Pass the Spatula No. 5: Scraps

Pass the Spatula

Scraps

Confessions of a Television Food Stylist • The No-waste

Gospel of Russell Jackson • Exclusive Recipes from Shenarri Freeman, Nancy Silverton and Daniela Soto-Innes

Welcome to the fifth issue of Pass the Spatula, a student-run magazine created by a diverse group of New York City high school students working with the Food Education Fund. Our mission is to spread knowledge about the culinary world, and provide you with a good read. When we started brainstorming what we wanted to incorporate into this issue, our initial thought was food waste, a problem that plagues not only the food industry but the world at large. We settled on scraps, items that are often left behind or undervalued but that, with a little imagination and creativity, can find a second life. As we raise our voices about food waste, we hope to inspire our generation to think about the possibilities of scraps in a different way. In this issue, we feature brilliant stories from inspiring people in the food industry. It has been an honor and privilege for us to work on this magazine and we hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did making it. —The Editors

Pass the Spatula

Editorial

Angel Fuentes

Christopher Senderson

Jasmine Arnold

Janae Anguiano Garcia

Joy Ellington

Mary Ajisafe

Advertising

Daniel Sydney

Gennadiy "Geno" Sarybekov

Valentino Vargas-Morales

Recipe Redevelopment

Ashley Palaquibay

Aylin Sanchez

Gaby Fernandez

Malacai Alalong

Traceena Lynch

Parsons School of Design

The New School

Stefani Bardin, Professor

Mackenzie Andrew

Lucina Blum

Madeleine Campbell

Megan Chen

Valentina Donoso Abuawad

Benny Duan

Kendal Duff

Talia (T) Goodwin

Dohan Kim

Se Hee Kim

Jaison Lin

Aishwarya Moudgal

Juniper Hope Nielsen

Vincenzo Pagnotta

Andy Wu

Food Education Fund

Executive Director

Dr. Danielle Beam

Program Director

Katherine Taveras

Director of Postsecondary Success

Kittrell Breland

Program Manager

Winnie Arzu

Kyle MacKinnon

Career Development Manager

Adjoa Kittoe

Culinary Consultant

Delvon Glover

Communications & Marketing Consultant

Manuela Mejia

Pass the Spatula Lead

Joshua David Stein

Culinary Consultant

Chef Vera Kaltinick

Operations Consultant

Chandan Sharma

Interns

Evaluna Santoni

Kiara Burgess

Design: Portrait

Cover Image: Kendal Duff

Board of Directors

Sasha Ahuja

Wendy Chen, Treasurer

Giovanni Colavita

Dana Cowin

Kerry Diamond

Erica D’Silva, Secretary

Sean Feeney, Co-Chair

Sybil Ford

Xavier Ifill

Jehan Ilahi

Amber Martin

John Meadow

Debra Puchalla

Nan Shipley, Co-Chair

Food and Finance

High School

Erika Hurtado, Principal

Samuel Perry, Assistant Principal

Renel Piton, Assistant Principal

Christopher Burgos, Chef Instructor

William Doherty, Chef Instructor

Shamel Donigan, Chef Instructor

Sarina Rodriguez, Chef Instructor

Geoffrey Tulloch, Chef Instructor

Junior Board

Dana Beninati

Alan Zurita

Jo Chang

Victoria Duran

Fouad ElAmir

Rebecca Gildiner

Tiffany Iung

Jazmin Johnson

Victoria Jordan

Alex Kean

Yoni Kintzer

Maya Land

Ashley Lonsdale

Diana Manalang

Jonathan Moldenhauer

Melissa Patel

Nikhil Perincherry

Gabbie Reade

Vincent Capobianco

Hugo Vicente

Kangkang Yang

Erica Cantley

Nikita Gupta

Rachel Silverman

Erica Wright

High School of Environmental Studies

Heather DeFlorio, Principal

Bryan Bianchi, Assistant Principal

Juliet Crupi, Assistant Principal

Jennifer Rodriguez, Assistant Principal

Lynn Rosales, Assistant Principal

Shayuan Sealey, Assistant Principal

Yuka Bell, Chef Instructor

Andrew Margon, Chef Instructor

Erika Sun, Chef Instructor

High School of Hospitality Management

Yves Mompoint, Principal

Katia Drouillard, Assistant Principal

Mayra Valdes, Chef Instructor

ISSUE NO. 5 SCRAPS

A work by Washington chef James Zamory made of shiso extract, marrow bones and squid ink.

