edible COLUMBUS | Summer 2011 | Issue No. 6 by Edible Columbus

! " " # $ % & % '(

# #

#,, - ) + # - # # ) . , - - )

%%%) " ) *+ 7+

%%%) ) /0 , #

1 % % # "#

23'45 436 0334

Features 36

Departments 6

Letter from the Editor

Edible events

Notable Edibles

Inside Our Local Food Stories Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home

A Fertile Friendship: The Somali Bantu, Franklin County and the Mighty Radish By Tamara Mann Tweel and Charmaine Sutton

Up from the Bottoms An urban agriculture initiative produces community as well as food in Franklinton

Granville, Ohio: A town—and its custard—frozen in time By Carole Amber

16 20

Young Palates Making Local Foods with Your Kids: The fun of whipping up butter, Greek yogurt and more in your very own kitchen

46 52

Story and Photography by Kit Yoon

By Jan O’Daniel

By Marta Madigan

Artisan Foods At the Heart and Soul of Luna Burger: Two women + local ingredients + love = a really good veggie burger Story and Photography by Kit Yoon

Notable Summer Reads By Colleen Leonardi

A Growing Family Business Kathy Rhoads and her family care for Ohio farmland and each other By Nancy McKibben

Local and in Season From the Kitchen

Mike and Laura Laughlin turn heirloom tomato varieties into organic happiness

26 A Taste of Home

29 Worth the Trip

From Grandpa Nick’s to Crnkovics

At the Farmers Market The Olde Worthington Farmers Market: Wayward Seed ﬁnds an abundant niche in Olde Worthington 59 By Adam Welly Edible Traditions When a Community Cooks: New Albany friends discover cooking together is nourishing in many ways By Nancy McKibben

Leslie Schaller on local food systems in Athens, Ohio, and beyond

A Home Cook’s Diary A Merry Riot: Ohio’s versatile, talented sweet peppers Story and Photography by Molly Hays At the Table Chef Thomas Smith: History, quality, respect are on the menu at the Worthington Inn By Megan Shroy Behind the Bottle Sweet Tea: jC’s taste of the South suits summer to a tea By Megan Shroy

Our Advertisers

Last Seed Bushels of Tomatoes By Sheryl Pfeil

Sense of Place

By Colleen Leonardi

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams Farmers Market Sundae

Raspberry Peach Triﬂe with Brown Butter Pound Cake

Local Vegetable Napoleans with Chive Oil

Homemade Butter

Chicken Suqaar (Somali Summer Stew)

Gazpacho

Fried Green Tomatoes

Roasted Sweet Pepper Salad, Slow Stir-Fried Peppers

Devil’s Chicken with Lemon Yogurt Dipping Sauce, Easy Sweet & Sour Pickled Vegetables

PHOTO BY © CATHERINE MURRAY, PHOTOKITCHEN.NET

Letter from the PUBLISHER

o you ever feel like the more you learn the less you know? Since starting Edible Columbus, I have been learning every step of the way about our community, our local food resources, the challenges we face and the infrastructure we need to build to have a true local food “system” that is available to all. Not just a thriving farmers market culture, but a system where all the pieces ﬁt together and true community is built. Some say we are at the beginning of the process with a long road ahead. I am optimistic that we can get there together. Some of the things we are thinking about at Edible Columbus include: t

What is it going to take for our family-run farms to be proﬁtable and to make a fair wage?

Do we have enough land protected for farming with safe soil to ramp up food production?

Are we utilizing our vacant urban land to the highest and best use?

Are the eﬀorts to grow more food and local food businesses in Ohio supported at the local and state levels?

We are a rich agriculture state yet so many people still go hungry without access to healthy food.

Will schools, hospitals and institutions buy and distribute more local food if the system is built?

Can we designate a local food empowerment zone, to help build eﬀective distribution and infrastructure?

I encourage you to read the recently published study from the University of Toledo, "Ohio Food Systems—Farms at the Heart of It All" by Ken Meter (http://uac.utoledo.edu/localfood/localfoodstrategies.htm). The study makes a compelling case for why it is so important to build “our local food system”: From economic recovery to health and wellness, we all have a stake in creating a stronger community.

Publisher & Editor in Chief

Tricia Wheeler Editor

Colleen Leonardi Copy Editor

Doug Adrianson Projects Director

Kit Yoon Design

Jenna Brucoli Photography

Troy Amber Molly Hays Catherine Murray Brad Smith Kristen Stevens Carole Topalian Kit Yoon Business Development

Amy Reed Laura Schoettmer Brand Strategist

Sharon Brink Contributors

Carole Amber Janine Aquino Molly Hays Melody Knudson Colleen Leonardi Marta Madigan Nancy McKibben Jan O’Daniel Sheryl Pfeil Megan Shroy Charmaine Sutton Tamara Mann Tweel Kit Yoon Adam Welly P.O. Box 21-8376 Columbus, Ohio 43221 info@ediblecolumbus.com www.ediblecolumbus.com Advertising Inquiries

tricia@ediblecolumbus.com

Gratefully, Edible Columbus is published quarterly and distributed throughout Central Ohio. Subscription rate is $35 annually; $5 of every subscription is donated to Local

Tricia Wheeler

Follow Edible Columbus on Facebook and Twitter.

publisher. Every effort is made to avoid errors, misspellings and omissions. If, however, an error comes to your attention, please accept our sincere apologies and notify us. Thank you.

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

PHOTO BY © CATHERINE MURRAY, PHOTOKITCHEN.NET

I hope you enjoy this summer issue of Edible Columbus. As local fruits and vegetables appear on our plates, we can thank our local farmers like Mike and Laura Laughlin at Northridge Organics, Kathy Rhoads of Rhoads Farm and Adam Welly of Wayward Seed Farm for leading the way. We appreciate the work you do.

This year, the Journalism Committee of the James Beard Foundation Awards has decided for the ﬁrst time to present a special award for what it deems to be Publication of the Year. The Publication of the Year Award recognizes a publication—in magazine, newspaper, or digital format—that demonstrates fresh directions, worthy ambitions, and a forward-looking approach to food journalism.

he publications produced by the Edible Communities company are “ locavores” with national appeal. They are locally grown and community based, like the foods, family farmers, growers, retailers, chefs, and food artisans they feature. The company’ s unique publishing model addresses the most crucial trends in food journalism; the publications are rooted in distinct culinary regions throughout the United States and Canada, celebrating local, seasonal foods with the goal of transforming the way we shop, cook, and eat. Their underlying values speak to today’ s spirit of shared responsibility: every person has the right to affordable, fresh, healthful food on a daily basis. Edible Communities is more than a group of high-quality, regional print magazines with compelling storytelling and visual narratives. Through electronic and digital platforms—websites, social media, Edible Radio podcasts, and popular local events—its food journalism carries regional stories to national and global audiences. We believe that in years to come the collected work of these unique publications will serve as a valuable resource for exploring the impact of regional food and agriculture from a grassroots perspective. At a time when journalists are reinventing traditional publications and embracing digital formats, the Journalism Committee of the James Beard Foundation is proud to recognize Edible Communities for this first-ever award. Edible Communities’ body of work reflects excellence in the ever-changing world of food journalism. Its publications inform and connect today’ s food-savvy readers with local communities that stand for a healthful, flavorful, and sustainable food supply. —The Journalism Awards Committee

The Perfect Gift for the Foodie You Love! Support and celebrate our local food community. Subscribe to Edible Columbus or give a gift subscription to a friend. For more information, email us at info@ediblecolumbus.com or call 614-296-5053. You can subscribe online at ediblecolumbus.com.

I want to become a subscriber of edible COLUMBUS. I have ﬁlled out the form below and am sending it, along with my check in the amount of $35 (for 4 quarterly issues) payable to edible COLUMBUS to: You may photocopy this form

edible COLUMBUS P.O. Box 21-8376 Columbus, Ohio 43221 Start my subscription with the next issue for Ƒ Spring Ƒ Summer Ƒ Fall Ƒ Winter Gift Subscriptions Available

Name Address City State Email (optional)

Zip Code

Subscribe to our free email newsletter at ediblecolumbus.com. And follow us on twitter at twitter.com/EdibleCbus.

edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

Edible EVENTS

For details and registration, please visit ediblecolumbus.com

June 12 | 11am–1pm, Brunch at Jorgenson Farms One of my favorite things is cooking Sunday brunch for my family—the only thing better than being in my own kitchen is gathering ingredients for our cooking class straight from the farm. Jorgensen Farms is our gracious host for a delicious brunch class. The menu will be based on what Val raises on the farm and what we can pick that day. Join us for fresh eggs with herbs, warm biscuits and honey, fresh-picked greens, candied bacon and more. Farm tour included. $40 per person. Jorgensen Farms in Westerville

jorgensen-farms.com

June 16 | 6–7:30pm, Wood-Fired Local Pizzas Summer is the perfect time to learn how to make your own pizza dough and to cook pizza in a wood-fired oven, or on top of a grill. Hamilton Parker has a working wood-fired oven outside their showroom that we will use to create authentic wood-fired pizzas. Rob, the oven craftsman, will visit our class to give us his own wood fire tips! I can’t wait to make some amazing combinations when we pair local veggies, cheese, sauces and dough into our own creations. $35 per person. Hamilton Parker 1865 Leonard Ave., Columbus

June 17 | 10am–1pm, Strawberry Freezer Jam My daughter loves strawberry freezer jam. We always go strawberry picking nearby and then make our jam for the year. Come join in the fun! I will pick all of our strawberries the day before and then we will clean and hull them together. You will learn how to make freezer jam and will leave with several jars for your own freezer. We will ﬁnish oﬀ with a strawberryinspired lunch around my dining room table! Limited to eight jam makers! $50 per person. Tricia's Home in Upper Arlington

June 22 | 6–7:30pm, Foraged Ohio Mushrooms Foraging for mushrooms always seems so romantic and intriguing to me. I have long wanted to acquire this skill. Professional forager John Beshuk will be our guest of honor for this class devoted to mushrooms. He is bringing the foraged goods—boletes, chanterelles, black trumpets—and I am going to cook several dishes based on the diﬀerent mushrooms he brings. He will talk about local foraging. Bring your questions! $35 per person. The MI Homes Demo Kitchen at Easton, 4047 Gramercy St., Columbus

July 14 | 6–7:30pm, Easton Farmers Market Shopping & Dinner

Easton Farmers Market & the MI Homes Demo Kitchen at Easton, 4047 Gramercy St., Columbus

August 10 | 6–7:30pm, Heirloom Tomato Tasting Join us for our second annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting featuring Northridge Organic tomatoes (SEE PAGE 36). We will taste and compare 15 of the season’s best heirlooms and then cook up some favorite tomato recipes—fried green tomatoes and tomato bread salad. Don’t miss this class; it ﬁlls up quick! $35 per person. The MI Homes Demo Kitchen at Easton, 4047 Gramercy St., Columbus

August 24 | Noon–1:30pm & 6–7:30pm, Ohio Summer on a Plate This class is about the best of Ohio Summer. I am calling it Ohio Summer on a Plate! We will make a savory watermelon salad, sweet corn soup, a vegetable pasta dish with fresh basil pesto and will ﬁnish with a recipe from Jeni Britton Bauer’s new cookbook on how to create our own Farmers Market Sundaes. $35 per person. 8

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

The MI Homes Demo Kitchen at Easton, 4047 Gramercy St., Columbus

PHOTO BY © CATHERINE MURRAY, PHOTOKITCHEN.NET

If you walk around the farmers market not sure what to buy or what to do with all the diﬀerent varieties of fruits and vegetables, this is the class for you! We will start the night walking around the Easton Farmers Market together and I will select items to cook up a spontaneous dinner back at the MI kitchen with the freshest local ingredients. I will give you my farmers market shopping tips and advice as we explore the market and discuss menu ideas and strategies for cooking in season. $35 per person.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Yet another

G. Mikeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Showstopperâ&#x20AC;?

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Columbus Alive

G. MICHAELâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S PRIX FIXE MONDAYS

Three courses for

$30

German Village 595 Third Street

614.464.0575

Ä&#x2026;Ä&#x20AC;Ä&#x2026;Ä&#x2C6;Ĺ? . )!. 5Ĺ? 0.!!0Ĺ? 0Ĺ? /0+*Ĺ?Ĺ?Ä&#x2018;Ĺ?Ĺ?)%$+)!/Ä&#x2039; +)

gmichaelsbistro.com

Shop where your Favorite Restaurant shops... Visit your local store today! Wasserstrom Restaurant Supply SuperStore 2777 Silver Drive Columbus, OH 43211 Phone: 614-737-8146

Visit us online at: www.wasserstrom.com

Notable EDIBLES

PHOTO BY © KRISTEN STEVENS, KRISTEN-STEVENS.COM

The Mighty Mushroom John Beshuk, Worthington health insurance agent and mushroom expert, names a trinity of influences who inspired his passion for mushroom hunting: his Polish grandmother, who pointed out edible mushrooms while they rambled his New Jersey neighborhood; Euell Gibbons, whose classic Stalking the Wild Asparagus he first read at age 10; and “the best morel hunter in the world,” Salt Creek Retreats owner Ron Thurston of Laurelville, Ohio, who taught John the secret of finding morels. It’s a secret that John intends to keep (morel lovers are famously closemouthed about their hunting grounds), at least until he publishes his book in progress, How to Really Find Wild Mushrooms. He will, however, drop a hint: “You need to know the mushroom’s host.” For example, the peppery tasting yellow chanterelle, a summer mushroom adored by the French, grows in Ohio near beech and oak trees. “Morels are wonderful, but I can identify 40 different edible mushroom varieties in Ohio,” John says. “They are available from April to November, and finding them is a remarkable way to note the passing of the seasons.” John sells his varied surplus to local chefs, who agree that the taste and texture of the wild mushroom is far superior to that of the button type commonly sold in grocery stores. Find John’s mushrooms in season at these restaurants: L’Antibes, Z Cucina, DeepWood, G. Michael’s and Local Roots; and at The Hills Market, where customer demands means that mushrooms appear and disappear on the shelves as quickly as they do in the woods. By Nancy McKibben For more information visit ohiomushroom.org

A Healing Herbs CSA Dawn Combs of Mockingbird Meadows is proliﬁc. With a beautiful biodynamic honey and herb farm just outside Marysville, she is committed to raising an awareness of the potential of healing herbs in Central Ohio. It comes as no surprise, then, that she has devised a great idea: an herbal CSA. Think of your traditional CSA but with healing herbs instead of fruits and vegetables. And by “herbs” we mean fresh and dried cut healing herbs like red clover and peppermint; handmade herbal health aides; seasonal tonic teas; bee pollen and raw honey; artisanal rose petal, sage and lavender infused honey; and custom-made tinctures. The monthly CSA includes a private consultation to ensure you are receiving the right herbs for your health and well-being. You also get a newsletter with each share, recommended uses and references for the herbs and 10% oﬀ product purchases.

PHOTO COURTESY OF © ANDREA MOORE

“I don’t want people to buy a pill and have no experience of where their herbs come from,” Dawn emphasizes as we walk around the farm. “I want people to be just as connected to these things that can make you healthy as they are to the foods that make them healthy.” With classes and farm visits a part of her business model, Mockingbird Meadows is helping people make those connections to healing herbs through personal experience. People can pick herbs and learn how to grow medicinal herbs to help heal their loved ones with herbs from their very own garden. Whether you’re a novice or already at home with herbal living, the Healing Herbs CSA is tailored to ﬁt your needs while supporting a local biodynamic farm (with some of the ﬁnest artisanal infused honey we’ve ever had!). We think it’s one of the best ways to go herbal this season. By Colleen Leonardi

Food as Art The 2011 Columbus Arts Festival presented by Time Warner Cable, June 3–5, will celebrate “all things art!” The new Savor the Arts with Dine Originals will showcase cuisine as art. Some of Columbus’ finest restaurants including Barcelona and Rigsby’s will feature special menus, as well as wine and microbrew beers. Visit columbusartsfestival.org for a complete list of restaurants, participating artists, entertainment schedules and more.

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

For more information visit mockingbirdmeadows.com. The Healing Herbs CSA is $300 for the year from the ﬁrst week of June to February with pickups scheduled for once a month at various farmers markets.

When It Rains, Grow a Rain Garden

PHOTO COURTESY OF © MARTA MADIGAN

With all of the stormy weather this spring, it was hard to ignore the abundance of rainwater collecting along our gardens, roads, sidewalks and rooftops. Enter the Central Ohio Rain Garden Initiative (CORGI). Founded in 2007, the organization is made up of members from diﬀerent organizations with three common goals: to redirect storm water to keep our local water sources clean; to prevent property damage and stream edge erosion; and to encourage people to garden with native plants using rainwater as a natural resource rather than viewing it as a waste product.

Farmers Market in German Village Every Saturday morning, Heron Creek Farm transforms the lot of the Kight Studio 551 into an exhibition of seasonal produce. In addition to beautifully arranged fruits and vegetables, the farm makes its own egg noodles, varieties of fruit preserves and delicious pies. Famous as they are, the pies tend to disappear quickly, so get there early or order one ahead of time.

