Kelly's Table hosts a mostly organic, largely local meal
By Catherine Kramer LaFrance From the May 2006 Issue
CHOCK FULL O’ CHOCOLATE Only those with a serious love of chocolate need approach this banquet
Teatime soon at Kalamazoo Institute of Art It will soon be teatime at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts — literally.
CONDUCTING THEMSELVES NICELY Southwest Michigan Symphony’s search for a conductor plays on
Lake Magazine covers the hottest information on the Lake Michigan area.
|
Eating organic and local produce is nothing new to chef Monique Hooker, former owner of Monique’s Café in Chicago and former instructor at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago.
“I grew up eating organic,” Hooker told a crowd of wine tasters at Kelly’s Table at Creekwood Inn, Michigan City, Ind., March 18. “But it was World War II — we didn’t know it was organic back then.”
Speaking at the inn’s second annual wine tasting dinner, Hooker played the part of both guest chef and instructor, cooking with Kelly’s Table owner and friend Patricia Kelly Molden.
Supporting local farmers and organic farmers was Hooker’s rallying cry throughout the evening; she noted proudly that 90 percent of the meal was from local, Midwestern vendors, and 80 percent was organic. “I won’t touch anything from California,” said Hooker, a transplanted Midwesterner.
Her preference, no matter for whom she is cooking, is to buy from local farmers to help sustain family farms and to use vegetables in their proper season. “I used to move from one season to another,” Hooker said of her former restaurant’s menu.
Hooker urged the dinner guests to think about spending a dollar a day on local produce to help family farms stay in business. Small farms run on conventional methods are having trouble staying profitable in the face of big agri-business, Hooker explained, “so sustainable agriculture helps these small farms survive.”
To illustrate her point, Hooker spoke of a small family farm in Minnesota that could not keep up with competing corporate farms. The daughters of the farmers, she said, learned to make Gouda cheese and thus saved the family farm.
The message of sustainable agriculture became concrete as guests sampled a menu that began with smoked whitefish caviar from Collins Caviar in Michigan City. The main course, a trio of duck foie gras, duck breast and duck confit, also came from a nearby farm and the cheese course featured artesian selections from Indiana, Minnesota and Georgia.
| 
subscribe today!
