Ten Ways Foodservice Professionals Can Go Green
1. Go plastic-free. There’s no such thing as “throwing plastic away.” Styrofoam and plastics can last over 400 years, are poisonous, and are harmful to wildlife and the environment. Consider using “spudware”: utensils and packaging made from 100% biodegradable cornstarch (breaks down easily through normal bacterial action).
2. Purchase local foods. Have you even eaten a just-picked tomato, still warm from the sun? Locally grown foods taste great, of course. But in addition, at least one study found that eating local is better for air quality and pollution—the many miles that food travels to our plates creates pollution.
3. Buy organic. Did you know that an average “conventional” apple contains over 30 pesticides, even after it’s washed? Organic farms do not use these petroleum-based chemicals, which have the potential to harm soil, water, people, and wildlife.
4. Use eco-friendly cleaning chemicals. Restaurants can be polluters, too. Conventional detergents and solvents contain harmful acids, bleach, or phosphates which end up in the water supply. New chemicals, such as RapidAll, work with cool water (saving energy), and are biodegradable.
5. Reduce waste. 20% of all food prepared commercially in the US goes to waste. Pig farmers will actually PAY for your food waste (peels, leftovers, etc.) Old frying oil can be recovered and turned into environmentally friendly fuels. Donate excess edible foods to a local soup kitchen or food recovery program.
6. Decrease water usage. To ensure adequate water resources for our future needs, we must put conservation measures into effect now. Water conservation saves money, and half of water usage in restaurants is in the kitchen. Wash only full loads in dishwashers; serve water in the dining room only on request; fix leaks in restrooms; use water-efficient appliances wherever possible.
7. Shrink your demand for energy. Most of today’s electricity is generated from the burning of fossil fuels—oil, coal, or natural gas—expelling vast amounts of greenhouse gasses and pollution. Saving energy is very simple: turn it off if it doesn’t need to run, and choose the most energy-efficient equipment that you can. National Grid offers free energy audits and rebates for energy efficiency... they will pay you for saving money!
8. Educate your employees and customers. Every personal contact you make is an opportunity to address climate change and improve the environment! Create a special dish and donate a part of the proceeds to an environmental cause. Adopt and display your environmental policy on menus, in ads, and anywhere your employees or customers will see it.
9. Recycle, recycle, recycle! Every ton of paper recycled saves 12 trees, 1,976 lbs. of greenhouse gases, and 390 gallons of oil. And it’s easy! The RI Resource Recovery Corp. can provide FREE waste audits to help your business implement a cost-saving program.
10. Become Green Certified. Green is HOT right now; more people are aware of climate change and environmental impacts than ever. Green Certification combines all of the above methods into one huge earth-friendly program. Certified RI businesses include Ted’s Montana Grill, Local 121, Rue de L’Espoir, Westin Hotel, the RI Convention Center, and many more. For more information go to www.dem.ri.gov/programs/benviron/assist/grncert/.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
The Genesis Center: Where New Beginnings Have A Tradition
It started out as a language school—very humbly, like many church-level grassroots movements. In 1982 Sister Angela Daniels of the Assumption Parish in
At a certain point it got to where there were so many people that wanted to learn the new language that they were standing on chairs to make more room to squeeze into the homes, and that’s when the Sister realized they had to find a larger space. She and Father Trainor persuaded the bishop to allow them to use the old building of the
It’s difficult to learn English and to become really fluent. “We believe that one needs to learn English in order to become independent,” says Mike Ritz,
The students definitely get the foundation they need to get jobs in commercial kitchens. “When they leave, they’re getting a well-rounded curriculum,” says Chef Branden Lewis, who’s been leading the 13-week Culinary Arts Program for the past two years. “They not only can go out and get a job, but also grow in it.” He teaches them the basics such as mother sauces, knife skills and recipe conversion, then advances through customer service, barista work and more, ending the program with an optional ServSafe exam.
It’s the food safety training that puts the culinary grads on a different level. “A lot of jobs will say that you must have ServSafe certification,” says student Shawn Gallogly. “The ones that require it are the ones that are going to pay you better.” As a single father of an autistic child, keeping his head above water is challenging enough. But having been homeless for a time Shawn especially needs the opportunities afforded by the advanced training.
He and his son were sharing a duplex in
The students also find opportunities through an annual event called Food For Thought. It’s a fundraiser, but it’s also a way for the
Originally the students would have their own table at the event, displaying their products and showing what they could create. Last year, however, they began assisting with the restaurant chefs, helping to set up and providing other support. “It’s by far the best model,” asserts Mike. “Restaurant owners and chefs would say, ‘Any time you have students looking for a job, send them to us.’ They’re professionals; they have the work ethic to go through the course and not be absent or late.”
