A new neighbor with heart

Craig Chapman, former corporate chef for Bonefish Grill and Hops Restaurant and Brewery, is up and running with his big restaurant plans for downtown St. Petersburg. First to open its doors is Grillside Central at the site of the defunct Tedesco's at 437 Central Avenue. To celebrate the launch, Chapman has decided to donate all proceeds from Thursday's lunch, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., to the Abilities Foundation.

Says Frank DeLucia, foundation president and chief executive, "Craig Chapman is an accomplished chef with a lot of head room who could have selected any of 2,400 nonprofits in the Tampa Bay area, yet he chose to put his faith in, and financial muscle, behind us. It's very humbling and rewarding, and quite a tribute to Abilities' success in placing people with disabilities in mainstream jobs and affordable housing."

Technically, aren't we supposed to bring the new neighbor a Bundt cake or something? The least we can do is check out the new place and have lunch for a good cause.

Dine Out For Life

ASAP —as soon as possible — is a common acronym in our daily lives. But for the thousand people who benefit from AIDS Service Association of Pinellas, that’s often not soon enough. The largest provider of HIV/AIDS services in Pinellas, ASAP will hold its second annual Dining Out For Life evening on Thursday to raise money for services.

The event was created by ActionAIDS in Philadelphia in 1993. Since then, 3,500 restaurants internationally have donated a percentage of their proceeds from this single night to AIDS service organizations around the country and Canada, making it the largest international fundraising event for HIV/AIDS.

The idea is simple: Dine at any of the 36 participating restaurants in Pinellas County on Thursday and 25 percent of your bill will be donated to AIDS Service Association of Pinellas. According to Daniel Hodge, local community programs director for ASAP, the money goes to fund a food pantry program and an annual retreat for those suffering from HIV/AIDS. Last year the evening netted $13,000 from the 23 participating restaurants; this year he hopes that number will be doubled.

Participating restaurants include: Ai-Mei Thai, Backfin Blue Café, Basta’s, Bella Brava, Blue Heron Café, Brisket Basket, Café Dolce, Café Ten-O-One, Casa Tina, C.D. Roma’s, Chiang Mai Thailand, Compass Grille, Dominic’s Pizzeria, Elements Global Cuisine, Feola’s, Ferg’s Sports Bar, Fortunato’s, Friendly Fisherman, Georgie’s Alibi, Gratzzi, Domain Food & Spirits, Isabelita’s, Island Flavors and Tings, Java Nirvana Café, La Cote Basque, La Fogata Churrascaria, Le Bouchon Bistro, Lucky Dill Deli, Mid Peninsula Seafood Market, Palm Terrace Grill, Peg’s, Pia’s Trattoria, Roman Gardens, Sal’s Town Shore, Spoto’s Italian Grille, and Water Witch. (More restaurants could be added to the list. Check here.)

In Gulfport alone, a dozen restaurants in a three-block area will participate, coalescing in a festive “movable feast” street scene. As Hodge explains, “This is just our second year, but the potential is enormous.” So, eat early, eat often, and order dessert — it’s for charity.

Yeah, Earth Day!

EVOS restaurants plan to shake things up Tuesday on Earth Day by offering free organic, low-fat milkshakes to their customers. Their milkshakes are made naturally with a simple key ingredient list of 2 percent certified organic milk, sugar, and added multi-vitamin. Headquartered in Tampa, EVOS serves fast-food staples such as burgers, fries, and milkshakes that contain 50 to 70 percent less fat than its competitors (mostly because of these cool "airbaking" ovens). In addition to their healthy focus (and organic whenever possible), EVOS restaurants also use green materials when designing and constructing its buildings. The company chooses environmentally-friendly products like Marmoleum, a composite that contains wood flour, linseed oil, rosin and jute fiber and has no toxic chemicals. The company also uses recycled wood panels, offsets a portion of their energy usage with renewable wind energy, and prints guest materials on recycled paper.

Home cooks can go green more easily with a new line of nonstick cookware avaible at HSN.com. Your old Teflon non-stick pan is releasing toxic gases into the environment and hazardous material into your food. The GreenPan (six-piece cookware set $99.90) is the first cookware product to utilize Thermolon non-stick coating which is PTFE/PFOA-free, and will perform at high temperatures without deterioration or releasing harmful fumes.

