Introduction to Supper Club

Each week guests on Supper Club with Tom Bergeron get to indulge in a flawlessly prepared green meal created by some of the most famous eco-chefs in the world. Using local high quality ingredients grown with sustainable practices and wasting little are common themes that thread the episodes together. While viewers get to eavesdrop on some pretty insightful conversation while seeing farm fresh meals come together, unfortunately, the magic of television still doesn't allow for taste and smell. For those interested in trying out these fabulous eco-chic meals, Planet Green will now be posting them on the Web site each week. Read up on the recipes and learn all about your favorite green chefs. You don't have to be a world renowned chef to host your own fabulous eco-friendly dinner party.

Michael Chiarello?Chef Michael Chiarello is the tastemaker behind NapaStyle, Chiarello Family Vineyards, the Emmy winning Food Network series Easy Entertaining, and six cookbooks. The Food Network's Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello, for which Michael co-produced, wrote, and starred, has won three daytime Emmy Awards. He is known for his NapaStyle books, specialty foods, cooking shows, and Web site. NapaStyle sends out 12 million sustainable catalogues a year, which are ten percent post consumer waste. Chiarello's own 20 acre organic vineyard uses biodiesel fuel. His new restaurant, Bottega, will be 80 percent green with food grown within 100 miles and bought directly from the farmer.

Rocco Dispirito?Chef Rocco DiSpirito's culinary experience began at age eleven in his mother Nicolin's kitchen. By the age of 16, DiSpirito entered the Culinary Institute of America, and then studied abroad at Jardin de Cygne. DiSpirito also earned a B.S. in Business from Boston University. In 1997, DiSpirito opened Union Pacific in New York City's Gramercy Park as chef and owner. In 1999, DiSpirito was named Food & Wine's Best New Chef, and in 2000, Gourmet magazine called him "America's Most Exciting Young Chef." In 2003, DiSpirito was the star of NBC's reality show, The Restaurant, which featured the launch of Rocco's 22nd Street restaurant. Later that summer, more than nine million viewers a week tuned in to see the ups and downs of DiSpirito's family-inspired eatery. DiSpirito is the author of Flavor, a unique cook book that breaks down his concept of building dishes on the four basic flavors, making his unique approach to food accessible to the home cook. DiSpirito's fifth book, Rocco Gets Real will be released in September of 2008.

Whitney Werner?Chef Whitney Werner is the executive chef at The Beach Club in Santa Monica. He is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, and has worked at Tavern on the Green, the Beverly Hills Hotel, and various restaurants in the Far East. Werner shops locally and organic and he keeps his fish sustainable, relying on the Monterey Bay Aquarium's endangered seafood guide.

Akasha Richmond?Chef Akasha Richmond is the healthy chef to the stars, spending nearly 20 years creating vegetarian and vegan recipes for her famous clients. She is the chef and owner of Akasha?one of the most eco-friendly restaurants in Los Angeles. The restaurant is made of various recycled building materials, the furniture is made of organic leather and hemp fabrics, and even the menus and to-go products are biodegradable. This goes along with Richmond's food philosophy. She uses organic products with no preservatives and works with sustainable fisheries and farmers. Akasha recently published a cookbook, Hollywood Dish, which traces Hollywood's 100-year obsession with organic foods and health lifestyles.

Ben Ford?Ben Ford is the chef and owner of Ford's Filling Station, a new American gastro-pub in Culver City, Calif. Ford is considered one of Los Angeles' brightest culinary stars. He earned his kitchen stripes at Chez Panisse, The Farm of Beverly Hills, Opus, Campanile, and Chadwick. He combines a rich professional experience with a lifetime of personal commitment to organics and artisanal sensibilities in the kitchen. Ben uses the finest local organic ingredients and shops at the Santa Monica Farmers' Market weekly. Most of the meat he uses is local and organic. His philosophy is "snout to tail," using every bit of the animal, wasting nothing. Ben continually donates his time to charitable food events such as teaching classes at Garden Magic Kids, a nonprofit group dedicated to planting organic gardens in urban public schools. He also makes a conscious effort to lower his carbon footprint by walking or riding his bike to his restaurant.

Ann Gentry?Chef, restaurateur, food educator, and visionary, Ann Gentry has spent the past twenty-five years striving to raise the standard of vegetarian cooking in this country. By combining the balanced approach to macrobiotic food preparation with the ambiance and richness of her Southern upbringing, she founded and continues to run Real Food Daily?the only restaurants in the Los Angeles area that serves a 100 percent vegetarian/vegan menu using foods grown exclusively with organic farming methods. Now with three locations in Southern Calif., the proprietress and former executive chef is the owner of LA's most progressive and highly lauded gourmet vegan eatery. Her restaurants have a recycling program, the menus are printed on hemp paper with soy ink, the table tops are made from refurbished wood, and the lighting is low voltage. They have a special film on the windows to cut down on heating and electricity. She won the sustainable award from the city of Santa Monica. Gentry has been instrumental in raising the profile of vegetarian cooking. In 2005, Gentry wrote her first cookbook, The Real Food Daily Cookbook.She is also the executive chef to Vegetarian Times magazine, where she contributes recipes and articles about healthy eating and lifestyle.

Nate Allen?Chef Nate Allen has served as personal chef with a clientele of Hollywood celebrities. Allen says it's imperative to know where our food is coming from, so he supports local community farms and co-ops and uses the freshest organic, seasonal ingredients. He uses only eco-friendly packaging and composts the organic food waste, recycles his clothes, and makes shopping bags for his friends. In the South, where he is from, sustainable was just called "common sense."

Neal Fraser?Neal Fraser is the chef/owner of Grace, one of the hottest restaurants in Los Angeles. When it comes to minimizing his carbon footprint, Neal is on the cutting edge. For one, he drives a diesel Mercedes that's been modified to run on used cooking oil from his restaurant. He composts and recycles his kitchen waste, and his waiters recommend filtered tap water as an alternative to bottled water. In 2007, he introduced a chef's menu sourced almost exclusively (90 percent) from ingredients grown, harvested, fished, and farmed no more than 400 miles from his kitchen's back door. Fraser was voted chef of the year by Los Angeles Magazine, which called him the Bono of the food scene. Fraser fights the fight, "I'm just trying to be a little bit more responsible. Every time I think of my children growing up, I ask, what can I do to make a difference?"