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FNC Episode 32
Intro:
Welcome to Food News & Chews. Hey Jeremy!
I'm playing CNN anchor today.
If you've got your computer out then I'm
probably in trouble.
This is so cool.
This week on Food News & Chews
we've got our Azur Farmers Market episode.
We've got lots of great growers out here.
Get to know your farmer, get to know your food.
I'm going to take some local produce, it's
tomato season...
Yummers!
and make a great heirloom tomato salad for
a recipe as well so stay tuned!
We'll be right back!
Welcome back to Food News & Chews, Hey Jeremy!
Read my chest.
So, you're not Betty Crocker. I've got to deal
with it right? I'm actually glad you're not
Betty Crocker.
Yeah. That makes me dependent on you.
To feed me.
Every now and then I do depend on Betty Crocker
if I am tire at home and my kids want some
cupcakes then maybe I'll do that.
Hey! I got this at the Mill City Museum in
Minneapolis where they pay tribute to the wheat
industry and the flour industry that they've had.
And they've changed actually from milling flour
for just like giant sacks of flour to more
prepackaged kinds of things.
They actually talked to you about that. Has the
gluten thing changed any perception of wheat.
Yeah. Gluten and all that stuff has changed how
they do business and that's how Pilsbury and
General Mills all of those folks have stayed in
business. They've gone to more prepackaged things
but now like with everyone else they're moving
back in another direction with things that people
at least perceive as being more natural.
It seems like they want to do less processing and
leave some of the grain and stuff in it.
That kind of leaves us to what we are doing here
today. Let's talk about fresh.
Sure.
And, we're talking about fresh and one of the things
and I've got to make sure my computer screen 'cause
I'll go crazy if it goes blank. 'Cause this is
important stuff because we're going to be talking
about fresh foods.
Sure.
And why those are important. Why fresh foods, fresh
vegetables and fruits are better.
Well, you know I always say that the determining
factor is just taste for me.
That's right.
And as a chef I want to look all over the world for
the best ingredients in season but when you live in
a place like Kentucky with this rich agricultural
heritage and you've got this bounty of stuff coming up
we're talking about being the summer
Yeah, tell us what's coming.
Well, I mean we're just in the peak of tomato season.
Tons.
Then you get into beans, tomatoes and everything grows
nicely here. So, I mean the rich soil makes it taste
better so, obviously there are some nutritional
benefits to fresh as well. So higher nutrient contents.
That's right. Now and it's about purchasing and preparing
and preserving because I was looking up freezing of these
critters.
Sure.
Like, you get thousands of tomatoes now, what do you
do with them? Or the beets that will be coming in.
And actually what the volume of evidence is is that
if you can't get fresh and you should try to get fresh
and local and shop at your farmers market then buy
frozen because it is frozen right when it's picked and
then it's shipped as opposed to shipping stuff that loses
its' value.
As produce gets older it loses its' nutritional value as
it sits on the shelf it just kind of deteriorates where as
frozen gets a bad wrap and is supposed to be inferior but
there's a lot of great techniques for freezing like even
green vegetables Sylvia.
Yeah. Yeah.
A lot of chefs now a days instead of blanching them in
hot salty water to make their bright colors come out and
break their texture they will put their vegetables in the
freezer, freeze them briefly then pull them out. It's called
flash freezer blanching and it's seems like one of the
most perfect ways to harness the power of the vegetable.
Yeah, there's a great I wanna make sure I got this right
www.gardenguides
Sure.
and it's all one word .com They teach an amazing thing
how you can freeze vegetables like tomatoes for instance
that are so in season now and that you can keep them in a
freezer for six months.
Well.
That gets you through Christmas.
It does. You want to save all the produce you can so
if you're going to can that is one way to do it.
Freezing is another option.
Yeah. So anyway that's important and another thing is
related to that. The FDA says how you clean your fruit
or vegetables even if they are organic because they don't
know what an an hahaha that is an animal might have done
to that plant. Ahhhh. Just give it a thought here. Or two.
I won't be explicit but you should clean everything with water.
