So we went to the Roadhouse garden with Li Haixin and our constructer and we managed to explain perfectly well how to built the compost piles out of brick. We explained the dimensions, the need to leave wholes between the bricks and other stuff too and everything went well. It's great that we have so talented staff around here. A week from that the piles where ready and looking good - really, surprisingly good. We built three piles right next to each other, against the wall in the garden, next to the southern walkway. I wish I could add a picture here out of them, but I still can’t do that for some reason. However, I will add pictures of it to our Roadhouse Garden gallery which can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.fi/msrpublicphotos/TheRoadhouseSpringGarden# . Please feel free to have a look. The final dimensions of each pile is 1,5m wide, 1,1m deep, 0,8m high in the front and 1,1m high in the back - so it’s higher in the back than it is in the front, thus the cover is not straight but leading towards the ground. This way we were able to make more room to it and make the mixing of the compost convenient at the same time. Each pile goes also 30cm under ground, so the actual height from the bottom of the pile is 1,1m in the front and 1,4m in the back. This is for two reasons – first of all, the waste composts better if it has good contact with the ground and it’s little creatures, secondly this way we were able to make the composting space big enough without making it necessary to use ladders when working with the pile. The covers of the piles were made out of sheet metal with small air wholes in it. There is also a small space left between the walls and the cover to make the ventilation adequate.
So now we have the compost bins and the compost piles on sites – the composting can start. In a few moths we should have natural fertilizer (ready compost) to make organic garnening possible. As told earlier, we started to separate the waste before the piles where ready. That turned out to be a really good thing, because the first set of compost bags turned out to be rather disastrous. Not because there were wrong this put the bins per se, but because there were lots of liquids such as soup thrown there. When all this stuff was kept in the big compost bin behind art room, the bin was suddenly half full of liquids and it was a mess. Well, we just threw those ones among normal garbage and I made new signs above every bin saying “no liquids! 不要放任何液体!”. There were also some meet and even some cigarette butts thrown in the compost bins, but otherwise people have adopted this new separating thing really well. Of course there's a bit of something wrong occasionally, but by constantly checking the bins that hasn’t been a problem. I has really taken me by surprise how well people are doing this, how well the instructions are being fallowed. That’s a great thing and has made me believe that this thing is going to work. Well done staff!
It is Li Fengquen, our gardener and farmer, and his people who are going to transfer the compost to the Roadhouse compost piles and take care of the piles. We went to the site to explain how this thing works and at least he seemed to be on the same page. First we decided to put the plastic bags containing the compost waste to the big compost bin and then make them empty the bags to the compost piles. However, yesterday we decided with Randhir to empty the plastic bags already to the big compost bin and the big bin can just be emptied to the compost pile with a shovel or something like that. We came to this decision because we though it would be easier for Li Fenquen’s people this way and also because the bin was still too wet, so we though that if the bags are emptied there in the first place we can add there dry material to keep it dryer. It is a little bit hard to explain, but anyway it’s easier to take care of the big compost bin behind the art room if the plastic bags are emptied there. We can mix brown material straight there in addition to adding it to the pile and that way make the compost program more likely to succeed. I gave a document to Li Fenquan (thanks to Michelle for translation!) which has some instructions how to take care of the compost piles and how to make a right combination of green and brown material. I also wrote down a bit more detailed procedures for him as well as others, but they are still waiting to be translated and handed over:
1. Transport the big bin behind Art Room once or twice a week to Roadhouse compost piles (day to be decided). Empty the bin to the pile. If you see something that doesn’t belong there (plastic, metal, glass, bones) take them away. Empty the bin with a shovel, that way it’s easier to see if there’s something wrong.
2. Regularly collect garden waste, dry leaves, pine needles, saw dust, wood sticks, small branches etc. (brown waste) and add them to compost pile. When emptying the kitchen waste to the compost pile, make sure that there will be more of this brown material. Even soil can be added.
3. Mix the compost pile thoroughly from the bottom once a week. Mix the kitchen waste with other waste. There must be enough dry material!
4. The compost pile should be a little bit moist at all times – not too dry, not too wet. If it seems too dry, water it a little, if it seems too wet, add more dry material.
5. When one compost pile is full, start another one. The full one needs still to be mixed once a week! This is because otherwise it doesn’t get the air needed.
6. The compost should be ready in two-three months. It is ready when it smells and looks like earth and nothing can be identified.
I also made a document which tells possible problems concerning composting and possible solutions to these problems. That will be given to Li Fengquan as well as some other staff when it’s translated. Well, that’s enough about composting now, all I can say is this is something I’ve never done before and I’m trying my best to make it work. Let’s hope for the best.
Then to the other subject. One of the three kinds of lettuce, the Lollo Rosso lettuce, grew rather successfully and we harvested it’s baby leaves last Saturday. There weren’t more than 500gs of it, but it was enough to make it a part of our daily special salad, “salad with baby greens from our own garden” for some time. It was also used as an ingredient in The Schoolhouse Greens salad. It is highly rewarding to serve our own lettuce as a part of a salad, no matter in how small quantities. Lollo Rosso is a loose kind of lettuce with a bit more bitterness than other sorts of lettuce, some describe it even “nutty”. It has a fairly tender yet crisp texture. It has soft leaves with green colour with purple-red on the curly edges. The name actually comes from a reputable fresh salad source La Veneta based near Venice in the heart of Veneto, Italy. Thus this lettuce is typically Italian and using it gives our restaurant a little bit of nice sophisticated Italian feeling. Lollo Rosso can grow even 20cm wide and it’s a good lettuce to grow here in summery China – it tolerates heat well without bolting, unlike most lettuces. Maybe that’s why it was the most successful lettuce out of the three ones. Lollo Rosso contains antioxidant quercetin, which arguably reduces the risk of heart diseases – once again, serving our own healthy food acts hand in hand with principles of sustainable food.
Today Li Fengquen planted new lettuce and herbs. We are hoping that those ones grow better than the previous ones. Lollo Rosso was planted 5.6.2009 and harvested 6.6.2009 as baby leaves, so in one month we should have more lettuce. On the other hand, it is a “cut and regrow” lettuce and the same lettuce should grow again. Still, we did this wrong, we should’ve planted the new lettuce earlier to guarantee continuous fresh lettuce, but there were some operational problems. However, this is something we can learn from and make strict procedures for coming years. It is my job to write down clear procedures, who does what, when, why, how to document etc. and thus make sure that next year (and the ones after that) this company has a clear program how to make this whole gardening thing as efficient, sustainable and flawless as possible. Again, this is completely new to me, but I’ll surely do my best. When I leave The Schoolhouse, I would like to leave them a program of how to do things regarding sustainable foods.
Oh and one more thing – we moved five kilos of spring onion to grow in our Manger-s house. No we have onions growing there instead of just plain earth, which is great! The spring onion is almost ready to be used as leeks – earlier only the green plant parts were ready to be served, and were served, but anyday now we are going to serve our own leek. Well, that’s it for now, keep tuned and I’ll let you now how everything goes here.
Thanks for your interest,
Pietari
Jun 10, 2009
May 31, 2009
And The Composting Finally Started!
Today, the actual composting process finally started, we started to separate the compostable waste from the non-compostable waste in The Schoolhouse. We started to do that already even though the brick-made compost piles aren’t built yet, to get everyone familiarised with the composting process and to get things going smoothly. When starting something like this, it is highly likely that during the first day or two there will be some non-compostable material thrown into the bins, that’s almost inevitable – you can’t expect people to get it right in a minute. That’s why it’s good to start separating the waste beforehand, so that when the brick-bins are finished, everyone has already learned how to separate the waste correctly and thus it’s more probable that the pile will be filled with only compostable material - which is crucial in order to it to compost. Okay, I admit, this means that the actual actual "composting process" in theory hasn't started yet because nothing is composting yet at The Roadhouse, but I still would say that today is the day when composting started in our company.