In 2006, there were only three known rain gardens in Central Ohio. Today, there are 180 and growing. By consulting with watershed groups, the master gardeners of Franklin County, residential groups, even schools, CORGI helps communities and individuals develop a planting plan for their rain garden and implement it in a sustainable, environmentally friendly way. The best place to start is the CORGI website, which acts as a dynamic resource, taking you through all of the steps to starting your own garden. Don’t get caught in the rain this season! Grow a rain garden for yourself, or your community. ~CL For more information visit centralohioraingardens.org

By Marta Madigan

PHOTO COURTESY OF © STEPHANIE A. SUTER

Open summer Saturdays 9am–noon, starting July 2; 551 S. Fifth St. (the corner of Jackson Street)

Summer Flavors at Katalina’s We like everything about Katalina’s Café Corner. It begins with Kathleen Day, the exuberant owner of this intimate yet airy restaurant. With well-earned cooking chops from France and expert Mexican cooks who round oﬀ ﬂavors in an authentic way, Kathleen has re-invented the menu with both traditional and gourmet breakfast and lunch options. The purity of the place continues with their commitment to source locally from places like Bluescreek Meats, the Greener Grocer and farmers markets. It increases with Kathleen’s attention to the seasons. This summer we can look forward to homemade watermelon lemonade with mint; cantaloupe limeade; a new gazpacho every week, from Bloody Mary to pineapple; and tortilla soup made with fresh local corn. As the menu declares when you enter the restaurant: “You’re making a sustainability statement and supporting your community with every meal you eat at Katalina’s.” We couldn’t agree more. ~CL

Experience a food & wine celebration like none other The Ninth Annual Veggie U Food & Wine Celebration (a benefit for the children’s education program) takes place Saturday July 16, at The Culinary Vegetable Institute in Milan, Ohio. This premier event of the region features celebrity chef demos, 30 chef tasting stations, artisan food vendors, wine vintners, and more. Tickets are on sale now at veggieufoodandwine.com or call 419-499-7500. Visit the website for full list of culinary celebrities and participating chefs.

Visit cafecornercolumbus.com to learn more.

edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

Inside our LOCAL FOOD Stories

We are eagerly anticipating the release of Jeni Britton Bauer’s new cookbook published by Artisan Books, due out July 1. Until then, we oﬀer you one of her most popular summer sundaes, excerpted from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home. The Farmers Market Sundae is perfect anytime with a little Lemon Frozen Yogurt, fresh whipped cream and sprig of mint to round oﬀ the cream with some green.

Farmers Market Sundae

Whipped Cream*

Makes 6 servings 3 cups blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, halved strawberries and/or halved pitted cherries ¼ cup sugar 1 tablespoon honey 2 tablespoons tawny port, ice wine, Champagne or lambrusco, or 1 tablespoon Grand Marnier Lemon Frozen Yogurt (visit Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams to purchase a pint)

Whipped cream* 6 fresh herb sprigs, such as mint, basil or lemon balm

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

Toss the berries with the sugar, honey and wine in a bowl and let sit for at least 30 minutes and up to 6 hours, to macerate. The berries will create their own lovely syrup. To assemble the sundaes: Divide the macerated fruit among 6 plates (or assemble the sundaes in wide-mouthed Mason jars). Place 2 small scoops of frozen yogurt on top of the fruit, then garnish each sundae with a large dollop of whipped cream and an herb sprig.

One of the most important things to master in sundae making is whipped cream. Well-made whipped cream is one of life’s true pleasures. At our stores, we whip the cream in a bowl with a whisk, 1 cup at a time. One cup will serve 8 to 10 people, so we whip cream many times per day. A few hints: Invest in a balloon or piano whisk, which has more wires than a regular whisk; these whisks incorporate the air into the cream faster than a standard whisk. If you can ﬁnd nonhomogenized cream from a local dairy, the cream will whip up faster and the whipped cream will have a lovely light yellow hue. And chill the bowl. The colder the cream and the bowl, the faster the cream will whip and thicken.

Recipes excerpted from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home by Jeni Britton Bauer (Artisan Books) Copyright ÂŠ 2011. Stacy Newgent photographer.

For some desserts, like Oslo Ambrosia, I like to whip the cream to soft peaks. For others, I whip it to a ďŹ rmer stage so that it will sit on the top of the sundae or other dessert in the traditional way. And if you do over-whip the cream slightly, so it begins to turn a bit bumpy, just add a tablespoon of fresh cream and whisk lightly to smooth it out. You can make whipped cream with honey or maple syrup. Just blend a little cream with the thick honey or syrup to thin it enough to blend easily with the rest of the cream. 1 cup (8 dollops) heavy cream 1 to 2 tablespoons sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chill a large metal or glass bowl in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes; it should be cold to the touch. Add the cream, sugar and vanilla to the chilled bowl and whip by hand mixer. Use immediately, or refrigerate for up to 1 hour.

"#) )0 )/ Ă&#x160;)&& .#)( Ă&#x152;0 #& & #( -")*- ( . $ (#-# , '-| )'Â&#x201E;

Farms = Food Find fresh organic food in your community Visit sustainable local farms Meet the farmers that feed you Discover food and farm events Take action to support Ohioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family farmers

Go to www.OEFFA.org Since 1979, the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association has brought farmers and consumers together to reconnect and build a sustainable food system one meal at at time.

Be part of the equation this summer

Local and in SEASON Early Harvest: June

Fruits Black, Purple and Red Raspberries; Strawberries; Gooseberries

Vegetables Broccoli, Green Peas, Asparagus, Lettuces and Greens, Rhubarb

Peak Harvest: July to August

Edible Flowers Fruits and Melons Black, Purple and Red Raspberries; Everbearing Strawberries; Blackberries; Gooseberries; Peaches; Currants; Tomatoes; Cantaloupe

Vegetables

A N A L F R E S CO D I N I N G E X P E R I E N C E L I K E N O OT H E R

Green Peas; Sweet Corn; Bell, Hot and Sweet Peppers; Cucumbers; Eggplant; Carrots; Garlic; Leeks; Okra; Lettuces and Greens; Potatoes

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011 AT FRANKLIN PARK CONSERVATORY 1777 East Broad Street | www.fpconservatory.org Presented by Franklin Park Conservatory’s Women’s Board. Benefiting education and community gardening programs at the Conservatory. Sponsor and ticket information: 614.645.5569 Lead Sponsor:

Edible Flowers Fruits and Melons Apples, Everbearing Strawberries, Fall Raspberries, Blackberries, Peaches, Grapes, Tomatoes, Cantaloupe; Watermelons

Vegetables Sweet Corn; Bell, Hot and Sweet Peppers; Eggplant; Carrots; Garlic; Leeks; Okra; Lettuces and Greens; Potatoes

For a full list of Ohio farmers markets, please visit ohioproud.org.

PHOTO BY © CAROLE TOPALIAN

Presenting Sponsor:

Late Harvest: August to Early September

PHOTO BY © CATHERINE MURRAY, PHOTOKITCHEN.NET

Local Vegetable Napoleons with Chive Oil By Tricia Wheeler Serves 4 This is a summer favorite—perfect for making early in the day and heating up quickly at dinnertime! It is a versatile recipe that can feature the vegetables you have on hand and a variety of cheeses ranging from mozzarella to our favorite homemade ricotta (see detailed recipe online at ediblecolumbus.com). 1 eggplant, sliced into ¼-inch slices 1 large red and 1 large yellow pepper, each cored and divided into four flat pieces 1 tomato, sliced into four ¼-inch slices ½ cup olive oil Salt and freshly ground pepper 2 cups of your favorite cheese—goat, ricotta or mozzarella work well 4 rosemary skewers and 4 wood picks for garnish, approximately 5 inches each

Preheat oven to 400º. Brush all sliced vegetables with a generous amount of olive oil on both sides; sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper. Place on cookie sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick oil or rubbed with some additional olive oil. Bake for approximately 10 minutes, checking frequently, until vegetables are soft and cooked but still hold their shape well. Remove vegetables from the cookie sheet and let cool on a separate plate. When cool, layer vegetables and then cheese, starting with eggplant and ending with the tomato on top. Skewer with wood picks and reheat at time of serving in 375º oven for about 5 minutes until just warm. Remove wood picks, insert rosemary skewers and drizzle with chive oil. For Chive Oil 1 bunch chives 1½ cups olive oil ¾ teaspoon salt

Place chives in blender, drizzle in olive oil and blend until emulsiﬁed and chives are fully incorporated and oil is bright green and smooth. Add salt and blend again—taste and adjust seasoning. Chive oil will keep in the refrigerator for up to a week. Use leftovers as a salad dressing, or drizzle over cooked vegetables or ﬁsh.

Wine Pairing: Argentine Malbec Fruit-driven and soft, tannins are sweet and approachable By Janine Aquino 16

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

Devil’s Chicken with Lemon Yogurt Dipping Sauce By Tricia Wheeler Serves 4 Marinate the night before cooking I developed this recipe after enjoying Piri Piri chicken at a favorite New York restaurant. This is my own version, perfect if you have an abundance of red hot peppers in your garden, or pick up a few at your neighborhood farmers market. I highly recommend the organic free-range chicken at the North Market Poultry and Game. 1 whole chicken, cut into pieces or spatchcocked (This is the flat version of a whole chicken; request this cut at North Market Poultry and Game.)

For the Hot Pepper Sauce 6 red chili peppers, depending on how spicy you want the sauce 6 cloves garlic, smashed and minced 1 teaspoon paprika ½ teaspoon dried oregano 1 cup olive oil ½ cup red wine vinegar 1 teaspoon salt

PHOTO BY © CATHERINE MURRAY, PHOTOKITCHEN.NET

In dry cast-iron skillet heat chilies on high heat until they are charred, or alternatively roast them in a 400º oven for 5 minutes. Roughly chop roasted chilies and place them with garlic, salt, oregano, paprika, olive oil and vinegar in a saucepan and simmer for 2–3 minutes. Allow mixture to cool. Once sauce is cooled, purée in a blender or food processor. Place chicken in a bowl or bag and add half the sauce, spreading evenly over the chicken. Seal and marinate for at least one hour, or up to 8 hours. Preheat oven to 400º or light your barbecue. Season the marinated chicken with salt and cook in oven for approximately 30 minutes or on the grill for 10 minutes per side, or until cooked through; continue to baste with leftover hot sauce. Yogurt Sauce

Easy Sweet & Sour Pickled Vegetables Selection of fresh crunchy vegetables, cleaned and cut into bite-size pieces 1 cup apple cider vinegar 1/3 cup sugar 1 teaspoon mustard seeds 1 bay leaf 1 dried hot chili pepper 1 teaspoon salt

Place vegetables in a bowl. Heat all other ingredients for 3–4 minutes, until just boiling. Pour over vegetables and refrigerate until ready to serve. The longer they sit, the more pickled they will taste.

1 cup Greek yogurt 2–3 lemons, juiced, lemon zest reserved 1 teaspoon horseradish 1 teaspoon salt

Mix all ingredients together, taste and adjust seasoning. Garnish sauce with lemon zest. Use to counteract the spicy chicken.

Wine Pairing: Portuguese Vinho Verde Slightly effervescent, light and fresh ~JA

edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

Raspberry Peach Trifle with Brown Butter Pound Cake By Melody Knudson Serves 4–6 A perfect summer dessert! Use store-bought pound cake if you are running short on time. Place dessert in antique glasses for a special presentation. For Pound Cake 3 sticks butter, unsalted 1¼ cups sugar 3 eggs 3 egg yolks 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract 1¾ cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon kosher salt

For Triﬂe 4 ripe peaches 2 pints raspberries ¼ cup sugar 1 tablespoon Grand Marnier (optional) 1½ cups heavy cream 1 tablespoon powdered sugar

PHOTO BY © CATHERINE MURRAY, PHOTOKITCHEN.NET

1½ teaspoons baking powder

1 Place butter in a medium saucepan and cook over medium-high heat, until the butter turns light brown and releases a nutty aroma. Take off heat and pour into a glass container. Place in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours, or until the butter has solidified. 2 Preheat oven to 325°. Butter and flour a 9- by 5-inch loafpan. Set aside. 3 Place butter in a stand mixer and beat till butter is creamy, about 2 minutes. Add 1¼ cups sugar and beat for 5 minutes, until the mixture becomes very light and fluffy. Add vanilla extract. 4 Combine the eggs and egg yolks in a bowl; add to the butter mixture one at a time. Beat between each addition, making sure the mixture is homogeneous and looks shiny. 5 Combine the flour, salt and baking soda. With the mixer set on slow speed, add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Leave the mixer on just until the mixture is fully incorporated; be sure to not over mix it.

9 Place heavy cream in a stand mixer; add the powdered sugar. Drain the juice from the macerated raspberries into the heavy cream. Whisk until soft peaks form.

6 Bake for 60 to 75 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then invert pan onto a cooling rack. Allow pound cake to come to room temperature.

10 Trim the edges oﬀ of the pound cake, cut the rest into small cubes. Place the pound cake cubes into the bottom of a triﬂe bowl. Layer half of the peaches along with half of the juice from the peaches. Place half of the raspberries on top of the peaches. Spread half of the whipped cream on top of the fruit and spread out. Repeat this process with the rest of the ingredients. Enjoy!

7 Cut peaches in half and remove pits. Slice peaches lengthwise and place in a bowl. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons sugar over peaches and allow to sit for 1 to 2 hours on the countertop, or overnight in the refrigerator. 8 Place the raspberries in a bowl. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons sugar and Grand Marnier (if using) over raspberries. Allow to sit for 1 to 2 hours on the countertop, or overnight in the refrigerator.

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

Wine Pairing: Moscato d'Asti Muscat grape sparkling wine. Balances very well with peaches and cuts through brown butter. ~JA

Making Local Foods with your Kids The fun of whipping up butter, Greek yogurt and more in your very own kitchen Story and Photography By Kit Yoon

“Don’t play with your food!” might be a common saying children hear from their parents at the dinner table. I say do let them play with their food. Just try to keep it in the kitchen. Making food is a great way to get children involved with meal preparations and to teach them about how and where their food comes from. It is also a sure way to feed them nutritious foods: You and your children are the sole authors of what will go into their next meal. In our family, the children have been standing on kitchen stools stirring up creations since they can remember. I started with something simple and fun, like having them make and dress their own pizzas (which is rather foolproof ). There were of course cookie-making (and dough-tasting) sessions and homemade lemonade (and lemonade stands that followed). My little helpers were always willing to help stir up pots of soups and sauces. The kitchen has always been a fun place to be for us. Summer is obviously the best time to take advantage of the bounty, either from your own garden or from a neighborhood farmers

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

market. Most children enjoy helping and creating food. It can be something as simple as having them put together a tomato salad with shredded basil and an easy maple-vinaigrette dressing. You could make a quick dip of hummus using locally grown beans and garlic. Fresh vegetables from the farmers markets like carrots, cucumbers, broccoli or peppers make great dipping tools. Ohio also raises plenty of its own meats, poultry and eggs. Those little hands are the perfect tools for rolling meatballs, and small burgers, or making pastas and frittatas with farm-fresh eggs. A bit more adventurous, but immensely satisfying, is to make one’s own butter or yogurt with local dairy products. There is nothing quite like making fresh butter to go with homemade bread (also something children love to do: kneading bread dough!). What might be better than that, arguably, is a bowl-full of homemade Greek yogurt with a drizzle of pure sweet Ohio maple syrup. Indeed, what is better? I will let you and your little helpers decide.

Homemade Butter

Savory herbed butter

We love making butter at our house. The children enjoy watching heavy cream magically transform into butter within a few minutes. They also love to squeeze out the buttermilk with their hands, shaping it into a ball, or whatever shape they fancy. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the combination of playing with and creating food that makes butter a popular weekly project around here.

If you have herbs readily available (from the garden or the farmers market), chop them as ďŹ nely as possible. Cream the butter and herbs together with a fork, add a little lemon juice and salt to taste. Shape the butter back into a ball for storage, or use it immediately.

Honey butter:

Tools and ingredients: r IFBWZ XIJQQJOH DSFBN r TPNF TBMU JG EFTJSFE r GPPE QSPDFTTPS r B DPMBOEFS r B CPXM r B QBJS PG XJMMJOH MJUUMF IBOET PS UXP QBJST

Pour heavy whipping cream into your food processor. Add a few pinches of salt if you would like your butter a little salty. The amount of cream you put in depends on both the size of your machine, and how much butter you would like to make. We tend to ďŹ ll halfway up our 3-cup food processor. Start the machine on continuous low speed. Watch for transformations. The cream will start to thicken, and become more solidiďŹ ed. Do not stop the machine. The consistency will continue to change until at about 6â&#x20AC;&#x201C;7 minutes when the yellow butter solids splits from the liquid white buttermilk. You are now ready to strain. Pour the contents into a colander to gather the butter solids. Now this is when those little clean hands will become very useful. Gently squeeze out the rest of the liquid from the butter. You can run the butter under some cold water as you are doing this to help solidify the butter. Form into a ball (or whatever shape you wish). The butter will keep in the refrigerator for a week or up to a month in the freezer.

For the sweeter occasions, it is easy to add some local Ohio honey with a dash of cinnamon to your homemade butter. Simply cream your butter with some honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon in a food processor. The amount of honey depends on your liking. Mix these ingredients well, and enjoy! *For the best-tasting yogurt and butter, look for milk and cream from Ohio-raised cows, preferably grass-fed and organically raised. To learn how to make Greek yogurt, visit our website ediblecolumbus.com and click on 'Summer Recipes.'

