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New York chefs get creative to fight food waste

May 30, 2019 Abigail Pope-Brooks

Cooking. Eagle photo by Jeremy Neiman

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Environmentally-conscious chefs, whose workplaces run the gamut from soup kitchens to Michelin star restaurants, gathered at the Brooklyn Navy Yard last week to show how creative cooking could make use of food scraps that are often tossed out.

Competitors got experimental with cheese rinds, overripe apples, vegetable stems and more as part of the Zero Waste Food Challenge, hosted by the Department of Sanitation of New York’s Foundation for New York’s Strongest.

The challenge is a new addition to the NYC Food Waste Fair, meant to emphasize the importance — and viability — of waste reduction in the hospitality industry.

New York City businesses throw away more than 650,000 tons of food waste every year, according to DSNY. This food sits in landfills, where it produces more than 3.3 billion tons yearly of methane — a potent greenhouse gas that traps heat in the earth’s atmosphere and adds to the global climate crisis.

With this in mind, a growing community of restaurants, nonprofits, manufacturers and government agencies are making strides to prevent, rescue and repurpose food waste.

The event was sponsored by the Department of Sanitation of New York. Eagle photo by Jeremy Neiman

As Theresa Savarese, assistant director of strategic communications for DSNY explained, “When we conceptualized this event, we wanted to get chefs to buy in and share their story with everyone in New York City to inspire people to rethink how they view food.”

In that spirit, “Each chef has made a pledge to implement more zero-waste practices in their kitchen.”

Some are already ahead of the game. The Lenox Hill Neighborhood House’s farm-to-institution model enables the nonprofit to serve up to 10,000 meals each week to New Yorkers without secure access to food. Then, the leftover food is diverted away from the trash and back into new meals — stale bread and bruised fruit become fruit-infused French toast and spiced apple butter compote.

A panel of expert judges declared Michael Anthony’s ricotta tart with lemon confit the evening’s winner.

Cory Tomaino’s gochujang hanger steak and vegetable stem tacos with rainbow chard stem kimchi won the popular vote, which was cast by those who paid $75 to attend the eight-course dinner event.

A panel of expert judges declared Michael Anthony the winner. Eagle photo by Jeremy Neiman

“Being more mindful of waste forces a creativity in the kitchen that can yield some pretty amazing dishes,” noted Julie Raskin, the foundation’s executive director.

The full breadth of participating chefs and their dishes included:

Garrison Price (Cafe Clover): Cashew and almond milk panna cotta with caramelized honey syrup
Cory Tomaino (FLIK Hospitality): Gochujang hanger steak and vegetable stem tacos with rainbow chard stem kimchi
Michael Anthony (Gramercy Tavern): Ricotta rart with lemon confit;
Kirstyn Brewer and Claire Sprouse (Hunky Dory): Citrus onion dip and sweet potato skin
chips paired with punch
Lynn Loflin, Tim Mercado and Michael Mangieri (Lenox Hill Neighborhood House): Fruit-infused French toast and spiced apple butter compote
Naama Tamir (Lighthouse): Skin-and-stem vegetable poofs with herb labneh and pecorino pesto
Kendall Scodari (Made Nice): Cauliflower ‘bone marrow’ with beet tartare and cauliflower leaf salad;
Suzanne Cupps and Amy Ho (Untitled): Spring grilled cabbage with pickled burdock, king trumpet mushrooms and spring onion.

As for the general public, Savarese said, “We have tips on how to do this in your kitchen at home, because residents who should be thinking about these things too.”

The Foundation for New York’s Strongest will continue offering zero waste programming throughout the year. The effort contributes to the city’s goal of contributing zero waste to landfills by 2030.

Correction (May 31) — An earlier version of this article misnamed the division in which Theresa Savarese works. It is strategic communications, not marketing. The Eagle regrets this error.