Category Archives: Going Green and Sustainable

Sustainable Is…

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Tracy Griffith's sustainable sushi.

At last week’s eighth annual “Cooking for Solutions” event at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, chefs, winemakers, scientists, purveyers, fishermen, farmers, and food writers came together to learn and discuss  how to better follow a more sustainable path — one that lessens the impact on earth and oceans.

What is sustainable? It comes in all guises. Come see for yourself.

Sustainable is…

…Tracy Griffith, sushi chef and sister of actress Melanie, whose seared albacore roll (see photo above) served at the gala showcased a sustainable fish that’s one of the top choices on the aquarium’s “Seafood Watch Guide” and “Sushi Guide.”

Earthbound Farms' organic fro-yo served at its farmstand.

…Carmel Valley’s Earthbound Farm, the pioneer in pre-washed salad greens. With 40,000 acres in California, Arizona, and Mexico, it  now is the largest organic farm in the world. Its farm stand on Carmel Valley Road is open year-round. It just started selling its own organic fro-yo, too.  Slightly tart and lighter in body than Pinkberry, the creamy treat comes in natural honey and a fruit flavor (You can get the two swirled together, too). The day I was there the featured flavor was raspberry.

Chef Thomas Keller.

…Thomas Keller. The acclaimed chef of the French Laundry in Yountville was honored as “Chef of the Year” by the aquarium for his work in promoting fresh, local, and sustainable ingredients through his spectacular four-star cooking.

Keller graciously signed copies of his cookbooks during the event, as fiancee Laura Cunningham, former director of operations for his restaurants, looked on. She wasn’t wearing her Keller-designed engagement ring that night, only because it was being re-sized. Still no word yet on whether the nuptials will take place this year or next.

The jovial Alton Brown.

…the Food Network’s Alton Brown, who was honored as “Educator of the Year” by the aquarium. Brown and his wife plan to set up a foundation to foster sustainable food projects. He’s also received the nod from the Food Network to do several “Good Eats” shows highlighting sustainable seafood.

…Tataki Sushi & Sake Bar in San Francisco, the first sustainable sushi bar in North America. Diners are heartily embracing the concept, so much so that the tiny sushi bar now sometimes has a wait of two hours on weekdays.

At the “Cooking for Solutions” gala, Tataki’s sushi chefs handed out “faux-nagi” — scored wild sablefish brushed with the traditional sweet soy-rice wine sauce that has the same silky mouth-feel as overfished unagi (eel).

It tastes like unagi, but this is sustainable.

…Greenfish Catering, a five-year-old San Jose company that specializes in sustainable sushi platters, bento boxes, and catered events that feature good-for-you and good-for-the-environment ingredients such as farm-raised oysters.

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Take Five with Peninsula Chef-Restaurateur Jesse Cool, On Three Decades of Championing Organic Food

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Jesse Cool in her organic garden in Palo Alto. (Photo courtesy of Jesse Cool)

Long before it was popular, Peninsula chef-restaurateur Jesse Cool served organic food. Back then, it wasn’t what most diners wanted to eat. They certainly didn’t want to pay extra for it, either.

How the culinary landscape has changed. And Cool couldn’t be more pleased.

Despite hard times for so many restaurateurs now, Cool is coming off her busiest year ever in 2008. There’s more to come, too.

June 7, she’ll host “Dirt to Dining,” a benefit held at her Palo Alto home for the Ecological Farming Association. Spend an afternoon enjoying appetizers, mingling with organic farmers and vintners, and learning about organic gardening and pest control. There also will be a silent auction.

Price is $25 for the garden tour alone; $75 for the organic food and wine tasting if purchased by May 29 ($100 at the door). For information, call (650) 854-1226.

Additionally, Cool just closed her 10-year-old jZCool Eatery in downtown Menlo Park. She is moving her CoolEatz Catering to a larger site in the Menlo Business Park in East Menlo Park. In June, a new organic lunch cafe will open there, as well.

