February 2007 | Green Lines
Farmers and chefs cozy up
By Zachary D. Lyons
Every restaurant should own their own farm,” said Sam Lucy of Bluebird Grain Farms in Winthrop, Washington. He was musing on the unique relationship between Seattle’s Flying Fish restaurant and Whistling Train Farm in Kent, in which the restaurant contracts with the farm for it’s produce.
Relationships between farms and restaurants are what the 2nd annual Seattle Farmer-Chef Connection on February 5th is all about. Over 200 farmers, chefs, ranchers, institutional food service buyers, bakers, and home delivery programs gathered to meet last year.
Seth Caswell, Executive Chef at Stumbling Goat in Seattle met the folks from Williamson Ranch in Eastern Washington. He now buys ten head of cattle from the ranch each year. “It challenges me to use every part of the cow, and to keep my menu fresh,” said Caswell.
The goal of the event, organized by the Seattle Chefs Collaborative, is to strengthen our local food system by giving farmers direct access to area buyers while increasing the presence of Washington farm products on local menus.
“Two minutes of business card swapping last year led to a business relationship with Bluebird,” said Andrew Stout of Full Circle Farm in Carnation. Now, Stout sells thousands of dollars of Bluebird’s grain products through his farm’s CSA program.
Bluebird had just started direct-marketing its heirloom organic grain products when they attended the 2006 Farmer-Chef Connection. “Through the Connection, we established relationships with a dozen Seattle-area restaurants,” affirmed Brooke Lucy.
The 2007 Seattle Farmer-Chef Connection will take place on Monday, February 5, 2007 at The Mountaineers Club in Seattle. To register, or for more information, go to www.farmerchefconnection.org/fcc_conferences_2007.cfm.
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