A scene from the larder of Russell Jackson's Harlem restaurant, Reverence.

The Pass the Spatula team tests this issue's recipes.

FIRST COURSE

Behind the Buffet

DANIEL SYDNEY

Extravagant free all-you-can-eat buffets are synonymous with the cruise ship experience. But what happens to the food that’s not eaten? An average cruise ship can generate 1.3 pounds of food waste per person each day. Since a cruise ship carries around 3,000 passengers, that’s 3,900 pounds per day. According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2022, Royal Carribbean cruise ships generated enough compacted food waste to fill 14 Olympic swimming pools.

Much of this waste has to do with the nature of buffets. Guests expect endless offerings and free choice. But once food touches the buffet table, it can not be reused or reserved. Though cruise lines are experimenting with decreasing their food waste, by using machines like biodigesters, which turn organic matter into greywater, the truth is nothing is free. With the threat of climate change looming over humanity’s heads, eco-friendly appliances like

A FEAST FOR YOUR EARS

the biodigester help to make large scale waste output from cruise ships less of an issue. As it stands currently, a cruise ship averages 7001,000 pounds of carbon emissions each day. Imagine how much an eight day cruise impacts the environment. Thankfully, some ships can be adapted to use sustainable fuel alternatives (biofuels, synthetic fuels, et cetera).

While this may be obvious, the way food is processed by kitchen staff is also a very important factor for reducing food waste. Cooks in each galley of a cruise ship must pay close attention to how they cut vegetables, trim meat, or use liquids. This is so that they do not over or under-use a product and end up affecting the overall budget for that production, or waste valuable food items. Think of these pages of Pass the Spatula as an invitation to consider not just the awe-inspiring displays of food on land, at sea, in your home but what happens after the plates are cleared.

Listen to the All New Season of the Pass the Spatula Podcast

Made in Collaboration with the Heritage Radio Network

Dirt Cheap to Black Gold

JOY ELLINGTON

Composting, the process by which organic matter becomes fertile soil, is a way to turn food waste into something useful. All you need to compost is a little bit of space and a lot of time. Depending on your budget, you can compost quickly or slowly, allowing nature to take its course. Generally, the faster it takes, the more it costs. Here are five ways, from cheaper to more expensive, or from slower to faster, to compost.

Vermicomposting

Backyard composting is the best way to compost if you are looking for something that’s nearly free. All you need is some space and some scraps. Scraps can also be put into a composting bin or a trash can and take three to four months to fully compost. New York City, however, offers curbside composting nyc.gov

So you did backyard composting, and you want something that is slightly more efficient. Vermicomposting allows you to do basic composting but with worms. Red wigglers are commonly used in this method. This method, which takes approximately 45 days, can cost between $25-$40, which makes this a low cost method. A popular resource to start is with Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm, which provides the worms and bins. unclejimswormfarm.com

Tumbler Composting

Tumbler composting requires machinery, a tumbler to be precise. Tumblers are machines that are manually spun to aerate and mix together all materials. This helps the process of decomposition speed up so you can have fertilized goods for plants sooner, in three weeks. These are a moderate price from $30-$90. For beginners, FCMP Outdoor might be the best option for those wanting to start with tumbler composting, providing materials you essentially need. fcmponline.com

Bokashi Composting

2 Make sure the compost has reached maturity. Mature compost is a stable product that has been sufficiently decomposed from the materials it first started with. so that it can actually grow and be able to do its job.

Bokashi composting does not focus on the decomposition of organic materials, but rather the fermentation of them. (Fermented scraps can be used similarly to composted ones.) This makes this method quite tricky to perfect, since it requires an airtight seal but takes only two weeks to compost. You are looking to spend anywhere between $65-$100. A recommended company is Bokashi Living, which provides kits for beginners. bokashiliving.com

Electric Composting

Electric composting machines use a variety of different methods, such as heating, mixing and grinding, to break down organic materials in a matter of hours. Electric composters, which are often automatic, come in both industrial sizes or at home sizes. You can look at $200-$1,000 depending on what you get. For smaller at home electric composters, Mill provides comfortable and low maintenance bins. mill.com

What I Carried With Me

DANIEL SYDNEY

When we at Pass the Spatula were brainstorming ideas for this issue, we thought it would be interesting to learn what scraps, bits and pieces of their homeland, immigrants and refugees brought with them to this country. With that in mind, about a month ago, I went to Emma’s Torch Cafe in Brooklyn. Emma’s Torch employs immigrants and refugees, and teaches them about the culinary world so that they can get a job within that field and build successful careers. That's where I met Bassirou Tandjigora, or Tang-Bass for short.

