Farmers, chefs nurture budding relationships at 'Farm Forum'

Professional chefs like to cook with high-quality ingredients - especially if those ingredients are well-priced.

Professional produce farmers love the security of steady customers.

The two groups met Tuesday at an introduction arranged by the Geneva Green Market.

At the "Farm Forum," three chefs who buy meat, dairy and produce directly from farmers explained why and how they do it. That was followed by speed-dating-style meetings between the two groups.

The emphasis was on developing relationships, using items produced relatively near to restaurants, cooking with in-season items and providing items that wholesale produce suppliers aren't likely to carry. Heritage Prairie Farm of Elburn brought samples of microgreens it grows in hoophouses nearly year-round.

"For me, I need to visit a farm and see their practices before I endorse it," said Cleetus Friedman, owner and chef for City Provisions Catering and Events in Chicago. He offers a supper club farm dinner series, where his clients are bused out to farms to see how livestock is raised and their vegetables grown. His business motto is "local, sustainable, organic" - in that order.

Patrick Sheerin Jr., executive chef of the Signature Room in Chicago, noted chefs are notoriously competitive. "We want to have the coolest stuff on our menus," he said, explaining he may ask a farmer to grow a rare type of a vegetable in exchange for promising to buy it all.

The chefs involved explained that buying things that aren't trucked hundreds of miles often means getting better product that may last longer on their shelves. Sheerin said that buying asparagus from a grower in Wisconsin saved him thousands of dollars the first year he did it, even though he was using twice as much as before.

"This isn't a froufrou thing," he said.

Farmers asked whether chefs were looking more for locally grown items or those certified as organically grown. They wanted to know how chefs want items packaged, how to meet chefs, and how they communicate with farmers.

"We don't gloat and say that we're all organic," said Zak Dolezal, chef for Duke's Alehouse and Kitchen in Crystal Lake, explaining it is taking awhile for his diners to appreciate the effort he goes to to buy local and organic ingredients. He noted his clientele likes two kinds of beef: grass-fed for burgers, grain-fed for steaks.

Sheerin said he met some of his suppliers while shopping for last-minute "emergency" items at farmers markets, and that he's done a $70,000 contract on just a handshake. Checking quality is easier when the farmer is standing right there when it is delivered, rather than having to make phone calls and fill out a bunch of paperwork, like he does with wholesalers.

But all three chefs on the panel admitted the informality does have one drawback. When Bill Scheffler, of Pure Prairie Farm in Wayne, asked what farmers could do better, the chefs agreed:

"We would love it if billing was well-organized," Sheerin said. People bring in bills written on cardboard boxes or brown paper bags - something their bookkeepers abhor.

As for the asparagus? Sheerin got an understanding laugh from a room full of people who love vegetables, especially when they are in season.

"I got the phone call today that they're just peeking through," he announced.