Another important exercise is the five-course culinary cook-off that Chef Branden designed to showcase what the students can do. He had the idea to take one of his classes and split them into two teams. He then invented a point system, a kind of Iron Chef competition; Mike recruited food critics, chefs and writers as judges. Though none of the students had gourmet food experience, each team had to plan a menu, create shopping lists and budgets, and learn wine pairings and plate presentations. “This competition is what really makes them grow as a group together,” says the chef. “There’s an evolution that’s fascinating. They went from being so green to being able to produce a high-end meal. In the end, everybody won because it was all about the amazing experience.”
Clearly, to be successful is the common goal. “Everyone has their own little dream of what success is,” muses Chef Branden. “Some of them dream to go really far, and those are the ones I can’t wait to see in a few years. I would be so happy if even one of my students wound up being a head chef somewhere, running a restaurant.”
But not everyone who joins the culinary training dreams that far. Many just want a job with benefits, a full-time schedule, good pay and work while their kids are in school. Shawn is one of them. He’s found a permanent apartment and is feeling confident about his future. “I want to work a regular shift, and to enjoy life with my son. I want to take him to football games and baseball games, and just do the things that we want to do,” he says, his face lighting up at the idea.
“It’s really pretty simple,” he says with a grin.
The
401-781-6110
gencenter.org
foodforthoughtri.org
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
The Rhode Island Community Food Bank: Twenty-five Years of Neighbors Helping Neighbors
“Dust ‘em off, tape ‘em up and send ‘em out; that’s what we do here,” declared Linda Rogers, about the goods that she and the other volunteers were picking through in the recovery room. She should know, after almost 18 years of service to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. A lot has changed in those years since she started helping out one night a week at its former location in West Warwick (it moved to Providence in 2003), but the work is the same. “It’s still sorting food. That’s what it’s all about,” she said.
That is what it’s all about, and the Food Bank has been providing quality food to Rhode Islanders facing hunger for over 25 years. Hunger has an impact on every single community in the state, affecting some 48,000 households. Through its network of certified member agencies, the Rhode Island Community Food Bank provides a safety net for families in need and distributed $11 million in donated food in 2007—approximately 8 million pounds. Food insecurity is a growing problem. Rhode Island’s rate of childhood poverty is up to 21 percent, the fastest growing in New England and the third highest in the country among cities with a population of 100,000 or more.
While the Food Bank has been successful in distributing food through a variety of over 300 agencies, including soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters, group homes and community action programs, it has established other innovative programs as well. The Community Kitchen, for example, is a job-training class for people with few employment skills. Student chefs learn basic kitchen skills to prepare them for jobs in the food service industry. As a part of their training, students cook meals every day for the Kids’ Cafe, which serves healthy meals to children and provides nutrition education as a part of their after-school activities. Kids’ Cafe feeds more than 500 children at 12 sites in Providence and Newport.
But merely having food for everyone isn’t enough, according to Andrew Schiff, the executive director. “We’re really trying to improve the quality of the food,” he says, and the move into the expanded facility has allowed them to do just that. The Food Bank’s new home at 200 Niantic Avenue effectively doubled the size of the West Warwick location. The capabilities for handling perishable products, such as fresh vegetables, multiplied many times over.
This led to the Community Farm program in 2005, when a network of farms started growing and donating fresh produce items to the Food Bank. A year after that, the Neighborhood Pantry Express began delivering quality local fruit and vegetables to the communities that need it most. Using a “farmers’ market” approach, hungry people in high-need areas of the state are given access to the most nutritious foods possible. The seven farms around the state bring full-circle the concept of community-based resources to fight hunger.
One primary emphasis of the seven Community Farms is the use of unused or underused land for the purpose of growing valuable fresh foods. In at least one case, in Cumberland, a farm connected with the Food Bank was saved from being developed. “They were [going to] put up condos,” says Frank Geary of the Historic Metcalf-Franklin Farm. “Three years ago a group got together to buy the 1854 farm house and the two-and-a-half acres. We were successful in adding it to the National Register [of Historic Places.]”
“We talk a lot with the Food Bank on what we’re going to grow. They give us guidelines and we go with what we feel is easy to grow and harvest,” adds Denise Mudge, the volunteer coordinator for the Franklin Farm. They grow “spectacular” tomatoes, eggplant, basil, parsley, cucumbers and yellow and acorn squash, using spring-fed water and no pesticides. A variety of people come to help out on the farm, from little kids, to seniors, to people who just want to come after work. The focus is to keep it sustainable by making it convenient for the volunteers. “We have an open-door policy,” says Denise. “We know [volunteers] can’t always commit.” Every Monday and Thursday, from 5:30 pm to dusk, people can give a half an hour or an hour—whatever they can give. “It’s a very friendly thing,” Frank added. “We’ve had such a great group of people…and everybody who takes part in it feels good about it.”