Earlier this week we went with Randhir and Tang Liang to Sihui market area in Beijing to buy the compost bins. The market was probably the biggest market area I’ve ever been with huge areas packed with people selling everything, mostly stuff for hotels and restaurants. It was a nice – but exhausting – place. Anyway, we wanted to buy black middle-sized bins, so that we would have a sort of colour-code for compost bins. After searching for a while we found good bins and bought ten of those – four for The Schoolhouse, five for Roadhouse and one for Xiaolumian. We also made one small bin a compost bin and placed it to cashier in The Schoolhouse. So no we have altogether 11 compost bins collecting compostable waste. Finally! I made a following signs which we taped to each bin to guide people what to throw there and what to not throw there. Many thanks to Michelle for translating!
COMPOST BIN
FOR:
VEGETABLE & FRUIT WASTE AND PEELS
FOOD SCRAPS (NON-MEAT, NON-DAIRY)
EGG SHELLS, NUT SHELLS
BREAD, RICE, NOODLES
PAPER NAPKINS, NEWSPAPER
TEA BAGS
COFFEE GROUNDS, FILTERS
WOOD CHIPS, WOOD ASH
LEAVES, FLOWES, GARDEN WASTE
NO GLASS, NO PLASTIC, NO METAL, NO CARTONS, NO CLOTHES, NO CIGARETTE BUTTS, NO MEAT, NO BONES, NO DAIRY!!!
混 合 肥 料 箱
请 放 在 这 里:
蔬菜和水果残渣，果皮
食物残渣 （不包括肉类或奶制品）
鸡蛋壳和坚果壳
面包，米饭和面条
餐巾纸和报纸
茶包
咖啡渣和咖啡过滤纸
木屑和碳灰
树叶，花, 园林残渣
不 包 括:
玻璃，塑料，金属，硬纸箱，衣服，烟蒂，肉类，骨头，奶制品 !!!
Obviously, the text in the acutal signs is bigger and centralized, thus easier to read and notice. The English as well as the Chinese signs are the size of A4, so each bins has two A4 sized signs taped in the front.
Yesterday morning we told the staff about the separating of waste and composting we are going to do and everybody actually seemed rather interested. Today, when we finally got the bins out with the signs, the staff gladly read the text and they genuinely seemed to be interested – at least no one seemed indifferent. I went around many times today to see what people had thrown to the bins and I was surprised how correct things there seemed to be. And of course I told people that they were doing really well separating the waste! I really appreciate that people are rather serious about this. One thing, however, was thrown there that shouldn’t have, fish and some chicken, but that was my fault as in the list there is only meat and dairy mentioned, not fish or chicken etc. I told that no fish or chicken to the bins, basically nothing from animals, and I seemed to get the message through. Let’s see again tomorrow. This is how it works – little by little we teach everyone to separate the “right” from the “wrong”. Luckily for the project, everyone at least seems to be on the page and willing to help to make this composting thing a success. The compost bin in the couryard (mostly for customers) got filled with bottles and stuff, so there should be added extra signs on the wall on top of the bin. We want to keep one compost bin next to the restaurant entrance to show people what we are doing - surely it's worth letting customers know that we are trying our best to be environmentally friendly.
Tomorrow morning we finally go with Li Haixin and our constructer to The Roadhouse to explain where and how to built the compost piles. I haven’t made any drawings or visual plans, hopefully we still can get him to build the piles the right way. Maybe I should have made nice drawings, but I’m really not good at that and probably would just confuse everyone. Well, anyway, hopefully tomorrow will be a success, today certainly was. I’ll keep you updated.
Enjoy the beginning of summer!
Earlier this week we went with Randhir and Tang Liang to Sihui market area in Beijing to buy the compost bins. The market was probably the biggest market area I’ve ever been with huge areas packed with people selling everything, mostly stuff for hotels and restaurants. It was a nice – but exhausting – place. Anyway, we wanted to buy black middle-sized bins, so that we would have a sort of colour-code for compost bins. After searching for a while we found good bins and bought ten of those – four for The Schoolhouse, five for Roadhouse and one for Xiaolumian. We also made one small bin a compost bin and placed it to cashier in The Schoolhouse. So no we have altogether 11 compost bins collecting compostable waste. Finally! I made a following signs which we taped to each bin to guide people what to throw there and what to not throw there. Many thanks to Michelle for translating!
COMPOST BIN
FOR:
VEGETABLE & FRUIT WASTE AND PEELS
FOOD SCRAPS (NON-MEAT, NON-DAIRY)
EGG SHELLS, NUT SHELLS
BREAD, RICE, NOODLES
PAPER NAPKINS, NEWSPAPER
TEA BAGS
COFFEE GROUNDS, FILTERS
WOOD CHIPS, WOOD ASH
LEAVES, FLOWES, GARDEN WASTE
NO GLASS, NO PLASTIC, NO METAL, NO CARTONS, NO CLOTHES, NO CIGARETTE BUTTS, NO MEAT, NO BONES, NO DAIRY!!!
混 合 肥 料 箱
请 放 在 这 里:
蔬菜和水果残渣，果皮
食物残渣 （不包括肉类或奶制品）
鸡蛋壳和坚果壳
面包，米饭和面条
餐巾纸和报纸
茶包
咖啡渣和咖啡过滤纸
木屑和碳灰
树叶，花, 园林残渣
不 包 括:
玻璃，塑料，金属，硬纸箱，衣服，烟蒂，肉类，骨头，奶制品 !!!
Obviously, the text in the acutal signs is bigger and centralized, thus easier to read and notice. The English as well as the Chinese signs are the size of A4, so each bins has two A4 sized signs taped in the front.
Yesterday morning we told the staff about the separating of waste and composting we are going to do and everybody actually seemed rather interested. Today, when we finally got the bins out with the signs, the staff gladly read the text and they genuinely seemed to be interested – at least no one seemed indifferent. I went around many times today to see what people had thrown to the bins and I was surprised how correct things there seemed to be. And of course I told people that they were doing really well separating the waste! I really appreciate that people are rather serious about this. One thing, however, was thrown there that shouldn’t have, fish and some chicken, but that was my fault as in the list there is only meat and dairy mentioned, not fish or chicken etc. I told that no fish or chicken to the bins, basically nothing from animals, and I seemed to get the message through. Let’s see again tomorrow. This is how it works – little by little we teach everyone to separate the “right” from the “wrong”. Luckily for the project, everyone at least seems to be on the page and willing to help to make this composting thing a success. The compost bin in the couryard (mostly for customers) got filled with bottles and stuff, so there should be added extra signs on the wall on top of the bin. We want to keep one compost bin next to the restaurant entrance to show people what we are doing - surely it's worth letting customers know that we are trying our best to be environmentally friendly.
Tomorrow morning we finally go with Li Haixin and our constructer to The Roadhouse to explain where and how to built the compost piles. I haven’t made any drawings or visual plans, hopefully we still can get him to build the piles the right way. Maybe I should have made nice drawings, but I’m really not good at that and probably would just confuse everyone. Well, anyway, hopefully tomorrow will be a success, today certainly was. I’ll keep you updated.
Enjoy the beginning of summer!
May 25, 2009
Rucola at The Schoolhouse... And a quick update on the garden
Rucola is coming up very well in our Roadhouse Spring Garden, and it is the next plant we are going to use in our restaurants – actually, we are going to harvest some of it today. Rucola is one of the vegetables we were most eager to have our own, because we use it in relatively small quantities and thus it is possible and easy for us to grow all the rucola we use by ourselves. It is always a great feeling to be able to actually grow all of some vegetable needed, that really is what sustainable food is much about. To be honest, rucola is really expensive to purchase and that is – no need to deny it – one of the reasons we really want to grow it ourselves. It is great news for us that the rucola turned out to be one of the most successful plants in our garden. We still have two bags of rucola seeds left and we should plant some more of it soon, to guarantee continuous supply of fresh rucola. To harvest rucola, we are ought to just pick the leaves and new ones will generate for months. The leaves should be used within two days, or wrapped tightly in plastic bags with cool water. Rucola goes bad quicly, unfortunately. When to pick the leaves is more or less a question of taste - the older the leaves, the more intense the flavour. Younger leaves have a milder taste and therefore are best for salads, while older leaves may be slightly bitter. As we are going to use it mostly is salads, we’ll try pick the young leaves. Rucola is relatively easy plant to grow at home, the best time to grow it is spring and early summer. Later when we are going to grow it, in the middle of summer, a plastic cover should be placed on top of the planting to protect it from too much direct sunlight.
