Chris Cosentino
Answers Phil’s questions

Oct 8 | archive | subscribe

Chris Cosentino is the Executive Chef of San Francisco’s Incanto, where he cooks in an earthy rustic Italian style. Cured, raw or roasted; traditional cut or offal, meat is his muse. He has an abiding passion for offal, and is currently at work on a definitive cookbook on the subject. At Incanto, he features offal on his daily changing menu and even blogs about it.

In addition to spending time with his wife and young son, Cosentino enjoys participating in 24-hour endurance races on his single-gear mountain bike and can be seen on this years The Food Network’s, The Next Iron Chef. foodnetwork.com

How does your work relate to green, good or giving?
If you’re cooking right, you are doing justice to the animal and you are not throwing it away. Educating people that sustainable eating is a good thing. Be willing to eat and learn to eat everything.

How do you get to work?
Ride my bike, take public transportation, or walk. In San Francisco I usually ride my bike. When I work in Oakland I have to drive.

Green

What environmental offense has infuriated you the most?
Factory farming, because it is disgusting and it’s inhumane. They’re a lot of people doing good things in the Bay Area. Here you have Prather Ranch they do things properly. Range Brother’s, under the umbrella of Prather Ranch, certified human raised and handled pork. You have to schedule yourself according to get your stuff, its not as simple as buying from a meat distributor. rangebrothers.com

Who is your environmental hero?
Someone everyone should pay attention to Dan Barber. He is chef/owner of Blue Hill & Blue Hill at Stone Barns Creative Director, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. He is a very intelligent man. bluehillstonebarns.com

What's your environmental vice?
We all drive a car, its kind of something everyone is stuck with. Living in a city, having a business, a family, its not that easy to give up. I am looking at something bio-diesel.

Giving

What is your philosophy of giving?
Unfortunately, I don’t have money to be giving financially. Education can be the same as giving. What I do is allow kids to come into the restaurant to learn. Isn’t that the true meaning of being a chef, to teach? So I give something.

What is your first memory of volunteering or making a donation?
I volunteered at a food bank once on Thanksgiving. I used to do special events in DC, all nonprofit charity events that had to do with food like Meal on Wheels… all the different food events, and I volunteered my time.

What nonprofit organization are you affiliated with presently?
The Chefs Collaborative. They're the leading culinary organization that provides its members with tools for running economically healthy, sustainable food service businesses. Members represent a broad range of food-related professions, from culinary school instructors and managers of large food service operations to distributors, owners of specialty stores, and farmers, fishermen, and ranchers. chefscollaborative.org

Who is your role model for giving?
My wife! Because she has given everything that she has every had to help our family and my career.

Which actor would play you in the story of your life?
I have no idea. I don’t every watch movies.

If you could have every Phil reader do one thing, what would it be?
Stop blogging… then realize that when eat out or when you buy meat, remember that it had a face and that it was a living animal. Andto to be wiling to try something different.