Tang-Bass is from Senegal, a culturally diverse West African country, where he earned a business degree. Tang-Bass helped paint an extraordinary picture of his experiences since he arrived in New York. He initially told me the main reason he came to New York is because his wife happened to be a United States citizen. “I like the city because it is a place with many opportunities, and I can do many different things here to try to follow my dream,” he told me, “And I like the culinary field, it's also one of the main reasons why I’m here.” His affinity for the culinary arts is what brought him to Emma’s Torch.

“I would like to open my own restaurant, and be able to use my experience from New York to expose my country to different flavors and dishes,” Tang-Bass told me, “Senegal is a place where many different international organizations meet, so I would like to cater to the different backgrounds of those people.”

When he said this to me, my first thought was that he has an amazing grasp on how he can accomplish his goal. The fact that Tang-Bass knows that he needs to cater properly to his future clientele clearly shows that he worked hard to receive his business degree. Most other people might be confused on where to even start when it comes to serving food to individuals from varying backgrounds, so it seems that Tang-Bass will have a major advantage because of his knowledge. Serving a diverse audience is no small task, so he’ll most likely have to incorporate a lot of different cuisines into his restaurant’s menu in order run a successful business back in Senegal.

While Tang-Bass did not give us a recipe, he did leave me with an inspiring account of his goals, and what he’ll do to accomplish them. Not a lot of people have the resources and knowledge that he does, so stories like this are unique. They allow us to learn about new perspectives, and understand how someone’s circumstances can influence their actions.

4 5 Make sure you know what exactly to compost and what cannot be used. For example you can use coffee, egg shells, fruit and veggie scraps. But not coal, some oils and most meat. Make sure you know what you will be doing with your compost because there are many different ways it could be used. You can use it for lawns, soil and mulch. Either way the compost will still be the same.

Michelle Doll-Olson

AYLIN SANCHEZ

With 3.1 million customers, HelloFresh is the United States’ largest meal kit provider. The Berlin-based company provides easy-to-follow, high-quality convenient food that fits perfectly in the fridge. But at such a scale, every tiny bit of food wasted quickly adds up. So we sat down with Michelle Doll-Olson, senior culinary development manager of HelloFresh, on how she guides her company to operate with minimal food waste.

AS: What do you do at HelloFresh to implement sustainable cooking practices and limit waste in HelloFresh meals?

MDO: We have an entire department devoted to sustainability. To begin with 100% of our delivery carbon emissions are offset. So we make sure that our footprint is as small as possible. We also run on renewable electricity and, from a meal kit perspective, we help the consumer reduce food waste by up to 45% compared to grocery shopping. Plus there’s the fact that most of our packaging is made from cardboard, paper and recyclable plastic. Lastly, HelloFresh donated 4.4 million meals in 2020. Every year we give away more, which is a great way for us to eliminate potential food waste.

AS: What is your favorite way to use leftovers or food that otherwise might go to waste?

MDO: I would say breakfast food, because I love how almost anything can go into a hash. If you mix some potatoes, green peppers, onions and then any leftovers you can make an amazing meal. Dinner also works great for leftovers. I love to make Asian stir-fries since leftovers lend themselves to that. I don't like the repetition of eating the same thing. So this really helps me get rid of food waste and clean out my fridge.

AS: When we visited the HelloFresh headquarters as a group, you mentioned the recipe graveyard. Can you talk a little bit about the recipe graveyard?

MDO: Yes, absolutely. The recipe graveyard is a really important part of our development process. Sometimes a recipe will be graveyarded because the concept wasn't there. Maybe we're trying something really new, like a Tiktok trend or a new ingredient and it just doesn't work. This is when we pull out the graveyard. Recipes will be put in there and revisited at a later time. I will say we always look to see if there was anything in the recipe worth saving. For example let's say the fish was bad but the sauce was delicious. We will try and figure out another way to use that sauce. Even then, nothing is wasted.

