Farm Fresh Forks: a taste of local produce

An experience once thought only to be available to wine connoisseurs is now in Yuma.

The Farm Fresh Forks program is a group striving to get the word out about healthy eating through produce tasting!

The way they do it?

Each week until the end of March, chefs from eight local restaurants will offer a complimentary, yes free, tasting menu to customers featuring three fresh produce items from local farms.

Yuma is a great place to launch this veggie tasting experience, after all, 93% of the country’s winter leafy greens come from our area.

Kristan Sheppeard, coordinator for farm fresh forks program for Y uma Fresh Vegetable Association confirms the opportunity this experience provides to teach families about nutrition.

“Over 90% of the leafy greens for the whole country are coming out of here so we have the masses all of these healthy foods. But people coming into Yuma want to be able to taste and try what’s growing in our fields,” said Sheppeard.

Similar to the wine tasting industry, Farm Fresh Forks allows consumers to savor the flavors.

“Actually it may be even better because our vegetables are different kinds, different textures, different colors, different tastes,” said Sheppeard.

Farm Fresh Forks allows locals and visitors an opportunity to taste the freshest, healthiest products grown with unique culinary twists created by talented area chefs.

“Basically the whole purpose of the program is to get more produce into people’s mouths, to get them to be eating more, and eating healthy, and then also showcasing what our growers and our chefs do in our community,” said Sheppeard.

Speaking of culinary twists, I got to speak to three local chefs who gave me a sneak peek of the dishes you can look forward to tasting.

Karl De La Rossa, the executive chef at Prison Hill brewery, created a vegetarian twist on a Southwest favorite…tacos!

“A lot of people don’t have vegetables in their tacos they like carne asada so I kind of tried a pico de gallo, some grilled veggies, some grilled corn. The grill kind of adds the flavor as meat and then I have a little chipotle aioli on top,” said De La Rossa.

David Dobransky, sioux chef at Quechan Casino, Ironwood Steakhouse, believes that incorporating fresh vegetables into comfort food is in fact possible.

“This is my take on chicken wings so typically you have celery would you eat with your chicken wings and I’ve incorporated cream cheese, chicken, and Frank’s hot sauce. This is broccoli and sharp cheddar cheese soup and it’s actually got a little beer in there. We used Tony Gwynn the beer specially made for him in San Diego. We wanted to highlight that because his foundation supports underprivileged kids for educational purposes,” said Dobransky.

Lastly, Reilly McMaster, an expert around the kitchen and Debbie Gwynn, owner, and general manager of Garden Cafe, have been involved in this program since its beginning.

“Harrison Farms was our grower this week and we had iceberg lettuce and celery. We have just a wedge with a creamy buttermilk parmesan dressing drizzled across with our house baked bacon, cherry heirloom tomatoes, roasted broccoli, with red pepper, garlic, some fresh chopped celery thrown on top,” said McMaster.

Complimentary tasting plates are available at the restaurants Tuesday- Saturday.

The tasting menu for the participating restaurants is as follows:

The Garden Cafe: Lunch Tasting, Spicy Broccoli and Celery wedge served with creamy Parmesan dressing.

The Patio Restaurant & Bar At The Hills: Dinner Tastings, Roasted Broccoli and Cheese, Celery Chips, Iceberg Sangria.

2 Fifty 1: Lunch Tasting, KTO Roll

Mostly Muffins: Lunch Tastings, Breakfast Broccoli bake, Corn and black bean salad

Takos & Beer: Dinner Tastings, “Protein Tako”: Grilled chicken on a lettuce wrap served with celery mango salsa and topped with broccoli aioli

Prison Hill Brewery: Dinner & Lunch Tastings, a vegetarian taco with grilled broccoli, corn and celery topped with a chipotle aioli shredded Lettuce, and pico de gallo

Chretin’s: Lunch tastings, broccoli celery slaw

Ironwood Steakhouse: Dinner Tastings, buffalo chicken stuffed celery broccoli slaw on a bed of iceberg lettuce

For more information and to receive a free cookbook with recipes included from this event, go to FarmFreshForks.com.