Homegrown in Huron and Plum Tuckered in Ypsilanti
Farmer Lee of the Culinary Vegetable Institute welcomes the Chef Rocky Road Trip crew to Huron Ohio.
From Columbus we headed up to the shores of Lake Erie to the port town of Huron, Ohio yesterday morning where we met with Kim and Deirdre from Slow Food Huron Valley. They’ve been busy organizing their annual Homegrown Festival, coming up this September, which celebrates good food and local business. It’s too bad we won’t be in town for it. Kim and Deirdre joined us for a tour of The Chef’s Garden in the morning. Wow, what a place! It’s all about education and eating fresh and sustainable food.
First, we heard all about Veggie U, a program that enables teachers to bring science and healthy eating into the classroom. Teachers get a kit and a curriculum to grow vegetables in the classroom in an interactive way, and students get a chance to become more acquainted with where their food comes from. Veggie U has been enhancing nearly 2000 classrooms in 24 states every year.
Next, we heard from Farmer Lee Jones about the Culinary Vegetable Institute. There, they sustainably grow special varieties of vegetables and herbs used by top chefs around the world. While showing us around their incredible facility, Farmer Jones gave us some history about the place and about farming in the region. He recounted how it used to be, with farmers selling directly to buyers, and described the shift away from that system as chain grocers started moving in and taking over the market.
His family struggled to make a living, scraping by on what they could sell at markets for years, along with other growers in the region. In a county that used to have 330 vegetable farmers the 1930s, they’re down to 6 today. Now, they’re running a successful family business rooted in sustainably grown food. To quote Farmer Jones (quoting his father), they’re just “trying to get as good as the farmers were 100 years ago.”
Chef Rocky Barnette prepares food from the Growing Hope Center community garden to the delight of a patient onlooker.
To end the day, we drove up to Michigan to Ypsilanti, just outside of Ann Arbor. (Fun fact: Ypsilanti was home to Preston Tucker, the automobile man who designed and built the prototypes for the Tucker ’48, as depicted in the film Tucker: The Man and His Dream, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Jeff Bridges.) We were welcomed by Growing Hope and invited to their monthly community potluck. This is an incredible place. The Growing Hope Center is a training site for urban farming and sustainable gardening. The volunteers help install raised beds for families in the community so that they can grow their own food. It was a pleasure to be welcomed into their community and to share the incredible food that the neighbors had brought. Ypsilanti Mayor Paul Schreiber even stopped by to join us. It was a great way to end a busy day. Here are the photos to prove it! Talk to you tomorrow,
-Chef Rocky Barnette
I’m retweeting your trek on twitter! Each of your visits helps foster the hope that together we can encourage people to learn how their food is grown and work for clean water and healthy food for all. You’re invited to stop by our independent farmers’ market – the Glenwood Sunday Market (Sundays, 9 a.m.-2 p.m.) on Chicago’s northeasternmost neighborhood, Rogers Park. Exit the Red Line el at Morse and turn left. Our block-long market is on the cobblestone street of Glenwood, between Morse and Farwell Aves. Our market manager is Sheree Moratto.
[...] In Huron, Ohio the team met up with Slow Food Huron Valley and then hit up The Chef’s Garden to talk about its partnership with Veggie U, which helps teachers bring science and healthy eating into the classroom. They then visited the Culinary Vegetable Institute and Growing Hope, a training site for urban farming, where they met Ypsilanti Mayor Paul Schreiber. Blog post here. [...]
Thanks for your comments, Sue. I’ll pass this along to Chef Rocky. His schedule is pretty tight, but I know he appreciates the invitation. Thanks for re-tweeting!