Dining Out

Green Your Happy Hour

scleaver — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Gust Organics restaurant in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village is now the world’s first 100% USDA Certified organic bar.

Among their sustainable practices: recycling, using wind energy and only wind energy to power the restaurant, solar lighting, biodegradable containers that are printed using soy ink, energy efficient and water conservation equipment, green cleaning practices, and a restaurant building that’s built using recycled woods. The servers wear organic uniforms, and you’ll have organic flowers at your table.

The menu (Buenos Aires style steak, homemade turkey meatballs, spinach fettucini) looks delicious, and now there’s a fully organic bar to go with it. Eaten at Gust Organics? What was the experience like?

If you’re not in New York, find a green restaurant near you and learn more at The Green Restaurant Association.

Photo from YumSugar and Gust Organics.

Good Green Brews

scleaver — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:34:16 -0400

As summer winds to an end, the remaining evenings offer a few final days to enjoy a good beer garden. As you head off to your local microbrewery, look for an organic label on the front of your next bottle.

The main thing that separates organic craft brews from the pack, according to SlashFood, isn't necessarily the ingredients, but organic cleansers that are used to clean the brewing equipment. Apparently, ingredients aren't as much of a concern with organic beers because microbrews and craft beers are known for using good, quality ingredients anyway. But some beers are touting an organic label:

SlashFood found Four+ Brewing’s hoppy Wildfire Extra Pale Ale from Salt Lake City.

Peak Organic Beer out of Portland, ME sells a pale ale, brown nut ale, amber ale, and a maple oat ale that sounds especially delicious.

And, Wolaver's in Middlebury, VT sells ales and stout, including a pumpkin ale to lead us into fall.

As the microbrew trend continues into the winter months, what’s your favorite organic microbrew? Do you think there's much of a difference between your average craft beer and a good organic brew?

Photo from Wolaver's Brews.

Have A Green Back To School

scleaver — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:39:52 -0400

No Tray policies are spreading on university campuses. Some started this Earth Day and hopefully, more will start No Tray policies this school year. Between 50 and 60 percent of the colleges that Aramark works with went tray-less, as did 109 colleges that use Sodexo went tray-less last year.

Going tray-less, as noted in Slashfood, helps reduce food and water waste—students waste less, and there’s less water used to clean trays, a key point for states that experience a lot of drought. An Aramark study found that when a campus started a No Tray policy, they reduced food waste by 25 to 30 percent.

As Wasted Food reported earlier this year, the trayless movement is taking off, and not without its share of backlash. Where do you stand—tray or no tray?

Photo from Cooking with Kids. And, in the spirit of back to school, here’s more on green universities.

Sustainable Happy Hour

scleaver — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:01:39 -0400

I had an organic beer the other day and it was delicious, but after a hard week, let’s face it, sometimes you want something a little harder. Enter Eat. Drink. Better’s review of organic vodkas, and not a moment too soon! Here are the four organic, sustainable vodkas highlighted:

Vodka 360 The World’s First Eco-Luxury Vodka is “four times distilled, five times filtered.” The recycled glass bottles come with caps that you can mail back to the factory to be reused. Recommended for use with mixers.

Square One Organic Vodka is made from organically grown American rye and the byproduct ends up as food for cows at nearby dairy farms.

Vodka 14, The Height of Purity, is made in Colorado, 80 proof, distilled with Deep Rock water.

Prairie Organic Vodka is a corn vodka, after the vodka’s made the leftover corn is used as energy to run the factory. Apparently, corn-based vodka has more apple, pear, and melon tones with more creaminess than a rye distilled vodka.

How to drink vodka? Freeze the bottle overnight, let the vodka warm slightly before swirling and tasting. For more tips visit Vodkaphiles.com. And, for specific taste and flavor advice, see the Eat. Drink. Better. eco-vodka blog post. Cheers!

Photo from DK Images.

Have It Your Organic Way

scleaver — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Finally, a place for people who want their fries eco-friendly. O!Burger, a new fast food restaurant in West Hollywood, CA is as organic as it is fast. On the menu: grass-fed burgers, free-range turkey burgers, fries cooked in organic soybean oil, and a signature organic veggie burger. Once you pick up your food, unwrap your burger from its compostable soy film, use biodegradable plastic straws and utensils made from corn, and wipe your chin with recycled paper napkins.

To complete the dining experience, unlike the glaring red and yellow plastic of other fast food restaurants, this one was renovated with wood that was reclaimed from a farm, painted with lead-free paint, and features a concrete floor instead of new tiled one.

The O!Burger experience is still more expensive than a Micky-D’s run (about $4 more) but Californians are lovin’ it, and, as Natural Health Magazine found, there’s even talk of franchising.

For more about the green fast food trends read about The Greening of Fast Food and Trans-Fat Free Cities.

Photo Source.

Try Plastic Cups Made from Corn -- Totally Sustainable

scleaver — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:00:00 -0400

Just in time for picnic season, CupDepot.com introduces biodegradable cups made from corn. The company’s new Karat Earth brand line of products includes biodegradable cups, utensils, straws, and more and they’re all made from corn. After you’re done with them, the plastics will decompose in your typical landfill in 45 to 60 days. Right now on the site, you can get bundles of straws, plastic cups, and lids; paper cups and utensils are coming soon. The only problem, ordering-wise, is that the company sells cups and straws by the bushel, $140 for 10,000 straws, or $105 for 1,000 cups. So, the best way to get them, unless you’re stocking up on plastic cups or straws for years to come, is to ask about it when ordering—they do custom cup orders, though, so perhaps your next company picnic could include corn cups.Photo from CupDepot.com.

