Category: Good Food restaurant trends

Rick Bayless and Oaxacan Corn: Thinking Globally While Acting Locally

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

It might sound somewhat surprising that Rick Bayless, a pioneering advocate for the Chicago region’s local farmers and a master of regional Mexican cuisine, recently converted to using imported corn for his tortillas.
But this isn’t just any corn. It is dried heirloom corn from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, where some historians believe the cultivation of maize began. And it underscores the fact that in a diverse and increasingly interconnected food culture, authentic farm to table restaurants may take their search for the best ingredients way beyond their local areas…. and sometimes to a different part of the world.

Mayan Café: A Real Farm to Table Leader in Louisville for 10 Years

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The Mayan Café presents traditional cuisine of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula that since 2007 has delighted diners (and reviewers) in the restaurant row in Louisville’s East Market District, a.k.a. NuLu. And they have done so in part by going all in on sourcing ingredients as locally as possible, a decision that made them a farm-to-table front-runner in Kentucky’s most populous city. Good Food on Every Table is pleased to present a q-and-a with Shadle and Ucan as our first out-of-Chicago article in our “Farm to Table: Keeping It Real” series.

Chasing Chickens Around Chicago, Or How a Chef Supports Local Farms

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Sourcing locally is a commitment that is both rewarding and frustrating for a chef. But metro Chicago’s White Oak Gourmet
is committed, even if it means chasing chickens (okay, chicken delivery trucks) around the city. Read Chef Tom Leavitt’s reflections on building relationships with farmers in this contributed column.

Chef Johnny Anderes is Keeping Farm to Table Real at The Kitchen Chicago

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The Kitchen was founded in Boulder, Colorado in 2004 and features delicious food with a strong focus on local and sustainable sourcing at its restaurants. And The Kitchen goes beyond the core Good Food principles with its strong social mission, embodied in its school learning gardens program. Johnny Anderes, head chef of the The Kitchen location in Chicago, discussed the restaurant’s Good Food practices.

Chicago Chef Paul Kahan: Keeping Farm to Table Real

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Paul Kahan, a winner of a James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef of the Year award, has built his career around his dedication to sourcing sustainably produced ingredients, as locally as possible, for his restaurants’ kitchens. Family Farmed and Good Food on Every Table are pleased to present this profile and q-and-a with Kahan to kick off our new “Farm to Table: Keeping It Real” series.

Farm to Table: Keeping It Real — Introducing Our New Series

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The Good Food movement has made tremendous strides during recent years, but this progress is fresh and fragile. Among the biggest challenges is ensuring consumers that the Good Food claims made by people in the industry are legit. So FamilyFarmed’s Good Food on Every Table is launching the new chef-driven series, “Farm to Table: Keeping It Real.”

James Beard Awards Had Common Thread: Perseverance

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The James Beard Foundation held its annual awards ceremony in Chicago Monday night. All the winners, of course, serve delicious food to diners. But if there was another quality that linked several of the biggest awardees, it can be summed up in one word: perseverance.

James Beard Awards, Welcome Back … What’s New in Chicago Good Food

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Last year, FamilyFarmed welcomed the first-ever James Beard culinary awards to Chicago with an article providing the sweep of Good Food activities in our hometown. So with the JBF Awards coming back to town on May 2, the best second helping we could think of is this rundown of the biggest Good Food developments in Chicagoland over the past year.

Chicago’s Paul Kahan, FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Chef of the Year: His Culinary Career

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Chicago chef Paul Kahan has long been known for the culinary excellence of the successful and high-profile restaurants in the One Off Hospitality Group, currently at eight locations and growing. His kitchen mastery earned him the James Beard Foundation (JBF) Outstanding Chef Award in 2013. He was inducted into JBF’s Who’s Who of Food and Beverage Read more about Chicago’s Paul Kahan, FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Chef of the Year: His Culinary Career[…]

James Beard Foundation’s Recipe for Change: How the Culinary Community is Creating a Sustainable Food System

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

FamilyFarmed’s Trade Show & Industry Conference on March 25 — the middle day of its three-day Good Food Festival & Conference — has an exciting new feature: “Recipe for Change: How the Culinary Community is Creating a Sustainable Food System” is a panel moderated by James Beard Foundation Vice President Kris Moon and featuring four of Chicago’s top chefs and Good Food champions. In this contributed column, Moon details the rising tide of chef activism and how the James Beard Foundation has responded with its Chefs Boot Camp for Policy & Change.

