Food | Photography | with Rudy | Recipes: November 2012

Friday, November 30, 2012

Some Restaurants In Israel Declare A Kosher Rebellion

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Israelis eat at a kosher McDonald's restaurant in Tel Aviv.

The Carousela cafe in West Jerusalem is one of a handful of restaurants and cafes in Israel staging a bit of a rebellion by defying Jewish religious authorities who claim they are the only ones who can certify restaurants as kosher, or in compliance with Jewish dietary laws.

Activists, rabbis and customers recently gathered in support of Carousela after the authorities threatened to fine the cafe if it claimed to be kosher without a certificate from the rabbinate. And now Carousela and four other restaurants are taking the authorities to court over the issue, according to The Times of Israel.

Cafe manager Jonathan Vadei says the rabbinate's kosher inspectors are not doing their job, and he and some colleagues have decided to form their own association to do it.

Now, it takes some chutzpah to call the authorities unkosher, but some rabbis have rallied to Vadei's support for doing so. Conservative movement Rabbi Andrew Sacks says the kosher inspection system has become corrupt.

"There are many restaurants and institutions where the inspector comes in once a month simply to collect a check and does not appear the rest of the month," Sacks says. "But beyond that, a serious problem is that the inspectors themselves are paid directly by the restaurateur. So there can be no objectivity."

But Rabbi Eliyahu Schlesinger of the Jerusalem Religious Council says any restaurant that calls itself kosher without a certificate is breaking the law. "To become a doctor you need certification; to become a lawyer you need certification; to be kosher, you need certification," Schlesinger says through an interpreter. "I don't know who is behind this. Probably interest groups, maybe with political interests in mind. The result will be anarchy."

For centuries before the modern state of Israel was established in 1948, there was no central authority over kosher inspections. They were done by private groups of rabbis, as they are in the United States.

"It was based on trust, and that's what we need to install again: the trust between the customer and the owner of the restaurant, without the monopoly and without all the other commercial interests of the chief rabbinate," says Conservative Rabbi Ehud Bandel.

But then the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, gave the rabbinate and ultra-Orthodox Jews a monopoly, not just over kosher inspections but over weddings and funerals too. It also granted the ultra-Orthodox special privileges, such as exemption from military service.

Now Israelis are questioning all of these monopolies and privileges.

Bandel says it is time to reclaim Judaism from the religious establishment. "It's up to us to make sure that the Knesset will change this legislation and enable freedom of religion and free market of religion, which will only be good for religious life here in Israel."

Some see this issue as part of a larger culture war between Orthodox and secular Jews. But Jerusalem City Council member Rachel Azaria says that the two sides are just trying to find ways to live together and improve the city.

"For 15 years, the ultra-Orthodox were taking over, and the regular Orthodox and the liberal and the secular were leaving the city," Azaria says. "What happened over the past few years is we got a secular mayor, and that kind of changed something, and we got our self-confidence back and we're campaigning again to make sure the city is the way we want it to be."

Perhaps Another Reason To Spike That Eggnog?

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November 30, 2012

A few years ago, Science Friday, in collaboration with microbiologist Vince Fischetti and his lab at The Rockefeller University, conducted an experiment looking into a perennial holiday concern: will alcohol kill bacteria in homemade eggnog? We bring you the results. Please note: the sample size in this study is rather small, a single batch of nog.

Booches' Famous Burgers Seek New Buns After Hostess Plant Closes

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The beloved pool hall/restaurant's famous sign.

Twinkie hoarders, artists, and Ding Dong enthusiasts weren't the only consumers affected when Hostess started shutting down plants across America just a few weeks ago. At Booches Billiard Hall, a popular restaurant and pool hall in Columbia, Mo., it was the patrons seeking the joint's famous hamburgers that were left on the line.

The 128 year-old institution frequented by Mizzou students, old men playing snooker and everyone in between, had used a nearby Hostess plant as its sole supplier of "3/4 buns" for its burgers, says Charlie Kurre, a Booches co-owner.

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A softly-lit Booches' burger, back in the days of the Hostess bun.

Before the Hostess shutdown, Booches burgers were considered some of the best. A USA Today report in 2000 listed Booches among the top 25 burger joints in the country. Oustide magazine couldn't stop popping them this past May.

The slightly undersized white bun allows the meat and cheese to ooze out the sides. It's small, like a slider, but it's not exactly bite sized with a solid quarter pound of beef in it. For cheese, you have a single option: a melty American-Swiss combination binds the bun and patty and has done so since time immemorial.

