 Okay, welcome everyone to this evening's conversation. We're very proud to present this evening to you on this important topic. My name is Dan, I'm the Director of Development Program with the Bedford Playhouse. I'm going to introduce you to our moderator and panelists in a second. First, a couple of very quick housekeeping things. For those of you who are not familiar yet with Zoom in this self-quarantining world, there is a Q&A option if you are on your computer. It's at the bottom of your screen. There's a Q&A button for you to ask questions at any point. Please feel free to type in your questions and they will get answered at the end when we do the Q&A session. If you're on your iPad, I believe that's actually on the top of your screen, but you should be able to find it. There's also a poll feature. Alan will talk about that in a minute. That has some poll questions, but we'll let her introduce that. If you enjoy this evening and find it interesting and worthwhile, we're very proud again as Bedford Playhouse to be able to present these types of programs to you while we're all operating virtually. So on behalf of the Playhouse and on Bedford 2020, all of your support is much appreciated. If you're so inclined, please consider visiting our websites, our respective websites, and perhaps making a contribution to help us keep going while our doors are shut and we're all sitting in front of computers and trying to do as much as we can remotely. So that being said, without any further ado, I want to introduce Alan Calvis, who is going to start our program off. Alan, it's all yours. Hello. Thank you everybody for joining us. My lighting's not so good. I am happy to continue our film series with the Bedford Playhouse with a discussion about a film, Just Eat It, which maybe some of you watched, but if you didn't, that's okay. And we have some fabulous panelists from our community here tonight who really do a lot of good with food waste. So first, let me introduce myself. I'm Alan Calvis. I'm the program director at Bedford 2020. At Bedford 2020, the mission is to lead a community-wide effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect our natural resources. We're currently promoting a new food scrap recycling pilot program and more about that later, but part of that effort is also to bring awareness around the problem of food waste. Composting is just one solution. And as you probably saw on the film, there's a lot of other places where food waste is a problem and it needs to be addressed. Let me, so if you didn't see the film, it's about a couple who ate only food that otherwise would have been wasted for six months. And what they found was there actually was a lot of food to eat because a lot of food goes to waste. That's perfectly good and edible, which is very frustrating. I want to share my screen with you. Oops, let's see. Okay, I mean, so I want to share this graphic with you that touches on some of the things that were said in the movie, 40% of all food produced in the US is wasted. That is $161 billion of uneaten food at retailers, restaurants and homes annually. And per capita, this accounts for $1,500 per year for a family of four, so an incredible waste. And also you may have seen in the movie this food recovery hierarchy, which is great because it shows that what we really need to do is stop wasting food much higher up on this upside down pyramid at the source, especially in our own kitchens in our own shopping habits and in a lot of planning in business and restaurants and retailers. And then the second down is we could feed hungry people with a lot of the food that gets wasted. And as you can see composting is a little bit further down. So we do want to see a reduction in food waste before we get to composting it. But we have two panelists here today who are right up at the top here at the source reduction and feed hungry people. Part of the pyramid so let me introduce them to you. We have Leslie Lampert, who's a food waste reduction guru and creator of the scrappy chef chef series, and the proprietor of the ladle of love. Martha Elder, who's a food rescue advocate and executive director at second chance foods nonprofit organization dedicated to rescuing unsold unserved and aesthetically imperfect food and distributing it in the community to reduce food waste and to reduce food insecurity. So Martha and Leslie are going to come on to our screen. Thank you for being here. We're going to start by just hearing from each of them first, telling us a little more about what they do. So Martha, why don't you go ahead and start tell us about second chance foods. Thanks Ellen. I'm so glad to be here tonight. And yes, the second chance food is a comprehensive food rescue organization we've been around for four years. We're based up in Putnam County. We started by rescuing food from grocers and farms and directly distributing that food and trees and soup and very quickly came to realize that there was a real need for processing food. And so we started a kitchen program where we're actually cooking some of the food that we recover into meals. And at this point we're producing just many, many hundreds of meals every week, as well as doing the direct distribution work still. And serving people in Putnam County and the surrounding areas. Yep, so we serve a lot of the food pantries from Southern Duchess all throughout Putnam County and into Northern Westchester as well. Last year we recovered 149,000 pounds of food. It was a huge increase over 2018 and I'm sure 2020 will be even more than that. Thanks. And hi Leslie, nice to see you. Hi Ellen. Hi Martha. Leslie. So tell us a little bit about what you do. I will waste no time in telling you that I am the proprietor of Ladle of Love, which has been in Westchester for the last 17 years. And from day one we were committed to making sure that we sourced food responsibly, so that means not only where we source it but how much we source and how we buy. And at no time has there been really any waste because when I had Cafe of Love, what many of you don't know is that no waste is called specials. So whenever there's extra food or food and inventory that hasn't been utilized one off, those kinds of foods are transformed into specials. At Ladle of Love for many, many years, being in the soup business and the prepared