"UC berkeley" news and stories

Dream on, Cal alum. Zachary's has no plans to open a restaurant in Los Angeles, or at least, not that I've ever heard of. However, there is a way to get your favorite deep-dish, stuffed Chicago-style pizza from your college days at home in LA. It's' called the 6-hour Drive With a Half-Baked Pizza.

On the last day of a mini-vacationin the Bay Area, I stopped at a couple of my old food haunts in Berkeley, making Zachary's on College Avenue my last stop. On purpose. I wanted to take home a half-baked pizza. I stopped in (no parking in the Albertson's lot!), had a slice of their special stuffed pizza for lunch - grilled chicken and artichoke  - and ordered two spinach and mushroom half-baked pizzas.

Normally, the half-baked pizzas are for people who want to pick-up a pizza earlier in the day to avoid the chaos at Zachazry's around dinner time. They can take the half-baked pizzas and fully bake them for about 15-20 minutes at home somewherein the Bay area that night. I however, drove them for 6 hours along the I-5 back to LA.

The pizzas taste just as good in southern California. Zachary's recommends that you do not freeze the pizzas, but heck,next time I'm up in the Bay area, I'm buying a half-dozen half-baked pizzas, bringing them home, and freezing them to eat once a month.

The University of California, Berkeley just became the first US college to offer students food from an organic certified kitchen. The kitchen at the relatively new Crossroads dining commons was approved by the California Certified Organic Farmers, a trade organization that issues certificates to state and local restaurants and businesses based on their compliance of the USDA National Organic Program.

While some other universities do offer their students organic options, the certification of the Berkeley kitchen, which is separate from the other kitchens in the dining hall, means that every item served in their new organic salad bar is produced via environmentally sound farming practices. The certification process took about one year and the produce offered costs roughly 10 to 15% more than traditional produce. Some students reported that the food tasted the same as conventionally grown, while others thought it tasted better; the majority of the students who were aware that the certification had taken place were happy to see the change. Berkeley plans to offer more organic options in the future.

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