Preserving The Chili Pepper Harvest: Chinese Chile-Garlic Sauce

This year, I planted a whiskey barrel with Thai chilies and basil; eight starts of Thai Dragon chilies, a dozen of Siam Queen basil. These relatively few plants kept us in fresh Thai ingredients for the entire summer and early fall. The rainy early summer resulted in lush growth but the first chilies were fairly […]

Americans Return to the Garden

After I wrote a post in May entreating Americans to return to our roots and once again become “a nation of farmers” by growing at least part of our food on whatever spot of earth we can find to cultivate, I was amazed at how strongly my ideas seemed to resonate with readers.
Yesterday as […]

Another Step for Reducing Waste in Restaurants: Cross-Utilization and Repurposing of Food

Cross-utilization and repurposing are two words that get used by chefs and cooks, but not so much anyone else, so let me first define them for you.
Cross-utilization means using an ingredient, sauce, or condiment that is usually used for one or two specific dishes for another dish or two where, perhaps, they are not expected, […]

The Next Step to Avoiding Food Waste in Restaurants: Utilizing Surplus

Sometimes, even though proper inventory and ordering procedures are followed, a restaurant will have a surplus of perishable ingredients. In these cases, there are a few things that a resourceful cook or chef can do to alleviate the problem before it becomes a case of unnecessary food waste. (Sometimes, it isn’t an accidental overstock that […]

The First Step To Avoiding Food Waste: Efficient Storeroom Procedures

There is a mantra that every chef knows and drills into the heads of every prep and line cook: “First In, First Out.” Abbreviated to FIFO, this simple principle is at the core of avoiding food loss and waste in a busy restaurant kitchen.
What it means is that you use the older food before […]