food business, there is zero waste for us. And I want to start by saying that there are three ways that we can stop wasting food. And one is to love ugly food. So even though what we call center of the plate in the restaurant business where you want the perfect tomato and you want the perfect look on a peach, the reality is many of those foods and fruits and vegetables become more profoundly high sweeter and riper and when they get ugly, they get better for soups and stews and sauces and whatnot. I want to talk also about how we buy food, how we store food, because storing food is the most important thing. And two years ago I started a series called The Scrappy Chef and I think many of the people who are listening today, watching today actually, I've done many demonstrations over the last couple of years and I joked that for many years, Sundays in my family would be Scrappy Sunday. I'd go to both my daughters and my son, they're working moms, and I would go to their home, their apartments on Sundays, and we would just pull everything out of the refrigerator and make the most delicious, helpful meals. And one of them, I don't call them recipes, I call them transformations. Martha, I know you understand that because they're not exact recipes. They're understanding what foods can go with what other foods, you know, taking that, and never ending white rice from the Chinese takeout and transforming that with other, you know, slimy carrots that you wash off and ugly, bruised, rusty greens that are perfectly yummy and delicious when you marry them together and learning how to use those foods in what, you know, a recipe or transformation is really three quarters of the battle here. So I'm hoping that tonight, you know, Martha and I can really show you guys and tell you guys how to look at your refrigerator rejects differently. Look at your pantry, what I call pantry pariahs, or, you know, way in the back there differently, you know, a little bit of this and a little bit of that that's left over when you combine them, it makes a beautiful marriage. So, and storing food is a big part of how not to waste food, storing it buying properly, and getting to the place composting is great but let's get, let's get ahead of composting, and let's not have so much to compost. Thanks. Martha, do you have anything to add to the tips to stop wasting food. So, like Leslie said, I don't use recipes a lot I think if people can learn techniques at home. That's a really good thing. Learn how to make a really good soup stock, and it's so easy then to make a really good soup with whatever's in your fridge. Roasting is a key trick for making things taste really good. You roast it, you know, gets a little caramelized develops the sugars and it's really delicious. You know, I like the idea of, you don't look in your fridge for what do I feel like eating, you look in your fridge for what really needs to be eaten right now, because otherwise it's going to go to waste just kind of a mind shift there. And I really invite you when the food is already in your house. Don't even look at the date on it, because the dates that they put on products are so often really meaningless. Use your senses, look at it, look okay, smell it, does it smell okay, taste it, does it taste okay, go ahead and eat it. And, and to that point, to build on what Martha was saying, please understand that those expiration dates, many of them are not designed. They're not controlled by the agriculture industry, they're controlled by the people, the manufacturers. So when you say many things when they say best buy, I mean, for instance, yogurt, there's kind of no expiration for yogurt, and, and things that are pickled, they get better as they ferment. And also don't throw out your pickle juice guys, use your pickle juice and make the best vinaigrette ever, or take your cucumbers that are looking a little funky slice them up and put them in the bottle of pickle juice and voila, you making your own pickles and you already have a hostage pickling liquid. So to Martha's point, you look in your fridge and you say, what do I have to work with, and then you start thinking about how to put those things together and that's what we're, you know, hopefully tonight going to help you guys do if you have questions. Great. Great. So we do have some questions so I'll read some of them to get our conversation going. Joe is saying he's interested in rescuing food from supermarkets for distribution to those in need is that something that is happening with second chance foods or with any of the other food rescue organizations and in this area. Yep, it's happening a lot already. You know, there's different degrees of how much, you know, different stores do work with food rescue organizations, but you know, second chance foods is recovering kind of up in the northern part. There's also county harvest, which covers southern Westchester County and the food bank feeding Westchester also does recovery work at grocery stores. And, you know, still doesn't hurt to if you have a short, excuse me if you have a store that you shop at regularly to talk to a store manager and to ask, are you working with a food rescue I really don't want to see food going to waste when our neighbors are hungry. And if we, you know, if we were like this couple in the film and we went to our local grocery stores, would we see these like giant dumpsters full of, you know, hummus, that's perfectly good to eat. Well, sometimes yes, unfortunately. Yeah, sometimes you would. If someone were to ask a grocery store manager, are you working with like a food rescue organization and they say no, what can we do, you know, to sort of get make that happen. We do have a letter on the second chance foods website that can be shared with stores. You know, sometimes stores will say well there's liability involved and you know that letter explains how they are protected by federal and state legislation. There's something called the Good Samaritan law. Exactly. Yeah. So there's a lot of misconceptions out there about oh you know I could get sued and actually the law has been around since 1996 and it's never had to be used because nobody's ever been sued. Another question, Martha, what do you think are the reasons for the increase in food recovery over the past couple of years. First of all, I just