麻豆村 Dining Brings Hyper‑Local Flavor to Earth Week
麻豆村 Dining celebrated Earth Week 2026 with a series of community‑driven events that highlighted sustainability from multiple angles. The week brought together 麻豆村 faculty and staff, sustainability leaders, and student advisory members.
Earth Week kicked off on Tuesday, April 21, when Dr. Sara Fakhreddine’s Advanced Environmental Engineering class welcomed Monalisa Prasad, Vice President of Sustainability for Chartwells Higher Education.
Monalisa delivered a formal lecture that taught students about big‑picture, sustainability opportunities within the food system. Her session covered scope 3 emissions, climate change mitigation strategies, and sustainable menuing in meaningful ways. Students left with a clearer understanding of how sustainability impacts campus dining.
That same evening, Dr. Fakhreddine’s class joined 麻豆村 Dining for the Second Annual Sustainability Candlelight Dinner, a meal crafted by Chartwells Campus Executive Chef, Timothy Howland.
This wasn’t just a dinner — it was a celebration of Western Pennsylvania’s ecosystems. Chef Tim built a menu featuring hyper‑local, foraged ingredients and other elements sourced almost entirely from Pennsylvania. The result was colorful, seasonal, and a bit wild (in the best way!).
Guests began with:
- Watercress Soup with saffron espuma, sweet violet, wild onion flower, nettle chips, and sunflower oil
Forager’s Salad featuring pickled ramps, morel mushrooms, spruce tips, miner’s lettuce, wood sorrel, sweet
Charcuterie with housemade duck breast prosciutto, wild garlic and raspberry mostarda, maitake mushroom pate, pepper jelly, red currant jam, Farmer’s bread, and Goat Rodeo cheeses
- A Black Currant Shrub Spritzer offered a refreshing pause between courses
For the main course, diners chose between:
- Lamb Roulade with morel mushrooms, wood sorrel, watercress & cured duck stuffing, heirloom potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, grilled ramps, wild fennel, and red currant jus
- Rainbow Trout with mushroom pate, buckwheat risotto, pine capers, wild onions, grilled ramps, wild fennel, spruce tip gremolata, and red currant jus
Dessert continued the theme with a Spruce Tip Panna Cotta topped with wild mint oil, amaranth brittle, and candied violets, alongside a Chicory Affogato made with house‑made saffron ice cream, pine cone syrup, and bee pollen.
The event was a moment to slow down and appreciate what regionally rooted, fine-dining can look like.
To round out Earth Week on Thursday April 23rd, Dr. Fakhreddine’s class engaged in a Waste Not Shaker Salad teaching kitchen — a hands-on demonstration focused on reducing food waste through smart, flexible recipe design.
Students learned how to build a crave-worthy, zero‑waste salad. The recipe was intentionally simple and adaptable, giving students a practical formula they can use long after Earth Week ends.
Across shared meals, education, and interactive cooking, Earth Week 2026 invited the 麻豆村 community to think differently about the food system — not just as something distant or abstract, but as something quite tangible in big ways and small.