Blame Earl Butz

So that I could write this story, I watched the documentary King Corn with my husband. Afterward, I became apoplectic with rage. Why have we made such irresponsible choices with America’s most subsidized, most productive grain? The rampant use of high-fructose corn syrup, all the secret corn in processed foods--this didn't need to happen. Accustomed to rants of this sort, my husband (a psychologist) remained unflappable. Walking through the kitchen, however, my daughter looked alarmed, the thought bubble over her head something like, "Um, my parents appear to be fighting about corn. Has anyone ever gotten divorced because of corn?"

I calmed down, but I still blame Earl Butz.

He was the secretary of agriculture under Richard Nixon, instrumental in rewriting New Deal agricultural policy, urging farmers to plant commodity crops and lots of them. As the architect of modern subsidies, his aim was to expand the reach of agriculture and transform the way we farm. Fundamentally, he wanted people fed. He enthuses about his successes in an interview with the King Corn filmmakers in his office: “Spend 16 to 17 percent of our take-home pay on food? That’s marvelous!”

Butz died this February, so out of respect I'll stop haranguing.

Evil corn from Grinning Planet.

The 99 Cent Only Stores Cookbook

This cookbook  comes out officially on April 1 but has been all over the place the past few days. It's stunt cooking. Recipes made only from things found at 99-cent stores. Here are some sample dishes:

• Artichoke Spinach Bake on Homemade Pizza Bread
• Green Beans Au Gratin
• Chicken Tetrazinni
• Pinot Noir Poached Pear Tart

After reading Mark Albright's alarming yet interesting "food prices are going through the roof and here's why" story this weekend, I'm wondering how feasible this is. If food costs really have increased so dramatically, how have restaurant prices stayed fairly stable in the past 18 months or so?

For instance, I just got e-mail from Bob Jones of Southeastern Fisheries Association. He shared with me a chart from one of his members, a shrimp fisherman on the east coast of Florida. These are the prices commercial fishing boats paid for diesel fuel each March over the past years:

2000      .90
2001      .97
2002      .92
2003      1.27
2004      1.18
2005      1.72
2006      2.05
2007      2.09
2008      3.25

Unless commercial fishing outfits pass this additional costs on to consumers and retailers, there's no way these businesses will survive. But who is going to pay 3x what they paid eight years ago for fish? It's a conundrum.

Chronic lateness

When I was younger, I was unable to say no. I don't mean that in a seamy way, just that everything presented to me sounded pretty darn good. "Do you want to do this, or this?" The answer was always, "Both."

As a result, I was chronically late. Up-on-two-wheels, panting-as-I-vault-the-stairs late. I would say, on average, I was 18 to 28 minutes late for everything in my life between the ages of 20 and 34. Dentists, friends, hair stylists, advisors, work colleagues--they all consulted their watches, rolled their eyes, plotted revenge.

Restaurants are fighting back. How many times have you been to a resto recently where the reservationist has said "Is everyone in your party here?" The late person is the fly in the ointment, preventing you from being seated. You mill around in the foyer, the reservationist giving you the stink eye every few minutes. Finally, your late party arrives, babbling his/her excuse and smiling wanly. Maybe, just maybe, your table is still available.

I want to hear from diners and restaurateurs: How long should a table be held? If you're more than 15 minutes late, is it your responsibility to call the restaurant? Do you always call to cancel a reservation if your plans change? Some restaurants now require a credit card to hold the reservation--in the event of a no-show, how much is the restaurant entitled to?

Food for thought

This is one week's food for families in different societies. While Coke seems ubiquitous, the differences in fresh versus packaged food is astounding.

