The Anna Maria Island Sun Newspaper

Vol. 14 No. 35 - June 25, 2014

FEATURE

Where does your food come from?

Anna Maria Island Sun News Story

submitted

Peach and pecan salad with blackberry coulis, buratta cheese
and argula makes a colorful presentation.

 

The sustainable food movement, sometimes called Localvore, is the most important shift in the food industry that I have seen in my 35 year restaurant career. It is underpinned by the growing number of folks, like myself, who want to know where their food comes from and how it is raised or produced. Ideally, we also want to know who raised it.

Some of the most important issues and challenges facing our country today are food related. If we want to address the complex issue of rising health care cost in this country the most significant thing we can do is to eat right. Go back to the pre-WWII days when we ate real food, much of which was grown locally.

Eating right means not consuming foods with long lists of unpronounceable ingredients which serve to impart extra or artificial flavor or prolong shelf life. Utilizing sustainable practices to produce healthy food has the important benefit of reducing our carbon footprint and benefitting our environment. It also benefits our local economy.

Eating right isn’t just about better health, it’s about better taste. One need not look far to find great tasting healthy food locally. We have some of the world’s best healthy gourmet offerings right here in our community. Accessing these foods will provide those who choose to do so with the added bonus of meeting some really interesting people.

Want some of the world’s best seafood? Head over to Cortez and get wild sustainable fish and crabs from Karen Bell or one of the other seafood purveyors there. Love clams? Call Two Docs and get a bag of middle-neck, hard shell clams from Aaron Welch and Aaron Welch, Jr. the father and son Ph.D.s who raise clams in Joe’s Bay on the southeast edge of the skyway. On the right day you can get incredible red snapper, grouper, and stone crabs or maybe even grey striped mullet from Anthony and Jo Anne Manali on Anna Maria.

Want peaches that will take you back to your childhood? Then drive out to King Family Farm and get some of Ben and Shelby Kings incredible fruit. They are the best peaches I have ever had! Not just one out of 10, but every single one! And their plums and blueberries and nectarines are incredible as well.

Love sauerkraut? Me too, but I never knew it could be as good as Keith Pratt’s six varieties of organic cabbage that Keith makes locally under the Beagle Bay brand. Eric Geraldson, our farm manager, grows his organic cabbage at our Gamble Creek Farm.

How about some of the best caviar in the world. Yep, you heard me right! It’s right here in our own backyard produced in an open book project to show how the Siberian sturgeon population doesn’t have to be needlessly wiped out by the corruption and pollution that is occurring in the Caspian Sea. Talk about sustainable.

You won’t find any names you can’t pronounce on the labels of any of these products. Just incredibly great, healthy, sustainable food grown and produced by some of the most interesting friendly people I have ever met.

I want to thank Mike and Maggie and the folks at the Island Sun for giving me the chance to talk about things that mean so much to me. I look forward to the opportunity in the days ahead to introduce you to a lot more of the people and projects that we are so fortunate to have in our community. Eat great! Eat local!

Peach and pecan salad

by Sandbar Restaurant Chef Ian Fairweather

Ingredients

One ripe peach, cut in half, deseeded and grilled on each side.
3 oz. arugula
1/2 of a buratta cheese
1 oz. toasted pecans
2 oz. blackberry coulis
1/2 oz. olive oil

Method

In a bowl toss arugula with olive oil.
On a salad plate ladle coulis on plate and spread it around forming a circle.
Place arugula in the center of plate.
Add the buratta to the middle.
Place the grilled peaches around arugula.
Sprinkle pecans around the salad.

Blackberry coulis

Ingredients

2 c. fresh blackberries
1 c. sugar
1 c. water

Method:

Boil blackberries in sugar and water until reduced by half to a thick consistency.
Blend in mixer or blender.
Cool before using.

Serves one

This recipe is made with fresh-from-the-farm peaches from King Family Farms and fresh arugula from Gamble Creek Farms, both local farms in Manatee County.


AMISUN ~ The Island's Award-Winning Newspaper