One of the great things about the farm program is that it happens in summer, the “forgotten” time of the year. “There’s seasonality to giving,” the Food Bank director said. “We tend to get a lot of donations in November and December for the holidays. But summer is the low time for us in terms of our inventory. Food donations are down; cash donations are down. With kids not eating meals in school, for our clients, it can be the worst time.” Even though the 2007 growing season generated over 107,000 pounds of fresh produce—a huge accomplishment—the Summer Food Drive provides essential shelf-stable foods like cereal, pasta, rice and canned soup or beans. Participants in the Summer Food Drive can organize local food drives in their neighborhoods or work places, and drop off donations directly to the Food Bank.
Clearly, there’s a huge community support for what the Food Bank does every day. “People really identify with how difficult it must be when a family has trouble putting food on the table,” says public relations manager Michael Cerio. “We’re flexible with what we’re able to do with monetary donations, whether it’s a dollar, or five dollars, or five thousand dollars. Everything’s tight for everyone, but people feel that the little they may be able to give will make a big impact.”
“I’m really blown away by the different people who are involved with the Food Bank,” adds Andrew. “It’s just amazing. From Johnson & Wales, to local food pantries and all their volunteers. It takes so many people to make this work. But we really have amazing support throughout the state.”
For Linda Rogers and her husband Bob, the Food Bank is a very comfortable place. “The volunteers are wonderful people, and we really enjoy each other. We get lasting friendships. We’ve been fortunate in our life, so it’s only fair if we can help this way.”
She paused. “Everybody wants to be needed, I think. It’s a feeling of, ‘I can help. I can do something.’”
That is what it’s all about, and the Food Bank has been providing quality food to Rhode Islanders facing hunger for over 25 years. Hunger has an impact on every single community in the state, affecting some 48,000 households. Through its network of certified member agencies, the Rhode Island Community Food Bank provides a safety net for families in need and distributed $11 million in donated food in 2007—approximately 8 million pounds. Food insecurity is a growing problem. Rhode Island’s rate of childhood poverty is up to 21 percent, the fastest growing in New England and the third highest in the country among cities with a population of 100,000 or more.
While the Food Bank has been successful in distributing food through a variety of over 300 agencies, including soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters, group homes and community action programs, it has established other innovative programs as well. The Community Kitchen, for example, is a job-training class for people with few employment skills. Student chefs learn basic kitchen skills to prepare them for jobs in the food service industry. As a part of their training, students cook meals every day for the Kids’ Cafe, which serves healthy meals to children and provides nutrition education as a part of their after-school activities. Kids’ Cafe feeds more than 500 children at 12 sites in Providence and Newport.
But merely having food for everyone isn’t enough, according to Andrew Schiff, the executive director. “We’re really trying to improve the quality of the food,” he says, and the move into the expanded facility has allowed them to do just that. The Food Bank’s new home at 200 Niantic Avenue effectively doubled the size of the West Warwick location. The capabilities for handling perishable products, such as fresh vegetables, multiplied many times over.
This led to the Community Farm program in 2005, when a network of farms started growing and donating fresh produce items to the Food Bank. A year after that, the Neighborhood Pantry Express began delivering quality local fruit and vegetables to the communities that need it most. Using a “farmers’ market” approach, hungry people in high-need areas of the state are given access to the most nutritious foods possible. The seven farms around the state bring full-circle the concept of community-based resources to fight hunger.
One primary emphasis of the seven Community Farms is the use of unused or underused land for the purpose of growing valuable fresh foods. In at least one case, in Cumberland, a farm connected with the Food Bank was saved from being developed. “They were [going to] put up condos,” says Frank Geary of the Historic Metcalf-Franklin Farm. “Three years ago a group got together to buy the 1854 farm house and the two-and-a-half acres. We were successful in adding it to the National Register [of Historic Places.]”
“We talk a lot with the Food Bank on what we’re going to grow. They give us guidelines and we go with what we feel is easy to grow and harvest,” adds Denise Mudge, the volunteer coordinator for the Franklin Farm. They grow “spectacular” tomatoes, eggplant, basil, parsley, cucumbers and yellow and acorn squash, using spring-fed water and no pesticides. A variety of people come to help out on the farm, from little kids, to seniors, to people who just want to come after work. The focus is to keep it sustainable by making it convenient for the volunteers. “We have an open-door policy,” says Denise. “We know [volunteers] can’t always commit.” Every Monday and Thursday, from 5:30 pm to dusk, people can give a half an hour or an hour—whatever they can give. “It’s a very friendly thing,” Frank added. “We’ve had such a great group of people…and everybody who takes part in it feels good about it.”
