Restaurant Review: Camino

Thursday, August 28, 2008

The New York Times does not usually review Oakland's new restaurants. But they made an exception for Camino, a new Lake Merritt restaurant that opened for business on May 18th. Camino has impressive parentage -- it is the baby of Russell Moore, a fomer Chez Panisse chef and produce buyer, and his wife Allison Hopelain, a former Zuni Cafe and Bar Tartine hostess.

Camino Restaurant on Grand Ave

The restaurant occupies a large brick building that was once a furniture showroom and now bears a pleasingly rustic resemblance to a medieval castle dining hall. Iron chandeliers hang from the ceiling and long wooden tables stretch nearly the length of the restaurant. These long tables are accompanied by adorable antique wooden chairs that have small wooden pockets on the back to hold a hymnal (see the photo below.)

Camino Interior

Open fireplaceI was really taken with the chairs and actually asked Allison about them. She told me that they are originally from a church in England -- she bought them on eBay. The chairs are just one of many carefully thought-out, unique touches throughout the restaurant.

The focus of the restaurant is the open kitchen and waist-high brick fireplace in the back. You can watch Russell and the other chefs roast your dinner by hanging hunks of meat from strings to roast in front of an open fire (every once in a while, they wind up the string which then unspins and spins for a good long while, turning the meat for even cooking in the process.) The chefs also rake the coals out from the bottom of their traditional Uruguayan brazier to heat several cazuelas and pots of beans and vegetables that sit and stew slowly in the fireplace, slightly apart from the main action.

Although the menu is very small (only 8 items total!), the food is incredibly high quality and prepared with great skill and attention. You can tell that Russell takes food very seriously. For example, the restaurant has made an executive decision not to serve decaffeinated coffee because they feel that the process ruins the taste of the beans. Although some diners (especially those who've given up caffeine but are still hooked on coffee) may find that inconvenient, I took it as just one of many signs of Russell and Allison's devotion to good food. The whole place is basically a labor of love.

Without further ado, here are some photos and comments on our meal (which was delicious).

The bread was served on cedar planks with two big pats of butter - a presentation I found strangely delightful.


bread is served on a rustic cedar plank

We began with two salads: Grilled Pork Salad With Beets Cabbage & Mustard ($10)

pork salad with beets

And the Arugala, Herb and Fennel Salad With Avocado Toast ($10)

avocado toast and salad

Followed by the Eggplant Gratin With Roasted Escarole, Tomato Confit & Roasted Olives ($17) The eggplant was amazingly tender and sweet!

Eggplant Gratin

And the New Potatoes Cooked In Duck Fat ($6) (note to self, if you ever need something to taste good, just cook it in duck fat, you really can't go wrong!)

Potatoes in duck fat

I also ordered the most delicious drink (non-alcoholic) I've ever had - a little tumbler filled with a sublime combination of grapefruit, tea, and thyme. Although I did practically have a heart attack when I noticed that it cost $6, it was so tasty that I was actually inspired. And I don't think that 6 bucks is really too dear a price to pay for inspiration.

Dessert was an incredibly yummy collection of little homemade cookies - three round dark chocolate hazelnut shortbread cookies and two small hunks of honey almond nougat. Though small, they were absolutely amazing! I'd never appreciated nougat before but this was like food for the gods.

Dessert Cookies

Camino also offers a swanky new "rustic modern" bathroom with the most powerful hand drier (the "XLERATOR") I had ever experienced. I could not resist a picture.

Bathroom via self portrait in mirror

Although the prices will probably keep me from becoming a regular diner, I would definitely recommend checking out Camino a toute de suite. And be prepared to worship your meal.

Camino is located at:

3917 Grand Ave
Oakland, CA 94620
(510) 547-5035
http://www.caminorestaurant.com/

Camino Restaurant on Urbanspoon

You CAN Compost In The City

Sunday, August 24, 2008

I did not grow up in a gardening family although my parents did make one ambitious attempt, planting a truly enormous fenced garden in our yard in upstate New York one spring. I must have been about five years old and remember being completely enchanted by the garden that summer, especially the carrots which I ate right out of the ground -- I still remember their taste, a heady mixture of sweetness and soil. But I guess my parents were exhausted by the sheer amount of time and energy required to maintain a garden of that size because they never planted it again...

