ColumnIf you eat at a restaurant or fast food chain, you won’t get served a pill of antibiotics with your meal, but big chain restaurants across the U.S. are full of products that are dependent on antibiotics to get them from the factory farm to your table.

We have taken a look at the issue of antibiotic use before. In the U.S., 70 to 80 percent of the antibiotics go to factory farms, and most of the antibiotic use is preventative, called “non-therapeutic” because the conditions at many factory farms are so bad that giving animals antibiotics is simply a way to ensure animals don’t get sick.

Why should we worry if there are antibiotics in our food? First and foremost, because scientists around the globe are warning us about the severe threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria, what some refer to as the issue of “superbugs.”  For World Health Day in 2011, the World Health Organization took on the issue, noting “in the absence of urgent corrective and protective actions, the world is heading towards a post-antibiotic era, in which many common infections will no longer have a cure and, once again, kill unabated.” But that was 2011 and things haven’t really improved.In November, the WHO will hold the first ever World Antibiotic Awareness Week in the hopes of raising awareness and tackling the issue.

There is also a growing group of scientists who are talking about the link between antibiotic use and obesity, the most recent a study focused on children which showed a connection between antibiotics and childhood obesity.

Knowing that so many of the antibiotics in the U.S. go to factory farms, part of solving the problem is putting pressure on not only the farms that are antibiotic dependent, but also the restaurants and food brands that use their products.

Last week Friends of the Earth published a new report that gives a grim look at restaurants and the use of antibiotics in their meat supply. Of the top 25 American restaurant chains, all but five received a failing grade.

There is some movement, but it’s slow. As you can see from the graphic, the majority of the restaurant chains are right at the bottom. Panera and Chipotle are the only two who publicly state that the majority of their meat and poultry served is raised without antibiotics. McDonald’s has established policies limiting antibiotic use in the chicken that they use, along with an implementation timeline. Other chains like many at the bottom have absolutely no policies in place at all.

Given the ramifications of the overuse of antibiotics, the lack of policies at these huge food chains is significant.

“In order to protect the health and wellbeing of humans and animals alike, the way we perceive animals and how we raise them for food has to shift dramatically,” wrote Cameron Harsh in a blog for Center for Food Safety.

The report is a call to action to consumers to challenge these companies to change their policies. While action from the FDA is crucial in applying stricter guidelines on antibiotic use, we as consumers also need to challenge more restaurants and food chains to rethink and change what products they buy. Want to take action immediately? Sign FOE’s letter calling on Subway to change its policies.

We do have power; we just have to use it.

Related on EcoSalon

The 10 Biggest Issues with Global Food

Antibiotic Resistance and the Industrial Meat Industry: Foodie Underground

Rise of the Superbugs

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Mike Mozart

The post Antibiotics are Everywhere in American Fast Food: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

These local restaurants are where you can eat your food with a good conscience.

If you’re going to vote with your fork, you might as well enjoy the process. With the growth of the sustainable food movement has come an influx of restaurants that are not only focused on taste, but where their food comes from. From vegan restaurants to spots with their own rooftop gardens, here are 7 local restaurants around the country where you can be sure to get a meal that you will feel good about eating.

1. Homestead – Chicago, Illinois

With a 1,000 square foot rooftop garden that produces more than 130 herbs and vegetables, at Homestead you literally have farm-to-table dining. Housed on the rooftop, you have to go through a pizza joint to get here, but once you do, you can snag a spot on the deck next to the living wall and order a craft cocktail or beer.

2. Greens Restaurant – San Francisco, California

Opened in 1979, Greens has been serving up vegetarian fare since before most people knew what fine vegetarian cooking consisted of. Annie Sommerville has been the executive chef here since 1985, and with so many years under her belt, she has become well respected in the world of San Francisco restaurants, but also vegetarian cuisine in general. She works closely with local organic farmers and producers, putting a focus on ingredients that come from the region.

