Falling in Love Again with Food: Turning the page to Pretty Simple Cooking with A Couple Cooks
Emma Schlegelmilch | photography: A Couple Cooks & Krauter Photography
The Road to Resilience: An unexpected discovery in Sonoma County words and photography: Jennifer L. Rubenstein
Revitalizing Indigenous Cuisine: A conversation with Sean Sherman, founder of The Sioux Chef words: Francisca Figueroa & Sean Sherman
Sunflower Cookie with Butternut Squash “Jam”
COVER: Ashley Brooks and Sonja Overhiser photography: Lauren McDuffie. See story on page 8. THIS PAGE: Davero Farms & Winery photography: Jennifer L. Rubenstein. See story on page 34.
recipes on EdibleIndy.com From Chef Sean Sherman: Cedar Braised Beans From Tilly’s Tea Room: Beef, Ale and Parsnip Pie
other recipes from A Couple Cooks
Resilience is an elusive thing. To understand how resilient you actually are, you must go through something unpleasant in your life. A fall off a bike, the loss of a loved one, a divorce, any sort of tragedy, big or small. Originally, in planning our fall issue we considered a women’s issue, as our community is filled with inspiring, empowered women of all colors, all sizes, all ages. This issue centered around our feature story about a trip to Sonoma, where unintentionally the places we visited all had a strong female influence. As we began the process of developing the surrounding stories it became clear that the unwavering connection between every story told is that of courage, strength and the ability to rise above hardship. Whether it be the devastating wildfires in California, the heartbreak of infertility, an immigration scare during an ugly divorce or the forgotten history of the Native Americans, people come together. People have the ability to bury the negative and flourish above all else. I am honored for Edible Indy to talk about these emotional and relevant issues while sharing with you the importance of standing tall, speaking out and continuing to empower one another with the potency of positivity. And thank you to my unbelievable managing editor for continuing to push us to be better and to the dedication of every writer and artist who devotes their time to our publication. We are blessed and honored to have you.
Hoosier Hugs,
Jennifer & Jeff Rubenstein
Letter from the Editor
When Jennifer and I sat down to brainstorm for this issue we quickly realized we wanted to speak not just to the traditions of autumn but also to the present moment. We both felt called to address the pressing issues knocking on our editorial doors. In my nine years of publishing Edible magazines, I’m acutely aware of how food issues have flipped and social issues are now the more important aspect of the local food movement. And, in all honesty, they should be. Food justice is about social justice. We’re honored to have Chef Sean Sherman in this issue for the work he and his team are doing in this country to reignite indigenous food traditions and have the conversations, sometimes difficult, around how Native Americans ate and how their food traditions disappeared due to genocide. We pair Sherman’s wisdom with recipes we co-developed using indigenous plants so you might get a taste of what Indiana used to taste like before European civilization staked its claim on the land. Something Chef Sherman shares with all of the amazing women in this issue is a sense of the interdependence of all living things. The women in the Indy Women in Food group and Julia Turshen of EATT know this well, having cultivated communities so that strength in numbers becomes more than a cliché. Thank you to our team at Edible Indy and to our editor in chief and publisher for always digging deep and printing stories that root themselves in your heart. For surely, once there, love will inspire you someday to make a change for the interdependence of all living things, too.
Please call or email to inquire about becoming a member of our advertising partnership and show your support for the local food culture in Central Indiana.
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CONTACT US Edible Indy PO Box 155 Zionsville, Indiana 46077
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Edible Indy is published quarterly (March, May, September and November). Distributed throughout Central Indiana and by subscription elsewhere. Subscriptions are $32 for one year and can be purchased online at EdibleIndy.com or by check to the address above.
Every effort is made to avoid errors, misspellings and omissions. If, however, an error comes to your attention, then you probably have not had enough wine with your healthy food. Please accept our sincere apologies and, if it’s important, please notify us! Thank you.
Carrie Juvan and Jennifer Rubenstein in Tiburon, California
Celebrating Food
#EDIBLEINDY
Edible Indy celebrates food and you. Food + Social Media = Our Foodie Party. These social media shoutouts toast the food we love, the food you share and the joy of experiencing something new. Tag #EDIBLEINDY and maybe your masterpiece will score a seat at our Celebrating Food table.
Congratulations to Chef Sal Fernandez and the staff at Bridges Craft Pizza and Wine Bar for their invitation in late October to cook at the legendary James Beard House in New York City.
Nation
ROOM FOR All AT THIS TABLE
Online effort aims to expand diversity and opportunity in the food industry
words: Colleen Leonardi & Julia Turshen
Equity At The Table (EATT) is a dynamic effort to level the playing field in the food industry by providing an online database of women, gender-nonconforming and LGBTQ food professionals. EATT is designed to change up who does the hiring and who gets hired to tip things to a more equitable alignment.
“Every single decision we make every single day about food is a political one,” says organizer Julia Turshen, a cookbook author, radio host and recipe developer. Need a food writer? Search EATT. Looking for a caterer in your area? Search EATT. And if you’re not a woman of color or in the LGBTQ community but you’re hiring, you can submit your profile to EATT, too.
The website, launched this past April, is supported by a Patreon page, as there are no fees to join. One of our very own Indy food leaders, Candace Boyd Wylie, is a member (see her story on page 10).
“The EATT platform is like nothing else I’ve seen in a good while,”
she says. “I remember the day the launch of the site was announced. My social feeds and social groups were all abuzz. What was this, I thought? A food-geared creative space dedicated to women, the nonbinary and people of color? YES, PLEASE. There wasn’t anything of its kind like it. I was elated.
“After reading everything I could find, I jumped in and created a profile immediately. Julia Turshen and her team have made EATT one of my go-to directories. I’m on the site almost daily, from looking for inspiration to finding points of connection for projects and creative work. I think EATT is important because it allows the many of us who don’t have a large voice in the food world to have space. I’m tired of straight white men telling the food story. We are well overdue for diverse stories to be shared. Shine a light on the voices that have been marginalized. We have food stories to be told, too.”
photography: Gentl and Hyers
Above: Cookbook author, radio host, recipe developer and founder of EATT, Julia Turshen
Edible Indy: Much like Edible Communities Inc., it seems like EATT arose out of a need in the food industry. How would you describe that need and how did you and your board design EATT to meet it?
Julia Turshen: The need was, and continues to be, for a tool that can help the industry move in a more equitable direction. In providing an easy-to-navigate directory of women and nonbinary individuals, and focusing primarily on people of color and the queer community, EATT centers the people who have not been centered. It is accessible (there are no fees to join or to use the directory) and simple to use and aims to be a dependable resource for anyone in a position of power to use when they can hire, feature or fund someone. It’s also an amazing tool to keep everyone on the site connected to each other and create community in doing so. We have an active Instagram feed and an email newsletter that goes directly to members to keep us all in touch with each other. We’re not just waiting for gatekeepers to come to us—we’re working with and supporting each other.
Q: Tell me about the differences for you between diversity and inclusivity and equality and equity?
A: Equality is pulling up more seats to the table. Equity is about who the table belongs to and who gets to do the inviting.
Q: Why do you think it’s vital for freelancers to have a virtual space to come to and connect?
A: No matter how technologically advanced the world becomes, we all crave and need connection and community. Our work is stronger, and our lives are enriched, when we know about each other and can support and lift up each other.
Q: In time, how do you see this tool advancing and/or moving the food industry forward?
A: I see it shifting not just who gets covered, featured, honored and invested in, but also who gets to do the covering, featuring, honoring and investing.
Q: What do you want readers in the Midwest to know about EATT and take away from your mission?
A: Every single decision we make every single day about food is a political one (where we eat, what we eat, etc.). When we make these decisions, remember that there are women and nonbinary individuals, especially people of color and the queer community, working in and around food everywhere and each choice can move us in a more equitable direction.
Learn more about EATT at EquityAtTheTable.com.
Colleen Leonardi is the managing editor of Edible Indy and editor-in-chief of Edible Columbus. Learn more at ColleenLeonardi.com.
Strong, Bold & Beautiful
Indy Women in Food brings together local women to empower and build a community
words: Leah R. Singer | photography: Lauren McDuffie
Ashley Brooks and Sonja Overhiser never set out to be culinary queens or representatives of a food movement. But their own personal journeys and love of food and community brought them together to start Indy Women in Food, a group designed to empower and support the female foodies of Indianapolis.
Indy Women in Food was created in early 2017 to nurture collaboration among women in the Indianapolis food scene. This includes entrepreneurs, chefs, restaurant owners, writers, farmers, photographers and community organizers. The group exists primarily as a Facebook group with approximately 125 people. The women in the group are constantly offering support and suggestions to their fellow female foodies.
“It’s exciting being part of a group where everyone already has a shared state of mind,” says Overhiser. “We all know the challenges we face, and enjoy having an awesome group of women who share stories and resources, and make connections to promote our businesses and share ideas.”
The Women Behind the Network
Overhiser is the creator and writer of the blog “A Couple Cooks,” and co-author of A Couple Cooks: Pretty Simple Cooking: 100 Delicious Vegetarian Recipes to Make You Fall in Love with Real Food (see story on page 28). But she admits cooking was never something she set out to do full-time. It wasn’t until she and her husband, Alex, bought their first house in Broad Ripple and wanted to invite friends to dinner that she realized she needed to learn how to prepare a meal. So she read one of Julia Child’s cookbooks and fell in love with her message that anyone can learn to cook, as long as they have the courage and a willingness to try (and fail).
After successfully attempting Child’s recipes, Overhiser was hooked and began experimenting more with food. After reading Mark Bittman’s Food Matters, the couple made an effort to cook and eat a more plant-based diet, which became the inspiration for starting the blog.
Brooks has been involved in the food industry in many ways, starting in AmeriCorps where she became very aware of the role food plays in healthy living. It was then Brooks developed a passion for philanthropy and food. After completing a tour in AmeriCorps, Brooks attended culinary school at Ivy Tech Community College.
She went on to become a baker for Rene’s Bakery in Broad Ripple, a cheesemaker at Trader’s Point and co-founded the highly recognized Milktooth. She started A Rose Hospitality, where she curates food experiences from private dining to large-format festivals and everything in between. She cofounded the Garfield Park Farmers Market (the first Slow Food Snail of Approval recipient farmers market in the nation), which Brooks describes as a culmination of everything she loves a gathering place for community interactions and
getting healthy and good food to people who need it. She also co-founded Baby Got Brunch in 2017, a 1,200-person food festival benefitting The Patachou Foundation. The second brunch benefit was held earlier in August.
In December 2016, Janneane Blevins of the former PRINTtEXT (and current member of Indy Women in Food) called upon Brooks to organize a luncheon of local female chefs to welcome Kerry Diamond, the editorial director of Cherry Bombe, to Indianapolis. Blevins also hosted a panel discussion with Diamond, which included Overhiser as one of the panelists. The enthusiasm around these two events motivated Brooks and Overhiser to start Indy Women in Food.
“There were so many women at the event who were excited about food and having a platform to encourage each other and hear about all the cool things women are doing with food in Indianapolis,” says Overhiser. “We wanted to keep that community of women and energy going after the event. So the two of us had coffee and the rest is history!”
Bringing Women Together
Since its formation, Indy Women in Food has hosted several networking events so the women in the Facebook group can meet in person. They’ve organized three potlucks, the first of which took place at the Experimental House in summer 2017 and the most recent in June 2018 at Gallery Pastry Shop. Indy Women in Food also hosted a book signing and panel discussion with author Nicole Gulotta.
The women also started the Empower Program, which harnesses the connection between food and philanthropy to mentor young women. Twelve women in the local food industry talked to middle school students at Indianapolis Center for Inquiry School 2 about their careers in food and their challenges.
“We really wanted to show these young women, and men, what it looks like to be a successful woman in food,” says Brooks. The program received considerable positive feedback, and they hope to replicate it at other schools.