So, what is this plant we call rucola? It is a bitterish and somewhat pungent salad plant with a peppery and mustardy flavour, which has a bit of a “elitist” reputation for some reason and is widely used in kitchens especially in Italy and other parts of southern Europe. Actually, although I called it a “salad leaf”, rucola is an annual leafy herb plant belonging to the mustard family. It is mostly used in salads, usually mixed with plenty of other greens, because by itself it is rather strong. Other popular uses for it is to make rucola pesto or pasta sauce, or serve it slightly sauteed. It is also, like most herbs, used for some medical purposes. Rucola is actually the Italian name of this plant, which is widely known also as arugula and rocket in English language. Rucola has long traditions in the Mediterranean and has been used there since Roman times. However, what’s unusual when it comes to rucola is that it has traditionally only been collected from the wild and hasn’t been grown commercially until recent decades. It still grows wild around Asia and Mediterranean. In Roman times, the seeds of rucola were also used to give flavour to oil. Like most salads, rucola is low in calories and high in vitamins such as A and C as well as magnesium, which again serves perfectly our purpose of serving healthy food. Rucola is still most widely used in southern Europe, but it has been getting increasingly popular in other parts of the World since the 1990’s – indeed, some even call it the national vegetable in USA today. In Chinese cuisine, on the other hand, it is still largely overshadowed by other vegetables, although it’s getting trendy now, at least among the rich folk.
As I said, we are going the harvest the first rucola leaves today or tomorrow. At this point, we are going to use it only in The Schoolhouse restaurant. Our chef is going to use it for two purposes:
- Fresh rucola as an ingredient in special salads
- Pureed rucola as part of the pasta (yes, the actual pasta, not as sauce)
And then a quick update on The Roadhouse Spring Garden. Earlier I said that, to our big misfortune, herbs and lettuce are not growing at all, but during these few days me and Randhir noticed that there are actually right plants growing up, slowly but steadily. So, maybe these plants just need lot of time and we haven’t failed after all? The only plants we do not see growing at all are flat parsley, rosemary and thyme. Maybe we should buy young plants of those, but give the other ones chance to grow from the seed. Today, I actually tasted our own dill – there are not much coming out yet but it definitely was dill. We asked the gardeners to take out all the wrong plants growing (yes, there are plenty of things coming out but not the right ones) so that the herbs could grow in peace. Strawberry plants have generated some strawberries already, but the plants are suffering and dying in the sun. We should get some cover on top of the strawberry way as soon as possible, as well as something to cover the outcoming lettuce, as the sun is getting too srong for it. We have already tried to ask for it but… Well, hopefully we’ll get it done soon.
Sorry for not posting pictures here, I can’t do it now for some reason becouse of the "blog block". However, I have made a public photo gallery of the garden and it can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.fi/msrpublicphotos/TheRoadhouseSpringGarden#. Note that each picture has a date written below, so you see when it’s taken. I am updating (adding new pictures) the gallery on a weekly basis at least, so keep on checking on it. There you can see, for example, how the rucola is growing and the first pictures of the slowly upcoming lettuce.
So, what is this plant we call rucola? It is a bitterish and somewhat pungent salad plant with a peppery and mustardy flavour, which has a bit of a “elitist” reputation for some reason and is widely used in kitchens especially in Italy and other parts of southern Europe. Actually, although I called it a “salad leaf”, rucola is an annual leafy herb plant belonging to the mustard family. It is mostly used in salads, usually mixed with plenty of other greens, because by itself it is rather strong. Other popular uses for it is to make rucola pesto or pasta sauce, or serve it slightly sauteed. It is also, like most herbs, used for some medical purposes. Rucola is actually the Italian name of this plant, which is widely known also as arugula and rocket in English language. Rucola has long traditions in the Mediterranean and has been used there since Roman times. However, what’s unusual when it comes to rucola is that it has traditionally only been collected from the wild and hasn’t been grown commercially until recent decades. It still grows wild around Asia and Mediterranean. In Roman times, the seeds of rucola were also used to give flavour to oil. Like most salads, rucola is low in calories and high in vitamins such as A and C as well as magnesium, which again serves perfectly our purpose of serving healthy food. Rucola is still most widely used in southern Europe, but it has been getting increasingly popular in other parts of the World since the 1990’s – indeed, some even call it the national vegetable in USA today. In Chinese cuisine, on the other hand, it is still largely overshadowed by other vegetables, although it’s getting trendy now, at least among the rich folk.
As I said, we are going the harvest the first rucola leaves today or tomorrow. At this point, we are going to use it only in The Schoolhouse restaurant. Our chef is going to use it for two purposes:
- Fresh rucola as an ingredient in special salads
- Pureed rucola as part of the pasta (yes, the actual pasta, not as sauce)
And then a quick update on The Roadhouse Spring Garden. Earlier I said that, to our big misfortune, herbs and lettuce are not growing at all, but during these few days me and Randhir noticed that there are actually right plants growing up, slowly but steadily. So, maybe these plants just need lot of time and we haven’t failed after all? The only plants we do not see growing at all are flat parsley, rosemary and thyme. Maybe we should buy young plants of those, but give the other ones chance to grow from the seed. Today, I actually tasted our own dill – there are not much coming out yet but it definitely was dill. We asked the gardeners to take out all the wrong plants growing (yes, there are plenty of things coming out but not the right ones) so that the herbs could grow in peace. Strawberry plants have generated some strawberries already, but the plants are suffering and dying in the sun. We should get some cover on top of the strawberry way as soon as possible, as well as something to cover the outcoming lettuce, as the sun is getting too srong for it. We have already tried to ask for it but… Well, hopefully we’ll get it done soon.
Sorry for not posting pictures here, I can’t do it now for some reason becouse of the "blog block". However, I have made a public photo gallery of the garden and it can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.fi/msrpublicphotos/TheRoadhouseSpringGarden#. Note that each picture has a date written below, so you see when it’s taken. I am updating (adding new pictures) the gallery on a weekly basis at least, so keep on checking on it. There you can see, for example, how the rucola is growing and the first pictures of the slowly upcoming lettuce.
May 24, 2009
Update on composting
Now it’s time to post a little update on our composting program. Even though it hasn’t been implemented yet, the composting program has been vastly planned and we’ve been thinking through it a lot. So far the first step – deciding where to build the compost and what kind of – the decision has been made. We are going to build the compost piles right next to our Roadhouse garden, against the wall, where they are close to the place the actual compost product is going to be used on – the garden. That is virtually the only possible place we have available in our premises, given all the requirements and practical issues. I will post a picture of the spot once it is possible. There is a bit less space than I originally thought, but after thinking it through we don’t really need more space. Three or four separate piles fits there perfectly and that is all we need, at this point at least. We’ll have to be careful, though, to construct the pile and take care of it correctly, so that it wouldn’t smell too bad – the compost will be rather close to the outside terrace of the Roadhouse restaurant. We decided that we are going to be strict about not throwing any meat or diary to the piles, in order to keep them as “clean” and not-smelly as possible. Compost pile, when taken care of properly, shouldn’t smell, and that is naturally our goal.
So we are going to build the compost places out of brick, which is a material we have and use a lot. That will also look the best, given the brick-made walkways and the wall in the garden, and the overall appearence of everything around here. As explained in the first compost post, the piles shouldn’t be too small or too big – too small won’t heat enough and too big won’t get enough air inside. Something about 1,5m each direction would be ideal. Ours will be about 1,5m high and 1,5m wide but only about 1m long due to the limited space of the spot. They will be dug about 20-30cm underground to make them more efficient and to make the turning of the pile easier. Me and Li Haixin are due to go to the garden tomorrow with our constructer to explain him how to built the brick piles. The most important things are to explain clearly the dimensions and also to make sure that there are going to be wholes between the bricks. If they are built without several air wholes, the compost won’t get air and thus will not work. So there should be left space between some bricks, we have to explain that really carefully to the constructer. Let see how that goes. At the same time, the brick piles should be steady, so there should be a golden middle way found. Anyway, it is absolutely crucial to leave space between bricks, otherwise the piles simple don’t get enough air. The piles should also have some kind of covers, in order to keep the rain and the animals away to some extent and to help to block the odours.
