By By KATHIE HEMPEL / Niles Daily Star
THREE OAKS – When Chef Judy Kite Gosh of Retro Cafe &Kite's Kitchen in New Buffalo decided to leave Chicago in 1992 to "pursue my first love: food," she moved home.
Back in her home state of Michigan, Chef Gosh, indulges her passion for local farm fresh food. This weekend a select group of local farmers, chefs and fellow food lovers joined her at the beautiful Vickers Theatre in downtown Three Oaks for a private viewing of Farm Fresh to You.
This WNIT documentary is a beautifully photographed homage to fresh food and local farm markets featuring Southwest Michigan farms and wineries. The film will be previewed for the public at a special showing this Saturday, May 30 at the Performing Arts Center of New Buffalo High School.
Chef Gosh takes viewers on a tour of 11 local farms including Genevieve Schuh Organics, Buchanan; Ma's Organic Garden, Benton Harbor; Stover's U-Pick, Berrien Springs; Tree-Mendus Fruit, Eau Claire; and Middlebrook Farm, Dinges Farm, McWethy Farms and Kaminski Farms, all of Three Oaks.
Other farms include Twin Maple Orchards, Weesaw Twp; Phil Falak Farm and Providence Farms of Saugatuck.
Calling on many of her fellow chefs to assist, Chef Gosh demonstrates a wonderful understanding of what she relates as "Farmers deep roots in the soil…their sense of spiritual connection." Chef Rick Bayless of Frontera Grill in Chicago and originator of the Frontera Farmer Foundation-that offers grants of up to $12,000 to promote small, sustainable Midwestern farms serving the Chicago area – appears in support of shopping local farm markets.
Chef Jenny Drilon of Marina Grand Resort's Bentwood Tavern in New Buffalo accompanies Chef Gosh to Twin Maple Farm to pick strawberries. Celebrity Chef Jean Joho proprietor of Everest Restaurant and Brasserie JO in Chicago and the Eiffel Tower Restaurant in Las Vegas joins Chef Gosh and Herb Teichman in Tree-Mendous Fruit Farms peach orchard and then demonstrates the construction of a French dessert using the peaches, as the audience struggles not to drool.
Tabor Hills Winery's Chef Jean Paul Vertage fixes a morel mushroom and asparagus pizza with the same results. Lemon Creek Winery is also featured in the production.
All have come together to encourage others to "think green" and to have local agriculture take center stage. Bill Curtis, whom most think of as the renowned television journalist, pops in to sing the praises of free ranged beef. He is the owner of Tallgrass Beef in Kansas. "There is a revolution going on," he said referring to the move for less processed and more natural diets.
Bob Schuttler would certainly agree. He moved from Chicago to begin his farming career in Three Oaks after being inspired by the best selling 2006 book, Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.
His Middlebrook Farm has recently opened a store featuring their grass fed beef and other local ag-related products. Providence Farms raises not only beef but also grass fed pork, lamb, turkey and chicken.
Linda Kaminski refers to the natural raising of her beef, pork and lamb saying the "animals are raised the way we raise kids." This return to the land and raising both meat and produce with love rather than chemicals was echoed as those involved in the film constantly refer to the return to a philosophy of nurturing the land rather than taking from it.
The public is invited to the preview of Farm Fresh to You at 3 p.m. this Saturday at the Performing Arts Center of New Buffalo High School for only a donation. The film will preview on WNIT on June 14 at 8 p.m.