think there's so much more awareness of the issue of food waste. You know, it's such a huge environmental issue and it's such a huge humanitarian issue. Really, no issue that I can think of where they're more inextricably linked and you know, thankfully people are becoming more concerned about the environment and food waste is a huge environmental issue. And then, you know, COVID-19 just the food insecurity is all over the news right now, because it is increasing just exponentially. And it's people who have never been to food pantries before. So, you know, both of those issues are really the forefront right now, humanitarian and environmental. Is it more challenging because of the pandemic to do food rescue now recovery now, or is it still a good, there's a lot of available. Yeah, there is still a lot of food to rescue, especially because you know, second chance foods was really found out of a desire to improve the quality of food available at food pantries. Over 90% of what we rescue is in the form of fresh produce and the pandemic kit and everybody wanted to buy food that was in a can or a box or frozen and so there was a lot of fresh produce that was being donated. It's coming back to a bit more normal at this point, but you know, it was actually even more initially. Great. Another question for Leslie. Can you wash off slimy vegetables other than carrots and how do we know which can be rescued, you know, peppers cucumbers. So, as long as things are being stored in the refrigerator. They're, they're, they're largely safe, and just wash them off. I mean, don't be offended by the color or by the sliminess of course, you know, even just wash it off, cut off the bruised areas that are obviously black. And, but, but certain things that are mushy like tomatoes, the, the mushy or the more sugar and they're fabulous for soups and stews and sauces and, you know, even lettuces just cut off the parts that are really soft and gooey. But when it comes to just a little bit slick. Just, just rinse it off, and then dry it well. And that's the other thing. Store them better. So if you store your produce better, it will last longer. And if it lasts longer, then you'll get more meals out of it also. And the other thing is, you know, don't be afraid to blend things. I have back in the day, you know, my mom may she rest in peace, she was the best cook in the world and if she was following a recipe, and she didn't have something she, you know, throw out the whole recipe but if you don't have this, use that and use what you like. And just, again, ugly food is not bad food. Ugly food just means that it's largely overripe. Tracy is asking, is there a place we can find inspiration or guidance as neither of your fans of recipes? Well, a recipe is a foundation. You know, it's an architectural blueprint. So I am a fan of a recipe as a starting point. But I, you know, I want everybody to understand that there's not a recipe police out there. So if you are following a recipe and it calls for zucchini, but you don't have zucchini, but you have, I don't know, red peppers or yellow squash or anything else that is in your kale or whatever it is that's in there, just use it and then you'll develop your own recipe. But that's what we, Martha and I mean by transformation is that use what you have and it might, it's not going to be the same flavor profile but so what? It'll be a different yummy flavor profile and you might even find you like that one better and it becomes yours. So start with a recipe and I'm sure Martha and I both happy to help with that. Start with a recipe but don't get married to a recipe. Are there any, well I guess next Monday night Leslie is going to be back doing a little more of some pantry dives. So maybe Tracy can bring some of the items from her fridge and bring the question to you. Do these things go together or how do you know what definitely doesn't go together? Yeah. You know, most surprisingly many things that you might not think match up together do. And again, you know, cooking is about the layering of flavors and textures. And to that point, you know, recipes are just a starting point. And so for instance, one of the things, and I know Martha's going to agree with this because I see what she does and I think you do an amazing job, Martha. If you have a little bit of quinoa and a little bit of rice and a little bit of barley and a little bit of pharaoh, just put them all together. And then you have this multigrain dish, whether you'd want to do a risotto dish or a paella dish or whatever, you know, don't be afraid to mix and match textures and flavors. Even if all their cooking times are different, you can just them all to cook together. Okay. Yes. I mean, so you'll either cook it a little longer. And I promise you that the end result, you know, it's a symphony. They're all different instruments. And then, you know, you're the conductor, you put all of them together. And at the end, there's a mollusk that was found. Awesome. Pink is asking, Martha, if a store doesn't rescue their food, how do we connect you with the store? So, I mean, it would probably be up to the store to contact us to express their interest in working with us. And they can do that through our website, your phone numbers on there, emails on there, contact submission, all of it's there on our website, secondchancefoods.org. Okay. And we're going to have a newsletter that goes out tomorrow or the next day with, with all the, any resources that have been mentioned. So the website will be on that follow up email so people can, can know, check it out, see that letter and know how to contact you. And maybe, maybe Ellen, what we should do here, this is just, you know, off the cuff is maybe we should start, you know, with everybody who's listening and then beyond, if they, if people go to certain grocery stores and they see that there's a food waste problem in the, in the bin in the back, maybe we start a whole, a chain of where these are taking place and then we can start as a community talking to those places. Yeah, good idea. Great idea. Emil is saying why don't they offer more food in smaller packages. This might be for Leslie with the sourcing responsibly to minimize the risk of going bad before being used up for example it's hard to find a quart of organic milk. It is. Okay. I think