It is not enough to have the place to pile the compost in, you need to actually start separating the compostable waste from the other waste. We are going to buy the bins going to be used for this purpose, as we want them to be black in order to be easily distinguished. We were thinking with our chef how many different bins to collect the compost would be suitable for us, and finally ended up that there should be separated compost-collecting bins as follows:
- Two in the kitchen of The Schoolhouse, one in cold kitchen and one in hot kitchen
- One in the dishwashing room
- One in the cashier (tea bags, coffee grounds and filters)
- Four in The Roadhouse, one in garbage room, one in hot kitchen, one in cold kitchen and one in vegetable room (the most important one).
- One in Xiaolumian kitchen
Also, there should be one big bin behind the art room in The Schoolhouse, where the smaller ones are emptied once full, and which is going to be transported to the Roadhouse compost piles about once a week, depending on how quickly it fills up. That way it is much easier to get the compostable waste to the Roadhouse, instead of transporting separately each small bag. The big bin will be transported preferably with Li Fengquen’s car, where there is an open “pallet” in the back. At the Roadhouse, the big bin will be emptied to the piles and mixed with brown material, e.g. leaves, paper, garden waste, branches, even soil. Then it’s going to be left there waiting for more material. The pile should be turned or mixed about once a week. It should also be watered regularly, but at the same time we must be careful not to overwater it. I was thinking that we should probably also buy some king of organic “compost helper” to make the process faster, but I'm not sure whether that's going to happen. So, anyway, that’s basically how this process is going to work in practice. Hopefully we get it successfully done!
One of the most crucial parts of this process is to educate the staff how to separate correctly the waste. I already made a PowerPoint presentation to our management team about composting, and next we should do something like that in Chinese to the other staff. We should try to explain the reasons why composting is a good thing, probably that way everybody gets motivated, at least a bit, and the separating process is more likely to be successful. However, even more important is just simply to make sure that everyone knows what to put into the compost bins. There will be clear signs above every bin both in Chinese and English telling what to put there. We are going to compost:
- Fruit & vegetable peels, scraps
- Egg shells
- Rice
- Noodles
- Potatoes
- Paper tissues
- Tea bags
- Coffee grounds & filters
- Food scraps that don’t contain meat or dairy, and that are not really oily
In addition, all the garden waste is going to the compost piles as well, and that is crucial as it balances the green material and the brown material. Me and Randhir are going to keep eye on the bins as best as we can and try to assure that uncompostable things are not going to composting bins. I was thinking that we should also collect the paper from the tables to one separate bin, and at the end of the day cut it smaller and add to the compost bins. That’s a good source of brown material, which we need more than the green material (mostly kitchen waste and grass). The compost should be ready, if taken care properly, in 2-4 months – it’s ready when it smells like dark earth and none of it’s ingredients can be identified.
Well, that’s the update on composting available at the moment. Sorry if I was repeating myself (see earlier post), but it’s always good to refresh memory, right?
Have a nice week everyone! And start composting yourselves!
So we are going to build the compost places out of brick, which is a material we have and use a lot. That will also look the best, given the brick-made walkways and the wall in the garden, and the overall appearence of everything around here. As explained in the first compost post, the piles shouldn’t be too small or too big – too small won’t heat enough and too big won’t get enough air inside. Something about 1,5m each direction would be ideal. Ours will be about 1,5m high and 1,5m wide but only about 1m long due to the limited space of the spot. They will be dug about 20-30cm underground to make them more efficient and to make the turning of the pile easier. Me and Li Haixin are due to go to the garden tomorrow with our constructer to explain him how to built the brick piles. The most important things are to explain clearly the dimensions and also to make sure that there are going to be wholes between the bricks. If they are built without several air wholes, the compost won’t get air and thus will not work. So there should be left space between some bricks, we have to explain that really carefully to the constructer. Let see how that goes. At the same time, the brick piles should be steady, so there should be a golden middle way found. Anyway, it is absolutely crucial to leave space between bricks, otherwise the piles simple don’t get enough air. The piles should also have some kind of covers, in order to keep the rain and the animals away to some extent and to help to block the odours.
It is not enough to have the place to pile the compost in, you need to actually start separating the compostable waste from the other waste. We are going to buy the bins going to be used for this purpose, as we want them to be black in order to be easily distinguished. We were thinking with our chef how many different bins to collect the compost would be suitable for us, and finally ended up that there should be separated compost-collecting bins as follows:
- Two in the kitchen of The Schoolhouse, one in cold kitchen and one in hot kitchen
- One in the dishwashing room
- One in the cashier (tea bags, coffee grounds and filters)
- Four in The Roadhouse, one in garbage room, one in hot kitchen, one in cold kitchen and one in vegetable room (the most important one).
- One in Xiaolumian kitchen
Also, there should be one big bin behind the art room in The Schoolhouse, where the smaller ones are emptied once full, and which is going to be transported to the Roadhouse compost piles about once a week, depending on how quickly it fills up. That way it is much easier to get the compostable waste to the Roadhouse, instead of transporting separately each small bag. The big bin will be transported preferably with Li Fengquen’s car, where there is an open “pallet” in the back. At the Roadhouse, the big bin will be emptied to the piles and mixed with brown material, e.g. leaves, paper, garden waste, branches, even soil. Then it’s going to be left there waiting for more material. The pile should be turned or mixed about once a week. It should also be watered regularly, but at the same time we must be careful not to overwater it. I was thinking that we should probably also buy some king of organic “compost helper” to make the process faster, but I'm not sure whether that's going to happen. So, anyway, that’s basically how this process is going to work in practice. Hopefully we get it successfully done!
One of the most crucial parts of this process is to educate the staff how to separate correctly the waste. I already made a PowerPoint presentation to our management team about composting, and next we should do something like that in Chinese to the other staff. We should try to explain the reasons why composting is a good thing, probably that way everybody gets motivated, at least a bit, and the separating process is more likely to be successful. However, even more important is just simply to make sure that everyone knows what to put into the compost bins. There will be clear signs above every bin both in Chinese and English telling what to put there. We are going to compost:
- Fruit & vegetable peels, scraps
- Egg shells
- Rice
- Noodles
- Potatoes
- Paper tissues
- Tea bags
- Coffee grounds & filters
- Food scraps that don’t contain meat or dairy, and that are not really oily
In addition, all the garden waste is going to the compost piles as well, and that is crucial as it balances the green material and the brown material. Me and Randhir are going to keep eye on the bins as best as we can and try to assure that uncompostable things are not going to composting bins. I was thinking that we should also collect the paper from the tables to one separate bin, and at the end of the day cut it smaller and add to the compost bins. That’s a good source of brown material, which we need more than the green material (mostly kitchen waste and grass). The compost should be ready, if taken care properly, in 2-4 months – it’s ready when it smells like dark earth and none of it’s ingredients can be identified.
Well, that’s the update on composting available at the moment. Sorry if I was repeating myself (see earlier post), but it’s always good to refresh memory, right?
Have a nice week everyone! And start composting yourselves!
May 17, 2009
Roadhouse Spring Garden vol. 3
The walkways in the Roadhouse Spring Garden are finished. They were done really efficiently, in a week or so which tells something really good about people working here. Anyway, below you can see two pictures about the finished walkways (or will see once I manage the put them here, right now it doesn't work). I think they fit there really well, it was a great idea to built them instead of just settling for the dirt paths. Now people can walk around the garden and see what we have there. In fact, ýesterday we had a major even in Roadhouse, The Roadhouse Grill, so it was really good we had the walkways finished. There were plenty of people walking around the garden, and they seemed rather interested when I told them details about the garden. It appeared also that the garden was a popular playing ground amongs the children, which made me, to be honest, a bit worried about the plantings - but everything went well. However, all fo the signs aren’t there yet which is something I am not proud off. Put before the event started, I went there to put most of the sings, the rest I explained to as many customers I could. I really try to get all the signs there as soon as possible with Li Haixin, hopefully we’ll get it done.
