Paul Szmal: There's a free event coming up on May 17th called Meet Your Local Farmer Fair. It's kind of a co-op between Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ontario County and the folks at the New York Kitchen. And we've got representatives from each joining us to talk about it this morning. First, let's welcome in Jacob Maslin. He's with CCE of Ontario County. Good morning, Jacob.
Jacob Maslin: Morning, Paul. Thanks for having us.
Paul Szmal: And Laura Downey is here. She is from the New York Kitchen. Hi, Paul.
Laura Downey: It's great to be here.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, great to have both of y'all on board here. So Jacob, how did this event come to be?
Jacob Maslin: Well, this event came to be because as a new educator, a few years ago, I wanted to partner with another nonprofit, another amazing group in the county. So I chose New York Kitchen to reach out to. And we decided to have a kind of a unique farmer fair, not like a similar to a farmer's market, but with its own culinary taste of doing demonstrations where we could educate consumers on unique cuts of meat and different ways to cook it. So it seemed like a natural fit.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. And this event is unlike a traditional farmer's market. It's an indoor outdoor kind of deal.
Jacob Maslin: Yeah. In the past, it's been indoor outdoor. I think all everything will be indoors this year. We'll be able to use the upstairs and downstairs of New York Kitchen.
Paul Szmal: And Laura, how did you get contacted by the folks from CCE to make this whole event happen?
Laura Downey: Yeah, Jacob reached out and I actually wasn't at New York Kitchen at the time. This was going to be, I believe, our fourth annual farmer's fair. So the team that was there was like, yes, this is absolutely a great fit for our mission to really shine a spotlight on New York State agriculture, an opportunity to connect our guests, people who frequent our classes and educational experiences, to connect to local farmers, sign up for CSAs, really know, you know, get to know the people who are producing our food in our region. In addition to beverage producers, you know, we love to say we love to eat local in upstate New York, but we also love to drink local. So we're going to have some great beverage vendors, FLX Distilling, Apollo's Praise, Little Clover, 1911, Boundary Breaks, just to name a few. So there'll be some samples, some farmers will provide some samples of their goods and then some beverage providers or producers will also provide samples. So it's just really fun and a great and meaningful way to connect with people in your community.
Paul Szmal: It's two great tastes that taste great together, pun somewhat intended. We're talking with Jacob Maslin and Laura Downey about the Meet Your Local Farmer Fair. It's coming up Sunday, May 17th, starting at 11 in the morning. And this will be at the New York Kitchen Property in Canandaigua. You mentioned some of the goods that are going to be available for people to pick up locally sourced, locally produced goods. And there's also going to be some demonstrations on how to cook with some of this stuff too.
Jacob Maslin: Yeah, so Laura could talk more about the demonstrations, but we'll have food items from the whole spectrum of beef, eggs, we'll have cut flowers and plants for sale too. So I think you could get everything you need to cook and plant on Sunday, May 17th.
Laura Downey: Yeah, and I just wanted to mention quickly how well Jacob just works in the region and connects, helps us connect with our local farmers and bring the products and the produce to us. So shout out to Jacob for creating those strong connections. We over the years have invited some farmers to come and to provide their products for our demonstrations that we hold at the Farmer Fair. So we'll have two demonstrations this year, one at 11.30 and one at 2 p.m. We have identified that Tamber Lane Farms will be spotlit at one of those demonstrations. We're not sure what time just yet, but this year it is a ticketed event. So hop onto the New York Kitchen website at nykitchen.com and just go over to our calendar of events. If you click on the Meet Your Local Farmer Fair event, you'll see two links to these demonstrations and you can purchase tickets right there. You'll get a little sample bite for the demonstration and you'll also be able to hear from one of our chef instructors at New York Kitchen on the best ways to prepare some of these amazing products we have.
Paul Szmal: And the whole farm to table movement has a couple of key benefits that I don't think can be talked about nearly enough. Jacob, obviously the first one is it has an economic impact because it keeps money spent on food local and within the region.