Japan : The Ukita family of Kodaira City
Food expenditure for one week: 37,699 Yen or $317.25

Italy: The Manzo family of Sicily
Food expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.11

Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide
Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07

United States: The Revis family of North Carolina
Food expenditure for one week: $341.98

Mexico: The Casales family of Cuernavaca
Food expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09

Poland: The Sobczynscy family of Konstancin-Jeziorna
Food expenditure for one week: 582.48 Zlotys or $151.27

Egypt: The Ahmed family of Cairo
Food expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyp tian Pounds or $68.53

 

Ecuador: The Ayme family of Tingo
Food expenditure for one week: $31.55

Bhutan: The Namgay family of Shingkhey Village
Food expenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03

Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp
Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23

Loco for locavores

I like to fish. I don't hunt, but mostly that's because no one has ever invited me (hint, hint). I think I'm fairly honest with myself, as an omnivore, about where my food comes from. I eat meat. Therefore I eat animals. Ones that walk and swim and fly and maybe even dream. An op-ed piece in the New York Times today caught my eye. Essentially, it was talking about how hunting is about as p.c. as it gets in terms of eating:

"free-range, grass-fed, organic, locally produced, locally harvested, sustainable, native, low-stress, low-impact, humanely slaughtered meat."

The agenda of author Steven Rinella was to get people comfy with the idea of venison shoots (heck, there are lots of places in the country that have a massive glut of those antlered guys). Here in Florida, white-tailed deer and wild hogs are the most commonly hunted game. Feeling squeamish about that? I guess buying (or catching) Florida fish as often as possible would have you basking in the smug aura of locavorism.

Recent trips to Publix, Whole Foods (Wild Oats? whatever) and others make me realize that consumers have to push the envelope on this front. Asking, "what fish is from Florida?" often elicits blank looks. Do it often enough and things will start to change. Do it in restaurants and the same holds true.

The clean and dirty dozen

The November/December issue Utne Reader breaks down the 12 most and least contaminated produce. You might want to reconsider that apple-a-day

MOST CONTAMINATED

1. Peaches
2. Apples
3. Sweet bell peppers
4. Celery
5. Nectarines
6. Strawberries
7. Cherries
8. Lettuce
9. Grapes (imported)
10. Pears
11. Spinach
12. Potatoes

LEAST CONTAMINATED

1. Onions
2. Avocados
3. Sweet corn (frozen)
4. Pineapples
5. Mangoes
6. Sweet peas (frozen)
7. Asparagus
8. Kiwi
9. Bananas
10. Cabbage
11. Broccoli
12. Eggplant

Easy being green?

The greening of the restaurant industry, a movement that took root ages ago, at least in restaurant speak, is big business. According to Zagat's 2007 America's Top Restaurants, 65 percent of surveyors said they would pay more for food that has been sustainably raised or procured.

But what does "being green" mean in real terms? Banning bottled water? Choosing only organic and/or sustainable products? Going local whenever possible? I'm happy when I see specific farms or purveyors mentioned on a menu--knowing where food comes from is part of the battle. Restaurants should also get extra props for exploring alternative energy sources, for recycling, for eschewing animals and animal products that are produced cruelly--heck, even for keeping restaurant temperatures such that air conditioning isn't blowing at gale force all the time. As consumers, we need to pay attention to this stuff so we recognize when and whom to praise.

Not sure why that's on my mind today--assuaging guilt? Tonight I'm off to eat un-p.c. steak at the Seminole Hard Rock.

Whoa, it comes right out of the faucet.

I went to New York last weekend with four friends. We whooped it up. For example, Friday night ended with shards of multiple drink glasses shellacked to the inside of my purse with the contents of several votive candles. It was that kind of whooping.

Still, a few things came clear through the haze.

First, NYC is crawling with famous people. Who look entirely like themselves, only with less perfect hair. Here are the people we saw:

The Woody Allen and Julie Andrews sightings are less rock-solid than the others. Don't these pictures make you wonder why famous people reflexively grip the sides of their heads when photographed? But I digress.

The second thing that came clear is that tap water is the new black. No more Perrier or San Pellegrino or Evian. Collectively, the New York dining public has agreed to drink water right from the spigot. It's amazing that real change can occur so quickly. We read about how much waste is produced and fossil fuels are expended in our bottled water mania, and WHAM, I'll take tap water, please. People were even carrying around personal nalgene bottles filled with tap.

The third thing I became dizzyingly aware of is just how good New York City restaurants are. There are cheap ones, fancy ones, bustling ones, ethnic ones--many of them so scary good that you have to moan and roll your eyes during meals. So there I was all weekend, moaning, rolling my eyes and picking glass bits out of my purse.

Do vegetarians eat animal crackers?

I’m working on a round-up story of how notable local restaurants accommodate the needs of vegetarians. Which has prompted me to think of the needs of vegetarians.

