Dino's Commitment to Sustainable & Natural Production
I spend hours each week ordering the food we serve at Dino. We go to
the Dupont Farmers' Market and Heyser Farms and weekly to get local
produce. I am on the phone with fish purveyors making sure that our
seafood is not only fresh, but is coming from sustainable fisheries. We
are constantly trying new potential vendors to see if we can get better
products.
Where you spend your food dollars matters; and we hope you realize the benefits of choosing food producers like those we work with at Dino. In today's industrial food, we read story after story pointing out the effects of factory farming on the food supply, our health and the environment. By supporting small producers, careful farming practices & heritage varieties, our food supply can be safer, more healthful & better for our environment. All this costs a little bit more, but you can taste the difference on the plate.
A few months back, one of our meat distributors told us that the beef we were buying was no longer going to be available in our market. Since I did not like the alternative meats offered me, I had to switch suppliers. This led us to a top to bottom review of our vendor network. I made some major changes, especially in our meat program. This is always a scary process because while the environmental benefits are there, our customers will only be happy if the meat tastes as good or better. After this review and some soul searching about what it means for Dino to be a good steward of the environment, I was incluraged by some customers to write a detailed recap of who we buy from and why.
The Story of Our Food
Dino supports local agriculture. Some of our favorite farmers & farms include Zach at Tree & Leaf in Virginia, Heintz at Next Step Produce in Maryland, Eli at Spring Valley of West Virginia, Kerry of Silver Spring’s and Getttysburg's Heyser Farm & their network of small family farms, & the more than 28 farms which make up the Tuscarora Organic Coop in PA. You will see Kay and I nearly every Sunday at Dupont Market with our trusty green cart, filling it with boxes and boxes of locally grown foods from farmers we can talk to and trust. Kay knows if the choice comes between a few extra boxes of produce and her taking the Metro back to the restaurant, she's taking Metro!
We strive to serve seafood only from sustainable fisheries. We do not knowingly serve any seafood that is not sustainable, but there is no one universally accepted definition. I use Blue Oceans Institute, the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service reports to make my decisions on which fish, from where, to offer. Our vendors include Prime Seafood & Mikuni Wild Harvest. So you will not see such commonly over fished species as Skate, Monkfish, Blue fin Tuna, East Coast Cod & more. Sadly, there are too many restaurants, some of whom can tell you the name of the farmer who raised your radish, where you can eat these threatened species.
We prefer meat from animals that have never been administered antibiotics or hormones, & have not seen a feedlot. We want meat that has been treated respectfully. Just because we are going to eat an animal does not justify treating it badly in an inhumane fashion. We want meat that tastes like real old fashioned meat, not the denatured stuff under plastic wrap at the local mega box store. We want meat that is not a part of the new problems we are having with our meat supply from the over use of antibiotics and the over concentration of farm wastes polluting our ground water and our waterways. A cattle feed lot was responsible for the recall of millions of pounds of lettuces contaminated with e-coli!
Our beef is locally grown in Virginia or Maryland from a network of 35 small family farms. These cattle are never administered growth hormones or antibiotics. They are never fed on a feed lot & are processed within a 3 hour “commute” from where they are raised. The beef is a Hereford & Angus cross. Our t-bone is a 21day dry aged steak. Our flat iron, an "inside cut", is fresh. The farms are all audited every 60 days to assure that they meet the high standards of the program we are using.
Our lamb is Elysian Fields pure bred lamb from Western Pennsylvania. It is the same lamb used by Thomas Keller at Per Se and the French Laundry {of course he buys the fancy dancy cuts; we buy the shoulders and breasts!}. This lamb is never treated with antibiotics. The grower is trying to move beyond just humane growing practices to what he calls ethically grown. It is open pastured. It also tastes great!
Our veal is humanely raised in upstate New York on pure milk products in small open barns where the calves can move freely. They show no signs of stress so common in most calf programs. This veal is never injected with any substance, is hormone and antibiotic free. It is what is called rose veal as it is raised to a larger size than is the anemic white veal raised under cruel, movement restricted conditions that is used at some of DC's best restaurants.
We use milk fed young pig raised in Canada in an open barn environment. Our pork is Duroc heritage breed grown locally in Virginia.
All our ground meats used in our sausages, sauces and other dishes are ground in house from full cuts like veal breast, pork butt and belly. We use the same quality purveyors for our ground meats as our steaks and other cuts. We seek out cured meat purveyors who follow these standards as well.
Dr. Joe Jurgielewicz grows our heritage style Pekin ducks in Northern Pennsylvania. The duck fat finds its way into many of our dishes & we use duck stock like many restaurants use chicken stock. This is one fabulous duck! Just ask Wolfgang Puck and Scott Drewno who use the same bird at The Source in DC!
Our dairy is Kreider Farms from Lancaster Pennsylvania. They are a conventional producer but use far less energy and produce far less waste than typical of large scale farming. If every egg and dairy farm used their production methods, our farm pollution problem would be much reduced. But best of all, their minimal impact on the environment practices allow them to be priced competitively so most anyone can afford their great products. I prefer their methods to those of someone who has just an industrial farm with “Organic” and a picture of a happy cow on the label. Of course, the determining factor in picking out Kreider is that their stuff is really good tasting!
So today, no stories of the latest veggie to turn up at market, no historical stories of what inspired a new dish. Today, just a call to action a hope that I have raised your awareness of what differentiates factory farming and industrial foods from the good tasting stuff we serve at Dino. And the most fun part of it is it is always going to be an ongoing story: when farmers hear about what I am doing, they tell me about their new efforts and their new exciting products. So as time goes by, we will have even better, or more local or who knows what meats and veggies!
