Green enterprise offers 'holistic' food option for Filipinos

What was once sowed in the backyard now reaps a great harvest that sure does contribute big for the improvement of quality of life for Filipinos.

When Holy Carabao Holistic Farms owners Hindy Weber and Melanie Go started to become conscious about the food their families consume, they began questioning the quality of products that is out there in the public markets.

Wanting to provide better and safer food options for their families, Weber and Go's search led them to the idea of growing their own food.

''We started realizing that the food in the supermarkets and the palengkes were just not trustworthy enough, we don’t know where they came from, we didn’t know where they were grown, how they were grown and we are not willing to risk the health of our children. So we started doing a lot of research and it boiled down to us having to grow our own food,” Weber said.

They started planting in their backyard but as the harvests grew after some time, they decided to share their produce and their advocacy to the public by putting up a business and partnering with farmers.

“We literally started in our backyard, after first harvest it just became more and more plentiful and we started sharing it with the community, with our friends, with our families, before it even became a business,” Weber said.

In 2007 they launched a door-to-door delivery of orders of organic and biodynamic produce. And since then, the business grew bigger, leading to the establishment of their Farmers' Market in Makati.

Weber said, more than the profitability of the enterprise -- which in the first place is not as big as the other businesses due to the cost of production -- are the whole lot of benefits that they have been able to share with Filipino farmers and consumers.

“Holy Carabao, if I really have to sum it up, are these words: It's food, farming, family and Filipino. We grow real, clean, healthy, holistic food while protecting the environment and the livelihood of the farmers and ultimately it’s for the health of the Filipino family,” she said.

“We chose the word holistic because it encompasses so much more than just saying organic food, it covers the people working on the farm, the people who you are feeding and selling your produce to, it covers the environment, the soil,” she added.

For these two entrepreneurs and innovators, it is time to change the mindset and start consuming the healthier options.

“We should change that mindset, we’re always saying that organic food is expensive, question why the others are cheap, question why everything else is so cheap,” Go said.

“Wherever you live, whether it is in a condo or a shanty or you have a big estate, you can grow your own food in however little way you can, it’s very possible and you can have a more conscious relationship to food,” Weber said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

French chefs cook up a storm for climate

LE BOURGET, France - France pulled out its culinary big guns Monday for one of the greatest kitchen challenges ever: cooking lunch for the largest one-day gathering of world leaders in history.

Five chefs, each awarded stars by the demanding judges of the Michelin food guide, joined forces for a gastronomic tour de force to defend France's culinary reputation at a climate summit in Paris.

Undaunted by the challenge of catering to banquets with their familiar perils of rubber chicken and agonisingly long waits, the quintet sought to tempt the palates of 150 leaders, from US President Barack Obama to China's President Xi Jinping or Russia's Vladimir Putin.

"It was a very good lunch, a surprising lunch, very friendly and relaxed," Albanian President Bujar Nishani told AFP after leaving his table.

Judging his meal "very tasty and delicious", Nishani said his lunch was prepared with organic foods, "which go very well with this climate summit".

Albania’s leader said he washed lunch down with a glass of champagne to celebrate "cooperation and friendship".

He was among the 170 guests, including the leaders, to be wined and dined at the heavily-guarded Le Bourget conference centre on the northern outskirts of Paris.

Diners sat at 20 tables, the Elysee presidential palace said.

President Francois Hollande hosted the likes of Obama, Putin, Xi, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the table of honour.

- 'Impress with our cooking' -

All the dishes left the kitchen for the tables in less than an hour so as not to delay leaders trying to avert a global climate catastrophe, said Guy Krenzer, of the fine-food Paris caterer, Lenotre.

All five Michelin-starred chefs -- Yannick Alleno, Alexandre Gauthier, Nicolas Masse, Marc Veyrat and Christelle Brua -- volunteered their services for the 75-minute meal, which broke more than 12 hours of back-to-back speeches by leaders and was accompanied, naturellement, by the finest French wines.

"A lunch reflecting France's environmental and gastronomic excellence... but without ostentation," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, the president of the conference, told reporters on Sunday as he described his hopes for the meal.

The feasting began with a "Modern Freneuse turnip soup with scallops cooked in floral steam", followed by "Free-range poultry from Licques, stuffed celery preserve with truffles and parsleyed creamed spinach," according to the menu.

The cheese course was an organic Reblochon from France's Mont Blanc region, and dessert a traditional Paris Brest cake with stewed citrus fruit and a "light praline cream".

The wine selection included a white Meursault 1er Cru "Santenots" 2011, a red Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Chateau Beychevelle 2009, and the Champagne a Philipponnat Cuvee 1522 -- with a fruit juice option for those averse.

"There are no showy or very expensive ingredients," said Alleno, the three-starred chef who presides over the kitchens of the Restaurant Ledoyen on the Champs Elysee before the lunch.

"We will aim to impress with our cooking instead."

Meanwhile, in the centre of Paris, President Francois Hollande chose to entertain Obama not in the gilt splendour of the Elysee Palace, but at L'Ambroisie, a restaurant with three Michelin stars in the Place des Vosges square.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and US Secretary of State John Kerry were among 14 people who sat down to dinner at the exclusive eatery.

Established in the fashionable Marais quarter in 1986 by Bernard Pacaud and his son Mathieu, L'Ambroisie is considered a leader in classic French gastronomy, say food critics.

Its regular items include chestnut soup with a velvet mousse, sole braised in yellow win e with white truffles and langoustine feuillantine, Le Figaro said in a 2013 review.

"The bill is quite hefty -- expect around 350 euros ($369) a head... but it was good," the conservative daily opined.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com