Chile Charla

At High Noon, local time, I gave my talk on food waste to a room of chefs at the World Association of Chefs Societies Congress. In case you’re curious, here are the slides from the talk (it may take a minute or two to load).

Of course, it won’t be the same without my charismatic delivery…OK, that’s a stretch, but I actually thought it went pretty well.

To give you an idea of how it looked, picture this big room mostly filled with chefs in their kitchen whites. There were no toques, sadly, but there were plenty of translation devices in non-English-speakers’ ears. Not sure how my (few, tasteful) jokes translated, although people did seem to chuckle when the Hooters slide came up (to illustrate large poritons).

Hopefully the talk will have at least some impact, as the chefs here mostly work in institutional kitchens with plenty of waste due to the scale of operations. Not hurting the chances of impact: the sheer number of countries represented.

After the talk, I chatted with chefs from  France, Brazil, Turkey, New Zealand, Guatemala, Chile, Canada, Ireland and the U.S. (don’t call it America here!). I spoke with an Icelandic chef living in Virginia, a Norwegian chef residing in Chile and a Croatian who worked in America. Yes, it’s a truly interenational event.

My favorite part of the aftermath (OK, second favorite after that first glass of wine) was chatting with a Mongolian chef at lunch. His English was worse than my Spanish (and that’s saying a lot) but he gave me an “I love America!” that was as awesome as it was surprising.

Anyway, the chef from Ulaanbaatar was all smiles and I liked him even more when he gave me a card that read: “Mr. Orshikh, Master Chef.” The kicker, as I already tweeted, is that his establishment is called California Restaurant and Bar. But he’s only been to New York, Washington and Miami. Is it possible that Mr. Orshikh told me he imports all his ingredients from the U.S??

Finally, I’m not sure if anyone noticed, but I spent 20 minutes this morning trying to find a Chilean dish that uses up old bread to incorporate into my presentation. Chupe de Mariscos was the one. It hope it added a bit of local flavor to the list of panzanella, pain perdu and bread pudding.

January 26, 2010 | Posted in International, Personal | Comments closed

In Chile

I arrived in Chile this morning; I’m here to give a talk at the World Congress of the World Association of Chefs Societies. It has been a long day, but in a good way.

While out walking, I stumbled into a little market–more a row of vendors along the river–one of my favorite things to find. I happened to get there late in the day, as many stalls were closing up. In addition to seeing the biggest ears of corn of my life, I was struck by what seemed like the accepted practice of leaving all the unusable produce on the sidewalk. image by erjkprunczyk via Creative Commons

I asked the woman who sold me a few plums about it. From what I understood, the city would clean it up. But every day?

They have some help. When I left, a few men were picking through the remains, some of which seemed edible, but barely. Not all of the stuff had been edible–there were many husks from the aforementioned grande corn. But there were plenty of old peppers, tomatoes, lettuce and cucmbers.

An image I won’t soon forget is of a man squatting and sipping the juice from a halved cantaloupe. He was making the fruit liquidy with a stick and then drinking it. Now that’s getting the most out of food.

One final thought–Chilean fruit is amazing. Especially when it hasn’t been airlifted to other countries.

January 24, 2010 | Posted in International | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Give out of date food to the homeless, UK Environment Secretary Hilary Benn told supermarkets. He singled out food redistribution charity FareShare as part of the solution. There’s only one problem–FareShare doesn’t really collect surplus food. They receive it. The next Briton to start a nationwide food recovery group will be the first.

— —image by dailylifeofmojo via creative commons

Wasting chowder bread bowls?! But that’s the best part! (Despite hailing from Mass., I’m not a huge chowdah fan. But I am a fan of this soup-centric scene.)

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After a suspenseful build-up, UK retailer Tesco will launch its Buy One Get One Free-Later promotion next week. Shoppers will have the choice of taking their free item at the time of purchase or receiving a voucher to get it later. I’ve been told the delay in implementation was due to making changes to the checkout software at the tills/registers.

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USA Today is on the case with Grease…er, make that…grease!

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A new Minnesota location of the Texas Roadhouse chain will give away smokey meats and other treats to those in need before opening to the public. Sure, it’s a showy move intended to garner mentions like this. But the manager admitted as much and the end result is just as useful.

January 22, 2010 | Posted in Food Recovery, Friday Buffet, International, Restaurant | Comments closed

Your Thoughts, Please

Next week, I’m headed to the World Association of Chefs Societies‘ 2010 get together in Santiago, Chile. While there, I’ll be giving a talk on restaurant food waste.

I’m now putting together my slides and wanted to pose a question in the hope of making my presentation as inclusive as can be: What ways do you see restaurants prompting waste? And what ways have you noticed them reducing or avoiding waste?Santiago. Photo by Kyle Simourd via creative commons

I’m interested in particular restaurants’ strategies, but feel free to interpret the question as you see fit. If you don’t mind, please be as specific as possible–giving credit where it’s due and vice versa.

Anyway, my session takes place on Tuesday, but I’ll be there for most of the week. I’m looking forward to meeting some chefs, hearing other perspectives on the topic and experiencing some other events on the program. For example, the Wine Marathon, which is oddly scheduled for a scant 90 minutes, sounds interesting. 

I’ll keep you posted on that one if you share your insights on eating out. Deal? Deal.

January 20, 2010 | Posted in Personal, Restaurant | Comments closed

Get Thee to a Wormery

If you’ve visited this site more than a handful of times, you probably know of my affection and appreciation for Portland. The progressive stance on reducing and recycling food waste there just plain puts me in a good mood.

