SAN DIEGO BOAT SHOW

2016 SAN DIEGO BOAT SHOW

"The sea is the same as it has been since before men ever went on it in boats." - Ernest Hemingway

This Father's Day Weekend, the San Diego International Boat Show® cruises into Harbor Island––June 16-19 for four days of fun on the water. I remember the first time I went to a boat show with my dad, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Hundreds of boats and yachts in all shapes and sizes, prices and colors.  I remember that unforgettable smell of brand new fiberglas, with everyone dreaming about being on the water––because we were inside on the floor of a sports arena with snow or rain coming down outside,  not on the bay under our San Diego blue skies!  

Whether you are a seasoned sailor, world-class cruiser or just love a fun day on the water, there is something for everyone to enjoy at this year's San Diego Boat Show. The in-water display area will increase by 120-feet, bringing in 50 more boats. There is sure to be a boat in every price range. This is a great family outing, even if you aren't planning on buying a new boat.  

As the region’s premier summer boating event, the 2016 Boat Show provides attendees with an all-access pass to discover the boating lifestyle––along with a chance to shop the newest boats and marine accessories. The $15 entrance fee gives you access to more than 200 vessels, from entry-level family cruisers and personal watercraft, to sailboats and luxury super-yachts. All will be docked in the marina or parked on land for visitors to browse, board, and buy.

The boat show also offers visitors of all ages the chance to get their feet wet, with a variety of activities––including stand-up paddle-boarding (SUP) and kayaking. Boaters can sharpen their skills at workshops and seminars presented by experts, educators, and adventurers. A variety of good eats from the area’s most popular food trucks, a floating Tiki-Bar, Anchors & Ales Beer Garden, and live entertainment make the Boat Show an ideal place to shop, tour, learn, and relax with friends and family. 

What is more San Diego then being on the water in America’s Finest City?  Surprise Dad this Father’s Day weekend and get a little taste of the local “Good Life” on San Diego Bay.   

Check out the vendors and buy tickets at the San Diego International Boat Show.

Show Details:

Thursday through Sunday, June 16-19, 2016

Thursday, June 16 and Friday, June 17 – Noon to 7 p.m.

Saturday, June 18 – 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Sunday, June 19 – 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Happy Father’s Day!)

Where: Spanish Landing Park, East 

(N. Harbor Drive directly across from the airport)

3900 N. Harbor Island Drive, San Diego, CA 92101

Admission:

$15 – Adults (16 years & older) 

FREE – Children (12 years & under)

FREE with proper ID – Active military personnel, Fire and Police

"So, You Wanna Be A Chef?"

‘So, You Wanna be a Chef?'

" If you strive like crazy for perfection - an all out assault on total perfection - at the very least you will hit a high level of excellence, and then you might be able to sleep at night." Charlie Trotter

Recently, I donned my pressed cotton chef coat for the first time in what felt like years. One of my mentors, a sustainability savant and culinary powerhouse, invited me up to the Ecology Center at South Coast Farms in San Juan Capistrano for a Farm to Table dinner. The event was a celebration of our local ‘Fishermen and Divers of the Newport Dory Fleet,’ at a Community Table Dinner with Fishmonger Paddy Glennon of Superior Seafoods, and Chef Jason McLeod of Ironsides Fish and Oyster. With a rock-star volunteer crew of chefs and cooks, we organized and executed a multi-coursed extravaganza, while experts in industry spoke to the crowd about sustainability and their work in the field.

Putting that coat on for me has the effect of what a soldier putting on his body-armor before a battle must feel like, what Superman putting on his cape does for him. It exudes an air of confidence and competence and authority. Seven months ago I was in Florida for a few months for family obligations and was giving a family friend help with her catering business. My second day there, I walked in on the chef unannounced. He was drunk. In my bathing suit and flip-flops, I fired him on the spot, put on an apron and prepped, cooked and ‘banged-out’ two parties with a competent dish-washer who took direction well and some patient understanding guests. My point being, “although that pretty coat looks nice and I wear mine with pride, a coat does not a chef make.” 

These days I see posts everywhere on Facebook from my industry friends in need of both line-cooks and dishwashers. First of all, anyone not in industry must understand that these two positions are the fuel for the giant engine that turns the props on any ship. There is a noticeable lack of competent, dependable raw talent in this town and in most major markets across our country right now. Culinary schools have gone defunct, have been sold or are wrapped up in enormous class-action-lawsuits because they did not deliver on their promise. Talented cooks cannot afford the price of a culinary degree so they can graduate only to find a $10 an hour job with no benefits. We live in a border-town (San Diego), but even the influx of talented Latino cooks at bargain rates has dried up. Our industry has priced itself out of any kind of life, let alone the notion of “quality of life.”