that, you know, there's two, there's two ways of thinking. Back in the day, everything was in smaller containers and because then it made you buy more frequently than Costco came along and then everybody was buying in, you know, massive amounts. I think there are a lot of things that come in smaller packages but you just have to ask your grocer where I don't you know where you shop and or even the manufacturers and the distributors, but I think that if you buy, you know, I'm not suggesting you go shopping because that's a wasteful waste of your time and gas and energy also, but try and buy in the amounts that you'll need say for the week, and then when you're done and you have the surplus. You have to be contemplative about how to utilize it because in addition to the the pyramid that you put up Ellen 40% of what everyone buys in their own refrigerator goes to waste, whether you're affluent or you're limited 40% of what everybody buys gets trashed. So, come out to your point, you know, try and buy as much as you can I don't know the answer about the milk situation, but try and buy tighter than usual. And you're right grocery stores are usually very responsive if you tell them that you would like them to carry something they usually try to get it for you. Right, Olivia is saying is there a law are asking, is there a law in New York requiring supermarkets to donate edible food that would ordinarily be thrown out. Martha, do you have an answer. So, there's a lot I think it's come into effect already but it's they have to be wasting like some huge huge amount in order to fall into that under that law like, I don't know, 2000 pound 10,000 pounds a week or you know some really humongous number. So not currently. But I do feel like that's coming down the pike that you know it's what people want. And you know one of the things that I was thoughtful about after I watched just eat it was the next that you know part two of just eat it should be that we start watch dogging. You know that that big, that big dumpster in the back at the end remember with all of the hummus remember that. You know, somebody needs to report that. So when that happens, it isn't just, it isn't just a windfall. It's also something that needs to be managed. And so their conversations have to start happening with that. So that to me the follow up is what happens, you know, there, there needs to be a policing situation about that kind of waste, when you find it. Um, Carolyn's asking, do you have any general grocery shopping tips that help reduce food waste. Um, I think it's really smart to start with thinking about what you do want to eat that week and meals that you do want to plan for. So you can start with that and in my household for, you know, when my kids were little, I, I made the list based on meals that I wanted to make and generally I was making them on Saturdays and Sundays because I've always worked full time. And to that point, you know, whatever you make, make more of and then freeze it so you have these, you know, favorite meals in your freezer. Um, and speaking of that, frozen vegetables are awesome frozen fruit. I mean, I just kind of came to this party recently because I've always been a fresh fruit and vegetable person. But, you know, berries that have been frozen at their height of picking are just berries and you put them in your freezer and then you take them when you need them. And for instance, you know, making a berry crisp. It's awesome. And if you have the fresh berries, you add them all together. But um, but be contemplative about some frozen things because they are really a great product. And then I would, I would, I would shop thinking about meals meal planning. Um, Nikki asks, is there any organization working with Costco? Once I saw them remove a huge box of bananas from the shelf because they were slightly brown in spots. Well, first, I want to talk about brown bananas. I want everyone to know that as they ripen and they become ugly with those black spots, they become more nutrient dense. That is a fact. You can Google it all right now. So the more brown spots, the more nutritious they are. Um, and I also just want to say one more thing when you're making your favorite, speaking of bananas, when you're making your favorite banana recipe, double the bananas that whatever the bananas recipe says, double them if you have more and it comes out really like pudding-ish. Um, but what was the question? Well, if anyone's going after Costco for food waste. Yeah, I think Costco does work with whoever their local food rescue organization is. I think the issue with Costco is it's a separate organization that goes in and does a sampling. And that that organization doesn't work with the food rescues that food ends up getting wasted. But the bananas are pulling off the shelf. They're donating those. Um, and also you can freeze bananas guys, you know this, right? Take them out of their skins and freeze them. And then, um, what we do in my world among the many things is just throw them in the Vitamix and it makes like a just a banana ice cream with just bananas frozen. Blender. Vitamix blender. Georgia says, do you think if the supermarkets did not have standards for how produce is supposed to look, then our mindset for buying food would be different. And also there was that culture of abundance, those pictures, you know, in the film of just how we need to see so much food in the produce department. Um, I mean, I think with this pandemic we for the first time probably in a lot of our lives we're seeing some empty shelves or some things missing and it's just so different from what we're used to. But how do we change that mindset of, you know, that food has to look perfect and there has to be tons of it. And that's exactly it Ellen, we need just such a cultural mind shift about that every store I could walk in on any day will have everything that I want in abundant quantities. Because that's just not reality. You know, strawberries are not supposed to be available in New York in January, you know, there only are because of our cultural expectations around, you know, having everything available all the time anywhere we want it. And we really just need a shift around that. And the shift, you know, we eat with our eyes and of course we all know that when we're eating as a family and we're