Edible Indy Spring 2018

edible INDY

Celebrating the Bounty of Bloomington, Carmel, Columbus, Indianapolis and Beyond

Eat. Drink. Read. Think. Local.

40 Secret Garden with Hibiscus Infused Honey 41 Spring Fashioned to-a-TEA

Special Online Recipe: Wild Dandelion Salad, Ham Hock, Poached Eggs and Balsamic Vinegar. Find it on EdibleIndy.com

COVER: Photography by Heather Schrock. See story about farmer Donald Cottee on page 20.

THIS PAGE: Photography by Dave Pluimer. See story on page 24.

18 Foraging Through History Donald Cottee maintains his family’s farm to remember the struggles of slavery and his great-great-grandfather By Charity

Singleton

Craig | Photography by Heather Schrock

24 From the Forest to the Plate Cooking with wild edibles brings home the flavors of springtime By Colleen Leonardi | Photography by Dave Pluimer Illustrations by Melissa Washburn

Young & Farming First-generation Hoosier farmers come together to build community and ensure sustainable farming By Leah R.

Singer | Photography by Sarah Longenecker

It’s hard to believe that spring is already here, especially after such a bitter cold winter, but I welcome it with open arms. Our spring issue focuses on foraging and farming, two things I am personally excited to learn more about these days. Indiana is so full of opportunities to dig deep in your backyard for luscious ingredients like Indiana’s caviar—the morels—and garlic greens, ramps, fiddlehead ferns and countless other wild-growing plants that will tease your palate.

Then there is the art of food. This year our issues will take a new look into food + art + nature, diving into unique experiences. This time our “Edible Culture” department delivers four bright and shining stars of Instagram, with whom we are connected in only what we can say is the Kevin Bacon six degrees of separation. Each has been instrumental in linking us with their foodie community—a collection of must-follow influencers and brilliant talents.

Spring is about rebirth, resurgence and new beginnings. You will see that on the pages of our issues this year in our storytelling, our photography and our efforts to be deeply involved within the sustainable food community. If you are not yet familiar with Edible Communities, you should be. It’s a network of nearly 100 locally owned and edited publications (including Edible Indy) all across the United States and Canada, each telling the hyper-local story of food and social food justice in its own area. Together, we capture 1.5 million readers each season, making us collectively the fifth-most-read food magazine(s) in the world. The only way to fight the fight for local food is to have a voice. Help us be that voice in Indiana. Help us tell your story, of your fight, your solution. Email me directly at jennifer@edibleindy.com.

Cheers to new beginnings.

Hoosier Hugs,

Jennifer & Jeff Rubenstein

Letter from the Editor

Adairy farmer recently shared a staggering statistic with me: 27 million acres of U.S. farmland is owned by other countries around the world.

A large percentage of the land is forest, a source for timber, but now when I look out at farmland across the Midwest I can’t help but wonder to whom it belongs.

Yet when were we even given permission to use the term “our land”? When springtime emerges you suddenly see in living color the life all around that depends on the plants, water, wind and sunlight as much as we do.

The monarch butterflies remind us of that, migrating up from Mexico to feast on the milkweed, although Chef Daniel Orr from FARMbloomington in Bloomington, Indiana, likes the milkweed, too. Farmer Donald Cottee reminds us of that when he tells the story of his great-great-grandfather’s life as a slave-turned-landowner in Indiana. Cottee’s story is a remarkable testament to the memory, fortitude and forgiveness required to maintain farmland for food, health, family and the monarchs, no matter how difficult. And the Hoosier Young Farmers Coalition, a member of the National Young Farmers Coalition, most likely shares in Cottee’s call to hold on to the land with their efforts to increase engagement among young farmers in Indiana.

We want to thank Donald Cottee and his family for their work and for sharing their story with us on these pages. One story among many, like one monarch among many, that has withstood loss, tragedy and alienation in a place called home not by just one family but by many.

edible INDY

PUBLISHER: Rubenstein Hills LLC

EDITOR IN CHIEF; Jennifer L. Rubenstein

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER: Jeff Rubenstein

MANAGING EDITOR: Colleen Leonardi

COPY EDITOR: Doug Adrianson

DESIGNER: Cheryl Angelina Koehler

WEB DESIGNER: Kjeld Petersen STAFF

Caryn Scheving, Graphics

Heather Shrock, Photographer

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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.

No part of this publication may be used without written permission from the publisher. © 2018 all rights reserved.

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.

@eatswithdrea

Wild-Foraged Cocktails + Recipes

A beautiful new cookbook offers a natural approach for your next martini

By Claire Spurlock | Photography by Keller+Keller Photography, courtesy of Storey Publishing

Ilike my cocktails simple, seasonal and savory. That last one’s usually the hang-up—many drinks are built with abundant, syrupy sweetness. A good dry cocktail is hard to come by. So the discovery of The Wildcrafted Cocktail was a real treat—a whole book dedicated to cocktails crafted from foraged ingredients, many of them lending vegetal, spiced, bitter or herbal flavors to the final recipes.

Author Ellen Zachos divides the book by components of a wildcrafted cocktail: first detailing the anatomy of a foraged cocktail, then examining garnishes, syrups, wild liqueurs, bitters and spirits. Many of the recipes come from Zachos’ varied arsenal, though she invites guest mixologists to share their selections, too. Foraging and processing tips are interspersed between recipes and each drink is prefaced with an introduction to provide historical context, introduce the creator, give background on the star foraged ingredient or explain flavor combinations. For someone encountering an ingredient or process for the first time, this background is welcome.

You certainly don’t have to forage for ingredients yourself in order to create the cocktails featured in The Wildcrafted Cocktail. Many are easy to come by at markets or online, depending on the season. Others have simple substitutes or counterparts in flavor. There’s flexibility in liquors, too.

Come springtime, a cocktail showcasing a foraged ingredient truly becomes possible. While there are plenty of recipes in the book that call for pickling, curing, infusing and steeping—all things that can amplify flavor when seasonal ingredients are sparse—we look to the freshness spring inspires.

“One of the best things about foraging is that you harvest wild edibles at their peak and use them, or preserve them, when they’re at their most delicious. No one picks cornelian cherries before they’re ripe or Japanese knotweed when it’s passed its tender best,” Zachos writes. “The wild foods you’ll use in these cocktails have limited seasons when they’re ripe and ready. You’ll capture those seasonal flavors and use them to create cocktails that represent a specific moment and place. It’s almost magical, and it makes your cocktails unique.”

I hope, in the newness of spring, in the pages of The Wildcrafted Cocktail you find some wild flavors to fill your glass and begin the year with a sense of brightness. Cheers.

Claire Spurlock is a writer based in Columbus, Ohio. She earned her degree from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, and now specializes in digital communications, community engagement and professional snacking.

Quick Pickled

Daylily Buds

Before I make a pickle brine, I

product will taste like. You’ve heard the expression “the mind’s eye”? When I’m inventing recipes, I use my “mind’s palate.” All brines have certain things in common (like water and vinegar), but your spices will change depending on what it is you’re pickling. The brine for these daylily buds is one of my favorites. It’s a little spicy, a little sweet and a lot delicious.

Makes 3 half-pint jars

3 cups daylily buds

BRINE

1½ cups water

1½ cups white wine vinegar

½ cup sugar

1½ tablespoons kosher salt

½ teaspoon dried wild ginger rhizome

½ teaspoon whole, dried spicebush berries

½ teaspoon whole, dried pequin chiles

1 large Pennsylvania bay leaf (if you have California bay leaves, much stronger)

Combine all the brine ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and let the brine simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, whisking to dissolve the sugar and salt. Pour the hot brine over the daylily buds and let steep for several hours. You can eat your quick pickles right

with time and they’ll be even tastier after sitting in the brine for a few days.

Store, covered, in the refrigerator, where they’ll keep for

The Dirty Lily Bud

Franklin Roosevelt is associated with the creation of the dirty martini, in two equally

hangover cure at Yalta. (Apparently that’s a classic Russian morning-after cure.) There being no vodka on the breakfast table (what?!), Winston Churchill volunteered a bottle of gin and a jar of olives and voilà: the birth of the dirty martini. The second account is less dramatic and merely mentions that FDR, an avid home mixologist, liked to add both olives and a bit of their brine to his gin martinis.

Whether these stories are true or not, we certainly have FDR to thank for the repeal of Prohibition, so he’s aces in my book, even though I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a forager. Still, I’ll toast to FDR and the repeal of Prohibition with a Dirty Lily Bud, which is what you get when you replace the dirty martini’s classic olive garnish and juice with a pickled daylily bud and a bit of its brine.

take the alcohol content down a notch. Without the brine the liquid ingredients in a martini are entirely alcoholic.

To make 1 drink

2½ ounces gin

½ ounce dry vermouth

¼ ounce pickled daylily brine (or more, to taste)

Quick Pickled Daylily Buds for garnish

In a mixing glass or shaker full of ice, combine the gin, vermouth and brine and stir (don’t shake, despite what James Bond says) for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish

Feel free to adjust the amount of brine according to your personal taste. Likewise, if you have purslane), feel free to substitute. But you’ll have to come up with your own name for any variations on this delicious foraged drink.

