We keep harping to eat local – it’s a way to reduce the carbon footprint left by farmers in Iowa shipping corn to Florida and vice-versa. Must be good business for the corporate farmers – but detrimental for the planet. Think packaging, shipping, handling and the time involved from farm to table – want to pay for a 2-week-old beet that’s been shipped from a farm in Nebraska over land, guzzling gas along the way, and stored until the produce buyer releases it from its warehouse cooler? The cost may have been 20 cents a pound for the farmer, but by the time you buy it, it’s four times that.

Welcome, then, Localecopia – whose mission is to get the local chefs to buy from local farmers and ranchers and fishermen. Its ideal is to support the local economy, educate about environmental awareness, help form sustainable practices and create a new business model for growers and end consumers so everyone benefits.

Meet and Greet brings chefs together with growers, others

The Meet and Greet Thursday at The Breakers aims to introduce local chefs with a host of local growers, ranchers, and food producers – to sample their products and support the businesses close to home. Fresher, safer products are available – but smaller farmers don’t always have a way to get the word out about their products. Localecopia seeks to remedy this, at least on a local level.

Working with them on marketing is the MarketMaker – a free resource and service of the Florida Cooperative Extension service. It’s a list of farms registered in the program – with access open to all. There will be a demo of this at the Meet and Greet.

In recent years, Palmetto Creek pork from a ranch around Sebring has given South Florida chefs a new pork to use that’s not only local, but natural. Produce growers like Swank Farms and Green Cay Farms in Palm Beach County have made inroads into restaurants and are now growing specific vegetables or herbs for some chefs.

Whitewater clams from the Indian River lagoon, Deep Creek grassfed beef, Golden Crab from the Titusville area and several other products have been introduced to chefs throughout the area.

Variety of products featured

Parthenais cattle, an heirloom breed used at Florida's Arrowhead Ranch

At the Meet and Greet tomorrow, chefs and restaurateurs and other food buyers can sample ice cream or tropical fruit, kosher tortillas, taste Florida beef, or beef jerky. Samples of fresh tortillas are on hand as well. It’s as about education, too: Learning why grass-fed beef is so nutritious, or what a longan is and how to use it.

Dried mango slices from Leechango in Loxahatchee

These vendors and others are set to display their foods and products and research: Whole Foods Market, University of Florida / IFAS, Farming Systems Research, A & J Beef Jerky, Localecopia Marketplace, Coconut King Miami Beach, GMG Tropical Fruits, Ice Cream Club, LeeChango Farms, Global Organics, Old School Bread Co., Wrap Ole, Short On Thyme, Seeds of Hope Community Garden, QV Farms, Sprouts, DIG Restaurant, Arrowhead Beef, Farmer Jay, GrowingSynergy and others.

The Breakers’ green example

The Breakers is the natural place to hold this – the resort has been a LEED-certified model for several years, and grows its own vegetables and herbs. It has a greenmarket for its workers on site and buys local whenever possible.

It was the executive chef, Anthony Sicignano, who wondered why he couldn’t get mangoes from produce growers that were as good as his from his own backyard to use at The Breakers that spurred Geoff Sagrans to start focusing on local growers. Sagrans is the assistant director of materials management for the Resort.

He expanded his search and got involved with the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, which provided resources for finding local and Florida produced quality foods.

Localecopia was formed in 2008 and continues to grow, expanding the lists of producers and buyers – and connecting the two.

Localecopia Meet and Greet

• The Breakers, 1 S. County Road, Palm Beach
• Thursday, Nov. 17, 1-3 p.m.
• Event is free, but an RSVP is requested: info@localecopia.org
• 561-655-6611 (The Breakers); www.localecopia.org

Betsy Cohen

Long-time friend (note: never call a woman an “old” friend…) and excellent baker Betsy Cohen is now writing a food blog. It’s all about desserts, because, as she writes, she always considers desserts first.

Cohen, of Palm Beach Gardens, won a spot in one of the cookie contests when I was at The Post for her lovely Nana’s Butter Cookies. Rich with butter and perfectly baked, these jewel-like jelly-filled cookies delighted the judges.

