Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program is helping all of us help the oceans.

Michael’s headed to California today on an invitation from the Monterey Bay Aquarium to attend its annual Cooking for Solutions event where he will be honored with a distinguished group of chefs as a Seafood Ambassador.

The focus of Cooking for Solutions is to help people connect their individual buying decisions to the health of the oceans and the soil.  The events support the aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, helping consumers make informed seafood choices while dining out or in the grocery store through pocket guides, website, mobile applications and outreach efforts.   Since 1999, it has distributed tens of millions of pocket guides, had more than 240,000 iPhone app downloads, and cultivated close to 200 partners across North America, including the two largest food service companies in the U.S.

Seafood Watch is also a resource for the decision makers on the supply side of the marketplace — restaurateurs, food service companies and retailers like us.  In fact, we recently called on their help with a question about grouper.  Our sourcing decisions are made based on longtime relationships with trusted local suppliers, first and foremost.  So when fisherman George Figueroa from Trigger Seafood came to us wanting to offer spear caught black grouper in the area of the Florida Keys, and because of the particular stigma attached to grouper, we made sure to check with Seafood Watch, too.

There are more than 85 species of grouper worldwide. They’re long-lived (up to 40 years) and reproduce for only short periods, making them especially vulnerable to overfishing. Many grouper species are overfished and on the Avoid list. The U.S. grouper fishery is concentrated in the Gulf of Mexico, just west of Florida state waters. Many grouper species from the Gulf of Mexico as well as grouper from the U.S. Atlantic are on the “Avoid” list. In the Gulf of Mexico, red grouper and black grouper populations have increased and are therefore classified as “Good Alternatives.”

According to Dr. Tom Pickerell, FRSA, Senior Science Manager at Seafood Watch, their recommendation for Black grouper from the Gulf of Mexico DOES COVER those caught off the Keys. Zatcoff (2001) conducted genetic studies on black groupers and found that black grouper from the Florida Keys are genetically identical to black grouper found elsewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. Therefore, a single stock assessment was conducted for both groups. Two thumbs up; the season is technically May through January, but in June the fish go to deeper waters when it gets hot at the surface. In addition to finding it at MGFD for this short window Trigger can spearfish it, Top Chef Kevin will offer a second course Black Grouper with rock shrimp succotash, garlic chive butter, and either dandelion or mustard greens at SBRAGA Pizzeria on Tuesday.

Monterey Bay Aquarium’s 11th annual summer celebration of organic and sustainably grown produce, sustainably caught seafood and organic/sustainably grown wines occurs over 4 days of events, demonstrations and book signings for audiences ranging from 20 to 2,200 people.  Michael’s friend and overall amazing sustainer of responsible, succulente food, Michel Nischan, will receive the Chef of the Year award.   Past honorees include Rick Moonen, Alice Waters, Suzanne Goin, Rick Bayless, Thomas Keller, Jacques Pepin, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger and many others.  A recipe for sustainability if I ever heard one!

The aquarium evaluates candidates not only for their support of environmentally responsible fishing and fish-farming practices, but also for their role as leaders and educators in the industry who are or can become spokespersons for the sustainable seafood movement.

As an honored chef, Michael will be serving 1,000 tastes of his Cured Sierra Mackerel with Meyer Lemon Aioli & Radish Celery Salad  for the gala event on Friday, and we’ve included the recipe here for you to try at home with Spanish Mackerel, the species that makes environmental sense this time of year in our waters. People think of mackerel as oily and stinky. But what we get in here off the Florida Keys is so fresh you don’t even know you’re eating mackerel! When you buy local and sustainable, you get the freshest and most flavorful fish so you only need 2 or 3 more ingredients for a great dish.  Case and point below.

Swimming in the good stuff: Michael’s Spanish Mackerel getting an olive oil and lemon juice cure last December at the Palm Beach Wine & Food Festival.

