Steve and I are off to get our King County Food Handler’s Permit today in order to do serve up a surprise coffee taste testing at tomorrow’s Harvest Fair being put on by Seattle Tilth. It’s running 10am to 5pm and located at Meridian Park, behind the Good Shepherd Center (4649 Sunnyside Ave N) in Wallingford.

In the meantime, I’ve been calling restaurants non-stop to try and build a flyer of restaurants that support organic, locally grown, sustainable and/or seasonal produce/proteins. I have to say once more that calling restaurants is not fun. Anything other than the words, “I’d like to make a reservation…” will immediately cause the wagons to circle about 50% of the time and shut you out. The other 30% of the time I am getting through, I get to play phone tag or leave voice mails.

The one interesting thing I have learned however, is that the head/Executive Chefs apparently do take near complete control of sourcing, as I am almost always told to talk to the chef to get my questions on sourcing answered. Not having worked in an actual restaurant, it’s nice to know that the chef does get the biggest say on what they get to use. That said, I have been mainly calling contemporary style restaurants thus far, given that the chances of Red Robin using organic lettuce or your local teriyaki joint using free range chicken is slim to none.

Anyhow, enough of a break. Back to work, work, work.

The Asian Counseling and Referral Service in association with several corporate sponsors, will be hosting their annual Walk for Rice at Seward Park on June 21.

The Walk for Rice is a free 2.5 mile run/walk-a-thon to raise money for the ACRS Food Bank. Their goal for this year is to raise enough money to purchase 350,000 pounds of rice.

The event was first established in 1991 by members of the Asian/Pacific American community to draw more attention to the ACRS Food Bank. One of their biggest concerns is the lack of resources to purchase specific staple foods, such as rice, tofu and vegetables, that are not available from conventional food banks.

Currently, the ACRS supplies food and support to over 5,000 low income Asian/Pacific Americans. More than half of the clients of the ACRS are children under the age of 18 or elders over the age of 55. The ACRS Food Bank is the third most used food bank in King County and it is the only provider in the State of Washington that regularly distributes food that meets the daily requirements of Asian/Pacific Americans.

In addition to the Food Bank, the ACRS also tackles many other problems for the Asian/Pacific American community. It was formed as a grassroots organization amidst problems stemming from misdiagnosis and inappropriate care from hospitals and service providers due to a major culture barrier. The ACRS works as an intermediary, offering assistance in legal issues, health care, and naturalization.

Presently, the ACRS has a staff of about 140 people, most of whom are bilingual. The organization collectively speaks 30 different languages and dialects.

Every year, the Walk for Rice has slowly gained more traction as its doubled is previous fundraising goals every year since 2005. Aside from the 2.5 run/walk-a-thon, the event also provides several entertainment events and other competitive team activities. Free drinks and promotional items are available for everyone at the event.

The registration opens at 8am and the run/walk-a-thon begins around 10:30am.

To find more information about the walk for rice and the Asian Counseling and Referral Service, go to www.walkforrice.com or http://www.acrs.org.

Pictures from Bhangra Bash 2008 last week, held at the University of Washington’s Meany Hall.

The UW’s own Bhangra Bash team

The UW team again

Team “ABC”, a team of 16-19 year olds from Seattle

All the Bhangra teams out on stage

As a result of partnering with the UW Indian Students Association for the top Indian restaurants in Seattle, they offered us two VIP tickets to their annual Bhangra Bash competition. Bhangra is a traditional celebration and folk dance of Southern India that involves lots of colorful outfits, movement and music. In it’s current form, Bhangra has seen it’s dance incorporated into modern culture, with hip hop and R&B taking quite a few queues from the style of Bhangra.

We had a great time at the show and it was great seeing the performances from all the teams. My personal favorite was the St. Louis team that could have second as a professional dance team with their choreography and near-perfect timing and coordination. If you get the chance, check out the show next year for an interesting treat- it was my first time at this type of event and I’ll be sure to go again next year!