Cohen’s blog is all about the recipes she makes for her family, and as a former professional baker, baked for others Her chatty and friendly style encourages bakers to jump in and get sweet with things like the Pecan Caramel Tart – a perfect Thanksgiving Day recipe, or Ginger Scones, or a good banana bread with pecans.

It’s a work in progress, but Cohen already has a solid foundation of mouth-watering recipes and step-by-step photos in well organized posts. Readers can email her with questions, and she’ll answer, too. We’re keen on those who share their expertise, so hats off to Cohen for a terrific start of something sweet.

Visit www.DessertsRequired.com and tell her we sent you!

Lila Steinhoff of West Palm Beach grows a bounty in her backyard. /photo by Scott Fisher, Sun Sentinel

Meet Lila Steinhoff, Jennifer Parris and Joanne Davis – three gardeners who tackle Florida’s unique growing situations. They grow their own vegetables and then cook them up in some yummy recipes like shrimp gumbo and stuffed peppers. See today’s Sun Sentinel Food cover for the story.

Also there are tips on starting your own garden – it’s not too late to plant, so get busy, South Florida! Everyone can grow a bucket of tomatoes.

It’s all in today’s Sentinel food pages.

Fireworks close out last year's Taste at Downtown

Thursday night, Downtown at the Gardens and Lexus of Palm Beach team up to host the 8th annual dine-around to benefit the Big Heart Brigade’s charity work in the community.

From my story in the Florida Weekly:

Organizers at the Lexus Taste of Downtown are expecting more than 3000 diners to swarm the courtyards and promenade spaces around Downtown at the Gardens November 10 – all looking for a sample of soup, a bite of barbecue or a sip of wine.

The charity event that began at The Commons in Palm Beach Gardens for the Big Heart Brigade eight years ago has grown into the biggest wine and food event in the north county area.

The dine-around, featuring samples, small plates and pours from area restaurants and wine donors, returns for a second year at the Downtown location, with new restaurants involved and several new sponsors.

“It’s gotten bigger each year,” said Bill Decker, an event organizer. “We’re expecting even more people this year, and more than 30 restaurants have signed up. The community really gets behind the Big Heart Brigade events.”

To read more and find out who will be participating and what they’re bringing, read the full story in the Florida Weekly online.

If You Go:

• Lexus Taste at Downtown at the Gardens
• Downtown at the Gardens
• 11701 Lake Victoria Gardens Ave., Palm Beach Gardens
• Nov. 10, 5:30-9 p.m.,
• Tickets: $50 in advance; $75 at the door. Children 6-12, $10 at the door. Military with valid ID: $25 at the door. VIP 51 Supper Club Hospitality Lounge, $75 advance; $100 at the door – limited tickets. Group discounts available online.
• Tickets available at www.TasteatDowntown.com; phone 877-318-0079.

Apple pie among the many pies Pamela Blom makes from scratch /photo by Tim Stepien

Blom

Pamela Blom is an architect who threw in the blueprints and followed her bliss to a pie business.

She’s now in Lantana, baking in a kitchen she shares with Cakes by Lara’s.

Read her story here  - and get her apple pie recipe in this month’s edition of The Coastal Star.

Pamela’s Pies (at Cakes by Lara)

• 640 S. Dixie Hwy., Lantana; 632-5520
• Also find Pamela’s Pies at the Lake Worth Farmer’s Market every Saturday morning.

Guava

Learn all about your backyard fruit at the annual Tropical Fruit Festival put on by Friends of the Mounts Botanical Garden Saturday. Hundreds usually attend the festival at the Mounts complex in West Palm Beach, co-sponsored by the Rare Fruit Council’s Palm Beach chapter.

Chef Allen Susser

Cooking demo with Susser

Along with dozens of displays of fruits, trees and fact sheets about tropical fruit gardening and cooking and preserving the fruits, Chef Allen Susser of Miami will give cooking demos at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. using tropical fruits.

Susser’s, a James Beard award winner, is one of the original “Mango Gang” chefs who got their name by using Florida’s bountiful gardens of tropical fruits. Susser focused on mangoes, and wrote a guide book called The Great Mango Book: A Guide with Recipes.