Ciao
Dean and Kay
Where you spend your food dollars matters; and we hope you realize the benefits of choosing food producers like those we work with at Dino. In today's industrial food, we read story after story pointing out the effects of factory farming on the food supply, our health and the environment. By supporting small producers, careful farming practices & heritage varieties, our food supply can be safer, more healthful & better for our environment. All this costs a little bit more, but you can taste the difference on the plate.
A few months back, one of our meat distributors told us that the beef we were buying was no longer going to be available in our market. Since I did not like the alternative meats offered me, I had to switch suppliers. This led us to a top to bottom review of our vendor network. I made some major changes, especially in our meat program. This is always a scary process because while the environmental benefits are there, our customers will only be happy if the meat tastes as good or better. After this review and some soul searching about what it means for Dino to be a good steward of the environment, I was incluraged by some customers to write a detailed recap of who we buy from and why.
The Story of Our Food
Dino supports local agriculture. Some of our favorite farmers & farms include Zach at Tree & Leaf in Virginia, Heintz at Next Step Produce in Maryland, Eli at Spring Valley of West Virginia, Kerry of Silver Spring’s and Getttysburg's Heyser Farm & their network of small family farms, & the more than 28 farms which make up the Tuscarora Organic Coop in PA. You will see Kay and I nearly every Sunday at Dupont Market with our trusty green cart, filling it with boxes and boxes of locally grown foods from farmers we can talk to and trust. Kay knows if the choice comes between a few extra boxes of produce and her taking the Metro back to the restaurant, she's taking Metro!
We strive to serve seafood only from sustainable fisheries. We do not knowingly serve any seafood that is not sustainable, but there is no one universally accepted definition. I use Blue Oceans Institute, the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service reports to make my decisions on which fish, from where, to offer. Our vendors include Prime Seafood & Mikuni Wild Harvest. So you will not see such commonly over fished species as Skate, Monkfish, Blue fin Tuna, East Coast Cod & more. Sadly, there are too many restaurants, some of whom can tell you the name of the farmer who raised your radish, where you can eat these threatened species.
We prefer meat from animals that have never been administered antibiotics or hormones, & have not seen a feedlot. We want meat that has been treated respectfully. Just because we are going to eat an animal does not justify treating it badly in an inhumane fashion. We want meat that tastes like real old fashioned meat, not the denatured stuff under plastic wrap at the local mega box store. We want meat that is not a part of the new problems we are having with our meat supply from the over use of antibiotics and the over concentration of farm wastes polluting our ground water and our waterways. A cattle feed lot was responsible for the recall of millions of pounds of lettuces contaminated with e-coli!
Our beef is locally grown in Virginia or Maryland from a network of 35 small family farms. These cattle are never administered growth hormones or antibiotics. They are never fed on a feed lot & are processed within a 3 hour “commute” from where they are raised. The beef is a Hereford & Angus cross. Our t-bone is a 21day dry aged steak. Our flat iron, an "inside cut", is fresh. The farms are all audited every 60 days to assure that they meet the high standards of the program we are using.
Our lamb is Elysian Fields pure bred lamb from Western Pennsylvania. It is the same lamb used by Thomas Keller at Per Se and the French Laundry {of course he buys the fancy dancy cuts; we buy the shoulders and breasts!}. This lamb is never treated with antibiotics. The grower is trying to move beyond just humane growing practices to what he calls ethically grown. It is open pastured. It also tastes great!
Our veal is humanely raised in upstate New York on pure milk products in small open barns where the calves can move freely. They show no signs of stress so common in most calf programs. This veal is never injected with any substance, is hormone and antibiotic free. It is what is called rose veal as it is raised to a larger size than is the anemic white veal raised under cruel, movement restricted conditions that is used at some of DC's best restaurants.
We use milk fed young pig raised in Canada in an open barn environment. Our pork is Duroc heritage breed grown locally in Virginia.
All our ground meats used in our sausages, sauces and other dishes are ground in house from full cuts like veal breast, pork butt and belly. We use the same quality purveyors for our ground meats as our steaks and other cuts. We seek out cured meat purveyors who follow these standards as well.
Dr. Joe Jurgielewicz grows our heritage style Pekin ducks in Northern Pennsylvania. The duck fat finds its way into many of our dishes & we use duck stock like many restaurants use chicken stock. This is one fabulous duck! Just ask Wolfgang Puck and Scott Drewno who use the same bird at The Source in DC!
Our dairy is Kreider Farms from Lancaster Pennsylvania. They are a conventional producer but use far less energy and produce far less waste than typical of large scale farming. If every egg and dairy farm used their production methods, our farm pollution problem would be much reduced. But best of all, their minimal impact on the environment practices allow them to be priced competitively so most anyone can afford their great products. I prefer their methods to those of someone who has just an industrial farm with “Organic” and a picture of a happy cow on the label. Of course, the determining factor in picking out Kreider is that their stuff is really good tasting!
So today, no stories of the latest veggie to turn up at market, no historical stories of what inspired a new dish. Today, just a call to action a hope that I have raised your awareness of what differentiates factory farming and industrial foods from the good tasting stuff we serve at Dino. And the most fun part of it is it is always going to be an ongoing story: when farmers hear about what I am doing, they tell me about their new efforts and their new exciting products. So as time goes by, we will have even better, or more local or who knows what meats and veggies!
Ciao
Dean and Kay
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