AS: Last question, what is your all-time favorite HelloFresh recipe?

MDO: That's so hard. My all time favorite was this time I did a Mother's Day recipe. It was chicken wrapped in prosciutto and then topped with an apricot glaze. It was just so good and had a little bit of sweetness and saltiness to it. Plus I’m a mother so I loved it.

Scraps in The City

ANGEL FUENTES

New York City's cutthroat real estate market has a profound impact on the culinary industry, particularly when it comes to waste management. With sky-high rents and limited space, restaurants and food establishments are forced to prioritize efficiency and profitability over sustainability. As a result, many are left with limited storage and disposal options, leading to excessive food waste and inefficient waste management practices. Additionally, the high cost of waste removal in the city can lead to illegal dumping and other unsanitary practices, further exacerbating the problem. This perfect storm of factors makes it challenging for culinary businesses to adopt environmentally friendly practices, contributing to the city's staggering 1.4 million tons of annual food waste. To combat this issue, innovative solutions such as composting programs, waste-to-energy initiatives, and sustainable restaurant design are essential to mitigate the environmental impact of New York City's culinary industry. Chef Alex Raij, owner of Txikito and La Vara is one of the many chefs working hard within the limitations of a city restaurant to be sustainable. “Real estate is so expensive. Restaurant spaces are small. Part of our job is to use up every square inch the best that we can for storage and appliances. And so it's very, very tricky for restaurants to store garbage containers”, she told me, “Composting, facilities or on location aggregators and things like that, we would love to have. So I think that's the trickiest part in terms of actual waste.”

MAIN COURSE

THE RUSSELL NO-WASTE GOSPEL JACKSON OF

Reverence's chef is serious about saving the planet, one turnip at a time.

WORDS BY CHRISTOPHER SENDERSON

PHOTOGRAPHY

Reverence is a Harlem fine dining restaurant that focuses on sustainability and the uncompromising vision of its chef. Originally from Los Angeles, Russell Jackson is intent on providing a memorable experience for the 16 patrons a night who pay up to $180 for a fivecourse meal. Reverence isn't your standard tasting menu set-up. There are rules. These include the restriction of phone use, to promote more conversations between guests, and a laser focus on utilizing food waste. This can be seen not only in the menu but in the space itself. The interior walls are lined with large drums filled with fermenting scraps, vinegars, koji that will be used in future meals for future diners.

CS: What makes your restaurant different from others?

RJ: As much as we are trying to be open and welcoming, the reality is that there are some people, no matter where they're from or who they are, for whom this isn't going to be their cup of tea. Trying to be something for everybody, you end up with a Cheesecake Factory menu.

CS: Where did your passion for utilizing scraps and food waste come from?

RJ: There are so many people who talk all this smack about greenwashing but in reality aren't living up to it. And the importance of us being transparent and veritable and verifiable for me is really important. I don't want to say something and get caught with my hand where it's not supposed to be.

CS: So as we started looking at our food waste with the pandemic and thinking about how we can not put something in the garbage can, how can we better utilize these materials?

RJ: As a Californian, it’s always in the back of your mind, something that you're concerned about. I've seen horrific things happen environmentally that have impacted my life and my leisure. At my last restaurant, even though we had some level of sustainability practice, which we actually won an award for, we still produced just way too much garbage. When I built this restaurant, this is also one tenth the size of that

restaurant, I wanted it to be focused on an ethos-based sustainability.

CS: What are some examples of how you reuse food waste or minimize it?

RJ: If we have leftover bread, we serve the people, we even let them take it home. We take all of our eggshells, we produce a lot of eggshells, we boil them, and that boiled water gets utilized to feed the plants. Then the eggshells themselves get dried out, we use as an abrasive for cleaning the pots. Turns out compost and stocks aren’t the only way to reuse food scraps. Then we have these buckets which are vegetable garum. So all of the

jars you see lining the space are miscellaneous tops in pieces, that we add koji to, salt and water and we let that go for about three months. We’ll strain that. We will compress the waste matter and that'll get either turned into fertilizer or something else.

CS: What inspired the name Reverence?

