or in Central Texas for that matter, given the climate and soil
conditions...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

EAT LOCAL
If they cook it, will college kids eat local?
St. Edward's Unversity takes the Eat Local Challenge.
By Kitty Crider
AMERICAN-STATESMAN FOOD EDITOR
Wednesday, October 17, 2007

It's one thing for individuals to eat only locally grown food for a
meal, a week, or a month. It's quite another for a university in
Austin to commit to cooking a locally grown meal for its students,
even for a day: Could it get enough products? And would pizza/sandwich-
loving college kids eat it?

"That's why it's called an Eat Local Challenge," said Leon Trevino,
executive chef for Bon Appetit Management Co., which is the contracted
nationwide food service provider for St. Edward's University. Bon
Appetit Management is unique in that in 1999, it established a
companywide policy that a minimum

of 20 percent of its food budget be spent on local ingredients. And
every fall, beginning in 2005, it designates a day for its Eat Local
Challenge at all its facilities, which includes the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cisco Systems Inc., Nordstrom Inc.'s
headquarters, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Guthrie Theater in
Minneapolis.

"No other company is spending as much locally as we are," says Maisie
Greenawalt, director of communication for Bon Appetit Management,
which also serves a small Cisco location in Austin. "We are unique in
magnitude, percent and dollar amount. We are now at 30 percent (of the
food budget), which represents about $55 million annually. I think we
are also unique in our commitment in going directly to farmers and
making their programs sustainable as well as providing great-tasting
food to our customers."

Trevino, who moved to Austin from the Chicago area about three months
ago when Bon Appetit took over the food contract at St. Edward's, had
prepared local meals for students at Wheaton College. He was undaunted
by the annual Eat Local Challenge task until he went to the Austin
Farmers' Markets in September to purchase for the local eating date
and found limited produce, no flour and no sugar.

September in the Midwest offers a bounty of produce, he says. But
September in Central Texas is between seasons and supplies are short.
(Bon Appetit says that with clients in 28 states from Florida to
Maine, there is no perfect date when all crops are at their peak.)

So Trevino scrounged for local veggies in Texas. At one farmers
market, he tried to buy a grower's entire tomato harvest, but she did
not want to short her other customers. He searched in vain for fruit
grown within 150 miles of Austin in September.

Trevino settled on a local menu of Thunder Heart bison braised in
Travis Peak cabernet, basmati rice from Lowell Farms, fresh beans and
a ratatouille of eggplants, peppers, tomatoes and squash with herbs
from the chef's garden at St. Edward's.

Aguas frescas were planned for the beverage but had to be abandoned
because the melon supply never materialized. (Even as late as the
afternoon before the meal, Hays Atkins, Austin general manager of Bon
Appetit, planned to make a San Antonio run if fruit from within 150
miles could be located. He monitored his phone faithfully, hoping for
the call.)

Trevino also ditched dessert from the menu, although he briefly
considered pumpkin pie. "I could get pumpkin and egg but no vanilla,
no nutmeg, no cinnamon," he said of his dearth of local supplies at
this time of year. Salt was the only nonlocal ingredient allowed under
Bon Appetit guidelines.

At the St. Edward's dining facility, a refrigerated truck is parked at
its back dock to supplement the kitchen's walk-in refrigerator. Unlike
some food service companies, Bon Appetit says it cooks most dishes
from scratch, be it stock for braised bison or crust and sauce for its
popular pizzas. It focuses on fresh, not frozen or canned ingredients.
So there is a need for more refrigeration.

There are other changes afoot. The St. Edward's dining hall is the
only food service on the campus at 3001 S. Congress Ave., and Trevino
says on a given day, he serves about 500 to 600 students, faculty and
staff for breakfast, 1,500 for lunch and 1,100 for dinner. The dining
hall was designed for 2,000 people, but the university now has 5,000
students. Remodeling is under way to add several hundred more seats,
to provide outdoor dining and to build a dish room. Trevino and staff
members are making plans to switch from disposable dishware to
reusable china and glass to lower the carbon footprint.

Back in the kitchen, cook Scott Crim took the local meal seriously,
preparing a day ahead two cuts of bison - a stew meat version and a
shank or osso buco version - so the flavors would have time to meld.
Typically, he says, he would use carrots, celery, onion and garlic in
the preparation. But no local celery or carrots had been found.
Normally, he would dredge, or coat, the meat in flour before cooking,
but he had no local wheat.

He cooked 250 to 300 bison portions. The hot lunch entrée, where the
bison would be featured, would be only one of seven or eight food
stations. Competing against it would be stations for salad, pasta and
pizza, fresh-rolled sushi, sandwiches, rice bowls and burgers.