Notably, the burger is served without a plate or utensils. Nothing but a modest square of wax paper separates the burger from the table.

"The first time I came to Booches, they served my burger on a little wax paper and I thought what? But then I realized that that's part of it. It makes the whole experience," says Jessica Quinlan, a Columbia native. For as long as she can remember, the Booches burger has been exactly the same.

Nobody is sure exactly how far back in history the Booches burger goes, but it has existed in its current form since at least the 1970s. Now, for the first time in decades, Booches must change its time-honored recipe. Its new buns come from a local grocery store just a few miles from downtown Columbia.

In the frantic days after the Hostess closures, many area restaurants followed suit. But don't go looking for those new grocery store jobs. The grocery chain Hy-Vee says they saw a small bump in sales during that first week, but it quickly disappeared as most restaurants eventually found cheaper national distributors.

Booches, however, thinks they'll stick with the new buns, which technically come from a Sara Lee bakery and look pretty much the same.

Most of the regulars I talked to couldn't detect a difference in flavor or texture, but to my palate, it's there. Hostess buns are airy and insubstantial. The fluffy nothingness that is enriched white bread is not meant to assert itself, but to yield pleasantly, letting the seasoned beef shine.

The Hy-Vee buns are slightly coarser in texture, bringing their flavor a little closer to the front. It's still a great burger, and it always has been. It's just different now.

"It's the process of evolution," says Trey Quinlan over an after-work drink. "Eventually things change. This place used to be gentlemen only. Change isn't necessarily bad."

Mark Rice-Ko: Where Food and Rothko Meet In Delicious Harmony

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Chef/stylist Caitlin Levin and photographer Henry Hargreaves do an interpretation of Mark Rothko's paintings using colored rice. Left, Levin's design, right, the original painting titled White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) by Mark Rothko as seen at Sotheby's auction house in New York.

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Henry Hargreaves/Timothy A. Clary/Getty Images
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One of Levin's greatest challenge is mixing food colors to match Rothko's original work. This image displays the food color palette used to dye the rice.

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Henry Hargreaves
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Getting the edges to feather as seen in Rothko's original work was a challenge for Levin.

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Henry Hargreaves
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Levin worked on a project about gradient food dye using several kinds of foods like bananas and rice. It is during this time where she and photographer Henry Hargreaves came up with the idea of doing an interpretation of some of Mark Rothko's paintings using rice.

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Henry Hargreaves
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It took Levin and Hargreaves anywhere between 2 to 3 hours to complete each piece of rice art.

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Henry Hargreaves
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Molds were used to shape the different sized rectangles and to keep separate the colored rice.

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Henry Hargreaves
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The outcome of her work: Levin now owns many Ziploc bags filled with colored rice, about two 25 pound bags, which she plans to use for cooking meals with friends.

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Henry Hargreaves

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Back in 1958, when Mark Rothko was commissioned to do a series of murals for The Four Seasons restaurant in New York, a place he believed was "where the richest bastards in New York will come to feed and show off," his acceptance of the assignment was subversive at best. He hoped his art would "ruin the appetite of every son of a [beep] who ever eats in that room," according to a Harper's magazine article, "Mark Rothko: Portrait Of The Artist As An Angry Man."

His distaste for the social elite led to a series of paintings that continue to captivate art enthusiasts of different backgrounds, tastes and generations. His painting, Orange, Red, Yellow 1961, sold on May 8 this year for $86.9 million at Christie's.

Rothko eventually abandoned The Four Seasons project. Instead, he gave some of the pieces to the Tate Modern museum in 1969, just before committing suicide.

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"We do these projects out of love for creating beautiful or interesting work out of a medium that is unexpected," Levin says.

But the murals that were meant to ruin the appetite of wealthy patrons inspired chef/stylist Caitlin Levin and photographer Henry Hargreaves to interpret Rothko's collection using rice.

"We had been doing a project about gradient food dye using several kinds of food like bananas, bread and rice and we thought, how about using rice to recreate Rothko's paintings?" says Levin. Although dyeing rice is time consuming, Levin said it is an easier medium to work with than other foods when recreating the depth of color found in Rothko's pieces.

After coloring, styling and photographing the rice, chef and food stylist Caitlin Levin made coconut rice. "It taste the same," she says.

This collaboration between Hargreaves and Levin took three days to complete, each piece taking two to three hours. Levin said her two greatest challenges were mixing the food colors to match Rothko's original work and to feather the edges of the rice art as seen on the paintings.