There are both good and bad news when it comes to the garden. Let’s start with the good ones. As told earlier, pink radish and spring onion has been growing really well and we have started to pick them up to be served in the restaurants. Spring onion, or scallion as it’s often called, is a species of onion which is less mature and less developed than “normal” onions we use - in fact they are very young onions, harvested before the bulb has had a chance to swell. They are not as strong as onions usually and thus are delicious raw and widely used in salads. When used with other vegetables or herbs, they do not overpower the dish as regular onion quite often tends to do. Both the green tops and the small white bulbs are edible, which makes spring onion more varied than regular more mature onions. Indeed, spring onions are really popular throughout Asia as a flavouring green, as a herb, as a garnish and as a vegetable itself. Spring onion is really popular in Chinese cuisine as a part of stir-fried dishes. In Roadhouse, the spring onion is pretty much ready and we have harvested in once already – we got 13 kg’s of it, from an area roughly 1/5 of the total spring onion plot. We are going to harvest it bit by bit, because it’s virtually impossible to preserve and lasts only about 5 days fresh. Our chef is going to use it as follows:
- The green tops served as complimentary appertizers in The Shcoolhouse, with tsatsiki and sesame paste.
- The green tops and the bulbs as part of various hot dishes in The Roadhouse and Xiaolumian
Radish, including the pink radish, is an edible root vegetable very common all around the Globe. It can be seen as an “ancient vegetable” as it was domesticated before the Roman times in Europe. Radish is an excellent plant to grow in gardens, as it is rather easy to grow and it grows fast. In fact, its original Greek name “raphanus” means something like “quickly appearing”. Anyway, pink radish is a significantly healthy root vegetable which is generally used as a garnish or salad ingredient – they are almost completely used only raw, and they have a rather strong peppery flavour. Radishes are a great source of, for example, vitamin C, sulphur, iron and iodine, which again is great when it comes the our aims of serving healthy food as a part of our sustainable foods program. Radishes stay fresh for about a week in a fridge – preferable in a plastic bag. To add a little bit crispiness, radishes are good to be soak in ice-water for an hour before serving. Here in garden, we have harvested already 3kgs of it (and the one time with no record, but that was not much). Radish also should be harvested bit by bit, due to the preservation problems. It’s been served as a part of complimentary vegetable plates in the Roadhouse and in Xiaolumian, as well as garnish in various dishes. It is also used constantly as part of the Schoolhouse Greens salad.
We have also planted eggplant and strawberries now. We finally have our strawberry way! Eggplants and strawberries were planted from small plants, not from seeds, which makes their survival highly likely. However, the strawberries doens't seem too well now, they seem too dry, which is one of the bad news. They are still alive though and hopefully will get better with plenty extra watering. Eggplants are are doing well and it won’t take too long until we are going to serve our own eggplants and, hopefully, strawberries in our restaurants. We use strawberries and eggplant as part of our dishes all the time, so once we can have it from our own garden, that obviously saves environment from our part and also saves us money, not to mention the fact that we’re able to serve completely fresh and organic produce. So, the whole areas designed to strawberries and eggplants has been planted – that was about 30 eggplants and enough strawberries to serve our needs. I am not sure yet when they are going to be ready for harvest, but I’ll let you know.
Then the bad news. The herbs in the garden don’t seem to grow well, they are not coming out. Herbs are known for being really hard to plant from the seed, and apparently they are worth their reputation. We did everything according to instructions, but something went wrong – or then it was just bad luck. But, we have not given up hope yet and try to get them to grow with more watering etc. At least Li Fengquan, our brilliant farmer, said it’s not yet too late. However, we acknowledge that their survival is unlikely, and thus we are, as soon as possible, going to buy young herb plants and plant them, that way they are almost surely going to grow. And who knows, maybe the seeds are starting to grow eventually, and maybe the plants are going to spread in time. Anyway, I am going with our chef Randhir really soon to purchase the young plants, and then, in a month or so, we should be able to serve our own herbs. The same goes with lettuce. Apparently it hasn’t been watered enough, or then it’s due to back luck, but it doesn’t seem to be growing – or, who knows, maybe it just takes time. Given all the things I’ve been reading from the internet, it’s getting too hot for the lettuce to grow in direct sunlight, so we’ve planned to built some kind of cover for them. Let's see if we actually make that happen - the gardeners didn't seem too eager to do that.
From bad news it is always good to go back to good news, so I must add that the cucumber seems to be a success and is coming out fast! They should be ready to harves in the early summer - the ones for pickling purposes should be harvested earlier as the ones used fresh. So rather soon we need to decide whether we are going to pickle it, in orded to get them out small enough. One more thing about the garden at this point - we started a sort of experiment. Although we decided not to plant tomatoes as they are really difficult to grow, we bought five young tomato plants and planted them in the corner of the lettuce triangle. We'll see whether we manage to grow them or not. If they come out good, we can start to grow them in larger quantities, as tomatoes is something we use a lot.
Okay, that's it for the garden, I'll keep you updated. Enjoy the last weeks of the spring!
There are both good and bad news when it comes to the garden. Let’s start with the good ones. As told earlier, pink radish and spring onion has been growing really well and we have started to pick them up to be served in the restaurants. Spring onion, or scallion as it’s often called, is a species of onion which is less mature and less developed than “normal” onions we use - in fact they are very young onions, harvested before the bulb has had a chance to swell. They are not as strong as onions usually and thus are delicious raw and widely used in salads. When used with other vegetables or herbs, they do not overpower the dish as regular onion quite often tends to do. Both the green tops and the small white bulbs are edible, which makes spring onion more varied than regular more mature onions. Indeed, spring onions are really popular throughout Asia as a flavouring green, as a herb, as a garnish and as a vegetable itself. Spring onion is really popular in Chinese cuisine as a part of stir-fried dishes. In Roadhouse, the spring onion is pretty much ready and we have harvested in once already – we got 13 kg’s of it, from an area roughly 1/5 of the total spring onion plot. We are going to harvest it bit by bit, because it’s virtually impossible to preserve and lasts only about 5 days fresh. Our chef is going to use it as follows:
- The green tops served as complimentary appertizers in The Shcoolhouse, with tsatsiki and sesame paste.
- The green tops and the bulbs as part of various hot dishes in The Roadhouse and Xiaolumian
Radish, including the pink radish, is an edible root vegetable very common all around the Globe. It can be seen as an “ancient vegetable” as it was domesticated before the Roman times in Europe. Radish is an excellent plant to grow in gardens, as it is rather easy to grow and it grows fast. In fact, its original Greek name “raphanus” means something like “quickly appearing”. Anyway, pink radish is a significantly healthy root vegetable which is generally used as a garnish or salad ingredient – they are almost completely used only raw, and they have a rather strong peppery flavour. Radishes are a great source of, for example, vitamin C, sulphur, iron and iodine, which again is great when it comes the our aims of serving healthy food as a part of our sustainable foods program. Radishes stay fresh for about a week in a fridge – preferable in a plastic bag. To add a little bit crispiness, radishes are good to be soak in ice-water for an hour before serving. Here in garden, we have harvested already 3kgs of it (and the one time with no record, but that was not much). Radish also should be harvested bit by bit, due to the preservation problems. It’s been served as a part of complimentary vegetable plates in the Roadhouse and in Xiaolumian, as well as garnish in various dishes. It is also used constantly as part of the Schoolhouse Greens salad.