Other Indy Women in Food programs on the horizon include partnering with author Julia Turshen (see story on pages 6–7) for a book signing event and a panel discussion on diversity and food. That event is scheduled for September 25 from 4 to 5:30pm at Indy Reads.
To learn more about Indy Women and Food and join the community, visit IndyWomenInFood.com or @IndyWomenInFood.
Leah R. Singer is a freelance writer in Terre Haute. She is the former managing editor of the Red Tricycle Spoke Contributor Network. Her work has appeared in USA Today, Indy Star, Terre Haute Living, Huffington Post, Babble, Red Tricycle and many other publications. Visit Leah online at LeahRSinger.com, or on Twitter @leahs_thoughts.
Opposite: Co-founders of Indy Women in Food, Ashley Brooks and Sonja Overhiser
Indy Women in Food to Know
Shellye Suttles, PhD
Food Policy and Program Coordinator, Office of Public Health & Safety, City of Indianapolis, Instagram @xellye
Hometown? Los Angeles, California.
What is your job? As the city’s first-ever food policy and program coordinator, I move the needle on food access and food insecurity. What motivates me about the position is that I am able to empower the residents of Indianapolis to get involved in shaping the future of the city’s food system.
What is one of your goals with respect to your work and food? Food Compass. As a board member of the Indy Hunger Network, we have been working to develop an app—Food Compass—in partnership with Connect2Help 211 to help Marion County residents navigate the complex emergency food assistance network. We were invited to have Food Compass be the premiere challenge at this year’s Indy Civic Hack and will be moving forward with the development of the app with the challenge winner, Level Up Development.
Who is a strong woman role model in the food industry to know? Mary Bohman, administrator of the USDA Economic Research Service. She is very well respected as an administrator of an agency with over 200 independent-thinking economists and social scientists and gives them the freedom to be creative in their food and agricultural research. And, like myself, she got her start in
agriculture and community development as a Peace Corps volunteer overseas.
What’s your go-to spot for fresh food? Saraga International Grocery.
What is your favorite food? Red beans and rice (ham hocks, hot links and all).
Nina Takamure
Sushi Chef of Asaka Japanese Restaurant, Instagram @asakaindy
Hometown? A small town called Ueki in Kumamoto, Japan.
What inspired you to work in the food industry? Since 2009, I have watched my family’s restaurant, Asaka, get more new customers and more regulars. Many travel hours just to come to eat there. So I would say that Asaka is my inspiration and inspired me to start working in the food industry.
What is one of your goals with respect to your work and food? My goal is to follow in my father’s footsteps when he is ready to retire. Asaka’s name will be passed down to me, and I would love to relocate and use my father and grandmother’s recipes and quality at a new Asaka location, with a touch of me and a simpler menu.
Who is a strong woman role model in the food industry to know? My strong woman role model has to be Ashley Brooks. A couple of years back, she reached out and invited me
to meet all the badass women in Indy along with Kerry Diamond from Cherry Bombe. Before that, I did not have confidence in my work. Ashley helped me realize I am a one-ofa-kind and I do have a talent in this field.
What is your favorite food? Japanese food is my favorite food because it’s my comfort food. My mother learned to be an amazing cook while we were in Japan. So even when we came to America, I still had the comfort of Japanese food in our home.
Tanorria Askew
Personal Chef/Owner, Tanorria’s Table, Instagram @tanorriastable
Hometown? Chattanooga, Tennessee.
What inspired you to work in the food industry? Food builds community. I spent my childhood watching my parents and grandparents host and entertain people all of the time. Every gathering, celebration, time of grief or simple invitation was centered around food. I was able to see relationships grow, strangers become friends and memories made all while spending time in the kitchen and then around a dining room table.
What is one of your goals with respect to your work and food? Being on “Master Chef” and gaining exposure while cooking has given me a platform to help people and speak up. It has been such an honor to partner with organizations, give people a voice and
From left to right: Shellye Suttles, Nina Takamure, Tanorria Ashew, Candace Boyd Wylie
“Food is my ministry. It’s my love language. Growing up I saw how the kitchen was the center of the home. It was (and is) what brings people together.”
Candace Boyd Wylie
inspire people to follow their dreams. I would absolutely LOVE to further that platform with a cooking show that would allow me to spread love, hope and acceptance among viewers. All while teaching people that cooking can be fun, rewarding and delicious. That is my ultimate goal.
What advice do you have for young people wanting to break into the food industry? Don’t let anyone tell you that cooking (in any capacity) is not a real job. Whether you own multiple restaurants, are a personal chef, a caterer, food blogger, etc. You are doing what you love and if you bust your butt, you can make it a viable career.
What’s your go-to spot for fresh food? I absolutely love Public Greens.
What is your favorite food? BUTTER! Butter makes everything better. I love Kerrygold Butter, but any butter made from happy cows makes me happy.
Candace
Boyd Wylie
Chief Foodie and Spice Slanger, The Foodlovetog, LLC, Owner, FoodLoveTog.com, Instagram @foodlovetog
Hometown? Indianapolis, Indiana—born and raised.
What inspired you to work in the food industry? Food is my ministry. It’s my love language. Growing up I saw how the kitchen
was the center of the home. It was (and is) what brings people together. So naturally, I gravitated to bringing people together, and I love how I can use food to do that.
What is one of your goals with respect to your work and food? One of my goals is to see that some sort of culinary education is still taught to children while they’re in elementary school. Eventually, my cooking school on wheels will have actual wheels and I’ll be able to travel the state teaching kids how to feed themselves and others. I currently take my show on the road and present in concrete spaces.
What advice do you have for young people wanting to break into the food industry? Keep going. There is enough space for us all to excel. Hone in on what you have to bring to this world. Be fearless in your pursuit. Carve out your dreams by writing them and making them visual.
What’s your go-to spot for fresh food? I live for homegrown eats. Growing up, my family had extensive gardens—it was nothing for me to walk out the back door and grab a tomato, cucumber and fresh greens.
What is your favorite food? I have a thing for chicken wings. Baked, grilled, fried— they’re the jam!
Visit EdibleIndy.com for more Indy Women in Food to Know, including our web exclusive Q&A with Maria CartagenaBertram, founder of Pia Urban Café.
Fighting FOR TILLY’S TEA ROOM
From threat of deportation to the third floor of Saks Fifth Avenue
New friends and acquaintances often ask Sharon Moore, owner of Tilly’s Tea Room, if it was always her dream to open a tea shop. Especially when they see how at home she looks sitting on the velvet settee sofa in front of the textured black and white damask wallpaper, or discover how she learned to make clotted cream and jams to accompany scones and fill out cheese boards.
But the start-up story of Tilly’s, named after Moore’s 10-year-old daughter Matilda, actually involves more fight song than fairy tale. In fact, Tilly’s served as Moore’s Hail Mary effort to stay in the United States when faced with a divorce and deportation that would separate her from her U.S.–born children.
A Tale of Two Visas
When Moore, a native of Newcastle, England, came to Indianapolis in 2003, she was married and working as a camera operator with Champ Car World Series, which was eventually merged into the IndyCar series. Later, Moore left her career to have and raise her children, Matilda, now 10, and Max, now 8, both of whom were born in the United States and are U.S. citizens.
A few years later, however, when Moore divorced she no longer had a visa that allowed her to stay and work in the country. After consulting with an immigration attorney, Moore concluded that she had only two options. The first was to return to England for a year, possibly without her children, and reapply for her former work visa. Or she could open a business under an investor visa program.
“But I couldn’t open a TV production company because I didn’t have that type of money to do that,” Moore explains. “So I had to open up a business on a shoestring that would pass immigration standards, have two American employees, allow me to not travel and offer the flexibility I needed to raise a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old.”
Worth the Risk
Moore had always been a foodie, regularly hosting dinner parties for friends and colleagues. She also knew from her own experience how difficult it was to go out to eat or to meet a friend for coffee with young children in tow. So she came up with the idea for a family-friendly café with a playroom for children.
“But I thought, ‘I’m English, so let’s do a tea room.’ But any tea room I’d been to around here was stuck in the
From left to right: Max Moore, Sharon Moore and Matilda (Tilly) Moore at Tilly’s Tea Room in Saks Fifth Avenue
Victorian era. I don’t want it to be Victorian-era red and green. If I go home and go to a café, it’s a bit more funky. So I did my research, and that’s what I decided to do,” Moore says.
To apply for the investor visa, Moore had to prove she was committed by plunging into the business plan, financing and health department applications, and even sign the lease to a building before submitting the application. That meant she could sink thousands of dollars and months of planning into the project and still not receive permission from the U.S. government to stay. But it was a risk Moore was willing to take.
“I just decided to go for it, and I said, ‘You know what? If I don’t get the visa and I end up being deported and I don’t have my kids, at least I can look myself in the mirror and say, ‘I fought as hard as I could.’”
With the visa application submitted, Moore forged ahead on Tilly’s Tea Room, with a planned opening on February 24, 2015. She hired a chef and developed a menu with a combination of traditional English and American fare; she signed a lease and built out a proper, yet funky, tearoom on 116th Street in Fishers, Indiana; and she waited for her visa to be approved. Finally, she got the thumbs up from immigration in mid-February, and Tilly’s opened on time with a ribbon cutting by Moore, Tilly and Max.
Another Setback
But even then, Moore didn’t get her fairy-tale ending. Instead, three months into her lease, the landlord sold the building with no option for Moore to stay on under the new owners. Instead, the landlord gave back half the money she’d used to build out Tilly’s, and Moore found herself back to square one, only this time with even less money than she’d started with. When Tilly’s closed for the last time at the Fishers location in February 2016, Moore still had not landed a new permanent home for it. But another opportunity was slowly steeping behind the scenes.
Back in October 2015, the Indianapolis Business Journal reported the sale of the Fishers building and the unknown status of Tilly’s Tea Room. A member of the management team of the local Saks Fifth Avenue saw the article and reached out about the possibility of Moore moving the tea room to the third floor of Saks’ Fashion Mall at Keystone location.
After a few months of communicating with Saks’ New York office, Moore was asked to present Tilly’s to the company’s vice president of leased operations, who flew to Indianapolis for the presentation. For the more elegant setting, Moore pitched a slightly different concept than she’d operated with in Fishers, and eventually Saks extended an invitation to Moore. In Spring 2016, work began on the new Tilly’s Tea Room, and by July of that same year Moore was serving up tea and scones once again, but now with the support of an international retail corporation.
Southeast Indiana - Dearborn County
Here to Stay
Talking with Moore over steaming cups of English Breakfast and vanilla tea in her luxurious Saks location, it’s hard to imagine that this business began as a plan B to avoid unimaginable deportation. But somehow, things for Moore seem to have turned out the way they were supposed to.
Orchards, Farms & Markets
✷ Greystone Farm Lawrenceburg, Indiana
✷ Beiersdorfer Orchard Guilford, Indiana
✷ Phillips Berry Patch New Alsace, Indiana
✷ Salatin’s Orchard Moores Hill, Indiana
✷ Busse’s Farm Aurora, Indiana
✷ Lobenstein’s Farm St. Leon, Indiana
Specialty Spirits
✷ Great Crescent Brewery Aurora, Indiana
✷ At the Barn Winery Logan, Indiana
✷ Holtkamp Winery New Alsace, Indiana
“People would say to me, ‘Don’t be silly, you’re not from south of the border, you’re not going to get deported.’ Nobody would think I’d have this kind of issue because I’m from England,” Moore says. “But there’s a huge issue. I’d lived in the country since 2003, I’ve worked here, I had a house here, I had a rental property here and I played the game. I wasn’t an illegal immigrant. I worked within the system, and then to have the system fail me so drastically. From my point of view, it was like look, my back was against the wall because of immigration issues, but out of that came something positive.”