On eat-local day, Dustin Burton, a psychology major from La Grange,
was one of the first in line to try the bison meal. He chose the osso
buco, or shank cut. "Tastes good," he said. Bison was not new to him.
Nor was it new to grad student Courtney Sames of Laredo. "Tastes like
carne guisada," said Sames, who chose the entrée because she was
trying to eat healthfully.

Debbie Taylor, St. Edward's athletic director, pronounced the bison
really good and tender. "Much more tender than I thought, but not as
tender as a filet."

Andy Caswell of Dripping Springs passed on the local meal altogether,
favoring instead chicken tender and fries. Eating local is not on the
freshman's radar yet.

But it is on the sustainability agenda of St. Edward's University
President George Martin, says Pat Kirby, associate vice president of
financial affairs. When the school put the food service contract up
for bid, a campus dining committee of students and staff listened to
the proposals of half a dozen companies. They made on-site visits. Bon
Appetit Management was the unanimous choice for its "passion for
sustainability and healthy (food)."

Good food, healthy food, local food, from scratch is not cheap, he
added, as he dined on the bison, plus selections from the salad bar.
But while Bon Appetit Management increased prices for faculty and
staff, it did not raise the cost of the student meal plan, he says.

Hot entrées typically run $4.95 to $6.95. The bison meal was $6.95.
Trevino said because of the volume, the rancher near San Antonio let
him purchase the bison at $6 a pound. In comparison, he usually pays
about $5 a pound for beef.

The students and staff bought into the local-eating emphasis. Before
the lunch hour was over, the bison entrée was gone.

Trevino was pumped about the students' response: "I didn't think they
would go after the shanks like they did. That's the Texan in them, I
guess. Up north, they would have shied away. This boosts my confidence
to push the envelope.

"Next year we will blow it out," Trevino said. For now, their local
food focus will center not on single meals, but using Central Texas
ingredients in general cooking as they become available in sufficient
quantity. Already the kitchen is working on local milk, pork and beef
supplies.

"We will build relationships with farmers," said sous chef Cory
Mahlke.

Count me in for Eat Local Challenge '08. The dining hall is open to
the public.

-----------------------------------------

Sources for Eat Local Challenge

Olive oil - Bella Vista Ranch, Wimberley
Meat - Thunder Heart Bison, South Texas
Rice -Lowell Farms, El Campo
Eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, green beans- Animal Farm, Cat Spring
Travis Peak Select cabernet for cooking- Flat Creek Estate vineyard,
Lake Travis
Herbs - chef's garden at St. Edward's
Onions -Sunset Valley Farmers Market

-----------------------------------------

You don't have to be a student to dine at St. Edward's University

Whe The dining facility at St. Edward's University, 3001 S.
Congress Ave., is located inside the Robert and Pearle Ragsdale
Center. The center is in the building just west of the visitor's
parking lot on Moody Drive.

When: Weekday hours: breakfast 7:30-9:30 a.m., lunch 11 a.m.-2 p.m.,
dinner 5-8 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday hours:brunch 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m., dinner 5-7:30 p.m.

wrote:
or in Central Texas for that matter, given the climate and soil
conditions...

That's a silly question. Of course it is! People have been doing it for
hundreds of years.

--
Victor M. Martinez
Owned and operated by the Fantastic Seven (TM)
Send your spam he
Email me he

"Victor Martinez" wrote in message
...
wrote:
or in Central Texas for that matter, given the climate and soil
conditions...

That's a silly question. Of course it is! People have been doing it for
hundreds of years.

--
Victor M. Martinez
Owned and operated by the Fantastic Seven (TM)
Send your spam he
Email me he

Granted I'm a gringo (cracker for others), but the so-called Mexican food I
eat can be made all from cen-tex ingredients if corn (native to America) is
in season or not sold for fuel making consumption. Masa flour is good for a
couple months on the shelf.

Incidentally, my skin color by birth is naturally brown. Recessive native
American gene in my family. Youngest brother is same way. I speak and
understand both Castilian Spanish from school, and most Tex-Mex by previous
locations in Texas.

Despite the OP's post, there are no ranches in Wimberley proper. There are
in the vicinity. So are some vineyards.

Dave
Wimberley - Home of Houston retirees and other such control freaks. My
observations of these folks, change=fear.

Dave wrote:
Despite the OP's post, there are no ranches in Wimberley proper. There are
in the vicinity. So are some vineyards.

Well, Boggy Creek Farm is open year-round and they grow veggies in their
East Austin farm all the time. Granted, they also have a farm in
Gausse, but that's not too far. Go to the Farmer's Market down south one
week and talk to the vendors. Most of them are less than 30 mins away
from Austin, including folks who sell meat products.

--
Victor M. Martinez
Owned and operated by the Fantastic Seven (TM)
Send your spam he
Email me he