Traveling gives me the opportunity to catch up on all my periodicals. Although it’s a bit ridiculous, sometimes this means flipping through back issues from 2007! I can’t help it. I am a magazine junkie. If you could only see my cabinet full of them – stacks and stacks of 18+ subscriptions, plus miscellaneous ones I pick up here and there. Not one will go unread though, and like a pack rat I’ll tear out and collect pages that serve the moment’s purposes. It’s my idea of fun in feeding my little think tank.
So during my recent Bahama trip, I came across the February issue of Bon Appetit. Better late than never, because I haven’t been this excited over a single culinary mag in some time. So much so I had to dedicate a whole blog post to it. As it reads from the cover, February has been designated as “the green issue/feel good food”. It connotes a simple summation of eco-friendly and health conscious foodie-ism that has been so eloquently making its way into the mainstream.
Finally, there are applications for the good of human health AND the planet that don’t freak out the average steak and potato Joes nor culinary snoots that tout the cruciality of a perfect foie gras. No longer are catch phrases like “farm-fresh”, “artisanal”, “organic”, “sustainable”, or even vegetarian limited to the health freaky radicals or hippie earth thumpers. This issue includes goodies like creative vegetarian recipes, mouth watering and inspiring photos, expert advice from “locavores” (people who only eat food grown and produced close to home), and lists of eco-friendly restaurants that have popped up around the country that would have the most pompous food critics aroused.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a raw foodie, vegan, vegetarian, or carni/omnivore, there’s something for everyone here with a few common denominators: eco-friendly cuisine that is both innovative and healthy. Every time I flipped the page, little bells would ring. It wasn’t just the content quality, it was that the whole idea really reconciled with my own ideas of eating right that are at the least, heading in the right direction for total food reform in this country. Bon Appetit wrapped it all up in a very embraceable, encouraging and inspiring package.
On page 24 I found “The Hot 10: The Best Eco-Friendly Restaurants”. To my delight, at number 1 was Chef Melissa Kelly’s Primo, of which I am a HUGE fan. Although the listing profiled its flagship Rockland, Maine location, I’m a frequent diner of the locale at the Orlando JW Marriott Grande Lakes. In my opinion, it’s one of Orlando’s few top restaurants, made particularly special by their on-premise organic garden and rustic yet refined country-fresh Italian fare. Just Friday night we went there, and I had a major freak-out because not only did they have ramps (a super-seasonal treat), they had fresh porcinis which is a true rarity in Orlando and overall in this country, for that matter. I asked them where they got these little gems, knowing they most likely wouldn’t give up their purveyor, and I was right on about that. Others on the top 10 list included: Firefly Grill, Effingham, IL; Hook, Washington D.C.; Ubuntu, Napa, CA; Cafe Cenizo, Marathon, TX; The Kitchen, Boulder, CO; La Provence, Lacombe, LA; Spoonriver, Minneapolis, MN; Blue Velvet, Los Angeles, CA; and Local Burger, Lawrence, KS.
On page 38, there’s an article, “How Del Posto Went Green”, profiling celebrity chef Mario Batali’s quest to “save the world, one meal at a time”, at least when it comes to the highest-end of his restaurant portfolio, Del Posto. And on page 76, “Why I’m Not a Vegetarian” by Molly Wizenberg chronicles her conversion as a youth to vegetarianism, veganism, and then back to everything-ism and all the events in between that have shaped her choices. There are two beautiful recipe editorials, “Our Planet, Our Table” and “The Earth-Friendly Dinner Party”, which combined with the rest of the issue, contain a number of recipes that are either raw, vegetarian, or vegan, or could be easily converted to each.
As far as my personal diet is concerned, my philosophy based on this past year of experimentation has been that hi-raw is best, but incorporating certain al dente prepared vegetables, whole grains, and small amounts of raw cheese works very well for me. While I strongly believe in certain dietary principles as it pertains to human health, I have never believed in a one-size-fits-all format. Even if you choose to eat meat, there are choices – free range and organic, local, farm-raised. It would be one glorious day to see the end of the factory farm. I give big kudos to Bon Appetit for putting together an issue that realistically and beautifully represents the changing not just of culinary direction, but in the way we think about our food, where it comes from, and the effects our choices have on this Earth.
<3, JMK
