The National Culinary Review

Gallons of canola oil used in the Frysmith food truck are put to good use.

Partners Erik Cho and Brook Howell invested $3,000 to modify the truck to run on straight cooking grease.

cooled oil gets double strained as it goes in and out of a 55-gallon drum outfitted with a pump and hose. The process requires no more labor than disposing of it in a conventional manner. Built for diesel, which it still uses to start and shut down, the vehicle has a modified engine and a separate tank for the fryer oil.

Erik Cho

“We use the van daily, seven days a week, transporting food from a central commissary,” says Selig. “Instead of $100- $200 per month on fuel, I spend just $20.” He’s also polluting less and reducing his business’ carbon footprint, reflecting a personal mission to be a green restaurateur and a good environmental steward.

Ranch. He combines glycerin, a nontoxic liquid that’s a byproduct of the process, with milk from his goats to produce soap. What’s left is spread over the fields to help keep the desert dust down.

Fryer to farmer

Plenty of restaurants are doing the farm-to-table thing, but at B&B Ristorante,

Cooking oil from B&B Hospitality Group, used to fry this selection of fritti—top left, arancine, bottom left, zucca fritti, and top right, frittelle di prosciutto—at Enoteca San Marco in Las Vegas, goes to a grower/ rancher who turns used cooking oil into biofuel to power his equipment.

Carnevino and Enoteca San Marco, the only restaurants on the Las Vegas Strip certified by the Boston-based Green Restaurant Association, the cycle is fryer-to-farmer-to-table. The three hotel-dining venues, operated by the Las Vegas-based Batali & Bastianich (B&B) Hospitality Group, give their used cooking oil to Jesse Scott, a grower/rancher in Alamo, Nev., 90 miles north, who is one of their local purveyors.

“No money changes hands,” says Zach
Allen, culinary director for B&B Hospitality
Group. “It is just the right thing to do.”
Scott turns the used cooking oil into biofuel
that powers his equipment on Buckhorn
All of the used oil is filtered every morning
by a porter/dishwasher, Allen says. What
is no longer suitable for cooking goes into
55-gallon drums that are left on a loading
dock. Twice a week, Scott delivers milk,
heavy cream and fresh seasonal produce
to the restaurants, and swaps out the full
containers of oil for empty ones. From an
ecological perspective, the relationship is a
match made in heaven.

Cleaning up

B&B Hospitality Group partners Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich implement their organizational commitment to sustainability a little differently in California. At Osteria Mozza and Pizzeria Mozza, two restaurants in Los Angeles that the B&B Hospitality Group owns with Nancy Silverton, another provider/supplier liaison is proving mutually beneficial.