Flaming Eggplant prepares for move into new CAB
No matter what our individual affiliations, tastes, or desires are, one thing that ties us together is food. At Evergreen, students have had to fight tooth and nail and work 40-60 hour weeks on top of classes to get sustainable, self-run, local food service off the ground. Evergreen’s latest and perhaps greatest experiment in selfoperated food service is the Flaming Eggplant. I sat down over a flaming tater salad at their Big Annual Meeting to see what’s up.
A long history
Evergreen students have worked towards having a self-operated and more sustainable food service for decades. The first attempt at opening a student run café was “The Corner,” opened in 1980 by an Evergreen student. The Corner fell in 2000 after being open nearly two decades. In 2001, the Food Service Disappearing Task Force decided “it would be in Evergreen’s best interest to make preparations for a transition to self-operated [food service]” In the Spring of 2007, a proposal to add a $2 fee per credit to every student registered that Fall to help open the Flaming Eggplant passed with nearly 90% approval from voting students. If you’re interested in more history of TESC food service, CxPJ collective member Andrew Sernatinger wrote an article and timeline entitled “The future of campus food service: self operation?” that is available on our website and was reprinted in this year’s Disorientation Manual.
Creating an alternative
“The Flaming Eggplant is about providing tasty, healthy, local food to our community,” said Davi Rios, “but it’s also about showing that we can set up a sustainable, ethical, student-run food service that is successful.” The Eggplant has certainly been thriving with that goal in mind. Despite being in a small trailer outside on Red Square where business slumps every time it is cold or rainy, which I shouldn’t have to remind folks living in the Northwest is quite often, the Flaming Eggplant has managed to occasionally turn a profit. Being a profitable food service provider is something that even Aramark, the corporation in charge of food service in the Greenery, has failed miserably to do at Evergreen.
The Eggplant operates in a completely transparent way with all financial documents. Full reports are sent monthly to all workers and available to the public at all times. Sarah Rocker, Staff Advisor for the Eggplant, summed it up by saying, “because the café is subsidized with Student Activities fees, we really have a commitment to make this information available to everyone.”
Part of creating this alternative has been providing new models throughout the supply chain from farm to table. The structure of our capitalist society has increasingly divorced us from a connection with what we eat. In a study by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Iowa titled “Food, Fuel, and Freeways,” they estimated the average distance produce traveled before it reached the person who intended to eat it. Tomatoes clocked in at 1,369 miles and lettuce came from a staggering average distance of 2,055 miles away.
The Eggplant’s informational zine states their commitment to knowing where and who their food is coming from. “We work hard to source our food so that it is either organic and/ or local… Eating local bolsters local production and our local economy.” Many of the businesses that the Eggplant buys from, like Oly Kraut and Magic Komboucha, were started by Evergreen alumni. The Eggplant sources its rolls and pita bread from Blue Heron Bakery, its sandwich bread from the San Francisco Street Bakery, and their pastries and gluten- free bread are from 8 Arms Community Bakery. All of these are local businesses. All of the Eggplant’s coffees come from Olympia Coffee Roasters and are organic and better than fair trade as Olympia Coffee Roasters actually visits the farms themselves to ensure that the coffee farmers have decent wages and conditions.
The Flaming Eggplant goes one step further in their sourcing by only working with companies “that address health, environmental, and social issues proactively.” They are actively boycotting Coca-cola, Nestle, Pepsi, Dole, and Monsanto.
As far as jobs created by the Eggplant, there are currently two student coordinators and 15 student positions that are compensated financially but the cafe hires more or less according to their needs. Anyone can volunteer as much as they want and volunteers are compensated through food as well as able to attend meetings and help direct where the Eggplant goes in the future. If you or someone you know is interested in learning more about the eggplant, volunteering, submitting an application for hire in the fall, or becoming a member of the Board of Advisors, check out thier website at theflamingeggplant.org
In the not so distant future
This fall, the Eggplant will be moving into a new space in the renovated CAB building where KAOS was formerly located. Along with all the current services that are offered, much more is in the works. Davi Rios gave a brief glimpse into the Eggplant’s new digs at their Big Annual Meeting. “There will be a circular stage in the corner where bands can perform and students will be able to display their art on the cafe’s walls. We’ve been talking about having seasonal menus and we will be taking credit and debit cards next year.”
Ideas for their new space are plentiful. Rios joked with me about the deluge of student input they had received. “I’ve probably heard a thousand ideas, but I can only remember ten. I’m working on three right now, but I only have the time for two.” The wonderful thing at the Eggplant is that anyone who wants to get involved can do so. The Eggplant was built by years of Evergreen students taking initiative and will continue to grow in the same way. “If you have an idea for the Eggplant, make it happen.”
Emily Flam, the Eggplant’s community outreach coordinator, spoke with me about her visions for the Eggplant. “In the future, we’re really interested in transitioning from a worker model to a learning model. We want the Eggplant to be a place where students can put their theory into practice.”
Although the future remains unwritten, The Flaming Eggplant is full of committed, active, and determined students. When the CAB opens this fall, Greeners will have a student run, locally sourced, café on the third floor serving up delicious food and a fresh alternative to the unaccountable corporate monolith that is Aramark.