Excerpted from The Wildcrafted Cocktail © by Ellen Zachos, photography by Keller+Keller Photography used with permission from Storey Publishing.

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

Label designers blend art and craft to tempt you to choose theirs

Story and Illustration by Tony Beard

Come and settle in, gentle folk, to hear the terrifying tale of how your favorite beer labels are born. ’Tis a most sweeping epic to be sure— full of mystery, love and devilry most foul! Ah, I almost forgot: Every story has a beginning, but first, a bit of history to set the mood. Long ago, in ancient times when fire was the latest rage and vengeful gods lived just beyond the known world, my primeval labelmaking ancestors decided that drawing pictures of naked people on pots and vases was something worth doing, and not creepy, weird and a total waste of time. These people were likely burned alive or drowned, but the ones who survived continued their dark works in secret, away from the prying eyes of actual intelligent humans, probably inside of the historical equivalent of our modern dumpsters.

Gradually, these dumpster folk would create vague stories on their vases, using unsettling pictures about, like, killing a deer, or the naked Olympics or some other such nonsense. Many years later, when science discovered that booze could be stored in pre-made containers, the hoary dumpster people’s vessels were seized and they themselves rounded up and shipped to a small, lonesome island in the Mediterranean. This island is the location of our present-day Atlantis. Thus, the “beer label” was born!

A lot has happened since those times, most importantly the invention of glass bottles, which we all know to be the pinnacle of human endeavor. These bottles, and the miraculous texts Photoshop and Illustrator for Dummies acquired in the American-Atlantis wars of a now-forgotten age, have given rise to most of the contemporary beer-label-making process. These eventually led to other innovations such as “Googling how the pen tool works in Illustrator” and “Watching a YouTube video on values and complementary colors.” These techniques, while standardized and perfected, lacked something that our ancestors had lost to the sands of time—something that would not be entertained again until the Craft Beer Era of the 1990s-ish.

At the beginning of this era, an unearthed Atlantian urn featuring a pictograph of a guy in a loincloth spearing a water buffalo sparked the idea that characters could be used as branded images. They would humanize your product into something relatable, maybe even playing on media nostalgia, which in turn would retain customer loyalty. As a shocked world looked on, beer label graphics grew into a slightly interesting thing that breweries might want to look into, if they plan to place their product into retail stores.

The rest, as we say, is history.

Now we can begin the sordid tale of the “process.” It begins as several normal humans and one subhuman troglodyte (the “designer”) sit around a conference table and brainstorm ideas for a beer name. The designer must never be allowed to participate in this part of the process for thoughtfully articulated reasons like “That’s lame” and “No, you’re a dumbass.”

After Googling their chosen new beer name and cursing every other brewery for beating them to it, they will settle on the one word in the Oxford English Dictionary that no other brewery has taken. Probably something like “benefactor.” If that name is taken, they will add an adjective in front of it. Probably something like “mysterious.” Great job!

After this, the process grows into its larval stage, and the designer crawls into a warm mud pit on a river bank, where they stare at the warm glow of a blank screen for three weeks. During these weeks, vague ideas grow on the outward-hanging stalks of the designer’s mind. When they are fresh the designer consumes them for nourishment. Chasing nostalgia keeps the designer’s legs from atrophying during this process, but it is only passively beneficial. Sometimes an idea stalk will produce the rare “new idea”; this is immediately discarded as trash until a “commercially viable idea” buds. Upon hearing the phrase “the beer is in the bright”—meaning it’s almost ready to bottle and label—the designer will become bloated, agitated and hostile, eventually producing the elusive “preliminary.”

At this phase, the preliminary is shuffled around, vaguely glanced at and returned to the designer with a resounding, “Whatever.

You’re late. Run with it; we need labels soon.”

After this, the designer must face and defeat four demons. The first being the dread “TTB Label Approval Process” dodging the dragons of the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), in which your label must navigate a maze of contradictions and avoid using words like “extra strength,” “Belgian” or “I hate the TTB.” The second demon is a smaller, multi-headed version of the first that goes by the name of “State Registration” or, in the dark tongue of the northern warlocks, “Nyurepthodes.” The third demon has no other name than “The Printers,” and it wields two splintered, burning staves known in the terror realms as “Proofs” and “Shipping Delays.” The last demon is self-doubt, which takes the form of the designer meekly sobbing into a mirror.

After the labels arrive and are birthed from their cardboard shipping womb, they are placed repetitively on bottles, which are then shipped out and never seen by their creator again. A single tear will roll down the designer’s cheek, and “Circle of Life” from Disney’s The Lion King will play in the distance.

New Albanian Brewing Company

Café & Brewhouse

415 Bank St. | New Albany NewAlbanian.com

Tony Beard currently resides in a hovel along a river in Southern Indiana with a large sign above the front door that reads, “No Refunds.” His hobbies include building, refurbishing and sharpening guillotines, along with long walks on short piers. Insufferable fools can contact him at antbeard@gmail.com.

What’s in a Label

New Albanian Brewing Company’s “Beak’s Best”

Type of Beer

American Bitter / Extra Special Bitter

The Name

This beer was named after someone’s family member, who was called “Beak” for his prominent nose.

The Meaning

Originally, the label had a cartoonish depiction of the beer’s namesake. We were trying to do a rebrand at one point. I had recently been to a masquerade-ball-themed wedding and name quite well.

The Story

ESB (Extra Special Bitter) isn’t a super popular style in the U.S., so many people approach it with some trepidation, especially with the term “bitter” prominently in the name. So here is this mysterious guy offering you something you might not have had before, but it’s on a silver platter and he’s got on a top hat. Seems trustworthy, right?

Between the Lines

If you look closely, there are bird feathers falling out of his sleeve. What sort of creature is really behind that mask?

The Takeaway

I’ll give it a try!”

CIRCLE CITY FOOD ’Grammers

By Julie K. Yates

On the culinary scene, creative individuals from cities all over the world can become famous on Instagram for the gorgeous and even edgy photos they post. Indianapolis is increasingly gaining recognition as a foodie destination it is rated number 22 on Zagat’s list of 30 Most Exciting Food Cities in America 2017. And as our local food community flourishes, evidence of its expanding presence can be found on Instagram.

Followed not just by Hoosiers, but across the country and internationally as well, there is a virtual community of talented Indy-based photographers and bloggers. They are infused with a spirit of camaraderie and follow, mention and share each other’s work. And they are creating a culture of food photography worth noting.

Four Degrees of Separation

Dave Pluimer, an insurance company analytics manager and Edible Indy contributing photographer, is the purveyor of @the.dirty.dishes and @davepluimer. Based in Indianapolis, he relays that his first food photographer find through Instagram was @heatherschrock, the feed of photographer Heather Schrock.

“She has a style that’s consistent and that’s what hooked me,” he says.

Then Pluimer met Ben Pyatt, the cofounder of @circlecitysupperclub, and Lauren McDuffie, the blogger behind @harvest_and_honey and a contributor to @circlecitysupperclub, at a sponsored event for Instagram influencers.

“I was introduced to Lauren’s work through @circlecitysupperclub. And, like Heather’s, her style, use of light and mood are the draw,” says Pluimer.

Schrock, who is a contributing photographer to Edible Indy Magazine, concurs: “I was aware of Dave at least two years ago. His work is so gentle and warm and engaging.”

@circlecitysupperclub @brownsburgben

@circlecitysupperclub @brownsburgben

@circlecitysupperclub @brownsburgben

“I met Lauren,” she adds, “when we were on a photographers’ panel speaking about the art of shooting food. I had been aware of her work prior to that, mostly because of her unique style and amazing [Instagram] feed.”

Virtual Word of Mouth

When Pyatt travels out of town, he turns to Instagram to decide where to grab dinner. Perusing photos of

looks delicious and the atmosphere is worth experiencing. A captain with the Brownsburg police department by day, Pyatt modeled @circlecitysupperclub after similar Instagram feeds in places such as New York City.

the word out and promote restaurants as desirable places to visit. The feed @circlecitysupperclub is actually a conglomeration of several Central Indiana individuals who have at least one other Instagram handle of their own. Managed by Pyatt, the ’grammers meet up once a month at a restaurant, where their group indulges in a meal—from appetizers and drinks to dessert.

“People at other tables just stare at us,”

@harvest_and_honey has over 18,500 followers. “We are all on our iPhones, brandishing cameras, and sometimes we even bring in additional light sources.”

“We don’t make any money off of this,” says Pyatt. “We just have fun by getting together and sharing where we were and what we ate.”

What does a restaurant get out of hosting

receive a blast of free advertising (minus the cost of the comped meal) from the mouthwatering images and Instagram stories that appear on not only on @circlecitysuperclub but on each individual ’grammer’s feed.

Followed not just by Hoosiers, but across the country and internationally as well, there is a virtual community of talented Indy-based photographers and bloggers. They are infused with a spirit of camaraderie and follow, mention and share each other’s work. And they are creating a culture of food photography worth noting.

