Bon Appétit Management Company

Since I moved to Seattle a year and a half ago, there’s no farm whose name has come up more than Quillisascut, located in the foothills of the Huckleberry Mountains in Rice, WA. And since I visit farms as Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation’s West Coast Fellow, I have lots of conversations about food and farming. Quillisascut is a cheese company, selling what they call “traditional farmstead cheese from the pampered pets of Pleasant Valley,” but it’s also a school for the domestic arts. After completing a five-day “Introduction to Farming” workshop at Quillisascut recently, nicely documented by Farmgirl Gourmet, I understand why this farm school is so beloved by food service professionals, healthcare students, farmers and aspiring farmers, vacationers, and other “co-producers” (as Slow Food and the farm’s cookbook, Chefs on the Farm refer to us “eaters”). Attendees from […]

What better way to celebrate this month’s Well Being Challenge, which invites you to explore the world of misunderstood vegetables than with fennel? To learn more about the misunderstood vegetables, visit cafebonappetit.com

Fennel Bulb and Frond Gratin

At Bon Appétit, we love local food — just ask the thousand-plus small farmers, fishers, and artisans who supply us through our Farm to Fork program. Inspired by them, teams at many of our corporate accounts have started growing some of their own food. These “kitchen gardens” not only provide ultra-fresh herbs and other produce, but also give us the opportunity to educate our guests about importance of local and sustainable food — and the hard work that goes into growing it. Here’s a look at “what’s growing on” at eBay, Target, and SAP!

The question is: How do you connect large volume needs of the University with the very small volume output of most Midwestern family farms? Bon Appétit at Washington University recently hosted a farmer’s meeting, inviting over 35 farmers from Illinois and Missouri, to tackle exactly this question.

For Joe and Joyce Malley, albacore tuna fishing is more than an occupation or a sport – it’s a lifelong love affair. And one they pursue thoughtfully.

This month’s Well Being Challenge invites you to explore what you’ve been missing by trying a vegetable you are not familiar with one time per week, whether in a Bon Appétit Cafe or at home. To get started, try the below recipe for a salad containing rhubarb, a lovely misunderstood vegetable worth exploring. To learn more about misunderstood vegetables, visit cafebonappetit.com.

As soon as we arrived at Country Roots Farm in Pueblo, CO, I knew this was going to be an interesting visit. Lying around were so many creative gadgets and yard decorations made from repurposed materials that I half expected Doc from Back to the Future to appear in Carhartts wielding a pitchfork.

When we Fellows visit college campuses to host educational events, we love going behind the kitchen doors and meeting the hardworking people who make Bon Appétit Management Company great. Here, I’d like to introduce you to Debra Swenson, lead cook at East Hall at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. Debra has been with Bon Appétit since we opened Carleton four years ago, but she’s been working in food service at Carleton for 32 years.

This month’s Well Being Challenge encourages you to choose a healthy meal that also meets a low carbon principle for at least one meal each day this month. To get started, try the below recipe that meets the seasonal and regional low carbon principle. To learn more about the nutrition principles of a low carbon diet, visit cafebonappetit.com

From foodies to vegans and the gluten-intolerant, today’s students are increasingly scrutinizing the food at their prospective colleges — and citing its quality and choice as major factors in their decision making. But comparing dining programs can be tough, without tasting food at each school and chatting with the dining services staff. The Daily Meal sought to make the process easier by pulling together a list of the nation’s top 20 colleges and universities, ranked by their food options. Four Bon Appétit accounts made the top 10!