Owners gripe about an increase in the minimum hourly wage in the same breath that they bitch about not being able to find any help. Congress gripes about Obama-Care when human beings that have worked in a kitchen for 25 years now have legitimate health insurance for the first time in their lives.

It is in the absence of these ‘seasoned’ cooks that mentorship, the most fundamental element of being a good chef, comes into play. It is the premise of why I write this article and the point I want to convey. 

When I did my apprenticeship, I had two chef mentors. My executive chef was a woman named Heather Allen and her Sous at the time was Nicci Tripp. In both cases I have maintained long-term relationships, worked for both of them again, and even proudly become the Godfather to Nicci’s son. Both of my mentors taught me the fundamentals including: butchery, stock and sauce-work, Sauté, grill, product handling, menu design and food costing. Not to mention the even more important skill of how to clean and maintain a kitchen, chop flour, and find a bucket of steam at the back of the walk-in on a slammed Saturday night in pure chaos.

In this big city that is a small town I see examples of these relationships at the very top of the food chain. On any given night you can walk in to eat at The Wrench and Rodent/Whet Noodle hoping to catch a glimpse or taste of Davin Waite’s food. Chef Davin is the absolute pinnacle of the food chain in San Diego and on so many personal occasions I have seen James Montejano or Keith Lord sitting at his Sushi Counter. Both of these men were mentors to Davin and continue to be peers. All three of these chefs are the top talent in San Diego County and still share that comaraderie. They continue to still give back to one another and they define the brand of chef I believe the drought of skilled line employees needs in order to overcome the shortage.

Train your staff. Nurture these kids and adults who work for you. Treat them like family. Give your team skills to raise their families and I promise you they will always be there for you. The cream will always rise but I promise you that when you mentor even the mediocre to the next level, they will rise to the occasion and go to battle with you. One day my obituary will read, “He turned dishwashers into chefs,” and that is just fine by me! 

BioSystemic Consulting LLC, Word of Mouth San Diego

The Reign of Corn!

The Family Jewels!

One of my earliest living memories is of being on a farm,with my father teaching me how to pull the silky green skin back on an ear of corn to be sure there were both white and yellow kernels on the cob, and that bugs hadn’t eaten any of the love inside that green monster. I remember vividly a rusty tractor with a giant ‘sled’ attached to it, filled with baskets of greenish-red tomatoes, potatoes, apples, strawberries, watermelons, green-beans….. I was maybe 4 years old.  I remember stopping at Breirmeire Farms in Riverhead; the jams, the jellies, the pies the COOKIES(cookie monster was my thing in those days)!!!  And thus began “The REIGN of CORN!"

Today I often stroll through the OB farmers market with my notorious smirk, reminiscing about those pure memories of organic vegetables and farmers, long before we even needed those stickers or corporate buzzwords on our produce.  I remember those farmers and their wives names to this day. The Hay-Rides, the Pumpkin Patch, the ‘Scare-Crow,” BOO!  Corn stalks growing as far as a child’s eyes could see and the most insane part: I was standing an hour and a half from midtown Manhattan or downtown Brooklyn where we lived and worked most of the week.  This is my idea of “therapeutic.”

My memories and experiences of those places growing up on Long Island’s East End during the summers are probably the biggest reason I’m the chef I am today. They are also one of the main reasons I moved to Southern California 17 years ago and call San Diego home, the reason I jumped at the chance to write this article on sustainability when Jolee Pink asked if I was interested; the reason I have chickens, and a year-round garden, and a dog,and, and– are you with me yet?!!  

According to the 2012 Census, there were 16,525 farms classified as organic (either certified or exempt)–roughly 0.7 percent of all farms in the U.S (2,109,303). The majority of those farms are in California and the Pacific Northwest. Sustainability means the capacity to endure; it is how biological systems remain diverse and productive,indefinitely. In more specific terms, sustainability is the endurance of systems and processes– what I call BioSystemic.

As I watch my farmer friends decimated to a couple of acres of land in the middle of 3 housing developments, with shady guys promising bags of money to lure them off their “Garden of Eden,” and utility companies rationing their water because a hundred breweries need it more than he does, I stop and smirk again, because they are fighting the good fight. I smile because our friend Laurel Mehl and her sons at Coral Tree Farms in Encinitas are showing me the‘family jewels,’ a collection of heirloom seeds that feed her land and allow it to grow. Laurel, a 4th generation Encinitas farmer whose roots span back to Midwest agriculture, has the same mischievous grin on her face as I do while we walk her land and talk our story. I smile because of Alice Water’s Edible Schoolyard and other mentor chefs that are alive in the horns of plenty that grow right here in San Diego as far as the eye can see. 

