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Last year at Kalamazoo’s Food Dance Cafe, the kitchen staff put up 20 bushels of Michigan sweet corn for the winter. They blanched it, cut the kernels off the cobs, vacuum-sealed it and froze it. Then they set to work on the season’s basil crop, pulling off stems, washing the plants and preserving it in pints for the winter.
Efforts like these show just how committed Food Dance owner Julie Stanley and her staff are to keeping locally grown vegetables, fruits and herbs on the Cafe’s menu year round. “For us, this is the only way to eat,” says Stanley. “Buying what’s close to us is very important.”
Stanley opened Food Dance in 1994, and it has since become a Kalamazoo institution. She’s made relationships with local growers a top priority, buying produce, meats, eggs and herbs from 10 to 15 farmers on a year-round basis, and purchasing from more than 20 growers during peak harvest season. The restaurant’s wildly popular breakfast scrambles and omelets, for example, are made with eggs from Friendly Folks Farm in Newaygo, north of Grand Rapids. It’s a sizeable order for Friendly Folks: Food Dance uses 780 dozen eggs per week. The maple syrup on the menu, drizzled over pancakes made from scratch, comes from Paw Paw farmers Jill and Jack Brown.
“To eat a well-made breakfast is incredibly nourishing, soul-wise as well as food-wise,” Stanley says. Knowing that the source of the breakfast food is a local farmer, she says, adds an extra dimension of nourishment as well. “It’s grown by people who are passionate, people who care deeply about what they are growing,” she says.
Food Dance’s menu changes with the seasons, and Stanley says she uses foods like risotto and fish as blank palettes for various seasonal flavors. During late-summer months, the cafe’s corn crepes, filled with sauteed corn, onions and red peppers, and topped with salsa that includes fresh tomatoes, fennel and a variety of peppers, are a bestseller.
The heirloom tomato salad – drizzled with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and salt – is another late summer favorite. But diners can enjoy this bounty for only a limited time. Cooking seasonally, Stanley says, means that once local tomatoes are gone, “we don’t carry it on the menu anymore,” giving the menu its own seasonal pulse.
Though not all of Food Dance’s suppliers are certified organic, Stanley says those who own small family farms are less likely to use pesticides, herbicides or other chemicals on their produce. Because many farmers have lived on their land for generations, they’re committed to farming sustainably in ways that won’t harm the land. “Most small farmers are going to use the least invasive method possible,” she says.
Though relying on local growers has undeniable benefits in terms of flavor and freshness, Stanley says doing business in this way presents some practical challenges. Take delivery days, for example. Most farmers’ biggest weekly harvest happens on Saturdays, while Food Dance needs the bounty earlier, in time for their own weekend rush.
Since fruits and vegetables are picked at peak freshness, finding appropriate storage can be a challenge – especially for produce that’s best kept at room temperature rather than refrigerated.
“It’s hard to find a place to store fresh tomatoes,” Stanley says. “Kitchens get very hot.” Variable weather patterns, of course, mean crop supplies can be unpredictable, and food costs are much higher when working with smaller farms. Stanley pays Michigan farmers $1.50 per dozen for eggs, for example; she’d pay only 65 to 70 cents a dozen if she ordered them from a large national supplier.
But Stanley says the tangible and intangible benefits make enduring these challenges worthwhile, and her work with local farmers is likely to continue to grow. In June, Food Dance moved to a new, 10,000-square-foot location, doubling its size by adding a pastry kitchen, gourmet and prepared foods market and space for cooking classes and demonstrations.
Stanley says someday she’d “like to be even more pure, and in the winter eat only what we put up,” but southwest Michigan’s short growing season makes that difficult. For now, she’s content to call herself “part chef, part forager,” and says she’d like to continue to teach that passion to others.
If the 350 to 450 Sunday morning breakfast guests who come through Food Dance’s door are any indication, her passion for local flavors has caught on for good. 401 E. Michigan, Kalamazoo. 269-382-1888; fooddance
4 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons canned lump crab
2 tablespoons sweet corn kernels
(For best results, use fresh.)
2 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
1 tablespoon basil, finely chopped
1 large heirloom tomato
1 tablespoon butter
2 pinches coarse sea salt
Plunge fresh sweet corn into boiling water for about 8 minutes, rinse under cold water and cut off the kernels. • Melt butter in a small, nonstick pan over medium-low heat. • Saute the crab and corn together in the butter for 1 minute. • Pour in eggs and scramble until just before they set, about 2 minutes. • Remove from heat and stir in basil and cream cheese. • Slice tomato and arrange 2 or 3 slices on each plate. • Serve scramble on top of tomato slices, and sprinkle a pinch of coarse sea salt over each plate. Serve with large wedge of fresh melon. Serves 2.
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