One of the great things about the farm program is that it happens in summer, the “forgotten” time of the year. “There’s seasonality to giving,” the Food Bank director said. “We tend to get a lot of donations in November and December for the holidays. But summer is the low time for us in terms of our inventory. Food donations are down; cash donations are down. With kids not eating meals in school, for our clients, it can be the worst time.” Even though the 2007 growing season generated over 107,000 pounds of fresh produce—a huge accomplishment—the Summer Food Drive provides essential shelf-stable foods like cereal, pasta, rice and canned soup or beans. Participants in the Summer Food Drive can organize local food drives in their neighborhoods or work places, and drop off donations directly to the Food Bank.
Clearly, there’s a huge community support for what the Food Bank does every day. “People really identify with how difficult it must be when a family has trouble putting food on the table,” says public relations manager Michael Cerio. “We’re flexible with what we’re able to do with monetary donations, whether it’s a dollar, or five dollars, or five thousand dollars. Everything’s tight for everyone, but people feel that the little they may be able to give will make a big impact.”
“I’m really blown away by the different people who are involved with the Food Bank,” adds Andrew. “It’s just amazing. From Johnson & Wales, to local food pantries and all their volunteers. It takes so many people to make this work. But we really have amazing support throughout the state.”
For Linda Rogers and her husband Bob, the Food Bank is a very comfortable place. “The volunteers are wonderful people, and we really enjoy each other. We get lasting friendships. We’ve been fortunate in our life, so it’s only fair if we can help this way.”
She paused. “Everybody wants to be needed, I think. It’s a feeling of, ‘I can help. I can do something.’”
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Johnson & Wales at AS220: A Lively Experiment
When one talks about a community arts center like AS220 (www.as220.org), where unknown and struggling artists or musicians can find a guaranteed place to showcase their works, one wouldn’t think that culinary arts could play a role. Yet this is exactly what happened last winter at the gallery on Empire Street. Brought to us Providence local-foods lovers by Farm Fresh RI (www.farmfreshri.org), the Wintertime Farmers’ Market was an experiment: While farmers’ markets are all the rage in summer, would the age-old concept translate into the off season? Could there be enough local foods to sustain sales all winter long? And what kind of Rhode Island-farmed foods are there in the wintertime? It turned out to be a great success. On Saturday afternoons the market turned into a family-friendly combination of colorful original art by local painters, food products from area farms and purveyors, and toe-tapping music from the Old Time String Band.
It was into this backdrop I decided to bring cooking demonstrations to the market. As a community-service chef at the Feinstein Center, I’ve done “Veggin’ Out” demos at farmers’ markets many times before—in the summer, of course. Since food stamps can be spent at these markets, Veggin’ Out’s goal is to make valuable culinary and nutritional information available to that audience, and to help expand participation in the WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program. This, in turn, helps to support local farmers and locally grown produce. JWU staff and students demonstrate healthy nutritious meals using locally grown produce and provide recipes for participants to take home. The recipes use the produce available at the markets so WIC recipients can then use their vouchers to purchase the produce used in the recipes and make the meals at home.
The beauty of these public cooking demonstrations is that they benefit more groups than just their intended target. Farmers and other food producers certainly have a stake in seeing their wares purchased and consumed, perhaps even more so in winter. Everybody who eats (and there are a lot of us) can benefit from nutritious local products. Providing samples of unfamiliar food items helps to create more demand, for Food Stamp recipients as well as for everybody else. Sampling ensures that market customers know exactly what they’re getting beforehand so they won’t be afraid to spend their money on a food item if they’re not sure they’re going to like it.
Beyond trying to stimulate sales at the Wintertime Farmers’ Market, a major part of my rationale was to increase student involvement. Initially I turned to members of The Green Collaborative (TGC), the new student organization dedicated to sustainability at the University. It was, in my mind, a great opportunity to put TGC members out into the public view and to showcase Johnson & Wales’ progression into a greener, more sustainable campus. And while these volunteers were essential to making the demonstrations feasible, I felt I needed to go a step further. The culinary students of The Green Collaborative already had knowledge of, and a gung-ho interest in, the issues surrounding the consumption of local foods. The Wintertime Farmers’ Market could be a great environment for teaching chefs-in-training about the benefits of buying local.
Therefore I started arranging for some practicum students to participate in these cooking demonstrations as a part of their nonprofit rotation. I found it unfortunate that most of the Veggin’ Outs occur during the summer, when there aren’t any students around. Even more importantly, I soon recognized that many foodservice and hospitality students had never been to a farmers’ market. There isn’t, in fact, much in the culinary curriculum regarding these types of “green” issues. Awareness of sustainability in the food world is essential to these young chefs if they want to realize dynamic, successful, passionate careers.