If you do your homework on any of the farms that remain in our county you will find that development, town-codes, HOAs, bugs, drought, lawyers, ISIS, you name it, arecompeting with the land and a way of life. They seem to wish to eradicate their very existence, even as their own wives stroll the produce aisle buying ‘organic’ vegetables for the kid’s dinner.  

Now my real story starts. Look, up in the trees! up in the trees! It’s not a monkey. It’s Avocado, Persimmon, Mulberry, Guava, then Lemongrass, Chimayo, Pepper seeds from New Mexico, Four Corner Gold Snap Beans–all of which come with stories spun into folk-lore and folk-tales by Indians, farmers, and now, moi. Laurel introduced me to the Ark of Taste, a slow foods inspired website that can help you find true heirloom seeds. Imagine that: you need to go to a website to find seeds for a REAL vegetable that hasn’t been GMOed…. That’s horrifying to me, and I hope to you as well.

As we prepare for our Foodie Fest Encinitas– and the farm to dinner table for a 100 VIP’s that the Coral Tree Farmswill be hosting and setting up in the middle of their working farm on May 20th– we should think about the bounty of produce and fruits that Coral Tree and Coastal Roots Farm will supply our dedicated chefs. Their energy, combined with their talent and love of the craft, will create an obscene four-course meal paired with local wines, brews, coffee, and sustainable meats from Hamilton Meat Company, along with seafood from our generous sponsors at Fishbone Kitchen and Wholesale in Liberty Station Market.

Our gracious sponsors will also be donating product to ourEncinitas Foodie Festival, a family fun event is bringing the community together to elevate public awareness about locally grown sustainable foods and products while promoting the arts, local business and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.  This event happens on Saturday, May 21stfrom 11am-4pm in the Lumberyard Shopping Center on South Coast Highway 101 in Encinitas.

One of the coolest things I learned about Laurel, and something seamlessly woven into any farmer’s soul, is that they grow because they want to “bring real food at a reasonable price to your table.” That said, Coral Tree Farms sells ridiculously-reasonably priced boxes of produce,grown in their organic compost, with the option of having eggs from their chickens included. The produce is picked and boxed the day you pick it up, and the mixed bags are gorgeous and robust.  

If you are interested in something like this for yourself, or your family and friends, please personally reach out to Laurel at CoralTreeFarm@gmail.com and she will help you get where you want to be. Let Laurel know I sent you and PLEASE thank her for being part of the sustainable solution for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Encinitas Foodie Fest, and for our community. Also, If you see me at the fair please make a point to stop me and say hello, and please continue to check me out at BioSystemicConsulting and Word of Mouth San Diego– where I always have something sustainable cookin’ up and worth reading!

Excuse me, but haven't we met before?

EXCUSE ME, but haven't we met before?

I recently got my writing act together and started this Blog. Now as you may know, I write business-savvy editorial-ish stories that integrate my real life experience into personal and executive business case(stories).  I’ve always believed in using a Collaborative Business Model to make operations succeed, and when you weave that into consultative sales, sometimes you get the ‘Midas’ touch.

A few weeks ago I was approached by artist and designer Jolee Pink of Wabisabi Green, who I’d never met before, to write a sustainability piece for the Encinitas Foodie Festival magazine. This is a ticketed family fun event, bringing the community together to elevate public awareness about locally grown sustainable foods and products while promoting the arts, local business and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.  The event happens on Saturday, May 21st from 11am-4pm in the Lumberyard Shopping Center on South Coast Highway 101 in Encinitas.

One word led to another between me and Jolee, and I told her about my background in organizing and promoting large scale events and that I also happen to have many working relationships with Chefs and business in San Diego. You see folks, San Diego may look like a big city, but it’s really a small town, and like anywhere else I’ve ever lived, it’s ultimately about WHO you know more then What you know.  I have always been lucky enough to carry a little of both in my bag of tricks.

I realized I had the time and bandwidth to partner with Jolee to help pull off this event, and she welcomed my help.  Suddenly I find myself building punch lists, and the “collaboration” wheels are turning non-stop. Foodie Fest Encinitas aims to increase support for a greener earth by bringing ‘food activists’ together to educate while having fun.