Jacob Maslin: Oh yeah, definitely. You know, farming is in our Ontario County heritage and culture. I think you drive around, you drive to work and you see farms and small and large farms and, you know, by buying local you keep all those farms here. You keep the whole circular economy working and it's really great. I think it's just expanded over time. You know, right now the past 10 years we've got this Ontario produce auction down in Gorham that has just grown and they sell a lot of fruits, vegetables, plants during the summer season and a lot of distributors and some restaurants, some schools even, are purchasing from there. So that's supporting a lot of our small farmers in the south end of our region and all over. And all of our produce stands too. They drive by roadside stands. So yeah, whenever you can support a farmer, eat local, enjoy local.
Paul Szmal: And Laura, coming at it from the cooking side of things, we're hearing more and more nowadays about the bad things that are in ultra-processed foods and there's the movement towards whole foods. Well, if you're doing the farm-to-table thing and cooking with that, that's about as whole food as you can get.
Laura Downey: Absolutely. And, you know, this is not a new, it's not a trend, right? When we really think about foundational eating, you know, it just all makes sense, right? More fibre, more whole proteins, things like that really can bring health to us and our families. And really what Jacob and I try to do each day in our jobs is help to make all of those things more accessible to everyone in the region and in our communities. So having access to fresh produce and, you know, proteins produced in the region so they don't have to travel too far. Those are wonderful products and things that we should all have access to in our lives. We should all have access to health. So we're trying to make that happen.
Paul Szmal: And there are two other benefits here in doing the farm-to-table thing. You're going to get a different, better taste, I would argue, and different and better flavour from some of the things that you've bought that have been, you know, processed in a factory somewhere and shelled out to grocery stores with a shelf life that, you know, lasts until your next lifetime is over.
Laura Downey: Absolutely, yeah. And that's really what we try to promote in our culinary classes as well. You know, opening people's eyes to, wow, this beet tastes so much more amazing than one that may have travelled, you know, cross-country or sat in cold storage for a while. Try to experience produce at the peak of its ripeness, especially focusing in on produce that is created and produced right here in New York State can help kind of just make that happen naturally. So, yeah, and learning techniques on how to make vegetables taste amazing and craveable. That's definitely something that we try to focus on in our classes because it's, there are skills behind all of those things and vegetables are amazing and we want to bring forth the true flavours of everything that we produce here.
Paul Szmal: And Jacob, this is a great event to bring kids to because they're actually going to get to not only, you know, see and sample some of this stuff, but in a lot of cases they're going to get to meet the people that actually grow it, which could lead to maybe a curiosity about farm and food that could last a lifetime.
Jacob Maslin: Oh, definitely. This is more than a family event. Yeah, bring the kids, they can taste and touch and we'll actually have the New York dairy experience, mobile dairy experience. So, that's basically a big tractor trailer that has a dairy experience. You learn about what happens on a dairy farm that'll be parked kind of out front or in the parking lot of New York Kitchen. So, that's a really cool thing that we've had the opportunity to partner with the New York Animal Alliance, I think. But, so that'll be really fun for the kids to come see. So, it's definitely a family fun event. And the other thing I'll mention is that we do plan on doing a raffle again this year, a couple raffles. In the past, we've done a raffle of some farm related items, a cooler full of meat, for example. And so, we'll probably be talking about what items will be raffled and announce that the next week or so. But, we plan to have that. It'll be really fun.
Paul Szmal: Now, this is a free event. It is family friendly. It doesn't cost anything to come check out the Meet Your Local Farmer Fair. The demonstrations, as Laura mentioned, those aren't ticketed events. Go to nykitchen.com and click on the calendar of events and you can pick the demonstration that you'd like to attend. Laura, Jacob, thanks so much for joining us and look forward to maybe being able to make a stop out there and check out some of the activities.
Laura Downey: Thanks, Paul. I look forward to having you.
Jacob Maslin: Thanks, Paul. We hope to see you there.