Warm water and you don't have to use those products that
they sell and stuff. Well, it's interesting.
You know we have a weird perception of what is dirty and
Well, that's true too.
and actual dirt and it's part of the earth and it's
all natural, right? I mean if you are going to wash
something with soap and chemicals what's dirty that or
the natural soil.
True. I did eat dirt as a child and look at me.
So, that's the problem.
Hahaha. That explains a lot, doesn't it? So, anyway
all of that relates to good health. That's what we wanted
to do for food news today.
Sure.
We want to move on and show you because a lot of people
talk about this stuff but they really don't know exactly
what it all means.
Hit a farmers market. Go buy some fresh produce. Get
to know your farmer. That's what we're going to do
today. We're going to talk to some people that grow things.
As much as you can. It doesn't mean you can't have a tomato
in January or a banana.
They just won't taste good.
Or olive oil. So anyway we'll be right back with Food News
and Chews as we tour the farmers market.
Welcome back to Food News & Chews. You like my big
toothy grin?
I thought that was a mustache.
Is that pretty or what?
We're here at the Azur Farmers Bazaar or also
Azur Farmers Market. Got Shannon Collins here, the
Director. She's the one that kind of organizes this
every week. It's kind of interesting to have a Farmers
Market at a restaurant, huh?
It is a unique concept. We're the only restaurant in
Lexington doing that right now.
Yeah, well you've got the downtown market which is incredible
this one is a little bit more service oriented. You have
basically the basics to keep it Kentucky. But what can
you usually find here?
There's a wide variety. We've always got Billy Webb here
with Shitakes and other mushrooms.
The "Fun guy?"
Fun guy indeed.
The mushroom guy.
Jeremy, we have a new farmer who's got all organic produce
from Paris.
Which is a hard thing to do.
It really is.
I tried to grow some organic just like some parsley and I
couldn't.
Well, what happened?
I I
Just like died?
Well, I can cook it but not grow it.
We want to make sure we acknowledge our youth back
here you know. Who's this young man Shannon?
This is Kevin Wampler-Collins. He's my son and he's
manning one of our booths here at the farmers market.
You know what is unique also is that one of the things that
we have at this market is Montessori Middle School where
Evan goes they produce honey, eggs and some produce and
they'll bring it up here for the school and it benefits
the school as well. Great local growers here.
Got to show this to viewers.
We're here every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Now, that's a big heirloom tomato.
That's a big guy.
That's a real big guy.
So, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Saturday. It continues
to grow and we can't wait to have you guys.
Rain or shine we'll come under the patio.
That's right, that's right.
Alright, well thank you very much. This has been great.
I'm going to dive into this thing.
He can make copies for you or he can make truffles for ya.
Bryan Campbell has got Campbell's Candies and he's actually a
great friend of ours. He works here in Beaumont Centre
but he also has this talent for making handmade candies.
We actually sell them at the restaurant on the dessert menu.
It's kind of neat to go to a farmers market and see some
handmade artisanal chocolates.
Definitely, something out of the ordinary.
Different varieties you can get them here most Saturdays
or like I said, we sell them at the restaurant.
Incredible stuff. Different, different kind of
Yeah.
Tell us what kind of varieties you have here.
Flavors.
Today we have dark chocolate truffles, white
chocolate truffles and dark chocolate dipped in white
chocolate truffles.
Yummers.
All handmade by a local producer. That's pretty neat.
You know you are required to give co-hosts of Food
News & Chews samples.
Well, try some today.
I can attest. They are incredible truffles. Even in
the restaurant we have people that want to get in touch
with him. How can people get in touch with you?
You can go to Campbell Candies on Facebook or you can
contact me at bryancampbellcandi es@gmail.com or give
me a phone call.
Makes it easy for holidays and also Valentine's Day.
How did you get into it? You're a young man. I mean what
turned you on
Jeremy here. He actually discovered me a while back.
From there we...
He's a trouble maker. He's always discovering things.
I was trying to pawn off work on somebody else. I
didn't want to make candy and I didn't want to make desserts
and this guy is better at it than I am.
