Watermelon rinds, vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, fruit piths, and peels, along with everything else you’re most likely throwing into your garbage, are going to be on the menu at Slow Burn.
Fermented, dehydrated, or preserved, they will wind up in glass jars at chefs Andy Doubrava and Tiffani Ortiz’s new dinner series that will serve sustainable meals using every last bit of every ingredient.
This fall and winter, Slow Burn is planning on blazing a trail through the Bay Area and back down the coast to pop-ups in Los Olivos, Lompoc, and New Cuyama, then to a series of cities in Canada. The couple will attach a trailer full of their jars of fermented sauces and pickled produce, then travel from kitchen to kitchen.
Whatever they don't utilize at one event will appear on the next menu as an oil, a relish, or as part of a dessert in the name of creative waste mitigation, and hopefully, this will help build awareness and community around it.
“A restaurant that is good about waste management is still throwing out 50 pounds of food a day, easily, and it angers me, and it makes me feel like I’m not doing my job right,” said Andy Doubrava.
Slow Burn stated that in food costs, around 65% will wind up on guests’ plates, with around 35% going toward future meals. Unpreserved food scraps will be composted or used to dye merch. Soaps will be made from kitchen grease.
You can follow the whereabouts of Slow Burn on their Instagram.
