Patina announces apprentice program for high school students

 

Teenagers with a passion for cooking will get a chance to work in the four-star kitchen at Patina under a new apprentice program. The restaurant will work with Santee Education Complex, a high school near downtown Los Angeles, and a Place Called Home, a social-service center in South Los Angeles for young people, to select apprentices for the program, scheduled to begin next month.

Chef Joachim Splichal, who opened Patina restaurant in Walt Disney Hall in downtown L.A., said he was honored to work with Santee and a Place Called Home. Participants -- one or two at a time -- will shadow Patina’s executive chef, Tony Esnault, to learn the workings of the kitchen and basic skills in the contemporary French restaurant, which received four stars from Los Angeles Times reviewer S. Irene Virbila last year.

“Working with Patina restaurant and a Place Called Home elevates the future opportunities of our youth in this community,” said Young Choi, college and career coordinator at Santee. “This is truly an exciting relationship.”

After a three-month apprenticeship, students will prepare a meal at Patina and will have the chance to interview for a job with Patina Restaurant Group, which includes about 60 restaurants and other outlets.

-- Mary MacVean

Photo: Joachim Splichal. Credit: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times

Learning the farm-to-table lesson

 
Ray Garcia, the executive chef at the swanky restaurant Fig in the Fairmont Miramar Hotel, arrived each week at Olympic High to teach, but also to learn and to try to open the teenagers' eyes and palates. Together, they planted kale and eggplant, tomatoes and more in a narrow strip of land outside the school. What the students didn't eat went to Garcia's restaurant kitchen.

That made the work of growing food real.

But it didn't necessarily make the students so eager to eat it. "These kids feared food. Not only are they disconnected from it, they fear it," Garcia observed one Friday. "They have few reference points to describe their culinary experiences." But slowly, they came around. And one warm evening last week, Garcia gave seven of them their graduation present: a sophisticated, eye-opening taste of the meaning of farm to table. Mary MacVean has the rest of the story in today's L.A. Times.

Richard Urena, 19, left, Jenny Morrow, 18, and Krystal Kelley, 18, right, speak with chef Ray Garcia at his restaurant. (Francine Orr, Los Angeles Times / Jan. 26, 2011)

TV chef Jamie Oliver bringing his 'Food Revolution' to West Los Angeles

Chef and TV personality Jamie Oliver is bringing his “Food Revolution” to Southern California, talking to families who might participate in his spring reality TV series and opening a kitchen in West Los Angeles.

But he bemoans that he’s been shut out of L.A.’s public school cafeterias.

“I can’t get my foot into a single school. Which is a bit of a shame really,” he said by telephone Tuesday. “It just doesn’t seem in the interest of the public really. It’s not a great start for me, to be honest.” L.A. Now has the rest of the story:

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Photo: AP Photo / ABC

Mudtown Farm in Watts gets a visit from L.A. food bloggers

 

Many people going to Watts over the weekend were headed for the annual Christmas parade. But Food Bloggers Los Angeles -- a group of a few dozen people -- also held their monthly meeting in the neighborhood on Saturday. Eight of the bloggers visited Mudtown Farm, a 2.5-acre plot adjacent to the Jordan Downs housing development, and got a tour of the site from architect Michael Pinto.

For now, individuals are growing many varieties of fruits and vegetables in small plots on the land. Pinto and his students at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, along with the landowners, have been looking at the property to see how it might best serve the neighborhood.

 

The land can been seen, Pinto told the group on Saturday, as an asset from several perspectives: agriculturally, recreationally, educationally and culturally. The group that owns the property, Watts Labor Community Action Committee, wants to make sure the growers have a place to grow food. But it also wants to make the land an more integral part of the community -- perhaps by adding an incubator kitchen, a farmers market, classes and other programs.

The food bloggers get together to share information about food and about the business of blogging, says Erika Penzer Kerekes of In Erika's kitchen.

-- Mary MacVean

Photos: (top) Bloggers walk through Mudtown. Credit: Patti Londre of Worth the Whisk

(bottom) A plot on the farm. Credit: Patti Londre of Worth the Whisk

Food task force celebrates at Vibiana with chefs, farmers and great food

Hundreds of people ate and drank at Vibiana, the former Roman Catholic cathedral, on Wednesday evening to celebrate the work of the Food Policy Task Force -– a group convened last year by L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to consider how to make locally produced food better serve all the people of Southern California.

The mayor spoke at the event, noting that Los Angeles is a city where children go hungry, too few people use food stamps and the obesity rate is too high. He said the Food Policy Council -– a more permanent follow-up to the task force -– is going to address some of those issues. [Read more here about the task force's efforts to create a regional food system that would allow low-income residents to buy locally produced food.]

“We have to recognize there’s no place for hunger in a state like California,” said A.G. Kawamura, the state food and agriculture secretary. “Agriculture is not something we can take for granted.”

No one went hungry Wednesday night.

Celebrating chefs and local food at Vibiana

If you’re the type who haunts the farmers markets to get a look at your favorite chefs, there’s a party coming up that will be full of star gazing. Roots of Change, an organization working to make food in California more sustainable and equitable, is organizing the party to celebrate the work of the Los Angeles Food Policy Task Force.

On Oct. 6, chefs and farmers – and a few politicians and policy experts – will gather at Vibiana on Main Street downtown for a reception called Good Food for All, a Taste of the Los Angeles Foodshed. Tickets are $100, and proceeds will benefit Hunger Action Los Angeles and Sustainable Economic Enterprises Los Angeles.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been invited to talk about his plans for food policy in the city. But he’ll have a hard time competing with the main event: a walk-around tasting from some of the city’s best-known chefs.