The students’ participation in the farmers’ markets, however, was not merely a classroom project. As the season progressed, and I tried to get the students excited about these real-world experiences, many questions came up. What kinds of people go there? What sort of foods do they have? How do they even make cheese, anyway? Not content to just tell them, I decided to show them. It’s perhaps too easy to tell people why they should support their local farms: It’s safer, more nutritious, tastes great, saves on transportation (“food miles”), and so forth. It’s a different thing entirely for students to fully comprehend that food isn’t just a thing that’s ordered from the storeroom to be delivered to a classroom, without any context for how it was created. Asking the person how she made the cheese, shaking the hand of the man who grew all those apples, or sampling an oyster from Rhode Island waters, shucked by the man who grew and harvested it—all are experiences that can’t be duplicated in a culinary laboratory.
By all accounts, then, the Wintertime Farmers’ Market was a great success, despite some of the challenges. The AS220 gallery is small and was unable to accommodate all of the vendors who wanted to participate. Parking is an issue, too, possibly keeping people away who might otherwise be willing to support the local economy by patronizing the farmers at the market. Nevertheless it has been shown that an off-season market is an effective way of getting local foods into the hands of consumers, in addition to an educational experience for chefs.
The idea is evolving. Next winter it could take shape as a central year-round farmers’ market, complete with an incubator kitchen, where farmers could increase the value of their crops by developing prepared foods from their own locally grown ingredients. Furthermore such a market could function as a hub through which local produce could be distributed to restaurants, schools and supermarkets. Given the right situation, such a site could include a demonstration area where local chefs and students could conduct cooking demonstrations and other nutritional programs. That would be quite a lively experiment indeed.
It was into this backdrop I decided to bring cooking demonstrations to the market. As a community-service chef at the Feinstein Center, I’ve done “Veggin’ Out” demos at farmers’ markets many times before—in the summer, of course. Since food stamps can be spent at these markets, Veggin’ Out’s goal is to make valuable culinary and nutritional information available to that audience, and to help expand participation in the WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program. This, in turn, helps to support local farmers and locally grown produce. JWU staff and students demonstrate healthy nutritious meals using locally grown produce and provide recipes for participants to take home. The recipes use the produce available at the markets so WIC recipients can then use their vouchers to purchase the produce used in the recipes and make the meals at home.
The beauty of these public cooking demonstrations is that they benefit more groups than just their intended target. Farmers and other food producers certainly have a stake in seeing their wares purchased and consumed, perhaps even more so in winter. Everybody who eats (and there are a lot of us) can benefit from nutritious local products. Providing samples of unfamiliar food items helps to create more demand, for Food Stamp recipients as well as for everybody else. Sampling ensures that market customers know exactly what they’re getting beforehand so they won’t be afraid to spend their money on a food item if they’re not sure they’re going to like it.
Beyond trying to stimulate sales at the Wintertime Farmers’ Market, a major part of my rationale was to increase student involvement. Initially I turned to members of The Green Collaborative (TGC), the new student organization dedicated to sustainability at the University. It was, in my mind, a great opportunity to put TGC members out into the public view and to showcase Johnson & Wales’ progression into a greener, more sustainable campus. And while these volunteers were essential to making the demonstrations feasible, I felt I needed to go a step further. The culinary students of The Green Collaborative already had knowledge of, and a gung-ho interest in, the issues surrounding the consumption of local foods. The Wintertime Farmers’ Market could be a great environment for teaching chefs-in-training about the benefits of buying local.
Therefore I started arranging for some practicum students to participate in these cooking demonstrations as a part of their nonprofit rotation. I found it unfortunate that most of the Veggin’ Outs occur during the summer, when there aren’t any students around. Even more importantly, I soon recognized that many foodservice and hospitality students had never been to a farmers’ market. There isn’t, in fact, much in the culinary curriculum regarding these types of “green” issues. Awareness of sustainability in the food world is essential to these young chefs if they want to realize dynamic, successful, passionate careers.
The students’ participation in the farmers’ markets, however, was not merely a classroom project. As the season progressed, and I tried to get the students excited about these real-world experiences, many questions came up. What kinds of people go there? What sort of foods do they have? How do they even make cheese, anyway? Not content to just tell them, I decided to show them. It’s perhaps too easy to tell people why they should support their local farms: It’s safer, more nutritious, tastes great, saves on transportation (“food miles”), and so forth. It’s a different thing entirely for students to fully comprehend that food isn’t just a thing that’s ordered from the storeroom to be delivered to a classroom, without any context for how it was created. Asking the person how she made the cheese, shaking the hand of the man who grew all those apples, or sampling an oyster from Rhode Island waters, shucked by the man who grew and harvested it—all are experiences that can’t be duplicated in a culinary laboratory.
By all accounts, then, the Wintertime Farmers’ Market was a great success, despite some of the challenges. The AS220 gallery is small and was unable to accommodate all of the vendors who wanted to participate. Parking is an issue, too, possibly keeping people away who might otherwise be willing to support the local economy by patronizing the farmers at the market. Nevertheless it has been shown that an off-season market is an effective way of getting local foods into the hands of consumers, in addition to an educational experience for chefs.