@harvest_and_honey

@harvest_and_honey

’Grammer School

Tips for Taking Fabulous Food Photos

Lighting

Ben Pyatt and Dave Pluimer feel that lighting is everything. When a photo is too dark, it is never Instagram worthy. Try to sit close to windows to catch indirect light coming from the side or behind the food.

Editing

Lauren McDuffie and Dave Pluimer recommend downloading the VSCO app for iPhones to give photos a consistent look and feel. Play around with it to learn its capabilities and figure out some presets.

Styling

Heather Schrock and Lauren McDuffie advocate taking time to style the food, but not to go overboard on the staging. It needs to look real, as if the viewer were actually looking at it right on a table.

Theming

Dave Pluimer and Heather Schrock stress the value of having a cohesive feed. Gain inspiration from other photographers who are on Instagram but also note the importance of stepping back and developing a unique style.

Connecting

Lauren McDuffie and Ben Pyatt know the power reaching out. Edible Indy Magazine “discovered” McDuffie when she tagged @edibleindy and used #edibleindy on Instagram. Pyatt’s restaurant location tags attract followers who are interested in the Indianapolis restaurant scene.

Styling Food

McDuffie, whose cookbook, Smoke, Roots, Mountain, Harvest, is due to be released April 2019 by Chronicle Books (see article and cover story in our Winter 2017 issue), concedes that styling is her favorite aspect of shooting food photography. Her images evoke a rural, Midwest country look. “I’m influenced by vintage objects and even Flemish paintings,” she says. “But for a while I made a point of not looking at other people’s work, in order to develop my own style.”

Schrock advises not to be afraid of simple. “Don’t overthink it. Often, I shoot something, and then subtract props to see how the subject holds up. The final shot reveals itself only after I’ve seen all the variations.”

Summing it up, Pyatt confesses that the posts that get the most attention on his feed, @brownsburgben, are “food that just looks delicious.”

Julie K. Yates is a freelance writer and blogger. As a contributor to several community magazines in the Indianapolis area, she enjoys sharing the stories of individuals who pursue culinary-related experiences. Visit her blogs at YatesYummies.com and OrangesAndAlmonds.com. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram @YatesYummies.

@harvest_and_honey

Indianas Caviar

GHUNTING IN THE WILD FOR MOREL MUSHROOMS

By Jennifer L. Rubenstein, Layout by Caryn Scheving

rowing up, morel mushrooms were always in our skillets in late spring. The hunt would commence in April with my Grandpa Yoder, who was in every sense our mushroom man. He would know right where to hunt and how to pinch them off. It was fair to say pounds would be eaten by our family each season. It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I truly understood the rarity of these delectable fungi, or fully appreciated the gift of having such a meal to savor.

My grandfather passed many years ago, leaving that hunting legacy to my mother, father and middle brother. They don’t find the pounds and pounds any longer, nor is the search as much of an adventure these days, but no matter the size of the find we still celebrate my grandfather with those fried morels accompanied with a piece of white bread smothered in butter. Sometimes the memories are as flavorful as the dish.

When

Mid to late April and May

Ground temperature 45–55°F

Mushrooms stop producing when ground temperature rises above 60°F

The perfect conditions: Moist soil warm morning following a nighttime shower

Where

Fallen elm trees with bark sliding off

Dying elm trees

Apple orchards

Ash trees

Dark sand

Indiana Varieties

Old wives tale: Best time to hunt coincides with dogwood leaves being “the size of a mouse’s ear”

Black Morels, Morchella angusticeps

Around ash and poplar trees, sometimes conifers

Yellow Morels, Morchella esculentoides

Late April to mid May

Dying elm, ash, old apple orchards, near or under fallen trees

Golden yellow color with light-colored ridges and pits

Gray Morels, Morchella americana

Late April to mid May

Dying elm, ash, old apple orchards, near or under fallen trees

Tips

•Pinch them off at the base—don’t remove the root.

•Leave a few to reproduce for future years—if you pick them all they will be gone.

•Put them in a brown paper bag and store in the refrigerator until ready to eat.

• To freeze them: Cook the mushrooms, lay them out on a baking sheet, freeze, remove and place them in an airtight bag to avoid freezer burn.

• Hunting mushrooms for personal use may be permitted at Indiana State Parks. It is always hunting. Commercial hunting is prohibited.

• Hunting areas are sacred to many avid mushroom hunters.

•

What Other Morel Lovers Say...

Resources

• Hoosier Mushroom Society | HoosierMushrooms.org

• Indiana Mushrooms | IndianaMushrooms.com

Indiana Festivals

• April 28–29

•Morel Mushroom Festival

May 5

Brown County State Park Nature Center

• Indiana RedBarn Morel Jamboree

May 4–6

Indiana RedBarn, Nashville

“Blackish sand, ash trees and apple orchards have been good for hunting.”

—Bob DuCharme, Pottery by Dewey

“Kerry Gold and a skillet.”

“I think the simpler the better with these babies. I just like to sauté them with a little butter and salt and pepper, and toss them on pizzas or in pasta. So good!”

Harvest and Honey

“David Foegley makes the most amazing escargot with morels and I think a sherry cream sauce!”

—Jennifer Watterson, Harry & Izzy’s

In 2017, 13-year-old Kayden Graber of Greene County, Indiana, found one morel measuring 11 inches tall—big enough to feed a family.

FORAGING THROUGH HISTORY

Donald Cottee maintains his family’s farm to remember the struggles of slavery and his great-great-grandfather

By Charity Singleton Craig | Photography by Heather Schrock

For Donald Cottee, morel hunting comes easy this time of year at his Washington, Indiana, farm. He simply walks out the front door and finds them nestled among the cedar trees. He and wife, Charlet, who goes by Lynn, like to eat them dredged in flour or cornmeal and deep-fried in butter.

But Cottee’s also doing another kind of foraging, one that’s far more difficult: He’s on a mission to learn all he can about the history of his 39-acre farm, one of the oldest continuously owned family farms in the state, even predating Indiana’s statehood.

“I’m fortunate. There’s not many farms that have been in the family that long,” Cottee says. And particularly not many farms owned by African American families.

From Slave to Landowner

Like the tiny spores that spawn a morel crop each spring, the history of Cottee’s family sprang up out of the darkest soil of Indiana history. Cottee’s property is part of a larger estate that was among the first in the state to be owned by a former slave. In 1806, Cottee’s great-great-grandfather, Jacob, was one of the slaves brought to what is now Daviess County, Indiana, by Eli Hawkins, a plantation owner from South Carolina, who was an early settler in that part of the Northwest Territory. Though slavery was outlawed in the Territory, the ban was not strictly enforced and loopholes permitted slavery to persist.

When Eli Hawkins died unexpectedly in 1816, Jacob, along with another slave Isaac, who were both using the last name Hawkins by then, remained enslaved by Eli Hawkins’ widow, Catherine, and her new husband, William Merril. In 1823, however, Jacob and Isaac filed suit in the Daviess Circuit Court with the help of abolitionist attorney Amory C. Kinney and won their freedom.

“Jacob Hawkins could have run away, but he fought the legal battle, and won, not only his own freedom, but the freedom of all other African-American slaves in Daviess County,” writes Don Spillman, a Daviess County historian.

Remembering History

This sense of legacy and responsibility demonstrated in the life of his great-great-grandfather is the reason Cottee maintains the last remnant of his family’s farm today—to remember.

Slavery in Indiana

in the Northwest Territory under the Ordinance of 1787, a group of proslavery

Henry Harrison, petitioned Congress for an amendment. When that failed, the territorial government passed “An Act Concerning the Introduction of Negroes and Mulattoes into This Territory” in 1805, creating a type of legal indentured service which, according to the author of The Negro in Indiana, differed very little from slavery.

These new arrangements were set up as legal contracts between slave and owner and were recorded with the county clerk within 30 days after the arrival of the slave into the Territory. If the slave refused to sign the contract, however, the master could simply take him out of the territory within 60 days and still maintain ownership, or, as was usually the case, sell him. These indentures were legal for slaves aged 16 and over. Slaves aged 15 and under who were brought to the Territory were registered and forced to serve until the age of 35, if they were males, 32 if females. Children born to slaves in the Territory were required to serve the master of the parent until age 30 for males and 28 for females.

Since Jacob Hawkins was 16 when he arrived in the Northwest Territory in 1806, he was offered a “contract” of indentured service, and reportedly

Indiana to sign such a document. In the terms offered him, “Jacob shall and will serve the said Eli Hawkins and his assigns for term of Ninety years from the day of the date hereof, he, the said Eli Hawkins and his assigns providing the said Jacob with washing and lodging, according to his degree and station. From and after the expiration of said term the said Jacob shall be free to all intents

The act allowing indentures was repealed in 1810, but that didn’t stop the practice. Likewise, though slavery was banned by Indiana’s new legality of their servitude. The associate judges of the county, Philip Burton and Ephraim Thompson, decided with the plaintiffs, securing not only the freedom of Jacob and Isaac but that of all men and women in the county who were being held in slavery or indentures.

