Activities
Local
Ladle
LESSON
paired local restaurants with local suppliers of produce and seafood at
the 5th annual Autumn Wine Festival held at Pemberton Park in Salisbury
on October 20-21st, 2007. With the generous support of six
regional
restaurants, we provided a mouthwatering variety of soups made with
ingredients from within 100 miles of Salisbury, Maryland.
Chefs from
Easton’s Restaurant Local , Berlin’s Solstice and
The Globe, Salisbury
’s Vinny’s La Roma, Lewes’
Café Azafran, and Tyaskin’s Boonies
restaurants featured farm fresh vegetables from Provident Organic and
Greenbranch Farms, dairy products from Chesapeake Bay Farms and Lewes
Dairy, plus seafood caught by local fishermen. Soups were
served with
a bakery-fresh piece of bread from DelVecchio’s Bakery and
freshly-brewed, organic, fair-trade coffee from RiseUp Coffee.
Our goal was to support Delmarva’s family farmers, fishermen,
and
independently-owned restaurants, especially those using sustainable
practices that promote environmental stewardship. Eating
local
food not only helps our family farmers but also builds our local
economy and reduces our environmental impact. LESSON showed
it
can be simple, nutritious and downright delicious to lighten our carbon
footprint by eating local food.
Was our Local Ladle soup stand successful? That depends upon
your
definition. While organizing the soup stand for this
weekend's
wine festival, we had many successes. A restaurant that
rarely
considers using local ingredients agreed to use them to make two soups
for our fund-raiser. Producers, like Councell Farms and Chesapeake Bay
Farms, who consider themselves conventional rather than sustainable
farmers, found their products in demand precisely because they are made
locally and don't consume excessive petrochemicals for
delivery.
Both suppliers were incredibly generous with their produce, as were
businesses like Lewes Dairy, which is committed to providing local
milk. Our all-volunteer staff assembled a food facility that
passed health department inspection without a hitch, and our "grand
opening" was met with smiles and enthusiasm. There were
problems
with equipment and electricity, making coffee and soup reheating a
challenge at times, but we got our soup and coffee stand up and running
quickly on Saturday morning.
As the temperatures continued to rise throughout the day, our hopes
that the wine-drinking masses would come in search of hot delicious
soup and coffee started to dwindle. Food sales were
not
brisk in the food court, and there were no lines anywhere--certainly
not in front of our stand. On Sunday, we made some quick
changes
to increase our sales: iced coffee, two soups served cold,
packaged quarts for take-out, and free samples. We got many
compliments and a few happy customers, but not nearly as many sales as
we had hoped.
Folks who paused in front of the stand were given a brochure and an
explanation of what LESSON is, what we are trying to accomplish, and
what a wide array of local vegetable, dairy, meat, fish and bakery
suppliers there are already in the area. Those who sampled
our
soups discovered how wonderful our local chefs can make these
ingredients taste.
Our
successes were not financial. We may not recover our
expenses. But now there are a few more restaurants who know
that
there are quality ingredients available from local suppliers.
There are a few more local suppliers who know that local restaurants
and consumers value their products. And there are a few more
people who understand that buying local produce supports our farmers,
fishermen, towns, local businesses and regional economy, while reducing
our environmental impact.
