Connecting farmer and chef
BY JOHNATHAN L. WRIGHT, Reno Gazette-Journal
The match seems a natural one. Chef and farmer, farmer and chef. One supplies bounty; the other shapes it. As easy a pairing, you’d think, as vodka and olives or designer and muse.
Today, chefs everywhere extol farm-to-table cooking, but traditionally, the relationship between farmers and chefs has often been anything but easy.
That’s been especially true in the Truckee Meadows, where climate constrains agricultural diversity and where casino properties have historically ordered food mainly from large commercial suppliers.
To farmers, “chefs haven’t always understood that sometimes we don’t have a perfect crop, a perfect season. Sometimes, what we can provide is limited,” said Gary Romano of Sierra Valley Farms, which lies outside Beckwourth, Calif., about 45 minutes northwest of Reno.