I love it. These are the best I've ever had.
Okay great. Thank you Bryan for everything.
Thank you for having me.
Hey Jeremy, don't bother me I'm shopping. Look what
I have.
What exactly are you going to do with those Sylvia?
I'm going to let you do something with it. That's what I
always do with Jeremy.
Hopefully, I'll teach you what to do with some of these
tomatoes in a later segment. We're actually here with
Deborah Kelly and she's got a pretty interesting kind of beef, right?
Yes I do, we raise Wagyu beef which is originated
from Japan and it's known as the most juicy, tender beef
in the world. There's no other breed in the world that
can surpass this breed of Wagyu beef.
It's a very interesting cow or steer or whatever you
want to call it properly. They're big stalky guys.
Back in Asia they were used to pull carts. If you notice
He's a big fella.
Big stalky guys and they just develop incredible marbling.
They are superior in terms of beef to eat. So marbling
internally is incredible. In America we call it Wagyu
instead of say Kobe.
Oh, yeah. That's right. That's Kobe derivative.
Has to be from Kobe Japan for that.
Ahhh.
So in America it's Wagyu but she actually has tell us
about the blend of breed you have.
This is a simmental base which gives
What?
Simmental breed base meaning the cows are simmental based
so they milk well, they have big ribeyes and the Wagyu
puts the intense marbling in there. You won't need to add
growth hormones there's no need on these genetics to use
growth hormones or antibiotics whatsoever. I have
breed them for years and weeded out the poor doers and
whatever so genetically I have engineered a premium
product and like I say juicy, tender.
Where do you do this? Where's your farm?
Some people call it Lancaster, Kentucky.
Lancster.
Lancster, Kentucky.
Well, it's great. I've eaten actually several different
cuts and it's one thing that is interesting about this
meat is almost every part of it can be eaten. It's
very tender. Thank you very much.
And we have free range eggs as well. Our brown eggs we raise.
Your chickens runaround?
Our chickens runaround, right. Several different egg layers
that produce us nice brown eggs.
Nice.
Thank you very much.
No antibiotics as well.
Love it!
That's where it's at!
Alright, great!
Alright you two, we're getting back to business here today.
Oh, I mean I thought that was the microphone.
It's just a bunch of big beats.
You can't roast a microphone.
Anyway, look at this Jeremy.
Yeah. We've got Walker Hancock here and she's doing
organic produce. She's got a great variety for the
farmers' market too. What's involved with organic produce.
People are so confused about that.
Well, basically it means that you're not going to spray
any synthetic fertilizers or chemicals or pesticides or
herbicides in your crops. That being said, I am not certified
organic.
That's a big deal, right?
It is, it is.
What do you have to do? What do you have to do to become
certified? What difference is it?
There are certain records that you have to keep and certain
seeds that you need to grow. For instance if you want to grow
corn like I have here you couldn't use a genetically
modified seed to grow that corn.
It's just more paperwork and stuff like that.
And you file and get certification from the state.
Well, the proof is in the pudding or mashed potatoes
anyway so this is some great stuff. We bought some produce
last week for the restaurant and really enjoyed it. Everything
is just premium top notch and can't wait for you guys to
come out here and try some of this fresh stuff.
And one of these days Jeremy you need to show us how to do
beets because they will start coming in.
I would be happy to show you how to do beets
Beetza
how to do the beet greens and everything that is there.
We've done Beetza.
Beetza that's where we're trying to get kids to eat beets
by putting it on pizza, right?
Right. Beans on the pizza.
Beans on the pizza, yeah, there you go. Why not?
Pizza is good. A great medium for good vegetables.
Coming soon.
Here comes the bride
You could use this as a thing, right?
One time I had an order for they wanted the small yellow
ones to use as table decorations.
They are beautiful, people are doing that now with
artichokes and stuff.
A good thing that he is a "fun guy."
You are a fun guy, Billy Webb the mushroom man.
Yeah, this guy is unprecedented in terms of mushrooms farming.