Cured Sierra Mackerel with Meyer Lemon Aioli & Radish Celery Salad 

Serves 8 as appetizer

1 pound of Sierra Mackerel filet, skin on
½ cup Kosher salt
½ cup sugar
½ cup lemon juice
½ white wine
4 radishes, finely shaved on mandolin
1 head of celery
¼ cup of chives, cut into ½ inch sticks
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon Meyer lemon juice
Kosher salt and freshly cracked pepper
Meyer Lemon Aioli (recipe follows)

Cut Sierra mackerel in to 1 x 2 inch sushi slices.  Dredge both sides in the salt and then the sugar and lay in a non-reactive 9” x 13” baking dish in a single layer.  Mix lemon juice and white wine together and pour over the sushi slices.  Let sit for 25 minutes.

Take the celery head and remove outer stalks, set aside for another use. Remove the leaves and place in a small stainless steel bowl. Shave inner stalks thinly on a mandolin and add to the bowl along with the radishes, celery, and chives. Set the bowl in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Remove the pieces of fish from the wine and lemon juice mixture and pat dry with paper towels. Wash & dry the baking dish and set the cured fish back in the dish in a single layer and cover with 1 cup olive oil.  You can leave the fish out at room temperature for 4-6 hours until ready to serve or refrigerate for up to 1 week. Be sure to let refrigerated fish come to room temperature before serving.

To serve chill 8 small round plates.  Place a tablespoon of aioli on each plate and spread slightly with the back of a spoon. Place 2-3 pieces of fish on the aioli and drizzle with some of the marinating oil. Sprinkle the fish with a twist of cracked black pepper. Remove the bowl with the celery and radish mixture from the refrigerator and lightly dress with the meyer lemon juice and 1 tablespoon olive oil. Season lightly with salt & pepper. Top with just dressed salad and serve.

Meyer Lemon Aïoli

Makes 1 cup

2 garlic cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg yolk

1 Meyer lemon, zested and juiced

1 cup olive oil

In a mortar, pound the garlic and salt to form a paste. Stir in the egg yolk, lemon zest, and juice until integrated. Add the olive oil in a slow trickle to the side of the mortar, stirring quickly until completely combined.

Vinny works on Michael’s cookbook pop-up dinner menu in Animal’s kitchen (Los Angeles, May 2011.)

Tickets for Animal Pizzeria are now live on this link! HINT: Great Father’s Day gift!

After wowing us by hosting Michael for a Genuine Animal dinner celebrating his cookbook in LA last year, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo are South Florida-bound where it all began for them in culinary school to cook at Harry’s. We cannot wait to get it on.  Hope they don’t mind trading their two story kitchen clearance for our little closet!

After esteemed visiting guest chefs Gabrielle Hamilton, Jonathan Waxman, Marc Vetri, Jonathon Sawyer, and Kevin Sbraga (a mere tinsel of tickets left for SBRAGA Pizzeria on 5/22,) Michael welcomes the chef/owners of Animal and Son of a Gun in Los Angeles to Harry’s Pizzeria on Sunday, June 17 at 7:00 p.m.  Check them out in this weekend’s Wall Street Journalfor their shrimp toast!  We may even get a shout, too. : )

Jon & Vinny’s smoked fish dip from Son of a Gun at Marc Vetri’s Alex’s Lemonade Stand event in Philadelphia last summer.

As with all chef pops, seating for Animal Pizzeria is first come, first served. Making new friends is encouraged and easy when you’ve got a welcome cocktail in hand with hors d’oeuvre, four courses, free-flowing wines by The Genuine Hospitality Group sommelier and Wine Director Eric Larkee and our tap beers at your disposal.  Go home with a special gift from the guys, too. All that and tax and gratuity are included in the ticket price.  Claim your spot today, exclusively online at Brown Paper Tickets.  Ready… GO!

The gremlins are coming out to play for Craft Beer Week!