,JU :PPO XBT CPSO BOE SBJTFE JO 5IBJMBOE 4IF DBNF UP UIF 6OJUFE 4UBUFT JO UIF MBUF T BOE IBT TJODF MJWFE JO #PTUPO /PSUIFSO $BMJGPSOJB BOE OPX $PMVNCVT 0IJP 4IF JT B GSFFMBODF QIPUPHSBQIFS BOE XSJUFS BT XFMM BT B USBJOFE BDVQVODUVSJTU BOE SFĂĄFYPMPHJTU 4IF FOKPZT FYQMPSJOH UIF VOJRVF HFNT UIBU $FOUSBM 0IJP IBT UP PGGFS BOE CMPHT BCPVU JU BU DPPMDPMVNCVT CMPHTQPU DPN ,JU MJWFT JO #FYMFZ XJUI IFS IVTCBOE BOE UXP DIJMESFO

At the FARMERS MARKET

The Olde Worthington Farmers Market Wayward Seed finds an abundant niche in Olde Worthington By Adam Welly | Photography by Brad Smith

I have always marveled at Worthington’s colossal commitment to its market. It is an enduring symbol of the local food movement, and it was a catalyst for my farm to develop our community-supported agriculture program. Sharing my personal experience as a vendor could help illustrate the importance of this marketplace to the greater Columbus community. I came to Worthington in the spring of 2007 as a new vendor with little over a year in the produce business. I was warmly welcomed by fellow vendors and found myself in the Graeter’s parking lot next to an eclectic mix of bakers, vegetable farmers and other artisans. That year we emerged as one of the more unique producers and had consistently long lines, especially for our carrots and beets. We developed a group of regular customers who came back week after week. I noticed something fascinating after our ﬁrst year at the market: Our customers didn’t just show up to buy a $2 bunch of beets and hurry away to the next vendor. Folks milled around and conversation turned to the hot topic of local food. As many of you

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

know, I’ll never turn down a long, in-depth discussion about our challenges as food producers. This atmosphere of community was solidified in 2009 when Snowville Creamery set up their stand adjacent to ours in front of House Wine. I had only met Warren Taylor a few times at chef and farmer events throughout the city. We both had a profound respect for agriculture and it was quite exhilarating to feel his passion for our movement. Between the Wayward and Snowville stands, Saturday mornings in that parking lot were akin to a foodstuff revival. Conversation centered on a variety of topics such as GMOs, heirloom foods, composting and local food histories. We also talked at length with our customers about authors, most notably Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver, whose books played an integral role in creating consumer advocacy. Looking back, it was one of the defining moments that helped Wayward Seed Farm center its focus on community engagement. One of the best aspects of the market in Worthington is the diversity of producers. It is definitely an incubator for new producers. It is

also a crossroads where a new generation of sustainable agriculture producers who specialize in products like salad greens and root vegetables interface with multigenerational fruit and vegetable farms. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always raved to friends and customers in Columbus about the meat producers there as well. When we started Wayward we were really naive about what it was possible to produce with organic method practices, especially on a new farm. I thought that we were somehow recreating the wheel with our methods. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t especially think that we had a lot to learn from our fellow producers and farmers who used conventional practices. Instead, I found they were championing our success through sage advice on topics like marketing, infrastructure and, most importantly, patience. Farming is really a lesson in accepting both failure and success. All of the producers at Worthington share one characteristic above all: We are optimistic. We believe the industry and the social movement is growing in size and, more importantly, becoming more transparent to the consumer. We are there every Saturday morning getting to know your families and exchanging ideas to make the system stronger. Best of all, the food at Olde Worthington Farmers Market is fantastic in quality and quantity. I look forward to reconnecting with friends, customers and colleagues this summer. Best wishes, Adam Welly, co-owner of the Wayward Seed Farm Marysville, OH

For more information about the Olde Worthington Farmers Market visit owba.net. And to learn more about Adam Welly and the Wayward Seed Farm, visit waywardseed.com.

PHOTO BY © CATHERINE MURRAY, PHOTOKITCHEN.NET

Edible TRADITIONS

By Nancy McKibben

t was January 2001, in the depths of a snowstorm that lasted two weeks, when Marilu Faber moved from Connecticut with her husband and 18-month-old toddler to New Albany, Ohio. “The realtor had told us it didn’t snow much in Columbus,” she recalls. “I was desperate to meet people.” Desperate, but determined. Already a veteran of multiple international moves, Marilu once launched a book club in Hong Kong as a way to meet others. But this time, she had another idea. “I was becoming more of a food enthusiast. I’ve always been interested in food and culture. Wherever you are, no matter what country, the central point of any social gathering is food, and it’s always diﬀerent in every place you go. Food is elemental.” So, Marilu put invitations in seven mailboxes—neighbors on her street, wives of her husband’s work colleagues, fellow playgroup moms—inviting everyone to Cooking with Friends, where folks could come to her kitchen to cook lunch and then eat it together. “Everyone came and it rolled on from there.”

A Signature Collection By 2005, Cooking with Friends had amassed so many recipes—“a treasure trove,” says Marilu—that they decided to collect and publish them, then donate the proceeds to three charities that benefited women’s and children’s causes. With typical thoroughness, the club re-organized as a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation with officers and a board.They envisioned publishing a polished, hardcover collection of diverse recipes and seasonal menus that would also showcase the community of New Albany and the greater Columbus area with photographs and essays. It was a massive undertaking for a small volunteer group. Steered by the executive committee of Marilu, Mia Johansson-Strench and Diane Forrest LaHowchic (now in Florida), the club assigned member duties: recipe testing, writing, proofreading, designing, marketing, developing a website and laying out each of the more than 250 pages. The New Albany Company donated the cookbook’s seed money. Well-known architect George W. Acock painted the watercolors that grace the cover and mark each food section of the book, which Mayor Nancy Ferguson declared the official cookbook of New Albany. Other community members volunteered their skills and services: photography, writing, legal services, marketing, everything that was needed. 24

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

“In that spirit, it was a true community cookbook, beyond just the recipes,” Marilu says. After two years of preparation, New Albany: Cooking with Friends: A Signature Collection was published in 2007. “It helped that it garnered awards—it was the regional winner of the Tabasco Community Cookbook Awards, and that perked up sales beyond the community.” In fact, CWF sold all 5,000 copies in less than two years, donating $20,000 to New Albany Safety Town, $20,000 to New Albany Special Connections and a remarkable $80,000 to the Mid-Ohio Food Bank. “We more than doubled the original donations that made the cookbook possible,” Marilu points out.

Cooking with Friends Cooking with Friends has a fluctuating membership of about 30 active members and 50 alumni. Mia, who is an original club member who hails from Sweden, points out that they are a diverse group. “South Africa, Hungary, India, Canada—and the cooking reflects these backgrounds.” Although most members are skilled and experienced cooks, “I always learn something new, it doesn’t matter what the session is,” says Jakki Allen, an early member and one of the few originally from Columbus. “And we have different strengths, so we try to mix it up so we can cook with different people and learn that way, too.” A few members are novices, like Ingrid Brownlee, a young mother of two children. She says her colleagues are “excellent about teaching me things I don’t know, and ways to do things more easily. I’ve learned how to make things that in the past I would have bought pre-made.” At Cooking with Friends, members trade news, culinary advice and laughter. This is serious cooking done with light hearts—a true community endeavor. For more information about Cooking with Friends visit nacookingwithfriends.com.

Nancy McKibben has been writing and eating for years, and is happy to combine those loves with the opportunity to advocate for local food in the pages of Edible Columbus. Her novel The Chaos Protocol was a finalist for the Ohioana Book Award for Fiction in 2000, and she was the winner of the Thurber House Essay Contest in 2003. She is also a lyricist and journalist, the mother of six, and the wife of one. View her work at leader.com/ nancymckibben; contact her at nmckibben@leader.com.

PHOTO BY ÂŠ KRISTEN STEVENS, KRISTEN-STEVENS.COM

Start Your Own Cooking Club The format of a cooking club may be as varied as its members, but the women of Cooking with Friends pass on a few suggestions to home cooks eager to start their own: r ,FFQ UIF SFDJQFT TJNQMF BU MFBTU BU Ă STU r 4UBSU TNBMMÂ&#x2021;SFNFNCFS UIBU ZPV IBWF UP Ă U FWFSZPOF JOUP B IPNF LJUDIFO r $IPPTF PUIFST XIP BSF QBTTJPOBUF BCPVU DPPLJOH r 4IBSF FYQFOTFT UBTLT BOE DMFBOVQ 'PS UIFJS ZFBS PG DPPLJOH UIFZ NFFU NPOUIMZ FYDFQU JO UIF summer, because of busy schedules), Cooking with Friends chooses a theme that is loosely interpreted by whomever JT IPTUJOH UIF MVODI 5IJT ZFBS UIF UIFNF JT GFTUJWBMT BOE IPMJEBZT BSPVOE UIF XPSME MBTU ZFBS JU XBT DFMFCSJUZ DIFGT *O %FDFNCFS UIFZ IPTU B QPUMVDL UIBU JODMVEFT TQPVTFT 0DDBTJPOBMMZ TQPVTFT BSF JOWJUFE UP DPPL UIF NFBM )PTUT are responsible to research the menu, prepare a menu booklet to distribute to those who attend and shop for JOHSFEJFOUT %FQFOEJOH PO BUUFOEBODF NFNCFST NBZ DPPL and eat the meal in one kitchen, or, if interest is high and kitchens small, they may adapt the progressive dinner approach, cooking in several kitchens and gathering in BOPUIFS IPNF GPS UIF NFBM Cooking with Friends does not require members to have any particular culinary credentials beyond JOUFSFTU BOE UIFZ XFMDPNF OPWJDFT As CWF founder Marilu Faber says in the clubâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cookbook A Signature Collection: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The goal is not perfection but to have FUN and learn along the way!â&#x20AC;?

New Albany: Cooking with Friends: A Signature Collection, published by Callawind Custom Cookbooks, is now out of print. You can ďŹ nd it at local libraries, local used bookstores like Halfâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Price Books, and through used book services on the internet.

A TASTE of HOME

A Fertile Friendship The Somali Bantu, Franklin County and the Mighty Radish By Tamara Mann Tweel and Charmaine Sutton

li Hussein arrived in Columbus, Ohio, in 2004 by way of an airport in Switzerland, a refugee camp in Kenya and an agricultural African homeland decimated by civil war. His ancestors had been brought as slaves to what is now Somalia, where for the past two centuries they lived as a minority ethnic group called the Somali Bantu, farming the land that sustained their adopted country. This summer, for the ﬁrst time in over 16 years, Ali will join his fellow Somali Bantu at Franklin County’s Gantz Road Community Garden to cultivate the fruits and vegetables that once nourished his community.

The Somali Bantu In Somalia, the Bantu lived as farmers in one of the few fertile regions of the country, growing maize, sorghum and a wide array of green vegetables and fruits using a strategy called trench farming. In 1991, civil war decimated the region, forcing thousands to ﬂee for the arid refugee camps dotting the Kenyan border. When Ali landed at the Columbus International Airport, he couldn’t speak English, drive a car or negotiate the details of urban living. Before receiving a Social Security number, an apartment and food stamps, he had lived in refugee camps for 13 years, sleeping in canvas tents and surviving oﬀ biweekly packages of wheat, beans, salt, sugar and oil. He didn’t understand much about life in the United States but he knew how to work hard.

were flooding local homeless shelters. Ali wanted to help and assisted in founding the United Bantus’ Community of Ohio (UBCOO). We first met Ali at the modest UBCOO headquarters on Sullivant Avenue. Energetic in a crisp suit, he met us on the front porch and led us into a room prepared with a generous circle of plastic chairs. As we sat down, the community flowed in: elderly women and men, teenagers, young mothers and middle-aged men. After a flurry of excitement over all the wonderful things they plan to grow this summer, including tomatoes, maize, okra, green peppers and radishes, the conversation grew serious. The dignified elder Idiris Garad spoke softly but with purpose: “We are farmers. This is who we are. The American government helped us and we want to show them what we can do. We want to give back.”

The Gantz Road Community Garden Columbus’s ﬁrst county-sponsored community garden came about when Commissioner John O’Grady met Ja’far Matan. While on the campaign trail in 2008, O’Grady decided to visit the African Refugee Educational and Cultural Services (ARECS) to learn more about how he could best serve Columbus’s large Somali population. There, Ja’far, the Somali Bantu representative, gave O’Grady an idea: “We are great farmers,” he said. “We can grow lots of food, we only need land.”

The rest of Ali’s community has not been so fortunate. In 2007, three years after their initial arrival in the U.S., the Columbus Dispatch reported that Somali Bantu, many of whom came from other states,

Instead of handouts, Ja’far beseeched O’Grady to let the Bantu help themselves. O’Grady was on board. “I grew up with gardens, farmers and in the restaurant business. I knew it would work.” With wide government support, O’Grady found fallow land along Gantz Road and then engaged two of Central Ohio’s greatest natural resources: Bill Dawson, the Growing to Green coordinator at the Franklin Park Conservatory, and Kate Matheny, the grants coordinator at the Franklin County Oﬃce of Management and Budget. In a single year, the team created the only community garden in that area of Southwest Columbus. In the summer of 2009, the Gantz Garden opened. After years of waiting, Ja’far ﬁnally put his hands into the earth.

Somali Bantu prepare to har vest crops.

Gardening at the Gantz Road Community Garden.

Tariq Mohamed, a coordinator at Jewish Family Services (JFS), spotted Ali outside his oﬃce alongside “more than 200 Somali Bantu that showed up in 20-degree weather wearing T-shirts.” Through JFS, Tariq found Ali a job as a busboy. Within three years, he had mastered English, earned a driver’s license and enrolled in night school for a degree in business management.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF © KATHLEEN MATHENY

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

The Gantz Garden didn’t just serve the Somali Bantu. Residents from across the area readily got involved. “We were able to accommodate everyone who asked,” said Kate. Amidst all the gardeners, the Bantu distinguished themselves with lush plots teeming with produce. After most gardeners stopped planting in August, the Bantu pressed on—sowing and harvesting way past typical growing seasons. As Ja’far remarked, “We have time. We have plenty of time so we spend more time on our gardens.” Last year the Bantu community divided their plots between families, harvesting 36 diﬀerent crops. Each family grew a vegetable or fruit and then shared the bounty. And Ja’far proudly stated, “everything is 100% organic. We do everything, everything, by hand.” The community was particularly excited by their radishes, which, in O’Grady’s words, were “the size of tennis balls.” Ja’far and his cronies believe that radishes are potent aphrodisiacs. “Radishes are good for men,” smirked Ja’far. Enjoyed raw with a squeeze of lemon or in a traditional vegetable and meat stew (see sidebar), the mighty radish has become a symbol of Somali Bantu gardening prowess. The success of the Gantz Garden inspired the government to promote local agriculture. “This has gone way beyond only helping the Somalis,” said O’Grady. “We are now helping people start a Green Corps to mentor young people in horticulture, forming a food council and launching a garden grants program. The Gantz Garden is even part of Franklin Park Conservatory’s 12 by 2012 initiative to create model community gardens around town….This was Ja’far’s idea,” he said, “but it has served the whole community.” For the Somali Bantu the opportunity to garden has been transformative. The older generation has been able to pass down their skills. Women, men, children, Bantu and other Somalis, second-generation and ﬁfth-generation Americans have all been able to garden next to each other, sharing ideas, techniques and prized produce. “We are proud. We are very, very proud,” beamed Ja’far. “Finally, things are good. Franklin County gave us hope.” For more information about the United Bantus’ Community of Ohio visit ubcoo.org.

Chicken Suqaar (Somali Summer Stew) This recipe is inspired by Asiya David, a Somali Bantu woman living, working and soon to be gardening in Columbus. 1 pound chicken 2 cups chicken stock 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, roughly chopped 1 clove garlic, crushed 2 potatoes, diced 4 carrots, diced 1 bunch red radishes, quartered 1 green pepper, sliced 3 tomatoes, quartered 1 medium onion, finely chopped 2 teaspoons cumin powder 1–2 teaspoons chili powder 2 tablespoons oil Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil and sauté onions until soft. Add chicken and cook on medium to medium-high heat until no longer pink. Add cumin powder, chili powder, green pepper, potato, carrot, tomatoes, garlic and sauté for ﬁve minutes. Add chicken stock. Stir well. Cover and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Uncover and cook until potatoes are tender (20–30 minutes), stirring constantly; this will loosen the potatoes, helping to thicken to the sauce. Finish with cilantro. Enjoy this dish with a side of saﬀron rice, sliced radishes with lemon and a quartered banana. The banana, a traditional addition, adds a cool sweetness that truly complements the stew. PHOTO BY © CHARMAINE SUTTON

Tamara Mann Tweel is a freelance writer and PhD candidate in American History at Columbia University. Born and raised in New York City, Tamara comes from a boisterous clan of exploratory eaters with two passions: family and food. She is excited to bring this spirit to Columbus and discover the many world traditions that are being recreated within our city. Her culinary writing has appeared in such publications as the Washington Post, Icons of American Cooking and Museum. Charmaine Sutton is a designer with an obsession for all things foodrelated. With a background in magazines and architecture, she spends her days honing her skills as a marketer of architecture. As a recent transplant to Columbus, she enjoys exploring town with her husband in search of the perfect bowl of noodles.

edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

Worth the TRIP

Granville, Ohio A townand its custardfrozen in time By Carole Amber

The historic Granville Inn.

nown to its locals as “paradise,” Granville, Ohio, reminds me of a Norman Rockwell painting. Cherry-cheeked families walk arm in arm down the center of town and nod hello to everyone.

