Don't let that rice to go waste!

Hello, friends! We sisters are happy to say that fresh from our annual EIAB organizational summit. We are really looking forward to time off this summer from our jobs to recalibrate our mission and keep on packin’ those boxes. We’ve noticed something interesting though – and we’d love to hear you weigh in on this. Chinese food restaurants have been giving out less rice this past year or two. We have fewer leftovers! Do you find the same? This is great: more conserving happening from the start. Have you been noticing this, too?

Hello readers,

Happy Summer to you! We’re happy to announce that there is officially interest in starting up a branch of Egg in a Box in Texas! That branch will tackle some of our PR and chef outreach duties. Meanwhile, at our homebase in New York, we are working on strengthening other branches of the organization. Although we haven’t written in a few months, you can be sure that we are still plugging away in New York! And we hope to hear from you soon, as always! Enjoy the soft summer sun and keep thinking inside the box!

Hi folks, we’ve gotten our site functional again, with thanks to the genius of our WordPress, well, Genius-in-Residence. We’re looking forward to posting again as we head into 2011 with a strong sense of excitement: we just had the privilege of attending Jonathan Bloom’s two NYC readings for American Wasteland (in which EIAB is featured!) and getting a Leonard Lopate Show shoutout. How is your 2011 going so far? Taking out or cooking more lately? As they say in other parts of the world on New Year’s Eve, Happy Sylvester!

This week’s update is all centered around learnings gleaned from chef/advice-master Joshua of Grill-A-Chef (see down in the Recipe section for more information on him!). He brings us the amazing news that eggs can be seasoned… 3…2…1… through their shells! See his post, here: “salting through eggshell” Yay!

We wish you the most springy of all springs. Keep change coming and check out Leket/Table to Table, a very cool organization in our own backyard: http://tabletotable.org/.

-the Egg in a Box sisters

 I’m wondering if we’re overusing our “in a box” moniker, but I saw this neatly-placed bagel in a newspaper box in front of Zabar’s. It reminds me, too, of the FoodBox, recently profiled by Wasted Food here. Lox in a Box, indeed. . .

 We went to Chinese food + Mel Brooks movies at 92Y Tribeca this year, and though we missed our usual festivities with loved ones who need to take a break just this year, we had a great time watching Blazing Saddles and Spaceballs. Most importantly, the Y was good enough to provide takeaway boxes, so we could create Egg Rolls in a Box. Our 3rd annual holiday giveaway! In other news, our sticker project is taking form. We are really excited about this project for 2010, and celebrate two years of Egg in a Box in January.

Egg in a Box is working on a new prong (let’s go with the fork tableware metaphor!): Sticker Project. In an eggshell: we want to get restaurants to put a small sticker on their to-go rice boxes. This sticker will inform eaters to not waste the extra rice and will point to this website for information. We’ll going to start by speaking to three Chinese restaurants that operate close to W. 23rd Street in Manhattan. Ideas and questions? Please write us! Special thanks to writer Jonathan Bloom of Wasted Food, who is writing a forthcoming book about wasted food in America (look for it in bookstores in 2010!), for re-invigorating the discussion about this.

This weekend, I harvested squash, carrots, beans, various lettuces, swiss chard, cukes (22 of them!), and broccoli from our new garden in Upstate NY. It was the first time I had done that in my life. I felt so healthy eating the food just minutes after picking it, and it felt so good to get down in the earth and harvest. Question of the day: how much of your leftovers = raw? How much cooked? Are leftovers usually thought of as cooked food?

That is, we are loving the taste of sweet and tart fruits with egg and rice. Easy to eat at home when you have the leftovers. Easy to give away, because whole fruits with pits like nectarines, peaches, and apricots are small and easily transportable. Sweet+salty delight.