Vindicated on Canada Geese

At this point I've been banging away on locavore hunting and invasivore issues for a couple of years now. I quit my day job and went full-time last year. Honestly, there have been times when I looked at what I was doing and thought that maybe it was completely hopeless. Sooner or later one hopes to see some substantive change in a society as a result of one's work. In case anyone was wondering, this particular career path doesn't pay especially well.

I've finally turned a corner. The New York Times reports today that the authorities have relented and the geese being culling around NYC-region airports will now be donated to hungry families instead of being dumped in landfills.

Long-time readers will recall that I became incensed at this previous act of wanton waste and that I vowed to do something about it. I immediately backed myself into a corner where I had pledged to put on a wild goose event with Slow Food NYC and had no choice but to follow through or look like a moron. The New York Times reported on it, as did Gothamist and I think the Village Voice as well. The event was a great success and I later repeated it with Slow Food Virginia at the Glass House Winery.

Through these events, I proved to the media and to the public that Canada goose meat tastes really, really good once you know how to cook it. And now that effort seems to have helped to create a meaningful change in policy.

At the same time, I suddenly find myself knee-deep in a project with the great chef Philippe Parola. Philippe and I met in Baton Rougue, Louisiana last week and discovered that each of us has been engaged in work for years that perfectly complements the other. Philippe has spent a lot of his own time and money developing the technology to process invasive Asian grass carp from American waterways into high-quality frozen filets that could be sold at grocery stores all over the US. This brilliant project of his (and the idea is 100% Philippe's -- I take no credit) had run into funding troubles and I'm now doing everything I can to line up investment to get this processing plant built. Long story short, our prospects suddenly look very good. If Philippe's vision for a carp processing plant gets built, this would be the most effective implementation of the 'Eating Aliens' concept that imaginable.

Suddenly its all starting to feel really worthwhile. The last few years of work are starting to pay off and turn into real change that's going to help people and ecosystems. Maybe I'm not crazy after all.

[Photo copyright 2011, Jackson Landers. All rights reserved. Ok, its not the best goose photo ever but I'm trying to move more towards using my own original photos instead of stuff from Creative Commons]