After Mark Rice-Ko was completed, the colorful rice faced a new fate, "We made coconut rice with it. It turned an Army green color but it tastes the same," Levin says of the dyed leftovers.

Check out the slide show above to view more of Levin/Hargreaves' rice art.

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Baking Without Flour For The Holidays

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November 28, 2012

The holidays come in on a rush of cookies and snow (if you are so lucky) and parties and lists, and suddenly it's Jan. 1 and we're wiping the crumbs away and wondering where the year went. I'm currently tiptoeing into the season, my brain still basking in Indian summer despite the rain slated to descend on San Francisco in the coming weeks. "Ready" or not, the time is upon us.

What helps to get me in the mood is baking. Always, always baking. I'm plotting my edible gifts some candies, of course, along with jars of jam I canned this spring that I'll tuck inside gift packages to send across the country and devising new twists on old favorites. Butter, sugar, eggs the usual suspects, but they are what ground me in the kitchen during this hectic season.

Sure, we may be stepping a bit outside our comfort zone ... but that doesn't mean we can't be bold. Embrace cornmeal. Experiment with walnuts. Become enamored with the magic that is fluffy egg whites. Perhaps 'tis also the season to try something new?

This year in particular, I'm focusing my energies on flourless desserts specifically, those that are naturally flour-free yet still utterly delicious.

I wrote about this concept last winter after a visit to my brother and sister-in-law's home in Maine. Emily, who avoids gluten, is a prolific cook and baker; when I bake for her, I am aware that the bar has been set high, and I perpetually attempt to rise to it. The holidays are no exception.

This means I'm thinking more and more outside the bag of white flour that's ubiquitous in my kitchen. While I still may be somewhat drowning in powdered sugar, a true harbinger of the holidays, there's also a few not-as-traditional ingredients encroaching on my pantry space (a decent amount of cornstarch, dried fruits and brown rice slated for a myriad of baking projects).

The main thing to keep in mind when creating flourless desserts is to try not to see them as substitutions for more traditional sweets (along the lines of: it's almost as good as x, y, z). Rather, these delights are delicious in their own right, regardless of whether they call for wheat flour.

About The Author

Nicole Spiridakis lives in San Francisco and writes about food, travel and her native state on her blog, cucinanicolina.com. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, chow.com and other publications.

How To Make Your Tofu And Eat It, Too Aug. 1, 2012

Doesn't Take Much To Do It Yourself In The Kitchen March 21, 2012

Baking Without Flour Brings Sweet Results Feb. 15, 2012

Canning To Remember The Past, Welcome The Future Oct. 12, 2011

Peanut Butter: It's More Than A Sandwich April 8, 2009

Nuts, egg whites (and yolks, too), fresh fruit and good chocolate are your allies here. The same goes for relying on unfussy, straightforward flavors. Many candies are naturally flourless, and make wonderful holiday presents. Think about what might work well together: Pecans, molasses, ginger and a hint of bourbon bake up into a moist, decadent riff on gingerbread that feels appropriately holiday-ish. The incorporation of the sometimes-underused pecans contributes to its success.

I've tried to focus on desserts, such as pumpkin pie custards, a buche de Noel and fruit-and-nut "truffles" that reflect the time of year, though of course if salted caramel pots de creme or poached pears with cinnamon whipped cream are your dream New Year's Eve dessert, they would no doubt be lovely, too.

The key is to not feel intimidated. Sure, we may be stepping a bit outside our comfort zone when avoiding recipes that call for flour, but that doesn't mean we can't be bold. Embrace cornmeal. Experiment with walnuts. Become enamored with the magic that is fluffy egg whites. Perhaps 'tis also the season to try something new?

A few words of caution: If you are preparing flourless goodies for someone who has gluten intolerance, be careful of your workspace. Wooden spoons and cutting boards especially can trap gluten, so keep dedicated utensils that do not touch flour, or use nonwood utensils to avoid cross-contamination. Make sure your counters and kitchen are very clean, or do your prep work in another space (say, on the dining room table).

The holidays for me are about gathering together and feeling thankful for all I am lucky enough to have in my life. It is also about celebrating my loved ones. I do this best through food especially through baking and there's little better than creating something delicious that won't trigger side effects.

The reality that they taste good to me, too well, that's just one more reason to fire up the oven and get to work.