NYC Food Goes Trans-Fat Free

scleaver — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

This July celebrate, not only the freedom from England, but a freedom from trans fats.

For those watching fireworks in the Big Apple, starting July 1 the prepared foods you buy in restaurants, bakeries, salad bars, cafeteria, and food carts must have less than .5 grams of trans fat in each serving. (FDA guidelines give leeway of .5 grams to label a product “trans fat free.”) The one loophole: prepackaged foods (muffins in plastic baggies, salad dressing packets) are exempt.

How are fast food joints stepping up to the challenge of the trans fat ban? Well, FitSugar has the round up:

McDonald’s is serving cookies and apple pies sans trans fat (they switched to a new cooking oil last year).

Burger King is selling trans-fat free fries, apple pies, and biscuits.

Dunkin Donuts is using a new palm-soybean-cottonseed oil mix.

KFC has taken the trans fat out of the pot pie or biscuits.

Boston Market is testing a new version of their pot pie.

Let's take this ban across the country!

Photo of a now trans-fat free McDonald’s apple pie from The Food Pornographer.

What Will You Bring?

scleaver — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Looking for something to do on Friday night? Well, who doesn’t love a potluck? You choose one dish to bring and, in return, you get to eat a whole buffet and enjoy the company of friends.

Four couples in Woodstock, OR, the self-proclaimed Green Team, are taking potlucks to a new level and celebrating the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) in the process. They hosted their first sustainable potluck in September—the peak of harvest. Everybody brought an all-local dish and came ready to explain and defend their green cooking, from how they chose the veggies to how they disposed of any waste created during cooking.

The menu: lamb casserole with eggplant and applesauce, tomato and cucumber salad, roasted carrots and potatoes, wheat berry salad, and peach cobbler.

The conversation: solar energy, recycling, how to store food without using plastics, and organ donation.

And that was only the first dinner. Since that first harvest, the Green Team has added couples, dishes, and changed it up at their monthly meetings, hosting a brunch in January, and a pizza party using canned tomatoes from their 2007 gardens in March.

So, as this year’s growing season gears up, how are you going to enjoy the bounty?

Photo from a vegetarian potluck of Southern Californian Vegetarians.

Southern Foodways Allliance Heads North

scleaver — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:50:33 -0400

Want to try a dinner that mixes and matches traditional Jewish fare (kosher dill pickles, challah, brisket) and Southern cooking (black eyed peas, hush puppies, fried catfish), and sometimes even combines the two (Creole matzoh ball soup)? Well, here's your chance. The Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA) is a non-profit based in Oxford, Mississippi that “documents and celebrate the diverse food cultures of the American South” from peanut farming to fried chicken to bar-b-que pits. Next week, this delicious mission leads them North, to Zingerman's Roadhouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan for a fundraiser that celebrates cooking from two cultures at once. For $75 a plate (a bargain considering Zingerman’s reputation) you’ll get a meal from the Mississippi Delta, a discussion by Marcie Cohen Ferris, SFA board president who will talk about being both Jewish and southern and how that’s affected her career, and a lecture about the blues by William Ferris accompanied by local musician Alex Johnson. To learn more about the event check out the blog post on Serious Eats or visit www.zingermansroadhouse.com. Here’s the vital information: April 7, 2008 at 7:00 PM, $75 for dinner, at 2501 Jackson Ave, Ann Arbor, MI, phone: 734-663-3663.It’s not often that the Mississippi Delta comes to Michigan, so enjoy!Photo credit: Zingerman’s Roadhouse web site.

The Height Of Backyard Dining

scleaver — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Whether you’re hitting the grill with kebob skewer and meat in hand, or a planning a more refined wine and cheese picnic this weekend, consider taking the party to a rooftop. An added bonus: eating on the roof, you’re that much closer to the fireworks.

In a city like New York, where outdoor space is hard to come by, some lucky residents have found a way to eat al fresco on their roofs. The New York Times chronicled the rooftop eating experience this week. “Partygoers on roofs enjoying glasses of cabernet and grilled burgers, cheerful voices drifting into the air above soot-covered air ducts, water towers, and crumbling brick chimneys.” Sounds like an idea Fourth of July party to me.

There are hazards to dining so high up, of course, it’s a pain to get cases of wine or loads of burger patties to the roof, gusts of wind can send napkins flying, rain or thunderstorms might make an ugly appearance. But, if you are so lucky as to head to your roof for a bar-b-que or otherwise this Fourth, here are some tips from the New Yorkers who’ve perfected the art:

1. If you can have wine and food delivered, or enlist the help of friends to get things from ground floor to roof.

2. Use propane in the grill instead of charcoal, because, as Randy Davison points out “you don’t want to have hot charcoal raining down on your neighbors.” Better yet, make sure it’s legal to have a grill up on the roof at all.

3. If you’re cooking in the kitchen and transporting it up the stairs, do preparation, like carving meat, first to reduce the risk of losing the entire dinner if you trip.

Photo of a yummy Fourth of July food from Disney.