PHOTO BY © TROY AMBER, TLASTUDIO.COM

As I make my way down Broadway, a pleasant man says to me, “Now don’t you let too many people know about our Granville, you hear?” This charming town just 30 miles east of Columbus is the perfect place to experience farming communities and smalltown America. Home to the private liberal arts college Denison University, Granville teems with enchanting architecture and friendly faces. Granville’s roots go back to 1805 when it was founded by New Englanders who desired more fertile farmland to plant corn. The farming community in Granville remains well respected and plays an important role in everyday life. Dr. Tom and Mrs. Ann Bird established Bird’s Haven Farms, one of Granville’s oldest farms. Bird’s Haven oﬀers family activities including

picking-your-own berries, visiting the greenhouses or buying crisp produce under their signature green and white awning. Another great way to experience farm life in Granville is by spending the weekend at the Orchard House Bed and Breakfast. This 12-acre farm is the perfect place for a unique getaway where guests can visit llamas, pet the baby lamb named Waterloo or simply read a book after a home-cooked breakfast. The Granville Farmers Market is a wonderful chance to experience many farms at one time. Vendors and customers consider it the “best in Central Ohio.” Located at North Main and Broadway, the Saturday market is hopping with activity and is one of the biggest draws to Granville. According to farmers market Master Larry Strayer, “It is the most picturesque market you will ever see” with brilliant colors and Denison University standing in the background. There are over 50 vendors to choose from including Osage Lane Creamery (goat cheese), Laughing Horse Mustard and Van Scory Farms (hydroponic strawberries). Check out a cooking demonstration, Aimee’s Blue Ribbon Spices or grab a River Road coﬀee and baked good from Amalia Wells while you walk. edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

River Road Coffeehouse is also a great place to spend the morning as they roast their own beans and carefully choose farms that practice sustainability and fair wages, and offer high-quality flavor. They only serve Snowville Creamery milk and their cappuccinos are delicious works of art. For an extra special treat, swing by Granville High School to buy produce from Ecology/Environmental Science Teacher Jim Reding’s Garden Program. Jim is making a difference in our food system and for our children with his summer “garden” class. He teaches the practices and benefits of backyard gardening while his students get their hands dirty. The garden has 30 beds with more than 30 varieties of vegetables as well as blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and cutting flowers. You can drive up and shop right from the earth. Another culinary option in Granville is Susan Kaiser’s Faire La Cuisine two-day wood-fired cooking class. The first day “All About the Dough” includes pizza dough 101 as well as flatbread, focaccia and dessert dough instruction, as well as a meal of flatiron steak, roasted salmon, summer

salad and an apple tart. The second day “Putting It All Together” teaches the secrets of pizza sauce and how to finish the pizza of your choice. The true beauty of Granville lies within its people. They can most often be seen strolling down the center of town. This strip on Broadway is peppered with boutiques, restaurants, bars and Whit’s Frozen Custard. You can get lost sauntering from store to store and taking in the neighborly chatter. Be sure to stop by Whit’s Frozen Custard—it’s an institution, family destination and local hangout. As we sit down with owners Chuck and Lisa Whitman, pride beams from their faces. One of the longeststanding Denison professors, Dave Woodyard and his wife, Joanne, tell us how students report that there are four places each student must know about—the library, the writing center, the hospital and Whit’s. Whit’s has appeared at the Tressels’ house and even the White House. I can see what the fuss is about, as I taste this rich, creamy concoction. The best part of Whit’s Frozen Custard is that it is made with pure ingredients and uses 100% local dairy products. Whit’s offers chocolate, vanilla, a flavor of the day and Whitsers (Whit’s version of a Blizzard®).

Granville Farmers Market May 22–October 23

Sa 8:30am-noon: N. Main Street and Broadway June 15–September 28

Tu 4–7pm: 484 S. Main Street

Bird’s Haven Farms Late April–October

Tu–Sa 10am–6pm Su noon–5pm 740-587-1100 birdshavenfarms.com

Kid’s eat free at Jim Reding’s Granville high school Garden Program. Photo courtesy of Jim Reding

Granville High Program School Garden June 13–August 19

248 New Burg St. Mo–Fr 8am–noon 740-587-8105

Faire La Cuisine Wood-fired cooking classes by reservation Susan Kaiser, 740-587-2174 flcuisine.com

A wide selection of wines in the Wine Shop at the Granville Inn. Photo by © Troy Amber, tlastudio.com

Granville Inn 314 Broadway East 740-587-3333 granvilleinn.com

For more events in Granville, visit ediblecolumbus.com

The center of town where boutiques, cafés and Whit’s Frozen Custard grace the sidewalk. Photo by © Troy Amber, tlastudio.com

Ross. The opening of the Inn was so groundbreaking that it was marked with a grand celebration and 5,000 guests. The building holds the Acorn Pub, lobby and dining room—all furnished with robust ﬁreplaces and antiques—and is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Stay overnight, sip wine on the patio or schedule a specially prepared meal at the Granville Inn’s Chef ’s Table. Executive Chef Chad Lavely enjoys designing seven- to nine-course meals for guests at this table. The freshest and most seasonal produce is used and he views this table as his “artist’s outlet.” For those who prefer the main dining room, try the Mackenzie Farms Goat Cheese Stuﬀed Artichoke Hearts, Filet of Ohio Raised Beef or Lavender and Lemon Scented Chicken Breast from Triple J Farms. Chef Lavely says that when the fresh scent of lavender from this chicken dish hits the guest’s noses “everyone in the room turns to look.”

The Edible Supper Club brings together an intimate group of people for prix fixe dinners at one of our Independent Restaurants. Summer Dinner, August 23rd at The Short Story Brasserie in Granville. Please visit ediblecolumbus.com for more details.

HOSTED BY

In keeping with the academic feel of this town, another option for upscale dining is the Short Story. Hemingway’s travel notes regarding food and wine act as inspiration for the restaurant and the menu is modeled after a hardbound book. So if you’re interested in winding back the clock, slowing down and tasting the uncomplicated farmlands of Ohio, plan a trip to Granville this summer. It’s a lovely slice of perspective.

Carole M. Amber is a food writer and marketing professional with an international MBA and experience operating a gourmet dining company in Chicago, Illinois. She and her husband (photographer Troy Amber) run a food blog ChopSizzlePop! Join them for recipes, chef recommendations and juicy details about their quest for the best food in the world on chopsizzlepop.com

MORE M MO R GREAT CULINARY EVENTS FROM

Coming in July...

CHEFS IN THEE CITY CCOFFEE OFFEwwithEitiiththh TTASTING ASTTING I NG at

featuring Chef Brian Pawlak of

Coming this September...

CHEFS IN THE CITY OHIO BEER & CHEESE TASTING

at Granville Inn featuring Lucky Penny Farm Goat Cheese Returning this Fall...

CHEFS IN THE CITY ONLINE AUCTION

our incredible culinary and travel-themed auction and more...

Visit wosu.org/chefs and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter @wosuchefs to stay up-to-date on all events. Proceeds from all Chefs in the City 2011 events directly support children's educational programming on WOSU TV.

Artisan FOODS

At the Heart and Soul of Luna Burger Two women + local ingredients + love = a really good veggie burger Story and Photography by Kit Yoon

A lot of love and commitment go into the making of Luna burgers. Megan and Barbie Luna, the co-founders of the Columbus-based vegan and veggie burger company, believe in good food. They aspire to produce the besttasting burgers, and a whole lot more. “We wanted to do something that involved the local community; we wanted to have an impact on the local economy as well as the local food system,” echoed both Megan and Barbie. After returning to Columbus from living in different places around the country, the couple decided to combine their enthusiasms for food and community. They first started a small vegetarian meal delivery service, serving friends and families in the Columbus area. The veggie burgers stood out among their repertoire. Thus, Luna burgers were born. Through the making and marketing of these burgers the Lunas can achieve their goals of creating relationships among farmers and eaters, while making a living in such a way that satisfies their passions. Since starting their company two years ago, the Lunas have been committed to sourcing most of their ingredients from Ohio growers, and 90% of their ingredients are sustainable grown. Through farmers markets and community gardens, they have strong connections with local farmers who deliver the ingredients directly to their kitchen. From beans to rice, to beets and kale, to apples and blueberries, the Lunas know the growers by name. And that’s just how they like it.

As I looked around the kitchen, diﬀerent ingredients revealed themselves. From a cooler, Barbie showed me a big box of still-fresh apples from Hirsch Fruit Farm in Chillicothe. On a counter, I saw a big tub of newly cooked red beets from Sippel Family Farm in Mount Gilead, and another tub had dried hot peppers from Carousel Water Gardens in Marion, Ohio. Before I knew it, Megan had set down another large container full of blueberry purée from Blueberry Patch in Lexington. Megan and Barbie had just cooked and puréed the berries. Before they were to move on to other tasks, they had to measure the puréed berries and package them in freezer bags. These blueberries, like the apples and peaches in other Luna burgers, will act as a natural sweetener in The Classic, one of six varieties of Luna burgers currently available. The same day that they preserve local ingredients, Megan and Barbie also start a new batch of burgers. I watched as they gathered the grains and legumes that make up the central components of all Luna burgers. Barbie set to work with a bin of black beans from Shagbark Seed & Mill Co. in Athens, Ohio. She sifted with her hands through all the beans to make sure residual corn kernels from the mill didn’t get mixed in with the batch. Next to her, Megan was doing the same thing with brown rice from Stutzman Farm in Millersburg. The work seemed tedious, and repetitive, but they both appeared to have entered a meditative state of contentment.

In the Luna Burger kitchen on the eastside of Columbus, it’s a two-woman show. I was lucky to have joined them during the two-day-long Luna burger making process to watch these artisanal burgers being crafted from scratch. The kitchen also serves as storage for everything they use to make the burgers. Several freezers, coolers and containers provide space and refuge for all the produce and grains. They even have a dehydrator, an essential tool to help dry and preserve all the key herbs and spices. “We freeze or dry everything we can so that we have these ingredients for use year-round,” said Barbie as she opened up a big freezer to reveal stacks of well-labeled frozen onions, peppers, garlic, apples and peaches, among other things. Megan and Barbie Luna working away in their kitchen.

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

After the rice and beans were done soaking overnight, they were cooked to perfection before getting mixed with kale, onions and several other ingredients to become the Farmhouse Chili Luna burgers. Then this mix of goodness got divided into small balls with a scooper. As Barbie performed this piece of the process, Megan was on the other side of the counter, pressing down each ball with both hands to form the patty. I commented to Megan that she must have touched every one of the burgers out there in all the restaurants and markets, all over Ohio. She looked up, with a big smile on her face: “Yes! Many times! You have no idea how much love goes into these patties!” Megan said with pride in her voice. Luna Burger is in its second full year. The business is growing, with distribution getting farther aﬁeld (from Cleveland, to Indianapolis, to Kentucky). Amazingly, the operation is still just the two of them, doing it all. Ideally, they would like more help in the operation. But the two women do not want to give up their direct connections with the customers and farmers, most of whom they see at the markets. “The farmers markets are invaluable for us, and for our business. We love seeing and meeting people there. That’s where relationships happen,” explained Megan. “We would like to grow, but we don’t want to be too big, then it won’t be what we had imagined this to be,” said Barbie who acknowledged that they took a risk in starting a new business during the recession. “We feel really fortunate that we were able to jump-start a new business two years ago,” added Megan. They credit Columbus as a wonderful place for entrepreneurs, along with the increase in interest in local foods within the community. The community, indeed, has responded favorably to their products. Luna burgers are widely available in several restaurants and grocery stores in Columbus and beyond. Unlike other commercial veggie burgers on the market, Luna burgers are made with locally and sustainably grown ingredients. “It’s all real food!” said Barbie. “There is nothing more in the burgers than these ingredients that you see.” Real food and much love—that’s what Luna Burgers are all about. To learn more about Luna Burgers and Megan and Barbie Luna, visit lunaburger.com. Their varieties of burgers include The Classic, Garden Thyme, Farmhouse Chili, BBQ (the only-gluten-free variety as well), Kick Start (an herbed breakfast veggie patty) and Peanut Cilantro. Ingredients for Luna Burger “The Classic”: Spelt Berries, Black Beans, Oats, Onion, Carrots, Kale, Beets, Blueberries, Molasses, Garlic, Apple Cider Vinegar, Salt, Black Pepper, Rosemary.

edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

From Grandpa Nick's to Crnkovics Mike and Laura Laughlin turn heirloom tomato varieties into organic happiness By Jan O'Daniel | Photography by Catherine Murray

It’s ironic that organic growers Mike and Laura Laughlin once made their home on Garden Road in Clintonville. “The ﬁrst thing we did was put in a large garden. It was a backyard garden in an urban setting, which made it an urban farm,” says Mike, “but back then we didn’t know what that was.” Mike, who grew up in Conneaut, Ohio, watching his grandfather raise chickens, pigs and grain to eat and sell, says the Clintonville garden gave him the opportunity to experiment with varieties and growing techniques, especially organic.

It started simply enough with Mike and Laura growing peppers, eggplant, summer squash, lettuces and heirloom tomatoes for themselves and their neighbors, and selling the surplus to Northwest Natural Foods and at the North Market. (They later moved to the Olde Worthington Farmers Market, where they’ve spent the past two decades.) While on Garden Road, the Laughlins decided they wanted their own farm. Days were spent working full-time jobs, nights and weekends gardening and searching for a plot of fertile land. But the dream eluded them for about four years, until Mike stumbled upon what is now Northridge Organic Farm. “We found this piece of land on a whim,” he says of their Johnstown-area farm in northwest Licking County. “It was the last place we looked at after a long day. I stopped the car, jumped out, walked back and saw the woods and stream. Laura didn’t even get out of the car but I said, ‘We gotta come back and look.’” With just over 20 acres and a custom-built, farmhouseinspired home, the Laughlins say they’ve found their proverbial piece of heaven. John Skaggs, executive chef at Two Caterers who worked the farm for a season, agrees. “Mike deﬁnitely has a special place on earth,” he says. “It’s perfect for heirlooms. I’m no soil or environmental expert but I’ve never tasted a better tomato than right oﬀ the vine at Northridge.”

Ah. Heirlooms. If there were such a thing as an heirloom tomato god, surely Mike Laughlin would be it. Although Mike and Laura raise a variety of seasonal produce and grass-fed lamb, their undeniable specialty is heirloom tomatoes. Heirlooms, which are open-pollinated varieties that have been in circulation for at least 50 years, have become über popular in the last decade or so. “Demand for heirlooms has skyrocketed,” says Mike, hoisting for evidence the phonebook-size Seed Savers catalog he uses to order a dozen or so new varieties each year. “This started as one page.”

In fact, it was Seed Savers that helped launch the nearlegendary Laughlin heirlooms. In the mid-1980s, Mike went to an Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association (OEFFA) workshop led by the late Kent Whealy, co-founder of the Seed Savers Exchange and the man credited with popularizing the term “heirloom” referring to vegetable varieties. “I thought heirlooms sounded neat,” says Mike. “I felt then, and still feel, that the whole idea of heirloom vegetables are important for so many reasons. There are varieties of seeds that become extinct every year, but there might be a trait in a seed that could be really helpful in the future. The idea of keeping them available just really struck a tone with me and what we wanted to do with the farm.” Although the Laughlins currently have 250 varieties of heirloom tomatoes in their seed bank, they also grow hybrids, the kind of tomatoes typically found in grocery stores and backyard gardens. “Hybrids are the standard tomato most people are familiar with,” explains Mike. “They have their place. But a word

edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

of caution: A lot of companies are marketing ‘hybrid heirloom tomatoes.’ They look like heirlooms—maybe they’re striped or black—but they’re not.” At the core of hybrids is the idea of mass availability. They’re cultivated to be more uniform in shape with thicker skins to withstand rigorous handling and shipping. But Mike says when growers go toward those characteristics, something else has to give—and that something is usually ﬂavor. Not so with heirloom tomatoes.

For most heirloom tomato lovers, including Mike and Laura Laughlin of Northridge Organic Farm in Johnstown, naming a favorite is like choosing among children—it can’t be done. When pressed, Mike will admit to favoring black tomatoes for their rich, bold ﬂavor. The darker the color, the more acidic; the lighter the color, the sweeter. Here’s a list of some Northridge Organic Farm favorites.

“I never knew I liked tomatoes,” confesses Laura. “We grew up with Early Girls and Better Boys, but I never cared for the ﬂavor or consistency. When Mike became interested in heirlooms, I couldn’t believe how much I liked them. Tomatoes are now one of my all-time favorite foods.” Like Laura, many people experience instant tomato love when they taste an heirloom. But for others it’s the discovery of heritage that makes them so special. Case in point: the Laughlins’ own heirloom they call Grandpa Nick’s. Tomatoey, dense and perfect for sauce, Grandpa Nick’s hails from the Old Country by way of Laura’s grandfather, Nick Christopher (nee Cristofaro).

Caro Rich

Crnkovic

A medium- to large-sized orange tomato developed at Purdue University. Has a sweet-tart flavor. Ten times higher in beta-carotene than any other tomato. A great all-purpose tomato.

A large pink beefsteak variety from Yugoslavia. Has a somewhat sweet flavor and meaty texture. A good slicer.

“We’re not sure what the original tomato was, but my grandfather brought the seeds over from Italy in the early 1900s. My aunt, who still has my dad’s family farm, approached us at a picnic a few years ago and said, ‘Say, you wouldn’t be interested in having some seeds I saved from your grandfather’s tomatoes, would you?’”

Grandpa Nick’s

Interested? Heck, yeah.