Not only did the new location mean that Tilly’s Tea Room was here to stay, Moore seems to be here for good, too. Just days before Tilly’s reopened on the third floor of Saks Fifth Avenue, Moore finally received her green card. In three years, she’ll be eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship. But still, Moore wonders: “If I’d had this green card three months earlier would I have opened this [location at Saks] or would I have just gone and got a ‘normal’ job?” Thankfully, we’ll never know the answer.
Walnut Green Tea Champagne Cocktail
Serves 1
¼ ounce Tilly’s Loose Leaf Walnut Green Tea
2½ cups hot water
1 cup sugar
4 ounces chilled champagne
Pour hot water into a teapot with the loose leaf tea. Let steep for 5 minutes.
At Tilly’s Tea Room at Saks, guests can find traditional menu items like Afternoon Tea with scones and cucumber sandwiches or more trendy items like avocado toast and cheese boards. Tilly’s has a wide selection of salads, sandwiches and panini, too. And with their large shared event space, Tilly’s also hosts gatherings like baby showers, corporate lunch meetings and even fashion presentations. Plus, Tilly’s offers a few public events, like joining Saks for their Saks Gallery Third Thursday art events, and partnering with Alice’s Table to offer flowerarranging events beginning in September, complete with wine and hors d’oeuvres.
Tilly’s Tea Room at Saks Fifth Avenue, Third Floor 8701 Keystone Crossing Indianapolis TillysTeaRoom.com.
Charity Singleton Craig is an author, journalist and essayist. She is the coauthor of On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing Life That Lasts She is regularly published in various publications, including In Touch Magazine You can find her online at CharitySingletonCraig.com or at home in the kitchen.
Pour through a tea strainer to remove the leaves and transfer the liquid to a 1-quart saucepan. Add sugar and heat to boiling over a medium-high heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Turn down to a low heat and gently reduce for 5 minutes, until a light golden syrup forms. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
To make the cocktail, add 2 tablespoons of simple syruptoachampagneflute.
Top with chilled champagne. Garnish with blackberries or raspberries, if desired.
Visit EdibleIndy.com for our web exclusive recipe from Tilly’s Tea Room for Beef, Ale and Parsnip Pie.
Eat, Drink and Be Musical in Partnership with the
Stella Artois Happy Hour at the Symphony
Created and directed by ISO artists-in-residence Time for Three, the 2018-19 Stella Artois Happy Hour at the Symphony concert series is a great way to experience the Hilbert Circle Theatre for new and returning patrons. Come mix and mingle with Indy’s finest and hear a sensational hour-long concert. The fun starts at 5pm, and all ticket holders are invited to enjoy free food and drink samples from local restaurants like Burger Study, Gallery Pastry Shop, CharBlue and other industry partners during this expanded hour and a half of preconcert mingling. Join the ISO and your fellow music lovers for a laid-back night of food and fun after a long day at work.
Concerts take place on September 19, October 17, April 10 and May 15. “Time for Three” will be featured on select performances.
The full roster for both series, along with performance dates, can be found online at IndianapolisSymphony.org.
Coffee Concerts
If you’re more of a morning person, the ISO has two series of coffee concerts, offering patrons an hour-long performance with complimentary Tinker Coffee and local pastries. The Coffee Classical series is an eight-concert season including Jazzy Shostakovich, André Watts, selections from the ISO’s Paris Festival conducted by Krzysztof Urbański, and more. The six concerts of the Anthem Coffee Pops series include Sutton Foster, Ben Crawford and Cirque Goes to the Movies featuring Indianapolis native Jordan Donica. Doors open at 10am for light breakfast pastries, with the concert beginning at 11am.
Charlie Kimball’s grandmother, Dorcas Thille, and father, Gordon Kimball, are prominent in the agriculture Community of Ventura County, California.
Home
THE KIMBALL KITCHEN
An inside look at IndyCar driver Charlie Kimball’s love of food
words: Charity Singleton Craig | photography: Chris Bucher
Watching IndyCar driver Charlie Kimball carefully slice an avocado, it’s hard to imagine this is the same guy who’s built a career zipping around race tracks throughout the world at more than 200 miles per hour. Then again, there are a lot of things that might not be immediately apparent when you first meet the 33-year-old from Ventura County, California.
For instance, Kimball is about to be a dad for the first time. He and wife, Kathleen, are expecting a child in November. The “dad jokes,” which Kathleen teases him about, “will just be jokes” when the baby arrives, he says.
Kimball finished 18th in this year’s Indianapolis 500 as a member of the Carlin team. He is the first licensed IndyCar driver with Type 1 diabetes. Diagnosed in 2007, he returned to racing in 2008 and has been sponsored by Novo Nordisk, which produces his insulin, since 2009. Kimball’s 6-year-old black Lab, Lilah, has been trained as a service dog and helps Kimball manage his disease by identifying and alerting him to low blood sugar levels and by getting help when Kimball needs it. Lilah also does an impressive downward dog in response to Kimball’s command to “kiss the bricks.”
A Legacy of Avocados
Then there are the avocados, which Kimball sliced and mashed on the counter during our interview, while Kathleen whipped up a summer flatbread. Kimball’s adeptness with the fruit isn’t part of the recent craze for avocado toast and all things green and mushy, though. His family has farmed citrus and avocados for the past six generations, including his grandmother Dorcas Thille and his father, Gordon Kimball, who continue to own and operate avocado farms tucked between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.
The family grows mostly Hass avocados, which Kimball says develop a bumpy exterior as the fruit ripens. In fact, bumpy might be the right word to describe the whole operation of growing avocados, which prefer rocky hillsides with well-drained soil, in places where the climate can grow hot and dry for long stretches at a time.
Unfortunately, ideal avocado-growing conditions are also ideal for the massive forest fires that perennially plague California. When the winds turned just right in December 2017, more than 60% of the Kimball avocado orchard, along with the house, barns and irrigation system for the remaining trees, was destroyed in a day by what was known as the Thomas Fire. But for Kimball, at least the worst was avoided.
“We were able to get everybody off the hill safely. People were all safe, the ranch hands who had been working for days to keep everything protected got all their cars and personal belongings out,” says Kimball, who, along with Kathleen, rushed to California from their Indianapolis home to help out during the fires and in the initial recovery period.
The US Forest Service estimated that nearly 282,000 acres were affected in the Thomas Fire overall, with 1,063 structures destroyed and 280 damaged. For the Kimballs, rebuilding will be slow. In fact, Kimball said his family doesn’t expect to be back to 100% production for about 10 years. Part of the reason is a shortage of tree stock in a high-demand avocado market. This year, they hope to purchase and plant 1,000 of the 12,000 trees they need. But the trees also take five to seven years to mature, and the growing season for an avocado is 18 months.
IndyCar driver Charlie Kimball with his wife, Kathleen, in their home kitchen in Indianapolis
“Even so, the outreach from the community has been amazing. Everyone, all the suppliers, have really come together,” Kimball says.
Californian Hoosiers
Just as Kimball sees no tension between the fast and slow interests of his professional life, he’s also comfortable being what he calls a “California Hoosier,” having moved with Kathleen to the Indianapolis area around 2011, the same year he became the first licensed driver with diabetes to qualify for and complete in the Indy 500.
“I feel like California is where we’re supposed to be from, but Indiana is where we’re supposed to be now,” says Kathleen, who supports Kimball’s racing career by traveling with him to races and helping him manage his diabetes through food and nutrition.
Having grown up in America’s largest agriculture-producing state, the Kimballs both love to cook, especially fresh and local foods. But living in the Midwest has given them an appreciation for a more seasonal approach to cooking and eating that changes with the weather. Kathleen describes the experience of eating a garden-fresh tomato after months without one, and when the weather turns cool Kimball says he craves stews and chili.
“We like to be local about food, food prep. We like to support local restaurants and suppliers,” Kimball says, pointing out that the knife he used to slice the avocado is by local knife maker Ash Blaed, which he purchased for Kathleen as a gift.
“We build our meals around what’s available,” Kathleen adds, though admittedly it took her a while to get used to not having her own lemon tree in the backyard, a California staple.
Welcome and Nourished
They’ve also built a life the same way, gathering friends and neighbors together for holidays and vacations, since, until recently when Kathleen’s mom and brother moved into the area, they were far away from family.
“Because we travel so much, when we’re home we like to ‘be home.’ So our house tends to be the one that people gather at,” Kathleen says. “Our friends tend to come over here a lot, and that’s what we want our home to be. Somewhere where people come over and feel welcome and leave nourished.”
Often Charlie grills or smokes something on his Big Green Egg in the couple’s three-season outdoor kitchen. His favorite is ribs, made with Chef JJ’s rib rub recipe. Inside, Kathleen tries out new recipes on the black granite countertop, or whips up one of her “famous” well-requested desserts, like pumpkin cheesecake.
In the future, when the Kimballs retire from the speed of racing, the California Hoosiers will return to the slower pace of their family’s avocado ranch. Charlie plans to join his sister to help carry on the farming tradition.
But even when the Kimballs leave the Midwest, I suspect the Midwest will never really leave them. Instead, they’ll take the “Hoosier” in them back to California, importing vine-ripe Hoosier tomatoes and Indiana-raised baby back ribs to go with the avocados and lemons they once again pluck from their own backyard
Market District Pasta sauce The Best Got Even Better!
Our Chefs don’t take our name lightly, so when they are tasked with creating a recipe that will wear the Market District brand, they won’t settle for anything short of outstanding. No matter how long it takes, how intense the process, they keep their knives sharp and the fire hot.
And, that’s pretty much what it took when it came to upping the ante on our pasta sauces — formulating, testing and finely honing recipes to meet our ridiculously higher expectations:
• 100% fresh Italian plum tomatoes — not tomato concentrate or paste, or other fillers to stretch
• Fresh garlic and real cream
• Imported olive oil
• No preservatives or artificial sweeteners
• Freshly chopped herbs and vegetables — never dried
• Cooked in small batch sauté pans to distribute heat accurately
Our new and improved pasta sauce varieties include:
• Marinara — An exquisite everyday sauce, this traditional Marinara is made with a soffritto of garlic, onion and olive oil, and 100% imported Italian plum tomatoes, slowly simmered to create the delicate texture of a high-quality homemade sauce. Finished with fresh, chopped basil and thyme, it is stupendously flavorful and versatile.
• Alfredo — Expertly crafted from buttery cream, Romano and Parmigiano Reggiano ® cheeses with a touch of garlic and black pepper, this rich, cheesy, yet delicately flavored sauce brings pasta to its heavenly heights. Mix with chicken, mushrooms and snap peas for a full meal in one!
• Tomato Basil — Made with fresh, chopped basil, fine imported olive oil and 100% Italian-grown plum tomatoes, our basil sauce is delicately prepared to offer the light texture, balanced taste and unmatched quality of authentic southern Italian sauces.
• Tomato Vodka — Begun as a soffritto of fresh, chopped garlic, carrots, celery and onions, this sauce is transformed with 100% imported Italian plum tomatoes, the finest Romano and Parmesan cheeses and real cream and vodka for an exceptionally flavorful, rich and indulgent sauce.
• Arrabbiata — A classic Roman sauce made with 100% Italian plum tomatoes and imported olive oil, with fresh, chopped basil, garlic, onions and crushed red pepper to add a flavorful kick.
• Bolognese — In rich, Italian style, this sauce is a hearty, yet finely flavored blend of Italian tomatoes and savory beef and pork cooked with red wine, garlic and other delicate spices. A blessing in every bite.
Just open, heat and pour over our Market District 100% semolina pastas. Dinner’s done!
Tailgating & oktoberfest Get Your Game On!
In our minds, Oktoberfest and tailgating are on the same menu. Each requires substantially flavorful and filling foods that fill the desire to celebrate both teams and traditions!
To start with, we have Chef Ben D’Amico’s amazing recipe for Beer Cheese Dip, which crosses the field. Drizzle it on tailgating sliders and Johnsonville Brats (available in everything from Original and Cheddar to hot Firecracker and Queso Jack) and you can’t help but score with friends and families! If you’re making our Certified Angus Beef ® Slides, drizzle it on for a topping that’s a touchdown for culinary cache every time!