3. Vedge – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

If you’re a vegan, at most restaurants you’re limited to very few options. Not at Vedge, one of the most notable plant-based restaurants in the country. Here you’ll find a kitchen that uses locally sourced ingredients and no animal products whatsoever. But that doesn’t mean it’s just for vegans: this is conscious eating for every type of foodie, which is a good thing, since we could all do with a little less meat intake.

4. SAME Cafe – Denver, Colorado

SAME, which is an acronym for So All May Eat, is a local restaurant that functions differently. You pay what you can at this mostly local, organic eatery, and if you can’t afford anything at all, you can volunteer in the kitchen for an hour in exchange for a meal.

5. Akasha – Los Angeles, California

Akasha is a restaurant where carnivores and herbivores come together. There’s a big focus on sustainability here, sourcing from small family farms, organic growers, sustainable and Fair Trade companies. It’s your standard California, healthy, fresh cuisine, complete with sangria and mimosas for Sunday brunch.

6. Rosemary’s – New York City, New York

New York is known for its Italian food, but what’s better than Italian food from a rooftop garden? That’s exactly what you’ll get at Rosemary’s, where the chef Wade Moises came from a previous stint at Eataly, and there is a 1,000 square-foot rooftop garden. Now, of course, those olives didn’t come from up there, but plenty of the herbs and vegetables that make their way into the menu do, and that alone is worth a trip.

7. Haven – Houston, Texas

Houston may get a bad rap from some people, but those people probably never went to Haven, a restaurant that’s focused on locally sourced ingredients. Not only that, but they compost their kitchen scraps, there’s an organic garden and a bee hive on site, and there are even organic Texas wines on the menu.

Related on EcoSalon

11 Awesome (Female) Chefs That Are Changing the World of Food

Foodie Underground: Eat What You Want, Pay What You Can

7 Vegetarian Restaurants and Cafes in Paris

Image: Ralph Daily

The post 7 Cool, Local Restaurants Where You Can Get a Meal You Can Feel Good About appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnIs feminism’s next battleground in kitchens and restaurants?

In case you missed it, Time magazine recently ran a cover story titled “The Gods of Food.” The online media world of course erupted when it was quickly discovered that these “gods” of food were just that: gods. The list of the culinary elite failed to include a woman.

If you thought the under representation of women was just at Fortune 500 companies and politics, think again. Boy’s clubs are everywhere. But what’s worse is how the media exacerbates this cycle. As Amanda Cohen, chef at Dirty Candy put it in the New York Times, “The reality of the situation is that there are lots of women in professional kitchens, and there always have been, but for some reason the press choose not to cover them.”

It’s a problem of under representation in the industry itself, but it’s also a problem of image and how the media portrays women.

I wrote about this topic last week for an online French publication (if your college French is up to par, attack it here), because if you think the U.S. is the only one experiencing this problem, you’re wrong. At around the same time the “Gods of Food” article came out, so did “Génération New French Bistrot” in L’Express, a French weekly. Again, no ladies to be found. But there was “Eat Girls: La nouvelle génération des chefs” that Madame Figaro published, a selection of very talented and well-respected female chefs.

The only problem? The main photo was all of the women decked out in skintight black outfits – a mini skirt here, a pair of pleather pants there – and lips bright red with lipstick. Not only are these women talented, the article pointed out, but they are “cool and sexy.” I’ll tell you one thing: red lipstick isn’t a kitchen utensil that will help you get food out the door to hundreds of customers when you’re running a restaurant.

Pair that photo next to the lead image of “Gods of Food” and you can see the problem: sexy women, professional men. A gender stereotype that is exacerbated in all domains.

“But wait! We’re women, we’re supposed to be sexy! If we’re not sexy, are we still women?” That’s what the media would like to have us believe.

I saw an article last week with tips on transitioning from the kitchen to the dinner table. Yes, it was in fact a piece on how to cook a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner and still manage to look hot at the dinner table. From chef to host in 5 minutes flat! Once you’ve gotten rid of the apron, you’ll need two coats of volumizing mascara and some lip stain in case you were wondering.

Therein lies the problem. (And for the record, your college feminism professor is squirming right now.)