A large white beefsteak, origin unknown. Low in seeds, wonderfully sweet, almost melonlike. A must for heirloom tomato salads.

A large red Roma variety yielding eight- to 16-ounce fruit. Hails from Laura Laughlin’s grandfather, Nick Christopher (nee Cristofaro). Low in seeds, very dense. The perfect saucing tomato.

Pixie Peach

Rose de Berne

A small yellow-pink golf-ball-sized tomato with furry skin like a peach. Although light-colored tomatoes are usually less acidic, this one is an exception to that rule.

A juicy red tomato probably from Switzerland. Excellent flavor and a great slicer. Considered by Europeans as one of the besttasting tomatoes.

Russian Black

Striped German

A dark reddish-black fruit of Russian origin. Extremely rich flavor. Beautiful as part of a tomato salad and one of the Laughlin’s very favorites.

A large red-orange and yellow streaked beefsteak, possibly of Pennsylvania Dutch origin. Has a sweet, delicious flavor. Beautiful when sliced. (One slice covers a whole piece of bread!)

Great White

Valencia A beautiful, round, 10-ounce, orange-color variety from Maine. Rich, tomatoey flavor. A good choice for cooler climates.

Now Grandpa Nick’s, a low-seed, giant Italian Roma, is Northridge Organic’s biggest seller, in part because of the story behind it. It also has great versatility and robust flavor that Chef Skaggs says is a personal favorite. “September can’t get here fast enough,” he says. “I throw them into a giant steam kettle with olive oil and let ’em stew. Then I strain the skins and seeds, and jar them. I like to get creative. Soup, marinara, ratatouille. I have one jar left on the shelf just as a reminder of what I can do.” Except for a few years back when their entire tomato crop was wiped out due to blight, the Laughlins typically boast a healthy harvest. In season, eating up seconds (those not perfect enough to sell) means the Laughlins and their crew enjoy twice-daily tomato salads before canning or freezing extras. “I never get sick of them,” says Mike. “Tomatoes all have a similar flavor, but heirlooms have subtle flavors, kind of like microbrewed beers.” And like craft brews, cultivating heirlooms is both an art and a science. “Heirlooms and hybrids are two different animals,” says Laura. “Heirlooms are a lot fussier. You really have to baby them along.” The white, black, purple, red, yellow, striped, streaked and variegated heirloom tomatoes take months of laborious work. The Laughlins start seedlings in the greenhouse before hand-planting them

into compost-rich, aerated soil. Then comes watering, weeding and trellising to hold the plant upright.

Why Organic?

Tending to the touchy plants, which comprise 25% of Northridge’s total crop, is easier since the Laughlins retired from their day jobs. Until 2007 they worked and farmed in equal measure, rising in the pre-dawn hours to make deliveries to Columbus-area stores and restaurants before work, and putting all their spare time into farming.

Organic, which simply means growing naturally without the use of synthetic chemical fertilizers, is something the Laughlins feel very strongly about.

Though they still pick, pack and deliver 10-pound ﬂats of heirlooms, working just the farm has freed them up to give back even more to the organic community. Whether helping customers choose the right tomato for a recipe, lobbying for healthier food in school cafeterias or serving as Terre Madre delegates for Slow Food USA, the Laughlins embody the heirloom spirit: generational generosity. “The market for local and fresh product is growing so much that the demand is far past what we can produce, so we’ve always been willing to share anything we know,” says Mike. Perhaps that explains why Mike didn’t mind giving detailed seed-saving instructions to a 10-year-old boy at the farmers market. Boasting a rather extensive collection of tomato seeds, the boy wanted to add the Laughlin’s heirlooms to it. “He wanted to take some of our tomatoes home and save the seeds, so Mike told him how. We’re happy to lose business to someone who’s taking the time to do their own gardening. It’s OK. Really,” says Laura with a smile.

Jan O’Daniel is a full-time writer, part-time foodie and sometime cook. She lives, works and eats in central Ohio with her salad-loving husband under the everpresent eyes of their three catnip-craving cats. Contact her at jan@janodaniel.com.

“From the beginning we wanted to grow using a more natural method so that we weren’t polluting the Earth and using things that may harm us,” says Mike. “Synthetic fertilizers are heavy on nitrogen for growth and greening but lack necessary nutrients.” As such, Northridge Organic uses mineralbased fertilizers. Unlike synthetics, these fertilizers are not overly water soluble, which helps avoid the agricultural runoff that can pollute the environment. The Laughlins also employ soil-building techniques to increase organic matter and encourage earthworms and natural bacteria, both of which help break down nutrients and make them more available to the plants. “For us, organic is a lot more about a healthy ecosystem,” says Mike. “It doesn’t matter what you’re growing, if you don’t have a healthy soil, you won’t have healthy plants and whatever is eating those plants won’t have a healthy diet.” Mike became certified organic in 1988, which at the time, was extraordinarily rare. At that time there were few resources for organic growers. That’s why Mike joined a then-new organization called the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA). “There were only 12 certified organic growers in the state,” he recalls. “In three or four years, we got to about 80, and now OEFFA certifies 600 or so every year.” An early adopter and avid sharer of all things organic, Mike unknowingly laid the foundation for his future as an organic ambassador and heirloom diplomat.

Mike Laughlin takes a moment on his farm to talk about heirloom tomatoes.

edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

Gazpacho Based on recipe from Engine House Number 5, adapted by Tricia Wheeler Makes 6 servings I am crazy about gazpacho. My best friend and I would frequent Engine House Number 5 all summer long when I lived in German Village and would enjoy the fried smelts and a perfect cup of gazpacho. After the restaurant closed, I ran into one of their waiters who recognized me and started yelling,“Hey, Gazpacho” in the Old Big Bear on Whittier. He generously shared the recipe!

1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded and finely diced (¼-inch cubes) ½ green pepper, finely diced 1 piece pimiento, finely diced ½ large onion, finely diced 3 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped 2 tablespoons fresh basil, finely chopped 1 large clove garlic, minced 1 cup Italian vinaigrette dressing 6 large tomatoes, peeled and seeded 1 cup tomato juice Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste Sour cream, cucumber spears and sour cream to garnish

Combine diced cucumbers, green pepper, pimiento and onion in a large bowl with parsley, basil and garlic. Mix in Italian dressing. Coarsely chop tomatoes and add to soup along with tomato juice. Season the gazpacho with salt and pepper; chill until ready to serve. Garnish with sour cream and a cucumber wedge.

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

Father’s Day Special Starter Kits!

All American BBQ Starter Kit Purchase any Medium, Large or Extra large Big Green Egg and receive a $45 value starter kit for free! Expires 7/31/11

Reading Rock 30” Fire Ring Kit Complete 30” Metal Fire Ring Kit with 48 Reading Rock Bedford Radius Stones Special Offer $220 Expires 7/31/11

brick & stone ceramic & porcelain tile Àreplaces & accessories garage doors & openers landscape materials COLUMBUS LOCATION 1865 LEONARD AVE. COLUMBUS OHIO 43219

614.358.7800

DELAWARE LOCATION 188 EAST WILLIAM ST. DELAWARE OHIO 43015

740.363.1196

www.hamiltonparker.com

Notable Summer READS

Red Raspberries | Brussels Sprouts & Peppers Award Winning Jam | Relish & Mustard

2010 Central Ohio Signature Food Contest Winner

(740) 694-1935 Fredericktown, OH www.annsraspberryfarm.com

Our Top 10 Books for Summer From chilies and climate change to cooking from your garden to living the farm life, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve chosen summer reads that span a diverse menu of topics. What to Eat is an indispensable guide to eating well while Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on Your Plate is one of the best books for kids and families that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve seen in a while. By Ohio authors, Soil Mates tells the story of companion planting as if it were a dating manual for vegetables and Heartland is a cookbook about the best of the Midwest. Whether youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re planning to grow your own harvest through homesteading, community gardening or living on a farm, The Dirty Life, Urban Homesteading, From Seed to Skillet and The Earth Knows My Name provide inspiration for each one of us with plenty of poetic moments, recipes, practical tools and advice. Eat Here drives home the importance of taking back our food system while Chasing Chilies uses the lens of heirloom chili varieties to explore why this is so important for our future and the future of planet Earth.

Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll love us inside and out...

Wherever your reading desires take you this summer, we hope you ďŹ nd that book you just canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t put down. Happy reading! By Colleen Leonardi Chasing Chilies: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail

The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food and Love

by Kurt Michael Friese, Kraig Kraft and Gary Paul Nabhan (Chelsea Green, 2011, 224 pages, $17.95)

(Scribner, 2011, 304 pages, $15)

Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket

The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans

by Brian Halweil (W. W. Norton, 2004, 256 pages, $16.95)

From Seed to Skillet: A Guide to Growing, Tending, Harvesting and Cooking Up Fresh, Healthful Food to Share with People You Love by Jimmy Williams and Susan Heeger

Now serving breakfast, lunch and tea on our patio! 1885 West Fifth Avenue Marble Cliff, Ohio 43212 614. 486. 6464 | cambridgeteahouse.com

by Kristin Kimball

by Patricia Klindienst (Beacon Press, 2007, 280 pages, $18)

Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living by Rachel Kaplan with K. Ruby Blume (Skyhorse, 2011, 304 pages, $16.95)

(Chronicle Books, 2010, 176 pages, $30)

What to Eat

Heartland: The Cookbook

by Marion Nestle (North Point

by Judith Fertig (Andrew McMeel, 2011, 304 pages, $35)

Soil Mates: Companion Planting for Your Vegetable Garden by Sara Always (Quirk Books, 2010, 128 pages, $16.95)

Press, 2007, 624 pages, $17)

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on Your Plate: Kids and their families talk about what they eat, where it comes from and why it matters by Catherine Gund (Aubin Pictures, 2010, 120 pages, $19.95)

edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

up from the bottoms An urban agriculture initiative produces community as well as food in Franklinton By Marta Madigan

very city needs an oasis, especially a fresh food oasis in the middle of a struggling neighborhood. Venture west of downtown Columbus and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to discover a network of sustainably grown gardens. Planted within ramshackle urban surroundings, healthy greens spring from an orderly array of raised beds. Garlic, onions, sweet bell peppers as well as ﬁery habaneros and jalapeños naturally ripen in the sun. So do tomatoes, yet you’ll probably not see them red on their slender vines as—by request of many neighbors—they are picked green. No, they do not end up in a fresh “unripe tomato” salsa either. They are fried.

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

“This neighborhood has deep Appalachian roots,” says Patrick Kaufman, co-director of Franklinton Gardens. “Folks from West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee migrated to Columbus looking for work and they remained for generations. They still love fried green tomatoes.” (See sidebar for recipe.) Although fried vegetables might not be the healthiest choice, it certainly is a step in the right direction for Patrick’s mission—providing Franklintonians access to fresh produce.

A Green Approach

PHOTO BY © KRISTEN STEVENS, KRISTEN-STEVENS.COM

Growing in the oldest neighborhood of Central Ohio, Franklinton Gardens is a young initiative. The ﬁrst seven raised beds appeared on Avondale Avenue in 2007 after a small group of residents decided to try local food production. They found an abandoned lot, applied to the Land Bank for a lease and started a very simple garden. Considering urban soil deal-breakers like lead, asbestos and other contaminants, and lack of easy workability—large fragments of house foundation can be found just below the surface of many apparently empty lots—raised beds and garden boxes were the sensible choice. “When you go with raised beds, you are growing above the ground,” Patrick explains.

Framed within untreated lumber, these rectangular micro-fields are a mix of fresh, clean soil and on-site compost. Franklinton Gardens has been compositing from the very beginning. Looking for ways to improve the quality of their soil, they launched the Community Composting Campaign and developed partnerships with more than a dozen businesses and government agencies throughout Central Ohio. On their composting site, they pile up all kinds of stuff: kitchen scraps, eggshells, coffee grounds, leaves and editions of the local newspaper. “Franklinton News is a perfect match for us as it is printed with soy ink on unbleached paper,” Patrick says. “We don’t want to throw any harsh chemicals into our soil.” Committed to organic and sustainable gardening, Franklinton Gardens also harvests water. Reclaimed 55-gallon food drums— that would have been otherwise discarded—serve as rain barrels. The barrels are tapped to the existing downspouts and fit with a spigot for easy access to water. “Volunteers and neighbors who are gardening can go directly to the barrel with their watering can, fill it up and water the plants,” Patrick says. Today, Franklinton Gardens has the capacity to conserve over 3,000 gallons of rainwater; each month they also collect about 10,000 pounds of food waste. By tripling the size of their gardens this year and more people getting their hands dirty, these figures will continue to grow. The raised beds at the start of the summer season.

Photo by © Kristen Stevens, kristen-stevens.com

Photo courtesy of © OS Design, outdoorspacedesign.net

edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

And Then It Grew Establishing serious food production takes time and effort. When Patrick joined Franklinton Gardens, they had one small site. Neighborhood needs for fresh produce seemed bottomless. To get this project off the ground, a lot of volunteers had to become involved. And they did: Will Lehnert, a garden designer from Outdoor Space Design, drew up plans for new gardens; OSU students installed raised beds; organizations sent seeds; local garden centers gave plants; a neighbor donated a truck and St. John’s church offered its kitchen for food preservation. By May 2010 the Franklinton Gardens team was weeding their garden beds in four locations. The original site underwent a major transformation. Expanded to over 1,500 square feet of growing space, it started operating as a community plot garden. “Up to this point it was just a collective work,” says Ashley Laughlin, Patrick’s right hand and a registered nurse at Grant Medical Center. Then, for only $5, neighborhood residents were offered the possibility of renting a personal plot of land, or two raised beds, and growing their own food throughout the summer. “This fee also covers seeds, access to tools and water as well as free gardening instructions.” As a result, people could garden themselves and realize a return on their effort. Just like Patrick, Ashley believes in working from the ground up. Aware of serious health issues in her neighborhood, she points to the value of preventive care, supplying Franklinton

residents with fresh produce and promoting the benefits of a healthy diet. Ashley lives at one of the community garden’s locations herself, where, apart from sunflower seeds, fruits and vegetables, she harvests cage-free eggs. Several brown laying hens can be spotted at her garden during their daily round in search for bugs and worms. “It is cool to see little kids react to the chickens,” Ashley comments. “They have not seen a lot of fresh produce and most certainly not a farm animal before.” Opening a food-stamp-friendly produce market was another attempt to introduce the neighborhood to natural food. The Veggie Van—a mobile “farm market” operated by Local Matters—did that first and it proved wildly popular. It swung by Franklinton, however, only once a week. Patrick realized there was a strong demand for the other six days of the week as well. With Local Matters’ technical assistance and over 2,500 pounds of organic fruits and vegetables harvested last year, the Franklinton Produce Market burst ahead with truly local crops. “Ashley and Patrick grew delicious eggplant,” says Kelly, who helped run the produce stand. “It was exciting to watch our residents sharing tips for the best eggplant Parmesan while buying fresh ingredients.” Apples, carrots, beets and other healthy produce were also distributed to the most needy through two local pantries. “2010 was a big year for us,” Patrick recalls. All of the garden expansion and hard work culminated with the Community Garden of the Year award. Franklinton Gardens was selected the winner out of over 170 community gardens in Central Ohio.

This recipe comes from Maryann Poole—a Franklinton resident—who is known for whipping up some killer fried green tomatoes. Although she grew up on a farm in Baltimore, Ohio, her mother was from Alabama and introduced Maryann to this wonderful staple of Southern cooking.

Slice tomatoes about ¼ inch thick. Combine cornmeal, pancake mix, salt and pepper. Coat both sides of tomatoes with the mixture. In a large skillet, heat enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan and fry tomatoes until browned, then ﬂip them and continue frying for another 3–4 minutes on medium-high heat.

Serves 4 4 medium-size firm green tomatoes 1 cup cornmeal ¾ cup buttermilk pancake mix Pinch salt and pepper ½-1 cup cooking oil

Chef’s Recommendation Substitute pancake mix with ﬂour or breadcrumbs. Dip tomato slices in buttermilk before coating them with the mix. Serve hot with creamy sauces like aioli or rémoulade. Enjoy, y’all!

PHOTO BY © CATHERINE MURRAY, PHOTOKITCHEN.NET

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES

Yet Patrick and Ashley don’t rest on their laurels. They keep expanding both in variety of foods and community building plans. A sweet buzz in the ’hood leads to a new addition to Franklinton Gardens—beehives. Fragrant herbs and ﬂowers, just planted in each and every site, spread their aroma enticing bees and neighbors. This growing season young Franklintonians will be given an opportunity to develop their gardening skills. By introducing the Youth Gardener Training Program, Patrick and Ashley hope to involve children in the community with garden activities such as planting and preserving strawberries. Also, they count on college students active in their new internship program. Interns will be provided with free on-site housing and locally grown food that they will help produce.

To encourage the residents to choose healthy nutrition, Patrick and Ashley will organize hands-on food preparation classes followed by community meals. There will also be food for the soul. “We want to have an outdoor concert series where local artists can play,” Patrick adds. Art already provides respite from the harsh circumstances of the neighborhood. Colorful, large paintings of produce adorn the fence on two sites. The close-up images of pomegranate seeds, cauliﬂower ﬂorets and Swiss chard leaves were donated by Sarah Weinstock, the president of the Franklinton Arts District. “A community garden is a space where people can experience beauty and warmth and can connect with other people,” Patrick sums up. Franklinton Gardens is a living proof of his words. For more information about Franklinton Gardens, visit franklintongardens.org.