A Family Legacy

After winning his freedom, Jacob Hawkins went on to marry Ellen Embrey, who also had been brought to Indiana as a slave from South Carolina, and the couple had 11 children.

In 1831, they purchased a 1,000acre tract outside of Washington, Indiana. Portions of that property were later sold to help develop the Wabash & Erie Canal, the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad and coal mining operations in southern Indiana.

Upon the death of Jacob and then Ellen Hawkins, their property was divided up among their 11 children, including the daughters. In fact, their middle daughter, Eliza Ann Hawkins, is Donald Cottee’s great-grandmother. She married Angel

their son, Angel Odrow Cottee, was Donald’s grandfather.

Donald’s father, Lloyd, was the sixth of eight children.

Donald Cottee inherited his plot from his uncle Cecil Cottee, his father’s younger brother who stayed on the farm after World War II as his occupation.

“It comes with a sense of not forgetting your history,” Cottee says. “This was some 40 years before the end of the Civil War. Jacob Hawkins was a free man before the Emancipation Proclamation. That was significant. And the fact that he owned thousands of acres at that time and just being African American. That’s important to have some heritage and sense of where you’re from.”

Throughout the last 150 years, various family members have owned, lived on and farmed different sections of the original estate. According to Cottee, the earlier generations gardened and kept fruit trees (apples, pears and peaches), selling fruit and vegetables at the local market. Cottee inherited his plot from his uncle Cecil, his father’s younger brother who stayed on the farm after World War II as his occupation. Cecil raised pigs and cows as meat for the extended family and farmed the tillable acres in corn and soybeans. As a young boy, Donald and his twin brother, Ronald, would spend summers with uncle Cecil. They used to hunt rabbits and fish in nearby Prairie Creek and Dogwood Lake. When Cecil passed away in 1993, Cottee inherited the property, which was by then just 32 acres.

Restore and Improve

Over the years, Cottee, who lives in Indianapolis and recently retired as a fermentation scientist from Eli Lilly, has restored and improved the property. He bought back a seven-acre corner lot that had been part of the original family property. He’s remodeling the house, which was built in 1930 by his uncle John Cottee. The original house built by Angel Gabrial and Eliza Ann Hawkins Cottee is gone, but Cottee used bricks from the old chimney to build a fire pit in his backyard. The home that Jacob Hawkins and his wife, Ellen, lived in was on a different section of the estate.

Cottee rents out the 29 acres of tillable land to a local farmer who grows corn and soybeans, and Cottee himself raises feeder calves each spring in the six-acre pasture. He also added a large pole barn for the small herd—anywhere from two to six steers each year—that he raises as beef for his family and to sell. He and his wife also have a large garden, where they grow popcorn, tomatoes, green beans, peppers and sweet corn to enjoy all

From left: Gilbert, Lloyd (Donald’s father), Clifford, Cecil (the person from whom Donald inherited the farm) and Carl Cottee, all brothers. Photo taken sometime during the ‘30s.

summer and share with family and friends. The couple spends weekends and vacations down on the farm.

Eventually, Cottee plans to leave the farm to his two daughters, Jessica and Lauren, but besides just preserving the farm for his own family Cottee hopes to receive recognition from the Hoosier Homestead Award Program, which recognizes farms that have been owned by the same family for 100 years or more.

“I could sell [the farm] and make a bunch of money, but in the end that money doesn’t have any history,” says Cottee, who also owns the Korea Tae Kwon Do Academy on the northwest corner of Indianapolis. “For my family, for my uncles, it meant a lot I think. They’re all buried down there.”

Moving Forward

But for all the pride that defines this family legacy of courage and perseverance, does Cottee ever see the farm as a reminder of the evils of slavery and the lingering racism that is present still to this day?

“I grew up in Terre Haute in the ’60s. I was called the N-word, and I had rocks thrown at me,” Cottee explains “But my parents taught us not to be that way. The past is what it is. For me, it’s something you have to remember so that you don’t go back there. Getting rid of historical things, to me, doesn’t make sense because how do you remember where you came from if you destroy what you had?”

Instead, Cottee shines the light of optimism, loyalty and hard work on what was sown in darkness. Rather than producing hate and bitterness, he finds a landscape of hope and gratitude waiting just outside his front door.

“That’s what I’m doing,” Cottee says. “Moving forward. Keeping things going. Making it better.”

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. online at CharitySingletonCraig.com or at home in the kitchen.

FROM the Forest to the Plate

Cooking with wild edibles brings home the flavors of springtime

By Colleen Leonardi | Photography by Dave Pluimer

Morels.

Dandelion greens.

When you’re a forager, come springtime these names evoke joy. The season offers plenty. Gathering wild foods for the home kitchen or local restaurant has moved beyond trend status. It’s a veritable lifestyle now embedded within the local food movement. Martha Stewart even has a favorite wild green: chickweed.

Foraging is shifting our consciousness about where our food really does come from. Along with looking primarily to cultivated crops and the farmers who grow your carrots or kale within a 100-mile radius, foraging reveals a second source: the forest floor near you. Wild edibles are organic, nutritious and, obviously, in season. And chefs all over the world are leading the charge, looking to these woody places for the essence of fresh, inspired ingredients to take your burger or alfredo sauce to the next level for both flavor and health.

City Plums

Here in Indy, urban farmer, enthusiastic cook and advocate Jason Michael Thomas is most at home where nature meets food. Founder of the Indy Gourmet Club and the Urban Awareness Gardens on his home property downtown near 16th and Central, he’s committed to educating people about “something that is even more local” with food that can be grown or foraged right in your backyard. Jason sells his produce to restaurants like Tinker Street, Thunderbird, Bluebeard, Shoefly Public House, Spoke & Steele and Plat 99.

“All these great chefs really support us and get behind us. That’s really what we want to do,” he says when talking about his urban farm and his partner, Casey Kay, who farms and forages with him, “promote that lifestyle and promote preparing amazing food with amazing local farmed and foraged ingredients.”

He started foraging by noticing what was growing all around, even in the city. “Years ago, I would go jogging through downtown in these completely urban areas,” he recalls. “There was a plum tree I used to run by on Washington Street. To me, if that was my tree, I would have collected every single one of those plums and done something with them.”

In spring, Jason is drawn to everything budding, vermillion and edible. Last year, he discovered the delicious, green-beany flavor of maple blossoms. And while he loves to harvest ramps (and leave some for later), he’s also cooked with unlikely suspects like the little blossoms off the redbud trees and Virginia bluebells.

We talk about how wild greens are great served fresh in salads and as pesto. This spring, though, Jason plans to experiment with a ramp kimchi and preserve the flavor so he can savor it into the year.

Foraging for Wellness

Chef Daniel Orr, author, chef and owner of FARMbloomington in Bloomington, Indiana, is in favor of preserving foraged ingredients, too. We talk ramps.

Michael Thomas makes his version of Indiana Garlic Mustard

featuring foraged ingredients served on toast with vegetables from the farm. He will host a Spring Forager’s Feast with the Indy Gourmet Club on Sunday, April 8. This recipe, other foraged items, and farm-to-table delights will be served exclusively to members of the club. For details about membership, private farmto-table dinners and classes email Jason at

“When we get a large volume, we’ll pickle the bottom part, which are this kind of beautiful red violet color with an onion white bulb. And then you have these big, palm-like leaves on the top. We make a pesto with the leaves and pickle the bulbs, and then we can use those for months,” he says. “We serve the pickles with pâté. They are good with a lot of rich, fatty meats like local country hams, liver and sweetbreads. And the ramp pesto is good with homemade bread, Capriole Farms goat cheese, pizzas and pastas.”

Talking with Chef Daniel is like walking through his farm and then sitting down together for lunch. We’re both salivating for spring foods. He describes the edible landscape on his property in Columbus on Harrison Lake, where he has plots for wild plants, like ramps, as well as cultivated produce. He’s even growing hazelnut trees that are inoculated with truffle spores. “We hope to have Périgord black truffles in the next few years,” he says.

He also treks to his neighbor’s property across the street to forage. They have over 15 acres of wild forest. “I sometimes find wild strawberries—the little tiny fraise des bois.”

It’s on his second property in Monroe County where he hunts for mushrooms. He finds between 10 and 15 different varieties each season while also growing his own shiitake and oyster mushrooms. Chef Daniel is certified with the Hoosier Mushroom Society (HMS—see article on page 17) so he can legally bring his foraged mushrooms to FARMbloomington for the spring menu and also procure mushrooms from other foragers and help them sell them back into the market by certifying the mushrooms they’ve foraged are 100% safe to eat.