Craft Beer Week starts TODAY!  Beer aficionados in cities across the country are toasting to small, independent and traditional breweries with what the American Brewers Association defines as an annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less  and can not be more than 24% owned by another alcoholic beverage company that is not itself a craft brewery.

To mark the occasion, we are checking in with Beverage Director Ryan Goodspeed on how Harry’s Pizzeria — where we focus specifically on craft and local brews — is embracing the week-long festival, as well as get an update of what’s going on with our list at MGFD.

“Harry’s will be participating with 7 Days of Celebration,” Ryan explains. “We will simply be rotating kegs on and off tap as they are consumed. Whoever orders the last beer off a keg gets to enjoy what’s in that glass as well as a complimentary beer off the next keg going online!”

Harry’s Craft Beer Week beers are Avery Majaraja IPA, Bluepoint Rastafari Rye Pale Ale, Cigar City Ligero Black Lager, Dogfish Saison du Buff, Ommegang Hennepin Farmhouse Ale, and Stone Brewing Co. Arrogant Bastard.  Check the chalkboard or ask your server what’s on, on your visit!

Ryan Goodspeed getting his craft beer on at an MGFD pre-shift meeting.

MGFD’s current menu is a forward display of bold and subtle flavors available from U.S. craft brewers and foreign specialty brewers, loosely divided between lighter styles on the left giving way to medium and full bodied options as you track down the right.

“I try to satisfy categories, tastes and regions year round to keep the menu enticing. But Spring and Fall are always my favorite times of the year for beers!” Ryan says.  ”The rest of the time it’s German Lager in the summer and Craft Porters in the winter!”

Foreign countries often dominate the left side of the menu.These regions have an uncanny ability to produce light, flavorful yet bold flavors hinging on the brewing process, yeasts used and hops added. Alcohol content can range as high as 13% but normally no more than 7%. All these beers tend to pair exceptionally well with menu items or can be consumed easily without. Some current staples would be Schonramer  Gold Lager, Saison Dupont Farmhouse, Scheiders Organic Edel Wiesse and Pilsner Urquell.

Follow Craft Beer week on Twitter @craftbeer1 with #ACBW, and Ryan @goodspeedryan.

Eric leading his seminar yesterday at Vintages, Oasis of the Seas’ wine and tapas bar on Deck 8′s Central Park.

Ahoy from the Atlantic! We’re sailing back to the mainland today, for an early morning arrival to Port Everglades, and it has been a great few days aboard testing the new summer menus for 150 Central Park. We have tons of photos uploading through the slow and challenged Internets right now of the dishes being tested in the kitchen and of course beauty shots, too!  But part of the fun of having a large MGFD contingent aboard is we get to showcase all the amazing talent we are made of — and it’s of course not limited to the galley.

Yesterday Eric led a seminar on articulating dryness and sweetness in wine using a horizontal tasting of Gewurtzaminer, a great grape to isolate the flavor profile variable since it has a very consistent and acute nose and palate of lychee and rose.  He assembled the following spectrum and encouraged tasters to go from left to right and right to left — and even jump around a bit.

Guests’ Gewurtztraminer roadmap.

Eric explained, “The word dry is one of the most difficult words to use in any guest interaction. In regards to red wine, dry is often misused to describe a tannic wine that produces a drying sensation. When most guests say that want a wine that is “not too dry” they don’t actually mean that they want a sweet wine, they want one soft in tannin.”

The perception of sweetness has both subjective and objective elements to it. The cocktail order of a margarita, but “not too sweet” isn’t actually of much help to a bartender because it is a relative order. The bartender has no background on the like/dislike threshold of the guest, only knowing to err on the side of tart. Just like in a margarita, the perception of sweetness in a wine is about the balance of sugar and acidity.