The idea is evolving. Next winter it could take shape as a central year-round farmers’ market, complete with an incubator kitchen, where farmers could increase the value of their crops by developing prepared foods from their own locally grown ingredients. Furthermore such a market could function as a hub through which local produce could be distributed to restaurants, schools and supermarkets. Given the right situation, such a site could include a demonstration area where local chefs and students could conduct cooking demonstrations and other nutritional programs. That would be quite a lively experiment indeed.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Green Eggs, No Ham: Sustainability In The Food World
For 1970, the words were remarkably prescient. Margaret Mead wrote, “What we do about food is…crucial, both for the quality of the next generation, our own American children, and children everywhere… If food is grown in strict relation to the needs of those who will eat it, if every effort is made to reduce the costs of transportation, to improve storage, to conserve the land, and [to recycle] wastes and water, we will go a long way toward solving many of our environmental problems.” Dr. Christine Thompson’s brief reading of Mead’s essay, “The Changing Significance of Food,” opened the recent panel discussion Green Eggs, No Ham: Sustainability in the Food World, held on October 18th in the Tyson Amphitheater. The gathering was part of a series of Focus the Nation educational initiatives, in which teams of faculty and students at colleges, universities, and high schools come together in national and interdisciplinary conversations, all focused on the theme of “Global Warming Solutions for America.”
The first presenter on the panel was Noah Fulmer, co-founder and executive director of Farm Fresh RI. This on-line network, created in 2004, intends to save farmland, connect local farmers with potential buyers, and grow a food system that values the environment. Fulmer related a story highlighting the lack of awareness at that time. Noticing that the local supermarkets were filled with Idaho potatoes, he persuaded a couple of the managers to try an experiment. After displaying the locally grown potatoes side-by-side with the Idahoes, the Rhode Island potatoes outsold the others by 4 to 1. But despite the demand, neither the motivation nor the resources were available to forge the links necessary to bring the local produce to market in a significant way. Enter the RI Fresh Network, an important component of the Farm Fresh concept. “Our expertise isn’t growing, selling, or culinary, it’s about forming connections. And it’s about new technology meets old,” said Fulmer. The Farm Fresh RI website, http://www.farmfreshri.org/, is designed to foster collaboration between businesses that buy locally, and successfully aims to build consumer awareness of where to find local foods. The networking culminates in an annual RI Local Food Forum, whereby schools, restaurants, caterers, retailers, and growers can share farm-to-table best practices and increase the consumption of local foods.
But forming those connections isn’t the only barrier to sustainable foods, according to John Turenne, the owner of Sustainable Food Systems. This consulting firm he created helps organizations design locally grown and ecologically sound food programs. As the second speaker on the panel, Turenne believed that “cost confusion” is also a factor. The perception of buying locally from farmers is that the cost is often higher than buying from one’s neighborhood grocery store. “People think that it costs a lot more. But it doesn’t have to,” he said.
Another challenge to sustainability is that of the “template mentality” towards food, where quality, convenience, and automation take precedence over quality, taste, and sustenance. When businesses prepare their food in such a way as to respect and maintain its quality and freshness, they attract more customers, help preserve farms and biodiversity, while cultivating passion and creativity among their employees. Chefs will learn to adapt to the natural progression of the seasons, utilizing the best of what nature has to offer, and get to know the “faces behind the food”—the people who work so hard to bring the farm to the table.
Minimizing waste and using natural resources as efficiently as possible are also a key feature of any sustainable program. Michael Oshman, founder of the Green Restaurant Association and the last speaker at the forum, is dedicated to creating sustainability in the restaurant industry. In the US, half of the entire food budget is spent in restaurants, so it’s not surprising that they account for a quarter of all the food wasted in the nation. Restaurants are also the largest user of electricity in the retail sector, consuming at least a third of that energy in refrigeration, heating, lighting, and cooking. Furthermore, according to Oshman, the average conventionally-grown food item travels about 1300 miles from the farm to the table, resulting in significant fuel and transportation costs.
Obviously, a multi-faceted approach is required to meet the challenges and to reap the benefits of sustainability in the food world. It certainly takes more than local vegetables to make a green kitchen. But while making food businesses sustainable may be an experiment, eating them is quite a different matter. People who aren’t sure whether or not to give them a try could follow the advice of a famous doctor when it comes to trying new things: You can eat them here or there. As a matter of fact, you can eat them anywhere.