Tropical fruit know-how from Gene Joyner

Retired horticulturist Gene Joyner also will be on hand with a fruit display. Those who’ve toured Joyner’s “Amazing Acre” – his backyard planted with hundreds of tropical fruits and plants, know his reputation as an expert on the methods of growing tropicals in finicky South Florida.

A lecture on “Fruitscaping” – landscaping with tropical edibles, will be given by Dr. Jonathan Crane.

It’s a chance to meet growers and master gardeners, as well, and bring questions about growing fruits and edibles in the backyard.

Don’t miss the Garden’s Gift Shop – there are numerous cookbooks for sale here that teach the use of tropicals in the kitchen.

Mamey sapote

Longan berries

Tropical Fruit Festival

• Mounts Botanical Gardens, 531 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach
• 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, June 25
• 561-233-1757; mounts.org
• Cooking demos, 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.; fruit tree sales, lectures, live music and tastings all day.
• Cost: Free for Mounts members; $5 for general public.

Nothing but envy for him – hitting the road in an RV or the like, with his fiance, going wherever the wheels take him and possibly writing about it all. Adventures at every turn under an observant eye.

Linn’s been an even voice for restaurants big and small – with a particular fondness for the little guys – the moms and pops and ethnic spaces I also love.

So hats off (or on) to you, bucko. Happy trails! Let us hear from you, out on the back roads.

If I were in town, I’d definitely be there. Localecopia, a group whose mission it is to connect the small farmers, ranchers, and others producing foods in earth-friendly, user-friendly ways – esentially getting back to our roots on a common-sense scale – is involved.

They have introduced a number of foods to area chefs – you readers are eating some of them if you’ve had lamb or grass-fed beef from Deep Creek Farms at Cafe Boulud or pork at S&S Take-Out in Fort Pierce (best soup on the planet!) or eaten at Norman’s 180 in Miami – they’re both using Palmetto Creek Ranch porkvc.

There are hundreds of small vegetable farmers, beekeepers, ranchers, herb growers, and so many more – just waiting for support from our local chefs, markets, and diners.

The conference is put on The University of Florida and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University; registration is $160 on-site. A number of seminars, exhibitions, vendors and others will be on hand to discuss things like CSAs – Community Supported Agriculture projects such as urban gardens, subscription produce, and more. News about policies that affect everyone who eats and wants to do something about the regulations such as those that prevent us from buying fresh eggs without owning a chicken, or questions on the raw milk issue will be discussed.

For more information, go to the website for a daily agenda and list of those attending.

Madhur Jaffrey/ photo by Jan Norris

MIAMI – Surrounded by mangoes from her native homeland, Madhur Jaffrey, noted Indian cuisine author and speaker looked cool despite the humid heat in the ballroom of the Fairchild Gardens. She related the proper way to use a mango – “Just eat it.”

The Alphonse mango of India was the star of the 2010 International Mango Festival that runs through Sunday at the Fairchild Tropical Gardens. A number of culinarians were on hand to talk about using the prized mango in dishes; Jaffrey concocted an aromatic spiced mango salsa after telling how, as a girl in India during summer, she would eat the mango: “We would find a cool stream and put the mangoes in the cold water, then take on and squeeze it like this.” She pressed a ripe mango between her fingers and turned to create a wrinkled fruit. “Then with our fingernail, we’d take off the top…” she ran her thumbnail around the top to create a small hole – “and suck out the juices.”

For her recipe, she turned the mango over a bowl and pressed. A stream of juice ran into the bowl.

After the day of demos and lectures, I chatted briefly with Jaffrey about her upcoming cookbook, her career and her passion for traveling.

Jan Norris: Do you have any new cookbooks in the works?

Madhur Jaffrey: Yes, my new one is coming out in October. It’s At Home with Madhur Jaffrey: Simple, Delectable Dishes from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. These are all simple recipes for the home cook. They can be done quickly, and don’t require so many ingredients.

JN: Was it difficult in the beginning, introducing Americans to Indian cooking?

