The protesters inside the restaurant are Josiah Citrin, Brendan Collins (Waterloo and City), Raphael Lunetta (Jiraffe), Hiro and Lissa (Terra in Napa Valley and Ame in San Francisco), Mark Dommen (One Market in San Francisco) and Justin Wangler (Kendall Jackson in Sonoma)—along with the hundred or so dining “protesters,” shelling out $200 apiece for the “cause.” It’s a 1% “occupation”—of banquets! (For Dommen’s complete documentation of the night’s dishes, check out his Twitter feed.) The protesters outside the restaurant (protesting the chefs’ protest, savvy?) are from the Animal Protection and Rescue League, who spearheaded the statewide ban, and who are greeting the arriving diners with rather unappetizing imagery. The anti-ban protesters (Citrin et al) support the organization CHEFS, which advocates for “humane” production of foie in place of the ban, which would require hand-feeding of the ducks and put limits on how enormous their livers can be allowed to get; the group also points to the ongoing harassment of chefs by animal-rights activists. However, as CA Democratic Party chair, and author of the foie ban, John Burton noted in his recent L.A. Times op-ed on the topic, the bill was passed in ’04 in order to give foie producers almost eight years to develop more humane practices. He writes that he drafted the bill with Guillermo Gonzalez, of Sonoma Foie Gras. “Gonzalez urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature on the bill. At the time he wrote: ‘I have the moral stature to accept that if within the seven-and-a-half years established by S.B. 1520, science and government don’t arrive to the conclusion that the methods used in our foie gras production are acceptable … I will be ready to quit.’”

The eight years are up, and unfortunately, foie farming practices haven’t changed. If producers nationwide refuse to cop to what is undeniably cruel treatment (feeding machines, prolonged and agonizing liver disease), and take action to remedy them, then bans are the only ethical option. Of course, such action must be joined by bans of other insanely cruel factory farming practices, like gestation crates (also illegal in California, among a few other states); factory farming is the real enemy, whatever forms it takes.

Oh, also: Foie gras is an enormously overgrown, diseased, about-to-explode duck liver–ban or no ban, I’ll pass!

Ancient Industries | U.S. Shop.

Jennifer Love Hewitt: I Use Vanilla Extract to Attract Men! – UsMagazine.com.

Vegans bash Starbucks for beetle coloring in frappuccinos – USATODAY.com.

Blog — The Official Site of Chef Georgia Pellegrini | Food, Travel, Lifestyle, Hunting and Redefining Slow Food.

Gold has proven himself a brilliant and wide-grazing guide; it’s just too bad he is now behind a paywall, and can’t say “fuck” in his reviews anymore. A new day indeed…

Los Angeles’ reflection in a plate – latimes.com.

Good Food Winner! – Farmhouse Culture.

Al rodente: Could squirrel meat come back into vogue? | Grist.

I don’t have a specific recipe for the marmalade, since I’m partial to the “throw it in a pot and see” school of canning. But here’s what I did:

Wash your limes well and halve them lengthwise. Juice the limes and slice the rind very thinly. Put it all into a big measuring cup until you have a volume that is about half as much as you’d like to end up with. (So, to make about four 8-ounce jars, juice and slice about 2 cups of limes. This is woefully approximate.) Peel and grate a tidy pile of fresh ginger.

Pour the limes and ginger into a sturdy stainless steel or enameled pot along with a roughly equal amount of sugar (maybe a tad bit less) and just a splash of water. Bring the mixture to a boil then turn off the heat and let it sit for several hours or overnight.

When you are ready to can, bring the mixture back to a boil and then let it simmer until it “gels.” This should take at least 15-20 minutes, depending on the volume. Keep stirring, and keep it from boiling, or you will end up with burned marmalade. To test for gel, chill a teaspoon in the freezer, scoop out a little from the pot and stick it in the fridge. If it sets up into a nice jamlike consistency within a few minutes, it’s ready.

While the marmalade is cooking, sterilize your jars and get your hot-water-bath canner ready as per these instructions. Essentially, you want your jars to be clean and hot, and your lids simmering so they will weld with the jars. Fill the hot jars with hot marmalade, leaving 1/2 inch “headspace” at the top. Seal tightly and process them in your boiling water bath for at least 10 minutes, but no more than 15. Remove the jars and let cool. The lids should pop when the seal is complete, and your marmalade is shelf-stable.