It’s like “Iron Chef” for the Southside.
Virginia Beach’s New Earth Farm, 1885 Indian River Rd., will soon be launching its 2017 Farm Table cooking classes, where local chefs prepare a three- to six-course meal for roughly 16 customers in a kitchen on the farm. At a cost that ranges from $25 to $50 per person, the hands-on events feature everything from harvesting in-season ingredients to cooking techniques and, of course, eating.
It’s like having your own private tutor and chef and, for one evening, your own pop-up restaurant.
The menu varies with each chef, according to owner Kevin Jamison. By spotlighting the setting and local fare — such as tomatoes, summer squash, eggs, seafood and goat cheese — the cooking classes resonate on several levels.
“We’ve had great feedback,” said Jamison.
Why local food matters
New Earth started offering classes about five or six years ago, according to Jamison, who also owns Commune, 501 Virginia Beach Blvd. They came about in response to a need: customers at the farm market asked questions about how to use various items that were for sale.
But Farm Table isn’t just about cooking skills and recipes.
A lot of guests come for an epicurean experience — a meal cooked by a high-level, professional chef with fresh ingredients, according to Jamison. And that creates an opportunity to promote New Earth’s all-natural, sustainable agriculture.
The goal is to show people why local food is important, not just trendy or cool, said Jamison.
New Earth Farm, which spans 21 acres, is small and pesticide free. That’s important for the health of the Chesapeake Bay, where algae blooms have been linked to the overuse of nitrogen fertilizers, Jamison said.
“That’s what we’re trying to show people in a very positive way,” he added.
Since New Earth began offering classes, hundreds of people have taken advantage of them, according to Jamison, including those who signed up for the farm’s “Food Lab” courses in subjects such as Sourdough 101 or sauerkraut.
Farm Table customers have ranged from Southside residents, especially during the off-season, to tourists from Canada and China, Jamison said.
Like “Iron Chef,” the Food Network’s throw-down for celebrity chefs, Farm Table attracts a variety of pros from the Southside culinary scene. Past participants include Rodney Einhorn from Terrapin Restaurant, 3102 Holly Rd., and Thomas Yager of Taste Unlimited.
“Almost everyone in the area,” Jamison said.
This year, Farm Table’s roster will include chefs such as Barry Smith, from Commune in Virginia Beach, and Kevin Dubel, the executive chef at Commune’s forthcoming Norfolk venue, Jamison said.
A chance to shine
For one Southside chef, Farm Table was validating, challenging and personal.
Ross Riddle, whose ventures have included the Hashi Food Truck, did Farm Table for the first time in 2014, he said in a recent phone interview.
Some of the students in his class were former neighbors of his parents, Virginia Beach residents who both died in 2009.
Cooking for people he’d known as a teenager, when he lived in a room over his parents’ garage, gave him a chance to show he’d grown into an adult, he said.
He made kale caesar salad, New Earth Farm radishes with miso butter and goat shoulder with black molé, a Mexican-inspired sauce. He braised the goat in New Earth’s wood-burning oven and served it with Shady Goat Farm goat cheese and New Earth Farm root vegetables.
He even had a nod to his childhood on the dessert menu.
The final course was “late night S’MORES,” inspired by a dish he made as a teenager: vanilla ice cream with Golden Grahams, chocolate syrup and milk.
For the Farm Table version, he combined a grown-up blend of whole wheat graham crackers, chocolate ganache, bourbon marshmallows and molasses ice cream with Virginia sorghum.
“It was kind of just crazy to see all this stuff come to a head,” he said.
At the same time, Farm Table meant connecting with pristine local ingredients that make his work sing, he said.
“Just off the cuff is always some of the best cooking, I think,” he added.
For more information about Farm Table and other classes at New Earth Farm, go here.