MJ: Oh, yes! For my first cooking class after I wrote the first book, no one signed up to come. My publicist said, well, I will bring a couple of friends. Then James Beard called and said, ‘Have it at my house and I’ll have my friends over.’ So that’s what we did, and thanks to Jim Beard, it was a success.

He helped put me on the map, along with my book editor, Judith Jones.

JN: After all these years and the phenomenon of your cookbooks, are you well known among younger cooks today?

MJ: Very much so – I find it so rewarding when I speak at events, cooks come up to me and tell me that they have eaten foods from my books from their mothers, or grandmothers – so third-generation cookbook readers are following me now.

JN: What do you think about the future of cookbooks, since the publishing industry has changed radically to digital readers?

MJ: I think the young people may get the books on their Kindles or whatever devices, but I still think there is room for print cookbooks. My grandson is publishing a cookbook!

JN: How old is he and what’s the book about?

MJ: He is off to college. He is keeping the book a secret! He doesn’t want to share any of his information but it is beautiful.

JN: What group of people most embrace your books and recipes?

MJ: I think college towns – they are vegan and  vegetarian and more young people explore that cuisine.

JN: Are you traveling to learn about other foods, and if so, where?

MJ: I travel all the time and write for the Financial Times and occasionally the New York Times; I am planning a trip to Colombia. I go on my own because it’s where I want to go but I would like to write for some magazine; there’s still Saveur.

You can still catch Jaffrey at the 2010 International Mango Festival at Fairchild Gardens, through Sunday. She will be speaking and will be on hand to autograph her cookbooks, Madhur Jaffrey’s World of the East Vegetarian Cooking, Quick and Easy Indian Cooking, Indian Cooking and World Vegetarian.

Other chefs and speakers are on hand; mangoes and trees will be for sale at the event.

Deborah Hartz-Seeley, who’s been the anchor and editor for the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s Food Section for 20 years, left the paper last week.

Deb and I are friends and we were colleagues. I’m going to miss her – as I’m sure her readers will.

I caught up with her for a little retrospective on her most interesting career.

The first, obvious, question – why did you leave now?

Deb:  I decided it was time to leave because I felt like the section was at its prime, and readers loved it. And I think it’s best to leave when things are on top.

How long have you been involved in food – not just at the Sentinel?

 Deb: I got my first  job in food working in a pizza kitchen in college and never looked back. I managed a steakhouse full time while getting a bachelor’s of arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pa.

And then I worked in restaurant kitchens for a year or so after graduation until I decided to get a master’s of science degree in agricultural journalism specializing in food and nutrition from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. (Journalism intrigued me because I’d helped put myself through college writing comic books.)

After that, I went straight to the test kitchen at Ladies’ Home Journal. I’ve worked on newspapers in Indiana and the Chicago suburbs. I also was editor in chief of Cook’s (the forerunner to Cook’s Illustrated) before coming to the Sun Sentinel 20 years ago.

Do you remember the very first dish you cooked or baked?

Deb: I made a spiced layer cake from a Duncan Hines boxed mix. I slathered it with maple icing made from a vanilla boxed mix that I dressed up with real maple syrup. The “recipe” was on the cake mix box. Of course, that was the first “real” food. My two sisters and I used to play Miss Cookie’s Kitchen where we pretended to run a restaurant and serve food.

Tell me about some of the most memorable stories that you covered.

Deb: I got to go stone crab fishing with Julia Child. I spent a day in the kitchen with a French chef and that turned into my being able to spend a morning a week in his kitchen working side by side with him for a couple of years. It was an incredible education. The most fun for me over the years has been going into a kitchen and actually working with a chef or home cook.

What’s your favorite kitchen tool you found over the years?

Bottom blade of corn stripper

Oxo's Corn Stripper

Deb: It’s a tool I got recently for removing kernels from an ear of corn. I used to hate that job. The cob would fall over and the kernels go flying all over the room. But this tool looks like a computer mouse with a blade on the bottom. You drag the blade down the cob and the kernels collect in the bulbous part. It even measures the cups of kernels you’ve got.

