From the category archives:

Grain Fed

Blackbird Farm (Grain-Fed) – Marriage Material Beef

August 25, 2010
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Carrie Oliver Rating: Marriage Material Beef™ I love using Twitter to find new great farms and butchers. Photographer David Dadekian (@Dadekian) not only gets credit for introducing me to Blackbird Farm but he’s also our guest steak and burger taster for the day. Based on his notes, I am itching for a trip to Rhode [...]

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Satchel Creek (Grain-Fed) – Easy Going Beef

July 15, 2010
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Carrie Oliver Rating: Easy Going Beef™ If you sat next to this dry-aged, grain-fed Black Angus steak at a party, he’d be the host who makes everyone feel welcome and important. This versatile steak will be easy to pair with just about any other dish on the plate. Tasting Notes: Today’s tasting notes come compliments [...]

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Eaglehawk Farms Rating: Easy Going Beef

April 29, 2010
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Carrie Oliver Rating: Easy Going Beef™ We included this pastured grain-fed beef from the New England Tablelands Region of New South Wales, Australia, as a special surprise at private tastings in San Francisco and Napa. It has a slightly sweet, approachable and warm Personality. At a dinner party this beef would be like a good [...]

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Montana Ranch Rating – Grace Kelly Beef

March 29, 2010
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Carrie Oliver Rating: Grace Kelly Beef™ At a MeatCamp tasting in San Francisco in December 2009, this velvety textured steak reminded me of Grace Kelly in the movie, Rear Window. It was elegant, graceful and proper but with a hint of mystery or moxie. I’ve tasted this beef several times, both dry-aged and wet-aged (the [...]

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Split Creek Farm Rating – Grace Kelly Beef

March 28, 2010
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Carrie Oliver Rating: Grace Kelly Beef™ This beef was a toss-up between Steakhouse Steak Beef & Grace Kelly Beef. It was sensual & elegant like the actress but also had hints of the nuttiness and chew often found in dry-aged beef at high end steakhouses. This versatile beef can stand by itself but would also [...]

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Colorado’s Best Beef Rating – Seductive Date Beef

March 27, 2010
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Carrie Oliver Rating: Seductive Date Beef™ A sensual experience, this dry-aged Charolais Cross steak reminds me of Penelope Cruz or her male equivalent. It’s a toothsome, complex but harmonious beef that, should this be your style, leaves a sizzling, lasting impression. Tasting Notes: Nice chewy Texture, a medium adventurous Personality with hints of porcini mushrooms, [...]

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What’s Your Beef?

February 18, 2009

Fabulous article by Leslie Cole of The Oregonian on how to sort through confusing marketing and label claims with beef. Inspired by the same press release that had triggered this previous post, All Beef is Grass-Fed, she offers 5 Lessons for folks looking to buy grass-fed beef. I have a few extra thoughts but wanted [...]

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All Beef Is Grass-Fed

January 5, 2009

Thanks to Caron Golden, a San Diego based food writer and radio host (@carondg on Twitter), on December 29, I was alerted to a news story covering a taste test in a Portland, Oregon-area elementary school comparing burgers from grass-fed vs. grain-fed cattle. I found the story disheartening, so much that I’ve spent the last [...]

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Yes, But How Does It Impact Flavor?

May 21, 2008

This probably isn’t fair but I’m going to say it anyways. Now that higher grain prices have make it more expensive to finish beef cattle on corn and other grains, The University of Arkansas has a new facility dedicated to R&D (research and demonstration in this case) on alternative feed ingredients for cattle. According to [...]

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