Beer Cheese Dip
Compliments of Chef Ben D’Amico
• 8 oz. BL™ extra-sharp cheese spread (in Dairy Aisle)*
• 8 oz. Nature’s Basket cream cheese
• 1 Tbsp. Market District cayenne hot sauce
• 1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
• 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp. fresh-ground black pepper
• 4 fl. oz. beer (your favorite)
1. Allow the cheese spread and cream cheese to soften before starting.
2. Combine all ingredients (except beer) in a mixing bowl.
3. Blend the ingredients together until smooth.
4. Slowly add in half of the beer, mix until smooth, then add the rest of the beer.
5. Dip should be smooth and creamy. For a thinner dip, add additional beer until desired consistency is reached.
6. Serve cold or warm up in microwave.
*8 oz. of Market District Vermont White Cheddar cheese can be used in place of cheese spread. Cut it into small pieces and then process until it is finely grated into a paste.
Illustration by Matt Walker
Burger Sliders with Beer Cheese
Compliments of Your Market District Recipe Development Team
• 2 slices Market District smokehouse bacon
• 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1-1/2 lbs. Certified Angus Beef ® ground beef
• 1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 tsp.
• 1/4 tsp.
• 1/2 cup Beer Cheese Dip
• 12 Market District slider rolls
1. In a skillet, cook bacon until crisp. Remove and drain on paper towels. Discard all but 1 tablespoon of bacon fat. Cook onion in bacon fat until translucent, about 3 minutes, then add garlic and cook 30 seconds longer. Remove mixture from pan and let cool. Crumble bacon when cool enough to handle.
2. In a large bowl, combine beef, bacon, onion mixture, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, and mix well. Form into 12 small patties and chill for 30 minutes.
3. Preheat grill to medium. Cook burgers for about 7 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 160°F, turning once halfway through. Drizzle burgers with equal amounts of Beer Cheese Dip and serve on Market District slider rolls.
Tailgating? Call Our Catering Champs!
Our Catering Team are MVPs when it comes to tasteful tailgating. Strategy number one: send in our Famous Fried Chicken! We recommend two pieces per person, but you can be sure if you buy a little bit more, it won’t last long.
For a cold option, try our Petite Sandwiches Trays, averaging two sandwiches per person. They have great variety — something for everyone — and are easy to eat while watching the game.
Our Veggie Platters or Crudité Trays are also a big hit. They add a little color and a healthier option for fans, and serve up to 40! Our Sushi Platters just keep getting more popular — finger foods in tons of different choices. They feed up to 20 as a snack/ appetizer and add a little class to your party.
For sides, we love our Pasta Supreme or Mediterranean Orzo — both unique and flavorful. Or, try our Cobb Salad. It serves up to 40 and has fresh greens, chicken and avocado. And, of course you need sweets! We can do gobs and cupcakes in team colors and our cookie trays are fabulous. Please order two days in advance to help us make your game day deliciously easy!
Illustration by Jamie Underwood
Illustration by Matt Walker
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FALLING IN LOVE AGAIN WITH FOOD
Turning the page to Pretty Simple Cooking with A Couple Cooks
words: Emma Schlegelmilch | photography: A Couple Cooks & Krauter Photography
photography: Krauter Photography
Above: The trio behind A Couple Cooks, Sonja and Alex Overhiser and their son, Larson
It’s Friday night, 5 o’clock. Sonja and Alex Overhiser are in their new home, hovered over a Julia Child cookbook. Their only goal is to make a delicious meal—so they do. The couple is enthralled with cooking, empowered by Julia Child’s philosophy: There is going to be a lot of failure. After much trial and error, the two realize the joy of being in the kitchen; Sonja and Alex fall in love all over again, this time with food. They take interest in cooking healthful meals and do some research, learning how much better it can be to eat plant-based. Rather than flipping their diet altogether, they settle on a “flexitarian” style of eating—essentially a relaxed form of vegetarianism.
In 2010, Sonja and Alex begin to share their kitchen ventures online as A Couple Cooks, testing and photographing meals for their blog. “We develop all the recipes together,” says Sonja. “The ability to work as a team is invaluable.” A Couple Cooks has created a livelihood out of experimenting in the kitchen.
“When we started, everyone was [blogging] as a hobby,” says Sonja. “For us, it’s now grown into a business.” The couple collaborates with national food and cookware brands, creating original recipes with their products and sharing them online. Alex is the main photographer and manages website analytics, web design and technical work. Sonja handles client communication, social media, writing and art direction for A Couple Cooks’ brand. “It’s definitely a collaborative effort,” she says.
The Overhisers aim to inspire their audience to enjoy the kitchen as much as they do. Their main motivation is health—for the body, the planet, the community—and the love of food and each other. Sonja and Alex went from fast and frozen food to cooking each day, and have found a comfortable, fun way to explore the kitchen. They believe in investing themselves in their food and encourage all cooks to respect their ingredients, to eat mindfully and form relationships around sharing food with one another.
A Couple Cooks’ endeavors have recently furthered as they’ve transcended the digital world by illustrating their work on paper. Pretty Simple Cooking is Sonja and Alex’s vegetarian cookbook, inspired by their love for making vegetables more delicious. Although they don’t eat 100% vegetarian, the couple wanted to share fun ways of making vegetables more desirable. Pretty Simple Cooking is geared toward all eaters, made with the motivation to instill healthy eating habits. Sonja insists: “It’s a vegetarian cookbook for non-vegetarians.”
The Process
Pretty Simple Cooking showcases 100 eclectic vegetarian recipes and 10 lessons describing how Sonja and Alex fit cooking into their lifestyle. It started as a master spreadsheet, listing 100 possible recipes for use. Sonja and Alex outlined different concepts, tested their recipes at home and reached out via social media to find independent volunteer food testers. Hundreds of volunteers gave feedback on the ease and success of each recipe they made.
Testers’ positive and negative remarks were used to tweak recipes, eventually leaving Sonja and Alex with a crowd-tested list of delicious, simple vegetarian meals. Once the bare bones were lined up, they instilled their philosophy. Ultimately, the heart of the book sprouts from the idea that there can be great joy in cooking, so long as you are willing to find it.
Sonja emphasizes that her and Alex’s journey has been nothing but encouraged by those around them. “Our community has been incredible in supporting our book and our work,” she says. But the publishing process was not an easy one. It began with finding the right agent, one that understood the book’s mission.
“It took several years of honing our pitch, writing a proposal and finding the right publisher for the book.” In February 2016, the team landed a book deal with Hachette/Da Capo Press and the ball started rolling.
A New Addition
For Sonja and Alex, it seems good things tend to happen all at once. Even as their cookbook brainchild was finding its footing, their efforts to adopt a child also took a step. Two weeks before the first draft of the Pretty Simple Cooking manuscript was due, they received a text over coffee. It was Mariah, the fourth potential birth mother match they’d found after three previously failed adoptions. Tensions ran high as the couple raced to the hospital, a two-hour drive, with loose ends and no answers.
Sonja was in the room when Larson was born. She and Alex were in shock as they fed him his first bottle—parenthood was finally here after waiting so long. It appeared that Larson Ames was the baby that Sonja and Alex Overhiser were meant to have.
Pretty Simple Cooking reflects Sonja and Alex’s diet and who they are, but it also reflects Larson. Welcoming him into their family has only affected Sonja and Alex’s kitchen habits in a good way; Larson helps them shake things up.
“He has made everything more fun,” says Sonja. “Having a kid is like everything happening again for the first time. New flavors are really exciting.”
Naturally, teaching and watching Larson has fostered the new parents’ love for food. They are beginning to branch out into more kid-centric meals, though Larson mainly eats what Sonja and Alex eat. Pretty Simple Cooking’s vegetarian essence is not a deterrent for children— feedback from Larson and other young eaters proves that kids love the veggie-forward cuisine.
Sonja and Alex are thankful for the support they’ve received for Pretty Simple Cooking and the helping hand that Larson gives. “We cook all the time, exactly how we used to. Now that he’s a toddler, Larson gets to test the recipes we’ve made.”
Pretty Simple Cooking has only motivated the Overhisers to grow their brand online. A Couple Cooks’ blog is updated with new recipes, from seasonal treats to hearty meals. Eating mostly plant-based doesn’t have to mean giving up anything, it simply means finding new, fun ways to eat. Pretty Simple Cooking is proven perfect for date night or family gatherings.
Sonja and Alex have been no strangers to hardship. Through 11 years of marriage, the couple has stood through cancer, miscarriage and gray clouds galore. Their kindness and sympathy for those who endure similar situations is evident; A Couple Cooks is dedicated to their readers’ personal health inside and out. Not only does their blog showcase their own story, but it gives advice for self care.
The Overhisers are humbled by their sorrow and success and are more than happy to collaborate. They want to help others through business, whether that is behind the scenes or for publicity. The husband-and-wife duo are healthy food influencers who specialize in recipe development, food photography, blogging, social media and brand ambassadorship. Visit A Couple Cooks’ website to read more about working with or learning from Sonja and Alex.
Emma Schlegelmilch was a summer editorial intern with Edible Indy. She is a senior at Ball State University, a member of the prestigious Cardinal Communications. Alongside this, Emma works as the marketing manager for local Damask Café, overseeing social media and other marketing projects.
Red Lentil Coconut Curry with Cilantro Chutney
GF | V | Serves 4–6
Make brown rice.
FOR THE CURRY
2 cups uncooked brown basmati rice
1 medium yellow onion
3 medium garlic cloves
1 (3-inch) nub fresh ginger
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup red lentils
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons full-fat coconut milk, divided ¼ cup red curry paste*
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon kosher salt
4–5 cups baby spinach leaves, packed (chopped if leaves are large)
FOR THE CHUTNEY
¼ cup diced yellow onion (reserved from above)
2 cups packed cilantro leaves and tender stems
¼ cup chopped golden raisins
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Make the curry: Peel and dice the onion. Reserve ¼ cup for the chutney and set aside; use the remaining portion for the curry. Peel and mince the garlic. Peel and mince the ginger and measure out 2 tablespoons. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat, then add the onion and sauté until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger and sauté for 1 minute. Add the lentils, tomatoes, 1 cup coconut milk, 2 cups water, red curry paste, tomato paste and kosher salt. Bring to a simmer and cook very gently, just barely bubbling, for 10–15 minutes, until the lentils are soft (if not, cook a few minutes more until tender). Stir in the spinach along with 2 tablespoons coconut milk and cook until the leaves wilt. Taste and add additional kosher salt or coconut milk to taste.
Make the chutney: Meanwhile, make the chutney using an immersion blender or standard blender to blend the reserved ¼ cup diced onion, cilantro, golden raisins, white wine vinegar, olive oil, kosher salt and ¼ cup water. Blend into a thick, smooth sauce.
To serve, spoon the lentils over rice and top with a dollop of chutney.
*If your brand of red curry paste is very spicy, add it in gradually to taste. Our preferred brand adds flavor without excessive heat, but make sure to taste test before adding the entire amount.
photography: A Couple Cooks
Indiana’s Next Foodie Destination Whitestown & Zionsville
Did you know Whitestown has been Indiana’s fastest-growing community for the past seven years, and Zionsville is one of the top places to live in Indiana? As our community grows we want to grow with it, especially within the local food movement. We are seeking local artisan food businesses to join our community, helping us to create a desirable culinary destination.
Boone County is committed to developing our local economy with an active food scene. Our community is on the hunt to cultivate a robust foodie destination with bakeries, breweries, butcher shops, juice bars, local eateries, artisan producers and other Indiana-grown entrepreneurs.
The Boone County Economic Development Corporation offers a microloan program as a convenient funding option for small business owners. We are committed to providing sustainable growth to partners wishing to locate to Boone County in the foreseeable future.
To learn more about developing your food business in Boone County, contact Megan at 317.995.0344 or visit BetterInBoone.org.