We have also planted eggplant and strawberries now. We finally have our strawberry way! Eggplants and strawberries were planted from small plants, not from seeds, which makes their survival highly likely. However, the strawberries doens't seem too well now, they seem too dry, which is one of the bad news. They are still alive though and hopefully will get better with plenty extra watering. Eggplants are are doing well and it won’t take too long until we are going to serve our own eggplants and, hopefully, strawberries in our restaurants. We use strawberries and eggplant as part of our dishes all the time, so once we can have it from our own garden, that obviously saves environment from our part and also saves us money, not to mention the fact that we’re able to serve completely fresh and organic produce. So, the whole areas designed to strawberries and eggplants has been planted – that was about 30 eggplants and enough strawberries to serve our needs. I am not sure yet when they are going to be ready for harvest, but I’ll let you know.
Then the bad news. The herbs in the garden don’t seem to grow well, they are not coming out. Herbs are known for being really hard to plant from the seed, and apparently they are worth their reputation. We did everything according to instructions, but something went wrong – or then it was just bad luck. But, we have not given up hope yet and try to get them to grow with more watering etc. At least Li Fengquan, our brilliant farmer, said it’s not yet too late. However, we acknowledge that their survival is unlikely, and thus we are, as soon as possible, going to buy young herb plants and plant them, that way they are almost surely going to grow. And who knows, maybe the seeds are starting to grow eventually, and maybe the plants are going to spread in time. Anyway, I am going with our chef Randhir really soon to purchase the young plants, and then, in a month or so, we should be able to serve our own herbs. The same goes with lettuce. Apparently it hasn’t been watered enough, or then it’s due to back luck, but it doesn’t seem to be growing – or, who knows, maybe it just takes time. Given all the things I’ve been reading from the internet, it’s getting too hot for the lettuce to grow in direct sunlight, so we’ve planned to built some kind of cover for them. Let's see if we actually make that happen - the gardeners didn't seem too eager to do that.
From bad news it is always good to go back to good news, so I must add that the cucumber seems to be a success and is coming out fast! They should be ready to harves in the early summer - the ones for pickling purposes should be harvested earlier as the ones used fresh. So rather soon we need to decide whether we are going to pickle it, in orded to get them out small enough. One more thing about the garden at this point - we started a sort of experiment. Although we decided not to plant tomatoes as they are really difficult to grow, we bought five young tomato plants and planted them in the corner of the lettuce triangle. We'll see whether we manage to grow them or not. If they come out good, we can start to grow them in larger quantities, as tomatoes is something we use a lot.
Okay, that's it for the garden, I'll keep you updated. Enjoy the last weeks of the spring!
May 12, 2009
Seven principles of sustainable foods - where are we now?
In my first posts I promised to write a post about how The Schoolhouse is doing when it comes to the basic principles of sustainable food. It has to be remembered, though, that there is no official definition what is sustainable food, nor has there been a consensus reached what exactly should be done in orded to be “sustainable”. It is individual and each company – and individual, for that matter – should examine what would be the best options for it. However, there are always guides and recommendations, and the seven principles of sustainable food found in many sources are quite good and give guidance to what should be done. Let’s see, step by step, how The Schoolhouse fits to those principles:
1. Use local, seasonally available ingredients, to minimise energy used in food production and to support local people.
This is probably the most crucial part of sustainable foods, and I am happy to say that The Schoolhouse follows this rule actually really well already. As can be seen from many earlier posts, we use – or are going to use – a lot of our own seasonally available fruits, vegetables and nuts. This season we have already begun to use our own xiang chun, radish and mint, which otherwise would have been bought and transported. Soon we are going to serve our own onion, lettuce, rucola, cucumber and herbs, and that surely reduced the burden on the environment. Later on this year, we are going have rather big amounts of our own wallnuts, chestnuts, peers and persimmons, among others.
We also use a lot of local, or at least nearby suppliers. From Huairou, only 20km from the village, we buy local vegetables (those we don’t have in the garden), fruits, chicken, beef, lamb, pork, bacon, sausages, flour, rice, noodles and yoghurt, among some others. We usually only by vegetables that are in season - we don’t want vegetables that has been imported - which is an important thing when it comes to sustainability. I guess it depends on the reader whether you count as "local" something we buy from a nearby town, but I guess it’s pretty good. One has to bear in mind that all of those things are from China and from the same municipality than we are in, so the transportation and energy needed is quite minimal, compared to most restaurants in Finland, for example, where lots of food is imported to the country. However, we could be more local and there are plans to achieve that - we are planning to get suppliers from the villages for chicken, eggs and apricot, among others. They have those things here, so there shouldn’t be any need for getting them from Huairou, although that is quite local as well. But to get them from here would support local villagers, which surely would be much appreciated. We'll see how everything works out.
There is one step that The Schoolhouse took just recently towards being more local and more sustainable. We stopped importing our steaks from Australia and started to serve Chinese meat, grown in farms, bought from Shunyi, about 40min drive from the village. If one could count the energy saved and pollution reduced in a year because of this change, the outcome would be no doubt impressive. In addition, the fish we use in our restaurant is purchased from Enbeigo, which is one of the neighbouring villages. We buy them alive and put them into our own trout pond – so we have always truly fresh and local trout to serve. For the other food, worth mentioning is for example wallnuts which we buy from farmers from a nearby village.
2. Specify food from farming systems that minimise harm to the environment such as certified organic produce.
We are undertaking a major compost program, and we are going to use the compost as organic fertilizer in our garden. We are going to make sure that all the compost is being used in the village, so that we don’t use any chemicals in our gardening. However, we haven’t found out what are the procedures of the farms the suppliers are getting the food from, so I can’t really say we are getting food from farming systems that minimise harm to the environment. That is something that we indeed should find out and pick suppliers who are environmentally friendly – surely there are many to choose from. However, we can’t be perfect and the first step is to make sure we are as local as possible - rest will follow.
3. Limit food of animal origin served, as livestock farming is one of the most
significant contributors to the climate change.
We do offer many vegetarian options and vegetables play a significant role in our dishes, but it can’t be said that The Schoolhouse is limiting food of animal origin in order to be environmentally friendly. We changed the Australian meet to Chinese meet, and we are looking for chicken etc suppliers from the villages, and that’s our effort when in comes to sustainability and meet. It would be naïve to just read seven principles and say we have to do it all. It’s all individual and different options are suitable for different companies. Cutting of the meat can suite some companies, but that wouldn’t work with The Schoolhouse. Our trademark dishes include burgers and t-bone steak, and turning vegetarian just wouldn’t suite us. You have to keep the business, otherwise you can’t be sustainable in any way, right? However, something to think about would be to reduce a little bit the amount of meat used and replace the reduction with vegetables.
4. Exclude fish species identified as most “at risk” by The Marine Conservation Society. The Marine Conservation Society has a list of the fishes that should be avoided in order to achieve sustainability, and a list of fishes ok to serve. Avoid list: http://www.fishonline.org/advice/avoid/ Eat list: http://www.fishonline.org/advice/eat/.
This is a part where we do exceptionally well. If you look at the “eat” list, you can see that organically farmed trout is on the list – and that is the fish we use in our restaurant in large quantities. Besides that and canned tuna, we don’t actually use other fish. We use quite a lot of trout, but that is organically farmed from a local village and kept in our trout pond in The Roadhouse restaurant (pictures). So, our “trout use” is basically as sustainable as it can be – no
damage to the environment and we provide benefits for local people. Our canned tuna is also Chinese, but from southern Guang Dong province. There are different kinds of tunas in the “avoid” list, but as many different ones in the “eat” list as well. Bluefin tuna is the biggest “nono” in tunas, and according to our chef our tuna isn’t that one. Also, most of the tunas on the “eat” list says “southern or middle Pasific”, so that is a good sign as well – the tuna caught in Guang Dong is from Pacific. In 2006, the treatment of tuna with carbon monoxide was legally banned in China, and that makes at least in theory Chinese tuna good in some way. Anyway, this is just speculation, I would really like to learn more about what’s our tuna like. But the trout, as said, is perfectly fitting with sustainable food principles, and that’s just great.