Culturally, when it comes to food, we’re often stuck in a 1950s image of women. It was almost like the copyright on a Better Homes and Gardens article from 1951 just ran out and the website decided to reprint it, with a few tweaks here and there to accommodate for modern makeup tips.

No matter how progressive we think we are, we continue to be bogged down in gender roles. Women put daily food on the table. They make meals. Men, however, cook professionally. They make works of art.

As Michael Pollan wrote in his recent book “Cooked”:

“Since ancient times, a few special types of cooking have enjoyed considerable prestige : Homer’s warriors barbecued their own joints of meat at no cost to their heroic status or masculinity. And ever since, it has been socially acceptable for men to cook in public and professionally – for money… But for most of history most of humanity’s food has been cooked by women working out of public view and without public recognition. Except for the rare ceremonial traditions over which men preside… cooking has traditionally been women’s work, part and parcel of homemaking and childcare, and therefore undeserving of serious – i.e. male – attention.”

So, until we start to work on our gender imaging, and think about feminism in the kitchen, we can expect more of the same.

As Adeline Grattard, one of the female chefs featured in the Madame Figaro article told Grub Street, “I don’t think it helps us — the opposite in fact. We’re not ‘women.’ We’re chefs. Putting the female part at the forefront is a negative thing… It discredits our importance in the métier.”

Exactly. They are chefs. Not sexy chefs. Not cool chefs. Just chefs. They should be respected for what they do, and the mass media should be challenged to diversify its coverage of the food industry and when it talks about women, do it in a way that honors their work not their looks.

Don’t want sexism in the food industry? Support chefs not because they’re famous and mega stars and a magazine assured you that an 18 course tasting menu simply was the “in” thing right now, but because their food is good, because they are innovative and doing things differently and because they are skilled, talented and passionate about their jobs.

Related on EcoSalon:

Foodie Underground: Foodie Feminism

14 Feminist Books Someone Should Write

11 Influential Eco Chefs Who Are Changing the Way We Think About Food

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Lori L. Stalteri

The post Feminism in the Kitchen: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

Go beyond falafel and hummus, indulge in the bustling conscious culture of Tel Aviv.

Before arriving to Tel Aviv, all my research concerning eating vegan or vegetarian pointed to one conclusion: falafel and hummus. Tel Aviv isn’t particularly known for its cuisine and has adopted its culinary creations from the Mediterranean coast and Arab neighbors. I figured if what I ordered wasn’t something involving fried chickpeas or tahini then the only other option would be lamb. When I arrived, however, I was impressed to see that there indeed existed a growing buzz for plant-based eating and an enthusiastic culture to support it. Yes, there was a lot of falafel and hummus involved, mostly because Israelis do a fantastic job at them, but there were also so many other opportunities to enjoy the local culture in a sustainable and healthy way.

The star of Tel Aviv’s health food joints is decidedly the Taste of Life, located on Ben Zehuda Street. Since 1984, the restaurant has gone beyond kosher laws and has successfully worked under a vegan, organic and raw banner. Dishes are made in-house and include tofu quiches, mock-meat, veggie burgers, tofu teriyaki, Schwarma, stir fry, grains, vegetable casseroles, soy ice-cream as well as a selection of salads and juices. The restaurant also hosts cooking classes and offers catering services.

Start the day out with a hearty Israeli breakfast that will satisfy both the vegan and non-vegan palette. Orna & Ella is a well-established fixture that has become a symbol of Tel Aviv and Shenkin Street. Starting off as a coffee shop 14 years ago, today Orna & Ella feeds diners on a balcony in the back and three small separate rooms and is famous for its yam patties, which are served with a creamy chives dip. In addition to its meat pie and chicken liver dishes, there are salads, homemade pastas and morning pastries. Get the best of both worlds and indulge in a truly Tel Aviv experience at this humble local mainstay.