The first presenter on the panel was Noah Fulmer, co-founder and executive director of Farm Fresh RI. This on-line network, created in 2004, intends to save farmland, connect local farmers with potential buyers, and grow a food system that values the environment. Fulmer related a story highlighting the lack of awareness at that time. Noticing that the local supermarkets were filled with Idaho potatoes, he persuaded a couple of the managers to try an experiment. After displaying the locally grown potatoes side-by-side with the Idahoes, the Rhode Island potatoes outsold the others by 4 to 1. But despite the demand, neither the motivation nor the resources were available to forge the links necessary to bring the local produce to market in a significant way. Enter the RI Fresh Network, an important component of the Farm Fresh concept. “Our expertise isn’t growing, selling, or culinary, it’s about forming connections. And it’s about new technology meets old,” said Fulmer. The Farm Fresh RI website, http://www.farmfreshri.org/, is designed to foster collaboration between businesses that buy locally, and successfully aims to build consumer awareness of where to find local foods. The networking culminates in an annual RI Local Food Forum, whereby schools, restaurants, caterers, retailers, and growers can share farm-to-table best practices and increase the consumption of local foods.
But forming those connections isn’t the only barrier to sustainable foods, according to John Turenne, the owner of Sustainable Food Systems. This consulting firm he created helps organizations design locally grown and ecologically sound food programs. As the second speaker on the panel, Turenne believed that “cost confusion” is also a factor. The perception of buying locally from farmers is that the cost is often higher than buying from one’s neighborhood grocery store. “People think that it costs a lot more. But it doesn’t have to,” he said.
Another challenge to sustainability is that of the “template mentality” towards food, where quality, convenience, and automation take precedence over quality, taste, and sustenance. When businesses prepare their food in such a way as to respect and maintain its quality and freshness, they attract more customers, help preserve farms and biodiversity, while cultivating passion and creativity among their employees. Chefs will learn to adapt to the natural progression of the seasons, utilizing the best of what nature has to offer, and get to know the “faces behind the food”—the people who work so hard to bring the farm to the table.
Minimizing waste and using natural resources as efficiently as possible are also a key feature of any sustainable program. Michael Oshman, founder of the Green Restaurant Association and the last speaker at the forum, is dedicated to creating sustainability in the restaurant industry. In the US, half of the entire food budget is spent in restaurants, so it’s not surprising that they account for a quarter of all the food wasted in the nation. Restaurants are also the largest user of electricity in the retail sector, consuming at least a third of that energy in refrigeration, heating, lighting, and cooking. Furthermore, according to Oshman, the average conventionally-grown food item travels about 1300 miles from the farm to the table, resulting in significant fuel and transportation costs.
Obviously, a multi-faceted approach is required to meet the challenges and to reap the benefits of sustainability in the food world. It certainly takes more than local vegetables to make a green kitchen. But while making food businesses sustainable may be an experiment, eating them is quite a different matter. People who aren’t sure whether or not to give them a try could follow the advice of a famous doctor when it comes to trying new things: You can eat them here or there. As a matter of fact, you can eat them anywhere.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Scialo Bros. Bakery: The Tradition Is Baked Right In
Indeed it did. As oxymoronic as a “good fruitcake” might sound, there it was: a handsome little loaf, rich but not too sweet, loaded with dried fruits and chunks of walnuts. And it was merely one of the many things I sampled that busy day last autumn. As a matter of fact, I discovered quickly that one could hardly go wrong with anything that’s crafted here, in the old-world Italian tradition. For when people buy fruitcakes at Scialo Bros., or bread or pies or cannolis, they’re not just buying a quality pastry. They’re also buying a little taste of history. Much has changed over the years in
That was in 1916. Luigi Scialo came to
By then, Luigi’s three daughters were in a bind. After their father’s passing, they had to decide what to do. They’d all grown up in the business, lived upstairs in the tenement until they were married and were familiar with what was going on. “I always did the books for my dad,” said Lois (Scialo) Ellis, “so it wasn’t like we had no clue. We were always here on weekends, vacations and holidays. But my feeling was—all of us were married, all with children and one sister in
They put it on the market. At the same time, customers hearing that the bakery was up for sale were visiting, calling and writing letters: “‘Oh my God, where will we buy the sfogliatelle? The bread? The cookie trays?’” Lois said. “We had a buyer but the deal fell through. So we thought, uh-oh, maybe we should take a step back and rethink this.” The sister in
But what made people say that the bakery couldn’t close? It’s because they use no preservatives in any of the products, everything is made right there on the site and it’s made virtually the way you would make it in your own home by hand. They have very few machines, and they don’t use artificial flavorings. “People really appreciate it; that’s absolutely the reason,” insisted Lois. Several years ago, when the price of vanilla spiked up to three or four hundred dollars per gallon, the sisters debated whether they were going to continue using the pure vanilla or buy the inferior. “We decided it simply wasn’t worth lowering the quality of the product,” she concluded.