5. Choose Fair Trade certified products for imported food and drinks
Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that basically helps producers in developing countries and promotes sustainability. To put it in one sentence, fair trade certificated companies assure that producers get paid fairly and the working conditions are appropriate. The aim is to reduce the unfair exploitation of farmers and producers in developing countries, and to make sure they get paid as they should and they don’t have to work in unhealthy conditions. The most famous product where fair trade has been implemented is coffee, but there are also fair trade certificates for tea, chocolate, fruit, honey and flower producers, among others. At the moment, for many operational reasons, we don’t get products (coffee, tea etc) from specific fair trade certificated companies, but that is something we might dig in to in the future.
6. Avoid bottled water and instead serve filtered tap water in reusable jugs or bottles.
This is one of the most straight-forward principles of being environmentally friendly, be it a part of sustainable foods of not. Everyone should avoid using small package sizes – that’s unnecessary waste for the overfilled landfills! We are doing quite well with following this principle, although we do still offer complimentary bottled water in the rental houses. We serve cleaned tap water in our restaurant and that’s the water the staff drinks here as well. By using cleaned tap water instead of bottled water we significantly reduce our waste volume. In addition, we recycle all the bottles we use. In the rental houses we use refillable containers for shampoo and conditioner as well as for soap. So the amount of bottles going to landfills from The Schoolhouse is minimal. We have been also seriously planning to replace the bottled water served in the rental houses with large refillable water containers. I will let you know how this plans go ahead.
7. Promote health and wellbeing by cooking with generous portions of vegetables, fruits and starchy staples like wholegrains, cutting down on salt, fats and oils, and cutting out artificial additives.
Everything here at The Schoolhouse is homemade from the scratch. We don’t use any artificial additives what so ever – no chemical additives, colourings, flavourings or stabilizers. All is natural to a really great extend. That is really real here, no fake, and that’s something not so many restaurants can say. It’s our trademark in a way. Our dishes include rather generous portions of vegetables and are surely healthier than food in restaurants around here in general – that’s my impression anyway. However, we do not use wholegrain wheat, which is something we could easily do. Let’s see whether that’s something we’re going to do or not. Today we started to plan with our chef to replace our salt with Kosher salt, which - unlike common table salt - contains no additives. That makes it a healthier option. Kosher salt has a much larger grain size than regular table salt, and a more open granular structure - if someone is interested.
I would also add one thing here, which is overall waste reduction. Restaurants create an overwhelming amount of waste in the world and every restaurant should do it’s own part in trying to reduce the waste volume. Here, as can be seen from earlier posts, we are undertaking a major composting program which will reduce our waste loads significantly. We also pay attention to waste reduction constantly in menu planning – how all the food could be used as efficiently as possible so that the amount of food being thrown away would be minimal. This is done by, for example, combining different foods and using daily specials. We also try our to keep the portion sizes in control, so that – again – we could minimize the amount of food being thrown away. This subject was for example discussed in a meeting some days ago. However, this is rather hard to do, as in every restaurant, but fortunately we are going to have the compost program to help us in the matter.
So, to put it all together, I’d say The Schoolhouse is doing pretty good when it comes to the principles of sustainable foods. Nobody’s ever perfect and of course there are areas where we could improve, but if you try to do too much too soon too well, it doesn’t work and nobody wins. We are, step by step, going towards being as sustainable as possible, and we are serious about that, but everything just can’t be done. Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that we are doing more than most of the restaurants in the world. But, we can always do more - hence the sustainable food program we are undertaking.
Have a great week everyone!
1. Use local, seasonally available ingredients, to minimise energy used in food production and to support local people.
This is probably the most crucial part of sustainable foods, and I am happy to say that The Schoolhouse follows this rule actually really well already. As can be seen from many earlier posts, we use – or are going to use – a lot of our own seasonally available fruits, vegetables and nuts. This season we have already begun to use our own xiang chun, radish and mint, which otherwise would have been bought and transported. Soon we are going to serve our own onion, lettuce, rucola, cucumber and herbs, and that surely reduced the burden on the environment. Later on this year, we are going have rather big amounts of our own wallnuts, chestnuts, peers and persimmons, among others.
We also use a lot of local, or at least nearby suppliers. From Huairou, only 20km from the village, we buy local vegetables (those we don’t have in the garden), fruits, chicken, beef, lamb, pork, bacon, sausages, flour, rice, noodles and yoghurt, among some others. We usually only by vegetables that are in season - we don’t want vegetables that has been imported - which is an important thing when it comes to sustainability. I guess it depends on the reader whether you count as "local" something we buy from a nearby town, but I guess it’s pretty good. One has to bear in mind that all of those things are from China and from the same municipality than we are in, so the transportation and energy needed is quite minimal, compared to most restaurants in Finland, for example, where lots of food is imported to the country. However, we could be more local and there are plans to achieve that - we are planning to get suppliers from the villages for chicken, eggs and apricot, among others. They have those things here, so there shouldn’t be any need for getting them from Huairou, although that is quite local as well. But to get them from here would support local villagers, which surely would be much appreciated. We'll see how everything works out.
There is one step that The Schoolhouse took just recently towards being more local and more sustainable. We stopped importing our steaks from Australia and started to serve Chinese meat, grown in farms, bought from Shunyi, about 40min drive from the village. If one could count the energy saved and pollution reduced in a year because of this change, the outcome would be no doubt impressive. In addition, the fish we use in our restaurant is purchased from Enbeigo, which is one of the neighbouring villages. We buy them alive and put them into our own trout pond – so we have always truly fresh and local trout to serve. For the other food, worth mentioning is for example wallnuts which we buy from farmers from a nearby village.
2. Specify food from farming systems that minimise harm to the environment such as certified organic produce.
We are undertaking a major compost program, and we are going to use the compost as organic fertilizer in our garden. We are going to make sure that all the compost is being used in the village, so that we don’t use any chemicals in our gardening. However, we haven’t found out what are the procedures of the farms the suppliers are getting the food from, so I can’t really say we are getting food from farming systems that minimise harm to the environment. That is something that we indeed should find out and pick suppliers who are environmentally friendly – surely there are many to choose from. However, we can’t be perfect and the first step is to make sure we are as local as possible - rest will follow.
3. Limit food of animal origin served, as livestock farming is one of the most
significant contributors to the climate change.
We do offer many vegetarian options and vegetables play a significant role in our dishes, but it can’t be said that The Schoolhouse is limiting food of animal origin in order to be environmentally friendly. We changed the Australian meet to Chinese meet, and we are looking for chicken etc suppliers from the villages, and that’s our effort when in comes to sustainability and meet. It would be naïve to just read seven principles and say we have to do it all. It’s all individual and different options are suitable for different companies. Cutting of the meat can suite some companies, but that wouldn’t work with The Schoolhouse. Our trademark dishes include burgers and t-bone steak, and turning vegetarian just wouldn’t suite us. You have to keep the business, otherwise you can’t be sustainable in any way, right? However, something to think about would be to reduce a little bit the amount of meat used and replace the reduction with vegetables.
4. Exclude fish species identified as most “at risk” by The Marine Conservation Society. The Marine Conservation Society has a list of the fishes that should be avoided in order to achieve sustainability, and a list of fishes ok to serve. Avoid list: http://www.fishonline.org/advice/avoid/ Eat list: http://www.fishonline.org/advice/eat/.
This is a part where we do exceptionally well. If you look at the “eat” list, you can see that organically farmed trout is on the list – and that is the fish we use in our restaurant in large quantities. Besides that and canned tuna, we don’t actually use other fish. We use quite a lot of trout, but that is organically farmed from a local village and kept in our trout pond in The Roadhouse restaurant (pictures). So, our “trout use” is basically as sustainable as it can be – no
damage to the environment and we provide benefits for local people. Our canned tuna is also Chinese, but from southern Guang Dong province. There are different kinds of tunas in the “avoid” list, but as many different ones in the “eat” list as well. Bluefin tuna is the biggest “nono” in tunas, and according to our chef our tuna isn’t that one. Also, most of the tunas on the “eat” list says “southern or middle Pasific”, so that is a good sign as well – the tuna caught in Guang Dong is from Pacific. In 2006, the treatment of tuna with carbon monoxide was legally banned in China, and that makes at least in theory Chinese tuna good in some way. Anyway, this is just speculation, I would really like to learn more about what’s our tuna like. But the trout, as said, is perfectly fitting with sustainable food principles, and that’s just great.5. Choose Fair Trade certified products for imported food and drinks
Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that basically helps producers in developing countries and promotes sustainability. To put it in one sentence, fair trade certificated companies assure that producers get paid fairly and the working conditions are appropriate. The aim is to reduce the unfair exploitation of farmers and producers in developing countries, and to make sure they get paid as they should and they don’t have to work in unhealthy conditions. The most famous product where fair trade has been implemented is coffee, but there are also fair trade certificates for tea, chocolate, fruit, honey and flower producers, among others. At the moment, for many operational reasons, we don’t get products (coffee, tea etc) from specific fair trade certificated companies, but that is something we might dig in to in the future.