Beyond the Garden Often referred as the Bottoms—for both its lower elevation and stark living—Franklinton still awaits the fruit of redevelopment. There is no grocery store in the neighborhood proper and the corner stores carry a limited selection of healthy food, if any. “We want to change that,” Patrick says. Together with United Way, Columbus Public Health, Local Matters and OSU, Patrick plans to bring fresh produce, whole grains and low-fat dairy items onto the shelves of local shops. “Fresh Foods Here is a collaborative eﬀort that tries to provide people from underserved neighborhoods with healthier options. Coordinating this project, I hope our neighbors will buy fresh fruit instead of soda and prove that there is a real market for it.”

Marta Madigan is a Polish freelance travel and food writer who, as an editor and contributor, helped begin the Polish edition of National Geographic magazine. Of her many NG stories she covered a variety of food related topics such as Spanish tapas, French cuisine, Polish Christmas traditions and Sonoma and Napa Valley wines. After she moved from Warsaw to Atlanta, she wrote a chapter on Southern cooking for a collective book on international cuisines published in 2008 in Poland. She and her husband live in German Village where, last summer, they grew cherry tomatoes in their tiny front yard.

DIY: COMPOST Background courtesy of Joanne Dole, an OSU master gardener

Successful compost needs four ingredients: “greens,” “browns,” water and air.

PHOTO BY © CATHERINE MURRAY, PHOTOKITCHEN.NET

Greens: vegetable and fruit scraps, tea bags, coffee grounds, grass clippings, old flowers Browns: egg shells, dry leaves, straw and hay, small amounts of shredded paper, tree clippings To avoid an unpleasant smell, make sure your compost has 2/3 “browns” and 1/3 “greens.” Leave out: meat, bones, fish, oily fats, weeds and large pieces of wood. Cut the organic material into small pieces. Rain and snow will keep your compost sufficiently moist. Size matters! The ideal pile on the ground should be 3 feet long by 3 feet high by 3 feet deep. Allow oxygen into the center of your pile. For faster decomposition, flip it twice a month.

For more details on composting, visit http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1189.html

A Home Cook's DIARY

Ohio’s versatile, talented sweet peppers Story and Photography by Molly Hays

Sweet peppers are one of those kitchen workhorses whose versatility I adore. Raw, they add brilliant color and crunch, like the very best sort of sweet-savory sprinkles. We slice them for dips, chop them for salads and tuck them minced into tomato-corn salsa. Add heat, and you transform a sweet pepper. Sear them with onions and thin strips of good beef, and you have the makings for dreamy fajitas. Melt them slowly over low heat, and you’ve a fine peperonata for pasta, sausages or eggs. Or, consider the following. Roasted, peppers become nearly a brand new vegetable, so changed is their texture and flavor. Freed of their skins, exposed to high flame, a pepper’s flesh goes all supple and silky, while smoke tempers its essential sweetness. They’re excellent crisscrossing pesto-flecked frittatas, atop chèvre-smeared crostini and strewn over pizza. But I may love them best all by their lonesome in this knifeand-fork salad I make all summer long. Roasted peppers— usually grilled alongside another night’s dinner—are dressed with a basic balsamic vinaigrette, then topped with good feta and fresh, slivered basil. All but the assembly can be done days in advance, and because the whole mess tastes best at room temperature, it’s ace material for picnics or quick suppers. And what a fine mess it is—the creamy twang of sheep’s milk and gentle balsamic bite a point-counterpoint to the velvety sweet. It is nearly as good as red peppers, slowly stir-fried. I had never thought to slowly stir-fry peppers until I picked up Grace

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

Young’s magniﬁcent The Breath of a Wok. Even then, I held back, wondering whether to bother with a dish so straightforward and simple. Silly me. Sweet peppers, gently stir-fried for 10 or 15 minutes, are pure revelation. They achieve a tender, toothsome meatiness, while retaining a hint of their raw cousin’s crunch. They take on a whisper of smokiness, but char is not their signature. Releasing their juices to the pans’ initial heat, these peppers gradually re-absorb every last drop, glazing themselves in their own big bad goodness. They look quite plain, but taste wonderfully complex, of caramel and sunshine and sweetness and light. Of, come to think of it, an Ohio August day, which I suppose is only ﬁtting for one of summer’s brightest stars.

Slow Stir-Fried Peppers adapted from 2 ½ ¼ 2

Roasted Sweet Pepper Salad 4 freshly roasted sweet peppers ½ cup of Blue Jacket Dairy’s Farmhouse Feta, crumbled 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar 2 tablespoons olive oil ½ teaspoon salt 10 fresh basil leaves, slivered

Roast peppers on a grill or gas stove, turning occasionally until blackened all over, 15 minutes. (See tutorial at ediblecolumbus.com.) Peel, core, seed and slice into strips. Make dressing: In a lidded jam jar, combine vinegar, salt and oil. Cover, then shake vigorously, to combine. Arrange peppers on serving plate, and drizzle with dressing. Scatter feta and basil over all. Serve at room temperature.

by Grace Young

large, meaty red peppers, cut into 1-inch squares teaspoon sugar teaspoon salt tablespoons canola oil Sesame oil and seeds, optional

Heat a wok or heavy skillet over high heat, 1 minute. Swirl in 2 tablespoons canola oil, and add peppers. Stir-fry one minute, stirring constantly. Turn heat down to a gentle medium, and cook another 8–12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until peppers brown in spots and skins begin to wrinkle. Add sugar and salt, return heat to high, and stir-fry one minute, stirring constantly. Garnish with a drizzle of sesame oil and/or seeds, if desired. Serve immediately. Find more pepper goodness online: Green peppers’ particular grassy, clean crunch shines in Greek Salad, a fantastic high summer meal. Visit ediblecolumbus.com for Molly’s recipe plus an expert tutorial on how to grill peppers.

Molly Hays graduated from the University of Washington with two degrees, one Mellon Fellowship, and no idea when to buy a melon. Since moving to Ohio in early 2009, Molly and her family of five have been getting to know Columbus one ice cream scoop at a time. Molly writes about food and life at remedialeating.com.

The Rhoads family, from left to right: Carly and Jeremy Neff, Brett Rhoads, Brent and Kathy Rhoads.

A Growing Family Business Kathy Rhoads and her family care for Ohio farmland and each other By Nancy McKibben | Photography by Catherine Murray

If you have plucked a jar of jam from a grocery shelf and noticed the label that proclaims â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ohio Proud,â&#x20AC;? or logged on to the Ohio Business Gateway to pay your business taxes, you can thank Kathy Rhoads of Rhoads Farm in Circleville, Ohio, for her input in creating these programs.

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

Kathy Rhoads, the matriarch of Rhoads Farm Market.

Kathy is a small, energetic woman who has farmed with husband, Brent, since 1972. She views the hundreds of hours that she has logged over the years—for the Farm Bureau, the Ohio Vegetable Produce Marketing Association, Ohio and American Agri-Women (where she served as national treasurer), the board of North Market, Governor Taft’s Small Business Development Committee—as her fair share. “I’ve always believed you have to give of yourself to your community and industry,” she says. “It’s an opportunity to promote agriculture and to do something that benefits everyone.” Kathy’s willingness to be a contributor is a keynote in her life: on the farm, with her family and in the wider farm community. Welcome to Rhoads Farm The Rhoads Farm sits with its greenhouses, retail garden center, offices, nursery, landscaping business and farm market on a curve of road that runs through the green fields outside Circleville. More than 40 years of hard work and careful management has resulted in an achievement that is particularly noteworthy in this recession: a thriving farm that supplies the livelihoods of 25 seasonal employees and four families: Kathy and her husband, Brent; son Brett and his wife, Tara, and their triplets; daughter Carly and son-in-law Jeremy Neff and their two children; and Brent’s mother, Lurose. Brent began selling produce at the family farm stand at the age of 9, attended Ohio State University, served in the U.S. Army, then returned to the farm with new wife, Kathy. Kathy grew up in northwestern Ohio, one of seven children in a family that raised chickens a half-block from Main Street and grew a vegetable garden for canning and preserving. “I can remember carrying in the peaches from the local orchard,” Kathy says. “We stored 500 pounds of potatoes in the basement.” “Farming gets into your blood,” Kathy acknowledges, but she is equally candid about its risk. “Sometimes people fall in love with the romance of farming, and they let it blind them to the realities.” Growing Produce, Growing a Business Where some look at farming and see an endless seasonal cycle of planting and harvest, Kathy sees change. “I knew that change would be a constant factor in our livelihood as farmers, and we have always allowed ourselves to review our direction often.” The obvious unpredictability of the weather is not the only variable that a farmer has to factor into his business equation.

Local products for sale at the Rhoads Farm Market.

management at the kitchen table, developing the bookkeeping system herself.

“Customer lifestyles change. We used to sell potatoes in 50-pound bags, and now we can hardly sell them in ﬁve-pound bags. And when the economy is poor, people spend less. We have to ask if our product lines are still aﬀordable.”

“It takes a lot of time to do the ﬁnances and the bookkeeping that a company might ordinarily farm out [no pun intended], but with a small farm enterprise, we didn’t feel we could.” This frugality, Kathy explains, has enabled them to keep the business “family owned for over 50 years.”

The Rhoads Farm has always been a joint endeavor. In addition to sharing the planting and harvesting duties, Kathy started the farm

She emphasizes the importance of a strong business plan for the farmer, whose assets are always invested in land and seed and edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

Market Share It’s 3am on any Saturday from May to October. At the Rhoads Farm, six people are hustling to load four trucks with produce for four farm markets. The vegetables and fruit were harvested on Friday, then staged on pallets in a huge cooling and packing shed located in the fields. “We label everything so we can tell what we’re doing when we’re packing the trucks in the dark,” Kathy says. Kathy and Brent market their produce weekly at eight farmers market, an endeavor with its own set of challenges and rewards. “You have to be very organized and have a great support system behind you,” Kathy says. “We hire college students in and train them to sell—we don’t like to have people waiting in long lines.” On Saturdays, Carly sells at Circleville; Kathy and Brent at North Market; Brett at Clintonville—and a yet-to-bedetermined seller at Worthington. During the week, Kathy and Brent handle the Dublin, Hilliard and Bexley markets. Each farm marketer drives a truck to her own market. An additional supply truck rotates from market to market to resupply should the piles of corn or cucumbers dwindle. “At North Market we have to send a truck in several times because of the parking situation.” “Now we’re in urban areas with a new customer base,” Kathy says. “We try to stay in tune, find out what they are saying and eating.” When the markets end on Saturday, the Rhoadses stay in town and have dinner at a local restaurant, often one that has purchased their produce, like Latitude 41, Alana’s or Due Amici. When Carly and Brett were little, marketing was different. “It used to be I could stop the truck, put a mosquito net over the playpen, drop the tail on the truck and sell vegetables.” Methods change, satisfaction remains. “I love to grow for the farmers markets,” Kathy says simply.

“It’s been a very rewarding career,” Kathy says of farming. “There are so few farmers to feed so many—it’s gratifying to be one of them.” machinery rather than being liquid. (In fact, a farmer’s death often results in the sale of the family farm as the only way to pay estate taxes, one of the issues that Kathy, through her membership in Ohio and National AgriWomen, has helped educate legislators about.) “In order to operate, we had to think like a business person, like a banker.” Kathy and Brent learned from their banker and their attorney, who were also farmers, and they sought out the farm business sessions that were part of the many agricultural conferences they attended. Growing as a Leader These conferences offered the opportunity to lead as well as learn. When Kathy saw New Jersey Fresh products at a national Farmers Direct Marketing conference, she imagined a similar program that would identify and promote food and agricultural products grown and made in Ohio. “I showed some of the New Jersey products to Steve Mauer, who was then the director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture. I kept saying ‘Ohio has to do this,’” Kathy says. “And when Ohio Proud got going a year or two later, Rhoads Farm was the first member who was a produce grower.” Kathy is a believer in lifelong learning. Her education has included two years at the LEAD (Leadership Education and Development) program offered by the OSU College of Agriculture. Kathy and Brent have also made an effort to educate themselves about national and international agriculture through travel in the U.S., Brazil, Argentina, Israel and Australia. “We got the idea for our blackberry trellises in Israel,” Kathy says. “When you’re so busy on the farm, it’s hard to think of ideas, but when you ride in a bus with 40 other people, you always hear something that you can take home.” With the long hours of work in the summer, and farm conferences in the winter, Kathy aimed for a balance between work and family. “Our

family vacations may have been at continuing education conferences, but they were usually at a fun destination with time to enjoy many different parts of the United States.” If the farmers themselves need education, what about their legislators? “We found that legislators often didn’t understand very much about agriculture,” Kathy says. Ohio and National Agri-Women provided a forum for education, including visits to legislators by members as part of the national conferences in Washington. “Nothing changes overnight in Washington,” Kathy notes. “But if you don’t continually follow the issues, you’ll never make headway. Part of the purpose of Agri-Women is to constantly monitor the issues and alert members when they might want to contact their legislators.” The Rhoads Five-Year Plan of Succession Kathy and Brent farmed for years without seeing any sign of interest from their children. The farm grew to include a wholesale nursery and retail garden center and offices where Kathy still fixes lunch every day for her lucky employees. Then, after two years of college at Ohio State, son Brett declared a major in crop production. Daughter Carly graduated from OSU as a business major and married landscaper Jeremy Neff. “So for the past eight years, we’ve been figuring out the ‘Rhoads’ Five-Year Plan of Succession,’” Kathy says, a way to divvy up the farm business so that it can support four families. “The challenge is to make the remaining years viable, to make sure the market is available so we can enjoy our retirement.” Although they all help each other, and duties frequently overlap, today the farm business is divided like this: Brett manages the intense specialty crop farming; Carly runs the retail garden center; Jeremy’s landscaping business is supplied by the nursery; Brent and Brett together run the wholesale nursery; Kathy

The Rhoads Formula for Success Financial Planning Have a strong ﬁnancial plan.

Best Practices See what others are doing (and not doing); visit other farms and farm markets; talk to other farmers.

Professional Education Educate yourself. Attend conferences and join farm organizations. handles accounting and finance; Brent and Kathy run the farmers markets. (See sidebar: Market Share.) Rhoads Farm Today . . . Behind the garden center, Brett’s 150 acres of produce thrives in neatly apportioned plots. “It’s nice to have Brett, because he has a lot of new ideas,” Kathy says. These include the recently adopted trellis growing system for blackberries that allows coverage to prevent cold damage and shade to improve quality. “We now sell blackberries regionally, to Pittsburgh and Cincinnati and Cleveland.” Brett practices intense specialty crop production, which means that he grows many different crops, rotating them to conserve the soil. The farm has earned GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) certification through Primus Labs, which provides a third-party auditor to check for good worker sanitation, bacteria-free irrigation water and proper record keeping. The same acres produce shade and cut-your-own Christmas trees. An additional 300 acres near the Rhoads home grows shade trees and shrubs for the wholesale nursery and for Rhoads Landscaping, which son-in-law Jeremy heads. Behind the garden center sit 10,000 square feet of greenhouses for the thousands of bedding plants that customers purchase.

The Rhoads Farm Market sells not only produce in season, but also Ohio food products like jams and jellies, Amish cheeses and meats, local honey, apple cider and popcorn. Carly stocks retail hard goods like seed and fertilizer, as well as soft goods like colorful gardening gloves and rubber boots, vases and gardening books.

Change Management

. . . and Tomorrow

Risk Management

Kathy claims that she has slowed her pace. She conﬁnes her community endeavors to the Circleville Business and Professional Women’s Club, where for their annual fundraising booth at the Pumpkin Festival, she cooks chicken and noodles for the masses. “It’s as easy to cook for 100 as for 10,” she insists. She and Brent now travel more together, and “every vacation is food- and farm-related. If we hear of a farm, we just drive by and go out in the ﬁeld or to the retail shop and see what’s going on.” Although some might label this a busman’s holiday, Kathy sees it as a way to “gain new ideas, share helpful thoughts and learn of common mistakes.” “It’s been a very rewarding career,” Kathy says of farming. “There are so few farmers to feed so many—it’s gratifying to be one of them.”

Anticipate and prepare for change.

Remember the risks, such as weather, economy, product demand.

Realistic Passion Fall in love with farming, but be a realist.

Balance Balance family and work.

Listen Listen to your customer ﬁrst.

Give back Rhoads Farm Market: 1051 State Route 56 East, Circleville, Ohio 43113; 740-474-2028 or, toll-free, 800-378-3934; rhoadsfarmmarket.com.

(In Woody Hayes terminology, pay forward)—serve the larger community.

At the TABLE

Chef Thomas Smith History, quality, respect are on the menu at the Worthington Inn By Megan Shroy | Photography by Catherine Murray

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

nce a young chef was learning his trade from a mentor. He was having a hard time cooking rabbit, and burned the dish day after day. Finally his mentor came to him with a box of live rabbits, and told him that from now on he would need to prepare the dish from the very start.