Pasture-raised chutney chicken salad sandwich at the Cool Cafe.

The business park also happens to be where she held her 60th birthday party earlier this year. I sat down with her over lunch at her Cool Cafe inside the Cantor Arts Center in Palo Alto to dish about how her interest in local and sustainable food came about, what she’s most proud of, and whether 60 is indeed the new 40.

Q: You’re the hippest 60-year-old around. How do you do it?

A: I am who I am. I think it’s more organic to be real about your age. I attribute it to exercise, attitude, and eating real good food. It does make a difference.

Q: This is the chicken-and-egg question: Who was the first organics pioneer in the Bay Area — you or Alice Waters?

A: We both were. In the beginning, I was into organics and chemical-free. That spilled into sourcing locally.

In the beginning, Alice was into small, local, and artisan. We were both ingredient-driven.

Q: Back in the day, organic food was a hard sell, wasn’t it?

A: It was when I started with Late for the Train in Menlo Park in 1976 and Flea St. Cafe in Menlo Park in 1980. Back then, I couldn’t put organic on the menu without people thinking it was hippy-dippy, that it was unwashed and unsanitary, which it wasn’t.

Being in the South Bay made it even harder. Just try getting product down here back then. The trucks stopped at San Francisco and Berkeley. I had to go pick up from Niman Ranch, myself.

The cool thing is it’s mainstream now. Food is finally connected to personal, long-term well-being.

Balsamic beet salad with Pt. Reyes blue cheese.

Q: What’s your business philosophy?

A: That the customer comes last. Always.

Q: Really?

A: I decided to do organics for my staff, so they wouldn’t have to wash this stuff off the produce. I didn’t want my staff or the farmers around chemicals. We figured if we took care of our staff and the farmers, that it would spill over to the customers.

Q: You faced some real challenges early on?

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Bravo to Bardessono

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Roasted striped bass with swiss chard, grapefruit, and balsamic.

Bardessono may be the newest hotel to open its doors in bucolic Yountville.

But it’s quite unlike any other.

This luxurious eco-resort, which opened in February, sits on five acres of gardens and vineyards. The 62-room hotel features a “green spa” that is heated and cooled by an underground geothermal system. Doors, tables, and other furnishings are made of sustainable, hand-milled and reclaimed woods. The hotel hopes to garner a LEED platinum-rating for environmental responsibility.

Granted, not everyone will be able to afford to check into one of the posh suites that start at about $500 a night that feature outdoor rain showers, and bathrooms as large as the main bedroom areas. More folks, however, might be able to splurge on dinner at the resort’s restaurant, overseen by Executive Chef  Sean O’Toole, formerly group operations chef for Michael Mina’s 14 restaurants.

A perfect Tomales Bay oyster on the half shell.

Yours truly was invited recently to try the serene restaurant, done up in soft earth tones, and towering windows that slide open to the main courtyard. On a Sunday night, there were only a handful of diners at the 93-seat restaurant. And that’s a shame because O’Toole’s food was just flawless.

In keeping with the resort’s philosophy, ingredients are sourced locally. There’s even a garden on site, where O’Toole can have his pick from a bevy of herbs, produce, and fruit trees.

Lobster-like spot prawn in a sea of green almond gazpacho.

The chef’s tasting menu, five courses with a couple of amuse bouches to start, is $85 per person. There’s a lightness to O’Toole’s cooking, which marries well with the setting.

Flavors pop and linger on the palate. The skin on the striped bass was crisp as a potato chip, and the flesh meltingly tender. The spot prawn floating in the gazpacho was tender, and meaty like lobster. Its accompanying tiny green almonds (immature nuts that have yet to develop a hard shell) looked like translucent pumpkin seeds, and had a delicate flavor and an almost soft, grape-like texture inside. And the gnocchi, which O’Toole makes in small batches with potatoes put through a ricer, were the most ethereal I’d ever had.