creating, you know, special meals or whether we're going out to restaurants our expectation is that we're going to see food presented beautifully. That's totally doable, even with fruits vegetables and and other produce that doesn't start out pretty. So, I think to your point Martha, there has to be a cultural shift in the education of how we look at what about you know where we're such a country of abundance and and availability. And we're having a big lesson in how to still eat well without that situation taking place. Right, there was the farmer at the farmers market who said if he only left one, I forget what kind of food it was that no one would buy it, you know, even though it was perfectly good. They would think there was something wrong with it if there was only one. But you know it's so funny because I have done this series where I will first show do the reverse I'll show the final result of the recipe which is beautiful yummy and you know to taste it, and it looks great. And then I show all the ugly, ugly produce that was used to make it. And it's shocking to people. So, you know, it's kind of again, it is about education, it's about knowledge, it's about shifting the perspective and the perception of what our food should look like and remember, you know, a lot of these foods they they all start out like that. It's just that as they ripen, you know, like flowers in a bed. I mean, the tulips aren't going to be upright the whole time but they they have beauty at every sort of stage of of their life. So it is it is a rethinking. And I think that that's why we're here now why we're talking about this. It's a it's a reeducation. Yeah. Andy is asking, adding the age cucumber to the pickle jar is a great idea. Is there a place to find other examples of ways to use older food. Next Monday night. 730 on zoom. You know, they're all, and even, you know, here's another little trick you have a little, you know, you guys probably buy bottled salad dressings. I usually make mine because it's really easy, but it blend them. If you have a little bit of this one and a little bit of that one and this kind of vinaigrette and that, you know, blend them all. And then you're not going to believe and then shake it up animation charge not going to believe how delicious it is. And then you have a whole new, a whole new cell dressing instead of, you know, a tablespoon at the bottom, which drives me crazy. Don't throw us that tablespoon. There are lots of other tricks like that. And I mean, same thing like with sauerkraut is another example. I always use the sauerkraut juice for flavoring other things. It has an acidic quality. It has that pickling quality. A lot of times I'll make coleslaw. And if I have sauerkraut leftover, I use the sauerkraut juice as part of the that sort of mayonnaise the vase that you make coleslaw out of. Alexis says in Ireland, there's a food app called food cloud which matches places that have access access food like supermarkets and hotels with food banks. Is there anything like that here in this area Martha. Yeah, so we don't use an app but there are some food rescue organizations that do food rescue us covers Fairfield County Connecticut they have an app. They have a feed HV covers some parts of the Hudson Valley and they have an app. Yeah, so it is a technology that's used locally. Lauren is asking how can sign up. How can someone sign up to help with food rescue at supermarkets. Well you could come to our website again second chance moves that org and send us a message that you'd like to volunteer. Karen is saying Leslie, do you have a favorite trick for utilizing older food in one's fridge like your cucumber pickle one or any other oh this is kind of what Andy asked before. Next Monday night Karen you'll get lots more of that. Those great ideas. Alexa has shared the food cloud website on the on the Q&A here. And says I buy my fruits and veggies from misfit market which rescues from farms I love getting the boxes surprises each week and it makes me cook with what comes to me, rather than buying to a super going to a supermarket and buying more than I need so that's a great tip to misfit market. And by the way, they're adorable like you've seen them, Martha you posted this last week, the carrots that look like they were cheering. They, you know, it's nature and we wanted it's there like people we want everybody to look different and act different and it's you know still have the qualities of delicious food. I think we have to change our minds about a what beauty is and be what delicious is so you know these are these are conversations that have to happen they're not just it's not just a one recipe. It's really having knowledge about what what not to listen to about labeling and I'm sorry but I'm saying it out loud. And have you this misfit markets. I mean you said that you don't have any food waste in your business because you use it all. You know if you can't use it in one dish you make it into a soup or something. What do you think about this model of this. I think they ship you this misfit market. Ships food to keep these ugly foods to people so Karen is asking you know what do you think about their model. I think it's amazing and and to that point, you know for years. When I actually when I had the restaurant cafe of love, we did business with a lot of the local farms, and at the end of the season. Or even during the season when they had a bumper crop of something that they couldn't sell or again things were bruised. I mean you can't imagine how much corn is thrown out and how many zucchini or throat thrown out in the herbs. We would we would have an off price menu for them, you know sale for that and we had the benefit of getting all of this fabulous food produce. It wasn't going to waste I mean you can't imagine how much waste there is at the farms. So I love the idea of the misfit program there's a number of those programs and I think it's I think it's terrific. And great you know I say for you know in my in the series for this crappy chef it saves the planet time and money. So it's not just it's everything. Sandy says how can we connect the produce discarded by growers to the households in need that are in urban slash suburban areas food pantry lines are longer than ever and they could probably use the discards right now. So I think we