“Maa-aah-MEE-ee!” Georgia now needs four syllables to say Mommy, “May we pleeease go to a rest’urant? We haven’t been to a rest’urant for a long time!”

It’s true, we used to eat out a lot, but now, due to budget constraints and an effort to eat more carefully and nutritionally, we have put the kibosh on dining out. And oh how we miss it! For some reason, even though I am always thinking about what we are putting into our systems here at home, when we go out it’s like the Amnesia Fairy waved her wand and I don’t remember a thing about factory farming, agribusiness, genetically modified and irradiated foods. We enjoy our gustatory excursions with blissful blinders on, ignorant of a particular restaurant’s ecological mission, food waste disposal techniques or use of hydrogenated oils.

Of course the restaurants we used to frequent weren’t out to get us, or the earth, but are just considering their bottom line in a very competitive industry. Huge restaurant food service companies offer one-stop-shopping for restaurant owners who aren’t necessarily thinking about their customers’ health when they order thousands of pounds of meat and produce and shelf-stable food supplies. The science and technology of food is a massive business all its own. I got a (pardon me) taste of it when I used to wait tables. I was fascinated and appalled by huge tubs of Frymax cooking oil, and trade magazines touting long life avocados for an industry whose keywords are “mouthfeel” “shelf-life” and “flavor enhancements.” Once the Momster started waving off the Amnesia Fairy’s spell to recall these things, restaurants seemed a little less appetizing.

But Georgia wanted to go out, and we were very tired and didn’t have anything for dinner, plus some crazy bank gave us a new credit card, so we decided to try the latest brewpub to hit town. I am very (very) lucky to live in a place where you don’t have to go to the fancy, expensive restaurant to get served local, organic food. Even Burgerville, our fast food joint, has a sustainability mission. So it was with a sigh of relief to find that Hopworks is a restaurant that specializes in organic beers and a local, sustainable and largely organic menu, at reasonable prices. They even recycled one of my favorite industrial Portland buildings to create an eco-friendly, and very cool space. From the permeable parking lot (to prevent runoff), to the organic fries and the Deluxe Organic Ale on the recycled copper tabletops, Hopworks provided me a relaxed feeling of satisfaction.

I’m glad to see the sustainable restaurant trend going mainstream. Some large hotel restaurants, not usually considered cutting edge, are turning to local and organic products. I notice too that Frymax is non-hydrogenated and now has a non-GMO sunflower oil option, and I suspect that organic restaurant food service magazines must already be in the works. So just as it will become easier to find eco-friendly products in big box stores, it will become easier to find dining establishments more in tune with the sustainable movement. While I know my burger, however sustainably-raised, does not contribute to a healthier earth (or body), it felt good to not have to worry quite as much about the environmental or nutritional cost on this particular trip to the “rest’urant.”