Riesling is a great example of a grape that has often been mislabeled and perceived as always sweet, and the International Riesling Foundation has had to work hard to make it better understood.  It has made huge strides over the past few years in doing so, thanks to efforts like Summer of Riesling (coming to Miami again this summer – stay tuned!) and better terminology on bottles, like the implementation of a dryness scale. The IRF scale defines a wine as dry if the amount of acidity is greater than sugar (pH is a wild-card, the lower it is the higher in acid a wine will taste, on the converse, the higher the pH the sweeter a wine will taste). Medium-dry is for wines that have a sugar to acid ratio between 1 and 2, medium-sweet 2 to 4 and sweet greater than 4. In spite of the subjectivity of something tasting to sweet these are objective measurements. If producers can be consistent in labeling wines and wine professional can be consistent in communication then we can establish actually sensory meaning to these terms.

Amen! Listen to Eric, everyone, you may learn a thing or two!

Peanut butter pops, one of Hedy’s treats for cookingchanneltv.com.

As if writing and recipe testing her first cookbook wasn’t enough, Hedy’s trying her hand at the keyboard to indulge us once again! In advance of her highly anticipated volume of favorite recipes, our pint-sized executive pastry chef yesterday began sharing all-new material outside of the table of contents and her dessert menu including new, original recipes on CookingChannelTV.com and sweet tips on Foodnetwork.com’s FN Dish. Hedy’s posts on FN Dish will go live every other Wednesday and will highlight her bold, playful approach to nostalgic treats and the sweet side of comfort food. In her first post, “Salt in Sweets,” Hedy shares how using salt in desserts can boost flavor, even when making ice cream.

“Some of my fondest early memories include trips to the Entenmann’s bakery outlet with my mom and experiments in the Easy-Bake Oven,” Hedy explains. “As a pastry chef, keeping the fun in dessert is very important to me. I’m excited to help the home baker do the same with tips and recipes that any fan of crispy, crunchy, creamy, chocolaty, salty-sweet will love.”

Starting with summer, readers can look forward to family-style desserts brightened up to reflect the season on CookingChannelTV.com, such as Rhubarb Blackberry Crumble with Pistachio, Ginger, Cardamom & Orange, Cherry Clafoutis, and Fried Peach Pie, as well as frosty treats perfect for a hot day like Frozen Peanut Butter Pie Pops and Key Lime Pie Ice Cream Sandwiches. Each of the first 10 recipes will be posted with an original, color photograph of Hedy’s finished product, with 10 more to follow later this fall. On FN Dish, Hedy will share her unique and unconventional perspective on subjects including ingredients (Salt in Sweets, Sunday in the Park with Basil,) technique (Sweet Meets Grill, Let’s Go Shopping at Home Depot,) and presentation (On a Stick, In a Jar,) for a total of 24 posts.

Find Hedy’s recipes here and FN Dish posts on her  author page.  And remember you can also watch Unique Sweets on the Cooking Channel as Hedy waxes on yummy goodies from her favorite pastry chefs across the country.  Sweet!

The third episode of our new show, Genuine Cayman, airs tonight at 8:00 p.m. (rather than 7:00 p.m.) on Cayman 27.  In “Brasserie Catch,” Michael heads out fishing with chef Niven Patel of the Brasserie Grand Cayman, one of the first fine dining restaurants on-island to make a conscious effort to source locally — even planting its own garden right behind the dining room.  South Florida chef Dean Max took over the operation in 2006, and back in Janurary of 2010 when we visited during Cayman Cookout, it was our first taste of what a restaurant like Michael’s Genuine could be on-island long before we opened our doors for the first time later that summer.  Much of the groundwork laid by Dean and his paved the way for us to make connections with local farmers that now form the backbone of our menus in Grand Cayman.

We wanted to get to know how Niven was embracing his own new arrival on island from Miami earlier this year, recently taking over the kitchen, so what better way than to go fishing out on one of the restaurant’s boats (yes, they have two that exclusively catch for the Brassiere!)  From the looks of it, the chefs had more than mere fishing line in their hands, like a refreshing coconut water drink care of beverage director Kyle Kennedy, made with sugarcane straight from their garden.  Way to go fish, gentlemen!

