This is a guest post by Susan Schmidt, Director, Food Service and Catering
I think I have the greatest job in the world; I get to do what I love which is to work in the food business and get to do it here at The Henry Ford. Spring gets me particularly jazzed. We get to open up the restaurants and food units in Greenfield Village for all of the visitors eager to burst out into the fresh sunny air as we get ready to roll in to another season of food activities and events. But what I love the most is that we get to ramp up our purchasing of fresh local produce from our network of regional farmers. It’s almost like being a kid making a list for Santa only we’re asking for awesome Michigan fruits and vegetables. Now we have to be good and wait to see what gifts we get, only ours are from Mother Nature. Even though we’ve been getting hoop house greens all winter from Farmer Jon (Jon Goetz Farms), there’s nothing like the steady up tick of fresh from the field produce that’s already begun with asparagus and will, by fall harvest, be in our kitchens in abundance.
It may be a best kept secret, but food service at The Henry Ford has been committed for several years to sourcing as much of our ingredients from local farms and food businesses as possible. Once we hit the height of the Michigan growing season that means about 60% of all that we buy. Not only is buying local a good thing for our regional and state economy, the satisfaction of supporting our neighbor farmers and their families is priceless. For me, that’s a huge part of what makes my job so great. Through our local food initiatives I’ve been able to meet so many resilient and resourceful people dedicated to preserving and bolstering our food system, from the farm to the table and everywhere in between. This morning Peter (Peter Stark of Renaissance Acres) dropped off heirloom tomato and veggie plants for our kitchen garden and herb pots. We can’t let the farmers have all the fun – we like to dig in the dirt too. Stop back to see how our garden grows.
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