Deft and inspiring as a chef, it’s his love of the nexus where nature meets food that makes Chef Daniel’s ideas for foraged foods and Wild-foraged ingredients for Jason’s Garlic Mustard Pesto include (left to right on opposite page): spice bush berries, garlic mustard greens, and wild garlic

Jason

Pesto

Nettle Soup

By Summer Cooper

2 tablespoons cooking oil of choice

1 small onion, chopped

1 cup white carrots or parsnips, diced

A small bunch of ramps (wild leeks), stem and bulb separated from leaves, chopped

4–6 cups water (enough to cover vegetables in the pot)

2 tablespoons green split peas

1 tablespoon nutritional yeast

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 (13.5-ounce) can unsweetened coconut milk

¼ to pound fresh wood nettle tips, chopped (use gloves to handle and see sidebar for foraging tips)

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in a large pot. Stir in chopped onion, carrot and the ramp stems/ bulb. Cook until tender. Add water to the pot. Stir in split peas, nutritional yeast and garlic powder. Simmer 10

20 minutes.

Stir in the chopped nettles and ramp leaves. Cook at a low boil for 5 more minutes. Remove from heat and add the can of coconut milk. Stir until completely incorporated. Purée soup with an immersion blender. Season with salt and pepper. Serve hot with a squeeze of lemon, if desired.

JMT’s

Indiana Garlic Mustard Pesto

By Jason Michael Thomas

Pesto is a delicious way to welcome spring to the table with the

to prepare it. The pine nuts in the oft-cited traditional Ligurian recipe from northern Italy can be substituted with other fatty nuts like macadamias, pecans, Brazil nuts, cashews, pistachios, walnuts, hazelnuts or almonds. Traditionally, the cheeses were a blend of Parmigiano Reggiano and a Pecorino known as Fiore Sardo, but many

In my quest to be an extreme locavore, I have chosen to feature a local cheese from Indiana, a local oil from Indiana and the rest of the ingredients were foraged: wild garlic, black walnuts, wild garlic mustard

2 cups wild garlic mustard greens, remove the stems for smoother texture

8 wild garlic bulbs

½ cup grated Jacobs and Brichford Everton Premium Reserve

5–10 ground spicebush berries

Start by crushing the spicebush berries using a mortar and pestle. Set

Add the wild garlic bulbs to the mortar with a little salt to help crush into so added elbow grease might be needed, or you can easily pick out any

Next add the black walnuts and continue crushing the contents of the and oil, adding a little oil and a little cheese until it is the desired

It’s important to remember that you are the one who should decide how much or how little you use of each ingredient I give this recipe only as a guideline. If you don’t have or like some of these foraged ingredients, by all means you should replace any of them with traditional ones. If at all possible, however, I recommend that you get out and enjoy a nice hike in

buy some Jacobs and Brichford cheeses and Healthy Hoosier oils. Easily found online, they are premium and delicious products that I highly

Wild garlic mustard greens are wonderful in this pesto recipe, but they’re also delicious used raw in fresh salads, added to sandwiches and wraps of all kinds, or as a substitute for collards and other stewed

mustard is also one of my favorites that continues to deliver healthy and sustainable nutrition until winter. Since it is an incredibly nutritious and delicious invasive species, you will be helping the biodiversity of our forests by learning to recognize it and remove it by the delicious roots which I like to

meals so exquisite. He understands the legacy of wild foods in Indiana, the unique flavors in foraged foods, what our ancestors ate, including Native Americans, what we’ve lost and how to reclaim it for enhanced living and wellness.

“Every vegetable was a wild, foraged item at one time,” he says. “Human beings have changed those vegetables to become sweeter, more starchy, larger and less seedy. So the vegetable we’re now buying in the grocery store is a far cousin from its original foraged cousin. For example, if you think of the original wild apples that grew in Eastern Europe, they were these gnarly, sour, almost quince-like, puckery creatures that modern man has developed into these beautiful, succulent, sweet juicy fruits that we think of today.”

With wild foods, “You’re eating items that have much more nutritional value to them,” he says. “And if you’re harvesting them or foraging them in a clean, sustainable way and in an environment that’s organic, then they’re much healthier than mass produced, hybridized, GMO foods available in the big-box stores.”

We all need good nutrition, healthy social interactions, time outdoors and intellectual stimulation to truly live well, and foraging provides all of it, in spades. “You can hit a lot of different areas in your wellness chart,” he says, “by bringing foraging into your life.”

Let the Mushroom Find You

“It is the healthiest food on earth,” says Summer Cooper, farmer turned forager. “A simple online comparison of nutritional data will show you how far and away superior these wild foods are.”

Romanced into foraging by the love of the hunt, and her innate skills, Summer forages wild edible and sells them directly to chefs and restaurants. She is also certified by the HMS and considers mushrooms her specialty.

“When I was a beginner, to find something was the most exciting thing,” she remembers. “The thrill of the chase, the excitement of the hunt. And it can be so awful when you’re not finding anything, especially when you’re starting out, because you don’t know how much the weather affects mushroom hunting.”

In the spring before morels even emerge, Summer will look for mushrooms like wild enoki, because they like a little bit of colder temperatures, usually growing off of dead elms. She’ll also hunt for a medicinal mushroom called split-gill polypore.

“It’s so special to go out and get something wild like that, especially something that is not available all the time,” she says.

One of her favorite foraged spring recipes is Nettle Soup (see page 26). And while she loves the taste of forest-grown foods, she also hunts for the medicinal properties in the wild plants. When foraging, she advises, trust that the mushroom or plant that you need to find will find you, like a sign from the earth of what your body needs for balance.

“People love it,” she says. “It’s a knowledge that we’ve lost. And it’s a sad loss, especially with so many people going hungry in the United States. It’s crazy to me that there’s food growing in ditches and people don’t know how to feed themselves.”

“I really think we’re part of this organism and it’s alive. The earth is alive. The soil is alive. And the soil knows what it needs to heal,” Jason says. “I think many times local foods are best suited for the people who live there, because they will be nourished by those foods more so than the ones that are imported because they’re attractive or we like them. Foraging reminds me of my place in the world. We’re part of a much larger thing that is growing all around us.”

Colleen Leonardi is managing editor of Edible Indy and editorin-chief of Edible Columbus in Ohio. She loves to forage for wild plants come springtime, especially violets and lilacs, and ColleenLeonardi.com.

Summer Cooper

Jason Michael Thomas

Chef D’s Spring Favorites

Tips for cooking with spring foraged foods, courtesy of Chef Daniel Orr

Illustrations by Melissa Washburn

Daylilies ( )

These are some of the earliest foraged items you will find in Indiana. The light green shoots taste like sweet lettuce. Later in the season, when they begin to flower, harvest the pods before they bloom. They are great in stir-fry, like you would pea pods or snow peas. You can also pickle (see our pickled daylily recipe on page 8) or dry the unopened blossoms; they make a great addition to Chinese egg drop soup. In the traditional Chinese egg drop soup, dried daylilies are an integral part of the soup, giving it that viscous texture as well as a nice, floral flavor. And finally, when the bright orange flower blooms, you can eat the petals, putting them on a salad, or tempura them in a light batter, sprinkle with powdered sugar and you have dessert.

Dandelion Greens ( )

In the spring, when they first come out, they are delicious. As the sun beats down on them, they’ll get much stronger and much more bitter. They’re also usually really easy to pull in the spring. You can pull them with the whole root and eat the roots, greens and flowers. I like to dip the flowers in a tempura batter and then fry them. The greens are a little bit bitter. For some people, I always suggest they put a little bacon, which has the fatty, smoky flavor, and then something a little bit sweet like some diced apples or some fresh berries, and then finish them with something acidic like vinegar. The combination of fat, sweet and sour is really good to make some of the more pungent and aggressive wild greens more palatable to the uninitiated palate. You can also throw some roasted beets in with them, which gives a natural sweetness and earthy flavors that are great with some olive oil or butter.

When we were growing up, we would eat the dandelion greens with my grandparents. They would pick and braise the greens. They would pour off the cooking liquids they called the “pot liquor” and serve it like a broth in a tea cup with a bit of malt vinegar and a pat of butter on top as a healthy tonic. The greens were then served with the roast as well as some grits. That’s kind of an old, homey way to enjoy dandelions. That’s how my grandparents did it.

Sweet Violets (Viola odorata)

Harvest the heart-shaped violet leaves when they’re young and tender and use in salads or as cooked greens. Their purple, white or variegated flowers are also delicious as salad or pastry garnishes. Don’t pick any foraged foods from a yard that’s been treated with chemicals. I have a patch of violets at my cabin in Monroe County and also in Columbus. I pick those because I know they are chemical free. And there are knowledgeable local foragers who harvest them for the restaurant.

Garlic Mustard Greens (Sisymbrium alliaria)

An invasive plant, they’ve got a strong, garlic flavor as well as a nice mustardy heat. I love to make pesto out of them. You can grind them with spinach, and add additional garlic and olive oil, then freeze the pesto in small containers. Then, whenever you want to make a Tuscan pasta, especially if you’re using something like ravioli that’s got some rich filling, the garlicky mustard pesto plays off the richness of the ravioli. When serving a creamy alfredo sauce, you can use a dollop of the pesto on top of your plated pasta: It will cut that cloying richness of the sauce.

Jerusalem Artichokes (Helianthus tuberosus)

A root veggie that grows a lot of places all over Southern Indiana. They look like little, tiny sunflowers. I have some wild ones I’m growing and the roots are getting bigger and bigger as they become at home with the soil they’re in. You can harvest them all winter long and into the spring. They’re delicious. You can make chips out of them, or mash them like potatoes, or make wonderful soups.