Preview the fishing trip in the You Tube video above, and stay tuned for the full episode on-air including the preparation of Niven’s “Brasserie Catch” Snapper with Local Beans, Pickled Green Mango and Seasoning Pepper Vinaigrette, that you can make yourself at home with the recipe below.

“Brasserie Catch” Snapper with Local Beans, Pickled Green Mango and Seasoning Pepper Vinaigrette

Serves 4 people

2 green mangos (peeled and chopped)
Juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon chili powder
2 tablespoon broken fenugreek seeds
1 tablespoon mustard oil
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 two-pound snappers (filleted and cleaned of any pin bones)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound local beans
Kosher salt & pepper to taste
Seasoning Pepper Vinaigrette (recipe follows)

In a mixing bowl combine mangos, lime juice, salt, chili, fenugreek seeds, mustard oil, and olive oil. Set aside and let marinate for at least 30 minutes.

Place a heavy pan on high heat, and when it is very hot sear snapper starting with the skin side down. Cook the fish for 4 minutes on the skin side, flip, and then cook for 2 minutes more.

While snapper is cooking set a pan on medium heat to cook the beans. Once the pan is hot add remaining oil and roast beans until tender, about 5 minutes to cook.

Line 4 plates on table. Place the beans in the center of the plate, followed by the pickled green mango. Place fish on top and drizzle with the seasoning pepper vinaigrette.

Seasoning Pepper Vinaigrette:

Makes 1 cup

4 seasoning peppers (finely chopped)
2 lemons (juiced)
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl and whisk. Season with salt and pepper.

Jamie Oliver has stamped May 19 as Food Revolution Day, his first-ever worldwide call-to-action to inspire, educate, and empower people everywhere to raise awareness on preventing diet-related diseases, and to arm people with the knowledge and tools to make healthier food choices. This global effort is focused on getting food education back in schools while promoting the importance of eating fresh, local and sustainable food — a cause close to our hearts here at home with our work in Miami-Dade County Public Schools through its Chefs Partnership.

When Jamie’s foundation reached out last week and asked Michael to help get Miami on-board to participate by hosting one of 20 Food Revolution Dinners across the country, we of course said yes! 

View the menu and purchase a ticket to our dinner on Saturday, May 19 at 6:00 p.m. here through Grubwithus, a social dining experience that brings new people together over delicious food.  $43 gets you a seat at a table for 10, stimulating conversation with like-minded friends you haven’t met yet, and four genuinely delicious courses.  Before attending, don’t forget to visit foodrevolutionday.com to find and create your own local food events. Already, more than 800 groups from 45 countries have signed up to take action.  One hundred percent of Food Revolution Day net funds raised will go to support food education projects for both children and adults through the Jamie Oliver Foundation in the U.S., UK and Australia.

While the growing season is winding down here in South Florida, up in Ocoee just outside of Orlando, Lake Meadow Naturals is alive with activity!

“Spring is a very busy time not only for ducklings, but for lots of animals that are being born and hatching,” explains farmer Dale Volkert. “We had 18 goats born the last 2 weeks, over 100 geese, 240 turkeys, guinea hens, 2 baby calves, let alone the batch after batch of ducklings. And ducklings are a lot of work when they start to hatch!”

We’ve been working with Dale and his team at Lake Meadow since fall of 2010 when we fell in love with his farm after a visit to shoot Michael’s television pilot, The Local Table.  Michael’s Genuine has been sourcing product from him for ever since; what began with heritage eggs including chicken, duck, guinea fowl, and goose has grown to include poultry such as broilers, fryers, and poussin — even goat.  We’ve placed an order for 18 ducks for SBRAGA Pizzeria, our Harry’s pop-up on May 22.  A lot can happen in a month!

