Archive for the ‘News & Tips’ Category

The 2012 Entwine celebration will be held on the beautiful WWCC campus under the iconic Dietrich Dome.  It will honor select graduates of the college’s Enology and Viticulture program as well as the Wine Country Culinary Institute. It will showcase the immense talent of our very own graduates through a multi-course paired dinner.

Entwine began in 2003 as a benefit dinner and fundraiser celebrating the grand opening of the new Center for Enology and Viticulture in Walla Walla, WA. In 2004 it was named “Entwine” representing the collaboration between fine wine, fine food and fine art in the Walla Walla Valley. This year marks the ninth Entwine Grand Auction for the Walla Walla Community College Foundation.

Through the continued generosity of our patrons and sponsors, Entwine has made a significant impact for thousands of students through scholarship awards. We have also been able to grow key programs, like our Enology and Viticulture Center and extend support to critical partners who work with our students and give back to our great communities.

Entwine guests will gather at Walla Walla Community College’s Dietrich Dome Saturday, October 13, 2012. The evening begins with a wine and hors d’oeuvres reception and silent auction followed by an exquisite multicourse dinner paired with our honoree graduate wines.  The evening will conclude with a spirited live auction and special program.   The evening’s honorees are listed below.

Enology and Viticulture Graduates to be honored:

• Elizabeth Bourcier – Enologist at Cayuse Vineyards
• Laura Pursley – Assistant Vigneronne at Cayuse Vineyards
• Alfredo Arredondo – Winemaker at Cave B Estate Winery
• Victor Palencia – Head Winemaker at Jones of Washington
• Steven Thompson – Owner of Analemma Wines

Culinary Arts Graduates to be honored:

• Jen Contreras – Sous Chef at Colville Street Patisserie
• Kristin Swaggart – Assistant Director of Nutrition Services for Kennewick School District
• Norm Shaw – Executive Chef of Blue Mountain Café and St. Anthony Hospital
• Paul Freeman – Chef/Owner of The Bank & Grill Catering Co.

For more information, please visit www.wwcc.edu/entwine.

Did you know that September is National Better Breakfast Month?  Well, in honor of the most important meal of the day, we are sharing some great products from T-fal to help you start off each day in style. Whether you’re a grab-n-go eater or prefer your breakfast at the morning table, the below products from T-fal will help put an end to the old morning drive-through habit for good!

Scrambled Eggs anyone?

T-fal’s Mini One Egg Wonder: If cookware could be cute – this would definitely qualify! The T-fal Mini One Egg Wonder makes the perfect single-serving of eggs every time, without having to dirty a full-sized pan.  The little pan packs the punch when it comes to quality, as it features T-fal’s signature non-stick interior and exterior, comfort grip handles and an even heat base for fast and even cooking.

Don’t burn the toast!

T-fal Avanté Deluxe Toaster – Make your breakfast favorites like bagels and breads in a flash with the T-fal Avanté Deluxe Toaster.  The sleek angled design (no more burnt fingers!) provides safe, easy viewing and removal, so your breakfast is perfectly crisp, plus, it’s 40 % faster than conventional toasters!

Fluffy Pancakes, please!

Make family breakfasts a whole lot easier! The T-fal Giant Pancake Griddle whips up fluffy, golden brown pancakes every time with T-fal’ unique thermo-spot technology that shows when the pan is perfectly preheated and ready for the first batch!

Tea instead of coffee?

T-fal Vitesses Electric Kettle: No more waiting for the kettle to whistle! The T-fal Vitesses Electric Kettle is the perfect way to quickly heat water for tea, oatmeal or instant coffee before you run out the door. With an adjustable temperature control for perfect brewing and 7 cup container, the kettle guarantees safe and quick heated water.

For information on these products, or the rest of the T-fal line, log onto: t-falusa.com.

We’d like to help you obtain a great start to the day by offering you your chance to win a T-fal Giant Pancake Griddle.  Simply click here for and fill out an entry form for your chance to win.

