Lovin’ the local

Don’t even think about frozen dinners
When I have a busy week, like I did last week, and have too little time to spend cooking a good, nutritious meal for me and my 11-year-old daughter, I am glad that there are places like Bacio Catering & Carry Out Cuisine (1903 Park Ave., 345-7787) and the Turri Family Farms food cart at the Thursday Night Market. Both serve the ultimate in healthful, fresh, locally sourced eats.

For the unfamiliar, Bacio—owned by longtime Chico über-caterer Amanda Leveroni (and conveniently located just blocks from my house)—serves an irresistible array of carry-out entrées, appetizers, sandwiches, salads and sweets, such as The Sandwich, which is made with either barbecued, pulled, organic Llano Seco pork or free-range chicken, or the Salad Trifecta, a selection of three of Bacio’s always-yummy deli-case salads on a bed of organic greens. (Tip: the Quinoa & French Lentil Herb Salad is out of this world!)

Other menu items include Chico Rice Salad (made with organic local rices), garlic smashed potatoes, polenta lasagna and Deluxe “Grown Up” Mac ‘n’ Cheese.

Bacio’s soft, brownie-like Chocolate Aztec cookies—their peppery, chocolate interiors complemented by a sprinkling of sea salt on the outside—were a total score the other evening, as were the buttery cranberry-coconut-chocolate chip cookies I got for half-price (50 cents each) because they were a day old.

Head to www.baciocatering.com/togo/menus/carry-out to look at Bacio’s take-out items (which may also be eaten in Bacio’s tiny, cozy dining area).

As for Turri Farms’ farmers’ market cart, it’s the go-to place for my daughter on Thursday evenings. She always gets a hot dog, which bears little resemblance to the standard nitrate- and nitrite-loaded dog on a processed-white-flour bun. Turri Farms’ preservative-free dogs are made with hormone- and antibiotic-free, grass-fed and -finished beef from Tony and Marianne Turri’s farm in Flournoy and served on locally made artisan-bread buns. Produce served on Turri’s half-pound burgers comes from Chico Natural Foods; the organic ice cream for the fresh strawberry shakes comes from Alden’s Ice Cream in Eugene, Ore.

More local goodness
While I am giving much-deserved props to sustainability-conscious local businesses, I want to mention AAG Biotics’ probiotic bokashi food-waste composter. I started using one of them—essentially a large, square bucket with a lid and a spigot—at home after writing a story about the south-Chico business (See “‘Yogurt for dirt,’” March 22, 2012).

The bokashi bucket must be used with a coffee-ground-like substance containing micro-organisms that anaerobically ferment kitchen waste and also produce a bokashi “tea” that can be drained off and used to nourish plants. The coolest thing about the set-up is that the composting food does not stink; it smells pickled.

Go to www.aagbiotics.com to learn more and to purchase bokashi and a bucket.

“The federal government has sponsored research that has produced a tomato that is perfect in every respect, except that you can’t eat it. We should make every effort to make sure this disease, often referred to as ‘progress,’ doesn’t spread.” – Andy Rooney

“When you go to the grocery store, you find that the cheapest calories are the ones that are going to make you the fattest—the added sugars and fats in processed foods.” – Michael Pollan