“Ducks take about 28 days to develop inside the egg. Their egg tooth lets them cut around and through the shell and then push themselves out,” Dale continues. We then move them to a brooder, each holding 400 chicks which keeps them at 95 degrees and introduces them to water and an all natural diet of grains and vitamins.  We reduce the temperature 5 degrees each week until we get to room temperature and watch them closely. They drink a lot of water or should I say they like to play in a lot of water and they want more than they need but that’s just how ducks are. We then move them outside into duck hotels which we call them where they have more space to run around in and start to really enjoy playing in the water and enjoying life.  Once they get about 50% of their feathers on we let the doors open and they explore pastures and open spaces as they grow up into adult ducks.”

The Lake Meadow pasture is a beautiful thing.  It now plays home to 400 turkeys and 100 geese, baby ducks, and they even had to get donkeys.  They work wonders to control wild predators like coyotes, foxes and bobcats.

“We took the turkeys and geese
over to Jeremy and Heather’s farm who are farm partners of ours to raise them until harvest,” Dale shares.  “They have 15 acres and took a pair of our geese and the moment the babies drove in they were curious and adopted them as if they were their own. Geese are wonderful parents and very protective of even adopted chicks.”

Since we visited, the farm has updated its infrastructure, too, adding hydroponic gardens and several new chicken barns, three near the local farmers market and some up by the hydroponic gardens and orchard.  We can’t want to get back there!  For more information on Dale’s eggs, please find him featured in the current issue of Edible South Florida magazine.

Michael is in Washington D.C. today for the Heart’s Delight Wine Tasting & Auction with master winemakers, chefs and distinguished guests who will play and bid in the Nation’s Capital to benefit the American Heart Association. Chef’s friend and first Harry’s pop-up victim Gabrielle Hamilton has participated for the past four years and this weekend joins new Chicago contingent Paul Kahan, Graham Elliot, and Stephanie Izard, as well as Boston’s Jamie Bissonette, David Myer from Los Angeles… You get the picture.

Line cook Keith Kalmanowicz is sitting shotgun as Chef serves attendees Pan Roasted Confit of Lamb with fava beans, mint & onion sauce. But what should they be eating while they’re in town?

We asked our esteemed brand/PR intern to spill the beans, Victoria Calleja currently of Georgetown University and as of May 21, our 39th street office for her second summer with The Genuine Hospitality Group.  She delivered the goods with the above camera phone gallery depicting the following trustworthy hit list (left to right) any #foodcrazy can appreciate.  Trust us, and so should Schwartz!

- This is my favorite shrimp burger from Proof: Proof Shrimp Burger, jalapeno, shaved cucumber, cilantro, pickled daikon & carrots
- The lobster risotto is from Graffiato
- The dumplings (spring vegetable dumpling, but I can’t find the description anywhere!) are from The Source

Miami’s hottest restaurant show online — sporting an ingredient motif in its logo not unlike our Friends with You wall at Harry’s — is now coming to a TV near you!  That’s right.  Our friends at Chat Chow are the featured food segment on WPBT2′s new show, Content Miami, taking the best programming created for the web in the South Florida area and broadcasting it over the air. Chat Chow goes behind the scenes with the chefs, owners and barmen and women of Miami’s celebrated restaurant industry, like Michael!  We filmed an episode with host WiiFit girl Lauren Bernat and producer Gio Gutierrez last fall on Oasis of the Seas, when we first introduced Chef’s Farm-to-Ship menus onboard.

We’re all fired up for their small screen premiere at midnight tonight, Friday, May 4, so we’re marking the occasion with a special at Harry’s Pizzeria. Customers who visit Harry’s today can enjoy the Chat Chow Calzone for $12, featuring Michael’s housemade dough fired until crisp in our wood oven with creamy, organic ricotta and mozzarella cheese, and fire-rosted tomato sauce on the side for dipping. Add two of our craft beers on draught or a Miller High Five bucket for $10 more.

See you then!