Baby carrots by Eve Fox copyright 2007

But although my parents did not garden, they did compost. From the time I can remember, we collected our food scraps in a big joint compound bucket that sat next to the kitchen stove. When it was full, one of us (far too often, me) would lug it out to the compost heap and dump it on the pile (in the wintertime, these new "offerings" would give off considerable amounts of steam), then wash the bucket with the hose before bringing it back inside.

Since city living is not very compost-friendly, it's been many years since I've been able to compost. But last fall, Berkeley got with the program and adopted a wonderful curbside composting program. We collect all our food scraps (including meat, bones, soiled paper towels, butter wrappers, etc.) in a small green bin the city provided for use in the kitchen, then dump them into a larger green bin outside that the city picks up once a week on the same day it collects garbage and recycling.


Which Foodscraps You Can Compost

The food scraps and other plant debris are then taken to a huge composting facility nearby where they sift it, sort out any glass or plastic (apparently, they pay people to walk through the huge piles, plucking out any unwanted items - what a job, huh?), grind down any large pieces, and heap it into enormous compost piles that are 50 yards long and 5 feet high! Here's a picture of the steaming piles.

Steaming Compost Heaps at East Bay Facility

The facility uses a specially designed machine on wheels to turn the compost and add water to keep it moist. Two and a half months later, the piles of rotting food have become black gold -- a crumbly, dark brown, nitrogen-rich soil.

Windrow Compost Turner, image courtesy of Frontier Industrial

The city then sells this soil to local farms (I just found out that Eat Well, one of my favorite Bay Area farms, uses it!), donates it to local community gardening clubs, and uses it in city Green Bin Provided by the Citylandscaping projects.

Although it's not as environmentally-friendly (or satisfying!) as composting at home since the process requires a good deal of diesel fuel to truck the food scraps to the facility and to run the huge machines required to sort, grind, turn and water the waste, it is a great way to significantly cut down on landfill usage and to create rich soil for locally-grown food and city landscaping projects. It's also a money saver since it costs the city less to compost food scraps than to dump them in a landfill and the revenue from soil sales also helps offset the costs of composting.

If you have a yard or outdoor space available, I would recommend starting your own compost heap (I hope to do a post on home composting soon.) But if you live in an apartment and don't have any outdoor space, and your town or city does not already offer a curbside composting program, ask them to start one today! There are lots of good examples out there to copy.

Here is a link to the city of Berkeley's web page on the program.


And here is a link to an article about how the process works.

Farro, An Old Grain That Is New To Me

Sunday, August 17, 2008

I had never heard of farro until I ran into it in a dish at Pizzaiolo last summer (luckily, my foodie dining companion was able to fill me in on what it was.) After seeing farro featured in two tasty-sounding blog posts by Heidi at 101 Cookbooks and Susan at FoodBlogga this summer, my interest was finally piqued enough to buy a bag of the stuff and try it on my own.

Close up of uncooked farro grains by Eve Fox, copyright 2008

Despite the hefty price tag ($6.99 for a 1lb bag) I was pleasantly surprised by the results! Farro's nutty taste and chewy texture make it both satisfying and delicious. I was also impressed by how easy it was to prepare -- I bought the semipearled kind which does not require soaking and cooks in 15-20 minutes on the stovetop.

I was in a bit of a rush so I made a pretty simple salad by cooking the farro in vegetable broth, then tossing the drained grains with chopped parsley, chives, walnut oil, sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Major yum!


bowl of herbed farro salad by Eve Fox, copyright 2008

Although my quick herbed farro salad was really delicious (see below for the recipe) I also sense that this versatile grain has vast potential for other yummy uses (see below for some ideas.)