This is boutique mushroom farming. Billy Webb and I have been
friends for quite a long time and I am proud to have him at
the Azur Farmers Bazaar because if you guys can tell the
quality is unparalleled. That's a nice specimen of an oyster
mushroom.
Correct.
That's beautiful.
Tell us how this is done.
Well, if I can step over here one second. When we grow the
shitakes we start the shitakes this would have been sawdust
ten weeks ago. As you can tell on here I made that on the
16th of May.
Yeah.
Now, that's in a special cooking bag, sterilize the sawdust then
put the spawn in there but we made this one on the 8th of May
and if we can look we've already started seeing the mushrooms
grow in there.
Oh look! They grow in there.
After they grow in there we harvest the mushrooms, we take the
plastic off there and we harvest the mushrooms. And Jeremy
can you reach me that one over here?
Yeah, sure.
That looks like a bee hive. Looks like a bee hive.
The mushrooms actually harden the block up and they grow off
there and we clean the block up and we let it set for a while
and then we get more mushrooms.
That.
What. How much of a yield will come out of a block like that?
This is a five pound block and the theory is which doesn't
work
Yeah.
the theory is that you should get about 40% of the weight so
we should get about two pounds of shitake mushrooms off here.
I'm working at about a pound and a quarter off a block right now.
Nice but definitely not two pounds is it?
Not two pounds.
This is hard work and it really pays off too. I mean especially
when I'm in the kitchen when you're cooking this stuff.
Where's everybody else's mushrooms? Jeremy will have these
spoken for.
Especially the chanterelles.
Yeah. This is a neat foraged variety. My favorite mushroom
the Golden Chanterelle. In terms of cooking, I can't describe
the flavor of this it's incredible.
How do people find your mushrooms? You have a farm.
You have a farm.
I have a farm. I have a farm but I don't have a web page
right now.
You're just Billy Webb.
Billy Webb. You can go on Facebook and look up Billy Webb
the mushroom Billy Webb
The "fun guy."
the "fun guy", mushroom farmer and Facebook me. Or, you
can follow me on Twitter @SheltoweeFarm and but I lost my
dot com name. I didn't re-register it. Someone bought it
and they're trying to sell it to me right now.
Also, you'll want to email Food News & Chews dot com .
We can happily get you in touch with him because you don't want
to miss this stuff.
Oh yeah.
Welcome back to Food News & Chews. Jeremy, we have some
guest chefs here today.
What are they?
The Japanese Beetles.
Hahaha.
Well, they do fly around.
They're everywhere.
We're outside on the patio.
Big green things everywhere. They've been eating your stuff.
They are eating my stuff.
What are we having?
I've got some fresh produce from Azur's farmers bazaar
and we're going to make a little salad out of it.
Oh yummy!
It is tomato season so heirloom tomatoes is the way
to go. I eat these until I'm sick until the middle of
October then I can't wait until they come back again in July.
Or June, end of June. So, ask me what these are Sylvia. I
know you want to.
What in the world are those little soft things?
These are squash blossoms. So, end of your zucchini and
squash flowers this is what come up.
How pretty. The squash part is really hard.
Exactly, so these have a very short shelf life but are very
good to eat. What to do with them is take them and open
them up a little bit.
Like a flower.
Yep, like a flower and add goat cheese. So, we're going
to stuff these with cheese.
Down inside. Yeah.
Yeah, just like that. This is just the start of the salad
we'll have a couple of these almost like a relleno
preparation.
A what?
A relleno preparation like you make a chili relleno,
one of those sautéed peppers.
No, I don't know about that but I trust you.
A little pan with some olive oil.
Okay.
Going to roll it in flour.
Yeah and that's seasoned flour.
Yeah, salt and pepper is all then dip it in some beaten
egg. See how it is kind of goopy like that.
Oh man. Look at this.
Then drop it in the pan.
And it will fry?
Yeah, for it to cook.
That will be great.
Keep it on a medium low heat. You can just kind of sauté
you want the cheese to be warm and ooey gooey in the middle.
In the meantime, I'm going to slice heirloom tomatoes, right?