“The point is to respect the food, to learn to respect the ingredients you’re cooking with,” said Thomas Smith, executive chef at the Worthington Inn. “I don’t slaughter my meat every day, but that story—I think about it often.” Chef Thomas, who’s been with the Inn for over nine years, takes great pride in the quality of foods used in each of their menu offerings. “I truly believe in approachable cooking, in using few ingredients but letting the integrity of those used come through in the dish. You’ll find that here at our restaurant.” That integrity includes buying local, forming relationships with Ohio farmers and sourcing, when possible, from the Olde Worthington Farmers Market. “When you’re starting with something so good, it’s hard to screw up the rest.” Chef Thomas easily names 12 local farms where he has personal relationships— “friends,” he calls them. Farms like Northridge Organic in Johnstown provide the Inn with fresh heirloom tomatoes, squash, potatoes and peppers. “My uncle, who has a farm in Gahanna, he brought me to an OEFFA [Ohio Ecological Food and Farming Association] dinner where I met Mike and Laura from Northridge,” he said. “Those relationships are so valuable to my business.” Chef Thomas first learned about the value of “quality product” while cooking under Kent Rigsby at Rigsby’s Kitchen in the Short North. “Kent stressed local, he stressed quality. That’s when I began forming relationships with Ohio farmers.” Chef Thomas describes Saturdays spent in Roscoe Village, sitting in front of the hardware store meeting farmers, attending OEFFA dinners and making his rounds at the Olde Worthington Farmers Market. His

menus name the sources of his local products, because “I want my farmers to do good.” “I’m only going to use the best possible ingredients. I, of course, try to use as much local as possible, but it has to be the best.” Chef Thomas has followed this philosophy since joining the Inn almost a decade ago. The Worthington Inn, which was originally built in 1831 as a private residence, first opened as a traveler’s inn in 1852 bearing the name The Bishop House. At the time, a typical meal at the Inn cost only a dime and an overnight stay cost just 25 cents. In 1868, the Inn was sold, but new owners continued to operate it as the Union Hotel until a fire damaged the roof and second floor of the original two-story structure. While under repair in 1901, a third-floor ballroom was added along with the Victorian facade that you see today. “Our phone number actually used to be 67, that’s it, 6–7,” Chef Thomas laughed. The current owners have restored the building to its former structure, insisting that the business honor the traditions of its past and offer the highest-quality food and service in Central Ohio. More than a century later, the Inn now offers dining seven days a week in both its pub and full-service restaurant, five private dining rooms and a full catering option. “There are days I have 900 people in this building,” said Chef Thomas. When we spoke, the chef was in the process of drawing up the summer menu, a seasonal task he delights in. He has also developed a new pub menu that consists mostly of tapas and flatbreads and recently added a weekend brunch. Chef Thomas, who discovered a love for cooking while in the military, actually studied graphic design at OSU. While working a variety of restaurant jobs on the side, he caught a break working under the executive chef from Lindey’s after being introduced through a friend. “I learned so much working under chefs at Lindey’s and then for years at Rigsby’s,” he said.

Photos from top left to bottom right: Inside the dining room at the Worthingotn Inn; dessert with fresh, summer berries; Outside the Worthington Inn; Flatbread pizza with Point Reyes blue cheese, caramelized onions, spinach and mushrooms; Chef Thomas Smith, executive chef at the Worthington Inn.

“I owe everything I am to the people I’ve worked with.” We had the pleasure of trying some of the Inn’s new menu offerings, including a flatbread pizza with Point Reyes blue cheese, caramelized onions, spinach and mushrooms, along with a little appetizer of almonds, house-cured olives and cucumberhabanero ceviche. “I love how the distinct flavor of the Point Reyes blue cheese complements the mushrooms, which were harvested right here in Athens, Ohio.” And we love it, too. According to Chef Thomas, the worst compliment he can get is, “You guys are the best-kept secret in town.” Why? Because he doesn’t want to be a secret. Chef Thomas wants us to value the mindset behind the Worthington Inn’s menu. He wants us to understand the care they take in offering a historical experience. Most importantly, he wants us to appreciate the respect they have for the food they prepare. “I was taught that cooking is a lot like painting: a little bit of red, a splash of orange. Perfect.”

Worthington Inn: 649 High St., Columbus, Ohio 43085; 614-885-2600; worthingtoninn.com

Megan Shroy is a writer, publicist and selfproclaimed “Columbus Guru,” authoring the blog Columbus a la Mode, which covers trendy restaurants, events and hot spots in the capital city. During college she traveled abroad, studying Italian food, wine and culture at the Umbra Institute in Perguia, Italy. Megan earned a B.A. in communication from Wittenberg and received a double minor in journalism and business management. Since, she has been growing as both a writer and a community activist. She resides in Grandview, Ohio with her husband, Brent.

edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

CREDIT: PHOTO BY © KRISTEN STEVENS, KRISTEN-STEVENS.COM Leslie Schaller, director of programs at ACEnet, with some of the products produced out of ACEnet and Athens, including Snowville Creamery milk, Crumbs Bakery crackers, Shagbark Seed & Mill black beans and spelt flour, Vino de Milo’s award-winning tomato sauce, pickles from Frog Ranch Foods and tea from the Herbal Sage company.

thens, Ohio, is nationally recognized for its robust local food system. Part of its success over the years has been attributed to the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet), a privately and government funded community economic development organization with a mission to “build networks, support innovation and facilitate collaboration with Appalachian Ohio’s businesses to create a strong, sustainable regional economy.” Leslie Schaller has been at ACEnet since 1992, currently serving as the director of programs. 54

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

Over the years, she has worked to create the infrastructure and public policy for farmers and food producers to receive the entrepreneurial support, resources and capital they need to sell at market and strengthen their sales and distribution. She is also the business manager of the well-loved Casa Nueva, a worker-owned restaurant in Athens since 1985. We wanted to ﬁnd out what goes into the making of a local food system, and what Leslie sees as the next most important issue on the horizon for local food communities in Ohio.

Colleen Leonardi: How have the history of Athens, the heritage of diversity in the community and the wealth of surrounding family farms influenced the development of ACEnet?

Leslie Schaller: Appalachian Ohio is so diﬀerent in many ways—culturally, geographically—from other parts of Ohio. I think when most people think of Ohio they think number four state of agriculture in the U.S. and commodity farming—our vast production of corn and soybeans. In Appalachia, because of the hills, we’ve always had a more diverse agriculture. We’ve been tucked away from many of the major cities and have a tradition of self-reliance. And although we have lost a population base, many of the farmers have a long heritage of working the land. I think that tradition of third-, fourth-, even ﬁfth-generation family farm operations have encouraged farmers in our area to stay on the farm … and become agricultural innovators to deal with the shifts in the food supply chain that we’ve seen in the last 50 to 60 years. There’s that crossroads between this Appalachian bootstrapping, income-patching mentality rooted in the profound sense of tradition that we love our hills and don’t want to leave … and how do we keep people still farming.

CL: How do the people of Athens play a role in supporting the efforts of organizations like ACEnet to build a local food system?

LS: There was always an interest in local foods. There have always been consumers who, because they live in a rural community, want to support their neighbors who are farmers. A lot of the education that ACEnet and other partners have done (Rural Action, the tourism bureau and the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce) have partnered with us to remind people about the value of buying local. Consumer education programs have been key and one organization cannot do this alone. With a college town there is also more interest. There are challenges because there’s the student transitory population, but there’s faculty and staﬀ aﬃliated with Ohio University and Hocking Community College who are committed locavores sharing their support of the buy-local values.

CL: What do the farmers and food producers need to sustain their business, and how does ACEnet serve that need?

LS: I think ACEnet has very explicitly focused on creating services in three areas of need. Food is such a highly regulated industry. In the early ’90s, ACEnet saw the infrastructure gap. Having the Food Ventures Center really ampliﬁed the local food systems work and provided tangible proof that farm and food entrepreneurs could collaborate for mutual beneﬁt. When we started emphasizing marketing programs in the ’90s there was no interest from independent or chain grocery stores to carry local products—it was more of a hassle for them. But branding programs like Food We Love and the quality assurance from ACEnet helped turn the tide. Now we’ve reached the tipping point and market partners come to us seeking new local products and farmer connections. I think the third real need was capital. So even though you had farmers with a track record, growing their business, doing direct marketing, or individuals who had years of restaurant experience, it

was still hard for people to get start-up loans or expansion loans. Now more and more of the local and area regional banks are more willing to fund to restaurateurs, folks starting retail bakeries and all the farmers and manufactures we’re working with—there are more options and more support. I think support of the entrepreneurs can inﬂuence policy, so if we know that there are capital challenges, ACEnet can seek out new partners to come to our region and serve our borrowers. A case in point: The Natural Capital Investment Fund has just begun a partnership with us to serve potential local food enterprises in Ohio. In the beginning, this work was dismissed in many ways. So we have had to make the case that this was a credible economic development strategy. Ironically, in rural communities we don’t think about agriculture as economic development. So that was an uphill slog for us in the ’80s and ’90s; now I think we demonstrate impacts to show that a long-term economic strategy can work. By focusing on a sector, looking at your place-based assets and creating collaborative networks, we believe a more sustainable economy with more resilience and inclusivity can be built.

CL: What does a successful local food economy look like and how is it evidenced in Athens?

LS: I think we’re using a lot of traditional economic development indicators. A lot of times what we’re tracking is the number of new businesses, the number of business expansions, how many businesses utilize the food venture center, how many graduate and start their own facility, how much private investment are the individual entrepreneurs making in the start-up or growth of their business. So we’re tracking all of that. But we need to do that over time to have system change. Aggregating a lot of that information is making a diﬀerence with our county commissioners, our state representatives, state senator and economic professionals. The biggest challenge is retooling the necessary infrastructure for processing and distribution. To reinvent a local foods value chain will take considerable private and public investment—all that infrastructure was dismantled for the last 50 to 60 years. It’s going to take time to ﬁgure out what are all of the appropriate ways we can harness local money for local economies. We need new models for investment in local food enterprises and longer-term patient capital.

CL: One of the things we hear from farmers and food producers is that the distribution of local foods is the missing link in the system—for example, producers can’t ﬁnd enough local produce to create their local product. What else besides private investment, capital and infrastructure helps in connecting these missing links for farmers and producers?

LS: In Southeast Ohio we have preserved farmland, although much of it remains fallow, so we have more opportunity to get more acreage into production. There’s been a lot of farmland lost around some of the larger metropolitan areas. I think that’s made it more challenging for some of the market partners in Columbus to ﬁnd local produce and locally produced food. The missing piece edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

down here is how to distribute and make the margins work. At this stage, the ACEnet facilities are not keeping pace with how quickly market demand is growing. So we have more and more farmers who are examining the possibility of having a larger warehouse or distribution hub, more of a pack house where folks could aggregate and do some collaborative distribution. And I think that’s one of the directions we might be headed. We are seeing increased investment by the individual entrepreneurs. I think we will see some hybrid cooperatives that are hopefully going to emerge over the next couple of years to meet these new market opportunities.

CL: What other trends or initiatives are taking place nationally that you’re excited about?

LS: I think people are thinking about the processing, aggregation and distribution infrastructure in ways they haven’t in the past. There’s more willingness, whether it’s community banks or private foundations, within regions to support the capital investment.

their local food supplies, what are some good ideas that either have been implemented but need to be adopted by more communities, or have not yet been implemented and need to be?

I see people circling back and ﬁguring out how to do community food projects or food security work. The whole health crisis we’re in is making a lot of families and schools talk about healthy food. We’ve got to start making these connections between health and wealth and local food economies. Food has been reduced to fuel. People are not eating together, they’re eating on the run, everything is highly processed and packaged because people feel that they don’t have the time to prepare food, or they don’t have the opportunity to shop a couple times a week to have fresher food.

LS: I see that in last four or ﬁve years there is exponential growth

CL: Michael Pollan in a recent interview was quoted as saying,

happening throughout Ohio. The tipping point has occurred nationally and the work is really gaining traction in Columbus, Cleveland and Toledo. But there might be less policy support for this work than there has been over the past four years. The state and local budgets are strapped, to say the least.

“The more I work on these issues having to do with our whole food system, the more I realize that our problem is a cooking problem.” Would you agree?

CL: As you look to the future of Ohio communities and

I’m hoping that under the Kasich administration this work will be seen as entrepreneurship committed to revitalizing place, whether it be a rural community or urban neighborhood. Local food system work is community-based economic development—when you buy local at the farmers market or at the grocery store, your food dollars are supporting Ohio farmers. Entrepreneurship, micro and small business development might not be as sexy as attraction and recruitment, but the amount of jobs are comparable long- and often even short-term, if you do sectorfocused work. Everyone eats. The food economy is relatively recession proof. To build a little more resilience at the local level is going to be a positive for Ohio or any region across the U.S.

CL: With the growth you’re seeing, do you feel we need more leadership on these issues, and if so, from whom?

LS: Yes, and this is the restaurateur in me. 50% of most food consumed in the U.S. is through food service. We have been delegating food preparation in a variety of ways to businesses and institutions. Or we’re delegating it to manufacturers, to make it easy for us to slap something in a microwave. So from my point of view as the founder of Casa Nueva, we have an important responsibility to our customers and community. For us as restaurateurs, we turned a corner 10 to 15 years ago when we decided we needed to make our menu healthier. So that was an eye-opening moment (aside from the fact that we were already deeply committed to buy local) that we need to think more proactively about the health of our customers. So as customers come to our table, we try to celebrate what is fresh, local, seasonal, humane and carefully crafted. I’m constantly blown away by the loyalty and sense of ownership for our business by our customers. For many, Casa Nueva is that third place in your life: It’s not home, it’s not work—it’s the community crossroads. We have to be responsible.

LS: I would like to see more leadership emerge from the private sector. I would like to see Kroger, Whole Foods and Giant Eagle talk more openly about their work sourcing local food and then talk about it to our elected officials. We could really benefit from their leadership. I see, in our area, the entrepreneurs taking a much stronger leadership role and overall interest in policy, and some of that is because of the local conferences and gatherings we’ve hosted. I think the fact that ACEnet does have so many folks coming through … there’s a sense of cohesion and pride within this network to really make changes within policy and tell our story much more effectively and not be dismissed that this is some foodie, fringe, college-town stuff. It’s real. It’s third- and fourthgeneration family farmers who are in the trenches trying to figure this stuff out. It’s very bipartisan. It’s people of all sorts of political persuasions and races and classes and generations who, in our area, have been able to work together.

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

CL: Why do you love this work? LS: Food is the perfect metaphor for community. We’ve got to ﬁgure out ways to come to the table and look to food and to our communities as something that nurtures us and provides collective well-being. I don’t think it matters if you’re rural, urban or suburban. Sense of place and connection matters. Local food can make us healthy, wealthy and wise, if we just reset our buying power as citizen eaters. For more information about ACEnet, visit acenetworks.org. g

Colleen Leonardi is a writer, choreographer and editor of Edible Columbus. Born into a family of French and Italian cooks, she has always had a love of good food and the real living it engenders. Cooking food, writing stories and making dances are all a part of the same process for her—creating imaginative and thoughtful experiences for people to inhabit and enjoy over time. She lives with her sweet cat and even sweeter husband in the Short North. To learn more, visit colleenleonardi.wordpress.com.

:HOFRPH WR 2KLRÂ·V ILUVW Â´6XSHU /RFDOÂµ IRRG QHWZRUN IHDWXULQJ over 120 restaurants, farms, specialty food producers and special events, all within 30 miles of Athens, Ohio. Join us in meeting the farmers, tasting the food, and enjoying the 30 Mile Meal Experience! Visit our website for interactive maps, upcoming events and farm tour opportunities.

+HUHÂ·V :KDWÂ·V &RRNLQJ 7KLV 6XPPHU -XO\ LV 0LOH 0HDO 0RQWK FHOHEUDWLQJ ORFDO IRRGV HYHU\ GD\ Picnic Week, July 1-9 3DFN D SLFQLF RI 0LOH 0HDO GHOLJKWV DQG KHDG WR RQH RI RYHU SDUNV IRXQG LQ WKH UHJLRQ 0DNH \RXU RZQ RU VHOHFW LWHPV IURP D ORFDO VKRS

Ohio Brew Week, July 10-16 &HOHEUDWLQJ 2KLRÂ·V &UDIW %UHZV DQG /RFDO )RRGV

Restaurant Week, July 17-23 (DWHULHV WKURXJKRXW WKH UHJLRQ RIIHU VSHFLDOW\ OXQFKHV DQG GLQQHUV IHDWXULQJ ORFDOO\ VRXUFHG PHQX LWHPV

Farmer Appreciation Week, July 24-31

-RLQ XV LQ FHOHEUDWLQJ RXU ORFDO SURGXFHUV ZLWK IDUP WRXUV ZRUNVKRSV DQG D WULS WR RQH RI PDUNHWV DQG SURGXFH DXFWLRQV VFKHGXOHG GXULQJ WKH PRQWK 7DNH WKH 0LOH 0HDO &KDOOHQJH DQG YLVLW DOO PDUNHWV LQ GD\V

A Project of the Athens County Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks

St-Germain is excited to announce a new format for the 4th Annual Can-Can Classic Cocktail Competition. This year, we have partnered with Edible Communitiesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the award-winning magazines that celebrate quality, artisanal products, local foods, and seasonalityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to provide a new twist on the competition.

St-Germain is an all-natural, artisanally crafted product, and this year we want our cocktail competition to reďŹ&#x201A;ect the importance of working with fresh ingredients. We are challenging you, our bartender friends, to develop an original cocktail recipe with St-Germain utilizing seasonal ingredients from your local region.

The editorial staff at Edible, along with Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Equipe St-Germain leader Robert Cooper, will select one winner in each market where Edible publishes a magazine. Winners will be selected based on the following criteria: # " # ! ! Note: It is not required that all other spirits be locally produced. The local winner will receive some editorial coverage in their local Edible magazine as well as a Yarai (Japanese) Cocktail Mixing Glass from Cocktail Kingdom. Each local winner will then be eligible to win a $10,000 cash prize and be heralded as the national winner of the 4th Annual Can-Can Classic Cocktail Competition.