While farro was completely new to me, it turns out to be a very ancient grain. Also known as emmer wheat, farro is believed to have been domesticated in Turkey and, along with barley, was the dominant crop of the ancient Near East. Grains of domesticated farro have been found at an archeological site in Syria that dates back to 11,500 BC and wild grains have been found at sites in Israel dating back as far as 17,000 BC.

It appears that farro cultivation declined largely because it is a relatively low-yield crop. But it has had a resurgence recently, especially in Italy where its cultivation is well-established and continuing to expand. After eating it, I can completely understand why it's making a comeback. I encourage you to give this ancient grain a try!

Quick Herbed Farro Salad
Serves 4-6

Ingredients

* 1 1/2 cups semi-pearled farro
* 3-4 cups salted water or vegetable broth
* 3 tsps chopped chives or scallions
* 2 tsps chopped italian parsley
* 2 tbsps walnut oil
* Sea salt
* Freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. Rinse the farro in several changes of water, then add it to the water or broth. Bring to a boil and simmer over medium heat for 15-20 minutes (until it reaches the desired consistency.)
2. Drain the farro and place the grains in a bowl.
3. Wash and dry the herbs, then mince and add to the bowl of farro.
4. Toss with the walnut oil until combined and season to taste with the sea salt and black pepper.

This farro salad is equally good warm or cold the next day so you could make this ahead of time.


spoonful of herbed farro salad by Eve Fox, copyright 2008

Other Farro Recipe Ideas
Farro seems quite versatile. Some of the ideas that I think sound good include adding chopped tomato (or sun dried tomatoes), basil and olive oil for a hearty Italian-style salad, searing or roasting fresh asparagus and leeks and mixing them with feta and olive oil for a spring salad, grilling or roasting eggplant, tomatoes, pepper and onions and tossing them with herbs and oil for a summer harvest salad, and tossing a handful of farro into a soup instead of barley or rice to boost its heartiness factor. I've also pasted links below to three farro recipes that I thought sounded really good. And if you have a great farro recipe, please submit it via comments so we can give it a shot.

*
Farro Salad With Peas, Asparagus & Feta
*
Farro & Roasted Butternut Squash
*
Farro salad with roasted spring onions, yellow split peas, fresh peas, greens, goat cheese and citrus dressing

Chopped Summer Salad

Friday, August 8, 2008

Lately, I've had a yen for middle eastern food. One of the things I've been craving the most is a chopped salad. This is a perfect season for chopped salad since tomatoes and cucumbers are ripe and herbs abound.

Tomatoes from our plants copyright Eve Fox 2008
So I chopped up a salad for myself as part of my lunch today. It was, if I do say so myself, DELICIOUS!

The combination of sweet tomatoes, crunchy cucumbers, onion, mint, parsley and lemon is hard to beat! It was a perfect addition to my lunch of chicken kebabs with red pepper hummous and pita.


middle eastern lunch copyright Eve Fox 2008
The concept of chopped salad is very flexible -- many countries/regions have their own version of this with slightly different ingredients (peppers, feta cheese, olives, sun dried tomatoes, bread, basil, etc.)

So without further ado, here is my basic recipe. Feel free to experiment with using different amounts of the ingredients, try using different herbs (though the mint is really nice...), etc.


Chopped summer salad copyright Eve Fox 2008
Chopped Summer Salad
Makes 2 servings

Ingredients
* 1-2 tomatoes
* 1/2 medium sized cucumber
* 1/4 medium sized red onion
* 3-4 leaves of lettuce, washed and dried
* 1/4 cup of fresh mint leaves, washed and dried
* 1/4 cup of fresh parsley, washed and dried
* 3 tsps fresh lemon juice
* 1 tbsp organic olive oil
* 1 tsp red wine vinegar
* Sea salt to taste
* Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Chop up the tomatoes, onions, cucumber, lettuce, mint and parsley. The size of the pieces is up to you.

