Bon Appétit Management Company

This week, as millions of college students headed back to school, Newsweek/The Daily Beast released its College Rankings 2011, with categories including Most Service-Oriented, Most Beautiful, Future CEOs, and — most important to us — Best College Food, honoring those schools that “go above and beyond to make it great.” We are proud to say that on that list of 25, Bon Appétit Management Company teams feed a whopping eight of them:

Recently at Seattle University, Bon Appétit Management Company and Slow Food Seattle cosponsored a free showing of the new documentary Vanishing of the Bees, which was directed by George Langworthy and Maryam Heinen and narrated by actress Ellen Page. An astonishing 350 people attended the showing and the panel discussion with local beekeepers that followed.

Here’s a healthy dessert to round out this week’s bulghur and broccoli dishes

Bon Appétit Management Company is pleased to announce that it has joined the campaign for Food Day, a nationwide celebration of real food and an effort to improve health, the environment, and America’s food system. It’s a grassroots mobilization to push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way. On October 24, 2011, people will gather at events big and small and from coast to coast in homes, schools, colleges, churches, city halls, farmers markets, supermarkets, and elsewhere to both learn and advocate.

By Kristen Rasmussen, MS, RD Help your body repair the damage caused by aging and the environment by eating antioxidants. Deeply colored fruits, vegetables, and other naturally colored foods are rich in a variety of micronutrients that act as antioxidants, so eat a rainbow to guarantee you’re getting enough. For this month’s Well Being Challenge, we’re encouraging you to eat a meal containing fruits, vegetables, and other naturally colored foods from three different color groups at least once a day. To show off your beautiful and healthy meal, post photos of meals containing at least three different color groups on our Facebook page wall. Here’s an easy, tasty recipe to get you started! Steamed Broccoli with Caramelized Onions & Pine Nuts

Help your body repair the damage caused by aging and the environment by eating antioxidants. Deeply colored fruits, vegetables, and other naturally colored foods are rich in a variety of micronutrients that act as antioxidants, so eat a rainbow to guarantee you’re getting enough. This recipe for Bulgur Pilaf with Tomato, Zucchini, & Turmeric will get you started on the colorful path to health.

I eagerly returned for this summer’s eighth annual trip with other Bon Appétit staff to visit and dine with Shepherd’s Grain farmers in Washington State. On our excursion to Eastern Washington, Bon Appétit chefs, managers, and I visited the Spokane Hutterian Brethren Colony in Reardan, WA, where the Grosses, Hofers, and Walters uphold their collective 460-plus-year family tradition in farming, growing crops on 9,000 acres and living a self-sufficient lifestyle. I love this trip because – like many conscientious eaters today – I like to know where my food comes from. It’s a rare treat to be among 75 farmers and chefs who put the meaning of their work so eloquently into words.

When Jonas Stoltzfus of JuJo Acres in Loysville, PA, walked straight up to his non-castrated breeding bull and gave it a nice pat on the back, I knew I wasn’t on an ordinary farm.

What do local farms have to do with kitchen safety? Both farmers and food service providers have a responsibility to keep their customers from becoming sick — and the better you know those customers, the heavier that responsibility weighs. In addition, the more Bon Appétit employees know about the farmers and artisans who provide the food served in the cafés, the more they can inspire customers to support these local heroes. Supporting local food producers rewards our community with tastier, safer food that contributes to our local economy. Employees of Bon Appétit at Duke University in Durham, NC, recently had the opportunity to connect food safety and farming first hand

Although available year round, fresh asparagus during the peak season is an unmatched delight so this spring, Chef Kiley Davis of Kaneko Commons and I set out to find the best local asparagus for our kitchens here at Willamette University in Salem, OR. We found it during a visit to Kenagy Family Farms, located just 45 minutes south in Albany, OR.