Spinach scare ends salad days

Chefs across the Inland Northwest have spiked spinach dishes and tossed out pounds of the produce after it was linked to a nationwide outbreak of food-borne illness.

Meanwhile, orders for locally grown organic spinach have held steady or increased slightly amid worries about E. coli 0157:H7 infection.

“I suppose everybody’s missing their spinach salad,” said Angie Petro, spokeswoman for Fresh Abundance! Inc. of Spokane, which supplies produce directly from area growers.

No local cases are among the more than 100 infections and at least one death traced to the nearly week-old E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak that now has affected 21 states, including Washington and Idaho, according to Food and Drug Administration officials.

Still, Inland Northwest restaurants were rushing to comply with an FDA warning not to eat fresh or bagged spinach or salad mixes that include the vegetable.

“Better to be safe than sorry,” said Jennifer Hogberg, owner of Luigi’s Italian Restaurant in Spokane.

Her chef, Tristan Cole, said he tossed out 15 pounds of bagged spinach and 10 pounds of salad mix on news of the FDA investigation and product recall last week.

Cole also removed from the menu one of the restaurant’s most popular dishes: a spinach salad made with mandarin oranges, apples, pine nuts and a special honey-mustard dressing.

“It’s kind of worrisome,” he said.

In Coeur d’Alene, America’s Cheesecake Café discarded 100 pounds of fresh spinach as well as frozen spinach used in several dishes.

“It’s more of an inconvenience for our customers, because it’s in so many dishes,” said general manager Mark Bauernfeind.

It was the same story at other restaurants in the area. At the Davenport Hotel’s Palm Court Grill, spinach has been stripped from every dish and garnish, said Karri Bradshaw, assistant manager.

All three Twigs restaurants in Spokane have stopped serving a signature warm spinach salad made with bacon, mushrooms and balsamic vinaigrette and topped with gorgonzola cheese and candied walnuts, said Trevor Blackwell, director of operations.

At Luna, a spinach salad slated for the new fall menu will be postponed until spring, said Greg Reynolds, general manager.

In a teleconference Monday, FDA officials offered no timeline for lifting the warning as a nationwide investigation continues.

“It kind of makes you worried even when it does come back,” said Cole, the Luigi’s chef.

At Fresh Abundance, consumers continued to place orders for fresh spinach grown by Gary Angell of Rocky Ridge Ranch in Reardan.

“They appreciate that they have a safe, trusted source for baby spinach,” said Petro, spokeswoman for the distributor, which lists more than 500 members.

Angell said he didn’t consider his spinach crop to be covered by the FDA warning.

“Our spinach is grown by us, hands-on,” said the farmer, who devotes about an acre to the crop.

Local health officials, however, urged area grocery stores to pull fresh and bagged spinach from their shelves, including salad mixes that include spinach.

“We’re urging grocery stores and restaurants to be really vigilant about this warning,” said Julie Graham, spokeswoman for the Spokane Regional Health District.

The FDA warning has been especially troubling to Angela Hadley, the young Spokane woman who contracted a life-threatening kidney disease in an E. coli outbreak at a dance camp in 2002.

Hadley, now 20, recently reached a confidential financial settlement with Spokane Produce, the local firm whose lettuce was linked to the illness that sickened more than 50 girls at Eastern Washington University. Lawyers for the firm noted that no E. coli was ever found on any Spokane Produce product or equipment.

The cause of that E. coli infection was never determined, although the FDA said it was traced to the Salinas Valley in California, the same region investigated in connection with the current outbreak.

In the years since her illness, Hadley has avoided lettuce. Instead, she said recently, she has eaten spinach.

“She’s not eating spinach now,” Hadley’s mother, Mary Hadley, said Monday. “It’s one more thing X-d off the list.”

Reach reporter JoNel Aleccia at (509) 459-5460 or by e-mail at jonela@spokesman.com.