2. Combine in a bowl and toss with the lemon juice, olive oil and vinegar. Season with sea salt and black pepper to taste.

3. Enjoy! This salad goes well with grilled meat or fish, and is a great addition to a mezze-type meal of hummous, tzatziki, and olives, etc.


You might also like:

At Last, Healthy Fast Food! Introducing Amanda's

Saturday, August 2, 2008

I want to introduce you to Amanda, the new kid on the block. More specifically, the new kid on my block. I have the good fortune to work directly upstairs from downtown Berkeley's newest (and quite possibly first) healthy fast food restaurant, Amanda's Feel Good Fresh Food.

Amanda's Sign

Amanda West, owner and creator of Amanda's RestaurantSeveral years ago, after reading Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and watching Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me, Amanda West decided that America needs healthy fast food restaurants. It's a great idea and one that has occurred to me many times (usually when I am hungry and happen to be in an airport, at a mall or on a roadtrip). You've probably had the same idea, too. The thing that sets Amanda apart from me and you is that she actually got off her ass and opened a healthy fast food restaurant!

The options for quick, good-tasting, healthy food have heretofore been extremeley limited in downtown Berkeley (trust me, I have looked!) so I am thrilled that Amanda's Feel Good Fresh Food has opened literally downstairs from my office.

My co-workers and I have been watching the construction progress over the past few months and were eager to try it out. So on Thursday we made a rushed run downstairs to grab some lunch.

The results were good! Here are some photos of our food (full menu and prices are available on their site):

Grilled Chicken with Amanda’s Sauce, Tomatoes, Lettuce, Pickles, and Onions on a Fluffy Organic Whole Wheat Bun ($4.50). I ordered this along with the Oven Baked Fries ($1.50) and a really nice Just Squeezed Lemon-Lime Soda ($1.75) that was tangy and very lightly sweetened. I was happy with all my choices.


Grilled Chicken Sandwich

Summer Seasonal Salad of Organic Peaches, Blue Cheese, Belgian Endive & Almonds with a White Balsamic Vinaigrette ($6.95). This was my co-worker Andrea's order. She had also tried their cheeseburger previously and reported that it was really good.

Salad

Naturally-Raised Beef Burger with Olive Oil Roasted Red Onions and Organic American Cheese ($5.00) and a Housemade Veggie Burger with Mushrooms and Walnuts and Organic American Cheese ($4.50). My co-workers Marc and Nick were kind (and silly) enough to pose for this photo with their burgers. Both reported general yumminess on both the beef and housemade veggie burger fronts.

Digging In  to Veggie and Beef Burgers

Baked Sweet Potato Fries ($1.75). My co-worker Nick ordered these with his veggie burger. We all agreed that they were the weakest thing we tried. Could have used more seasoning.

Sweet Potato Fries

The main selling points of Amanda's (besides the location) for me are:

100% compostable - everything they sell can be put in one of Berkeley's wonderful green bins that get fed into the city's composting program. They use recycled paper and their "plastic" is made from corn. Amanda's seems to take the environment seriously - this page of their site details what they do to reuse, reduce and recycle.

Compostable Containers Explained

Naturally-raised meats - although organic would be my preference, we are talking about fast food here... According to Amanda's excellent web site, "All of our meat-beef, chicken, and ham-is 100% natural, hormone- and antibiotic-free, and almost entirely grass fed on family farms."

Fresh produce - they use fresh produce (as opposed to frozen or reconstituted) and try to use organic whenever possible.

Affordable prices - although I am certainly willing to shell out for good food, many Americans for whom fast food is a mainstay of their diets are not so the prices do matter a great deal. Amanda's offers very reasonable prices.

Low fat & health-conscious - their sodas are sweetened with agave and stevia, their french fries and sweet potato fries are baked not fried, and their salads offer low fat dressings. Detailed nutritional information for all their offerings is available on their website.

