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Glen Plake shows off the Hall of Fame medal he received
the weekly
Unique, fun businesses By JIMA RICE
W
hile hightechnology businesses seem to dominate the entrepreneurial scene, the bulk of entrepreneurial businesses do well simply by offering consumers new or improved “everyday Jima Rice living” products that are creative, well-executed, and welltargeted. Here are five such businesses, which, with variations on a theme, might trigger start-up ideas for local entrepreneurs. The first is Ecoscraps. Based in Utah, this two-year-old company collects leftover food from grocery stores and restaurants and composts it into rich organic soil conditioner for sale at local nurseries. Two brothers started the business after gorging themselves on an all-you-can eat breakfast at a Provo restaurant and throwing out what was left. On the way home, they started wondering how to monetize such mammoth food waste. After trialand-error composting with all-natural ingredients, the brothers birthed an environmentally-friendly product and business that now has 11 employees. It picks up 2,000 pounds of local waste each day and produces roughly 60,000 pounds of compost each month. Want to read a story to the grandchild you don’t often see? Try The Magical Story Machine, a British website that enables you to “Read to children when you can’t be there…” All you need is your computer — with an accompanying microphone and speakers. The Magical Story Machine provides you with the text of favorite classics and (British?) bedtime stories to read, guides you through the reading, and then mixes in music and sound effects to create a professional-sounding MP3 audio (no robo-voices here). The site offers a free trial and allows you to record over and over until you get it right. Your grandchild can also use the site to read a story to you! Bolder is an interactive website founded by a California team wanting to stimulate generosity; it’s an idea that could be customized, however, for a local market. The website provides a selection of challenges for consumers that will strengthen their health, environment, community, or personal growth; each challenge has been created by a “sponsor business.” Consumers who complete a challenge must post a tweet-length story in order to earn a reward promised by the sponsor; e.g., a product discount, gift, or donation to a cause. Challenges include: “make a car trip a bike trip,” “share your boldest moment,” and “persuade a friend to run with you.” Reel Gardening was founded by a 16-year-old South African girl. It offers a simple, cost-effective, convenient, and water-wise means for anyone, rural or urban, to grow vegetables, herbs, and flowers from seed. The business produces 1.5-inch biodegradable paper strips that encase nutrient-embedded seeds placed the correct distance apart from one another. The paper is “planted” in soil and, from then on, needs only water. Each strip
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Janns Race starts this Thursday Page 3
Sinnott claims Sprint Champ at SuperTour Page 4
Kane reviews Chandler’s new thriller Page 8
read about it on PaGe 10
A p r i l 6 , 2 0 1 1 • Vo l . 4 • N o . 1 4 • w w w.T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
ahead of the curve
s t a n l e y • F a i r f i e l d • S h o sh o n e • P i c a b o
Keys’ Dressings vintage restaurant owner, Jeff Keys
…new salad dressing cookbook
By KAREN BOSSICK
J
eff Keys is an alchemist when it comes to salad dressings, infusing them with a spirit that lifts them out of the realm of the ordinary. He flavors them with cumin seeds he’s roasted in a steel pan until they smell “like the desert.” And jalapeño and red peppers he’s toasted on the open burner. “When you toast vegetables and spices, you stir up the oils, and it enriches flavors,” he said. “Add the star players—the oils and vinegars— and you’re transported to far-off places and cultures.” Best of all, he says, creating salad dressings is simple. To prove that, he’s written a new cookbook, “Well Dressed: Salad Dressings.” The 96-page hardcover book just hit the shelves of Ketchum Kitchens as the summer salad season begins to heat up. It’s also available at Chapter One Bookstore, Iconoclast Books and Vintage Restaurant. Keys’ book, which costs $16.99, is published by Gibbs Smith, the same Layton, Utah, publisher who convinced him to write the “Vintage Restaurant” cookbook in 2006 and “Ice Cream Mix-Ins” a couple of years later. “It’s perfect for the times in that it’s an inexpensive, simple, pretty book,” said Keys, who retreats to his family farm south of Bellevue on the few days he isn’t cooking up something in his intimate 30-seat restaurant. Keys’ zest for good food began as a ski bum in Aspen when he got his first taste of the Epicure’s croissant and scrambled eggs and Delice’s European pastries. It was there, too, that he had an epiphany about salad dressings as he watched his boss—the head chef at The Copper Kettle and Andre’s—drizzle extra virgin olive oil over a salad of leafy greens before accenting it with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. “It was simplicity magnified—the best salad I had ever eaten,” said Keys. “The explosion of flavors, the binding of the salad ingredients by the dressing created an experience I’ll never forget.” Full of handsome colored pictures, Keys’ book features such recipes as Fire-Roasted Green Chili Vinaigrette, Texas Hill Country Vinaigrette with New Mexico chili powder, fennel seeds and cilantro, and Mango, Sweet Onion and Fresh Thyme Vinaigrette, which Keys conceived of on a white sand beach bordering a turquoise Caribbean bay. It also features a chapter on mix-in dressings—an idea Keys got from his own mother when she served him a green salad with a creamy Asian dressing she had created by mixing a commercial bottled salad dressing with other ingredients. “My mom blew my mind with that,” Keys said. “It was a most simple experience. But it’ll freaking blow your mind, it’s so good.” Keys’ gathered the recipes for his book from salad dressings he made at his Bellevue Bistro and Soupçon, which he opened some 26 years ago in the formerly tumbled down 1927 cabin on Leadville Avenue that now houses Vintage. “Making salad dressing is the easiest thing in the world to do, and they can be so much more flavorful than most commercial dressings,” he said. “But people approach it as if it’s a big mystery. Once you break through that wall, you wonder why you ever thought it was so hard. All the ingredients to whip up some wonderful dressings are at our grocery store. Top a salad with some sliced roasted chicken or diced roasted potatoes and you have a full meal.” tws
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Asian Peanut Street Stand Dressing • 1 tablespoon finely grated ginger • 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice • 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar • 1 tablespoon brown sugar • 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro • 1/8 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper • 2 tablespoons finely diced shallots • 1 tablespoon soy sauce • 1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce • 2 medium-sized cloves garlic, smashed • 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil • 4 to 5 tablespoons creamy peanut butter • 3/4 cup light salad oil • 2 tablespoons water
Place all ingredients in a food processer and pulse the processer until the ingredients are evenly blended. If the dressing is too thick, add another tablespoon of water. Keep in fridge, covered, for up to five days. Makes 1 and 1/2 cups. This goes well tossed with Chinese egg noodles or served over a bowl of bok choy and Chinese cabbage. Throw in some sliced grilled chicken or pork and you have a feast.
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Below: Jeff Keys and his co-chef Rodrigo Herrera.
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“Well Dressed” contains such recipes as ChipotleLime Ranch Dressing, which can be drizzled on grilled veggies, corn on the cob, grilled bread, steak and chicken. Also, an Asian Peanut Street Stand Dressing, which can be tossed with Chinese egg noodles or over a bowl of such greens as bok choy and Chinese cabbage.
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