Chef Mackenzie Arrington, Maine Lobster's Chef of the Year, was selected by governor John Baldacci to represent the state at the sixth annual Great American Seafood Cook-off event in New Orleans on Aug. 7. Arrington is also the chef of Morrison's Maine Course in Portland, Maine.
Arrington (pictured, left) will compete against other top-level chefs from around the country, preparing sustainable seafood dishes for the title of King of American Seafood. As the chefs are asked to use the seafood that best represents their state, Arrington will prepare North Atlantic red crab. His assistant at the cook-off will be his mother, Margaret Salt McLellan, who also is a chef at Morrison's Maine Course.
The Great American Seafood Cook-Off is supported by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association, audited by the National Fisheries Institute and endorsed by the National Restaurant Association. The Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board and the Louisiana Restaurant Association (LRA) will host the event in conjunction with the Southwest Airlines Gulf Coast Seafood Pavilion during the LRA Foodservice Expo in New Orleans.
Charles Negaro, founder of Chabaso Bakery in New Haven, Conn., will ride in the 31st annual Pan-Massachusetts Challenge on Aug. 7 and 8 to benefit cancer research and treatment at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The Pan-Mass, also called the Jimmy Fund, is a three-day, long-distance cycling event that has raised more money than any other athletic fundraiser in the country.
Charles Negaro trains for his Aug. 7 ride for charity
Negaro, who will be 69 when he rides this year, participated for the first time six years ago and repeated the effort three years in a row. "A very close friend of my family had been diagnosed with cancer," he said in a statement, "and her treatment was centered on the Dana-Farber Institute. The care she received for more than eight years until her death was effective, extraordinarily warm and compassionate. It provided her with a rewarding quality of life through those years, and provided her family and friends with the value of her treasured presence every day."
Chabaso Bakery also is a sponsor of the event and will provide more than 2,000 Roasted Garlic Stix and 1,000 Olive Oil Ciabatta Stix to the pre-race dinner ceremonies. An additional 3,000 Stix products will be used for sandwiches the following day during the event.
For more information about the Pan-Mass Challenge, visit www.pmc.org.
Two out of every five children in the United States (40.7 percent) between the ages of 5 and 13 are currently obese or overweight, according to research by the Datamonitor Group. That number is expected to reach 43.4 percent by 2014.
According to the 2008 National Poll on Children's Health, 30 percent of parents with overweight or obese children do not set limits on TV, video games or computer games for their kids. Parents of overweight or obese children were also more likely to rate neighborhood safety and lack of opportunities for physical activity as top health concerns for kids. Additionally, research shows that children in the Americas between 5 and 13 consume confectionary snacks at more than twice the rate of the overall population (per capita).
Datamonitor is a provider of independent data, analysis and opinion across industries that include consumer markets, healthcare and sourcing. For more information, visit www.datamonitor.com.
Share Our Strength is hosting the second in a series of Great American Dine Out webinars on June 23 from 3 to 3:30 p.m. EDT, to provide strategies and ideas for restaurant operators who want to participate in the dine out for charity, which takes place from Sept. 19 to 25. Ray Blanchette and Robin Ahearn, CEO and senior vice president of marketing, respectively, of Ignite Restaurant Group, will lead the discussion.
The Great American Dine Out is a week-long, nationwide event in which participating restaurants donate a portion of proceeds to help end childhood hunger in America. It is a flexible program, meaning operators can decide how they want to implement and promote it.
Registration is open to operators of every type of foodservice establishment. Register at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/612473720.
Hundreds of companies that exhibited at the 2010 National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show last month donated enough surplus food from the event for nearly 52,000 meals through the Greater Chicago Food Depository (GCFD). The NRA and GCFD have partnered to facilitate food donations from the show for more than 20 years.
NRA Show 2010 exhibitors donated a total of 68,962 pounds of high-quality food products, which is the equivalent of 51,721 meals for Chicago-area individuals in need. The donated food was distributed through a network of more than 600 qualified GCFD member agencies including pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, day care centers and senior living facilities.
"The support of the National Restaurant Association helps us provide food for thousands of men, women and children," said Kate Maehr, executive director of the Greater Chicago Food Depository, in a statement. "Our statistics show that we now serve 678,000 people in Cook County every year. We can respond to heightened demand because of partners like the National Restaurant Association."
The Greater Chicago Food Depository, Chicago’s food bank, is a nonprofit food distribution and training center providing food for hungry people while striving to end hunger in our community. For more information, visit www.chicagosfoodbank.org.
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The Women's Foodservice Forum (WFF) has promoted Anna Mason to vice president of operations and general manager, effective immediately.
Mason began her tenure with WFF in 2007 as events director, where she managed WFF events such as the Annual Leadership Development Conference and Executive Women's Summit. She will now oversee all general operations of the organization in addition to providing event management leadership.
Prior to joining WFF, Mason was president and owner of Business Solutions Specialists, assisting companies with supply chain management, reverse logistics and trade show and meeting planning. She also has held various roles at PepsiCo Foodservice, Wilbur Boyd Development Co. and Buffalo Courier Express (defunct).
For more information about Women's Foodservice Forum, visit www.womensfoodserviceforum.com.
by Maggie Shea
This article is the online exclusive Business Wise column for the June 2010 issue of Chef Magazine.
Foodservice establishments use five times more energy per square foot than any other commercial building, according to data from the National Restaurant Association (NRA). And Pacific Gas & Electric's energy efficiency advocacy program Food Service Technology Center reports that 80 percent of the $10 billion annual energy bill for commercial foodservice is expended through inefficient cooking.