On Yehuda Halevi Street you’ll find a health enthusiast’s true oasis. Aba Gil is a vegan, organic, low-fat, gluten and soy-free restaurant. The menu is stocked with typical dishes characteristic to the city’s tastes, such as hummus and falafel, in addition to others with stand-outs such as sweet potato, beans, quinoa, brown rice, vegetables, sprouts, and beets.

If you are in the mood for a burger, but want to keep things light, go to Buddha Burgers on Ibn Gavirol for a vegan, and Israeli, take on an American classic. The restaurant preps all the burgers itself and also serves vegan milkshakes to complete the experience. In a show of its good nature, Buddha Burgers offers animal rights activists a special discount.

Venture to southern Tel Aviv for a Southeast Asian experience. Indian restaurant 24 Rupee is nestled between unlikely neighbors – warehouses and motorbike shops – but is itself a charming, authentic Indian food restaurant with colorful walls and a cozy atmosphere that is introduced at first step, when patrons are asked to remove their shoes. Indian music complements the meal and during the summer, the rooftop is open for diners to enjoy their food in fresh air. As another reprieve from Israeli cuisine, try your hand at chopstick skills at Onami on HaArba. While the restaurant is not exclusively vegan or vegetarian, like any Japanese sushi restaurant, there are plenty of vegan options, such as stir-fried tofu and green vegetables. Let the server know your vegetarian or vegan preferences before ordering-

If moving to Tel Aviv or planning on a longer visit, it may interest you to join the Bar-Kayma, a cooperative vegan restaurant and bar that doubles as a community center. Owned by its customers and employees, Bar-Kayma offers members wholesale prices on its products and services, allows members to take part in all community decisions, provides lectures, performances and movies every evening, and serves fresh vegan food. It costs 1,000 Shekels, or just under $275, to join. For non-members, the cooperative is still open and the food and drinks are still competitively low.

Photo Credit: Aylin Erman

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The best/worst of crazy, this week at EcoSalon.

Vivienne Westwood, oh-so-reserved lady of A-list fashion, is on a mission – and that mission is getting us to buy less clothes. Yep.

Fancy tucking to dinner underwater, or in pitch darkness? Check out our roundup of 10 of the strangest restaurants in the world (as if food isn’t complicated enough on its own).

It’s been another good year for sexism, as this bumper crop of dumb-as-a-stick comments about women demonstrates.

Google Street View is now taking in views of the Great Barrier Reef (while it still can).

Finally, the really crazy news this week is…we’re up for sale. And that means we need your help. Want us to remain your favorite voice of slightly-less-madness in a sea of madness? Spread the word!

The post The Friday 5: The World’s Gone Freaking Mad Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.

7 ways to be planet and body friendly while in London for the Olympics.

London is this summer’s hottest destination – maybe not for the heat, but indeed for the buzz! Whether you’re heading to the UK for Olympic festivities or are passing through any time of the year, it’ll do your body and social consciousness a favor to get going with the following seven suggestions.

Run Like a Royal

What’s free and a fantastic way to stay in shape? Outdoor jogging. MapMyRun.com is the ultimate resource for not only getting in a good workout but also seeing a city from a completely different perspective. The site provides you with visual tracks that other runners have trod before. You can also create your own route, tailoring it according to your distance and terrain requirements. Check out the nearly 9,000 routes already mapped out in London.

Hydrate Organically

Need a morning fix that will keep your energy levels high for the rest of the day? Sip on a refreshing and hydrating organic vegetable and fruit juice from Planet Organic. The market has a juice and smoothie bar with plenty of vegan, vegetarian and organic options to satisfy a breakfast, lunch or dinner appetite. There are locations in Devonshire Square, Muswell Hill, Islington, Torrington Place, and Westbourne Grove, so there is always one at a reasonable distance. Each location offers food, natural beauty, and health and well-being products.

Eat Kindly

London is emerging as an epicenter to the raw and vegan food movement in Europe, but before these venues were established, hailing strong were the numerous farmers markets spread throughout the city. Berwick Street Market is one of the city’s oldest. It has been running in Soho since as far back as 1778. It is open Monday-Saturday, 9am-6pm. Marylebone Farmers Market is also a fantastic market that has a something for everyone. Going beyond produce and general goods, the market has stalls offering prepared food from a variety of cuisines. Both the Berwick and Marylebone markets have organic options. Find a full directory of markets in London, check out official London Farmers Market page.

