Chef John Mooney on Aeroponic Gardening
Chef John Mooney, owner of Bidwell (DC); Bell, Book and Candle (NYC); and Yao Cho (DC); joins Health Gig to explain aeroponics and how they play a role in his restaurants. We learn about Chef Mooney’s fascinating story of how he began his food program and his love for local, sustainable, and responsible restaurants.
More on Chef John Mooney:
Bidwell Website: bidwelldc.com
Social: @bidwellDC
Yao Cho Website: yaochodc.com
Social: @yaocho
Bell, Book and Candle Website: bbandcnyc.com
Social: bbcnyc.com
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Quotes:
For the required 3000 square feet, I could grow the same amount of vegetables a four-acre farm could grow using less than 10% of the water.
Chef John Mooney
When the staff sees, learns, and touches the food we prepare, it creates a great sense of pride in the food program. Chef John Mooney
Grow some herbs on your windowsill, and use them when you cook. Just that alone betters everybody. Chef John Mooney
Show Notes:
Chef John Mooney: Growing up in Chicago even since grade school I went to school with quite a few kids that had families in the restaurant business.
Chef John Mooney: The only experience I had was restaurants.
Chef John Mooney: I decided that was my career at a very young age, which was better benefit to me my whole life.
Chef John Mooney: My brother said I should go speak to him. Maybe it's a little bit more of a not just the job of maybe a career. He's a proper chef kind of thing. And that guy took me under his wing.
Chef John Mooney: It was a really good environment to grow in and learn. And when I got into that environment, when I saw what it could be, I immediately knew that this was the place for me.
Chef John Mooney: I took my best friend, Jose Garcias with me, who now owns probably 30 restaurants. And Jose went to culinary school with me. So Jose had a truck and I had a job, and we moved to Dallas, Texas.
Chef John Mooney: I really thought that I was like going to walk in there and maybe contribute when I'd realized very quickly that, no, I'm there to learn. And that was the humbling experience.
Chef John Mooney: I went to work in Washington, D.C. for Mark Miller.
Chef John Mooney: I went to New York with guys obviously that I worked in D.C. with.
Chef John Mooney: The fundamentals of that was very ingredient focused. So, you know, that was like 1997, 98.
Chef John Mooney: I was growing on the land, on that property.
Chef John Mooney: I started outdoor growing. I met the guy who created the system I used randomly at a farmers market, and I decided I decided he had to control the environment that we need, which directly translated into the rooftop garden.
Chef John Mooney: While I was in culinary school, I had thoughts of a vertical growing systemic. And at that time, I started to grow marijuana.
Chef John Mooney: at that point I used the application to do all the vegetables I could that so beets grow like tubes and roots onions and potatoes and things that grow in soil.
Chef John Mooney: We try to support our local farmer's market. But like I grow enough cucumbers to pickle for the hamburgers and the bar and everything that I never have to purchase a cucumber. And tomatoes.
Chef John Mooney: when it comes to water consumption and what the give back is to the land. Cattle is one of the best things you could raise anywhere if even if it's done right.
Chef John Mooney: We can use a whole cow and rapidly decrease our kill.
Chef John Mooney: some people really take it as their life's mission and really try to like what I say, beat their guests over the head with it and make everybody come and like prescribe to what I believe or my my staff to prescribe to what I believe. I don't do that.
Chef John Mooney: We're trying to give the highest quality for the best value, and that roots us in our neighborhoods that we put our restaurants. And we've done very well with that.
Chef John Mooney: I tell everybody, I've never had a job; I've only had a life.
Chef John Mooney: There's lots of ways to make money, very few ways that you could do something that you love.
Tags:
TriciaReillyKoch, DoroBushKoch, HealthGig, Longevity, Wellness, PhysicalHealth, MentalHealth, Health, HealthCare, ChefJohnMooney, Aeroponics, Sustainability