May 20th, 2011 at 2:00PM: Aah, summer. A time for the beach, pool parties, lazy days...and sheep cheese? While many foods are undeniably the essence of summer--watermelon, peaches, and anything grilled come to mind--there are plenty of edibles not identified as seasonal foods.
Most of my favorite things to eat just happen to peak in summer, so I decided to compile a list of both the obvious and not-so. Even the most ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
oilspill posts
Ten iconic foods of summer, and where to find them
May 20th, 2011 at 2:00PM: Aah, summer. A time for the beach, pool parties, lazy days...and sheep cheese? While many foods are undeniably the essence of summer--watermelon, peaches, and anything grilled come to mind--there are plenty of edibles not identified as seasonal foods.
Most of my favorite things to eat just happen to peak in summer, so I decided to compile a list of both the obvious and not-so. Even the most ...Post-Gulf Spill: The more things change, the more slippery they get
Mar 26th, 2011 at 1:00PM: A trio of news stories out of the Gulf remind that the more things change in the region -- whether natural disaster (hurricanes), manmade screw up (oil rig explosions) or government intervention (drilling bans) -- the more they stay the same.
Within weeks after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank nearly one year ago the Obama Administration banned all new deepwater drilling. The ban ...Update from the shores of Louisiana
Feb 17th, 2011 at 10:00AM: A trio of events happening simultaneously this week along the Gulf coast is stirring debate:
The team responsible for paying out damages to Gulf spill victims is about to start writing checks to those who've proved they deserve it;
NOAA has given its blessing to reopening a 4,200-square-mile area of the Gulf of Meico to fishing, near where the BP well exploded;
and chemical ...Bowermaster's Adventures: Checking in on the BP spill cleanup
Dec 10th, 2010 at 11:00AM: Reports last week from the beaches of Alabama and Mississippi suggest that the post-BP gusher cleanup continues, with varying degrees of success, and that new oil continues to show up.
Near the Alabama-Florida border, a placed called Perdido (Lost) Key, BP-contracted crews have been sifting sand for more than six months to try and get rid of tar mats buried nearly three feet beneath the sand.
...Bowermaster's Adventures: America's Night out for Gulf Seafood
Dec 9th, 2010 at 9:00AM: Last week, nearly 300 restaurants across the country joined in promoting an event they called "Dine Out America: America's Night Out for Gulf Seafood."
The mission was straightforward: Get folks around the country back to eating fish, oysters, shrimps and crabs taken from the Gulf of Mexico. The impetus was that while most of the Gulf's fishing grounds have been reopened since the spill and ...Bowermaster's Adventures: Five reasons we should not believe the BP mess is "cleaned up"
Nov 30th, 2010 at 2:00PM:
Three months ago, on August 2, the White House – citing an in-house National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study – announced that 74 percent of the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico by the BP mess was gone, had either been cleaned up or simply disappeared.
Few seriously believed the report at the time, including many NOAA scientists; even fewer think it's true today. ...Bowermaster's Adventures - Measuring the extent of oil spillage
Nov 29th, 2010 at 11:30AM:
With the six-month anniversary of the BP spill now in the rear view mirror the company as well as a variety of officials both federal and state would like the world to believe the oil is gone.
But photos and first-hand accounts from Barataria Bay recently show the opposite – oil still reaching high into the marshy grasslands, baby crabs and adult shrimp covered by crude, slicks on the ...Bowermaster's Adventures: Using creatures to filter the sea
Nov 22nd, 2010 at 9:30AM: While scientists continue to monitor fish taken from the Gulf for raised levels of chemicals and oil, others around the globe are using specific species to purposely suck up polluted waters.
Two recent reports cite scallops and oysters being used like the proverbial "canary in a coal mine" to both warn of the impacts of growing toxins in the ocean and to help clean it up.
In Russia, the ...Bowermaster's Adventures: Lifiting the drilling moratorium
Nov 19th, 2010 at 9:00AM: Less than 180 days after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank and less than 60 days after BP finally sealed the well that leaked 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama Administration lifted its own moratorium on deepwater drilling.
While Gulf State oil workers, especially in Louisiana, are relieved, hoping that new permits will be approved by year's end and jobs ...From the shores of Louisiana - Gulf Fisheries
Oct 26th, 2010 at 10:00AM: In Baton Rouge last week I met for the first time a very vocal third-generation shrimper, George Barisich, who has been working the Gulf his entire life, initially for the fun of it – crabbing as a kid – and ever since as a fulltime commercial fisherman, since 1966.
He inherited his 50-foot shrimp, the "FJG," which his father named after his three sons: Frances, Jefferson and ...From the Shores of Louisiana - Is gulf seafood safe?