Raw Brownie Truffles with Pistachio Dust
The magic in these raw truffles comes from Medjool dates, an exceptionally large variety that lends a gooey texture and rich taste. We’ve been using these dates for years, with cocoa powder and walnuts, to whip up raw brownies as a sweet, wholesome treat. Here we’ve used the same concept to make round truffles, coating them in finely ground pistachios as a sort of fluorescent yellow-green confetti. They’re quick to put together with a food processor, and we store them in the freezer since they thaw almost immediately.
GF | V | Makes 30 truffles
¼ cup raw or roasted shelled pistachios
1 cup raw unsalted walnuts
14 large Medjool dates (about 1½ cups)*
½ cup cocoa powder
⅛ teaspoon kosher salt or sea salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
In a food processor, grind the pistachios for a minute or so into a very fine dust. Remove the pistachio dust to a plate or flat dish and set it aside. Wipe out the bowl of the food processor.
Return the bowl to the food processor and add the walnuts; process for a few seconds until very finely chopped. Remove the pits from the dates. Add the dates, cocoa powder, salt and vanilla extract and process for another few seconds until the mixture is fully combined and crumbly.
Turn out the mixture into a medium bowl. Take a small handful of the mixture, squeeze it together and then roll it between your hands to form a ball, about ¾ inch in diameter. Repeat to make 30 truffles total. Roll each in the plate of pistachio dust, then place the truffles in a sealable container.
Notes:
Storage: Store refrigerated or frozen; wait for a minute or two to warm to room temperature before eating.
*Avoid substituting other date varieties and stick with Medjools; they can be found in the produce aisle in supermarkets and online.
Find more recipes by A Couple Cooks at EdibleIndy.com or ACoupleCooks.com. For a list of where to purchase the cookbook, visit ACoupleCooks.com.
photography: A Couple Cooks
Apples, pumpkins & more from our fields to your table.
The Garden Cottage at Habig Garden Center has all of your fall planting and decor needs.Come see us for your pumpkins, straw, gourds, mums and more.
1225 E. 86th St., Indianapolis @HABIGGARDENSHOP
Our family-owned apple orchard is a great getaway for the entire family: petting zoo, gift shopping, trolley rides, u-pick apples and pumpkins, wine and hard cider tastings and apple dumplings.
Fall Hours: Apple Barn & Café – M-Sun 10-6 5054 North U.S. Hwy 31, Peru McCluresOrchard.com
Our farm grows sustainably grown, chemical-free vegetables and raw honey. Join our CSA program for an amazing selection of organic produce or find us at the Noblesville Farmers’ Market.
10980 E. 221st St., Noblesville TeterOrganicFarm.com
Mass Ave. gift
From local artisan-centric yummies to Golden Girls knick knacks, you
A favorite central Indiana destination for apple picking, pumpkin picking, apple cider, u-pick sunflowers, hayrides and more. No general admission or parking charge. Fall activities start in September with our Carmel Apple Festival.
Fall Hours: M-Sa 9-6, ClOSED Sunday 5717 N. 300 W., Greenfield IndianapolisOrchard.com
*sponsored content | illustration by Caryn Scheving
THE ROAD TO Resilience
An unexpected discovery in Sonoma County words & photography: Jennifer L. Rubenstein
photography: Visit Sonoma County
Opposite, upper left: Angelo Servino
Upper right: Crista Luedkte
Lower left: Susan Porter-Bass
Lower right: Colleen McGlynn
Dramatic mountains, Pacific Ocean air, epic meals and world-famous wines—what more could a foodie possibly want? Earlier this year I, along with my best friend of more than 20 years, took off for an adventure to explore California’s Wine Country. Our goal was to enjoy the sun, the water, the food and wine and to reconnect while we created a new chapter in our book of life. What we discovered during this trip was that our friendship lies deep, as do the roots of this community. The intertwining nature of the Sonoma County family was so local, beautiful and, most important, resilient. It wasn’t what we expected nor was it what I originally set out to write about.
The last four years haven’t been an easy journey for my best friend’s family. Her youngest at the age of 7 was diagnosed with leukemia after weeks of doctor appointments and unexplained sickness. It brought them to their knees in an instant. I vividly remember the pit of my stomach coming to my throat as she called me from the hospital, frantically thinking about how our support system was going to need to change immediately. The “it takes a village” needed to be enacted.
Fast-forward four years and he is recovering well with few side effects, living a relatively normal life of an 11-year-old. Our trip was a celebration for all of the dedication and hell my best friend had been through. It was a time for her to step outside of her comfort zone and for us to reconnect and reflect.
On the Road to Adventure
In all my travels, I maintain that the drive from San Francisco to Sonoma is one of the most breathtaking and life-changing routes in the country. From the awe of driving over the Golden Gate Bridge to the views of the ocean thrashing against the rocky cliffs, the seal breeding bays to the oyster bays and the winding curves can lead you to a soulful experience difficult to describe. Standing amongst the redwoods, arching your neck upwards to catch a glimmer of the sunrays coming through the trees more than 300 feet tall, you feel like you are in another world. You might actually have a moment where tears stream down your face because nature has so much power and serenity.
While we were planning our trip wildfires raged throughout Napa, Lake, Mendocino, Butte, Solano and Sonoma counties, burning more than 150,000 acres, destroying thousands of homes and businesses and taking the lives of more than 40 people. As we kept in close contact with the local businesses and Sonoma County Tourism, they indicated that now more than ever they need visitors for survival. These are the regions where our adventure took us, discovering the love of community, the love of another, the love of Wine Country.
First Stop: Tiburon
Around the bend from the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County is Tiburon, once a bustling railroad town, now quaint with magnificent views of San Francisco and Mount Tamalpais. Adorable boutiques, historical significance, outstanding California cuisine and personalities invite you to be a part of their daily lives and stories.
The Waters Edge Hotel wraps its arms around you and hugs you from the inside out. It is a bayside sanctuary set upon Tiburon peninsula, bestowing breathtaking views leaving you relaxed and unplugged. The hotel is designed to give you the comforts of a coastal home with fireplaces in every room, spa robes, freshly baked cookies and delicious locally prepared breakfast delivered daily to your room. Every evening local cheese from local makers like Cowgirl Creamery and Vella Cheese Company are paired with local red and white wines for guests to enjoy inside or on the balcony facing the bay.
Next door to Waters Edge, Angelo Servino sits with us at his restaurant, Servino Ristorante. This beautiful older man is dressed in a grass-green sweater with a red and khaki scarf, cappuccino in hand, while speaking with a perfect Italian accent. Without missing a beat he makes certain that our experience, an event, is something that isn’t just appetizing, but outstanding—and that it was.
“The appetite comes while you are eating” goes a popular Italian saying that speaks to the truth of a really good meal. Dates grilled and stuffed with gorgonzola and wrapped in prosciutto; burrata with smoked salmon, avocado purée and pea shoots; lacinato kale salad with blood oranges; ricotta salata with sherry vinaigrette; hand-rolled gnocchi with mint, butter and shaved Parmesan paired with a signature Italian cocktail, the Negroni. Simplicity with local Marin County freshness cultivates your senses and transports you to another time, another place.
Walking through the entryway is like stepping into a family-owned trattoria in Italy. Angelo shares his story of love and loss and how it all led him away from Italy to Tiburon. As all good stories go, love is involved. More
photography: Kelly Puleio
photography: Kelly Puleio
Opposite, top to bottom, left to right:
Boon Hotel famous biscuits
Boon Eat + Drink
braised Brussels sprouts
Della Fattoria breakfast
The Drawing Board
vegan carrot lox
El Barrio drinks
The Shuckery raw oysters
than 40 years ago while in Italy he caught a glance of a women who in an instant stole his heart—an American who spoke no Italian and Angelo who spoke no English. French! They both spoke broken French, enough to fall madly in love. Kathryn at the time was studying in Chicago and enticed Angelo to move to the United States. Eventually they ended up in Tiburon, married.
“Tiburon is on the same plane as Italy. It is similar in weather and terrain, so it was home to me,” says Angelo. Italian food was a natural fit for this region and for Angelo and Kathryn. Now celebrating 40 years here, Angelo speaks lovingly of the adventures over those years including moving locations to where, since 1999, he sits on the waters edge. Jovially he says he got the restaurant, but he didn’t get the girl.
As with many restaurateurs, the hours and pressure can place a strain on relationships of any kind. In the end, Angelo’s best friend got his girl, but more than 40 years of love shine bright in his eyes as he tells of his continued love and affection for Kathryn and how he rose from a difficult time to continue gifting his talents of story-telling and Italian cuisine—and their sons, Natale and Vittorio, who continue the tradition of running Servino Ristorante. And well, I might add.
Servino Ristorante, 9 Main St. | Tiburon, CA | Servino.com
Waters Edge Hotel, 25 Main St. | Tiburon, CA | WatersEdgeHotel.com
Second Stop: Sonoma
Sonoma County has over 60,000 acres of vineyards and 425 wineries. The ability to grow many varieties of grapes spreads wide and far due to the topography of the land, which resembles French and Italian growing regions. Agritourism is an aspect of everyday life.
Preparing for our trek through Wine Country, we found one necessity is to make sure you have a cooler stocked with local cheeses, meats and sweets to pair with the world-renowned wines around every bend. Vella Cheese Company is located on a side street where a residential neighborhood begins, only blocks from the historic square of the city of Sonoma. The stonewalled building built in 1904 was originally built to house a brewery, however, in 1931 Gaetano (Tom) Vella began the Vella Cheese Company.
They take great pride in their all-natural ingredients and sourcing their milk from Merten’s Dairy, a local family dairy farm. Vella Cheese Company was the first solar-powered business in Sonoma and they are committed to waste diversion, recycling their whey byproduct back to the dairy farm to feed the cows. All of their cheeses are highly regarded and many of them are award-winning. They are most known for their dry Monterey Jack, a cheese developed and sold during the Gold Rush in Monterey by Californian David Jack.
While Vella Cheese Company has the cheese, we visit Basque Boulangerie Café a few blocks away for freshly baked breads, sandwiches and not-to-miss strawberry shortcake. The café sits on the historic square since 1994, yet it was started in 1956 as the Sonoma French Bakery. It is a second-generation bakery specializing in sweet French or Parisian-style breads, Danish, morning rolls and more. The pastry chef has even been recognized on the Food Network for her famous beehive cake, a sweet Danish sponge with custard, caramel and topped with honey-almond praline and powdered sugar.
Although my friend and I have not seen any fire damage on the roads we had driven, it becomes evident at that moment that the wildfires that raged through Sonoma were still on the minds of local residents many months later: Handwritten signs attached to the building spelled out “Sonoma Strong” and “Thank you to first responders.”
Vella Cheese Company, 315 2nd St. E. | Sonoma, CA | VellaCheese.com
Basque Boulangerie Café, 460 1st St. E. | Sonoma, CA BasqueBoulangerie.com
Third Stop: Guerneville
Guerneville and the Russian River Valley, a place where cell phone service can be sketchy, bicycles are everywhere, hills are mighty, rivers flow deep and a small town is a small town. Historically known as a logging community in the 1800s, a summer getaway hotspot (much like the Mountain Lake Lodge in Dirty Dancing) in the 1950s and ’60s, attracting a strong gay clientele from the Bay Area in the 1970s and ’80s.
“It was a place that gay men who contracted AIDS sought as a place to live out their lives during the ’80s,” says Crista Luedtke, active business leader, Guerneville advocate and someone trying to lead the way to make Guerneville a getaway destination once again.
Crista is a spitfire who says it the way she sees it and showcases her commitment and admiration for the town. She is a winner of “Guy’s Grocery Games,” now one of the judges on the show, has been on “Beat Bobby Flay”
Opposite,top to bottom:
The view from the Waters Edge Hotel, Tiburon
Artisan bread baked in a brick oven at Preston Farm
Communal Tables at Della Fattoria in Petaluma
and has an award-winning documentary about her life called Empire on Main Street. Crista is impressive. She’s not a chef but is a sister to one, and ultimately is an entrepreneur who can see beyond what is in front of her, as Guerneville was a town often flooded by the river without much interest.