If sit-down dining is more your style, support local restaurants with your patronage and enjoy the city’s take on food fit for a health nut. Some of the standouts include:

• Saf (63 Kensington High St, London W8 5SE)
• VitaOrganic (74 Wardour Street  London, Greater London W1F 0TE)
• InSpiral Lounge (Camden High Street, London NW1 8QS)
• Bonnington Café (11 Vauxhall Grove, London Borough of Lambeth, London SW8 1TD)
• 42Raw (6 Burlington Gardens, City of Westminster, London W1S)
• Wild Food Café (1st floor  14 Neil’s Yard, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9DP)
• Vx (73 Caledonian Road, London N1 9BT)
• Green Note (106 Parkway, London, NW1 7AN)
• Ms. Cupcake (408 Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, London SW9 8LF)
• Greenz (5 Station Rise, Tulse Hill, London SE27 9BW)

While the Olympics may be enough of a party, if you are looking to entertain or partake in a clean-eating cleanse while traveling, contact Raw Fairies, a no-cook food delivery service whose menu can be tailored to your needs. Meals include juices, salads, entrees and desserts! Rainforest Creations, too, is a healthy catering alternative that offers modern cuisine with an organic flair.

Strike a Pose

Find your inner Zen in the chaos of London and head to one of the most comprehensive studios in the city – Tri Yoga – for a £20, 2-week access to all of its yoga and pilates classes. Operating since 2000, the studio currently offers a list of bodywork therapies, including massage, acupuncture, reiki, reflexology, and psychotherapy. Find Tri Yoga in Primrose Hill, Chelsea Soho, and Covent Garden.

With locations in Notting Hill since 1993 and Islington since 2001, The Life Centre is a fixture in London’s yoga scene and draws a loyal clientele. It also cuts visitors a break, offering unlimited yoga at an introductory price of £20 for 20 consecutive days.

If you have special needs or are traveling with children, check out the Special Yoga Centre. The studio supports children and those with physical limitations, gladly offering 20% concessions to those who qualify as well as community payment classes.

Park Yourself

Grab a blanket, a friend, and a few sandwiches and spend the day looking up at the sky rather than at a blur of traffic. London is full of green space and spending an afternoon at the park is a cheap and fuss-free way to escape the city without ever leaving it. With so many parks to choose from, Time Out London has jumped the gun and organized a directory. Check out the list of parks here, which are categorized under “local parks,” “public gardens,or “hidden oases of green,” and never bore of nature. Challenge accepted.

Reduce Your Footprint

Ditch the taxi, car, bus, metro, or any engine-run mode of transportation and opt for a cleaner way to explore the city. The London Bicycle Tour Company provides daily Central London and West End bike tours, each for £18.95. Flat Tire Bike Tours is also a popular service that offers Royal London and River Thames bike and walking tours. Get a workout and an education all at once!

Shop Friendly

Do London in style, eco-friendly style that is. The city boasts a selection of boutiques and shops with fair-trade, conscious clothing and accessories.

Equa is a small Islington boutique that sells organic, fair-trade clothing from approximately 20 different designers. For children and infants, Green Baby houses organic and fairly-trade baby and mother goods, from clothing to beauty to nursery items. The Family Tree sells lamps, shades, hooks, tables, and jewelry, all of which are made ethically and locally. The store also carries People Tree, a fair-trade clothing store in operation since 2001.

Looking for the perfect shoes to go with that fair-trade blouse? Terra Plana is a shoe company that uses recyclable products. It compensates for its CO2 emissions through donations and uses vegetable leather, leather without chromium, and its self-created “E-Leather,” which is a mix of leather and textile fibers. Terra Plana has a store in Covent Garden, Brushfield Street and Westfield.

