Culinary program traces path food takes from start to finish

By Marty Meitus, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published September 30, 2008 at 3 p.m.

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Carey Fusick is sifting through newly turned soil looking for potatoes. She's enthusiastic about the dirt on her knees, her shoes, her shirt, her hands.

"I love it," says Fusick, 31, tossing the potatoes into a bin. "My mom used to call me 'Pigpen' when I was younger, and I'm living up to that."

Fusick is one of 11 students, ages 21 to 55, participating in a new six-month program at Boulder's Culinary School of the Rockies. Farm to Table features an externship through which students work on farms in the North Fork Valley near Aspen and in Boulder County. They're also spending a week in restaurant kitchens, followed by a Harvest Dinner, open to the public, on Oct. 9.

On this late summer day, the students are spreading compost, laying vegetable beds and harvesting potatoes at Cure Organic Farm in Boulder, a participant in the hands-on program, along with Oxford Gardens and Abbondanza Organic Seeds and Produce.

Anne Cure - who has worked the farm with her husband, Paul, for four years - shows the students the pig pen, the laying hens and ducks and the vegetable beds.

"I never thought I'd have my own farm because it's way too much work," the 31-year-old says. "But I love it, and it becomes part of your lifestyle. I can't think of anything more rewarding than growing food for people."

The Boulder farm stint is relatively tame compared with the recent North Fork Valley trip, during which students participated in everything from the innocuous pulling of weeds to the more emotional butchering of animals for meat.

"The slaughter was eye-opening," says student Sylvia McGrath, 51. "You'd think, I'm not going to eat this, but I felt it gave its life and I really needed to enjoy that food and respect that animal. I don't eat a lot of meat, but I value it. It makes that package in the grocery very real to you."

McGrath is quietly and efficiently pulling weeds before tossing them into a truck bed for the hens and ducks. A former executive assistant, McGrath describes herself as a "career changer."

"I spent the last two years exploring the possibilities, and they all landed on food in some way, shape or form," she says. "I looked at coffee roasting, a bed and breakfast, catering, owning a coffee shop."

The externship, she says, has given her new perspective.

"I'm still interested in an inn," McGrath says. "I'd have catering and gardening, and it would all come together."

Other students echo her sentiments as they spend the morning in the potato fields. There's Fusick, a third-generation mechanic whose grandparents farmed mostly corn; she plans to ranch and farm and own a B&B. Then, there's David Garfield, 23, who has a master's degree in economics from Boston University. He has long wanted to pursue his culinary interests.

"This has been a change, but in a good way," he says. "I was sick of sitting at a computer."

The students are clearly weary today. Garfield is doing the chores half-heartedly, tired from the drive from the North Fork Valley and the early 7:30 a.m. start time. He also is still thinking about the experiences of the past week, like finding out that birds really do flap around after the grim reaper comes.

"I don't plan on being a farmer," he says. "Too much 'not fun' work."

Cure says that's one of the lessons learned down on the farm.

"I don't think people understand the constancy of it," she says, after jumping off her tractor. "That it's a living, growing system, and it's nonstop. And that it's a business."

After two days at the Boulder farms, the students are ready to thank some of the farmers with a small harvest dinner at the cooking school. The cooking school kitchen comes alive with activity under the watchful eyes of Chefs Adam Dulye and Michael Scott of the Culinary School of the Rockies. Each pupil is assigned part of the prep work for the farm-fresh menu they've designed.

Unlike a TV reality show, in which clashing personalities are thrown together, there is no tension, even though it's organized chaos in the kitchen.

Ryan Gove, 26, combines blanched spinach with butter to use in the mashed potatoes, while Levi Luhan, 22, prepares a fougasse, a yeast bread with sun-dried tomatoes and herbs. Steve Youngman, 22, cuts a few dozen apples for an apple crisp. Nate Weir, 26, makes a purple basil pesto in a blender to go with the pork. Daniel Hughes, 24, has worked in kitchens before. It's clear he knows his way around a stove, from the unconcerned way he handles the hot skillets of sizzling pork belly to the way he positions his body, so that others won't bang into him.

There's a lot of good-natured joshing directed at Garfield, the economics major, who is trying to handle hot beets baked in salt, while trying to explain the "why" of the cooking technique. (It preserves the color.)

Sylvia McGrath, meanwhile, works next to Fusick, who's cutting corn from hot cobs, while Cathryn Wearp, 55, peels potatoes across the prep table. Wearp moved from a small town in California to Colorado but plans to buy a farm in Oregon.

"I'm looking for 40 to 50 acres," she says. "I'm going to move where I can't smell my neighbor's cabbage cooking."

As the dinner hour approaches, Chef Michael Scott, team leader of the program, calls out the time periodically. The team checks off the menu items on a list hung on the fridge.

"We have 20 to 25 minutes," he says, above the din. "You've got to hustle now. We have to pull everything together."

Dinner is ready on time. At the last minute, Youngman even takes time to compliment fellow student McGrath on the "awesome job" as he helps her plate her salad.

Salad platters are followed to the buffet table by two pork dishes, platters of heirloom tomatoes and greens, baskets of bread, casseroles of mashed potatoes with spinach compound butter and fried eggplant with mounds of roasted beets.

"They did a good job. It was delicious," says an appreciative Peter Volz of Oxford Gardens. "For the relationship to work, both sides (the farmer and the chef) have to have a sensitivity to the demands of the others . . . both sides have to understand how the other one lives."

That understanding between farmer and chef is critical to the future, Scott says.

"Chefs are the trend setters, and when our food supply is in the news - E.coli from chiles from Mexico, spinach with E.coli - chefs will be the ones to educate the public on the next step," Scott says.

He envisions a resurgence of small, community-based agriculture and less reliance on large industrial farms.

"There will be obstacles, but it can be done."

If you go

* What: Culinary School of the Rockies Harvest Dinner, presented by the culinary arts students

* When: 4 to 9 p.m. Oct. 9. 4 to 6 p.m. wine, appetizers and farm tours; 6 to 9 p.m. dinner and wine.

* Where: Boulder's Pastures of Plenty Farm, 4039 Ogallala Road

* Cost: $75

* To register: office@culinary schoolrockies.com or 303-494-7988

Eating locally

The Farm to Table program at Culinary School of the Rockies taps into the latest trend - eating more locally produced foods.

"There's a whole generation that doesn't realize that food comes from the ground and not the grocery store," says chef Michael Scott of the culinary school.

The idea of becoming a localvore - yes, there is a name for it - vaulted into the mainstream with two popular books in 2007. The first, Plenty, detailed the adventures of two Canadians who decided to only eat foods produced within 100 miles of their home. The second, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by popular author Barbara Kingsolver, chronicled her year of eating food she grew or bought locally.

Add environmental concerns, food safety issues, health concerns and renewed desire for "real" food, and a movement is born. Not to mention the emergence of a new local hero: the farmer.

"When we buy food from people who are growing it, it bonds you with them. It creates a personal connection," says Lynne Eppel, publisher and editor of Edible Front Range, a quarterly magazine devoted to reconnecting with all things local in food. "It's important to see (farmers) on a personal level. You're supporting them financially, and it becomes much more symbiotic, where we're helping each other out."

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