Beef, bees, and buffalo
Meryle Evans reports.
| More Front Burner in this issue |
| Discovering America bite by bite |
| Let them eat cake |
| My dinner with the pope |
| Beery endings |
| Sustaining farms |
New York City—They won't be singing "Farmer in the Dell" at Lincoln Center on June 8 when the annual James Beard Foundation Awards Ceremony & Gala Reception takes over Avery Fisher Hall, but there will be Kathy Blackshaw's Pine Hill Farm eggs, black walnuts gathered by Pennsylvania farmer Glen Brindle, and organically fed Georgia trout in the dishes prepared by 31 stellar chefs at a reception to celebrate the local purveyors who inspire them with top quality ingredients. Beard brainstormers came up with this year's timely theme, "Artisanal America: The Craft of Cuisine," and tapped longtime sustainability advocates Dan Barber and Odessa Piper as co-chairs. Selecting like-minded colleagues, Barber and Piper asked each to create a dish representative of their relationship with one or more artisan/partners.
Some of the chefs are bringing along their purveyor pals. Wisconsin cattle ranchers John and Dorothy Priske will stand side by side with Tory Miller, chef/co-owner of L'Etoile in Madison, as he pairs their grass-fed Scottish Highland beef rib eye with wild Wisconsin morels and Blue Valley Gardens asparagus, topped with Mornay sauce made with Pleasant Ridge Reserve cow's milk cheese.
Nora Pouillon, doyenne of the local/sustainability movement, whose Washington, D.C., restaurant Nora in 1999 was the country's first to be certified organic, is bringing two of her favorite Pennsylvania farmers, Roman Stoltzfoos, a provider of milk, cream, and butter, and Jim and Moie Crawford of New Morning Farm, who've grown the fruits for her dessert duo: rhubarb gelato with balsamic strawberries and strawberry gelato with rhubarb/ginger compote, both served in brandy snap baskets.
"I always like to highlight what's around me," says M. J. Adams, chef/owner of The Corn Exchange in Rapid City, South Dakota. As the plains, she admits, are not exactly a rain forest, buffalo from her friend Mimi Hillenbrand's 777 Ranch will provide the filling for her empanadas with chimichurri sauce. A transplanted New Yorker who is currently president of her local farmers' market, Adams is bringing along her husband of one week, Walter Albasi, following their wedding in Custer State Park.
On the East Coast, Melissa Kelly, chef/ co-owner of Primo (Rockland, ME; Tucson; and Orlando) is growing squash blossoms for the reception, to be stuffed with sheep's milk ricotta, heirloom tomatoes, and Sicilian pesto. Another pesto, black walnut, will accompany the corzetti pasta chef/owner Marc Vetri of Vetri in Philadelphia is planning to roll out right at his table.
Eric Warnstedt, chef/co-owner of Hen of the Woods in Waterbury, Vermont, explains that "every protein on the menu except for seafood is from 15 miles from here," specifically Jasper Hill Farm blue cheese and Honey Gardens Apiary wildflower honey with a slice of domestic prosciutto. Anne Quatrano, co-chef/owner of Bacchanalia in Atlanta, is also enlisting the bees from her farm for bee pollen crackers to accompany lightly cured rainbow trout from Bramlett Trout Farm. "They're only an hour away," says Quatrano, "so we get them live, which, when you live in Georgia, is a big deal."
From home base in New York City, sustainability avatar Peter Hoffman, chef/owner of Savoy and Back Forty, is connecting with his New Paltz rabbit farmer, John Fazio, for a rabbit roulade on a bed of fava beans in spring vegetable broth, while chef Alexandra Guar na schelli of Butter is working with Mountain Sweet Berry Farm in Roscoe, whence Rick and Nikki Bishop will supply the strawberries and greens for salt-cured Hudson Valley foie gras with warm strawberry/black pepper jam and arugula. Bill Telepan, chef/owner of Telepan, is casting a wider net for his house-made scrapple with poached eggs and a sweet pork sauce: Anson Mills grits; pork from Flying Pig Farm in Shushan, New York; Pine Hill Farm eggs; and Ronnybrook milk, which he plans to caramelize for the sauce. "There is sort of an ineffable good feeling about this group," Piper concludes. "I think people will be eating really well."