Recipe: Pumpkin Pie Custards

Confession: I am not really a fan of pie crust, so these custards fulfill my penchant for pumpkin pie quite handily with no flour required. This recipe could hardly be simpler pumpkin, spices and a splash of bourbon are whisked with eggs, milk, maple syrup and vanilla to create a decadent holiday treat.

Makes 6 servings

1 can (15 ounces) pure pumpkin puree

1/2 cup whole milk (or coconut milk)

4 beaten large eggs

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 tablespoon bourbon (optional)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Pinch nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ginger

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly grease 6 ramekins or custard cups. In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, milk, eggs, maple syrup, bourbon, if using, and vanilla extract. In a small bowl, whisk together the salt and spices. Add the spice mixture to the pumpkin mixture and whisk well to combine. Pour evenly into ramekins and bake for 40 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let rest for 15 minutes. Chill for at least 2 hours before serving.

Recipe: Cranberry-Pecan Gingerbread

If you prefer a more traditional gingerbread, omit the cranberries. Serve with applesauce or whipped cream.

Makes 10 servings

1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) pecans

1/2 cup cornstarch

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/8 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

1/2 cup dark, unsulfured molasses

1/2 cup strong coffee

1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries

Heat oven to 350. Lightly grease an 8- or 9-inch square cake pan.

Combine the pecans, cornstarch, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Process until evenly ground.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and molasses. Add the pecan mixture alternately with the coffee in thirds, finishing with the pecans and beating well after each addition. Add the cranberries if using and stir to incorporate.

Pour the batter into the cake pan. Transfer to a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes, until the cake is firm to the touch and toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few crumbs attached.

Cool in the pan on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Recipe: Fruit-And-Nut 'Truffles'

These cookies couldn't be easier to make, and I encourage you to experiment with different dried fruits of your choice. The chocolate coating may be left off if you are pressed for time, but I think it elevates these humble little raw "truffles" into something sublime.

Makes about 3 dozen truffles

1 cup walnuts

1/2 pound dried cherries

1/2 pound dried Turkish figs

1/2 pound dried apricots

1/4 pound dried cranberries

1 to 2 tablespoons orange juice

8 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped or as chips

1 cup powdered sugar

Put the walnuts in the bowl of a food processor and process them to chop finely. Place the walnuts in a large mixing bowl.

Rinse the bowl of the food processor, wipe it dry, and fill it with the dried fruit. Pulse the machine to chop the fruit finely, but watch to make sure it does not turn gummy. Add the fruit to the walnuts and stir to mix well. Add 1 tablespoon orange juice and stir to combine; add more if needed to hold together.

Put about 1/2 cup of powdered sugar into a small bowl. Scoop out teaspoon-sized balls of the fruit-nut mixture, shape them into balls, roll each ball lightly in powdered sugar to coat, and place them on a baking sheet. Let the balls stand at room temperature, uncovered, for 24 hours.

Melt chocolate. Dip each ball half in the chocolate and let stand until chocolate has cooled.

Recipe: Buche De Noel

A version of the traditional French holiday cake, this recipe, adapted to incorporate a flourless chocolate cake, has a few components but it's not complicated. Translated as "log of Christmas," ambitious decorators may want to play with making meringue "mushrooms" or using colored marzipan to create leaves and other loglike things. But it's absolutely delicious unadorned, too.

Makes 12 servings

Cake

6 large eggs, separated

1/2 cup light or dark brown sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup white sugar

Confectioners' sugar

Heat oven to 350 degrees and line a jellyroll pan with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat egg yolks with brown sugar until thick and pale. Beat in the cocoa, vanilla and salt.

In another large bowl, using clean beaters, whip egg whites until they form soft peaks. Gradually add 1/4 cup sugar and beat until whites form stiff peaks. Immediately fold the yolk mixture into the whites. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the cake springs back when lightly touched. Dust a clean dishtowel with confectioners' sugar. Run a knife around the edge of the pan, and turn the warm cake out onto the towel. Remove and discard parchment paper. Starting at the short edge of the cake, roll the cake up with the towel. Cool for 30 minutes.

Unroll the cake, and spread the filling (recipe below) to within 1 inch of the edge. Roll the cake up with the filling inside. Place seam side down onto a serving plate, and cover with the buttercream frosting (recipe below). Refrigerate until serving.

Ganache Filling

1 1/2 cups bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup heavy cream

Place the chocolate chips in a medium bowl. Heat the cream until just barely boiling, remove from heat and pour over chips. Let stand about 5 minutes, then whisk and stir to completely melt the chocolate into the cream. Whisk until smooth. Set aside to cool ganache will thicken as it cools.