RJ: This is my seventh restaurant. When I went through the process of deciding to build this, it was really about paying homage to my past and the influences I grew up with, my present and hopefully my future. I wanted a word that resonated. As much as I liked the word homage, I realized that it wasn't going to fly for me to have a restaurant called Homage in Harlem. So Reverence came out of my mouth and it just stuck.

CS: What was the feeling when you saw you were listed in the Michelin Guide?

RJ: We realized all of the things that we were doing and all of the things that we were planning on doing. And it was like, oh wow, okay. This is a whole nother level. This is well beyond what I even perceived we were actually doing. It felt good.

EAT YOUR ART OUT

Three visual artists using food waste show how one diner’s trash is another artist's masterpiece

ANGUIANO GARCIA & JASMINE ARNOLD

JANAE

LAUREN PURNELL

Eleven years ago, London-based artist Lauren Purnell found herself playfully arranging the leftover spaghetti on her plate to resemble a tree at a dinner party with friends. Without much consideration, she snapped a photo and posted it on Facebook, where it quickly gained traction, leading to her current project, Culinary Canvases. “So I basically started seeing how can I repurpose the parts that would normally just be disregarded and give them a bit of a second life,” she said. Lauren came to the realization that often, the most visually striking and intriguing aspects of food are the parts typically discarded, such as the rind of a melon or the skin of a fruit. “I guess I really try and use just straight up raw materials. No dyes, never bring in any in-edibles. So the thing, the fruit and veg scraps and the focus and just fresh seasonal produce,” she explained. Rather than letting them go to waste, she decided to give them a second life by repurposing them into her artwork. Even after creating her pieces, she's committed to minimizing waste. She either finds ways to reuse certain parts or incorporates them into meals like salads, ensuring nothing goes unused. And if there's no immediate use, she ensures it's composted rather than thrown away.

Bicycle Cantaloupe, fennel, blueberry, blood orange, basil

JAMES ZAMORY

Carnal, chef James Zamory’s award-winning restaurant, started as a food stand at Smorgasburg in New York. After five years, he and his partner relocated to Bellingham, WA, transforming a college dive bar into a restaurant. It was a costly venture. After installing new walls, hood vent systems, plumbing, and trenching, Zamorey found himself without funds for restaurant artwork.

James took it upon himself to fill the walls with his own artwork. Using only discarded materials from the kitchen, James relied on fish scales, bones, snap pea trimmings and more to create the canvases that now adorn the walls. His journey has been challenging and he has encountered many setbacks. But today diners discover not just art on their plates but on the walls as well.

Shiso extract, marrow bones and squid ink (2022)

Swiss Chard (2023)

KLAUS PICHLER

In 2010, Klaus Pichler, a photographer based in Austria, came across an article based on a global survey in a major newspaper that immediately caught his attention. “Now it's more or less common knowledge, but back then it was kind of a surprise that one third of food is wasted...I immediately thought, okay, that's not only interesting, it's shocking,” he explained.

Pichler uses a variety of techniques, including lighting, backdrop selection, and

presentation style, to shed light on issues of food waste A technique seen in Klaus’ work that really stands out is the use of opulent lighting and backdrops that would often be used for luxury items like diamonds. “I wanted to stage all the rotting food as luxury products because I thought that our daily nutrition and our daily food on updates, it's pure luxury and we have unlearned this fact that there is plenty of work included like supply chains.”

Strawberries Sort: Strawberries 'Elsanta' / Place of production: San

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T.V. Food Confessions of Stylist

Everywhere we look —on the big screen, on our phones, on our televisions — we encounter mouthwatering images of food. But what is actually going on behind the picture of that juicy burger and fries? Who makes all this happen? AS TOLD TO JOY ELLINGTON

culinary school When I went to

I had never even heard of a food stylist. I didn't know that was a thing. I thought everyone was there to become a chef. Then I learned about food styling. Most stylists have a culinary background, starting off in culinary school, working in restaurants, catering, and kitchens. They have a background working on the line, but many also have an arts background. So a lot of them went to school for photography or fine arts or things like that.

The hard thing about styling is that most stylists are cooks at heart. It can be hard to make a bunch of food that is not actually going out to be enjoyed by people. That's a big reason why a lot of cooks become cooks. They're definitely not doing it for the money. I worked in restaurants for a long time and it's really grueling and the hours are crazy. The lifestyle is crazy. It's not for the faint of heart and you can definitely burn out in restaurants. I worked in editorial a lot and I was just really interested in that side of it.