Much of what is Guerneville today was sparked by her efforts to create a “lumberjack chic” district with fashion-forward spots to escape for food, entertainment and ultimately retreat to for the night. Russian River Valley produces some of the best wines in the U.S., with redwoods towering in the backdrop and biodiverse local farms. In Guerneville Crista has worked to help bring the community together, growing local economy through tourism.
Crista is the proprietor of Boon Hotel + Spa, Boon Eat + Drink and the Mexican-themed cocktail lounge El Barrio, and the founder of the Big Bottom Market. Boon Hotel + Spa, named sweetly after her rescue dog, Boon, was previously a miners’ camp and an unsuccessful resort and spa, when Crista purchased it. It needed heavy lifting to make it the Zen-like woodland retreat it has come to be. Crista talked about the weeks and weekends of friends and families coming together to paint, fix and build everything up to its current state. Each room allows you to unplug (literally—no cell service was available), unwind by the saline pool, fix a cocktail at their honor bar or listen to the vinyl in each room (Flashdance may have been front and center during our stay at Boon).
She recognized that great food was essential to the growth of the community. Crista’s love for food and all things local prompted her to embark on the journey to bring exceedingly delicious cuisine to the town. Boon Eat + Drink is a now vital to the town as is El Barrio, which sits right next door to Boon Eat + Drink. El Barrio is an upscale craft cocktail bar specializing in tequilas, mezcal and bourbon cocktails that satisfy the finest palates. The El Picaro (Vida mezcal, Jamaica, ginger, lime, jalapeño and soda) became our happy-hour drink paired with the Tres Amigos: their house chips and three homemade salsas. And we recommend indulging in whatever mezcal shots the bartenders recommend.
Boon Eat + Drink is a small but cozy spot that doesn’t need much room to wow any patron. At Boon, Crista made the choice to source all wines from the Russian River Valley to further her local support. The Carignan from Porter-Bass complements her simplistic dinner menu: arugula salad with shaved fennel, radish and toasted brioche topped with a Vella Dry Jack cheese; Boon-style Brussels sprouts garnished with red chili flakes, garlic and lemon; and polenta lasagna seared with sautéed veggies, rainbow chard, ricotta salata and marina sauce. Between El Barrio and Boon, we have no room for dessert, but if we had indulged, I am sure it would have blown our minds.
The next morning at the Boon Hotel + Spa breakfast is brought to our room: French pressed coffee, fresh fruit, local yogurt and granola and Big Bottom Market warm biscuits with butter and honey. Simple and blissful. The biscuits are the most amazing I’ve ever consumed: simple, yet full of flavor, just like everything Crista touches.
Having enjoyed a glass or two of Porter-Bass wines the night before, Crista suggests that we visit the winery. We head over the river and through the woods to this beautiful valley where an organic vineyard sits nine miles from the coast. This valley collects a lot of sun and heat, protected from the wind by hundreds of olive trees. Porter-Bass Winery is a dedicated Biodynamic farm using cover crops and animals to continually increase the acid in the soil and maintain the proper balance and produce clean and light wine.
Almost 40 years ago Susan Porter-Bass and her husband packed their belongings, bought this land and moved from their lives from Ithaca, New York, to Guerneville. Her husband, a retired architect, built the charming home located in the middle of the vineyard. Their son, Luke Bass, is the current winemaker. The entire family is dedicated to a gentle process of winemaking, enabling the expression of the grape while protecting and revitalizing the environment.
Boon Hotel + Spa, 14711 Armstrong Woods Rd. | Guerneville, CA | BoonHotels.com
Boon Eat + Drink, 16248 Main St. | Guerneville, CA | EatAtBoon.com
El Barrio Bar, 16230 Main St. | Guerneville, CA | ElBarrioBar.com
About an hour northeast of Guerneville is Healdsburg, known for its small-town charm, award-winning wines and unparalleled food. Nestled along the Russian River are rolling hills covered in stunning vineyards. It is the gateway to three premier regions for wine growing: the Russian River Valley, Dry Creek Valley and Alexander Valley.
Our initial stop takes us to the hot, dry area of Dry Creek Valley, where we stumble upon Preston Farm and Winery. Lou and Susan Preston are committed to protecting the environment and creating a sustainable farm producing more than just outstanding grapes. A white gate dripping with flowering trees opens up to a French courtyard filled with picnic tables, bocce ball, roaming cats and people enjoying Preston olives, bottles of wine and fresh hearth bread. This vineyard has seen more than 45 years of evolution. Years ago the Prestons decided the stand-alone winery needed to become a farm dedicated to diversity and now harvest organic crops including strawberries, nuts, olives, radishes, lettuces; they also raise pastured livestock. The dedication of the farm can be admired by the honor market attached to the tasting room, which includes handmade artisan bread baked daily in a wood-fired oven. They proudly share the love of this diverse farm and the hard work they apply daily to doing work the old-fashioned manual way. So much so that the day we arrived, Lou Preston was resting as earlier in the week while baking the hearth loaves of bread in their wood-fired oven something fell on his foot, nearly cutting off one of his toes!
As we leave the farm, each of the curves through the Dry Creek Valley inspire gasps as each opening is picture-perfect with vine-covered hills and blue skies resembling the Bordeaux region. Our last winery of the trip includes the DaVero Farms and Winery. It sits in a valley and smells of wisteria. DaVero, a word translated from Italian means truly, sincerely. And truly enchanted is it.
Founders Colleen McGlynn and Ridgely Evers designed a beautiful tasting room that connects to an area where wisteria hangs over communal tables, and if you look out about 50 feet an enchanted, hand-woven willow circle created by Colleen serves as a peaceful temple for wine drinkers. Across the street are olive trees grown from cuttings brought over from Italy, artichokes blossom throughout the flower beds, multiple composting bins lead us out to a dirt pathway circling the field of pea shoots adjacent to a pig pen where big mama pig and the piglets make chatter. As we walk with Colleen discussing her passion for what was once a small vineyard and now has turned into her life, a stray piglet appears on our pathway. Without a beat we all jump into trying to corral the piglet back into the pen after his great escape into a buffet of pea shoots.
We believe that the most important place in life is the table, and that the most important ingredient in a meal is the people at that table,” Colleen says, capturing just how special this place is. The wine, the Meyer lemon, the olive oil and the running of the pig have made it an absolutely perfect afternoon.
Preston Farm and Winery, 9282 W. Dry Creek Rd. | Healdsburg, CA
PrestonFarmandWinery.com
DaVero Farms and Winery, 766 Westside Rd. | Healdsburg, CA | DaVero.com
Fifth Stop: Petaluma
Our tour of Sonoma County ends in one of the oldest cities in California. Petaluma hugs the Petaluma River, is home to the famed Cowgirl Creamery and multiple Michelin restaurants and celebrates the well-preserved historic iron-front architecture. We explore the Petaluma Seed Bank of Heirloom Seeds, experience the entertainment of oyster shucking and enjoy breakfast at an Italian-inspired café.
The Drawing Board, known as a feel-good-food kitchen, gives a nod to clean unforgettable dishes. Each dish is orchestrated to provide remarkably colorful palettes bursting with flavor, texture and touching all senses. This funky restaurant reaches deep into ingredients that appeal to many lifestyles. One of those dishes is the Carrot Lox, a vegan twist on a bagel and lox including señora levain covered in cashew cream cheese, topped with nori, mandoline carrots and microgreens. Other notable noshes include chickpea fries with a Serrano cream, Larb Gai wraps and a panna cotta with vanilla, rose, citrus, cardamom and pistachios.
Across the street a golden light illuminates a window with the name The Shuckery. Walking towards the entrance we can see the staff dressed in gray T-shirts and denim shucking aprons. Quaint, cozy and offering up one of the most precious
Opposite, top to bottom:
McGlynn of Davero Farms and Winery leading a stray piglet back home
Honor system instructions at the Farmstore at Preston Farm and Winery
indigenous ingredients of the California coast: the oyster. Seating at the bar offers patrons the opportunity to watch and engage with the shuckers who shuck, the chefs who cook and the sommelier who pours you the perfect pairing of wines. The oysters are not the only ocean dwellers to devour: Jose’s Dungeness Crab Cakes and the Day Boat Scallops are both perfection for a seafood lover. It is connected to the historic Hotel Petaluma, where the best part of the night is shifting to the Shuckery II next door in the lobby of the hotel. Here an oversized fireplace blazes while we appreciate a Sonoma Portworks Petite Sirah Port along with conversation of resilience, empowerment and the love of fine wine with co-owner Jazmine Lalicker.
Italian baked breads and espresso call us to Della Fattoria. It welcomes us with large hanging chandeliers, red walls, high beamed ceilings and shared tables. It’s quite possibly the finest breakfast/brunch spot in downtown.
“One of the best thing I get to say is that the strawberries for the jam are grown just two miles away,” says Kathleen Weber, owner of the café, ranch and bakery. You will find their handmade Italian bread in and around San Francisco and throughout the entire wine region with a nod from Bon Appetit as one of the top 10 best bread bakeries in the U.S. All of the bread (more than 13 types and all Italian) is created with organic flour and a natural starter, baked in wood-fired brick ovens. The lick-the-plate-clean menu consists of farm-to-table ranch twists like the ham, egg and Gruyère cheese Croque Madame, eggs bennie with Caggiano ham and housemade hollandaise and, of course, hot buttered toast with that housemade strawberry jam. All scraps and unused breads are taken back to the ranch where it is either composted or fed to the chickens.
“We come from a farm and we want our soil to be healthy and our food clean,” says Kathleen. Which seems to be the truth of the people of Sonoma.
The Drawing Board, 190 Kentucky St. | Petaluma, CA | TDBPetaluma.com
The Shuckery, 100 Washington St. | Petaluma, CA | TheShuckeryCA.com
Della Fattoria, 141 Petaluma Blvd. N. | Petaluma, CA | DellaFattoria.com
Afterglow: The Connections
The people we met, the laughter we shared and the stories of connection still resonate with me. We randomly chose people to interview and places to dive into to create a local experience and it took us down a path that integrated every person and place in the most beautiful natural way. Kindness, community, togetherness, acceptance and love drove this trip in more ways than one. Our most important takeaway from this adventure was that everyone is more resilient than ever could be imagined. For me, this was what this trip unintentionally created: a story of two best friends of more than 20 years becoming self-aware of their strength individually and together, proving in the end how remarkably resilient we actually are, especially when love is involved.
Colleen
At right: Jennifer Rubenstein and Carrie Juvan, best friends for over 20 years, at Hotel Petaluma
REVITALIZING Indigenous CUISINE
A conversation with Sean Sherman, founder of The Sioux Chef
words: Francisca Figueroa & Sean Sherman
Astriking feature of modern-day Europe—an ancestral origin for many of North America’s current inhabitants—rests in the continuing cultural relevance of the ancient. To travel there as an American might leave the faintly sour taste of something lost, some link to history to whose strange absence we routinely turn a blind eye. Shadowed by the Colosseum or the Pantheon, the stories of Lewis and Clark, Abe Lincoln and Laura Ingalls Wilder seem modern. Popular history prior to the Pilgrims appears to trail off. What history we have of indigenous peoples and the way they lived was mangled by war, genocide, forced migrations and institutionalized racism or otherwise intentionally forgotten.
Yet even rooted in such a dark and distorted past, the vision of the future is bright and clear.
Sean Sherman, a member of the Oglala Lakota subtribe of the Great Sioux Nation and founder of The Sioux Chef, the Indigenous Food Lab and the nonprofit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NATIFS), is on a mission to revitalize Native American cuisine. In the process, his work is re-identifying North American cuisine, reclaiming an important culinary culture long buried and often inaccessible.