Amanda's is located at:
2122 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA
510-548-2122
http://www.amandas.com/
Feel Good Fast Food Blog is at:
www.feelgoodfastfood.org/wordpress/
Amanda's Feel Good Fresh Food on Urbanspoon

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Restaurant Review: Camino

The New York Times does not usually review Oakland's new restaurants. But they made an exception for Camino, a new Lake Merritt restaurant that opened for business on May 18th. Camino has impressive parentage -- it is the baby of Russell Moore, a fomer Chez Panisse chef and produce buyer, and his wife Allison Hopelain, a former Zuni Cafe and Bar Tartine hostess.

Camino Restaurant on Grand Ave

The restaurant occupies a large brick building that was once a furniture showroom and now bears a pleasingly rustic resemblance to a medieval castle dining hall. Iron chandeliers hang from the ceiling and long wooden tables stretch nearly the length of the restaurant. These long tables are accompanied by adorable antique wooden chairs that have small wooden pockets on the back to hold a hymnal (see the photo below.)

Camino Interior

Open fireplaceI was really taken with the chairs and actually asked Allison about them. She told me that they are originally from a church in England -- she bought them on eBay. The chairs are just one of many carefully thought-out, unique touches throughout the restaurant.

The focus of the restaurant is the open kitchen and waist-high brick fireplace in the back. You can watch Russell and the other chefs roast your dinner by hanging hunks of meat from strings to roast in front of an open fire (every once in a while, they wind up the string which then unspins and spins for a good long while, turning the meat for even cooking in the process.) The chefs also rake the coals out from the bottom of their traditional Uruguayan brazier to heat several cazuelas and pots of beans and vegetables that sit and stew slowly in the fireplace, slightly apart from the main action.

Although the menu is very small (only 8 items total!), the food is incredibly high quality and prepared with great skill and attention. You can tell that Russell takes food very seriously. For example, the restaurant has made an executive decision not to serve decaffeinated coffee because they feel that the process ruins the taste of the beans. Although some diners (especially those who've given up caffeine but are still hooked on coffee) may find that inconvenient, I took it as just one of many signs of Russell and Allison's devotion to good food. The whole place is basically a labor of love.

Without further ado, here are some photos and comments on our meal (which was delicious).

The bread was served on cedar planks with two big pats of butter - a presentation I found strangely delightful.


bread is served on a rustic cedar plank

We began with two salads: Grilled Pork Salad With Beets Cabbage & Mustard ($10)

pork salad with beets

And the Arugala, Herb and Fennel Salad With Avocado Toast ($10)

avocado toast and salad

Followed by the Eggplant Gratin With Roasted Escarole, Tomato Confit & Roasted Olives ($17) The eggplant was amazingly tender and sweet!

Eggplant Gratin

And the New Potatoes Cooked In Duck Fat ($6) (note to self, if you ever need something to taste good, just cook it in duck fat, you really can't go wrong!)

Potatoes in duck fat

I also ordered the most delicious drink (non-alcoholic) I've ever had - a little tumbler filled with a sublime combination of grapefruit, tea, and thyme. Although I did practically have a heart attack when I noticed that it cost $6, it was so tasty that I was actually inspired. And I don't think that 6 bucks is really too dear a price to pay for inspiration.

Dessert was an incredibly yummy collection of little homemade cookies - three round dark chocolate hazelnut shortbread cookies and two small hunks of honey almond nougat. Though small, they were absolutely amazing! I'd never appreciated nougat before but this was like food for the gods.

Dessert Cookies

Camino also offers a swanky new "rustic modern" bathroom with the most powerful hand drier (the "XLERATOR") I had ever experienced. I could not resist a picture.

Bathroom via self portrait in mirror

Although the prices will probably keep me from becoming a regular diner, I would definitely recommend checking out Camino a toute de suite. And be prepared to worship your meal.