may go ahead. No I know that feeding Westchester I'm involved in feeding Westchester of course that's you know for the food insecure population, and I know that they work with a lot of farms that that that have these programs. And so what I say to everybody is, Yay, be an advocate, take it on, you know, let's, again, Ellen let's put some of these programs, you know, in action here for at bed for 2020. And tonight you know we're finding out what people want to do and so let's let's have them do it. Yeah. Yeah, second chance foods does rescue from farms. We have a gleaning program so that we can actually go on to the farms and into their fields and take out their excess or their seconds of food that they feel is not marketable. So yeah that that effort is happening, even in our area. And is that something people can volunteer to help with the cleaning. Yep, yep we use volunteers for that as well. So that'll start up kind of June, July probably. Great. And actually, you know, there's nothing wrong with going to you know wherever your local farmers market is and where you shop, ask them, ask them volunteer talk to them start the conversation. This all happens by talking. And now, especially during this quarantine and pandemic, you know, environment, everything should talk about everything because that's how ideas get action. Deborah asks, do you have any specific tips for food storage to maximize fridge slash pantry life. I do Martha you do you want to start. So, Oh my gosh, a few things. So like if you bring when you bring your berries home, don't wash them right away. If you don't, your lettuces I actually I do like to wash my lettuces and you know get them really dry in a salad spinner and put them in a bag and they last for a long time that way. I just want to say to like actually just prepping my vegetables when I get home from the market just helps me use them much more readily if it's all set to go and I'm tired after a long day at work with the green beans are all washed and snapped and ready to cook. Much more likely to use them while they're still fresh. The freezer is your friend for sure. If you see things, you know, getting close to any to get used up but you can't use them right away. Put them in your freezer, your blender, you know, make yourself a smoothie. Stop, make some good stuff that you can make soup with. Pass it over Leslie. I know, but I also we joke around that we have a vase in our refrigerator and it's kept with a few inches of water and all the herbs going there and that nourishes the herbs, the fresh herbs because it, you know, it obviously waters them from the stems up. So that's part that's number one. And the other thing about food storage is, you know, keep a Ziploc bag in your refrigerator and or your freezer. And when you're cutting celery to, you know, to the point if you're going to to Martha's point if you're going to prep it, take the butter the celery shove it in the Ziploc bag, take the ends of the carrots and, you know, shove it in the bag and keep these are to making to make stocks and soups and bases for sauces, because again, all of that is going to go into the ground which is going to create a greenhouse gas effect which we don't want and let's utilize it. And so if we utilize it in making stocks and making sauces. It will be better for the planet. And it will be better for your household because everything tastes better when you're making, you know, when you're not using those bullion cubes. Don't use those. Great. I just want to ask, is there a bulk buying supermarket in our locale, like we saw in the film. I know, like Whole Foods has their bulk bins. I don't know of a market that's 100% bulk buying in our area. Right, I don't either. I don't know either. Again, I really, really want to stress having conversations with your, the farmers at when you go to the farmers market really start conversations talk about not just what you're going to buy that day talk about what they need to sell talk about what you want to buy, you know, start a real conversation with them that starts before your purchase at on that day at the farmers market. See how you can help them. Pink is asking Leslie, can you talk about how to substitute one thing for the other. Absolutely, but you need to give me a context. Let's see. Pink, do you want to, let's say, I don't know how she could, I don't know how this Q&A thing works so she could put it in but we'll come back to it maybe she'll type it in. Ashley, do you have any tips as asking do you have any tips to make your vegetables crisper longer beyond putting them in the crisper in your fridge, or is that the best solution. Remember, it depends, you know, water content has a big play in how things stay fresh. So for instance, mushrooms. You know, you don't want to, you don't want to put water or mushrooms because they're sponges and they'll absorb it you don't want to touch them until you're ready to use them. A lot of times what I do is I use paper towels and wrap my produce in paper towels without wetting them, and that helps absorb moisture as as it stays in the crisper and that seems to help it last longer. Great. Thomas asked Leslie I noticed that sometimes greens don't endure well even after storing them well. What is the best way to store greens such as spinach different varieties of lettuce for maximum life and how can one use wilted leaves in a recipe or into a puree of some sort. So I love I love blending all greens together and make like a greens pesto. I mean I'm a pesto girl so and when I say pesto. Yes, I love basil, and I like to throw in a handful of basil, but I make pesto is out of just greens also and so I guess it's not really a pesto, but it's a pure aid like a grimoire or a jewelry and then I you freeze them in little quantities and you have them as sauces for pasta and sandwich spreaders and mixing into stews to keep them fresher as I said you want to keep them as dry as possible. As opposed to herbs which you want to keep the stems in water so that they stay hydrated. Fiona is asking what about waste food food waste from schools when schools are in session. Yeah, that's a great question. We do rescue from schools as well I didn't mention that. And then when the schools so suddenly closed for the pandemic two of our local districts did donate to second chance foods