Wild Onions (Allium canadense)

Use when small and “chive-like.” Chop them up and make wild onion compound butter to use on grilled steaks or fish. Let some of them grow up and flower. Wild onions have a big seed head that looks like an alien with these green shoots coming out of them. I make a mixture of vinegar, salts, sugar, water and black peppercorns and I pour it over the wild onions and let it sit for a couple weeks. That makes my wild onion vinegar for Christmastime, and it’s shelf stable, as long as everything is covered with vinegar.

Milkweed ( )

This plant shows up a little bit later in the summer. Never pick the whole patch of milkweed because you want to leave some for the monarch butterflies. The monarchs eat them and put their cocoons on those plants, and when the flowers bloom the mature monarchs will feed off the flowers of the milkweed. That said, it does make a really good vegetable. Before it blooms, milkweed looks like little heads of broccoli. You want to pick them when they’re fairly young. You can steam those and eat just like you would broccoli. (Chef D thinks

they are better than broccoli.) You can also take the little, young pods, and pickle them and use them like capers. [Editor’s note: The mature leaves and “seed pods” eaten in large quantities can be toxic.]

Sassafras Leaves (Sassafras albidum)

You need to harvest sassafras leaves very young and dry them very carefully so they stay nice and green. Then put them in a spice grinder and grind to make your own gumbo file powder. It almost has a kind of green tea flavor. It will thicken your gumbo and then you can sprinkle some on your rice. If you do it right, it will be a very vibrant green. It’s very pretty and looks like matcha.

Visit EdibleIndy.com for Chef D’s recipe featuring dandelion greens and information about his upcoming book, The Wellness Lifestyle

Tips for the Foraging Trade

Be 100% Sure It’s Safe

Before you put anything in your mouth, make sure it is truly an edible. Check your guides or go online and Google what you’ve found. There are many online groups, too, to find an expert. If you’re not 100% sure of what it is, don’t eat it.

Start With One Plant

Summer Cooper recommends getting to know one plant at a time when foraging. Find “your mushroom” and then learn everything there is to know about it. Then move onto the next plant. There is time, and the more you know the more you’ll start to find.

Moderation

When deciding to cook with foraged ingredients, taste a little at a time to make sure your system can tolerate the plant. Jerusalem artichokes, for instance, induce gas, so take some Beano or pair them with fennel to help reduce the effects. Go slow to know what’s best for your body.

Clean Sources

Forage on land that is clean, staying away from chemically treated lawns, roadsides and creeks and riverbeds where there is any type of drainage. Look to state parks where foraging is permissible, a friend’s

Keeping Greens Fresh

When you get those wild greens home from the forest floor, what next? Chef D has a good tip to keep them fresh in your fridge.

forest where you know they don’t use chemicals, and other safe sources.

“Wash them very well with room-temperature water. The sand and dirt tends to fall off easily with warmer water. Then when cooling them to put them in the refrigerator, I drop them into an ice water bath and bring their temperature down to a cold temp. Spin them in a salad spinner, put them in Ziploc bags and I put holes in the bag so the greens can breathe. I use a hole punch and punch holes in the plastic bags all over the place so they’re not sitting in there without any air circulation. Then I put the greens in the bag and store them in the refrigerator.”

Stinging nettle

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Frozen Appetizers

FOODIE FAVORITES The

New, The Exciting, The Must-Haves!

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Naturally Nutty Organic Seed Butters

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Young & FARMING

First-generation Hoosier farmers come together to build community and ensure sustainable farming

By Leah R. Singer | Photography by Sarah Longenecker

Over the next several years, America’s farmland will evolve into something quite different than it is today. In fact, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, over the next five years—the lifespan of the next farm bill—nearly 100 million acres of U.S. farmland are expected to change ownership and will need new farmers. This is because the majority of individuals who are farming today are close to retiring, with nearly two-thirds of farmland currently managed by someone over the age of 55. In order to keep food production from falling off, that gap will need to be filled with a new generation of farmers. This is especially true in Indiana. Luckily, there are many people who want to farm, and make a commitment to growing whole and local food. That’s where the Hoosier Young Farmers Coalition (HYFC) is making its mark.

HYFC, which is part of the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC), was founded in 2016 by a group of sustainable and organic beginning farmers looking for more connection and camaraderie.

Liz and Nate Brownlee of Nightfall Farm (see page 37) run the HYFC. They believe that building the young and beginning farmer

network in Indiana will help eliminate feelings of isolation by creating community, which is one of the most significant ways to ensure a next generation of farming.

“Many people think of farmers as being at the markets talking to people all day,” says Liz Brownlee. “But farming can be very lonely, especially if you’re by yourself on three acres.”

When the Brownlees started the Hoosier chapter, they decided their goal was to reach young farmers in Indiana and connect them through social events, and provide scholarships to attend national farming conferences. They received funding from Purdue University to launch the HYFC, as well as a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program.

The Hoosier chapter hosted several inaugural events, including a young farmers pizza party at which 50 farmers attended and socialized. They arranged a traveling film festival at seven Indiana farm locations, and hosted a social event at the Indiana Small Farms Conference in Danville last March.

Farmers Eli Robb and Genesis McKiernan-Allen of Full Hand Farm.

In August, the Hoosier coalition hosted a panel of five young farmers to discuss issues that would be presented to Senator Joe Donnelly, who sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee. This event drew approximately 30 attendees, many of whom had not attended a previous event. In just one year of being an organization, the Hoosier Young Farmers Coalition is reaching nearly 500 people through its events and marketing.

As part of their commitment to the Hoosier chapter, the Brownlees are active with the NYFC. They attended a three-day convergence where young farmers learned about fundraising, leadership development, outreach, national policy and social justice in the food system. The Brownlees believe the national coalition is crucial not only for the future of Indiana farming, but also for the nation as a whole.

“There’s no one else representing young farmers’ needs nationally,” says Nate Brownlee. “Most of us are young, first-generation farmers; we’re not represented by the Farm Bureau. And in a state like Indiana, there is no statewide sustainable farmers organization. We need a structure for community and collaboration.”

The Brownlees see the HYFC as a way for farmers to tell their stories. “People want to show how awesome farming is, and highlight what we do for the land and growing our own food,” says Nate. “We want people to know that farming is fun and it really makes a difference in the world.”

How to Get Involved in Hoosier Young Farmers Coalition

Online: HoosierYFC.org

Facebook: facebook.com/hoosieryfc

Email: hoosieryfc@gmail.com

“We want people to know that farming is fun and it really makes a difference in the world.”

—Nightfall Farm

Nightfall Farm

When Liz and Nate Brownlee are not overseeing the Hoosier Young Farmers Coalition, they are running their fulltime livestock farm, Nightfall Farm, in Crothersville.

Nightfall Farm started in 2013 when the Brownlees took 13 acres of corn and soybean fields and converted them to raise pigs, sheep, turkeys and chickens. Both former vegetarians, they wanted to farm something that has long-term benefits to the land. As the Brownlees worked on livestock farms in Pennsylvania and Vermont, they realized how much they enjoyed working with animals, and how they could be treated well and be a part of the ecosystem.

“I could really see the rightness and correctness of an animal in their natural behaviors,” said Nate. That experience became the inspiration for their Indiana farm to focus on livestock.

Nightfall Farm practices rotational grazing, which is regularly moving the livestock to fresh forage (usually grass) and then allowing that area to rest so the land can heal and regenerate, which ultimately makes it a more long-term livable solution.

“We’ve seen the land really come back to life since engaging in rotational grazing,” says Nate. “We can see things like birds, spiders, praying mantises that were not there before. Changing from industrial agriculture to something that cares for the land has made that possible.”

The cornerstone of Nightfall Farm’s business the community-supported agriculture (CSA) harvest subscription

model. They have approximately 55 shares/members with an 85% retention rate. “The CSA model helps sustain us year-round because there isn’t really a bad year for livestock, compared to vegetables,” says Nate.

Nightfall Farm also sells to restaurant chefs, and at the Columbus, Seymour and Madison Farmers Markets. They also sell their turkeys for Thanksgiving.

How to Find Nightfall Farm

Online: NightfallFarm.com

Facebook: @nightfallfarm

How to Purchase: CSA and Columbus, Seymour and Madison Farmers Markets

Full Hand Farm

Full Hand Farm is a four-season vegetable farm located outside of Noblesville. The farmers, Eli Robb and Genesis McKiernan-Allen, are proud members of the Hoosier Young Farmers Coalition. The farmers engage in organic practices to grow 45 different crops and hundreds of varieties, with tomatoes making up 25 of the varieties.

Robb and McKiernan-Allen sell their produce to the public through the Broad Ripple Farmers Market and Indy Winter Farmers Market, as well several local chefs. Their vegetables are regularly part

of dishes at Bluebeard, Taxman Brewing Company, Milktooth, Late Harvest Kitchen and the Patachou restaurants.

