aGreatChef.com Blog – Food Blog of Chef Robert Conaway

Water, do you use it responsibly? Living in San Diego I am always amazed on how wasteful we are when it comes to water. Our uncontrollable urge to recreate the northern European landscape here in a coastal desert is beyond me. Southern California is in the clutches of yet another drought and with global temperatures on the rise it is looking more like California and San Diego will be getting less “free” water from Mother Nature.

Can green lawns and thirsty exotic foliage be a thing of the past? Perhaps, but as dire the situation is, we still are in pretty good shape. Many communities worldwide still rely on Mother Nature for all of their water needs. No desalinization plants, no pipelines and no deep well drilling, just what falls from the sky and what flows across the terrain. To bring attention to the plight of access to reliable and clean drinking water for children worldwide I am joining UNISEF & TapProject.org this year for World Water Week, March 22-28 2009.

World Water Week began in 2007 as a grassroots drive in NYC to draw attention to the lack of clean and available drinking water worldwide. The program is simple, ask diners to pony up a dollar (yes…1 dollar) for your glass of water while dining out and then donate the monies received to help in getting fresh, clean drinking water to children who do not currently have access to it. The program was such a success that it went nationwide in 2008 and is now returning in 2009.

I have, over the years done benefits for the American cancer society, AIDS research, Sarcoma research and family counseling and it has always relied on chefRob appearing at an event and doing a cooking demo or putting myself up for auction. This is a different kind of benefit, and one that I am excited about as it is not limited to people attending a specific event. Everyone dining at participating restaurants nationwide can get involved and only for a dollar. Every glass of drinking water = $1, just think about it….

If every diner in every participating restaurant got involved, we collectively could not only bring clean drinking water to the worlds kids, but might just learn a bit about how we waste water, how we might conserve water and what a glass of clean drinking water is truly worth. I hope you will join me in supporting this worthwhile cause by dining at restaurants that are taking part of World Water Week and offer up a dollar for your glass of H20. When was the last time you bought something so valuable for just a dollar?

chefRob