Oct 20th, 2010 at 10:00AM: Baton Rouge, Louisiana: It's rare for me to see 67-year-old Wilma Subra – chemist, MacArthur Grant 'genius,' grandmother of six – so worked up. But when I asked last week how things were going in the Gulf, where she's been measuring levels of toxicity in air, water and fish long before the BP gusher began she was adamant that things are still bad out there.
"My biggest concern is ...From the Shores of Louisiana -- Protesting to lift the drilling ban
Aug 13th, 2010 at 9:15AM: Lafayette, Louisiana -- Last month's Rally for the Economy in Lafayette, Louisiana, went largely unnoticed outside the state, though 11,000 vociferous oil workers, their supporters and the elected political elite of the state showed up and shouted to the rooftop about their concerns over the continuing moratorium on deepwater oil drilling.
The Cajundome next to the campus of Louisiana ...From the Shores of Louisiana -- Turtle rescue!
Aug 11th, 2010 at 9:30AM:
Along the beaches of the Florida panhandle and Alabama there is a massive rescue effort underway involving butter knives and forks, tricked-out Styrofoam coolers and specially-rigged FedEx trucks.
The job is to scoop 70,000 mostly loggerhead sea turtle eggs out of the sand (very carefully, using kitchen utensils among other tools) before the hatchlings can swim out into the Gulf where they ...From the Shores of Louisiana: Dredging
Aug 2nd, 2010 at 10:00AM: Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana -- The French-born helicopter pilot zooming low over the Gulf is focused on two things: Whether he can find more fuel in Venice and whether or not the brown streaking we're seeing north of the Chandeleur Islands is oil or just the transition of muddy Mississippi River water mixing with salt water.
It's his first day flying out of Plaquemines Parish and, with maps ...From the Shores of Louisiana -- Call in the navy!
Jul 29th, 2010 at 10:31AM:
Cat Island, Louisiana -- During the past eleven weeks I've been on and around the edges of Barataria Bay for many days. This is ground-zero for the oil mess clean-up in southern Louisiana, a 650-square-mile jigsaw puzzle of marshes and wetlands where hundreds of workers have been sweating for weeks, valiantly attempting to wipe, absorb and suck up the oil which has penetrated it deeply.
If ...From the Shores of Louisiana -- Crane Rescue
Jul 27th, 2010 at 10:00AM:
Barataria Bay, Louisiana – 6:50 a.m.: We'd been on the water for more than two hours already and had seen a particularly haunting sunrise thanks to a partial lunar eclipse by the time we reached the edge of Cat Island.
Marsh grass covers the muddy island, located about fifteen miles west of Sulphur Grove in Plaquemine Parish. The island is nearly identical to a couple hundred other ...From the Shores of Louisiana: Morning in Sulphur Grove
Jul 23rd, 2010 at 7:30AM:
Sulphur Grove, Louisiana – At 4:30 a.m. a pair of sport fishing boats being launched on the edge of Barataria Bay on a humid morning – where fishing has been banned for more than two months -- is made more odd thanks to the backlighting of a partial lunar eclipse.
P.J. Hahn, a one-time Texas cop turned Louisiana politician, steps down out of his pick-up truck lugging a ...From the shores of Louisiana: a peek inside of the oil industry
Jul 20th, 2010 at 11:00AM:
Morgan City, Louisiana – Driving old Highway 90 paralleling the Gulf Coast under a vast, super-heated blue sky filled with cumulus it's almost possible to forget the horror that continues to seethe beneath the nearby sea.
But the manmade scenery that lines the road – warehouse buildings, one after another, parking lots filled with pick-up trucks and SUVs -- brings me right back ...From the Shores of Louisiana: Jon takes to the road
Jul 16th, 2010 at 5:00PM:
From the Shores of Louisiana: Jon Bowermaster from gadling on Vimeo.
Lafayette, Louisiana -- It's a steamy, early-summer day in Southern Louisiana – expecting the "heat index" to top out today around 108 degrees F! – but it's good to be back on the ground here. I've been coming every few months for the past two years, producing a documentary film, and it's started to feel like a ...
From the Shores of Louisiana: A letter from a Louisiana fisherman
Jul 15th, 2010 at 10:00AM:
Among the many I've met and worked with in southern Louisiana (SoLa) these past two years, making a film about the relationship between man and the sea, no couple has impressed me more than Tracy Kuhns and Michael Roberts. Committed to family, community, and the environmental concerns of them all, they share many hats: Both work as the Louisiana Bayoukeepers. Mike is a fulltime fisherman and ...