Camino is located at:

3917 Grand Ave
Oakland, CA 94620
(510) 547-5035
http://www.caminorestaurant.com/

Camino Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Sunday, August 24, 2008

You CAN Compost In The City

I did not grow up in a gardening family although my parents did make one ambitious attempt, planting a truly enormous fenced garden in our yard in upstate New York one spring. I must have been about five years old and remember being completely enchanted by the garden that summer, especially the carrots which I ate right out of the ground -- I still remember their taste, a heady mixture of sweetness and soil. But I guess my parents were exhausted by the sheer amount of time and energy required to maintain a garden of that size because they never planted it again...

Baby carrots by Eve Fox copyright 2007

But although my parents did not garden, they did compost. From the time I can remember, we collected our food scraps in a big joint compound bucket that sat next to the kitchen stove. When it was full, one of us (far too often, me) would lug it out to the compost heap and dump it on the pile (in the wintertime, these new "offerings" would give off considerable amounts of steam), then wash the bucket with the hose before bringing it back inside.

Since city living is not very compost-friendly, it's been many years since I've been able to compost. But last fall, Berkeley got with the program and adopted a wonderful curbside composting program. We collect all our food scraps (including meat, bones, soiled paper towels, butter wrappers, etc.) in a small green bin the city provided for use in the kitchen, then dump them into a larger green bin outside that the city picks up once a week on the same day it collects garbage and recycling.


Which Foodscraps You Can Compost

The food scraps and other plant debris are then taken to a huge composting facility nearby where they sift it, sort out any glass or plastic (apparently, they pay people to walk through the huge piles, plucking out any unwanted items - what a job, huh?), grind down any large pieces, and heap it into enormous compost piles that are 50 yards long and 5 feet high! Here's a picture of the steaming piles.

Steaming Compost Heaps at East Bay Facility

The facility uses a specially designed machine on wheels to turn the compost and add water to keep it moist. Two and a half months later, the piles of rotting food have become black gold -- a crumbly, dark brown, nitrogen-rich soil.

Windrow Compost Turner, image courtesy of Frontier Industrial

The city then sells this soil to local farms (I just found out that Eat Well, one of my favorite Bay Area farms, uses it!), donates it to local community gardening clubs, and uses it in city Green Bin Provided by the Citylandscaping projects.

Although it's not as environmentally-friendly (or satisfying!) as composting at home since the process requires a good deal of diesel fuel to truck the food scraps to the facility and to run the huge machines required to sort, grind, turn and water the waste, it is a great way to significantly cut down on landfill usage and to create rich soil for locally-grown food and city landscaping projects. It's also a money saver since it costs the city less to compost food scraps than to dump them in a landfill and the revenue from soil sales also helps offset the costs of composting.

If you have a yard or outdoor space available, I would recommend starting your own compost heap (I hope to do a post on home composting soon.) But if you live in an apartment and don't have any outdoor space, and your town or city does not already offer a curbside composting program, ask them to start one today! There are lots of good examples out there to copy.

Here is a link to the city of Berkeley's web page on the program.


And here is a link to an article about how the process works.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Farro, An Old Grain That Is New To Me

I had never heard of farro until I ran into it in a dish at Pizzaiolo last summer (luckily, my foodie dining companion was able to fill me in on what it was.) After seeing farro featured in two tasty-sounding blog posts by Heidi at 101 Cookbooks and Susan at FoodBlogga this summer, my interest was finally piqued enough to buy a bag of the stuff and try it on my own.

Close up of uncooked farro grains by Eve Fox, copyright 2008

Despite the hefty price tag ($6.99 for a 1lb bag) I was pleasantly surprised by the results! Farro's nutty taste and chewy texture make it both satisfying and delicious. I was also impressed by how easy it was to prepare -- I bought the semipearled kind which does not require soaking and cooks in 15-20 minutes on the stovetop.

I was in a bit of a rush so I made a pretty simple salad by cooking the farro in vegetable broth, then tossing the drained grains with chopped parsley, chives, walnut oil, sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Major yum!


bowl of herbed farro salad by Eve Fox, copyright 2008

Although my quick herbed farro salad was really delicious (see below for the recipe) I also sense that this versatile grain has vast potential for other yummy uses (see below for some ideas.)

