The Occupy Wall Street diet

posted at 11:14 am on October 19, 2011 by Howard Portnoy

Protesting corporate greed builds quite an appetite. Luckily for the hordes at Zuccotti Park, one of their fellow protesters is a trained chef. The New York Post reports:

Hundreds of grimy protesters laying siege to Wall Street … dine each night on gourmet meals prepared by a former hotel chef using only the finest organic ingredients.

The park’s chef de kyoozeen is Eric Smith, 38, formerly of the Sheraton New York. After losing his job last year, Smith began donating time at a soup kitchen in East New York, Brooklyn. Recently, he began manning the chuck wagon at the downtown Manhattan encampment, which is now in its fifth week. Says Smith of the meals he provides:

The other day, we made some wonderful salmon cakes with dill sauce and some quinoa salad and a wonderful tomato salad with fennel and red onion.

We use organic, grass-fed meats, and the other day, we made a wonderful fried rice and root vegetables and all kinds of soup.

Sounds wonderful.

Last night, the menu included chicken (organic, natch), spaghetti Bolognese, roasted beet and sheep’s milk-cheese salad, and wild heirloom potatoes. It is doubtful that the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street ate better.

The Post notes that the food is donated by farms upstate as well as in Connecticut and Vermont. When a fresh shipment of supplies is ready, a driver collects the goodies and trucks them back to the park.

Now if only someone would donate mattresses and plumbing, the protesters would really feel at home.