and many, many thousands of pounds of milk and yogurt and produce, you know, not all the school districts are doing it yet. You know, again, some of them think there's some kind of liability involved. You know, but as I think more school districts do it and they see that, you know, it's perfectly safe and legal for them to do hopefully more will do it. And is that something else you could volunteer to help with, like picking up food from schools if they say, you know, set it aside. Yeah, once the schools are back in session. Right. And is picking up food from like supermarkets and places something that second chance foods does need help with. I mean, currently no, all of our regular food runs are covered by a regular volunteers and I made a beautiful thing that has come out of this pandemic with people working from home is volunteers with so many people who are wanting to help which is really wonderful. It's just hard to employ all of them. Right. A couple of some read questions here. What do you think about the meal kits that get delivered does this help the problem since you only get the amount of food that you need or is it not the right answer. Leslie shaking her head. I'm really sorry, but number one. You know, they serve a purpose, but it's an, you know, it's a it's a lot of container food. It's a lot of one shot food. And this might sound contradictory, but I do believe we're better off buying a week's worth of food and then figuring out how to put that together. I think there are some other associated issues with the meal kit meal kits for for waste problems. Lauren asks, what is the best way to save bread that's gotten too hard to eat. Oh, Martha and I could have a field day with this right Martha. Yeah, I don't ever buy breadcrumbs, you know, just put those into your food processor and make the breadcrumbs to grow them right in the freezer. Yeah, 100%. And the other thing is, every bread pudding in the whole world, sweet bread pudding, savory bread puddings. We make custards that are not that don't have sugar in them. And so sometimes we do a sausage, egg and cream cheese bread pudding. Sometimes we do a smoked salmon cream cheese bread pudding. There's so many things you can do with bread. And the other thing is that you want to make croutons things. Caesar salads, the most delicious croutons. You want that bread to be a little stiff. You cut a baguette on the bias. You let it dry out. Olive oil and I like, you know, turmeric shove it in the 450 oven and you get these toasts and you keep them like Christine's and they keep for a while. All kinds of things you can do but don't ever buy breadcrumbs is right. Great. Here's a good question to contemplate. If there were signs and advertisements in supermarkets about how much food we waste daily, do you think people would be more inclined to buy less food? I don't think the supermarkets want you to buy less food. I'm not sure the signs would go up. But yeah, I think like Leslie was saying before when you go to the supermarket, you know, have your list with you have your meals planned and you know by the appropriate amount of food. What's the solution. I'm going a little faster because we only have a couple minutes left. What's the solution when a group has a catered meeting after this pandemic is over and ends up with leftover wraps or other prepared food is there anywhere for that food to go. You know, especially some of the homeless shelters really appreciate that food depending on where you're located. There's like Janpeak and Peekskills and Christopher Zenup and Garrison. You know, sure plenty of programs done in southern Westchester as well who would take that food. Leslie, is there any type of education effort for chefs to teach them about buying bruised and ugly produce from farmers so they don't need to waste it? I don't know if there's a concrete program but I know that, you know, many of my colleagues and chef restaurants absolutely have relationships with farms and farmers and organizations, particularly in the city, I think they're a little bit ahead of the curve up here. I just, you know, we are among many because we're right at the mouth of the Hudson Valley and all of these one all of the wonderful farms. Many of us in the restaurant business have these relationships with the farms and have been having these off price end of summer relationships for a while. But I don't know of any formal organization here. I think there's one actually out, way out east in Long Island called East End, but check it out. In terms of restaurant sourcing food, I mean, I would assume that the closer your word to having exactly the right amount, the more money you would save. Is there anyone that teaches, you know, businesses how to do that? I mean, inventory is the entire game of, you know, buying food and inventory is the entire business game of the restaurant business, you know, no matter what food aspect you're in, restaurants take out catering, whatever. So understanding how to buy and this is why, you know, I feel uniquely suited to talk to the home cook about it because it's all about inventory. And that's really what we're talking about what you inventory in your pantry what you inventory in your refrigerator, and that is how successful restaurants model. It's all about what you buy how you buy how much you buy that what you know what the cost is communicating with your sources for what you're what you want to pay and it's all about inventory. So that's the question from I guess we're streaming on Facebook Live as well. Question from Facebook Live. Rosalind says, how do we reduce food waste with meat, which can have issues like salmonella when kept longer. And if it gets up to that date, the sell by date, just stick it in your freezer and use it another time. So I would say. And date everything. So, you know, Martha's 100% right, you wait, you try and use it to the sell by date but if you can't and that is monitored by the agricultural industry. So, if you don't use it within a couple days, then you throw it into the freezer but make sure you date it so that when you when you defrost it, you don't use it past those couple days. Right. Someone had pantry mods and had to get rid of everything. Which is so sad. And just found another moth and it's killing her to have to to throw everything out again. Is