Good luck!

Nedrea

Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion offers Asian-inspired fare in major cities across the country. From Maryland to Florida and Hawaii to Texas, each restaurant serves a varied menu with special touches here and there influenced by the Executive Chef of the respective kitchen. This summer, participating Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion locations featured a summer pre fixe menu developed by one of the corporation’s Chef Partners. The menu included one choice from each course for just …more

The EcoCrock is such a neat little product that it catches the attention of those who enter your kitchen.  Everyone wants to know what it is and since I have dedicated my life to going green, I’m happy to tell them all about it!  I know you’ll love it as much as I do.

Here are a few of the product features:

EcoCrock Product Features:
• Lid has sprout handle and holes for airflow
• Natural charcoal filter absorbs odors
• Comes with two charcoal filters
• Holds up to 3.5 quarts of material
• Plastic inner bucket for easy emptying and cleaning
• Replacement filters sold separately

Enter-to-win and more…

It’s shocking how much blood-pressure-raising sodium and belly-bulging calories are in many restaurant quesadillas. Chili’s Bacon Ranch Chicken Quesadilla, for example, tallies up a whopping 1,650 calories and 3,450 milligrams of sodium (that’s double the sodium that most of us should have in an entire day, say the recently-released 2010 U.S. Dietary Guidelines. Our Pritikin Vegetable Quesadilla has just 100 calories and 95 milligrams of sodium.  With Pritikin cuisine, there’s a very good chance you’ll never need blood pressure medication, or extra-large clothes.

Vegetable Quesadillas

Compliments of Chef Anthony Stewart

Serves 2

Nutrition Information (per serving):  100 calories, 1g total fat, 0g saturated fat, 5mg cholesterol, 6g protein, 3g fiber, 95mg sodium.

Ingredients:

2 cups julienned (sliced in long, thin strips) fresh vegetables
1 whole-wheat, thin-thin (lavash) bread
3 tablespoons shredded fat-free mozzarella cheese
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh cilantro (optional)
2 tablespoons fat-free sour cream
¼ cup pico de gallo (no salt added) or no-salt-added salsa (such as Enrico’s brand)

Directions:

• In a nonstick skillet on medium-high heat, sauté vegetables until crisp tender, about three minutes.
• On a warm griddle or flat-top grill, place thin-thin bread and let the side facing the heat get hot.
• Turn the bread over on the griddle or grill, and sprinkle the cheese on top side.
• On half of the top side, spread the sautéed vegetables and cilantro.
• When the cheese begins to melt, fold the bread in half to cover the vegetables.
• Press firmly using a tool like a large firm spatula or bottom of a pan.
• Flip on the other side, grill for about 2 minutes, and press.
• Remove from heat.  Cut quesadilla into four pieces.
• Serve two pieces per person with fat-free sour cream and pico de gallo on the side.

There’s much discussion about sustainable farming, but what happens to sustainability once the produce leaves the farm? For national fresh foods producer Ready Pac Foods, Inc. the buck doesn’t stop on the farm.

There’s much discussion about sustainable farming, but what happens to sustainability once the produce leaves the farm? For national fresh foods producer Ready Pac Foods, Inc. the buck doesn’t stop on the farm. The company has systematically reviewed and upgraded its products and business processes integrating delicious taste, convenience and sustainability criteria into all of its product lines.

“For decades, Ready Pac has participated in environmentally friendly business practices such as sending our byproducts for use as animal feed,” said Tristan Simpson, director of marketing at Ready Pac. “Our sustainability efforts now include a broad array of socially and environmentally responsible practices that ultimately also help us keep our convenient, fresh foods affordable.”

Ready Pac keeps food waste out of landfills through a variety of programs. In a home kitchen, consumers peel produce, cut out cores and trim away parts like outer leaves. Ready Pac does the same thing for its fresh-cut produce, yielding byproducts that could be costly to haul to landfills, not to mention take up precious space. Instead Ready Pac sells the fruit and vegetable byproducts to local dairy farmers. These byproducts help the farmers keep the cost of cattle feed down, which in turn help consumers and the local economy. Last year Ready Pac sold more than 110 million pounds of fruit and vegetable byproducts to local farmers.