While working on the editorial side, I met some stylists that I really admired. I met them when I was still in culinary school. I just tracked people that I admired and I would email them all the time and be annoying. And then eventually some of them let me trail on their shoots and then I started assisting them. Probably the darkest part of styling is you end up with a lot of food. It really depends on the project. Video is worse because anything where there are lots and lots of takes, you can never run out. Even if the director says, “We're only going to do this six times.” You can't trust them. And at the end of the day, it's the stylist's job on the line. You just have to always be prepared.

Layer cakes are usually built with skewers placed strategically inside. That way when an actor goes to slice them, they hold their shape and don't fall apart the way a cake naturally would. Similarly, roast chickens and Thanksgiving turkeys often have sewing pins or toothpicks holding things together in choice places to give that iconic shape.

As styling has evolved, and as time goes on and people become more conscious of food waste and the environment, stylists really try their best to have all of the products they need.

You don't really feed people the food that's been just sitting on set for a long time. All the extra food we try to keep refrigerated, always covered, not spraying it with anything weird. At the end of the day we will give it away. And the thing about a shoot, especially a film shoot or something where there's a huge crew, is all those people who’ve been working with this food all day are very excited to take it home.

Ideally in a good production, the stylist will communicate very well with the production team so that they know the limits of what they have so that the director isn't cutting every and resetting forever. That creates a lot more waste and it's just hard to do. You have to set good boundaries between yourself and the production. That being said, there's a lot of leftovers. Film is better with still shoots, editorial shoots and things like that.

One of the first big commercials I worked on was for a fast food chain. There are laws about truth in advertising — I don't know when they came about. If the product you’re shooting is from fast food, it has to be the real product. You can't fake it. This incident wasn't for McDonald's, but say you're shooting a Big Mac, you have to shoot the products from the Big Mac. You can't build a beautiful burger with ground meat that you buy somewhere else and a nice piece of cheese and all that. Everything that you shoot has to be from the Big Mac pantry or fridge.

American cheese can be dipped in tepid warm water for a few seconds then shrouded over a burger patty to appear ‘melted’. Spritzing meat or cooked vegetables with a little oil will give them a just cooked glisten, and a spray bottle miix of glycerin and water will make food, especially raw fruits and vegetables, appear fresh on set if they're starting to dry out. An air compressor sprayed on a glass will make it appear frosty. And using a straw to blow bubbles into a glass of milk will give it ‘movement’

product and then the stylists and the assistants sort through many, many, many, many pickles; many, many, many frozen burger patties; many, many, many buns and select heroes. You select buns that aren't squished and burgers that don't look all weird and pickles that actually have ridges and look like real pickles. You pull all the good ones, and then those go on big sheet trays and then they become your selects. And that's what the stylist then is working with to build the burgers. That is a really crazy horrifying endeavor because you can imagine, a lot of the products aren't beautiful and don't work. So you can sort through a really massive amount in order to find them. When you're first starting out there is a lot of "sorting work" to be done. I've been on commercials where I had to sort through hundreds of frozen peas and carrots and chicken chunks, looking for the most beautiful ones to ooze out of a chicken pot pie. We would place them on speed racks organized into a hierarchy of good looks--either through a number system (1sts, 2nds, 3rds, 4ths) or through labels that read "backups", "beauties" and "heroes"— heroes generally being in short supply and thus guarded with your life. Many fast food commercials involved wading with gloved hands through giant vats of sliced pickles— trying to find enough beautiful ridged ones to build an iconic burger with. Some of these jobs were oddly gratifying, others,

truly soul crushing. I was once tasked with picking through thousands of dried lentils and removing any cracked, broken or discolored ones. It took me hours and when I was finally done, they were just poured into prop canisters to fill out space on set.

As a stylist, you have to be quick on your feet and able to solve problems on the fly. You must assume that whatever the production team tells you is going to happen ahead of time probably won't be true. There are just always surprises. You cannot run out of food and you cannot keep a crew waiting, so you have to be very prepared. Mise en place x1000. I was once on a chicken soup commercial and learned via walkie talkie that the actress eating the soup was a vegan just as we were plating up bowls for the first shot. We had to scramble and create a broth that would pass as chicken with random ingredients we had lying around. Another stylist friend of mine was on a set preparing a full Thanksgiving dinner and didn't realize until it was too late that there was no working oven. He shellaked an entire raw turkey with Gravy Master then lightly singed it with a blowtorch to make it look cooked.