His cooking focuses on indigenous foods (pre-colonization) and the traditional methods of preparing them. Sherman is intent on reconnecting us to the North America before beef, pork, chicken, dairy,
Above: Chef Sean Sherman, a member of the Oglala Lakota subtribe of the Great Sioux Nation and founder of The Sioux Chef, the Indigenous Food Lab and the nonprofit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems
photography: Heidi Ehalt Photography
flour or refined sugar. He is well on his way to starting an edible revolution and rekindling our relationship to truly American food.
Q: Tell us the moment this all got started.
Sean Sherman: In 2008, I was living down in Mexico, about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta in a little town called San Pancho. I was in between jobs, trying to figure out my next move. One day I was on the beach, and groups of indigenous people, the Huichol, were sitting out, selling their art. The art was so similar to the things I saw growing up Lakota. Seeing so many commonalities, it really just struck me that as a chef I should focus on my own heritage. The problem was, I didn’t know that much about Lakota food.
Suddenly I had so many questions: What were my Lakota ancestors eating? Were they growing food? What kind of foods where they collecting? How are they preserving things? Where did they get salt? What kind of fats did they use? I kept thinking about everything, especially from a chef’s perspective, and breaking it down. I am learning more and more every year. There is so much untapped knowledge when it comes to indigenous food systems all around the world.
Q: What are you working on these days?
A: My partner, Dana Thompson, and I just started our own nonprofit called NATIFS, North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems. We are opening a restaurant through NATIFS that also has a training and educational center. [All under the brand, the Indigenous Food Lab (IFL).] IFL will be a place where people can come and learn about facets of indigenous food: agriculture, wild foods, cooking and food preservation. The restaurant will become a training center for the tribes around us, to help them develop their own food businesses. Eventually, we want to open up IFLs all over the country.
We are also opening another for-profit restaurant in Minneapolis, right downtown in front of the Mississippi River. We will be able to tell the story of the Lakota people, because the river is a uniquely spiritual place, although obviously all of the natural features are gone because of industrialization.
Also, the cookbook [The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen (see sidebar)] is out, which has kept us really busy. We just did a big East Coast push and we are getting ready to do a West Coast push.
Q: Do you think your projects relate to the American farm-to-table movement or the sustainable food movement?
A: I think it’s just a matter of really good timing that people are beginning to understand the importance of locality in sustainability. However, I think this is a lot deeper than that. I think this is about having the deeper understanding of the landscape that people are standing on, understanding that there was history in the United States before Laura Ingalls [Wilder, author of the Little House on the Prairie books]. There were many cultures, and many people, and so much diversification surrounding food systems. That is why learning indigenous knowledge can help us develop a deeper understanding of the land that we are standing on and grew up on.
“Land cannot be properly cared for by people who do not know it intimately, who do not know how to care for it, who are not strongly motivated to care for it.”
— Wendell Berry
Q: What are people’s general reactions to your projects, and to the food itself?
A: It’s been overwhelmingly positive. We are doing simple foods, but really clean foods. You know it’s such a healthy diet, especially after we removed all dairy, wheat, processed sugar and just showcased alternative proteins and things like that. Plus there is the whole historical aspect of it. I think people find something interesting in the mix of it, whether it’s wild food, native agriculture, native history or just cooking. We do a lot of fancy meals, but we also do a lot of really simple group meals.
Indigenous?
The dictionary defines indigenous as originating or occurring naturally in a place. As far as the ecology of North America is concerned, indigenous refers to the period prior to European “discovery.” Since 12,000–15,000 B.C.E,, long before Columbus ever sailed the ocean blue, human beings have lived and thrived on the continent we now call home.
That means that for 12,000 years, indigenous peoples lived without chicken, pork, beef, dairy, refined sugar, wheat, olive oil, bananas, oranges and apples.
Instead, what indigenous peoples had were remarkably contemporary methods of cultivating and collecting food. They collected native plants like wood sorrel, purslane, plantain and lamb’s quarter–wild superfoods more powerful than kale and so well adapted to the climate that they could grow without fertilizers or pesticides. They gathered wild nuts like acorns, and processed them into protein-rich flour (both gluten-free and low-glycemic). They hunted wild game like rabbit, turkey, duck and pheasant, and never forgot to use the organ meats containing folic acid, iron, chromium, copper, selenium, omega fatty acids, zinc and an alphabet of vitamins.
Indigenous people never needed health guidelines like Paleo, Whole 30 or the “food pyramid”; they simply ate food balanced by the ecosystem. The indigenous diet designed by nature works with nature, and so works to conserve and sustain the land. To quote Wendell Berry, poet, farmer and lifelong Kentuckian, “Land cannot be properly cared for by people who do not know it intimately, who do not know how to care for it, who are not strongly motivated to care for it.”
Maybe the word “indigenous” describes something much wider and deeper than the dictionary could ever explain. Maybe it describes the way we can begin to see ourselves as originating or occurring naturally from a place, the way to value the land we stand on as if it had created us. Today, as we struggle to understand the chronic health problems and environmental threats looming over us, perhaps exploring the connection that indigenous people once shared with this land and that we, the current inhabitants of North America, share with them may have something to teach us.
Q: Do you think that the work that you are doing will help to revitalize biodiversity?
A: Absolutely. It’s really getting people to embrace the regional diversity that we have right here in North America, and understanding that we have all this unique food—vegetable and animal protein, cooking techniques—all over the place. There is so much to embrace, and it could really create a better sense of regional North American food everywhere.
Q: So do you hope that this will reach more people than just Native American peoples?
A: There is a pretty diverse crowd that gets it, that North America has to accept and understand its indigenous roots to really grow. We’ve had the opportunity to travel to Europe, work with Noma, the Nordic Food Lab, chefs in France, Slow Food University, Yale, Brown, the Smithsonian, the CIA, James Beard Institute and things like that.
Q: What would you say is your ideal utopian vision for America?
A: I think for a utopian vision it’s really about embracing a lot of that knowledge and applying it to wherever we are. So things like landscaping with a purpose, to produce food and medicine directly around you. Utilizing a lot more natural medicines, too. Because all of these plants have amazing medicinal properties that the indigenous people know very well, and getting away from pharmaceuticals as the answer for everything. Embracing our regional biodiversity, bringing those regions together, and making it easier for all of us to connect with our land no matter where we are. Because if we are going to produce enough food for the future, with the population continuing to climb, we really have to approach how wasteful we are as a society and come up with ways to get resourceful with the stuff that’s around us. There are a lot of lessons within indigenous communities and histories that we can apply for those pieces.
Q: So, if you had to give advice to the average Midwesterner on what they could do to start getting more in touch with the land they stand on, what would you say?
A: (Laughter) “The average”? Well, part of it we really tried to spell out well with the cookbook. To give people a nice overview and some simple recipes that utilize plants that are probably in their backyard. I think that is a good starting place for anyone who is looking to live more sustainably and with a deeper knowledge of their area.
photography: Sean Sherman
For more information about Chef Sean Sherman, his mission and how to grow your relationship with North American food, check out his James Beard Award–winning cookbook: The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen Available now at bookstores near you, or online at Sioux-Chef.com
Francisca Figueroa was born in Indianapolis. She graduated from Indiana University with degrees in global food systems and Italian. She lives in Bloomington where she works as an artist and president of the nonprofit organization Journey Circle.
Here are two simple staple recipes from The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, perfect for parties or an easy healthy snack.
Smoked Whitefish and White Bean Spread
Makes 1½ cups
1 cup shredded smoked whitefish or trout
½ cup Cedar-Braised Beans (find on EdibleIndy.com ) or cooked white beans
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
Pinch sumac
Pinch maple sugar
Put the whitefish, beans and oil into a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse to create a rough, thick consistency. Season to taste with the sumac and maple sugar.
Amaranth Crackers
The only trick to making these crackers and cookies is to steep the grain long enough that it cooks into a good, stiff dough. The dough will keep for several weeks, covered, in the refrigerator. Make a batch of dough in advance and then bake fresh crackers throughout the week. The longer they bake, the crisper they will become. A dehydrator works especially well for drying crackers. They are light, crisp and gluten free. They make wonderful appetizers and are great for snacking and with soups and salads.
Makes about 24 crackers
1 cup amaranth
3 cups water
Pinch salt
1 tablespoon sunflower oil
Cook the amaranth and water in a medium pot over a high flame. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the amaranth becomes sticky and forms a thick dough. Stir in the sunflower oil and allow to cool.
Preheat oven to 300 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment and lightly grease or use a silicone mat. Working with a teaspoon, put small mounds of the dough onto the prepared baking sheet and lightly flatten with your hands until they are as thin as possible, about ⅛ inch. Bake until firm, about 1 hour. Allow to cool thoroughly before removing.
Alternatively, shape little patties as thinly as possible and set in a food dehydrator. Dehydrate until very crisp.
Amaranth (or pigweed)
We see amaranth, with its purple-reddish leaves, growing everywhere along the road, in abandoned fields and across the plains. Amaranth was first cultivated by Aztecs more than 8,000 years ago and is now popular as a gluten-free, high-protein grain. We use the leaves for summer salads and sautés, and come fall the grain, with its rich nutty flavor and high beta-carotene, iron and calcium content, becomes the base for our popular crackers and cookies.
Find more information on amaranth and other indigenous ingredients on page 52.
INDIGENOUS CUISINES
Bringing Native American–inspired meals to the table
recipes & photography: Haley Morris
Our fall recipes are inspired by Chef Sean Sherman and his new cookbook, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen (see page 44 for story). We partnered with Chef Sherman to develop a menu for your autumn table. Enjoy.
Maple-Sage Duck
Serves 4–6
1 (6-pound) duck
Himalayan salt
2 tablespoons whole juniper berries
8 fresh sage leaves
¼ cup maple syrup
⅛ cup sunflower oil
2 tablespoons maple vinegar
Using a sharp knife, begin recipe by placing small deep cuts throughout the duck to help distribute seasonings internally. When ready, generously salt and massage the duck inside and out and let set for 20 minutes, or covered in the fridge overnight.
Meanwhile, using a mortar and pestle, grind juniper berries into a fine powder and sage leaves into a paste. Then, using a small bowl, mix the juniper powder and sage together, adding in maple syrup, sunflower oil, maple vinegar and a pinch of salt.
Once mixture is made and duck has salted, stir the mixture well and thoroughly massage it into the duck. Cover the duck and place it in fridge for 12 or more hours.
When you are ready to begin cooking the duck, preheat oven to 400°F. Massage any of the “fallen” mixture back onto the duck and place in oven, uncovered and breast up. Cook duck until its internal temperature reaches 165°, basting with its juices about every 20 minutes or so.
When duck has reached the desired temperature, baste once more then return to oven to broil top on the low setting. Broil until duck has a light to medium crisp on top.
Hazel and Butternut Squash “Stuffing”
Serves 4–6
2 butternut squash, sliced longwise and gutted
Sunflower oil
Himalayan salt
2 tablespoons hazelnut oil
4 tablespoons maple syrup
1 cup hazelnuts, lightly crushed
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Next, generously drizzle sunflower oil over the flesh of the butternut squash and sprinkle with salt. Place squash flesh down on a baking sheet and place in oven. Bake until squash gives a little when skin is pressed down, about 20 minutes or so. Be careful not to overcook, to retain some structure.
When squash is ready, remove from oven and let it cool enough to handle. Once cooled, remove the skin. Next, cut the squash into small cubes and, in a large bowl, mix together the squash, hazelnut oil, maple syrup and salt to taste. When ready to serve, top with the lightly crushed hazelnuts.