there any way to save any of it or does everything have to go with pantry months. Well, obviously anything canned is fine, because it's protected. But if you have pantry mods and they're getting into the food is contaminated so I wouldn't be comfortable with that and, you know, I'm pretty comfortable rescuing most things but, you know, once you avoid getting pantry mods again if you've had them for I think I've heard that when you bring home your grains from the market to put them in the freezer for some period of time, that's how they get into your house in the first places through the food that you're purchasing. So if you put it in the freezer you'll kill anything that's in there and it'll be okay. Okay. All right, we have we still have so many questions. I don't know when Dan's going to cut us off but I just want to look through and see if there's some very different ones. Lauren says that BD provisions has two bulk stores in Connecticut, open through the pandemic. So that is great. Let me see if who's chatting. Oh, Okay. Looking at the Q&A. Let's see. The waste associated with celery trimming for packaging we saw in the film was shocking. How do we go about driving change around that kind of packaging driven waste of fresh farmed food. Same thing with romaine hearts. You know, same thing, you know, and again, you know, we're talking about producing food that looks good. But the waste is, you know, it's criminal and there's so many. It's all about make, you know, packaging it and presenting it so that the consumer feels they're getting something pretty. But in fact, I'm much happier getting the whole celery. First of all, everybody here's a tip. When you get your celery, you know, I've been doing, we've been making a lot of food for frontliners at the hospitals. And one of my favorite salads is I take an entire bunch of celery. Don't trim it. I love the celery leaves. They taste delicious. Just chop it all up really fine. It's crunchy. And then, you know, cucumbers and everything crunchy, red peppers, no lettuce. I mean, I love lettuce too, but this is a crunchy salad. Don't, you know, the things that we've been taught to discard like the feathery leaves of the fennel and the little celery leaves, they're precious. They're fabulous. And when you start incorporating them into your recipes and your salads, you're going to say, why didn't I know this? Why didn't I do this? I don't know the answer to how to, you know, I think this is, again, a conversation that we're opening up and we've been talking about for a couple years now, more than a couple years of how to shift the mentality of the consumer, which then will shift the mentality of the distributor. And I would say, so at your store, you have the option of buying the whole head of romaine or the, you know, the whole bunch of celery instead of the, just the hearts and do that, you know, send the message that you want the whole product. Great. All right, there's a couple of tips here use cloth towers instead of paper towels when you wrap your greens. Oh, to answer the milk question. You can freeze your milk when you can't drink all of it. And for mushroom storage, keep mushrooms in a paper bag in the fridge, so they don't get slimy. They only dry out and you can reconstitute them in soup even after month so some nice tips from our audience. So I think I think we got the bulk of the questions answered. Thank you so much. That was really interesting. We covered a lot of things and we're looking forward to next week. I have I have a couple of slides to show. Let's see. There it is. And don't forget the poll Ellen there's also the poll. Yeah, I don't we don't have to do the poll. But I do want to show you, whoops, those were the poll. We do have a compost curbside compost coming to the town of Bedford sign up started today and the first 75 people who want to get curbside pickup of their food scraps. We'll get it. And are one of the first 75 you can you can do this for one year for $15 or less so it'll be subsidized by a grant if you get in the program. The first year so that is curbside pickup Leslie is back next to Monday the scrappy chef via zoom and will give us more tips and tricks to avoid going to the dreaded grocery store. I just hate doing these days. I think everyone else does too. And use up what we have in our fridge. I also have another film coming with the Bedford Playhouse in June, the story of plastic. And we're working on getting some really great experts to come talk to the solutions. And this is a really interesting film. I just watched it and so we will offer a link where you can see it for free and then join us portion on June 8. This Wednesday we have a very cool lunch and learn session at noon. It's the enroads climate simulation simulator that helps us understand kind of what needs to happen to keep the global average temperature below where it needs to be so that climate changes and happening at the rate that it's happening. And on Thursday we have our dig ins which are every Thursday from five to 530 their short fun interactive and they focus on healthy yards and sustainable food and we're talking about how to get rid of the invasive species in your yard. How to identify them get rid of them and what to replace them with so thank you for joining us and thank you to the Bedford Playhouse and the Wheaton Foundation for being our partners in the environmental film series. Please, please during this time consider supporting Bedford Playhouse for all that they're doing for our community and of course Bedford 2020 as well. So Dan, do you have anything else to say. One of the thing is if anybody's interested if you go to our homepage bedfordplayhouse.org we have a lot of virtual programming. And you can check out there's all kinds of different stuff there's some streaming films. We have some interactive Q&As. There's next month's story of plastic which will be up very soon. So something to keep everybody busy while we're getting through these times together. Great. Thank you, Leslie and Martha that was fantastic. We really appreciate you spending time. Great. Thank you. It's been great to be here. Okay. Good night everybody. Love you guys. Take care. Stay safe and nourished everybody. You too. Amen to that. Okay. Good night. All right. Thanks, Dan. Bye. Bye guys. I wanted to read the, okay.