A menu is a text, a way for us to interpret the vision and aesthetic of a chef/artist. We read through each dish, skimming the ones that don’t interest us—na, no sea scallops, not in the mood for veal—but some dishes capture our attention. We scrutinize the details, we imagine the sauce, the accompanying starch.

This should hold true for vegetarians, too. If a menu, in small italic print at the bottom, says merely, “We can accommodate special dietary needs,” the restaurant has punted. They have not imagined, executed, tweaked and menu-marketed a meat-free dish. They’re just making something up on the fly or, even worse, asking the vegetarian customer himself to come up with an idea.

It’s also not enough for a restaurant to say, “we can make any of the entrees vegetarian” by either substituting tofu or by merely deleting the protein. Then it’s not the dish the chef intended. With the protein deleted, there’s a gaping hole at the center of a dish, a hole that, texturally, tofu can’t always fill. Also, what does this mean for the price? Delete a $36 filet mignon and sub tofu—what’s the revised cost to the customer?

Another strategy restaurants sometimes adopt is to feed a vegetarian a variety of the side dishes from other entrees. So, a pile of “vegetable medley,” mashed potatoes, etc. Nutritionally, the lack of protein makes this approach inelegant.

Having just visited nine out of the ten restaurants I'm writing about, my conclusion is basically that every restaurant should offer at least one meat-free option that has had the same thought brought to bear on it as anything else on the menu.

Egg on their face?

I buy cage-free eggs. Will I eat an egg when I know nothing of its mother's well-being? Yes, I will. But I've seen the film clips about how large-scale egg farms work and it makes me queasy. I don't even particularly relate to chickens (I'm more of a mammal gal), but it seems like an easy call. Give the chickens a better life, they produce their eggs in a relatively happy state, it's a win-win. I'd like one soft-boiled with a lot of salt and butter, please.

The American Egg Board has revived its “Incredible Edible Egg” campaign—at the same time that The Humane Society of the United States is spearheading a nationwide movement away from some of the egg industry’s animal abuse.

Numerous companies, schools, and even local governments are opposing the cruel confinement of egg-laying hens in small, wire “battery cages” on factory farms. These operations confine birds in cages so tiny that they cannot even walk or spread their wings.

“Most ‘Incredible Edible Eggs’ still come from birds in incredibly cruel cages,” commented Paul Shapiro, senior director of The HSUS’ factory farming campaign. “But fortunately there’s now a snowballing movement away from some of the industry’s most incredible cruelty, and we call on the American Egg Board to help move the industry away from battery cage confinement.”

Wolfgang Puck is ending the use of eggs from caged hens. Burger King is starting to move away from cage eggs. Grocery chains such as Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats Natural Marketplace have stopped selling cage eggs. Major food service companies such as Bon Appétit are ending their use of cage eggs. More than 150 colleges and universities have implemented cage-free egg policies.

  Facts

--U.S. factory farms confine about 280 million hens in barren battery cages that are so small, the birds can’t even spread their wings. Each bird has less space than a single sheet of paper on which to live. The European Union has banned barren battery cages, effective 2012.
--Cage-free hens generally have 250-300 percent more space per bird and are able to engage in more of their natural behaviors than are caged hens. While cage free hens may not be able to go outside, they are able to walk, spread their wings, and lay their eggs in nests—all behaviors permanently denied to hens confined in battery cages.

Timeline

--August 2007—The HSUS begins to publicly call on Wendy’s to stop lagging behind Burger King and move away from the use of eggs from caged hens.
--March 2007—Burger King announces that it has started phasing in the use of cage-free eggs.
--March 2007—Wolfgang Puck announces the implementation of a wide-ranging program to improve animal welfare in his supply chain, including not using battery cage eggs.
--March 2007—Congressmembers Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) introduce the Farm Animal Stewardship Purchasing Act, which requires animal producers supplying federal programs with meat, dairy, and eggs to comply with a moderate set of animal welfare standards.
--September 2006— Ben & Jerry’s announces that it will phase out the use of eggs from caged hens in all its ice creams.
--May 2006—Google implements an exclusively cage-free egg policy for its employee dining facilities.
--May 2005—Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats Natural Marketplace announce that they have ended sales of eggs from caged hens.
--November 2003—The Better Business Bureau rules that it is misleading to label eggs from battery-caged hens as “Animal Care Certified.”