Gnocchi so light it does nearly melt in your mouth.

O’Toole’s wife, Cynthia, the assistant food and beverage director, pairs her husband’s dishes with spot-on wines.

Here’s what I enjoyed:

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Berkeley Farmers’ Markets To Eliminate Plastic Bags

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Plastic bags to be a thing of the past at Berkeley farmers' markets.

Starting April 25, you’ll have to remember to tote your own reusable bags to Berkeley’s three farmers’ markets. Starting then, the markets will be eliminating the use of plastic bags and packaging from the markets, becoming the first in the nation to do so.

The markets have adopted a “Zero Waste”campaign to remove, reduce, recycle plastic, and compost all materials generated there. The campaign will launch appropriately enough on April 25, when Berkeley also will host an Earth Day Celebration in conjunction with the Saturday market, which will include an eco-carnival, raffles, and demos of solar power.

“Berkeley, a city known for its progressive politics, is once again taking the lead by phasing out plastic bags and packaging at its farmers’ markets,” said Ben Feldman, Program Manager of the BerkeleyFarmers’ Markets, in a statement. “As a community, we come to the markets to support the stewards of the land and to nourish ourselves from the bounty of the earth. Zero Waste is beyond recycling; our goal is to close the loop by reducing our reliance on unsustainable and finite resources.”

Americans use 100 billion plastic bags annually (more than 330 per person per year), according to Worldwatch Institute, an environmental watchdog group. The plastic bags can take anywhere from 400 to 1,000 years to break down in landfills. An estimated 12 million barrels of oil are needed to make all the bags used every year.

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Sensational Scallops with Porcini Butter

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Dried porcini.

I am not made of money. Greenbacks are not stuffed into my mattress. And the closest I’ve come to a Cartier watch is the advertisements I’ve gazed at in glossy magazines.

Nevertheless, I cooked sea scallops. With porcinis. Lots of butter. And truffle oil.

Yes, even in this economy.

Before you think me crazy for making such a luxurious dish in a lean and mean time, I am here to say that is precisely why you should make such a recipe here and now. Because even when times are bad, we ought to spoil ourselves just the teeniest bit if we at all can. It’s what makes life worth living. And it’s what keeps us going. It’s a small treat to reassure ourselves that no matter what has befallen us, we’re still good people, and we still deserve good will, good tidings, and darn it all, good food to boot.

To be sure, I had bought the truffle oil (even if most of the ones on the market are artificially flavored) and the dried porcinis in flusher times. But the great thing about these ingredients is that a little goes a long way. A dab of truffle oil, a few ounces of dried mushrooms — each adds so much more depth and complexity greater than their minuscule amounts used.

Porcini compound butter.

This simple recipe for “Baked Scallops with Porcini Butter” comes from one of my favorite cookbooks of last year, “Fish Without A Doubt” (Houghton Mifflin) by Chef Rick Moonen of RM Seafood in Las Vegas, and writer/editor Roy Finamore. It includes more than 250 recipes using sustainable seafood. It’s chock-full of information on the most eco-friendly seafood, as well as others we should avoid because they are over-fished or harvested in ways that damage the environment. If there’s room for only one seafood book on your shelf, this would be the one.

When buying scallops, look for dry-packed ones. Avoid the ones that have been dipped in a solution of sodium tripolyphosphate, which helps extend their shelf life. Not only will you end up paying more in weight for these plumped-up scallops, but because they are so packed with water, they will steam — rather than properly sear — when cooked.

The finished dish.

This easy dish is a little like the traditional coquilles St. Jacques, except that it’s made with a compound butter composed of dried porcinis, truffle oil, and sherry vinegar. A single-layer of scallops gets laid out in a gratin dish, with the butter smeared both underneath and on top of them. Dry bread crumbs are sprinkled on just before baking. I used Japanese panko crumbs, but you can use whatever you have on hand.

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