About Me
We are bombarded with food images and petitions for our attention by marketers and restaurateurs that are delivering meals detrimental to our health, our environment and our spirit. "Farm Fresh Flavors" is an attempt to get you to cook so that you may have more control over the choices you make when dining. Cooking your own food allows you to decide who grows it, where it's grown and how it's prepared. It brings back the personal connection all humans once had with their food. Food is a gift from nature and not a commodity that springs from the shelves of grocery stores or the minds of professional marketers. Give it back its rightful place in our lives.
My interest in local and sustainable food was slow in coming. What I have discovered as I have been introduced to sustainable farming and responsible eating is that it is as much about relationships as about food. Eating responsibly does require a certain amount of commitment just as maintaining a friendship does and while we are all pulled in a million directions one constant is that we all have to eat. Make that be one of your anchors-- for your health, the health of the world and for your sanity. My hope is to foster a positive change in your eating habits by education and persuasion.
Randall Smith has been a working chef for over 20 years. He is currently Executive Chef at First and Fresh Catering in Washington DC and was formerly the executive chef at fine hotels and clubs in Wisconsin and Illinois. He is 1999 Middle Wisconsin Chef’s Association Chef of the Year nominee. He has written on using local produce for Farmer’s Markets Today and has been a tireless advocate for using products from farmer’s markets, CSA’s and local sustainable farms. He has traveled in Ireland studying the integration and branding of local food into foodservice, and has worked closely with the Central Rivers Farmshed, The Wisconsin Local Food Summit, and the Midwest Renewable Energy Association.