For more brands with an eco-friendly backstory, check out the annual Eco Design Fair’s directory of designers. Each listed designer incorporates the following elements in its creations: recycled/recyclable, organically grown, fair-traded, non-toxic, low energy-consuming in production/use, and cruelty-free.

Web portals dedicated to bringing eco-friendly products to the UK are My Eco Store and Ethical Superstore. Both are stocked with just about any household appliance and clothing item. Browse through their inventories and enjoy the vast selection.

Image: Australia Photos, Abigail Sylvester, nakedsky

The post 7 Ways to Love the Planet and Yourself While In London appeared first on EcoSalon.

VideoThink it’s all about biodynamic wine? Think again.

You opt for free range, organic whenever possible and your favorite restaurant has an in house garden. But how ethical of an eater are you really? Only 13.5% of food workers earn a living wage, and as this video from Behind the Kitchen Door shows us, there are reminders right in front of us that it’s not just about what we’re eating.

Learn more about Behind the Kitchen Door here.

The post How Ethical of an Eater Are You? appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnEven if you can’t pay, you still deserve access to good food.

When you go to a museum and there’s a donation box, but no set entrance fee, how much do you put in? Don’t worry, I won’t force you to answer that question publicly – personally it depends on my mood – but the “pay what you can afford” model is an interesting one.

Built on human faith – one can hope that most people are good hearted enough not to totally take advantage of the system – the concept is now moving beyond cultural institutions. Enter, pay-what-you-can restaurants. With the same idea as donation only museums, pay-what-you-can restaurants are exactly that: order a meal and then decide how much you think it’s worth, or give what you can afford.

Earlier this month Jon Bon Jovi and his charity organization JBJ Soul Foundation opened Soul Kitchen, a pay-what-you-can restaurant in New Jersey. The focus is put on healthy and nutritious food, think beet salad and three bean veggie chili. Can’t throw down cash for a meal? You can volunteer in the kitchen. For Bon Jovi, it’s all about changing our perspective. In an interview with Grub Street New York, Bon Jovi said:

Let me change your mind, because you’re imagining a tray service type of soup kitchen and it’s the opposite. Picture the coolest brasserie in your hometown, that’s what this is. It’s the hottest-looking restaurant in this town. We have to get rid of a few stigmas attached to the word volunteering and making a difference.

Bon Jovi’s restaurant is not the first of its kind, and was in fact inspired by Denver’s So All May Eat (SAME). SAME sticks to a strict policy of no set menu and no set prices, and encourages diners who can’t pay to do an hour of service in exchange for their meal. Because they believe in the idea that everyone should have access to healthy food, the owners Brad and Libby Birky are committed to fresh and organic ingredients whenever possible. White Bean Soup with Kale and Chorizo and Apple & Sunflower Seed Salad are some of the items that currently grace the menu.

Cafe 180 in nearby Englewood, Colorado is built on the same ethos, and gets a lot of their produce donated by local Colorado farms. Make your way to the other side of the world and you’ll find MaD Eatery in Siam Reap, Cambodia, where you pay what you want and 100% of the proceeds go to supporting local NGO MaD Cambodia, who works on community development and children’s welfare issues. And Australia has Lentil As Anything, which not only has their pay-what-you-can restaurants, but also a coffee table book celebrating their community.

But do people pay? Over a year ago, chain operation Panera Bread Co. and its Panera Bread Foundation opened the first Panera Cares pay what you want restaurant, and since then they have found that about 80 percent of their clientele pay the suggested amount or more. Their first non-profit concept bakery in Clayton, Missouri was actually so successful that they have since opened community cafes in Dearborn, Michigan and Portland, Oregon.

“The vision for the Panera Cares cafe was to use Panera’s unique restaurant skills to address real societal needs and make a direct impact in communities,” said Ron Shaich, Panera Bread’s co-founder and Executive Chairman. “Thus, the Foundation developed these community cafes to make a difference by addressing the food insecurity issues that affect millions of Americans.”