Local Food Fuels Main Street Mojo in Rural Kentucky

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Just four years ago, Main Street in the small city of Corbin, Kentucky looked and felt like most downtowns in rural America: Vacant buildings. Empty sidewalks. A few surviving businesses. Today, though, there are thriving businesses and it’s hard to find a parking space on the mile and a half of Corbin’s Main Street. And local food is the engine driving this community’s revival.

Good Food Added Savor to Chicago’s Jean Banchet Culinary Awards

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Chicago’s culinary community recently celebrated its top honors at the annual Jean Banchet Awards. The winners underscored he ever-increasing prominence of a Good Food ethos in the city’s restaurant community.

Rick Bayless Demo at GFFC

Ten Delicious Facts About Chicago’s Good Food Scene — Tell Us About Your Town

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

[The original version of this article was published May 1 on the Huffington Post website.] As FamilyFarmed prepared for the James Beard Foundation Awards in Chicago on May 4, we decided to welcome out-of-town attendees with an article providing “10 delicious facts” about the blossoming Good Food scene in our hometown. We found we had created a pretty sweeping guide to Chicagoland Good Food, so we’re making it a standing feature. And we’d love to hear about the Good Food scene where you live — let civic pride rule!

James Beard Awards 2015 logo

James Beard Awards Takeaway: Good Food is on the Move in the Culinary Community

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The glamour of the annual James Beard Foundation Awards, held earlier this month in Chicago, has subsided. So it’s timely to assess what the event meant for the Good Food movement. The bottom line is that the James Beard Awards were very good news for Good Food.

Chef Rick Bayless

Chef Rick Bayless’ Stewardship Helps Farm to Table Take Flight

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Chicago on Monday hosted the annual James Beard Foundation culinary awards ceremony, and Rick Bayless was one of the event’s co-chairmen. Famed for popularizing regional Mexican cuisine in the city, he is a celebrity chef with a long-running TV show, and he has just added to his long list of cookbooks. But to many in the Good Food movement, it is his history of helping building the region’s local food system that is his biggest starring role.

Rick Bayless Demo at GFFC

Welcome to Chicago, James Beard Foundation: 10 Delicious Facts About the Windy City

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

by Jim Slama and Bob Benenson, Family Farmed [Note: This article was first published on the Huffington Post news website.] As advocates of the Good Food movement in Chicago, we are honored that the James Beard Foundation Awards are coming to town. The Foundation was created to honor the legacy of chef James Beard. After Read more about Welcome to Chicago, James Beard Foundation: 10 Delicious Facts About the Windy City[…]

Tell William Cider at Farmhouse Chicago

Farmhouse Tavern’s Good Food Approach Sees Lake Michigan Region as Field of Plenty

Posted on by FamilyFarmed.org

T.J. Callahan, the founder and owner of the Farmhouse Tavern restaurants in downtown Chicago and suburban Evanston is a bit wary of the “farm to table” label, which some critics say has been overused to the point of becoming a cliche. “Farm to table, it’s such a nebulous kind of concept,” Callahan said in an interview with Good Food on Every Table. “So we’ve called ourself, from day one, a ‘Midwestern craft tavern.'”

Paul Fehribach cooking demo

Good Food Chef of the Year Paul Fehribach: Southern Tradition and Strong Values

Posted on by FamilyFarmed.org

Paul Fehribach of Big Jones restaurant in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood will receive FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Chef of the Year award during the Good Food Festival, Saturday, March 21 at Chicago’s UIC Forum. He earned the award because of his culinary skills — steeped in the traditions of Southern cooking — and also because of the strong values that prompt him to seek out locally and sustainably produced ingredients, including many rare or heirloom varieties.

New Holland Distillery of Michigan

The Localicious Party: Eat, Drink, Be Merry — Affordably

Posted on by FamilyFarmed.org

What would you pay to welcome the glorious arrival of spring with one of Chicago’s best annual food and drink tasting events?
Most sampling events these days will set you back three figures. But Localicious — on the evening of Friday, March 20 at Chicago’s UIC Forum — is a great night of eating and drinking great local products, for just $80.

Greg Wade of Publican Quality Bread

Chicago Baker Greg Wade: Making Interest in Good Bread Rise Naturally

Posted on by FamilyFarmed.org

by Bob Benenson, FamilyFarmed Bread, especially bread made with wheat flour, has come under scrutiny in recent years. Some nutritional experts and consumers have turned against it, viewing it as the root of a variety of health issues, from gluten sensitivity to weight gain. These sentiments spawned a rapid rise in interest in gluten-free bread Read more about Chicago Baker Greg Wade: Making Interest in Good Bread Rise Naturally[…]