The Too Good to Go app, which aims to help fight food waste, launched in Connecticut this past week. The free mobile app connects its users to local businesses with surplus food. When using the platform, consumers are able to access unsold food at a fraction of its retail price. Instead of businesses throwing away perfectly good food at the end of the day, they list a ‘Surprise Bag’ on the Too Good to Go app that users are able to purchase. According to the app’s website, the ‘Surprise Bags’ are sold at 25-50% of their contents' original retail value — a win-win-win for businesses, customers, and the environment.
In 2020, local food advocate, Reggy Saint Fortcolin, and Kingdom Builders Impact Ministries, launched Fridgeport, a mutual aid food initiative, based in Bridgeport. Fridgeport is a free food fridge, or community fridge, located at at 219 James Street. It’s open 24/7, and is a way to get free resources to people in the Bridgeport community, at any level of need. These types of fridges have been popping up all over cities and towns, many of which were launched during the pandemic when food pantries were struggling to meet the needs of their recipients and donations were at a low point. Since opening, additional CT locations have been launched in New Haven (@fridgehaven) and Hartford (@fridgeford)..
Why is this different from a food pantry? Reggy states that while food pantries provide a useful resource, their assessment and allocation amounts will vary based on an equation of “need,” but sometimes that allocation simply isn’t enough to keep families fed. Fridgeport is a take what you need resource.
SAVE THE DATE for a very important evening. Filling In The Blanks will be hosting their Third Annual Plates With a Purpose Event on November 19, with tons of food, fun and festivities. Guests will be treated to a culinary adventure at the Loading Dock designed by Abigail Kirsch with guest chef Luke Venner. Enjoy specialty cocktails, a not to be missed wine & spirits auction, while dancing the night away. VIP ticket packages include carefully curated wine tastings and a VIP lounge. TICKETS ON SALE NOW.
Filling in the Blanks is a non-profit organization that fills the weekend meal gap for children that qualify for the free or reduced school meal programs. By providing a bag filled with healthy food for the weekend, children experience increased academic achievement and greater increase of success.
The evening will help raise funds to support Filling in the Blanks' mission to fight childhood hunger in local communities. We are excited to see everyone at Plates with Purpose 2022!
Please join CTbites and Filling In The Blanks on November 19th, and if your dance card is busy and you can’t attend the gala, please consider making a donation here. Every dollar helps feed a child who would otherwise go hungry.
There are some ingredients in this world that, when you add them to anything, they pretty much make it spectacular. Bacon, for example. It would probably make a sneaker taste good. “Air” is another ingredient. Air-a bizarre ingredient on an episode of Chopped? No. Air, as in fresh air. Eating outside. Have you noticed that when you eat a lobster roll outside on a deck overlooking the ocean, it makes you happy? Or eat a grilled burger at a picnic table on a warm summer evening? Or sip a frothy cappuccino at a sidewalk cafe? What is the common ingredient here? Fresh air. Good food combined with a hefty dose of the outdoors.
And lucky for you, we’ve put together a long list of our favorite eateries (40+) that have lovely outdoor dining spaces.
If we missed an outdoor venue you frequent, please share your find below.
As food writers, photographers, and chefs, we have the pleasure of eating a lot of really great food. Fairfield County has experienced something of a restaurant explosion over the past year, as new chefs move in and move on, and menus expand. We've endeavored to expand our coverage beyond those borders, seeking to cover more of the state and sharing those experiences that are worth seeking out. Instead of coming up with a top ten list ourselves, we asked the CTbites extended family to share some of their most memorable meals and dining experiences this past year.
"My Signature Dish" is a new CTbites column featuring a rotating cast of chefs, and the dishes that define their cooking style, or simply make them happy to fire up the stove.
Jodi Bernhard hardly hesitated when choosing her signature dish at Fortina, Christian Petroni’s "casually hip" Italian restaurant in Armonk. Her eyes gleaming, she said, "It's our Pork Braciole." Braciole, hip?
If you grew up Italian, you probably hold memories of Braciole near and dear. This classic rolled, stuffed meat roast, usually serves as centerpiece for those sprawling homemade Italian dinners that lazily linger across Sunday afternoons into evening. Braciole invokes home. And family. Instant Nostalgia.
Ok, so how does a chef modernize a memory? Autograph a treasured family photo?
“That is the gist of our approach at Fortina,” Jodi explained. “ We try to not stray too far from ‘mom's’ version, but still make it a restaurant dish with our stamp on it. We are true to simplicity and flavor.”
The notion of putting “Mom’s dish” on Fortina’s playful, hip menu was Christian’s, one of the restaurant’s owners. (Patroni and and Jodi once cooked together at Barcelona in nearby Greenwich.) Though she and Christian work as collaborators, the task of “restaurantizing” this homey meal was largely up to Bernhard.
Cooking with wood fire has a preternatural, almost primal appeal. You could argue that as cavemen, it was our first foray into comfort food. The intense heat and smoke has the power to transform otherwise unassuming ingredients. The six-month old Fortina in Armonk, begins with this deceptively simple ethos–Italian food, cooked simply, in wood fired ovens–and elevates it with a thoughtful culinary execution and a familiar, if familial, disarming vibe.
“There is a complexity to the simplicity,” said Rob Krauss, one of Fortina’s three partners along with John Nealon and Christian Petroni, nailing what makes the restaurant’s cuisine tick. I’m fairly certain Krauss is also referring to the restaurant’s team, an extended family of sorts that works equally hard at the food as they do cultivating the culture at Fortina
More than the sum of its wood-fired parts, Fortina relies on the culinary prowess and Italian heritage of partner and Executive Chef Christian Petroni, formerly of Barcelona Greenwich, as both muse and ringleader. “My background is Italian, I grew up spending summers in Ponza. One of my favorite restaurants is Peasant. As a young cook, Frank de Carlo was an inspiration as a chef. I was intrigued by cooking in wood ovens. There is something about it that is so gratifying. It’s a beautiful thing.” Along with chef de cuisine Jodi Bernhard, formerly of Barcelona, the kitchen has the creative chops responsible for its daily printed menu.
Fairfield county residents will be soon crossing the border (passports not required)-- into Upper Westchester County's suburb of Armonk, after this week's opening of Fortina. Chef Christian Petroni, recently Executive Chef of Greenwich's Barcelona Restaurant, is joined by John Nealon, ex-GM of the same provenance and Nealon's childhood friend, Rob Krauss as business partners. Both Nealon and Krauss originally hail from Westport. Petroni, a local himself, is also co-owner of Cooked & Co., in Scarsdale.
Recalling the many memorable meals he had eaten during his time spent in Italy, Petroni's vision was to bring Italy's simple authentic flavors, cooking methods and presentation to the dishes he serves at Fortina. This vision is executed with the help of 2 wood burning ovens imported straight from Naples, Italy which serve as a focal point in the main dining room. In fact with the exception of just a few menu items, everything is cooked in these fiery hearths...even a pasta dish or two! (And you should hear Petroni when he speaks of his ovens...like a proud new Papa )