Shaich makes a good point: everyone should have access to food, and restaurants have the potential to creatively deal with this pressing issue. In fact 15% of U.S. households are faced with food insecurity, and ultimately, this is what these efforts are all about. But beyond supporting local communities, these restaurants are also changing how we think about food as a whole.

The foodie movement has unfortunately been hung up on deluxe renditions of goat cheese, infusions of unheard of herbs and the magic behind molecular gastronomy, but in the path to food greatness, many of these efforts have left the rest of us on the sidelines.

Eating good food shouldn’t be a luxury. We all have the right to have access to local, fresh ingredients, and hopefully pay-what-you-can restaurants can pave the way to a more equitable food future.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Image: Soul Kitchen, e pants

The post Foodie Underground: Eat What You Want, Pay What You Can appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnFoodie Underground checks out what’s hot in Telluride, Colorado.

Welcome to a new feature of Foodie Undergound: Foodie Underground on Tour. Being a Portland resident, I’m constantly in the organic/raw/food truck bubble. But writing about home gets old quickly, and if you’re a food lover, you know that one of the best parts about getting out of town is getting to check out the local food scene.

So we are bringing you a taste of some of the food trends in the cities we visit. Don’t expect extensive guides with Top Ten lists of restaurants; we want to give you an undiscovered, underground, what-the-locals-know look into what’s happening with food in certain places, in the hopes that it fuels your own wanderlust and search for good food wherever you are.

We’re kicking off the new Foodie Underground on Tour with a special town tucked away in the San Juan Mountains: Telluride. While in Telluride for a few weeks surrounding the town’s first festival of the season, Mountainfilm, I got to take advantage of the “off season.” For non-locals, “off season” could also be interpreted as “dead time,” with tourists at a bare minimum. That time between when the ski lifts close and before a jam packed Memorial Day weekend, Telluride is sleepy.

For a small town that’s teeming with people in winter and summer, a break from the crowds is welcomed, and as a visitor that meant a quiet scene with plenty of time to explore the food options, without waiting in line and getting to know the local community in the process.

A small resort town isn’t necessarily where you’d expect to find the latest in underground food trends, but surprisingly enough, Telluride has a few culinary gems that are worth exploring, off season or not.

Start your day with a stop at the Steaming Bean, Telluride’s caffeinated hotspot – which may just be because the coffee is strong, the wifi is quick and the staff is super friendly. But there’s also a killer mate latte made with coconut milk as well as granola with acai. (And if you stick around long enough as is easy to do here – there’s a specialty cocktail list.)

After a morning of French press, you’ll need a refreshing lunch, and you don’t have to look any farther than right down the street. You wouldn’t expect to find gluten-free sandwiches and seaweed salad in cowboy country, but at The Butcher and the Baker it can be done. Small, clean and cozy, it’s the kind of neighborhood bakery you always wished you had just around the corner.

If you’re in need of a quick bite to go before you bomb up one of the local hikes, a burrito from Telluride’s only food cart, La Tapatia Taqueria, might be in order. It’s unpretentious yet just quirky enough, coming complete with a bench made out of used skis perched out front.

At the end of the day, class it up for the evening at La Marmotte, a French-inspired restaurant tucked into a rustic looking building just off the river trail. The menu changes according to what’s in season, so you can expect fresh ingredients.

Top it all off with a night at There…, a newer bar that feels like a fresh taste of trendy cosmopolitan watering holes. In fact, who knew it would take going to Telluride to discover the latest in the cocktail trend: jam drinks. There’s bartender extraordinaire – Andrew Tyler – brings some New York flair to this neighborhood bar and serves up a mean rye whiskey with pumpkin jam. And with tree trunks and vintage maps as decor, the ability to choose your own playlist on the bar’s fleet of iPads, and a menu that includes soy paper wraps, you can’t go wrong.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Image: Anna Brones, The Butcher and the Baker, Anna Brones

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ColumnBeing a junk foodie has never been so hip.