On three stages, we’ve got chefs who will demonstrate their culinary expertise using local sustainable farm fresh produce and ingredients. The Chefs Roll will feature top chefs from around San Diego County, and our judges for the competition are some of our most distinguished colleagues including James Montejano, Andrew Spurgin, and Catt Fields White. Gourmet restaurant tastes will be provided by North County restaurants including Bistro West, Privateer and Wrench & Rodent, and The Barefoot Bar will showcase a dozen local companies including Meritage Wine Market, Ballast Point and y the Lost Abbey. Our Main Street Stage MC will conduct a “Bid for the Cure” for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation  and ten local artists will contribute to an “Art for the Cure” exhibit on display at the nearby E101 Gallery. 

Finally, there will be a VIP sponsor appreciation dinner Friday, May 20th from 6-9pm on the Coral Tree Farm in Encinitas featuring an optional farm tour and music by Barnwell Shift. Encinitas Mayor Kristin Gaspar will be the MC at the dinner, and sponsors like Hamilton Meats, Fishbone Kitchen, and Gourmet Culinary will provide food while Festival Chefs cook a four-course tasting menu paired with La Jolla Brewing Company beer and local wines. 

Now, in the coming days and weeks I’ll be reaching out to some of my friends and business colleagues hoping to get you involved in this amazing festival collaborative and cause. As I’ve preached in the past, “opportunities in the ‘crowd-sourced’ arena are always ripe for the picking.” Get your name out there, and let San Diegans find out more about what you’ve got cooking! There is a lot of work to be done by Jolee and me, so if you have any interest in being involved and we haven’t reached out to you, please do send me brief on how we can work together at BioSystemicConsulting@gmail.com and let me what you hope to gain from your involvement. 

Sometimes when someone taps you on the shoulder (in real life or in cyberspace) and says “excuse me, but haven’t we met before?” just say yes even if you have not. Sometimes that’s how you create the opportunity to collaborate with great people!

Welcome To The Feed-Lot

Some years back I was the Corporate Chef for Old Town State Park and the opportunity presented itself to get out of the trenches and start a second career. I was hired at Old Town to reinvent two of their three restaurants and one of the ideas I convinced our corporate was to go the local sustainable route.  I choose to use Santa Monica Seafood because of my relationship with the notorious sustainable savant Paddy Glennon and I also decided to showcase Brant Beef out of Brawley, California.  Brandt was the True Natural of beef and a local family owned and run ranch for three generations.

Eric, the owner of Brandt came to Old Town during my employee trainings and he and I hit it off so well that he offered me a job that would lead to me ejecting from Old Town and the trenches in general.  I was looking to transform into a sales role and Eric wanted me to learn the beef business from the “ass up” as I remember us saying.  That meant me moving to East Los Angeles to work in the Manning slaughter-house in an assistant production role.  I thought I knew something about beef at that point but this was an education in transparency.  We operated in full disclosure in how our animals were handled and harvested.  This is the topic I want to harp on today: transparency and full disclosure.

We live in a world, in a town, where more often then not it seems that writers and PR machines are possessed to write positive editorial and reviews for a free meal.  Often ‘under-qualified’, relentlessly ‘over-exaggerated’ and positively ‘bought’ reviews make their way into written and digital media every day here in San Diego.  Magazine publishers are self-proclaimed foodies and wear straw hats like the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.  I remember as a kid and as a young adult working in the New York City elite of restaurants always living in fear of Frank Bruni walking in the door.  We used to have a picture of him hanging in our coat-rooms so that the first line of defense might recognize him coming in for lunch and put everyone on alert.  He was often feared more then the Health Inspector walking into your establishment on a Monday afternoon.  He was objective, clear and concise and certainly could make or break the restaurant he reviewed because readership was so huge and restaurant savvy.

There is a disconnect between reviewers and the masses that spend their own hard earned cash supporting local business and venues.  Ill advised “heat indexes” and horrifying shows on the Food-Network driving business to places that anyone in industry knows are a sham, seep more and more into our local culture and infrastructure. I often write from the heart and have no problem calling a spade a spade.  It is a gift and just a no-nonsense way of life I have always lived and believed in.

As I sit at Tidal Restaurant at Paradise Point writing my own Blog, and review I think about Amy DiBiase’s food and menu are a gem.  Her Natural Ribeye steak is one of the best in town.  I think of artists like Davin Waite and his rockstar wife Jessica up at The Wrench and Rodent and Whet Noodle.  Their food and service is like the first time I rode the Magic Mountain rollercoaster.  Your pulling 3G’s in the dark through twists and turns and every plate brings you back to the light with his presentations.  I look forward to writing more about food in the coming months.  I certainly have the credentials, and with then never-ending march of restaurant opening there is no shortage of material.  Demand transparency and full disclosure in your lives when you are deciding your next Feed-Lot to hit.  It makes the other BS easier to tolerate.