Salmon-chanted evening

Wild salmon versus farm-raised salmon.

Discuss.

Really, there’s lots to consider. Problems with farmed salmon, in a nutshell: It takes 2 to 10 pounds of small fish caught wild in the ocean to raise 1 1/2 pounds of farmed salmon meat. That’s bad math. Also, farmed salmon are mostly raised in open pen nets near the coast, so their waste has a huge impact on the coastal ecology. And not in a good way. And the farmed fish are usually from a very shallow gene pool—when these fish escape and breed with local species it can affect the wild species’ ability to reproduce.

Problems with wild fish: Much less petroleum is burned to produce farmed fish than to catch and bring wild fish to market. Thus, wild caught fish are worse for the environment overall?

I’m not so sure.

Health-wise, farmed fish is about on a par with wild fish, but because wild fish gets more exercise, the resulting flesh is noticeably firmer. Farm-raised salmon are generally bigger and contain more fat than wild salmon. On the other hand, in January 2004, the journal Science warned that farm-raised salmon contain 10 times more toxins (PCBs, dioxin, etc.) than wild salmon.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program (an excellent site, by the way) says this:

Wild-caught salmon from Alaska is certified as sustainable to the standard of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and is considered a best choice.

Wild-caught salmon from California, Washington and Oregon are considered good alternatives, especially to farmed salmon. These fisheries are well-managed, but there are concerns about the long-term health of their populations. Wild Pacific salmon are among the most intensively managed species  in the world, however many populations have declined dramatically due to historical overfishing  as well as habitat  damage caused by dam construction, deforestation and urban development.

One of the challenges of managing salmon is that they migrate from the rivers where they are born and mix in the ocean, where they are caught. This poses a problem in California and the Pacific Northwest, where nearly 30 runs of salmon and steelhead are on the Endangered Species List. These endangered fish continue to be unintentionally caught by fishermen who are targeting other salmon species. However, fisheries managers and fishermen continue to work hard to ensure the sustainability of Pacific salmon.

And here's the handy chart they have:

SEAFOOD	RATING	MARKET NAMES	WHERE CAUGHT	HOW CAUGHT
Salmon		Coho, Sockeye, King, Pink and Red	Alaska	Wild-Caught
Salmon		Coho, Sockeye, King, Pink and Red	California, Oregon, Washington	Wild-Caught
Salmon		Farmed Salmon, Atlantic Salmon	Worldwide	Farmed

The Quagmire of Eating Local

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a story about the feasibility of eating local in the Tampa Bay Area. I got a pile of excellent feedback from readers. Stephen Gran, manager of Agriculture Industry Development for Hillsborough County sent me this link to a directory of farms and businesses in Hillsborough County that sell locally grown products direct to the public. As he says, it’s not an all-inclusive list but it does provide a place for consumers to look.

Several other readers wrote me about how, in driving all over tarnation looking for local products, we in fact risk a greater carbon footprint. Maybe one trip to the big-box store trumps six expeditions to local boutique markets and farm stands? Emily Timoner summed it up eloquently:

“I strongly believe that all of us should do what we can to help take care of the planet and conserve our resources. I believe that what conserves energy will pay off in the long run, but I think the message has to get out in a common sense way as opposed to in a way that only shows one side of the equation…Maybe your article should have been more about how to persuade your local merchants to carry these items as opposed to giving a list of all of the places you could go to get these items.”

Yup, a perplexing problem with lots of wrinkles. On August 6, NYTimes op-ed contributor James E. McWilliams wrote a thought-provoking piece about instances when local doesn’t mean better. He cited the findings of researchers in New Zealand who concluded that New Zealand clover-raised lamb shipped 11,000 miles by boat to Britain produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton (mostly feed-raised). Thus, it’s four times more energy efficient to ship the lamb a skajillion miles than to produce it locally. The piece prompted lots of dissenting opinions and caused me personally quite a bit of head-scratching.

Europeans are trying to pass laws that require food-miles traveled to be indicated on labels. But maybe eating local is just part of the equation--it supports the local economy, it allows you to eat seasonally and with greater knowledge. But maybe the greater focus should be on sustainability--raising or growing foods the most natural way possible in the places in which it's most efficient to do so.