A Bit Wild: 3 Sisters Stuffed Acorn Squash
Serves 4–6
3 acorn squash, sliced in half and gutted
Sunflower oil
Himalayan salt
¼ cup rendered duck fat
1 can sweet corn, drained
1 cup mixed beans, cooked and drained
1 cup lamb’s-quarter leaves, chopped ¼ cup diced wild onion (or chives)
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Generously drizzle sunflower oil over the flesh of the acorn squash and sprinkle with salt. Place squash flesh down on a baking sheet and place in oven. Bake until squash gives when skin is pressed down, about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, take a large skillet and heat up duck fat until it starts to sizzle. Once hot, add in corn. Fry corn until it starts to lightly brown, then reduce heat and add in beans, chopped lamb’s-quarter, wild onion and about a tablespoon of salt (or to taste). Mix well and remove from heat.
Once acorn squash is ready, remove from oven and cool enough to handle. Flip squash flesh up and generously fill with the corn and bean mixture.
Note: Three Sisters are the three main agricultural crops of various North American natives. They are winter squash, maize (or corn) and climbing beans. The Three Sisters were often used as trade goods.
Opposite from top: 3 Sisters Stuffed Acorn Squash, Maple Sage Duck with Hazel and Butternut Squash “Stuffing,” Sunflower Cookie with Butternut Squash “Jam”
THE Only PLACE TO TAILGATE
Sunflower Cookie with Butternut Squash “Jam”
Makes about a dozen 2 cups sunflower seed kernels
¼ cup maple syrup
1 tablespoon Himalayan salt
¼ cup butternut squash flesh, roasted and mashed
1 tablespoon maple syrup
½ teaspoon Himalayan salt
Sunflower oil
Place sunflower kernels, maple syrup and salt into a food processor. Blend mixture until almost fully smooth, leaving just a bit of a crunchy texture but creamy enough to mold.
Next, very lightly oil a baking sheet. Using lightly wetted hands, grab some of the mixture and mold it into a cookie ball. Then place the cookie onto the baking sheet and, using your thumb, make a crater in the center to fill with “jam.” Continue until all the mixture is used.
Place the cookies in the oven and turn on the low broiler. Broil the tops of the cookie until they develop a light golden brown color. Remove from oven.
Now, create the jam by mixing together your roasted and mashed squash, maple syrup and salt. Spoon the jam into each cookie and garnish with some extra kernels.
Haley Morris is a self-made food photographer and certified primal health coach. She spends most of her days doing CrossFit, playing with her daughter, Ezrah; helping her husband, Zach, with his endeavors and food blogging for Silverthorn Farm Inc. You can find more of her work at Silverthorn-Farm.com/categories/recipes and connect with her for health coaching at HaleyJaneeMorris.blogspot.com.
Wild Weeds
AINDIGENOUS EDIBLES
words: Jennifer L. Rubenstein | illustrations and layout: Caryn Scheving
Indigenous (in-DIJ-en-us): Originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native
lthough Indiana is renowned for the abundant food crops grown here by hardworking Hoosier farmers, some tasty and healthful delicacies just pop up naturally, like weeds. They might not be as familiar as other items from the garden or grocery store, but they offer the true taste of Indiana—because they are indigenous. Here is an introduction to a few of them.
“Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.”
—ANTHONY BOURDAIN
EDIBLE PARTS:
Leaves, shoots. Pinch the tips out to save and continue to grow
Lamb's quarter is “one of the most nutritious weeds in the world. The other is purslane.”
—MICHAEL POLLAN
Also known as: Wild spinach, fat hen, pigweed
Latin name: Chenopodium album
Related to: Quinoa, beets, spinach, Swiss chard
Features: Leaves resemble the shape of a goose foot and the plant produce clusters of tiny green flowers. The white underneath the leaves is water repellent and can be a salt alternative.
Health benefits: Nutrient-dense with vitamins A, C, B1, B2, iron and protein. Mash into a paste to treat insect bites, burns and eczema. May be used to relieve upset stomach or treat diarrhea. Known to reduce inflammation and increase circulation. Does contain oxalic acid, which can be toxic in high doses.
Environment: Gardens, fields, near water, landscaped areas, disturbed soils. Often left in gardens or crops as a trap crop to decoy pests away from other crops.
Cultural uses: A tradition food crop in Northern India. Native Americans consume to improve their blood.
Preparation: Substitute for spinach, use in pesto instead of basil, use in smoothies, salads and soups. Young lamb’s-quarter greens can be juiced and used as natural detox. Harvest seeds in the fall, grind them for baking, use as microgreens or sprouts.
Amaranth Grain
Latin name: Amaranthus spp.
Similar to: Grains, rice or maize
Features: Nutty-tasting seeds and spinach-flavored leaves. Seeds are used as grains and it is gluten-free.
Health benefits: Can help lower hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Has been identified to have some cancer-preventing benefits.
Environment: Loves heat and well-drained soil. Is often considered a weed in the Great Plains and is often found in pastures.
Harvest: To harvest grains, allow the amaranth to flower then pick off the blossoms before they turn brown and put them in a paper bag. Once they are dry, shake the bag and collect the grains.
Cultural uses: The Aztecs cultivated the grain to make tamales, tortillas and atole (a beverage). During Day of the Dead ceremonies, the seeds are offered as food for the spirits.
Preparation: Cook as you would pasta or rice. Good to eat like porridge, or make amaranth pudding or use in smoothies. Can be used as a thickener for soups, sauces and jellies. The grains can also be pressed for oil.
EDIBLE PARTS: Berries
Juniper Berries
Latin name: Juniperus communis
Features: The only spice to come from conifers. It is berry-like but a female seed cone.
EDIBLE PARTS: Seeds
Health benefits: Juniper berry essential oils contain antioxidants and are used as a natural antiseptic to help wounds heal faster and to improve digestion.
Environment: The tree or shrubs grow in temperate climates. They can grow in soil or in rocky areas.
Harvest: Berries that are mature (purplish black color) are used as a spice. Berries that are fully grown but immature (green) are used to flavor gin. Can be used fresh or dried. Fullest flavor comes immediately after harvest. The flavor comes from the inside of the berry, so it is crushed before being used.
Preparation: The flavor profile works well with wild game such as boar, venison, duck and woodcock. Often used in European cuisines like pork, cabbage and sauerkraut dishes.
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BRIDGES WINE BAR
Handcrafted Neapolitan-style pizzas, scratch-made pasta and bread, farm-to-table specialties and a spectacular selection of craft cocktails and international wines. A destination worth the drive.
19 N. Indiana | Greencastle BridgesWineBar.com
THE LOFT
Dine at a true farmstead restaurant, located inside a beautiful historic barn on an organic dairy farm. Food grown and raised on site takes center place on organic menus shaped by seasonal rhythms. Open for lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch.
9101 Moore Rd. | Zionsville TradersPointCreamery.com
EAT, DRINK & SHOP LOCAL GUIDE
Getting Hoosier-grown goodness on your plate doesn’t have to involve hours in the kitchen. These fine establishments proudly serve up the freshest locally sourced cuisine.
The farm-to-table movement begins with Central Indiana farms and dedicated producers who care about bringing only the best to market, which is a very good thing for locally owned restaurants that search out the best dairy, meat, produce and beverages for their patrons.
Farm-to-table is gaining momentum not only with born-and-bred Hoosiers, but the many visitors to Central Indiana. Edible Indy connects growers, producers and food artisans with their community.
Here is a select list of some of those chefs and owners who take great pride in celebrating Hoosier-grown goodness.
BURGER STUDY
A premium, full-service burger restaurant and bar dedicated to expanding one’s perception of what a burger can be. We are locally owned and pride ourselves on serving premium burgers crafted from the best-quality Midwest Prime beef and other locally sourced ingredients. We feature craft cocktails, beer and wine.
28 W. Georgia St. | Indianapolis BurgerStudy.com Study.com
JOE’S NEXT DOOR
The best of Joe’s Butcher Shop prepared for you. Our team of chefs will build the freshest, most unique and mouthwatering sandwiches at our walk-up counter, cater your special events and you can even grab our daily made dishes to go.
111 W. Main St. Ste. 110 | Carmel JoesButcherShop.com
DEBRAND
Indianapolis location now open at Keystone at the Crossing. Stop in to indulge in our chocolate truffles, classic chocolates or one of the dozens of other tasty treats. And don’t miss our dessert bar including our delicious ice cream sundaes. Fine chocolates at their best.
8685 River Crossing Blvd. Indianapolis DeBrand.com
NOOK
Located in the heart of downtown Indianapolis, Nook fuses a variety of culinary cuisines while incorporating Paleo principles including simple, fresh, whole foods. We believe in flavorful foods that fuel a healthier you.
15 E. Maryland St. | Indianapolis NookPaleo.com
FOLIE
French-inspired new American fine dining restaurant located in downtown Lafayette. Offering inventive cocktails, well-curated wine list and exquisite cuisine for a beautiful dining experience.
526 Main St. | Lafayette FolieRestaurant.com
THE ROOST
Formerly Finch’s Brasserie, The Roost caters to a beautiful new atmosphere and menu. Featuring seasonal dishes integrated with international flavors, Chef Seth Elgar delights with every dish. They provide a friendly and lively atmosphere with a top-notch cocktail and wine program featuring some of the finest drinks in Central Indiana.
514 E. Kirkwood | Bloomington FinchsBrasserie.com
FARM-BLOOMINGTON
A Bloomington award-winning original creating gastronomical dishes for brunch, lunch and dinner based on the seasonality of the Southern Indiana ingredients. The restaurant includes FARMbar, the Root Cellar Lounge and they promote sustainability and being green.
108 E. Kirkwood Ave. | Bloomington Farm-Bloomington.com
ROOSTER’S KITCHEN
Celebrating a year on Mass Ave. Our kitchen menu changes seasonally with the local producers while keeping the staples. Mama’s brisket, mac-n-cheese and fresh crisp pork rinds hit the spot.
888 Massachusetts Ave. Indianapolis RoostersIndy.com
123 S. Illinois St. | Indianapolis SpokeAndSteele.com 78% of our readers use this
out how your business could benefit from a partnership with Edible
THE GARDEN TABLE
A local eatery and fresh juicery in the heart of the Broad Ripple Village and on Mass Ave. in downtown Indianapolis serving seasonally influenced and locally sourced food and cold-pressed juice. We believe in simple dishes made from natural ingredients, grown and harvested by local farmers.
908 E. Westfield Blvd. | Indianapolis 342 Massachusetts Ave., #100 Indianapolis TheGardenTable.com
SPOKE & STEELE
Your local downtown neighborhood restaurant featuring a newly inspired menu by Chef Greg Hardesty. Food with a purpose produced with local artisans and created to pair perfect with our topnotch bourbon program.
GOODS FOR COOKS
Offering the kitchenware, gifts and fine foods, this Bloomington staple will empower you in the kitchen. Celebrating 45 years of connecting people to their food.
115 N. College Ave. | Bloomington GoodsForCooks.com
ST. ELMO STEAK HOUSE
A big thank you to our local partners!
As a locally owned business for over 110 years we take great pride in our local business relationships. Cheers to independent businesses!
127 S. Illinois St. | Indianapolis StElmos.com
HARRY & IZZY’S
We’re proud to keep it local! Three restaurants sourcing locally from 10 regional farms, four breweries and seven locally owned purveyors or producers leads to one great meal.
Downtown Indianapolis
153 S. Illinois St.
Northside Indianapolis
4050 E. 82nd St. Indianapolis Airport
7800 Col. Weir Cook Memorial Dr. HarryAndIzzys.com
TABLE
From a store full of fresh, seasonal foods and a team of chefs and culinary experts comes a celebration of food called table by Market District a restaurant that brings passion for food right to your plate. Open daily for lunch & dinner, as well as brunch every Sunday.
11505 N. Illinois St. | Carmel MarketDistrict.com/Table
Indy WOMEN In Food
research: Jennifer L. Rubenstein | layout: Caryn Scheving
Our community is proud of all of the women committed to stepping up to make Indiana food a part of their daily lives. Each of these women is a local hero and there are many more who go unrecognized for their dedication. We continue to rise above and unite.