Baby spinach can be a good sub for basil (which dies very quickly on set) and white chocolate instant pudding can fake it as whipped cream.

If actors are eating the food, there is the additional challenge of making sure you don't thoroughly gross them out. Not an easy task when they are having to do multiple takes and the food is under hot lights. Seafood, meat and dairy are to be avoided when possible. I've filled Oysters Rockefeller with sauteed mushrooms, and stuffed meat pies with oatmeal. Ice cream cones are usually filled with instant mashed potatoes and there is always a spit bucket on set.

Frozen food shoots are particularly challenging as you have to battle against time and hot lights and the variables that come with anything that rapidly melts. On one ice cream shoot we had to keep lots of dry ice on hand to keep everything cold. While we were shooting beauties, I kept a sieve of dry ice on set and blew it repeatedly over the food to keep it from melting. I huffed so much dry ice that day that I had to leave set for a while and lie down to avoid passing out.

Being a food stylist is a very interesting and intriguing experience. It serves as one of the most important careers in the culinary industry. For those interested in the creative aspect of culinary arts, becoming a food stylist is something that would probably interest you. The way they are combating food waste is very important because of how different their jobs are from being in a restaurant serving food. Would you become a food stylist?

RECIPES

“I don’t call them scraps,” says Daniela Soto-Innes, World's Best Female Chef, according to the 50 Best Restaurant Awards, “I call them trimmings.” Among the trimmings Soto-Innes uses are the surprisingly versatile banana peel. Besides using them in a flavorful and colorful tacos, there are many other beneficial uses that go beyond the kitchen. For instance, in gardening, banana peels are rich in nutrients like potassium and phosphorus, making them excellent for composting and enhancing plant growth. You can also chop up banana peels and bury them in the soil around your plants to provide these essential nutrients directly. If you're interested in skin care, rubbing the inside of a banana peel on your skin can help reduce acne, moisturize, and soothe bug bites. Some people even use the inside of banana peels to naturally whiten their teeth by rubbing the peel on their teeth for a few minutes before brushing.

GABY FERNANDEZ

Banana Peel Tacos with Barbacoa Salsa

DANIELA SOTO-INNES

1. Deseed both chilies and hydrated chilies.

SERVES 4

Barbacoa Salsa:

3 tablespoons grapeseed oil

¼ white onion, julienned

3 garlic cloves, chopped

1 plum tomato, quartered

½ teaspoon oregano

1 morita chile

6 chile guajillo

2. Place a medium pot of medium heat, and add oil, once the oil is hot sweat onions until translucent then add garlic.

3. After five minutes add chilies, spices, and oregano, and cook for 1 minute.

4. Add quartered tomatoes and for 6 minutes on low heat.

5. Once tomatoes are thoroughly cooked, add veggie stock then cook for 15 minutes more using a cartouche (see note).

6. Remove contents from the pot and transfer to a blender. Blend sauce until smooth.

7. Place a medium pot over medium heat, and add oil.

8. Once the oil is hot, add onion and banana peel, and sweat for 2 minutes. Add salsa and cook for 3 minutes.

9. Cook tortillas, then divide barbacoa bananas into equal portions.

10. Garnish with onions and cilantro, and squeeze lime into the taco if you prefer.

Note: To make the cartouche: place foil over the pot then cover with lid.

2 tablespoons whole allspice, toasted

⅛ teaspoon coriander seeds

½ teaspoon kosher salt

1

½ cup vegetable stock

Barbacoa Banana Tacos:

1 pack corn tortilla, toasted

1 cup barbocoa salsa

¼ white onion, julienned

4 banana peels, julienned

length-wise

1 tablespoon grapeseed oil

Kosher salt, to taste

⅛ white onion, small diced

¼ cup fresh cilantro, fine chopped

4 limes, cut into wedges

A few years ago, Nancy Silverton, the founder of La Brea Bakery and owner of Mozza in Los Angeles, was asked to participate in a No Waste dinner, hosted by chef Dan Barber. “People know me for my bread,” explains Silverton, “so I wanted to do something that used leftover bread.” Sagne e Pezzi is a simple pasta made with aglio (garlic) e olio (olive oil), breadcrumbs made from leftover loaves, pecorino and chili d’arbol is a traditional dish from Abruzzo, Italy. Traditionally made with broken pieces of lasagna — the name means “lasagna in pieces” — it can be made with any type of noodles you have lying around. The aglio e olio sauce is made by sautéing garlic in olive oil until it is fragrant and golden brown. Then, add your leftover breadcrumbs to the pan and toasted until they are crispy. Finally, the sauce is finished with grated pecorino cheese and a sprinkle of chili d’arbol for a bit of heat. The resulting dish is a flavorful and comforting pasta dish that is sure to make any person love it!

Sagne a Pezzi

1. Fill a large pot with 6 quarts of water, add 6 tablespoons of kosher salt, and boil over high heat. Add pasta and cook, stirring intermittently.

2. As the pasta cooks, combine 6 tablespoons of olive oil, add Chili d’Arbol and breadcrumbs in a medium sauté pan at medium heat, and cook until it starts to color about 3-5 minutes.

3. Remove Chili d’Arbol from the pan then add pasta, the remaining olive oil, and pasta water. Stir then add the grated cheese, leaving a little to garnish with. Add parsley and gently combine everything.

4. Finish by garnishing with the remaining pecorino and anchovies (optional).

6 tablespoons kosher salt

½ cup olive oil

1 Chili d’Arbol

1 ½ cup fresh breadcrumbs

½ cup garlic, thinly sliced

1 ½ cup broken lasagna, or other wide noodles

¼ cup pecorino romano, grated

3 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

4-6 anchovies, optional

ASHLEY PALAQUIBAY

NANCY SILVERTON

“It always bothered me that people threw away so much of the carrot,” says Shenarri Freeman, the award-winning chef behind vegan restaurants Cadence in New York and Ubuntu in Los Angeles, “All the nutritious green leaves on the top are going into the trash.” Her answer, a carrot top pesto, is a flavorful sauce made from carrot greens, turned into a vibrant condiment with garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan, olive oil, basil, and salt. The pesto pairs well with roasted carrots or proteins/ other veggies. It’s a simple yet innovative way to reduce food waste and enjoy a unique dish at home.

MALACAI ALALONG

Roasted Carrots with Carrot Top Pesto

SHENARRI FREEMAN

1. Preheat an oven to 400°F (205°C).

2. Roast garlic in oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

3. Toast pine nuts in a small saute pan at medium heat until fragrant and they become golden brown.

4. Once garlic is roasted, remove and let cool. Increase the oven temperature to 425°F. Roast carrots for 20 minutes.

5. To make the pesto, combine carrot tops, pine nuts, basil, salt, oil, garlic and lime juice in a food processor and pulse until smooth.

6. To finish, toss the roasted carrots with olive oil, salt and pepper.

7. Serve carrots with carrot top pesto.

Note: Blanching is when one briefly drops ingredients into boiling, salted water. Afterward, the blanched ingredient is immediately transferred into an ice bath which shocks it to stop the cooking process and preserve the color.

SERVES 4 AS APPETIZER

6 garlic cloves, whole

3 large carrots, greens attached

3 tablespoons pine nuts

½ cup sunflower oil

6 ½ ounces fresh basil

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 ½ tablespoons lime juice

2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt, to taste

Pepper, to taste

Behind the Scenes

Working together with a class of college students at Parsons School of Design at the New School, we created a no-waste photoshoot.

Parsons student Kendal Duff used eggshells we collected to craft 100% biodegradable plates. (See cover.) We also used Grass Fed Bone China, made with bones from Blue Hill at Stone Barns by ceramicist Gregg F. Moore, lent to us by Dan Barber.

Joy Ellington (left), Traceena Lynch (right), Christopher Senderson and Malacai Alalong (below) prepared the recipes shared with us by some of the world's greatest chefs.

Parsons students Juniper Nielson, Lucina

and Aishwarya Moudgal used vegetable dyes made from food scraps to create custom made textiles.

Blum

Aylin Sanchez (below) adds the finishing touches to a recipe, shot by Parsons student T Goodwin.