While farro was completely new to me, it turns out to be a very ancient grain. Also known as emmer wheat, farro is believed to have been domesticated in Turkey and, along with barley, was the dominant crop of the ancient Near East. Grains of domesticated farro have been found at an archeological site in Syria that dates back to 11,500 BC and wild grains have been found at sites in Israel dating back as far as 17,000 BC.

It appears that farro cultivation declined largely because it is a relatively low-yield crop. But it has had a resurgence recently, especially in Italy where its cultivation is well-established and continuing to expand. After eating it, I can completely understand why it's making a comeback. I encourage you to give this ancient grain a try!

Quick Herbed Farro Salad
Serves 4-6

Ingredients

* 1 1/2 cups semi-pearled farro
* 3-4 cups salted water or vegetable broth
* 3 tsps chopped chives or scallions
* 2 tsps chopped italian parsley
* 2 tbsps walnut oil
* Sea salt
* Freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. Rinse the farro in several changes of water, then add it to the water or broth. Bring to a boil and simmer over medium heat for 15-20 minutes (until it reaches the desired consistency.)
2. Drain the farro and place the grains in a bowl.
3. Wash and dry the herbs, then mince and add to the bowl of farro.
4. Toss with the walnut oil until combined and season to taste with the sea salt and black pepper.

This farro salad is equally good warm or cold the next day so you could make this ahead of time.


spoonful of herbed farro salad by Eve Fox, copyright 2008

Other Farro Recipe Ideas
Farro seems quite versatile. Some of the ideas that I think sound good include adding chopped tomato (or sun dried tomatoes), basil and olive oil for a hearty Italian-style salad, searing or roasting fresh asparagus and leeks and mixing them with feta and olive oil for a spring salad, grilling or roasting eggplant, tomatoes, pepper and onions and tossing them with herbs and oil for a summer harvest salad, and tossing a handful of farro into a soup instead of barley or rice to boost its heartiness factor. I've also pasted links below to three farro recipes that I thought sounded really good. And if you have a great farro recipe, please submit it via comments so we can give it a shot.

*
Farro Salad With Peas, Asparagus & Feta
*
Farro & Roasted Butternut Squash
*
Farro salad with roasted spring onions, yellow split peas, fresh peas, greens, goat cheese and citrus dressing

Friday, August 8, 2008

Chopped Summer Salad

Lately, I've had a yen for middle eastern food. One of the things I've been craving the most is a chopped salad. This is a perfect season for chopped salad since tomatoes and cucumbers are ripe and herbs abound.

Tomatoes from our plants copyright Eve Fox 2008
So I chopped up a salad for myself as part of my lunch today. It was, if I do say so myself, DELICIOUS!

The combination of sweet tomatoes, crunchy cucumbers, onion, mint, parsley and lemon is hard to beat! It was a perfect addition to my lunch of chicken kebabs with red pepper hummous and pita.


middle eastern lunch copyright Eve Fox 2008
The concept of chopped salad is very flexible -- many countries/regions have their own version of this with slightly different ingredients (peppers, feta cheese, olives, sun dried tomatoes, bread, basil, etc.)

So without further ado, here is my basic recipe. Feel free to experiment with using different amounts of the ingredients, try using different herbs (though the mint is really nice...), etc.


Chopped summer salad copyright Eve Fox 2008
Chopped Summer Salad
Makes 2 servings

Ingredients
* 1-2 tomatoes
* 1/2 medium sized cucumber
* 1/4 medium sized red onion
* 3-4 leaves of lettuce, washed and dried
* 1/4 cup of fresh mint leaves, washed and dried
* 1/4 cup of fresh parsley, washed and dried
* 3 tsps fresh lemon juice
* 1 tbsp organic olive oil
* 1 tsp red wine vinegar
* Sea salt to taste
* Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Chop up the tomatoes, onions, cucumber, lettuce, mint and parsley. The size of the pieces is up to you.

2. Combine in a bowl and toss with the lemon juice, olive oil and vinegar. Season with sea salt and black pepper to taste.