And they are so tiny. Why?
These are just different little varieties. I couldn't even
name all of them here.
We just saw a giant heirloom in the Azur Farmers Bazaar.
That's right. So, the thing I like to do with heirloom
tomatoes is really kind of keep them in simple little shapes.
Just little different slices
Aren't those pretty and colorful?
just kind of make the plate fill up with different colors.
So, I'm not doing much other than slicing.
Gotcha.
This one we'll take the end off.
While you're slicing can we also announce there are some other
cooking kinds of things going on in town.
Sure.
The Lexington Farmers Market Harvest Dinner Festival is on
August 24th.
Right.
We're actually going to be doing a farmers market episode to
talk about that.
Always fun.
Crave is coming.
Yep.
Their brunch on August 25th.
It's going to be a great big food festival right here at the
Amphitheater too.
And the Incredible Food Show is coming October 26th. That's
going to be real neat. I mean last year it was just huge.
It's getting bigger every year. It's a great event.
Everybody has got to check it out. Even if you are not a
particular foodie you can find something fun to do.
Yeah.
Heirloom tomatoes they're down. I'm going to use some
Applewood Smoked Salt on them.
Oh! Did you get that at Stuarto's?
I did.
I sniffed that the other day.
Right. I'm also using his oil in the pan. It's great.
Yeah, oh man. That store is a candy land.
What I do in winter when tomatoes aren't very ripe is
I'll throw them on the grill and get that charred flavor.
When tomatoes are in season. I get that nice delicate
sweetness of the tomato but the little smoked salt gives it
kind of grilled, camp fire flavor that is a neat contrast.
Can't beat that flavor.
That's right.
That really conjures up good images.
So, let's just be kind of random about how we put the tomatoes
on the plate.
You're never random. You're an artist.
Very, very rustic and tall.
How pretty.
Well, I'm not doing any cooking here really. Just making
tomatoes look
Well we won't give away that secret.
Yeah right.
He does cook all the time. He cooks for me every night.
Yeah. So, let's make some things look neat, different shapes.
Look at these little guys going to town.
They are so, we'll flip those over while we'll decorate
our plate up. So, batter on the outside.
Yeah.
It's sticking a little bit on me but just get the pan a little
bit hotter. We're outside so.
Al fresco.
So, nice country mix olives you know, decorate the plate with.
This is something you serve on your menu, right?
This is our Heirloom Tomato Salad at Azur. If you haven't
tried I suggest getting it.
Oh, it's going out the door.
Yeah, it's good this is the season. You guys should
be eating this.
You should be eating it.
Take basil pesto and I'll grill this baguette and kind
of pop it.
This is pesto.
Mmmhmmm.
You can get that in a grocery store.
Sure. A neat little bruschetta.
Wouldn't know what to do with and now I do.
Layer here and now the squash blossoms are ooey and
gooey and warm in the center, right?
You know Jeremy you won't have to take care of me in my
old age as much as I thought. They say dementia is actually
instead of going up is actually coming down according to a study
they did of people in Wales and they said it is because of what?
Quality of life?
Good health and education levels...
Huh.
determining factors. So you eat this stuff and
uh if you eat this stuff I can't imagine anything is going
to be wrong with you. So, a little nice Stuarto's
balsamic vinegar
Sounds good.
on your tomatoes.
The other health news this week is that I'm also proven right
on this there is a lack of a gene that makes you get obese.
You can eat the same amount of food as somebody else I've
always thought that and that's lacking a gene that they have
discovered and they are going to try to use that to help people
acquire the gene.
Well, I need that gene.
A little bit of lemon oil on the plate as well and that's a
nice Heirloom Tomato Salad. Goat cheese squash blossoms
It's beautiful.
Everything from the market and you can't beat that. That's
just where it's at.
Yeah! And you can get it right here at Azur! We've been
at Food News & Chews and we've had a great day at
We've been at Food News & Chews
I have gotten dementia
Better eat a tomato.
I think I will eat a tomato we'll be back next week with
Food News & Chews.