Obviously, then, the artistry begins with the mixing. The breads, for example, are all made from the same four ingredients: flour, water, salt and yeast. They’re formed by hand into the various shapes, such as rounds, Sicilian braids, baguettes or the traditional elongated Italian loaves served in the restaurants. The proofing times and baking temperatures are varied, producing some loaves with a thick crust and dense crumb, and others (such as the rolls) that are soft and great for sandwiches. “When I was growing up, my parents often spoke of two kinds of people,” according to Lois. “We were Italian, but everybody else was American. And you could tell the Italians from the Americans because Italians would buy the bread unsliced. When Americans come in they always buy it sliced.”
The specialty item at Scialo Bros., however, has to be the sfogliatelle (pronounced sfo-lyah-TEL-e), a traditional pastry. “If you go any place south of
The baking method hasn’t changed with the times, either. There are no modern ovens. Everything is baked in a huge, 14-foot square, gas-fired brick oven—though it was wood-fired when the bakery first started. Workers brought the logs in, placed them in a compartment off to one side called the fire box, and waited until the wood burned down. Some time in the ’30s they converted to gas-fired burners to heat the brick, and they’ve been using that system ever since. The bakers keep the gas running for about two hours until the temperature reaches 800 degrees, then let it gradually cool down. “But it’s not a consistent temperature,” Lois explained. “Near the fire box, there’s a more intense heat. These guys have to know exactly what they’re doing, and where to place things [within the oven]. It’s really an art, a skill, to do this kind of baking.” There is a full line of cookies which come out of that oven, including biscotti, pignoli, amaretti, macaroons and chocolate-dipped butter cookies, and the list of cakes, tarts, pies, squares and biscuits are too numerous to list here.
Yet the baking is just the beginning of the impressive selection of sweets and pastries. The cannolis are all made from scratch, from the shells to the cream filling. They roll the dough, cut it into circles, put the circle on a wooden dowel, deep fry the dowel then remove the shell. Each one is just a little different. “If you go into a place and they’re all absolutely perfectly colored and shaped, then you know they’ve been processed someplace, probably baked up frozen. We make them every day, and fill them as we need them,” Lois said. They also make torrone, a milky-white almond and nougat candy that’s traditional to eat during the winter holidays, when it’s cold enough to harden properly. They’ll make zeppoles for
Not bad for a company that doesn’t advertise, although they have appeared in all kinds of print media and national TV shows such as FoodNation With Bobby Flay, Molto Mario with Mario Batali and The Best of: Bakeries with Marc Silverstein, all aired on the Food Network. But you don’t necessarily have to watch television to see what goes on behind the traffic-stopping window displays and the glass counters piled high with all the goodies. The sisters give tours by request—call for information ahead of time. But despite all the publicity, “we don’t want to get bigger,” Carol stressed. “It’s a labor of love, and we try very hard to keep it rooted in family.”
And what about retirement? “We get that question all the time,” she laughed. “This is our retirement.” Let’s hope that the Scialo family will continue the tradition for generations to come.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Kale To The Chef: It Isn't Just For Garnish Any More
The following article will appear in the Winter 2007 issue of Edible Rhody magazine, in the Vegetable Matter column.
Poor kale. Of all the vegetables, this one must suffer from the worst inferiority complex. Having long been taken for granted as a supporting player for other foods, it is often placed ubiquitously on restaurant dinner plates only to be summarily ignored; or worse, found soggy and languishing on many a fruit platter, uneaten, then tossed away like yesterday’s newspaper. This is a shame. The silvery-gray, curly leaves surely do look great, but their beauty is definitely more than skin deep. Included on the “World’s Healthiest Foods” web site (www.whfoods.org), kale is nutrient-dense, readily available and tastes pretty darn good. It certainly merits a second look, especially for people who want to continue enjoying fresh local vegetables throughout the winter.
Kale certainly does thrive in cool weather, according to Kristin Lewis, who runs Rabbit’s Dance Farm, a CSA in
But if you need another good reason to eat kale, consider that it offers more nutritional value for fewer calories than just about any other food around. As a member of the Brassica family—which includes cabbage, collards and Brussels sprouts—the so-called cruciferous vegetables have recently gained widespread attention due to their health-promoting, sulfur-containing compounds. Several researchers point to the ability of these phytonutrients to lessen the occurrence of a wide variety of cancers, including breast and ovarian cancers. Exactly how they work is still a mystery, but it seems that they activate detoxifying enzymes in the liver that help neutralize potentially carcinogenic substances more quickly. Furthermore, kale is an excellent source of vitamins A and C, as well as a good source of fiber and minerals.
So by all means feel free to put some kale on your plate. Just remember that it truly deserves a starring role.
Rabbit’s Dance Farm
www.rabbitsdancefarm.com
kristin@rabbitsdancefarm.com
(401) 658-2457
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