Category Archives: Going Green and Sustainable

Of Lettuce, Muffins, and Grocery Stores

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A Pete's Living Greens butter lettuce head wrapped like a bouquet. (Photo by Carolyn Jung)

A Pete’s Living Greens butter lettuce head wrapped like a bouquet. (Photo by Carolyn Jung)

Pete’s Living Greens

We’ve grown so accustomed to the ease of pre-washed lettuce in bags and plastic tubs that it’s hard to make the effort to actually rinse and tear an actual head nowadays.

Pete’s Living Greens asks you to do that. But what you get in return is really fresh lettuce that keeps impeccably well for more than a week in your fridge.

That’s because the lettuce head is sold with its roots still attached. That means you can tear or cut off what you need, and keep the rest alive to ensure freshness. The non-GMO-verified lettuce is grown hydroponically in greenhouses in Carpinteria, CA. Each clamshell container contains one head, enough to serve four as a first course or two as an entree-sized salad.

One head in each package. (Photo by Carolyn Jung)

One head in each package. (Photo by Carolyn Jung)

I had a chance to try samples of the butter lettuce. I tore off the leaves from their roots, gave them a rinse, and spun-dry them before tossing with cucumbers, radishes, and avocado in a mustard vinaigrette. The lettuce had good flavor all on its own. What I really liked was that I was able to keep the rest of the lettuce in my fridge for 10 more days without the usual wilting that often results with plastic tubs of pre-washed spring mix.

Look for the Living Greens at Albertsons and Safeway stores for about $2.49 each.

Model Bakery Opens A Third Outpost

With its original St. Helena and its Napa locales still going strong, the ever-popular Model Bakery has opened a third location — this one in Yountville.

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Bee Free Honee — It’s Like Honey, But It’s Not

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A honey-like product that tastes of apples.

A honey-like product that tastes of apples.

 

With its golden, amber hue, it looks a lot like honey.

But from the moment you unscrew the cap on the jar, you get the unmistakable whiff of sweet apples.

Bee Free Honee is a honey substitute made from organic apple juice, cane sugar and lemon juice — all cooked down until sticky and viscous.

The company was founded by Minneapolis-based Katie Sanchez, who grew up on an apple orchard with a father who was a beekeeper. One day, while trying to make a less sweet apple jelly, she accidentally created this syrupy concoction instead.

It’s vegan, and safe for anyone who has a honey allergy. Use it just like you would honey.

With bee populations decimated over the past decade, it’s also a way to enjoy a honey-like product while stressing bees less. Moreover, for every jar sold, Bee Free Honee donates 10 cents to pollinator-friendly groups.

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Take A Taste of the Impossible and Beyond Meat Burgers

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Sampling a slider-size of the Impossible Burger at Jardiniere before its public launch.

Sampling a slider-size of the Impossible Burger at Jardiniere before its public launch.

 

What is a burger without meat?

Diehard carnivores might answer, “A travesty.”

But even they might change their minds after a bite of the Impossible Burger and the Beyond Meat Burger. Both are entirely plant-based patties that closely mimic beef burgers. And both are now available in the Bay Area for vegetarians and the curious to enjoy.

Impossible Burger is the creation of Redwood City’s Impossible Foods. It is fashioned from wheat, coconut oil, potatoes, and heme, a compound in plants and meat, which gives meat its characteristic aroma and taste.

Compared to raising cows for burgers, the Impossible Burger uses 95 percent less land, 74 percent less water, and creates 87 percent less greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also free of hormones, antibiotics and artificial ingredients. And you don’t have to worry about slaughterhouse cross-contamination.

El Segundo’s Beyond Meat Burger is similarly environmentally-friendly, and is fashioned from pea protein, yeast extract, coconut oil, beet extract and annatto extract.

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Real Good Fish Is…Real Good

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Fresh Tomales Bay oysters that I got at my local library, of all places, thanks to Real Good Fish.

Fresh Tomales Bay oysters that I got at my local library, of all places, thanks to Real Good Fish.

Just-caught fish, delivered conveniently to pick-up locations in your Bay Area neighborhood each week, with reasonable prices and no long-list of middlemen to tack on more costs.

That’s what Moss Landing’s Real Good Fish is all about.

Established in 2012 by founder Alan Lovewell, who studied international environmental policy, it was one of the first community supported fisheries in Northern California. It operates in much the same way as a CSA. But instead of buying a “share” in a farm that provides you with a box of produce each week, you buy a “share” in the group of local fishermen that Real Good Fish partners with.

Not only are you getting impeccably fresh, local, sustainable, seasonal fish, but helping to support fishermen and their families in your community.

I shucked some to enjoy on the half shell with mignonette sauce.

I shucked some to enjoy on the half shell with mignonette sauce.

I was invited to try some sample deliveries, receiving a weekly full share (1 to 2 pounds of seafood), which is normally $22 per week.

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Introducing Emmer & Co.’s Heritage Chicken — Plus A Food Gal Giveaway

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Not your standard chicken.

Not your standard chicken.

 

You may know heritage turkeys as a gourmet splurge for Thanksgiving.

Now, get to know heritage chicken.

Yes, all the delicious attributes and admirable farm practices associated with a heritage turkey now can be found in chicken, too.

San Francisco-based Emmer & Co. is one company on a mission to make those specialty chickens more widely available.

Most chickens raised in the United States have been genetically modified for faster growth. Not so with Emmer & Co.’s. Their New Hampshire and Delaware chickens are certified standard bred by the American Poultry Association, the oldest agricultural organization in the country. They mate naturally, they live outside, and they grow to full market weight in 112 days compared to 42 days for industrialized supermarket chickens.

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