Neither Robb nor McKiernan-Allen grew up in a family of farmers. Both Hoosier natives, they were high school sweethearts in Indianapolis and moved to Portland, Oregon, after graduation. Living in Portland for 10 years, they were inspired by the local food-farming community. But instead of starting a farm in Oregon, the two returned to the Midwest to start their new adventure. In 2010, they participated in a CSA farm internship on a small-scale vegetable garden in north central Iowa. In 2012, they moved back to Central Indiana to access a few acres of family land, which became Full Hand Farm later that year.

McKiernan-Allen met Liz Brownlee at the Indiana Small Farms Conference, where the two began talking about how to bridge together all the young farmers in Indiana. When the HYFC became a reality, Robb and McKiernan-Allen were eager to be involved.

“Farming can be very isolating and hard, especially if you live in a very rural part of the state,” says McKiernan-Allen. “For many young farmers, agriculture is a second career. The Coalition is a great way to get to know other farmers, and to create a community around our professional peers. We want to grow the network and increase camaraderie for farmers who are young and beginning this journey.”

She believes this type of organization is especially important to farmers in Indiana, where access to infrastructure and funding

information makes it difficult to farm on a small scale.

“Access to land is hard because even though there’s a lot of it in Indiana, it’s hard to access the infrastructure,” says McKiernan-Allen. She also sees a challenge with people knowing how to farm crops other than corn and soybeans.

McKiernan-Allen hopes the Coalition will help individuals who want to get started farming in Indiana, and give them the tools they need for success.

“Farming is a wonderful and gratifying profession,” she says. “It can be challenging to get going, but the Hoosier Young Farmers Coalition can provide community, a network and conversations with people who get it. We want more young farmers doing this work and succeeding at it.”

How to Find Full Hand Farm

Facebook: @fullhandfarm

How to Purchase: Broad Ripple and Indy Winter Farmers Market

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 and Twitter @leahs_thoughts.

Spring Garden Tips

WE SPEAK ORGANICS at Habig Garden Shops. Spring is time to plant seeds inside and out. Old wives’ tales tell us to plant peas, radishes, lettuces and potatoes shortly after St. Paddy’s Day and to sow new grass seed on the last snow of the season.

It is also the prime time to clean landscape beds and cut back ornamental grasses. This debris is the perfect addition to integrate directly into that winter compost pile that needs to be turned. Did you know that adding corn gluten to your established perennials beds helps to prevent weeds from germinating and help to feed those perennials?

your cole crops. Cole crops are vegetables in the mustard family. They include plants such as Brussels

Habig Garden Shops speak organics. They promote a full line of organic food and solutions for your lawn and garden needs. They carry brands such as Happy Frog, Espoma, Dr. Earth, worm castings, corn gluten and many other organic products. The garden shops also

garden necessities to give you a beautiful and robust lawn and garden.

1225 E. 86th St. | Indianapolis

15311 N. Meridian St. | Carmel

5201 N. College Ave. | Indianapolis

FB: @habiggardenshop

BREW- TEA - FUL COCKTAILS

Tea-infused drinks that taste like spring

Recipes courtesy of 12.05 Distillery & Nelson’s Tea

Photography by Jennifer L. Rubenstein

We are witnessing a resurgence of infusing tea into boozy cocktails, punches, mocktails and even food. Tea has been used as a flavor boost for hundreds of years, and places like Hoi-Tea Toi-Tea in Broad Ripple are making it hip again. Nelson’s Tea is an Indiana-based tea company blending beautiful teas that remain unique to our palate. They paired up with 12.05 Distillery, located in Indianapolis’s famed Fletcher Place, for these fresh, clean and earthy cocktail recipes.

Secret Garden with HibiscusInfused Honey

Ice

2 ounces lemony mint gin

1 ounce honey simple syrup*

¾ ounce lemon juice

2 dashes rhubarb bitters

Fresh basil leaf

HIBISCUS-INFUSED HONEY:

3 ounces honey

Line the rim of a coupe glass with hibiscus-infused honey. Fill shaker with ice, gin, honey simple syrup* and lemon juice. Shake vigorously and strain into glass; top with rhubarb bitters and basil leaf

*Honey simple syrup: Boil ¼ cup honey and ¼ cup water in a small pan for 3 minutes. Cool and refrigerate to thicken.

Infuse Your Spirits

2 cups of spirits Steep for 15 minutes and strain tea into bottle.

Ice

2 ounces apricot bourbon

¾ ounce maple simple syrup**

2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Cran-Orange Vanilla Tea–infused ice cube***

Fill beaker with ice, apricot bourbon, maple simple syrup and bitters. Stir quickly for about 20 seconds. In a rocks glass, place infused ice cube and strain cocktail into glass.

**Maple simple syrup: Boil ¼ cup maple syrup and ¼ cup water in a small pan for 3 minutes. Cool and refrigerate to thicken.

***Create by brewing and freezing Cran-Orange Vanilla Tea into ice.

Nelson Tea | NelsonTea.com

12.05 Distillery | 636 Virginia Ave., Indianapolis 1205Distillery.com

Edible Wedding

Photography by stacy able photography

Every detail of your wedding day should be perfect, from the flowers and decorations to the napkins placed at each dinner setting. Each aspect should showcase your personality as a couple. While your wedding is a chance to celebrate you and your loved one, it is also an opportunity to commemorate everything unique about where you’re both from and where you are now. And while you won’t find white, sandy beaches (for the most part) to host your wedding in Indiana, you’ll certainly find some of the most charming and unique options the Midwest has to offer.

Your wedding day should be blissful, as it will live in your memory forever, and so thoughtful advance planning is a must. It can get dizzyingly stressful, though, trying to plan out every detail. But we can help. Whether you want a rustic barn wedding or a cozy backyard ceremony, delicious local eats or specialty cocktails, allow Edible Indy to share how to make your wedding a cherished, local experience.

The Vibe

Creating a color scheme for your wedding will set the tone for all of the other elements to come together. The trend is moving into, or rather back to, vintage colors aiming for romantic colors involving neutrals, blush pink, gold, navy blue and floral greens. In spring, think light and airy, almost pastel colors like blush pink, sky blue and creamy white. For summer, anything goes. While blush pink and gold are trendy, brighter schemes including cherry reds, vibrant yellows and brilliant blues are popular, making the palette playful and retro. For a fall wedding, try to bring the vibrant outside colors into your decor. Look at the colors of pine trees, bark, the creams of the wild grasses, adding in a pop of color with deeper vibrant pinks and purples. For winter weddings, dream of eggshell colors, dusty rose and wintery greens, making an elegant and timeless match.

Bring together those you cherish most to share your wedding day at Le Meridien Indianapolis. Within sophisticated + unique to say “I do,” to toast to your marriage, to dance the night away. from organizing a memorable rehearsal dinner in the Hub to executed. When your guests have retired for the evening, day while sharing chilled champagne and taking in the stunning views of the Indianapolis skyline.

@lemeridienindianapolis

Invitations

Invitations are guests’ first glimpse into what the wedding will be like. Make them personal and unique with hand-lettered invitations with a pop of color. Look to Etsy for inspiration, or check out local hand-lettering company No. 18 Paper Co.

Venues

The venue sets the stage for all the hard work that goes into decorating. While barn weddings will always be an intimate, rustic choice, Indiana has more unique options to offer. Look for different ways to celebrate in nature like a garden, farm or park. For a more modern wedding, check out museums like the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.

Favors

While weddings are a celebration of the couple, guests deserve to indulge themselves, too. Treat your guests with something small yet memorable to take home, like a succulent plant, locally ground coffee or specialty candy. Have a favorite coffee spot near your house? See if they roast their own beans and give those out in little bags as favors. Want something fun and interactive? Let guests assemble their own goodie bags with a favor bar. Spread out an assortment of small snacks, like different varieties of popcorn, s’mores, macarons or chocolate-covered pretzels and your guests can choose what they want. Symbolize the preserving of love by gifting delicious handmade jams, pickled treats and homemade sauces.

Custom confections and sweet treats focusing on artisan

heavenly ganache, hand-dipped pretzels lavishly coated with candy, nut and unique sugar scrubs. Perfect for favors, bridal showers, sweets tables and weekend guest bags. Love is in the details. Let MPLP love on you where everything is made with a little bit of chocolate and a whole lot of love.

Summer Fall Winter

The Flower Boys

222 E. Market St. | Indianapolis

Floral

What’s a wedding without flowers? This year, get back to basics with natural decor. If you can’t hold your wedding outside, bring the outdoors inside with greenery and different flowers. Add dimension to the room by using floral arrangements and decor with varying heights. Dangling decor and arches add excitement. Neutral colors and flowers with open blooms add a rustic, earthy vibe. Look for peonies (our state flower), garden roses, anemones, lisianthus, tulips and white hydrangeas. Don’t want a rustic wedding? Try tropical greenery. It’s trendy, bright and energetic when paired with an upbeat color scheme. While this is best for summer weddings, tropical greenery can also be used to liven up a winter wedding. Whatever your style, the trend is simple and clean. Flower necklaces and hair accessories bring a bohemian earthy vibe.