Coffee Butter Cream

1 1/2 teaspoons espresso powder

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

Mix espresso powder into vanilla until dissolved and set aside.

In a large bowl, whip the butter on medium speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add confectioners' sugar 1/2 cup at a time, occasionally stopping to scrape down the bowl. When all sugar has been incorporated, increase speed and whip for another minute until frosting is fluffy.

Add vanilla-espresso mixture and beat until incorporated.

Recipe: Almond Crescent Cookies

These are the cookies of my childhood. Each year around the holidays, my dad would sneak into the kitchen and make a large batch of dolmades (Greek stuffed grape leaves) and a batch of almond crescent cookies. These are a bit lighter on the butter than the ones he used to make, with ground almonds standing in for the flour. It's a winner of a recipe, and I love it for its utter simplicity from a few ingredients comes pure delight.

Makes about 2 dozen cookies

4 cups whole, unpeeled raw almonds, plus 1 cup sliced almonds

1 1/4 cups sugar

3 large egg whites

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon sea salt

2 cups confectioners' sugar

In a food processor, pulse whole almonds and sugar until very fine.

In a large bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add almond and vanilla extracts and salt.

Fold in sugar and ground almond mixture. Mix lightly until all ingredients are combined. Cover and refrigerate 2 hours or more.

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Place sliced almonds in a shallow dish.

Remove dough from refrigerator. Scoop out generous teaspoons of dough. Shape into logs, press each log into crushed almonds then confectioners' sugar, then shape the logs into crescents. Place on parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat until dough is used up.

Bake for 35 minutes, or until lightly browned on the bottom. Remove from oven and cool on a rack. Roll in confectioners' sugar again before serving.

Recipe: Ginger Snaps

The brown rice makes for a tender, melting foil to the sharp bite of ginger, and a dusting of raw sugar finishes off this classic holiday treat.

Makes 2 dozen cookies

2 1/4 cups long or short grain brown rice

1 1/2 teaspoons dried cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon dried cloves

3 tablespoons dried ginger

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup butter, at room temperature

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 large egg

1/4 cup unsulfured molasses

1/2 cup raw sugar (optional)

In a food processor, grind rice until very fine. Place in a medium-size bowl and add cinnamon, cloves, ginger, baking soda and salt. Whisk to combine.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar in a separate bowl until fluffy, then beat in egg and molasses. Fold in rice mixture and combine well. Refrigerate dough about 2 hours.

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Remove dough from refrigerator and scoop out teaspoons of dough. Form teaspoon-size balls and roll in raw sugar, if using.

Place on parchment-lined cookie sheets and flatten with a fork. Bake 8 to 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove from oven and cool on a rack.

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N.Y. Fast-Food Workers Strike For Better Wages

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November 30, 2012

Fast-food workers staged protests Thursday at restaurants in New York. The workers said their low wages need to be raised. But with the economy still slow, restaurant managers are determined to hold down labor costs so they can offer dollar foods.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Tastier Winter Tomatoes, Thanks to A Boom in Greenhouse Growing

There's a greenhouse boom around the country, thanks in part to the "buy local" movement. Paul Mock grows tomatoes, herbs and other veggies year-round in his Berkley Springs, W. Va. greenhouse, and sells to groceries and restaurants in the mid-Atlantic.

"This is unprecedented, the level of opportunity," says greenhouse owner Paul Mock. His business is booming, producing vine-ripened tomatoes year-round.

It may sound like an oxymoron: a delicious local, winter tomato - especially if you happen to live in a cold weather climate.

But increasingly, farmers from W. Virginia to Maine and through the Midwest are going indoors to produce tomatoes and other veggies in demand during the winter months. "There's a huge increase in greenhouse operations," Harry Klee of the University of Florida tells us.

And surprisingly, according to skeptical foodies like chef Todd Wiss, the best greenhouse tomatoes come incredibly close to reproducing that taste of a perfectly-ripe, summer garden tomato. "It's amazing," Wiss told me after trying a greenhouse grown Gary Ibsen gold heirloom tomato.

The taste in Mock's tomatoes starts with the seed. He uses only organic varieties, including cherry and several heirloom varieties.

These are a far cry from the flavorless supermarket tomatoes we typically find this time of year. When tomatoes are shipped long distances, they're usually harvested before they're ripe, which compromises taste. Plus, as we've reported before, some of the flavor of those supermarket varieties has been accidentally bred out as well.

