Corduroy Orange

I was looking forward to the Farm to Table conference this year. Its new home was in the convention center downtown (a much easier destination for me to get to), and it had been expanded to a two-day format. I was hopeful that these factors would lead to an increase in the number and quality of booths at the conference. I’ve got to admit to being disappointed on both counts.

While there were several very interesting exhibitors, such as Weatherbury Farm (a source of grass-fed beef and lamb); Heritage Farm (source of poultry, beef, pork, and various sundries); Plum Run Winery (which boasts a decent 100% pinot noir and a wine made primarily from norton, a grape I only previously tasted in Missouri); Turner Dairy (which buys milk only from farms within a 70-mile radius of their operation and was named “Best Milk in U.S.” at the 2007 World Dairy Expo in Madison, WI); and the Farmers Market Alliance of Western Pennsylvania (which provides a wealth of information about various farmers’ markets in the area), I still left feeling as if there ought to have been more.

There were several tables for exhibitors who seemed to have little to do with the local food pathways: a chiropractor in the South Hills, vendors offering skin care products derived from edibles, and two separate operations that offer wild Alaskan salmon (admittedly a tasty treat, but far from local to Western PA).

My schedule didn’t permit me to attend many of the breakout sessions, so I can’t really speak to the quality of many of the speakers (one whom I really wish I had been able to listen to was Art King of Harvest Valley Farms, whom I’ve met several times and whom I know to produce some darned good tomatoes), but the one that I was able to attend in full was thoroughly disappointing.

Kitty Leatham (billed as Chef Kitty Leatham, a title that she did not demonstrate that she deserved) was supposed to have been doing a cooking demonstration to open up the conference on Saturday morning. Kitty was on my radar as the possible subject of an article, as I had heard decent things about the deli that she ran in New Sewickley (the Green Chef Deli, now defunct). I found out it was defunct during the course of her rambling talk, as she confessed to closing it due to health code and financial problems (”I never really priced out my food, it seemed an offense to the integrity of the product, so that’s probably part of why I never really made any money,” she said). The labeling of the session as a cooking demonstration was patently false, however.

I did not see Ms. Leatham cook a thing. She stood in front of the table and led a pep rally for raw milk and raw milk products (even, in the aftermath of her session, suggesting to a pregnant woman that she drink raw milk to boost the baby’s immune system and that she not vaccinate her child because that would disrupt the baby’s natural immunities {no wonder she ran into health code problems}) while her able-bodied assistant did all of the cooking. There were no tips on how one might cook food better, nor information about how the ingredients were being processed to bring out their best flavor—the talk focused primarily on suggestions of the types of ingredients one ought to seek out and purchase.

Last year, there were Amish farmers selling breads, cheeses, and jams; farmers offering goat and pastured pork; live lettuces in pots. A wider variety of farmers offering a wider variety of information at a larger number of tables.

I really don’t wish to suggest that the conference was terrible–it was actually very interesting. Just not as interesting as it had been in its inaugural year, and I hope that next year it surges out of its sophomore slump to be bigger and better than ever. To help it reach its full potential, I’m putting my money where my mouth is in terms of my critique of Ms. Leatham’s demonstration. I personally volunteer to lead a real cooking demonstration—one in which I’ll not only encourage audience members to seek out and find local ingredients, but also give them tips on how to cook them better, and actually cook while I talk instead of talking while somebody else cooks.

In the meantime, though, support your local farmers—it can be as easy as stopping as you drive past one during a country drive, asking what they offer, and buying anything that you’ll actually use. In my experience, there’s no better way to find out about food than by talking to the people who produce it.

Also, if you’d like to read a more upbeat summary of the conference, check out the great write-ups on Eating Local in Pittsburgh.

PS– I just remembered the demo I saw at the 2007 conference that put the 2008 demo to shame: Doug Dick of Bonna Terra and Bill Fuller of Big Burrito working in tandem–phenomenal!  i wish there had been something more like that this year.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 7:11 pm and is filed under Pittsburgh, Sustainable Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.