon says: "The morel hunt is a pleasure in itself." Other Food Guy Greg points out that you can also hunt for a pound of mushrooms at your local farmers market. (He recommends seeking out vendors who sell mushrooms by weight, using a scale.) The versatile morel can be made into a side dish, into pasta sauce or soup, or an appetizer over toast points.

Eggs Benedict Florentine. Crepes Florentine. Chicken Breast Florentine. Thanks to Catherine de Medici's obsession with spinach, we can designate any dish containing the green stuff "Florentine." That includes spinach quiche. "Food Guy" Greg Patent's got the recipe:

Greg Patent's recipe for asparagus quiche combines the elegant flavors of eggs, custard and asparagus - which Greg calls the "queen of vegetables" - with the ease of a low-fuss, press-in, quick-mix pastry dough. Mix the dry ingredients with vegetable oil and milk and press the dough into a pie pan. That’s it. For a buttery taste you can put in ghee instead of oil. Why ghee and not just plain melted butter? Butter is about 18 percent water. Ghee is clarified butter and, like vegetable oil, water

Here's "Food Guy" Greg Patent's recipe for Moroccan lamb tagine with apples. (A "tagine" can refer either to a Moroccan stew, or the cooking vessel you bake it in.) This dish can - and should - be made ahead and slowly reheated, for maximum flavor. You can substitute beef chuck or rump roast for lamb. The winter squash's sweetness complements the apple and lamb flavors.

Empanadas. Panzerotto. Samosas. Knishes. According to The Food Guys, Jon and Greg, you can close your eyes, spin the globe, and wherever you land, there's another turnover. Chinese dumplings and j iaozi ( pot stickers), Russian piroschki, Welsh pasties, Italian calzone, and American moonpies: whether it's savory or sweet, made with yeast dough or pastry dough, baked or fried, Greg recognizes its essential turnover-ness.

You won't catch The Food Guys, Jon and Greg, curbing their enthusiasm for "the lordly avocado," as Jon calls it. What other fruit's versatility, taste, and high fat qualifies it as a "super food?" They're amused but not surprised by its sudden hipness among throngs of Millennial avocado toast-eaters.

The Food Guys, Greg Patent and Jon Jackson, discuss a 2013 New York Times article by Kenneth Chang titled "More Helpful Fatty Acids Found in Organic Milk." Chang writes: "Whole milk from organic dairies contains far more of some of the fatty acids that contribute to a healthy heart than conventional milk...Nonorganic cows that graze in pastures also produce milk with greater amounts of omega-3s."

Food Guy Greg Patent recalls: "While I was hunting for immigrant bakers for my cookbook, “A Baker’s Odyssey,” I asked my Welsh friend and fellow Missoulian, Tottie Parmeter, if she might have a recipe she’d like to contribute. She said she’d be delighted to show me how to make it, so here it is.