Submissions will be accepted until 8/31/2011

Behind the BOTTLE

Sweet Tea jC's taste of the South suits summer to a tea By Megan Shroy | Photography by Kristen Stevens

I’ve always had a penchant for all things Southern. The accent. The hospitality. The gentlemen.

However, home on holiday Jackie discovered her real passion—sweet tea.

So, it came as no surprise to recently learn that I also enjoy sweet tea.

“In the South, sweet Southern tea is second nature. It seems we don’t get together without someone bringing a freshly brewed batch,” she said. “On an overdue visit home, I sat drinking my family’s sweet tea and I thought —I need to bring this to the masses.”

Five minutes into my conversation with Jackie Chapman, founder of jC’s Southern Style Sweet Ice Tea, I learned something else Southern—the meaning of the expression “sweet as the day is long.” And I’m not just talking about the tea. Jackie Chapman grew up in Greensboro, South Carolina, the daughter of a Baptist preacher. An entrepreneur by nature, Jackie started a medical billing company after receiving her bachelor’s degree in business from Tuskegee University and her MBA from Ohio University.

Jackie began experimenting with the family recipe, bringing her sweet tea to church functions, social engagements, and more. It was her local pastor who encouraged her to consider selling her tea locally. “Starting the medical billing company, I knew more about what I was doing, but a sweet tea business? They didn’t teach that in grad school,” she said laughing. So, Jackie began researching.

edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

Local Nonprofit Takes Care of Business(es)

She started by connecting with Bob Leighty, the training coordinator at the Economic and Community Development Institute (ECDI) in Columbus. ECDI is a nonproﬁt economic development organization aimed at investing in people to create social and economic change.

Jackie credits the Economic and Community Development Institute (ECDI) for valuable counsel in getting jC’s Southern Style Sweet Ice Tea up and running. Many people don’t know about ECDI, the Columbus nonprofit aimed at helping local entrepreneurs become self-employed by providing grants, loans and training.

“Bob asked me—what are your dreams? That’s something I hadn’t quite thought about,” she said.

According to Bob Leighty, the training coordinator at ECDI, anyone can take advantage of some or all of its services.

Jackie told Bob that she aspired to ﬁgure out a way to produce, bottle and sell this sweet tea in Columbus. Bob recommended that Jackie should ﬁrst get her formula analyzed by the New York State Food Venture Center and the North East Center for Food Entrepreneurship at Cornell University. And that’s just what Jackie did.

“We serve 18 counties in Ohio, providing a variety of services. Anyone is welcome to training—and if you’re in need of loans, we help a range of folks connect with different funding sources,” said Leighty.

“The folks from Cornell told me the chemical breakdown for my recipe. They gave me the acidity, told me how long it would last and made recommendations for improving the shelf life,” she said.

ECDI offers classes in money management, business plan writing, social media, retail design basics and food safety, along with training on a variety of other topics.

After speaking with her team at Cornell, Jackie realized she needed to pasteurize her sweet tea by giving it a hot-ﬁll. A hot-ﬁll is when you bring your product up to a certain degree before boiling it, as a way of preserving the tea.

“Thirty percent of our participants are food entrepreneurs, but we help all kinds of business,” he said. “We also work with already existing businesses, not just start-ups.”

“After working with Cornell, I thought I was all set to go. What I didn’t realize is that perfecting my recipe was just the beginning,” she said.

According to Bob, ECDI connects food entrepreneurs, like Jackie, with additional resources and opportunities to get their businesses up and running. They work with local partners like the Ohio State University Food Industry Center and out-of-state organizations like the New York State Food Venture Center and the Northeast Center for Food Entrepreneurship at Cornell University. In addition, ECDI is developing its own commissary space where people can store food carts overnight, utilize refrigerated storage and work in a common prep space. “These facilities will be licensed by the health department and should be available for use as early as this summer,” said Leighty. “We are always looking to see where we can fill the gaps and aid our entrepreneurs.” ECDI hosts information sessions every Thursday at 6pm for those interested in getting funding for a business. For additional information, visit ecdi.org.

SUMMER 2011

edible columbus

Jackie Chapman, founder and owner of jC’s Southern Style Sweet Ice Tea.

Over the next year Jackie worked with a variety of organizations to get her business up and running. She collaborated with the Ohio Department of Agriculture to be certain she was meeting the commission’s requirements, she secured the proper insurance and she researched and selected a bottling company.

Legend has it that sweet tea was “invented” at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. An Indian tea merchant was having diﬃculty selling his hot beverage, due to the sweltering summer heat. In an eﬀort to move product, he attempted to cool customers down by putting his tea on ice and adding sugar.

“Getting this started was not easy, I tell you. If I wasn’t really passionate about this dream, I would have given up a long time ago.”

Since then, sweet tea recipes have evolved to include a variety of ingredients. One taste of Jackie’s secret formula, and you’ll know she’s mastered the equation.

When asked where that passion comes from, Jackie replies, “Most Midwesterners haven’t been exposed to real sweet Southern tea. People want something new, something delicious, and I believe this is it.” Jackie may be right. If you haven’t spent much time in the South, chances are you haven’t tried “real sweet Southern tea.” Deep down in Dixie, the sugary sweet beverage is served everywhere from McDonald’s to five-star restaurants. While tea connoisseurs may turn up their noses at the mention of it, most will acknowledge that in America, sweet tea has a longer tradition than nearly all tea-related beverages. The history of sweet tea dates back to the 19th century, when Americans first attempted to grow tea in the United States. Wadmalaw Island, a small island off the coast of South Carolina, bore the right climate for growing tea. It is said that Dr. Charles Shepard founded the first U.S. tea plantation, later purchased by Lipton.

“It’s the fresh ingredients. I use the best pineapple juice and squeeze all of my lemons by hand. jC’s puts all other teas to shame,” she said. In the last year, Jackie has gotten jC’s into a variety of Columbus retailers, including Saferino’s Pizzeria at the North Market, Casasazone, the Hills Market, Creole Carry Out, Smothered Gravy and the Hudson Street Market. She claims that the easiest way to sell her tea is just getting someone to taste it. “I believe when people taste this tea they taste my passion, they taste my hard work, they taste my love.” We can assure you, you’ll taste Jackie’s sweetness as well.

For more information about jC’s Southern Style Sweet Ice Tea, visit jcssweeticetea.com.

Jackie preparing labels for her bottles of sweet tea.

An original.

Discover Farm-Fresh Goodness

"! "! " " "

" ! ! ! ! !

"! ! ! "! ! " " !

" " "! ! "

"" "

Please look for a free copy of Edible Columbus each season at the businesses marked with a star. You can also subscribe to the magazine at ediblecolumbus.com.

Ann’s Raspberry Farm

Franklin Park Conservatory*

Local Matters*

Sweet Thing Gourmet

1777 E. Broad St. Columbus, Ohio 43203 614-645-8733 fpconservatory.org

731 E. Broad St., Third Floor Columbus, Ohio 43205 614-263-5662 local-matters.org

sweetthinggourmet.com

Fulton Creek Jersey Cheese

Local Roots*

athensohio.com/30mile

9518 Welsh Road Richwood, Ohio 43344 937-348-2633 fultoncreekjerseycheese.com

annsraspberryfarm.com

Athens County, Ohio

Tessora tessora-liqueur.com

15 E. Olentangy Dr. Powell, Ohio 43065 614-602-8060 localrootspowell.com

The Hills Market*

Backroom Coﬀee Roasters*

G. Michaels*

Market District Kingsdale

1442 W. Lane Ave. Columbus, Ohio 43221 614-486-8735 backroomcoffeeroasters.com

595 S. Third St. Columbus, Ohio 43215 614-464-0575 gmichaelsbistro.com

3061 Kingsdale Center Columbus, Ohio 43221 614-5380762 marketdistrict.com

Bexley Natural Market*

Generation Green*

508 N. Cassidy Ave. Columbus, Ohio 43209 614-252-3951 bexleynaturalmarket.org

6351 Sawmill Rd. Columbus, Ohio 43017 614-761-2222 generationgreenstore.com

Mary Evans Child Development Center*

Bluescreek Farm Meats*

Green Bean Delivery

59 Spruce St. Columbus, Ohio 43215 614-228-5727 bluescreekfarmmeats.com

877-827-FARM (3276) greenbeandelivery.com

Bob Evans bobevans.com

Café Brioso* 14 E. Gay Columbus, Ohio 43215 614-228-8366 cafebrioso.com

Cambridge Tea House* 1885 W. Fifth Ave. Marble Cliff, Ohio 43212 614-486-6464 cambridgeteahouse.com

Camelot Cellars* 958 N. High St. Columbus, Ohio 43201 614-441-8860 camelotcellars.com

Canal Junction Cheese 18637 County Rd. 168 Defiance, Ohio 43512 614-419-2350 canaljunctioncheese.com

Cooley’s Greenhouse* 14130 Middleburg–Plain City Rd. Plain City, Ohio 614-873-4862

Dine Originals dineoriginalscolumbus.com

Easton Farmers Market eastontowncenter.com

Greener Grocer* North Market 59 Spruce St. Columbus, Ohio 43215 614-223-1512 thegreenergrocer.com

Hamilton Parker* 1865 Leonard Ave. Columbus, Ohio 43219 614-358-7800 hamiltonparker.com

St-Germain stgermain.fr

7860 Olentangy River Rd. Columbus, Ohio 43235 614-846-3220 thehillsmarket.com

Thurn’s Specialty Meats* 530 Greenlawn Ave. Columbus, Ohio 43223 614-443-1449

Trek Columbus Bicycle Store*

377 Dublin Rd. Columbus, Ohio 53221 614-777-4099

1442 W. Lane Ave. Columbus, Ohio 43221 614-486-TREK (8735) trekstorecolumbus.com

M/I Homes New Home Sales Center*

Two Caterers*

4047 Gramercy St. Columbus, Ohio 43219 614-418-8888 homeateaston.com

6800 Schrock Hill Ct. Worthington, Ohio 43229 614-882-7323 twocaterers.com

North Market*

Wasserstrom

59 Spruce St. Columbus, Ohio 43215 614-463-9664 northmarket.com

866-634 -8927 wasserstrom.com

Whole Foods Market* 3670 W. Dublin Granville Rd. Columbus, Ohio 43235 614-760-5556 wholefoodsmarket.com

Northstar* thenorthstarcafe.com

Ohio Proud

Huﬀman’s Market*

ohioproud.org

Whole Foods Market*

2140 Tremont Center Upper Arlington, Ohio 43221 614-486-5336 huffmansmarket.com

Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association oeffa.org

1555 W. Lane Ave. Upper Arlington, Ohio 43221 614-481-3400 wholefoodsmarket.com

Ohio Farmers Union

Integration Acres

ohiofarmersunion.org

Wild Goose Creative*

integrationacres.com

Outdoor Space Design

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams*

614-282-7810 outdoorspacedesign.net

Available at all locations jenisicecreams.com

Jorgensen Farms* 5851 E. Walnut St. Westerville, Ohio 43081 614-855-2697 jorgensen-farms.com

Katzinger’s* 475 S. Third St. Columbus, Ohio 43215 614-228-3354 katzingers.com

2491 Summit St. Columbus, Ohio 43202 614-859-9453 wildgoosecreative.com

Worthington Farmers Market

Pam’s Popcorn* North Market 614-222-1850 pamspopcorn.com

owba.net

WOSU

Photo Kitchen

wosu.org

614-309-3515 photokitchen.net

Yoga on High*

Schacht Farm Market* 5950 Shannon Rd. Canal Winchester, Ohio 43110 614-833-1932 schachtfarmmarket.com

1081 N. High St. Columbus, Ohio 43201 614-291-4444 yogaonhigh.com

edible columbus.com

SUMMER 2011

Last

SEED

Bushels of Tomatoes By Sheryl Pfeil

There were sweet raspberries, captured and plucked just before the birds discovered them. There were crisp radishes, pale green cucumbers, verdant Swiss chard and the most delicate leaves of lettuce, a far cry from the familiar heads of iceberg. Tomatoes seemed never-ending. We would pick them into bushel baskets to carry inside. They would be quartered and sprinkled with salt, sliced onto BLT sandwiches, tossed into salads, cooked, canned and shared with neighbors. Sunday dinners took their themes from the garden: grilled flank steak, a salad of freshly picked lettuce with crumbled blue cheese, and Swiss chard, creamed with milk, butter and a dash of Maggi seasoning. To drink we had iced tea steeped with fresh garden mint. Summer trips to my grandparents’ home in White Plains, New York, were an adventure of a different sort. Their gardens were neverending. Framed by a boxwood hedge and dissected by blue stone paths, the myriad flowers created a colorful quilt. In the vegetable garden, there were rows of lettuce, beans and peppers. There was rhubarb in the spring and chives, dill and mint in the summer. There were treasures, too: a goldfish pond, a majestic flagpole and a stone bench nestled between tall blue spruces. The garden was as functional as it was magnificent. Many a meal required picking something from the garden. Outdoors I spent hours mining fool’s gold from the old stone wall, feeding the goldfish and learning the art of garden tending, composting, sowing and reaping. Indoors I learned how to patiently dry fruits in a slow oven and how to press delicate flowers between pages of heavy books.

Journeys to my maternal grandparents’ home in urban Cleveland were a different culinary pilgrimage. There, we would gather our harvest at the West Side Market. We would head first to Lovaszy’s—where meats and long ropes of kolbasz sausage were handed over after a salvo of Hungarian words. Outdoors, sounds and colors abounded as vegetables overflowed tables, people crowded narrow aisles and multilingual bartering created a loud cacophony. And no trip to the Market was ever complete without fresh, unsalted butter—a slab, not a stick. We always frequented the same stands, as if it would be adulterous to browse another. After arriving home with our array of ingredients, the house would slowly fill with the tenacious aroma of one of my grandmother’s creations: stuffed cabbage, chicken paprikash or maybe a Linzer torte or sweet poppy seed roll. And so it was that my unique childhood tastes were acquired and nurtured. The generational connections, anchored by food and by love, remain indelible. The gardens are gone, but the shared traditions are still crisp in my mind. I cherish the memories of endless summers, time spent with parents and grandparents and the glimpses into my own ethnicity and heritage. Much was sown and, indeed, much was reaped. What better legacy for all of us to leave than the gifts of shared time, food and love!

Sheryl Pfeil grew up in Columbus back when gardens, large and small, were a fixture in more yards than not. She is a faculty member at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. She loves teaching medical students, especially the small group of students (Learning Community) who meet regularly at her home, where the shared meals are as meaningful as the shared insights and experiences.

Bushels of tomatoes—perhaps my most colorful childhood memory. It is remarkable how many childhood memories have a gustatory anchor. We had a large colorful garden, huge to a child’s eye. And it proliﬁcally yielded the most wonderful tastes of summer.

Celebrate Summer Al Fresco Style COLUMBUS â&#x20AC;&#x201C; CENTRAL " " $ $ " # $ Barcelona Restaurant and Bar Barrio Tapas Black Creek Bistro The Clarmont Restaurant Columbus Brewing Company DeepWood â&#x20AC;&#x201C; An American Tavern Due Amici Elevator Brewery & Draught Haus G. Michaelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bistro Katzingerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Delicatessen Miloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Deli and CafĂŠ Mozartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s North Market The Old Mohawk Restaurant Pistacia Vera Skillet, Rustic. Urban. Food. Spinelliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Deli Tip Top Kitchen & Cocktails Tonyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Italian Ristorante SHORT NORTH / CTORIAN VILLAGE Basi Italia Basil Thai Restaurant Black Olive Bodega CafĂŠ & Carryout The Burgundy Room Short North Katalinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s CafĂŠ Corner Press Grill Rigsbyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Kitchen Spinelliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Deli Surly Girl Saloon Tasi CafĂŠ COLUMBUS â&#x20AC;&#x201C; NORTH

! # $ ! $ $ Alanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Food & Wine Chile Verde LaScala Restaurant & Martini Lounge Mozartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bakery & Piano CafĂŠ Refectory Restaurant & Bistro Wildflower CafĂŠ The Worthington Inn BEXLEY The Top Steakhouse GAHANNA Mezzo Italian Kitchen and Wine

We have patios, porches,

and gardens galore !

SAVOR SUMMER: IN COLUMBUS! After a long, seemingly endless harsh winter, and the soggiest spring since Noah was a ship builder, there is just about nothing we crave more than a little warm, fresh air.

POWELL LucĂŠ Enoteca

The local outdoor dining and drinking scene features more than two dozen Dine Originals Columbus restaurants, with al fresco menus and patio cocktails. Our outdoor spaces provide a party-like atmosphere on sunny afternoons and starlit evenings, and you have an invitation to try each one.

WESTERVILLE Bel Lago Waterfront Bistro

Happy summer, Columbus.

GRANDVIEW Figlio Wood Fired Pizza Shoku Restaurant Trattoria Roma Vino Vino Restaurant & Wine Bar Z Cucina Ristorante & Bar

GRANVILLE The Oak Room at the Granville Inn The Short Story Brasserie

Bookmark our website and sign up for our E-NEWS to hear about special offers and discounted gift certificates:

LANCASTER Shawâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Restaurant & Inn LOGAN The Inn & Spa at Cedar Falls

VISIT US: DineOriginalsColumbus.com