The advantage of the new greenhouse model is that the tomatoes are grown not far from the cities where they're sold and eaten. And it's the locavore ethos that's driving this trend. "What's harvested today will be delivered to stores tomorrow," explains Paul Mock of Mock's Greenhouse in Berkeley Springs, W. Va.

If you listen to my story, you'll hear how Mock's business has boomed in the last few years, as retailers such as Wegmans and Whole Foods in the D.C. metro area snap up his heirloom and cherry tomatoes, as well as cucumbers and lettuces.

"There were times I had to pound the pavement" to sell produce Mock says. Now he's being paid a premium, since "locally-grown" produce is in high demand. "I'm finally having fun," he says.

Now even New Englanders can get summertime tasting, fresh tomatoes grown not too far from home. In Maine, Backyard Farms is leading the way. And vertical greenhouses are changing the landscape, too, from the new garden spot at Chicago's O'Hare Airport to Vertical Harvest of Jackson Hole, Wyo., which is just getting started.

So how do they grow? Many of these operations are turning to hydroponic farming, which means the plants are not grown in soil.

As we've reported before, soil is one key component of tomato flavor. But it's not the only one. The hydroponic tomatoes get their nutrients (and fertilizer) from liquid solutions fed directly via irrigation hoses. This typically requires less water and less land than traditional farming.

In fact, it uses up to 10 times less land and seven times less water per pound, according to Kate Siskel of Bright Farms, Inc., a company that's scaling up local produce by building greenhouses at or near supermarkets

Mock says there's another advantage of indoor growing: "We've had very little damage from bugs." And he's been able to avoid using chemicals on the leaves or fruit of his plants.

Quinoa Craze Inspires North America To Start Growing Its Own

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The seeds of this goosefoot plant are known as quinoa, a superfood now in high demand and grown almost exclusively in South America. But some growers think they have the formula to grow it up north.

The explosion in world popularity of quinoa in the past six years has quadrupled prices at retail outlets. But for all the demand from upscale grocery stores in America to keep their bulk bins filled with the ancient grain-like seed, almost no farmers outside of the arid mountains and coastal valleys of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile grow it.

But plant breeders and scientists who study the biology and economics of quinoa say that is about to change.

"We're going to see quinoa being grown all over the place soon," predicts Kevin Murphy, a Washington State University grain breeder who has spent several years developing quinoa varieties suited to America's diverse geography and climates. Murphy says it's already clear that quinoa can flourish and produce high yields in many parts of North America, and he sees "no reason why quinoa production won't take off in the next few years."

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Gardiner Kevin Murphy with a goosefoot plant, the seeds of which we eat as quinoa.

Small-scale farmers in the Northwest are currently testing the crop, harvesting a few pounds of quinoa each fall among their rows of vegetables and fruits and selling the seeds at farmers markets, but quinoa farming in the United States has not yet taken off in a big way for multiple reasons.

First, Murphy says, the quinoa craze is such a new phenomenon that farmers have hardly had a chance to react. As recently as six years ago, American shoppers could buy quinoa for the rice-like price of $1.50 per pound. Now, retailers get between $4.50 and $8 for every pound they sell of this nutrient-dense superfood.

So clearly, growing quinoa which is actually the seed of the goosefoot plant (Chenopodium quinoa) could be lucrative for American farmers, though only in cooler regions. Quinoa is very heat sensitive, and experienced gardeners say temperatures of 95 degrees will completely destroy a crop. Another challenge to producing quinoa is rain. If it falls during the autumn harvest time, it can ruin the crunchy, high-protein seeds by causing them to sprout.

And then there's the problem of removing the saponin, the naturally-occurring bitter layer of compounds that deter pests, but makes uncleaned seeds all but inedible to people. Special cleaning systems would have to be set up to do this, as growers in South America have learned.

To date just one sizable operation, White Mountain Farm in the Colorado Rockies, has made a big investment in the seed. "When we first started [in 1987] there was no demand for quinoa," recalls owner Ernie New, who planted 120 acres of quinoa this May and harvested 70 after a summer of destructive weather. "Nobody knew how to grow it, to clean it, to prepare it, to eat it. There was no information at all about it." Today, New says, he receives far more orders than he can meet, many from restaurants and retailers hoping to market "locally grown" quinoa.

But for now, virtually every quinoa seed eaten in the United States is imported from South America. There, almost 80,000 tons of quinoa were harvested in 2010.