It’s always good to leave your bubble. In Portland, Oregon, my bubble is food related and consists of farmers markets, New Seasons and buying quinoa in bulk. But for the past few weeks, I’ve been on the road, which has necessitated numerous gas station stops. Entering a gas station in general is rare for me, and the experience is much like sitting down to watch an hour of regular television and getting completely sucked in by the commercials. A sensory overload of sorts.

These interstate gas stations and mini marts offer much of what you’d expect: bad coffee, beef jerky sticks and an assortment of chips and high fructose corn syrup packed candies. In fact, I certainly don’t expect to find examples of fine cuisine at trucker stops, but the amount of strange food products above and beyond the standard is mind-blowing. Consider Tum-E Yummies, a 100% fake drink that’s the color of a neon set of Crayolas, a gummi spread of Mexican inspired food and a two pound bucket of cheese balls. How can it be that people really eat this stuff?

But it’s not just late night road trippers in need of a sugary fix. Even in a world of organic and local, junk food is all the rage. In fact, at a recent monthly supper club with my usual gathering of like-minded foodies, there was a plate full of crab bruschetta. Lovely. Until I overheard the maker of said bruschetta say, “You know what I rolled the crab in? Ranch Pringles.” I cringed.

You can go so far as to call it “Gourmet Junk Food.” Twinkie Napoleon, Mountain Dew Jelly and Fruit S’Mores – there are plenty of recipes waiting to go around, making the simple fried onion, green bean and mushroom soup casserole look tame. These days even lollipops have celebrity status and you can send all kinds of junk food gift baskets to your nearest and dearest. No matter what your personal take on the trend, from five star restaurants to books, being a junk foodie, for better or for worse, has never been so hip.

Andrew Freeman & Co.’s annual Trend List for 2011 was spot on when it announced that “Munchies are moving to the forefront as chefs reinvent junk food in gourmet ways.” The list cites Cereal Milk Ice Cream at Momofuku Milk Bar in New York City as one of the examples of culinary destinations taking a stab at classing it down, but there are certainly many more restaurants and chic bistros out there incorporating junking their gourmet, like the Junk Food Platter at Simon L.A and deep fried Twinkies spotted in Honolulu. In Philadelphia you can even take a Junk Food Tour, which touts a First Class tour and dining experience.

Incorporating bad foods into classier creations isn’t just happening out and about at finer restaurants. The real gourmet junk food movement is happening right at home. Just look at Mini-Mart a la Carte. This book probably has its greatest following in the hipster crowd, but bad food is unfortunately back, from Vienna sausage pigs in a blanket to Sardines Rockefeller. I’ve been drawn to perusing this book on several occasions simply because of mere disgust; reading the recipes are akin to staring at a traffic accident, when you know you should look away but you can’t.

And while Mini-Mart à la Carte certainly doesn’t attempt to label itself as a cookbook for foodies, Junk Foodie does exactly that, taking advantage of the word with which so many of us use to define ourselves. A cookbook for “the lowbrow gourmand,” it’s all about taking office snacks and turning them into something classier, like Oreos and Hot Tamales blended together to make an Aztec Coffee Cake. The author, Emilie Baltz, is quick to remind us that nothing in her book is good for us, but that somewhere in between the aisles of jelly beans and potato chips, we can find inspiration for new creations.

Need some real inspiration? Head on over to Fancy Fast Food, a blog devoted to fast food makeovers that look almost like they could be served with a white starched napkin and your finest silver. Except for the fact that some of these photos, which turn combo meals like Popeye’s Fried Chicken into Spicy Chicken Sushi, might induce some gag reflexes.

Foods and desserts that incorporate some of the worst ingredients that the food industry has to offer? Bring your bismuth.

Of course, no matter how conscious we are about the negative effects of these junk foods that we’re cooking with, we’re still popularizing products that shouldn’t have a place in a healthy food society. I doubt you’ll see Alice Waters making a homegrown, organic spinach salad sprinkled with crumbled Doritos anytime soon.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Images: Junk Foodie, Anna Brones, Anna Brones, Chronicle Books, Junk Foodie

The post Foodie Underground: A Penchant for Gourmet Junk Food appeared first on EcoSalon.