How do you think food world has changed over the years, and what or who had the most influence over it?

Deb: I think television has had the most influence changing the food world. What I’m seeing is that if you talk to the older generation of chefs (those from, say, 45 to 75), and ask them where they learned to cook, they can tell you wonderful stories about growing up. They talk about grandparents who cooked, fathers who cooked, mothers who cooked. They make you want to sit at their family tables and eat with them.

But if you talk to the younger chefs (those in their 20s and 30s) and ask where they learned to cook, they tell you from chefs and cooks they watched on television.

Did it make us better cooks, or more aware of our food? Or are we on a downhill spiral?

Deb: We are losing all those chefs’ wonderful stories, not to mention their years of experience in the kitchen that is not being passed from one generation to the next. I find it incredibly sad.

What are you planning to do now, at least short-term?

Deb: I am taking some time to relax. I know I will want to do some sort of work - whether it’s freelancing, other type of writing or teaching. I shaped a very strong food section that attracted readers and advertisers in a very down economy. That wasn’t by chance. I have many insights I’d like to share (and, no, I didn’t learn them on TV).

But I’ve been working steadily for 30 years. I have a kayak hanging in the garage that hasn’t had its skeg in water for a long time. It’s calling me. At least for now.

Where can people contact you?

Deb: I am easy to find at debhartz@att.net – and my cell is 954-675-0596.

Leave us with a favorite recipe that you learned while food editor.

Deb: Here’s a go-to dessert recipe I printed in the Sun Sentinel in 1998. It is from Lisa Montenegro, who at the time was a pastry chef/instructor at the Florida Culinary Institute in West Palm Beach (now the Lincoln College of Technology). (Ed’s note: Montenegro is at Cakeability in Jupiter, FL.)

I just made it for a dinner party I had a few weeks ago. One tip, don’t remove it from the pan until it is completely cooled.

Lisa Montenegro’s Chocolate Pecan Torte

(This pastry chef-instructor recommends Callebaut or Ghirardelli brands chocolate for baking.)

Pecan Torte:

• 12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (see note)
• 1/4 pound (4 ounces, or 1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1- 1/4 cups ground and toasted pecans
• 1 tablespoon flour

Ganache Glaze:

• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

To make torte: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour a 9-inch round cake pan. In the top of a double boiler, combine the chocolate and butter.

Bring water in bottom of double boiler to boil over medium-high heat. Place top of double boiler over pan of hot water and stir often until mixture melts.

Meanwhile, whisk together the sugar, eggs and vanilla until well-combined. Slowly add the melted chocolate mixture and, using a rubber spatula, mix until combined. Stir in the pecans and flour; mix thoroughly.

Pour into prepared pan and bake 30 minutes or until center is set, not dry or wobbly. Let cool completely before glazing.

To make glaze: Place chocolate in a medium bowl. Place cream in a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat, stirring, until it boils. Remove cream from heat and immediately pour over chocolate, whisking until all the chocolate is melted. Add the vanilla and stir to blend.

Place torte on rack over waxed paper. Let the glaze cool until it feels slightly warm to the touch and pour over torte, starting in the center and letting it cover entire torte including sides (if you have used almost all the glaze and there are any uncovered spots on the sides of the torte, pour some glaze on top right above the spots and let it run down to cover them). Place torte on rack and refrigerate 20 minutes to set glaze. Remove glazed torte from rack to a clean serving plate and serve. You may want to let it warm up just a little to make serving easier.

 Makes 16 servings. Per serving: 410 calories, 5 grams protein, 32 grams fat, 33 grams carbohydrates, 96 milligrams cholesterol, 25 milligrams sodium, 71 percent calories from fat.

*Note: Bittersweet chocolate does contain some sugar but not as much as semisweet. We were unable to find bittersweet chocolate, so used 6 ounces unsweetened chocolate and 6 ounces semisweet chocolate in the torte. It worked fine.

**To toast pecans: Place nut halves in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or until golden. Shake pan periodically to turn nuts. Let cool and then grind nuts.

Copyright © 2010 The Sun-Sentinel.