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Quinoa salad.

And it's not without challenges. In Bolivia, second in production to Peru, great prosperity has come to many farmers. But communities in the Bolivian Andes that formerly lived on quinoa have become unable to afford it and are now relying more on nutritionally inferior processed foods.

And property disputes are reportedly on the rise as South American entrepreneurs often landless arrivals from the cities compete with one another for growing space in the limited arable land of the Andes as they try to cash in on the quinoa craze. Bolivian llama herders are also abandoning their flocks, once the region's natural fertilizer source, and, instead, planting quinoa. This seems already to be causing declining soil productivity.

Most South American quinoa farms are at high elevation some more than two miles above sea levelbut quinoa is a highly adaptable and versatile species, according to Oregon nurseryman Frank Morton, owner of Wild Garden Seeds near Portland.

Morton has been growing and breeding quinoa since 1984. Heat and moisture remain frequent killers of most varieties, but through selective seed saving, Morton has transformed several original types of quinoa into at least five new ones that he says can thrive in North American climates "and produce great yields on terribly poor soil." He has seen quinoa plants freeze solid overnight and continue growing after thawing making it a potential crop for mountainous regions where other fruits, grains and vegetables cannot be grown. He also has seen it grow at sea level.

Morton believes that the Rocky Mountains, much of Canada, and the Pacific Northwest all have potential as quinoa producing regions, and he says he's certain that a North American quinoa industry will soon boom.

"There is tremendous potential for quinoa," he says. "The key is simply figuring out where it will grow."

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Key To E. Coli-Free Spinach May Be An Ultrasonic Spa Treatment

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Spinach has lots of opportunities to pick up E. coli and other bugs during harvest and growing. Here, a Mexican migrant worker cuts organic spinach during the fall harvest at Grant Family Farms in Wellington, Co.

Salad producers haven't succeeded in banishing E. coli and other dangerous microbes from fresh greens, though they've tried hard. As we've reported before, it's a major challenge to both growers and the environment. But one scientist thinks he's making progress with a spinach spa that zaps bad bugs with ultrasound.

Ultrasound is nothing more than sound moving at a frequency too high for humans to hear. It's commonly used for medical tests, including those adorably fuzzy photos of babies in the womb. Turn up the intensity, though, and ultrasound can pack enough power to destroy bacteria. Ultrasound is increasingly used in food production, and has been used successfully to decontaminate other fresh foods, including apple juice. But using ultrasound on greens has had only mixed success.

"Leafy greens are difficult," says Hao Feng, an associate professor of food engineering at the University of Illinois who built the spinach spa. Zap a spinach leaf too hard, and it develops watery spots and rots. Zap it too little, and the germs live. "We need to be very careful. We don't want to damage this produce."

Yet a spinach leaf, delicate though it is, can block ultrasound waves from reaching bacteria behind it.

Feng tried to overcome these problems by submerging the spinach in a big trough of water, much like the tanks used to wash fresh greens for commercial production. He added Jacuzzi-like jets to move the water, so all the spinach gets exposed to about the same amount of sound waves. ) And he used transducers that were as deep and long as the tank to generate sound waves throughout.

As the sound waves move through water, they make areas with high and low pressure. That creates tiny cavities that pop like bubbles. That cavitation process can dislodge and destroy bacteria or it can destroy the spinach. So Feng had to tweak his machine to cause just enough cavitation, but not too much.

Then he combined ultrasound and a time-tested industry technique washing fresh greens in a solution of chlorine and water. That resulted in a tenfold reduction in E. coli, compared to a chlorine wash alone. The results were reported in the journal Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies.

Feng is confident he could invent a machine that would work on a commercial scale, but it would cost more than the chlorine-only treatment many processors use now, and so far no one's expressed interested in funding commercial development of his spinach spa.

"We have finished the first step," Feng told The Salt. He next hopes to re-rig his system to disinfect microgreens next.

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

No Simple Recipe For Weighing Food Waste At Mario Batali's Lupa

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Glen Osterberg (right) and another line cook at Lupa learn how to use the LeanPath waste tracking software.

Every year, restaurants throw away as much as 10 percent of the food they buy, as we reported yesterday, yet food waste ranks low on most chefs' list of priorities. But some restaurants want to do something about food waste in their quest to go green. That includes Mario Batali's Lupa Osteria Romana, one of New York's trendiest restaurants.

