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Mangalitsa pigs at Point Loma Farm in Valley Center are fed surplus greens from Tender Greens.
quality pieces of meat can be turned into happy hour meatballs. Cheese rinds can flavor olive oil. Pork and beef fat can be added to meat that’s too lean to give added flavor and texture. And pork belly skins can be dried and turned into chicharrones for the staff. Then there are the donations. Olivewood Gardens Head Gardener Martha Prusinkas sings the praises of Kevin Templeton of downtown restaurant Barleymash, who took it upon himself to deliver food scraps to the nonprofit. His twice-monthly deliveries of five 33-gallon trash cans filled with fruit and vegetable scraps go into Prusinkas’ compost heap. “Because of Kevin’s time and energy, we were able to incorporate a compost-building lesson into our fourth grade curriculum,” says educator Kati Butler. A number of restaurants have also signed on with a business called Closing the Loop, run by Suzie’s Farm employee Christopher Young. Young collects waste from about 15 restaurants, including Burger Lounge, Benihana’s, Tiger! Tiger!, Blind Lady Alehouse, Stone Brewing and Alchemy. “The waste goes to Suzie’s Farm and local farmers in Lakeside right now,” explains Young. “That, in turn, is mostly used as animal feed. At least 300 tons of compostable green waste has been diverted from landfills.” And small businesses donate overage. Robin Ross, owner of Cupcakes Squared, donates leftover cupcakes to San Diego Rescue Mission and local schools will come by for leftovers to serve when they have meetings or events. Finally, it’s up to consumers to make better choices, like choosing flavor over visual perfection, being more circumspect about how much they buy or order, composting scraps or freezing usable scraps to make into stock or jams. Planning more and impulse buying less. If American families are, indeed, tossing a quarter of the food they buy, they, too, need to take their rightful place in the food chain that is striving to alleviate waste.
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Award-winning freelance writer Caron Golden is the author of the blog San Diego Foodstuff. She writes the Local Bounty blog for San Diego Magazine, appears frequently on radio, and has contributed to Saveur, Sunset, Culinate, Riviera, the San Diego U-T, the Los Angeles Times and many other publications.
24
edible San Diego
spring 2014