6. Avoid bottled water and instead serve filtered tap water in reusable jugs or bottles.
This is one of the most straight-forward principles of being environmentally friendly, be it a part of sustainable foods of not. Everyone should avoid using small package sizes – that’s unnecessary waste for the overfilled landfills! We are doing quite well with following this principle, although we do still offer complimentary bottled water in the rental houses. We serve cleaned tap water in our restaurant and that’s the water the staff drinks here as well. By using cleaned tap water instead of bottled water we significantly reduce our waste volume. In addition, we recycle all the bottles we use. In the rental houses we use refillable containers for shampoo and conditioner as well as for soap. So the amount of bottles going to landfills from The Schoolhouse is minimal. We have been also seriously planning to replace the bottled water served in the rental houses with large refillable water containers. I will let you know how this plans go ahead.
7. Promote health and wellbeing by cooking with generous portions of vegetables, fruits and starchy staples like wholegrains, cutting down on salt, fats and oils, and cutting out artificial additives.
Everything here at The Schoolhouse is homemade from the scratch. We don’t use any artificial additives what so ever – no chemical additives, colourings, flavourings or stabilizers. All is natural to a really great extend. That is really real here, no fake, and that’s something not so many restaurants can say. It’s our trademark in a way. Our dishes include rather generous portions of vegetables and are surely healthier than food in restaurants around here in general – that’s my impression anyway. However, we do not use wholegrain wheat, which is something we could easily do. Let’s see whether that’s something we’re going to do or not. Today we started to plan with our chef to replace our salt with Kosher salt, which - unlike common table salt - contains no additives. That makes it a healthier option. Kosher salt has a much larger grain size than regular table salt, and a more open granular structure - if someone is interested.
I would also add one thing here, which is overall waste reduction. Restaurants create an overwhelming amount of waste in the world and every restaurant should do it’s own part in trying to reduce the waste volume. Here, as can be seen from earlier posts, we are undertaking a major composting program which will reduce our waste loads significantly. We also pay attention to waste reduction constantly in menu planning – how all the food could be used as efficiently as possible so that the amount of food being thrown away would be minimal. This is done by, for example, combining different foods and using daily specials. We also try our to keep the portion sizes in control, so that – again – we could minimize the amount of food being thrown away. This subject was for example discussed in a meeting some days ago. However, this is rather hard to do, as in every restaurant, but fortunately we are going to have the compost program to help us in the matter.
So, to put it all together, I’d say The Schoolhouse is doing pretty good when it comes to the principles of sustainable foods. Nobody’s ever perfect and of course there are areas where we could improve, but if you try to do too much too soon too well, it doesn’t work and nobody wins. We are, step by step, going towards being as sustainable as possible, and we are serious about that, but everything just can’t be done. Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that we are doing more than most of the restaurants in the world. But, we can always do more - hence the sustainable food program we are undertaking.
Have a great week everyone!
May 9, 2009
Walkways being built in The Spring Garden... And we have our own mint!
As can be seen from the garden map, there are three walkways in the Roadhouse Spring Garden, where people can walk around and see what we are doing there. Originally, they were just dirt paths, but we decided to built them into proper walkways, because surely that is a more feasible option for customers coming from the city - there's no need for anyone to get their shoes dirty. It also looks better, makes the garden appear more organized and makes everything more convenient. Anyway, the walkways are being built out of brick, which is pretty much the theme around here. As shown in the pictures below, the process is going on nicely and the walkways should be finish in a few days. They are going to be a bit wider than they were as dirt paths, to make it actually possible for people to walk around the garden. Basically, keeping in mind how the signs are going to be laid out, from the walkway closest to the restaurant people can observe the herbs and the radish; the middle walkway is for looking at the middle vegetable field; and the furthest one goes between the lettuce triangle and the strawberry way. There is also a walkway that sort of leads to these three walkways and leaves a small spot of garden between it and the wall – here we have parsley growing, and we will plant some lettuce there as well later when it’s good for it to be in a partial shadow. So much for walkways, let the pictures talk for themselves, and I’ll let you know when they have been completed:
Otherwise, the garden is growing well. Now the rucola has been partially planted as well, which is something our restaurants are really eager to have. Hopefully it grows fast! The plastic covers, which you can see in the pictures of earlier post, has been removed from the herb and lettuce
plantings, as the weather is so worm already that we don’t need those. They will be put again to cover the plants in autumn, to extend the season as much as possible. Looking really closely one can see that there are already something coming out of the earth where there are herbs and cucumber growing (pictured, cucumber). Some part of pink radish has already been taken out, which makes it the first own vegetable we've harvested, and it is being served in the restaurants - more of it will be taken tomorrow or so. The harvested radish was already divided to our restaurants and I was unable to find out how much in kilograms we got it, but we made a deal with staff that from now on they will weight how much radish (or whatever) they get everytime and let me know – this way I can document clearly what we have and how much and when. So, anyway, everything seams to be going great at the garden and we are steps closer to our goals every day! 
Now to the other subject – we have our own mint! This is something, I must admit, I totally forgot about, although I heard it mentioned a month ago or so. We have mint growing in two locations: in the courtyard of The Schoolhouse and right at the corner of the Roadhouse Spring Garden. It is actually the first thing on the left when “entering” the garden. The first harvest of mint was a few days ago, and we have already started to serve it in The Schoolhouse restaurant. Randhir, our creative chef, uses our own mint for four purposes:
- Crystallized mint leaves, served as sweets when handing the bill
- Mint jelly, served with lamb etc.
- Mint sorbet, served as dessert
- Mint leaves to give a kick to the fruit salad served as a part of continental breakfast
In addition to those four things, we also put mint leaves to the drinking water served to customers. Crystallized mint leaves (pictured) are mint leaves that are dipped into egg white
and then rolled in sugar. In a little time, the sugar and egg give the leaves a chrystal-like appearence, hence the name. They look really cool and are delicious, and surely much more healthier than candies – it should be remembered that serving healthy options to customers is a part of sustainable food program. We used to give candies to hand out with bills, but now we have replaced candies with homemade crystallized mint sweets. Now which one sounds more appealing to you? Also, this way, there is no need to buy so much candies and that saves money and reduces need for transportation, in theory at least. We don’t a have mint in large quantities, just two small spots as can be seen from the pictures below, but according to our chef that is just enough for our restaurants, and little enough not to worry about the preserving part. All of the mint can be used fresh and all of it will be used, and no mint needs to be bought during the season. And that, my friends, is what sustainable food production is all about. However, our resources of mint are naturally seasonal and half of the year we do need to buy some mint elsewhere. We are, however, going to extent the season as much as possible by covering the plants with plastic in autumn. Besides, we don’t use mint much when it’s off-season anyway so no worries about it. One of the main principles of sustainability in foods is to use seasonal ingredients that are locally available, so seasonality is not a problem at all, although it does mean a bit more menu planning and other thinking. 
Mint in The Roadhouse
Mint in The Schoolhouse
That's it for today. Thank you for your interest, keep tuned! And you are welcome to come and try our own homemade mint sorbert among other homemade sweets!
That's it for today. Thank you for your interest, keep tuned! And you are welcome to come and try our own homemade mint sorbert among other homemade sweets!
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