A few years ago, the ponytailed Food Network star and his business partners decided that their 19 restaurants should rank among the greenest in the world. So they hired a director of food safety and sustainability to encourage chefs to buy local ingredients, compost and save energy.

Then Batali's group heard about Andrew Shakman and his company, LeanPath. It was helping big institutions like Stanford University's dining halls and the MGM Grand Las Vegas save thousands of dollars in food costs with its waste tracking software.

But the LeanPath software had never been tested in a small place like Lupa where the chefs cook everything to order. So Shakman agreed to let Lupa try the system without charge.

For food that's expired, spoiled, overcooked or is trim waste, "we're going to put [it] on this scale before it goes into the garbage or into the compost," Shakman told the Lupa cooks when he visited the kitchen earlier this year.

When cooks put food waste on the LeanPath scale, they identify it and why they're throwing it away like overcooked meat or spoiled fish. The software then calculates what that food waste is worth. With that information, a kitchen can figure out how it needs to change, Shakman says. (Watch a demo of how it works here.)

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Mario Batali and his business partners want to make their 19 restaurants, including Lupa, among the greenest in the world.

"Once we begin reducing food waste, we are spending less money on food because we're not buying food to waste it; we're spending less money on labor; we're spending less money on energy to keep that food cold and heat it up; we're spending less on waste disposal," says Shakman.

Lupa's Chef di Cuisine Cruz Goler spent a couple of months working with the system. But he ran into some problems. After the first week, some of his staff just stopped weighing the food. But Goler says he didn't want to "break their chops about some sort of vegetable scrap that doesn't really mean anything."

Shakman believes those scraps do mean something when they add up over time. He says it's just a matter of making the tracking a priority, even when a restaurant is really busy.

"When we get busy, we don't stop washing our hands; when we get busy, we don't cut corners in quality on the plate," says Shakman. "So it's just a question of how do we adapt. And we've seen folks who find ways."

But Goler couldn't find a way. He pulled the plug on the project.

It was tough to take it seriously, he says, when most of what the restaurant throws away is stuff like onion skins that no one is ever going to eat. And he says forcing his staff to weigh onion skins took up precious time. His perspective: The manpower of weighing the onion skins was more costly than anything learned by doing it.

"It's a very low-margin, supercompetitive business. It's the crux of every environmental issue," Goler says.

Despite the failure of LeanPath in the Lupa kitchen, Shakman is still convinced his system can save restaurants money.

But he's learned that the battle against food waste, like so many battles people fight, has to start with winning hearts and minds.

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Milk: Symbol Of Purity, Symbol Of Conflict

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European dairy farmers spray police officers with milk during a demonstration outside the European Parliament in Brussels on Monday.

Food fight!

Earlier this week, European Union dairy farmers decided to protest milk price controls by spraying police with high-pressure hoses filled with milk. It certainly wasn't the first time that food has been both subject and symbol of unrest (see food riots). But this one stands out because of the dramatic images.

According to

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"The European Milk Board, which coordinated the two-day protest, said prices with current quotas were putting small farmers out of business. In Belgium, for example, the board said the wholesale price for a quarter gallon of milk was around 34 cents, but the cost of producing it is more than 50 cents."

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European milk farmers drive their tractors down a main thoroughfare in the European Quarter of Brussels on Monday.

For more amazing photos of the EU milk protest, check out NBC News' PhotoBlog post.

While food has often been hurled in protest think rotten tomatoes, rotten eggs, etc. milk may be a particularly poignant choice because of our complex relationship with it.

As historian Deborah Valenze notes in her book Milk: A Local And Global History, "Milk, a liquid associated with kindness and love, has never been free from conflict throughout history."

We've wavered between milk reverence and milk revulsion for much of our history, she says. It's a first food, it's nutrient-dense, and yet, when not stored in the right conditions, it can make us sick.

Dairy was once banned from ancient Greek diets it was considered too bestial in origin for sophisticated wannabe urbanites, Valenze writes. Later, in a backlash against urbanism, Renaissance scholar Laura Cereta "seized upon milk en route to one of her favorite causes: the virtue of rural simplicity over the worldly arrogance built into life in the city," writes Valenze.

These days, we Westerners still equate milk and milk products with wholesomeness and nature, even as some of us wrestle with lactose intolerance. At that same time, its production has become supremely industrialized in the last 100 years, and various governments have intervened in its sale for both safety and supply reasons, causing protests of all kinds.

For a brief history of other food fights, check out our post from earlier this year about flying tacos and yogurt.

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