Ready Pac’s recycling program converts costly trash hauling into an income stream that helps the company maintain competitive pricing. Ready Pac started by focusing on the reduction of trash being sent to landfills, setting up color-coded material collecting stations throughout all of their plants. Now the company collects and recycles more than 17 million pounds of cardboard and plastics annually, saving money and fuel by not hauling the trash and recouping some material costs in the recycling sales.

One of Ready Pac’s most impactful sustainability programs is a centralized production scheduling system. The company developed software that takes into account all logistic lead times by customer and distribution center. As a result, Ready Pac is able to consolidate production runs, reduce days of operation where needed and greatly reduce utility consumption. Decreases in water usage have been particularly significant.

Through this detailed planning, Ready Pac sells most of the products it makes to its retail and foodservice customers. With a careful eye to social responsibility, especially in the local communities where its plants are located, Ready Pac donates useable product that it cannot sell to local food banks and community charities. More than a half million bags and trays of produce were donated last year.

To further reduce the amount of waste it sent to landfills, and the fuel required to haul it there, Ready Pac installed trash compactors in all of its facilities. This resulted in a 50 to 75 percent reduction in waste loads.

Other Ready Pac sustainability programs include using natural gas co-generators to produce electricity, reduced energy usage through energy-efficient lighting, a transportation fleet equipped with the best particulate matter filters to reduce air pollution, and teleconferencing to reduce company travel. Ready Pac associates also contribute to the effort, participating in incentive programs to use public transportation, ride share, bicycle or walk to work.

The Ready Pac Bistro® Bowl Salads line is one of the company’s stars, both in terms of popularity and its environmentally responsible design and production. All of Ready Pac’s products use recycled materials in their cardboard boxes, and the salad bowls use 70 percent post-consumer PET. Ready Pac Bistro® Bowl Salad inserts use recycled 500ML drink bottles and the bowls also are made in a plant that operates using 50 percent solar energy.

“Ready Pac Bistro® Bowl Salads not only are delicious on-the-go meals with less than 300 calories, they also reclaim millions of drink bottles each year,” said Simpson.

Beyond brown bags…

Back to school means back to the routine of making lunches to go. But there’s nothing ho-hum about the latest in groovy, eco-chic gear to carry PB & Js and leftover pasta to school. With these all-in-one kits and handy accessories, you may never need plastic wrap, waxed baggies, tinfoil, or paper bags again — let alone hazardous plastic or obnoxious product-placement lunch boxes.

There’s something here for every family’s budget. Complete lunch-storage systems may cost more than old-school lunch boxes, but remember: These kits are made to last — and designed with the earth and your kid’s health and safety in mind. So feel better about stemming the tide of trash from lunch box to landfill while providing better options for your child with these green and good-looking picks…more

On Monday, August 20, 2012, the Maestro Cares Foundation, in partnership with Blackberry, Goya, and the Dominican Republic Department of Tourism, hosted 200 guests for the organization’s first ever Chicago fundraiser. Held at the Sofitel Water Tower, in the heart of the city’s Gold Coast, the red-carpet event raised over $100,000 for the development of a new residence hall for orphaned children in the Dominican Republic. The evening included special appearances by global pop icon and Maestro Cares co-founder Marc Anthony, entrepreneur and co-founder Henry Cardenas, Formula One driver Esteban Gutierrez, and actor Luis Guzman.

Live music was provided by a jazz quartet followed by a DJ. Gourmet hors d’oeuvres and catering were sponsored by the Sofitel Water Tower.