3. Enjoy! This salad goes well with grilled meat or fish, and is a great addition to a mezze-type meal of hummous, tzatziki, and olives, etc.


You might also like:

Saturday, August 2, 2008

At Last, Healthy Fast Food! Introducing Amanda's

I want to introduce you to Amanda, the new kid on the block. More specifically, the new kid on my block. I have the good fortune to work directly upstairs from downtown Berkeley's newest (and quite possibly first) healthy fast food restaurant, Amanda's Feel Good Fresh Food.

Amanda's Sign

Amanda West, owner and creator of Amanda's RestaurantSeveral years ago, after reading Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and watching Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me, Amanda West decided that America needs healthy fast food restaurants. It's a great idea and one that has occurred to me many times (usually when I am hungry and happen to be in an airport, at a mall or on a roadtrip). You've probably had the same idea, too. The thing that sets Amanda apart from me and you is that she actually got off her ass and opened a healthy fast food restaurant!

The options for quick, good-tasting, healthy food have heretofore been extremeley limited in downtown Berkeley (trust me, I have looked!) so I am thrilled that Amanda's Feel Good Fresh Food has opened literally downstairs from my office.

My co-workers and I have been watching the construction progress over the past few months and were eager to try it out. So on Thursday we made a rushed run downstairs to grab some lunch.

The results were good! Here are some photos of our food (full menu and prices are available on their site):

Grilled Chicken with Amanda’s Sauce, Tomatoes, Lettuce, Pickles, and Onions on a Fluffy Organic Whole Wheat Bun ($4.50). I ordered this along with the Oven Baked Fries ($1.50) and a really nice Just Squeezed Lemon-Lime Soda ($1.75) that was tangy and very lightly sweetened. I was happy with all my choices.


Grilled Chicken Sandwich

Summer Seasonal Salad of Organic Peaches, Blue Cheese, Belgian Endive & Almonds with a White Balsamic Vinaigrette ($6.95). This was my co-worker Andrea's order. She had also tried their cheeseburger previously and reported that it was really good.

Salad

Naturally-Raised Beef Burger with Olive Oil Roasted Red Onions and Organic American Cheese ($5.00) and a Housemade Veggie Burger with Mushrooms and Walnuts and Organic American Cheese ($4.50). My co-workers Marc and Nick were kind (and silly) enough to pose for this photo with their burgers. Both reported general yumminess on both the beef and housemade veggie burger fronts.

Digging In  to Veggie and Beef Burgers

Baked Sweet Potato Fries ($1.75). My co-worker Nick ordered these with his veggie burger. We all agreed that they were the weakest thing we tried. Could have used more seasoning.

Sweet Potato Fries

The main selling points of Amanda's (besides the location) for me are:

100% compostable - everything they sell can be put in one of Berkeley's wonderful green bins that get fed into the city's composting program. They use recycled paper and their "plastic" is made from corn. Amanda's seems to take the environment seriously - this page of their site details what they do to reuse, reduce and recycle.

Compostable Containers Explained

Naturally-raised meats - although organic would be my preference, we are talking about fast food here... According to Amanda's excellent web site, "All of our meat-beef, chicken, and ham-is 100% natural, hormone- and antibiotic-free, and almost entirely grass fed on family farms."

Fresh produce - they use fresh produce (as opposed to frozen or reconstituted) and try to use organic whenever possible.

Affordable prices - although I am certainly willing to shell out for good food, many Americans for whom fast food is a mainstay of their diets are not so the prices do matter a great deal. Amanda's offers very reasonable prices.

Low fat & health-conscious - their sodas are sweetened with agave and stevia, their french fries and sweet potato fries are baked not fried, and their salads offer low fat dressings. Detailed nutritional information for all their offerings is available on their website.

Amanda's is located at:
2122 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA
510-548-2122
http://www.amandas.com/
Feel Good Fast Food Blog is at:
www.feelgoodfastfood.org/wordpress/
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