How a Chef Turns Discards into Family Meals

Every day at about 4 pm, the chef deviates from the list of “projects” he needs to complete for service, and mixes ingredients that don’t belong together according to his menu. He scoops up the discards on the cutting boards before they get tossed into the bin, and what doesn’t end up as trash becomes food for his staff at the restaurant. These foods are called the “family meal,” or just “family” at Fung Tu, the Chinese American restaurant where I stage. One hour before service starts at 6pm, the front- and back-of-the-house help themselves to the food. For most of the cooks in the restaurant, including the chef Jonathan Wu, family is their first, and sometimes the only meal of the day. If they are not done prepping for service, they will eat while whipping mayonnaise, or wrapping egg rolls.

Not every ingredient for family comes from scraps. Chef stocks up bucatini pasta, chickpeas, and sweet Italian sausages specifically for family, because, he tells me matter-of-factly, they have longer shelf life. But his main aim is to minimise food waste, so he works mostly with the leftovers, the despised animal parts, and the sad-looking vegetables. Bak choy is ever present because only half the batch has the perfect curves to be customer-worthy. On Tuesdays, the first working day of the week, there is always leftover chicken from the Sunday-only menu. Since family corresponds to what the restaurant serves its customers, when a new season arrives, or on special days like the Jewish Passover, the members of the family find new foods in their plates too.

Chef was peeling prawns at noon. After that he made a stock out of the shells and cooked sweet Italian sausages in it, along with shallots, green and red peppers, the outermost, imperfect layers of Brussels sprouts, and unwanted coriander stems from which I had plucked nice green leaves for garnishing. Everything went on top of a bowl of corn grits.

Chef was peeling prawns at noon. After that he made a stock out of the shells and cooked sweet Italian sausages in it, along with shallots, green and red peppers, the outermost, imperfect layers of Brussels sprouts, and unwanted coriander stems from which I had plucked nice green leaves for garnishing. All went on top of a bowl of corn grits.

14/3: Tortilla with mashed chorizo sausage, steamed potatoes, and kale stems that are too thick for Stir-Fried Side Greens.

Tortilla with mashed chorizo sausage, steamed potatoes, and kale stems too thick for “Stir-Fried Side Greens.”

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The Most Enjoyable Three-Hour Wait for Food

Slowly inching forward as the restaurant opened its doors.

Slowly inching forward as the restaurant opened its doors.

Is waiting in line for food a pain for you? Try waiting at Franklin Barbecue, which almost every media in America agrees makes one of the best briskets in Austin, Texas or even in the whole of United States. I’m not suggesting that if you haven’t joined the line for Franklin’s brisket, you don’t know what pain is. What I’m saying is, after spending three hours of your precious life out in the rain, snow, or heat, for food that tonnes of other places offer decent versions of, you may actually come out of it thinking, ‘that was pretty fun.’ The people, both inside and outside the door that separates you and your food, can make waiting bearable or even the highlight of a trip. Continue reading

Havana restaurants thrive on available local food

HAVANA — You run a restaurant famous for its pork chop. But there’s none in the fridge. You check the pantry only to find that salt is also running low. You call your local store and they inform you that the entire city is out of these items. The replenishments will arrive two days later.

This scenario is reality for restaurateurs in Havana. To invigorate the struggling economy, the government loosened the regulations on private restaurants in 2010, but food shortages and rationing persist in the country. “It is still hard to find ingredients we need,” says Enrique Núñez, owner of La Guarida, one of the longest established and most reputable private restaurants here. “This has nothing to do with the restrictions. You simply cannot find them in Cuba.”

Continue reading my Boston Globe story here