As reports like these continue to surface, restaurants are under intense pressure to abandon some old bad habits and become more energy efficient. While this may seem like a daunting task, much of what operators can do are simple and commonsense changes to the way they operate on a day-to-day basis. Christopher Moyer, project manager of Conserve, the environmental initiative of the NRA, says that a lot of the inefficiencies simply come from bad habits.
Leaky faucets can waste up to 20 gallons of water in a single day, according to Conserve.
"One example is a lot of restaurant owners are not shutting things down when they should be or turning things off when they aren't using them," he says. "You may not even use a piece of equipment for the first 45 minutes of service but you turn on all 20 of them at the same time. It's not just wasting energy, it's wasting money. But I don't think anything's deliberate--we are creatures of habit."
Other common oversights might be running the dishwasher when it's not full; leaving small appliances like computers, coffee makers or POS systems plugged in when not in use; or not fixing leaky faucets, which can waste up to 20 gallons of water in a single day.
Moyer says that aside from long-term savings and positive environmental impact, conservation is simply a better restaurant business model. "Our mantra has been, even with Conserve, it's about being conservation-minded and physically conservative as well. To make $10, we have to sell $200 worth of stuff. Part of that is looking at energy costs and water costs. You can literally save thousands of dollars a year with little changes like these."
While replacing dishwashers, coolers and hoods with energy-efficient equipment will save a restaurant money over the long term, often such overhauls will cost restaurants tens of thousands of dollars. Moyer says it's best to start by changing small habits and working up to the big investments.
"There are so many things that require no investment, only an investment of time or learning what you have to do," he says. "There are so many no-brainer things out there that don't require a specialized piece of equipment. Take, for example, the hose you use to fill buckets to mop the patio or sidewalk outside. Grabbing something like a broom will get the job done quicker and faster with no water. By using a broom instead of a hose to clean your sidewalk, you can save up to 80 gallons of water. Or if you have a reach-in cooler, invest $15 in a cart. That way, you can move everything from the reach-in to the walk-in cooler at night. Then you can shut that piece of equipment down, saving you 12 hours of energy overnight. Sometimes you just have to think outside the box a little bit."
A few resources for getting started:
- The Food Service Technology Center Web site (www.fishnick.com) offers information on equipment performance, expertise in commercial kitchen ventilation, water heating and building energy efficiency, including lighting, glazing and HVAC. Operators can also download a free self-site survey at www.fishnick.com/about/services/sitesurveys/2009_Energy_Survey.pdf, which provides an itemized list of the energy- and water-using systems of a typical commercial foodservice establishment that should be targeted during a commercial foodservice energy audit.
- The EPA Energy Star Web site (www.energystar.gov/cfs) has made a new restaurant guide available for commercial foodservice, which helps restaurant owners and operators improve the performance of their facilities and equipment while reducing energy costs. The PDF guide is also available here.
- Greener Restaurants is an initiative launched by Conserve and FSTC that provides online
tools and education to help restaurants green their business, reduce operating expenses and improve the bottom line. Greener Restaurants offers a starting point for restaurants looking to start reducing their environmental impact and provides value and recognition to operations that have already begun. - The Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) is a consortium of efficiency program administrators from across the U.S. and Canada who work together on common approaches to advancing efficiency. Visit www.cee1.org for more information.
- The Green Seal Environmental Standard for Restaurants and Food Services, or GS-46, establishes environmental requirements for restaurants and foodservice operations that have been operating for at least three months preparing and serving food to the general public or private consumers. This includes full-service, limited-service, noncommercial and catering operations. The standard focuses on
leadership in environmental improvement in food, waste and energy. And ensure the products you're buying are environmentally friendly by searching for the Green Seal label (pictured, right) on the package. A Green Seal-certified product must meet the Green Seal environmental standard for the category as demonstrated by rigorous evaluation, testing and a plant visit. Green Seal provides third-party corroboration of environmental claims and distinguishes products from competitors that can't support their environmental assertions. The Green Seal certifies everything from coffee filters, parchment and toilet paper to dinner and beverage napkins. Visit www.greenseal.org. To search for specific certified products and services, click here.
At the 30th annual Napa Valley Vintners' (NVV) Auction Napa Valley, more than $8.5 million was raised on behalf of nonprofit organizations supporting healthcare, youth services and affordable housing. The four-day event, which was held during the first weekend of June in Napa, Calif., included a live auction, wine tastings and lunch and dinner prepared by 16 of the top U.S. chefs. A total of 2,000 bidders and vintners attended.
(l to r) Chefs Suzanne Goin of Lucques, Los Angeles; Melissa Perello of Frances, San Francisco; Carrie Nahabedian of Naha, Chicago; and Suzanne Tracht of Jar, L.A., prepared dinner after the live auction ended on Saturday, June 5*
Auction Napa Valley, established in 1981, is an annual fundraiser hosted by the Napa Valley Vintners, a nonprofit trade association representing nearly 400 wineries in Napa Valley. To date, Auction Napa Valley has raised $90 million for various nonprofit programs.
*Photo courtesy of Jason Tinacci/TinacciPhoto.com
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Chef's Stirrings is the official blog of Chef Magazine, the industry publication for restaurant and foodservice professionals. The blog offers culinary news and online exclusives from the editors ofChef.
Chef Mackenzie Arrington, Maine Lobster's Chef of the Year, was selected by governor John Baldacci to represent the state at the sixth annual Great American Seafood Cook-off event in New Orleans on Aug. 7. Arrington is also the chef of Morrison's Maine Course in Portland, Maine.