Spring

The Table

While you may stray from a traditional dinner, guests will still need a place to sit when they eat. Try setting long tables made of reclaimed wood with place settings for each guest and include a hand-lettered menu that goes with the invitations. Use mismatched china and Mason jars as glasses for a rustic look that’s far more creative than plain white china and normal silverware. Get creative with place cards and have them hand-lettered on leaves or small pieces of reclaimed wood.

A table isn’t set without a centerpiece. To be budget-friendly, try having floral arrangements on half the tables and simpler centerpieces on the other half. Try filling Mason jars with local, freshly harvested produce and aromatic herbs for a rustic look. Place white linens on the table (whether it be napkins, a table runner or tablecloth) to add a clean contrast to colorful flowers and centerpieces.

Cocktail Hour, Pre and Post

The cocktail hour and reception are chances to mingle and have fun with guests. Make them exciting with creative noshes. Think grilled cheese and tomato soup shooters, milk and cookie shooters, a pretzel or donut wall or hand pies. Don’t send guests home hungry! As the night progresses and guests help themselves to the bar, they will appreciate an extra snack before they leave. During the reception, serve creative versions of your favorite drunk munchie foods: sliders, artisan pizza, street tacos or milk and cookie shooters.

Thirst Quenchers

Tempt guests with an open bar serving the bride and groom’s favorite cocktails. Old-fashioned cocktails are in full swing. Serve them in Mason jars or vintage glasses purchased at an antique store. For a summer wedding, try serving frosé or spritzers made with rosé wine. Is the bride or groom a fan of gin? Switch it up with a cocktail involving aquavit (which you can get at Spirits of French Lick). Or you can keep the food truck trend going with a coffee and espresso truck. Mocktails are fashionably delicious as well. Work with your bartender to create these beautiful drinks without the alcohol. Go for local on the spirits, and tap your favorite keg.

Menu graphics by Caryn Scheving

The Dinner

Long gone are the days of eating traditional meals at weddings. Feed your guests with a budget-friendly food stations or family-style dinner, or you can make eating more exciting by having food trucks. With food trucks, guests can choose from different options, whether it be for a meal, appetizer and cocktail hour before dinner or a latenight snack. They’re more creative and interactive than a buffet. Whatever you decide, don’t forget your favorite local restaurants. Call them up and see if they cater. Bring variety to the table. If they do, you can share your favorite local meal with your guests. Who knows, you might inspire them to try a new restaurant.

Cheese Wheel Wedding Cake

Trader’s Point Creamery, Sheet’s Creek Cheddar

Jacobs and Brichford, Brianna

Custom order beautiful local cheese wheel wedding cakes or terrarium cakes from The Gallery Pastry Shop.

1101 E. 54th St., Suite G | Indianapolis GalleryPastryShop.com @gallerypastryshop

by Ginger

Capriole, Piper’s Pyramide

Tulip Tree Creamery, Dutch Tulip

Schnabeltier, Espresso Loyal

Floral Accents provided by Posh Petals

Photograph

Kat

Photography

Sweet and Savory Desserts

Don’t feel bound to serving a traditional wedding cake. Consider something more savory like a cheese wheel cake and serve it up at the beginning of the meal rather than at the end. How about serving donuts, pies or macaroons? Jazz it up a bit with boozy bonbons for the adults. Check out Best Chocolate in Town’s Dark and Stormy, or Kahlua truffles. Or you could revive nostalgia with an ice cream or popsicle truck. Still want to cut into a cake? Serve up a beautiful terrarium cake just for the bride, groom and bridal party and let guests choose from something else.

Terrarium Carrot Cake

6 inch round, naked with buttercream frosting and gum paste succulents, $55.

The Cardinal Room offers an experience like no other facility in Central Indiana. This private enclave nestled on 175 wooded acres near the picturesque town of Zionsville offers an 11,000-square-foot indoor/outdoor facility that can host any type of event. An award-winning staff will collaborate with you in designing an event to remember for up to 300 guests. Only one major event per day is allowed in The Cardinal Room so they can focus on you before, during and after each event. Also, there are no “food minimum” requirements, which allows clients flexibility in their budget.

6905 S. 525 East | Whitestown | TheCardinalRoom.com @thecardinalroom

Photograph by Ginger Kat Photography

Hospitality is the core of everything they do at FARM. available upon request.

108 E. Kirkwood Ave. | Bloomington | Farm-Bloomington.com @farmbloomington

Stacy Able is an Indianapolis wedding photographer available throughout the Midwest. She has been published in the New York Times, Pattern and Martha Stewart Weddings. The main loves in her life are barbet, macaron, farmers markets and StacyAblePhotography.com @stacyablephotography

Four Day Ray Brewing is a gastropub following a food and beverage

around the world while using locally sourced ingredients. Both the brewery and restaurant are very visual spaces with garage doors that open, providing a unique openair experience while being kid friendly. They are Fisher’s proud, producing a wide selection of quality craft beer. They believe “today seems like a good day for a beer.”

11671 Lantern Rd. | Fishers | FourDayRay.com @fourdayray

Walhill Farm boasts a beautiful country setting for a unique event experience. Perfect for weddings and special events for parties of twelve to six hundred. The freshest ingredients from our 250-acre farm result in innovative, Indiana’s exceptional artisanal event location.

857 Six Pine Ranch Rd., Walhill Farm | Batesville WalhillFarm.com

“Where there is love there is life.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

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

EAT DRINK LOCAL GUIDE

Getting Hoosier-grown goodness on your plate doesn’t have to involve hours in the kitchen. These

serve up the freshest locally sourced cuisine.

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

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

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

thing for locally owned restaurants that search out patrons.

Edible Indy connects those chefs and owners who Hoosier-grown goodness.

Burger Study is 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

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

NOOK

Located in the heart of downtown Indianapolis, Nook fuses a variety of culinary cuisines while incorporating Paleo principles including simple, fresh, foods that fuel a healthier you.

15 E. Maryland St. | Indianapolis NookPaleo.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

THE GARDEN TABLE

The Garden Table is a local eatery and fresh juicery in the heart of the Broad Ripple Village and now on Mass Ave. in downtown

and locally sourced food and cold-pressed juice. We believe in simple dishes, made from natural ingredients, grown and harvested by local farmers.

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.

123 S. Illinois St. | Indianapolis SpokeandSteele.com

BYRNE’S GRILLED PIZZA

Local, fresh, real ingredients describe the handmade thin-crust grilled pizza. Order their mouthwatering pasta, salads, appetizers and desserts to complement your pizza. Serving local craft beers and a great selection of wines. Also available: takeout, catering and food truck.

5615 N. Illinois St. | Indianapolis ByrnesPizza.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

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

WIND: Gusts can carry seeds to distant areas, where they can germinate.

POOP: Birds and other animals can eat nuts or seeds, then deposit them elsewhere.

Nature At Work

How seeds get distributed naturally

By Jennifer Rubenstein • Illustration by Caryn Scheving Special thanks to Dawn VanDeman, Earth Discover Center manager, Eagle Creek Park

If plants were not able to disperse their seeds naturally, young plants would become overcrowded with less chance of survival. Plants deliberately overproduce seeds, making them an essential part of the food chain. Some seeds find places to thrive while others are consumed. With global warming and rapid climate change, seed dispersal becomes crucial as it allows plants to colonize new areas and shift ranges as conditions become unsuitable in their old growing ranges.

Challenges

Seed dispersal allows desirable plants to spread and colonize new habitats, but undesirable ones can spread as well. In natural areas, non-native invasive plants are a difficult and costly problem. Most invasive plants have rapid and long-distance seed dispersal abilities—even if they are planted far away from a park or natural area, their seeds can be carried by wind or by birds almost anywhere. Some of the biggest problem-plants that are still commonly used in landscaping are Bradford or Callery pear, burning bush and Japanese barberry.

FIRE: Some seeds burst open and scatter only when they are burned.

GRAVITY: The Osage orange, or hedge apple, tree produces large green fruits the size of softballs, which are too heavy to travel far to be eaten by wildlife.  One theory is that the fruits were originally eaten and dispersed by mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths and other Pleistocene megafauna. They went extinct, but the tree has managed to survive as a “ghost of evolution.”

BUGS: Some seeds form with a nutrient-rich coating called an eliaosome. Ants carry these tasty snacks back to their underground colonies, where they sprout. Indiana seeds that spread this way include trillium, bloodroot and wild ginger.

BURRS: Seeds can stick to fur, feathers, even clothing, and travel far.

EARTH: Animals bury nuts and other seeds, which sprout later.

WATER: Seeds can float many miles.

Nook

The name of a Caveman who lived in 30,000 B.C. during the Paleolithic era as well as... a comfortable and convenient location nestled in the center of downtown beautiful Indianapolis.

Paleo Influenced

Inspired by the desire to fuel our bodies with clean fresh foods in their natural state without missing out on flavors we’ve come to enjoy!

Diner

A welcoming, friendly, and casual atmosphere where you can stop in after the gym, on your lunch break or for a night out with friends.

Photograph by Jennifer Reidy