Well, here’s the latest idea brewing in the Rose City: a collectively-operated worm composting operation. Yes, a Portland wormery.

photo by comroques (via Creative Commons)Now, this is far from a reality. It’s currently a vision of Randy White, founder of Bright Neighbor, a community social networking site. But I love that the idea of sending food waste to a central wormery is being discussed in Portland.

I’d probably choose an anaerobic digestion plant over a wormery, but since the city hasn’t been able to find a site for a compost operation after years of searching, the odds are much better for a humble, humming vermiculture collective. It’d be much cheaper, too.
Whether or not his idea comes to fruition, we should thank White for bringing us this quote of gold, on the nutrient-rich nature of worm “casings.”

“They poop out treasure,” he said. “We need a more eco-friendly market substitute to replace petroleum-based fertilizer.”

Nuff said.

January 18, 2010 | Posted in Composting, Vermiculture | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

The U.S. Capitol cafeteria has composted food for a bit, but now there’s plenty more eco-friendly changes in House office buildings. Since launching in 2007, Green the Capitol has diverted 75,000 pounds from landfills.

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I just heard about Hands for Hunger, a food recovery group in the Bahamas from this article. I’m not sure why it surprises me to learn of a Bahamian food rescue outfit, but I am certain image courtesy of steveconover.info via creative commonsthat this is one food recovery outfit I’d love to research in person.   

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Here are 10 tips for reducing food waste.
10 really good tips.

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Starting in 2010, Ottawa has joined Toronto, Vancouver and a few others as Canadian cities separating and composting food waste. They’re just now getting started. One slight problem–since they’re required to supply the composting operation a certain tonnage, there’s no incentive to reduce food waste.

Also, residents in one Vancouver neighborhood will have their trash and food scrap bins inspected to see how they’re faring at food recycling.

January 15, 2010 | Posted in Composting, Food Recovery, Friday Buffet, Household, International | Comments closed

Help Haiti

I just heard a figure on NPR that blew my mind–roughly 80 percent of Haiti’s GDP is foreign aid. And that was before the quake. If there was ever a place that really didn’t need a natural disaster, Haiti is it.

After combing through my archives, I found a few examples of Haitian misery–again, before yesterday’s major earthquake. One doesn’t easily forget this article about Haitians so poor they’ve resorted to making cookies from mud, salt and vegetable shortening. 2008 brought Hurricanes and the violence and death caused by protests from food inflation.

Since pictures are more valuable than words, here’s a riveting slideshow of this week’s damage. Please donate if you can–here are a few organizations helping those suffering: the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders or Oxfam America. For more info on how the aid process is proceeding, the Red Cross Blog has some good updates on the situation.

Say a prayer and give if you can.

January 13, 2010 | Posted in Hunger, International | Comments closed

Cuppa Waste

Wasted coffee. This topic could be its own book. In the meantime, it’s a post:

The food waste experts at LeanPath have provided some helpful and potentially money-saving hints on both reducing the amount of excess coffee and what to do with the inevitable excess. While the tips are aimed at restaurants and institutional settings, mostly, they still are quite applicable.photo by INeedCoffee via Creative Commons

The LeanPath post reminds us that there are alternate uses not just for coffee, but also grounds. Here are the 11 ways to use old grounds. And just because I’m feeling generous, here are 10 more to make it 21 uses for used grounds. Enjoy that coffee facial!

For some reason, I can’t get as outraged at coffee waste as I do with food waste. (Am I alone on that?) Still, growing coffee, like all agriculture, is resource-intensive. May as well try not to dump out a full pot at the end of every day or night.

Offices must be among the larger sources for coffee waste (cafes, of course). I’m wondering does anyone out there work at a place that utilizes the extra Joe at the end of day or is it dumped?

January 13, 2010 | Posted in Repurposing, Restaurant | Comments closed

And it’s AWD!

In the Credit Where Credit Is Due department: kudos to Subaru of America for their automotive donation to the Food Bank of South Jersey (FBSJ). The Pennsauken-based food distribution agency will use the 2009 Tribeca to make smaller deliveries that don’t require a truck.

And that’s not all the Cherry Hill, N.J.-based car maker is doing. They also collected more than 18 tons of food in 2009’s image courtesy of Subaru EnthusiastsDrive Out Hunger food drive and donated some of the bounty from their Share the Love garden at their headquarters.

Following Subaru’s lead, I think there’s a real opportunity for car companies to get some nice publicity by making similar donations (and not just on this blog). One auto maker could even become the official food recovery vehicle of a state, region or–why not–nation.

Getting back to the Tribeca, it’s a useful donation because it will be reliable and get much better mileage (18 mpg) than whatever box truck the FBSJ was using previously. Plus, that AWD (all-wheel drive) could come in handy when trying to get recovered food to the needy in winters like this one.

[Note: this blogger is in no way affiliated with Subaru or has he received any automotive gifts…yet]

January 11, 2010 | Posted in Food Recovery, Hunger | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

In case you were wondering, here’s what Almeda County, i.e. Oakland, thinks about food scrap recycling

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According to this piece from Australia, one-third of Queensland bananas are graded out because they don’t meet supermarkets’ specifications. Crikey!

Words of wisdom, from Australia’s head banana man:

“I think perhaps years ago when most Australians had some direct connection to somebody who had a farm, people understood farming was not an exact science and produce was not made in a factory.”

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Nice story on Columbia U’s food donation, told on a really human level. You can process it viathe written word or the spoken:

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Two New Jersey moms fed up with all the disposable packing materials used in their kids’ packed lunches have created their ideal lunch box to aid the cause. Oddly, there doesn’t seem to be much attention to the massive amount of school food waste.

January 8, 2010 | Posted in Composting, Friday Buffet, General, International, Waste Stream | Comments closed