Among those who will be providing the food: Josiah Citrin of Melisse; Jimmy Shaw of Loteria; Brendan Collins of Waterloo & City; Susan Feniger of Street, Cuidad, Border Grill; Ray Garcia of Fig; Suzanne Goin of AOC, Lucques and Tavern; Mark Gold, Eva.

Amy Knoll Fraser, who with her husband, the chef Neal Fraser, are working to open a restaurant in part of the Vibiana building, says 35 chefs have agreed to take part. They are being partnered with a farmer or two.

The farms include: Coleman Farms, Flora Bella Farms, Garcia Organic Farm, McGrath Family Farms, Peacock Farm,  Penryn Orchard, Sage Martin Farms, Schaner Farms and Tamai Farms.

Neal Fraser will be one of the chefs cooking pork – several chefs will use as much of a whole hog as possible – and he’s working with Alex Weiser of Weiser Family Farm, Amy Knoll Fraser says.

The party is the kick-off event for the Roots of Change conference, being held Thursday and Friday at the Omni Hotel downtown. The focus is on how to increase access to healthy, affordable, fairly and sustainably produced foods.

“I think this is something that’s at the core of what we do as food industry professionals, and it’s also a really important thing for the city,” Amy Knoll Fraser says.

-- Mary MacVean

(Photo of Neal Fraser by Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Eat, talk to chefs at Beard dinners on tour

For years, chefs both famous and up-and-coming have cooked dinners in the Greenwich Village house where James Beard lived. But it’s a small place, and we can’t all go to New York for dinner. A shame, of course.

But Jeff Black’s Celebrity Chef Tour tries to re-create the experience around the country, including a dinner set for Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. at the Penthouse at the Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica.

For $130 to $150, diners will have six courses, with wine, cooked by five chefs: Stefan Richter of L.A. Farm, C.J. Jacobson from The Yard, Shannon Swindle of Craft, Jeffrey Nimer of Haute Chefs and Seth Greenburg of the Penthouse.

After dinner, the chefs are to join the guests and talk about -– what else? -– food and being a chef.

“Even though $150 is a lot of money for people, for this dinner, it’s still an amazing value,” said Black, president of the Celebrity Chef Tour.

A portion of the proceeds benefit the James Beard Foundation, and Black said the tours have raised $850,000 for the foundation since 2004.

The Santa Monica dinner is one of 20 being held around the country this year.

-- Mary MacVean

Photo: Beard Foundation award medal. Credit: Beard Foundation

 

Nonprofit group gleans 1 million servings of fruit for food banks

 

Food Forward, the nonprofit group that picks fruit for donation to food banks, says it has picked 1 million servings of fruit as of this week. That’s about 250,000 to 260,000 pounds in its two years, says the founder, Rick Nahmias.

He began Food Forward when he noticed many trees groaning with unpicked fruit in his neighborhood. Turns out there are trees with fruit available all over the area. People who want their fruit picked can contact Food Forward, and it organizes groups of volunteers to glean it.

On Saturday, for example, volunteers are going to Montecito to pick Valencia oranges on an estate. But frequently, the destination is a home with a tree or two.

Since Food Forward started it has mostly collected citrus fruit, but sometimes picks other things, including avocados, Nahmias says.

The produce goes to SOVA, a program of Jewish Family Services, and MEND Poverty. They distribute food to 30,000 clients a month.

-- Mary MacVean

Image: Food Forward

Let the ideas go pie in the sky for Evan Kleiman's second summer pie contest

Evan Kleiman is deep into her second pie contest. So she’s baking and talking pie all summer. She recently spent time coming up with “Coconana Pie,” made with banana and coconut. And she talked recently with chef Rick Bayless about his longtime love of peach pie:

Bayless said his grandmother would gather her nine grandchildren in Oklahoma to pick bushels of peaches, many of which would end up in pies. Peach pie, he said, is “the most nostalgic food in the world to me.”

Kleiman, chef-owenr of Angeli Caffe and host of KCRW's Good Food show, offers ideas for summer pies on her Good Food blog. And blogger Christie Bishop submitted a campfire favorite turned into a pie: S’Mores Summertime, above.

Last year, about 150 pies were carefully carried to Westfield Topanga shopping mall for the final judging and boundless tasting. The adventurous might take note: The winner was a carefully but traditionally made apple pie.

Judging this year is scheduled for Sept. 5, and the entry form is available on the KCRW website. Categories include fruit, nut, savory – and one that defies categorization, interpretive.

The judges include L.A. Weekly writer Jonathan Gold, Ammo pastry chef Roxanna Jullapat, Huckleberry Café owner Zoe Nathan, Akasha owner Akasha Richmond, Hatfield’s Karen Hatfield and Eric Greenspan of the Foundry on Melrose.

-- Mary MacVean

Photo courtesy of Pardonmycrumbs.com

 

Helping introduce military veterans to farming

Colin Archipley and his wife, Karen, own Archi's Acres, which grows herbs and greens -- and avocados -- on six acres, some of which he owns and some of which he rents, selling at farmers markets and to Whole Foods and other retailers. They have also started Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training, an organization geared toward working with service-disabled, combat-experienced post-9/11 veterans.

Read more about how the couple, and others, are encouraging former soldiers, sailors and Marines to consider careers in farming and other food-related businesses.

Photo: Colin Archipley of Archi's Acres, left, points out an irrigation system to a veteran. Credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times