Guests and supporters of the event bid on a number of unique auction items and experiences including a signed soccer jersey by Lionel Messi and the Argentinean National Team, a necklace by world renowned designer Oscar de la Renta, a helmet signed by Formula One driver Esteban Gutierrez, a signed guitar by rock band Mana and front-row tickets to Anthony’s current international tour, GIGANT3S, with a Meet-and-Greet opportunity following the show, among other items.

All proceeds from the event will benefit the completion of a new residence hall and learning facility for over 200 children living at Orfanato Niños de Cristo, an orphanage in La Romana, Dominican Republic. The Dominican orphanage will be the first territory to directly benefit from the Maestro Cares Foundation, a non-profit organization established to benefit charitable organizations in developing Latin American countries. Maestro Cares seeks to offer assistance to orphaned and disadvantaged children while supporting social services and other development programs.

“The creation of Maestro Cares is a testimony to the wonderful spirit of Mr. Anthony and Mr. Cardenas,” said Sonia Hane, Founder of the Orfanato Niños de Cristo. “The commitment of these gentlemen is an inspiration to us, and I am confident that the impact of Maestro Cares will be felt by the children in this country for many years to come.”

For more information, visit www.maestrocares.org.

Joe’s Pizza, the popular New York style pizzeria, along with its partners at Muse Lifestyle Group, is proud to announce plans to expand into three new locations in Los Angeles by the end of the year.  With this expansion comes a brand new logo, and the introduction of the company’s first mobile food truck.

Joe’s Pizza currently has one restaurant in West Hollywood and another on Hollywood Boulevard that shares its doors with Muse’s flagship venue, Playhouse Nightclub.  Red brick exterior, white Carrera marble countertops and a skyline image of New York City bring a piece of the Big Apple into the City of Angels. The Hollywood restaurant remains open until 4 am to feed late night club goers during Playhouse’s signature after hours.

“There’s no doubt that Joe’s Pizza has become the ultimate go-to spot for New York pies in LA. Our secret? It’s all about having the perfect ratio between three basic ingredients: dough, marinara sauce, and cheese,” says owner Giuseppe (Joe) Vitale. “We are beyond thrilled to expand the brand into new locations and share our traditional pies with even more customers in Southern California,” says Joey Vitale Jr., who will be operating the Joe’s Pizza Truck.

Joe Vitale believes in food that is simple and original. The menu features a variety of specialty pizza pies, pies by the slice, heroes, pastas, salads, garlic knots and fresh cannoli. Each pie is made under the watchful eye of Joe himself and follows his original family recipes, passed down by his Sicilian grandmother. Menu highlights include the Meatball Hero, the famous Grandma Pie and Joe’s personal favorite: The White Pie.

For more information on Joe’s Pizza, please visit www.joespizza.it

Wine Guardian has announced the launch of a new ducted split wine cellar cooling system that features superior air distribution, temperature and humidity control to protect valuable wine collections.

“The new ducted split system expands our product portfolio into a complete line of wine cellar cooling equipment,” said Wine Guardian Division Manager Mike Militi. “It is available in many capacities and styles to accommodate any size or style wine cellar for homes, restaurants, commercial storage facilities and other applications.”

The split system is designed to maintain ideal cellar conditions for long-term storage, which typically range from 55° F to 57° F (13° C to 14° C), and from 50 to 70 percent humidity. It is available in four models—1/4-ton, ½-ton, 1-ton and 2-ton capacities—for 60 hertz operation.

The standard two-piece system includes a fan coil unit to cool the wine cellar air, and a condensing unit to remove heat from the refrigeration process. On ¼-ton, ½-ton and 1-ton systems, the fan coil can be ducted from up to 25 feet (7.62 meters) away from the cellar, and a 2-ton system can be ducted from up to 50 feet (15.24 meters). Also, the condensing unit comes with its own housing, which makes it suitable for outdoor use. The combination of these features makes Wine Guardian’s new split system extremely quiet and virtually vibration-free, giving users maximum flexibility when designing their cellars and locating the cooling system.

For more information on Wine Guardian products or to locate a distributor, visit www.WineGuardian.com.